BRADFORD 
 PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 BRADFORD, VT. 
 
 Books may be drawn from the Library 
 once a week. 
 
 If a book be kept out more than four 
 weeks a fine of five cents will he collected 
 for each week the book remains out.
 
 THE 
 
 WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 / 
 
 ITS 
 
 INSPIRATION, CANON, AND INTERPRETATION 
 CONSIDERED AND ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 Bv BRADFORD K. PEIRCE, D.D. 
 
 v 
 
 " Open thou mine eyes, 
 That I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." 
 
 " Qui haret in litera hseret in cortice." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PHILLIPS & HUNT 
 
 CINCINNATI : 
 HITCHCOCK & WALDEN.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
 
 OAKLTON & PORTER, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Uuited States for the 
 Southern District of New York.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 rilHE writer of this volume has sought to place in 
 the hands of young students, and interpreters of 
 the Bible who are not familiar with the original 
 tongues in which the Holy Scriptures were written, 
 or favored with an easy access to the treasures of 
 sacred criticism which are constantly accumulating, 
 such evidences of the authenticity, genuineness, and 
 general purity of the English version of the Old and 
 New Testaments, arising out of its history and the 
 searching examinations to which it has been submitted, 
 that they may open it with confidence to discover in 
 its revelations the mind of the Spirit. He has sought, 
 also, to set forth and illustrate the nature of its 
 inspiration, the most obvious preliminary studies and 
 preparations for a safe interpretation of its contents, 
 and the most important rules for the guidance of the 
 interpreter in his work. The writer has not proposed 
 fully to enter upon the argument on which rests the 
 confirmed judgment of evangelical Christians upon
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 these topics, but to indicate and illustrate the various 
 steps in it, so that the Bible student will be enabled 
 to have a clear comprehension of its nature and force; 
 and, at his leisure, to turn to the abundant authorities 
 crowding our Christian literature for an exhaustive 
 examination of these questions. 
 
 The author has sought constantly to keep in view 
 the great class of teachers just now awakened to 
 earnest inquiry as to the means of meeting the serious 
 requisitions made upon them as interpreters of the 
 word of God to the children of our land, and to 
 prepare his volume in such a way as best to aid them 
 in their work. 
 
 He has availed himself of such sources of informa- 
 tion as he could secure in the various branches of 
 biblical criticism involved in his work, and has ren- 
 dered credit to them in the body of the volume. 
 Special aid has been derived from the Hermenentical 
 Manual of Dr. Fairbairn, and from the admirable 
 works of the same author upon Prophecy and Typol- 
 ogy. Valuable suggestions have been gleaned from 
 Alford's Prolegomena to his Greek Testament, and 
 his interesting work under the title of How to Study 
 the New Testament; from Nast's General Introduc- 
 tion to the Gospels ; from Prof. Murphy's Introduction 
 to his Commentary upon Genesis ; from Schaff 's 
 History of the Christian Church; from Westcott's
 
 PREFACE. 5 
 
 invaluable Introduction to the Study of the New 
 Testament, and his History of the Canon ; from 
 Home; from Davidson; from Cowper's Apocryphal 
 Gospels; and from the Boyle Lectures for 1866 on 
 Christ and Christendom by Plumptre. Rev. David 
 Dobie has written a strong, original, and sprightly 
 work upon interpretation, entitled "A Key to the 
 Bible;" but its rules of interpretation are unneces- 
 sarily multiplied, and nearly all of them singularly 
 tend to elaborate from Scripture one modern system 
 of theology. Its illustrations have been of great 
 service to the writer. Prof. M'Lelland's work upon 
 the Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures has 
 been laid under contribution for the same purpose ; 
 as also Gaussen upon the Canon. A scientific and 
 comprehensive work upon the Hermeneutics of the 
 New Testament by a Dutch clergyman, Dr. Doedes, 
 has been consulted with profit ; and a late English 
 work by J. Radford Thomson upon Symbols. We 
 owe, and are happy to express, special obligation to 
 Dr. Goulburn for his rich little treatise upon the 
 Devotional Study of the Bible. Much assistance has 
 been rendered by the Hand-Book of the Bible of 
 Angus. The works of Stanley and Milman, and the 
 various Biblical Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries, have 
 been examined, as their valuable contents have offered 
 aid in the work.
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 We trust that our labor, which has from first to 
 last been a labor of love, will not be in vain, but that 
 our little volume may become a guide to many young 
 explorers among the hidden mines and treasures of 
 Holy Scripture. 
 
 B. K. PEIBCB. 
 RIVERSIDE PARSONAGE, 
 RANDALL'S ISLAND, March, 1868.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 God revealed by Inspired Men, and by an Inspired Book In 
 Harmony with the Creation of the World Light first, and then the 
 Sun Written Scriptures commence with Moses Like the Sun and 
 Stars, they become permanent Sources of Eevelation The same 
 Truth is illustrated in the New Testament Scriptures Inspired 
 Men first, and then Inspired Books The Holy Spirit closed the 
 Canon Error of Edward Irving Folly of Spiritualists The 
 "Inner Light" never superior to the Bible Bible only Eule of 
 Faith Necessity for an infallible Eule Page 13 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 God the Author, Men the Writers, of the Bible Oldest Volume 
 in the World Various Authors and Styles Teachings of all Har- 
 monize Writers were not acquainted with the Sciences Used a 
 simple, figurative, and poetic Form of Expression adapted to all 
 Ages They claim to be Inspired Established by their Veracity 
 Human Authorship impossible from nature of Eevelations Words 
 not necessarily Inspired Dr. Schafl"s view Verbal Inspiration 
 would require a constant Miracle Varied forms of Inspiration 
 illustrated Alford's view of Inspiration The Scripture view of 
 Inspiration by Prof. Murphy 19 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 THE CANON: ITS GENUINENESS. 
 
 IB our English Bible the word of God Eevealed? Original Lan- 
 guage of the Old Testament Apocrypha Care taken by the Jews 
 to preserve the Purity of the Scriptures Philo and Josephus
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 Samaritan Pentateuch Spread of the Greek Language over Bible 
 Lands Jews in Egypt The Septuagint This Version was used 
 by Christ The Syriac or Peshito Version Italic Origen and his 
 Version Jerome The Vulgate Its gradual introduction into 
 the Roman Church The first book printed Declared infallible 
 by the Council of Trent Different Editions of it Various Versions 
 of the Scriptures New Testament Canon First Oral Communica- 
 tions from Inspired Men Many Records were made, all but the 
 Four Gospels have disappeared Matthew Characteristics of his 
 Gospel Mark His Epistle written under the Sanction of Peter 
 Evidently the Gospel of an Eye-witness Luke writes under the 
 direction of Paul Resident of Antioch Sources of his Gospel 
 Whence account of the Nativity derived John wrote last Call 
 for his Gospel in the false views of Christ prevalent in the Churches 
 
 A marvelous Book, when it is recollected its Human Author was 
 a Fisherman Paul's Epistles Peter affirms them to be Inspired 
 Testimony of Papias to the Gospels Irenaeus Tertullian Justin 
 Martyr The Sj riac Version Origen Pamphilius Eusebius 
 Constantino the Great orders fifty Copies of thp Septnagint to be 
 prepared by Eusebius and circulated among the Churches Some 
 Books of the New Testament for a while held in suspense Apocry- 
 phal Books of the New Testament Use of them Character of them 
 
 First English Version by Wiclif First printed Version by Tyn- 
 dale Sufferings and Martyrdom of Tyndale Fate of his Work 
 Edition by John Rogers Coverdale's Bible Effect of circulating 
 Bible in England Froude's opinion of Tyndale's Version Douay 
 Version Martin Luther Influence upon Biblical Criticism Ger- 
 man Version The Authorized English Version Effect of Revival 
 of Letters upon Biblical Criticism Fears at first entertained 
 Olshausen Bengel Fears entirely removed Nature of Varia- 
 tions Prof. Norton upon Purity of Text Page 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INTERPRETATION : GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 Hermenentics Office of Biblical Interpretation Peculiarities 
 of the Bible rendering its interpretation difficult Why was it 
 given in this Form? Analogy with Human Life Dr. S chaff on 
 the Character of the Bible Locke on things difficult to be under- 
 stood Wonderful things in Nature hidden from our sight Diffi- 
 culty and Mystery add to the interest of Scripture Exertion 
 required to obtain the Treasures of Nature Hidden Truths of 
 Scripture Bible presents Facts and Principles, but does not make
 
 CONTENTS. 9 
 
 Moral Applications Distinction between Attention and Thought 
 Failure in Sunday-schools Devotional Thought The whole Bible 
 should be studied Christ in the whole Bible Kevelation Pro- 
 gressive Dr. Chalmers upon Progress in Moral Consciousness 
 Progress in the New Testament Olshausen upon Unity and Prog- 
 ress in Scripture Locks on reading a Book of Scripture through 
 at a sitting Sacred Writers sometimes state their object Beauty 
 and Power of Scripture lost when taken from its connections Each 
 Gospel has a Character of its own Scripture is not a Eevelation of 
 Science Dr. Stowe on the unscientific Character of the Bible 
 Folly of interpreting Genesis as a Treatise upon Geology Common- 
 sense an interpreter of the Bible True Science cannot harm the 
 Bible The Bible is not a "Body of Divinity " Different Truths 
 are taught in different places Goulburn's illustration of this from 
 Nature Error of Rationalists and Universalists Interpreter not 
 Responsible for what God says Dr. Doedes upon this irresponsi- 
 bility Error of early Interpreters Fanciful Interpretations 
 Eeformation changed this Illustrations of Ancient Interpretation 
 Historico-Grammatical Interpretation Page 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PRELIMINARY STUDIES. 
 
 Study of Ancient Languages Importance of a Knowledge of 
 Biblical Geography Eenan Hibbard and Vincent Effect of 
 Pilgrimages to the Holy Land Dean Stanley's Account of the 
 Vicinity of Hebron Works upon Bible Geography Value in the 
 interpretation of Prophecy The Cities of Bashan Eev. J. L. 
 Porter in Bashan Present appearance of the Country John L. 
 Stephens in Petra Fulfillment of Prophecy Most interesting 
 reading for the Young Customs and Manners of the East Sir S. 
 W. Baker Song of Solomon Parables Sitting at Table Break- 
 ing of Bread Symbols The Ceremonial Law Symbols carried 
 to Extremes Symbolical Numbers Natural Symbols Animal 
 Symbols Jerusalem and Babylon Earthly Eoyalty The Vin- 
 tage a ad Harvest Harps, Keys, and Book The Bride Bat- 
 tle of Armageddon Symbolical Acts Marriage of Prophet to 
 Prophetess Symbols of Hosea and Ezekiel Symbols should 
 be interpreted with care Must be in sympathy with the Sacred 
 Writers Hagenbach on inward interest Dr. Paulus Why 
 BO little interest in the Bible? Man needs the Holy Spirit 
 Illustrated by Sun Dial The Spirit acts through the Human 
 Mind... 100
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 
 
 Rule I The Obvious Meaning of the Words the Trne One 
 Bengel on holding to the Text Melanchthon on the Sense of 
 Scripture Luther's view Writers, humble, open, and sincere. 
 Remark 1. When an Impossibility seems to be asserted, it is not to 
 be taken literally Illustrations of this The Body and Blood of 
 Christ in the Sacrament How to know a figurative Expression 
 "Buried with him in Baptism." Remark 2. The Meaning must 
 not contradict our Moral Sense - - Figurative Precepts " Many mad 
 Sinners " What the Apostle teaches in reference to this " The 
 Wicked made for the Day of EvU" Nothing Contradictory to out 
 Moral Convictions. Remark 3. Anything Contradictory to Uni- 
 versal Experience must be Modified. Remark 4. Poetry and 
 Prophecy must not be interpreted literally. Rule II. The Mean- 
 ing of the Words must be taken in accordance with the Usages 
 of Speech at the time they were Uttered Changes in our own 
 Language Bearing our own and others' Burdens The Power of 
 Christ resting upon one Hebraisms Things said to be done when 
 attempted One who Occasions an Act said to do it Difficult 
 things said to be Impossible Passages referring Human Acts to 
 God Names of Parents used for Descendants Relatives called 
 Brothers. Rule III. By the Use of Parallel Passages the Bible 
 should be made its own Expositor Importance of Reference Bible 
 Bishop Horsley on comparison of Scripture with Scripture True 
 meaning of Doctrines thus Discovered Error of Jews Must 
 compare like Terms Import of the term Baptize How to use 
 Parallel Passages Scripture Terms often have Different Significa- 
 tions Gospel Writers Supplement each other The " Strait 
 Gate " Context must be carefully examined The Messianic 
 Psalms No Doctrine should be Built up on Separate Clauses of 
 Scripture The Prodigal Son and the Address to Nicodetnus 
 Dying in Adam, Living in Christ The strongest meaning not 
 always the correct one Perverted Texts Scripture distinctly 
 presents both Human and Divine Nature of Christ. Rule IV. All 
 Scripture must be interpreted in Harmony with the Analogy of 
 Faith All apparent discrepancies must be harmonized in accord- 
 ance with this Rule False foundation of Papal Purgatory Pas- 
 sages referring to God after the manner of Men Why God is thug 
 spoken of " Upon this rock I will build my Church " " Covering 
 multitude of Sins" Scripture Difficulties no occasion for Di-
 
 CONTENTS. 11 
 
 couragement Abundant answers to all Difficulties Never give 
 an unsatisfactory Answer Dean Alford upon Discrepancies of the 
 New Testament Henry Eogers upon the same. Kule V. Tho 
 Spiritual Meaning is to be earnestly Sought After Bible given for a 
 Special Purpose God teaches some Lesson in every portion 
 Error of Ernesti and Grotius Westcott on Spiritual Interpretation 
 The view of Home Page 1 24 
 
 CHAPTER vn. 
 
 INTERPRETATION OF PARABLE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY. 
 
 Principal Parables delivered in the last year of our Lord's Life 
 Distinguishing marks of his Parables Eeasons for using them 
 View of Tholuck Aid in remembering Discourses Powerfully 
 impressed the Truth Used to vail Truth, because it had been 
 Neglected Analogous to all Christ's Work Mr. Gladstone's' view 
 of the Parables Christ supreme in them First Eule : Must fully 
 Understand the Parable in all its parts Second Eule : Discover 
 from the context the Exact Truth to be Illustrated Lisco on the 
 Kernel of the Parable Lesson of the Parables in the fifteenth of 
 Luke Parable of the Eich Fool Of the Householder and his 
 Laborers Third Eule: The separate parts of the Parable should 
 not be considered out of their relation to the Story Apt to overdo 
 in Interpretation Illustrated from Trench Much of the Bible 
 Poetic Easily remembered Sir Patrick Hume Psalms sung in 
 all Times They are to be interpreted according to the Laws of 
 Ehetoric A Doctrinal Statement not to be built up on Figurative 
 Language Illustrations from Psalms Literal rendering of some 
 shown to be Absurd To be interpreted in sympathy with the feel- 
 ings of the Psalmist Poetry of the Imagination and of the Affec- 
 tions The Times and Circumstances of their Composition throw 
 light upon their Interpretation Dr. Townsend's Arrangement 
 Illustration from Stanley's History of the Jewish Church Parallel- 
 ism of the Psalms, Synonomous, Antithetic, Synthetic The Vin- 
 dictive Psalms not expressions of Personal Wrath The Songs of 
 the Persecuted of all Ages Dr. Park's Illustration from the late 
 War Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are Divine Eepositories of Moral 
 Maxims Solomon's Song Isaac Taylor's View Prophecy 
 abounds in the Bible Illustrative Events said to be the Fulfill- 
 ment Eachel weeping Calling out of Egypt History fulfilled 
 Prophecy Prophet no idea of Time Jesus did not appeal tc 
 Figures Prophecies of New Testament Prophecy not History 
 Hour of Christ's second coming not Eevealed Irving' s Error Dr,
 
 12 CONTEXTS. 
 
 dimming What the Bible teaches in reference to the End of tho 
 World Prophecy a profitable Study A grand Epic Dr. Schaff's 
 View ................... . ................................ Page 167 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 THE BIBLE EN THE WORLD'S LITERATtTRE. 
 
 Never before so widely Circulated Bitter attack made upon it 
 Foes under the garb of Friends Object of Attack, Christ and God's 
 Word We have no occasion for anxiety the Bible has gained 
 from these attacks Its literature prodigious Compared with 
 Shakspeare The latter owes much to the Bible Gray's Elegy 
 compared with the Twenty-third Psalm Henry Stephanus on 
 Psalms John von Mueller Alexander von Humboldt Goethe 
 Its hold upon the most powerful Minds Rousseau Coleridge 
 Carlyle Bishop Butler Wilberforce Webster Sir Francis Ba- 
 con Milton Newton Lord Erskine Guizot Talleyrand 
 No other Book can take the place of the Bible Such a Book cannot 
 die Walter Scott's Bible Motto ................... ..... .. 20?
 
 THE 
 
 WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 GOD revealed himself and liis will, at first, to man by in- 
 spired men ; " holy men of God spake as they God reveale(1 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost." 1 Afterward he nfen ami" by 
 
 an inspired 
 
 caused these revelations to be gathered into an in- book - 
 spired book : " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." a 
 This course is in wonderful harmony with the di- in harmony 
 
 with the cre- 
 
 vine economy hi the creation of the world. Light world. f the 
 was formed upon the first day ; " in the beginning . . . God 
 said, Let there be light." s This light was diffused through 
 chaotic nature, emanating from no local or material fountains : 
 " and God saw the light that it was good." It was not until 
 the fourth day that these floods of light were collected into 
 suns and fixed stars, and became ever after the divinely- 
 appointed sources of illumination. " And God said, Let there 
 be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day 
 from the night . . . and the evening and the morning were 
 the ft urth day." 4 
 2Poteri,21. 2 Tim. Ill, 16. Gen. 1,1, 8. Gen. 1, 14-19.
 
 14 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 For twenty-five hundred years, until the time of Mosea, 
 Written Scrip- religious light was diffused and faint, kindled by 
 Moses. wilh direct communications of God to favored indi- 
 viduals ; but in his day God began to cause permanent lights, 
 in the form of written Scriptures, to take their lasting places 
 in the moral firmament, to shed their divine beams upon 
 human hearts, and to " divide the light from the darkness." 
 Like the sun and stars, they have held their places unmoved, 
 These Hghta constantly shedding forth their light over the 
 
 are perma- 
 
 nent. origin, decay, and destruction of human govern- 
 
 ments and the proudest works of man : " Heaven and earth 
 shall pass away," but these "words" of divine revelation 
 " shall not pass away." 8 
 
 After the same analogy, the Scriptures of the New Testa- 
 The same ment were given. God spake first by inspired 
 
 truth illus- 
 
 Test men an< ^ ^ v o^ 60 * communications. The prom- 
 inent Scrip- . , ,. 
 
 tures. ise of the former covenant was, "In the last 
 
 days (the times of the Messiah) I will pour out of my Spirit 
 upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall 
 prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your 
 Prophecy of old men dream dreams ; and on my servants and 
 
 the Messiah's 
 
 times. on my handmaidens I will pour out in those 
 
 days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy ;" that is, they 
 shall declare the revelations of God the Gospel under the 
 immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 7 This promise 
 was literally fulfilled. At first, upon all that believed, 
 
 Matt jodv, 85. Acts 11, 17, 1 a 
 
 T See Introduction to Study of Iloly Scriptures, by Dr. Ooulburn, Article B, 
 In Appendix.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 15 
 
 miraculous powers of speaking or specific revelations of 
 truth from the Holy Ghost were bestowed in- ^^ roph> 
 discriminately, as upon the company of believers 
 at Pentecost, and afterward 8 upon the Roman centurion and 
 the company collected in his house; 9 upon the disciples 
 scattered by persecution from Jerusalem, 10 and apparently 
 wherever the apostles first introduced the preaching of the 
 Gospel. The virgin daughters of Philip the evangelist were 
 endowed with this divine gift, 11 and Priscilla united with 
 her husband Aquila, then in Athens, driven by persecution 
 from Rome, in expounding " the way of God more perfectly " 
 to the eloquent Apollos, a Jew of Alexandria, himself mighty 
 in the Hebrew Scriptures. 1 * 
 
 But by divine inspiration this diffused light was collected 
 into permanent orbs. God no longer made per- collected in a 
 
 permanent 
 
 sonal revelations of truth to individuals' minds, form, 
 but directed his chosen instruments to embody, under the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit, 18 such an expression of his truth 
 as he desired to have made to the world. He closed him- 
 self the work of inspired revelation with the solemn words, 
 
 "If any man shall add unto these things, God The Holy Spir- 
 it closed the 
 shall add unto him the plagues that are written canon. 
 
 in this book ; and if any man shall take away from the words 
 of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part 
 out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from 
 the things which are written in this book." M 
 In overlooking this truth, so in harmony with the divine 
 
 Acts , 4 ; 1 v, 81. Acts x, 44-46. Acts xi, 19, 21. Acts xxl, 9. 
 Acts xviil, 24-26. John xlv, 26. " Rev. xxll, 18, 19.
 
 16 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 processes in the natural world, taught in the Scriptures 
 
 themselves, and confirmed by the history of the Church, the 
 
 eloquent and devoted Edward Irving, and his 
 
 Error of Ed- 
 
 tafc sincere but misguided followers, in England, 
 turned the worship of the sanctuary into a babel of unmean- 
 ing sounds, and blasphemously attributed to that Spirit who 
 brought order out of chaos, the awful and insane jargon of 
 tongues which drove every rational worshiper from the house 
 of God. 
 
 The same condemnation must be declared against those in 
 , a , modern times, of a coarser mold, less scholarly, 
 
 Folly of" Splr- 
 
 and far less pious, (however sincere some may be, 
 and however bewildered by strange physical phenomena, the 
 laws of which are not clearly understood,) who suppose that 
 they have, or pretend that they have, communication with 
 the world of spirits. They are self-deceived, or their minds 
 are perverted by the devil. God does not reveal his truth in 
 this way, " for God is not the author of confusion, but of 
 peace." 1& 
 
 This view of divine truth is opposed to the doctrine ol 
 The "inner those who hold that any "inner light" witb 
 
 light " not 
 
 Bibie? the which they are favored can take the place of 
 the Bible as a rule of life. The Holy Spirit cannot deny 
 himself; and having spoken harmoniously through a long line 
 of chosen men, and having himself closed the canon of in- 
 spiration, he will not contradict this revelation in the hearts 
 of believers. " Thy word," said the Psalmist more than 
 twenty-eight hundred years ago, before even the Old Testa- 
 
 "1 Corinthians xiv, 33.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 17 
 
 ment Scriptures had been closed, " is a lamp unto my feet, 
 and a light unto my path." 1B 
 
 The Bible, not as explained by commentators, or held by 
 any particular branch of the Church, or illus- The Bible the 
 
 alone rule 
 
 trated by tradition, or confirmed by human practice. and 
 reason, but as given by God through the holy men that 
 wrote its pages, and truthfully interpreted from their lips, is 
 our infallible rule of faith and practice. 
 
 Of the necessity of this great superhuman orb of light, 
 Dr. Goulburn remarks that it arises from man's "utter 
 mental darkness as to his destiny, as to his duties, and 
 as to his dangers ; above all, as to the meth- Necessity for 
 
 this infallible 
 
 od in which he must be saved. A revelation ie- 
 upon these points must be made to him by God if his 
 feet are to be set upon the way that leadeth unto life. That 
 need is represented by imagining men in a state of natural 
 darkness, unrelieved save by a few twinkling stars. Let the 
 faint and feeble ray of these stars represent all the aid which 
 man can get from what is proudly called the moral sense ; 
 that is, his innate notions of right and wrong. Can you see 
 objects by starlight in their true colors? Can you avoid 
 pitfalls and marshes and stumbling-blocks by starlight ? 
 Can you do any work effectually by starlight ? or is it not 
 rather true that we must work while we have sunlight ; and 
 that when the night cometh no man can work ? In a similar 
 manner we see not good and evil in their true colors ; we are 
 ignorant of the tremendous danger of sinful courses, ignorant 
 of the traps which Satan sets in our way, ignorant of hew to 
 
 ' Psalm cxix, 105. 
 
 2
 
 18 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 serve God properly, and as he would be served, without 
 instruction from above on these and similar points. We 
 must have light, and this light is called revelation, the 
 revelation under which we live (or Christian revelation) 
 being the clearest and best ever yet vouchsafed to the 
 world." " 
 
 17 Devotional Study of the Scriptures, p. 184.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 fTlHE Bible claims God as its author, but all its pages were 
 * written by human hands, and bear the sig- God the nu- 
 
 thor, men ti e 
 
 nificant marks of the different writers. Its Bibi!!* f tLe 
 various books were written at different periods, often with 
 long lapses of time between them. Its first records, the five 
 books attributed to Moses, and called from their number in 
 Greek the Pentateuch, were written more than thirty-three 
 hundred years ago fifteen hundred years before Christ ; its 
 last book is supposed to have been completed in the year of 
 our Lord one hundred. It was, therefore, during the long 
 period of sixteen hundred years that the work of revelation 
 was going on. 
 
 The Bible contains the oldest writings in the world. The 
 most ancient human histories now in existence, Bible the oid- 
 those of Herodotus and Thucydides, were writ- the world, 
 ten a thousand years after the times of Moses. It is com- 
 posed of sixty-six different books, and was written by, at 
 least, forty different authors. It is generally written in the 
 
 language of common life, but always in a style various au- 
 thors and dif- 
 oi commanding simplicity and dignity. Its hu- ferent styles. 
 
 man authors filled almost every position in life from the 
 humblest to the most exalted. The peculiarities of the 
 writers, their cultivation or lack of it, the times in which
 
 20 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 they lived, the dialect they used, the station they filled, theil 
 gradual advance in divine illumination, are all disclosed in 
 the various books forming the completed revelation of the 
 will of God to man. Some of the books are historical, some 
 Character of of them summaries of religious rites, some gen- 
 
 the different 
 
 ealogical, others dramatical and poetical, and 
 others still in highly-wrought and sublime figures embody 
 prophecies stretching through all ages. The wonderful truth 
 in reference to them all is, that, when thus brought together 
 AH harmonl- from so many sources, from so many ages, in so 
 
 oos in their 
 
 teachings. many styles, and composed separately without 
 reference to their final collection in one volume, there should 
 be found throughout them all an absolute harmony in their 
 revelations of the character and purposes of God, of the 
 nature and necessities of man, and of the one great, divine 
 plan of human redemption. Each portion seems to be nat- 
 urally related to the others, and has an important ofBce to 
 perform in completing the perfect and harmonious scheme. 
 
 In every respect, excepting their remarkable knowledge of 
 Kbie er no t f ac- divine truths, the Scripture writers were like 
 
 quainted with ,, . . , , , , , . , . 
 
 science. their neighbors. They had no special knowledge 
 
 above their fellows as to general science and history. They 
 did not pronounce their revelations in a scientific form. If 
 this had not been the case, Dean Milrnan 1 remarks, how 
 utterly unintelligible would their words have been to their 
 fellow-men! Conceive of a prophet, or psalmist, or an 
 apostle, endowed with premature knowledge, and talking of 
 the various geological periods in the history of the earth, or 
 1 History of Jews. Prefece to revised edition. VoL i, pp. 11-19.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 21 
 
 of the planetary system according to the Newtonian laws, 
 instead of simply declaring "in the beginning God created 
 the heavens and the earth," and speaking of the " sun going 
 forth as a bridegroom to run his course !" They disclosed 
 the mighty truths of God in the common and ordinarily pic- 
 turesque and poetic language of the days in which they lived. 
 This fonn, requiring now careful study and re- Clothed in flgj 
 flection to apprehend its exact meaning, was 
 
 inseparable from their daily life, and the only common 
 medium for the conveyance of revelation to all ages. In no 
 other form, humanly speaking, would they have struck so 
 deep into the mind and heart of man, or clung to it with 
 such inseverable tenacity. It is as speaking frequently in 
 the noblest poetry, and constantly addressing the imagina- 
 tive as well as the reasoning faculty of man, that these 
 Scriptures have survived through ages, and have been and 
 are still imperishable when considered only as the work of 
 human minds. As the teachers were men of their age in all 
 but religious advancement, so their books were the books of 
 their age. They were the oracles of God in their divine 
 instructions, while the language in which they were spoken 
 was human, and uttered in a style to be understood by the 
 half-enlightened people for whose benefit they Revelation \a 
 
 thus adapted 
 
 were first declared ; and, what is still more sig- to *n ees. 
 nificant of their divine origin, revealing clearly the same 
 truths in an impressive manner to races of different customs 
 and tongues far advanced in civilization, and familiar with 
 the amazing disclosures of modern science. 
 Although speaking in their own natural style, and giving
 
 22 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 utterance often to their own personal emotions, or simply 
 The writers recording events passing under their eyes, the 
 
 claim to be 
 
 inspired. writers claim for themselves and affirm of each 
 
 other that their records contain the words of God, and are 
 uttered under his inspiration. 
 
 In no other way can their unity and harmony be accounted 
 for. " If the Scriptures are not the word of God," says Pro- 
 fessor Murphy in the introduction to his comments upon 
 Claim to in Genesis, "then the writers of these Scriptures, 
 tabUshed by who directly and indirectly affirm their divine 
 
 veracity of 
 
 the writers. origin are false witnesses ; and if they have 
 proved unworthy of credit in this fundamental point, they 
 can be of no authority on other equally important matters. 
 But neither before examination, nor after an examination of 
 eighteen centuries, have we the slightest reason for doubting 
 the veracity of these men, and their unanimous evidence is 
 in favor of the divine authorship of the Bible. All that we 
 have learned of the contents of these books accords with 
 their claim to be the word of God. The constant harmony 
 of their statements when fairly interpreted with one another, 
 
 aynony^ of with general history, and with physical and 
 laws. n ' metaphysical truth, affords an incontestable 
 
 proof of their divine origin. The statements of other early 
 writers have invariably come into conflict with historical or 
 scientific truth. But still further, these books communicate 
 to us matters concerning God, the origin and the future 
 Human au- destiny of man, which are of vital importance 
 
 thorship lin 
 
 possible. in themselves, and yet are absolutely beyond the 
 
 reach of human intuition, observation, or deduction. It is
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 23 
 
 impossible, therefore, for mere human beings, apart from 
 divine instruction and authority, to attest these things to us 
 at all. Hence these books, if they were not traceable ulti- 
 mately to a divine author, would absolutely fail us in the 
 very points that are essential to be known, namely, the origin 
 of our being, the relation in which we stand to God, and the 
 way to eternal happiness, on which neither science nor his- 
 tory afford us any light. But they yield a clear, definite, and 
 consistent light and help, meeting the very ask- They meet the 
 
 great wants 
 
 ings and longings of our souls on these moment- f our nature. 
 ous topics. The wonderful way in which they convince the 
 reason, probe the conscience, and apply a healing balm to 
 the wounded spirit, is in itself an independent attestation to 
 their divine origin." 2 
 
 The Bible is not a specimen of the style of the Holy Spirit 
 as a writer ; but the different authors expressed The Bible not 
 
 a specimen of 
 
 in their own language and by their own illustra- God>s st y' e - 
 tions the ideas poured into their minds from on high. The 
 revelation is perfect and plenary, for it is divine; but the 
 medium is imperfect and exposes its human limitations and 
 weaknesses, and so much the more confirms the divine origin 
 of the truths that are taught. If each word, as Words not 
 
 necessarily 
 
 some teach, was inspired, then the writers were inspired, 
 eimply amanuenses, and every book of Scripture, like the 
 Ten Commandments, is a specimen of divine and not human 
 composition. The Son of man was no less a perfect man, 
 hungering, thirsting, sleeping, weeping, because he was the 
 Son of God ; and the Bible, with all its marks of human 
 Commentary on Genesis. By James 8. Murphy, LL.D.
 
 24: THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 bonds and human weaknesses, is none the less a revelation of 
 the word and will of God. Says Dr. Schaff, in his " Ancient 
 Christianity:" "The New Testament presents in its way the 
 same union of the divine and human natures as the person of 
 Christ. In this sense also the ' word is made flesh and dwells 
 
 Dr Schaff on amon g us -' T 06 Bible thoroughly human 
 
 likeness of ... , ... . . - _ 
 
 scripture to (though without error) in contents and form, in 
 
 Christ's per- 
 
 the mode of its rise, its compilation, its preser- 
 vation, and transmission ; yet at the same time thoroughly 
 divine both in its thoughts and words, in its origin, vitality, 
 energy, and effect, and beneath the human servant-form of 
 the letter the eye of faith discerns the glory of the only- 
 begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 3 
 
 Westcott says, in his "Introduction to the Study of the 
 Westoott on ^ GVf Testament:" "The human powers of the 
 
 divine messenger act according to their natural 
 laws, even when these laws are supernaturally strengthened. 
 Man is not converted into a mere machine even in the hand 
 of God. . . . The nature of man is not neutralized by the 
 divine agency, and the truth of God is not impaired, but 
 exactly expressed in one of its several aspects to the indi- 
 vidual mind." 
 If the inspiration were verbal, then a constant miracle 
 
 would have been required from the beginning to 
 
 Verbal inspi- 
 
 a con*- preserve the purity of the text, and every tran- 
 
 ., , . . , 
 
 scnber and translator into a new language must 
 necessarily enjoy the same inspiration from the Holy Spirit. 4 
 
 1 History of the Christian Church, ToL 1, p. 93. 
 
 Dean Milinan presents this objection to what Is sometimes called mec\ant* 
 tal or verbal inspiration. "Is it the Hebrew or the Greek Septuagint of which 
 
 reque a con*- 
 
 B taut miracle.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 25 
 
 But the Holy Spirit has simply acted through men, 
 divine wisdom revealing its own truths, while they have 
 expressed it in accordance with their natural constitution 
 and abilities. Through all Scripture Christ, the word of 
 God, speaks from first to last, and all Scripture is permanently 
 fitted for our instruction ; " a true spiritual meaning, eternal 
 and absolute, lies beneath historical, ceremonial, and moral 
 details." 4 
 
 The manner in which inspiration is bestowed, like every 
 other gift of God, is determined by the neces- J 1 f lu t f a * i a r I ied 
 
 . . . . forms of in- 
 
 sities of the case. " At one time we may picture spiration. 
 to ourselves the lawgiver recording the letter of the divine 
 law which he had received directly from God 'inscribed 
 
 every sentence, phrase, word, syllable is thus Inspired. Every one knows, or 
 ought to know, how much they differ, not only in the sense, but in omissions 
 and additional passages found in one, not in the other. It will be said, of 
 course, the Hebrew. But the writers of the New Testament, when their cita- 
 tions are verbally accurate, usually quote the Septuagint. For three or four 
 centuries till the time of Jerome, the Septuagint was the Old Testament of the 
 Church. Till Jerome no one of the Christian fathers, except perhaps Origen, 
 knew Hebrew. All this time, then, the Christian world was without the true, 
 genuine, only-inspired Scripture. For above ten centuries more the Church 
 was dependent on the fidelity and Hebrew knowledge of Jerome for the in- 
 spired word of God. Luther must have been, in this view, a greater benefactor 
 to mankind than his fondest admirers suppose by his appeal to the Hebrew 
 original, and was Luther an infallible authority for every word and syllable ?" 
 Preface to Ifistory of the Jews, p. 48. 
 
 " What matters it," says St. Augustine in commenting upon the passage, " Save, 
 Lord, we perish," tho words and the time of their utterance being variously 
 reported by the evangelists; "What matters it whether the disciples, in calling 
 on the Lord, really used one or another of these expressions, or some other 
 differing from them all, but still giving the sense that they were perishing, and 
 called on him to save them ?" IIow to Study the New Testament, Dean Alford, 
 p. 20. 
 
 Westcott, p. 444.
 
 26 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 upon tables of stone' or spoken 'face to face.' At another 
 we may watch the sacred historian, unconsciously it may be, 
 and yet freely, seizing on those facts in the history of the 
 past which were the turning-points of a nation's spiritual 
 progress, gathering the details which combine to give the 
 truest picture of each crisis, and grouping all according to 
 the laws of a marvelous symmetry, which hi after-times 
 might symbolize their hidden meaning. Or we may see the 
 prophet gazing intently on the great struggle going on 
 around him, discerning the spirits of men and the springs of 
 national life, till the relations of time no longer exist in his 
 vision till all strife is referred to the final conflict of good 
 and evil foreshadowed in the great judgments of the world, 
 and all hope is centered hi the coming of the Saviour and in 
 the certainty of his future triumph. Another, perhaps, looks 
 within his own heart, and as a new light is poured over its 
 inmost depths, his devotion finds expression in songs of per- 
 sonal penitence and thanksgiving, in confession of sin. and 
 declarations of righteousness, which go far to reconcile the 
 mysterious contradictions of our nature. To another is given 
 the task of building up the Church. By divine instinct he 
 sees hi scattered congregations types of the great forms of 
 society in coming ages, and addresses to them, not systems 
 of doctrine, but doctrine embodied in deed, which applies to 
 all time, because it expresses eternal truths, and yet specially 
 to each time, because it is connected with the realities of 
 daily life." 6 
 
 Thus all the different Scripture writings taken together 
 Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Westcott, p. 87.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 27 
 
 may be considered one harmonious message of God spoken 
 in many parts and many manners, by men and to men, the 
 distinct lessons of individual ages reaching from one time to 
 all time. 
 
 This same idea of inspiration is expressed by Alford in the 
 prolegomena to his edition of the Greek Testa- 
 
 Alford on In- 
 
 ment. He says, " The inspiration of the sacred 8pira 
 writers I believe to have consisted in the fullness of the 
 influence of the Holy Spirit specially raising them to, and 
 enabling them for, their work, in a manner which distin- 
 guishes them from all other writers in the world, and their 
 work from all other works. The men were full of the Holy 
 Ghost ; the books are the pouring out of that fullness 
 through the men, the conservation of the treasure in 
 earthern vessels. The treasure is ours in all its richness; 
 but it is ours as only it can be ours, in the imperfections of 
 human speech, in the limitations of human thought, in the 
 variety incident at first to individual character, and then to 
 manifold transcription and the lapse of ages. The men 
 were inspired, and the books are the results of that in- 
 spiration." 6 
 
 Prolegomena to Alford's Greek Testament, Harper's Edition, p. 21. "With 
 the exception of the clause in the following quotation, which is italicized, we 
 could not find, perhaps, a better succinct presentation of the doctrine of inspira- 
 tion than is given by Garbett in his able treatise, written chiefly in defense of 
 the theory of verbal inspiration. The author does not adhere to his definition 
 in the body of his work. " There was (in writing the Holy Scriptures) a con- 
 currence of the act of God with the act of man. First, he endowed the man 
 with these particular gifts, and chose him to be his instrument. Secondly, he 
 guided his mind in the selection of what he should say, and of the revelation of 
 the material of his writing where such a revelation was made necessary through 
 the defect of human knowledge. Thirdly, he acted in and on the intellect and
 
 28 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Professor Murphy, in his introduction, presents the view 
 
 The scripture which the Scriptures themselves take of the 
 view of in- 
 spiration, nature of their own inspiration, insisting, like 
 
 Gaussen, upon the inspiration of the book rather than of the 
 writers. The Bible, however, just as clearly affirms that the 
 holy men who wrote it were "moved by the Holy Ghost" 
 as that the pages they inscribed were inspired. " The Apostle 
 Paul," says Professor Murphy, "in writing to Timothy, a 
 pastor and teacher in the Church of God, makes use of the 
 following expressions (literally rendered) concerning Scrip- 
 ture : ' The holy Scripta, able to make thee wise unto 
 salvation;' and, 'Every Scripture given by inspiration of God 
 and profitable for doctrine.' From these expressions we 
 gather the following order of doctrine concerning the origin 
 and character of the Bible : 1. It is given by inspiration of 
 God. 2. It is first holy ; second, able to make wise unto 
 salvation ; and third, profitable for doctrine and other pur- 
 poses of edification. In these elements of the doctrine of in- 
 spiration the following points are worthy of remark : 1. It is 
 a writing, not a writer, of which the character is here given. 
 The thing said to be inspired is not that which goes into the 
 mind of the author, but that which comes out of his mind 
 by means of his pen. It is not the material on which he is 
 
 heart of the writer In the act of committing the words to writing; not only 
 bestowing a more than human elevation, bat seeming the truthfulness of the 
 thing written, and mokling the language into the form accordant to his men 
 will. To sum up the whole, verbal inspiration simply amounts to this: that 
 while the words of Scripture are truly and characteristically the words of men, 
 they are at the same time fully and concurrently the words of God." God** 
 Word Written, p. 853. We should rather say, in the last clause of the closing 
 sentence, tliey (the words) do fully and concurrently reveal the will of God.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 29 
 
 to exercise his mind, but the result of that mental exercise 
 which is here characterized. Hence, it has received all the 
 impress, not merely of man in general, but even of the indi- 
 vidual author in particular, at the time when it is so desig- 
 nated. It is that piece of composition which the human 
 author has put into a written form which is described as 
 inspired. 2. To be inspired of God, is to be communicated 
 from God, who is a Spirit, to the mind of man. The mode 
 of communication we do not pretend to explain, but the 
 possibility of such communication we cannot for a moment 
 doubt. The immediate author of a human book may not be 
 the ultimate author of a single sentiment it con- illustration 
 
 of the double 
 ,. TT , . , i. c_ authorship of 
 
 tains. He may have received every fact from the Bible, 
 trustworthy witnesses, who are, after all, the real vouchers 
 for all it records ; and the very merit of the immediate 
 author may consist in judiciously selecting the facts, faith- 
 fully adhering to his authorities, and properly arranging his 
 materials for the desired effect. Analogous to this is the 
 divine authorship of the sacred volume. By the inspiration 
 of the Almighty the human author is made to perceive cer- 
 tain things divine and human, to select such as are to be 
 revealed, and to record these with fidelity in the natural 
 order, and to the proper end. The result is a writing given 
 by inspiration of God, with all the peculiarities of man and 
 all the authority of God. 3. Such a written revelation is 
 
 * holy.' The primary holiness of a writing is its The holinesg 
 
 * *T. r\ ji _L -i. -j. -j. j of the Bible. 
 
 truth. God's part in it secures its veracity and 
 credibility. Even man often tells the truth where he is a 
 disinterested witness ; and we believe not only his sincerity
 
 80 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 but his competence. God, who cannot lie, is able to secure 
 his scribes from error, intentional or unintentional. The 
 secondary holiness of a writing appears in the two following 
 particulars : 4. It is also ' able to make wise unto salvation.' 
 
 Office of the Tnia refers to the kind of truth contained in the 
 book of God. It is a revelation of mercy, of 
 peace on earth, and good-will to man. This, at the same 
 time, imparts an unspeakable interest to the book, and points 
 out the occasion warranting the divine interference for its 
 composition. 5. It is also ' profitable for doctrine.' It tenda 
 to holiness. It is moral as well as merciful in its revelations. 
 It contains truth, mercy, and righteousness. It reflects, there- 
 fore, the holiness of God. It is in all respects worthy of its 
 high original," T 
 
 The discussion upon this vital topic may be closed by 
 
 Snmraar of sa P n S that ^hlS Completed book of holy writ- 
 discussion. . , ,. ., , ., 
 
 ings has, from its beginning to its end, been 
 prepared under the immediate direction and inspiration of 
 the divine Spirit, and through all its various pages God does 
 disclose his nature and perfections to our race, and so ex 
 hibits his purposes of mercy to mankind that whoever 
 earnestly, prayerfully, and with a penitent heart, searches 
 them will be made by them "wise unto salvation." 
 
 T Commentary on Genesis, by J. O. Murphy, LL.D., p. 12.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CANON: ITS GENUINENESS. 
 
 HOW natural the question, as we open our Englisa Bibles : 
 " 
 
 If the first portions of this volume were 
 written more than twenty-three hundred years ^"reveau-d? 
 ago, and the last book nearly eighteen hundred years since, 
 how strong a confidence may I place in our version, that in it 
 we have, Avith great exactness, the revelations of the Holy 
 Spirit as they were inspired and recorded by the holy men 
 who received them ? " 
 
 The Old Testament was nearly all of it written in Hebrew. 
 
 The portions composed during and after the original lan- 
 
 guage of Old 
 captivity of the Jews in Babylon were written Testament 
 
 in a dialect very similar, and called after the nations from 
 whom they learned it, the Chaldee. 
 
 The canon of the Old Testament so called from the Greek 
 word icavuv, a cane, a measure, a perfect rule as The canon. 
 containing the full and divine measure of inspiration and 
 perfect rule of faith and life, was completed about four 
 hundred years before Christ. Ezra is supposed carefully to 
 have gathered together the sacred books written before his 
 day after the return from the captivity. His own record, 
 and that of Nehemiah, were afterward added, and no further 
 addition was made. 
 
 Certain interesting historical books, recounting the wars of
 
 82 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. , 
 
 the Jews under the Maccabean princes between the closing 
 
 of the canon and the times of Christ, stretching over a period 
 
 B. C. 325 to B. C. 160, together with certain other 
 
 Apocrypha. 
 
 books of poetry, proverbs, personal incidents, and 
 improbable fables, under the title of Apocrypha, were for- 
 merly bound up in the volume with the sacred canon. These 
 Value of these books are on ^y f value for the light they throw 
 
 upon this period of Jewish history, and the 
 evidence, by striking contrast, in almost every respect, which 
 they give of the inspiration of the other Scriptures. The 
 Jews never accounted them to be a part of the holy writings, 
 How they and it was left to the Roman Church, at the 
 
 found a place 
 
 in the Bible. council held in 1546 in Trent in Austria, com- 
 posed chiefly of Italian cardinals and bishops, called together 
 by the pope, to put " for the first time the apocryphal books 
 in the rank of the Scriptures of God." l 
 
 There is evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, in 
 Care taken of their constant reference to the law of God as 
 
 Jewish Scrip- 
 tures, contained in preceding holy writings, the public 
 
 reading of them, and general regard for them, of the ex- 
 traordinary care taken for their preservation, and for the 
 purity of their transcription. 
 
 The books of the law were placed in the tabernacle with 
 the ark of the covenant, and were kept there during the jour- 
 neys in the wilderness, and afterward in the Land of Promise.* 
 To the same sanctuary were the various historical, poetical, 
 and prophetical books consigned. On the erection of the 
 
 1 The Canon of Scripture, by Ganssen, p. 4M. 
 
 * Dent, xxxi, 9, 26; 1 Sam. x, 25; 2 Kings xxii, 8; Is*, xzxlr, 16.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 33 
 
 temple Solomon deposited in it these sacred treasures, and 
 enriched them by inspired productions from his own pen. 
 What became of the sacred books when the tem- 
 
 Bible in Baby- 
 pie was destroyed we are not informed, but in lon> 
 
 Babylon Daniel speaks of the book of the law as familiar to 
 him, and also of the prophets. 8 
 
 Jewish writers, like Philo, the Alexandrine Jew, born 
 thirty years before Christ, and Josephus, in 
 
 Philo and Jo- 
 
 Christ's time, unite in declaring the general cor- sei>hus - 
 rectness of the text in their day ; and we may readily believe, 
 
 after admitting the inspiration of the volume, Reason to ex- 
 pect its pres- 
 that the Providence of the same Divine Spirit ervation. 
 
 that supervised its records and gave its revelations would 
 secure its preservation. 
 
 Additional grounds of confidence are found in the fact 
 that about the time of the close of the canon 
 
 Samaritan 
 
 (B. C. 400) a copy of the five books of Moses Pentat uch - 
 was made in the Samaritan dialect, for that singular people, a 
 mixture of Hebrews and Chaldeans, gathered in that portion 
 of the land of Israel called Samaria in Christ's times, during 
 the captivity. These sacred writings this people (who kept 
 up their separate life and their enmity for the Jewish people, 
 an enmity which was as earnestly returned by them) as care- 
 fully preserved as their Hebrew neighbors did their copies. 
 In A. D. 1623 a full copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch was 
 obtained from a body of this nation in Damascus by De 
 Saucy, the French embassador at Constantinople. Other 
 copies have since been obtained from the East, and the text 
 
 Daniel Ix, 2, 11. 
 3
 
 34 THE WOliD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 of the two versions have been carefully compared, showing a 
 remarkable correspondence. 
 
 About three hundred years before Christ, through the 
 Macedonian invasion of Syria and Persia by 
 
 The Oreek 
 
 language. Alexander the Great, the Greek language anil 
 literature were spread over these countries. Alexander 
 built a renowned city, bearing liis name, upon the Medi- 
 terranean in Egypt. During the wars resulting in the 
 Chaldean captivity many of the Jews had re- 
 
 Jews in Egypt. 
 
 moved to Egypt ; more followed under the per- 
 secutions of Antiochus, the successor of Alexander in the 
 government of Syria. Ptolemy, and his successors who 
 bore his name, into whose hands Egypt fell upon the great 
 conqueror's death, were generous in their treatment of their 
 Jewish subjects, and encouraged their emigration to the 
 ancient land of their former bondage. They had a temple 
 in Leontopolis similar to the temple at Jerusalem, and fol- 
 lowed the Mosaic order in their worsiiip. These Jews all 
 used the Greek language. About the year two hundred 
 and eighty before Christ, for the benefit of these Hellen- 
 istic or Grecian Jews at Alexandria, or at the suggestion 
 of Demetrius Phalerius, librarian of the world-renowned 
 royal library at Alexandria, a Greek version of the Hebrew 
 
 Bible was made. This was called the Septua- 
 
 llie Septua- 
 
 that is, Seventy, from the tradition that 
 
 seventy persons were employed in its execution. Many 
 unreliable fables are related of its origin. The translators 
 may have been appointed by the Sanhedrim, or Council 
 of Seventy, at Jerusalem, or their work may have been
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 35 
 
 authenticated by the council consisting of the same number 
 at Alexandria. 
 
 This version is a very free and not always exact translation 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures, but is interesting and important as 
 the most ancient version of the entire Old Testament, and as 
 made by learned Jews at a period long before 
 
 Value of thla 
 
 the date of the oldest existing Hebrew manu- verslon - 
 scripts, and before the Christian era. However widely Jews 
 and Christians now differ from each other in their views of 
 the Messiah, both receive as the word of their common Lord 
 and Master this embodied and completed canon of ancient 
 Scripture. 
 
 But still more interesting and important is the fact that it 
 was this version of the Old Testament which This version 
 
 used by our 
 
 was used by GUI Lord and his apostles, and Lord, 
 from which they made the many hundred quotations t o be 
 found throughout the pages of the New Testament. This 
 version renders valuable service in the establishment of the 
 correctness of the present text, and in the elucidation of the 
 meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 
 Having passed the supervision of the Son of God, and 
 having been given afresh by him to the world as the Scrip- 
 tures of truth, and affirmed to be full of disclosures of him- 
 self and his kingdom, 4 the question as to whether we have 
 the whole revelation of God, and with a good degree of cor- 
 rectness, as to the Old Testament, is most satisfactorily an- 
 swered. The books in this version are the same found in our 
 English Bibles. 
 
 John T, 39 ; Luko xxiv, 27, 44.
 
 36 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Since the death of Christ the noted Rabbinical schools in 
 
 ,,, , , Palestine and in the 'further East, and Jewish 
 Rabbinical 
 
 scholars of various nations, have united with 
 Christians in seeking to perpetuate pure copies of these ven- 
 erable Scriptures, which contain the foundations of their 
 common faith. 
 
 For the benefit of Christians who had fled to the East in 
 the persecutions that followed the death of Christ, a version 
 The Syriac or f tne Old and New Testaments hi the first cen- 
 
 I'eshito ver- 
 sion, tury was made hi the ancient Syriac or Aramaic 
 
 dialect, the tongue generally spoken by the Jews hi Palestine 
 in the days of our Lord, and which he himself used. This 
 version is called the Peshito. An ancient tradition, which is 
 considered at least to be probable, says that this version was 
 made by translators who were evidently Jewish Christians, 
 and who were sent from the city of Edesa, in Persia, by the 
 apostle Jude, at the instance of King Abgarus. This version 
 is of great critical value. Several ancient Arabic versions 
 and the Persian version of the Gospels were made from it. 
 
 There were several Lathi versions of the Bible made from 
 
 the Septuagint, the most valuable of which was called the 
 
 Italic, made, it is believed, in the first century 
 
 Italic version. 
 
 from Alexandrian manuscripts. This version 
 was highly esteemed by Augustine, who died hi the year of 
 our Lord four hundred and thirty. 
 
 Origen was one of the most learned, as he was the most 
 famous, of the early fathers. He was born hi 
 
 Oriiten and 
 
 hi* version. Alexandria A. D. one hundred and eighty-five. 
 He wrote voluminous commentaries upon all the books ol
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. . 37 
 
 Scripture ; but his great work was the thorough levision 
 which he made of the Septuagint. He collated it with the 
 original Hebrew, and as many Greek and other versions as 
 he could secure. He spent twenty-eight years upon this 
 work, and traveled throughout the East collecting materials 
 for it. This vast work, which consisted of six parallel ver- 
 sions, and of some books eight, extended to fifty volumes; 
 only portions of it, however, were transcribed, and have been 
 preserved, while the main work perished. The result of his 
 studies in correcting the Septuagint were not entirely lost. 
 
 Jerome, the most learned of the early European fathers, was 
 born in the province of Dalmatia, now in the em- 
 
 Jerome. 
 
 pire of modern Austria, A. D. 346. He studied at 
 Rome, and in the German city Treves. Afterward for four 
 years he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures in a 
 cell near the city of Antioch in Asia Minor. Here he ac- 
 quired that skill in the Hebrew language which he turned te 
 so good account. At this time the manuscript copies of th 
 Latin versions of the Bible had become very corrupt through 
 omissions and additions, notes and comments being often 
 given as a portion of the sacred text. Jerome was highly 
 esteemed for his scholarship and saintly character by Dam- 
 asus, Bishop of Rome, and at his request was induced to 
 undertake a new version of the Bible in Latin, then the pre- 
 vailing language of the Western or European Church. He 
 availed himself of the labors of Origen, and of all the early 
 Eastern versions of the Scriptures. Being dissatisfied with the 
 Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible he made a new ver- 
 sion from the Hebrew text. This version surpasses all former
 
 88 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 ones in the care with which it is executed, and in its gen- 
 eral correctness. This is the famous Vulgate ver- 
 
 The Vulgate. 
 
 sion, (so called because in common use,) still final 
 
 authority in the Roman Church. It was completed about 
 A. D. 390, but was very slowly and reluctantly allowed to dis- 
 place other editions in use in the Churches. It was not until 
 Generally in- the time of Pope Gregory L, in the seventh cen- 
 
 troduced in 
 
 century. ventU tury, that it met with general acceptance. Its 
 often transcription exposed its text to constant variations, and 
 from time to time new revisions were made. The first book 
 printed was a copy of the Vulgate at Mentz, called 
 printed book. ^ Mazarin Bible," about A. D. 1455, copies of 
 which are still extant. In 1546 the Council of Trent ordained 
 that this edition should be " esteemed authentic, and that no 
 Declared in- one should dare to reject it under any pretense 
 
 fallible by 
 
 of e TrenT cl1 whatever." In fact they declared this version to 
 be an inspired book, with no errors in it, although at the same 
 time they tried to correct some of the errors in it. 6 
 
 Pope Sixtus V., in 1590, ordered a revised edition to be 
 issued, corrected himself the proofs, and declared it to be of 
 perpetual authority ; but there were so many errors in it that 
 
 his successor caused the whole edition to be can- 
 Edition of 
 
 Pope sixtua. ce i e( j The work was again undertaken under 
 Clement Vin. ; and completed in 1592. This is the author- 
 itative edition from which the Roman Catholic copies of the 
 Scriptures in Latin are printed. It is not al- 
 
 Clementme 
 
 lowed to be criticised, and is called the Clemen- 
 tine edition. 
 
 Manuscript notes of Prof. Shedd's Seminary Lecture*
 
 The New Tes- 
 tament canon. 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 39 
 
 There were other less important early versions, such as the 
 Coptic, the language spoken by the native Egyptians, the 
 Ethiopian, the Gothic, the tongue of the invaders of Rome, 
 Persian, Arabian, etc. ; but these that have been described 
 somewhat at length will enable us to see the important serv- 
 ice which early transcriptions from these versions afford in 
 the criticism and interpretation of the text of our modern 
 versions of the holy records. 
 
 Before referring to this we shall consider the question of the 
 authority and genuineness of the canon of the New 
 Testament As was stated in the opening chap- 
 ter, God spake first by inspired men. While the apostles lived 
 and moved about among the Churches the necessity would 
 not exist for a collection of the records of Christ's inspired men 
 
 preceded the 
 
 life and doctrines, or of the instructions of. their Scriptures. 
 inspired teachers. The early Christians were permitted to 
 receive the facts of the Gospel from the lips of " eye-wit- 
 nesses," and to enjoy the discipline of the apostles them- 
 selves. 
 
 Dr. Wliedon remarks, in the introduction to his Com- 
 mentary upon Luke and John, that after the Gospels had 
 been written, down even to the close of the second century, 
 the early Church clung fondly to the oral traditions handed 
 down from the Saviour's and from apostolical lips. He 
 quotes from Papias as saying : " I do not think Dr whedon 
 that I derived so much benefit from books as from m^nicntion 1 "" 
 
 from the apos- 
 
 the living voice of those who are still surviving. tollcal "se- 
 lf I met with any one who had been a follower of the elders 
 ''the apostles and their contemporaries) I made it a point
 
 40 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 to inquire what were the declarations of the elders, aud 
 what was said by Andrew, Peter, or Philip; what by 
 Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any of the disciples of 
 our Lord." The quotation shows both that sacred manu- 
 scripts were then in existence, and also that their personal 
 traditions from the lips of the apostles corresponded with 
 them and confirmed them. In a day when books could only 
 be multiplied by the painful process of copying letter for 
 letter, we can readily see how precious these personal oral 
 discourses must have been. It would appear probable that 
 at an early day many persons made records of such incidents 
 and discourses of our Lord as came to their hear- 
 
 Many records 
 
 ing, for Luke says in the introduction to his 
 Gospel : " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth 
 in order a declaration of those things which are most surely 
 believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, 
 which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers 
 of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect 
 understanding of all things from the very first, to write," etc. 
 AH these rec- The fact that all these other written records were 
 
 ords disap- 
 peared, allowed to perish, and are never referred to or 
 
 quoted by early Christian writers, is a very significant evi- 
 dence of the different estimation in which the four evan- 
 gelical records were held, and of the satisfactory character 
 of the writings that have been thus divinely preserved 
 amid the general loss of all other histories of these amazing 
 facts. 
 
 The Gospels were universally admitted in the early Church 
 to have been written by the persons whose names they bear.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 41 
 
 Matthew, who remained in Jerusalem, wrote his Gospel first, 
 primarily for the benefit of the Hebrew Chris- Matthew 
 
 i J wrote for the 
 
 dans that remained through all the persecutions tians! ' 
 in Judea. He is thought by some to have been related to 
 the apostle James, sometimes called the head of the Church 
 In Jerusalem, 6 and a similarity is pointed out between Mat- 
 thew's record of the Sermon upon the Mount and the Epistle 
 of James. He brings out before his Jewish readers with 
 great distinctness the Messiahship of Jesus, his true kingly 
 character, and his office as sent to the lost p regentg the 
 
 -I,-, _,_. _ , Messiahship 
 
 sheep 01 the house 01 Israel. 1 rom James, who and kindly 
 
 character of 
 
 was, after the flesh, a kinsman of the Lord, he Chnst - 
 may have learned " the mystery of that birth, the genealogy 
 of inheritance which heirs of the house of David treasured 
 up, the visit of the wise men, the flight into Egypt. How 
 such a record met the cravings of human hearts we may 
 judge from the hold which the history of the nativity has in 
 all ages had upon countless thousands of loving and child- 
 like hearts." T 
 
 'The Gospel of St. Matthew," says Alford, "is that one to 
 which we owe, more than to any other, our complete idea of 
 our blessed Lord as the promised Messiah, the holy one of 
 God, the king and head over all to his Church. In the vivid 
 depictions of St. Mark we have ever his personal image before 
 us, and the very sound of his voice ; in the careful and pre- 
 cious collections of St. Luke we see him as the Saviour of 
 our race, the head and root of our humanity ; while it is from 
 this first and best known of the Gospels that the image of 
 
 Christ and Christendom, pp. 53-66. T Ibid.
 
 42 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 him especially arises, which is so much in the thoughts and 
 hearts of all of us who believe that chosen One, in whom 
 center all the ways and works of God ; perfect in majesty, 
 perfect in mercy; the king's son, for whom is made the 
 great marriage of heaven and earth ; the bridegroom, into 
 whose feast the wise and virgin souls shall enter ; the king 
 himself, who shall come to take account of his own servants ; 
 nay, who shall come, and all the holy angels with him, and 
 sit on the throne of his glory, with all the nations before him, 
 and allot to every one his eternal doom." * 
 John, surnamed Mark, was the nephew of Barnabas. 9 His 
 
 mother, the sister of Paul's first companion in mis- 
 Mark. 
 
 sionary labors, 10 must have been an early disciple, 
 
 and her house in Jerusalem the resort, perhaps, of Christ 
 and the apostles. Certainly Peter made a home there. 11 The 
 written un- old tradition is strongly confirmed that he wrote 
 
 der sanction 
 
 of Peter. hi s Gospel under the guidance of the apostle 
 
 Peter. He was with this apostle when he wrote his epistles 
 to the Churches." In the Second Epistle Peter intimates 
 that he had taken measures to enable the Asiatic Churches 
 Peter seems to "have in remembrance" that the incidents 
 
 to promise a 
 
 Gospel which they had heard about the Lord Jesus 
 
 Christ from his lips were not " cunningly-devised fables." '* 
 Probably in this he referred to the fact that his son Marcus, 
 as he affectionately calls him, was recording from his lips the 
 incidents in sacred history that had passed under his eye 
 Of his Gospel, Plumptre remarks, "There are, as has been 
 
 How to Study the New Testament, p. 77. Acts Iv, 86. ' Acts xiii, 2. 
 Acts xli, 12. 1S 1 Peter v, 18. " 2 Peter i, 15, 16.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 43 
 
 often noticed, vivid pictorial touches which speak of knowl- 
 edge such as belongs to an eye-witness : The Evidently 
 
 written by an 
 
 scene of the ' green grass ' in Bethsaida, and the eye-witness. 
 groups in which the multitude arranged themselves by 
 hundreds and fifties ; the dashing of the waves in the ship 
 while our Lord was sleeping on the boat's cushion in the 
 stern; the smaller craft that accompanied the ship of the 
 disciples; the touches of personal knowledge in the history 
 of the demoniac who plucked asunder his chains and ground 
 his fetters together till they were broken ; of the woman with 
 the issue of blood, who had suffered many things of many 
 physicians, and had spent all that she had ; 14 of the glance 
 and gesture with which the Lord looked round in anger at 
 the hardness of men's hearts, or in pity and yearning love 
 upon the rich young ruler, or in approving welcome to 
 the disciples whom he claimed as his true kindred ; the 
 special notice of the strange apparition in Gethsemane of 
 the young man with the linen cloth cast around his naked 
 body ; 1B these are but a few of the long list of details of like 
 nature." 
 
 Mark's Gospel is not eminently one adapted for the He- 
 brews like Matthew's, nor for the Gentiles as was Adapted to 
 
 Jew and Gen- 
 Luke's, but belonged equally to both, as Peter we. 
 
 was at once an apostle to the circumcision, and was chosen to 
 open the door of faith to the Gentile world. 16 
 Luke, the " beloved physician " " and companion 
 
 Luke. 
 
 of Paul, is supposed to have written the two treat- 
 
 > Mark Ir, 36, 88; v, 25, 26; vl, 89, 40. Mark ill, 5; x, 21 ; 111, 84. 
 
 Christ and Christendom, p. 49. Colossians iv, 14.
 
 44 THE WORD- OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 ises bearing his name under the eye of the apostle to the 
 
 Gentiles. Luke is supposed to have been a resident of An- 
 
 tioch, and to have become acquainted with Paul in this 
 
 city. 18 This city became the center of the Gen- 
 
 Antioch. 
 
 tile Church, as Jerusalem was of the Church of 
 the circumcision. "The prominence given to the arrival 
 there of the men of wider thoughts who left Jerusalem after the 
 death of Stephen, and then of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, 
 who took the bold step of preaching to the heathen, and then 
 of Barnabas and Saul, the stress laid on the new name of 
 Christian, as originating there, and on the liberality of that 
 Church to the poor at Jerusalem ; the list of prophets con- 
 spicuous there ; but, with the exception of Paul and Barnabas, 
 not otherwise memorable, 19 are all indications of the writer's 
 residence in Antioch between the tune of St. Paul's conver- 
 sion and his first missionary journey. And if so, then we are 
 The sources & ble to trace, with hardly a shadow of uncer- 
 
 of Luke's (j os- 
 
 P el - tainty, the channels through which he may have 
 
 obtained most of the materials of his narrative. Those that 
 fled from Jerusalem on the persecution must have included 
 some of the personal disciples of Christ. 20 The fullness with 
 which all facts connected with the^ personal history of Herod 
 Antipas are told is accounted for when we remember that 
 one of the chief teachers at Antioch was Manaen, the foster 
 
 "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet yon." Thus wrote St. 
 Paul from his prison at Rome to the Colossians. " Demas hath forsaken me 
 haying loved this present world. . . . Only Luke is with me." Thus he wrote 
 some years after when ho was now ready to be offered np, and the time of hii 
 departure was at hand, to his son Timotheus. Dean Alford. 
 
 'Actsxlii,!. "Act* Mi, 16.
 
 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 45 
 
 brother of the tetrarch ; that the wife of Herod's steward had 
 been one of the faithful women who followed our Lord 
 through his ministrations. The clew thus obtained leads us, 
 I believe, yet farther. 1. One of the most distinctive features 
 of the Gospel of St. Luke is the full collection of parables 
 and narratives, belonging all of them to one and 
 
 Parables of 
 
 the same journey, the last journey through Persea Luke- 
 toward Jerusalem. In Persea was one of the strongholds of 
 Antipas. If there were those in his court who were avow- 
 edly or in heart disciples of the Nazarene, this would be the 
 teaching with which they would come most in contact, and 
 be most anxious to preserve. 2. Hardly less characteristic is 
 the special fullness and the marked Hebrew stamp of his nar- 
 rative of the nativity. Was he incorporating a Hebrew 
 record with his own ? and if so, where did that 
 
 Account of 
 
 come from? on whose testimony did it rest? thenativit y- 
 why was it preserved ? Friendship with Herod's foster- 
 brother and the wife of Herod's steward would lead to some 
 knowledge of the other members of the devout circle of 
 women whom St. Luke names so conspicuously, 21 of the 
 mother of James and John, of Mary of Magdala, of those 
 sisters of Bethany whom he is the first to mention. 22 But in 
 that group there had once been one around whom they must 
 have gathered with the love of daughters, and all but the 
 reverential awe of worshipers. They had known the mother 
 of the Lord. Some of them must have lived for years in 
 closest contact with her. They would treasure up every 
 record of that marvelous history which she had kept and 
 Luke Till, 2, a Luke x, 88-42.
 
 46 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 pondered in her heart. From them and through them, with 
 no doubtful or deteriorating transmission, from her may 
 have come that which we may call the true Gospel of tho 
 infancy." " 
 
 John outlived all the apostles, and is recorded to have ac- 
 knowledged publicly the authority of the first three 
 
 John. 
 
 Gospels, and to have added his own to complete 
 them. In the same way, though less directly, he is supposed 
 to have attested the book of Acts. 24 "As there were rea 
 sons," Plumptre remarks in his lectures, from which we have 
 already quoted, "personal, it may be, which prevented the 
 record of the raising of Lazarus from being made known till 
 Early Gospels ^ e himself had died or had left Jerusalem, so, as 
 
 reserved on 
 
 some points. long as the apostle remained there, in filial con- 
 secration of his life to the care of his Lord's mother, the 
 records that were current in the Churches of Palestine were 
 probably in harmony with that reserve, and are represented 
 by what reflects directly and indirectly the teaching of the 
 apostles of the circumcision, modified in the case of Luke by 
 his association with St. Paul and with the prophets of An- 
 tioch, and in that of St. Mark by his fellowship with both 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, the substance, that is, of the first three 
 Gospels. But when the changes of his life carried the fisher- 
 man of Bethsaida to the Asiatic Churches he found the way 
 Paul had prepared for him by the labors of the apostle of 
 
 opened the 
 
 Gospel?' l the Gentiles. The Gospel, communicated at Je- 
 rusalem privately, and to a few, had been preached in ita 
 
 * Christ and Christendom, pp. 64, 6& 
 Wordsworth on the Canon, pp. 154, 1X
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 47 
 
 fullness to those to whom that apostle had not shrunk (mani- 
 festly contrasting himself with other teachers who did shrink) 
 from ' proclaiming the whole counsel of God ;' to whom he 
 had spoken of the blood shed upon the cross as the blood of 
 God ; " who had heard, in the utterance of prophets, that 
 God. or Christ as the Son of God, had been manifest in the 
 flesh ; 28 that in him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily." 
 Side by side with this preparation for the truth there were 
 strange caricatures and denials of it. Some denied that the 
 Christ had come in the flesh, 28 others that Jesus 
 
 False views of 
 
 was the Christ, 29 or that he was indeed the Son Cbrist - 
 of God, 80 or that they had any fellowship with him, and 
 through him with the Father. For them the Christ was a 
 Jewish teacher only, or all true personality was lost in dreams 
 and words. Here, then, was that which called for something 
 more than the Church already had for the witness, which 
 none could bear so well as the disciple whom Jesus loved, to 
 the reality of his Lord's human nature, his affection, his 
 weariness, his tears to what had been his own 
 teaching as to himself and his relation to his Fa- the true idea " 
 ther, when that teaching reached its highest point and re- 
 vealed the full glory of the truth. It might seem at first 
 that the tie of a divine adoption, which brought together St. 
 John and the mother of the Lord, would have led him to 
 give with a rich and overflowing fullness a record Wh y he says 
 
 . nothing of the 
 
 of the facts of the nativity, instead of leaving it nativity. 
 in a profound silence ; yet the very omission is, I believe, 
 
 Acts xx, 2S. a 1 Tim. iii, 16. Col. 1, 19. 
 
 1 John iv, 3. 1 John ii, 22. 1 John iv, Ifi.
 
 48 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 significant and instructive. The record of all that Christiana 
 needed as to that history was current already in the Church. 
 In the very depths of his sympathy and reverence for the 
 virgin mother his spirit would grow like hers, who ' kept all 
 these things, and pondered them in her heart.' A Church in 
 which that history occupies in men's minds a position out of 
 proportion to that which is assigned to it in the Gospel 
 record, is on its way to Mariolatry. With an anticipation, 
 conscious or unconscious, of the dangers of a time to come, 
 John gives St. John, leaving others to give the " pure milk " 
 
 the strong 
 
 Go S a peL f ' which was needed for the life of spiritual child- 
 hood, himself supplies the " strong meat," the solid food of 
 thought, meeting the wants of those who are of full age the 
 cravings of man's heart and reason. If he names the mother 
 of the Lord, whom he had known so well, it is to radicate in 
 what entire independence of her control and guidance he had 
 manifested his kingdom, 81 not as exalted to a throne left 
 vacant in the heavens, a title wonderful and majestic, but aa 
 a mother, lonely and bereaved, needing the protection which 
 it had been his duty and joy to give." 
 
 Dr. Barnes, in his course of lectures upon the " Evidences 
 of Christianity," remarking upon the humble origin, as com- 
 pared with the influence of their writings, of the inspired 
 authors, refers to the Apostle John as an illustration, and 
 goes on to say : " He was a fisherman on the Lake of Tiberias 
 when Jesus first saw him and called him to the work of an 
 apostle. We have his Gospel, and we have his book of 
 'Revelation,' and, bearing in remembrance that he was a 
 " John u, 4.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 49 
 
 fisli&rman, we are to ask, What would fishermen taken from 
 the banks of the Delaware, from Marblehead and Literature of 
 
 St. John the 
 
 Gloucester, or from the Banks of Newfoundland, fisherman. 
 be likely to produce if called to compose a book on the 
 subject of John's Gospel or the Book of Revelation ?" Dr. 
 Barnes proceeds to quote from a discourse of Dr. Dwight, in 
 which the same thought is eloquently developed : " The 
 apostle John was born hi an age when the philosophy of his 
 country was a mere mass of quibbling, its religion a com- 
 pound of pride and bigotry, and its worship a ceremonious 
 parade. His lineage, his circumstances, and his employment 
 were those of a fisherman. On what natural principle can it 
 be accounted for that, like the sun breaking out of an 
 evening cloud, this plain man, in these circumstances, should 
 at an advanced age burst upon mankind with a flood of 
 effulgence and glory ? Whence did it arise that in purity of 
 precept, discernment of truth, and an acquaintance with the 
 moral character of man and the attributes of his Maker, this 
 peasant leaves Socrates, Plato, and Cicero out of sight and 
 out of remembrance ? Do you question the truth of this 
 representation ? The proof is at hand and complete. There 
 is not a child of fifteen who, if possessed of the common 
 education of this land, would not disdain to worship tlieir 
 gods or to embrace their religion. But Bacon and Boyle, 
 Butler and Berkeley, Newton and Locke, Addison and John- 
 son, Jones and Horsley, have submissively embraced the 
 religion of St. John, and worshiped the God whose character 
 he has unfolded. Their systems have long since gone to the 
 
 grave of oblivion. His has been animated with increasing 
 
 4
 
 50 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 vigor to the present hour, and will live and flourish through 
 endless ages. Their writings have not made one man vir- 
 tuous. Hi have peopled heaven with the children of light. 
 The seventeenth chapter of his Gospel, written as it is with 
 the simplicity of a child, hi grandeur of conception and 
 in splendor of moral excellence triumphs with inexpressible 
 glory over all the efforts of human genius, and looks down 
 from heaven on the proudest labors of infidelity." n 
 
 There are thirteen of the epistles of Paul which bear his 
 Paul and Ms name - His companions, Christian ministers, were 
 his amanuenses, or witnessed his writing these 
 letters. 38 His epistles were sent to the Churches by private 
 messengers. 34 Nine of them were addressed to public bodies, 
 and he commanded them to be openly read. 
 
 Peter, in his epistle, bears witness to the fact that they 
 
 were accounted as inspired Scriptures, 85 and read 
 
 to 8 thdHK with those of the Old Testament. Indeed, when 
 
 spired au- 
 thority. Peter wrote his epistles, all the epistles of Paul 
 
 had been written, and are, therefore, referred to under this 
 title of Scriptures, a term only applied by the Jews to in- 
 spired writings. "The conclusion, therefore, is, that these 
 epistles are Paul's, (whose name they bear,) and that they 
 have what Paul claimed for them, and what the early Church 
 ascribed to them, inspired, and therefore canonical, authority. 
 They are not the words which man teaches ; they are the 
 words of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Quoted In Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century, p. 259. 
 
 "1 Thess. i, 1; 2 Tbess. 1,1; Eom. xvi, 22. 
 
 Romans xvi, 1. "2 Peter Hi, 15, 1 &
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 51 
 
 The apostle who survived the others, the beloved John, died 
 at the close of the first century. Within the period of a hu- 
 man life after his death Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, in Asia 
 Minor, about A. D. 120, and Irenaeus, born about A. D. 140, 
 and who died at the beginning of the next cen- 
 
 Paplas and 
 
 tury, professing to record the testimony of the lrenffius - 
 generation before them, refer to the Gospels as we have them, 
 as " the words or oracles of the Lord." S6 Irenseus was bishop 
 of the first Christian Church at Lyons in Gaul, now France. 
 He wrote a great work against the errorists of the day, and 
 quoted from the Gospels, as admitted by all to be filial 
 authority. He quotes about four hundred passages from 
 them. He also quoted from all the epistles, except Philemon 
 and Hebrews, of which Dr. Lardner, in his work upon the 
 "Credibility of the Scriptures," gives eighteen examples. 
 Irenseus, 37 in his youth, sat at the feet of the aged Polycarp, 
 
 86 Christ and Christendom, by E. H. Plumptre, p. 41. 
 
 37 Westcott remarks in his " History of the Canon of the New Testament," 
 " It is almost impossible for any one whose ideas of communication are suggested 
 by the railway and the printing-press to understand how far mere material 
 hinderances must have prevented a speedy and unanimous settlement of the 
 canon. The means of intercourse were slow and precarious. The multiplica- 
 tion of manuscripts in remote provinces was tedious and costly. The common 
 meeting-point of Christians was destroyed by the fall of Jerusalem, and from 
 that time national Churches grew up around their separate centers, enjoying in 
 a great measure the freedom of individual development, and exhibiting, often 
 In exaggerated forms, peculiar tendencies of doctrine or ritual. As a natural 
 consequence, the circulation of different parts of the New Testament for awhile 
 .depended more or less on their supposed connection with specific forms of 
 Christianity." After illustrating this statement, he goes on to say, " From the 
 close of the second century the history of the canon is simple, and its proof is 
 clear. It is allowed even by those who have reduced the genuine apostolic 
 works to the narrowest limits, that from the time of Irenams the New Testa- 
 ment was composed essentially of the same books which we re<v !vo at present
 
 62 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 a disciple of the apostle John. In a letter he thus most 
 irentem a affectingly alludes to his acquaintance with this 
 
 disciple of 
 
 Poiycarp. pupil of the apostles : " I can recall the very 
 place where Poiycarp used to sit and teach, his manner of 
 speech, his mode of life, his appearance, the style of his 
 address to the people, his frequent reference to St. John and 
 to others who had seen our Lord ; how he used to repeat 
 from memory their discourses which he had heard from them 
 concerning our Lord, his miracles and mode of teaching, and 
 how, being instructed himself by those who were eye-wit- 
 nesses of the Word, there was in all that he said a strict 
 agreement with the Scriptures." S8 What more interesting 
 or satisfactory confirmation could we have than the testimony 
 of this eminent Christian minister, but one generation re- 
 moved from the apostles, of the estimation, as a divine 
 record, in which our Scriptures of the New Testament were 
 held? 
 
 The learned and eloquent Tertullian, who lived at Carthage 
 at the close of the second century, makes constant 
 
 Tertullian. 
 
 quotations from the Gospels. He says : " We 
 lay this down for a certain truth, that the evangelic Scrip- 
 tures have for their authors the apostles, to whom the work 
 of publishing the Gospel was committed by the Lord him- 
 
 and that they were regarded with the same reverence as Is now shown to them." 
 This able scholar then shows, by an exhaustive examination of such writings of 
 the apostolical fathers as still exist, that from the age of the apostles themselves 
 to this period of absolute certainty we have the most assuring testimony, aris- 
 ing out of constant quotations, that the present books of the New Testament 
 came from the hands of the apostles of Christ 
 e when were our Gospels written f" Constantino Tischendorf, p. 77.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 53 
 
 Belt Among the apostles John and Matthew teach us faith, 
 among the apostolical men Luke and Mark re- His testimony 
 
 as to Gospels 
 
 fi-esl it." 8 He speaks with equal respect and and Epistles. 
 positiveness of the epistles : " If you be willing to exercise 
 your curiosity profitably in the business of your salvation 
 visit the apostolical Churches, in which the very chairs of 
 the apostles still preside ; in which their very authentic 
 letters are recited, sounding forth the voice, and representing 
 the countenance, of each one of them. Is Achaia near 
 you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Mace- 
 donia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you 
 can go to Asia you have Ephesus ; but if you are near 
 to Italy you have Rome, from whence we may also be easily 
 satisfied." 40 
 
 Justin Martyr, who was born not long after the death of 
 the apostles, A. D. 130, and was acquainted with 
 
 Justin Martyr. 
 
 their immediate disciples, speaks often in his 
 writings of the Gospels as of unquestioned authority, under 
 the title of Memoirs of Christ, and says that the " apostles 
 composed them." He also refers to the Acts, to nearly all 
 the epistles, and to the Revelation. He also declares that it 
 was a general practice to read the Gospels " at Speaks of use 
 
 of Scriptures 
 
 public worship in Christian assemblies every [embiSes? "" 
 Lord's day," and to discourse upon them. "We come to- 
 gether," he says, " to recollect the divine Scriptures. "We 
 nourish our faith, raise our hope, confirm our trust by the 
 sacred word." 41 
 
 ** Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures, by Professor M'Lelland, p. S6L 
 40 Ibid. > Canon and Interpretation, p. 58.
 
 54 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Some time between the first and second century the old 
 
 Syriac version of the Bible, heretofore referred to, which has 
 
 come down to us in a sound condition, was 
 
 The Syriac 
 
 made." The most ancient copies of it lacked 
 
 Second Peter, Second and Third John, and probably James ; 
 
 but with these exceptions it contains all the sacred writings 
 
 found in the canonical Scriptures, and no other books. The 
 
 old Italic versions were made in the same period. 
 
 The Italic. 
 
 These contain all the books of our collection. 
 "When we come down to the third century we meet the 
 testimony of that unequaled scholar and most faithful stu- 
 
 44 Of this version Westcott remarks it " is assigned almost universally to the 
 most remote Christian antiquity. ... If a conjecture may be allowed, I think 
 that the various facts of the case are adequately explained by supposing that 
 versions of separate books of the New Testament were first made and used in 
 Palestine, perhaps within the apostolic age, and that shortly afterward these 
 were collected, revised, and completed at Edessa. Many circumstances com- 
 bine to give support to this belief. The early condition of the Syrian Church, 
 its wide extent, and active vigor, lead us to expect that a version of the Holy 
 Scriptures into the common dialect could not have been long deferred; and the 
 existence of an Aramaic Gospel (Matthew) was in itself likely to suggest the 
 work. Differences of style, no less than the very nature of the case, point to 
 separate translations of different books, and at the same time a certain general 
 uniformity of character bespeaks some subsequent revision. I have ventured 
 to specify the place at which I believe that this revision was made. Whatever 
 may be thought of the alleged intercourse of Abgarus, king of Edessa, with our 
 Lord, Edessa itself is signalized in early Church history by many remarkable 
 facts. It was called the 'holy' and the 'blessed' city; its inhabitants were 
 said to have been brought over by Thaddens in a marvelous manner to the 
 Christian faith, 'and from that time forth' Eusebius adds, 'the whole people of 
 Edessa has continued to be devoted to the name of Christ, exhibiting no ordi- 
 nary instance of tha goodness of our Saviour.' In the second century it became 
 the center of an important Christian school, and long afterward retained its 
 pre-eminence among the cities of its province." A General Survey of tha 
 Uidory of the Canon of the New Testament. By BROOKS Foas WMTCOTT, 
 B. D., p. 206.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 55 
 
 dent of the Scriptures for a lifetime, Origen, A. D. 230. 
 He says of the Gospels, as we now accept them, orken on tha 
 
 New Testa- 
 
 " They are received without dispute by the ment - 
 whole Church of God under heaven." In another place he 
 aays, " Matthew sounds first with his priestly trumpet in his 
 Gospel ; Mark also, and Luke and John, sounded with their 
 priestly trumpets. Peter likewise sounds aloud with the two 
 trumpets of his epistles, James also, and Jude ; and John 
 sounds again with his trumpet in his epistles and the Reve- 
 lation, and Luke also, once more relating the actions of the 
 apostles. Last of all (in his list of books) comes Paul, 
 and, sounding with the trumpet of his fourteen epistles, 
 he threw down to the foundations the walls of Jericho, 
 and all the engines of idolatry, and the schemes of the 
 philosophers." 4S 
 
 About the year A. D. 300 a learned, wealthy, and Chris- 
 tian minister and book collector named Pam- 
 
 Pamphilus. 
 
 philus gathered every scrap of Christian litera- 
 ture upon which he could lay his hands, and upon his death 
 he gave this invaluable library to the Church at Csesarea in 
 Palestine, where he lived, to be used by Eusebius, his pastor, 
 during his life. He was inflamed with so great a love for 
 sacred literature that he copied with his own hand the chief 
 part of the works of Origen. His library is frequently men- 
 tioned by ancient writers. Jerome found the works of Origen 
 in this library. Out of this large and rare rna- 
 
 Eusebiui. 
 
 terial Eusebius wrote his history of the Church 
 during the preceding centuries, and authenticates the in- 
 * Canon and Interpretation, p. 55.
 
 56 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 spired books which had been in use from the beginning: 
 He includes all found in our present canon, and no others. 
 
 Constantino the Great, the Roman emperor, who was the 
 Coiwtantin contemporary of the Bishop of Caesarea, and 
 was an eager and delighted reader of the New 
 Testament, was accustomed to read every day a portion of 
 Scripture to his household, and to offer prayer. He wrote to 
 Eusebius to supervise the preparation for him of fifty copies 
 Fifty Greek ^ ^ e en ^ re Greek Scriptures, and ordered two 
 
 copies of the . . , 
 
 Scriptures , government wagons, under the special charge of 
 sebiua. a (j eacon o f the Church at Csesarea, to transport 
 
 them when completed to Constantinople. These manu- 
 scripts, which Eusebius caused to be executed promptly and 
 with great pleasure, the emperor gave to the principal 
 Churches to be read in the public worship. They were also 
 transcribed for the use of other Churches. To this source, 
 probably, we owe all our best manuscripts of the Greek Tes- 
 tament, the Alexandrian, the Vatican, the Ephraim, and the 
 Sinaitic, discovered by Tischendorf. 44 
 
 Jerome in the same century, (A. D. 822,) with all the 
 
 authorities of previous generations under his eye, prepared 
 
 his well-known Vulgate edition of the Bible, 
 
 Jerome. 
 
 which remains to this day as it came from his 
 linnd, save the introduction of the apocryphal books by the 
 Council of Trent. 
 
 Pome books During the early centuries a few of the books 
 tamer!* held of the New Testament, such as the Epistles of 
 
 a while in sus- 
 pense. James, Second Peter, and Second and Third John, 
 
 Origin and History of the Books of the Bible. By C. E. STOW*, D. D , p. 5&.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 57 
 
 and the Revelation, were for a time held in doubt ; but after 
 careful examination were received into the canon. The very- 
 hesitation shown both confirms the genuineness of Hesitation an 
 these books (for they were only received after canonicity. 
 careful examination) and increases our confidence in the di- 
 vine authority of the others. None were received without 
 unqualified apostolical origin. Certain works attributed to 
 the early fathers were sometimes found connected 
 
 New Testa- 
 
 with the inspired manuscripts, as the so-called ment - 
 " Epistle of Barnabas " and a part of the " Pastor of Hennas " 
 were found united with the Sinaitic manuscript of the Scrip- 
 tures which Tischendorf found in the convent of Mount 
 Sinai. These writings have never been received by any 
 number of persons as inspired, and are of value only on ac- 
 count of their early Christian origin. In the latter case they 
 show the age of the manuscript with which they 
 
 J Use of these 
 
 were bound, proving it to be one of the oldest wrltln Ks. 
 copies of the Septuagint, as having been made as early at 
 least as the first half of the fourth century ; and by the con- 
 trast of their contents they show the unapproachable author- 
 ity, simplicity, and truth of the divine oracles as gathered 
 into the present canon. The editor of the " Journal of 
 Sacred Literature," B. H. Cooper, has just prepared an edi- 
 tion of the apocryphal Gospels. He says in his introduc- 
 tion, "Before I undertook this work I never realized so 
 completely the impassable character of the gulf which sep- 
 arates the genuine Gospels from these." They originated 
 long after the true Gospels were written, in the second or 
 third century. They consist of idle and unfounded tradi-
 
 58 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 tions relating to the infancy, youth, and early manhood of 
 our Lord, about which the word of God is silent. They are 
 below contempt. Sacred scholars, from Irenaeus down, have 
 denounced them. 4 * 
 
 The first manuscript version of the whole Bible in the 
 English language was made by John Wiclif A. D. 1380. 
 First Knciish Its circulation was limited by the great labor 
 
 manuscript of 
 
 the Bible. an d expense of transcribing it, as the art of 
 printing had not yet begun to realize the Pentecostal miracle 
 of tongues, but it was an engine of wonderful power. It was 
 the first morning light ushering in the full day of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 The first printed copy of any portion of the Scriptures in 
 edItion P o"the ^ ie English tongue was published by William 
 (dish! m Tyndale about the beginning of the sixteenth 
 
 century. Unable, through persecution, to accomplish this 
 work at home he went to Germany, and there made his 
 version, not fi-om the Lathi Vulgate, as his pred- 
 ecessors had done, but from the original Greek 
 and Hebrew. He issued first the New Testament and after- 
 ward the Pentateuch. About the commencement of the 
 
 46 " It Is of the utmost Importance," says "Westcott, "to remember that the 
 canon waa never referred in the first ages to the authority of fathers or councils. 
 The appeal was made not to the judgment of men, but to that of Churches, and 
 of those particularly which were most nearly interested in the genuineness of 
 separate writings. And thus it is found that while all the canonical books are 
 supported by the concurrent testimony of all, or at least of many, Churches, no 
 more than isolated opinions of private men can be brought forward in support 
 of the authority of any other writings, for the New Testament Apocrypha can 
 hold a place by the side of the apostolic books only so long as our view is lim- 
 ited to a narrow range A comprehensive survey of their general relations shows 
 the real interval by which they are separated." Canon of N. 7*., p. 448.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 59 
 
 year 1535 he was beguiled from the city of Antwerp, where 
 he had found protection, by an English emissary of the 
 Roman Church, and was seized and imprisoned in the castle 
 of Vilvorde, near the city of Brussels. After a wearisome 
 imprisonment, and vain efforts to secure the interposition 
 of the English court, on the 6th of October, 
 
 Burning of 
 
 153G, he was led forth to be burned. His last ^^^ 
 words, " uttered with fervent zeal and in a loud voice, were 
 these : ' Lord, open the Icing of England's eyesT " 
 
 For ten years he had been an exile from his home, suffer- 
 ing in a foreign land, from poverty and persecution, distresses 
 that only the Christian faith can enable a man to endure, and 
 finally gave his body to be burned, that he might bestow 
 upon all speaking his native tongue the pure written word 
 of God. Such a result, however, was worth all it cost : he 
 " received his reward." " His occupation in this earth," 
 says Froude, "was gone. His eyes saw the salvation for 
 which he had longed, and he might depart to his place." * 
 
 Soon after Tyndale was thrown into prison an edition of 
 the entire Bible, containing the portions previously published 
 by him, and probably completed from his manuscripts, was 
 commenced by his friend and fellow-exile, John John Rogers 
 Rogers, and was published in 1537 under the ' of the 
 
 assumed name of Thomas Mathew, and was hence called 
 MatJiew^s Bible. But the editor of it claimed for his friend 
 its authorship by inserting his initials in ornamental letters 
 (W. T.) at the close of the Old Testament. Of the New 
 Testament there could be no doubt as to its origin, as it had 
 History of England, vol. lit, p. 87.
 
 60 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 long since been published. 47 The editor discloses himself by 
 appending liis initials (J. R.) at the close of a preliminary 
 exhortation to the study of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 So great a change had been produced in influential quar- 
 ters in England during these memorable years that Lord 
 Cromwell, who was prime minister of England, and also 
 " vicegerent " of King Henry VHI. in all ecclesiastical mat- 
 ters, together with Archbishop Cranmer, persuaded the king, 
 before the first edition of Tyndale's Bible was exhausted, to 
 obtain from Francis I., of France, permission to 
 
 Coverdale's 
 
 print an edition of the English Bible in Paris, aa 
 the work could be better done there than in England. 
 About the time of Tyndale's imprisonment, according to 
 Froude, but two years later, according to previous authori- 
 ties, Miles Coverdale, a member of the same Cambridge 
 circle which had given birth to Cranmer, to Latimer, to 
 Barnes, and to the Scotch Wishart, silently went abroad with 
 a license from Cromwell, and, with Tyndale's help, collected 
 and edited the various books of Scripture. 48 As the Inquisi- 
 tion stopped their work in Paris, Cromwell ordered his 
 agents to bring the types and presses, and even the French 
 printers, to England. In 1536, according to Froude, it was 
 published in London, was dedicated to Henry Yin., and the 
 clergy were ordered not only to permit, but to exhort and 
 encourage all men to resort to it and read. " In this act," 
 says the eloquent historian whose dates we have followed, 
 " was laid lie foundation-stone on which the whole later 
 
 T Popular History of the English Bible, by Mrs. H. C. Conant. 
 Fronde's History of England, voL ill.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 61 
 
 history of England, civil as well as ecclesiastical, has been 
 reared." Of the effect of its publication upon the people, 
 Strype, in his "Life of Oanmer," says, it was a jubilee among 
 the poor of England when, for the first time in the national 
 history, they could listen from Sabbath to Sab- Effect of the 
 
 publication of 
 
 bath to "the sweet and glad tidings of the tueiiibie. 
 Gospel " without the fear of prisons, the scourge, and the 
 stake. " It was wonderful," he says, " to see with what joy 
 this book of God was received, not only among the learneder 
 sort, and those that were noted for lovers of the Reforma- 
 tion, but generally all England over, among all the vulgar 
 and common people, and with what greediness God's word 
 was read, and what resort to places where the reading 
 of it was. Everybody that could bought the book and 
 busily read it, or got others to read it to them if they could 
 not themselves, and divers more elderly people learned to 
 read on purpose. And even little boys flocked among the 
 rest to hear portions of the Holy Scriptures read." What a 
 blessed preparation was this for the bloody persecutions that 
 afterward tried their faith in God's written word I 
 
 Of this version of the Bible Froude says : " Though since 
 that time it has been many times revised and altered, we 
 may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are 
 all familiar. The peculiar genius if such a word may I/' 
 permitted which breathes through it, the mingled tender- 
 ness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the pre- Froude n on 
 tornatural grandeur, unequaled, unapproached in 
 the attempted improvements of modern scholars; all are 
 here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, William
 
 62 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Tyndale. Lying while engaged in that great office under the 
 shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any 
 moment to fall, he worked under circumstances alone, per- 
 haps, truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him ; his 
 spirit, as it were, divorced from the world, moved in a purer 
 element than common air." 48 
 
 By the commencement of the next century numerous edi- 
 tions of the Bible had been made. Even the Romanists, 
 finding that they could not put a stop to the circulation of 
 the Scriptures in the language of the people, felt 
 
 The. Douay 
 
 it necessary to have a version of their own. In 
 1582 they issued the New Testament at Rheims, and in 
 1610 the Old Testament at Douay. This forms the famous 
 Douay edition of the Bible, a fine version in some respects, 
 but with its daring changes to meet the requisitions of a 
 fallen Church. 
 
 Martin Luther, the great German Reformer, who was born 
 in 1483 and died in 1546, has been called the 
 
 Martin Lather. 
 
 father of modern biblical interpretation, for he 
 
 taught by precept and example that the Bible in the original 
 tongues is final authority in all religious questions, and thai 
 private judgment, and not the decision of councils, is to bt 
 allowed to determine its sense. He insisted with charac- 
 Fatherofbib- teristic earnestness upon a grammatical and 
 
 Heal interpre- 
 tation, philological mode of interpretation of the lan- 
 guage of Scripture, rather than bending the word of Gcd to 
 the preconceived opinions and theories of any religious 
 schools. All the success that has since been secured in the 
 Froude, vol. ill, p. 87.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 63 
 
 investigation of the exact meaning of the sacred records hag 
 arisen from following the example which he set in this 
 regard. The noblest work of this noble man was the trans- 
 lation of the Scriptures into the German language. 50 The 
 study of the Bible was a life-long passion with him. " Were 
 I but a great poet," he was accustomed, to say, " I would 
 write a magnificent poem on the utility and efficacy of the 
 divine word." " His judgment on the different books of the 
 Bible," "Westcott remarks, " as given in detail in his prefaces, 
 are so full of life, and so characteristic of the man, that they 
 can never lose their interest ; and, as a whole, they form an 
 important chapter in the history of the Bible." 61 
 
 The present version of the English Bible was commenced 
 in 1607 and completed in 1611, although many 
 
 Authorized 
 
 small changes and improvements have been version - 
 made in the text in subsequent editions. It was undertaken 
 in the reign of James I. upon the recommendation of Dr. 
 Reynolds, an influential clergyman and bishop of Executed bj 
 
 forty-seven 
 
 Norwich, of Puritan sympathies. By the king's learned men. 
 command forty-seven learned men entered upon the execution 
 of the work. They were divided into six companies, two of 
 which sat at Westminster, two at Oxford, and two at Cam- 
 bridge. All previous editions, with all available manuscripts 
 of original versions, were before them. They followed as 
 closely as the authorities they consulted would admit, by 
 command, the edition then in use, and called the " Bishop's 
 Bible," because Archbishop Parker had supervised its prepa- 
 ration. 
 Kitto's Biblical Cyclopedia. The Canon of the New Testament, p. 429.
 
 Character of 
 our version. 
 
 64 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Of the result of their labors the editor of the " Annotated 
 Paragraph Bible " remarks : " It would be too much to affirm 
 that it is not susceptible of improvement; but 
 its general excellence is attested by the fact, that 
 with all the diversities of opinion on religious subjects, and 
 the controversies which have been carried on between differ- 
 ent denominations of Christians in our country, all have 
 agreed in appealing to the same version, and none have, in 
 any matters of consequence, objected to it." 
 
 The revival of letters upon the introduction of the art of 
 Effect of the printing, especially the quickening influences of 
 
 discovery of 
 
 printing. the Reformation and the influential example of 
 
 Luther; the appeal from a professedly infallible Church to 
 the inspired records of truth; the differences of doctrinal 
 opinions in the Reformed Churches, all seeking their justifi- 
 cation in the letter of Scripture ; the searching examination 
 given to the mythical fables, forming the beginning of all 
 profane history ; the extraordinary advances made in all the 
 physical sciences, some of them apparently showing dis- 
 crepancies and contradictions in the statements of the Bible ; 
 altogether turned with great zeal the thoughts and studies 
 of scholars, both friendly and unfriendly, to the original 
 sources of the records of a divine revelation. Impelled by 
 the two strongest of human passions, hatred and love, the 
 Examination work has been going on until the present day. 
 
 of the original 
 
 sources. From ancient libraries, institutions of learning, 
 
 rabbinical schools, and convents, gathered with the moat 
 persistent and patient labor, every scrap of manuscript con- 
 taining the whole or portions of the various versions of the
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 65 
 
 Bible, which we have already described, has been examined 
 and collated; every site of the occurrence of scriptural 
 incidents has been visited; human history has been re- 
 viewed ; the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the sublime 
 revelations of the earth's strata have been made to yield 
 up their long-hidden secrets in these extended investiga- 
 tions. When this sifting and exhausting ex- The effect of 
 
 this inveti- 
 
 amination of the received Scriptures com- atfir S n t. feaied 
 inenced many good men looked upon it with anxiety, fearing 
 that the popular confidence in the genuineness and purity 
 of the text might be destroyed. Their fears were unfounded. 
 The Bible, like pure gold, only shone the brighter after the 
 fiery trial. "A wonderful divine ordination," 
 
 Those fears 
 
 says Olshausen, "has preserved it to us without unfounded - 
 any essential injury through a succession of dark ages. It ex- 
 erts at the present day upon all minds receptive of its spirit 
 the same blessed, sanctifying influence which the apostles 
 claimed for it eighteen centuries ago. How, then, can these 
 sacred books suffer from careful historical inquiry respecting 
 their origin ? Investigation must rather serve to confirm 
 and fully establish belief in their purity and genuineness." M 
 When the learned Professor Bengel, of Tubingen, announced 
 the fortv thousand various readings which had 
 
 Variations }f 
 
 been obtained from the different manuscript BenRel - 
 copies of the New Testament collated, it was feared at first 
 that an entirely new version would be required ; but it was 
 found upon examination that the sense of the authorized 
 edition was scarcely altered by them all ; no previously held 
 
 > Olshausen's Commentaries, voL i, p. 80. 
 5
 
 66 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 or contested doctrine was affected in the slightest measure, 
 
 and only one important passage, the well-known seventh 
 
 . . verse of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of 
 
 No doctrine 
 
 John, relating to the three witnesses, was found 
 to be sustained by so few original versions as to be marked 
 unreliable. But the doctrine of the triune personality of 
 God is not affected by the loss of this proof-text. Upon the 
 result of these careful collations of original authorities 
 Olshausen remarks : " Now that all the manuscripts have 
 
 been read and accurately collated, there is no 
 
 No further 
 
 further occasion for fear that somewhere or other 
 something new may be discovered which will thrust the old, 
 loved Bible aside." 6S Some of these " various readings," 
 considered of the most value, have been introduced into side 
 columns in our reference Bibles, and sometimes, although, 
 rarely, they shed considerable light upon the text. 
 
 Of the fifty thousand various readings which, at the 
 The nature of present time have been collected, the most of 
 
 these varia- 
 tions- them are simply differences in orthography, 
 
 punctuation, or a change in a particle, as and for also ; and 
 in the tenses, numbers, and cases of the words. Says Prof. 
 Norton, in his work upon the genuineness of the Gospels : 
 " It seems strange that the text of Shakspeare, which has 
 Prof. Norton been in existence less than two hundred and 
 
 uponthe" va- 
 
 SnjEs?" read " fifty years, should be far more uncertain and 
 corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen 
 centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only 
 in manuscript. The industry of collators and commentators 
 
 * 3 Olshauscn's Commentaries, vol. 1, p. 8ft,
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 67 
 
 indeed has collected a formidable array of ' various read- 
 ings ' in the Greek text of the Scriptures, but the number of 
 those which have any good claim to be received, and which 
 also seriously affect the sense, is so small that they may 
 almost be counted upon the fingers. With perhaps a dozen 
 or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New 
 Testament may be said to be so far settled by the general 
 consent of scholars that any dispute as to its meaning must 
 relate rather to the interpretation of the words than to any 
 doubts respecting the words themselves. But in every one 
 of Shakspeare's thirty-seven plays there are probably a 
 hundred readings still in dispute, a large proportion of which 
 materially affect the meaning of the passage in which they 
 occur." 
 
 We may, then, answer the question with confidence, that 
 we have in our English Bibles the revelation 
 
 Question an 
 
 of God's will as it was given to the holy men Bwered - 
 that received it.
 
 68 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. - 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INTERPRETATION: GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 fPHE term Tiermeneutics, from the Greek word used by 
 
 -- the apostle Paul, and translated the "interpretation of 
 
 tongues," 1 is the title used to designate the 
 
 Hermeneutics. 
 
 science or art of interpretation. 
 
 The grand office of biblical interpretation is to discover 
 Office of bib- the exact teaching of the Holy Spirit in the 
 
 lical interpre- 
 tation, words uttered by inspired men. It is not its 
 
 province to inquire how far any preconceived opinion finds 
 justification in the Scriptures of truth, but simply and always 
 " what the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify." * 
 There are many peculiarities in the construction and char- 
 Pecuiiarities acter f ^ e book wliich render its interpretation 
 deringitsln- difficult, and require the closest and most careful 
 
 terpretation 
 
 difficult. study. Its first publication in the idioms of 
 
 tongues foreign to our own its constant allusion to customs 
 unfamiliar to our days its singular varieties of style, histori- 
 cal, poetical, prophetical its sublime supernatural revelations 
 of truth and spiritual life all together make it a volume 
 which study can never exhaust, and which it can never enter 
 upon without the most enriching results.* 
 
 UCor. xii,10. 1 Peter 1,11. 
 
 3 Dr. Stowe remarks In his inaugural address upon the " Interpretation of the 
 Scriptures," when he entered upon his duties as a professor at Andoyer: "We
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 69 
 
 If one should ask why a book that contains truths so vital 
 io our present and eternal well-being has not w . 
 
 Why has Oo;l 
 
 been given to man in a style so clear and simple fo'be's'odiffi- 
 
 cult of corn- 
 that an ordinary mind could comprehend it upon prehension ? 
 
 the bare reading, and why it should be given to him as an 
 
 have scarcely anything in common with them (the Jewish people) except a 
 common humanity, and the same Deity ; a common depravity, and the need of 
 the same method of salvation ; and it is precisely because we have those most 
 important things in common with them that the Bible on these topics is so 
 plain and intelligible to the humble, believing, prayerful inquirer. We have 
 the same sun and moon and stars, and yet we can hardly be said to have the 
 same heavens over our heads or the same earth beneath our feet, so different 
 were their skies and fields and forests from ours. Instead of being like them 
 In habits of life and modes of thought, our inner and outer life is as wholly 
 unlike that of the ancient Hebrews as a modern cotton factory is unliko 
 Solomon's temple, and the difference is very much of the same kind. In 
 the application of science and art, for example, to the uses and conven- 
 iences of life they were infinitely behind us. In contrast with our nu- 
 merous facilities for journeying and transportation, the Hebrews knew 
 nothing of a road (1 Sam. xxvii, 10) as we understand the word road; 
 they had no idea of any such thing as a bridge, and there is but one 
 instance in the whole Hebrew history of so great a convenience as a ferry- 
 boat, and that was in the latter part of the reign of their greatest king, and is 
 alluded to as a luxury for the king's household, (2 Sam. xix, IS.) The distaff 
 for spinning and the loom worked by hand were all the machinery they had 
 for manufacturing cloth ; of sugar and coffee and tea they had never heard ; hair 
 combs and pocket knives, and even pockets, were quite nnknown to them ; 
 wheelbarrows and threshing machines, (their wheat was trodden out by oxen, 
 or beaten out by sticks,) steam-engines and carding machines and nail factories 
 they had never formed an idea of; paper and quills, steel pens and wafers, they 
 had never used ; and instead of our stereotype plates and power presses, striking 
 off a whole Bible in two minutes, they had no way of making books but by a 
 process which for facility and speed of writing was very much like engraving 
 on copperplate, or cutting letters on a tombstone. Their very language and 
 their mode of using language was in almost everything the reverse of ours. 
 Their primitive words are verbs instead of noun d ; they gave names to actions 
 before they gave names to things; their books begin where ours end, and when 
 we read their writings we always seem to ourselves to be reading backward. 
 They wrote consonants only, and had no use for vowels. What we
 
 70 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 unexplored mine, \vith its hidden -veins of gold and silver, 
 long eluding the sight of the seeker after truth ? the answer 
 need not be, reverently, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed 
 good in thy sight," alone ; but other reasons at once suggest 
 themselves to the thoughtful mind. The Bible was intended 
 intended to to be a study for man for all time. It reveals 
 
 be a study for 
 
 ail ages. God. Every new discovery of the meaning, and 
 
 force of revelation is a fresh revelation of some aspect of the 
 divine character. The necessity of constant study holds 
 every generation in close connection with the divine mind, 
 and becomes the medium through which God constantly 
 communes with our race. 
 
 A wonderful analogy we notice here between the revela- 
 tions of God in the natural world and in his Scriptures. 
 God has made all life a discipline. All our per- 
 
 Analogy with 
 
 human life. sona i wants can only be supplied by labor and 
 care and thought, and even faith, a process which, although 
 it is wearisome, is wholesome, for it is the great school in 
 which God develops and trains human minds. What is in- 
 
 what is vital dispensable to life lies near to us ; but its corn- 
 is near to us. 
 
 ceaie". 680011 " f 01 "* 3 and luxuries are to be sought for as hidden 
 treasures. Every year man is discovering by study some new 
 element in the divine economy which will add to his enjoy- 
 ment. How many years the world lived without a knowl- 
 
 directly by a simple noun, they often designate by a picture ; as for example, 
 the pupil of the eye, becai'e it always reflects a little image of the person 
 looking into it, they call it the little man, the eye's daughter. They loved to 
 give utterance to their thoughts in symbols and in types, in allegories and 
 parables and riddles, and all their literature abounds with expedients of thii 
 kind." iblivt7Mca Sacra, 1SS3, p. 48.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 71 
 
 edge of the hidden powers of electricity and steam, and how 
 long men have walked over mines of gold and silver, and 
 near mountains of coal and rivers of oil, and sailed over the 
 most precious pearls 1 And the world is not yet exhausted, 
 neither will it be until it is refined in its final fires. 4 Thus is 
 it with the Scriptures. Sufficient relating to the 
 
 This is true of 
 
 salvation of the soul to lead a penitent man to theScr 'i )tures - 
 forgiveness and to the door of heaven can be found in all 
 parts of Scripture, and he that runneth may read. If every 
 portion of the Bible should be lost but the fifteenth chapter 
 of St. Luke, and the third chapter of St. John, we should still 
 have the whole plan of salvation the love of God, the atone- 
 ment of Christ, the repenting sinner, and the changed heart ; 
 but beyond this there are still undiscovered continents of 
 truth, facilities for the sanctification of human life, treasures 
 of unutterable price hidden away in the stores of revelation, 
 not to mock the earnest seeker, but to reward his zeal and 
 add to his spiritual wealth. The prayer offered 
 
 1 * Praj;er of 
 
 a thousand years ago still lingers upon devout 
 
 4 Says the author of Ecce Dens, " God's first book, the book of nature, apparently 
 leaves much of life unprovided for ; yet as men acquire skill to turn over the 
 ponderous pages they find that every want has been anticipated. Adam would 
 hardly know the world of which he was the first occupant, yet the primal 
 foreos and characteristics of nature are just the same as when he kept the gar- 
 den of Eden. Modern civilization can hardly understand how men could sub- 
 sist In ancient times, yet the earth abideth forever without appendix or sup- 
 plement. What was wanting was the faculty of interpretation. Men saw tho 
 water, but could not interpret it into steam ; they saw the lightning, but mis- 
 took it for an enemy; they saw the sun, but could not fully interpret all he 
 signified by the eloquence of light. The human power of interpretation grows, 
 yet after it has grown it often forgets both the process and the fact The vol- 
 ume of nature is precisely to-day as God published it, but the latter readers ar 
 more sharp-sighted and inquisitive than the former." Page 24.
 
 72 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 lips: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous 
 things out of thy law." * 
 
 Dr. Schaff, remarking upon the New Testament and its lan- 
 guage, says that the latter is the Macedonian Greek as spoken 
 by the Jews of the dispersion in the time of Christ, and adds: 
 " The most beautiful language of heathendom and the ven- 
 erable language of the Jews are here combined, baptized with 
 Dr. Schaff on the spirit of Christianity, and made the picture 
 
 lanirujipe and 
 
 thSE. ' of silver for the golden apple of the eternal truth 
 of the Gospel. And, indeed, the style of the Bible in general 
 is singularly adapted to men of every class and grade of 
 culture, affording the child the simple nourishment for its 
 religious wants, and the profoundest thinker inexhaustible 
 matter of study. The Bible is not simply a popular book, 
 but a book of all nations, and for all societies, classes, and 
 conditions of men." * 
 
 Locke has well said : " Men have reason to be well satisfied 
 Locke upon with what God has done for them, since he has 
 
 this feature of 
 
 omy? e ec n given whatever is necessary for convenience of 
 life and information of virtue, and has put within their reach, 
 if they are willing to make search to which, however, he 
 will not compel them a comfortable provision for this life, 
 and the way that leads to a better. We shall not have much 
 need to complain of the narrowness of our minds if we will 
 employ them about what may be of use to us ; and it will be 
 an unpardonable as well as childish peevishness if we under- 
 value the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve 
 it because there are some things that are set out of its reach." 
 
 Psalm oxlx, 18. History of the Christian Church, vol 1, p. 98.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 73 
 
 " Has not the natural world," says Goulburn, 7 " wondrous 
 things, many and inexhaustible wonders on a large scale, 
 
 and wonders on a small ? First, it has beautiful Nature as ap- 
 parent to the 
 landscapes, which it asks no effort to admire, e^ 6 - 
 
 which, we have only to open our eyes and behold. And, 
 though landscapes vary in beauty, there are perhaps fewer 
 than we imagine in which a contemplative eye can discover 
 nothing of the beautiful. As it is with Scripture, so it is 
 with nature ; familiarity with it has a tendency to blunt our 
 perceptions of its beauty. It does not follow from hence 
 that the portions of nature which lie in our immediate 
 vicinity contain no wonders. Wonders there may be in 
 abundance, but they only reveal themselves to those who are 
 
 at the pains of investigating them. As the rich wonders hid- 
 den under 
 man lazily rolls along in his carriage, and indo- our feet. 
 
 lently complains of the tameness of the landscape, there may 
 be wondrous things in the geological strata beneath his feet : 
 fossil animals ; evidences of volcanic agency. There may be 
 gold dust in the streams ; nay, as at Cracow, it may happen 
 that in the earth's bowels there shall be lofty vaulted palaces 
 of rock salt, which appear by the light of flambeaux like so 
 many crystals, or precious stones of various colors, casting a 
 luster which the eye can scarcely bear. A slight amount of 
 research and exertion would reach and discover these things, 
 and would turn a residence in an otherwise tame country 
 in'o a perpetual feast of curiosity. Then there 
 
 V> onders of 
 
 are the wonders to which the telescope opens 
 
 our eyes. It reveals to us worlds lit up by a common lamp 
 
 7 Devotional Study of the Scriptures, page 47.
 
 74 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 with our own, several of them larger than our earth ; and 
 numbers of flaming balls scattered in brilliant profusion over 
 the midnight sky, which, perchance, serve as suns of other 
 systems. The astronomer will patiently watch for hours, ex- 
 posed to the night-dews and the cold, to ascertain the truth 
 in regard to some phenomenon of the heavens. There are the 
 wonders of no less marvelous wonders of the microscope. By 
 
 the micro- 
 scope, this is revealed to us a plurality of worlds in the 
 
 most contracted limits, as the telescope had revealed to us a 
 plurality in the vast reaches of space. All this admits of a 
 close application to the Scriptures. The only difference is that 
 These iiius- the wondrous things of God's law are greater 
 
 trillions ap- 
 
 tu*e. to Sc " P " an( i m ore marvelous by far than anything which 
 meets us in his works, for we are told that he has magnified 
 his word above all his name, that is, above everything con- 
 nected with him. Scripture has its more interesting and less 
 interesting districts as they appear upon tlie surface. It has 
 its sublime chapters upon the creation, its unequaled psalms, 
 and its soul-moving parables. It has, also, its less imposing 
 surfaces, its flats and levels, its apparent wastes. It has its 
 long genealogical chapters, with no biographical sketches to 
 enlighten them. It has its protracted ceremonial details, 
 and it has its tangled brushwood and wild jungles in the 
 perplexities which some of the prophetical writings seem to 
 present, and which perhaps are never designed to be wholly 
 cleared. It does not follow that these less interesting pas- 
 R'ch mines sages contain nothing beneath the surface worthy 
 
 beneath the 
 
 surface. o f research, and which will abundantly repay 
 
 investigation. The richest mines have been found beneath the
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 75 
 
 most sterile and desolate tracts of earth. Every part of 
 Scripture contains some lesson that subserves a useful pur- 
 pose in the system of divine grace. They may lie hidden very 
 deeply with the design of exciting curiosity and research. 
 4 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing ; but the honor of 
 kings is to search out a matter.' " 
 
 Who does not see at once that this great variety, and often 
 difficulty, and sometimes mystery, add to the Add to at. 
 
 tractiyeness 
 
 attractiveness of Scripture, and occasion the of scripture, 
 necessity for that study and thought, without which its 
 truths would avail us but little ? An ordinary author is soon 
 exhausted, and loses his power over us ; but the Bible never, 
 if thoughtfully read. 8 Without mental exertion a man may 
 
 'Abundant testimony of the power of the Scriptures to. reward with 
 the highest form of intellectual and spiritual enjoyment their careful and 
 protracted study might be given. At a late Bible anniversary Eev. Dr. 
 Pcabody, preacher and pastor at Harvard College, remarked : " I rejoice 
 that we have a record of revelation that demands study, and a life-long 
 study. It is one of the marks of the divine inspiration which fills this 
 book, that its study demands, and crowns, and exceeds a life-time. If 1 
 had my life to live over again, I would be willing to, devote the solid 
 portion of my days to the study of St. Paul's Epistles. I should feel that 
 in these alone there is work enough and joy enough for a life-long scholar- 
 ship." And he adds, " Let it not be forgotten, that as the sweetest pastures 
 are found among the rocks, so among those crags and cliffs in which is 
 the hiding of the divine wisdom, among the least intelligible portions of the 
 divine word, are found scattered those sweet and precious sentences on which 
 the devout feed, and which have been the greatest of boons to generation aftei 
 generation of the saints. One of the surest tokens to my mind of the divina 
 Inspiration of this book is the fact that strewn all over it are those passages of 
 concentrated, condensed power, in which the sacred writers put into half a 
 dozen words what would be weakly expressed in half a dozen pages or chapters." 
 
 "Where is the uninspired book," writes the late venerable Dr. William 
 Marsh, " of which one can say, ' I never tire of reading it ?' There is a book 
 which I think I must have read fifty times, and I have not done with it yet. 
 In a sense. I doubt whether I shall have done with it in time, for it is in eter
 
 76 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 admire Scripture, even as without bodily exertion lie may 
 Man must ex- ac ^ m "' e nature. If, however, he would profit by 
 
 ert liiin-iflf to , , , . . ... ,. 
 
 be iihie to use nature 3 resources, he must exert himself, djg- 
 
 tlie resources 
 
 of nature. gj ng t j ie we j] ) f c iii n g the timber, building the 
 house, sinking the mine ; so he must operate upon the crude 
 material of Scripture, and look into its secret recesses with 
 the energy and perseverance that he puts forth to meet his 
 illustration of bodily wants. In the Old Testament we read 
 
 truth hidden 
 
 in Scripture, what seems to be only a merciful provision 
 for a> patient burden-bearing beast : " Thou shalt not muz- 
 
 nity we shall know fully Its wondrous contents." The eminent Dr. Constan- 
 tino Tischendorf, still blessing the Church with his untiring labors, has 
 employed all his erudition, and all his time for more than twenty years, upon 
 the textual study of the New Testament. When he discovered, after extraor- 
 dinary endurance and perseverance, the ancient manuscript of the New Testa- 
 ment, some one thousand five hundred years old, in the convent of Mount 
 Sinai, he hurried to his chamber, that, as he said, "he might give way to the 
 transports of joy which he felt" " I knew that I held in my hand," he adds, 
 " the most precious biblical treasure in existence ; a document whose age and 
 importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined 
 during twenty yean? ktiidy of the subject. I cannot DOW, I confess, recall all 
 the emotions which I felt in that exciting moment with such a diamond in my 
 possession. Though my lamp was dim, and the night cold, I sat down at onco 
 to transcribe the ' Epistle of Barnabas,' " which was bound up with this edition 
 of the New Testament, and of invaluable service in the argument demonstra- 
 ting the genuineness and authenticity of our present New Testament canon. 
 Honors from crowned heads and ancient universities, and even from Pius IX. 
 himself, fell thickly upon him when his great work of publishing a fac-similo 
 of tho manuscripts was completed. But he mentions with undisguised prido 
 his greater satisfaction with the remark of an old man, " himself of the high- 
 est distinction for learning :" " I would rather have discovered this Sinaitio 
 manuscript than the koh-i-noor of the queen of England." How noble his 
 remark : " That which I think more highly of than all these flattering distinc- 
 tions is the conviction that Providence has given to our age, in which attacks 
 on Christianity are so common, the Sinaitic Bible, to be to us a full and clear 
 light as to what is the word written by God, and to assist us in defending the 
 truth by establishing its anthantia form."
 
 THE WORD OF GOD' OPENED. 77 
 
 zle the ox when he treadeth out the corn."' Thig 
 truth it certainly teaches, but within its folds we are 
 taught by an inspired apostle is wrapped up an eternal 
 principle of equity that "the laborer is worthy of his 
 icward." 10 
 
 The Bible constantly presents general principles, absolute 
 commandments, and living examples ; but it never applies 
 these principles to human actions as recorded upon its pages. 
 This is left to the enlightened conscience and 
 
 Man must ap- 
 
 thoughtful judgment of the reader. It is His P* "*?<* 
 will that we should meditate upon all Scripture, and make 
 ourselves their moral application. The Bible records the 
 pious obedience and simple and singular faith of Noah, but 
 makes no comment upon it; and it relates the T1 , . .. f 
 
 Illustration of 
 
 story of his shame when overcome by his appe- acter without 
 
 application of 
 
 tite, without a note of warning. Abraham is moral - 
 sometimes called the friend of God, and is styled in Scripture 
 the " father of them that believe." His marvelous simplicity 
 of character and unfaltering trust in God are fully described 
 in the sacred word, and, without note or comment or excuse, 
 the stories of his deceit are also written out. God's abhor- 
 rence of Jacob's falsehood is not stated in the sacred narra- 
 tive, neither his judgment as to a plurality of wives, it is left 
 to be gathered from the after-fortunes of the patriarch, the 
 retributions that fell upon him in his fears of Esau, and in 
 his overwhelming domestic troubles. It was only in his 
 later years that his life was gilded with gleams of comfort.- 11 
 David is said, without reservation, to be a " man after God'a 
 9 Deuteronomy xxv, 4. 10 1 Timothy v, 18. n Goulburn.
 
 78 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 own heart ;" " but what frightful sins the hand of inspiration, 
 without hesitation, records against him. God 
 
 David and bis 
 
 leaves the strange extremes of his life for us to 
 reconcile. Not one word of apology does he offer. David in 
 Scripture is not presented as a saint, not even when judged 
 by the defective standard of the times in which he lived. 
 As compared with Saul, who refused to carry out God's com- 
 mands, he was a chosen, faithful, and successful instrument ; 
 in this respect simply he was after God's heart. His sins 
 were shocking, and the temporal retribution that followed 
 fearful. His humility, his penitence, and his trust were as 
 marvelous as his human weaknesses. In recording the end 
 of Judas, where a human writer could hardly have 
 
 Judas. 
 
 failed to remark upon the added guilt of suicide 
 and the steps which led to it, the reader is left to draw his 
 own lessons as to the awful risk of sinning against high 
 privileges, and constantly violating the convictions of con- 
 science. 
 
 All these lessons require thought and study to elicit. 
 
 The distinction between simple attention to the literal 
 Distinction w r( l of inspiration and careful thought and 
 tendon 11 and study upon the truth which the Holy Spirit 
 
 thought illus- 
 
 seeks to teach us by it has been happily illustrated 
 by Dr. Goulburn. Attention to any book or discourse is that 
 which serves, and which is necessary to enable us to retain 
 the various points it sets forth in our memory. For example, 
 we read the beautiful narrative of the Syrophoenician moth- 
 er's appeal to our Lord in behalf of her daughter. Attention, 
 1 Sam. riii, 14.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 79 
 
 exercised while that story is read, will enable us to answer 
 the following questions : Where was our Lord when this 
 event happened ? (It is said he was in the coasts of Tyre 
 and Sidon.) Of what plague did the woman entreat our 
 Lord to make her daughter whole ? (It is said she was 
 grievously vexed with a devil.) How did he at first receive 
 her petition ? (He answered her not a word.) How did the 
 disciples beg him to act ? (They besought him, saying, Send 
 her away, for she crieth after us.) Suppose some one has 
 read the narrative, or has heard it read in such a manner 
 that, being afterward asked the above questions, he has 
 been able to answer them all correctly, that person has 
 exercised attention, and this is well ; but it is not a profiting 
 by the Scriptures ; it is only an essential process preliminary 
 to the profiting by them. The knowledge of the points of the 
 story, which is secured by attention, is precisely the sort of 
 knowledge with which we aim at filling the Failure in sun- 
 
 day-school in- 
 
 minds of children in our Sunday-schools. And struction. 
 it is to be feared that we are too apt to plume ourselves oil 
 the large stock of this sort of knowledge which a child of 
 average intelligence will in a short time acquire. We forget 
 that except as an essential preliminary to a far deeper and 
 more important process, the knowledge of scriptural facts is 
 absolutely worth nothing. 
 
 Let us now consider what thought is, as distinct from 
 attention. 
 
 A lower form of thought, which might operate upon the 
 difficulties of the narrative, might awaken a speculative in- 
 terest. Thus it might occur to one's mind that at this period
 
 80 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 our Lord is represented as being out of the limits of Palestine, 
 
 , , (in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon,) and that at 
 Speculative 
 
 the same time there were other scriptural consid- 
 erations leading us to believe that he never was out of those 
 limits, the Lord being a minister to the circumcision, and 
 sent only to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel;" we might 
 seek the solution of the difficulty by inquiring whether the 
 words might not be interpreted as meaning only the lorders 
 of Tyre and Sidon, (a district immediately adjoining this 
 Gentile country.) This would be a form of speculative 
 thought, which forms largely the field of inquiry among 
 critical commentaries. 
 
 But there is a higher form of thought requisite to secure 
 our obtaining from the Holy Scriptures that 
 
 Devotional 
 
 nourishment which we need. It brings into 
 exercise not the speculative faculty, nor curiosity in any 
 form or shape, but those moral faculties which the hum- 
 blest mind has in common with the philosopher the heart, 
 the conscience, and the will. Devotional or practical thought 
 will ask^Why did our Lord, so full of tenderness and com- 
 passion, who seems to have traveled into this far corner of 
 Palestine for the sole purpose of giving this woman an op- 
 portunity of access to him, meet her with perfect silence, in 
 the first instance, and in the second with the discouragement 
 of rough, hard words ? Why ? but because he designs to 
 teach me that if he does not immediately answer my prayers 
 on the first application it is not that he does not hear them ; 
 it is to draw me on by apparent denial to greater earnestness 
 and importunity in prayer, and to impress upon my heart
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 81 
 
 this lesson of lessons, that even if after earnest prayer things 
 eeeni to go wrong, and my wishes seem to be thwarted, he 
 has still a heart of love toward me beneath this disguise of 
 stern severity. 
 
 " Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 
 
 But trust him for his grace ; 
 Behind a frowning providence 
 
 lie hides a smiling face." 
 
 I understand now the meaning of the severe cross which I 
 sometimes meet when I have earnestly devoted jteaning of 
 
 discourage- 
 
 myself to God's service. Providence seemed to meats. 
 be thwarting me and discouraging me when engaged in 
 prosecuting my religious duties; but this Scripture, as the 
 voice of the Master, speaks to me and says, " Persevere ; pray 
 oftener and more earnestly ; never abandon the narrow path 
 of duty, however many discouragements are in it, and it shall 
 be unto thee according to thy faith." And so, through the 
 patience and comfort of the Scriptures, I have hope. 
 
 Thus we see how devotional thought discovers in the 
 revealed word the very marrow of the Gosijel, Devotional 
 
 J thought finds 
 
 and makes it to be the food and comfort of the MS3St* 
 soul. 
 I. It is of importance that the Bible should be studied in 
 
 order to be properly interpreted as a whole or a The whole Bi- 
 ble to be stud- 
 unit. It contains but one revelation, and like a ed - 
 
 perfect body, every member has some vital relation to the 
 whole frame. Christ is revealed in it from the commence- 
 ment to the close. He comes first in promise, then in the 
 
 ceremonial law, always in providential history, now in the 
 
 6
 
 82 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 strains of holy hymns, now in the glowing numbers of proph- 
 Christ in th ec ^ t a * ^ a PP mte d ^ me ' s made manifest in 
 
 whole Bible. the flegh> ftnd ig then hdd forth ^ th(J cloM 
 
 of the canon as the expected triumphant King coming in the 
 clouds of heaven. 1 * The custom of spending so long a period 
 
 "As an illustration of the manner in which the whole revelation maybe 
 made to pour its light upon one truth, we append the response of two teachers 
 at a late normal convention to the question as to the manner of showing the 
 connection between the Passover and Christ's great sacrifice for sin : " C. I think I 
 should call the attention of the class first to Genesis iv, 3-5, 'And Cain brought of 
 the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of 
 the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto 
 Abel and to his offering : but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect 1 
 And I should tell my class that here was proof that a Lamb of God was chosen 
 from the foundation of tho world, since here a lamb is revealed as the only 
 acceptable offering for sin ; and that this lamb was a type of Christ I should 
 then ask them to turn to Genesis xxii, 7, where we find in Abraham's offering 
 of his son Isaac the wonderful connection between the lamb and a human body, 
 foreshadowing again, with almost the distinctness of the very substance itself, 
 the offering of Jesus. And when Abraham answers to Isaac's question, ' My 
 son, God will provide himself a lamb,' I should ask, ' 0, 1 wonder if Abraham 
 knew the full meaning of his own reply, and whether he believed that God 
 would provide for himself a lamb, or provide himself for a lamb?' Then 
 again in Exodus xxiii, 18, God calls this paschal lamb ' my sacrifice ' the sacri- 
 fice chosen of God, and God chosen for a sacrifice. Then I should refer them to 
 John i, 29, in connection with' Genesis xxii, 7, ' My son, God will provide him- 
 self a lamb,' and ' Behold the Lamb of God ! ' In his first epistle, i, 19, Pelef 
 says, ' A Lamb without blemish and without spot ;' John says, ' the Lamb of 
 God;' and in Isaiah liii, 7 the evangelical prophet says of Jesus, ' He was brought 
 as a lamb to the slaughter.' In Exodus xii, 48 we read of the lamb that was 
 prepared for the Passover. ' Neither shall ye break a bone thereof;' and in John 
 xis, 33, 86, 'And when they came to Jesus they brake not his legs, that the 
 Scripture might be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.' And in Eev. 
 v, 12 we read of ten thousand times ten thousand of the redeemed singing, 
 ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain ;' and once more, in Revelation xv, 8, 
 that ' they sing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb.' " 
 
 " Sw.pt, We shall only have time now to ask Brother P. what practical appli- 
 cation he would make of this lesson to his scholars." 
 
 ' /'. I think I should tell my class that the skying of thw lamb and the
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 83 
 
 in Sunday-schools upon the study of local portions of Scrip- 
 tuie to the neglect of others, and of the study of the Bible aa 
 a whole, destroys in the minds of the young the vital idea of 
 the harmony of its parts, and depreciates the value of those 
 portions of the holy record not ordinarily submitted to the 
 study of a class. Why should years be spent upon the story 
 of Christ in the Gospels when he is to be found in every 
 portion of Holy Scripture ? 
 
 In the same connection it should be remembered that there 
 is a striking progress in revelation from its dawn to the last 
 vision in the Apocalypse. It is a progress in nearly every 
 respect in the development of God's spiritual kingdom uj,on 
 the earth, as to the comprehension of it by those 
 
 Revelation 
 
 to whom it is revealed, and as to its require- progressive, 
 ments in order to secure the divine mercy. This thought 
 
 sprinkling of the blood in the way of God's appointment was the means God 
 had provided to bring the Israelites out of their cruel bondage. I would en- 
 deavor to show my scholars that they have sinned, and in common with the 
 whole race, are under the bondage of sin, a bondage more cruel and relentless 
 than that of the Israelites, and that God has provided a way of deliverance from 
 this bondage ; that Christ is that way ; that his shed blood is the only means 
 that God will use ; and that this blood must be applied to the heart if the de- 
 stroying angel, the avenging justice of God, shall pass over that heart 1 
 should try to show that it matters not what the previous condition or character 
 of the inmates of the house had been if only the blood was found sprinkled on 
 the doorposts, and so it matters not how greatly we have sinned against God if 
 Jesus's blood is sprinkled on the door of our hearts we are safe. Now how shall 
 we apply this blood of Christ, and appropriate it to our own souls? "Well, I 
 should say that obedience to God's command on tho part of the Israelites was 
 an evidence of their faith ; so, if we obey God's command to believe on tho 
 sacrifice he has appointed for sin, we exercise faith in the power and efficacy of 
 his blood to save us, and faith therefore appropriates the sacrifice and saves us. 
 And I might say at the close that each house had to have for itself tho sign of 
 blood upon it in order to salvation, so each soul must be sprinkled for itself 
 with the blood of Christ or it will be eternally lost"
 
 84: THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 will aid the Bible student in comprehending many of the actfl 
 in human lives, as recorded in God's word, which did not, at 
 the time they were committed, through the darkness of the 
 dispensation, destroy the sensibility of conscience, or remove 
 from them the favor of God. Dr. Chalmers, referring to the in- 
 Dr. Chalmers cidents of deceit, inordinate indulgence, and even 
 
 on a proirress- 
 
 <J e mwra!i t t" d social crime in men that seemed really to enjoy 
 communion with God, and some of them to be able to write 
 spiritual hymns and prayers that penitent and pious men in 
 all ages can adopt as the expression of their own emotions, 
 remarks, that these examples, set forth in Scripture without 
 reprobation, " are fitted to stagger those who reflect not suf- 
 ficiently on the incapacity of our narrow faculties with their 
 limited range to pronounce on all the objects and history of 
 the divine administration. Though morality in the abstract 
 is unchangeable, it looks as if in the concrete there was a 
 progressive morality from one era to another, an accommoda- 
 tion to the ruder and earlier periods of humanity, distinctly 
 intimated by our Saviour when he tells us of polygamy being 
 allowed before the times of the Gospels, because of the hard- 
 ness of their hearts. It is worthy of remark that there is no 
 example, as far as I can recollect, of any deception or imper- 
 fect morality of any sort being recorded of Christian disciples 
 in the New Testament without a prompt and decided con- 
 demnation, as in the case of Paul rebuking Peter for his am- 
 bidextrous policy between Jews and Gentiles." u 
 Bernard on A late writer, Bernard, in his Bampton Lee- 
 
 progress in 
 
 lament* Tt tures, has shown most convincingly the gradual 
 ' Scripture Readings, vol. 1, p. 2*.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 85 
 
 development of doctrines in the New Testament, from 
 the revelation of the kingdom of heaven, coming without 
 observation into human hearts, to the universal and triumph- 
 ant kingdom over angels and men, as set forth in the book 
 of Revelation ; from the moral lessons of the sermon on the 
 mount to the full development of the life of faith in the 
 epistles of St. Paul ; and from the penitent prodigal returning 
 to the father's house to the moral Jewish counselor, pointed 
 to the crucified Messiah as the means of securing the 
 new birth through the agency of the Holy Ghost. 15 This 
 view of the Bible makes all inspired Scripture "profitable 
 for doctrine." 
 
 Olshausen remarks that " throughout Scripture there runs 
 the doctrine of a deep, essential connection between the Old 
 and New Testaments. As the Old Testament is Olshausen on 
 
 unity and 
 
 always pointing onward to the New, so the latter scripture. "* 
 is always pointing backward to the Old as its necessary 
 precedent. Consequently, both alike bear the character of a 
 divine revelation ; only this revelation manifests itself in a 
 gradual development. In the Old Testament it appears in 
 its commencement as the seed of the subsequent plant ; in 
 the New Testament the living plant itself is exhibited. On 
 account of this relation there cannot be any thing in the Old 
 Testament specifically different from what is to be found in 
 the New Testament, only the form of presenting the same 
 thing is at one time more or less plain and direct than at 
 another." 10 
 
 ' Progress of Doctrine In the New Testament, by Thomas D. Bernard, M.^, 
 14 Commentaries, vol. i, p. 131.
 
 86 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 II. In thiu connection it may be remarked that it is impor- 
 r he scope of tant to understand the scope of each book of the 
 
 r.-irli book to 
 
 stood. under ' Bible, the especial revelation it proposes to make, 
 the main object for which it was written, or the circum- 
 stances that called it forth. The best commentary upon some 
 of the epistles is a knowledge of the occasion of their being 
 written, and a careful reading of them through, instead of 
 piecemeal by chapters, as they have been arbitrarily broken 
 up for the benefit of reference. 
 
 Mr. Locke thus recommends the perusal of a book at a 
 sitting. Referring to his own experience, he says : " I con- 
 Locke's habit eluded that it was necessary, for the understand- 
 
 of reading a 
 
 k at a ing of any one of them, (St. Paul's epistles,) often 
 to read it all through at one sitting, and to observe, as well 
 as I could, the design of his writing it. If the first reading 
 gave me some light, the second gave me more ; and so I 
 persisted on, reading constantly the whole epistle over at 
 once, till I came to have a good general view of the apostle's 
 main purpose in writing." 
 
 Sometimes the sacred writer states with more or less 
 n .. definiteness his purpose, and his argument is to 
 
 Sometimes 
 
 cVed Ct writer be read in view of this plan. An instance is 
 
 stated by 
 
 found in Paul's Epistle to the Romans. In the 
 first three chapters he thoroughly reviews the moral condi- 
 tion of Jews and Gentiles in all ages, and proves that the 
 whole world is guilty before God. In the twentieth verse of 
 the third chapter he states his main purpose is to show that 
 " by the deeds of the law shall- no flesh be justified in his 
 sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Having
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 87 
 
 gained this, he proposes to answer the momentous question : 
 ' How shall a man be just with God ? " After a clear and 
 powerful discussion of the subject through the seven verses 
 that follow, in the twenty-eighth he announces the evident 
 result of his reasoning : " Therefore, we conclude that a man 
 is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." This 
 conclusion the apostle then proceeds to set forth and illus- 
 trate in its various relations to human experience and to 
 God's previous dealings with his people. 
 
 The best commentators are not those that are the most 
 profuse in notes upon separate words, but who give the 
 general scope and meaning of the sacred writers. 
 
 The beauty 
 
 As you ruin a flower by tearing it in pieces, so scHi)ture er de- 
 
 ... ,. , , ,. ., , .. Btroyed by 
 
 our multiplied lessons upon limited portions ot considering it 
 
 out of its con- 
 Scripture tear the divine record into tatters, nectlons - 
 
 destroy both its refreshing fragrance and its beauty, and 
 really sacrifice its life and power." 
 
 1T The Interest that has been awakened in the ministry and among the 
 people in the exposition of the Scriptures from the pulpit is a wholesome sign 
 of the times. The Bible text is too often announced at the commencement of 
 a sermon simply as a motto or a sentiment to distinguish the discourse from 
 an ordinary lecture. There is no instrument placed by the Holy Spirit in the 
 hands of a godly minister so powerful to save and to edify the Church as the 
 Scriptures of truth. One of the ablest and most popular ministers of New 
 York has crowded his church on Sabbath afternoons now for more than a year 
 with expositions of the word of God in order, commencing with Genesis. No 
 course can more effectually fortify the youth of the Church against the specious 
 attacks upon the Inspiration of the Bible now filling the literature of the age. 
 Dr. M'Lelland somewhat tartly remarks : " Nor can we approve the practice 
 adopted by many preachers, of running into their pulpits with a single sentence 
 or part of one, which they make their exclusive subject, not bestowing on the 
 sonnection a word of notice, unless they have been hurried in their prepara- 
 tions, and find it convenient to talk a little round it in an extempore Intro-
 
 88 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Lessons upon the Gospels chronologically arranged hav 
 uheir purpose, but they divert the mind of the learner from a 
 comprehension of the specific and important, because divine, 
 
 Each Gospel character and object of each evangelist. Mat- 
 has a charac- 
 
 ter of its own. thew presents the kingly side of our Lords 
 character, Mark the human, Luke the sacrificial, and John 
 the divine. 1 * 
 
 ductlon. "What -would we think if we heard any other book prelected on In 
 this way a treatise on medicine, for instance, or on morals ? or, What would 
 we think of a judge expounding in this way a legal statute ? The civil law 
 has laid down an express canon on the subject, as if indignant at the idea of 
 Buch a practice. It says, (as translated :) ' ase is he to judge concerning the 
 law, not having examined the entire law.' Ministers are often heard to chide their 
 people sharply for the careless and unprofitable way in which they read the 
 word of God ; but they would do well to ask whether they arc not themselves 
 to blame in forming them to such wretched habits of perusing it When hia 
 reverence appears before the people month after month without, in a single 
 instance perhaps, explaining the design, coherence, and argument of a paragraph 
 containing only six verses, it is really too much to expect that honest John 
 will spend his Sabbath evenings in supplying the pastor's lack of service." 
 
 18 Bernard, in his Bampton Lectures upon the " Progress of Doctrine in the 
 New Testament," thus happily presents the scope of revelation in the New 
 Testament : " First, a person is manifested and facts are set forth in the sim- 
 plest external aspect, under the clearest light, and with the concurrence of a 
 fourfold witness. This witness also is itself progressive, and in the last Gospel 
 the glory of the person has grown more bright, and the meaning of the facts 
 more clear. Then in the book cf Acts Christ is preached as perfected, and as 
 the refuge and life of the world. The results of his appearing are summed up 
 and settled, a,nd men are called to believe and be saved. Those who do so find 
 themselves in new relations to each other, they become one body, and grow 
 into the form and life of a catholic (or universal) Church. The state which has 
 thus been entered needs to be expounded, and the life which has been begun 
 needs to be educated. The apostolic letters perform the work. The questions 
 which universally follow the first submissions of the mind receive their an- 
 swers, and so the faith which was general grows definite. The rising exigencies 
 of the new life are met, both for the man and for the Church; and we learn 
 What is the happy consciousness, and what the holy conversation, which belong
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 89 
 
 HI. In interpreting Scripture we are never to forget its 
 character. It is not intended to be a revelation scripture not 
 
 a revelation 
 
 of science or a model of history, or to be judged of science, 
 simply as to the literature of its poetry. It proposes simply 
 to reveal God's truth to all ages of men. 
 
 Dr. Stowe, in his interesting work upon the books of the 
 Bible, remarks in a characteristically strong and perhaps 
 somewhat extravagant way, " The Bible does not Dr. stowe on 
 
 unscientific 
 
 state, and never professes to state, scientific facts Bible. 01 " 
 in scientific forms, but only phenomena or appearances to 
 the eye of a spectator. For example, that the earth revolves 
 on its axis from west to east once in twenty-four hours, thus 
 producing day and night, is a scientific fact ; this the Bible 
 never states, nor even alludes to. Indeed, I do not suppose 
 that the writers of the Bible knew anything about it, for ' in- 
 spiration is not omniscence.' That the sun rises in the east 
 arid passes along in the heavens till he sets in the west is a 
 phenomenon, an appearance to the human eye, and this, and 
 this only, is what the Bible speaks of, just as in the language 
 
 to those who are in Christ Jesus. Lastly, as members of the body of Christ, 
 we find ourselves partakers in a corporate life and a history larger than our 
 own. We feel that we are taken up into a scheme of things which is in conflict 
 with the present, and which cannot realize itself here. Therefore, our final 
 teaching is by prophecy, which shows us, not how we are personally saved and 
 victorious, but how the battle goes upon the whole, and which issues in the 
 ppearance of a holy city, in which redemption reaches its end, and the 
 Redeemer finds his joy ; in which human tendencies are realized, and divine 
 promises fulfilled ; in which the ideal has become the actual, and man is per- 
 fected in the presence and glory of God. . . . Only the written word of God, 
 confidingly followed in the progressive steps of its advance, can lead the 
 weakest or the wisest into the deep blessedness of the life that is In Christy 
 and into the final glory of the city of God,"
 
 yO THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 of common life and common sense every-where, both among 
 the learned and unlearned. "While the statements of the 
 Bible are true to the phenomena, the appearances, they are 
 right ; they have nothing to do with scientific facts, and can- 
 not come into collision with them any more than the decis- 
 ions of a judge in the supreme court can come in collision 
 with the governor's coach, for the two subjects are not of thb 
 same kind, they belong to two entirely different spheres of 
 thought ; they do not travel at all in the same road, and 
 Folly of inter- how can they come in collision? To inter- 
 
 pretinK the 
 
 B\asa treat P ret tne ^ ret chapter of Genesis as a geological 
 ise upon geol- 
 ogy, essay, and to attempt to remove from it, by scien- 
 tific methods, geological difficulties, seems to me like inter- 
 preting the parable of the sower as an agricultural essay, and 
 attempting to avoid the difficulty that the fowls of the air 
 devoured only the seed that fell by the way side, by learned 
 inquiries as to whether birds in ancient times could fly over 
 fences, and whether they were not obliged to keep the road, 
 and solemnly imagining the sustaining of the latter supposi- 
 tion to be essential to the vindication of the truthfulness of 
 Christ as a religious teacher. How much better to look at 
 the simple fact just as it existed, to wit, that in the Eastern 
 countries, as now in Germany and France, the farms were 
 seldom fenced, and the fields for the most part were guarded 
 by old men, women, and children, whose duty it was to keep 
 away the birds as well as the cattle ; and this practice very 
 generally obtains in those countries at the present day, simply 
 because that there old men, women, and children are cheaper 
 than fencing stuff. In the interpretation of so plain and
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 9* 
 
 homely a book as the Bible a knowledge of the facts and 
 good common sense are generally much better common sense 
 
 an interpreter 
 
 guides than scientific ingenuity or metaphysical of the Bible - 
 subtilty. The Bible was not written with reference to 
 science or philosophy, but with reference to the feelings, im- 
 pressions, and needs of the great masses of mankind, and 
 they are neither scientific men nor philosophers." lfl 
 
 No Christian student need have anxiety lest any revelation 
 in the natural world will ever contradict the Bible. What- 
 ever discoveries are made in chronology as to the duration of 
 man's previous residence upon earth, as to the True science 
 
 cannot harm 
 
 origin of species, or in the hidden strata of the the Kible - 
 earth, the Christian scholar may patiently await their full 
 development. They may be thrust forward in the interest of 
 unbelief; but it will ever be in the future as in the past, that 
 the revelations of all the sciences as they come to be fully 
 understood will entirely accord with the tenor and spirit of 
 God's word. The Bible is no nearer being an obsolete book 
 than it was when the earth was supposed to be the center of 
 the universe, and the whole celestial system was thought to 
 have been created in exactly six days. 
 
 IV. The fact must not be overlooked that the Holy Scrip- 
 tures are unsystematic. They contain no " body of divinity," 
 and no connected catechism, with questions and answers. The 
 attributes of God are gathered as they are dis- 
 
 Tlie Bible un- 
 
 closed in his providential government over his sclentlflc - 
 people, or in various revelations through different inspired 
 men, and in different forms. The doctrines of the Gospel 
 Griffin and History of the Books of the Bible, page 29.
 
 92 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 relating to sin and human salvation arc presented without 
 order all over the sacred pages. One view will be presented 
 at one time as the love of God and the welcome with which 
 he receives the penitent and the indispensableness of the 
 Different new birth at another. At one time Paul sets 
 
 truths tauirht 
 
 times different forth the vital character of faith, without which 
 it is impossible to please God, and the helplessness of one 
 who hopes to save himself simply by good works : while 
 James, in view of a condition of things then existing in the 
 Church, sets forth with great prominence good works as 
 the only reliable human test of a correct faith. There can 
 be no contradiction. All the views of all the sacred writers 
 are true, but they need to be understood in harmony with 
 each other, and must be interpreted in the light of the cir- 
 cumstances under which they were written. Goulburn 
 Gouiburn'sii- remarks, "The precept and the doctrine (in the 
 
 lustration of 
 
 this. Scriptures) are thrown out just as the occasion 
 
 for them offers. The sacred writer does not stop to guard or 
 counterbalance them ; if they need this, the counterbalancing 
 precept is to be found in another inspired writing, which 
 originated on a wholly different occasion. Even so hi the 
 field of nature we do not find a noxious herb 
 
 Analogy In 
 
 growing side by side with its antidote ; but 
 noxious herbs (only noxious in certain applications, having 
 their uses and services in the general system) are found in 
 one locality ; in another district, whose features are different, 
 springs up the medicinal plant. Man is left to discover and 
 apply the counteracting power." 
 Overlooking this truth the great reformer himself, Martin
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 93 
 
 Luther, who had fought in his own person for the doctrine 
 of salvation by faith only, was disposed to throw 
 
 Error of Mar- 
 
 out of the canon the Epistle of James as teach- tin Luther - 
 ing a different Gospel, and therefore not one of the divine 
 circle. Luther was right in his doctrine according to Paul, 
 and so was James. There was, in truth, no collision between 
 them ; but the reformer was too impatient in the stress of his 
 struggle with the Roman Church to give the apostle a care- 
 ful examination. Into this error those fall who affirm a finite 
 
 and human nature only to the Son of God, and K n . or O f Ra- 
 tionalists and 
 quote the words of Jesus himself to prove it; Univwu. 
 
 who insist that repentance without faith in the atonement is 
 all that is requisite to secure the favor of God, and quote the 
 parable of the prodigal son ; and those also who predicate 
 the final salvation of all upon the revealed doctrine of the 
 Fatherhood of God. Their views are certainly to be found 
 in portions of the inspired word, but they are essentially 
 modified without being in the least nullified by distinct 
 revelations found in other portions of the Bible, and readily 
 harmonized when one is willing to receive the whole counsel 
 of God. These Scriptures present but different sides of the 
 Bame truth. 
 
 V. Here we may remark that the interpreter should not 
 consider himself responsible for what is said or j^ 6 *^,. 
 
 _, . . . f, ble for what 
 
 taught in the Scriptures. This revelation or God says. 
 God requires no apology from him. His simple office is to 
 discover what the Holy Spirit teaches. It is not for him to 
 Boften any threatening, to modify any doctrine, to " explain 
 away " the apparent meaning of any text, but simply to
 
 94 THE WORD OP GOD OPENED. 
 
 declare the evident sense of what "is written," Says Dr. 
 Doedes, professor of divinity in the University of Utrecht : 
 " Let the New Testament teach what it teaches ; and if men 
 do not agree with it, let them have the courage to say BO. 
 Dr. Doe<ie on If men do not agree with it, it is because they 
 tenlreV/ 'if think that the J know better. Well, be it so. 
 exact text. But let the New Testament have its own views. 
 The task of the interpreter is verily not of such a nature 
 that when he does his duty he need ever make himself feel 
 anxious while employed upon it. But he must needs become 
 anxious if he hold himself responsible for what is written 
 there. This, then, however, is a cross that he lays on his 
 own shoulders ; and, alas ! a source of torture to the writings 
 which he has to interpret." ao " Be very careful," he says in 
 another place, " lest you make the Scriptures say what you 
 would like to find in them. What have people not extracted 
 from the New Testament ? that is, What have people not 
 introduced into it?" We should not forget that it is the 
 truth of God that saves, not our opinion of what that truth 
 should be. 
 
 VL The earliest interpreters of Scripture, in order more 
 readily to reconcile difficulties, and to combat the 
 
 Error of early 
 
 interpreters. yi ews o f certain errorists, held to a figurative, sym- 
 bolical, double, threefold, fourfold, and manifold meaning of 
 the words of the sacred record. Origen taught that the liteial 
 word was valueless, and that even the Scripture histories 
 were allegorical ; that the six days of creation signified the 
 renovation of the soul, the six days intimating that it was a 
 Henneneutics of the New Testament, page 68.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 95 
 
 progressive work. Israel in Egypt is the soul living in error, 
 and the seven plagues are its purgations from various evil 
 habits ; the frogs denoting loquacity, the fleas carnal appe- 
 tites, the boils pride and arrogance, etc. As man is com- 
 posed of body, mind, and soul, he taught that there was a 
 threefold sense, the literal, the moral, and the spiritual, in 
 which the truth of inspiration was to be considered. .Origen, 
 reading that Abraham married Keturah in his old age, and 
 learning that Keturah meant in Hebrew " sweet odor," and 
 esteeming " sweet odor " to be a scriptural figure of the 
 fragrance of^righteousness of character, taught that the true 
 meaning of this passage was, that in his old age Abraham 
 
 became eminently holy. These views, with The Reforma- 
 tion changed 
 various modifications, influenced the interpre- tbi s- 
 
 tation of Scripture, until the morning of the Reformation 
 put to flight the clouds and fogs that had settled down 
 upon the word of God. But one Church, that of the 
 New Jerusalem, or the Swedenborgian, at the present day 
 gives countenance to such a rendering of the Scriptures. 
 Such a view makes the Bible not the revelation, but the 
 obscuration, of the will of God. There is a tendency 
 among some teachers to seek far-fetched and fanciful inter- 
 pretations, especially of the Old Testament; as when the 
 six steps by which Solomon ascended to his throne are 
 made to represent the six steps a sinner takes to reach 
 pardon and eternal life : conviction, repentance, faith, regen- 
 jration, justification, and sanctification. Upon the " instru- 
 ment of ten strings " with which the Psalmist Avould praise 
 God, Chrysostorn discourses upon the Ten Commandments,
 
 96 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 mnrlc delightful and easy to keep by divine grace. On the 
 text, " Whereof every one beareth twins," he asks, " What 
 twins ?" and answers, " The law and the jtrophets the two 
 commandments whereon hang all in the life of every be- 
 liever ! " The "bread ancl^sA and egg which the child asks of 
 his father in the parable are thus explained by him : the 
 bread is the soul, the fish is faith, which lives amid the 
 billows of temptation, and the egg "is hope, a pledge of 
 something, but not the chicken itself! This is always 
 reprehensible and dangerous. The custom of giving lessons 
 upon the blackboard in Sunday-schools tends, although not 
 necessarily, to this habit of allegorizing the Scriptures. 21 
 
 11 Dr. Wise, In the " Sunday-School Journal " for March, 1868, makes the 
 following well-deserved and appropriate criticism upon a "blackboard exercise " 
 prepared as a model for the "Sunday-School Times:" 
 
 " ' How TO PKEPAKE A BLACKBOARD EXERCISE FOR A SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 LESSON. 
 
 1. Learn the lesson tfioroughly ; get the head, and especially the heart, full of 
 It, by hard study and earnest prayer. 
 
 2. Select the thought you wish to use. 
 
 8. Condense that thought to the smallest and sharpest point possible. 
 
 4. Place that point upon the board. 
 
 5. Remember that the thought or outline on the board is but "dry bones" 
 nntil clothed with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn " from a warm 
 and earnest heart. 
 
 EXERCISE : 
 OPEN WINDOWS DANGEROUS FOR SLKKPKBS.* 
 
 Acts xx, 9-12. 
 
 The open windows. Place of safety. The open uindows. Place of safety. 
 Ball room. Gambling Saloons. 
 
 Theater. In Christ only. Impenitence. In Christ only. 
 
 Drinking Saloons. Etc., etc. 
 
 * Those iteep in optn trindotn who do not realize the dangen to which they are eipouj. 
 Call upon the school to name the open window*. E. H. T. 
 
 PLYMOUTH, ILL.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 97 
 
 The principle of interpretation which now prevails 
 throughout the Christian Church is sometimes ffistorico- 
 
 grammatical 
 
 called the historico-grammatical mode. It affirms terpretation"" 
 
 " The five canons here laid down are certainly very excellent, provided the 
 second be properly qualified. ' Select the thought you wish to use.' Very 
 good. But then that thought should be one that is obviously in the passage, or 
 logically deducible from it It should be the leading thought But E. II. T. in 
 his ' exercise ' violates his own canon by putting a ' thought ' on the board 
 which is not selected from the lesson he proposes to illustrate, because it is not 
 in it at all. Let us look at it a moment. 
 
 " The lesson is Acts xx, 9-12, which records Paul's farewell sermon at Troas, 
 the sleep of Eutychus at the open window, the fall and death of the sleeper, with 
 his restoration to life by the apostle. 
 
 " From this passage, which was evidently recorded for the purpose of preserv- 
 ing an account of the miracle, and not to censure Eutychus for a slumber which, 
 if not unavoidable, was certainly excusable under the circumstances, we have 
 for a selected point, 
 
 " ' OPEN WINDOWS DANGEROUS FOE SLEEPEBS.' " 
 
 " Now if the lesson contained this proposition, to select it would show a singu- 
 lar avoidance of a grand illustration of divine power for the sake of bringing 
 out an unimportant physical fact But the proposition itself is neither in the 
 lesson, nor is it true in itselt 
 
 tt All that the lesson teaches about open windows and sleepers is, that it is dan- 
 gerous for persons to sleep in open windows. But E. H. Y. says, its thought 
 is ' open windows dangerous for sleepers,' a statement which omits the impor- 
 tant fact that the danger arises not from the open windows but from sleeping 
 in them. This omission makes the statement false, for open windows are often 
 healthful, instead of being dangerous, to sleepers. 
 
 " True, E. H. T. in his note attempts to explain his meaning, but the need he 
 felt for the insertion of a qualifying note ought to have shown him that his 
 proposition was defective. The ' thought ' on a blackboard should be so put 
 as not to need qualification. If it does, one object of the blackboard, which is 
 to impress some great truth on the mind through the eye, is defeated. Scholars 
 carry away the point as it is written, not as it is qualified by the speaker. 
 
 " This defect in his main point vitiates the logic of his whole ' exercise.' Who 
 can see any connection between an open window and a ball room, a theater, or 
 a drinking saloon ? The note says the point of analogy is ' that those who 
 Bleep in open windows do not realize the dangers to which they are exposed,' 
 etc. But this statement confuses the mind by changing the subject of the prop- 
 
 7
 
 98 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 that the simple grammatical meaning of the text in its con- 
 nections, modified only by what is requisite to be known 
 
 osition. In the stated point ' open window** constitute the subject; In the 
 note, thofie who l nl?ep in open windows.' 
 
 " Indeed, the note makes a new statement of the selected thought It is no 
 longer 'open windows dangerous to sleepers, 1 but those who sleep In open 
 windows ' do not realize the danger to which they are exposed,' which is cer- 
 tainly nearer the truth than the other. But its Introduction tends to confuse 
 the mind of the scholar. 
 
 "Again, the ' exercise ' is defective because it leaves its ' point ' unproven. It 
 assumes the ball room, etc., to be ' open windows,' but as there is no obvious 
 analogy between an open window and a ball room, the assertion must fall with- 
 out weight on the scholar's mind. 
 
 " But E. H. T. will say, perhaps, that his note was intended to define the last 
 term in his proposition sleepers. Very good. Let us apply his definition to 
 his figurative open windows the ball room for example. How will it stand ? 
 Why thus : The ' ball room ' is ' dangerous for sleepers,' that Is, for those 
 ' who do not realize the dangers to which they art exposed? Does not thia 
 make the danger He, not tn the thing itself, but in the failure of the ball room 
 visitor to realize the true character of the place f Let him realize this, and be- 
 come a conscious and willful sinner, and the ball room ceases to be an open 
 window. What nonsense ! Yet wo have no doubt that this exercise, given by 
 a good chalker and talker in a school or institute, would bo regarded as very 
 fine. Its ingenuity would divert attention from its fallacy. 
 
 "Finally, the whole exercise is far-fetched. It is absurd to argue that because 
 Eutychus fell out of a window a child should beware of going to a ball or a the- 
 ter. There are plenty of texts which could be properly applied to dangerous 
 amusements ; but to go to poor, sleepy Eutychus for an argument Is like going 
 from New York to Philadelphia by way of Albany. The journey is possible, 
 but it is needlessly long. That such an exercise should be given as a model in 
 such an excellent paper as the u Times," by one who Is evidently a man of 
 mental vigor, is a justification of our late caution to keep the blackboard out of 
 unskillful hands. The blackboard is an educational Janus. It may be friend 
 or foe to real instruction; therefore wo say again, Use it sparingly, use it skill- 
 fully, or let it alone. 
 
 " We have written this criticism not to discourage the proper use of the black- 
 board, but to guard against its abuse. As an example of false syntax is often a bet- 
 tt>r illustration of a grammatical rule than a correct rule, so may this criticism be 
 better help to one who uses the blackboard than a really faultless exercise."
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 99 
 
 about the language in which it was uttered, the individuality 
 and custom of speaking of the author, and the manners and 
 customs of the times, is the sense in which the Holy Ghost * 
 reveals his truth through the words of Scripture. 
 
 The proper office of the commentary, Bible dictionary, and 
 
 other helps is to correct the text if there is any 
 
 Office of com- 
 error, to give the modern meaning of the word raentaries - etc - 
 
 if the old is obsolete, to aid in reconciling the difficulties of 
 Scripture, and to present such facts in relation to the times 
 and customs and homes of the writers as will enable us better 
 to apprehend their meaning. We wish to obtain from 
 learned men the exact force of the expressions used by the 
 inspired writers ; the doctrines and precepts involved in them 
 we can apprehend ourselves.
 
 100 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PKELIMINAEY STUDIES. 
 
 L HMHIS volume is written to meet the wants of those who 
 
 -*- are only familiar with their native tongue the great 
 
 body of our Bible interpreters to the children of the land. 
 
 study of the Our own language is enriched with the choicest 
 
 original lan- 
 guages, translations from other tongues of works of crit- 
 icism and with commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures. 
 Dictionaries and exegetical notes are readily obtained, and 
 at comparatively small expense, by our Sunday-school teachers. 
 But to those that are still young, and can, although at con- 
 siderable sacrifice, secure the time for the acquisition of 
 ability to read with some ease the Hebrew and Greek text, 
 we would unhesitatingly say, the pleasurable and profitable 
 results will be an ample compensation for all the requisite 
 toil. The finest linguist of New England mastered the 
 numerous tongues which he read and spake while prose- 
 cuting the laborious business of a blacksmith. It is not 
 Persons need necessary to become critical scholars in order, by 
 
 not necessa- 
 
 c2ours r . ltlcal a general knowledge of the grammar, idioms, 
 and meaning of the words, to be enabled better to appreciate 
 and weigh the published results of the life-long scholarship 
 and devotion to the work of biblical interpretation now the 
 possession of the Christian Church. It is said of 
 
 Bradford the 
 
 ^ puri tan Bradford that he mastered the Latin
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 101 
 
 and Greek, and studied the Hebrew, because " he would see 
 with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native 
 beauty." 
 
 II. In order to appreciate the meaning, the force, and the 
 beauty of the sacred writings, it is necessary to be familiar 
 with the geography of biblical countries, and of Should be fa- 
 
 niiliar with 
 
 the former and present appearance of Scripture raph'y? 1 ge g 
 places. Of the effect of such a knowledge to confinn our 
 confidence in the Bible, and to throw light upon its inspired 
 pages, even Renan, the French Rationalist, says: "My 
 commission led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee, 
 and to traverse it frequently. I have traveled 
 
 Testimony of 
 
 through the evangelical province in every direc- Eenan - 
 tion. I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria. 
 Scarcely any locality important in the history of Jesus has 
 escaped me. All this history, which at a distance seems 
 floating in the clouds of an unreal world, thus assumed a 
 body, a solidity, which astonished me. The striking accord 
 of the texts and the places, the wonderful harmony of the 
 evangelical ideal with the landscape which served as its 
 setting, were to me as a revelation. I had before my eyes a 
 Sfth Gospel, torn, but still legible, and thenceforth, through 
 \he narratives of Matthew and Mark, instead of an abstract 
 being, which one would say had never existed, I saw a 
 wonderful human form live and move." ' 
 
 1 Life of Jesus, page 45. We find in an English Sunday-school periodical 
 I homely but significant illustration of the power of a knowledge of Scripture 
 localities to confirm our faith in the sacred record: "In a Yorkshire village 
 I knew one Thomas Walsh. It was a favorite opinion of Walsh's that the Bible 
 vas all made up.' He could never believe it was written where it professed
 
 102 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 No one can listen to the lecture of Dr. Hibbard (author of a 
 
 nihb rd nd va ^ ua ^^ e treatise upon the Psalms) upon the jour- 
 
 neyings of the Israelites in the wilderness, illus- 
 
 tiated by his large charts, without receiving a fresh and most 
 
 to be, and by the men said to have written it. Walsh owned a considerable 
 part of a factory, and one year he set his heart on making a very large and fine 
 piece of cloth. He took great pains with the carding, spinning, dyeing, weav- 
 ing, a^| finishing of it In the process of manufacture it was one day stretched 
 out on the tenter-hooks to dry. It made a fine show, and he felt very proud of 
 it The next morning he arose early to work at it, when, to his amazement, it 
 was gonel It had been stolen during the night. After weeks of anxiety and 
 expense, a piece of cloth, answering the description, was stopped at Manchester, 
 awaiting the owner and proof. Away to Manchester went Thomas as fast as 
 the express train would carry him. There he found many rolls of cloth which 
 had been stolen. They were very much alike. He selected one which he 
 claimed as his. But how could he prove it? In donbt and perplexity he called 
 on his neighbor Stetson. ' Friend Stetson, I have found a piece of cloth which 
 I am sure is the one which was stolen from me. Bat how to prove it is the 
 question. Can you tell me how?' 'Ton don't want it unless it is really 
 yours?' 'Certainly not' 'And you want proof that is simple, plain, and 
 such as will satisfy yourself and everybody?' 'Precisely so.' 'Well, take 
 Bible proof.' 'Bible proof I Pray, what is that?' 'Take your cloth to the 
 tenter-hooks on which it was stretched, and if it is yours every hook will just 
 come to the bole through which it passed before being taken down. There will 
 be scores of such hooks, and if the hooks and holes just come together right, no 
 other proof that the cloth is yours will be wanted.' 'True. Why didn't I 
 think of this before ? ' Away he hastened, and, sure enough, every hook came 
 to its little hole, and the cloth was proved to be his, and the thief was convict- 
 ed, all on the evidence of the tenter-hooks. Some days after this, Thomas 
 again hailed his friend. ' I say, Stetson, what did yon mean by calling tenter- 
 hooks proof, the other day, " Bible proof? " I am sure if I had the good evidence 
 for the Bible that I had for my cloth, I would never doubt it again.' ' You 
 have the same, only better, for the Bible.' 'How so?' ' Put it on the tenter- 
 hooks. Take the Bible and travel with it ; go to the place where it was 
 made. There yon find the Bed Sen, the Jordan, the Lake of Galilee, Mounts 
 Lebanon, Hennon, Cannel, Tabor, and Gerizim ; there you find the cities of 
 Damascus, Hebron, Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem. Every mountain, every river, 
 every sheet of water mentioned in the Bible is there, just in the place where it
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 103 
 
 interesting version of the portions of the Pentateuch devoted 
 to a record of these wanderings ; and the map drawings and 
 explanations of Rev. J. H. Vincent at Sunday-school institutes 
 have suggested to hundreds the invaluable service which a 
 familiar knowledge of this science affords the interpreter of 
 Scripture. 
 
 "It is a common remark of historians concerning the Chris- 
 tians of the Middle Ages that their devotion was astonish- 
 ingly increased by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Effect of vis- 
 
 kin!.' holy 
 
 This might be expected. They had gone over places, 
 the hallowed ground, and were able to form a distinct pic- 
 ture of it. They had walked the streets of the city which 
 their divine Saviour had honored with his ministrations, and 
 trod the very mount on which he had been lifted up between 
 heaven and earth. The vivid idea of the localities passed, 
 by an easy transition, to all the facts and doctrines connected 
 with them, and the felt reality of Calvary diffused itself over 
 the sufferings which a thousand years before had been en- 
 dured there." * 
 
 As an instance of the new life which may be given to an 
 ancient event let us extract a few sentences from the diary 
 of Dean Stanley, kept during his memorable tour with the 
 
 Is located. BInal, and the desert, and the Dead Sea are there ; so that the best 
 guide-book through the country is the Bible. It must have been written there 
 on the spot just as your cloth must have been made and stretched on your ten- 
 ter-hooks. That land is the mold in which the Bible was cast, and when 
 brought together we see that they fit together. You might just as well doubt 
 that your cloth was fitted to your hooks.' 'Well, well, I confess I never 
 thought of that Til think it over again. If you are right, why, then, Tin 
 wrong, that's all.' Bible C. Magazine. 
 Canon and Interpretation of Scripture. By PROP. M'LKLLASD, page 187.
 
 104: THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Prince of Wales over Palestine. We should be glad, had wo 
 space, to introduce the entire account of the visit to the old 
 Abrahamic city of Hebron. After leaving the mosque, cover- 
 ing, with strong evidences of probability, the cave of Machpe- 
 lah, where reposes the dust of several of the patriarchs and 
 their wives, they " rode over the hills south of Hebron to visit 
 the probable scene of the romantic transaction, recorded in the 
 Caleb's rfft to book of Joshua and the book of Judges, between 
 
 liia daughter 
 
 Acbsah. Caleb and his daughter Achsah.* A wide val- 
 
 ley, unusually green, amid the barren hills of the ' south 
 country,' suddenly breaks down into an almost precipitous 
 and still greener ravine. On the south side of this ravine is 
 a village called Dura, possibly the Adorami of the book of 
 Chronicles ; * on the north, at the summit of a steeper and 
 more rugged ascent, is Dewer Dan, which recalls the name of 
 Debir, the fortress which Othniel stormed on the condition of 
 winning Achsah for his bride. ' Give me,' she said to her 
 father, as she rode on her ass beside him, ' a field,' (a bless- 
 ing, a rich field, such as that which lies spread in the green 
 basin, which she and Caleb would first encounter in their 
 ride from Hebron,) 'for thou hast given me a south land,' 
 (these dry rocky hills which extend as far as the eye can 
 reach, till they melt into the hazy platform of the desert,) 
 'give me also the babblings of water, the upper and lower 
 Scenery an- bubblings.' It is an expressive word, (translated 
 Scripture. of in our version upper and nether springs,) which 
 seems to be used for tumbling, falling waves, and is thus 
 especially applicable to the rare sight of a clear rivulet that, 
 Josh. TV, 16-19 ; Judges i, 11-15. 2 Chron. ri, 9.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 105 
 
 rising in the green meadow above mentioned, falls and flows 
 continuously down to the bottom of the ravine, and by its 
 upper and nether streams gives verdure to the whole. The 
 identification is not perhaps absolutely certain, but the scene 
 lends itself to the incident in every particular." 6 
 
 The full effect of personal examination we may not be able 
 to enjoy ; but La such works as Dr. Robinson's, Workg that 
 Dean Stanley's, Thomson's " The Land and the vivfd idea of 
 
 holy locali- 
 
 Book," and Ritter's Geography of Palestine, we ties- 
 are enabled to look upon sacred localities almost as distinctly 
 as if we gazed upon them with our own eyes. All fulfilled 
 prophecy, both of the Old and New Testaments, relating to 
 ancient countries and cities, finds the most im- importance of 
 
 this as to ful- 
 
 pressive confirmation in the present appearance gcy. d pr 1>h " 
 of these memorable lands. There is continued reference in 
 the Old Testament to a gigantic race beside whom the Jewish 
 spies were as grasshoppers. 6 They were the original inhabit- 
 ants of Bashan, east of the Jordan, and probably of Canaan. 
 These Scripture statements in reference to the 
 
 The giants of 
 
 wonderful height and strength of these men Bashan - 
 might be thought exaggerated ; but the memorials of them, 
 says Rev. J. L. Porter, are to be found in every section of 
 Palestine in the form of graves of enormous dimensions. He 
 personally examined, in his most interesting tour through 
 Bashan, cities built and occupied by them forty centuries ago 
 still in existence. "J have traversed," he says, "their streets, 
 I have opened the doors of their houses, I have slept peace- 
 fully in their long-deserted halls. "We shall see, too, that 
 
 6 Sermons in the East, page 193. Num. xiii, 88.
 
 106 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 among the massive ruins of these wonderful cities lie sculp- 
 tured images of Astarte, with the crescent moon, which gave 
 her the name of Carnaim, upon her brow." ' 
 
 In the fir.al conquest of Bashan, in the small province of 
 
 Argob, it is said in Deuteronomy that Jair, one of the chiefs 
 
 of the tribe of Manasseh, took no less than sixty great cities, 
 
 " fenced with high walls, gates, and bars, besides 
 
 the cities of 
 
 unwalled towns a great many." 8 Og, the last of 
 the giants, whose bedstead was about fourteen feet in length 
 and six in breadth, was the ruler of Bashan at this time. 
 " Such a statement as this," says Porter, " seems all but in- 
 credible. It would not stand the arithmetic of Bishop 
 Colenso. for a moment. Often, when reading the passage, I 
 used to think that some strange mystery hung over it, for 
 what Porter how could a province measuring not more than 
 
 eaw in Ba- 
 
 h *n. thirty miles by twenty support such a number 
 
 of fortified cities, especially when the greater part of it was 
 a wilderness of rocks ; but mysterious, incredible as this 
 seemed, on the spot, with my own eyes, / have seen that it is 
 literally true. The cities are there to this day. Some of 
 them retain the ancient names recorded in the Bible." * 
 
 In these cities and the beautiful surrounding fields the 
 tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, natur- 
 ally enough, desired to settle. " Bashan was regarded by 
 Bashnninthe the prophets of Israel as an earthly paradise. 
 
 poetry of the 
 
 bible. The strength and grandeur of its oaks, 10 the 
 
 beauty of its mountain scenery, 11 the unrivaled luxuriance of 
 
 T Giant Cities of Bashan, page 12. Dent, lii, 4, 5, 14. 
 
 Giant Cities of Bashan, page la 10 Ezek. xxvii, 6. ' ' Psa. Ixxvlii, 15.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 107 
 
 its pastures, 12 the fertility of its wide-spreading plains, and 
 the excellence of its cattle, 18 all supplied the sacred penmen 
 with lofty imagery. Remnants of the oak forests still clothe 
 the mountain side; the soil of the plains and the pastures on 
 the downs are rich as of yore, and though the periodic raids 
 of Arab tribes have greatly thinned the flocks 
 
 Present ap- 
 
 an d herds, as they have desolated the cities, yet J> earance - 
 such as remain the rams and lambs, and goats and bulls 
 may be appropriately described in the words of Ezekiel as 
 all of them failings of Bashan." 14 
 
 In his very interesting travels in Arabia Petrsea John L. 
 Stephens, Esq., visited the wonderful but now vacant city of 
 Petra, whose dwellings and temples and tombs, 
 
 Stephens in 
 
 highly sculptured and ornamented, were scooped Petra> 
 out of the sides of the mountain. Upon this proud city of 
 the descendants of Esau, in the mountains of Seir, because 
 they refused to permit Israel to pass through their borders, 
 the Almighty denounced the severest judgments. " I have 
 sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah (the strong 
 or fortified city) shall become a desolation, a prophecies 
 
 i- i TI ^i_ against Idu- 
 
 reproach, a waste, and a curse ; and all the mea - 
 cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make 
 thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. 
 Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine 
 heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, that 
 holdest the height of the hill : though thou shouldest make 
 thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from 
 
 > Jer. 1, 19. " Psa. xxii, 12 ; Micah vli, 14 
 
 > Ezek. rariy, 18. Giant Cities, pages 14, 15.
 
 108 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 thence, saith Hie Lord." '* "Thorns shall come up in her pal- 
 aces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it 
 shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls." " "I 
 would that the skeptic," says Stephens, " could stand as I 
 did among the ruins of this city among the rocks, and there 
 open the sacred book and read the words of the 
 
 The lesson to 
 
 e skeptic. inspired penman, written when this desolate 
 place was one of the greatest cities of the world. I see the 
 scoffer arrested, his cheek pale, his lip quivering, and his 
 heart quaking with fear as the ruined city cries out to him 
 in a voice loud and powerful as that of one risen from the 
 dead ; though he would not believe Moses and the prophets 
 he believes the handwriting of God himself in the desola- 
 tion and eternal ruin around him." " 
 
 These illustrations will serve simply to indicate how valu- 
 able a service a knowledge of the geography and present 
 condition of scriptural countries will render in the interpre- 
 tation of Scripture. Our Christian literature is crowded with 
 Better read- valuable and interesting volumes of this descrip- 
 
 ing than 
 
 usuajfysefJcf. tion. If our young people would throw aside 
 the unsubstantial and exciting tales and stories that come in 
 .avalanches from the press at the present time, and seek 
 works of travel in their stead, they would soon acquire a 
 taste and an appetite for what would nourish the intellect 
 and quicken the spiritual life. 
 
 ni. It is necessary also to have some knowl- 
 
 Customs and 
 
 edge of the customs and manners of the people 
 
 " Jer. xlix, 18, 15. If*, mclr, 18. 
 
 >* Travels in Egypt and Arabia Petwca, vol. 11, p. 68.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 109 
 
 of the East. It is a curious fact that these customs to-day, 
 in a large degree, are the same as those in Abraham's time. 
 The Lord has permitted these habits to be stereotyped as a 
 standing commentary upon and illustration of his word. 
 Says Sir Samuel W. Baker, the celebrated English tourist, in 
 his last volume " The Nile Tributaries in Abys- Testimony of 
 
 Sir S. W. Ba- 
 
 sinia," referring to the customs of the native ker - 
 tribes, "this striking similarity to the descriptions of the 
 Old Testament is exceedingly interesting to a traveler when 
 residing among these curious and original people. With the 
 Bible in one hand and these unchanged tribes before the 
 eyes, there is a thrilling illustration of the sacred record ; the 
 past becomes the present ; the vail of three thousand years is 
 raised, and the living picture is a witness to the exactness of 
 the historical description. At the same time there is a light 
 thrown upon many obscure passages in the Old Testament 
 by the experience of the present customs and figures of 
 speech of the Arabs, which are precisely those that were 
 practiced at the periods described." 
 
 The Song of Solomon, viewed in the light of our marriage 
 service, which requires for its performance but a 
 
 Song of Solo- 
 few moments, is incomprehensible, or can only mon- 
 
 be conceived of as a sensuous portrayal of marital love ; but 
 in the light of oriental custom, according to which the nup- 
 tial rites extended over a number of days, which were passed 
 in delightful companionship, the longing of the Church for the 
 coming of the bridegroom, the prophetic announcement of his 
 approach, the joy in his presence, and also the panting of the 
 individual soul for the "Chiefest among ten thousand," the
 
 110 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 grief at his delay, the holy ecstasy upon his approach, are all 
 wonderfully illustrated in the protracted and elaborate cere- 
 monies and triumphant choruses of an eastern marriage. 
 Several of the most impressive parables of our Lord 
 require for their exposition, and the comprehen- 
 
 Parables. 
 
 sion of their moral lessons, a knowledge of these 
 rites. "What is written in the Bible must, as much as is 
 we must see nee< 3ful, be placed more particularly in the light 
 ten 8 in "the of the age from which it is descended, to which 
 
 light of the 
 
 it alludes, and of which it speaks. We must 
 pay attention to the civil, social, and religious conditions, 
 ideas, and views with which that which is written stands in 
 connection in any way." 18 There are but few chapters in 
 the Bible for the clear understanding of which it is not 
 necessary to be acquainted with the manners and customs of 
 the East, in particular of the Jews, to be secured against 
 misunderstanding. 
 For illustration, the passage recorded in John i, 18, 
 
 " which is in the bosom of the Father," referring 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 to the near and unshared relation of the Son to 
 the Father, is illustrated by their habit of reclining at the 
 table. John, leaning next to his Master, reclined upon his 
 bosom, and heard every word that dropped from his lips ; so 
 the only-begotten Son rested upon the bosom of the Father, 
 and he only could reveal him and his word to the world. 
 This custom, also, causing the limbs to be extended upon the 
 couch behind them, illustrates the ease with which a grateful 
 penitent could bathe the Saviour's feet while he sat at meat, 
 M Manual of Hermeneutlca. By Dr. Doedes, page 109.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Ill 
 
 wipe them with her disheveled hair, or anoint them with 
 fragrant and precious ointment. 18 
 
 The breaking of bread, which is referred to in Matt. xxvi. 
 26. and parallel passages, where it is said Jesus 
 
 Breaking of 
 
 broke bread at the institution of the last supper, bread - 
 is a very natural thing, as those reclining at the table used n>) 
 knives, and therefore bread had to be broken to be distrib- 
 uted. Very easily the expression came to signify the same 
 as to eat, or to keep a feast. 20 " He who does not think of 
 this, or does not know it, readily finds in that ' breaking of 
 
 bread' a symbol, and that of the breaking of Error as ap- 
 plied to 
 Jesus's body, which, however, was not broken. Christ's body. 
 
 (See John xix, 33, 36.) In 1 Cor. xi, 24, the word ' broken ' in 
 the words of the institution of the Lord's supper does not 
 belong to the original text." 21 It is omitted by Alford, 
 Tischendorf, and others, in their editions of the Greek New 
 Testament. These illustrations might readily be multiplied, 
 but enough has been said to indicate the importance of the 
 subject. 
 
 IV. The Bible is full of symbols. In all ages men have 
 instinctively recognized in physical objects and 
 
 Symbols 
 
 events the outward expression of the thoughts 
 and emotions of which they are conscious themselves, or ol 
 which they have perceived signs in others. " Thus the sur 
 is the acknowledged emblem of power and creation, the tern 
 pest is a thunderbolt of wrath, the snow a symbol of purity, 
 the rainbow of promise and hope. Spring-time and morning 
 are symbols of youth, sunset and whiter of age and death. The 
 " Luke vli, 88 ; John xil, 3. au Acts 11, 46 ; xx, 7. Dr. Doedea
 
 112 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 mountains naturally suggest the idea of stability, and the sea 
 that of immensity. 25 The lion is a symbol of fierceness, the 
 lamb of innocence, the fox of cunning, the wolf of rapacity, 
 and the dove of gentleness. In the Scriptures the horn is a 
 symbol of strength and triumph, -wings of swiftness, and eyes 
 of intelligence. Hardly a page of Scripture can be found 
 without a significant symbol. The ceremonial law was a 
 The ceremo- collection of symbols. Of the divine symbols set 
 
 nial law sym- 
 bolical forth in the costume of the priests, in the furni- 
 ture of the tabernacle and temple, in the various sacrifices 
 and festivals, the writer of the book of Hebrews gives a 
 full exposition. "We should not attempt to go further, a? 
 some do, with a ' zeal not according to knowledge,' and seek 
 to find a spiritual meaning in the most trifling details of the 
 Symbols may Hebrew sanctuary : in the nails by which the 
 
 be carried to 
 
 extremes. covering was fastened to the earth, in the golden 
 snuffers, and in the tinkling bells upon the priestly robes. 
 The writer heard a very earnest and very popular young 
 divine, before a great body of Bible teachers, affirm that there 
 was nothing, not even the simplest arrangement of the taber- 
 nacle, but had a spiritual application; which was simply 
 nonsense. The author of the book of Hebrews shows that 
 the Jewish service, taken as a whole, was a symbol of the 
 what Hebrews Gospel, &n & was replete with a spiritual meaning 
 under material forms. It 'has been happily said 
 that the best commentary upon the book of Leviticus is the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews; and, what can be said of no other 
 eommentary, it is inspired. As a general principle, it may be 
 Symbols of Christendom. By J. E. THOMPSON, M. A.
 
 Symbolical 
 numbers. 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 113 
 
 held unsafe to find any types in Old Testament characters, 
 as Adam, Noah, Joseph, David, not affirmed to be such by 
 the Scriptures themselves. 
 
 Throughout the Bible, numbers, unless it is definitely stated 
 or clearly to be inferred that they are to be taken 
 literally, are used symbolically. Seven is constantly 
 used in this way to signify a complete or perfect number. 
 Thus we read of seven lamps, seven stars, seven 
 
 The number 
 
 kings, seven diadems, seven hills, seven golden seven - 
 vials, seven angels, and seven spirits of God. The number 
 twelve, as a complete number, we find multiplied into 
 
 Twelve. 
 
 itself in the reckoning of the ransomed of Israel, who 
 are estimated at one hundred and forty-four thousand. Forty 
 means many. The city of Persepolis, in eastern language, is 
 called " the city of forty towers," though the number 
 
 Forty. 
 
 is much larger. This is probably the meaning in 
 2 Kings viii, 9, where Hazael is said to have brought as a 
 present to Elisha forty camels' burden of the good things of 
 Damascus. Seventy is used to express a large, complete, but 
 uncertain number. We are commanded to forgive till 
 
 Seventy. 
 
 seventy times seven, to indicate that if our brother 
 repent of his fault there must be no narrow limit to his for- 
 giveness. The rude reckoning of a year was three hundred and 
 sixty days ; this multiplied by three and a half (a The three 
 
 hundred mid 
 
 time, times, and half a time) gives twelve hundred sixt y da y- 
 and sixty, the famous prophetic and symbolic number which 
 has given rise to so much conjecture. The Hebrew letters 
 which form the word corresponding to " mys- 
 
 J Six hundred 
 
 tery" represent, when employed as nurneralsj the andsixt y- 8 " c
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 mystic number six hundred and sixty-six.* 1 How astonish- 
 ing that any one should build up a mathematical plan of the 
 world's duration, upon such confessedly symbolical figures, 
 of the exact value of which inspiration has given no measure. 
 Natural phenomena are constantly used as symbols in the 
 
 Old and New Testaments. The sun is an em- 
 Natural Bjrm- 
 
 blem of glory and strength, the morning star of 
 beauteous promise, the rainbow of God's covenant of mercy. 
 In the Book of Revelation there are many symbols portending 
 calamity, such as lightning and thunder, winds, fire and 
 brimstone, the blackened sun, the blood-red moon, stars 
 burning or falling from heaven, earthquake, fire, and flame. 
 Animals and their bodily members play a large part in the 
 
 prophetical and poetical Scriptures. The four 
 
 Animal sym- 
 
 living ones (" beasts " in our version) of Ezekiel 
 have given rise to volumes of controversy ; they probably 
 symbolize the whole animated creation. The white horse is 
 the emblem of victory, the red of war, the black of famine, 
 and the pale of death. The ferocity of the leopard and the 
 bear, the headstrong push of the ram, the deadly bite of the 
 scorpion, the destructiveness of locust-swarms, the deadly 
 power of the serpent, furnish the key to their symbolic 
 employment in prophecy. 114 
 
 Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Land of Promise, and the 
 Jerusalem and place where the Lord especially recorded his 
 
 Kabylon sym- 
 
 Church/ the name and manifested his presence, is often used 
 to symbolize the Church of Christ in the ideal perfectness of 
 her situation, economy, rule, and security. On the other 
 
 Symbols of Christendom. * 4 IbW.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD "OPENED. 115 
 
 Lai id, Babylon, to the Jewish mind a name of ill omen, 
 suggesting a memory of captivity, idolatry, and shame, is 
 the personification of that sinful society which opposes and 
 harasses the Church. The terms Sodom and Egypt, for the 
 same reasons, are used for the same purpose. 
 
 The emblems of earthly royalty are freely employed in 
 Scripture to denote the authority and reign of 
 
 Earthly roy- 
 
 God and of created invisible powers. Many alty- 
 diadems upon one head denote plurality of dominion, which 
 the pope of Rome still symbolizes in his triple crown or 
 tiara. The iron scepter is the symbol of severity, as the 
 Psalmist predicts : " He shall rule the nations with a 
 rod of iron." The sword is the universal emblem of 
 war; he who bears the sword is mighty to oppose and 
 to subdue. " The sword going out of the mouth " is sym- 
 bolical of the power attending the words of the august 
 Speaker. 
 
 "The harvest and the vintage were, among the Jews, the 
 chief seasons of agricultural festivity. In the 
 
 The vintage 
 
 symbolism of the Apocalypse, the corn harvest and harvest 
 and the subsequent garnering denote the spiritual maturity 
 and the eternal safety of Christ's people ; the vintage, on the 
 other hand, figures forth ripeness unto wrath ; the treading 
 of the grapes in the wine-press emblematizing the severity of 
 the inevitable and divine vengeance. The sharp sickle is 
 common to both, being the instrument in the one case of 
 salvation, in the other of destruction. The vials 
 
 The vials. 
 
 which were emptied by the angels upon the earth 
 
 were not what we understand by that term in English ; they
 
 116 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Were the Latin paterae, broad, flat bowls or dishes, used both 
 
 in worship and in household affairs." 86 The harp is an 
 
 emblem of joy and praise ; the scroll, or book, 
 
 of purposes and decrees; the seal upon it 
 
 denotes secresy. Keys signify power to admit and exclude ; 
 
 a gem or white stone, acquittal, friendship, or felicity. By 
 
 eating a book, or scroll, is intended participation in the 
 
 divine purposes ; by drinking the wine of wrath and the 
 
 cup of vengeance, the enduring of the divine displeasure. 
 
 The bride is the pure, chosen, and beloved 
 
 Tne bride. 
 
 Church of Christ. The Church is also repre- 
 sented under the similitude of the woman clothed with the 
 sun. The harlot is the idolatrous, antichristian body tempt- 
 ing the true Church to forsake the Lord.*' 
 
 The great battle between truth and error is set forth in the 
 Revelation in symbols taken from the prophecy 
 
 Battle of Ar- J r J 
 
 Ion - of Ezekiel, in which the forces of Gog and 
 Magog represent the combined hosts of error gathered from 
 every quarter. Of its final result the Church of Christ is left 
 in no anxious doubt. It often occurs in the Old Testament 
 that the prophets predict the judgments which God is about 
 to visit upon the nations by symbolical acts, as 
 
 Symbolical 
 
 acte " where Isaiah is directed to " loose the sackcloth 
 
 from his loins," to " put off the shoe from his foot," and he is 
 Walking said to have done so "walking naked and 
 
 naked and 
 
 barefoot. barefoot three years a sign and a wonder." 2 
 
 Evidently this was not actually done by the prophet, for it 
 
 would have been a shameful exposure of his person ; but the 
 
 J. E. Thompson. 9 Ibid, " Isa. rx.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 117 
 
 symbolic picture is presented, illustrating the judgments cf 
 God about to be brought upon Egypt and Ethiopia. Era 
 long they would be conquered hi battle, made captives, and 
 be led forth " naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks 
 uncovered, to the shame of Egypt." Thus by this pictured 
 symbol a shameful uncovering or a disgraceful humiliation of 
 the proud idolatrous powers upon whom Israel was inclined 
 to lean for support in her threatened invasions from the East, 
 is pointed out. If the prophet had simply exposed himself 
 in this manner no one would have connected his shame with 
 that of the designated countries ; or, if he had symbolical 
 
 only, or with- 
 
 declared this, his constant appearance for three ut force - 
 years would have utterly destroyed its impressiveness. It 
 was simply a symbolized prophecy. 
 
 Thus also the symbolical marriage of the prophet to the 
 prophetess, 28 and the birth of a son with a sym- Marriage of 
 
 the prophet to 
 
 bolic name, could not have been a literal occur- ess. prophet " 
 rence, because such a course would have been simply adultery, 
 as evidently the prophetess was not of his family. The object 
 of the prophetic warning was to show the Jewish people that 
 a certain overthrow would be speedily visited upon the 
 combined powers of Samaria and Damascus. For this pur- 
 pose the prophet is led by God to the prophetess, that by the 
 conjunction of a twofold prophetical character in the parent- 
 age there might be a birth in the strongest sense prophetical. 
 The name of the child is significant as translated : hasten, 
 spoil, quick prey. Before the predictive child should be able 
 to cry "My father," God declares by Isaiah, that both Syria 
 8 Isaiah viii, 1-31.
 
 118 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 and Damascus shall have fallen under the stroke of Assyria 
 As a predictive symbol, the prophecy is impressive ; as an 
 actual fact, it would have been inconsistent, criminal, and 
 without power to awaken conviction."* 
 
 These illustrations will afford aid in the consideration of 
 many symbolical prophecies which, literally understood, 
 shock the moral sense, but considered simply as picturesque 
 and significant signs are striking and full of force. " Hosea," 
 for example, " is commanded to marry two impure women ; 
 Symbols of Ezekiel to lie on his left side three hundred and 
 
 Hose a and 
 
 ninety days, looking at an iron pan, then turn 
 over to his right side, on which he must lie forty additional 
 days, eating during the whole period a compost of lentiles, 
 beans, barley, millet, and fitches, prepared in a manner most 
 decidedly offensive. We affirm boldly that the expositors 
 who consider these, and others which might be mentioned, 
 as real transactions, dishonor the word of God, while they 
 betray a want of taste that is astounding. Beyond all doubt, 
 they were symbolical representations that passed before the 
 prophet's mind in his inspired ecstasy." * 
 
 It will be seen how modestly and carefully these scriptural 
 symbols must be used. Many enthusiastic symbolists have 
 Symbols staked their reputation upon views of the future 
 
 should be In- 
 
 eat e careT lth depending upon their proper rendering of these 
 often mysterious symbols, and have been terribly abased by 
 the result. What is distinctly revealed is for us and our 
 children ; bat what God has seen fit to vail we are to receive 
 as indistinct disclosures of divine purposes, held out as great 
 Fairbairn on Prophecy, page 601. Canon and Interpretation, page 205.
 
 THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 119 
 
 but distant lights for the direction and encouragement of 
 the Church. 
 
 V. We will refer to but one other preliminary requisite to 
 the safe interpretation of the holy records, and Must be in 
 
 sympathy with 
 
 that is, that we should endeavor to be in sympa- fers. ed wn " 
 thy in thought and feeling with the sacred writers. This is 
 necessary in reference to any ancient or foreign author. 
 " Language," says Fairbairn, " is but the utterance of thought 
 and feeling on the part of one person to another, and the 
 more we can identify ourselves with the state of mind out of 
 which that thought and feeling arose the more manifestly 
 shall we be qualified for appreciating the language in which 
 they are embodied, and reproducing true and living impres- 
 sions of it." 31 
 
 Thus Hagenbach remarks in his Encyclopedia, " An inward 
 interest in the doctrine of theology is needful for Hagenbach 
 
 upon inward 
 
 a biblical interpreter. As we say that a philo- interest, 
 sophical spirit is demanded for the study of Plato, a poetical 
 taste for the reading of Homer or Pindar, a sensibility to wit 
 and satire for the perusal of Lucian, a patriotic sentiment for 
 the enjoyment of Sallust and Tacitus, equally certain is it 
 that fitness to understand the profound truths of Scripture 
 presupposes, as an indispensable requisite, a sentiment of 
 piety, an inward religious experience." The excellent Nc- 
 ander's motto was, " Pectus et quod theologium 
 
 Motto of Ne- 
 
 facit .-" " It is the heart that makes the theology." ander ' 
 It is the want of this living sympathy and divine experience 
 that renders certain, otherwise so intelligent, scholars blind 
 > Hermeneutlcal Manual, page 80.
 
 120 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 to the significant meaning of the Scriptures. The learned 
 but rationalistic Dr. Paulus, of Heidelberg, upon 
 
 Dr. Paulus. 
 
 the passage, "Blessed art thou, for flesh and 
 blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father that is in 
 heaven," can see nothing more than a reference to the force 
 of circumstances in awakening the mind toward what is 
 good ; and hi the words, " I must work the works of Him that 
 sent me while it is day; the night cometh when no man 
 can work ;" all the sense he can find is, " I must heal 
 the diseased eyes before the evening twilight comes on, 
 because when it is dark we can no longer see to work." ** 
 
 Thus it ever has been, and always will be, as 
 
 What Jesus 
 
 Jesus said when upon earth, "Thou hast hid 
 these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them 
 unto babes." 
 
 " When the Christian reads," says Dr. Stowe, " what Jesus 
 said to Martha, ' one thing is needful, 1 his own Christian con- 
 sciousness teaches him that true religion, the love of Christ, 
 is here meant as the one thing needful, and both grammar 
 and lexicography sustain his position ; but Paulus, who haa 
 no Christian consciousness, in the proper sense of the term, 
 can see in these words nothing more than a declaration from 
 the intellectual and temperate Rabbi to the anxious woman 
 cumbered about much serving, and eager to prepare a 
 sumptuous entertainment for her beloved teacher, that one 
 dish is enough for supper, nor can grammar and lexicon 
 alone prove the interpretation to be wrong." 88 
 
 Dr. Goulburn starts the inquiry why the Bible offers so 
 
 " Dr. FairtMirn. " BiMiotheca Sacra.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 121 
 
 little attraction to most persons, and why they Answer to 
 
 query why so 
 
 seem to gather their theological views from any In'^he'wb'ie? 
 other source rather than the Bible, and answers it thus : 
 " It is, I fear, that we are interested in theology, and not in 
 religion ; in questions and controversies rather than in godly 
 edifying which is in faith. Our minds are interested, and we 
 read religious works to feed and stimulate them. Our hearts 
 are comparatively uninterested, and so the light of the heart, 
 the food of the heart, the joy of the heart, the comfort of the 
 heart, are reckoned cheap and common things in our eyes." 
 We need the presence and inward aid of the 
 
 Men need the 
 
 Holy Spirit in order clearly to apprehend re- 
 vealed truth, " for what man knoweth the things of a man 
 save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things of 
 God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." 34 The Scrip- 
 tures cannot be deeply and perfectly understood except by 
 the guidance of the same mind which inspired Jf 1 ^"^'^" 
 them. The letter of the Scriptures may be familiar iigh e ten U us. en " 
 to us from our youth upward, but to God's own thought and 
 counsel we shall be strangers until the Holy Spirit, by his 
 divine communications, reveals them to our souls. Dr. Goul- 
 burn happily illustrates this truth by comparing the Bible to 
 a sun-dial, which is in itself perfect and com- 
 
 This truth il- 
 
 plete, graven with all the hours, and with a lustrated - 
 gnomon or index, which casts an exact shadow ; but what 
 avails a sun-dial without light ? On a cloudy day, in the 
 twilight, or at midnight, it cannot inform us of the time ; so 
 the Bible is the chart of life, and is " able to make us wise 
 *1 Cor. 11,11.
 
 122 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 unto salvation ;" but its one indispensable condition is, that 
 the Spirit, while we are reading it, shall be shining upon the 
 heart. The Psalmist seems to have regard to this double 
 _ , necessity when he prays, "O send out thy liyht 
 
 Prayer of the 
 
 and thy truth, that they may lead me and bring 
 me to thy holy hill ! " 
 
 To guard against any misapprehension of the character of 
 this work of the Holy Spirit enlightening the mind in answer 
 Nature of this to prayer, it is proper to remark that one is not 
 
 work of the 
 
 Spirit. to expect after he has prayed " any sudden influx 
 
 of a wonderful light, quite distinct from the ordinary powers 
 of reflection and memory. The Holy Spirit acts upon, the 
 mind through the ordinary mental faculties, not without 
 Siiirit acts them, or independently of them. When, after 
 
 through the 
 
 mind. careful, patient, and prayerful thought, or after 
 
 an effort of the imagination to realize some scriptural narra- 
 tive in all its details, we find that the difficulties, one after 
 another, begin to clear up, like clouds rolling away from the 
 bosom of a mountain, and revealing patches of verdure smit- 
 ten with the sunbeam ; or when memory recalls some appo- 
 site allusion elsewhere, or some illustrative experience, 
 through which we ourselves have passed the light so vouch- 
 safed is undistinguishable in our consciousness from that 
 which is supplied by our natural faculties ; it is supplied 
 through them, they being called into operation and assisted 
 by grace, whose primary actings are in the abyssmat depths 
 of the mind, far beyond the ken of the keenest self- 
 intuition." 3& 
 
 '* Devotional Study of the Scripture*
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 123 
 
 Whatever other source of information may be beyond the 
 teacher's reach in entering upon the work of in- This grace ai. 
 
 ways proffer- 
 
 terpreting Scripture, this highest source of spir- ed to us. 
 itual illumination is ever open and ever available, for saith 
 our Lord, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
 gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heav- 
 enly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." ** 
 Luke zJ, 18.
 
 124: THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BULKS OF INTERPRETATION. 
 
 HULK L 
 
 HHHE literal meaning is to be given to all words, 
 unless it will cause them, to express what is in- 
 consistent with universal experience as to the na- 
 ture of things, or with the declared opinions of 
 the sacred writers in other passages, or at variance 
 with the evident scope of the passage itself. 
 
 Always recollecting that the Scriptures are for the most 
 part written in the language of common life, unless we find 
 Obvious mean- positive qualifying reasons apparent the obvious 
 
 Ing the true 
 
 one. and common-sense significance of the language 
 
 of the sacred writers is to be received as the true meaning. 
 We are not to apply a sense to the words that will best suit 
 our opinion of what should have been said, or what we 
 desire should be said; but our only inquiry is, "What did 
 Ben^ei on they say ? Bengel was accustomed to say, " It is 
 
 holding to 
 
 Scripture text, better to run all lengths with Scripture truth in 
 a natural and open manner than to shift and twist and 
 accommodate. Every single tAth is a light of itself, and 
 every error, however minute, is darkness as far as it goes." ' 
 
 1 Of the various opinions that have been forced npon the simple utterances 
 of Scripture Dr. Stowo remarks: "As an illustration of this, read such works
 
 Martin 
 Luther. 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 125 
 
 Melanchthon, the St. John of the Reformation in spirit, and 
 its scholar in literature, says in his Elements 
 
 MelanchtUon. 
 
 of Rhetoric, " The sense of Scripture is one, 
 
 certain, and simple, and is every where to be ascertained 
 
 in accordance with the principles of grammar and human 
 
 discourse." 
 
 The reformer himself says, with characteristic earnestness : 
 " We must not make God's word mean what we 
 wish ; we must not bend it, but allow it to bend 
 us; and give it the honor of being better than we could 
 make it, so that we must let it stand." 
 
 The simplest and most natural meaning that flows from 
 
 as Owen on the Hebrews, or M'Knight on the Epistles. Able books in their 
 way, and showing no small amount of intellectual acumen and Industrious 
 scholarship; but how many things they think of, how many arguments they 
 have, how much meaning they will find in Paul, at which the apostle himself 
 would be astonished with great astonishment if he knew it were attributed to 
 him I The same is true of some of the purest and strongest of our New En- 
 gland writers. If Moses and Isaiah and David and John and Paul had been 
 natives of New England, habituated to the New England modes of thought, 
 educated in New England colleges, and settled ministers over New England 
 parishes, these expositions of our excellent fathers would have been very cor- 
 rect ; but as matters are, they in many cases rather project themselves than 
 expound the sacred writers. Dr. Burton, in his proof-texts for the Taste Scheme, 
 has the most comforting conviction that the apostle Paul was full of the same 
 philosophy with himself; and Dr. Emmons, in his Scriptural proofs of the 
 Exercize Scheme, has the most unflinching assurance that the apostle Paul was 
 clearly and heartily an exerciser ; but I suspect the apostle would be greatly 
 surprised to learn that he was either the one or the other, and as much con- 
 founded if the question were put to him which he was, as if he were asked 
 whether he were a Lockeian or a Coleridgeite. Those questions were not up in 
 his day, nor did the apostle's reasoning run on those lines. You might as well 
 start the question whether he journeyed from Miletus to Jerusalem on a rail- 
 road or in a steamboat, and adduce long and learned arguments in favor of on 
 of these hypotheses and against the other." EiblioUieca Sacra, vol. x, p. 44
 
 126 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 the words, giving the least impression of constraint oi 
 The simplest uncommon use, may, other things being equal, 
 
 meaning the 
 
 true one. be relied upon as the sense in which the words 
 are to be understood. The writers were from comparatively 
 humble ranks in life. " Their manners and habits, their 
 The writers modes of conception and forms of speech, are 
 
 men of hum- 
 ble origin. BU ch as usually belong to persons similarly cir- 
 cumstanced ; that is, they partake, not of the polish and re- 
 finement, the art and subtlety, which too commonly mark 
 the footsteps of high cultivation and luxurious living, but of 
 the free, the open, the natural, as of persons accustomed 
 frankly to express, not to conceal, their emotions, or to wrap 
 their sentiments in disguise." a 
 
 REMAKK 1. WTiere, however, the literal meaning assert* that 
 when literal wJiich is Tcnown to l)e impossible it must be given 
 
 meaning as- 
 
 po8?ibinty in it U P > ^ evidently then a symbolical or figurative 
 
 must be given . ... . , 
 
 up. expression. As, for illustration, when the psalm- 
 
 ist says, " The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they 
 go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." 1 The 
 literal meaning is impossible here, for no one can speak lies 
 from the moment of birth ; while the truth taught, that the 
 depraved heart from the first leads the unregenerate person 
 astray, is readily understood. In Jeremiah's prophecy we read, 
 " They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns." 4 Wheat 
 seed would never be followed by a harvest of thorns ; but the 
 expectation which they cherished of a bountiful and whole- 
 some return from their labors would be blasted. 
 
 " When it is said in 1 Cor. xv, 22, ' For as in Adam all 
 Fairbairn's Hermeneutical Manual. Psa. Ivili, 8. Jer. xii, 13>
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 127 
 
 die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' these words, 
 as in Adam all die, cannot be intended to affirm illustration 
 
 from 1 Cor. 
 
 that all men existed in Adam, nor that they xv,22. 
 all sinned in his person, nor that they all died when he died. 
 These are known impossibilities. One person cannot be all 
 mankind ; all mankind cannot be one person. Men cannot 
 exist before they exist ; they cannot die before they live ; they 
 cannot sin before they act." 6 Some other meaning, therefore, 
 which the Scriptures themselves would naturally afford, must 
 be found for this expression. So when, in Matthew x, 34, 
 
 Christ tells his disciples that " he came not to Christ send- 
 ing a "sword" 
 
 send peace on earth, but a sword," no justifica- justification" 
 tion from the literal rendering can be found for tion. 
 the violent persecution of those esteemed to be Christ's 
 enemies ; but history interprets clearly its meaning. The 
 Gospel has ever occasioned differences and discords in fam- 
 ilies and nations by inducing some to accept its self-denying 
 truth ; while others have rejected it, and have bitterly opposed 
 its friends. 
 
 " When David says that ' he is poured out like water, and 
 
 all his bones are out of joint; that his heart is j> av id " pour- 
 ed out like 
 
 melted in the midst of his bowels,' we perceive water." 
 instantly that a literal pouring out and melting cannot be 
 meant, as nothing of the kind has ever been witnessed. 
 When the Redeemer, in the institution of the The bre!d 
 
 and wine in 
 
 supper, declares of the bread that it is his body, j^'ent. Bacra " 
 
 and of the wine that it is his blood, we necessarily understand 
 
 him to be speaking figuratively and symbolically. My 
 
 Dobte.
 
 128 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 senses distinctly see, taste, smell, and feel that the sacra- 
 mental elements are nothing but real bread and wine. If the 
 Scriptures really taught the Popish doctrine of transubstan- 
 tiation they would declare a falsehood, which would be 
 quite sufficient by itself to destroy their authority. If my 
 senses may deceive me, how shall I convince myself that I 
 ever saw a book called the Bible, or read it, or ever heard of 
 such a being as Jesus Christ." * 
 
 Thus says the spiritual and learned Augustine, a bishop of 
 Aumisiine on the Church before it became corrupted, upon 
 
 the bod; and 
 
 the passage in St. John's Gospel in reference to 
 eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ : " It ap- 
 pears to order a wicked'and abominable action ; it is, there- 
 fore, a figure teaching that we must communicate with our 
 Lord's passion, and have it sweetly and properly laid up in 
 our memory that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us." 
 "We may readily decide whether a passage is figurative or 
 HOW to know literal by asking the question : If the words are 
 
 a figurative 
 
 expression. taken just as they stand, will the idea expressed 
 be true, or contrary to experience and the nature of things ? 
 When Jesus calls his disciples his sheep, we cannot doubt 
 that, by a significant figure, he suggests his affection for 
 The disciples them and his care of them, and their confidence 
 
 the "sheep" 
 
 of Jesus. in a nd attachment to him; and, also, the quali- 
 
 ties of temper and character that he expects to find in them. 
 Thus, sin is called in Scripture a debt ; atonement, the pay- 
 ment of a debt ; pardon, the forgiveness of a debt. These are 
 not literal terms, but figures of speech suggesting spiritual 
 M'Lelland.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 129 
 
 truths. We may not hold these terms to a rigid construction, 
 and maintain that because Christ died for man's These figures 
 
 must not be 
 
 sin, therefore all will be finally saved ; or, that Btrue'ci. c n 
 because he has obeyed the law, therefore sinners are free to 
 live in sin. Men are represented in the Bible to be dead in 
 sin, but they are not dead in such a sense as to be unable to 
 see and feel the truth ; neither are they free from the duty of 
 repentance ; nor are they guiltless if they disregard the 
 divine call. More errors, probably, have arisen from pushing 
 figurative expressions to an extreme than from any other 
 single cause ; and against this tendency the sober, earnest 
 student of the Bible needs to be specially on his guard. 7 
 
 The difficulty in understanding a figurative passage is 
 sometimes readily resolved by referring to parallel passages 
 which treat of the same subject under other symbols or in 
 literal terms, or to the context. Thus in the inimitable 
 Sermon upon the Mount, the first beatitude is a benediction 
 
 upon the poor, according to the Gospel of St. Figures inter- 
 preted hy par- 
 Luke, while in St. Matthew's Gospel its meaning niiei passages. 
 
 The first be- 
 is clearly interpreted in the additional phrase, atitude. 
 
 "Blessed are the poor in spirit," which plainly indicates the 
 error of the Romanists in their enforced poverty in their or- 
 ders of mendicant Monks, and the real virtue commended 
 consciousness of spiritual necessities, the opposite of spirit- 
 ual pride. Dr. Fairbairn applies this principle to 1 Cor. 
 iii, 13, which declares that every man's work shall be made 
 manifest, being revealed by fire: "The declaration here 
 made," he says, "is, that 'the day,' namely ^ of coming 
 
 T Bible Hand-Book : Angus. 
 9
 
 130 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 trial, : shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every 
 -> t- . v-i man's work of what sort it is.' What is the na- 
 
 frt. rafrbalrn 
 
 is, "reveal ture of the work to be tried? (as revealed in 
 iustnvted M by * Me context.) This is naturally the first qnes- 
 
 context . 
 
 tion. Is it of a moral, or simply of an external 
 and earthly kind ? The only work spoken of in the con- 
 text is that which concerns the progress of Christ's Church, 
 and man's relation to it work, therefore, in a strictly 
 moral sense; and so the fire that is to try it must be moral 
 too. For how incongruous were it to couple a corporeal fire 
 with a spiritual service, as the means of determining its real 
 character!" If we have recourse to other passages which 
 speak of future trial, we find, indeed, that the Lord will be 
 revealed in flaming fire; but as to what shall really fix the 
 character and the award of each man's work in the Lord, we 
 are left in no room to doubt that it shall be his own searching 
 judgment: this it is that shall bring all clearly to light. 8 
 
 REMARK 2. We may he assured, if the letter of any Scrij> 
 ture seems to violate our moral sense, or to contradict another 
 The meaning moral precept, it cannot he intended to hate its 
 
 must not con- 
 
 tnuHct moral or ^ nar y gens e. When Christ says, " If any man 
 hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, he 
 what Christ cannot be my disciple," he does not intend to 
 
 Intended by 
 
 Mld'^other?' teac h us th at we must break the fourth com- 
 mandment. Every human instinct which God has implanted 
 in the heart would revolt against such a rendering. Christ 
 simply uses the strongest earthly figure to express our super- 
 eminent obligation to him. As much as we rightly love our 
 
 * FairbnJrn's Hermnentleal Manual, p. 163.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 131 
 
 parents, we should love him more. Nothing but duty to 
 Christ can come between the perfect obedience of the child 
 to the reasonable commands of a parent. 
 
 A literal rendering of the command in Matt, xviii, 9, "to 
 cut off the right hand and pluck out the right 
 
 Cutting off 
 
 eye," would be a breach of the spirit of the sixth the hand ' 
 commandment ; while Christ simply teaches that whatever 
 stands between a soul and its duty, as revealed by the Holy 
 Spirit, is to be surrendered, even if the self-denial is as pain- 
 ful as the loss of an eye or a hand. "Put a knife to thy 
 throat, if thou be a man given to appetite," as written in 
 Prov. xxiii, 2, is not an exhortation to suicide, but a warning 
 against gluttony. 
 
 "In Luke x, 4 Christ commands his disciples 'not to salute 
 (during one of their missionary journeys) any by 
 the way,' a precept which our Quaker brethren precepts- 
 obey to the letter. But Christ could never have intended to 
 inculcate rudeness ; it must therefore mean, ' Do not lose 
 time by holding unnecessary intercourse with your friends ; 
 use all expedition in journeying to the scene of your labors.' 
 Equally absurd is their well-known exposition of the pre- 
 cept, ' when smitten on the one cheek, turn the other also,' 
 as if our Saviour disapproved of self-defense." 9 
 
 In Rom. v, 19 we read, " For as by one man's disobedience 
 many were made sinners, so by the obedience of 
 
 Many modi 
 
 one shall many be made righteous." If we in- smners - 
 terpret this verse literally we are at once forced to trample 
 upon our moral intuitions as to right and wrong. "We 
 JTLelland.
 
 132 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 cannot force our moral natures to admit the justice oi 
 making men sinners, on account of the sin of another, with- 
 out their knowledge or consent. " Such a sense is contrary 
 to the known nature of man as a free agent. That natuie is 
 such that he cannot be made a sinner but by his own per- 
 sonal and voluntary choice. Besides, the terms of justifica- 
 tion through the merits of Christ are such that no man can 
 partake of its benefits save by a personal and voluntary faith 
 in him. If, therefore, men are not made righteous through 
 Christ except on condition of their voluntary faith, neither, 
 in all fairness, are they made sinners through Adam except 
 on condition of their breaking the divine law through the 
 free choice of their own wills. "Whatever meaning, therefore, 
 may be affixed to the passage it must be one that shall con- 
 sist with the nature of man and with the nature of sin, for it 
 is a primary principle that the Scriptures every where speak 
 in harmony with the nature of the objects of which they 
 treat." 10 
 
 The Bible does not draw nice theological and metaphysi- 
 cal distinctions. The apostle simply teaches that as our 
 moral nature is overthrown and disorganized 
 
 What the apos- 
 tle teaches, through our descent from a fallen and sinful 
 
 man, and moral beings from their first volitions are sinful, 
 so that moral nature is restored and sanctified by the coming 
 into it of the Lord Jesus. When he is admitted into the 
 heart the lost balance is restored, and the acts are righteous. 
 Of the same class is the Scripture found in 
 
 Christ made 
 
 )r " 2 Cor. v, 21, "For he hath made him to be sin 
 >Doble,
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 133 
 
 for us, who knew no sin." Here would be a positive contra- 
 diction to all the known nature of things if the words were 
 taken literally. Our sinless Lord could not by any possi- 
 bility be made to be sin. He is made, however, to be a sin 
 offering an expiatory sacrifice for our sin so that we, peni- 
 tently trusting in him, may be accounted as if we were 
 righteous before God. 
 
 The passage in Prov. xvi, 4, where it is said, " The Lord 
 hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the 
 day of evil," has been thought by some to teach The wicked 
 
 made for the 
 
 the forbidding doctrine that the wicked were day of evil. 
 created that they might be condemned ; but this would be 
 contrary to every conviction of justice, and to manifold other 
 Scriptures, such as Psa. cxlv, 9 ; Ezek. xviii, 23 ; 2 Peter iii, 9. 
 The meaning, therefore, must be that all evil shall in some 
 way contribute to the glory of God, and promote the accom- 
 plishment of his will. 
 
 There are many things that the Bible reveals which tran- 
 scend human thought, but nothing contradictory to the 
 moral nature which God has given us if it Nothing con- 
 
 tradictory to 
 
 comes within the bounds of our knowledge and uons! onvic ' 
 experience. No man is required to do injustice to his en- 
 lightened convictions of right and wrong by any requisition 
 which the sacred record makes upon his faith or practice. 
 
 REMARK 3. When the literal interpretation is contrary to 
 universal experience its meaning must le modified ; whencontra- 
 as when a passage of Scripture states absolutely sai "xperU 
 
 ence must be 
 
 what is a general truth, but has often exceptions, modmed. 
 Thus Solomon says in Prov. xxii, 6, "Train up a child in
 
 13-i THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 the way he should go. and when he is old he 
 
 Training of a 
 
 will not depart from it." This is not always 
 true. The verse means this is the tendency of such training, 
 although the apparent exceptions, after all, may be very often 
 attributed to some failure in parental training even in the 
 
 case of very devoted and estimable persons. In 
 
 A soft answer. 
 
 Prov. xv, 1 it is said, " A soft answer turneth 
 away wrath." This is its tendency, although certainly 'in every 
 case this is not the result. And so when Paul declares that 
 
 the " goodness of God leadeth to repentance," he 
 
 The goodness 
 
 states a general truth. This is its inclination ; 
 but how many resist it to their own destruction ! So, also, 
 when we are commanded by our Lord to " take no thought 
 Taking no for the morrow," and by the apostle to "pray 
 
 thought, and 
 
 Suuttfsing. 11 " without ceasing," the natural modifications of 
 the literal signification of the words are so evident that no 
 one can fail to perceive them. In John i, 11, 12 it is said, 
 His own re- " He came unto his own, and his own received 
 
 ceived him 
 
 not him not." It might seem from this that not one 
 
 of his own nation received him. The next sentence, however, 
 suggests the scriptural modification, " But as many as re- 
 ceived him," comparatively few received him. 
 
 REMARK 4. We shall consider in another chapter the 
 interpretation of the poetic books, and of prophecy. Noth- 
 ing can be more evident than that the latter cannot be 
 understood literally. Hundreds have attempted it. Sys- 
 interpreting terns of hermcneutics have been prepared pur 
 
 prophecy must 
 
 not be literal, porting to give the exact significance of pro- 
 phetic symbols. In our own country incalculable evil has
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 135 
 
 been brought upon the cause of Christ; especially upon 
 local Churches and individuals led away by the sincere but 
 mistaken opinions of teachers who have ventured upon a 
 literal rendering of prophecy. 
 
 These are the natural exceptions, arising out of the idioms 
 and customs of speaking of the times, to the principle of the 
 rule, but in no measure affecting its value as a broad canon 
 for our guidance in the interpretation of the sacred writings. 
 
 RULE n. 
 
 In settling the meaning of words we must have 
 respect chiefly to the current sense or established 
 usage at the time they were uttered, rather than 
 to their etymology. 
 
 The importance of this rule is obvious even in the inter- 
 pretation of a book written in our own language two or 
 three hundred years since. Thus the word villain, which at 
 the present time signifies an extremely depraved person, 
 formerly meant the poor serf attached to the changes to 
 
 our own Ian- 
 
 villa or farm of a proprietor. As they were guage. 
 ignorant, and generally dishonest and dissolute, when the 
 original relation ceased, the term was applied to such a 
 character as they were accustomed to exhibit. In our En- 
 glish version of the Scriptures we find the word let, which 
 now signifies to permit, used as it formerly was in the sense 
 of hindering. 11 
 The term prevent, now usually signifies to restrain, but in 
 
 11 Bomans 1, 13.
 
 136 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 the Scripture it often has its appropriate meaning, as derived 
 from the Latin, to come before, or to anticipate. Thus the 
 psalmist says : " But unto thee have I cried, O Lord ; and in 
 the morning shall my prayer prevent (or come before) thec." " 
 An Englishman speaks of a man as clever, meaning that he 
 is capable, dexterous; while we generally use the term as 
 expressing amiableness and good nature. 
 
 In Gal. vi, 2 we are directed to " bear one another's bur- 
 dens, and so fulfill the law of Christ ;" while immediately 
 AS to bearing after, in the fifth verse, we are told that " every 
 
 our own and 
 
 others' bur- Qne ^^ bear h j g Qwn burden." The context 
 throws some light upon the different uses of the same term, 
 indicating that one is the burden of one's trials and infirmi- 
 ties, which may readily be shared in by others, while the 
 other is the burden of his personal responsibility, or the 
 burden of his personal state and destiny, which he must bear 
 himself alone. In the original terms used to express these 
 two burdens the difference is at once seen. The burdens 
 which we are to bear for one another are expressed by a 
 Greek word signifying the weights, the things which press 
 like loads upon those who come in contact with them ; but 
 the burden which each one is to bear for himself is expressed 
 by two words which signify his own "baggage, the solemn 
 personal accountability which God has laid upon him. Dr. 
 Fairbairn gives an interesting illustration of this rule in the 
 interpretation of 2 Cor. xii, 9. The apostle here says that he 
 The import of would most willing] v rather glory in infirmities, 
 
 "the power of 
 
 " that the power of Christ may rest upon me," 
 > Psalm Ixxxrili, 18.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 137 
 
 which sentence but imperfectly presents the force and signifi- 
 cation of the original. The verb employed, translated may 
 rest, belongs to the later Greek, and is found in Polybius in 
 the sense of dwelling in a tent, or -inhabiting. The word, 
 however, can only be explained by referring to what is said 
 in the Old Testament Scriptures (which was familiar to the 
 apostle) of the relation of the Lord's tabernacle or tent to his 
 people ; for example, as where it is written in Isa. iv, 6, 
 "And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day- 
 time from the heat," signifying the Lord's gracious presence 
 and protection spread over them as a shelter. So, also, in 
 Rev. vii, 15 the Lord is represented as " tabernacling upon " 
 the redeemed in glory. In like manner the apostle here 
 states it as the reason why he would rejoice in infirmities, 
 that thereby Christ's power might tabernacle upon him 
 might serve him, so to speak, as the abiding refuge and 
 divine resort in which he could hide himself. 
 
 Archbishop Leighton calls attention to the expressive 
 word used to denote God's opposition to the proud. God 
 resisteth the proud : sets himself in battle array 
 
 God resisting 
 
 (for this is the force of the word) against pride, 
 as if it were his grand enemy. 13 
 
 The Jews frequently expressed a qualifying thought by the 
 use, not of an adjective, but of a second noun, a practice which 
 is also seen in the Hebrew Greek of the New Testament. 
 In 2 Cor. i, 5 Paul says, the "sufferings of Christ abound 
 in us." This is a very common idiom of the Scriptures. It 
 means, not the sufferings experienced by Christ himself, but 
 " Fall-bairn's Henneneutlcal Manual.
 
 138 TUE WOltD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 those which we suffer for him. Thus, when the apostle calla 
 himself a prisoner of Christ, he means that he waa 
 
 Hebraisms. 
 
 imprisoned for his belief in Christ. In various 
 chapters of Romans Paul speaks of the " righteousness of 
 God," by which he plainly signifies, not the excellency of the 
 divine nature, but the righteousness by which the sinner is 
 justified, and which he calls God's righteousness, because he 
 graciously provided the means of its attainment, and accepts it. 
 All this is in accordance with the Hebrew idiom, which em- 
 ploys the genitive (or possessive case) in the place of an adjec- 
 tive, as where the apostle speaks of the " patience of hope " for 
 patient hope, the "glory of his power " for his glorious power. 
 Things are sometimes said to be done which are only 
 Things said to attempted, or where there is an endeavor or 
 
 be done which 
 
 tempted'. 3 ' at ~ desire to do them. Eeuben is said to "have 
 delivered Joseph out of the hands of liis brethren." He 
 sought to do so, although he failed in his purpose. " Whoso 
 findeth his life," says our Saviour, " shall lose it," that is, 
 seeks to find or save it is unduly anxious at the expense of 
 duty. Sometimes an act is said to be done by a person 
 when he is simply the occasion of it. Thus Jeremiah declares 
 One who oc- (xxxviii, 23) that God says to the unhappy king 
 aid to do it. Zedekiah, that he shall be taken by the hand of 
 the king of Babylon, and shall " cause Jerusalem to be burnt 
 with fire." The conduct of Zedekiah led to this mournful 
 result at the hand of the king of Babylon. He did not order 
 Jerusalem to be burned, but it was burned on his account. 
 This explains the apparent discrepancy between Matthew's 
 and Luke's account of the purchase of the " field of blood."
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 139 
 
 The former states that it was bought by the priests and 
 elders with the money that Judas returned to them ; the 
 latter, in Acts i, 18, says: "This man [Judas] purchased a 
 field with the reward of iniquity." In this case he was the 
 occasion of the purchase, and according to the current habit 
 of speech, was said to have made it himself. 
 
 That which is difficult or inconvenient or unjust was often 
 said to be impossible, as when in Ruth iv, 6, the 
 
 Things said to 
 
 kinsman of Elimelech says, " I cannot redeem his ible< 
 
 inheritance." He had property enough to do it, but it was 
 inconvenient for him to assume the necessary obligations. 
 When the householder in our Lord's parable was called at 
 midnight to give admission to a friend, he replies: "The 
 door is shut, the children are with me in bed, and I cannot 
 rise and give." He means, it would be a great discomfort for 
 him to do so. So, when in Mark vi, 5 it is said of our Lord 
 that " he could there do no mighty work because of their 
 unbelief," it is meant that he could not consistently or justly, 
 or from the fact that their unbelief kept them from coming 
 to him so that he might save them. 
 
 This suggestion will aid in the understanding of that large 
 class of Scriptures which refer to God as causing Explains pas- 
 
 saces which 
 
 us to " err from " his "ways," "hardening" our ac^aTd 
 ''hearts," "shutting the eyes" of sinners, and making their 
 " ears heavy," lest they " should see with their eyes and hear 
 with their ears." What God has in wisdom and in love per- 
 mitted, or what has occurred in the operation of laws which 
 he has established, he is said, in this familiar idiom, to have 
 done. He "hardened Pharaoh's heart," by permitting him to
 
 1-10 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 harden himself through neglect of those very means which 
 serve, when properly improved, to soften and subdue the 
 affections. 
 
 Sometimes the names of parents or ancestors are used in 
 the Scriptures for their posterity. Thus in Gen. ix, 25, it is 
 The parents' written, " Cursed be Canaan ;" but the curse fell 
 
 names used 
 
 for^ descend- not U p 0n himself; it rested upon his sinful pos- 
 terity. This curse, it should be recollected, did not rest 
 upon his righteous descendants, for both Melchisedek and 
 Abimelech were Canaanites, as was the woman who came to 
 Christ, and whose daughter was healed. 14 In the same way 
 Jacob and Israel are often put for the Israelites, as in 
 Psa. xiv, 7. The word " son " is often used in reference to a 
 remote ancestor, as the priests were called the sons of Levi. 
 Brother is used in the same way, as referring to 
 
 Brother means 
 
 any collateral relation. Abraham applies the 
 term to Lot, who was his nephew. Jair is called the son of 
 Manasseh, because his grandfather had married the daughter 
 of one of the heads of Manasseh. Mary, the mother of our 
 Lord, is also thought to have descended from David in this 
 way, so that our Lord was David's son, not only through his 
 reputed father, but by direct descent through his mother. 
 Modern biblical scholars suppose Joseph and Mary to have 
 been distant relatives. In 2 Kings viii, 26 Athaliah is called 
 the daughter of Omri, while in the eighteenth verse of the 
 same chapter she is called the daughter of Ahab. She was 
 AJiab's daughter and Omri's granddaughter. 
 These illustrations simply indicate the importance of thia 
 14 Genesis xiv, 18; xx, 6; Matthew xv, 22-28.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 141 
 
 rule, and will suggest to the young interpreter the value of a 
 good critical commentary to give him the exact 
 
 Value of crit- 
 
 meaning of Scripture terms accoiding to the icalnotes - 
 uaus loquendi, the current sense, of the times in which they 
 were uttered. 
 
 KTJLE ILL 
 
 To the utmost extent that it can be secured by 
 reference to parallel passages, and especially to the 
 context and other portions of Scripture written by 
 the same sacred penman, the Bible should be made 
 its own expositor. 
 
 By parallel passages are meant those teaching the same 
 doctrine, or relating the same facts : passages of 
 
 Parallel pas- 
 
 the Old Testament alluded to in the New, as 8ases ' 
 illustrations, or as prophecies fulfilled; portions of the 
 Scriptures where the same terms are used under other cir- 
 cumstances, showing the various significations given by the 
 sacred writers to the terms they use. Our reference 
 
 Reference 
 
 Bibles, one of which should always be in the hands Blble- 
 of a teacher, have accumulated a valuable collection of col- 
 lated texts. But much will remain for the Bible scholar 
 himself to do in this direction. Many of the passages in a 
 reference Bible have but the most remote, if any, relation to the 
 Scripture they are said to be the parallel of, and many more 
 a diligent student will collate by the aid of the concordance 
 for his own benefit. It is wonderful how, in skillful hands, 
 the Bible can be made to pour inspired light upon its own 
 difficult passages.
 
 142 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 "I \vill not scruple to assert," says the learned Bishop 
 Bishop iiors- Horslcy, " that the most illiterate Christian, if 
 
 ley upon com- 
 
 Sc'riptuVes. f he can but read his English Bible, and will take 
 the pains to read it in this manner (studying the parallel 
 passages) without any other commentary than what th 
 different parts mutually furnish for each other, will not only 
 attain all that practical knowledge which is necessary to 
 salvation, but will become learned in every thing relating to 
 his religion in such a degree that he will not be liable to be 
 misled, either by the refuted arguments or the false assertions 
 of those who endeavor to engraft their own opinions upon 
 the oracles of God. He may safely be ignorant of all philos- 
 ophy and all history which he does not find in the sacred 
 books." 
 
 It is by comparing Scripture with Scripture that we 
 become sure of the true meaning of particular 
 
 In tins way 
 
 nieiining "of passages, and especially are able to ascertain the 
 
 Scripture doc- 
 trine, doctrines of the Bible on questions of faith and 
 
 practice. "A Scripture truth is really the consistent expla- 
 nation of all that Scripture teaches in reference to the question 
 to be examined, and a Scripture duty is the consistent ex- 
 planation of all the precepts of Scripture on the duty exam- 
 ined. It is in studying the Scriptures as in studying the 
 works of God. We first examine each fact or phenomenon, 
 and ascertain its meaning, and then classify it with other 
 similar facts, and attempt to explain the whole." '* From 
 not studying their sacred books in this wav the 
 
 Error of the J 
 
 Jews- Jews made their great mistake in rejecting 
 
 i Angus.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 143 
 
 Christ. " We have heard out of the law," they say, " that 
 Christ abideth forever :" (this truth had been revealed in 
 Isa. ix, 7, and in Daniel vii, 14 :) " and how sayest thou," they 
 inquire, that "the Son of man must be lifted up?" The 
 Messiah's everlasting kingdom had indeed been foretold, 
 but it had also been prophesied that he should be " brought 
 as a lamb to the slaughter," and that he should be " cut off, 
 though not for himself." 18 
 
 Great wisdom must be used in interpreting the spiritual 
 references in the New Testament to the ritual services of the 
 Old. In such passages as distinctly exhibit the differences 
 
 between the New and the Old, it is the differ- 
 ence must be 
 
 ences which are to be chiefly insisted upon ; while ua^"^"}^ 
 in those passages which present Christian priv- the'oid^rest- 
 ileges and duties under the symbols of the Old 
 Testament, the agreement should be specially dwelt upon. 
 Thus when the apostle, in the twelfth of Romans, enjoins 
 a living sacrifice, there is a significant harmony shown be- 
 tween the two dispensations. He exhorts those who are 
 partakers of the rich grace of the Gospel to follow the ex- 
 ample of the children of God under the former Covenant ; 
 they should bring their bodies all their powers and attain- 
 ments place them on his altar a real sacrifice, made 
 holy by the receiving Spirit; acceptable, because the or- 
 dained gift, and, therefore, well-pleasing unto the Lord. 
 This would be a reasonable service as opposed to a cor- 
 poreal or outward form of offering, while the similarity of 
 the service would happily illustrate the Christian duty. 
 
 18 Isa. liii, 7, 8; Dan. ix, 26.
 
 144 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 " In reading Acts ii, 21," says Angus, " we find it said that 
 HOW to prac- ' Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord 
 
 ticHllv use 
 
 Ee" cl paa " shall be saved ;' and the question may be asked, 
 What is meant by calling upon the name of the Lord ? 
 Matthew tells us that ' not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, 
 shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,' so that the passage 
 is not to be understood in its literal and restricted sense. 
 On referring to Roni. x, 11-14, and 1 Cor. i, 2, we find that 
 this language, which is quoted from the prophet Joel, 
 implied an admission of the Messiahship, of Christ, and 
 reliance on the doctrines which he revealed." The im- 
 port of the declaration contained in 1 Sam. xiii, 14, and 
 Acts xiii, 22, that David was "a man after God's own 
 heart," is explained by 1 Sam. ii, 35, where it is said, u I 
 will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according 
 to that which is in mine heart" which shows the meaning 
 to be that David, in his official conduct, would carry out 
 the divine will. 
 
 In Joel xi, 28, among the attendant blessings upon Mes- 
 siah's reign, it is promised, " I will pour out my Spirit upon 
 all flesh." Should one desire to know how broad is the 
 application of this promise he may turn to Gen. vi, 12, and 
 read that " all flesh had corrupted his way," which clearly 
 shows that the term flesh thus used refers to all mankind ; 
 but flesh sometimes means tender and teachable, as in Ezek. 
 xi, 19, "I will give you a heart of flesh," is opposed to a heart 
 of stone. Its more common meaning in the New Testament 
 is corrupt and sinful human nature, as in Rom. viii, 5, " for 
 they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh."
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 145 
 
 It sometimes signifies, as in Gal. vi, 12, iii, 3, outward cere- 
 monies as compared with inward holiness. 
 
 In 1 Cor. vii, 1 Paul says, " It is not good for a man to 
 many ;" but in the twenty-sixth verse he explains his seeming 
 contradiction of the divine assertion that "it is not good 
 that the man should be alone," by saving, "It is good for 
 the present distress " that man should not marry. Marriage 
 is an excellent thing, but may be inexpedient in times of 
 severe persecution. 
 
 Sometimes the sacred writers use terms with a very differ- 
 ent signification. This must not be overlooked Terms some- 
 
 times differ- 
 in their comparison. Thus in the epistles of entiyused. 
 
 Paul the term " works," when it stands by itself, is used to 
 signify the opposite of faith, the performance of legal duties, 
 as the ground of salvation. In James the expression always 
 means the obedience and holiness which flow from faith. In 
 the one case works are inconsistent with [as the ground of] 
 salvation, in the other they are essential to it. 17 
 The different writers of the Gospels supplement each 
 
 other, and the parallel statements of the same Gospel wri- 
 ters supple- 
 events, when correctly collated, add great inter- t h r. each 
 
 est to the recitals, and aid in their mutual interpretation. 18 
 
 17 Angus. 
 
 >" To show the additional light and Interest which the Introduction of the 
 parallel passages In the Gospel throw upon the events which they relate, 
 Dean Alford refers to the accounts of the transfiguration. "We learn from Luke 
 the very significant truth " that it was as Jesus prayed that the fashion of his 
 countenance was altered." So we read that he was praying at his baptism 
 (Luke ill, 21) when the Holy Ghost descended on him. So, too, it is noticed In 
 this Gospel that he continued all night in prayer. In a peculiar manner 8t 
 Luke brings out this remarkable habit of our Lord in his Gospel. But also !n 
 
 10
 
 146 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 " In Matt, vii, 13," says Dr. Docdes, " it is evident to every 
 The ttnit one who pays close attention to the expression, 
 
 eni of the 
 
 as being behind the gate, as if it were written, Go ye out at 
 the strait gate, etc. No ; we must think of this gate or 
 entrance as being at the end of that way. The way is not 
 mentioned first, because the gate, as entrance, [to heaven,] is 
 the main subject. To those now who do not understand it 
 thus, and, therefore, place the gate at the commencement of 
 the way, Luke, in chapter xiii, 24, 25, renders good service, 
 where the gate is the same as the entrance, and this can only 
 be thought of as at the end of the way." 19 
 
 The context is to be carefully examined to discover the 
 Context to be meaning of the inspired penman in particular 
 
 carefully ex- 
 
 amined. passages. Thus, in Rom. vi, 23, the meaning of 
 
 the word " death " (the wages of sin) is clearly shown from 
 its opposite, " the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord." In James ii, 14 the faith that cannot save 
 is explained to be the faith that exhausts itself in words, and 
 not in deeds. It is a faith without obedience, such a faith as 
 
 his narrative of the transfiguration, " we learn what it was on which the thre 
 glorified ones conversed on the holy mount: his decease which he ahould accom- _ 
 ptish at Jerusalem. Thus does the incident of the transfiguration acquire a 
 holy significance in our Lord's history, which we should not otherwise be able 
 to attach to it. He is now passing into the shadow of his Passion, and the 
 blessed glorified ones are permitted to come and solace his human soul with 
 mention of the sufferings he was to undergo, and the glory which should follow. 
 The transfiguration is the gilded edge of that dark cloud into which the SOD 
 of God was entering for our sakes." How to Study the 2Tew Testament^ 
 page 92. 
 i* Ilvnucncutics of the New Testament, page 102.
 
 THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 147 
 
 devils feel, (verse 19;) but it is not such as Abraham ex- 
 perienced, (verse 23.) 
 
 In 1 John iii, 9 it is said, " Whosoever is bonvof God doth 
 not commit sin." But on comparing this expression with 
 other parts of the epistle we find that to commit sin here 
 means " to walk in darkness," i, 6 ; " not to keep the com- 
 mandments," ii, 4 ; " to hate his brother," ii, 9 ; " to love 
 the world," ii, 15, expressions that bespeak settled habits, 
 habits alien to the spirit of a Christian. 30 
 
 The affecting and beautiful words of the Psalmist in the 
 forty-second psalm might upon the first reading seem to 
 portray the longing desire of the writer to enjoy the presence 
 of his God in the eternal world : 
 
 "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks 
 So panteth my soul after thee, O Godl 
 
 ao Angus. Dean Alford expresses the severest reprehension of the indolent 
 custom of stringing together in proof of Scripture doctrine passages of the Holy 
 Eecord, and thus giving to them a signification that could not be sustained by 
 an examination of their contexts. " The utmost that seems to be expected," he 
 remarks, " even from the clergy themselves, is to be able to affirm that the 
 Scripture says so and so. But what Scripture says it ? with what intept ? how- 
 flu-, in the words quoted, is the context duly had in regard ? do they or do they 
 not rightly represent the sense of the original ? these things not one clergy- 
 man in ten seems to take into account, still less those laymen who would be 
 ashamed to quote in the same slovenly manner any of the well-known classical 
 authors. And as to ordinary English readers of the Gospels, it is not too much 
 to say that the way in which they use them seems to proceed on the assump- 
 tion that there is but one Gospel, not four; that that one has been delivered 
 down to us entire and indisputable in every point, and in one form, and that 
 form the English version as published by King James's translators." How to 
 Study the New Testament. The satisfactory reliance upon the English version 
 Is far from being so serious an evil as the quoting of passages out of their 
 connections, and thus forcing them to sustain a doctrine never intended ly th 
 inspired Author.
 
 148 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 My soul thlrsteth for God, the living God : 
 When shall I come and appear before God ? 
 My tears are my meat day and night, 
 While it is said continually, Where is thy God f " 
 
 But the fourth verse of the psalm shows that the devout 
 David siting king, deprived of the privileges of the sanctuary 
 
 for God's 
 
 house. by the rebellion of his son Absalom, which had 
 
 driven him from Jerusalem, wrote these words to express liia 
 inward panting for the beloved services of God's earthly 
 courts: 
 
 "When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me; 
 For I had gone with the multitude, 
 I went with them to the house of God, 
 With the voice of joy and praise, 
 With a multitude that kept holy day." 
 
 The one hundred and tenth psalm describes the victorious 
 progress of an illustrious prince greatly honored by God, 
 and exalted to his right hand. The first three verses leave 
 one in doubt whether the poet speaks of David or another 
 and far greater personage, as the sitting at God's right hand 
 may be figurative : 
 
 "Jehovah said unto my Lord, 
 
 Bit thou at my right hand, 
 
 Messianic Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, 
 
 f-salms. Thy powerful scepter Jehovah sends out of Zlon : 
 
 Rule in the midst of thy foes." 
 
 But the fourth verse settles the question : 
 
 "Jehovah hath sworn and will not repent : 
 Thou art an everlasting priest 
 Of the order of Melehisedek." 
 
 David was no priest, nor could any Hebrew monarch 
 assume the office without heaven-daring profanity. The
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 149 
 
 and (to the Jew) astounding phenomenon of a 
 "priest upon a throne" directs us at once to David's Son 
 and Lord. The application of this simple test will enable 
 the plainest Christian to detect the psalms called Messianic 
 at a glance. They all embody in their representations such 
 remarkable incidents and traits of personal character as 
 make it impossible to apply them, without the grossest 
 impropriety, to any but the " Anointed of the Father." 2l 
 In gathering proof texts to sustain any supposed doctrine of 
 
 Scripture great care should be taken to examine care in gath- 
 ering parallel 
 the context of each quotation to see if the signifi- \^l^S?ll 
 
 ,. , . , -it. !_ i -L. correctly de- 
 
 cation which we give the passage is justified by termined. 
 the sense, thus determined, in which it was used by the in- 
 spired penmen. Any writer may readily be made to contra- 
 dict himself, or to make the most extravagant assertions, by 
 taking sentences out of their connection and giving to them a 
 meaning that they may possibly bear, but ut- NO doctrine 
 
 should be 
 
 terly opposed to the intentic-n of the author. JgJJ^Jf on 
 Certainly no doctrine affecting faith and practice Scripture. 
 should be built up on separate clauses of Scripture. 
 
 A clergyman of the modern school of theology called 
 " liberal," in preaching upon our Lord's parable of the 
 prodigal son, inquired, after he had passed through and 
 illustrated its touching recitals, " Where does the prodigal -son 
 
 and the 
 
 atonement come in here ? We see nothing of it," atonement. 
 he continued, " as Jesus brings a penitent son to the Father's 
 arms. He should know what is required, and he shows 
 that all that is necessary is only that which a living earthly 
 i M'Lelland.
 
 150 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 father seeks, the penitent return of the child to the father's 
 house." 
 
 But this same Jesus, our Saviour, hi his interview with 
 Nicodemus, opens liis discourse with the assertion, "Except 
 a man be born again born of water and of the Spirit he 
 cannot see the kingdom of God." He then explains to the 
 wondering rabbi that this divine process is to be secured by 
 looking upon the Son of man, who was to be " lifted up" as 
 " Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." Here is 
 where the atonement comes in ! but where does the prodigal 
 son come hi in this discourse ? 
 
 These Scriptures present different aspects of the one grand 
 and divine plan of redemption, each one teaching a vital 
 truth, and both indispensable to lead a sinner to a reconciled 
 God. The parable presents the paternal love of God, and the 
 welcome with which the penitent shiner is met as he returns, 
 confessing his skis, to a life of obedience and trust. The 
 words of Jesus to the moral Jew exhibit the divine plan by 
 which God can be just, through the interposition of a 
 Redeemer, and still justify the sinner that believes in Jesus, 
 and the indispensable office of the Holy Ghost hi renewing 
 the depraved heart. 
 
 We need to collect together from the Scriptures all that 
 is said upon a given doctrine before we declare its full 
 intent and relation to the other elements of a divine life. 
 In 1 Cor. xv, 22 we read, as already quoted, "For as in 
 Adam all die, so hi Christ shall all be made alive." On these 
 words we sometimes find built up a theory of the moral and 
 legal identity of our race with our first parents ; the text
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 151 
 
 affirms, such interpreters say, that all men die hi Adam, there- 
 fore all once lived and acted in him. Here is a moral and 
 legal unity, they assert; his sin was our sin, his guilt our 
 guilt, his death our death. On the other hand, another class 
 declares that the text teaches that salvation by Christ is as 
 universal as death by Adam. Do not all men die ? they ask. 
 Does not the text say death came by Adam ? What then, 
 thev inquire, as if the theory were proved beyond AH dying in 
 
 J Adam and 
 
 a cavil, does the apostle mean, but that all are ch'rift. m 
 saved in Christ ? Sure enough, what does he mean ? Read 
 the context, and the answer cannot be mistaken. Paul is 
 presenting the glorious doctrine of the resurrection of the 
 body. In his argument he says, " For since by man came 
 death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead" As 
 by Adam came upon all men the sentence of death, so by the 
 man Christ Jesus came upon all men the gift of resurrection 
 from the dead. The apostle is writing simply upon the 
 subject of the resurrection, and makes no reference either to 
 the universal salvation of sinners or to the federal relation of 
 all men to Adam. He states simply the obvious fact, that 
 all men have died since Adam's sin, and as a consequence of 
 it ; but that the loss of life has been more than amply com- 
 pensated by Christ's giving it back again in the form of a 
 resurrection to the world. As man is not necessarily lost, 
 even though he may die on account of Adam's sin, so he is 
 not necessarily saved, although he may live forever, as a con- 
 sequence of the interposition of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the strongest meaning that 
 can be placed upon Scripture terms is not always the writer's
 
 152 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 acceptation of them ; but the context and parallel passages 
 The itronftest must determine this. Such words as perfect, per 
 
 meaning not 
 
 frue tt one. tbe fection, holiness, sanctification, without sin, must 
 be carefully considered in the light of their connections and of 
 parallel Scriptures. It must be seen at once that all these 
 terms, as predicated of finite and imperfect beings, cannot have 
 an absolute signification. Because the words, as literally ren- 
 dered, seem to afford strength to any position we have taken, 
 we have no right to impose a sense upon them that never 
 entered into the mind of the sacred writer. The context and 
 parallel passages must be sought to enable us to weigh their 
 meaning. The beautiful sentence in Jer. xxxi, 3, "I have 
 Eternal de- loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with 
 
 crees not 
 
 ferfxxxi,?. loving kindness have I drawn thee," is sometimes 
 made to teach the doctrine of eternal decrees, and the certain 
 salvation of the elect; but God here simply assures the 
 tribes of Israel of deliverance and protection on account of 
 the love he bore them in former times, when with an out- 
 stretched arm he brought them from the land of Egypt. In 
 the familiar words found in Matt, xxii, 4, " Many are called, 
 but few chosen," which have been so many times 
 
 Many called, 
 
 few chosen. quoted as excluding arbitrarily the unelect from 
 the hope of salvation, the context clearly shows that the 
 Saviour only teaches us that, while all are invited to the 
 Gospel feast, few comparatively are admitted, simply from 
 neglecting to secure the necessary and available qualifica- 
 tions. 
 
 The Church of Rome gives an amusing illustration of th 
 error we are now considering. In their book of canon law
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 153 
 
 in the chapter relating to lay trustees of Church property, 
 they say, "This is prohibited in the law of Church of 
 
 Rome upon 
 
 Moses, who says, 'Thou shalt not plow with an P-o x W and asl!" 
 ox and an ass together ;' that is, they shall not have laymen 
 as trustees of Church property 1 " 
 
 " The phrase, ' Blot me out of thy book,' (Exod. xxxii, 32,) 
 has been made a test of Christian character, so 
 
 Blot me out 
 
 that they who could not say they were willing of thy bookl " 
 to be eternally damned have been regarded as destitute of 
 that submission which is the evidence of a new birth. But 
 plainly it had no such force as used by Moses. He meant to 
 say : ' Forget me ; take no account of me in respect to any 
 thing proposed concerning the future destiny of thy people ; 
 pass by me ; regard me as not written in thy book ;' without 
 any reference to eternal woe." M 
 
 In reference to that most sublime of all revelations made 
 to man, " God manifest in the flesh," no human presentation 
 of the divine mystery can approach in impressiveness, or 
 even in clearness, the utterances of the sacred writers. No 
 argument setting forth the perfect humanity of 
 our Lord and his essential divinity can be so Scrl P ture - 
 effective as the collated passages of Holy Scripture. The 
 Word of God becomes flesh before our eyes. We see the 
 perfect human being growing in grace and favor with God 
 and man ; eating, sleeping, weeping, tempted, praying ; and 
 we also stand awed before Him who heals the sick, casts out 
 devils, commands the waves and the winds, and raises the 
 dead. Surely he can be no other than Emmanuel, God with ua, 
 
 Dobie.
 
 154 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 These illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied, but 
 they will serve to impress the young interpreter with tho 
 importance of a careful comparison of Scripture with Scrip- 
 ture, and of a close examination of the context. 
 
 RULE IV. 
 
 Every Scripture must be interpreted in harmony 
 with the analogy or rule of faith ; and where a 
 passage admits of two possible renderings, that is 
 to be preferred which best agrees with the general 
 teachings of the writer, and is in harmony with all 
 divine revelation. 
 
 If the Bible is all inspired of the Holy Ghost its different 
 
 parts must be in harmony with each other. 
 
 implies unity. There win ^ unity fa the reve lations made 
 
 of God, of his plan of salvation, and of man's condition 
 
 without the Gospel, and under its influence. This is what 
 
 is meant by the analogy, or general agreement, of faith. This 
 
 has been more simply stated, to meet the objection 
 
 Analogy of 
 
 that every distinct sect and every individual in- 
 terpreter has his own standard of faith or belief, in this form : 
 no interpretation is correct which makes a sacred writer 
 contradict himself, or the well-ascertained sentiments of any 
 of the rest. The apostle Paul recognized this important 
 rule when he exhorted the Roman brethren to prophesy or 
 preach " according to the proportion [or analogy] of faith." a * 
 The expression is identical with " the whole tenor of Scrip- 
 ** Dobie. Bomans xtJ, &
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 155 
 
 tare." One Scripture passage may contain all that God has 
 been pleased to reveal upon a given subject. It when one pas- 
 
 sace may sua- 
 
 certamly is not to be rejected because it stands tain a doctrine, 
 alone, if there is nothing in its declaration, when clearly 
 apprehended from its context, that opposes the general tenor 
 of revelation. But if the apparent sense of a given passage 
 is directly opposed to other Scriptures, or to the 
 
 If one passape 
 
 analogy of faith, an interpretation is to be sought pote n others I it 
 
 for it which, without constraint to the literal ren- preted in har- 
 mony with 
 
 dering, will bring it into unity with the general them> 
 teaching of the Bible. It is the legitimate office of the 
 learned expositor to consider and weigh and harmonize these 
 apparent discrepancies. 
 In 1 Cor. iii, 15 we read, " If any man's work shall be 
 
 burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall False founda- 
 tion of Papal 
 
 be saved so as by fire." " The modern doctrine (J$S5y. of 
 of purgatory, that is, that sin is purged by literal fire, is 
 derived from this text. Not to insist on the meaning of 
 these words as determined by their connection, we bring this 
 modern doctrine of purgatory side by side with the grand 
 system of doctrines concerning which there never has been 
 any dispute ; and the conclusion to which we come is, that 
 any such interpretation of the passage must be false, because 
 it goes contrary to the doctrines of the new birth, of justifi- 
 cation by faith, the merits of Christ's atonement, the uniform 
 doctrine of the Bible respecting the souls of the departed, 
 and to many facts recorded both in the Old Testament and 
 in the New." M 
 
 Dobie.
 
 156 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 All those passages in the Scriptures which speak of God aa 
 " re P cntm g>" or changing his mind, as coming 
 
 Ser of menf' down to observe what is passing upon the earth, 
 etc., are to be interpreted in such a sense as to harmonize with 
 the revealed truth that God is a Spirit, omniscient, unerring, 
 and everywhere present. In these Scriptures he simply 
 speaks after the manner of men, and does what, if men did 
 these things, would be predicable of them. All passages 
 that seem to represent him as material, local, limited in 
 knowledge or in power, are to be interpreted agreeably to 
 the general tenor of Scripture as to his character and at- 
 tributes. 
 
 No undue wrench is given to the sacred writings by such 
 a course. The necessity arises out of the nature of things. It 
 why God is is entirely reasonable and natural that God should 
 
 thus spoken 
 
 f - reveal himself in this wise. How can he mani- 
 
 fest himself to us but by material figures and words that are 
 necessarily limited in their application ? But while he mani- 
 fests his sentiments and his acts in these finite forms he dis- 
 tinctly declares his spiritual nature and his divine power 
 and Godhead, so that an intelligent mind can readily inter- 
 pret these human representations in accordance with the 
 spiritual nature of God. 
 
 "We select from Dobie's " Key to the Bible " two illustra- 
 tions of the other application of the rule, that where two or 
 Of two or more meanings can be drawn from the text, that 
 
 more mean- 
 
 ings the one one is to be chosen which best agrees with the 
 
 In harmony 
 
 teachinp" er of general teachings of the Scriptures. In Matt. 
 
 the Bible to 
 
 be chosen. xv j^ ig we read, " And I say unto thee, that thou
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 157 
 
 ait Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." There are at 
 least three distinct shades of meaning which these worda 
 may reasonably bear. 1. Upon such confessions as this that 
 thou hast made of my Messiahship I will build my Church ; 
 or, 2. Upon this truth that I am Messiah I will R OC k on which 
 
 Christ builds 
 
 build my Church ; or, 3. By means of thee, his Church. 
 Peter, a man of firm and resolute will, will I lay the founda- 
 tion of the Church as a distinct community in the world. 
 The first two are both consistent with all scriptural doc- 
 trines, are perhaps most commonly received by interpreters, 
 and many considerations may be urged in their favor ; but 
 the last is in harmony with actual historical facts recorded 
 in Acts ii, 14-36, and in chapter 10 of the same book, 
 where, by Peter's instrumentality, the Church, composed both 
 of Jews and Gentiles, was established as a distinct body in 
 the world. And such an announcement from the lips of our 
 Lord, in the circumstances, was both appropriate and sig- 
 nificant. It was just such an announcement as he was wont 
 to make frequently of what the disciples were to endure and 
 accomplish ; and we, therefore, prefer this last sense of the 
 passage according to the spirit of the rule. The words of 
 our Lord when recalled by Peter in the times of stern conflict 
 through which he passed, would administer an unspeakable 
 solace to his heart, and to the hearts of all the other disci 
 pies. But there is not one syllable in this text to justify the 
 wild, foolish, and wicked pretenses of the Papal Church 
 founded upon it. 
 In James v, 20 it is written, "He that converteth the
 
 168 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
 death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." This text will 
 Covering a bear two renderings. .1. The soul saved, and 
 
 multitude of 
 
 ha- the multitude of sins that are hid, may refer to 
 
 the person who reclaims his erring brother ; or, 2. They may 
 refer to the brother reclaimed. If we adopt the first, the 
 teaching of the apostle would be, that he who reclaimed a 
 brother from backsliding would save thereby his own soul, 
 and hide a multitude of his own sins. But does the apostle 
 mean this? According to the rule we must consider the 
 design of the writer and the general system of revealed 
 truth. Our impression, upon consideration of the writer's 
 object and line of thought showing the benefit that would 
 accrue to others through devout and fervent prayer and of 
 the whole tenor of his teachings in his epistle, is, that his 
 language refers to the person who is reclaimed, and that he 
 holds it out as a motive to action in the work of reclaiming 
 him. As respects the harmony of the first view with the 
 analogy of faith there is no doubt it is wholly at variance 
 with it. We are saved by faith in Christ, not by acts of 
 kindness done to erring brethren. Hence we conclude the 
 meaning of the passage is, He who reclaims a fallen brother 
 is the means of saving a backslider's soul, and of hiding his 
 sins. This is consistent with the design of the writer, and 
 with the general harmony of revelation. 
 
 As a general remark in reference to what may 
 
 Difficulties of 
 
 denceoHMr be called the difficulties or contradictions of 
 
 honesty, and . . . - , , ,_ , 
 
 no occasion Scnpture. it may be said that they afford one 
 
 for discour- 
 agement. Q ^ e | jegt evidences that there was no collu-
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 159 
 
 sion between the writers to secure absolute harmony ; that 
 they never have been so serious as to discourage good men 
 in their grateful task of studying out the means of their 
 reconcilement ; that as knowledge has increased these diffi- 
 culties have disappeared ; that no one, or collection of them, 
 has been considered of so serious a moment as to allow the 
 foes of the Bible to rest their objection to Scripture upon 
 it; but every new school of doubters has discarded the 
 objections of others, and presented fresh ones of their own. 
 Some of these difficulties arise out of the statistics of the Old 
 Testament when quoted with apparent variations in the 
 New, out of the comparison of genealogical occasion of 
 
 these difficul- 
 
 tables, and out of the relation of the same event tiea - 
 by two evangelists in different words, or the omission or 
 introduction of some one feature of an occurrence by one of 
 the Gospel writers. We have already alluded to the difficul- 
 ties arising from the adjustment of the new developments of 
 natural science with long received opinions in reference to 
 the interpretation of the Bible. As the enemies of the Bible 
 were never more active than at present in attempting to 
 
 weaken the faith of Christians in their Holy Abundant an- 
 swers to all 
 Scriptures, so, by the good providence of God, difficulties. 
 
 there was never a period when so many, and such in- 
 telligent and learned pens, were interested in responding 
 to these attacks. There has not been a difficulty or 
 an apparent contradiction suggested that has not been 
 examined. Every obstacle has been fairly looked in the 
 face, and the literature of the Church is now rich in the 
 clearest and most satisfactory defenses of the inspiration
 
 160 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 and essential harmony and purity of its volume of revealed 
 truth. 
 
 The precious works of a former age, such as those of 
 Ancient and Lardner and Home, have been by no means 
 superseded, and can now be profitably consulted 
 
 in reference to nearly every difficulty arising about or within 
 the Scriptures. But our modern commentators, like Ol- 
 Bhausen, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Stier, Alford, Lange, 
 Ellicott, Barnes, Whedon, and Nast, meet with great spirit, 
 and with most satisfactory results, the latest imputations of 
 error made by false friends or pronounced foes upon the 
 sacred record. It would swell our book to undesirable pro- 
 portions to introduce the more prominent difficulties of 
 inspiration suggested by such sincere but unbalanced minds 
 where an- as the author of a late work upon the " Human 
 
 gwers to 6b- 
 
 b e e ct found may Element in the Inspiration of the Scriptures." 
 Every difficulty, however, has been met, and may be found 
 fully answered in such volumes as "Lee upon Inspiration," 
 and Garbett upon " God's "Word Written." 
 
 Every young interpreter may safely assure himself that 
 Maybeassur- somewhere, not far from his hand, in the litera- 
 
 ed an answer 
 
 founl. ad ' lybe ture which .the Master has inspired his disciples 
 to place at the disposition of his Church, a convincing 
 response can be found to every charge. It is proper, how- 
 ever, to guard the teachers of others in this respect. Never 
 venture upon the exposition of a scriptural difficulty without 
 oeing satisfied that you have a clear and pertinent view of 
 the objection or difficulty, and its answer. Nothing is more 
 narmful than to leave upon an ingenuous young mind an
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 161 
 
 unsatisfactory solution to an apparent difficulty Never pve an 
 
 unsatisfactory 
 
 of Scripture. It is better to leave the difficulty answer, 
 unanswered, with the presumption in the mind of the pupil 
 that the trouble arises rather from want of knowledge in 
 yourself than from any intrinsic contradiction in Scripture. 
 Says Alford, dean of Canterbury, in reference to apparent 
 discrepancies between the evangelists, " We are certain that 
 each of the Gospel narratives is, in the highest sense, true ; 
 but we are not certain that we can by sight Dean A]ford 
 
 i o T upon discrep- 
 
 assure ourselves, in each apparent case of dis- ancies in the 
 
 New Testa- 
 
 crepanry, that it is so. I have elsewhere main- ment - 
 tained, and I maintain here, that if we could know exactly 
 how any given event related in the Gospels happened, we 
 should at once be able to account for the variations in the 
 narratives, and the separate truth of each would be shown ; 
 but not knowing the exact details of any event thus nar- 
 rated, nor the position of the narrator with respect to it, we 
 cannot undertake to reconcile apparent discrepancies between 
 the evangelists. Our plain duty in making a right use of 
 the Gospels is firmly and fearlessly to recognize these, and to 
 leave them as fearlessly unsolved if no honest solution can be 
 found. A way may be opened by and by in the process of 
 human discovery, and the toil of human thought, or the time 
 for a solution may not come till the day when all things shall 
 be known." 2B 
 
 Henry Rogers happily says, in substance, in his " Greyson 
 Letters:" "My second theory of dealing with Henry Rogers 
 
 upon discrep- 
 
 the apparent discrepancies of the Bible is a very ancles. 
 
 36 How to Study the New Testament, page 1L 
 11
 
 162 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 simple one, and not less admissible, namely, to let them 
 alone; to postpone them till further light is thrown upon 
 them ; not to anticipate the true theory of them ; to refrain 
 from pronouncing them either insoluble or otherwise. The 
 general evidence for the Bible is such as to justify this delay. 
 "We can afford to wait. A Christian may say with justice, 
 ' When I can solve these difficulties, I am glad ; when I can- 
 not, I am willing to suspend my judgment ; they do not, they 
 Clever can, (whatever be the solution,) shake the substantive 
 credibility of the great facts and main statements of the 
 scriptural documents ; adequate evidence against these must 
 be an earthquake which shall subvert the very foundations 
 of the faith and leave the whole fabric a wreck, not a flash 
 of critical lightning, which grazes, or splinters, or even dis- 
 lodges a stone or two in some remote turret or ornamental 
 pinnacle. I can wait ; I can afford to wait ; no one hurries 
 me; why should I be so incontinent of my opinion as to 
 pronounce before I am sure that I have all the possible data ? 
 Whether the discrepancies are ultimately to be disposed of 
 by supposing something less than indefectible inspiration for 
 every particle of canonical Scripture, or by finding that they 
 yield, as so many others have already done, to more accurate 
 recensions of the text, or more severe collation of the Scrip- 
 ture with itself or with profane writers, or unexpected re- 
 coveries of fragments of ancient history, I leave for a while ; 
 for, either way, the things which must thus be left are but 
 ' dust in the balance ;' subtracted or added, they will not 
 appreciably affect the result; and so, whether zealous Stephen 
 really confounded the sepulcher which Jacob bought of the
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 163 
 
 father of Shechem with that which Abraham bought of 
 Ephron the Hittite or not, I shall magnanimously leave to 
 future inquiries, and sleep none the worse for it.' " " 
 
 "RULE V. 
 
 The spiritual instruction intended to be imparted 
 by the Holy Ghost should be carefully and earnest- 
 ly sought in the interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 Revelation is a book written in human language, and as a 
 book is- to be interpreted according to the well-defined laws 
 of language and grammar ; but it is a book, the k Bib ^. e 
 
 , , ,, ,. , . . -,., -, f . , for a special 
 
 whole of which is indited for a special purpose, purpose. 
 and of which inspiration itself affirms that it is all profitable 
 " for instruction in righteousness." "We are no advocates of a 
 fanciful interpretation of the Bible. "We do not believe in 
 mystical significations, or in a manifold sense attributed to 
 the sacred writings. We enjoin a strict gram- Not a fanciful 
 
 nor niystical 
 
 matical rendering of the text, as modified only meaning, 
 by the current meaning of the language used by the writers 
 themselves. But after the exact and literal meaning has 
 been discovered, then comes the important inquiry, What 
 is the spiritual lesson that God proposes to teach 
 
 What doe 
 
 in this history, poetry, prophecy, ceremony, para- God teach ? 
 ble, miracle, and epistle ? We do not by any means propose 
 to spiritualize a secular event, to find types in persons not 
 said in Scripture to be typical, but to ask, What lesson by 
 this plain history, or by the sketch of this individual, would 
 * T The Greyson Letters, page 461.
 
 164 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 the Holy Spirit have us learn ? Hagenbach, in speaking of 
 the work of Ernesti in introducing a new and literal school 
 of biblical interpretation, remarks that his " ground principle 
 was simply this : to interpret the Bible according to its literal 
 verbal sense, and to let the volume suffer neither at the hands 
 of any assumed authority of the Church, nor of the feelings 
 and wishes of individuals as to what they might choose to 
 believe, nor of sportive and allegorizing fancy such as the 
 mystics used to indulge in, nor of any philosophical system. 
 He adopted in this the main principle of Hugo Grotius, who 
 in the seventeenth century had similarly intrenched himself. 
 Ernesti was a philologist. He had employed the same prin- 
 ciples in the interpretation of the writers of Greece and Rome 
 which he employed later in the interpretation of the Bible ; 
 and he was right in this. The reformers had aimed to do 
 the same thing. But he overlooked too much, perhaps, this 
 fact that in order to apprehend the religious truths of the 
 Scriptures there is needed, not only a knowledge of their 
 verbal and historical characteristics, but a spiritual appro- 
 priation of their truths, so that one can enter limngly into 
 the very heart of the Bible. Who would deny that, in order 
 to understand an epistle of Paul, there must be a very dif- 
 ferent manner of approaching and viewing it than would be 
 needed with the letters of Cicero, since the whole circle of 
 ideas is different in the two ? Religious writings can only be 
 truly apprehended by a penetrating spirit, which can strike 
 through the whole web of grammar and logic to the funda- 
 mental truth." 
 
 German Rationalism, Clark's edition, page 76.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 165 
 
 Westcott happily remarks : "When the interpreter of Scrip- 
 ture has availed himself of every help which historical criti- 
 cism can furnish for the elucidation of the text when, by the 
 exact investigation of every word, the most diligent attention 
 to every variation of tense, and even of order, the clearest 
 recollections of every phrase, he has obtained a Westcott up. 
 
 on spiritual 
 
 sense of the whole, perfect in its finer shades and t?on! pret 
 local coloring, no less than in its general outline and effect 
 his work is as yet only half done. The literal sense is but 
 the source from which the spiritual sense is to be derived ; 
 but exactly in proportion as a clear view is gained of all that 
 is special in the immediate object and position of each writer, 
 it will be found that the simple record appears to be instinct 
 with divine life, for the external circumstances and mental 
 characteristics of the writer are not mere accidents ; but inas- 
 much as they influence his apprehension and expression of 
 the truth, they become a part of his divine message, and the 
 typical specialty which springs from this is the condition at 
 once of the usefulness and of the universality of Scripture. 
 The existence of an abiding spiritual sense underlying the 
 literal text of the Old Testament is sufficiently attested by 
 the quotations in the New. Unless it be recognized, many 
 of the interpretations of the evangelists and apostles must 
 appear forced and arbitrary ; but if we assume that it exists, 
 their usage appears to furnish an adequate clew to the in- 
 vestigation of its most intricate mazes." a * 
 
 Home remarks in his "Introduction," that the errors into 
 which some have fallen in discovering fanciful rather than 
 Introduction to the Study of the Gospels.
 
 166 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 spiritual revelations in the Scriptures is not a sufficient reason 
 for rejecting a wholesome principle. It shouid not be cast 
 Home on the away because it has been abused, "since human 
 
 spiritual im- 
 
 port of scrip- error can neyer hyalite tne trutn o f God." 
 " The literal sense," he goes on to say, " it has been well 
 observed, is, undoubtedly, first in point of nature, as well aa 
 in order of signification ; and consequently, when investi- 
 gating the meaning of any passage, this must be ascertained 
 before we proceed to search out its spiritual import ; but the 
 true and genuine, or spiritual, sense excels the literal in dig- 
 nity, the latter being only the medium of conveying the 
 former, which is more evidently designed by the Holy Spirit. 
 For instance, in Num. xxi, 8, 9, compared with John iii, 14, 
 the brazen serpent is said to have been lifted up in order to 
 signify the lifting up of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the 
 world; and, consequently, that the type might serve to 
 designate the antitype." 
 
 We have fully illustrated this rule in the previous chapter, 
 when speaking of the requisition which the discovery of the 
 spiritual lessons of Holy Scripture makes upon the biblical 
 student for careful study.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 167 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INTERPRETATION OF PARABLE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY. 
 
 PARABLE. 
 
 SOME of the most interesting and instructive portions 
 of the Gospels are embodied in the para- 
 
 The parable. 
 
 bles. It has been noticed that, while our Lord 
 from the commencement of his public ministry was accus- 
 tomed to speak in figurative language, as when he points to 
 the lilies of the field, the fowls of the air, the new cloth upon 
 an old garment, new wine in old bottles, yet his p,.j nc j pa ip ar . 
 
 ,. . ,, , , ,, . a bles uttered 
 
 discourses in parables were confined to the last during the 
 
 last, year of 
 
 year of his life. The parable has ever been a Christ's hfe. 
 favorite channel among Eastern people, and especially among 
 Jewish teachers, for the conveyance of truth. But the para- 
 bles of Jesus are distinguished from all others in their great 
 simplicity, in their wonderful truth to nature, and in the 
 significant spiritual lessons which they teach. 
 
 Our Saviour may have adopted the parable to show the 
 
 harmony between the laws of nature and the Reasons for 
 
 using para- 
 doctrines of the Gospel, thus presenting an in- b'es. 
 
 direct evidence that they both came from the same Author. 
 Thus the sower of natural and spiritual seed labors under 
 nearly the same general laws of success. 
 
 Tholuck remarks " that the Author of the spiritual king- 
 dom is also the Author of the natural kingdom, and both
 
 168 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 kingdoms develop themselves after the same laws. For thia 
 reason, the similitudes which the Redeemer drew from the 
 Thoiuck on kingdom of nature are not mere similitudes 
 
 the unity of ... ,. .., .. 
 
 the kingdoms which serve the purpose of illustration, but are 
 
 of n.it lire and 
 
 grace. internal analogies, and nature is a witness for 
 
 the kingdom of God. Hence was it long since announced as 
 a principle, that 'whatever exists in the earthly is found 
 also in the heavenly kingdom.' Were it not so, those simili- 
 tudes would not possess that power of conviction which they 
 carry to every unsophisticated mind." * 
 
 By connecting religious truth with natural objects, our 
 Aid his hear- Lord would aid his hearers in holding his dis- 
 
 ers to remem- 
 ber his words, courses in their memories. Every lily and bird 
 
 and merchantman of goodly pearls, every marriage feast, 
 every returning season of seed-sowing, would afresh remind 
 his disciples of the words of Him " who spake as never man 
 spake." But his parables served to illustrate and impress 
 upon the minds of his disciples the truths that he presented. 
 They were blinded by prejudices resulting from their educa- 
 niustratedand tion and Jewish expectations in reference to the 
 
 impressed the 
 
 truth - character of the Messiah's kingdom, and slow 
 
 to believe and receive the spiritual nature of Christ's govern- 
 ment. "By teaching in parables, and presenting the con- 
 cerns of his kingdom under the image of familiar objects 
 and earthly relations, he laid the groundwork of a most 
 comprehensive and varied instruction. Many aspects of the 
 kingdom were thus unfolded to them in a form they could 
 easily grasp and distinctly comprehend, though for the tim 
 
 1 Thoiuck on John XT.
 
 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 169 
 
 all remained, like the symbols of the Old Testament worship, 
 very much as a dark and unintelligible cipher to their view. 
 That cipher, however, became lighted up with meaning when 
 the personal work of Christ was finished, and the Spirit 
 descended with power to make application of its blessings, 
 and the minds of the disciples were enabled to grasp the 
 higher as well as lower scheme of doctrine exhibited in the 
 representation. Through the earthly form they could now 
 descry the spiritual." a 
 
 There is one reason which Jesus himself gives for teaching, 
 in the latter part of his ministry, almost entirely in parables : 
 that it was in some sense a rebuke and judgment on his hearers 
 for not receiving the truth when presented in a simple and 
 direct form. At the close of the parable of the sower he 
 answers the question of the disciples, why he thus spoke in 
 parables, by saying, "Unto you it is given to The parab]e 
 know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ; truth because 
 
 it had been 
 
 but to them it is not given : for whosoever hath, negated. 
 to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance ; but 
 whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that 
 he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables : because 
 they seeing, see not ; hearing, they hear not ; neither under- 
 stand." " The import of the statement is," says Fairbairn, 
 " that the disciples, having to a certain extent used the privi- 
 lege they possessed, having improved the talents committed 
 to them, were to be intrusted with more; while the body 
 of the people, having failed to make a similar use of theit 
 opportunities remaining destitute of divine knowledge, not- 
 
 * Fairbalra's Hermeneutlcs.
 
 170 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 withstanding all that had been taught them were to hare 
 their means of knowing abridged, were to be placed under a 
 more indirect and vailed method of instruction. This mode 
 This is anaio- of dealing was in perfect accordance with the 
 
 ecus to all 
 
 Christ's work. w hole nature and tendency of the work of Christ 
 in its relation to the hearts of men, which always carried 
 along with it two ends, the one displaying the severity, and 
 the other the goodness of God. From the first he was ' set 
 for the fall,' as well as ' the rising again,' of many in Israel 
 for the enlightenment and salvation first, but if that failed, then 
 for the growing hardness and aggravated guilt of the people." ' 
 Mr. Gladstone, the Christian statesman and scholar, re- 
 marks in his criticism upon that original and very suggestive 
 
 * Faii-bairn. " And now comes," says Dean Alford, in his interesting volume 
 entitled " How to Study the New Testament," " a great and mighty change in 
 onr Lord's teaching to the people, recorded for us by St. Matthew alone. He 
 had spoken plainly to them in the sermon on the Mount, and doubtless in many 
 other discourses as he went up and down Galilee. But they had rejected his 
 teaching, plain as it was. From time to time, therefore, he withdrew his plain 
 speaking, and had recourse to a new and hidden method of teaching. The 
 parable was a lesson which might bo heard and not heard ; heard alike out- 
 wardly by all, and yet differently by each, according to his capacity for appre- 
 hending spiritual truth. Henceforth the Lord teaches in parables, explaining 
 all in private to his disciples. And of these parables we have the richest col- 
 lection in the thirteenth chapter of this Gospel, (Matthew.) There the whole 
 Idea and progress and destiny of the kingdom of heaven are unfolded. Its be- 
 ginnings among men, In the parable of the sower; Its counterfeits, and their 
 treatment by us and by God, In that of the tares; Its vast outward extent, from 
 the smallest beginnings, in that of the mustard seed ; its inward purifying and 
 transforming power, in that of the leaven ; the two ways in which men find it, 
 one by chance in a field which he gives up all he has to buy, another by search, 
 also giving up all to acquire It when found; and then, finally, the ultimate des- 
 tiny of the good and bad in it, in the parable of the draw-net" How to Study 
 the Neio Testament, page 62.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 171 
 
 volume lately published in England by an anonymous author 
 and entitled " Ecce Homo : " " There is another characteristic 
 of the parables. In all of the greater ones which present 
 their subject in detail, Christ himself, when they are inter- 
 preted, fills a much higher place than that simply of a teacher 
 divinely accredited. They all shadow forth a dispensation, 
 which, in all its parts, stands related to and dependent on a 
 central figure ; and that central figure is in every Christ, holds 
 
 the supreme 
 
 case but two our Saviour himself. He is the Babies. the 
 sower of the seed, the owner of the vineyard, the house- 
 holder, in whose field of wheat the enemy intermixed the 
 tares; the lord of the unforgiving servant; the nobleman 
 who went into a far country, and gave out the talents and 
 said, ' Occupy till I come ;' lastly, the bridegroom among the 
 virgins, wise and foolish. In every one of these our Saviour 
 appears in the attitude of kingship. He rules, directs, and 
 furnishes all. He punishes and rewards. Every one of these, 
 when the sense is fully apprehended, repeats, as it were, or 
 anticipates the procession of the day of Palms, and asserts 
 his title to dominion. They must be considered, surely, as 
 very nearly akin, if they are not more than nearly akin, to 
 declarations of his deity. Two others there are which have 
 not yet been mentioned. One is the parable of the house- 
 holder, who planted a vineyard and went into a far country, 
 and sent his servants to receive his share of the produce. In 
 this parable our Lord is not the master, but the master's 
 heir, the person whose the vineyard is to be, and who. 
 being sent to perform the oifice in which other messengers 
 had failed, is put to death by the cruel and contumacious
 
 172 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 tenants. 4 But this parable, if it sets forth something less 
 than his kingship, also sets forth much more, and embodies 
 the great mystery of his death by wicked hands. There is, 
 also, the parable of a certain king which made a marriage 
 for his son ; 6 a relation which involves far more than had 
 commonly been expressed in his direct teaching among the 
 people. Upon the whole, then, the proposition will stand 
 good, that these parables differ from, and are in advance of, 
 the general instruction respecting the person of the Redeemer 
 in the first three Gospels, and place him in a rank wholly 
 above that of a mere teacher, however true and holy. They 
 set forth that difference from previous prophets and agents 
 of the Almighty, which has been noticed by the apostle in 
 his Epistle to the Hebrews, where he says that ' Moses verily 
 was faithful in all his house as a servant ; but Christ as a son, 
 over his own house.' " * 
 
 First rule * n ^crpreting a parable it is necessary in the 
 
 dirsuud y ?h l e first place to thoroughly understand it to have 
 
 parable in all 
 
 its parts. a correct apprehension of the force of its different 
 
 symbols. If it relates to a feast, the Jewish custom as to 
 invitations, seats, garments, hours, must be distinctly in the 
 mind. If it relates to natural history, a clear idea must be 
 obtained of the nature of the tree or fruit or grain. For 
 Parable of the illustration, in the parable of the wheat and the 
 
 wheat and the 
 
 tares. tares, great interest was added to it in a dis- 
 
 course by Dr. Thomson (son of the author of the " Land and 
 the Book," who was himself born in Palestine, and often laid 
 
 * Matthew zzL * Matthew zxli. 
 
 "Ecce Homo," by the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, page 83.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 173 
 
 when an infant in the " manger " of a caravansera, or inn) by 
 his explanation of the nature of the "tares" referred to. 
 They are a species of spurious and poisonous wheat, looking 
 at first very much like the true grain in its early growth, and 
 hardly to be distinguished from it as the crop is growing ; 
 but its heads never fill out. While the true wheat, its ker- 
 nels filling out, becomes heavy in its head, and bends upon 
 the stalk, these false tares, with their light tops, stand impu- 
 dently erect, and readily expose themselves in the harvest to 
 the searching eye and gathering hand of the reaper. 
 
 We must next discover from the context, if possible, or from 
 the general scope of the parable, the exact idea that 
 
 Second rule : 
 
 the Saviour intended to illustrate or enforce, context fr the 
 
 lesson which 
 
 There is in every one of them a leading theme. th ^ io ^ 
 Ordinarily the Saviour states, either before or after 
 he relates them, the object of their utterance. This, above all, 
 is to be seized upon and made to be the key to unlock the vailed 
 meaning of the stoiy. Lisco, in his Commentary, Lig CO U p 0n 
 
 the kernel ol 
 
 says, " This is the center and kernel of the parable, th e parable. 
 and till it has been discovered and accurately determined we 
 need not occupy ourselves with the individual parts, since 
 these can only be seen in their true light when contemplated 
 from the proper center. We may compare the whole para- 
 bolical representation to a circle, the center of which is the 
 divine truth or doctrine, and the radii are the several figura- 
 tive traits in the narrative. So long as we do not stand in 
 the center, neither does the circle appear hi an entirely round 
 form, nor do the radii seem in their proper order, as all 
 tending to the center, and in beautiful uniformity : this is
 
 174 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 secured when the eye surveys every thing from the center : so 
 it is precisely in the parable. If we have brought clearly and 
 distinctly out its central point, its principal idea, then also the 
 relative position and right meaning of its several parts be- 
 come manifest, and we shall only dwell upon these in so far 
 as the main theme can thereby be rendered more distinct." 
 
 Thus the affecting and marvelously appropriate and beau- 
 Main lesson tiful parables in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke 
 
 of parables in 
 
 ofst. uke! er were called forth by the taunt of the Pharisees 
 that Christ received sinners, and ate with them. They un- 
 fold, under a variety, but closely-related series, of illustra- 
 tions, the reason for the course he had taken, which had 
 called out the taunts of his unfriendly observers. And he 
 shows that upon the most obvious principles of human 
 nature, which even his foes must recognize, the merciful love 
 and interest of God in behalf of the lost which he had mani- 
 fested in his course toward the morally abandoned were 
 justified. 
 
 That most solemn parable of the rich fool, recorded in the 
 twelfth chapter of Luke, was called out by the 
 
 Parable of the 
 
 impertinent interruption of one of his hearers, 
 who, having become convinced of the divine authority of 
 the speaker, lost all further interest in his subject, and 
 simply desired to avail himself of his august decision in the 
 division of his earthly inheritance with his brother. In view 
 of this, how pertinent and how impressive was the Saviour's 
 parable, prefaced by the words, " Take heed and beware of 
 covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
 dance of the things that he possesseth ;" and closing with,
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 175 
 
 * Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee : 
 then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ? " 
 In the instance of the parable in the twentieth of Matthew, 
 on account of the unfortunate interruption of the Saviour's 
 remark by the opening of a new chapter, there is at first 
 some difficulty in apprehending the connection and applica- 
 tion of the illustration of the householder and The house- 
 holder and 
 his laborers employed at different hours, espe- his laborers. 
 
 cially of the summing up : " So the last shall be first, and the 
 first last : for many be called, but few chosen." By looking 
 back into the close of the preceding chapter we find that 
 Peter, noticing how much emphasis Christ, in his interview 
 with the moral and amiable young ruler, had placed upon 
 the giving up of all his property, with characteristic im- 
 pulsiveness asks what reward should be their's who had 
 already made this surrender ? The Saviour shows him that 
 no sacrifice for his cause would go unrewarded in the heav- 
 enly kingdom ; but something more was required service 
 must be rendered with a proper spirit, be persevered in to 
 the end, and the rewards of heaven must be submissively left 
 in the Master's hand. Those whose abilities and opportuni- 
 ties would seem to place them first will some of them be 
 found to be last ; and those whose humble gifts and late call 
 into the work might seem to throw them into the shade, 
 may be found to be the first through faithful perseverance ; 
 for many are called to Christian labor, but few enter upon it 
 with the right spirit, and persevere unto the end. 
 
 Thus it may be seen that each parable has its specific 
 lesson, which it is vital for its comprehension to discover
 
 176 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Individual traits may sometimes be safely selected and made 
 individual the basis of discourse if care is taken to show 
 
 .rails may 
 
 (uily used*. the connection in which they stand with regard 
 
 to the unity of the entire representation. 
 
 This thought naturally introduces the final remark, that 
 
 great care should le taken not to interpret separate- 
 
 p!irts dlff must Zy, and out of their relation to the story of the par- 
 
 01. t be inter- 
 preted out of able the different incidents embodied in it. The 
 
 their connec- 
 
 great danger in expounding parables is in overdo- 
 ing the thing. Every sentence of the story is made to have as 
 important a function to perform as the whole parable itself. 7 
 
 Dr. Fairbairn remarks in reference to two parables which 
 The character our Lord himself interprets : From them we see 
 
 o.' our Lord's 
 
 ^pSraWe" 011 "that every specific feature in the earthly type 
 has its correspondence in the higher line of things it repre- 
 sents. Nothing, on the one hand, appears merely for orna- 
 ment ; while, on the other, nothing is wire-drawn, or made to 
 *>ear a meaning that seems too much for it." 
 
 Such an interpretation is not to be justified as the one 
 that finds in the fact that "five virgins were wise, and five 
 illustrations foolish," that just one half of the number of 
 
 jf false infer- 
 ences, nominal Christians are true disciples, and the 
 
 7 An Illustration of this may be found In the peculiar commentary just 1s- 
 tned by Eev. \V. H. Van Doren upon the Gospel of St Luke, entitled u A 
 Suggestive Commentary." The touching parables of the fifteenth chapter are 
 fairly over laid and well-nigh deprived of force and beauty by the almost innu- 
 merable " suggestions " made upon the different clauses in them. The concrete 
 and touching pathos of the story is lost in the cunning ingenuity disclosed in 
 orolving nice shades of meaning out of the most natural and ordinary ezpres- 
 0i"3B. Such commentaries have perhaps a "mission," but they need wise men 
 u> be benefited and not abused by them.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 177 
 
 other half self-deceived or fallen from grace. Neither may 
 one infer from the parable of the sower that exactly one 
 quarter of those that hear fail to receive the benefit they 
 ought from the preaching of the word. 
 
 Even Trench, whose work upon the parables is above 
 commendation, errs at times in laying too much stress upon 
 
 the subordinate sentences of the parable, and Trench's fan- 
 ciful interpre- 
 sometimes in seeking a fanciful representation of pa'-abie'ofthe 
 
 i LL rm t 1,1 f sood Samari- 
 
 a plain story. " Thus he makes the parable of tan. 
 the good Samaritan teach the mission and example of 
 Christ. The traveler is ' human nature, or Adam, the head of 
 the race,' who leaves the heavenly city and falls into the 
 power of Satan, and is all but killed. Christ now finds him 
 and restores him. The wine is the blood which Christ shed, 
 and the oil is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The binding 
 up is the sacraments of the Church; This is a link of ' the 
 chains,' (traditionary interpretation,) for he quotes largely 
 from the early fathers, and is carried away on the flowery 
 stream of their rhetoric with great pleasure." Dobie, in his 
 " Key to the Bible^" from whence the preceding remark 
 
 upon Trench is quoted, adds, "It is no small Little difficul- 
 ty in under- 
 consolation to reflect that the great mass of plain |Jn, I },'ie n mean e 
 
 ii_ TTI i T f Ing of a para- 
 
 people, who receive the Bible as the word of bie. 
 
 God, find but little difficulty in comprehending the precise 
 point aimed at in these Scriptures." 
 
 POETRY. 
 A very considerable portion of the Bible, especially of 
 
 the Old Testament, is given to us in the form of poetry, 
 
 12
 
 178 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 This form of revealing truth has added to its attraction in 
 all ages, and rendered it especially adapted to be 
 
 Poetry of the 
 
 held in the memory, and to become an abiding 
 comfort when the pious man finds himself deprived of the 
 written text. 
 
 Sir Patrick Hume, when, hid in a sepulchral vault, " he 
 had no light to read by, having committed to 
 memory Buchanan's Version of the Psalms, be- 
 guiled the weary hours of his confinement by repeating them 
 to himself, and to his dying day he could repeat every one 
 without missing a word, and said they had been the comfort 
 of his life by night arid day on all occasions." * Probably no 
 portion of the Scriptures has been so constantly quoted, or 
 afforded so much consolation to the devout of all ages and 
 countries, as the poetry of the Bible. The Psalms were read 
 and sung by the Jews in their services from David's time, 
 Psalms sun an< * *key ^ ave ^ een rea< * anc * SUD & ^J Christians 
 
 in all times . ,, . , i ,-, i 
 
 and by (treat with as much pleasure and profit down to our 
 
 variety of per- 
 sons, jay. " Augustine," says Dean Stanley, " was 
 
 consoled on his conversion and on his death-bed by the 
 Psalms. By the Psalms Chrysostom, Athanasius, Savonarola, 
 were cheered in persecution. With the words of a psalm 
 Polycarp, Columba, Hildebrand, Bernard, Francis of Assisi, 
 Huss, Jerome of Prague, Columbus, Henry V., Edward VI., 
 Ximenes, Xavier, Melanchthon, Jewel, breathed their last. 
 So dear to Wallace in his wanderings was his Psalter that 
 during his execution he had it hung before him, and his eyea 
 remained fixed upon it as the one consolation of his dying 
 Life of Sir P. Hume, as quoted by Stantej, page 167, second scriea.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 179 
 
 hours. The sixty-eighth psalm cheered Cromwell's soldiers 
 to victory at Dunbar. Locke, in his last days, bade his friend 
 to read the Psalms aloud, and it was while in wrapt attention 
 to their words that the stroke of death fell upon him. Lord 
 Burleigh selected them out of the whole Bible as his special 
 delight. They were the frame-work of the devotion and of 
 the war-cries of Luther ; they were the last words that fell 
 on the ear of his imperial enemy, Charles V." * 
 
 The usual license allowed in the interpretation of all poetry 
 must be given to the sweet singers of Israel : their To be mter 
 rich and figurative language is never to be bent cordmRtothe 
 
 laws of rheto- 
 
 to the severe canons of a grammatical interpreta- nc - 
 tion such as might be applied to the history and to the 
 epistles of the Bible. The ordinary figures of rhetoric, which 
 are to be read in accordance with laws peculiar to them- 
 selves and which are found in all our higher grammars, are 
 to be recognized in the interpretation of poetic Scriptures. 
 Here many fall into error in attempting to fasten Not to fasten 
 a doctrinal statement upon the highly-figurative statement up. 
 
 on figurative 
 
 language of these poems. Dobie selects a few imzu&ge. 
 passages frequently used as proof-texts to show the habit of 
 many religious writers in this respect : 
 
 The wicked are estranged from the womb : 
 They go astray as soon as born, speaking lies. 
 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent : 
 They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear ; 
 Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, 
 Charming never so wisely. PSALM Iviii, 8-5. 
 
 Thou art he that took me out of the womb : 
 
 Thou didst make me hope on my mother's breasts. PSALM xxii, 9. 
 
 History of the Jewish Church, second series.
 
 4.80 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Behold, I was shnpcn In Iniquity, 
 
 And In sin did my mother conceive me. 
 
 Purge me with hyssop, and 1 shall be clean ; 
 
 Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. PSALM 11, 5, T. 
 For from my youth, he was brought up with me, 
 As with a father; 
 And I have guided the widow from my mother's womb. JOB xrri, 19 
 
 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, 
 
 And brinsrost me into judgment with thee? 
 
 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean f 
 
 Not one. JOB xlv, 8, 4. 
 
 What is man, that he should be clean ? 
 
 And he born of woman, that he should be righteous? JOB XT, 14. 
 
 I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: 
 
 To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. JOB xvll, 14. 
 
 They are all gone out of the way ; 
 
 They are together become unprofitable ; 
 
 There is none that doeth good, no not one. 
 
 Their throat Is an open sepulchre ; 
 
 With their tongues they have used deceit; 
 
 The poison of asps is under their lips. BOM. ill, 12, 1.3. 
 
 " These texts," the writer above mentioned remarks, " are 
 made the proof-texts respecting man's character, without any 
 allowance for the nature of the composition, or of the subject- 
 matter of which they treat. But the most illiterate person 
 must see that language such as the above is not the language 
 of sober statement, but of highly-wrought poetic emotion, 
 and for that reason it requires very cautious interpretation." 
 To show still further the error of such a course, he quotes the 
 following passages from the Psalms and Prophets, in which 
 the impossibility of a literal rendering is at once seen : 
 
 Moab Is my washpot ; 
 
 Over Edom will I cast my shoe : 
 
 Phllistla, triumph thou because of me. PSA. Lc, 8.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 181 
 
 But I am a worm, and no man ; 
 
 A reproach of men, and despised of the people. PSA. xxii, 6. 
 
 God came down from Teman, 
 
 And the Holy One from Paran ; 
 
 And his brightness was as the light. 
 
 He had horns coming out of his head ; 
 
 And there was the hiding of his powor. 
 
 Before him went the pestilence, 
 
 And burning coals went forth at his feet 
 
 He stood and measured the earth; 
 
 He beheld and drove asunder the nations; 
 
 And the everlasting mountains were scattered, 
 
 The perpetual hills did bow; 
 
 His ways are everlasting. HAB. iii, 3-6. 
 
 "Let the naked letter be insisted on in such passages ^ 
 and why not if in the other ? and what absurdity would be 
 
 the result ? We do not say that poetry of neces- Effect of lit- 
 eral interpre- 
 
 sity exaggerates even doctrinal statements. The verses fsucl * 
 inspired poetry of the Bible contains much doctrine, clearly 
 and fairly stated in the best and most impressive forms. But 
 due allowance must be made for the intensity of poetry when 
 describing the character of man and the ways and attributes 
 of God." 
 
 Dr. Hibbard remarks, in his excellent work upon the 
 Psalms, that the interpretation of the poetry of TO be inter- 
 
 preted in 
 
 the Bible is less dependent on verbal criticism w 3 ith p the y feei- 
 than on sympathy with the feelings of the author psalmist. 
 and a knowledge of his circumstances. " You must place 
 yourself in his condition, adopt his sentiments, and be floated 
 onward with the current of his feelings, soothed by his 
 consolations, or agitated by the storm of his emotions. You: 
 attention is less directed to words than to things. The
 
 182 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 meaning of the author is to be determined less by an appea 
 to the niceties of philology than by the general scope." 
 
 The poetry of the Bible has been divided into the poetry 
 TWO forms of ^ tne aff 60 ^ 0118 aQ d the poetry of the iinagina- 
 Surination and tion. Of the former we have the Psalms, the 
 
 of the affec- 
 
 Song of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jere- 
 miah, with detached passages here and there from the 
 prophets. The poetry of the imagination is to be found in 
 the book of Job, but especially in the prophetical writings. 
 " They may be regarded as inspired epics, whose theme is 
 the advent and triumph of a great Deliverer, whose glories, 
 one after another, burst upon the eye of the prophet through 
 the haze which envelopes the future." 10 
 
 In the Psalms every human affection finds an inspired 
 interpreted expression, and they should be interpreted in 
 
 in view of 
 
 acterist!c* r " view of this their main characteristic. " As every 
 hue of the setting sun is reflected in the mirror of a glassy 
 lake, so in the Psalms is reflected every phase of spiritual 
 feeling, from the deepest humiliation under a sense of sin to 
 the most triumphant rejoicing in the conquest of sin and 
 death by a crucified and risen Messiah. Hope, fear, trust, 
 sorrow, love of God, and hatred of evil, the plaintive mourn- 
 ing of the dove, the roar of inner disquietude, the voice of 
 joy and praise, alternate in these holy songs, and furnish 
 expressions and stimulants for every mood of mind." " 
 A knowledge The most important external aid for the right 
 
 of thecircutn- 
 
 the?r ce coiupo f - understanding of the Psalms is a knowledge of 
 
 sition valua- 
 ble, the circumstances under which they were com- 
 
 J'Oonlbnrn. Ibli
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 183 
 
 posed. What an additional interest it gives to the noble 
 " Song of Moses " commencing, " I will sing unto the Lord, for 
 he hath triumphed gloriously," to recollect that it was sung 
 upon the banks of the Red Sea after Israel had passed through 
 it upon dry land, and the hosts of the Egyptians were buried 
 in the returning waves. Dr. Townsend has performed a fine 
 service in his excellent Arrangement of the Bible (a work that 
 ought to be in the hands of every interpreter of Dr. Town- 
 
 Gend's Ar- 
 
 the Bible) in introducing the Psalms into the his- orB/hfe!"* 
 torical Scriptures at the period they are supposed to have 
 been written. The events in the history of the Jewish nation 
 form an admirable " setting," in which these songs of praise, 
 or "songs in the night," appear in their best light. Dr. 
 Hibbard, in his work upon the Psalms, has, with great 
 assiduity, arranged the psalms in the order of their chronol- 
 ogy, and preceded them with appropriate references to con- 
 temporaneous events. 
 
 Stanley, in his account of the reign of David, introduces 
 with happy effect the psalms that marked the different eras 
 in the life and experience of the king. We can only select, 
 from pages of great interest, the account of Ark brou ht 
 the bringing of the ark of God into Jerusalem. B aiem MUIU^ 
 
 trated by 
 
 The event is related simply in 2 Sam. vi, 2, 18 : W 8 * 
 " David arose, and went with all the people that were with 
 him from BaaLe of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of 
 God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts 
 that dwelteth between the cherubim;" and "he blessec 
 the people in the name of the Lord of hosts." "Tht 
 psalms which directly and indirectly spring out of this
 
 184 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 event" reveal a deeper meaning than the mere outwarJ 
 ritual. It was felt to be the turning-point in the history of 
 the nation. Accordingly, as the ark stood beneath the walls 
 of the ancient Jewish fortress, so venerable with unconquercd 
 age, the summons goes up from the procession to the dark 
 walls in front : ' Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye 
 lifted up, ye everlasting doors ! and the King of glory shall 
 come in.' The ancient everlasting gates of Jcbus are called 
 to lift up their heads their portcullis grates stiff with the 
 rust of ages. They are to grow and rise with the freshness 
 of youth, that their height may be worthy to receive the new 
 King of glory. That glory, which fled when the ark was taken, 
 and when the dying mother exclaimed over her new-born 
 son, ' Ichabod !' 1S was now returning. From the lofty towers 
 the warders cry, ' Who is this King of glory ?' The old 
 heathen gates will not at once recognize this new-comer. 
 The answer comes back, as if to prove by the victories 
 of David the right of the name to Him who now comes to 
 his own again, ' Jehovah, the Lord, the mighty One, Jehovah, 
 mighty in battle 1 ' and again by this proud title admission 
 is claimed : ' Lift up your heads, O ye gates 1 and be ye 
 lifted up, ye everlasting doors ! and the King of glory shall 
 come in.' Once more the guardians of the gates reply, ' Who 
 is the King of glory ?' And the answer comes back : ' Jeho- 
 vah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, he is the King of glory !' 
 This is the solemn inauguration of that great Name by which 
 the divine nature was especially known under the monarchy. 
 It was, indeed, as the sixty-eighth psalm describes it, a 
 
 >* Psalms xv, xxir, zzlx, xxz, Ixvili, cxxxii, and cxli. " 1 Sam. IT, 21, 32.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 185 
 
 Bitcond exoius. David was on that day the founder, not of 
 freedom only, but of empire ; not of religion only, but of a 
 Church and commonwealth. But there were revelations of a 
 yet loftier kind even than this new name of the leader of the 
 armies of Israel. The name of the Lord of Hosts, as revealed 
 in the close of the twenty-fourth psalm, was destined itself to 
 fade away into a dark silence when the hosts had ceased to 
 fight and the empire of Israel had fallen to pieces. But in 
 the hopes with which that same psalm is opened, and which 
 pervades the fifteenth and the one hundred and first, the 
 faith of David takes a higher and still wider sweep. As if 
 in answer to the cry from the guardians of the gates, as he 
 remembers the tabernacle which he had raised within the 
 walls of his city to receive the ark after its long wanderings, 
 as he sees its magnificent train mounting up to its sacred 
 tent on the sacred rock, the thought rises within him of those 
 who shall hereafter be the citizens of the capital thus con- 
 secrated, and he asks, ' Who shall ascend into the mount of 
 Jehovah ? Who shall stand in his holy place ? Who shall 
 abide in thy tabernacle ? Who shall abide in thy holy tent ? ' 
 The question is twice asked, the reply is twice given : ' He 
 that hath clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted 
 up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor. 
 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and 
 speaketh the truth from his heart. He that backbiteth not 
 with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh 
 up a reproach against his neighbor. He that despiseth a 
 vile person, but honoreth them that fear Jehovah. He that 
 sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. He that put
 
 186 THE WOliD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 teth not out his money unto usury, nor taketh a reward 
 against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall 
 never fall.' " Of these tests for the entrance into David's 
 city and David's Church one only has become obsolete, that 
 of not receiving usury. All the rest remain in force still 
 nay, it may even be said that the one qualification, repeated 
 in so many forms, of the duty of truth, even in Christian 
 times, has hardly been recognized with equal force as hold- 
 ing the exalted place which David gives it. When at length 
 the day is past, and he finds himself in his own palace, he 
 there lays down for himself the rules by which ' he will 
 walk in his house with a perfect heart.' The one hundred 
 and first psalm was one beloved by the noblest of Russian 
 princes, Vladimir Monomachos ; by the gentlest of English 
 reformers, Nicholas Ridley. But it was its first leap into life 
 that has carried it so far into the future. It is full of a stern 
 exclusiveness, of a noble intolerance. But not against theo- 
 logical error, not against uncourtly manners, not against 
 political insubordination, but against the proud heart, the 
 high look, the secret slanderer, the deceitful worker, the 
 teller of lies. These are the outlaws from King David'g 
 court, these alone are the rebels and heretics whom he would 
 not suffer to dwell in his house, or tarry in his sight : ' Mine 
 eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may 
 dwell with me ; he that walketh in a perfect way he shall be 
 my servant. I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, 
 that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the 
 Lord.' '* Many have been the holy associations with which 
 1 * Psalms xv, rdi. ' Psalm ci, (ML
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 187 
 
 the name of Jerusalem has been invested in apocalyptic 
 vision and Christian hymns, but they have their first his- 
 torical ground in the sublime aspirations of its first royal 
 founder." " 
 
 This most interesting historical illustration of one series 
 of the Psalms, from Stanley's very instructive History of the 
 Jewish Church, shows how much light can be poured upon 
 them, and how much beauty and force added to them, by a 
 careful gathering of the incidents which formed the first 
 occasions of their utterance. 
 
 A marked peculiarity of the poetry of the Bible is a law 
 which seems to pervade the whole of it. and is 
 
 Parallelism of 
 
 denominated parallelism, an understanding of Psalm3 - 
 which will afford great aid in the interpretation of the 
 metrical portions of Scripture. By parallelism is meant the 
 correspondence which one line, or a part of a verse, bears to 
 another. The first line will commonly contain a distinct 
 idea or proposition. The second will present the same idea, 
 either more direct and literal, or else more obscure and enig- 
 matical, or perhaps with some enlargement. Sometimes the 
 law of contrast will obtain, and the second or parallel line 
 will be the opposite of the idea contained in the first. In 
 either case it will be seen that it becomes, as it is intended to 
 be, explanatory of the other." 
 
 Bishop Lowth presents three forms of parallelism. I. The 
 first he styles ynonymous, and it embraces those pi ret f orm: 
 
 synonymous 
 
 lines that correspond one to another by expressing parallelism. 
 
 History of the Jewish Church, Second Series, pages 95-8fx 
 17 Hibbard on the Pwlms, page 68.
 
 188 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 the same sense in different, but equivalent terms; as, for 
 illustration : 
 
 Because I called and ye refused; 
 
 I stretched out my hand and no one regarded ; 
 
 But ye have defeated all my counsel, 
 
 And would not incline to my reproof: 
 
 I also will laugh at your calamity ; 
 
 I will mock when your fear cometh. PBOV. i, 24-26. 
 
 Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; 
 
 Call ye upon him while he is near : 
 
 Let the wicked forsake his way, 
 
 And the unrighteous man his thought; 
 
 And let him turn to Jehovah, and he will compassionate him ; 
 
 And unto our God, for he aboundeth in forgiveness. 18 ISA. Iv, 6, T. 
 
 In these selections it will be seen that the thought of the 
 first line is repeated with some variations in the second, and 
 Sometimes that of the third in the fourth, etc. Sometimes 
 
 consists of 
 
 four lines. the parallel consists of four lines, the last two 
 answering to the first two, and making one verse : 
 
 Be not moved with indignation against the evil doers; 
 
 Neither be jealous at the workers of iniquity : 
 
 For like the grass they shall soon be cut off; 
 
 And like the green herb they shall wither. PSA. rmvli, 1, 9. 
 
 The ox knoweth his owner, 
 
 And the ass the crib of his lord ; 
 
 But Israel doth not know ; 
 
 My people doth not consider. ISA. 1, 3. 
 
 This order is varied so that four lines will be followed by 
 their four corresponding strains, and at other 
 
 Eight lines. 
 
 times the third line will respond to the first, 
 and the fourth to the second. 
 
 Bishop Lowth's translation.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 189 
 
 As the heavens are high above the earth, 
 So high is his goodness over them that fear him ; 
 As remote as the east is from the west, 
 So far hath he removed from us oar transgressions. PSA. ciii, 11, 12. 
 
 II. The second kind of parallels he calls antithetic. These 
 are the verses in which the two lines oppose 
 
 Second form: 
 
 each other by a contrast of sentiments, as, 
 
 A wise son rejoiceth his father, 
 
 But a foolish son is the grief of his mother. PEOV. x, 1. 
 
 Dr. Hibbard remarks that there is no one rule for the 
 interpretation of the Proverbs of Solomon of more 
 
 Peculiar to 
 
 importance and universal application than this law Proverbs - 
 of parallelism. In many instances this rule of antithetic cor- 
 respondence is the chief and only safe reliance of the expos- 
 itor. Illustrations of this are to be found also in the Psalms. 
 
 Some in chariots and some in horses, (do trust ;) 
 
 But we make mention of the name of the Lord our God. 
 
 They are brought down and fallen ; 
 
 But we are risen and stand upright PSA. xx, 7, 8. 
 
 HI. The third form is styled synthetic. It is where the 
 parallelism consists only in a similarity of con- 
 
 J Third form: 
 
 struction ; neither the words nor lines answer to "y nthetlc - 
 each other, but there is a correspondence and equality be- 
 tween the different propositions, such as when the parts of 
 speech answer to each other, a negative to a negative, and an 
 interrogative to an interrogative. Bishop Lowth illustrates 
 this form by the one hundredth and forty-eighth psalm : 
 
 Praise ye Jehovah, ye of the earth I 
 Te sea-monsters, and all deeps 
 Fire and hail, snow and vapor; 
 Stormy winds executing his command ;
 
 190 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Mountains and all hills; 
 
 Fruit trees and all cedars; 
 
 Wild beasts and all cattle ; 
 
 Reptiles and birds of wing ; 
 
 Kings of the earth and all feoples ; 
 
 Princes and all judges of the earth ; 
 
 Youths and all virgins; 
 
 Old men, together with the children ; 
 
 Let them praise the name of Jehovah ; 
 
 For his name alone is exalted ; 
 
 His majesty above earth and heaven. 
 
 The book of Job consists chiefly of this form of parallelism. 
 
 With Him is wisdom and might ; 
 
 To Him belong counsel and understanding. 
 
 Lot he pullet h down, and it shall not be built; 
 
 He encloseth a man, and he shall not be set loose. 
 
 Lol he withholdeth the waters, and they are dried up; 
 
 And he sendeth them forth, and they overturn the earth. 
 
 With him is strength and perfect existence ; 
 
 The deceived and the deceiver are his. JOB rli, 13-18. 
 
 It will prove a pleasant and instructive task to arrange tht 
 poetical portions of the Bible into metrical verses under 
 these rules. In Townsend's Arrangement the poetical Scrip- 
 tures are presented in the form of verse, in accordance with 
 the translation in our received version. 
 
 We can hardly leave the poetry of the Bible without a 
 passing reference to the " vindictive psalms." as 
 
 The vindic- 
 
 tive psalms. ^ ev are ca n e( ^ There are, as it is well known, 
 
 portions of these Scriptures in which the most terrible ven- 
 geance is denounced upon enemies, extending to their wives 
 and children, even down into the coming generations. No 
 Christian man could use them in reference to personal enemies
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 191 
 
 without transgressing the plainest teachings of the Bible, 
 nnd bringing remorse upon his conscience. It is not a suffi- 
 cient answer to say that these were the expressions of a dark 
 *t<e and a less merciful dispensation, for in the Not enough 
 
 to say they 
 
 same book, and dropping from the same lips, the r I age ks in 
 are to be found the sweetest, tenderest, most for- we're uttered. 
 giving, and charitable sentiments ; and all these strains, it 
 must be remembered, are inspired of the Holy Ghost, and 
 are still profitable. There can be but one answer : These are 
 not the expressions of personal wrath against personal foes. 
 
 As in the instance of the awful and sweeping Not expres- 
 sions of per- 
 destruction of human life by the children of sonai wrath. 
 
 Israel when they entered upon the possession of Canaan, 
 there can be found no justification but in the divine com- 
 mand. God might have swept away a frightfully-depraved 
 and sinful people by a pestilence, but this would have 
 seemed to Israel as a natural event, and not a retributive 
 Judgment ; but he committed the work into their hands, 
 with an express statement of the reason for which he visited 
 *his utter destruction upon the nations of Canaan; that they, 
 unarmed and weak as they were, and yet easily, by God's 
 help, overthrowing their foes, might never forget the ven- 
 geance that he visited upon idolatry and impurity, nor the 
 sure defense of Him who moved the floods aside for their 
 passage across the Jordan, and made them terrible to God'a 
 foes and their own. So in these psalms, there is nothing in 
 the sentiments of the religious men of the Old Testament 
 dispensation, or in the prevailing religious expressions of the 
 psalmists themselves, to justify the opinion that they be-
 
 192 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 The psalmists licved it right to curse their personal foes. 
 
 themselves 
 
 iie've 'u'riKht They were the enemies of God ind of his king- 
 to curse per- , 
 
 onai foes. dom whom they addressed. 
 
 "Job considered it a great sin to indulge a revengeful spirit. 
 'If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or 
 lifted up myself when evil found him; neither have I suf- 
 fered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.' " 
 The law of Moses expressly commands kindly offices to 
 enemies. 50 Solomon, also, says, 'If thine enemy be hungry, 
 give him bread to eat ; and if he be thirsty, give him water 
 to drink : for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, 
 and the Lord shall reward thee.' 2l ' Rejoice not when thine 
 enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stum- 
 bleth ; lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn 
 away his wrath from him. Say not I will do so to him, as 
 he hath done to me : I will render to the man according to 
 his work.' " as The great psalmist especially, as his treatment 
 of King Saul bore witness, was an amiable, forgiving, noble- 
 hearted man. 
 
 These vindictive psalms have been the "songs in the 
 nave been night " of the martyrs in all generations. They 
 
 used by the 
 
 Bulges.' 6 * 1 resounded from the secluded mountains and re- 
 cesses of Sotland, from the secret retreats of the Hu- 
 guenots of France, from the fastnesses of the mountains of 
 Tyrol and the Apennines, and from Tabor in Bohemia. 
 Huss, Luther, and the long-suffering of every age have 
 chanted these solemn and inspiring strains ol triumph 
 
 Job xrxi, 29, 80. Exod. xxiii, 4, 5. 
 
 ' Prov. xxv, 21, 22. " Prov. xxlv, 17, 18, 20 : see Hibbard on the Psalnu
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 193 
 
 against, not their own foes, but the enemies of God and of his 
 Church. It is the same fearful language which Christ used 
 
 such lan- 
 
 the "Lamb of God," when upon earth, who re- euwe- 
 ceived sinners and ate with them, who came to seek and to 
 save the lost, who died with a prayer for his murderers 
 upon his lips, used when addressing the proud, incorrigible 
 foes of God. These psalms set forth in divinely-guarded 
 language God's abhorrence of wickedness, and the fearful 
 judgments he will visit upon those who persist in it. 
 
 In an elaborate article in the "Bibliotheca Sacra," for 
 January, 1862, Professor Park treats the subject of the im- 
 precatory psalms in an exhaustive manner. In Prof. Park on 
 
 the impreca- 
 
 the opening of his paper, as it was written during tory psalms, 
 the civil war, he naturally alludes to the passing events fill- 
 ing the thoughts and anxieties of the land, and remarks that 
 there are crises in human life which bring out the hidden 
 uses of such parts of the Bible as seem long ago to have 
 been rendered valueless through the brighter light of a later 
 dispensation. During the war, he says, "the imprecatory 
 psalms have gained a new meaning in the view of men who 
 
 have been wont to regard them as unchristian. 
 
 The late war 
 
 Now the red planet, Mars, which had been un- 8"KS 
 noticed in our horizon, has reappeared ; the lost ' 
 hymns have been found again. It is a new proof of the 
 inspiration of the Bible, that so many of its forgotten teach- 
 ings have been commended to our regard by the martial 
 scenes of the day." References to these terrible utterances 
 of holy writ demand that the one who utters them shall 
 
 feel the tendercst pitv for the suffering as well as a right- 
 13
 
 194 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 ecus indignation against wrong-doing. Unless our sympa- 
 thies be aroused for the bleeding Protestants, we revolt from 
 the sonnet of Milton ' on the late mnssacre in Piedmont : ' 
 
 4 Arenrje, O Lord, thy slaughtered saint*, whose bones 
 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
 
 Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
 When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones. 
 Forget not ! ' 
 
 Dr. J. J. Stewart Perowne, in his admirable work upon 
 the Psalms, while affirming the impersonal and right- 
 Perowne's eous indignation expressed in the imprecations 
 
 view of these 
 
 psalms. found in the Psalms, regards the spirit of them as 
 
 unjustified in the New Testament dispensation. " Surely," 
 he says, "there is nothing in such an explanation which, 
 in the smallest degree, impugns the divine authority of the 
 earlier Scriptures. In how many respects have the harsher 
 outlines of the legal economy been softened down by the 
 'mind that was in Jesus Christ.' How much is declared to 
 be antiquated, even though it still stands for our instruction 
 in the volume of the Bible. How clearly our Lord himself 
 teaches us that his spirit and the spirit of Elijah are not 
 the same. Yet surely no prophet of the Old Testament 
 occupies a higher place as an inspired messenger of God 
 than the prophet Elijah. Our Lord does not condemn the 
 prophet for his righteous zeal; he does forbid the manifes- 
 tation of a like zeal on the part of his disciples. As in the 
 Sermon on the Mount he substitutes the moral principle 
 for the legal enactment, so here he substitutes the spirit of 
 gentleness, meekness, endurance of wrong, for the spirit of 
 fiery though righteous indignation."
 
 THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 195 
 
 "An insulated imprecation repels men who will be recon- 
 ciled to it when they enter into such reasons for it as are 
 intimated in Psa. ix, 13-20 ; x, 2 ; liv, 3." 23 
 
 The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes form the great 
 divine repositories of inspired moral maxims. 
 
 Proverbs and 
 
 The histories and biographies of the Bible, as 
 we have said in another place, do not give expression to the 
 divine abhorrence of wrong-doing in the instance of those 
 whose acts are recorded ; but in these books, in the most 
 striking and pungent manner, and in a form to cling to the 
 memory, as well as to impress the imagination, the judgment 
 of God against every form of deceit and impurity is given. 
 They are rendered even more impressive as being the results 
 of human experience ; coming from the lips of the wisest, 
 richest, most powerful, and most tempted of kings. It is to 
 be feared that in modem days these consummate lessons of 
 wisdom for the guidance and defense, especially of youth, do 
 not receive the attention they should. 
 
 We have already intimated the light that a knowledge of 
 the oriental espousal and marriage customs will 
 
 Solomon'i 
 
 Bhed upon that most incomprehensible, to many, Song ' 
 of the books of the Bible, Solomon's Song. Isaac Taylor 
 happily remarks that this song of pure conjugal love carries 
 us back to Eden. In its pure and virgin arbors the king, 
 turning away from the impure atmosphere of a fallen world, 
 finds his subjects and his images. This poem would be 
 entirely true to nature if man only were innocent, and woman 
 always pure and loving. " If," says the well-known author 
 * Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xbc, p. 207.
 
 196 TIIE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 of the History of Enthusiasm, to whom we have alluded, " a 
 half dozen heedlessly rendered passages of our English ver- 
 sion were amended, as easily they might be, 
 
 A few emen- 
 
 tl a xt" ns wouia then the canticle would well consist throughout 
 
 make it per- 
 fect in its ex- with the purest utterances of conjugal fondness. 
 
 pressiou of 
 
 Happy would any people be among whom there 
 was an abounding of that conjugal fondness which might 
 thus express itself." It is not as an expression of pure 
 and innocent love merely that it finds its place in the canon, 
 has held it persistently against many efforts to unseat it, and 
 has been found to be a medium of expression among the 
 prized for its holiest of the saints of earth, but as the in- 
 
 expression of 
 
 spiritual life, spired illustration of the deepest and sincerest 
 emotions of their spiritual life. It is to be interpreted in 
 all the simplicity and purity of an early, well assorted, 
 divinely instituted marriage, while under its folds of 
 human love lays embalmed the divine symbol of Christ's 
 relation to his Church and to the individual soul that 
 pants for him. In this use of it " it has served to give 
 animation and intensity, and warrant, too, to the devout 
 meditations of thousands of the most holy, and of the 
 
 Isaac Taylor's purest minds. Those who have no conscious- 
 view of the 
 book. ness of this kind, and whose feelings and notions 
 
 are all 'of the earth earthy,' will not fail to find in this 
 book that which will suit them for purposes sometimes of 
 mockery, sometimes of luxury, sometimes of disbelief. Quite 
 unconscious of these perversions, and happily ignorant of 
 them, and unable to suppose them possible, there have been 
 multitudes of unearthly spirits to whom this the most
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 197 
 
 beautiful of pastorals has been not indeed a beautiful pas- 
 toral, but the choicest of those words of truth which are 
 ' sweeter than honey to the taste,' and ' rather to be chosen 
 than thousands of gold and silver.' " M 
 
 PROPHECY. 
 
 The Bible is full of prophecy fulfilled or unfulfilled. 
 Its histories are the records of the fulfillment 
 
 Prophecy. 
 
 of previous prophecies, and the New Testa- 
 ment is the complement of the Old, in which its prophetic 
 types and words are shown to have been fully met in the 
 person of Christ, and the Gospel which he established. 
 
 It not unfrequently occurs, however, in the New Testament, 
 that an incident recorded in the Old, which in 
 
 Illustrative 
 
 some measure is repeated in the times of Christ, events - 
 is said to be fulfilled. " Any thing," says Dr. Bloomfield, 
 " may be said to be fulfilled if it admits of being appropri- 
 ately applied." Thus in the second chapter of Matthew /e 
 read, " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken 
 
 Weeping of 
 
 by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was Rachel - 
 there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great 
 mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not 
 be comforted because they are not." In the prophetic vision 
 of the weeping seer, 26 the beloved wife of Jacob, the mother 
 of Israel, by a striking figure is represented as rising from her 
 grave and weeping over the slain of her children slain 
 in the invasions of their country by the foes whom God per- 
 mitted to scourge them ; so in the times of the infant 
 14 The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, page 233. Jer. xxri, 1&
 
 198 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Redeemer, when Herod's sword was reeking with the blood of 
 
 the children of Judca, slain around the very grave of Rachel, 
 
 near Bethlehem, this sad mother is said to rise and weep 
 
 again, and the vision of the prophet is once more realized. 
 
 The quotation in the fifteenth verse of the same chapter of 
 
 Matthew is another instance of the same form 
 
 Calling out of 
 
 of fulfillment, or renewed realization : " That it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken .of the Lord by the 
 prophet, Out of Egypt have I called my son." The depart- 
 ure of Israel from Egypt under Moses, of which Hosea 
 speaks, 28 was not a direct prophecy nor type of our Redeem- 
 er's brief residence in that country, but a coincident fact, 
 full of profitable and grateful suggestion, and illustrating 
 our Lord's departure from the Holy Land and return to it. 
 
 Fulfilled prophecy is best interpreted by history. The 
 History inter- records of Jewish, Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, 
 
 prets fulfilled 
 
 prophecy. Roman, and modern history, and the ruins and 
 desolations of many countries like Palestine and Egypt, and 
 cities like Tyre and Babylon, afford the best means for a correct 
 interpretation of the inspired visions which it pleased God to 
 bestow upon the ancient seers, and which have been signally 
 fulfilled. The prophet himself evidently did not always 
 understand the force of the words or the symbols which he 
 used. 27 The idea of exact time was not in the 
 
 Prophet no 
 
 ' ame - prophet's mind, for the commencement of Mes- 
 siah's reign upon earth and the glorious universal triumph 
 of the Gospel are announced in the same passages. It was 
 partly for this reason that the Jewish interpreter, eagerly 
 
 Hosea xii, 18. 7 1 Peter i, 10, 11.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 199 
 
 seizing upon the triumphs of the promised royal seed of 
 David as' connected with the advent of Messiah, overlooked 
 the humiliation and suffering which he must first undergo. 
 That manifestation of the Son of David is yet, after nineteen 
 hundred years, an object of faith and not of sight. 
 
 It is evident that prophesy is not given in terms so definite 
 as to be readily understood, except as to its general scope. 
 There is not a more definite prophecy than Daniel's as to the 
 tune of the coming of the Messiah ; yet our Lord, when justi- 
 fying to his forerunner his claim to the exalted character of 
 Him " that was to come." appealed not to Dan- Jesus did not 
 
 appeal to the 
 
 iel's symbolical beasts, or to his mysterious fig- if a nie!. 
 ures, but to the miracles of mercy, lying here and there 
 upon the bosom of prophecy, which he was then fulfilling. 
 Christ's own prophecies and those of the book of Revela- 
 tion are of the same nature. They point out a future with 
 a dark, heavy, crimson foreground, but with a golden and 
 glorious distant horizon. The destruction of Jerusalem, and 
 the final successive subsidence, in connection prophecies of 
 
 the New Tes- 
 
 with much human sorrow and Christian disci- tament. 
 pline, of other earthly kingdoms, down to the hour of the fall 
 of the last foe and the sublime installation of Christ's uni- 
 versal kingdom, amid the halleluiahs of angels and re- 
 deemed men, are set forth in natural and somewhat mys- 
 terious symbols in the last discourses of our Lord and the 
 prophecies of John the Evangelist. 
 
 Prophecy was not intended to be history, but an index or 
 gnomon pointing in the direction of the Divine 
 
 Prophecy not 
 
 Providence. It was intended, by the assurance history -
 
 200 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 it affords when its terms arc fulfilled by the occurrence of 
 events, to establish the faith of God's people as to his con- 
 trol of human affairs, as to the inspiration of his word, as to 
 his abundant power to make even the wrath of man praise him, 
 Points to the and also to give courage and comfort to the peo- 
 
 trlomph of 
 
 rimgtmn pj e Q f Q O( J j n re f crence to the future. However 
 discouraging the condition of the Church at any given period, 
 
 * 
 
 and however arrogant and numerous her foes, the servants of 
 the most high God have a " sure word of prophecy " shining 
 like a bright light upon a dark future, and giving them abso- 
 lute assurance of the final triumph of Christian truth. 
 
 The sad mistakes to which we have heretofore alluded, 
 arising out of a too confident reliance upon a literal render- 
 ing of prophetic symbols the absolute errors into which 
 learned and good men have fallen when apparently resting 
 upon the exact demonstrations of scriptural figures should 
 The hour of teach us the truth of the saying of our Lord, that 
 
 Christ's com- 
 
 veliea. 01 Te ~ while his coming will certainly be experienced, 
 with all its attendant circumstances, the specific hour has not 
 been revealed. 88 It seems to have been the intention of the 
 
 Matt xxiv, 36. " But the key," says Dr. Whedon in his supplementary 
 note to his comments upon the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, " to the whole 
 mystery (in reference to the time of Christ's second coming) is furnished in 
 2 Peter iii, 8, where, in regard to this very point, Peter reminds us that ' one 
 day with the Lord is as a thousand years.' (Not that a day in prophecy, as some 
 teach? ts an exact symbol of a thousand years, but that time is without human 
 measure in God's mind.) Scoffers in the last days, he tells us, would raise this 
 very objection : ' Where is the promise of his coming 1 ' Peter replies by inform- 
 ing us that the distance of the event is to be measured by the arithmetic of God. 
 One day is as a thousand years, and language that would seem to intimate a 
 few dayt may really embrace a/ezo thous<tnd or myriads of years. If it be 
 true that both Christ and his apostles have warned us that the time of the second
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 201 
 
 Holy Spirit that in all ages, even the apostolical, the Church 
 should be looking for and loving the appearing of the Son 
 of God, and purifying herself in the expectation of it. " Only 
 a few years ago," says Dobie, " the year and the day were 
 confidently fixed when the trumpet should sound and the 
 voice of the Son of God be heard calling the world to judg- 
 ment. It is only as yesterday that the eloquent Irving, with 
 saintly and joyous countenance, was wont to stand for hours 
 together on his balcony, looking toward the east, rving on the 
 
 Doming of 
 
 momentarily expecting to see the glorious white Christ. 
 throne, and the retinue of attending angels, and the ever- 
 blessed Redeemer coming in the glory of the Father to judge 
 the living and the dead. And now another prophet has risen 
 up, and by him we are confidently assured from a devout and 
 prayerful study of the prophets that the second coming of 
 Christ and the end of the present system will probably take 
 place in 1865. (The writer refers to the eloquent 
 
 Dr. dimming. 
 
 Dr. Gumming, of London, whose date has now llkewise - 
 been passed some three years; but, not discouraged, he still 
 fixes it again in the near future.) The data of this and all 
 other similar calculations are found in Dan. xii, 11, com- 
 pared with Rev. xii, 5 ; xiii, 1$ ; and xx, 4. But by a 
 cursory inspection of these passages it will be seen that any 
 calculation of the year when this world shall end must be 
 very, if not purely, arbitrary, inasmuch as there is no direct 
 
 advent was to them unrevealed and unknown if they nso in abundance 
 terms indicating an indefinite distance if they themselves furnish the solution 
 of all their expressions intimating its near proximity all objections to their in- 
 fallibility in regard to other subjects upon which they speak with professed 
 Inspiration arc nugatory and captious."
 
 202 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 reference to that event in these passages whatever. All that 
 the Bible justifies us in believing respecting the 
 
 Bible vi iw of 
 
 termination of the present world is, that there 
 is a certain grand result to be reached in the histoiy of our 
 race, a general dispersion of the ignorance of men and a 
 triumph over the wickedness that reigns in the earth ; and 
 that after an extended period of peace and holiness, very 
 suddenly and unexpectedly the angel of God will summon 
 both the living and the dead to judgment. Then will come 
 the end, the dissolution of the present system in liquid fire, 
 and the final retribution of the last day, dispensed in right- 
 eousness by our Lord Jesus Christ." 29 This may, and may 
 
 a Key to the Bible, pages 202, 203. " The Bible," says Bernard, " is one 
 long account of the preparation of the city of God. That is one distinct point 
 of view from which the Bible ought to be regarded, and one from which its 
 contents will appear In clearer light We are accustomed in the present day to 
 read it too exclusively from the individual point of view, as the record for each 
 man of that will of God and that way of salvation with which he is personally 
 concerned. This it is, but it is more than this. It places before ns the restora- 
 tion not only of the personal, but of the social life ; the creation not only of the 
 man of God, but of the city of God ; and it presents the society or city not as 
 a mere name for the congregation of individuals, but as having a being and life 
 of its own, in which the Lord finds his satisfaction and man his perfection. 
 The 'Jerusalem which is above' is, in relation to the Lord, 'the bride, the 
 Lamb's wife;' (Rev. xxi, 9 ;) and hi relation to man, it is ' the mother of us all' 
 Gal. iv, 86. In its appearance the revealed course of redemption culminates, 
 and the history of man is closed ; and thus the last chapters of the Bible declare 
 the unity of the whole book by completing the design which has been developed 
 In its pnges and disclosing the result to which all preceding steps have tended. 
 Take from the Bible the final vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and what will 
 6ave been lost? Not merely a single passage, a sublime description, an impor- 
 tant revelation, but a conclusion by which all that went before is interpreted 
 nd justified. We shall have an unfinished plan, in which human capacities 
 have not found their full realization, or divine preparation their adequate result. 
 But as it is, neither of these deficiencies exists. The great consummation Is
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 203 
 
 not, be the order of events. This millennial reign may come 
 before or after Christ's advent. The former is 
 
 Spiritual and 
 
 Lhe widely-received spiritual view of the prophe- 
 sies , the latter the view of Millenarians, many of whom do 
 not, however, attempt to designate the period when Christ 
 will make his appearance. 
 
 But the study of prophecy is profitable, although we may 
 not be able to read it as we would history. It is prophecy a 
 
 profitable 
 given, the most of it, in the sublimest strains of 8tud y- 
 
 poetry ever written, and is to be interpreted according to 
 the rules already laid down for this style of composition. 
 What higher or more spiritual or practical conception of the 
 glory and holiness of Almighty God can be found than that 
 
 there, and we are instructed to observe that from the first the desires of men 
 and the preparations of God have been alike directed toward it. At the begin- 
 ning of the sacred story the father of the faithful comes forth into view, fol- 
 lowed by those who are heirs with him of the same promise ; and they separate 
 themselves to the life of strangers, because they are 'looking for a city which 
 hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' In due time solid pledges 
 of the divine purpose follow. We behold a peculiar people, a divinely-framed 
 polity, a holy city, a house of God. It is a wonderful spectacle, this system of 
 earthly types, thus consecrated and glorified by miraculous interventions and 
 inspired panegyrics. Do we look on the fulfillment of patriarchal hopes or on 
 the types of their fulfillment? on the final form of human society or on the 
 figures of the true? The answer was given by prophets and psalmists, and then 
 by the word of the Gospel, finally by the hand of God, which swept the whole 
 system from the earth. It was gone when the words of the text were written, 
 and when the closing scene of the Bible presented the New Jerusalem, not as 
 the restoration, but as the antitype of the old. Thij vision teaches us that the 
 drama of the world must be finished, and its dispensation closed, that the Lord 
 must have come, the dead have been raised, the judgment have sat, the heaven 
 and earth which are now have passed away, and the new creation have appeared, 
 before the chosen people shall see the city of their habitation." Progress oj 
 Doctrine in the New Testament, page 219.
 
 204 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 presented by the prophet Isaiah, when in the commencement 
 of his prophetic mission, "Iff the year that King Uzziah 
 died," he had that sublime vision in the temple.' Before 
 his wondering gaze "the vail of the temple was withdrawn 
 and the holy of holies discovered to the prophet's eyes, and 
 he saw the Lord sitting as a king upon his throne actually 
 governing and judging. His train, the symbol of dignity 
 and glory, filled the holy place ; while around him hovered 
 the attendant seraphim, spirits of purity, zeal, and love, 
 chanting in alternate choirs the holiness of their Lord ; the 
 threshold vibrated with the sound, and the ' white cloud ' of 
 the divine Presence, as if descending to mingle itself with 
 the ascending incense of prayer, filled the house. The eter- 
 nal archetypes of the Hebrew's symbolic worship were re- 
 vealed to Isaiah ; and, as the center of them all, his eyes saw 
 the King, the Lord of Hosts, of whom the actual rulers from 
 David to Uzziah had been but the temporary and subordinate 
 viceroys. In that Presence even the spirits of the fire which 
 consumes all impurities, while none can mix with it, cover their 
 faces and their feet, conscious that they are not pure in God's 
 sight, but justly chargeable with imperfection; and much 
 more does Isaiah shrink from the aspiring thoughts he had 
 hitherto entertained of his fitness to be the preacher of that 
 God to his countrymen he, a man of unclean lips, sharing 
 the uncleanness of the people among whom he dwells. In 
 utter self-abasement he realizes the exceeding sinfulness of 
 Bin, and the utter separation it makes between man and the 
 holy God." " 
 
 Isaiah vl Sir Edward Strachey's Hebrew Polities, page 19.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 205 
 
 Prophecy is really a grand epic, with many acts and a 
 variety of scenes, but with a divine unity. Imagination can 
 find in no human work so fine a field for its highest and 
 purest conceptions. Christ is the great central personage in 
 the extended poem, written by different hands, but always 
 preserving the divine unities. His kingdom in all its for- 
 tunes, adverse and prosperous, is set forth. His own mar- 
 velous history from the manger to the cross, his providential 
 government, and his final universal triumph and coronation 
 in his own New Jerusalem, where his happy followers " need 
 no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth 
 them light," "and there shall be no night there," are pre- 
 sented throughout the long poem, commencing in Eden and 
 ending in the Apocalypse. 
 
 Dr. Schaff remarks of the Book of Revelation that it sur- 
 passes all the other prophetic writings in harmony, elevation, 
 fullness, unity of view, progress of action, majesty of style, 
 and, above all, in the direct relation of all parts of the pic- 
 ture to the central figure of the crucified and now glorified 
 Christ, who rules the whole history of the world and the 
 Church, and is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. 
 He goes on to say that " in a succession of visions and mys- 
 terious allegories it unfolds before the reader the Dr. schaff up- 
 on the Keve- 
 
 grcat epochs of the kingdom of God on earth to lation. 
 the close of its earthly development. Its burden is the com- 
 forting truth that the Lord comes, the Lord fights, the Lord 
 conquers and leads his Church through tribulation and per- 
 secution to certain victory and eternal glory." He also 
 remarks that the value of the book is quite distinct from any
 
 206 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 human exposition of its prophecies ; that it was n c designed 
 to gratify idle curiosity concerning the future, but for a 
 practical, religious end. " Prophecy," he says, " ii. the nature 
 of the case, remains more or less obscure until it is fulfilled. 
 And as the Old Testament became clear only in the New, so 
 the Revelation of John can be perfectly understood only hi 
 the triumphant and glorified Church. Still it has been a 
 book of consolation and hope to the Church miliVjt in every 
 age, especially amid her great persecutions anJ r Druggies; 
 and it will remain so till the Lord come again hi glory, and 
 the New Jerusalem come down from heaven as a bride 
 adorned for her husband. He who cannot lie assures his 
 people, ' Lo, I come quickly. Amen.' And his people answei 
 with the holy longing of a bride for her spouse, ' Yea ; come, 
 Lord Jesus I' " " 
 
 History of the Christian Church, vol. 1, p. 100.
 
 TTTE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 207 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD'S LITERATURE. 
 
 .THHE Christian world is presenting an anomalous spectacle 
 -*- at the present hour. There never was a period when 
 her sacred volume, embodying the world's faith and salva- 
 tion, had so wide a distribution, or was exer- Bible never 
 
 before so 
 
 cising so mighty an influence upon the world's tributed? 18 " 
 civilization and progress. Nations, both Christian and un- 
 christian, that heretofore have forbidden the introduction of 
 the Bible, have ceased their opposition, and the leaves from 
 the tree of life for the healing of the nations are falling upon 
 every land. In more than two hundred different languages 
 the peoples of the earth are permitted to read the word of God 
 "in their own tongue, in which they were born." By a 
 divine conviction as to its authority and power, which unites 
 nearly all the branches of the visible Church in wonderful 
 harmony of sentiment and charity, the great societies of 
 England and America are enabled to keep their groaning 
 presses constantly in motion in the multiplication of editions 
 of this marvelous book. 
 
 "While all this is manifest, at the same moment we behold 
 one of the fiercest, most systematic, and bitter 
 
 Bitter attack 
 
 attacks upon the Christian Scriptures in the up D it- 
 three leading modern tongues English, German, and 
 French carried on with extraordinary vigor, and with
 
 208 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 some outward manifestations of a limited success. "There 
 is," says an earnest writer in the British Quarterly Review, 
 "coming upon the Church a current of doubts deeper lar 
 and darker than ever swelled against her before a current 
 strong in learning, crested with genius, strenuous, yet calm 
 in progress. It seems the last grand trial of the truth of our 
 faith. Against the battlements of Zion a motley throng 
 have gathered themselves together. Socinians, Atheists, 
 doubters, open foes and bewildered friends are in the field, 
 although no trumpet has openly been blown, and no charge 
 publicly sounded. There are the old desperadoes of infi- 
 delity the lost followers of Paine and Voltaire ; there is the 
 stolid, scanty, and sleepy troop of the followers of Owen; 
 there follow the Communists of France, a fierce, disorderly 
 crew; the commentators of Germany come, too, with pick- 
 axes in their hands, saying, ' Raze it, raze it to the founda- 
 tions.' There you see the garde-mobile, the vicious and vain 
 youths of Europe. On the outskirts of the fight hangs, 
 cloudy and uncertain, a small but select band, whose wa- 
 vering surge is surmounted by the dark and lofty crest of 
 Carlyle and Emerson. ' Their swords are a thousand,' their 
 purposes are various. In this, however, all agree that Chris- 
 tianity and the Bible ought to go down before advancing 
 civilization." The weight of this mighty movement, how- 
 ever, comes from within rather than from without the 
 nominal Church. Unbelief at this hour is baptized, and 
 Foes under aims her powerful blows against the very foun- 
 
 tlie garb of 
 
 friends, dations of the Christian faith, in the pretense oi 
 
 laboring in the interests of Christianity herself. These sub-
 
 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 209 
 
 tie foes, says Tullidge, have skillfully adapted their attacks 
 to the refinement and intelligence of the age, and with a 
 great show of learning and science, and not seldom under 
 the garb of reverence for the Bible and adherence to Chris- 
 tianity, have aimed the most deadly blows against the 
 records of our faith. Colenso is a bishop of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church, Theodore Parker was an ordained min- 
 ister over the " Twenty-eighth Congregational Church of 
 Boston ;" and Dr. Peabody very truly remarks, that the 
 author of the " Age of Reason," if he had lived at this day, 
 might have published his tracts over the title of Rev. 
 Thomas Paine, and occupied a professedly Christian pulpit. 
 The double object of the present crusade (which is, after all, 
 but one, for the Bible is God's word written, and Christ is 
 the word made flesh) is to secure a religion without a Bible, 
 and a Gospel without a Christ. Rev. Mr. Frothingham says 
 he " reads the Bible as any other book, criticises it, judges it, 
 but expects no superhuman wisdom from it, and Ob j ect of at . 
 will not call it the word of God, or the book in cimst* 11 and 
 
 the word of 
 
 which the words of God are especially written." God - 
 Another of the same school, in their organ, the " Radical," 
 blasphemously remarks, " It is time to let Jesus rest. Jesus 
 is made a stumbling-block to the generation." "He does 
 not wish to hear any more about him." It is the same 
 condition of things now as in apostolic times : to the un- 
 believer Christ is still a stumbling-block, and to the infidel 
 foolishness. 
 It is affirmed with some appearance of truth, by the 
 
 Westminster Beciew, that the great body of the "mental 
 14
 
 210 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 food of the day science, history, morals, poetry, fiction, 
 and essay is prepared by men who have long ceased to 
 believe." 
 
 The divine authority of revelation, the authenticity and 
 genuineness of the various books composing it, form the 
 main object of attack. A German writer has aptly re- 
 marked : " One period has fought for Christ's sepulcher, 
 another for his body and blood, the present period contends 
 The era of the for his word." And this is, indeed, the great 
 
 contest for 
 
 the word. question of the hour. The author of Liber Li- 
 brorum closes his volume with the forcible remark, " The 
 truth or falsehood of the Bible, its worth, or its worthless- 
 ness, is the great question of the day. It is not too much to 
 affirm that the life or death of modern society hangs upon 
 the issue." 
 
 "We have not a moment's hesitation or anxiety as to the 
 result. The world has not been redeemed to be thrown 
 away. Too marked a Providence has guarded the Holy 
 Scriptures in darker hours than the present to yield them 
 now to unholy hands. " The gates of hell shall not prevail " 
 against them. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," but 
 Christ's " words shall not pass away." There has not been a 
 No occasion generation since these holy writings have assumed 
 
 to be anxious 
 
 for the result, the form of a distinct and completed revelation in 
 which they have not been fiercely attacked, but their foes 
 have been shattered like the surges of the sea beating against 
 a mighty reef, while they have remained unmoved as the 
 " Rock of Ages." " The waves of the sea are mighty, and 
 rage terribly ; but the Lord who sittcth on high is mightier."
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 2H 
 
 Tt is an encouraging fact, that while the foes of the Bible arc 
 united like Herod and Pilate in their enmity toward the 
 word of God, they are hopelessly divided in the weapons 
 they use to accomplish their object. In nothing is the 
 weakness of the argument against the Bible more manifestly 
 seen than in the lack of agreement among its foes. The 
 French school denounces the German, and the English both 
 the others ; while different writers in the various nations 
 utterly disagree among themselves, and strenuously affirm 
 the folly of all theories save their own. 
 
 But the Bible has gained, as it always must, from these 
 attacks. " They that be with us are more than uibie gained 
 
 from these 
 
 they that be with them ;" and " if God be for attacks, 
 us, who can be against us ? " If Germany has produced a 
 Strauss, a Bruno, a Bauer, an Eichhorn, a Paulus, and a 
 Schenkel, she has also given for the defense of God's word 
 a Tholuck, a Hengstenberg, a Neander, an Olshausen, a Stier, 
 a Lange, a Hitter, and hundreds of others less prominent, but 
 constantly throwing their sanctified literature as a healthful 
 leaven into the intellectual and religious life of the continent. 
 If Renan has turned the Gospel story into a romance, and 
 made the principal actor a weak enthusiast and deceiver, 
 Guizot and a Pressens6 and others have immediately prof- 
 fered to France more than an effectual antidote. The tracts 
 and essays of too liberal Christians in England, the irreverent 
 writings of Theodore Parker, the sad oracles of the authoress 
 of " Broken Lights," the raw mathematics of Colenso, have 
 awakened into life the most vigorous and brilliant pens of 
 the age: Wcstcott, Ellicott, Lee, Rogers, Buchanan, Isaac
 
 212 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Taylor, and Baync ; the preachers of the successive Boyle and 
 Bampton University Lectures, Alford, M'Cosh, Fisher, and the 
 unannounced authors of Ecce Deus, Ecce Homo, Liber Li- 
 broruni, et id omne genus, whose names one cannot number. 
 It will be understood, of course, in presenting this list of 
 names, that we do not indorse or accept all the lines of 
 defense chosen by the writers which we have enumerated, 
 particularly in the case of the anonymous authors, but men- 
 tion them as gallantly accepting the challenge thrown down 
 by the enemies of the Christian Scriptures. 
 
 Indeed, one of the most striking evidences of the divine 
 This prodigious origin and power of the Bible is the prodigious 
 
 literature an L 
 
 divine ori$n. it3 literature which it has gathered around itself. 
 Coming for the most part, as its different books have, from 
 the pens of unlearned men, without the training of the 
 schools, it has gained the most amazing hold upon the 
 human intellect and heart, and set in motion, in all ages, the 
 most powerful and polished minds in explanation, illustra- 
 tion, and defense of its truths and revelations. How true are 
 those expressive words of the apostle Paul, "The word of 
 God is quick and powerful ;" that is, it is quickening, life- 
 giving, inspiring 1 What an immense proportion of the 
 literature of the world would leave its libraries if all growing 
 directly out of the Holy Scriptures should be removed. 
 How has it quickened the human mind in the whole field 
 of the natural sciences and of philosophy 1 To defend or 
 attack the Scriptures what an interest has been taken in the 
 study of astronomy 1 "What an inspiration the friends and 
 foes of the Bible have felt in the study of geology, from its
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 213 
 
 apparent relation to the early chapters of Genesis. The 
 secrets of chemistry have been searched in the hope of pro- 
 ducing life without seed, and thus impugning the records of 
 Moses. Every theory of mental philosophy is at once drawn 
 out into line for the defense or overthrow of the doctrines of 
 Scripture. Philology, the origin and antiquity of the race, 
 history and geography, numismatics, in short, the whole 
 circle traversed by human thought and investigation, have 
 been quickened into life by the words of Him of whom iT 
 was said, " In him was life ; and the life was the light of 
 men." 
 
 No book of human authorship could bear up such a litera- 
 ture. The only other volume that may be said to have a 
 literature of its own, which stands at the head of human 
 productions for the universality and power of its influence, 
 only serves to show more significantly the superhuman 
 vitality of the Bible. Who will think for a i ts influence 
 
 compared with 
 
 moment of comparing the influence of Shaks- Shakspeare. 
 peare with that of the Bible ? But what is the secret of the 
 power of this writer, and whence did he derive it? An 
 English clergyman, Rev. T. R. Eaton, has written a book 
 entitled " Shakspeare and the Bible," in which he seeks to 
 show how much the immortal bard was indebted to the 
 Scriptures for his illustrations, rhythms, and modes of ex- 
 pression. The author affirms that Shakspeare went first to 
 the word and then to the works of God. "In shaping the 
 truths derived from these sources," says an intelligent phy- 
 sician, " he obeyed the instinct implanted by Him who had 
 formed him Shakspeare. Hence his power of inspiring us
 
 214 THE W011D OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and 
 of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil 
 Shakspcarc perpetually reminds us of the Bible by an eleva- 
 tion of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be 
 found elsewhere." ' Rev. Mr. Eaton points out hundreds of 
 quotations, allusions, and parallelisms in his works, showing 
 Shakspeare's familiarity with Scripture, his fondness for it, 
 and the almost unconscious recurrence of it to his mind. 
 
 Few short poems have impressed thoughtful men more 
 than the " Elegy in a Country Church-yard," by Gray, the 
 poet. It has been translated into a number of languages. 
 Dr. Johnson read it with pleasure, and Mr. Webster had his 
 son read it to him upon his death-bed. We 
 are pleased to call to mind the fact that the 
 young and cultivated General Wolfe, while sailing down the 
 St. Lawrence on the eve of his great victory upon the Heights 
 of Abraham, recited the verses of this poem aloud, and said 
 at their close, " Now, gentlemen, I would prefer being the 
 author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to- 
 morrow !" Gray was a fine scholar, a graduate of Cambridge, 
 England, was cultivated by travel and constant study after 
 he left the University, and yet it was eight years from the 
 time he commenced this poem before he finished it and 
 allowed it, under the most searching revision, to be put in 
 print. But now let us turn to only one of the many psalms 
 unequaled hi beauty. Take, for instance, the twenty-third, a 
 psalm of David. It was evidently written at a sitting. It is 
 the production of a man brought up among the flocks and 
 
 C. C. Bombangh, A.M., M.D.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 215 
 
 conversant with the humblest society. He owed little tc 
 human training, and had no classical models upon which 
 he might form his style, or from which he might receive 
 his inspiration. " This ode," says Isaac Taylor, " is not 
 to be matched in the circuit of all literature. In its way 
 down through three thousand years or more this psalm 
 has penetrated to the depths of millions of hearts ; it has 
 gladdened homes of destitution and discomfort; it has 
 whispered hope and joy amid tears to the utterly solitary 
 and forsaken, whose only refuge was in heaven. Beyond all 
 rancce of probable calculation have these dozen 
 
 Twenty -third 
 
 lines imparted a power of endurance under suffer- P 8 * 1 " 1 - 
 ing, and strength in feebleness, and have kept alive the 
 flickering flame of religious feeling in hearts that were nigh 
 to despair. The divine element herein embodied has given 
 proof, millions of times repeated, of its reality and of its 
 efficacy as a formula of tranquil trust in God, and of a grate- 
 ful sense of his goodness, which all who do trust in him may 
 use for themselves, and use it until it has become assimilated 
 to their own habitual feelings. Thus it is that throughout all 
 time past, and all time to come, this psalm has possessed, and 
 will possess, a life-given virtue toward those who receive it, and 
 whose own path in life is such as life's path most often is." 
 
 The renowned philologian Henry Stephanus, who wrote an 
 exposition of the Psalms in 1562, remarks "that in the whole 
 compass of poetrv there is nothing more poetical, 
 
 Henry Ste- 
 
 more musical, more thrilling, and in some pas- phul 
 Bages more full of lofty inspiration than the psalms of 
 David." The groat German historian, John von Mueller,
 
 216 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 writes in a letter to his brother : " My most delightful lioui 
 
 every day is furnished by David. There is nothing in Greece, 
 
 nothing in Rome, nothing in all the West like 
 
 John Von 
 
 David, who selected the God of Israel to sing 
 him in higher strains than ever praised the gods of the 
 Gentiles. His songs come from the spirit, they sound to the 
 depths of the heart, and never in all my life have I so seen 
 God before my eyes." Alexander von Humboldt, who was a 
 stranger to the Christian faith in the invisible world and to 
 
 the inward experiences of the Gospel, in his great 
 
 Humboldt. 
 
 work entitled " Cosmos," refers to the remarkably 
 truthful representations of nature in Hebrew poetry. He 
 notices especially the one hundred and fourth psalm as 
 presenting "in itself a picture of the whole world." He 
 speaks of the book of Job as being " as graphic in its repre- 
 sentations of particular phenomena as it is artistic in the plan 
 of the whole didactic composition," and says of the book of 
 Ruth that it is " a most artless and inexpressibly charming 
 picture of nature." Goethe says of this same book that it is 
 " the loveliest thing in the shape of an epic or an 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 idyl which has come down to us ;" and of the whole 
 volume of inspiration he truthfully testifies, " the Bible be- 
 comes more beautiful the more we study it." * 
 
 This naturally suggests the analogous thought of the per- 
 ils stronn sonal influence which the Bible has exercised 
 
 hold upon the 
 
 fiirmind?*"' over the strongest and most original minds. 
 How affecting the tribute paid to it by the unbelieving 
 
 Hagenbach's German Rationalism, page 7a History of the ApostolU 
 Church, page 166.
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 2l7 
 
 Rousseau : " This divine book," he says, " the only one which 
 is indispensable to the Christian, need only be .read with 
 reflection to inspire love for its Author, and the most ardent 
 el ;sire to ol ey its precepts. Never did virtue speak so sweet 
 a language, never was the most profound wisdom expressed 
 with so much energy and simplicity. No one can arise 
 from its perusal without feeling himself better than he was 
 before." 
 
 Coleridge, in the remarkable letters which he wrote upon 
 the Inspiration of the Bible, which have been the suggestion 
 and seed-thought of most of the tracts issued by the Broad 
 Church party, but which infinitely transcend them in solidity, 
 dignity, richness of thought and expression, and, above all, in 
 humble and loving reverence for the volume of revelation, 
 says, " In the Bible there is more that finds me 
 
 Coleridge's 
 
 than I have experienced in all other books put letters - 
 together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater depths 
 of my "being ; and whatever finds me brings with it an irre- 
 sistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy 
 Spirit." At the close of one of his letters he adds, " The 
 fairest flower that ever clomb up a cottage window is not 
 so fair a sight to my eyes as the Bible gleaming through 
 the lower panes. Let it but be read, as by such men it 
 used to be read, when they came to it as to a ground 
 covered with manna even the bread which the Lord had 
 gi veil his people to eat where he that gathered much 
 had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no 
 lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. 
 They came to it as to a treasure-house of Scriptures, each
 
 218 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 visitant taking what was precious, and leaving as precious 
 for others." 
 
 How affcctLig the language of Thomas Carlyle, not a too 
 ardent friend of its inspiration, when he says, " David's life 
 and history, as written for us in those psalms of his, I con- 
 sider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral 
 progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever 
 discern in it the faithful struggles of an earnest human soul 
 toward what is good and best. Struggle often 
 
 Carlyle's Ian- 
 baffled, down as into an entire wreck, yet a 
 
 struggle never ended ; ever with tears, repentance, true, un- 
 conquerable purpose, begun anew." Of the book of Job lie 
 says, " Noble book ; all men's book. It is our first oldest 
 statement of the never-ending problem man's destiny, and 
 God's ways with him here in the earth. And all in such free, 
 flowing outlines ; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in 
 its epic-melody, and repose of reconcilement. So true every 
 way, true eye-sight and vision of all things, material things 
 no less than spiritual ; the horse hast thou clothed his neck 
 with thunder f he laughs at the shaking of the spear. Such 
 living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, 
 sublime reconciliation ; oldest choral melody as of the heart 
 of mankind ! so soft and great ; as the summer midnight, 
 as the world with its seas and stars." 
 
 " To all who take up the oracles of God with integrity 
 and honesty," says Bishop Butler, "the Bible 
 
 Bishop Butler. 
 
 will ever possess the peculiarity of meeting 
 every want, and appeasing every difficulty. In its pages 
 every longing of our nature, the most superficial and the
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 219 
 
 most profound, will find satisfaction. Here provision has 
 been made alike for the tender susceptibility of the child 
 and the mature intellect of manhood ; and whatever shadow 
 our imperfect knowledge may allow for the present to rest 
 upon certain of its statements, the mourner will still find 
 solace in the songs of Zion, and philosophy still drink 
 wisdom from the parables of Galilee. It is true that all 
 difficulties may not have been removed which the enemies 
 of Christianity have started ; nevertheless, the marvelous 
 success with which most of them have already been met 
 must convince any fair mind that such as still remain are 
 not insurmountable, and that here, if anywhere, it befits our 
 weakness ' to be thankful and to wait.' " 
 
 " Read the Bible," says Wilberforce, the statesman, in his 
 
 dying hour to a friend ; " let no religious book 
 
 Wilberforce. 
 
 take its place. Through all my perplexities and 
 distresses I never read any other book, and I never knew the 
 want of any other. It has been my hourly study ; and all 
 my knowledge of the doctrines, and all my acquaintance 
 with the experience and realities of religion, have been 
 derived from the Bible only." 
 
 " If any thing I have ever said or written," said Daniel 
 Webster, when commended on a memorable oc- 
 
 Daniel Web- 
 
 casion for his eloquence, "deserves the feeblest 
 encomiums of my fellow-countrymen, I have no hesitation in 
 declaring that for their partiality I am indebted, solely in- 
 debted, to the daily and attentive perusal of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, the source of all true poetry and eloquence, as well aa 
 of all good and all comfort."
 
 220 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 " Thy creatures," said Sir Francis Bacon, " have bceu my 
 books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have 
 sought thee in courts, fields, and gardens, but I 
 Lave found thee in thy temples." 
 
 "Let others," said John Milton, "dread and shun the 
 Scriptures for their darkness ; I shall wish I may 
 
 Milton. 
 
 deserve to be reckoned among those who admire 
 and dwell upon them for their clearness." 
 
 " We account," writes Sir Isaac Newton, " the Scrip- 
 Newton. 
 
 tures of God to be the most sublime philosophy." 
 
 Thomas, Lord Erskine writes, " My firm belief in the holy 
 Gospel is by no means owing to the prejudices 
 
 Lord Erskine. 
 
 of education, but it arises from the most con- 
 tinued reflections of my riper years and understanding. It 
 forms at this moment the great consolation of a life which, 
 as a shadow, must pass away." 
 
 Says M. Guizot, the truly great and venerable French 
 statesman, in his " Meditations upon the Essence 
 
 Guizot. 
 
 of Christianity," " I have read the sacred volumes 
 over and over again; I have perused them in very different 
 dispositions of mind ; at one time studying them as great 
 historical documents, at another admiring them as sublime 
 works of poetry. I have experienced an extraordinary im- 
 pression quite different from either curiosity or admiration. 
 I have felt myself the listener of a language" other than that of 
 the chronicler or the poet, and under the influence of a breath 
 issuing from other sources than human." 
 
 The quick-witted but not over-scrupulous Tal- 
 
 Tallcyrand. 
 
 leyrand, expressed his appreciation of the irre-
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 221 
 
 sistible hold which the Christian Gospel has upon the human 
 mind, when consulted by one of the five directors constitut- 
 ing the French government in 1797, in reference to suitable 
 forms of worship for the new religious system which they 
 had inaugurated, and called Theophilanthropism, (divine 
 humanity,) " I have but a single observation," said Talley- 
 rand, " to make : Jesus Christ, to found his religion, suffered 
 himself to be crucified, and he rose again. You should try 
 to do as much." Only four years afterward remarks Guizot, 
 " Theophilanthropism and its apostle, the dream and the 
 dreamer, had disappeared from the stage, where they had 
 been powerless in influence, barren in consequence." 8 
 
 Time would fail us to recite the voluntary and heartfelt 
 testimonies to the sustaining and inspiring power of the 
 Bible which have come from the noblest minds of all ages in 
 all Christian lands. 
 
 The Bible has indeed in it, combined in the highest degree, 
 what Matthew Arnold quotes from Swift as the two noblest 
 of things, sweetness and light. 
 
 What volume of human origin could endure the ordeal of 
 constant reading and study, and exhaust a life-time in its 
 investigation, supplying until the last increasing stimulation 
 and comfort? Thousands of commentators and critical 
 scholars have devoted their intellectual lives to the study 
 of the Holy Scriptures, and have ceased, like the ven- 
 erable Bede, at once to work and live ; consecrating 
 their last breath to the translation or illustration of the 
 Bible 
 
 'Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity.
 
 222 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 
 
 Prof. Calvin Stowc, in his very interesting volume entitle* 
 " The Origin and History of the Books of the Bible," refers 
 to this line of thought. " Let us bring," he says, " this 
 patter to the test of fact and common sense. These men 
 say the Bible is no more inspired than the writings of Homer 
 and Shakspeare, and other great men whom God has fitted 
 to be the instructors of mankind. Well, then, let us try and 
 other books see. Let us for a while use Homer and Shaks- 
 
 tricil in the 
 
 ibie. f the speare instead of the Bible, say night and morn- 
 ing, in our family prayers. When we meet in the house of 
 God for his worship ; in the hour of sickness and calamity 
 and distress ; at funerals, when all our earthly hopes are 
 blighted, and we lay our dearest friends in the grave; let us 
 then, instead of reading the Bible, take a few passages from 
 Homer and Shakspeare. How long do you think this would 
 last before we should be glad to get back to our Bible 
 again ?" 
 
 A book that has so imbedded itself in all literature and 
 science ; that has for nearly two thousand years sustained its 
 claim to a divine origin ; that has exercised so marvelous an 
 influence over human society, and impressed itself so power- 
 
 A book thus fi^y upon the strongest thinkers of every age, 
 the e world's has little to fear from the hasty generalizations 
 
 literature 
 
 cannot die. o f mO( j ern science, or from the passionate attacks 
 of a superficial criticism, which exposes its object and animus 
 in the irreverent and reckless style in which it has clothed 
 itself. To these self-confident modern Gnostics, who demand 
 the reason why these things should not be believed, we may 
 answer as Henry Moore did Southey when he inquired of him,
 
 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 223 
 
 "Why ain not I qualified to write a biography of John 
 Wesley ? " " Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the 
 well is deep." 
 
 We close this volume with the well-known lines of Walter 
 Scott, said to have been written in his Bible : 
 
 Within this awful volume lies 
 The mystery of mysteries ; 
 O I happiest they of human race, 
 To whom our God has given grace 
 To hear, to read, to fear, to pray, 
 To lift the latch and force the way ; 
 But better had they ne'er been born 
 Who read to doubt, or read to scorn. 
 
 THK JSW1S.

 
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