LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Q Receive d ^QJbv^L'' Accession No. Q / $ fo Ji Class No. THE WORD OF G)D OPENED. y\ ~tK V u IHSPIRATJi^; CANON, AND IBTERPBETATIOH AND ILLUSTRATED. BY BRADFORD K. PEIRCE, D.D. " Open thou mine eyes, That 1 may behold wondrous things out of thy law. 1 * u Qui hseret in litera haeret in cortice." 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 United States for the Southern District of New York. 9/06 2. PREFACE. 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 Hermeneutical 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 ISTast's General Introduc- tion to the Gospels ; from Prof. Murphy's Introduction to his Commentary upon Genesis ; from Schaff 'a History of the Christian Church; from Westcott's PKEFACE. 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. PEIRCE. 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 44 Inner Light" never superior to the Bible Bible only Eule of Faith Necessity for an infallible Kule 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 Hai- 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. Schaff'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 IIL THE CANON: ITS GENUINENESS. Is 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 Koman 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 Kecords were made, all but the Four Gospels have disappeared Matthew Characteristics of hia Gospel Mark His Epistle written under the Sanction of Peter Evidently the Gospel of an Eye-witness Luke writes under the direction of Paul Eesident 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 Irenseus Tertullian Justin Martyr The 8} riac Version Origen Parnphilius Eusebius Constantine the Great orders fifty Copies of the Septuagint 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 Eogers Coverdale's Bible Effect of circulating Bible in England Froude's opinion of Tyndale' a Version Douay Version Martin Luther Influence upon Biblical Criticism Ger- man Version The Authorized English Version Effect of Kevival 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 I GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. Hermeneutics Office of Biblical Interpretation Peculiarities of the Bible rendering its interpretation difficult Why was it given in this Form? Analogy with Human Life Dr. Schaff 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 Revelation Pro- gressive Dr. Chalmers upon Progress in Moral Consciousness Progress in the New Testament Olshausen upon Unity and Prog- ress in Scripture Locke on reading a Book of Scripture through at a sitting Sacred Writers sometimes state their object Beauty and Powsr of Scripture lost when taken from its connections Each Gospel has a Character of its own Scripture is not a Revelation 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 Reformation 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 Renan 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 Rev. 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 Royalty 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. Eule I The Obvious Meaning of the Words the True One Bengel on holding to the Text Melanchthon on the Sense of Scripture Luther's view Writers, humble, open, and sincere. Eeinark 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." Eemark 2. The Meaning must not contradict our Moral Sense Figurative Precepts " Many made Sinners" What the Apostle teaches 'in reference to this " The Wicked made for the Day of Evil" Nothing Contradictory to our Moral Convictions. Eemark 3. Anything Contradictory to Uni- versal Experience must be Modified. Eemark 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 Eelatives called Brothers. Eule III. By the Use of Parallel Passages the Bible should be made its own Expositor Importance of Eeference 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- tionsGospel 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 Nicodemus 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. Eule IV. All Scripture must be interpreted in Harmony with the Analogy of Faith All apparent discrepancies must be harmonized in accord- ance with this Eule False foundation of Papal Purgatory Pas- sages referring to God after the manner of Men Why God is thus epoken of " Upon this rock I will build my Church " " Covering a multitude of Sins" Scripture Difficulties no occasion for Dis- 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 124 CHAPTER VH. INTERPRETATION OF PARABLE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY. Principal Parables delivered in the last year of our Lord's Life Distinguishing marks of his Parables "Reasons 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 Rule : 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 Kich 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 Repositories of Moral Maxims Solomon's Song Isaac Taylor's View Prophecy abounds in the Bible Illustrative Events said to be the Fulfill- ment Rachel 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 Revealed Irving' s Error Dr, 12 CONTENTS. Gumming "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 VIII. THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD'S LITERATURE. 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 Kousseau 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 207 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. G CHAPTER I. THE BIBLE. OD revealed himself and his will, at first, to man by in- spired men ; " holy men of God spake as they God revealed were moved bv the Holy Ghost." l Afterward he nfen and 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 in the creation of the world. Light Jodd. f the was fonned upon the first day ; "in the beginning . . . God said, Let there be light." 3 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 f( urth day." 4 * 2 Peter 1, 21. 2 2 Tim. Ill, 16. 8 Gen. i, 1, 3. Gen. i, 14-19. 14 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. For twenty-five hundred years, until the time of Moses, Jure" 611 ccm? " re %^ ous %^ was diffused and faint, kindled by Soses. T 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 lights 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." 6 After the same analogy, the Scriptures of the New Testa- The same ment were given. God spake first by inspired truth .illus- New ed Test! men anc ^ ^J direct communications. .The prom- ment Scrip- . / ,1 / r ,-r ** i tures. ise oi 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 ;" 6 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 xxiv, 35. * Acts ii, 17, IS. "* See Introduction to Study of Holy Scriptures, by Dr. Goulburn, 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- This proph- 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. 12 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 oi 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." 14 In overlooking this truth, so in harmony with the divine Acts ii, 4 ; 1 v, 31. Acts x, 44-46. 1 Acts xi, 19, 21. J * Acts xxi, 9, a Acts xviii, 24-26. 8 John xiv, 26. * Kev. xxii, 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 e Ed- ward Irving. 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 modern times, of a coarser mold, less scholarly. Folljrof'Spir- 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." 16 This view of divine truth is opposed to the doctrine oi The "inner those who hold that any "inner light" witb light " not Bible? 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, 38. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 17 ment Scriptures had been closed, " is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." 16 The Bible, not as explained by commentators, or held by any particular branch of the Church, or illus- The Bible the alone t rule trated by tradition, or confirmed by human pLctice. au 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 ride. 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 dc 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 how 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. INSPIEATION. rpHE Bible claims God as its author, but all its pages were * written by human hands, and bear the sig- God the nu- J thor, men tl e nificant marks of the different writers. Its Bible!" 8 f ^ 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 old- est volume in those of Herodotus and Thucydides, were writ- th e 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 an- 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, theh 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 books. 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 harmoni- from so many sources, from so many ages, in so ous 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 office to perform in completing the perfect and harmonious scheme. In every respect, excepting their remarkable knowledge of writers of the divine truths, the Scripture writers were like Bible not ac- quainted with ,-. i i rrn IT -11 11 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 Milman 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. Preface to revised edition . Yol. i, pp. 17-19. 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 form, requiring now careful study and re- Clothed in fig. J urative and n , . . T n .. . poetic Ian- flection to apprehend its exact meaning, was guage. 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 is thus adapted were first declared ; and, what is still more sig- to a11 a 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 \vith 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, tabifshed 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, revelation f w^h general history, and with physical and iTws. nc 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 im- 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 waj 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- of 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- Gad's style, 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, simply 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 2 Commentary on Genesis. By James 8. Murphy, LL.D. 24 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. hands 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 -' The Bible is thoroughly human likeness of .,.,,.., x . _ 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." 8 Westcott says, in his "Introduction to the Study of the Westeott on 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- requiLre a con! preserve the purity of the text, and every tran- stant miracle. .. _ . , . . , , scriber and translator into a new language must necessarily enjoy the same inspiration from the Holy Spirit. 4 'History of the Christian Church, voL i, p. 93. 4 Dean Milman presents this objection to what is sometimes called mechani- cal or verbal inspiration. "Is it the Hebrew or the Greek Septuagint of which 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 f lu t ^ a *^ ed t* ,1 n * A' j. 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 l inscribed every sentence, phrase, word, syllable is thus inspired. Every one knows, OP 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 History of the Jews, p. 43. " What matters it," says St. Augustine in commenting upon the passage, " Save, Lord, we perish, 1 ' the 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 ?" How 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 in 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 hi^ 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 in 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 in 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." 5 Thus all the different Scripture writings taken together Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Weetcott, p. 3T. THE WOBD OF GOD OPENED. 27 may be considered one harmonious message of God spokeu in many parts and many manners, Jyy 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 8 P iration - 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. 1 ' 6 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, but securing the truthfulness of the thing written, and molding the language into the form accordant to 7iis 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." GocPn Word Written, p. 358. We should rather say, in the last clause of the closing sentence, they (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- J 1 / "f^^ie , . -,-r , . T /, . (, authorship of tains. He njay 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 hol5nesg 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 30 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. but Ms competence. God, who cannot lie, is able to secure Ms 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 Tllis refers to tlie ^d of trutl1 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 tends 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." 7 The discussion upon tMs vital topic may be closed by Summar of sa y^ n S ^ na ^ ^Ms Completed book of holy writ- discussion. . , / .. , ., T , 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 Mbits Ms 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. G. 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 yolume were ^^ rEll8 the written more than twenty-three hundred years as^reveiied? 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, with 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 icav&v, 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 32 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 ^ks are only of 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 Austna, 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. 2 To the same sanctuary were the various historical, poetical, and prophetical books consigned. On the erection of the 1 The Canon of Scripture, by Gaussen, p. 464. 3 Deut. xxxi, 9, 26; 1 Sam. x, 25; 2 Kings xxii, 8; Isa. rariv, 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 Babylon Daniel speaks of the book of the law as familiar to him, and also of the prophets. 3 Jewish writers, like Philo. the Alexandrine Jew, bom thirty years before Christ, and Josephus, in Philo and Jo- Christ's time, unite in declaring the general cor- sephus - 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 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 WOKD OF GOD OPENED. of the two versions have been carefully compared, showing a remarkable correspondence. About three hundred years before Chri&t, through the Macedonian invasion of Syria and Persia by The Greek Alexander the Great, the Greek language and literature were spread over these countries. Alexander built a renowned city, bearing his name, upon 4he 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 worship. 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- The Septua- gint, 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. 85 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 this the date of the oldest existing Hebrew manu- vers 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 out English Bibles. John v, 39 ; Luko xxlv, 27, 44. 36 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. Since the death of Christ the noted Kabbinical schools in Rabbinical Palestine and in the further East, and Jewish scholars of various nations, haye 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 the Old and New Testaments in the first cen- Peshito ver- sion, tury was made in the ancient Syriac or Aramaic dialect, the tongue generally spoken by the Jews in 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 Latin 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 in 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 in Origen and hi* version. Alexandria A. D. one hundred and eighty-five. He wrote voluminous commentaries upon all the books oi 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 the 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 38 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. ones in the care with which it is executed, and in its gen- eral correctness. This is the famous Yulgate ver- The Vulgate. sion, (so called because in common use,) still final authority in the Koman Church. It was completed about "A. B. 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 I., in the seventh cen- troduced in > J century7 enth 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 Yulgate at Mentz, called Vulgate first r 1J the " 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 T?e nt ncU 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 Sixtus. ceied, The work was again undertaken under Clement Yin., 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- Clementine lowed to be criticised, and is called the Clemen- tine edition. Manuscript notes of Prof. ShedcTs Seminary Lecturer 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- *"*** canon, 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. Whedon 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 munfiations ~ from the apos- the living voice of those who are still surviving. tollcal a e - If 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, and 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 lor 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- Matth ew^ ^ tians 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 resen ts the Messiahship sheep of the house of Israel. From James, who and kingly 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." 7 ' 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. 53-56. 7 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 his Gospel under the guidance of the apostle Peter. He was with this apostle when he wrote his epistles to the Churches. 12 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." 13 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 B How to Study the New Testament, p. 77. Aqts iv, 30. l Acts xiii, 2, 11 Acts xii, 12. 12 1 Peter v, 13. 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 ; 15 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 tile, 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 iv, 36, 88; v, 25, 26; vi, 39, 40. 15 Mark iii, 5; x, 21 ; iii, 34. 16 Christ and Christendom, p. 49. 17 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 time of St. Paul's conver- sion and his first missionary journey. And if so, then we are The sources a ^le to trace, with hardly a shadow of uncer- of Luke's Gos- i )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 18 "Luke, the "beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." Thus wrote St. Paul from his prison at Eome to the Colossians. " Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present world. . . . Only Luke is with me." Thus he wrote some years after when ho was now ready to be offered up, and the time of hii departure was at hand, to his son Timotheus. Dean Afford. Actsxiii, 1. 20 Acts xxi, 16. THE WORD 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 Lu e ' 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 21 Luke viii, 2, 3. 22 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." 23 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 * Gospei? r the Gentiles. The Gospel, communicated at Je- rusalem privately, and to a few, had been preached in its 2* Christ and Christendom, pp. 64, 68. a Wordsworth on the Canon, pp. 156, 160. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 47 fullness to those to whoni 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 ; 25 who had heard, in the utterance of prophets, that God, or Christ as the Son of God, had been manifest in the flesh ; 2 27 Co l. i, 19. aa 1 John iv, 3. 29 i j onll ij, 22. so Uohn iv, 15. 48 THE WOKD 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 yery 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, the 10 sirong ^' ^^ n j ^v^g others to give the " pure milk " Gos a pei? f the 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 indicate in what entire independence of her control and guidance he had manifested his kingdom, 31 not as exalted to a throne left vacant in the heavens, a title wonderful and majestic, but as 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 i John ii, 4. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 49 fisherman, 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 in 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 their 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 lire and flourish through endless ages. Their writings have not made one man vir- tuous. His have peopled heaven with the children of light. The seventeenth chapter of his Gospel, written as it is with the simplicity of a child, in 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." 33 There are thirteen of the epistles of Paul which bear his Paul and his name - His companions, Christian ministers, were his amanuenses, or witnessed his writing these letters. 33 His epistles were sent to the Churches by private messengers. 84 Mne 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 Peter bears wefe accounte d as inspired Scriptures, 36 and read to 8 thdr m hf. 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." 99 Quoted in Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century, p. 259. " 1 Thess. i, 1 ; 2 Thess. i, 1 ; Eom. xvi, 22. w Romans xvi, 1. 3& 2 Peter iii, 15, 16. 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 Irenseus, born about A. D. 140, and who died at the beginning of the next cen- Papias and tury, professing to record the testimony of the Irenaeus - generation before them, refer to the Gospels as we have them, as "the words or oracles of the Lord." 36 Irenaeus 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 final 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. Irenaeus, 87 in his youth, sat at the feet of the aged Polycarp, 86 Christ and Christendom, by E. H. Plump tre, 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 a while 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 Irenseus the New Testa- ment was composed essentially of the same books which we recv. !ve at present 62 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. a disciple of the apostle John. In a letter he thus most irenffius 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 w T as in all that he said a strict agreement with the Scriptures." 38 WTiat 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.' 1 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 themselvea 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. 8 w when were our Gospels written ?" Constantino Tlschendorf, p. 77. THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 53 self. Among the apostles John and Matthew teach us faith, among the apostolical men Luke and Mark re- His testimony as to Gospels sresl it." 3 ' 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 sembiies? as " 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 89 Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures, by Professor M'Lelland, p. 66L 40 Ibid. i 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. 4 * 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- 42 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 Thaddeus 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 the 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 tlie History of the Canon of the New Testament. By BBOOKE FOBS WESTCOTT, 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, Origen on the 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." 43 About the year A. D. 300 a learned, wealthy, and Chris : tian minister and book collector named Parn- 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 ma- Eusebiug. terial Eusebius wrote his history of the Church during the preceding centuries, and authenticates the in- * 3 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. Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor, who was the Constantino contemporary of the Bishop of Csesarea, 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 ent ^ re Greek Scriptures, and ordered two copies of the Scriptures government wagons, under the special char ore of made by Eu- a deacon of 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. 322,) 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 hand, save the introduction of the apocryphal books by the Council of Trent. Some books During the early centuries a few of the books lament 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. STOWE, D. B , 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 evidence of 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 Apocyphrai New Testa- with the inspired manuscripts, as the so-called merit. " Epistle of Barnabas " and a part of the " Pastor of Hernias " 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 Use of these were bound, proving it to be one of the oldest wntm ss. 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. 45 The first manuscript version of the whole Bible in the English language was made by John Wiclif A. D. 1380. First English 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 edtofoifcJfthe ^ e ^ n ^ sn tongue was published by William giish! 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 from the Latin Vulgate, as his pred- WSlliarn Tyn- 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 was 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. T. y 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 Yilvorde, 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 1536, he was led forth to be burned. His last Tyndale - words, " uttered with fervent zeal and in a loud voice, were these : ' Lord, open the Icing of England's eyes /' " 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." 46 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 publishes his Rogers, and was published in 1537 under the $$ assumed name of Thomas Mathew, and was hence called Maihevfs 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. ill, p. 8T. 60 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. long since been published. 47 The editor discloses himself by appending his 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 YHI. 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, as 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 VIII., 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 the foundation-stone on which the whole later * 7 Popular History of the English Bible, by Mrs. H. C. Conant. 48 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 Cranmer," 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 Bublication of . v v ^ ^ & * v. a- tie Bible. 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 ! 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 \y permitted which breathes through it, the mingled tender- ness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the pre- Froude upon 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." 49 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 Luther. 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 be 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 Fronde, vol. iii, p. 87. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED? * 63 investigation of the exact meaning of the sacred records has 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." 51 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 by 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. B1 The Oanon of the New Testamont, p. 429. 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 Character of our version. - tg g enera j 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 countiy, 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 most 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 invest!- animation of the received Scriptures com- |fS. fea menced 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 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." 5a When the learned Professor Bengel, of Tubingen, announced the fortv thousand various readings which had Variations >f been obtained from the different manuscript Bensel - 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 fia Olshausen's Commentaries, TO!, 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 NO doctrine verse ^ tlie ^^ chapter of the First Epistle of 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." B3 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 upon the va- [ngsf" 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 63 Olshausen's Commentaries, vol. i, p. 80. 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 swered - that received it. 68 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. CHAPTER IY. INTEKPKETATION : GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. npHE term Tiermeneutics, from the Greek word used by -*~ the apostle Paul, and translated the " interpretation of tongues," l 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." 2 There are many peculiarities in the construction and char- peculiarities ac ^er of the book which render its interpretation of book ren- .,.,,, ,. , ., , , ,, , denng its in- difhcult, and require the closest and most careful terpretation 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. 3 1 1 Cor. xii, 10. a 1 Peter 1,11. 8 Dr. Btowe remarks In his inaugural address upon the " Interpretation of the Scriptures," when he entered upon his duties as a professor at Andover: u We THE WORD OF GOD OPEKED. 69 If one should ask why a book that contains truths so vital to our present and eternal well-being has not Why has God been given to man in a style so clear and simple to'"o dim- 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 these 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 unlike 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, 18.) The distafl 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 unknown 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 nouns ; 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 exDress 70 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. unexplored mine, with its hidden ^eins 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 all 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. g(>nal wantg can Qnl y be SU ppli e d fry l a k or an( J 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. cSe". esc forts 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, because 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 this k.\n&."Eibliotkeca Sttora, 1S3, p. 45. 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 t 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 Prater 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 forces 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 them mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things ont of thy law." 6 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 lanpuapre and the ibie r . f f 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." 6 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 cxix, 18. History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 93. 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, eye- 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 cuiiosity. Then there Wonder of are the wonders to which the telescope opens the lelescope - 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 trations ap- ture. to 5Cnp ~ and more 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 the 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. * 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- tractiveness 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 8 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. Peabody, 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 tho 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 after 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 t 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. 1 ' "Where is the uninspired book," writes the late venerable Dr. William Marsh, " of which one can say, ' I never tire of reading it T 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 cter 76 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. admire Scripture, even as without bodily exertion lie may Man must ex- aclm i re nature. If, however, he would profit by ert himself to , , be able to use nature's resources, he must exert himself, dig- the resources ging the well, felling 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 Ms 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, 11 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 years' ftiudy of the subject. I cannot now, 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, 1 " 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 the 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 Sinaitic manuscript than the koh-i-noor of the queen of England. 11 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 authentic form. 11 THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 77 zle the ox when he treadeth out the corn."" This 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 ] eward." 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 ply ^ inci i> les - 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 ni ustrat j on O f 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's 8 Deuteronomy xxv, 4. 10 1 Timothy v, 18. ll Goulburn. 78 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. own heart ;" 12 but what frightful sins the hand of inspiration, David ndh' w ^hout hesitation, records against him. God 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 word of inspiration and careful thought and STon^ami 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. xiii, 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 tho 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 structioa, it is to be feared that we are too apt to plume ourselves on 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 w r hat 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 v 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 borders 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 tilings seem to go wrong, and my wishes seein 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 Meaning of discourage- rnyself to God's service. Providence seemed to ments. 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 Gospel, Devotional thought finds and makes it to be the food and comfort of the SfKBi 01 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 ied. 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 ^' a ^ ^ ie a PP^ n ^ e( l time is made manifest in whole Bible. the ^^ and ^ then held forth iQ ^ dogQ of the canon as the expected triumphant King coming in the clouds of heaven. 13 The custom of spending so long a period J3 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.' 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, Peter 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, 45 we read of the lamb that was prepared for the Passover, ' Neither shall ye break a bone thereof;' and in John xix, 33, 36, '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, 4 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain ;' and once more, in Revelation xv, 3, that ' they sing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb.' " " Snpt. We shall only have time now to ask Brother P. what practical appli- cation he would make of this lesson to his scholars." * P. I think I should tell my class that the slaying of the lamb and the THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 83 In Sunday-schools upon the study of local portions of Scrip- tin e to the neglect of others, and of the study of the Bible as 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 upon the earth, as to the comprehension of it by those J 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 havo 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 the part of the Israelites was an evidence of their faith ; so, if we obey God's command to believe on the 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 the 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 acts 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 progress- oFmonUity!^ 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." 14 Bernard on A late writer, Bernard, in his Bampton Lec- progresa in tamentT Tes tures, has shown most convincingly the gradual 14 Scripture Headings, vol. i, 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 oishausen on unity arid always pointing onward to the New, so the latter scripture. lr 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." 1G 15 Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, by Thomas D. Bernard, M.A., 18 Commentaries, vol. i, p. 131. 86 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. II. In thiB connection it may be remarked that it is iinpor- The scope of tant to understand the scope of each book of the each book to stood. undei 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- book at a sit- ^ of any one of them ^ ^ p aul , s epistleSj ) 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 definiteness his purpose, and his argument is to {Sometimes * * 7 ?red C 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 : 4 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 ISiptaJ^de- our multiplied lessons upon limited portions of considering \t 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. 17 17 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 Biblo 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 connection a word of notice, unless they have been hurried in their prepara- .jons, ffld find it convenient to talk a little round it in an extempore Intro- 88 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Lessons upon the Gospels chronologically arranged have vheir purpose, but they divert the niind 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 Lord's character, Mark the human, Luke the sacrificial, and John the divine. 18 duction. "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 such a practice. It says, (as translated :) ' JSase 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 are not themselves to blame in forming them to such wretched habits of perusing it. "When his 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 of 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, and 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- Bwers, 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 Srhat 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 &%?* 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 and 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 appearance 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 Christ; and into the final glory of the city of God." 90 THE WOKD 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 the 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- preting the sl^asa treat P ret tlie ^ rst c ^ a pter 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 Bibl e- 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." 19 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 Bible - 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- The Bible un- closed in his providential government over his sclentlfic - people, or in various revelations through different inspired men, and in different forms. The doctrines of the Gospel 19 Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, page 29. 92 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. relating to sin and human salvation are presented without order all over the sacred pages. One view will l>e 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 taught t\mes diffe ' ent 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 Gouibum's ii- 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 in 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- tln 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 E rror of Ra- tionalists arid quote the words of Jesus himself to prove it; Universaiists. 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 same truth. V. Here we may remark that the interpreter should not consider himself responsible for what is said or interpreter m * not responsi- i , ,1 n i mi i & ble fr what taught in the Scriptures. This revelation of 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 OF 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 so. Dr.Doedeson If men do not agree with it, it is because they the irrespon- Ur ft think that the y know better - Well, be it so. exact text. But let the Kew 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." 20 " 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. VI. The earliest interpreters of Scripture, in order more readily to reconcile difficulties, and to combat the Error of early interpreters. Y i ews o f certain erroiists, 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 80 Hermeneutics of the New Testament, page 59. 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 vanous 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 ]SFew 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- eration, justification, and sanctification. Upon the " instru- ment of ten strings " with which the Psalmist would praise God, Chrysostom discourses upon the Ten Commandments, 96 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. made 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 prophets the two commandments whereon hang all in the life of every be- liever ! " The 'bread and fish 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 81 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: 1 ' " ' How TO PREPARE A BLACKBOARD EXERCISE FOR A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON. 1. Learn the lesson thoroughly; get the head, and especially the heart, full of It, by hard study and earnest prayer. 2. Select the thought you wish to use. 3. Condense that thought to the smallest and sharpest point possible. 4. Place that point upon the board. 5. Eemember that the thought or outline on the board is but ''dry bones" until clothed with "thoughts that breathe and. words that burn " from a warm and earnest heart. EXERCISE : OPEN WINDOWS DANGEROUS FOR SLEEPERS.* Acts xx, 9-12. TJie open windows. Place of safety. The open windoics. Place of safety. Ball room. Gambling Saloons. Theater. In Christ only. Impenitence. In Christ only. Drinking Saloons. Etc., etc. * Those sleep in optn windows who do not realize the dangers to which they are exposed. Call upon the school to name the open windows. E, H. Y. PLYMOUTH, ILL. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 97 The principle of interpretation which now prevails throughout the Christian Church is sometimes Historico.- grammatical called the historico-grarnmatical mode. It affirms Srpretation?" " 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. Y. in his 'exercise' violates his own canon by putting a 'thought 1 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 Ms 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/ " M 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 itself. " 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. tf True, E. H. Y. 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 sleep 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 windows'* constitute the subject; in the note, those who ' sleep in open windows.' " Indeed, the note makes a new statement of the selected thought It is no longer 'open windows dangerous to sleepers,' 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 l point ' unproven. It assumes the ball room, etc., to be l 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. M But E. H. Y. will say, perhaps, that his note was intended to define the last term in his proposition sleepers. Yery 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 are exposed." 1 Does not this make the danger lie, not in the thing itself, but in the failure of the ball room risitor to realize the true character of the place ? 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 we have no doubt that this exercise, given by a good chalker and talker in a school or institute, would be regarded as very fine. Its ingenuity would divert attention from its fallacy. M Finally, the whole exercise is far-fetched. It is absurd to argue that because Eutychus tell 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 we 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- ter illustration of a grammatical rule than a correct rule, so may this criticism be a 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 mentanes * 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 Y. PRELIMINARY STUDIES. l m rflHIS 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- schoiars. 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 Puritan. t ke Puritan 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 raphy? 1 ge g places. Of the effect of such a knowledge to confirm 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- Renan - 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 afth Gospel, torn, but still legible, and thenceforth, through Mie 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." l * Life of Jesus, page 45. We find in an English Sunday-school periodical A homely but significant illustration of the power of a knowledge of Scripture localities to confirm onr 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. JSTo one can listen to the lecture of Dr. Hibbard (author of a valuable treatise upon the Psalms) upon the iour- ITibbard and 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, and 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 gone I 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 aa 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 doubt 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. But how to prove it is the question. Can you tell me how? 1 'You 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! 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 hole 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 you 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 Lave the same, only better, for the Bible.' 'How so?' 'Pat it on the tenter- hooks. Take the Bible and travel with it ; go to the place where it was made. There you find the Ked Sea, the Jordan, the Lake of Galilee, Mounts Lebanon, Hermon, Carmel, 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- iting 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." 3 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. Sinai, 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. Tou might just as well doubt that your cloth was fitted to your hooks.' 'Well, well, I confess I never thought of that. Fll think it over again. If you are right, why, then, I'm Wrong, that's all.' Bible C. Magazine. 2 Canon and Interpretation of Scripture. By PROF. M'LELLANP, page 137. 104 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. Prince of Wales over Palestine. We should be glad, had we 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 gift to book of Joshua and the book of Judges, between his daughter Achsah. Caleb and his daughter Achsah. 3 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 ; 4 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 \vhich extend as far as the eye can reach, till they melt into the hazy platform of the desert,) 'give me also the bubbling* of water, the upper and lower Scenery an- bubblings.' It is an expressive word, (translated Scripture. f m 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, xv, 16^-19 ; Judges i, 11-15. 4 2 Chron. xi, 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." 5 The full effect of personal examination we may not be able to enjoy ; but in such works as Dr. Robinson's, Works that Dean Stanley's, Thomson's " The Land and the SKId ^ of holy locali- Book," and Hitter'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 prol)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 Basban - 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. "I 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, 83. 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." 7 In the final 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 Bashan. 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- Bhan - 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." 9 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 Basil an in the 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 7 Giant Cities of Bashan, page 12. Deut. in, 4, 5, 14. 9 Giant Cities of Bashan, page 13. 10 Ezek. xxvii, 6. 1 1 Psa. Ixxviii, 15. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 107 its pastures, 12 the fertility of its wide-spreading plains, and the excellence of its cattle, 13 all supplied the sacred penmen with lofty imagery. Eemnants 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 pearance - such as remain the rams and lambs, and goats and bulls may be appropriately described in the words of Ezekiel as all of them fatlings of Bashan." 14 In his very interesting travels in Arabia PetraBa 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 against Idu- reproach, a waste, and a curse ; and all the me a- 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 dweUest in the clefts of the rocks, that boldest the height of the hill : though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from i 2 j er . 1, 19. ! 3 Psa. xxii, 12 ; Micah vii, 14 14 Ezek. xxxix, 18. Giant Cities, pages 14, 15. 108 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. thence, saitli the Lord." 16 "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." 16 "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 the 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." 17 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 clescrip- ing than usuaify select 6 , tion. If our y ouu g 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. III. It is necessary also to have some knowl- Customs and edge of the customs and manners of the people i 5 Jer. xlix, 13, 15. 1 6 Isa. xxxiv, 18. 17 Travels in Egypt and Arabia Petraea, vol. ii, p. 58. 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 be conceived of as a sensuous portrayal of marital love ; but in the light of oriental custom, according to which the nup- ti al 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 WOKD 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 dful, ^ e placed more particularly in the light what is writ- ,, , . , .. . _ . _ . -,., ten 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, 8 Manual of Hermeneutics. 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. 19 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 winter of age and death. The " Luke vii, 38 ; John xil, 8. 20 Acts ii, 46 ; xx, 7. Dr. Doedea /? "" OF THB I UNIVERSITY J 112 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. mountains naturally suggest the idea of stability, and the sea that of immensity. 22 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 ^ os P el > an( * 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 commentary, it is inspired. As a general principle, it may be 22 Symbols of Christendom. By J. R. THOMPSON, M. A. 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 Symbolical literally, are used symbolically. Seven is constantly num 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 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 find time, times, and half a time) gives twelve hundred sixt y da y s - 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- ' Six hundred tery" represent, when employed as numerals, the andsixt y- six 114 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. mystic number six hundred and sixty-six. 23 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 sym- 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- bols< 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. 24 Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Land of Promise, and the Jerusalem and place where the Lord especially recorded his Babylon 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. 24 Ibid. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 115 Land, 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 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 paterce, broad, flat bowls or dishes, used both in worship and in household affairs." 25 The harp is an emblem of joy and praise : the scroll, or book, Harp, keys, of purposes and decrees ; the seal upon it denotes secresy. Keys signify power to admit and exclude ; a gem or w r hite 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 The 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. 26 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 mageddon. Qf Ezekiel? in wMch the forceg 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 acts - 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 38 J. R. Thompson. 2 Ibid. a7 Isa. xx. THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 117 symbolic picture is presented, illustrating the judgments cf God about to be brought upon Egypt and Ethiopia. Ere long they would be conquered in 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 out force, years would have utterly destroyed its inipressiveness. 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 syrn- Marriage of the prophet to bolic name, could not have been a literal occur- JjjJ. 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 : Jiasten, spoil, quick prey. Before the predictive child should be able to cry "My father, 1 ' God declares by Isaiah, that both Syria 28 Isaiah viii, 1-51. 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. 29 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 Hosea 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 afiirm 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." 30 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- gS e care Wlth 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 ; but what God has seen fit to vail we are to receive as indistinct disclosures of divine purposes, held out as great 89 Fairbairn on Prophecy, page 501. 80 Canon and Interpretation, page 205. THE WORD 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? d 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." 81 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 Ne- ander's motto was, " Pectus est 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 91 H^nneneutical 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 in 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 conies on, because when it is dark we can no longer see to work.' 1 3a 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? 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 has 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 Kabbi 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." 3S Dr. Goulburn starts the inquiry why the Bible offers so M Dr. Fairbairn. 83 Bibliotheca 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^the WM?? 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." S4 The Scrip- tures cannot be deeply and perfectly understood except by the guidance of the same mind which inspired o f he t)l e n ^p r them. The letter of the Scriptures may be familiar u U gh 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- bum 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. ii, 11. 122 THE WOKD 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 light 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 Spirit acts them, or independently of them. When, after tlit-oitgh 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 abyssrnal depths of the mind, far beyond the ken of the keenest self- intuition." 35 88 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 al- 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." 3 * " Luke xi, 13. THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. T CHAPTER VI. BULES OF INTERPRETATION. RULE I. HE 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 Bensei 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 truth is a light of itself, and every error, however minute, is darkness as far as it goes." l 1 Of the various opinions that have been forced upon the simple utterances of Scripture Dr. Stowe remarks: "As an illustration of this, read such works THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 125 Melanchthon, the St. John of the Reformation in spirit, and its scholar in literature, says in his Elements Melanchthon. 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 Martin wish ; we must not bend it, but allow it to bend Lutner - 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 1 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 tho Exercise 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. Tou 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 one of these hypotheses and against the other/ 1 Billiotkeca Sacra, vol. x, p. 4& 126 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. the words, giving the least impression of constraint or The simplest uncommon use, may, other things being equal, meaning the true one. k e 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* bie origin. such 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." 2 REMAUK 1. Where, however, the literal meaning asserts that when literal which is known to l)e impossible it must ~be given meaning as- posSbiuty *"?{ U P > ^ Gwfatfty 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." 3 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 3 Fail-bairn's Henneneutical Manual. s Psa. Iviii, 8. < Jer. xii, ia 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- j52J&^on n0 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 bread and wine in supper, declares of the bread that it is his body, Sent 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 doctiine 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." 6 Thus says the spiritual and learned Augustine, a bishop of AupusMne on the Church before it became corrupted, upon the body and blood. 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 an d 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 gg IfeJ. 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 aiiei passages. The first be- is clearly interpreted in the additional phrase, atitude. u 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 . r Bible Hand-Book : Ang-us. 130 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. trial, ; shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.' "What is the na- J >r. r air bairn 13, -revealed ture of the work to be tried ? ( as revealed in lustrated^by the context.) This is naturally the first ques- context. tion. Is it of a moral, or simply 01 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 characterl" 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 ~be assured, if the letter of any Scrip- ture seems to violate our moral sense, or to contradict another The meaning moral precept, it cannot ~be intended to have its must not con- tradict moral ordinary sense. 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 anXother? r teach us that 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 8 Fairbairn's Hermeneutical Manual, p. 163. THE WOED 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 P rece P ts - 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 TKany mad* 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 8 M'Lelland. 132 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. cannot force our moral natures to admit the justice of 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 2 Cor. v, 21, "For he hath made him to be sin "Dobie. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 133 'or 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 T he 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 K3! convic ' 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 l)e modified ; Wh as when a passage of Scripture states absolutely sal to expert! en ce^ must be what is a general truth, but has often exceptions, modified. Thus Solomon says in Prov. xxii, 6, "Train up a child in 134: 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 ou?ce?sing h ~ 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- interpretiDj? terns of hernieneutics 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 H. 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 in our own Ian- villa or farm of a proprietor. As they were suage. 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 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) thee." ia 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 dins 1 ! 3 ' bur " one shall bear his own 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 weighty 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 1>aggage, 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 willingly rather glory in infirmities, "the power of to J J S>ol s Vn^'' Ug " that the power of Christ may rest upon me," * Psalm Ixxxviii, 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, the P roud - 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, b-jt 18 Fairbairn's Hermeneutical Manual. 138 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. those which we suffer for him. Thus, when the apostle calls himself a prisoner of Christ, he means that he was 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 1 . 7 ^' desire to do them. Reuben is said to "have delivered Joseph out of the hands of his 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 said 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 WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 139 The former states that it was bought by the priests and elders with the money that Juclas 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 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- * sases which us to " err from " his "ways," "hardening" our SSStooSt 11 '* 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 be has established, he is said, in this familiar idiom, to have done. He "hardened Pharaoh's heart," by permitting him to 140 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 I nts. de not upon 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 \hab's daughter and Ornri's granddaughter. These illustrations simply indicate the importance of this 14 Genesis xiv, IS; xx, 6; Matthew xv, 22-23. 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 according to the lcalnotes - usus loquendi, the current sense, of the times in which they were uttered. RULE III. 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 sages * 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 Blbie> 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 will not scruple to assert," says the learned Bishop Bishop Hors- Horslev, " that the most illiterate Christian, if ley upon cora- Scdptm-es. f ^ 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 the 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 in this way become sure ^ tne true Cleaning of particular meaning l 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." 15 From not studying their sacred books in this way the Error of the Jews - Jews made their great mistake in rejecting 15 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." 16 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 uaHzln^the in those passages which present Christian priv- S^Old Test- 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. "Isa. liii, 7,8; Dan. ix, 26, THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. " In reading Acts ii, 21," says Angus, "we find it said that How to prac- l Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord tically use sages! 61 pas " 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 Rom. 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, " 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 Ezck. 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 marry ;" 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 saying, " 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- 5t|er. each est to the recitals, and aid in their mutual interpretation. 18 17 Angus. 1 ti 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 u 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 iii, 21) when the Holy Ghost descended on him. So, too, it is noticed 'n this Gospel that he continued all night in prayer. In a peculiar manner St. Luke brings out this remarkable habit of our Lord in his Gospel. But also in 10 146 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. " In Matt, vii, 13," says Dr. Doedes, " it is evident to every The strait one who pays close attention to the expression, gate at the w n ay. f the ' Enter ye in,' that we must not think of the way 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 w T ay*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 three glorified ones conversed on the holy mount : his decease which he should accom- plish 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 New Testament^ page 92. ls> Hermeneutics of the New Testament, page 102. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 147 devils feel, (verse 19;) but it is not such as Abraham ex- perienced, (verse 23.) In 1 John in, 9 it is said, " Whosoever is born of 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. 20 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, God I 20 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 far, 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 Vie 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 the inspired Author. 148 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. My soul thirsteth 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 ? " But the fourth verse of the psalm shows that the devout David sighing 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 Ms 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, Sit thou at my right hand, Messianic Until I make thine enemies thy footstool. I-sakus. Thy powerful scepter Jehovah sends out of Zion : Kule 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 Melchisedek." David was no priest, nor could any Hebrew monarch assume the office without heaven-daring profanity. The THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 149 *tra*ige 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." 21 In gathering proof texts to sustain any supposed doctrine of Scripture great care should be taken to examine Care in path- ering parallel the context of each quotation to see if the signifi- JJJSXSJaJfbe t i .-, ..,.,, 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 sh9uld be terly opposed to the intention of the author, ^^g 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 21 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, in his interview with Nicodenius, opens his 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, w T ho was to be " lifted up" as " Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." Here is where the atonement conies in 1 but where does the prodigal son come in 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 sinner is met as he returns, confessing his sins, 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 in 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 in 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 in 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, they inquire, as if the theory were proved beyond AU dying in a cavil, does the apostle mean, but that all are cSSst. ' 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 writiug 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 strongest must determine this. Such words as perfect, per^ meaning not frue'one. the 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 w^eigh their meaning. The beautiful sentence in Jer. xxxi, 3, "I have Eternal de- loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with crees not Jerfxxxi/s! 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 the arror 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 l^SSSiS* ox and an ass together ;' that is, they shall not haye 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 bookt " to be eternally damned haye 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." 22 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 Sc "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 riiises the dead. Surely he can be no other than Emmanuel, God with us, "Dobie. 154 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. These illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied, but they will serve to impress the young interpreter with the importance of a careful comparison of Scripture with Scrip- ture, and of a close examination of the context. RULE IY. 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. iSlies unity. There win be unity in the revelations 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. 23 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." 2 * The expression is identical with " the whole tenor of Scrip- Dobie. Z4 Eomans xii, ft, THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 155 ture." One Scripture passage may contain all that God has been pleased to reveal upon a given subject. It when one pas- sape may sus- certainly is not to be rejected because it stands tain adoctrine. 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 passage analogy of faith, an interpretation is to be sought J* others u must be inter- for it which, without constraint to the literal ren- preted in har- mony with dering, will bring it into unity with the general 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- be saved so as by fire." " The modem doctrine pSlatm-y! f 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." 25 Dobie. 156 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. All those passages in the Scriptures which speak of God as Passages ^ " repenting," or changing his mind, as coming ner ofmST" 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 of. 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 te^hiS? of general teachings of the Scriptures. In Matt. the Bible to be chosen. xyi, 18 we read, " And I say unto thee, that thoii 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 words 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 Rock 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 158 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 sins. 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 den?eof e the'ir be called the difficulties or contradictions of honesty, and . jn no occasion Scripture, it may be said that they afford one for discour- agement. of the k egt eyidenceg 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 ties - 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 inspiratioc 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 modern apol- ogists, 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- shausen, 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 B.wers to ob- be 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 May be assur- somewhere, not far from his hand, in the litera- ed an answer found adllybe 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 n armful than to leave upon an ingenuous young mind an THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 161 unsatisfactory solution to an apparent difficulty N ever ^ ve 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 Alford , ,. upon discrep- assure ourselves, in each apparent case of dis- ancles 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." 2G Henry Rogers happily says, in substance, in his " Greyson Letters:" "My second theory of dealing with Henry Ro K em , upon discrep- the apparent discrepancies of the Bible is a very ancles. 26 How to Study the New Testament, page 11. 11 162 THE WOKD 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 never 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 otliers 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 4 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.' " 27 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 JJ k Bib \ e ^ whole of which is indited for a special purpose, purp a osef ecl 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 mystical 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 doei 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 37 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 Eome 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- 28 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. J r on spiritual jsense of the wholCj perfect in its finer shades and tfon! PH 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 instin,at 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." 29 Home remarks in his "Introduction," that the errors into which some have fallen in discovering fanciful rather than 89 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 should not be cast Home on the away because it has been abused, "since human spiritual - port^ Scrip- error can neyer inyajiflate the truth of God." " The literal sense," he goes on to say, " it has been well observed, is, undoubtedly, first in point of nature, as well as 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 OP 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 r j nc j pa i par _ 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 life. 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- kies. 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 this reason, the similitudes which the Redeemer drew from the Thoiuck on kin gd o ra of nature are not mere similitudes the kingdoms which serve the purpose of illustration, but are of nature and 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." l 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- iiiustratedand 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 time 1 Thoiuck on John xv. THE WOBD OF GOD OPENED. 169 all remained, like the symbols of the Old Testament woiship, 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." 2 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 parable [. , n , . n /, , used to vail know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ; truth because it had been but to them it is not given : for whosoever hath, neglected. 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 their opportunities remaining destitute of divine knowledge, not- 2 Faii-bairn's Herjnepeutics. 170 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. withstanding all that had been taught them were to have 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 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." 3 Mr. Gladstone, the Christian statesman and scholar, re- marks in his criticism upon that original and very suggestive 3 Fairbairn. "And now comes," says Dean Alford, in his interesting volume entitled " How to Study the New Testament," " a great and mighty change in our 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. ttlso 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 N'e^o 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 J the supreme case but two our Saviour himself. He is the J^iai lh 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 office 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 ; 5 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.' " 6 First rule ^ n interpreting a parable it is necessary in the derstant/ tXe first place to thoroughly understand it to have parable in all its parts. a correc t 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 xxi. 6 Matthew xxii. "Ecce Homo," by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, page 82. UNIVERSITY THE WORD OF GOD OPENE\ n 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 the Saviour intended to illustrate or enforce, context fl the lesson which There is in every one of them a leading theme. pro po f e a d io ?o 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 story. Lisco, in his Commentary, LJ SCO upon the kernel of says, " This is the center and kernel of the parable, tQ 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 w T e do not stand in the center, neither does the circle appear in 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 rftt Luke! 61 ' 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 bew^are 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 " Tliou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of tliee : 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 cal] 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 sho\v ;raits may tally used 6 ." the connection in which they stand with regard to the unity of the entire representation. This thought naturally introduces the final remark, that Third rule- ffrwt care should le taken not to interpret separate- parts * must ty, <*>nd out of their relation to the story of the par- oot be inter- ?heir d coTnec^ ^, ^ different incidents embodied in it. The 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 ^pS^f^ "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 bear 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 is- sued by Eev. W. H. Yan Doren upon the Gospel of St. Luke, entitled "A Suggestive Commentary. 1 ' 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 evolving nice shades of meaning out of the most natural and ordinary expres- BiTCB. Such commentaries have perhaps a "mission," but they need wise men to 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 interpve- sometimes in seeking a fanciful representation of p^rabieof the a plain story. " Thus he makes the parable of tan. the good Samaritan teach the mission and example of Christ. The traveler is i 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 iS^^mean 6 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 Hurne, when, hid in a sepulchral vault, " he had no liffht to read by, having committed to Sir Patrick J ' 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 and day on all occasions." 8 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, alms gun an d they have been read and sung by Christians and a by great with as much pleasure and profit clown to our variety of per- sons - day. " 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 w r ords 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 eyes remained fixed upon it as the one consolation of his dying 8 Life of Sir P. Hume, as quoted by Stanley, page 167, second seriea THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 179 hours. The sixty-eighth psalm cheered Cromwell's soldiers to victory at D unbar. 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." 9 The usual license allowed in the interpretation of all poetry must be given to the sweet singers of Israel : their To be inter rich and figurative language is never to be bent cording to tile laws of rheto- to the severe canons of a grammatical interpreta- ric - 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 fagten a doctrinal statement upon the highly-figurative ftatementup. on figurative language of these poems. Dobie selects a few ^nguage. 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, 3-5. Thou art he that took me out of the womb : Thou didst make me hope on my mother's breasts. PSALM xxii, 9. 9 History of the Jewish Church, second series. J.80 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Behold, I was shapen 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 li, 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 xxxi, 19 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, And bringest me into judgment with thee ? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Wot one. JOB xiv, 3, 4. "What is man, that he should be clean? And he born of woman, that he should be righteous ? JOB xv, 14. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father : To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. JOB xvii, 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. KOM. iii, 12, 13. " 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 : Philistia, triumph thou because of me. PSA. lx, 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 power. 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- era! interpre- sity exaggerates even doctrinal statements. The verses. tation of such verses. 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 KSf > fhe 3 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. Your attention is less directed to words than to things. The 182 THE WOKD 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 ^ ^e a ff ect i ns an d the poetry of the irnagina- agination and tion. Of the former we have the Psalms, the of the aftec- 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 acteristicT" 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." n A knowledge The most important external aid for the right of the circum- the?r e compo f - understanding of the Psalms is a knowledge of eition valua- ble, the circumstances under which they were corn "Ibid, 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 lie 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- J send's Ar- the Bible) in introducing the Psalms into the his- ofST* 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, saiem asiiius- trated by The event is related simply in 2 Sam. vi, 2, 18: stanle y- " 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 dwelfeth between the cherubim;" and "he blesses > the people in the name of the Lord of hosts." "Thi psalms which directly and indirectly spring out of this 184 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. event 12 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 unconquered 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 Jebus 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 !' 13 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 ! 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 I ' 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 xr, xxiv, xxix, xxx, Ixriii, cxxxii, and cxli. 1S 1 Sam. iv, 21, 2& THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 185 sncond 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 WORD 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.' 14 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's court, these alone are the rebels and heretics whom he would not suffer to dwell in his house, or tarry in his sight : i 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.' 15 Many have been the holy associations with which 1 4 Psalms xv, xxii. 1 8 Psalm ci, 6-8. 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." 16 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 Psalms< 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. 17 Bishop Lowth presents three forms of parallelism. I. The first he styles synonymous, and it embraces those First form: synonymous lines that correspond one to another by expressing parallelism. 19 History of the Jewish Church, Second Series, pages 95-9S. * T Hibbard on the Paalms, page 53. 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. PKOV. 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, 7. 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. PA. xxxvii, 1, 2. 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, 8. 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. 18 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 our transgressions. PSA. ciii, 11, 12. IE. 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. PBOV. 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. III. The third form is styled synthetic. It is where the parallelism consists only in a similarity of con- Third form: struction ; neither the words nor lines answer to 8 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 Ye 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 ; Eeptiles and birds of wing ; Kings of the earth and all peoples ; 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. Lo ! he pulleth down, and it shall not be built; He encloseth a man, and he shall not be set loose. Lo ! 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 xii, 13-16. It will prove a pleasant and instructive task to arrange the 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- L tive psalms. ^^ 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. JN T o Christian man could use them in reference to personal enemies THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 191 without transgressing the plainest teachings of the Bible, and bringing remorse upon his conscience. It is not a suffi- cient answer to say that these were the expressions of a dark rtt^e and a less merciful dispensation, for in the Not enough to say they game book, and dropping from the same lips, j^ l '|Jj ks {jf are to be found the sweetest, tenderest, most for- were uttered 7 . giving, and charitable sentiments ; and all these strains, it inust 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 *liis 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's 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 lieved it right to curse their personal foes. themselves fieve 4? fc rfeS They were the enemies of God ^nd of his king- to curse per- .. Bonai 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.' 19 The law of Moses expressly commands kindly offices to enemies. 20 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.' 21 '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.' " 22 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 Have been night " of the martyrs in all generations. They used by the aS I agea ted f 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 xxxi, 29, 30. ao Exod. xxiii, 4, 5. Prov. xxv, 21, 22. Prov. xxiv, IT, 18, 29 : see Hibbard on the Psalms. 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- e ua & e - 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 try 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 kt0 ^ Now the red planet, Mars, which had been un. ^Tete 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 tenderest pity for the suffering as well as a right- 13 194 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. eous indignation against wrong-doing. Unless our sympa- thies be aroused for the bleeding Protestants, we revolt from the sonnet of Milton ' on the late massacre in Piedmont : > ' Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, 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. Far get not I ' 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 s-ubstitutes the spirit of gentleness, meekness, endurance of wrong, for the spirit of fiery though righteous indignation. " THE WOKD 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 modern 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's shed upon that most incomprehensible, to many, 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 33 Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xix, p. 207. 196 THE 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- ?e a xt ns would then the canticle would well consist throughout make it per- fect in its ex- with the purest utterances of coniugal fondness. pression 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. n ess of this kind, and whose feelings and notions are all c 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 t rather to be chosen than thousands of gold and silver.' " 24 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, 25 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 84 The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, page 233. " Jer. xxxi, 15. 198 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Bedeemer, when Herod's sword was reeking with the blood of the children of Judea, 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, 26 was not a direct prophecy nor type of our Redeem- er's brief residence in that country, but a coincident fact, fiill 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 t no idea of time, 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, 13. 27 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 time 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- DaS 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- tanient. 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 blstory - 200 THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. it affords when its terms are 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- triumph of uth 9 . tian pie of God in reference 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 corn- veiled. 01 re ~ while his coming will certainly be experienced, with all its attendant circumstances, the specific hour has not been revealed. 28 It seems to have been the intention of the a* 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. 1 (Not that a day in prophecy, as some teach, is 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 : 4 Where is the promise of his coming ? ' 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 days may really embrace afew thousands or myriads of years. If it be true that both Christ and his apostles have warned us that the time of the second a 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, T 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 coining 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 coining of Christ and the end of the present system will probably take place in 1865. (The writer refers to the eloquent Dr. (Jumming, 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, 18 ; 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 use in abundance terms indicating an indefinite distance if they themselves furnish the solution of all their expressions intimating its near proximity al] objections to their in- fallibility in regard to other subjects upon which they speak with professed Inspiration are 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 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 29 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 us 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; 1 (Rev. xxi, 9 ;) and in relation to man, it is 'the mother of us all 1 Gal. iv, 36. 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 fn its pages 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 tave 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 and 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 ir j tual and Lhe widely-received spiritual view of the prophe- cies , 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 sublirnest 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. This 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/ 1 Progress of 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, "In the year that King Uzziah died," he had that sublime vision in the temple. 30 Before Ms 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 l 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." 81 10 Isaiah vi Sir Edward Strachey's Hebrew Polities, page 79. THE WOKD 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 Reve- great 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 WOKD 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, " ir. 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 in the triumphant and glorified Church. Still it bas been a book of consolation and hope to the Church militant in every age, especially amid her great persecutions and struggles; and it will remain so till the Lord come again in 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' " 82 History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 108. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 207 CHAPTER VIII. THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD'S LITERATURE. ,inHE 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 u 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 upon ll ' three leading modern tongues English, German, and French carried on with extraordinary vigor, and with 208 THE WOKD 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 far 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 Yoltaire ; 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, ' Kaze 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- the garb of friends. dations of the Christian faith, in the pretense oi laboring in the interests of Christianity herself. These sub- THE WORD 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 pbject 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 - ect of at _ will not call it the word of God, or the book in ch C rist n 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 Review, 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 lor 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 sitteth on high is mightier." THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 211 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 Bible 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 Keander, an Olshausen, a Stier, a Lange, a Ritter, 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: Westcott, Ellicott, Lee, Rogers, Buchanan, Isaac 212 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Taylor, and Bayne; 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- brorum, 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 divide 1 origin ! ts 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! 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! 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- ShaSspeat*. 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 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil. Shakspeare perpetually reminds us of the Bible by an eleva- tion of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be found elsewhere." l 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 Gray's Elegy. 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 1" 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 in 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 i C. C. Bombangh, A.M., M.D. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 215 conversant with the humblest society. He owed little to 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 range of probable calculation have these dozen Twenty -third lines imparted a power of endurance under suffer- P 8 * 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 & 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 poetry there is nothing more poetical. Henry Ste- more musical, more thrilling, and in some pas- P hanus - sages more full of lofty inspiration than the psalms of David." The great German historian, John von Mueller, 216 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. writes in a letter to his brother : " My most delightful houi 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 Humbol(Jt, 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 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." a This naturally suggests the analogous thought of the per- its strong sonal influence which the Bible has exercised hold upon the ji s mmd wer " over tne strongest and most original minds. How affecting the tribute paid to it by the unbelieving 3 Hagenbach's German nationalism, page 73. History of the Apostolif Church, page 166. THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 217 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 cli 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 together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my ~bemg ; 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 given 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 affectiag 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 w T ith tears, repentance, true, un- conquerable purpose, begun anew." Of the book of Job he 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 inost 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 as of all good and all comfort." 220 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. " Thy creatures," said Sir Francis Bacon, " have been iny books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples." a Let others," said John Milton, "dread and shun the Scriptures for their darkness ; I shall wish I may deserve to be reckoned among those who admire and dwell upon them for their clearness." " We account," writes Sir Isaac Newton, "the Scrip- 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 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- Talleyrand. leyrand, expressed his appreciation 01 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." 3 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 3 Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity. 222 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Prof. Calvin Stowe, in his very interesting volume entitled " The Origin and History of the Books of the Bible," refers to this line of thought. " Let us bring," he says, " this matter 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- tried in the fiwe. f speare instead of the Bible, say night and mom- 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 Mends 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 f u ^y u P on the strongest thinkers of every age, the e world'* has little to fear from the hasty generalizations literature cannot die. o f moc | 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 u 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 ! 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. THE ; V 7 / sfa*~ THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE" OF 25 CENTS OVERDUE. YB 21750 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY