IN my last Letter I said that in the Bible there is more that _finds_ me
than I have experienced in all other books put together; that the words
of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and that whatever
finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded
from the Holy Spirit. But the doctrine in question requires me to
believe that not only what finds me, but that all that exists in the
sacred volume, and which I am bound to find therein, was—not alone
inspired by, that is composed by, men under the actuating influence of
the Holy Spirit, but likewise—dictated by an Infallible Intelligence;
that the writers, each and all, were divinely informed as well as
inspired. Now here all evasion, all excuse, is cut off. An infallible
intelligence extends to all things, physical no less than spiritual. It
may convey the truth in any one of the three possible languages—that of
sense, as objects appear to the beholder on this earth; or that of
science, which supposes the beholder placed in the centre; or that of
philosophy, which resolves both into a supersensual reality. But
whichever be chosen—and it is obvious that the incompatibility exists
only between the first and second, both of them being indifferent and of
equal value to the third—it must be employed consistently; for an
infallible intelligence must intend to be intelligible, and not to
deceive. And, moreover, whichever of these three languages be chosen, it
must be translatable into truth. For this is the very essence of the
doctrine, that one and the same intelligence is speaking in the unity of
a person; which unity is no more broken by the diversity of the pipes
through which it makes itself audible, than is a tune by the different
instruments on which it is played by a consummate musician, equally
perfect in all. One instrument may be more capacious than another, but
as far as its compass extends, and in what it sounds forth, it will be
true to the conception of the master. I can conceive no softening here
which would not nullify the doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for each
man’s fancy to shift and shape at will. And this doctrine, I confess,
plants the vineyard of the Word with thorns for me, and places snares in
its pathways. These may be delusions of an evil spirit; but ere I so
harshly question the seeming angel of light—my reason, I mean, and moral
sense in conjunction with my clearest knowledge—I must inquire on what
authority this doctrine rests. And what other authority dares a truly
catholic Christian admit as coercive in the final decision, but the
declarations of the Book itself—though I should not, without struggles,
and a trembling reluctance, gainsay even a universal tradition?
I return to the Book. With a full persuasion of soul respecting all the
articles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the first four classes,
I receive willingly also the truth of the history, namely, that the Word
of the Lord did come to Samuel, to Isaiah, to others; and that the words
which gave utterance to the same are faithfully recorded. But though the
origin of the words, even as of the miraculous acts, be supernatural, yet
the former once uttered, the latter once having taken their place among
the phenomena of the senses, the faithful recording of the same does not
of itself imply, or seem to require, any supernatural working, other than
as all truth and goodness are such. In the books of Moses, and once or
twice in the prophecy of Jeremiah, I find it indeed asserted that not
only the words were given, but the recording of the same enjoined by the
special command of God, and doubtless executed under the special guidance
of the Divine Spirit. As to all such passages, therefore, there can be
no dispute; and all others in which the words are by the sacred historian
declared to have been the Word of the Lord supernaturally communicated, I
receive as such with a degree of confidence proportioned to the
confidence required of me by the writer himself, and to the claims he
himself makes on my belief.
Let us, therefore, remove all such passages, and take each book by
itself; and I repeat that I believe the writer in whatever he himself
relates of his own authority, and of its origin. But I cannot find any
such claim, as the doctrine in question supposes, made by these writers,
explicitly or by implication. On the contrary, they refer to other
documents, and in all points express themselves as sober-minded and
veracious writers under ordinary circumstances are known to do. But
perhaps they bear testimony, the successor to his predecessor? Or some
one of the number has left it on record, that by special inspiration _he_
was commanded to declare the plenary inspiration of all the rest? The
passages which can without violence be appealed to as substantiating the
latter position are so few, and these so incidental—the conclusion drawn
from them involving likewise so obviously a _petitio principii_, namely,
the supernatural dictation, word by word, of the book in which the
question is found (for, until this is established, the utmost that such a
text can prove is the current belief of the writer’s age and country
concerning the character of the books then called the Scriptures)—that it
cannot but seem strange, and assuredly is against all analogy of Gospel
revelation, that such a doctrine—which, if true, must be an article of
faith, and a most important, yea, essential article of faith—should be
left thus faintly, thus obscurely, and, if I may so say, _obitaneously_,
declared and enjoined. The time of the formation and closing of the
Canon unknown;—the selectors and compilers unknown, or recorded by known
fabulists;—and (more perplexing still) the belief of the Jewish
Church—the belief, I mean, common to the Jews of Palestine and their more
cultivated brethren in Alexandria (no reprehension of which is to be
found in the New Testament)—concerning the nature and import of the
θεοπνευστία attributed to the precious remains of their Temple
Library;—these circumstances are such, especially the last, as in effect
to evacuate the tenet, of which I am speaking, of the only meaning in
which it practically means anything at all tangible, steadfast, or
obligatory. In infallibility there are no degrees. The power of the
High and Holy One is one and the same, whether the sphere which it fills
be larger or smaller;—the area traversed by a comet, or the oracle of the
house, the holy place beneath the wings of the cherubim;—the Pentateuch
of the Legislator, who drew near to the thick darkness where God was, and
who spake in the cloud whence the thunderings and lightnings came, and
whom God answered by a voice; or but a letter of thirteen verses from the
affectionate _Elder to the elect lady and her children_, _whom he loved
in the truth_. But at no period was this the judgment of the Jewish
Church respecting all the canonical books. To Moses alone—to Moses in
the recording no less than in the receiving of the Law—and to all and
every part of the five books called the Books of Moses, the Jewish
doctors of the generation before, and coëval with, the apostles, assigned
that unmodified and absolute _theopneusty_ which our divines, in words at
least, attribute to the Canon collectively. In fact it was from the
Jewish Rabbis—who, in opposition to the Christian scheme, contended for a
perfection in the revelation by Moses, which neither required nor endured
any addition, and who strained their fancies in expressing the
transcendency of the books of Moses, in aid of their opinion—that the
founders of the doctrine borrowed their notions and phrases respecting
the Bible throughout. Remove the metaphorical drapery from the doctrine
of the Cabbalists, and it will be found to contain the only intelligible
and consistent idea of that plenary inspiration, which later divines
extend to all the canonical books; as thus:—“The Pentateuch is but _one
Word_, even the Word of God; and the letters and articulate sounds, by
which this Word is communicated to our human apprehensions, are likewise
divinely communicated.”
Now, for ‘Pentateuch’ substitute ‘Old and New Testament,’ and then I say
that this is the doctrine which I reject as superstitious and
unscriptural. And yet as long as the conceptions of the revealing Word
and the inspiring Spirit are identified and confounded, I assert that
whatever says less than this, says little more than nothing. For how can
absolute infallibility be blended with fallibility? Where is the
infallible criterion? How can infallible truth be infallibly conveyed in
defective and fallible expressions? The Jewish teachers confined this
miraculous character to the Pentateuch. Between the Mosaic and the
Prophetic inspiration they asserted such a difference as amounts to a
diversity; and between both the one and the other, and the remaining
books comprised under the tithe of _Hagiographa_, the interval was still
wider, and the inferiority in kind, and not only in degree, was
unequivocally expressed. If we take into account the habit, universal
with the Hebrew doctors, of referring all excellent or extraordinary
things to the great First Cause, without mention of the proximate and
instrumental causes—a striking illustration of which may be obtained by
comparing the narratives of the same event in the Psalms and in the
historical books; and if we further reflect that the distinction of the
providential and the miraculous did not enter into their forms of
thinking—at all events not into their mode of conveying their
thoughts—the language of the Jews respecting the _Hagiographa_ will be
found to differ little, if at all, from that of religious persons among
ourselves, when speaking of an author abounding in gifts, stirred up by
the Holy Spirit, writing under the influence of special grace, and the
like.
But it forms no part of my present purpose to discuss the point
historically, or to speculate on the formation of either Canon. Rather,
such inquiries are altogether alien from the great object of my pursuits
and studies, which is to convince myself and others that the Bible and
Christianity are their own sufficient evidence. But it concerns both my
character and my peace of mind to satisfy unprejudiced judges that if my
present convictions should in all other respects be found consistent with
the faith and feelings of a Christian—and if in many and those important
points they tend to secure that faith and to deepen those feelings—the
words of the Apostle, rightly interpreted, do not require their
condemnation. Enough, if what has been stated above respecting the
general doctrine of the Hebrew masters, under whom the Apostle was bred,
shall remove any misconceptions that might prevent the right
interpretation of his words.
Farewell.