CHAPTER V. ORTHODOX IDEA OF THE INSPIRATION AND AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.

§ 1. Subject of this Chapter. Three Views concerning the Bible.

The subject of this chapter is the Orthodox idea concerning the

inspiration and authority of the Bible. We shall consider the conflict of

opinion between those who believe in the full inspiration of every word of

Scripture, and those who treat it like a common book, and endeavor to see

how far we ought to believe a fact or a doctrine, because it is asserted,

or seems to be asserted, by some writer in the Bible.

Such questions are certainly of great importance to us all at the present

time, when opinions on these subjects are unsettled, and few people know

exactly what to believe. Especially in regard to the Old Testament, not

many persons have any distinct notions. They do not know what is its

inspiration or its authority; they do not know whether they are to believe

the account of the creation and of the deluge in the book of Genesis, in

opposition to the geologists, or believe the geologists, in opposition to

Genesis. Certainly it is desirable, if we can, to have some clear and

distinct opinions on these points.

And, first, in regard to Inspiration: there are three main and leading

views of the inspiration of the Bible. There cannot be a fourth. There may

be modifications of these, but nothing essentially different. These three

views are,—

(_a._) _Plenary Inspiration._—That is, that everything in the Bible is the

word of God. All the canonical books are inspired by God, so as to make

them infallible guides to faith and practice. Every word which really

belongs to these books is God’s truth, and to be received without question

as truth, no matter how much it may seem opposed to reason, to the facts

of nature, to common sense, and common morality.

This is _the Orthodox theory_ even at the present time. Any variation from

this is considered a deviation into heresy. No doubt, in practice it _is_

deviated from, by very Orthodox people; but all Protestant sects, claiming

to be Orthodox, profess to hold to the plenary inspiration of the Bible.

(_b._) _The Rationalist or Naturalistic View of the Bible._—The Bible is

not inspired at all, or at least in no way differing from any other book.

Its authors were inspired, perhaps, just as Homer, or Thucydides, or

Cicero were inspired, but not differently. It has no _authority_,

therefore, over any other book, and is just as liable to be in error as

any other. If you should bind in one volume the histories of Herodotus,

Tacitus, Gibbon, and Mr. Bancroft, the poems of Horace, Hafiz, and Dante,

and the letters of Cicero and Horace Walpole, this collection would have

to the Naturalist just as much authority as the Bible.

(_c._) The _mediatorial_ view of the Bible, or the view which _mediates_

between the others. This view endeavors to _reconcile_ the others, by

accepting the truths in each, and eliminating their errors or defects.

To this third division of opinions belong those of a large class, who are

not prepared to accept either the first or the second. They cannot believe

every word in the Bible to be the word of God, for they find things in it

contradicting the evidence of history and the intuitions of reason, and

also contradicting other teachings of the same book. They cannot see why,

as Christians, they should believe everything in the Jewish Scriptures. As

Christians, they go to the New Testament as a main source of faith and

practice, but do not see why they should go to the Old Testament for

Christian truth. On the other hand, they cannot look upon the Bible as a

common book. They remember that it has been a light to the world for

thousands of years, that it has been the means of awakening the human

intellect and heart, of reforming society, and purifying life. Even in the

Old Testament they find the noblest truth and the tenderest piety. The

Bible has been the litany, prayer-book, inspirer, comforter of nations and

centuries. They cannot and would not emancipate themselves from the

traditions in which they were born, nor cut off history behind them. The

Christian Church is their mother; she has taught them out of this book to

know God, and out of this book to pray to him, and they cannot regard it

without a certain prepossession.

To this third class I myself belong. I would not be unjust to the past or

to the future. I would be loyal to truth, and not shut my eyes to what God

reveals which is new; and I would not be unfaithful to what has already

been taught me, or ungrateful for the love which has taught the world by

the mouths of past prophets and apostles.

§ 2. The Difficulty. Antiquity of the World, and Age of Mankind.

Let us then see, first, what the problem before us is; and this can

perhaps be best understood by means of an example.

The common opinion among Christians is, that the world was made four

thousand and four years before Christ, and that all mankind are descended

from Adam and Eve. These opinions are derived from the book of Genesis,

which tells us that after God had made the world and other things in five

days, on the sixth day he made man in his own image; and that, when the

first man, Adam, was a hundred and thirty years old, he had a son, named

Seth; and from Seth, according to Genesis, are descended, by a genealogy

given in the fifth chapter of Genesis, Noah and his sons; and the ages

being given from Adam down to Abraham, and from Abraham to Christ, the age

of the world and the age of the human race have been computed.

As long as there was no reason for supposing any different period for the

antiquity of the world, these numbers were quietly accepted. But various

new facts have been noticed, and new sciences have arisen, within the past

fifty years, which have thrown doubt upon this chronology. In the first

place the great science of geology has examined the rocky leaves which

envelop the surface of the earth, and has found written upon them proofs

of an immense antiquity. It is found that the earth, instead of being

created four thousand years ago, must have existed for myriads of years,

in order to have given time for the changes which have taken place in its

structure. This evidence was long doubted and resisted by theologians, as

they supposed in the interest of Scripture; but the evidence was too

strong to be denied, and no intelligent theologian, however Orthodox, now

believes the world to have been made in six days, or to have been created

only six thousand years ago. With some, the six days stand for immense

periods of time; with others, the whole story is considered a vision, or a

symbolical account of geological events; but no one takes it literally.

This result has come from the overwhelming amount of evidence for the

antiquity of the earth, derived mainly from the fossil rocks. Of these

fossiliferous rocks there are over thirty distinct strata, lying

superimposed, in a regular series, each filled with the remains of

distinct varieties of animals or of plants. These rocks must each have

been an immense period of time in being formed, for the shells which they

contain, although very delicate, are unbroken, and could only be slowly

deposited in the quiet depths of a great ocean. There are also evidences

that after those strata were formed, violent and sudden upheavals took

place, throwing them into new positions, then slow uprisings of the bottom

of the sea, or slow subsidings of the land. At one time the northern parts

of Europe and America were covered with ice. Great glaciers extended over

the whole of Switzerland, and icebergs floated from the mountains of

Berkshire in Massachusetts upon a sea which filled the valley of the

Connecticut River, dropping erratic blocks of stone, taken from those

mountains, in straight lines, parallel with each other, half way across

the valley, where they still lie. Similar icebergs floated from Snowdon,

in Wales, and Ben Lomond, in Scotland, over the submerged islands of Great

Britain. At one time the whole surface of the earth, instead of being

covered with icy glaciers, was filled with a hot, damp atmosphere, laden

with carbonic gas, which no creature could breathe, but in which grew

great forests of a strange tropical vegetation. Then came another period,

in which all these forests were submerged and buried, and at last turned

into coal. Long after this hot period had passed, and long after the cold,

glacial period, which followed it, had departed, came a time when the

elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus covered the whole of

Europe, and the mammoth roamed in North America. Such facts as these,

incontestably established by the amplest evidence, have made it impossible

for any reasonable man to believe that the earth was made in six days, or

that it was made only six thousand years ago.

But this question being thus disposed of, other questions arise in their

turn. Are all mankind descended from one pair, or from many? Has the human

race existed on the earth only six thousand years, or during a longer

period? Was the deluge of Noah a real event? and if so, was it universal

or partial? Did the sun stand still at the command of Joshua? or is that

only a poetic image taken from an ancient book of poems—the book of

Jasher? Is there any truth in the story of the passage of the Red Sea by

the Israelites? of the passage of the Jordan? of the walls of Jericho

falling when the trumpets were blown? of the story of Samson? If we once

begin to doubt and disbelieve the accounts in the Bible, where shall we

stop? What rule shall we have by which to distinguish the true from the

false? Is it safe to begin to question and deny? Is it not safer to accept

the whole book as the word of God, and to let everything in it stand

unexamined?

No! “It is never safe,” said Luther, “to do anything against the truth!”

Truth alone is safe; and his soul only is safe who loves and honors truth

more than human approbation—more than ease, comfort, or life. It is not

safe to pretend to believe what we do not. And in this instance, half of

the infidelity of the age and country has come from the teaching that

everything in the Bible is the word of God. Sincere men have been

disgusted when told they must believe things contrary to their common

sense and reason.

Another question, which is now being investigated, is the age of

mankind—the antiquity of the human race. The Bible gives the list of

generations from Adam to Abraham; and the length of each, and other data,

given in Scripture, make six thousand years for the life of man on this

earth. Greek history only goes back some twenty-three hundred years; the

Egyptian monuments go back fifteen hundred or two thousand years

earlier—to 2000 B.C., or 3000 B.C. The “Vedas,” in India, may have been

written 1500 B.C.; the “Kings,” in China, before that. But recently we

have been carried back to a yet earlier period,—to a time when man existed

on the earth, before any written monument or sculptured stone which now

exists. _Two_ different sources have been discovered within a few

years,—one of them by philology, the other by geology.

It has been found that the languages spoken by Europeans, in their airy

sounds, are more permanent monuments than granite or enduring brass.

Stamped on these light, imponderable words are marks of a gray antiquity

going back to times before Herodotus, before Moses and the book of

Genesis, before the Vedas in India, before the Zendavesta in Persia. It

has been proved, first, that nearly all the languages of Europe belong to

one linguistic family, and therefore that those who speak them were

originally of one race. These different languages—seven sister languages,

daughters of a language now wholly gone—are the Sanscrit or ancient

Hindoo, the Zend or ancient Persian, the Greek, the Latin, the Keltic, the

German, and the Slavic languages. By a comparison of these, it has been

found that originally there lived, east of the Caspian, a race of

shepherds and hunters, calling themselves _Aryan_; that one branch

descended into India at least five thousand years ago, and drove out the

aboriginal inhabitants, a second branch went into Persia, a third into

Italy, a fourth into Greece, a fifth vast immigration filled Northern

Europe with the Kelts, a sixth with Scandinavians and Germans, and a

seventh with the Slaves. But long ago as this immigration was,—before all

history,—it found aboriginal inhabitants everywhere, whose descendants

remain. The Lapps and Finns in Northern, Europe, the Basques in Spain, and

Magyars in Hungary, are probably descended from this earlier European

race. It is difficult to suppose mankind only six thousand years old, when

we find such great movements taking place four or five thousand years ago.

But now come the geologists, and tell us that they find evidence of three

different races existing in Europe in three distinct periods of

civilization, some of which probably preceded the immigration of these

Indo-European races. These three belong to what they call the Stone, the

Bronze, and the Iron Age. In the gravel and drift, from ten to twenty feet

below the surface, along with the bones of the elephant and the

rhinoceros, and other animals long since extinct, are found hundreds of

flint instruments, axes, arrow-heads, and tools, indicating that men lived

in Europe in great numbers, contemporaries with these extinct animals. If

this should be proved, we should then be brought to admit, with respect to

the antiquity of man, what we have already admitted with regard to the

antiquity of the world, that the account in Genesis is not to be

understood as theologians have hitherto taught; that is, that we must not

go to Genesis, but to philology and geology, for our knowledge of the most

ancient history.

In this case, then, it will be evident that the old notion of a literal

inspiration cannot be maintained. God certainly did not inspire men to

teach anything about the creation which was adapted to mislead and deceive

men for two thousand years. We shall be obliged to say, then, that Moses

was not inspired to teach geology or history; that what he taught on these

subjects he taught from such sources as were available to him, and that he

was liable to error.

The old Orthodox theory of plenary inspiration has received very damaging

blows from such scientific researches as these which we have been

describing. The letter of the Bible seems, in such cases, to be at war

with the facts of nature.

§ 3. Basis of the Orthodox Theory of Inspiration.

Why, then, should the Orthodox doctrine be so stoutly maintained? What are

the reasons used in its defence? What its arguments? What is its basis? On

what does it rest? Do the writers of the Bible say that they were inspired

by God to write these books? Not at all. Do they claim infallibility?

Nowhere. Do they lay down any doctrine of plenary, verbal, literal

inspiration? No. We do not even know who wrote many of these books. We do

not know who collected them, or why just these books were put into the

collection, and no others. The Orthodox theory rests on few facts, but is

mainly an assumption. It seemed necessary that there should be _authority_

somewhere; and when Protestants rejected the authority of the Church, they

took the Bible in its place. The doctrine of inspiration, therefore, was

adopted as a basis for the authority of the Bible.

The principal reason given by those who believe in the plenary inspiration

of the Bible, for holding to this doctrine, is the necessity of _some_

authority. The argument is this: Unless every part of the Bible is

believed to be fully inspired, some part of it may be believed to be

erroneous; and if we admit error in any part, the Bible loses its

authority, and we do not know what to believe. The doctrine of literal and

plenary inspiration rests, therefore, in the last analysis, on no basis of

fact, but on a purely _a priori_ argument. Let us therefore examine this

argument, and see what is its force.

Revelation, it is said, is a communication of truth with authority. It is

truth shown to us by God, not truth reasoned out by man. Its value is,

that we can rely upon it entirely, live by it, die by it, without doubt or

hesitation. We do not want speculation, opinion, probability; we want

certainty; otherwise religion ceases to be a power, and becomes a mere

intellectual amusement.

The only religion, it is added, which is of any real value, is that which

carries with it this authority. The outward world, with its influences and

its temptations, is so strong, that we shall be swept away by it unless we

can oppose to it some inward conviction as solid and real. Amid the

temptations of the senses, the allurements of pleasure, the deceitfulness

of riches, will it enable a man to hold fast to honesty, temperance,

purity, generosity—to believe that in all probability these things are

right, and that there is something to be said in favor of the opinion that

God approves of them?

Will it help him, to think that unless the writer of the Gospel is

mistaken, or his words mistranslated, Christ may have said that goodness

leads to heaven, and sin to hell? No. We need authority in order to have

certainty; and we need certainty in our convictions in order that they

should influence us deeply and permanently.

This is the chief argument in favor of the plenary inspiration(11) of the

Bible. We see it amounts to this—that it is very desirable, for practical

purposes, that we should believe everything in the Bible to be true.(12)

In reply to this, we ought first to say, that the question in all these

cases is not, What is desirable? but, What is true? We should begin by

investigating the facts. We should ask, Does the Bible anywhere say of

itself that it is inspired in this sense? Do any of the writers of the

Bible declare themselves to be thus inspired, so that all that they say is

absolutely true in every particular? Does Christ say that those who are to

write the Gospels or the Epistles of the New Testament shall be thus

guarded against every possible error? Or is there any evidence in the

books themselves that the writers were thus protected? Do they never

contradict each other or themselves? Do they never contradict facts of

nature or facts of history?

Now, to all these questions, we are obliged to say, No. The Bible claims

no such absolute inspiration for itself. It says that “holy men of old

spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” but it does not say that the

Holy Spirit made them infallible. It says, “All Scripture is given by

inspiration, and is profitable for doctrine,” but it does not say what are

the limits of Scripture; and to be profitable or useful for doctrine is

surely not the same thing as to have infallible authority over belief.

Besides, if those who wrote certain Scriptures were infallibly inspired,

those who collected the present books of the Old and New Testament, and

made our canon, were _not_ so inspired. Those who transcribed their

autographic manuscripts were not inspired. The manuscripts of the Gospels

and Epistles, written by their authors, have long since perished. There

were no autograph collectors in ancient times. There was no such reverence

then paid to the letter of religion, to cause the original manuscript of

an apostle to be kept in a church as a sacred relic. We have plenty of

pieces of wood claiming to be parts of the true cross, but not a

manuscript claiming to be the original writing of an apostle. The earliest

manuscript goes only to the fourth century, and that contains the Epistle

of Barnabas. If, then, the writers of the New Testament were inspired,

those who collected their writings were not inspired, and may have left

out the right books, and put in the wrong ones. Those who copied their

manuscripts were not inspired, and may have left out the right words, and

put in wrong ones. Those who translated their manuscripts were not

inspired, and may have made mistakes in their translating. So that, after

all, the plenary inspiration of the apostles does not bestow that

infallibility upon our English Bible which this theory demands in order to

give it authority.

And yet we admit the importance of having some authority. Truth which does

not come with authority is _not_ truth; it is only speculation; it cannot

influence life. Revelation and philosophy differ in this, that philosophy

tells us what men think about God, revelation what God thinks about men.

Revelation is the drawing aside of the veil which hides God, duty,

immortality. It does not give us speculations about them, but shows us the

things themselves.

If, therefore, we can show that the Bible can be authority _without being_

plenarily inspired, very possibly Orthodoxy would no longer cling to this

doctrine with such remarkable tenacity. This point of authority we shall

consider in another section of this chapter, and so we will say no more

about it now. We shall try to show, then, that the Bible may be, and is

authority, without being inspired as regards every page and word, and that

inspiration is one thing and infallibility another. At present we desire

to see the truth there is in the Orthodox doctrine of inspiration.

§ 4. Inspiration in general, or Natural Inspiration.

There is a foundation for inspiration in human nature, a capacity for

inspiration which all possess. Were it not so, Christian inspiration would

be something unnatural, and not in the order of providence. Moreover, we

commonly speak of the inspiration of the poet, the painter, the inventor,

the man of genius. The man of genius is he who has more of this capacity

for inspiration than other men. But all men have it in a greater or a less

degree. All men have their hours or moments of inspiration. By these

experiences of their own, they understand the larger inspirations of

genius. If we distribute the thoughts we possess according to their

source, we shall find that we have obtained them all, either _from other

persons_, or by means of _mental effort_, or by _inspiration_. The largest

part of our thoughts and opinions we have taken in ready made, and

reproduced them just as we received them. We suppose ourselves thinking,

when we utter them, but we are only remembering. A much smaller proportion

of our thoughts we have obtained reflectively, by personal efforts of the

active intellect. Another part are those which have come to us in some

happy moments, when the inner eye was unclouded, and when we seem to see

at a glance truth and beauty. These inspired moments give us the most

solid knowledge we have. They are mental experiences, which are the master

lights of all our being. They give direction and unity to all our other

thoughts and opinions. They constitute mental originality. The peculiarity

of inspiration, in this general sense, does not lie in the subjects of the

thoughts, but in the manner of their coming. Ideas and thoughts of very

different kinds may all be inspired thoughts. The poet, the artist, have

their inspirations. But the scholar, the thinker, has his also. The man

who invents a machine often has the idea come to him by an inspiration.

The man who discovers a continent has seen it in idea before he sees it in

reality. If Shakespeare was an inspired man, so was Newton, so was

Columbus, so was Lord Bacon, so was Faust when he discovered printing,

Watt when he improved the steam engine, and Daguerre when he found out

photographic pictures; for, in all great discoveries and inventions, and

in small ones too, the original idea is an inspiration, though it has to

be worked out mechanically by hard thinking.

It will be seen, then, what we understand by inspiration, in this general

sense. It is a mental sight, corresponding as nearly as anything can to

physical sight. It seems, in the inspired moment, as if we looked into

another world, and saw new truths and facts there. We do not bring them up

out of our memory; we see them in all their own fresh life and reality. We

do not think them out by an effort of the will; we stand still and see

them. All that our will has to do with it is negative rather than

positive. It is to keep off disturbing influences of memory and sense, to

hold the mind still, attentive, receptive, and ready. If we believe in

these inspirations, we can thus prepare the way for them, but nothing

more. We can wait and look, till the vision is presented, and then we

shall see it; but this is all. The man of genius is he who believes in

these inspirations, and so looks for them. _What_ he shall see will depend

on what he looks for. The man whose taste is in the world of imagination

looks for forms of poetic or artistic beauty, and so sees these. Every man

looks for that which he is most interested in, whether he be metaphysician

or mechanic. The world of ideal beauty and truth, which overhangs ours,

has a thousand portals, and we can pass in through one or another, and see

that which suits our various tastes and desires. Memory, reflection, and

sight,—these are the three sources of our thoughts. The inspired man is a

seer—he has insight and foresight; and these objects of mental sight are

to him more real and certain than any others. But he is unable to prove

their reality or justify them to the sceptic. And hence his fate is often

that of Cassandra,—to be a true prophet, but not to be believed, until by

and by the strength of his own conviction wins its way, and produces faith

in others.

There are, therefore, two principal intellectual states of the mind—the

one receptive, the other plastic; the one by which it takes in truth, the

other by which it works it up into shape. By the one it obtains the

substance of thought, by the other the form of thought. The one may be

called the perceptive state, the other the reflective state. Thus, too, we

see that the perceptive faculty may be exercised in two directions,

outwardly and inwardly. It is the same intellectual faculty which, through

the senses, looks at and perceives the outward material universe, and

through the mind itself, the inward world of thought. It is this power of

looking inward which gives us all that we call inspiration. We have, thus,

outsight and insight.

There is, then, a _universal inspiration_, on which the special

inspiration of the Old and New Testament rests. There are inspired men and

uninspired men. There are inspired writings and uninspired writings. There

is a general inspiration, out of which the particular inspiration of Bible

writers grew. Universal inspiration is a genus, of which this is a

species. We cannot understand the inspiration of the writers of the Bible

till we understand this universal inspiration on which it rests. We can

best explain the special inspiration of Scripture by first knowing the

general inspirations of mankind.

Mr. Emerson, in one of his poems, called the “Problem,” describes this

universal inspiration. He describes Phidias as being inspired to make his

Jupiter, as well as the prophets to write their burdens. He says the

architect that made St. Peter’s was guided by some divine instinct in his

heart—he wrought in a sad sincerity. He says we cannot tell how such

buildings as the Parthenon and St. Peter’s were built, any more than how

the bird builds its nest; they were formed by a natural architecture; they

grew as the grass grows; they came out of thought’s interior sphere, just

as the pine tree adds a myriad of new leaves to its old arms every year.

“The passive master lent his hand

To the vast soul that o’er him planned;

And the same power that reared the shrine

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.”

§ 5. Christian or Supernatural Inspiration.

Having thus spoken of inspiration in general, we proceed to speak of

Christian inspiration in particular.

Christian inspiration is the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart. It is

that influence which came to the apostles, and to all Christians after

Jesus had left the earth, to unite them inwardly with Christ, and to show

them the true Christ. It is that of which Paul speaks, when he says, It

pleased God to reveal his Son in me. All Christians were baptized with the

Holy Ghost; had the spirit of Christ dwelling in them; were led by the

spirit of God; received the spirit of adoption, which bore witness that

they were the sons of God; which helped their infirmities; helped them to

pray; enabled them to mortify the deeds of the body, and produced many

gifts and graces. It is quite certain that all Christians were expected to

partake of this Christian inspiration. This enabled them inwardly to see

and know Christ—the true Christ. And only thus could they become truly

his.

Now, the Christian inspiration, so necessary at first, is equally

necessary now, for its object is, as it was then, to turn nominal

Christians into living Christians; to turn historical Christianity into

vital Christianity; to enable those who already know Christ after the

flesh, also to know him after the spirit. What is it which we need for

comfort, improvement, usefulness? We need a living, practical faith in

God’s truth and love. We need to see it as we now see the outward world.

We believe in the inevitable retribution of God’s laws. We need to see

this; to see that selfishness is death, and generosity life; to see that

humility is exaltation, and that pride is abasement. Having seen law, we

need also to see grace, the reality of forgiveness, the reality of a

Father’s love. We need to see immortality and eternity, while we are yet

surrounded with the world of sense and time; to see that the two worlds

are not two, but one, all temporal things having their roots in spiritual

things. This is what we need for comfort, for no hardship would seem hard

while we were thus looking at the things which are eternal, and knowing

that every light affliction works out an eternal weight of glory. This is

what we need for improvement. For no efforts at improvement can accomplish

that which this inward inspiration can do. It is a tide which bears us on.

It takes from us the weight of years. It is the sap which rises into every

branch, penetrates every twig, swells the buds, expands the leaves, opens

the blossoms, ripens the fruit, and causes universal growth. And it is

what we need for usefulness. For how mechanical and lifeless are efforts

at usefulness which proceed merely from the sense of duty! How blessed are

those which proceed from a heart filled with love and peace!

Christian inspiration, then, reveals inwardly the spirit of Christ, and so

gives us a new heart, and makes of us new creatures. It is the most

essential and vital part of Christianity, yet it is that part of

Christianity which is the least known and prized. How many dogmatists

there are fighting for doctrines; how many ceremonialists earnest about

forms; how many conscientious Christians trying hard to do their

duties;—to one spiritual Christian, whose Christianity consists in living

in the spirit, that he may walk in the spirit!

One reason for this seems to be the prevalence of false views concerning

the nature of Christian inspiration. It has been regarded as wholly

different in its laws from other inspiration, as an arbitrary influence

without laws or conditions. Now, in fact, the inspiration of the

Christian, while it differs in its subject from that of the poet, rests on

the same mental faculty, and has analogous conditions. The condition of

the poet’s inspiration is, that loving the outward beauty of the natural

world, and faithfully studying its truth, he should then hold himself

ready, in strong desire, to see, inwardly, ideal truth and ideal beauty.

And so the Christian, believing in the outward Christ, and loving him,

holds himself expectant of an inward revelation of that same Jesus in his

glorified and higher influence. All inspiration has its conditions and

laws. The poet’s eye, in its fine frenzy, must look from heaven to earth,

and from earth to heaven. His inward inspiration is in strict accordance

with his outward occupation and his outward fidelity. Every man is

inwardly inspired, according to the nature of his outward work.

Shakespeare cannot discover America, nor Columbus write Hamlet. And it is

only he who believes in Christ, and so endeavors to obey and serve him,

who receives an inward sight of his essential spirit. Christian

inspiration is not arbitrary, is not unnatural, is not limited. It is the

life of Christ, flowing steadily and constantly into all hearts which are

prepared for it, which long for it, and which hold themselves ready to

receive it.

We are thus prepared to state more distinctly the difference between

inspiration in general and Christian inspiration in particular.

(_a._) These two inspirations _resemble_ each other in resulting from the

exercise of the same mental faculties, since the state of mind in both

cases is not that of reflection, but perception; and the perception is

inward perception. Newton fixes his mind steadily upon the confused

mathematical thought within till it becomes clear. Milton fixes his mind

upon the inward image of ideal truth and beauty till it grows so distinct

that he can put it into corresponding words. Columbus meditates upon the

thought of a Western Continent till it seems so plain to him that he is

ready to set sail for it. And so Paul and John look steadily at the Christ

formed within them till they see clearly what is Christ’s thought

concerning every question, every subject.

(_b._) The two inspirations also are alike in this, that the truth seen is

in both cases, as to its substance, given to us by God. For the truths

seen by Newton, Milton, Descartes, and Columbus were not inventions of

theirs, but divine realities shown to them by God.

(_c._) In both cases the form of the truth seen comes from the exercise of

the human faculties of each individual upon the substance thus given. For

Paul and John, no less than Newton and Milton, worked up in their own

minds the truth seen. This is evident from the fact, that, while their

writings agree in contents and substance with each other, they differ from

each other in form and style. Each writer of the New Testament has his own

distinctly marked style, not only of expression, but also of thought.

(_d._) They are alike also in combining truth of substance with

fallibility of statement. The substance of every inspired man’s thought is

truth, because it is the reality shown to him by God. The form in which he

expresses it varies more or less from this truth, because that comes from

the exercise of his own finite faculties. Newton and Milton looked at

God’s truths, and uttered them as well as they were able. So did Paul and

John. That these last were liable to err in matters of statement appears

from the fact that they did err in some matters, as, for example, in

regard to the speedy coming of Christ.

These being the resemblances between natural and supernatural inspiration,

what are _differences_?

(_a._) The first difference is in the _kind of truths seen_. The truths

seen by Newton and Milton belong to the natural world, those seen by Paul

and John to the supernatural world. The substance of the inspiration in

the one case is nature, in the other case it is Christ. Intercourse with

nature had fed the minds of Newton and Milton with the truth, forming the

material upon which their inspiration could work. Intercourse with Christ,

in the flesh and in the spirit, had filled the minds of Paul and John with

the material on which their inspiration could be exercised. Christ had

come to them outwardly and inwardly, and this was the substance of their

inspiration.

(_b._) The inspiration of Newton and Milton implies genius; that is, a

special faculty in each individual. This possession of genius, or special

faculty, is a condition _sine qua non_, of natural inspiration. It is

solitary, it is individual. But the inspiration of the writers of the New

Testament does not imply genius. Of the eight writers of the New

Testament, only one, viz., Paul, appears to have been a man of natural

genius. He was great by endowment, the others were made great by their

inspiration. In the one case the uncommon man finds wonderful things in

the common world; in the other case the uncommon world shows wonderful

things to the common man.

(_c._) Natural and supernatural inspiration differ also in their occasion.

A miraculous event, namely, the coming of Christ inwardly to their souls

on the day of Pentecost, was the occasion of the apostolic inspiration.

This coming of the Holy Ghost was the second of the two supernatural

events of Christianity, of which the other was the birth of Christ. The

miraculous events in the life of Jesus may have been the natural results

of the coming of such a being into the world. The miracles of Christ’s

life, including his resurrection, may have been natural to a supernatural

being. They are the evidence of a break in the series of causation in the

outward world. In like manner the inward coming of Christ to the hearts of

his disciples in what is called the influence of the Holy Spirit, is

another supernatural event, the natural result of which is the founding of

the Church, the writing of the New Testament, and the newly created life

in individual souls.

These two inspirations, therefore, differ in their substance, source, and

method. The substance of one consists of truths of the natural order, the

other of the supernatural order. The source of one is the world of nature,

the source of the other is the inward Christ. And the method of the one is

that of individual genius, which is solitary, while the method of the

other is that of love or communion.

§ 6. Inspiration of the Scriptures, especially of the New Testament

Scriptures.

We now pass on to ask, What is the inspiration of the New Testament, or of

its writers?

The writers of the New Testament had no different inspiration from that of

all other Christians. We nowhere hear of any one receiving an inspiration

to enable him to write a Gospel or an Epistle. They distinctly repel the

idea of any such special or distinct inspiration. “By one spirit we have

all been baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one

spirit.” Gifts are different, but the spirit is one and the same in all.

But even among these diversities of gifts, nothing is said of any gift for

writing Gospels or Epistles. Probably, therefore, the inspiration by which

these were written was precisely the same as that by which they preached

to the Gentiles or taught in the Church. It was an inward sight of Christ,

an inward sight of his truth and love, which enabled them to speak and

write with authority—the authority of those who saw what they said, and

knew it to be true. “We speak what we know, and testify what we have

seen.” Hence it is that we find in their writings so much substance, so

much comprehensiveness, so much insight. They are in constant communion

with an invisible world of truth. They describe what is before their eyes.

A book given by inspiration is not a book made perfect by miracle, but a

book, the writer of which was in a state open to influences from a higher

sphere. All books which the human race has accepted as inspired—Vedas,

Koran, Zendavesta—are sacred scriptures; all that _lasts_ is inspired.

Perpetuity, not infallibility, is the sign of inspiration.

“The word unto the prophet spoken

Was writ on tables yet unbroken;

The word by seers or sibyls told

In groves of oak or fanes of gold

Still floats upon the morning wind,

Still whispers to the willing mind.

One accent of the Holy Ghost

The heedless world has never lost.”

The famous proof-text on this subject is that in the Second Epistle of

Paul to Timothy: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is

profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in

righteousness.” To what Scripture did Paul refer? Some say to the Jewish

Scripture. Some say to the Jewish and Christian writings. But the

Christian writings were not then all written, and were not collected into

what we call the New Testament. The apostle does not limit himself to

these. He says, “_All_ Scripture is inspired”—not merely Jewish or

Christian Scripture, but all sacred writing. All the writings of every age

which are looked upon as Scripture, which men from age to age reverence

and honor as such, were _not_ of man’s invention, not of man’s device, but

came from some irrepressible influence acting on the soul from within. The

poet before quoted says truly,—

“Out from the heart of nature rolled

The burdens of the Bible old.

The litanies of nations came,

Like the volcano’s tongue of flame,

Up from the burning cone below,

The canticles of love and woe.

The hand that rounded Peter’s dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity.

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew;

The conscious stone to beauty grew.”

There is a truth in this—a profound truth. The Bible is not an exceptional

book in this, that it has no parallels in nature to its method of

production. It is true that Phidias was inspired to make his statue and to

build the Parthenon.

“Such and so grew those holy piles,

While love and terror laid the tiles.

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon

As the best gem upon her zone,

And morning opes in haste her lids

To gaze upon the Pyramids;

O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky

As on its friends with kindred eye;

For out of thought’s interior sphere

These wonders rose to upper air.”

When Mr. Emerson and Theodore Parker compare in this way the Bible with

the Vedas or the Parthenon, we often feel that it degrades the Bible, and

takes away its special sanctity. But this is not necessarily the case.

There may be a wide gulf between the inspiration of the Bible and that of

the Vedas, or of Homer or Plato; and yet they may all belong to the same

class of works. There is a wide gulf between _man_ and the highest of the

inferior animals; and yet we put man into the class MAMMALIA, along with

oxen, whales, and cats, and into the same Order with apes and bats. We do

not think that man is degraded by being thus classified. He occupies a

distinct species in this order and class. So the New Testament and Old

Testament constitute two distinct species, of which they are the sole

representatives of one genus of inspired books; but that _genus_ belongs

to the same _order_ as the Vedas, Edda, Zendavesta, and Koran, and that

order belongs to the same _class_ as the poems of Homer and Dante, the

architecture of the Parthenon and the Strasburg Minster, the discovery of

America by Columbus, and of the law of gravitation by Newton.

The _class_ of works which we call inspired comprehends, as we have before

said, all which come to man by a certain influx into his soul—not by

looking out of himself, but by looking into himself. Sometimes we go and

search and find thoughts; sometimes thoughts come and find us. “They flash

upon our inner eye;” they haunt us, and pursue us, and take possession of

us. So Columbus was haunted by the idea of a continent in the west; so

Newton was haunted by his discovery long before he made it; so the

“Paradise Lost” pursued Milton long before it was written. Every really

great work must have in it more or less of this element which we call

inspiration.

But while the great works of genius belong to the class of inspired works,

we make a distinct order out of the great religious works which have been

the sacred Scriptures of races of men. They evidently came from a higher

inspiration than the works of science and the works of art. They have

ruled men’s souls for thousands of years. These, then, we place in an

_Order_ by themselves, and it is no discredit to the Bible to be ranked

with the works of Confucius, which have kept the Chinese orderly,

peaceful, industrious, and happy for almost twenty-six centuries.

But still, among these sacred books the Bible may be said to constitute a

distinct _genus_, because it differs from all the rest in two ways—in

teaching the holiness of God and the unity of God. The writer has been a

careful reader of all these sacred books for twenty years; he has read

them with respect; in no captious spirit; wishing to find in them all the

truth he could. He has found in them much truth—much in accordance with

Christianity. But he sees a wide difference between them all and the

Bible. They are all _profitable_ for doctrine, for reproof, for

instruction; but they are not Holy Scriptures in the sense in which we

ascribe that word to the Bible. The Old Testament, though having in it

many harsh and hard features, belonging to the Jewish mind, has strains

which rise into a higher region than anything in the Vedas or the

Zendavesta. The Proverbs of Solomon are about on a level with the books of

Confucius. But nowhere in all these Ethnic Scriptures are strains like

some of the Psalms—like passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The laws of Menu

are low compared with the Pentateuch.

But if the Old and New Testament make a genus by themselves, they divide

again into two species. There is a specific difference between the New

Testament and the Old. The New Testament inspiration is of a far deeper,

higher, and broader character than the other. In fact, we ought, perhaps,

to make a special order by itself from the New Testament writings. They

are so full of life, light, and love—they are so strong yet so tender—so

pure yet so free! They have no cant of piety, no formalism, but breathe

throughout a heavenly atmosphere. Their inspiration is of the highest kind

of all.

But what is this Holy Spirit? What does it teach? Scientific truth? No.

Scientific truth has been taught the world by other channels. Bacon and

Newton, La Place and Cuvier, Linnæus and De Candolle, have been inspired

to teach science. Their knowledge came, not only by observation, not only

by study, but by patiently opening their minds to receive impressions from

above. Were the writers of the Bible inspired to teach history? We think

not. There are histories of the Jews in the Bible, and they are likely to

be as authentic, as histories, as are those of Herodotus and Livy, and

other painstaking and sincere historians. But the special inspiration of

the Bible does not appear in the historic books.

But are not _all_ parts of the Bible equally inspired by this Holy Spirit?

By no means. We can easily see that they are not. It is evident that there

is nothing spiritually edifying in a large part of the history of the Old

Testament—the account of Samson, the story of Gideon, large parts of the

books of Judges and Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, the book of Esther.

The book of Ecclesiastes is full, throughout, of a dark and terrible

scepticism. Now, all these books are valuable, exceedingly so, as history,

but not as proceeding from the Holy Spirit.

But it may be said, “If the history of the Bible is not inspired, it may

be erroneous.” Certainly it may. We have seen that the account of creation

in the book of Genesis is probably erroneous. It contains one great faith,

luminous throughout—namely, that there is one God, Creator of all worlds

and of mankind. But as to the _order_ of creation,—the six days, the

garden of Eden,—all we can say is, that there may be some way by which

Moses could, in vision, have seen these things, represented in picture, as

they happened long before. There may be such a kind of unveiling of the

past before the inner eye of the soul. We do not deny it, for it is not

wise to deny where we know nothing. But we can assert that Christianity

does not require us to believe those chapters of Genesis to contain

historic truth. It may be allegorical truth. It may be a parable,

representing how every little child comes into an Eden of innocence, and

is tempted by that wily serpent, the sophistical understanding, and is

betrayed by desire, his Eve, and goes out of his garden of childhood,

where all life proceeds spontaneously and by impulse, into a world of work

and labor. If it be such an allegory as that, it teaches us quite as much

as if it were history.

§ 7. Authority of the Scriptures.

We have seen that the Bible, though inspired, is not infallible. But, it

is said, unless the Bible is infallible it has no authority. This we deny.

Inspiration is not infallibility, but inspiration _is_ authority. The

inspired man is always an authority. Phidias and Michael Angelo are

authorities in sculpture; Titian and Rafaelle are authorities in painting;

Mozart and Beethoven in music; and Paul, John, Peter, in religion.

Authority without infallibility is the problem before us. It is evident

that authority is desirable; it is equally evident that infallibility is

impossible. Can there, therefore, be the one without the other? Can God

reveal himself to man through a fallible medium? Can the writers of the

New Testament be so inspired as to be able to communicate truth, and yet

so inspired as not to be infallible? To all these questions we answer,

_Yes_; and will try to show it to be so.

Suppose that you are going through a forest in company with others. You

have lost your way. No one knows which way to go; dangers are around

you—dangers from cold, hunger, wild beasts, enemies. If you go the wrong

way, you may all perish; if you go the right way, you will reach your

destination and be safe. Under these circumstances, one of the party

climbs a tree, and when he has reached the top he cries out with joy, “I

see the way we ought to go. We must go to the right. I see the ocean in

that direction, and the spires of the city to which we are bound.” You all

immediately go the way that he directs. He has become an authority to you.

You follow his guidance implicitly, and put your lives into his hands,

depending upon the truth of what he says. Why? Because he has been where

you have not been, and has seen what you have not seen, and you believe

him honest and true. He has no motive to deceive you. This is his

authority.

But is it equivalent to infallibility? By no means. No one supposes him to

be infallible. If, after following his direction for a while, you see no

signs to show that you are in the right way, you begin to think that he

may have been mistaken, and some one else climbs a tree to verify his

judgment, or to correct it. But if, instead, signs begin to appear to show

that you are in the right way, your faith in your guide is confirmed, and

his authority is practically increased.

What gives a man authority as a guide, teacher, counsellor, is not our

belief in his infallibility, but our belief in his knowledge; if we

believe that he knows something we do not know, he becomes thereby an

authority to us. If he has been where we have not been, and seen what we

have not seen, he is an authority. A man who has just come from Europe or

from California, who has been in the midst of a great battle, who has

studied a subject which others have not studied, and made himself familiar

with it, such a man is an authority to others. Observe men listening to

him. All defer to him while he is speaking on this subject. He may be much

more ignorant than they are in regard to other things, but, if he has had

superior opportunities in regard to this subject, he is an authority. Yet

they do not believe him infallible; for if, in the course of his

conversation, he says anything which seems contradictory, incredible,

absurd, they begin to withdraw their confidence, and may withdraw it

wholly. But if, on the other hand, what he says is clear, consistent,

solid with information, his authority is increased continually, and his

bearers defer to him more and more.

Now, the authority of the writers of the New Testament is exactly of this

kind. The authority of inspiration everywhere is of this kind. An inspired

man is one who is believed to have been where we have not been, and to

have seen what we have not seen.

In Cooper’s novels there is a character whom he calls Leatherstocking,

familiar with the woods, knowing all their signs, acquainted with the

habits of bird, beast, and Indian. He guides the travellers through the

wilderness, and, by his superior knowledge, saves them from the Indian

ambush and the pursuing savage. They commit themselves implicitly to his

guidance, trust their lives to him. Why? Because they confide in his

knowledge of woodcraft and in his fidelity. As regards all matters

pertaining to the forest, he is an authority; their teacher if they want

information, their guide if they are ignorant of the way, their saviour in

imminent peril from savage beasts and savage men. He is an authority to

them, a perfect authority; for they confide in him entirely, without a

shade of doubt. But no one thinks him infallible, nor supposes it

necessary to believe him infallible, in order to trust him entirely.

Just so a ship on a lee shore, in the midst of a driving storm, throws up

signal rockets or fires a gun for a pilot. A white sail emerges from the

mist; it is the pilot-boat. A man climbs on board, and the captain gives

to him the command of the ship. All his orders are obeyed implicitly. The

ship, laden with a precious cargo and hundreds of lives, is confided to a

rough-looking man whom no one ever saw before, who is to guide them

through a narrow channel, where to vary a few fathoms to the right or left

will be utter destruction. The pilot is invested with absolute authority

as regards bringing the vessel into port.

When Columbus came back from his first voyage, and reported the discovery

of America, was he not an _authority_? Did not men throng around him, to

hear of what he had seen and done? Yet who believed him infallible. He who

has been where I have not been, and seen what I have not seen, is an

_authority_ to me. If I believe him honest, and no impostor, then I learn

from him, and depend on his testimony. Now, the writers of the New

Testament have been where we have not been. They have ascended heights,

and sounded depths in the spiritual world unknown to us. So they are

authorities to us, provided we have enough of their spirit in us to enable

us to see and know their inspiration. For, unless I have some musical

spirit in me, I cannot discern the inspiration of Mozart; unless I have

some mathematical spirit in me, I cannot discern the mathematical

inspiration of Newton and Kepler. So the natural man (the man who has

nothing in him corresponding to the Christian inspiration) cannot discern

the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, for they

are spiritually discerned or judged. He lives in external things, as babes

do. The authority of the Spirit in the Bible is that it awakens and

appeals to whatever spiritual element exists in our soul, and compels it

to feel and admit its truth.

Jesus, it is said, in giving the Sermon on the Mount, taught as one having

authority, and not as the Scribes. What was his authority, then? Not

official authority, for he was not yet known to be the Christ, hardly yet

known to be a prophet. Not merely the _authority_ coming from an imposing

manner; not an authoritative air, or tone, or manner, certainly. That was

precisely the tone and manner which the Scribes _did_ have in _their_

teaching. But the authority is in the Sermon itself. Its truths are so

wonderfully distinct and self-evident, they carry conviction with them.

Jesus sees so plainly all that he says—there is no hesitation, no

obscurity, no perhapses in his language. He is like one describing what is

before his eyes, what he knows to be true because he sees it while he is

saying it. It is, in short, the authority which always attends knowledge.

He who knows anything, and can speak with certainty, carries conviction

with him, though we do not suppose him to be infallible, nor is it thought

necessary to believe him so, in order to give to him this authority.

By such examples, we see that in earthly matters of the very highest

importance we ascribe authority without supposing infallibility. Now, if

we analyze the source of this authority, we shall find that it comes,

first, from the testimony of others, and, secondly, from our own

experience. Leatherstocking comes recommended to the travellers as a

skilful and faithful guide, and they trust him, at first, on the simple

ground of that recommendation. But they do not trust him entirely or fully

on that ground. They watch him while they trust him,—perhaps we ought

rather to say, they _try_ him, than that they _trust_ him. But, after they

have tried him day by day, week by week, and find him always skilful,

always faithful, they come to place a more and more implicit trust in his

guidance; he becomes more and more an authority.

So the pilot comes at first recommended only by his office. His office

implies the testimony of those who ought to know that he is able to guide

the vessel into the harbor. But if, besides this, there is some one on

board who knows his ability and fidelity by previous experience, and says,

“We are all safe now; this is the famous John Smith or William Brown, the

best pilot in the harbor,” then everybody is ready to trust him more

entirely.

Knowledge and fidelity, _not_ infallibility, these make a man an authority

to others in things pertaining to this life—knowledge and fidelity,

evidenced to us, first by the testimony of others, and secondly by our own

experience. Testimony leads us to _try_ a man and trust him partially,

trust him, but watch him. Add to this our own experience of his knowledge

and fidelity, and we trust him wholly.

There are two worlds of knowledge—outward and inward. Knowledge of the

outward world comes to us through the senses, by observation; knowledge of

the inward world comes to us through the consciousness, by insight or

inspiration. Every man’s knowledge has come to him by both of these

methods. The soul has a perceptive power with which it can look either

way. It looks outward through the senses, and perceives an external world;

it looks inward through the consciousness, and perceives an internal

world. It looks outward, and perceives forms, hears sounds, becomes

acquainted with external nature. It looks inward, and becomes acquainted

with justice, holiness, love, freedom, duty, sin, immortality, the

infinite, the eternal, God.

But just as it depends on various conditions as to what a man shall see

through the senses in time and space, so it depends on other conditions as

to what a man shall see beyond time and space in the spiritual world. The

conditions in the first instance are, good perceptive organs, a genius for

observation, educated powers for observation, knowledge of what to

observe, and finally opportunities for observation, or being able to go

where the things are which are to be seen. A blind man standing in front

of the Parthenon would be no authority to us as to its architecture;

neither would the most sharp-sighted person who should happen in be in

America, instead of Greece. So an Indian, with the finest perceptive

faculty, and standing directly in front of this majestic temple, would

give a very poor account of it, from want of previous knowledge. He, only,

would be an authority to us in regard to such a building, who should

combine with good perceptive organs, and some knowledge of the subject, an

opportunity for looking at it.

When we speak of inspiration, we mean, in regard to the inward world,

exactly the same thing. We mean that a man has his spiritual organs in a

healthy condition, that he has some knowledge of spiritual things, and

that he has been placed by divine Providence where he is able to see them.

Some men are lifted into a world of spiritual perception, when they see

things not seen by other men. They become prophets, apostles, lawgivers to

the human race. They are invested with authority. Men believe what they

say, and do what they command, and put their souls into their hands, just

as they trust their bodies to the guide of the pilot.

These are the inspired men—the men to whom revelations have been made.

They have authority, because they have been where we have not been, and

seen what we have not seen. But they have not infallibility, because, as

the apostle says, they have this treasure in earthen vessels. This divine

knowledge is contained in a finite, and therefore fallible mind. But we

see by means of our former illustrations that to grant their fallibility

does not detract at all from their authority.

And again, their authority is certified to us exactly as in the other

instances. They come recommended by external testimony, and on the

strength of that testimony we confide in them and try them. If we find

that they are not able to teach us, they cease to be authorities to us.

But if we find that they are full of truth, they become our guides and

teachers, and their authority is more and more confirmed; that they are

good and true guides, is evidenced by their being able to guide us. They

lead us into deeper depths of truth and love. They become the teachers of

their race. The centuries which pass add more and more weight to their

authority. They inspire us, therefore they are themselves inspired. It is

no more necessary, after this, to prove their inspiration, in the sense

which I have given, than to prove that the sun shines.

One remarkable illustration of this process, by which the test of

Scripture, as inspired, is that it should be profitable for doctrine,

reproof, and instruction, is to be found in the Epistle of Barnabas.

Barnabas introduced Paul to the apostles at Jerusalem, and is called, in

the book of Acts, a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost. He was sent on a

mission to Antioch by the apostles; afterwards was specially pointed out

by the Holy Ghost to go with Paul on his mission. (Acts 13:2.) He is

styled a prophet in this place, and we read that the Holy Spirit said,

“Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

During this mission Barnabas seems to have been the more important of the

two, for at Lystra the people called _him_ Jupiter, and Paul Mercury.

Barnabas and Paul appeared before the first council at Jerusalem; and the

apostles, in their letter, say, “Our beloved Barnabas, and a man that has

hazarded his life for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Now, this Barnabas,

called an apostle in the book of Acts, companion of Paul, sent on a

mission by the Holy Spirit, and commended by the apostles at Jerusalem,

was believed by the early Church to have written an Epistle. It is quoted

as his, seven times by Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, three

times by Origen, and by other writers.

Accordingly, it was originally included in the New Testament, and for

nearly four hundred years made a part of it. The oldest manuscript of the

New Testament in the world, supposed to have been written in the fourth

century, contains the Epistle of Barnabas; and one reason for believing

the manuscript so old, is that it _does_ contain it. This manuscript was

found by the celebrated German critic Tischendorf, in 1859, in the convent

of St. Catharine, at Mount Sinai. Why, then, is not this Epistle of

Barnabas printed in our New Testament? Whoever reads it will easily see

the reason. It is because it does not deserve to be there; it does not

have the marks of a high inspiration; it is made up in a great degree of

quotations from the Old Testament, of imitations of St. Paul, and of

allegories. It evidently dropped out of the Bible by its own weight. It

had every opportunity offered it to become a part of sacred Scripture; but

being tried by Paul’s test, it was found not to be profitable for

doctrine, reproof, or anything else, and so the copyists saved their time,

labor, and vellum by leaving it out. It was received on testimony, and

discarded after experience. It had authority at first, because of its

supposed author; it lost it afterwards, by means of its empty self.

This, then, is the authority of the writers of the Bible. It is the

authority of inspired men—men who have been into spiritual regions where

most men have not gone, and seen what most men have not seen. It is not

infallibility. They are capable of mistakes and error. Their being in the

Bible is only so far a proof that they are inspired, as it gives the

testimony of the Church that it has found the proofs of inspiration in

their writings. The Christian community has followed the apostolic

direction, and tried the spirits whether they were of God or not, and has

come to the conclusion that these New Testament writers have the marks of

inspiration. For you will observe that the present code of the New

Testament was gradually formed, and that not by the votes of councils or

the decisions of bishops, but by the feelings of the Christian community.

An inward instinct, and no external authority, presided over the

collection of the Scriptures, gradually dropping out some books (like

Barnabas, Hermas, and the Revelation of Peter), and taking in others.

So the Christian Church says to us, of the New Testament, “Here is a book

concerning which we testify that the writings in it are profitable for

doctrine; that its writers have superior knowledge in regard to spiritual

things; that they are inspired men, who have been taken up into a region

where most men have never gone, and seen what most men have never seen,

and therefore _know_ more than most of us about spiritual truth.”

But you may say, “If inspiration gives _knowledge_, and these writers are

inspired, then they do more than believe or think what they say about God,

duty, and immortality. They _know_; and if they _know_, does not that mean

that they are infallible?” No, knowledge is not infallibility. It is true

that inspiration gives knowledge, while speculation only gives opinion.

This is the reason why inspired men speak with authority, and philosophers

without it. But knowledge, though it gives authority, does not give

infallibility.

A Frenchman _knows_ the French language; still he may make mistakes in

speaking it. The man from California knows that country, but he may be

mistaken about it. Thus, if these writers are not infallible, they may

make mistakes; and if so, how are we to distinguish between their truth

and their error? This is a fair question: let us try to answer it.

Let us return to our former comparison of travellers and their guide. How

are you to distinguish between your guide’s knowledge and his errors?

Probably, when your guide begins to be uncertain as to the way, he will

show his uncertainty in his behavior. He will become doubtful, hesitating,

undecided; he will, by and by, supposing him honest, begin to express his

uncertainty, and say, “I am not quite sure of this path.”

It is just so with inspired writers. While their inspiration runs in a

full tide, they speak confidently; they are distinct in their statements.

Again, if your guide begins to speak of things outside of his province, he

does not carry much authority. If Leatherstocking discusses Shakespeare,

or the pilot begins to talk about politics, his opinions carry no weight

except what is inherent to them.

So when the writers of the Bible, leaving themes of religion and morals,

describe natural objects, as the leviathan or behemoth, we give no more

credit to their descriptions than we should to those of any other writer

of their day.

A question would arise here whether history was a subject of inspiration

or not; that is, whether an inspired writer, when he comes to speak of

historic facts, has any more authority than another. There may be some way

by which past events might be presented by inspiration to the mind of one

caught up by the spirit into another world. But the writers of the Old and

New Testament are careless about dates and numbers, and do not seem to be

made accurate by any special gift. I should, therefore, incline to the

opinion that the historic books of the Bible have no authority except that

of their reasonableness and conformity to what we might believe on other

grounds. As fragments of history, coming from so remote a past, they are

invaluable, when we treat them as simple, honest records of what was then

believed or known.

Take, for instance, the story of the deluge, and compare it with similar

stories in other mythologies. We find it so corroborated by these, that we

may believe that there is a basis of reality in it.

§ 8. The Christian Prepossession.

It is a great thing to read a book with expectation instead of distrust.

Expectation opens the mind to light, and makes it easy to see. Distrust

closes it. If I have read Shakespeare till I feel sure of his poetic

inspiration, then I read with expectation all he writes; I am looking for

truth and beauty, and so I find it. If I had never read Shakespeare, nor

heard of him, and Hamlet were put into my hand, I should probably be

displeased with something or other, and throw it aside, and so lose the

deepness and loveliness of that wonderful creation. How much we find in

the words of Jesus and Paul, because we read them with expectation and

hope! because we read them always looking for what is deep and high!

Nevertheless many persons recommend a contrary course. They say that we

ought to forget all that has been told us about the Book, and read it as

if we had never seen it before. But this method is neither practicable nor

desirable. It is impossible to look at the Bible as though it were an

unknown book; impossible to forget that it is the text book of

Christianity; regarded as sacred by millions of our fellow-men; the source

of spiritual and moral life to the world for the last fifteen hundred

years; that our parents and friends have found in it strength for duty,

comfort in trial, hope in the hour of death. You might as well tell the

child who begins to study geography to forget that he lives in America, or

when he studies the history of the United States, to forget that it is the

history of his own land. Nor would it be desirable to study the New

Testament thus. For it is this grand belief concerning it which makes us

desire to study it at all. Were it not for this belief it might be

occasionally read by a student in the interest of science, but never by

the mass of the community. Faith in its divine origin and divine purpose,

causes it to be read in families, schools, churches, to be used as a

manual of prayer in the closet, and to grow familiar in every home. The

Book is surrounded by a traditional halo of wonder, reverence, and hope,

and this gives us motive and power with which to read it. If a cold

criticism, a sceptical spirit, shall ever succeed in causing the New

Testament to be regarded as a common book, on the natural plane of human

thought, full of errors and imperfections, inspired only as Plato is

inspired, then it will be read as Plato is read, that is, by one man in a

million. It is not desirable to lose the reverence which causes us to

expect extraordinary truth and good in certain books, men, and

institutions; for so we lose the best motive power of the soul; so life

becomes tame, the day empty, and events unmeaning.

It is, therefore, perfectly right for the Church to surround Christ and

Christianity with this divine aureola of reverence and wonder, not

exaggerating it, but neither understating it. For this wonder and

reverence, when legitimate, is a great treasure of spiritual life,

animating and elevating, which the Church possesses in order that it may

communicate it. It is continually proclaiming its good news; constantly

asserting that through Christ God has given it a divine peace; that in

Christ there is a marvellous truth and beauty; and that the Gospels and

Epistles, which contain his life and truth, have a strange power of

raising us above ourselves, and bringing us into communion with an eternal

world. When this is said, not by rote, or as a mere form, but from sincere

conviction, the spirit of faith creates faith, and faith is the great

motive which leads to action.

As it is the duty of the Church to excite our interest in the New

Testament, by declaring its own love and respect for it, so it is right

for the student of the New Testament to give a certain preliminary weight

to this testimony of the Church in commencing his study. This is what we

call the Christian prepossession. And it regards the New Testament exactly

as when a friend whose judgment we respect earnestly recommends to us some

book which he has read, and which has done him good. He recommends it to

us as a good book, and he recommends it with enthusiasm. His enthusiasm

produces in us a desire to become acquainted with the book, and a certain

hope that we shall find in it what our friend has found. This hope leads

on towards fruition, and is one of its conditions. It ought not,

therefore, to be relinquished; but neither should it lead us to accept

blindly everything which we are told. We must look with our own eyes,

think with our own mind, feel with our own heart.

To wish to come to the study of the Bible without prepossession in its

favor is, therefore, a foolish wish; for, without prepossession in its

favor, we should have little motive for studying it at all. It is our

faith in the Bible that leads us to read it; and faith here, as

everywhere, is the motive power which reason has only to guide and

restrain. Faith is the brave steed which carries us forward, full of fire

and full of pride. Reason is the bridle by which he is guided, supported,

and restrained. There is a story of a thief so skilful that he could steal

a man’s horse from under him without his knowing it, and so leave him

holding the bridle in his hand, and supposing himself to be still on

horseback. So are those deceived who think to live by reason without

faith. The motive power of their life has been taken away from them, and

they do not know it; they suppose that they can ride with a bridle and

saddle, without a horse.

To read the New Testament to any purpose, we must, therefore, read with

the faith that there is some great good to be got from it. But what is the

true foundation of this faith? Is it legitimate, or is it an illusion? The

basis of this faith is to be found in the fact that the Bible has done so

much, and is doing so much, for the world—a fact which cannot be stated

better than in these words of one who is not commonly supposed to have too

high a reverence for the Bible:—

“This collection of books has taken such a hold on the world as no

other. The literature of Greece, which goes up like incense from

that land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the influence

of this book from a nation alike despised in ancient and modern

times. It is read of a Sabbath in all the ten thousand pulpits of

our land. In all the temples of Christendom is its voice lifted up

week by week. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes

equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the

king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and colors

the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant cannot sail the

sea without it, no ship of war go to the conflict but the Bible is

there. It enters men’s closets; mingles in all the grief and

cheerfulness of life. The affianced maiden prays God in Scripture

for strength in her new duties; men are married by Scripture. The

Bible attends them in their sickness; when the fever of the world

is on them. The aching head finds a softer pillow when the Bible

lies underneath. The mariner, escaping from shipwreck, clutches

this first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred to God. It goes

with the pedler in his crowded pack; cheers him at eventide, when

he sits down dusty and fatigued; brightens the freshness of his

morning face. It blesses us when we are born; gives names to half

Christendom; rejoices with us; has sympathy for our mourning;

tempers our grief to finer issues. It is the better part of our

sermons. It lifts man above himself; our best of uttered prayers

are in its storied speech, wherewith our fathers and the

patriarchs prayed. The timid man, about awaking from this dream of

life, looks through the glass of Scripture, and his eye grows

bright; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way unknown

and distant, to take the death-angel by the hand, and bid farewell

to wife, and babes, and home. Men rest on this their dearest

hopes. It tells them of God, and of his blessed Son; of earthly

duties and of heavenly rest. Foolish men find it the source of

Plato’s wisdom, and the science of Newton, and the art of Raphael.

Men who believe nothing else that is spiritual believe the Bible

all through; without this they would not confess, say they, even

that there was a God.”—_Theodore Parker, Discourse of Religion._

A book which exercises this great influence over our fellow-men ought to

be approached with reverence. It is for the same reason that we approach

with faith and expectation the writings of Shakespeare and Milton. We read

them expecting to find in them great truths, and this expectation enables

us to find them. “Seek and ye shall find” is the law. How often we should

have been disappointed and dissatisfied with such books, and have thrown

them aside impatiently, had we not remembered the great universal

testimony to their surpassing excellence!

This Christian prepossession is, however, only a general confidence that

there is something exceedingly good in the New Testament; that it is a

book containing in some way a divine revelation, in some way or other

inspired, in some way likely to be a great help and comfort to our

spiritual nature, and the best guide we can have for this life and towards

the next. It is an expectation of all this, an expectation based on the

testimony of mankind. So far it is a reasonable expectation. So far it is

right and just to entertain it. It is the natural inheritance to which we

were born, by being born Christians. To throw it away, or to try to throw

it away, would be as though one should try to throw away the habits of

civilization which he inherits by being born in a civilized community, and

try to go back and start as a savage. It is neither more futile nor more

foolish in the one case than in the other.

But, though this Christian prepossession is a perfectly legitimate one

with which to begin, it is not a legitimate one in which to remain. It is

our business, by the free action of our intellect, to change this general

and vague expectation into a distinct opinion of one kind or another.

Protestantism allows us to take our faith in the Bible from the Church,

but not to take from the Church our opinions about the Bible. Faith may,

and ought to be, received, but opinions are to be formed. An opinion or

belief received from another man is his opinion, and not ours.

With regard to any other book this would be self-evident. For example,

suppose that I have never read the play of Hamlet. I hear it universally

spoken of as one of the greatest works of the human intellect. That

naturally and properly creates in my mind the expectation of finding it

so. It produces the general belief that it is a great work of genius. But

suppose that, besides this general expectation, I should also accept from

my neighbors their particular opinions concerning the play. I hear them

say that it is more philosophical, but less dramatic, than Macbeth; that

the character of Hamlet is overcharged with intellect, and the like. If,

now, I adopt and repeat these opinions, without having read the play, it

is evident that I am only a parrot or an echo. It is evident that they are

not _my_ opinions at all, and that they indeed interfere with my having

any opinions. Fifty thousand echoes of a voice leave us only one voice and

fifty thousand echoes.

This distinction between faith and opinion, which we have already spoken

of, is of the utmost practical importance. We may add here that, for want

of it, intellectual people try to go to the study of the Bible without

faith in the Bible, and religious people think they must accept all their

opinions from others, and take them in ready made. It is not absolutely

essential to have opinions; but if we do have them, they ought to be our

own. Faith must be received, opinions must be formed.

All persons, therefore, ought to form opinions for themselves about the

New Testament. They may bring to the work a faith in the New Testament, as

being in some sense or other a revelation, as being written in some way or

other by inspired men, as being somehow or other a holy book, the

legitimate source of spiritual life, moral goodness, and inward peace.

§ 9. Conclusion.

If the views given in this chapter are reasonable, we shall conclude that

Orthodoxy is right in maintaining the supreme excellence and value of the

Christian Scriptures, but wrong in claiming for them infallible accuracy.

It is right in saying that they are written by inspired men, but wrong in

considering this inspiration a guarantee against all possible error or

mistake. It is right in calling the Bible “The Holy Scripture,” but wrong

in denying to the scriptures of other religious some divine influx and

some religious life. It is right in asking that the Bible be read with

faith and expectation; wrong in demanding for it unreasoning, uncritical

submission. Let reverence for its spirit and criticism of its letter go

hand in hand; for reverence and criticism, faith and reason, docility to

great masters and freedom in seeking for ourselves, are antagonist,

indeed, but not contradictory. They are not hostile, but helpful, though

acting in opposite directions—like the opposition of the thumb and fingers

in the human hand, which makes of it such a wonderful servant of the

thought. They belong to the group of sisterly powers which the Creator has

placed in the human soul—varied, complex, like and unlike.

“Facies non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen, qualis decet esse sororum.”