1.--Need I remind you of that practical conviction of every earnest
Bible student, the conviction which Coleridge expresses when he speaks
of the way in which it "finds me". Men feel by their own spiritual
experience that the Book witnesses to itself. "The Spirit itself
beareth witness with their spirit" that the Book is the Book of God.
It "finds them" as no other book ever does. Its words have moved them
deeply; it has helped them to be good; it has mastered their wills and
gladdened their hearts till the overpowering conviction has forced
itself upon them, "Never book spake like this Book."
Need I point you to the world around, to the miraculous power which is
exercised by that Bible, to the evil lives reformed by it, to the
noble, beautiful lives daily nourished by it? Did you ever hear of any
other book of history, and poetry, and memoirs, and letters that had
this power to turn men towards nobleness and righteousness of life?
Did you ever hear a man say, "I was an outcast, and a reprobate, and a
disgrace to all that loved me till I began to read Scott's poems and
Macaulay's History of England?" Did you ever hear a man tell of the
peace and hope and power to conquer evil which he had won by an earnest
study of the Latin classics?
You can get a great many to say it of the study of the Bible, ten
thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. You can see
the amount of happiness and good that has come to the world even from
the miserably imperfect following of it. You can see that the world
would be a very paradise of God if it were thoroughly followed. Misery
and vice would vanish forever, purity and love and unselfish work for
others would hold their universal sway on earth. The millenium would
have begun.
Need we be disquieted about a Book that comes to us thus accredited in
so many powerful ways? Can we not see with restful hearts that all for
which we value it is safe from assault; that we never can doubt that it
has come to us from God.
With this confidence in our foundations we shall study peacefully and
with interest all new knowledge on the Bible. Instead of fearing a
conflict of Science and Scripture we shall learn to read our Bible more
wisely. For example, we shall read the Creation story not as a
scientific treatise but as a simple religious primer for an ancient
child race three or four thousand years ago to teach them first lessons
about God. And if Higher Criticism teaches us that some of the old
books have been edited and re-edited before reaching their present
form, that David did not write all the psalms, that Moses did not write
the whole of the Pentateuch as it stands to-day, we shall learn to
regard it as a matter of mere literary interest.
Such questions may be discussed with a quiet mind. For if the
authority of the Bible rests not on any external miracle, nor on any
author's name, nor on any theory of its composition, nor on any
pronouncement of any one body of men, but on its own compelling power
to convince men that it came from God, then its foundations are safe
enough, and the question how the Books grew or by whom they were
written or edited or brought together into a Bible is a matter of
literary interest in no way vital to the authority of Scripture.
We shall therefore need in our Bible reading more thoughtfulness, more
study, more prayer. But the outlay of these will be repaid a
hundredfold. The Bible will shine forth for us more real, more
natural, more divine. Our beliefs will rest on a firm foundation.
And, though there may be still things that puzzle and perplex us, we
shall learn that our Christian life does not depend on the
understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge, but on the humble
obedience to the will of God, which for all practical purposes is
clearly revealed.
Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be
written for our learning; grant that we may in such
wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest them, that by patience, and comfort
of Thy Holy Word, we may embrace
and ever hold fast the blessed
hope of everlasting life, which
Thou hast given us in
our Saviour Jesus
Christ. Amen.
[1] I am quite conscious that I may be pointed to the acceptance of the
Koran and the Sacred Books of India as a fact that weakens this
argument. I have no hesitation in admitting that, in part, the reason
of their acceptance, too, lies in their appeal to the consciences of
men through their containing broken rays of "The light that lighteth
every man coming into the world." I should be sorry to think that
Christianity required my belief that the God and Father of all men left
the whole non-Christian world without any light from Himself. But
surely there is a vast difference between the position of these books
and that of the Bible. All that is good in the Koran existed already
in Christianity and Judaism, and is mainly derived from them. The
Sacred Books of India, with their pearls of spiritual truth gleaming
here and there amongst a mass of rubbish, can surely not be compared
with the Bible in reference to the above argument.