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  THE DIVINE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE
  by L. Gaussen
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Gaussen's theological treatise defending the doctrine of biblical inspiration
(Theopneustia), presenting a comprehensive case for the divine authority and
complete inspiration of Holy Scripture. The work combines intellectual rigor
with devotional earnestness, using illustrations from nature, learning, and
history to argue for the Bible's supernatural origin.

  Chapters: 12

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00.2 Two Notable Commendations
    2. 00.3 Translator’s Preface.
    3. 00.4 Prefatory Observations
    4. 01 Definition Of Theopneustia
    5. 02 Scriptural Proof of the Divine Inspiration
    6. 03 Brief Didactic Abstract of the Doctrine of the Divine Inspiration.
    7. 04 Examination of Objections
    8. 05 Inspiration of Evasions
    9. 06 On Sacred Criticism, in the Relations it Bears to Divine Inspiration.
   10. 07 Conclusion.
   11. 08 Analysis
   12. 09 Footnotes

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  CHAPTER 1: 00.2 TWO NOTABLE COMMENDATIONS
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Two Notable Commendations By Charles H. Spurgeon The turning-point of the battle
between those who hold “the faith once delivered to the saints;’ and their
opponents, lies in the true and real inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. This is
the Thermopylæ of Christendom. If we have in the Word of God no infallible
standard of truth, we are at sea without a compass, and no danger from rough
weather without can be equal to this leas within. “If the foundations be
removed, what can the righteous do?” and this is a foundation loss of the worst
kind. In this work the author proves himself a master of holy argument. Gaussen
charms us as he proclaims the Divine veracity of Scripture. His testimony is
clear as a bell. By James M. Gray, D.D. The milestones on my spiritual pathway
have been marked by certain books I have read, and one that stands out in my
memory more than any other is Gaussen’s great work, “The Plenary Inspiration of
the Scriptures.” The day it came into my hands as a young minister just
beginning his work marks an epoch, and I speak from experience when I say that a
Christian who reads and studies it need never again be troubled by attacks on
the Word of God. For years it has been out of print in this country, and hardly
to be obtained, even in an old book store. Now that The Moody Bible Institute
has purchased the plates and brought out a new edition my heart rejoices that
earnest Christian workers of this generation may have the same opportunity to be
established in the faith that God thus sent to me at that time.


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  CHAPTER 2: 00.3 TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
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Translator’s Preface.

SOON after the first publication of the Theopneustia, the late Rev. Dr. Welsh
wrote to me, urging me to translate it for the press. A series of other
engagements prevented me from doing so for several years. At last, in answer to
a call for s cheaper and less bulky translation than one that had meanwhile
appeared in London, I applied myself to the task, and had completed it before
seeing what my predecessor had published in the south. The present translation
being from the latest French edition, has the advantage of all the author’s
improved arrangement. The importance of the subject, the high character of the
author, and the admirable manner in which he has acquitted himself, required
that no ordinary pains should be bestowed in doing him justice. These pains I
have not spared.

I have endeavoured, as far as I could, to give the texts quoted from Scripture
in the precise words of our authorized version, and to secure the utmost
possible correctness in the references. The headings at the top of the pages
will, it is hoped, be of considerable use to the student.

After consulting an eminent authority as to the propriety of the change,
“plenary inspiration,” “divine inspiration,” or “verbal inspiration,” have been
substituted throughout for the term Theopneustia, borrowed by the author from
the Greek, and retained on the title-page. It was thought that the frequent
recurrence of so unusual a word might repel ordinary readers, and make it appear
that the book was exclusively for the learned. At a time when almost all
religious controversies seem to turn, more or less, on the question, How far the
Holy Scriptures arc inspired? and when persgn8 of all ranks and classes are
called upon to arm themselves against various errors having their root in false
or inadequate views on this subject, it seems hardly possible to overrate the
value of the work now before the reader. Nor is it only as a work of controversy
that it is invaluable. It is imbued throughout with n spirit of affectionate
earnestness and glowing piety, which, even when it makes the greatest demand on
the intellect, never suffers the heart to remain cold. Add to this, the
wonderful copiousness of the illustrations, which the author seems to borrow
with equal ease from the simplest objects in nature, the deepest wells of
learning, the remotest deductions of science, and the history at once of the
most ancient and most modern times. In short, as we accompany him from page to
page and chapter to chapter, we seem not so mush to be rending a book, as to be
listening to a devout and accomplished friend, expatiating on a favourite
subject — a subject of the very greatest importance, and one amid all the
details of which he is quite at home.

DAVID D. SCOTT GLASGOW.

Translator’s Preface Prefatory Observations


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  CHAPTER 3: 00.4 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS
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Prefatory Observations A GLANCE at this book and its title may have prepossessed
certain minds against it, by creating two equally erroneous impressions. These I
would fain dissipate. The Greek title “Theopneustia,” although borrowed from St
Paul, and although it has long been used in Germany, from not having found its
way into our language, may, no doubt, have led more than one reader to say to
himself of the subject here treated, that it is too learned and abstruse
(scientifique) to be popular, and too little popular to be important.

Yet I am bold to declare, that if anything has given me at once the desire and
the courage to undertake it, it is just the double conviction I entertain of its
importance and its simplicity.

And, first of all, I do not think that, after we have come to know that
Christianity is divine, there can be presented to our mind any question bearing
more essentially on the vitality of our faith than this: “Does the Bible come
from God? is it altogether from God? or may it not be true, as some have
maintained, that there occur in it maxims purely human, statements not exactly
true, exhibitions of vulgar ignorance and ill-sustained reasoning? in a “word,
books, or portions of books, foreign to the interests of the faith, subject to
the natural weakness of the writer’s judgment, and alloyed with error?” Here we
have a question that admits of no compromise, a fundamental question — a
question of life! It is the first that confronts you on opening the Scriptures,
and with it your religion ought to commence. Were it the case, as you whom I now
address will have it, that all in the Bible is not important, does not bear upon
the faith, and does not relate to Jesus Christ; and were it the case, taking
another view, that in that book there is nothing inspired except what, in your
opinion, is important, does bear upon the faith, and does relate to Jesus
Christ; then your Bible is quite a different book from that of the Fathers, of
the Reformers, and of the Saints of all ages. It is fallible; theirs was
perfect. It has chapters or parts of chapters, it has sentences and expressions,
to be excluded from the number of the sentences and expressions that are God’s;
theirs was “all given by inspiration of God,” “all profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, and for rendering the
man of God perfect by faith in Christ Jesus.’” In that case, one and the same
passage is, in your judgment, as remote from what it was in theirs as earth is
from heaven. You may have opened the Bible, for example, at the 45th Psalm, or
at the Song of Songs; and while you will see nothing there but what is most
human in the things of the earth — a long epithalamium, or the love communings
of a daughter of Sharon and her young bridegroom — they read there of the
glories of the Church, the endearments of God’s love, the deep things of Jesus
Christ — in a word, all that is most divine in the things of heaven; and if they
found themselves unable to read of those things there, they knew at least that
they were there, and there they tried to find them.

Suppose now that we both take up one of St Paul’s epistles. While one of us will
attribute such or such a sentence, the meaning of which he fails to seize, or
which shocks his carnal sense, to the writer’s Jewish prejudices, to the most
common intentions, to circumstances altogether human; the other will set
himself, with profound respect, to scan the thoughts of the Holy Ghost: he will
believe these perfect even before he has caught their meaning, and will put any
apparent insignificance or obscurity to the account of his own dulness or
ignorance alone.

Thus, while in the Bible of the one all has its object, its place, its beauty,
and its use, as in a tree, branches and leaves, vessels and fibres, epidermis
and bark even, have all theirs; the Bible of the other is a tree of which some
of the leaves and branches, same of the fibres and the bark, have not been made
by God. But there is much more than this in the difference between us; for not
only, according to your reply, we shall have two Bibles, but no one can know
what your Bible really is.

It is human and fallible, say you, only in a certain measure; but who shall
define that measure? If it be true that man, in putting his baneful impress upon
it, have left the stains of humanity there, who shall determine the depth of
that impression, and the number of those stains? You have told me that it has
its human part; but what are the limits of that part, and who is to fix them for
me? Why, no one. These every one must determine for himself, at the bidding of
his own judgment; in other words, this fallible portion of the Scriptures will
be enlarged in the inverse ratio of our being illuminated by God’s light, and a
man will deprive himself of communications from above in the very proportion
that he has need of them; in like manner as we see idolaters make to themselves
divinities that are more or less impure, in proportion as they themselves are
more or less alienated from the living and holy God! Thus, then, every one will
curtail the inspired Scriptures in different proportions, and making for himself
an infallible rule of that Bible, so corrected by himself, will say to it:
“Guide thou me henceforth, for thou art my rule!” like those makers of graven
images of whom Isaiah speaks, who make to themselves a god, and say to it,
“Deliver me, for thou art my god.” — (Isa 44:17.) But this is not all; what
follows is of graver import still. According to your reply, it is not the Bible
only that is changed, — it is you.

Yes, even in presence of the passages which you have most admired you will have
neither the attitude nor the heart of a believer! How can that be, after you
have summoned these along with the rest of the Scriptures before the tribunal of
your judgment, there to be pronounced by you divine, or not divine, or
semi-divine? What authority for your soul can there be in an utterance which for
you is infallible only in virtue of yourself? Had it not to present itself at
your bar, along with other sayings of the same book, which you have pronounced
to be wholly or partly human? Will your mind, in that case, put itself into the
humble and submissive posture of a disciple, after having held the place of a
judge? This is impossible. The deference you will show to it will be that
perhaps of acquiescence, never that of faith; of approval, never of adoration.
Do you tell me that you will believe in the divinity of the passage? but then it
is not in God that you will believe, but in yourself! This utterance pleases,
but does not govern you; it stands before you like a lamp; it is not within you
as an unction from above — a principle of light, a fountain of life! I do not
believe there ever was a Pope, however possessed with notions of the importance
of his own priestly office, who could confidently address his prayers to a dead
person, whom he had himself, by canonizing him of his own plenary authority,
raised to the rank of the demigods. How, then, shall a reader of the Bible, who
has himself canonized a passage of the Scriptures, however possessed with a high
idea of his own wisdom, possibly have the disposition of a true believer with
regard to such a passage? Will his mind come down from his pontifical chair, and
humble itself before this utterance of thought, which, but for himself, would
remain human, or at least doubtful? No one tries to fathom the meaning of a
passage which he has himself legitimated, only in virtue of a meaning which he
thinks he has already found. One submits only by halves to an authority which he
has had it in his power to decline, and which he has once held to be doubtful.
One worships but imperfectly what he has first degraded.

Besides, and let this be carefully noted, inasmuch as the entire divinity of
such or such a passage of the Scriptures depends, in your view, not on its being
found in the book of God’s oracles, but on its presenting certain traits of
spirituality and wisdom to your wisdom and your spirituality, the sentence that
you pass cannot always be so exempt from hesitation as that you shall not
retain, with regard to it, some of the doubts with which you set out. Hence your
faith will necessarily participate in your uncertainties, and will be itself
imperfect, undecided, conditional. As is the sentence, so will be the faith; and
as is the faith, so will be the life. But such is not the faith, neither is such
the life of God’s elect. But what will better show the importance of the
question which is about to occupy us is, that if one of the two systems to which
it may lead have, as we have said, all its roots imbued with scepticism, its
fruit inevitably will be a new unbelief.

How do we come to see that so many thousands can every morning and evening open
their Bibles without once perceiving there doctrines which it teaches with the
utmost clearness? How can they thus, during many a long year, walk on in
darkness with the sun in their hands? Do they not hold these books to be a
revelation from God? Yes, but prepossessed with false notions of the divine
inspiration, and believing that there still exists in Scripture an alloy of
human error — fain to find in it, nevertheless, its reasonable utterances of
thought, in order to their being authorized to believe these divine — they make
it their study, as if unconsciously, to give these a meaning that their own
wisdom approves; and thus not only do they render themselves incapable of
recognising therein the wisdom of God, but they sink the Scriptures in their own
respect. In reading St Paul’s epistles, for example, they will do their utmost
to find in them man’s justification by the law, his native innocence and bent
towards that which is good, the moral omnipotence of his will — the merit of his
works. But, then, what happens? Alas I just that after having given the sacred
writer such forced meanings, they find his language so ill-conceived for his
assumed object, such ill-chosen terms for what he is made to say, and such
ill-sustained reasonings, that, as if in spite of themselves, they lose any
respect felt for the letter of the Scriptures, and plunge into rationalism. It
is thus that, after having commenced with unbelief, they reap a new unbelief as
the fruit of their study; darkness becomes the recompense of darkness, and that
terrible saying of Christ is fulfilled, “From him that hath not, shall be taken
away even that which he hath.”

Such, then, it is evident, is the fundamental importance of the great question
with which we are about to be occupied.

According to the answer which you, to whom we now address ourselves, make to it,
the arm of God’s Word is palsied for you; the sword of the Spirit has become
blunted — it has lost its temper and its power to pierce. How could it
henceforth penetrate your joints and marrow? How could it become stronger than
your lusts, than your doubts, than the world, than Satan? How could it give you
energy, victory, light, peace? No! It possibly may happen, at wide intervals of
time, by a pure effect of God’s unmerited favour, that, in spite of this dismal
state of a soul, a divine utterance may come and seize it at unawares; but it
does not remain the less true, that this disposition which judges the
Scriptures, and doubts beforehand of their universal inspiration, is one of the
greatest obstacles that we can oppose to their acting with effect. “The word
spoken,” says St Paul (Heb 4:2), “did not profit, not being mixed with faith in
them who heard it; “while the most abundant benedictions of that same Scripture
were at all times the lot of the souls which received it,” not as the word of
man, but which it is truly, as the word of God, working effectually in them who
believe.” — (1Th 2:13.)

It will thus be seen, that thin question is of immense importance in its bearing
upon the vitality of our faith; and we are entitled to say, that between the two
answers that may be made to it, there lies the same great gulf that must have
separated two Israelites who might both have seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, and
both equally owned him as a prophet; but one of whom, looking to his carpenter’s
dress, his poor fare, his hands inured to labour, and his rustic retinue,
believed further, that he was not exempt from error and sin, as an ordinary
prophet; whilst the other recognised in him Immanuel, the Lamb of God, the
everlasting God, our Righteousness, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. The
reader may not yet have admitted each of these considerations; but he will at
least admit that I have said enough to be entitled to conclude that it is worth
while to study such a question, and that, in weighing it, you hold in your hands
the most precious interests of the people of God. This is all I desired in a
preface. It was the first point to which I wished to direct the reader’s
attention beforehand, and now comes the second.

If the study of this doctrine be the duty of all, that study is also within the
reach of all; and the author scruples not to say, that in writing his book, the
dearest object of his ambition has been to make it level to the comprehension of
all classes of readers.

Meanwhile, he thinks he hears many make this objection. You address yourself to
men of learning, they will say; your book is no concern of ours: we confine
ourselves to religion, but here you give us theology.

Theology no doubt! but, what theology? Why, that which ought to be the study of
all the heirs of eternal life, and with respect to which a very child may be a
theologian.

Religion and theology! let us explain what we mean; for often are both these
terms abused to the injury of both, by people presuming to set the one against
the other. Is not theology defined in all our dictionaries as “the science which
has for its object, God and his revelation?” Now, when I was a boy at school,
the catechism of my childhood made this the designation of my religion. “It is
the science,” it told me, “that teaches us to know God and his Word, God and his
counsels, God in Christ:” So, then, there is no difference between them, in
object, means, or aim. Their object is truth; their means, the Word of God;
their aim, holiness. “Sanctify them, O Father, by thy truth: thy Word is truth!”
Such is the aim contemplated by both, as it was that of their dying Master. How,
then, shall we distinguish the one from the other? By this alone — that theology
is religion studied more methodically, and with the aid of more perfect
instruments.

Men have contrived, no doubt, to make, under the name of theology, a confused
compound of philosophy, or the traditions of men with God’s word; but that was
not theology — it was only scholastic philosophy.

It is true that the term Religion is not always employed in its objective sense,
to signify the science that embraces the truths of our faith; but it is used
also, with a subjective meaning, to designate rather the sentiments which those
truths foster in the hearts of believers. Let these two meanings be kept
distinct. This is what we may do, and ought to do; but to oppose the one to the
other, by calling the one Religion, the other Theology, were a deplorable
absurdity. This would be to maintain, in other terms, that one might have the
religious sentiments without the religious doctrines from which alone they
spring; this would imply that you would have a man to be moral without having
any religious tenets, pious without belief, a Christian without Christ, an
effect without a cause — living without a soul! Deplorable illusion! “Holy
Father, this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” But even were it rather in its objective
sense that people set themselves to oppose religion to theology — that is to
say, the religion a Christian learns in his native tongue in his Bible, to the
religion which a more accomplished person would study in the same Bible with the
aid of history and of the learned languages — still I would say, even in this
case, Distinguish between the two; don’t oppose thereto each other! Ought not
every true Christian to be a theologian as far as he can? Is he not enjoined to
be learned in the Word of God, nurtured in sound doctrine, rooted and
established in the knowledge of Jesus Christ? And was it not to the multitude
that our Lord said, in the midst of the street, “Search the Scriptures.”

Religion, then, in its objective meaning, bears the same relation to theology
that the globe does to astronomy. They are distinct, and yet united; and
theology renders the same services to religion that the astronomy of the
geometricians offers to that of seamen. A ship captain might, no doubt, do
without the Mécanique Céleste in finding his way to the seas of China, or in
returning from the Antipodes; but even then it is to that science that, while
traversing the ocean with his elementory notions, he will owe the advantage he
derives from his formulas, the accuracy of his tables, and the precision of the
methods which give him his longitudes, and set his mind at ease as to the course
he is pursuing. Thus too, the Christian, in order to his traversing the ocean of
this world, and to his reaching the haven to which God calls him, may dispense
with the ancient languages and the lofty speculations of theology; but, after
all, the notions of religion with which he cannot dispense, will receive, in a
great measure, their precision and their certainty from theological science. And
while he steers towards eternal life with his eyes fixed on the compass which
God has given him, still it is to theology that he will owe the certainty that
that heavenly magnet is the same that it was in the days of the apostles — that
the instrument of salvation has been placed intact in his hands, that its
indications are faithful, and that the needle never varies.

There was a time when all the sciences were mysterious, professing secresy,
having their initiated persons, their sacred language, and their freemasonry.
Physical science, geometry, medicine, grammar, history — every thing was treated
of in Latin. Men soared aloft in the clouds, far above the vulgar crowd; and
would drop now and then from their bark sublime a few detached leaves, which we
were bound to take up respectfully, and were not allowed to criticise.
Now-a-days, all is changed. Genius glories in making itself intelligible to the
mass of mankind; and after having mounted up to the ethereal regions of science,
there to pounce upon truth in her highest retreats, it endeavours to find a
method of coming down again, and approaching near enough to let us know the
paths it has pursued, and the secrets it has discovered. But if such be at
present the almost universal tendency of the secular sciences, it has been at
all times the distinctive character of true theology. That science is at the
service of all. The others may do without the people, as the people may do
without them; true theology, on the contrary, has need of flocks, as they again
have need of it. It preserves their religion; and their religion preserves it in
turn. Woe to them when their theology languishes, and does not speak to them!
Woe to them when the religion of the flocks leave it to go alone, and no longer
esteems it! We ought then, both for its sake and for theirs, to hold that it
should speak to them, listen to them, study in their sight, and keep its schools
open to them as our churches are. When theology occupies the professor’s chair
in the midst of Christian flocks, its relations with them, constantly keeping
before its eyes the realities of the Christian life, constantly recall to it
also the realities of science: man’s misery, the counsels of the Father, the
Redeemer’s cross, the consolations of the Holy Ghost, holiness, eternity. Then,
too, the Church’s conscience, repressing its wanderings, overawes its hardihood,
compels it to be serious, and corrects the effects of that familiarity, so
readily running into profaneness, with which the science of the schools puts
forth its hand and touches holy things. In speaking to it, day after day, of
that life which the preaching of the doctrines of the Cross nourishes in the
Church (a life, without the knowledge of which all its learning would be as
incomplete as the natural history of man were it derived from the study of dead
bodies), the religion of the flocks disengages theology from its excessive
readiness to admire those branches of knowledge which do not sanctify. It often
repeats to it the question addressed by St Paul to the perverted science of the
Galatians: “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith?” It disabuses it of the wisdom of man; it imbues it with reverence for
the Word of God, and (in that holy Word) for those doctrines of the
righteousness of faith which are “the power of God our Saviour,” and which ought
to penetrate the whole soul of its science. Thus does it teach it practically
how to associate, in its researches, the work of the conscience with that of the
understanding, and never to seek after God’s truth but under the combined lights
of study and prayer.

And, on the other hand, theology renders in its turn, to Christian flocks,
services with which they cannot long dispense without damage. It is it that
watches over the religion of a people, to see that the lips of the priest keep
knowledge, and that the law may be had from his mouth. It is it that preserves
purity of doctrine in the holy ministry of the gospel, and the just balancing of
all truths in preaching. It is it that assures the simple against the confident
assertions of a science inaccessible to them. It is it that goes for its answers
to the same quarters whence those assertions have come; which puts its finger on
the sophisms of the adversaries of truth, overawes them by its presence, and
compels them, before the flocks, to avoid exaggeration, and to put some reserve
on the terms they employ. It is it that gives the alarm at the first and so
often decisive moment, when the language of religion among a people begins to
decline from the truth, and when error, like a rising weed, sprouts and grows
into a plant. It then gives timely warning, and people hasten to root it out.

It has ever happened that when flocks have been pious, theology has thriven. She
has accomplished herself with learning; she has put due honour on studies that
require vigorous effort; and, the better to capacitate herself for searching the
Scriptures, not only has she desired to master all the sciences that can throw
light upon them, but she has infused life into all other sciences, whether by
the example of her own labours, or by gathering around her men of lofty minds,
or by infusing into academical institutions a generous sentiment of high
morality, which has promoted all their developments.

Thus it is that, in giving a higher character to all branches of study, she has
often ennobled that of a whole people.

But, on the contrary, when theology and the people have become indifferent to
each other, and drowsy flocks have lived only for this world, then theology
herself has given evident proofs of sloth, frivolity, ignorance, or perhaps of a
love of novelties; seeking a profane popularity at any cost; affecting to have
made discoveries that are only whispered to the ear, that are taught in
academies, and never mentioned in the churches; keeping her gates shut amid the
people, and at the same time throwing out to them from the windows doubts and
impieties, with the view of ascertaining the present measure of their
indifference; until at last she breaks out into open scandal, in attacking
doctrines, or in denying the integrity or the inspiration of certain books, or
in giving audacious denials to the facts which they relate. And let a man beware
of believing that the whole people do not erelong feel the consequences of so
enormous a mischief. They will suffer from it even in their temporal interests,
and their national existence will be compromised. In degrading their religion,
you proportionally lower their moral character; you leave them without a soul.
All things take their measure, in a nation, according to the elevation that is
given to heaven among the people. If their heaven be low, every thing is
affected by it even on the earth. All there becomes erelong more confined and
more creeping; the future becomes narrowed; patriotism becomes materialized;
generous traditions drop out of notice; the moral sense loses its tone; material
wellbeing engrosses all regard; and all conservative principles, one after
another, disappear.

We conclude then, on the one hand, that there exists the most intimate union,
not only between a people’s welfare and their religion, but between their
religion and true theology; and, on the other hand, that if there have always
been most pertinent reasons for this science being taught as such, for all and
before all, never was this character more necessary for it than when treating of
the doctrine which is about to occupy us. It is the doctrine of doctrines; the
doctrine that teaches us all others, and in virtue of which alone they are
doctrines; the doctrine which is to the believer’s soul what the air is to his
lungs — necessary for birth in the Christian life — necessary for living in it —
necessary for advancing in it to maturity, and persevering in it. Such, then,
has been the twofold view under which this work has been composed. Every part of
it, I trust, will bear testimony to my serious desire to make it useful to
Christians of all classes. With this object I have thrown off the forms of the
school. Without entirely relinquishing, I have abstained from multiplying,
quotations in the ancient tongues. In pressing the wonderful unanimity of
Christian antiquity on this question, I have confined myself to general facts.
In fine, when I have had to treat the various questions that bear upon this
subject, and which must be introduced in order to complete the doctrine which it
involves, I have thrown them all into a separate chapter. And even there,
against the advice of some friends, I have employed a method considered by them
out of harmony with the general tone of the book, but which to me has seemed
fitted to enable the reader to take a clearer and more rapid view of the
subject.

It is, then, under this simple and practical form that, in presenting this work
to the Church of God, I rejoice that I can recommend it to the blessing of Him
who preached in the streets, and who, to John the Baptist, pointed to this as
the peculiar character of his mission: “To the poor the gospel is preached.”

Well will it be if these pages confirm in the simplicity and the blissfulness of
their faith those Christians who, without learning, have already believed,
through the Scriptures, in the full inspiration of the Scriptures! Well will it
be if some weary and heavy-laden souls are brought to listen more closely to
that God who speaks to them in every line of his holy book! Well will it be if,
through anything sold by us, some travellers Zion- ward (like Jacob on his
pilgrimage at the stone of Bethel), after having reposed their wearied being
with too much indifference on this book of God, should come to behold at last
that mysterious ladder which rises from thence to heaven, and by which alone the
messages of grace can dome down to their souls, and their prayers mount up to
God! Would that I could induce them, in their turn, to pour the sacred unction
of their gratitude and their joy, and that they also could exclaim: “Surely the
Lord is in this place! this is the house of God, and the gate of heaven!” For
myself, I fear not to say, that in devoting myself to the labour this work has
cost me, I have often had to thank God for having called me to it; for while
engaged in it, I have more than once beheld the divine majesty fill with its
brightness the whole temple of the Scriptures. Here have I seen all the tissues,
coarse in appearance, that form the vesture of the Son of man, become white, as
no fuller on earth could whiten them; here have I often seen the Book
illuminated with the glory of God, and all its words seem radiant; in a word, I
have felt what one ever experiences when maintaining a holy and true cause,
namely, that it gains in truth and in majesty the more we contemplate it.

O my God, give me to love this Word of thine, and to possess it, as much as thou
has taught me to admire it!

“All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass:
the grass withereth, the flower thereof fadeth, but the word of God abideth for
ever; and it is this word which, by the gospel, has been preached unto us.”


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  CHAPTER 4: 01 DEFINITION OF THEOPNEUSTIA
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Definition Of Theopneustia Theopneustia or Plenary Inspiration of the Holy
Scriptures OUR object in this book is, with God’s help, and on the sole
authority of his Word, to set forth, establish, and defend, the Christian
doctrine of Divine Inspiration.

Section 1. Theopueustia Defined This term is used for the mysterious power which
the Divine Spirit put forth on the authors of the scriptures of the Old and New
Testament, in order to their composing these as they have been received by the
Church of God at their hands. “All Scripture,” says an apostle, “is
theopneustic.” [1] This Greek expression, at the time when St Paul employed it,
was new perhaps even among the Greeks; yet though the term was not used among
the idolatrous Greeks, such was not the ease among the Hellenistic Jews. The
historian Josephus, [2] a contemporary of St Paul’s, employs another closely
resembling it in his first book against Apion, when, in speaking of all the
prophets who composed, says he, the twenty-two sacred books of the Old
Testament, [3] he adds, that they wrote according to the pneustia (or the
inspiration) that comes from God. [4] And the Jewish philosopher Philo, [5]
himself a contemporary of Josephus, in the account he has left us of his embassy
to the emperor Caius, making use, in his turn, of an expression closely
resembling that of St Paul, calls the Scriptures “theochrest oracles;” [6] that
is to say, oracles given under the agency and dictation of God.

Theopneustia is not a system, it is a fact; and this fact, like every thing else
that has taken place in the history of redemption; is one of the doctrines of
our faith.

Section 2. Theopneustia Asserted, Not Explained

Meanwhile it is of consequence for us to say, and it is of consequence that it
be understood, that this miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost had not the
sacred writers themselves for its object — for these were only his instruments,
and were soon to pass away; but that its objects were the holy books themselves,
which were destined to reveal from age to age, to the Church, the counsels of
God, and which were never to pass away. The power then put forth on those men of
God, and of which they themselves were sensible only in very different degrees,
has not been precisely defined to us. Nothing authorizes us to explain it.
Scripture has never presented either its manner or its measure as an object of
study. What it offers to our faith is solely the inspiration of what they say —
the divinity of the book they have written. In this respect it recognises no
difference among them. What they say, they tell us, is theopneustic: their book
is from God. Whether they recite the mysteries of a past more ancient than the
creation, or those of a future more remote than the coming again of the Son of
man, or the eternal counsels of the Most High, or the secrets of man’s heart, or
the deep things of God — whether they describe their own emotions, or relate
what they remember, or repeat contemporary narratives, or copy over genealogies,
or make extracts from uninspired documents — their writing is inspired, their
narratives are directed from above, it is always God who speaks, who relates,
who ordains or reveals by their mouth, and who, in order to this, employs their
personality in different measures: for “the Spirit of God has been upon them,”
it is written, “and his word has been upon their tongue.” And though it be
always the word of man, since they are always men who utter it, it is always,
too, the word of God, seeing that it is God who superintends, employs, and
guides them. They give their narratives, their doctrines, or their commandments,
“not with the words of man’s wisdom, but with the words taught by the Holy
Ghost;” and thus it is that God himself has not only put his seal to all these
facts, and constituted himself the author of all these commands, and the
revealer of all these truths, but that, further, he has caused them to be given
to his Church in the order, and in the measure, and in the terms which he has
deemed most suitable to his heavenly purpose. Were we asked, then, how this work
of divine inspiration has been accomplished in the men of God, we should reply,
that we do not know; that it does not behove us to know; and that it is in the
same ignorance, and with a faith quite of the same kind, that we receive the
doctrine of the new birth and sanctification of a soul by the Holy Ghost. We
believe that the Spirit enlightens that soul, cleanses it, raises it, comforts
it, softens it. We perceive all these effects; we admire and we adore the cause;
but we have found it our duty to be content never to know the means by which
this is done. Be it the same, then, with regard to divine inspiration. And were
we, further, called to say at least what the men of God experienced ill their
bodily organs, in their will, or in their understandings, while engaged in
tracing the pages of the sacred book, we should reply, that the powers of
inspiration were not felt by all to the same degree, and that their experiences
were not at all uniform; but we might add, that the knowledge of such a fact
bears very little on the interests of our faith, seeing that, as respects that
faith, we have to do with the book, and not with the man. It is the book that is
inspired, and altogether inspired: to be assured of this ought to satisfy us.

Section 3. Theopneustia: Its Existence, Universality, Plenitude Affirmed

Three descriptions of men, in these late times, without disavowing the divinity
of Christianity, and without venturing to decline the authority of the
Scriptures, have thought themselves authorized to reject this doctrine.

Some of these have disowned the very existence of this action of the Holy Ghost;
others have denied its universality; others, again, its plenitude. The first,
like Dr Schleiermacher, [7] Dr De Wette, and many other German divines, reject
all miraculous inspiration, and are unwilling to attribute to the sacred writers
any more than Cicero accorded to the poets — afflatum spiritûs divini — “a
divine action of nature, an interior power resembling the other vital forces of
nature.” [8] The second, like Dr Michaelis, [9] and like Theodore of Mopsuestia,
[10] while admitting the existence of a divine inspiration, would confine it to
a part only of the sacred books: to the first and fourth of the four
evangelists, for example; to a part of the epistles, to a part of Moses, a part
of Isaiah, a part of Daniel. These portions of the Scriptures, say they, are
from God, the others are from man. The third class, in fine, like M. Twesten in
Germany, and like many divines in England, [11] extend, it is true, the notion
of a divine inspiration to all parts of the Bible, but not to all equally (nicht
gleichmaessig). Inspiration, as they understand it, might be universal indeed,
but unequal; often imperfect, accompanied with innocent errors; and carried to
very different degrees, according to the nature of different passages: of which
degrees they constitute themselves, more or less, the judges.

Many of these, particularly in England, have gone so far as to distinguish four
degrees of divine inspiration: the inspiration of superintendence, they have
said, in virtue of which the sacred writers have been constantly preserved from
serious error in all that relates to faith and life; the inspiration of
elevation, by which the Holy Ghost, further, by carrying up. the thoughts of the
men of God into the purest regions of truth, must have indirectly stamped the
same characters of holiness and grandeur on their words; the inspiration of
direction, under the more powerful action of which the sacred writers were under
God’s guidance in regard to what they said and abstained from saying; finally,
the inspiration of suggestion. Here, they say, all the thoughts, and even the
words, have been given by God, by means of a still more energetic and direct
operation of his Spirit. “The Theopneustia,” says M. Twesten, “extends
unquestionably even to words, but only when the choice or the employment of them
is connected with the religious life of the soul; for one ought, in this
respect,” he adds, “to distinguish between the Old and New Testament, between
the Law and the Gospel, between history and prophecy, between narratives and
doctrines, between the apostles and their apostolical assistants.” To our mind
these are all fantastic distinctions; the Bible has not authorized them; the
Church of the first. eight centuries of the Christian era knew nothing of them;
and we believe them to be erroneous in themselves, and deplorable in their
results. Our design then, in this book, in opposition to these three systems, is
to prove the existence, the universality, and the plenitude of the divine
inspiration of the Bible.

First of all, it concerns us to know if there has been a divine and miraculous
inspiration for the Scriptures. We say that there has. Next, we have to know if
the parts of Scripture that are divinely inspired are equally and entirely so;
or, in other terms, if God have provided, in a certain though mysterious manner,
that the very words of his holy book should always be what they ought to be, and
that it should contain no error. This, too, we affirm to be the case. Finally,
we have to know whether what is thus inspired by God in the Scriptures, be a
part of the Scriptures, or the whole of the Scriptures. We say that it is the
whole Scriptures; — the historical books as well as the prophecies; the Gospels
as well as the Song of Solomon; the Gospels of Mark and Luke, as well as those
of John and Matthew; the history of the shipwreck of St Paul in the waters of
the Adriatic, as well as that of the shipwreck of the old world in the waters of
the flood; the scenes of Mamre beneath the tents of Abraham, as well as those of
the day of Christ in the eternal tabernacles; the prophetic prayers in which the
Messiah, a thousand years before his first advent, cries in the Psalms, “My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? — they have pierced nay hands and my feet —
they have cast lots upon my vesture — they look and stare at me” — as well as
the narratives of them by St John, St Mark, St Luke, or St Matthew. In other
words, it has been our object to establish by the Word of God that the Scripture
is from God, that the Scripture is throughout from God, and that the Scripture
throughout is entirely from God.

Meanwhile, however, we must make ourselves clearly understood. In maintaining
that all Scripture is from God, we are very far from thinking that man goes for
nothing in it. We shall return in a subsequent section to this opinion; but we
have felt it necessary to state it here. There, all the words are man’s; as
there, too, all the words are God’s. In a certain sense, the Epistle to the
Romans is altogether a letter of Paul’s; and in a still higher sense, the
Epistle to the Romans is altogether a letter of God’s.

Pascal might have dictated one of his Provincial Letters to some Clermont
artisan, and another to the Abbess of Port-Royal. Could the former have been on
that account less Pascalian than all the rest? Undoubtedly not. The great
Newton, when he wished to hand over to the world his marvellous discoveries,
might have employed some Cambridge youth to write out the fortieth, and some
college servant the forty-first proposition of his immortal work, the Principia,
while he might have dictated the remaining pages to Barrow and Halley. Should we
any the less possess the discoveries of his genius, and the mathematical
reasonings which lead us to refer to one and the same law all the movements in
the universe? Would the whole work be any the less his? No, undoubtedly.
Perhaps, however, some one at his leisure might have further taken some interest
in knowing what were the emotions of those two great men, or the simple thoughts
of that boy, or the honest musings of that domestic, at the time that their four
pens, all alike docile, traced the Latin sentences that were dictated to them.
You may have been told that the two latter, as they plied the quill, allowed
their thoughts to revert indifferently to past scenes in the gardens of the
city, or in the courts of Trinity College; while the two professors, following
with the most intense interest every thought of their friend, and participating
in his sublime career, like eaglets on their mother’s back, sprang with him into
the loftiest elevations of science, borne up by his mighty wings, soaring with
delight into the new and boundless regions which he had opened to them.
Nevertheless, you may have been told, among the lines thus dictated, there may
have been some which neither the boy nor even the professors were capable of
understanding. These details are of little consequence, you would have replied;
I will not waste any time upon them; I will study the book. Its preface, its
title, it first line, and its last line, all its theorems, easy or difficult,
understood or not understood, are from the same author, and. that is enough.
Whoever the writers may have been, and however different the respective
elevation of their thoughts, their hand, faithful to its task, and superintended
while engaged in it, has equally traced their master’s thoughts on the same roll
of paper; and there I can always study, with equal confidence, in the very words
of his genius, the mathematical principles of Newton’s philosophy.

Such is the fact of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures; nearly to this
extent, that in causing his books to be written by inspired men, the Holy Ghost
has almost always, more or less, employed the instrumentality of their
understanding, their will, their memory, and all the powers of their
personality, as we shall erelong have occasion to repeat. And it is thus that
God, who desired to make known to his elect, in a book that was to last for
ever, the spiritual principles of divine philosophy, has caused its pages to be
written, in the course of a period of sixteen hundred years, by priests, by
kings, by warriors, by shepherds, by publicans, by fishermen, by scribes, by
tentmakers, associating their affections and their faculties therewith, more or
less, according as he deemed fit. Such, then, is God’s book. Its first line, its
last line, all its teachings, understood or not understood, are by the same
author; and that ought to suffice for us. Whoever may have been the writers —
whatever their circumstances, their impressions, their comprehension of the
book, and the measure of their individuality in this powerful and mysterious
operation — they have all written faithfully and under superintendence in the
same roll, under the guidance of one and the same Master, for whom a thousand
years are as one day; and the result has been the Bible. Therefore I will not
lose time in idle questions; I will study the book. It is the word of Moses, the
word of Amos, the word of John, the word of Paul; but still the thoughts
expressed are God’s thoughts, and the words are God’s words. “Thou, Lord, hast
spoken by the mouth of thy servant David.” “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me,”
said he, “and his word was in my tongue.” [12]

It would then, in our view, be holding very erroneous language to say — certain
passages in the Bible are man’s, and certain passages in the Bible are God’s.
No; every verse without exception is man’s; and every verse without exception is
God’s, whether we find him speaking there directly in his own name, or whether
he employs the entire personality of the sacred writer. And as St Bernard has
said of the living works of the regenerated man, “that our will does nothing
there without grace, but that grace does nothing there without our will;” so
ought we to say, that in the Scriptures God has done nothing but by man, and.
man has done nothing but by God. In fact, it is with divine inspiration as with
efficacious grace. In the operations of the Holy Ghost while causing the sacred
books to be written, and in those of the same divine agent while converting a
soul, and causing it to advance in the ways of sanctification, man is in
different respects entirely active and entirely passive. God does all there; man
does all there; and it may be said for both of these works what St Paul said of
one of them to the Philippians, “It is God that worketh in you to will and to
do.” (Php 2:13) Thus you will see that in the Scriptures the same operations are
attributed alternately to God and to man. God converts, and it is man that
converts himself. God circumcises the heart, God gives a new heart; and it is
man that should circumcise his heart, and make himself a new heart. “Not only
because, in order to obtain such or such an effect, we ought to employ the means
to obtain such or such an effect,” says the famous President Edwards in his
admirable remarks against the errors of the Arminians, “but because this effect
itself is our act, as it is our duty; God producing all, and we acting all.”
[13]

Such, then, is the Word of God. It is God speaking in man, God speaking by man,
God speaking as man, God speaking for man! This is what we have asserted, and
must now proceed to prove. Possibly, however, it will be as well that we should
first give a more precise definition of this doctrine.

Section 4. Theopneustia Further Defined and Stated In point of theory, it were
allowable to say that a religion might be divine without the books that teach it
being miraculously inspired. It were possible, for example, to figure to
ourselves a Christianity without divine inspiration; and one might conceive,
perhaps, that all the miracles of our faith have been performed with the single
exception of this one. On this supposition (which nothing authorizes), the
everlasting Father would have given his Son to the world; the creating Word,
made flesh, would have submitted for us to the death of the cross, and caused to
descend from heaven upon his apostles the spirit of understanding and the power
of working miracles; but, all these mysteries of redemption once consummated —
he might have relinquished to these men of God the care of writing, according to
their own wisdom, our sacred books; and their writings would thus have presented
no more than the natural language of their supernatural illuminations, of their
convictions, and their charity. Such an order of things, no doubt, is but an
idle supposition, directly opposed to the testimony which the Scriptures have
rendered to what they are. But without saying here that it resolves nothing, and
that, miracle for miracle, that of illumination is not less inexplicable than
that of inspiration; without saying, farther, that the Word of God possesses a
divine power which belongs to it alone — such an order of things, granting it
were a reality, would have exposed us to innumerable errors, and plunged us into
the most dismal uncertainty. Upon what testimony could, in that case, our faith
have rested? On something said by men? But faith is founded only on the Word of
God. — (Rom 10:17.) In such a system, then, you would only have had a
Christianity without Christians. Deprived of any security against the imprudence
of the writers, you could not even have given their books the authority at
present possessed an the Church by those of Augustine, Bernard, Luther, and
Calvin, or of so many other men whom the Holy Ghost enlightened with a knowledge
of the truth. We are, in fact, sufficiently aware how many imprudent expressions
and erroneous propositions have found their way into the midst even of the
finest pages of those admirable doctors. And yet the apostles (on the
supposition we have made) would have been far more subject to serious mistakes
even than they were, since they would not have had, like the doctors of the
Church, a Word of God by which to direct their own; and since they themselves
would have had to compose the whole language of religious science. (A science is
more than half formed when its language is formed.) What deplorable and
inevitable errors must have necessarily accompanied, in their case, this
revelation without divine inspiration! and in what deplorable doubts would their
hearers have been left! — errors in the selection of facts, errors in the
appreciation of them, errors in the statement of them, errors in the mode of
conceiving the relations they bear to doctrines, errors in the expression of
those very doctrines, errors of omission, errors of language, errors of
exaggeration, errors in adopting certain national prejudices, or prejudices
arising from a man’s rank or party, errors in the foresight of the future, and
in judgments pronounced upon the past.

But, thanks be to God, it is not thus with our sacred books. They contain no
error; they are written throughout by inspiration of God. “Holy men spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost;” they did so, “not with words that man’s
wisdom teacheth, but with words which the Spirit of God taught;” in such sort,
that not one of these words should be neglected, and that we are called to
respect them and to study them, even to their smallest iota and their slightest
jot: for “this Scripture is pure, like silver refined seven times: it is
perfect.”

These assertions, which are themselves testimonies of the Word of God, have
already comprised our last definition of Divine Inspiration, and lead us to
characterise it, finally, as that inexplicable power which the Divine Spirit put
forth of old on the authors of holy Scripture, in order to their guidance even
in the employment of the words they used, and to preserve them alike from all
error and from all omission. This new definition, which might appear complex, is
not so really; for the two traits of which it is composed are equivalent, and to
admit the one is to accept the other.

We propose them disjunctively to the assent of our readers, and we offer them
the alternative of accepting either. One has more precision, the other more
simplicity, in so far as it presents the doctrine under a form more disengaged
from all questions relative to the mode of inspiration, and to the secret
experiences of the sacred writers. Let either be fully accepted, and then there
will have been rendered to the Scriptures the honour and the credit to which
they are entitled.

What we propose, therefore, is to establish the doctrine of Divine inspiration
under one or other of these two forms: — The Scriptures are given and warranted
by God, even in their language; and, The Scriptures contain no error — (whereby
we understand that they say all that they ought to say, and that they do not say
what they ought not to say.)

Now, how shall a man establish this doctrine? By the Scriptures, and only by the
Scriptures. Once that we have recognised these as true, we must go to them to be
taught what they are; and once that they have told us that they are inspired of
God, it belongs to them farther to tell us how they are so, and how far they are
so. To attempt the proof of their inspiration a priori — by arguing from that
miracle being necessary for the security of our faith — would be to adopt a
feeble mode of reasoning, and almost to imitate, in one sense, the presumption
which, in another sense, imagines a priori four degrees of divine inspiration.
Further; to think of establishing the entire inspiration of the Scriptures on
the consideration of their beauty, their constant wisdom, their prophetic
foresight, and all the characters of divinity which occur in them, would be to
build on arguments no doubt just, but contestable, or at least contested. It is
solely on the declarations of holy Scripture, therefore, that we have to take
our stand. We have no authority but that for the doctrines of our faith; and
divine inspiration is just one of those doctrines.

Here, however, let us anticipate a misapprehension. It may happen that some
reader, still but feebly established in his Christianity, mistaking our object,
and thinking to glance through our book in search of arguments which may
convince him, might find himself” disappointed, and might conceive himself
authorized to charge our line of argument with some vicious reasoning, as if we
wanted to prove in it the inspiration of the’ Scriptures by the inspiration of
the Scriptures. It is of consequence that we should put him right. We have not
written these pages for the disciples of Porphyry, or of Voltaire, or of
Rousseau; and it has not been our object to prove that the Scriptures are worthy
of belief. Others have done this, and it is not our task. We address ourselves
to men who respect the Scriptures, and who admit their veracity. To these we
attest, that, being true, they say that they are inspired; and that, being
inspired, they declare that they are so throughout: whence we conclude that they
necessarily must be so.

Certainly, of all truths, this doctrine is one of the simplest and the clearest
to minds meekly and rationally submissive to the testimony of the Scriptures. No
doubt modern divines may be heard to represent it as full of uncertainties and
difficulties; but they who have desired to study it only by the light of God’s
Word, have been unable to perceive those difficulties, or to find those
uncertainties. Nothing, on the contrary, is more clearly or oftener taught in
the Scriptures than the Inspiration of the Scriptures. Accordingly, the ancients
knew nothing on this subject of the embarrassments and the doubts of the doctors
of [he present day; for them the Bible was from God, or it was not from God. On
this point antiquity presents an admirable unanimity. [14] But since the
moderns, in imitation of the Talmudistic Jews and Rabbins of the middle ages,
have imagined learned distinctions between four or five different degrees of
inspiration, who can wonder that for them difficulties and uncertainties have
been multiplied? Contesting what the Scriptures teach, and explaining what the
Scriptures do not teach, it is easy to see how they come to be embarrassed; but
for this they have only their own rashness to blame. So very dear, indeed, is
this testimony which the Scriptures render to their own inspiration, that one
may well feel amazed that, among Christians, there should be any diversities of
opinion on so well-defined a subject. But the evil is too easily explained by
the power of preconceived opinions. The mind once wholly pre- occupied by
objections of its own raising, sacred passages are perverted from their natural
meaning in proportion as those objections present themselves; and, by a secret
effort of thought, people try to reconcile these with the difficulties that
embarrass them. The plenary inspiration of the Scriptures is, in spite of the
Scriptures, denied (as the Sadducees denied the resurrection), because the
miracle is thought inexplicable; but we must recollect the answer made by Jesus
Christ, “Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not THE SCRIPTURES, nor THE
POWER OF GOD?” — (Mark 12:24; Mark 12:27.) It is, therefore, because of this too
common disposition of the human mind, that we have thought it best not to
present the reader with our scriptural proofs until after having completed our
definition of divine inspiration, by an attentive examination of the part to be
assigned an it to the individuality of the sacred writers. This will be the
subject of the following section. No less do we desire being able to present the
reader with a more didactic expression of the doctrine that occupies us, and of
some of the questions connected with it: but we have thought that a more fitting
place might be found for this development elsewhere, partly because it will be
more favourably received after our scriptural proofs shall have been considered;
partly because we have no desire, by employing the forms of the school, to
repel, at the very threshold, unlearned readers who may have taken up these
pages with the idea of finding something in them for the edification of their
faith.

Section 5. On the Individuality of the Sacred Writers The individuality of the
sacred writers, so profoundly stamped on the books they have respectively
written, seems to many impossible to be reconciled with a plenary inspiration.
No one, say they, can read the Scriptures without being struck with the
differences of language, conception, and style, discernible in their authors; so
that even were the titles of the several books to give us no intimation that we
were passing from one author to another, still we should almost instantly
discover, from the change of their character, that we had no longer to do with
the same writer, but that a new personage had taken the pen. This diversity
reveals itself even on comparing one prophet with another prophet, and one
apostle with another apostle. Who could read the writings of Isaiah and Ezekiel,
of Amos and Hosea, of Zephaniah and Habakkuk, of Jeremiah and Daniel. And
proceed to study those of Paul and Peter, or of John, without observing, with
respect to each of them, how much his views of the truth, his reasonings, and
his language, have been influenced by his habits, his condition in life, his
genius, his education, his recollections—all the circumstances, in short, that
have acted upon his outer and inner man? They tell us what they saw, and just as
they saw it. Their memory is put into requisition, their imagination is called
into exercise, their affections are drawn out — their whole being is at work,
and their moral physiognomy is clearly delineated. We are sensible that the
composition of each has greatly depended, both as to its essence and its form,
on its author’s circumstances and peculiar turn of mind. Could the son of
Zebedee have composed the Epistle to the Romans, as we have received it from the
apostle Paul? Who would think of attributing to him the Epistle to the Hebrews?
And although the Epistles general of Peter were without their title, who would
ever think of ascribing them to John? It is thus, likewise, with the
evangelists. All four are very distinctly recognisable, although they all speak
of the same Master, profess the same doctrines, and relate the same acts. Such,
we are told, is the fact, and the following consequences are boldly deduced from
it: —

[1]. Were it God who speaks alone and constantly in the Scriptures, we should
see, in their various parts, an uniformity which is not to be found there.

[2]. It must be admitted that two different impulses have acted at the same time
on the same authors, while they were composing the Scriptures; the natural
impulses of their individuality, and the miraculous impulses of inspiration.

[3]. There must have resulted from the conflict, the concurrence, or the
balanced action of these two forces, — an inspiration variable, gradual,
sometimes entire, sometimes imperfect, and of times even reduced to the feeble
measure of a mere superintendence.

[4]. The variable power of the Divine Spirit, in this combined action, must have
been in the ratio of the importance and the difficulty of the matters treated of
by the sacred author. He might even have abstained from any intervention when
the judgment and the recollections of the writer could suffice, inasmuch as God
never performs useless miracles.

“It belongs not to man to say where nature ends, and where inspiration begins,”
says Bishop Wilson. [15]

“The exaggeration we find in the notions which some have entertained of
inspiration,” says Dr Twesten, “does not consist in their having extended them
to all, but in their having extended them to all equally. If inspiration does
not exclude the personal action of the sacred authors, no more does it destroy
all influence proceeding from human imperfection. But we may suppose this
influence to be more and more feeble in the writers, in proportion as the matter
treated of is more intimately related to Christ.” [16] Dr Dick recognises three
degrees of inspiration in the holy Scriptures: —

“1. There are many things in the Scriptures which the writers might have known,
and probably did know, by ordinary means… In these cases, no supernatural
influence was necessary to enlighten and invigorate their minds; it was only
necessary that they should be infallibly preserved from error.

2. There are other passages of Scripture, in composing which the minds of the
writers must have been supernaturally endowed with more than ordinary vigour…

3. It is manifest, with respect to many passages of Scripture, that the subjects
of which they treat must have been directly revealed to the writers.” [17]

[5]. Hence it follows, that if this plenary inspiration were sometimes
necessary, still, with respect to matters at once easy and of no religious
importance, there might be found in the Scriptures some harmless errors, and
some of those stains ever left by the hand of man on all he touches. While the
energies of the divine mind, by an action always powerful, and often victorious,
enlarged the comprehension of the men of God, purified their affections, and led
them to seek out, from among all their recollections of the past, those which
might be most usefully transmitted to the Church of God, the natural energies of
their own minds, left to themselves in so far as regarded all details of no
consequence either to faith or virtue, may have led to the occurrence in the
Scriptures of some mixture of inaccuracy and imperfection. “We must not
therefore,” says M. Twesten, “attribute an unlimited infallibility to the
Scripture, as if there were no error there. No doubt God is truth, and in
matters of importance all that is from him is truth; but if all be not of equal
importance, all does not then proceed equally from him; and if inspiration does
not exclude the personal action of the sacred authors, no more does it destroy
all influence of human imperfection.” [18]

All these authors include in their assumptions and conclusions the notion, that
there are some passages in the Scriptures quite devoid of importance, and that
there are others alloyed with error. We shall erelong repel with all our might
both these imputations; but this is not yet the place for it. The only question
we have to do with here, is that respecting the living and personal form under
which the Scriptures of God have been given to us, and its alleged
incompatibility with the fact of a plenary inspiration. To this we proceed to
reply.

[1]. We begin by declaring how far we are from contesting the fact alleged,
while, however, we reject the false consequences that are deduced from it. So
far are we from not acknowledging this human individuality stamped throughout on
our sacred books, that, on the contrary, it is with profound gratitude — with an
ever-growing admiration — that we contemplate this living, actual, dramatic,
humanitary character diffused with so powerful and charming an effect through
all parts of the book of God. Yes (we cordially unite with the objectors in
saying it), here is the phraseology, the tone, the accent of a Moses; there, of
a John: here, of an Isaiah; there, of an Amos: here, of a Daniel or of a Peter;
there, of a Nehemiah, there again of a Paul. We recognise them, listen to them,
see them. Here, one may say, there is no room for mistake We admit the fact; we
delight in studying it; we profoundly admire it; and we see in it, as we shall
have occasion more than once to repeat, one additional proof of the divine
wisdom which has dictated the Scriptures.

[2]. Of what consequence to the fact of the divine inspiration is the absence or
the concurrence of the sacred writers’ affections? Cannot God equally employ
them or dispense with them? He who can make a statue speak, can he not, as he
pleases, make a child of man speak? He who rebuked by means of a dumb animal the
madness of one prophet, can he not put into another prophet the sentiments or
the words which suit best the plan of his revelations? He that caused to come
forth from the wall a hand, without any mind of its own to direct it, that it
might write for him those terrible words, “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” could
he not equally guide the intelligent and pious pen of his apostle, in order to
its tracing for him such words as these: “I say the truth in Christ, and my
conscience bears me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the
flesh, and who are Israelites”? Know you how God acts, and how he abstains from
acting? Will you teach us the mechanism of inspiration? Will you say what is the
difference between its working where individuality is discoverable, and its
working where individuality is not discoverable? Will you explain to us why the
concurrence of the thoughts, the recollections, and the emotions of the sacred
writers, should diminish aught of their theopneustia? and will you tell us
whether this very concurrence may not form part of it? There is a gulf
interposed betwixt the fact of this individuality and the consequence you deduce
from it; and your understanding is no more competent to descend into that gulf
to contest the reality of theopneustia than ours is to explain it. Was there not
a great amount of individuality in the language of Caiaphas, when that wicked
man, full of the bitterest spite, abandoning himself to the counsels of his own
evil heart, and little dreaming that he was giving utterance to the words of
God, cried out in the Jewish council, “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that
it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people?” Certainly there
was in these words, we should say, abundance of individuality; and yet we find
it written that Caiaphas spake this not of himself (ἀφ᾿ ἐαυτοῦ), but that, being
high priest for that year, “he prophesied,” unconsciously, that Jesus should
die, “in order that He might gather into one the children of God that were
scattered abroad.” — (John 11:49-52.)

Why, then, should not the same Spirit, in order to the utterance of the words of
God, employ the pious affections of the saints, as well as the wicked and
hypocritical thoughts of his most detestable adversaries?

[3]. When a man tells us that if, in such or such a passage, the style be that
of Moses or of Luke, of Ezekiel or of John, then it cannot be that of God — it
were well that he would let us know what is God’s style. One would call our
attention, forsooth, to the accent of the Holy Ghost — would show us how to
recognise him by the peculiar cast of his phraseology, by the tone of his voice;
and would tell us wherein, in the language of the Hebrews or in that of the
Greeks, his supreme individuality reveals itself!

[4]. It should not be forgotten, that the sovereign action of God, in the
different fields in which it is displayed, never excludes the employment of
second causes. On the contrary, it is in the concatenation of their mutual
bearings that he loves to make his mighty wisdom shine forth. In the field of
creation he gives us plants by the combined employment of all the elements —
heat, moisture, electricity, the atmosphere, light, the mechanical attraction of
the capillary vessels, and the manifold operations of the organs of vegetation.
In the field of providence, he accomplishes the development of his vastest plans
by means of the unexpected concurrence of a thousand millions of human wills,
alternately intelligent and yielding, or ignorant and rebellious. “Herod and
Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel” (influenced by so many
diverse passions), “were gathered together,” he tells us, only “to do whatsoever
his hand and counsel had determined before to be done.” Thus, too, in the field
of prophecy does he bring his predictions to their accomplishment. He prepares,
for example, long beforehand, a warlike prince in the mountains of Persia, and
another in those of Media; the former of these he had. indicated by name two
hundred years before; he unites them at the point named with ten other nations
against the empire of the Chaldeans; he enables them to surmount a thousand
obstacles; and makes them at last enter the great Babylon, at the moment when
the seventy years, so long marked out for the captivity of the Jewish people,
had come to a close. In the field of his miracles, even, he is pleased still to
make use of second causes. There he had only to say, “Let the thing be, and it
would have its being;” but he desired, by employing inferior agents, even in
that ease to let us know that it is he that gives power to the feeblest of them.
To divide the Red Sea, he not only causes the rod of Moses to be stretched out
over the deep — he sends from the east a mighty wind, which blows all night, and
makes the waters go back. To cure the man that was born blind, he makes clay and
anoints his eyelids. In the field of redemption, instead of converting a soul by
an immediate act of his will, he presents motives to it, he makes it read the
Gospel, he sends preachers to it; and thus it is that, while it is he who “gives
us to will and to do according to his good pleasure,” he “begets us by his own
will, by the word of truth.” Well, then, why should it not be thus in the field
of inspiration (theopneustia)? Wherefore, when he sends forth his Word, should
he not cause it to enter the understanding, the heart, and the life of his
servants, as he puts it upon their lips? Wherefore should he not associate their
personality with what they reveal to us? Wherefore should not their sentiments,
their history, their experiences, form part of their inspiration (theopneustia)?

[5]. What may, moreover, clearly expose the error involved in this alleged
difficulty, is the extreme inconsistency shown in the use that is made of it? In
fact, in order to impugn the plenary inspiration of certain portions of the
Scriptures, the individuality with which they are marked is insisted on; and yet
it is admitted that other parts of the sacred books, in which this character is
equally manifest, must have been given directly by God, even to the most minute
details. Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the author of the Apocalypse,
have each stamped upon their prophecies their peculiar style, features, manner —
in a word, their mark; just as Luke, Mark, John, Paul, and Peter have been able
to do in their narratives, or in their letters. There is no validity, then, in
the objection. If it proved any thing, it would prove too much. [6]. What still
farther strikes us in this objection, and in the intermittent system of
inspiration with which it is associated, is its triple character of
complication, rashness, and childishness. Complication; for it is assumed that
the divine action, in dictating the Scriptures, intermitted or fell off as often
as the passage falls in the scale of difficulty, or in the scale of importance;
and thus God is made to retire or advance successively in the mind of the sacred
writer during the course of one and the same chapter, or one and the same
passage! Rashness; for the majesty of the Scriptures not being recognised, it is
boldly assumed that they are of no importance, and require no wisdom beyond that
of man, except in some of their parts. We add childishness; one is afraid, it is
alleged, to attribute to God useless miracles, — as if the Holy Ghost, after
having, as is admitted, dictated, word for word, one part of the Scriptures,
must find less trouble in doing nothing more elsewhere than aiding the sacred
author by enlightening him, or leaving him to write by himself under mere
superintendence!

[7]. But this is by no means all. What most of all makes us protest against a
theory according to which the Scriptures are classed into the inspired, the
half-inspired, and the uninspired (as if this sorry doctrine behoved to flow
from the individuality stamped upon them), is its direct opposition to the
Scriptures. One part of the Bible is from man (people venture to say), and the
other part is from God. And yet, mark what its own language on the subject is.
It protests that “ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” It points to no
exception. What right, then, can we have to make any, when itself admits none?
Just because people tell us, if there be in the Scriptures a certain number of
passages which could not have been written except under plenary inspiration,
there are others for which it would have been enough for the author to have
received some eminent gifts, and others still which might have been composed
even by a very ordinary person! Be it so; but how does this bear upon the
question? When you have been told who the author of a book is, you know that all
that is in that book is from him — the easy and the difficult, the important and
the unimportant. If, then, the whole Bible “is given by inspiration of God,” of
what consequence is it to the question that there are passages, in your eyes,
more important or more difficult than others? The least among the companions of
Jesus might no doubt have given us that 5th verse of the 11th chapter of St
John, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus;” as the most petty
schoolmaster also might have composed that first line of Athalie, “Into his
temple, lo! I come, Jehovah to adore.” But were we told that the great Racine
employed some village schoolmaster to write out his drama, at his dictation,
should we not continue, nevertheless, still to attribute to him all its parts —
its first line, the notation of the scenes, the names of the dramatis personæ,
the indications of their exits and their entrances; as well as the most sublime
strophes of his choruses? If, then, God himself declares to us his having
dictated the whole Scriptures, who shall dare to say that that 5th verse of the
11th chapter of St John is less from God than the sublime words with which the
Gospel begins, and which describe to us the eternal Word? Inspiration, no doubt,
may be perceptible in certain passages more clearly than in others; but it is
not, on that account, less real in the one case than in the other. In a word,
were there some parts of the Bible without inspiration, no longer could it be
truly said that the whole Bible is divinely inspired. No longer would it be
throughout the Word of God. It would have deceived us.

[8]. Here it is of special importance to remark, that this fatal system of a
gradual, imperfect, and intermittent inspiration, has its origin in that
misapprehension to which we have more than once had occasion to advert. It is
because people have almost always wished to view inspiration in the man, while
it ought to have been seen only in the book. It is “ALL SCRIPTURE,” it is all
that is written, that is inspired of God. We are not told, and we are not asked,
how God did it. All that is attested to us is that He has done it. And what we
have to believe is simply that, whatever may have been the method he took for
accomplishing it. To this deceptive point of view, which some have thought good
to take in contemplating the fact of inspiration, the three following illusions
may be traced: —

First; in directing their regards to inspiration in the sacred author, people
have naturally been led to figure it to themselves as art extraordinary
excitation in him, of which tie was conscious, which took him out of himself,
which animated him, after the manner of the ancient Pythonesses, with an afflatu
divino, a divine fire, easily discernible; in such sort, that wherever his words
are simple, calm, familiar, they have been unable to see how divine inspiration
could be attributed to him.

Next; in contemplating inspiration in persons, people have farther been led to
attribute to it different degrees of perfection, seeing they knew that the
sacred authors had themselves received very different measures of illumination
and personal holiness. But if you contemplate inspiration in the book, then you
will immediately perceive that it cannot exist there in degrees. A word is from
God, or it is not from God. If it be from God, it is not so after two different
fashions. Whatever may have been the spiritual state of the writer, if all he
writes be divinely inspired, all his words are from God. And (mark well) it is
according to this principle that no Christian will hesitate, any more than Jesus
Christ has done, to rank the scriptures of Solomon with those of Moses, any more
than those of Mark or of Matthew with those of the disciple whom Jesus loved —
nay, with the words of the Son of God himself: They are all from God. Finally;
by a third illusion, from contemplating inspiration in the men who wrote the
Scriptures, not in the Scriptures which they wrote, people have been naturally
led to deem it absurd that God should reveal miraculously to any one what that
person knew already. They would, on this ground, deny the inspiration of those
passages in which the sacred writers simply tell what they had seen, or simply
state opinions, such as any man of plain good sense might express without being
inspired. But it will be quite otherwise the moment inspiration is viewed, not
as in the writer, but as in that which is written. Then it will be seen that all
has been traced under God’s guidance — both the things which the writer knew
already and those of which he knew nothing. Who is not sensible, to give an
example, that the case in which I should dictate to a student a book on
geometry, altogether differs from that in which, after having instructed him
more or less perfectly in that science, I should employ him to compose a book on
it himself under my auspices? In the latter work, it is true, he would require
my intervention only in the difficult propositions; but then, who would “think
of saying the book was mine? In the former case, on the contrary, all parts of
the book, easy and difficult alike, from the quadrature of the transcendental
curves to the theory of the straight line or of the triangle, would be mine.
Well, then, so is it with the Bible. It is not, as some will have it, a book
which God employed men, whom he had previously enlightened, to write under his
auspices. No — it is a book which he dictated to them; it is the word of God;
the Spirit of the Lord spike by its authors, and his words were upon their
tongues.

[9]. That the style of Moses, Ezekiel, David, St Luke, and St John, may be at
the same time God’s style, is what a child might tell us.

Let us suppose that some modern French author had thought good, at the
commencement of the present century, to aim at popularity by borrowing for a
time the style, we shall say, of Chateaubriand; might it not then be said with
equal truth, but in two different senses, that the style was the author’s and
yet the style too of Chateaubriand? And if, to save the French from some
terrible catastrophe by bringing them back to the Gospel, God should condescend
to employ certain prophets among them, by the mouths of whom he should proclaim
his message, would not these men have to preach in French? What, then, would be
their style, and what would you require in it, in order to its being recognised
as that of God? If such were his pleasure, one of these prophets might speak
like Fénélon, another like Bonaparte; in which case there is no doubt that it
would be, in one sense, the curt, barking, jerking style of the great captain;
also, and in the same sense, the sustained and varied flow of the priest of
Cambray’s rounded eloquence; while in another, and a higher and truer sense, it
would, in both these mouths, be the style of God, the manner of God, the word of
God. No doubt, on every occasion on which he has revealed himself, God might
have caused an awful voice to resound from heaven, as of old from the top of
Sinai, or on the banks of the Jordan. (Exodus 19 :; John 12:29) His messengers,
at least, might have been only angels of light. But even then what languages
would these angels have spoken? Evidently those of the earth! And if he behoved
on this earth to substitute for the syntax of heaven and the vocabulary of the
archangels, the words and the constructions of the Hebrews or the Greeks, why
not equally have borrowed their manners, style, and personality?

[10]. This there is no doubt that he did, but not so as that anything was left
to chance. “Known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the world;
(Acts 15:18) and just as, year after year, he causes the tree to put forth its
leaves as well for the season when they respire the atmospheric elements, and,
co-operating with the process at the roots, can safely draw nourishment from
their juices, as for that in which the caterpillars that are to spin their silk
on its branches are hatched and feed upon them; just as he prepared a gourd for
the very place and the very night on which Jonah was to come and seat himself to
the east of Nineveh, and when the next morning dawned, a gnawing worm when the
gourd was to be withered; so, too, when he would proceed to the most important
of his doings, and cause that Word to be written which is to outlast the heavens
and the earth, the Lord God could prepare long beforehand each of those
prophets, for the moment and for the testimony to which he had foreordained them
from eternity. He chose them, in succession, for their several duties, from
among all men born of women; and, with respect to them, fulfilled in its
perfection that saying, “Send, O Lord, by the hand thou shouldst send.” (Exo
4:13) As a skilful musician, when he would execute a long score by himself,
takes up by turns the funereal flute, the shepherd’s pipe, the merry fife, or
the trumpet that summons to battle; so did Almighty God, when he would make us
hear his eternal word, choose out from of old the instruments which it seemed
fit to him to inspire with the breath of his spirit. “He chose them before the
foundation of the world, and separated them from their mother’s womb.” (Gal
1:15; Ephesiansi. 4) Has the reader ever paid a visit to the astonishing
organist, who so charmingly elicits the tourist’s tears in the Cathedral at
Freiburg, as he touches one after another his wondrous keys, and greets your ear
by turns with the march of warriors on the river- side, the voice of prayer sent
up from the lake during the fury of the storm, or of thanksgiving when it is
hushed to rest? All your senses are electrified, for you seem to have seen all,
and to have heard all. Well, then, it was thus that the Lord God, mighty in
harmony, applied, as it were, the finger of his Spirit to the stops which he had
chosen for the hour of his purpose, and for the unity of his celestial hymn. He
had from eternity before him all the human stops which he required; his
Creator’s eye embraces at a glance this range of keys stretching over threescore
centuries; and when he would make known to our fallen world the everlasting
counsel of his redemption, and the coming of the Son of God, he put his left
hand on Enoch, the seventh man from Adam, (Jude 1:14) and his right on John, the
humble and sublime prisoner of Patmos. The celestial anthem, seven hundred years
before the flood, began with these words, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten
thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all;” but already, in the mind
of God, and in the eternal harmony of his work, the voice of John had answered
to that of Enoch, and closed the hymn, three thousand years after him, with
these words, “Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and
they also which pierced him! Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen!” And
during this hymn of thirty centuries, the Spirit of God never ceased to breathe
in all his messengers; the angels, an apostle tells us, desired to look into its
wondrous depths, (1Pe 1:12) God’s elect were moved, and life eternal came down
into the souls of men.

Between Enoch and St John, listen to Jeremiah, twenty four centuries after the
one, and seven hundred years before the other, “Before I formed thee in the
belly,” saith the Lord, “I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the
womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jer
1:5-7) In vain did this alarmed man exclaim, “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot
speak: for I am a child.” The Lord answers him, “Say not, I am a child: for thou
shalt speak whatsoever I command thee;” and the Lord put forth his hand and
touched his mouth, “Behold,” Said he, “I have put my words in thy mouth.”

Between Enoch and Jeremiah, listen to Moses. He, too, struggles on Mount Horeb
against the call of the Lord, “Alas, O my Lord, I am not eloquent; send, I pray
thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” But the anger of the Lord is
kindled against Moses. “Who hath made man’s mouth?” he says to him. “Now
therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and will teach thee what thou shalt
say.” (Exo 4:10, &c. &c.)

Between Jeremiah and John, listen to Paul of Tarsus, “When it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother’s womb, to reveal his Son in me, he called me by his
grace, that I might preach him among the heathen.” (Gal 1:15-16)

You see, then, it was sometimes the artless and sublime simplicity of John;
sometimes the impassioned, elliptical, rousing, and logical energy of Paul;
sometimes the fervour and solemnity of Peter; it was Isaiah’s magnificent, and
David’s lyrical poetry; it was the simple and majestic narratives of Moses, or
the sententious and royal wisdom of Solomon — yes, it was all this; it was
Peter, it was Isaiah, it was Matthew, it was John, it was Moses; yet it was God.
“Are not all these which speak Galileans?” the people exclaimed on the day of
Pentecost; yes, they are so; but the message that is on their lips comes from
another country — it is from heaven. Listen to it; for tongues of fire have
descended on their heads, and it is God that speaks to you by their mouths.

[11]. Finally, we would fain that people should understand that this human
individuality to which our attention is directed in the Scriptures, far from
leaving any stain there, or from being an infirmity there, stamps upon them, on
the contrary, a divine beauty, and powerfully reveals to us their inspiration.

Yes, we have said that it is God who speaks to us there, but it is also man; —
it is man, but it is also God. Admirable Word of God! it has been made man in
its own way, as the eternal Word was! Yes, God has made it also come down to us
full of grace and truth, like unto our words in all things, yet without error
and sin!

Admirable Word, divine Word, yet withal full of humanity, much-to-be-loved Word
of my God! Yes, in order to our understanding it, it had of necessity to be put
upon mortal lips, that it might relate human things; and, in order to attract
our regard, behoved to invest itself with our modes of thinking, and with all
the emotions of our voice; for God well knew whereof we are made. But we have
recognised it as the Word of the Lord, mighty, efficacious, sharper than a
two-edged sword; and the simplest among us, on hearing it, may say like Cleopas
and his friend, “Did not our hearts burn within us while it spoke to us?” With
what a mighty charm do the Scriptures, by this abundance of humanity, and by all
this personality with which their divinity is invested, remind us that the Lord
of our souls, whose touching voice they are, does himself bear a human heart on
the throne of God, although seated on the highest place, where the angels serve
him and adore him for ever! It is thus, also, that they present to us not only
that double character of variety and unity which already embellishes all the
other works of God, as Creator of the heavens and the earth; but. further, that
mingling of familiarity and authority, of sympathy and grandeur, of practical
details and mysterious majesty, of humanity and divinity, which is recognisable
in all the dispensations of the same God, as Redeemer and Shepherd of his
Church.

It is thus, then, that the Father of mercies, while speaking in his prophets,
behoved not only to employ their manner as well as their voice, and their style
as well as their pen; but, further, often to put in operation their whole
faculties of thought and feeling. Sometimes, in order to show us his divine
sympathy there, he has deemed it fitting to associate their own recollections,
their human convictions, their personal experiences, and their pious emotions,
with the words he dictated to them; sometimes, in order to remind us of his
sovereign intervention, he has preferred dispensing with this unessential
concurrence of their recollections, affections, and understanding.

Such did the Word of God behove to be.

Like Immanuel, full of grace and truth; at once in the bosom of God and in the
heart of man; mighty and sympathizing; heavenly and of the earth; sublime and
lowly; awful and familiar; God and man! Accordingly it bears no resemblance to
the God of the Rationalists. They, after having, like the disciples of Epicurus,
banished the Divinity far from man into a third heaven, would have had the Bible
also to have kept itself there. “Philosophy employs the language of the gods,”
says the too famous Strauss of Ludwigsburg, “while religion makes use of the
language of men.” No doubt she does so; she has recourse to no other; she leaves
to the philosophers and to the gods of this world their empyrean and their
language.

Studied under this aspect, considered in this character, the Word of God stands
forth without its like; it presents attractions quite unequalled; it offers to
men of all times, all places, and all conditions, beauties ever fresh; a charm
that never grows old, that always satisfies, never palls. With it, what we find
with respect to human books is reversed; for it pleases and fascinates, extends
and rises in your regard the more assiduously you read it. It seems as if the
book, the more it is studied and studied over again, grows and enlarges itself,
and that some kind unseen being comes daily to stitch in some fresh leaves. And
thus it is that the souls, alike of the learned and the simple, who have long
nourished themselves on it, keep hanging upon it as the people hung of old on
the lips of Jesus Christ. [19] They all think it incomparable; now powerful as
the sound of mighty waters; now soft and gentle, like the voice of the spouse to
her bridegroom; but always perfect, “always restoring the soul, and making wise
the simple.” [20] To what book, in this respect, would you liken it? Go and put
beside it the discourses of Plato, or Seneca, or Aristotle, or Saint Simon, or
Jean Jacques. Have you read Mahomet’s books? Listen to him but for one hour, and
your ears will tingle while beaten on by his piercing and monotonous voice. From
the first page to the last, it is still the same sound of the same trumpet;
still the same Medina horn, blown from the top of some mosque, minaret, or
war-camel; still sybilline oracles, shrill and harsh, uttered in an unvarying
tone of command and threat, whether it ordain virtue or enjoin murder; ever one
and the same voice, surly and blustering, having no bowels, no familiarity, no
tears, no soul, no sympathy.

After trying other books, if you experience religious longings open the Bible;
listen to it. Sometimes you find here the songs of angels, but of angels that
have come clown among the children of Adam. Here is the deep-sounding organ of
the Most High, but an organ that serves to soothe man’s heart and to rouse his
conscience, alike in shepherd’s cots and in palaces; alike in the poor man’s
garrets and in the tents of the desert. The Bible, in fact, has lessons for all
conditions; it brings upon the scene both the lowly and the great; it reveals
equally to both the love of God, and unveils in both the same miseries. It
addresses itself to children; and it is often children that show us there the
way to heaven and the great things of Jehovah. It addresses itself to shepherds
and herdsmen; and it is often shepherds and herdsmen who lift up their voices
there, and reveal to us the character of God. It speaks to kings and to scribes;
and it is often kings and scribes that teach us there man’s wretchedness,
humiliation, confession, and prayer. Domestic scenes, confessions of conscience,
pourings forth of prayer in secret, travels, proverbs, revelations of the depths
of the heart, the holy courses pursued by a child of God, weaknesses unveiled,
falls, recoveries, inward experiences, parables, familiar letters, theological
treatises, sacred commentaries on some ancient Scripture, national chronicles,
military annals, political statistics, descriptions of God, portraits of angels,
celestial visions, practical counsels, rules of life, solutions of cases of
conscience, judgments of the Lord, sacred hymns, predictions of future events,
narratives of what passed during the days preceding our creation, sublime odes,
inimitable pieces of poetry; — all this is found there by turns; and all this
meets our view in most delightful variety, and presenting a whole whose majesty,
like that of a temple, is overpowering. Thus it is, that, from its first to its
last page, the Bible behoved to combine with its majestic unity the indefinable
charm of human-like instruction, familiar, sympathetic, personal, and the charm
of a drama extending over forty centuries. In the Bible of Desmarets, it is
said, “There are fords here for lambs, and there are deep waters where elephants
swim.” But behold, at the same time, what unity, and, lo! what innumerable and
profound harmonies in this immense variety! Under all forms it is still the same
truth; ever man lost, and God the Saviour; ever man with his posterity coming
forth out of Eden and losing the tree of life, and the second Adam with his
people re-entering paradise, and regaining possession of the tree of life; ever
the same cry uttered in tones innumerable, “O heart of man, return to thy God,
for he pardoneth! We are in the gulf of perdition; let us come out of it; a
Saviour hath gone down into it… He bestows holiness as he bestows life.”

“Is it possible that a book at once so sublime and so simple can be the work of
man?” was asked of the philosophers of the last century by one who was himself
too celebrated a philosopher. And all its pages have replied, No — it is
impossible; for every where, traversing so many ages, and whichever it be of the
God-employed writers that holds the pen, king or shepherd, scribe or fisherman,
priest or publican, you everywhere perceive that one same Author, at a thousand
years’ interval, and that one same eternal Spirit, has conceived and dictated
all; — every where, at Babylon as at Horeb, at Jerusalem as at Athens, at Rome
as at Patmos, you will find described the same God, the same world, the same
men, the same angels, the same future, the same heaven: — every where, whether
it be a poet or a historian that addresses you, whether it be in the plains of
the desert in the age of Pharaoh, or in the prisons of the capitol in the days
of the Cæsars — everywhere in the world the same ruin; in man the same
impotency; in the angels the same elevation, the same innocence, the same
charity; in heaven the same purity, the same happiness, the same meeting
together of truth and mercy, the same mutual embracing of righteousness and.
peace; the same counsels of a God who blotteth out iniquity, and who,
nevertheless, doth not clear the guilty.

We conclude, therefore, that the abundance of humanity to be found in the
Scriptures, far from compromising their divine inspiration, is only one farther
mark of their divinity.


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  CHAPTER 5: 02 SCRIPTURAL PROOF OF THE DIVINE INSPIRATION
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Scriptural Proof of the Divine Inspiration LET US open the Scriptures. — What do
they say of their inspiration?

Section 1 All Scripture is Divinely Inspiried.

We shall commence by reproducing here that oft-repeated passage, 2Ti 3:16, “All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God;” (Luk 19:48; ὁ λαὸς γὰρ.κ.τ.λ) that is
to say, all parts of it are given by the Spirit or by the breath of God. This
statement admits of no exception and of no restriction. Here there is no
exception; it is ALL SCRIPTURE; it is all that is written (πᾶσα γραφὴ); meaning
thereby the thoughts after they have received the stamp of language. — No
restriction; all Scripture is in such wise a work of God, that it is represented
to us as uttered by the divine breathing, just as human speech is uttered by the
breathing of a man’s mouth. The prophet is the mouth of the Lord. The purport of
this declaration of St Paul remains the same in both the constructions that may
be put upon his words, whether we place, as our versions do, the affirmation of
the phrase on the word θεόπνευστος (divinely inspired), and suppose the verb to
be understood (all Scripture is divinely inspired, profitable…); or, making the
verb apply to the words that follow, we understand θεόπνευστος (divinely
inspired) only as a determinative adjective (all Scripture divinely inspired of
God, is profitable …). — This last construction would even give more force than
the first to the apostle’s declaration. For then, as his statement would
necessarily relate to the whole Scripture of the holy Letters (τὰ ἱερὰ
γράμματα), of which he had been speaking, would assume, as an admitted and
incontestable principle, that the simple mention of the holy Letters implies of
itself that Scriptures inspired by God are meant.

Nevertheless it will be proper to give a farther expression of this same truth,
by some other declaration of our holy books.

Section 2. All Prophetic Utterances Given by God.

St Peter in his second epistle, at the close of the first chapter, thus
expresses himself: “Knowing this first, that no Scripture is of any private
interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” — Note on this
passage:

[1]. That it relates to written revelations (προφηητεία γραφῆς);

[2]. That never (οὐ ποτὲ) did any of these come through the impulsion or the
government of a wilt of man;

[3]. That it was as urged or moved by the Holy Ghost that those holy men wrote
and spoke;

[4]. Finally, that their writings are called by the name of prophecy.

It will be proper then, before we proceed farther, to have the scriptural
meaning of these words prophecy, prophesy, prophet (ðָëִéà) precisely
determined; because it is indispensable for the investigation with which we are
occupied, that this be known, and because the knowledge of it will throw much
light on the whole question.

Various and often very inaccurate meanings have been given to the biblical term
prophet; but an attentive examination of the passages in which it is employed,
will soon convince us that it constantly designates, in the Scriptures, “a man
whose mouth utters the words of God.”

Among the Greeks, this name was at first given only to the interpreter and the
organ of the vaticinations pronounced in the temples (ἐ᾿᾿ξηγητὴς ἔνθεων
μανείων). This sense of the word is fully explained by a passage in the Timæus
of Plato. (Psa 19:7) The most celebrated prophets of pagan antiquity were those
of Delphos. They conducted the Pythoness to the tripod, and were charged with
the interpretation of the oracles of the god, or the putting of them into
writing. And it was only afterwards, by an extension of this its first meaning,
that the name of prophet was given among the Greeks to poets, who, commencing
their songs with an invocation of Apollo and the Muses, were deemed to give
utterance to the language of the gods, and to speak under their inspiration. A
prophet, in the Bible, is a man, then, in whose mouth God puts the words which
he wishes to be heard upon earth; and it was further by allusion to the fulness
of this meaning that God said to Moses, (Exo 7:1) that Aaron should be his
prophet unto Pharaoh, according as he had told him (at Exo 4:16): “He shall be
to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.”

Mark, in Scripture, how the prophets testify of the Spirit that makes them
speak, and of the wholly divine authority of their words: you will ever find in
their language one uniform definition of their office, and of their inspiration.
They speak; it is, no doubt, their voice that makes itself heard; it is their
person that is agitated; it is, no doubt, their soul also that often is moved; —
but their words are not only theirs; they are, at the same time, the words of
Jehovah.

“The mouth of the Lord hath spoken;” — “the Lord hath spoken,” they say
unceasingly. (Mic 4:4; Jer 9:12; Jer 13:15; Jer 30:4; Jer 50:1; Jer 51:12; Isa
8:11; Amo 3:1; Deu 18:21-22; Joshua 24) — “I will open my mouth in the midst of
them,” saith the Lord to his servant Ezekiel. — “The Spirit of the Lord spake by
me, and his word was in my tongue,” said the royal psalmist. (2Sa 23:1-2) —
“Hear the word of the Lord!” It is thus that the prophets announce what they are
about to say. (Isa 28:14; Jer 19:3; Jer 10:1; Jer 17:20) — “Then was the word of
the Lord upon me,” is what they often say.

— “The word of God came unto Shemaiah;” — “the word of God came to Nathan;” “the
word of God came unto John in the wilderness;” (1Ki 12:22; 1Ch 17:3; Luk 3:2) —
“the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:” (Jer 11:1; Jer 7:1; Jer 18:1;
Jer 18:21; 26:1; 27:1; 30:1; and in many other places. See Eze 1:3; Jer 1:1-2;
Jer 1:9; Jer 1:14; Eze 3:4; Eze 3:10-11; Hos 1:1-2, &c) — “the burden of the
word of the Lord by Malachi;” (Mal 1:1) — “the word of the Lord that came unto
Hosea;” (Hos 1:1) — “In the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by
Haggai, the prophet.” (Hag 1:1) This word came down upon the men of God when it
pleased, and often in the most unlooked-for manner.

It is thus that God, when he sent Moses, said to him, “I will be with thy mouth;
(Exo 4:12; Exo 4:15) and that, when he made Balaam speak, “he put a word in
Balaam’s mouth.” (ἐνίβαλεν (οἱ έι); Num 23:5) The apostles, too, quoting a
passage from David in their prayer, express themselves in these words: “Thou,
Lord, hast said by the mouth of thy servant David.” (Acts 4:25) — And St Peter,
addressing the multitude of the disciples: “Men and brethren, this scripture
must needs have been fulfilled, which the HOLY GHOST, BY THE MOUTH OF DAVID,
spake before concerning Judas.” (Acts 1:16) The same apostle also, in the holy
place, under Solomon’s porch, cried to the people of Jerusalem, “But those
things which God before HAD SHOWED BY THE MOUTH OF ALL HIS PROPHETS, that Christ
should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.” (Acts 3:18) In the view of the apostles,
then, David in his psalms, and all the prophets in their writings, whatever
might be the pious emotions of their souls, were only the mouth of the Holy
Ghost. It was DAVID WHO SPOKE; it was the prophets WHO SHOWED; but it was also
God THAT SPAKE BY THE MOUTH of David, his servant; it was God WHO SHOWED BY THE
MOUTH of all his prophets. — (Acts 1:16; Acts 3:18; Acts 3:21; Acts 4:25.)

And, yet again, let the reader be so good as carefully to examine, as it stands
in the Greek, that expression which recurs so often in the Gospel, and which is
so conclusive, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken BY THE PROPHET, —
(and even) which was spoken OF THE LORD BY THE PROPHET, (ΔΙΑ τοῦ προφήτου, — and
even, ΥΠΟ τοῦ Κυρὶου ΔΙ Α τοῦ προφήτου), saying.” (Mat 1:22; Mat 2:5; Mat 2:15;
Mat 2:23; Mat 13:35; Mat 21:4; Mat 27:9; Mat 4:14; Mat 8:17; Mat 12:17)…

It is in a quite analogous sense that holy scripture gives the name of prophets
and of false prophets to impostors, who lied among the Gentiles, in the temples
of the false gods, whether they were only common cheats, falsely pretending to
visions from God, or whether they were really the mouth or an occult power, of a
malevolent angel, of a spirit of Python. (Acts 13:6; Jer 29:1-8; 2Ki 18:19. The
LXX. Often render נכיאby ψευδοτροφήτης (Jer 6:13; Jer 26:7-8; Jer 26:11; Jer
26:16; Jer 21:1; Jer 21:8; Zec 13:2)) And it is, farther, in the same sense that
St Paul, in quoting a verse of Epimenides, a poet, priest, and soothsayer among
the Cretans, called him “one of their prophets;” because all the Greeks
consulted him as an oracle; because Nicias was sent into Crete by the Athenians
to fetch him to purify their city; and because Aristotle, Strabo, [21] Suidas,
[22] and Diogenes Laertius [23] tell us that he undertook to foretell the
future, and to discover things unknown. From all these quotations, accordingly,
it remains established, that in the language of the Scriptures the prophecies
are “the words of God put into the mouth of man.”

Accordingly, it is by a manifest abuse also, that in common language people seem
to understand no more by that word than a miraculous prediction. The prophecies
could reveal the past as well as the future; they denounced God’s judgments;
they interpreted his Word; they sang his praises; they consoled his people; they
exhorted souls to holiness; they testified of Jesus Christ. And as “no prophecy
came by the will of man,” (2Pe 1:21) a prophet, as we have already intimated,
was such only at intervals, “and as the Spirit gave him utterance.” — (Acts
2:4.) A man prophesied sometimes without foreseeing it, sometimes too without
knowing it, and sometimes even without desiring it.

I have said, without foreseeing it; and often at the very moment when he could
least expect it. Such was the old prophet of Bethel. — (1Ki 13:20.) I have said,
without knowing it; such was Caiaphas. — (John 11:51.) Finally, I have said,
without desiring it; such was Balaam, when, wishing three times to curse Israel,
he could not, three successive times, make his mouth utter any words but those
of benediction. — (Numbers 23, 24.)

We shall give other examples to complete the demonstration of what a prophecy
generally is, and thus to arrive at a fuller comprehension of the extent of the
action of God in what St Peter calls written prophecy (προφητείαν γραφῆς).

We read in the 11th of Numbers (25th to the 29th verses), that, as soon as the
Lord made the Spirit to rest upon the seventy elders, “they prophesied;” but (it
is added) “they did not cease.” The Spirit, then, came upon them at an
unexpected moment; and after he had thus “spoken by them,” and his word “had
been upon their tongue,” (2Sa 23:2), they preserved nothing more of this
miraculous gift, and were prophets only for a day.

We read in the First Book of Samuel (1Sa 10:11), with what unforeseen power the
Spirit of the Lord seized young king Saul at the moment when, as he sought for
his father’s she-asses, he met a company of prophets who came down from the holy
place. “What is this that is come to the son of Kish,” said they one to another;
“Is Saul also among the prophets?”

We read at the 19th chapter, something still more striking. Saul sends to Ramah
men who were to take David; but no sooner did they meet Samuel and the company
of prophets over whom he was set, than the Spirit of the Lord came upon these
men of war, and “they also prophesied.” Saul sends others, and “they also
prophesy.” Saul at last goes thither himself, and “he also prophesied all that
day and all that night before Samuel.” “The Spirit of God,” we are told, “WAS
UPON HIM,” But it is particularly by an attentive study of the 12th and 14th
chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, that one obtains an exact
knowledge of what the action of God, and the part assigned to man severally,
were in prophecy. The apostle there gives the Church of Corinth the rules that
were to be followed in the use of this miraculous gift. His counsels will be
found to throw a deal of light on this important subject. One will then
recognise at once the following facts and principles: — [1]. The Holy Ghost at
that time conferred upon the faithful, for the common advantage, a great variety
of gifts (1Sa 12:8-10); — to one that of miracles; to another that of healing;
to another, discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of tongues, which
the man himself did not understand when he spoke them; to another, the
interpretation of tongues; to another, in fine, prophecy — that is, uttering
with his own tongue words dictated by God.

[2]. One and the selfsame Spirit divided severally as he would these different
miraculous powers. (Verse 11. See also Eph 4:7; and Acts 19:1-6)

[3]. These gifts were a just subject of Christian desire and ambition. (ζηλοῦτε,
14:1, 39.) But the one that was to be regarded as the most desirable of all, was
that of prophesying; for one could speak an unknown tongue without edifying any
body, and that miracle was “useful rather to the unbelievers than to believers;”
whereas “he that prophesied spoke unto men to edification, and exhortation, and
comfort.” — (1Co 14:1-3.)

[4]. That prophecy — that is to say, those words that fell miraculously on the
lips that the Holy Ghost had chosen for such an office — that prophecy assumed
very different forms. Sometimes the Spirit gave a psalm, sometimes a doctrine,
sometimes a revelation; sometimes, too, it was a miraculous interpretation of
that which others had miraculously expressed in strange tongues. (Ver. 26 to 31;
and 1Sa 10:6; 1Sa 18:10)

[5]. In those prophecies there was evidently a work of God and a work of man.
They were the words of the Holy Ghost; but they were also the words of the
prophet. It was God that spoke, but in men, by men, for men; and there you would
have found, as on other occasions, the sound of their voice — perhaps also the
habitual peculiarities of their style — perhaps, moreover, allusions to their
own experience, to their position at the time, to their individuality.

[6]. These miraculous facts continued in the primitive Church throughout the
long career of the apostles. St Paul, who wrote his letter to the Corinthians
twenty years after the death of Jesus Christ, speaks of them as a common and
habitual order of things, for some time existing among them, and which ought
still to continue.

[7]. The prophets, although they were the mouth of God to make his words heard,
were not, however, absolutely passive while engaged in prophesying.

“The spirits of the prophets,” says St Paul, “are subject to the prophets” (1Co
14:32); that is to say, that the men of God, while his prophetic word was on
their lips, could nevertheless check its escape by the repressive action of
their own wills; nearly as a man suspends, when he wishes to do so, the almost
involuntary course of his respiration. Thus, for example, if any revelation came
upon one of those that were sitting, the first that spoke had then “to hold his
peace, sit down, and let him speak.”

Let us now apply these principles and these facts to the prophecy of Scripture
(τῇ προφητείᾳ γραφῆς), and to the passage of St Peter, for the explanation of
which we have adduced them. “No prophecy of the Scripture,” says he “is of any
private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by a will of man:
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” — (2Pe 1:21.)

Here, then, we have the plenary and entire inspiration of the Scriptures clearly
established by the apostle ere we have the SCRIPTURE assimilated to those
prophecies which we have just defined. It “came not by a will of man;” it is
entirely dictated by the Holy Ghost; it gives us the very words of God; it is
entirely (ε2νθεος and θεόπνευστος) given by the breath of God. Who would dare
then, after such declarations, to maintain, that in the Scriptures the
expressions are not inspired? They are WRITTEN PROPHECIES (πᾶσα προφητεία
γραγῆς). One sole difficulty, accordingly, is all that can any longer be opposed
to our conclusion. The testimony and the reasoning on which it rests, are so
clearly valid, that one can elude them only by this objection. We agree, it will
be said, that written prophecy (προφητεία γραγῆς) has, without contradiction,
been composed by that power of the Holy Ghost which was put forth in the
prophets; but the rest of the book, the Epistles, the Gospels, and the Acts, the
Proverbs, the Books of Kings, and so many other purely historical writings, are
not entitled to be put in the same rank. Here, then, let us pause; and, before
replying, see clearly the extent of our argument. It ought already to be fully
acknowledged, that all that part of the Scriptures at least called PROPHECY,
whatever it be, has been completely dictated by God; so that the words as well
as the thoughts have been given by him. But who now will permit us to establish
a distinction between any one of the books of the Bible, and all the other
books? Is not all given by prophecy? Certainly all has equally God’s warrant;
this is what we proceed to prove.

Section 3. All Old Testament Scriptures are Prophetic.

And, first of all, all the Scriptures are without distinction called THE WORD OF
GOD. This title is sufficient of itself to demonstrate to us, that if Isaiah
began his prophecies by inviting the heavens and the earth to give ear because
the Lord had spoken, (Isa 1:2) the same summons ought to come forth for us from
all the books of the Bible, for they are all called “The Word of God.” “Hear, O
heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken!”

Nowhere shall we find a single passage that permits us to detach one single part
of it as less divine than all the rest. When we say that this whole book is the
Word of God, do we not attest that the very phrases of which it is composed have
been given by him? But the whole Bible is not only called “The Word of God,” (ὁ
λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ); it is called, without distinction, THE ORACLES OF GOD (τὰV
λόγια τοῦ Θεοῦ). (Rom 3:2) Who knows not what oracles were held to he in the
ideas of men in ancient times? Was there a word that could more absolutely
express a Verbal and complete inspiration? And as if this term, which St Paul
employs, were not sufficient, we further hear Stephen, filled with the Holy
Ghost, call them the LIVING ORACLES (λογία ζῶντα); “Moses,” he says, “received
the lively oracles, to give them unto us.” — (Acts 7:38.)

All the Scriptures then, without exception, are a continuous word of God; they
are his miraculous voice; they are his written prophecies and his lively
oracles. Which of their various parts, then, would you dare to cut off? The
apostles often distinguish two parts in them, when they call them “Moses and the
Prophets.” Jesus Christ distinguished them into three parts (Luk 24:44) when he
said to his apostles, “That all things must be fulfilled which were written in
Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.” According to this
division, then, in which our Lord speaks according to the language of that time,
the Old Testament would be made up of these three parts, — Moses, the Prophets,
and the Psalms; as the New Testament is composed of the Gospels, the Acts, the
Epistles, and the Book of the Revelation. Which, then, of these three parts of
the Old Testament, or which of these four parts of the New, would you dare to
withdraw from the Scripture of the prophets (προφητείας γραφῆς), or from the
inspired Word (ἐνθέου λόγου — γραφῆς θεοπνεύστου)? Would it be Moses? But what
more holy and more divine, in the whole Old Testament, than the writings of that
man of God? He was in such sort a prophet that his holy books are placed above
all the rest, and are called emphatically THE LAW. He was in such sort a
prophet, that another prophet, speaking of his books alone, said, “The law of
the Lord is perfect” (Psa 19:7); “The words of the Lord are pure words, as
silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. — (Psa 12:6.) He was
in such sort a prophet of God, that he is compared by himself to none but the
Son of God. “This is that Moses,” it is written, “who said to the children of
Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren,
LIKE UNTO ME; him shall ye hear.” — (Acts 7:37.) He was in such sort a prophet,
that he was accustomed to preface his orders with these words: “Thus saith the
Lord.”

He was in such sort a prophet, that God said to him, “Who hath made man’s mouth?
have not I, the Lord? Now therefore go; and I will be with thy mouth, and teach
thee what thou shalt say.” — (Exo 4:11.):Finally, he was in such sort a prophet,
that it is written, “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto
Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.” — (Deu 34:10.)

What other part of the Old Testament, then, would you exclude from the prophetic
Scriptures? Shall it be the second? — that which Jesus Christ calls The
Prophets, and which comprises all the Old Testament, exclusive of Moses and the
Psalms, and sometimes exclusive of Moses alone? It is well worth noting, that
Jesus Christ, and the apostles, and the whole people, habitually call by the
name of prophets all the authors of the Old Testament. They were wont to say, in
order to designate the whole Scriptures, “Moses and the prophets.” — (Luk 24:25;
Luk 24:27; Luk 24:44; Mat 5:17; Mat 7:12; Mat 11:13; Mat 22:40; Luk 16:16; Luk
16:29; Luk 16:31; Luk 20:42; Acts 1:20; Acts 3:21-22; Acts 7:35; Acts 7:37; Acts
8:28; Acts 26:22; Acts 26:27; Acts 28:23; Rom 1:2; Rom 3:21; Rom 10:5, &c. &c.)
Jesus Christ called all their books The Prophets: — they were prophets. Joshua,
then, was a prophet; the authors of the Chronicles were prophets, quite as
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and all the rest were, down to
Malachi.

They wrote then, all of them, the prophetic Scriptures (προφητείαν γραφῆς); all,
the words of which St Peter has said, “that none of them came by a will of man;”
all, those ἱερὰ γράμματα, those holy letters, which the apostle declares to be
“divinely inspired.” (2Ti 3:16) The Lord said of all of them as of Jeremiah,
“Lo, I have put my words in thy mouth;” (Jer 1:9) and as of Ezekiel, “Son of
man, go, speak unto them MY words: speak unto them, and tell them, THUS SAITH
THE LORD GOD.” (Eze 3:10-11) And that all the phrases, all the words, were
suggested to them by God, is demonstrated by a fact stated to us more than once,
and in the study of their writings frequently brought under our eye, to wit —
that they were charged to transmit to the Church oracles, the meaning of which
was to remain veiled to their own minds. Daniel, for example, declares more than
once, that he was unable to seize the prophetic meaning of the words that
proceeded from his own lips, or were traced with his hand. (Dan 12:4; Dan
12:8-9; Dan 8:27; Dan 10:8; Dan 10:21) The types, impressed by God on all the
events of primitive history, were not to be recognised till many centuries after
the death of the men who were commissioned to relate to us their leading
features; and the Holy Ghost informs us that the prophets, after having written
out their sacred pages, set themselves to study them with the most respectful
attention, as they would have done with the other Scriptures, “searching what,
or what manner of time THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST which was in them did signify, when
it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should
follow.” (1Pe 1:10-12) Behold, then, these men of God bending over their own
writings. There they ponder the words of God and the thoughts of God. Can this
cause you any surprise, seeing that they have written for the elect of the
earth, and for the principalities and powers of heaven, the doctrines and the
glories of the Son of God, and seeing these are things “into which the angels
desire to look? (Eph 3:10-11) So much for Moses and for the Prophets; but what
will you say of the Psalms? Shall we consider these less given by the spirit of
prophecy than all the rest? Are not the authors of the Psalms always culled
prophets? (Mat 13:35; for Asaph (Psalms 78.)) And if they are sometimes, like
Moses, distinguished from the other prophets, is it not evidently in order that
a place of greater eminence may be assigned them? “David was a prophet,” says St
Peter. — (Acts 2:30.) Mark what he himself says he is: “The Spirit of the Lord
SPAKE BY ME,” says he, “and HIS WORD WAS UPON MY TONGUE,” — (2Sa 23:1-2.) “What
David wrote,” and even his words in detail, “he wrote SPEAKING BY THE HOLY
GHOST,” said our Lord. — (Mark 12:36.) The apostles also, quoting him (in their
prayer), take care to say, “This Scripture must needs have been fulfilled which
the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake.” — (Acts 1:16.) “Lord, thou art God,
who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said.” — (Acts 4:25.) What do I say?
These psalms were to such a degree all dictated by the Holy Ghost, that the
Jews, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself, call them by the name of THE LAW; [24]
all their utterances had the force of law; their smallest words were from God.
“Is it not written in your LAW?” said Jesus while quoting them, and in quoting
them even for a SINGLE WORD (as we shall soon have occasion to show). The whole
Old Testament then is, in a scriptural sense of the expression, a WRITTEN
PROPHECY (προφητεία γραφῆς). It is plenarily inspired therefore by God, seeing
that, according to the testimony of Zechariah, “it is God who spake by the mouth
of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began;” (Luk 1:70) and
because, according to that of Peter, “they spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost.” (2Pe 1:21. See also Mat 1:22; Mat 22:43; Mark 12:36)

It is true that thus far our reasonings, and the testimonies on which they are
founded, directly relate to the books of the Old Testament only; and it might
possibly he objected to us that as yet we have proved nothing for the New.

We shall begin, before we reply, with asking, If it were likely that the Lord
could have designed giving successive revelations to his people, and that,
nevertheless, the latest and the most important of these should be inferior to
the first? We would ask, It” it be rational to imagine that the first Testament,
which contained only “the shadows of things that were to come,” could have been
dictated by God in all its contents; while the second Testament, which sets
before us the grand object to which all those shadows relate, and which
describes to us the works, the character, the person, and the sayings even of
the Son of God, was to be less inspired than the first? We would ask, If one can
believe that the Epistles and the Gospels, which were destined to repeal many of
the ordinances of Moses and the Prophets, could be less divine than Moses and
the Prophets; and that the Old Testament could be throughout an utterance of
thought on the part of God, while it was to be replaced, or at least modified
and consummated, by a book emanating partly from man and partly from God? But
there is no need even of our having recourse to these powerful inductions in
order to establish the prophetic inspiration of the Gospel; nay, its superiority
to Moses and the prophets.

Section 4 All New Testament Scriptures are Prophetic. The whole tenor of
Scripture places the writers of the New Testament in the same rank with the
prophets of the Old; and even when it establishes any difference between them,
it is always in putting the last in date above the first, in so far as one of
God’s sayings is superior (not doubtless in divinity, not in dignity, but in
authority) to the saying that preceded it.

Let the reader be so good as attend to the following passage of the apostle St
Peter. It is very important, inasmuch as it lets us see that, in the lifetime of
the apostles, the book of the New Testament was already almost entirely formed,
in order to make one whole together with that of the Old. It was twenty or
thirty years after the day of Pentecost that St Peter felt gratified in
referring to ALL THE EPISTLES OF PAUL, his beloved brother, and spoke of them as
sacred writings which, even so early as his time, formed part of the Holy
Letters (ἱερῶν γραμμάτων). and behoved to be classed with THE OTHER SCRIPTURES
(ὡς καὶ τάς λοιτὰς,γραφὰς), He assigns them the same rank, and declares that
“unlearned men can wrest them but to their own destruction.” Mark this important
passage: “Our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him
hath written unto you; as also IN ALL HIS EPISTLES, speaking in them of these
things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the OTHER SCRIPTURES, unto their
own destruction.” (2Pe 3:15-16) The apostle, at the second verse of the same
chapter, had already placed himself, along with the other apostles, on the same
rank, and assumed the same authority, as the sacred writers of the Old
Testament, when he said: “That ye may he mindful of the words which were spoken
BEFORE by the holy PROPHETS, and of the commandment of us the APOSTLES of the
Lord and Saviour. The writings of the apostles, then, were that which those of
the Old Testament were; and these being a WRITTEN PROPHECY — that is to say,
something spoken altogether by God — the latter are no less so. But we have said
the Scripture goes much farther in the rank it assigns to the writers of the New
Covenant. It teaches us to consider them as even superior to those of the Old,
whether as respects the importance of their mission, or the glory of the
promises made to them, or the greatness of the gifts conferred on them — or, in
fine, the eminence of the rank assigned to them.

[1]. First, let us distinctly perceive what their mission was, compared with
that of the ancient prophets; and it will at once be seen, from passages bearing
on this point, that their inspiration could not be inferior to that of their
predecessors. When Jesus sent the apostles whom he had chosen, it is written, he
said to them: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations; teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I AM WITH YOU alway, even
unto the end of the world, Amen.” (Mat 28:19-20) “But ye shall receive power,
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part
of the earth.” (Acts 1:3) “Peace be unto you: as my FATHER HATH SENT ME, even so
SEND I YOU.” (John 20:21)

Such was their mission. They were the immediate envoys (ἀποστόλοι) of the Son of
God; they went to all nations; they had the assurance that their Master would be
present with the testimony they were to bear to him in the holy Scriptures. Did
they require, then, less inspiration for their going to the ends of the earth,
and to make disciples of all nations, than the prophets required for going to
Israel and teaching that one people, the Jews? Had they not to promulgate all
the doctrines, all the ordinances, all the mysteries of the kingdom of God? Had
they not to bear “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” in such sort, that
whatsoever they should bind or loose on earth should be bound or loosed in
heaven? (Mat 18:18; Mat 16:19) Had not Jesus Christ expressly conferred the Holy
Ghost upon them for this end, that sins might be remitted or retained with
regard to those to whom they should remit or retain them? Had he not breathed
upon them, saying, “Receive the Holy Ghost?” Had he not to reveal to them the
wondrous character of the Word made flesh, and of the Creator so abased as to
take upon him the form of a creature, and even to die upon the cross? Had they
not to report his inimitable words? Had they not to perform on earth the
miraculous intransmissible functions of his representatives and of his
ambassadors, as if it had been Christ that spoke by them? (2Co 5:20) Were they
not called to such a glory, “that, in the great final regeneration, when the Son
of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, they also should sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel?” (Mat 19:28) If then, the
prophetic Spirit was necessary for the former men of God, in order to show the
Messiah under the shadows, was it not much more necessary for them, in order to
their bringing him out into the light, and to their evidently setting him forth
as crucified amongst us, (Gal 3:1) in such a manner that he that despiseth them
despiseth him, and he that heareth them heareth him? (Luk 10:16) Let one judge
by all these traits what the inspiration of the New Testament behoved to have
been, compared with that of the Old; and let one say whether, while the latter
was wholly and entirely prophetic, that of the New could be anything less.

[2]. But this is not all; listen further to the promises that were made to them
for the performance of such a work. No human language can express with greater
force the most absolute inspiration. These promises were for the most part
addressed to them on three great occasions: first, when sent out for the first
time to preach the kingdom of God; (Mat 10:19-20) next, when Jesus himself
delivered public discourses on the gospel before art immense multitude, gathered
by tens of thousands around him; (Luk 12:12.) third, when he uttered his last
denunciation against Jerusalem and the Jewish nation. (Mark 13:11; Luk 21:14-15)

“But when they deliver you up, take no thought now or WHAT ye shall speak (πῶς ῆ
τί), for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is
not YE that speak, but the SPIRIT OF YOUR FATHER, WHICH SPEAKETH IN YOU.”

“And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers,
TAKE YE NO THOUGHT HOW or WHAT thing ye shall answer, or WHAT ye shall say; for
the Holy Ghost shall teach you IN THE SAME noun what ye ought to say.” “Take no
thought beforehand what ye shall speak, NEITHER DO YE PREMEDITATE, but
WHATSOEVER shall be GIVEN YOU in that hour, that speak ye; for it is NOT YE THAT
SPEAK, but the Holy Ghost.” On these different occasions, the Lord assured his
disciples that the fullest inspiration would regulate their language in the most
difficult and important moments of their ministry. When they should have to
speak to princes, they were to feel no disquietude; they were not even to
premeditate, they were not even to take thought about it, because there would
then be immediately given to them by God, not only the things they were to say,
but the words also in which those things were to be expressed; not only τί, but
λαλήσονται, — (Mat 10:19-20.) They behoved to cast themselves entirely on him;
it would be given them entirely; it would be given them by Jesus; it would be
given them in that same hour; it would be given them in such a manner, and in
such plenitude, that they should be able then to say that it was no more they,
but the Holy Ghost, the SPIRIT OF THEIR FATHER, which spoke IN THEM; (Mat 10:20)
and that then also it was not only an irresistible wisdom that was given them,
it was a mouth. (Luk 21:15)

“Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall
answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall
not be able to gainsay or resist.” Then (as with the ancient prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel) it shall be the Holy Ghost that will speak by them, as God
spoke by his holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:21) In one sense,
indeed, it was they that were to speak; but it shall be the Holy Ghost who will
teach them (Luk 12:12) in that same home what they are to say; so that, in
another sense, it was to be the Holy Ghost himself that was to speak by their
lips.

We ask if it were possible, in any language, to express more absolutely the most
entire inspiration, and to declare with more precision, that the very words were
then vouched by God and given to the apostles? No doubt, in these promises there
is no direct reference to the support which the apostles were to receive as
writers; and that they bear rather on what they were to expect, when they had to
appear before priests, before governors, and before kings. But is it not evident
enough, that if the most entire inspiration were assured to them (Luk 12:12) for
passing exigencies, to shut the mouths of some wicked men, to conjure the perils
of a day, and to subserve interests of the narrowest range; if it were promised
them, notwithstanding that the very words of their answers should then be given
to them by means of a calm, mighty, but inexplicable operation of the Holy
Ghost, — -is it not evident enough that the same assistance could not be refused
to those same men, when, like the ancient prophets, they had to continue the
book of God’s oracles; and so to hand down to all succeeding ages the laws of
the kingdom of heaven, and describe the glories of Jesus Christ and the scenes
of eternity? Can any one suppose that the men who, before Ananias, or Festus, or
Nero, were in such sort “the mouth of the Holy Spirit.” that then it was no
longer they that spoke, but that Spirit, should, when writing the everlasting
Gospel, have returned to the condition of ordinary beings merely enlightened,
denuded of their previous inspiration, no longer speaking by the Holy Ghost, and
thenceforward employing only words dictated by human wisdom, (θελνVματι ἀνθρώπου
καὶ ἐν διδασκτοῖς ἀνθρωπίνης σοφίας λόγοις)? This is quite inadmissible.

[3]. See them, further, commencing their apostolic ministry on the day of
Pentecost: see what gifts they received.

Tongues of fire descend on their heads; they are filled with the Holy Ghost;
they leave their upper chamber, and a vast multitude hears them proclaim, in
fifteen different languages, the wonderful works of God; they speak AS THE
SPIRIT GIVES THEM UTTERANCE; (Acts 2:4) they speak (it is said) THE WORD OF GOD
(ἐλαλουντουν τὴν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ.). (Acts 4:31) Assuredly, the words of those
foreign languages must have been then supplied to them as well as the things,
the. expression as well as the thoughts, the πὤς as well as the τί — (Mat 10:19;
Luk 12:11) Now then will it be believed, that the Spirit could have taken care
to dictate all that they behoved to say, for preachings at the corners of the
streets, the words which passed away with the sound of their voices, and which,
after all, reached only some thousands of hearers; while those same men, when
they came afterwards to write for all earth’s nations, and for all ages of the
Church, “the lively oracles of God,” were to be deprived of their first
assistance? Will it be believed, that after having been more than the ancient
prophets as respects preaching in public, they-were to he less than those
prophets, and were to become ordinary men, when they took the pen to finish the
Book of the Prophets, to write their Gospels, their Epistles, and the Book of
the Revelation? The unreasonableness and inadmissibility of such a supposition
are felt at once.

[4]. But here we have to say something still more simple and more peremptory. We
would speak of the rank that is assigned them; and indeed, after what we said of
the prophets of the Old Testament, we might even have limited ourselves to this
simple fact, that the apostles were all of them PROPHETS, and MORE THAN
PROPHETS. Their writings, therefore, are WRITTEN PROPHEClES (προγητεία γραφῆς),
as much, and even more, than those of the Old Testament; and hence we are led to
conclude once more, that all Scripture in the New Testament, as well as in the
Old, is inspired of God, even to its smallest particles.

I have said that the apostles were all prophets. They often declare this; but,
not to multiply quotations unnecessarily, we content ourselves here with
appealing to the two following passages of the apostle St. Paul. The first is
addressed to the Ephesians (Eph 3:4-5): “Whereby,” he tells them,” when ye read
WHAT I WROTE before in a few words, ye may understand my knowledge in the
mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men,
as it is now revealed unto his holy APOSTLES AND PROPHETS by the Spirit.”

One clearly sees, then, here the apostle and prophet Paul, the apostles and
prophets Matthew, John, Jude, Peter, James, received by the Spirit the
revelation of the mystery of Christ; and wrote about it as PROPHETS.

Further, it is of the same mystery, and of the writings of the same prophets,
that that same apostle speaks in the second of the passages we have indicated,
that is, in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. (Rom 16:25-27)

“Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the
preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was
kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the
SCRIPTURES OF THE PROPHETS (διά τι γραφῶν προφητικῶν), according to the
commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience
of faith: to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen!”

Here, then, we have the authors of the New Testament again called PROPHETS; we
have their writings called PROPHETICAL WRITINGS (γραφαὶ προφητικαί, the
equivalent of the προφητεία γραφῆς of St Peter). And since we have already seen
that no prophecy ever came by the will of him that uttered it, but that it was
as moved and impelled by the Holy Ghost that holy men of God spake; the prophets
of the New Testament spoke therefore like those of the Old, and according to the
commandment of the everlasting God. They were all of them prophets. (See further
Luk 11:49; Eph 2:20; Eph 3:5; Eph 4:11; Gal 1:12; 1Pe 1:12; 1Co 12:28; 1Th 2:15)
But we may advance a step farther; for, as we have said, they were MORE THAN
PROPHETS. Here again we have a remark of the learned Michaelis. [25] Loose as
are his principles on the inspiration of a part of the New Testament, this has
not escaped his notice. It is clear, according to him, looking to the context,
that, in the judgment pronounced by Jesus Christ on John Baptist (Mat 11:9; Mat
11:11), the terms great and little of the 11th verse, apply only to the title of
prophet which precedes them at the 9th verse; so that Jesus Christ there
declares, that if John Baptist is the greatest of the prophets — if he is even
more than a prophet — still the least of the prophets of the New Testament is
greater than John Baptist; that is to say, greater than the greatest of the Old
Testament prophets. (Ib., and Luk 7:23)

Besides, this superiority of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, is
more than once attested to us in the apostolical writings.

Every where, when mention is made of the different offices established in the
Churches, the apostles are placed above the prophets.

Take, for example, a very remarkable passage of the 1st Epistle to the
Corinthians. The apostle’s object is to make known to us the gradations of
excellence and dignity among the several miraculous charges constituted by God
in the primitive Church, and he expresses himself as follows: — “And God hath
set some in the Church, first APOSTLES, secondarily PROPHETS, thirdly TEACHERS,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of
tongues. (1Co 12:28) At the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians, at
verse 11, he again puts the apostles ABOVE the prophets. At chapter 2: ver. 20,
he calls the apostles, APOSTLES and PROPHETS. And at chapter 14: of the 1st
Epistle to the Corinthians, he places himself ABOVE the prophets whom God had
raised up in that Church. His wish is, that every one of them, if he have really
received the Holy Ghost, should employ the gifts he has received in
acknowledging that the things that he wrote unto them were the commandments of
the Lord; and so fully convinced is he that what he writes is dictated by
inspiration of God, that, after having dictated ORDERS to the Churches, and
concluded them with these words, which nothing short of the highest inspiration
could sanction, It is thus I ORDAIN in all the Churches, he goes farther, he
proceeds to rank himself ABOVE THE PROPHETS; or rather, being himself a prophet,
he calls upon the spirit of prophecy in them to acknowledge the words of Paul as
the words of the Lord; and he ends with these remarkable expressions: — “What?
came the word of God out from you? … If any man think himself to be a PROPHET,
or SPIRITUAL, let him acknowledge that the things that I WRITE UNTO YOU are the
COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD.” (Πνευματικὸς, 1Co 14:36-37) The writings of the
Apostles, then, are (like those of the ancient prophets) the commandments of the
everlasting God; they are “written prophecies” (προφητεία γραφῆς), as much as
the Psalms, and Moses, and the prophets (Luk 24:44); and all their authors then
could say with St Paul, CHRIST SPEAKS IN ME (2Co 13:3; 1Th 2:13); what I say is
the word of God, and the things I speak are taught me by the Holy Ghost (1Co
2:13); quite as David before them had said, “The spirit of the Lord spake by me,
and his word was in my tongue.” (2Sa 23:2).

Mark, besides, their own words, when they speak of what they are. Would it be
possible to declare more clearly than they have done, that words as well as
subject have been given them by God. “As for us,” they say, “we have the mind of
Christ .”

— (1Co 2:16.) “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when
ye received THE WORD OF God which ye heard of us, ye received not the word of
men, but (as it is in truth) the WORD OF GOD.” — (1Th 2:13.) “He therefore that
despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy
Spirit.” — (1Th 4:8.)

Such then, in fine, is the word of the New Testament. It is like that of the
Old, a word uttered by prophets, and by prophets greater even than those that
preceded them; in such sort, for example, as has been very well remarked by
Michaelis, [26] that an epistle commencing with these words, “Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ,” (Rom 1:1; Gal 1:1; Corinthians 1:1., &c.; 1Pe 1:1; 2Pe 1:1)
thereby gives us a higher attestation of his divine authority and his divine
inspiration, than could have been given even by the writings of the most
illustrious prophets of the Old Testament when they began with these words,
“Thus saith the Lord” (Isa 56:1; Isa 43:10 and passim.) — “The vision of Isaiah”
— “The word that Isaiah saw” (Isa 1:1; Isa 2:7, and elsewhere) — “the words of
Jeremiah … to whom the word of the Lord came” (Jer 1:2) — “Hear the word of the
Lord” — or such like analogous expressions. And if there be in the New Testament
some books where such inscriptions are not to be found, their inspiration is no
more compromised thereby than this or that book of the Old Testament (the second
or the ninety-fifth psalm, for example); (Acts 4:25; Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; Heb
3:7; Heb 3:17; Heb 4:3; Heb 4:7; Heb 5:5) which, although they have not the
names of the prophets that composed them, are not the less quoted as divine by
Jesus Christ and his apostles. The objection has sometimes been started that
Luke and Mark were not apostles, properly so called; and that consequently they
did not receive the same inspiration as the other sacred writers of the New
Testament. True, they were not apostles; but they were certainly prophets, and
they were even greater than the greatest of those of the Old Testament. — (Luk
7:26; Luk 7:28.)

Without insisting here on the ancient traditions, [27] which say that both were
of the number of the seventy disciples whom Jesus sent at first to preach in
Judea, or at least of those one hundred and twenty on whom the tongues of the
Holy Ghost descended on the day of Pentecost; are such objectors not aware that
the apostles had received the power of conferring, by the imposition of hands,
miraculous gifts on all who believed, and that they exercised this power in all
the countries and all the cities whither they directed their steps? And since St
Luke and St Mark were, amid so many other prophets, the fellow-workers chosen by
St Paul and St Peter, is it not clear enough that these two apostolic men must
have bestowed upon such associates the gifts which they dispensed to so many
besides who had believed? Do we not see Peter and John first go down to Samaria
to confer these gifts on the believers of that city; this followed by Peter
coming to Cesarea, there to shed them on all the Gentiles who had heard the word
in the house of the centurion Cornelius? (Acts 8:15; Acts 8:17) Do we not see St
Paul bestow them abundantly on the believers of Corinth, on those of Ephesus, on
those of Rome? (Acts 19:6-7; 1Co 12:28; 1Co 12:14; Rom 1:11; Rom 15:19; Rom
15:29) Do we not see him, before employing his dear son Timothy as his
fellow-labourer, causing spiritual powers to descend upon him? (1Ti 4:14; 2Ti
1:6) And is it not evident that St Peter must have done as much for his dear son
Mark, (1Pe 5:13) as St Paul did for his companion Luke? (Acts 13:1; Acts 16:10;
Acts 16:27 :l; Rom 16:21; Col 4:14; 2Ti 4:11; Phm 1:24; 2Co 8:18) Silas, whom St
Paul had taken to accompany him (as he took Luke and John, whose surname was
Mark), Silas was a prophet at Jerusalem (Acts 15:32) Prophets abounded in all
the primitive churches. Many were seen to come down from Jerusalem to Antioch;
(Acts 11:27) a great many were to be found in Corinth; (1Co 12:19-20; 1Co 14:31;
1Co 14:39) Judas and Silas were prophets in Jerusalem. Agabus was such in Judea;
farther, four daughters, still in their youth, of Philip the evangelist, were
prophetesses in Cesarea; (Acts 11:28; Acts 21:9-10) and in the Church of
Antioch, there were to be seen many believers who were prophets and doctors;
(Acts 13:1-2) among others Barnabas (St Paul’s first companion), Simeon, Manaen,
Saul of Tarsus himself; and, finally, that Lucius of Cyrene, who is thought to
be the Lucius whom Paul (in his Epistle to the Romans) calls his kinsman, (Rom
16:21) and whom (in his Epistle to the Colossians) he calls Luke the physician;
(Col 4:14) in a word, the St Luke whom the ancient fathers call indifferently
Lucas, Lucius, and Lucanus. From these facts, then, it becomes sufficiently
evident that St Luke and St Mark ranked at least among the prophets whom the
Lord had raised up in such numbers in all the Churches of the Jews and the
Gentiles, and that from among all the rest they were chosen by the Holy Ghost to
be conjoined with the apostles in writing the sacred books of the New Testament.

But, moreover (and let this be specially noticed), the prophetical authority of
St Mark and St Luke is far from resting solely on these inductions. It rests on
the testimony even of the apostles of Jesus Christ. It ought not to be
forgotten, that it was under the long protracted government of those men of God,
that the divine canon of the Scriptures of the New Testament was collected and
transmitted to all the Churches. By a remarkable dispensation of God’s
providence, the lives of the greater number of the apostles were prolonged to a
great many years. St Peter and St Paul lived to edify the Church of God for
above thirty-four years after the resurrection of their Master; nay, St John
continued his ministry, in the province of Asia, in the centre of the Roman
empire, for more than thirty years longer, after their death. The book of the
Acts, which was written by St Luke subsequently to his Gospel. (Acts 1:1) had
been already diffused through the Church a long while (I mean to say, for ten
years at least) before the martyrdom of St Paul. But St Paul, even long before
going to Rome, had already diffused the gospel abundantly from Jerusalem as far
as Illyricum. (Rom 15:19) The apostles maintained a constant correspondence with
the Christians of all countries; they were daily called to meet the cares they
had to sustain with respect to all the Churches. (2Co 11:28) St Peter, in his
second letter, addressed to the catholicity of God’s Churches, spoke to them
even then of ALL THE EPISTLES of St Paul as incorporated with the Old Testament.
And for more than half a century, all the Christian Churches were formed and
conducted under the superintendence of these men of God. It was, accordingly,
with the assent, and under the prophetic government, of these apostles, called
as they were to bind and to loose, and to become, next to Christ, the twelve
foundations of the universal Church, that the canon of the Scriptures was
formed, and that the new people of God received its lively oracles, to transmit
them to us. (Acts 7:38; Rom 3:2) And it is thus that the Gospel of Luke, that of
Mark, and the book of Acts, have been received by common consent, on the same
authoritative grounds, and with the same submission as the apostolical books of
Matthew, of Paul, of Peter, and John. These books, then, have the same authority
for us as all the rest; and we are called upon to receive them equally, “not as
the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which worketh
effectually in all that believe.” (1Th 2:13)

We venture to believe that these reflections will suffice for enabling the
reader to comprehend how little ground there is for the distinction which
Michaelis, [28] and some other German doctors, have made bold to establish with
respect to inspiration, between the two evangelists and the other writers of the
New Testament. It even appears to us, that it was in order to obviate any such
supposition that Luke took care to place at the head of his gospel the four
verses that serve as a preface to it. You see, in fact, that his object there is
to contrast the certainty and divinity of his own account with the uncertainty
and the human character of those narrations, which many (πολλοί) had taken in
hand to set forth (ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι) on the facts connected with the
gospel — facts, he adds, most surely believed among us, that is to say, among
the apostles and prophets of the New Testament (τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ῾μῖν
παραγμάτων, the word in the original signifying the highest degree of certainty,
as may be seen, Rom 4:21; Rom 14:5; 2Ti 4:5; 2Ti 4:17.) And therefore, adds St
Luke, it seemed good to ME also, having had perfect understanding of all
things[29] FROM ABOVE, to write of them unto thee in order.

St Luke had obtained this knowledge FROM ABOVE; that is to say, by the wisdom
which comes from above, “and which had been given him.” It is very true that the
meaning ordinarily attached to this last expression, in this passage, is from
the very first, as if instead of the word ἄνωθεν (from above), there were here
the same words ἀπ’ ἀφχῆς (from the commencement ), which we find in verse
second. But it appears to us that the opinion of Erasmus, of Gomar, of Henry, of
Lightfoot, and other commentators, ought to be preferred as more natural, and
that we must take the word a2nwqen here in the sense in, which St John and St
James have used it, when they say: “Every perfect gift cometh from above (Jas
1:17) — “Thou couldst have no power against me, except it were given thee from
above” (John 19:11) — “Except a man be horn from above, he cannot see the
kingdom of God” (John 3:3) — “The wisdom that cometh from above is first pure.”
— (Jas 3:15; Jas 3:17.) The prophet Luke, then, “had obtained from above a
perfect understanding of all things that Jesus began both to do and teach, until
the day in which he was taken up.”

Meanwhile, whatever translation one may prefer giving to these words, it is by
other arguments that we have shown how Luke and Mark were prophets, and how
their writings, transmitted to the Church by the authority of the apostles, are
incorporated with those of the apostles, as well as with all the other books of
the everlasting Word of God.

Such, then, is the extent to which our argument has conducted us, and this is,
we have had to acknowledge, on the very authority of Holy Scripture. “‘It is,
first of all, that the inspiration of the words of the prophets was entire; that
the Holy Ghost spake by them, and that the Word of the Lord was upon their
tongue. It is, next, that whatever was written in the Bible, having been so
written by prophecy, all the sacred books are holy letters (ἱερα γράμματα),
written prophecies (προφητείαι γραφῆς), and Scriptures given by divine
inspiration (γραφαὶ θεόπνευσται) Every thing there is from God.

Nevertheless, the reader will be pleased to remember (we once more repeat it
here, although we have had occasion more than once to say it already), that it
does not necessarily follow that the prophets of the Old and New Testament were
thrown into a state of excitation and enthusiasm, which took them out of
themselves; we must, on the contrary, beware of entertaining any such idea. The
ancient Church attached so much importance even to this principle, that under
the reign of the emperor Commodus, according to what Eusebius says, Miltiades
(the illustrious author of a Christian Apology) “composed a book for the express
purpose of establishing,” against Montanus and the false prophets of Phrygia,
“that true prophets ought to be masters of themselves, and ought not to speak in
ecstasy.” [30] The action of God was exerted upon them without their passing
entirely out of their ordinary condition. “The spirits of the prophets,” says St
Paul, “are subject to the prophets.” (1Co 14:32) Their intellectual faculties
were at the time directed, not suspended. They knew, they felt, they willed,
they recollected, they understood, they approved. They could say, “It seemed
good to me to write;” and, as apostles, “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to
us.” (Luk 1:3; Acts 15:28) And the words as well as the thoughts were given
them; for, after all, words are themselves but second thoughts relating to
language, and having recourse to it for the selection of expressions. In both
cases, to explain the gift is equally easy and equally difficult. Meanwhile, as
respects inspiration, there is something in holy Scripture that strikes us if
possible still more than all those declarations of the apostles and of Jesus
Christ himself, and that is the examples they present to us.

Section 5. The Examples of the Apostles and of their Master Attest the in their
View all the Words of the Holy Books are given by God.

First of all, consider what use is made by the apostles themselves of the Word
of God, and the terms in which they quote it. See how, in doing this, they not
only think it enough to say, “God hath said;” (Eph 4:8; Heb 1:8) “the Holy Ghost
saith;” (Acts 13:2; Acts 28:25; Heb 3:7; Heb 10:15, and elsewhere) “God saith in
such a prophet;” (Rom 9:2; Rom 9:5) but observe, farther, when they quote it,
with what respect they speak of what are for them its smallest particles; how
attentively they weigh, every word; with what a religious assurance they often
insist on a single word, in order to deduce from it the most serious
consequences, and the most fundamental doctrines. For ourselves, we confess
nothing more strongly impresses us than this view of the subject; nothing has
begot in us so deep and firm a confidence in the entire inspiration of the
Scriptures. The preceding reasonings and testimonies seem of themselves
sufficient to carry conviction to every attentive mind; but if we felt conscious
of any need on our own part of having our belief of this truth fortified, we
feel that we should not go so far in search of reasons. It would be enough for
us to inquire what holy Scripture was in the view of God’s apostles, and how
far, according to their apprehension, its language was inspired. What, for
example, were St Paul’s sentiments on the subject? For we make no pretension to
be more enlightened divines than the twelve apostles. Cleaving to the dogmatical
theology of St Peter and the exegetical of St Paul, among all the systems ever
broached on the inspiration of the Scriptures, theirs is what we have decidedly
resolved to prefer.

Hear, then, the apostle Paul when he quotes them, and proceeds to comment upon
them. On such occasions he discusses their minutest expressions; and often, when
about to deduce the most important consequences from them, he employs arguments
which, were it we that should employ them in discussions with the doctors of the
Socinian school, would be treated as childish or absurd. For such a respect for
the words of the text, we should be sent back to the sixteenth century with its
gross orthodoxy and its superannuated theology. Mark with what reverence the
apostle dwells upon their most minute expressions; with what confidence he
expects the submission of the Church, while he notes the use of such a word
rather than of such another; with what studiousness and affection he as it were
presses every one of them in his hands till the last drop of meaning has been
obtained from it.

Among so many examples which we might adduce, let us confine ourselves, for
brevity’s sake, to the Epistle to the Hebrews.

See how, at verse 8th of chapter 2, after quoting these words, “Thou hast put
all things under his feet,” the sacred author argues from the authority of the
word all.

See how, at the 11th verse, in quoting the 22d Psalm, he argues from the
expression my brethren, that the Son of God behoved to put on the nature of man.

See how, at the 27th verse of chapter 12, in quoting the prophet Haggai, he
argues from the word once more, “Yet once more.”

See at the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th verses, how largely he argues from these
words my son, of the 3d chapter of the Proverbs, “My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord.”

See how, at the 10th chapter, in quoting the 40th Psalm, he argues from the
words Lo 1 come, set against the words, “Thou wouldest not.”

See how, at chapter 8, from the 8th to the 13th verses, in quoting Jer 31:31, he
argues from the word new.

See, at Jer 3:7-19; Jer 4:2-11, with urgency in quoting the 95th Psalm, he
argues from the word “to-day,” from the words “I have sworn,” and, above all,
from the words “my rest,” illustrated by that other expression of Genesis, “And
God rested on the seventh day.”

See how, at Jer 3:2-6, he argues from these words servant and nay house, taken
from the book of Numbers, “My servant Moses, who is faithful in all my house.”

See, especially at chapter 7, the use he makes successively of all the words of
the 110th Psalm; mark how he takes up each of its expressions, one after
another, in order to deduce from them the very highest doctrines: “The Lord hath
sworn;” “he hath sworn by himself;” Thou art a priest;” “Thou art a priest for
ever;” “Thou art a priest after the order of Melchisedec;” “of Melchisedec king
of Sedec,” and “of Melchisedec king of Salem.” The exposition of the doctrines
contained in each of these words will be found to occupy three chapters, the
5th, the 6th, and the 7th. But here I pause. Can we fail to conclude from such
examples, that, in the view of the apostle Paul, the Scriptures were inspired by
God, even to their most minute expressions? Let each of us, then, place himself
in the school of the man to whom had been given, by the Spirit of God, the
knowledge of the mystery of Christ, as to a holy apostle and prophet. (Eph
3:4-5) One must necessarily either account him an enthusiast, and reject in his
person the testimonies of the Holy Bible, or receive with him the precious and
fruitful doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.

O ye who read these lines, to what school will ye attach yourselves? to that of
the apostles, or to that of the doctors of this age? “If any man take away from
the words of this book” (this I testify, says St John), “God shall take away his
part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and from the things
which are written in this Book.” (Rev 22:18-19)

But, farther, let us turn from the apostles, prophets as they are — men sent by
God for the establishment of his kingdom, the pillars of the Church, the mouths
of the Holy Ghost, ambassadors of Jesus Christ; let us, for an instant, turn
from them as men who had not yet quite thrown off their Jewish traditions and
clownish prejudices, and let us go to the Master. Let us inquire of him what the
Scriptures were in his view of them. Here is the grand question. The testimonies
to which we have appealed are peremptory, no doubt; and the doctrine of a
plenary and entire inspiration is taught as clearly in Scripture as that of the
resurrection of the dead can be; that ought of itself to be enough for us; but
we repeat, nevertheless, here is an argument which for us renders all else
superfluous. How did Jesus Christ appeal to the Holy Bible? What were his views
of the letter of the Scriptures? What use did he make of it, he who is its
object and inspirer, beginning and end, first and last? he whose Holy Spirit,
says St Peter, animated all the prophets of the Old Testament (2Pe 1:21), who
was in heaven in the bosom of the Father at the same time that he was seen here
below, dwelling among us and preaching the gospel to the poor? Among the most
ardent defenders of their verbal inspiration, we know not one that ever
expressed himself with more respect for the altogether divine authority and
everlasting endurance of their most minute expressions than was done by the man
Jesus. And we scruple not to say, that were any modern writer to quote the
Bible, as Jesus Christ did, with the view of deducing from it any doctrine, he
would forthwith have to be ranked among the most zealous partisans of the
doctrine we defend. I am asked, What is your view of the Holy Letters? I answer,
What thought my Master of them? how did he appeal to them? what use did he make
of them? what were their smallest details in his eyes?

Ah! speak to them thyself, Eternal Wisdom, Uncreated Word, Judge of judges! and
as we proceed to repeat to them here the declarations of thy mouth, show them
the majesty in which the Scriptures appeared to thee — show them the perfection
thou didst recognise in them, that everlasting endurance, above all, which thou
didst assign to their smallest iota, and which will make them outlast the
universe, after the very heavens and the earth have passed away!

We are not afraid to say it: when we hear the Sort of God quote the Scriptures,
every thing is said, in our view, on their divine inspiration — we need no
farther testimony. All the declarations of the Bible are, no doubt, equally
divine; but this example of the Saviour of the world has settled the question
for us at once. This proof requires neither long nor learned researches; it is
grasped by the hand of a child as powerfully as by that of a doctor. Should any
doubt, then, assail your soul, let it turn to the Lord of lords; let it behold
him in presence of the Scriptures!

Follow Jesus in the days of his flesh. With what serious and tender respect does
he constantly hold in his hands “the volume of the Book,” to quote every part of
it, and note its shortest verses. See how one word, one single word, whether of
a psalm or of art historical book, has for him the authority of a law. Mark with
what confident submission he receives the whole Scriptures, without ever
contesting its sacred canon; for he knows that “salvation cometh of the Jews,”
and that, under the infallible providence of God, “to them were committed the
oracles of God.” Did I say, he receives them? From his childhood to the grave,
and from his rising again from the grave to his disappearance in the clouds,
what does he bear always about with him, in the desert, in the temple, in the
synagogue? What does he continue to quote with his resuscitated voice, just as
the heavens are about to exclaim, “Lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors, and
the king of glory shall come in?” It is the Bible, ever the Bible; it is Moses,
the Psalms, and the prophets: he quotes them, he explains them, but how? Why,
verse by verse, and word by word. In what alarming and melancholy contrast,
after beholding all this, do we see those misguided men present themselves in
our days, who dare to judge, contradict, cull, and mutilate the Scriptures. Who
does not tremble, after following with his eyes the Son of Man as he commands
the elements, stills the storms, and opens the graves, while, filled with so
profound a respect for the sacred volume, he declares that he is one day to
judge by that book the quick and the dead? Who does not shudder, whose heart
does not bleed, when, after observing this, we venture to step into a
Rationalist academy, and see the professor’s chair occupied by a poor mortal,
learned, miserable, a sinner, responsible, yet handling God’s Word irreverently;
when we follow him as he goes through this deplorable task before a body of
youths, destined to be the guides of a whole people — youths capable of doing so
much good if guided to the heights of the faith, and so much mischief if tutored
in disrespect for those Scriptures which they are one day to preach? With what
peremptory decision do such men display the phantasmagoria of their hypotheses;
they retrench, they add, they praise, they blame, and pity the simplicity which,
reading the Bible as it was read by Jesus Christ, like him clings to every
syllable, and never dreams of finding error in the Word of God! They pronounce
on the intercalations and retrenchments that Holy Scripture must have undergone
— intercalations and retrenchments never suspected by Jesus Christ; they lop off
the chapters they do not understand, and point out blunders, ill-sustained or
ill-concluded reasonings, prejudices, imprudences, and instances of vulgar
ignorance. May God forgive my being compelled to put this frightful dilemma into
words, but the alternative is inevitable! Either Jesus Christ exaggerated and”
spoke incoherently when he quoted the Scriptures thus, or these rash wretched
men unwittingly blaspheme their divine majesty. It pains us to write these
lines. God is our witness that we could have wished to recall, and then to
efface them; but we venture to say, with profound feeling, that it is in
obedience, it is in charity, that they have been penned. Alas! in a few short
years both the doctors and the disciples will be laid in the tomb, they shall
wither like the grass; but not one jot or tittle of that divine book will then
have passed away; and as certainly as the Bible is the truth, and that it has
changed the face of the w6rld, as certainly shall we see the Son come in the
clouds of heaven, and judge, by his eternal Word, the secret thoughts of all
men!

(Rom 2:16; John 12:48; Mat 25:31)… “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of
man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth
away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you;” (1Pe 1:24-25) this is the word which will
judge us.

Now, then, we proceed to close our proofs, by reviewing, under this aspect, the
ministry of Jesus Christ. Let us follow him from the age of twelve to his
descent into the grave, or rather, to his passing into the cloud, in which he
went out of sight; and throughout the whole course of that incomparable career,
let us see what the Scriptures were in the eye of Him who “upholds all things by
the word of his power.”

First of all, let us contemplate him at the age of twelve years, tie grew, like
one of the children of men, in wisdom and in stature; he is in the midst of the
doctors in the temple of Jerusalem; he ravishes with his answers those who hear
him; for, said they, “he knows the Scriptures without having studied them.”
(John 7:15)

Behold him from the time he commenced his ministry. See him filled with the Holy
Ghost; he is led into the wilderness, there to sustain, as the first Adam did in
Eden, a mysterious contest with the powers of darkness. The impure spirit dares
to approach him, bent on his overthrow; but how will the Son of God repel him,
even he who had come to destroy the works of the Devil? Solely with the Bible.
His only weapon, three successive times, in his divine hands, is the sword of
the Spirit, the Bible. He quotes, thrice successively, the Book of Deuteronomy.
(Deu 8:3; Deu 6:13; Deu 10:20; Mat 4:1-11) On every fresh temptation, he, the
Word made flesh, defends himself by a sentence of the oracles of God, and by a
sentence, too, the whole force of which lies in the use of a single word, or of
two words; first of these words (ἄρτῳ μόνῳ), bread alone; then of those words,
“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord (οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις Κύριον);” then, finally, of
these two words (θεὸν προσκυνήσεις), Thou shalt worship God.

What an example for us! His whole reply, his whole defence is this: — “It is
written;” “Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written;” and as soon as this
terrible and mysterious contest closed, the angels drew near to minister to him.

But, mark this farther, such was the respect of the Son of man for the authority
of every word of the Scriptures, that the impure spirit himself, powerful as he
was in evil, and who knew what all the words of the Bible were in his
antagonist’s eyes, could fancy no surer means of shaking his will than by
quoting to him (but at the same time mutilating) a verse of the 91st psalm; and
forthwith Jesus Christ, to confound him, thinks it is enough to reply once more
with, “It is written.”

See how his priestly ministry commenced — with the use of the Scriptures; and
see how his prophetic ministry commenced soon after — with the use of the
Scriptures.

Once engaged in his work, let us follow him as he goes from place to place doing
good, displaying in his poverty his creative power ever for the relief of
others, never for his own. He speaks, and it is done; he casts out devils, he
turns the storm into a calm, he raises the dead. Yet, amid all these tokens of
greatness, observe what the Scriptures are to him. The Word is ever with him;
not in his hands, for he knows it thoroughly, but in his memory and in his
incomparable heart. Mark how he speaks of it! When he unrols the sacred volume,
it is as if an opening, were made in heaven, that we may hear Jehovah’s voice.
With what reverence, with what submission, does he expound the Scriptures,
comment upon them, quote them word by word! See how it becomes his grand concern
to heal men’s diseases and to preach the Scriptures, as it was afterwards to die
and to fulfil the Scriptures!

See who comes, “as his custom was,” into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day; for
we are told he taught in their synagogues. (Luk 4:15-16) He goes into that at
Nazareth; and what do we find him doing there — he, the everlasting Wisdom,
possessed by Jehovah in the beginning of his way, brought forth when there were
no depths, before the mountains were settled, and before the hills? (Pro 8:22;
Pro 8:25.) He rises and takes the Bible, opens it at Isaiah, reads some words
there; then having closed the book, he sits down, and while the eyes of all that
are in the synagogue are fastened on him, he begins to say, “This day is this
Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luk 4:21)

See him as he passes through Galilee, and mark how he employs himself there.
“The volume of the book” is still in his hands; he explains it line by line,
word by word; he points out to our respect its most minute expressions, as he
would those of “the ten words” uttered on Sinai.

See him once more in Jerusalem, before the pool of Bethesda; what do we find him
saying to the people? “Search the Scriptures.” — (John 5:39.)

See him in the holy place, in the midst of which he had dared to say aloud, “In
this place is one greater than the holy place.” — (Mat 12:6.) Follow him into
the presence of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, while he reprehends them
successively with these words, “It is written,” as he had done in the ease of
Satan.

Listen to his reply to the Sadducees who denied the resurrection of the body.
How does he refute them? By ONE SOLE WORD of an HISTORICAL passage of the Bible;
by a single verb in the present tense, instead of that same verb in the past
tense. “Ye greatly err,” said he to them, “NOT KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES. Have ye
not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham!
“It is thus that he proves to them the doctrine of the resurrection. God, on
Mount Sinai, four hundred years after the death of Abraham, says to Moses, not
“I was,” but “I am” the God of Abraham; I am that now (אנכיאלתיאברהם), which the
Holy Ghost translates — (᾿Εγώ εἰμι ο Θεὸς ᾿Αβραὰμ). There is a resurrection,
then; for God is not the God of a few handfuls of dust, the God of the dead, the
God of nothing: he is the God of the living. Those men therefore are, in the
view of God, still alive. (Mat 22:31-32)

Next, behold him in the presence of the Pharisees. It is again by the letter of
the Word that he proceeds to confound them.

Some had by this time followed him into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan, and
came to him asking to be informed what were his doctrines on the subject of
marriage and divorce. Now, what followed on the part of Jesus Christ? He might
certainly have given an authoritative reply, and announced his own laws on the
subject. Is he not himself the King of kings and Lord of lords? But no; it was
to the Bible that he made his appeal, still for the same purpose of making it
the basis of doctrine; it was to these simple words taken from a purely
historical passage in Genesis, (Gen 1:27; Gen 2:24.) — “HAVE YE NOT READ, that
he which made them at the beginning made them male and female; so that they
twain shall be one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together, let not man
put asunder.” (Mat 19:4-6) But listen to him, especially when in the temple he
would prove to other Pharisees, by the Scriptures, the divinity of the expected
Messiah. Here likewise, to demonstrate this, he still insists on the use of A
SINGLE WORD, which he proceeds to take from the Book of Psalms: “If the Messiah
be the son of David,” said he, “how doth David, BY THE SPIRIT, call him LORD;
saying (at the 110th Psalm), The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right
hand? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?”

How happens it, that among those Pharisees none was found to say in reply,
“What! do you mean to insist on a single word, and still more on a term borrowed
from a poesy eminently lyrical, where the royal Psalmist might, without material
consequence, have employed too lively a construction, high-flown expressions,
and words which, doubtless, he had not theologically pondered before throwing
them into his verses? Would you follow such a mode of minutely interpreting each
expression as is at once fanatical and servile? Would you worship the letter of
the Scriptures to such an extreme? Would you build a whole doctrine upon a
word?”

Yes, I do, is Christ’s reply; yes, I will throw myself on a single word, because
that word is God’s! And, to cut short all your objections, I tell you that it is
BY THE SPIRIT: that David wrote all the words of his hymns; and I ask you “how,
if the Messiah be his son, David, BY THE SPIRIT, can call him his Lord, when he
says, The Lord said unto my Lord?”

Students of God’s Word, and you especially who are to be his ministers, and who,
as your preparation for preaching it, would desire first of all to have received
it into a good and honest heart, behold what every saying, every single word of
the Book of God, was in the regard of your Master. Go and do likewise! But more
than this. Again let us listen to him, even on the cross. There he poured out
his soul as art offering for sin; all his bones were out of joint; he was poured
out as water; his heart was like wax, melted in the midst of his bowels; his
tongue cleaved to his jaws; he was about to give up his spirit to his Father.
But, previous to this, what do we find him do? He desires to collect his
remaining strength, in order to recite a psalm which the Church of Israel had
sung on her religious festivals for a thousand years, and which told over, one
after another, all his sorrows and all his prayers: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani
(my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me)?” He does even more than this:
listen to him. There remained in the Scriptures one word which had not yet been
fulfilled. Vinegar had still to be given him on that cross (this the Holy Ghost
had declared a thousand years before in the 69th Psalm). “After this,” it is
written, “Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the
Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. When Jesus therefore had received
the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and having bowed his head, he gave up the
ghost.” (John 19:28-30) When David sang the 69th Psalm on Shoshannim and the 22d
Psalm on Aijeleth, did he know the prophetic meaning of all these words, of
those hands and feet that were pierced, of that gall poured out, of that
vinegar, of those garments that were parted, of that vesture on which a lot was
east, of that mocking populace, wagging their heads and making mouths? It
matters little to us his understanding it; the Holy Ghost at least understood
it, and David spake BY THE SPIRIT, said Jesus Christ. The heaven and the earth
shall pass away; but there was not in that book a jot or tittle that could pass
away till all was fulfilled. — (John 10:35; Mat 5:18).

Meanwhile, behold something, if possible, more striking still. Jesus Christ
rises from the tomb; he has overcome death; he is about to return to the Father,
there to resume that glory which he had with the Father before the world began.
Let us follow him, then, during those fleeting moments with which he would still
favour the earth. What words are now about to proceed from that mouth, again
restored to life? Why, words from Holy Scripture. Still he quotes it, explains
it, preaches it. See him, first of all, on the way to Emmaus, walking with
Cleopas and his friend; afterwards in the upper chamber; and, later still, on
the borders of the lake. How is he employed? In expounding the sacred books; he
begins with Moses, he continues through all the Prophets and the Psalms; he
shows them what had been said concerning him in all the Scriptures; he opens
their minds to understand them; he makes their hearts burn within them as he
speaks of them. (Luk 24:27; Luk 24:44; Luk 24:32) But we have not yet done. All
these quotations show us what the Holy Bible was in the eyes of Him “in whom are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3); and “by whom all
things subsist” (Col 1:17). But on the letter of the Scriptures, listen further
to two declarations, and a last example of our Lord.

“It is easier,” says he, “for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle
(κεραία) of the law to fall; (Luk 16:17) and by the law Jesus Christ understood
the whole of the Scriptures, and even, more particularly, the Book of Psalms.
(John 10:34, as did also the Jews, 12:34; Rom 3:19) What terms could possibly be
imagined capable of expressing, with greater force and precision, the principle
which we defend; that is to say, the authority, the entire divine inspiration,
and the perpetuity of all the parts, and of the very letter of the Scriptures?
Ye who study God’s Word, here behold the theology of your Master! Be ye then
divines after his manner; be your Bible the same as that of the Son of God! Of
that not a single tittle can fall.

“Till heaven and earth pass,” saith he, “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” — (Mat 5:18.) All the words of the
Scriptures, accordingly, even to the smallest stroke of a letter, are no less
than the words of JESUS CHRIST; for he hath also said, “Heaven and earth shall
pass away; but my words shall not pass away.” — (Luk 21:33.) The impugners of
these doctrines ask us if we are bold enough to maintain that Holy Scripture is
a law of God even in its words, as hyssop, or as an oak, is a work of God even
in its leaves. We reply, with all the Fathers of the Church, Yes, even in its
“words, even to (ἰῶτα ἓν,ἢ μία κεραία) one jot or one tittle!”

But, passing from these two declarations, let us finally direct our attention to
a last example given by our Lord which we have not yet adduced.

It is still Jesus Christ who is about to quote the Scriptures, but claiming for
their smallest words such an authority, that one is compelled to rank him among
the most ardent partisans of verbal inspiration, and that we do not think, that
had we before us all the writings of divines the most uncompromising in their
orthodoxy, we should any where find an example of more profound respect for the
letter of Scripture, and for the plenitude of their divine inspiration.

It was winter. Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s (the eastern) porch; the
Jews came about him, upon which he said to them, “I give eternal life unto my
sheep, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand:
I and the Father are one.” People were astonished at such language; but he
assumed a still bolder tone, until at last the Jews, exclaiming that it was
blasphemy, took up stones to stone him, telling him they did so, “because thou,
being a man, makest thyself God.” (John 10:23, and following verses.)

Now then, let the reader carefully mark the several points involved in the
answer made by Jesus Christ. tie quotes a saying taken from one of the psalms,
and proceeds to rest the whole of his doctrine on that single saying: for “he
made himself equal with God,” says John elsewhere (John 5:18). In maintaining
the most sublime and most mysterious of his doctrines, and, in order to
legitimitize the most extraordinary of his pretensions, he appeals to certain
words in the 82d Psalm. But, mark well! before pronouncing the words he takes
care to interrupt himself; he pauses in a solemn parenthesis, and exclaims in a
tone of authority, And the Scripture cannot be broken (καὶ οὐ δύναται λυθὴναι ἡ
γραφνv)! Has sufficient attention been paid to this? Not only is our Lord’s
argument here founded entirely on the use made by the Psalmist of a single word,
and not only does he proceed to establish the most astonishing of his doctrines
on this expression; but further, in thus quoting the Book of Psalms in order to
make us understand that in his eyes the whole book was dictated by the Holy
Ghost, and that every word of it carried the authority of the law, Jesus calls
it by the name of LAW, and says to the Jews, “Is it not written in your law, I
have said ye are gods?” These words are placed in the middle of a hymn; they
might seem to have escaped from the unreflecting fervour of the prophet Asaph,
or from the burning raptures of his poetry. And were we not to admit the full
inspiration of all that is written, one might be tempted to tax them with
indiscretion, since the imprudent use which the Psalmist may have made of them,
might have led the people to usages elsewhere censured by the Word of God, and
to idolatrous imaginations. How then, once more we ask, was there no rationalist
scribe from the universities of Israel to be found there, under Solomon’s porch,
to say to him, “You cannot, Lord, claim the authority of that expression. The
use that Asaph makes of it can have been neither considerate nor becoming.
Although inspired as respects the thoughts suggested by his piety, he no doubt
did not maturely weigh every little word with a very scrupulous regard to the
use that might possibly be made of them a thousand years after his own day. It
were rash, therefore, to insist upon them.” But now, let the reader mark, how
our Lord anticipates the profane rashness of such an objection. Observe well: he
solemnly reproves it; he proceeds to pronounce words concerning himself which
would be blasphemy in the mouth of an archangel.

“I and the Father are one;” but he interrupts himself, and immediately after
saying, “Is it not written in your law, ye are gods?” he stops, and, fixing his
eyes with a look of authority on the doctors who surround him, he exclaims, “AND
THE SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE BROKEN!” As if he had said, “Beware! there is not in the
sacred books a single word to be found fault with, nor a single word that one
can neglect. This which I cite in this 82d Psalm, has been traced by the hand
that made the heavens.” If, then, he has been willing to give the name of gods
to men, in so far as they were christs (anointed ones), and types of the true
Christ, who is emphatically the Anointed One, and taking care nevertheless to
call to mind “that they should die like men,” how shall it not still more
appertain to me to take that name to myself? I, “the everlasting Father,”
Emmanuel, the God-man, who do the works of my Father, and on whom the Father
hath put his seal? (Isa 9:6; Isa 7:14; John 6:27)

Here, then, we ask of every serious reader (and our argument, be it well
observed, is altogether independent of the orthodox meaning or the Socinian
meaning people may choose to give to the words of Jesus Christ); we ask, Is it
possible to admit that the Being who makes such a use of the Scriptures DOES NOT
BELIEVE IN THEIR PLENARY VERBAL INSPIRATION? And if he could have imagined that
the words of the Bible were left to the free choice and pious fancies of the
sacred writers, would he ever have dreamed of founding such arguments on such a
word? The Lord Jesus, our Saviour and our Judge, believed then in the most
complete inspiration of the Scriptures; and for him the first rule of all
hermeneutics, and the commencement of all exegesis, was this simple maxim
applied to the most minute expressions of the written word, “AND THE SCRIPTURE
CANNOT BE BROKEN.”

Let, then, the Prince of Life, the light of the world, reckon all of us as his
scholars! What he believed let us receive. What he respected let us revere. Let
us press to our sickly heart’s that Word to which he submitted his saviour
heart, and all the thoughts of his holy humanity, and to it let us subject all
the thoughts of our fallen humanity. There let us look for God, even in its
minutest passages; in it let us daily dip the roots of our being, “like the tree
planted by the rivers of waters, which bringeth forth his fruit in his season,
and his leaf shall not wither.”


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  CHAPTER 6: 03 BRIEF DIDACTIC ABSTRACT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE INSPIRATION.
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Brief Didactic Abstract of the Doctrine of the Divine Inspiration.

IT has been our desire that this work should not bear so strictly theological a
character, as that Christian women, or other persons not conversant with certain
studies, and not acquainted with the sacred languages, should be deterred from
the perusal of it. Nevertheless, we should be wanting to part of our object if
the doctrine were not on some points, stated with more precision. We have to
request, therefore, that in order to avoid being led off, under another form,
into an excessive length of development, we may be allowed to exhibit it here in
a more didactic shape, and to sum it up in a short catechetical sketch. We will
do little more than indicate the proper place of the points already treated; and
will enter somewhat at large into the consideration of those only that have not
yet been mentioned.

Section 1. Catechetical Sketch of the Main Points of the Doctrine I. What, then,
are we to understand by divine inspiration?

Divine inspiration is the mysterious power put forth by the Spirit of God on the
authors of holy writ, to make them write it, to guide them even in the
employment of the words they use, and thus to preserve them from all error?

II. What are we told of the spiritual power put forth on the men of God while
they were writing their sacred books?

We are told that they were led or moved (φἐρόμενοι) “not by the will of man, but
by the Holy Ghost; so that they set forth the things of God, not in words which
man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” (2Pe 1:21; 1Co 2:13)
“God,” says the apostle, (Heb 1:1) “spake BY THE PROPHETS at sundry times, and
in divers manners (πολυμερῶς και πολυρόπως);” sometimes enabling them to
understand what he made them say; sometimes without doing so; sometimes by
dreams (Num 12:6; Job 33:15; Dan 1:17; Dan 2:6; Dan 7:1; Gen 20:6; Gen 31:10;
1Ki 3:5; Mat 1:20; Mat 2:12; Mat 2:22; Acts 2:17.) and by visions which he
afterwards made them relate; sometimes by giving them words internally (λόγῳ
ἐνδιάθετῳ) which he caused them immediately to utter; sometimes by words
transmitted to them externally (λόγῳ προοφvρικῳ), which he caused them to
repeat. (Num 20:6; Num 24:4; Job 7:14; Gen 20:3; Psa 89:19; Mat 17:9; Acts 2:17;
Acts 9:10-12; Acts 10:3; Acts 10:17; Acts 10:19; Acts 11:5; Acts 12:9; Acts
16:9-10; 2Co 12:1-2) III. But what passed in their hearts and minds while they
were writing? This we cannot tell. It is a fact which, subject besides to great
varieties, could not be for us an object either of scientific inquiry or of
faith.

IV. Have not modern authors, however, who have written on this subject, often
distinguished in the Scriptures three or four degrees of inspiration
(superintendence, elevation, direction, suggestion)? This is but idle
conjecture; and the supposition, besides, is in contradiction with the Word of
God, which knows but one kind of inspiration. Here, there is none true but
suggestion.

V. Do we not see, however, that the men of God were profoundly acquainted, and
often even profoundly affected, with the sacred things which they taught, with
the future things which they predicted, with the past things which they related?
No doubt they might be so — nay, in most instances they were so — but they might
not have been so; this happened in different measures, of which the degree
remains to us unknown, and the knowledge of which is not required of us.

VI. What then must we think of those definitions of divine inspiration, in which
Scripture seems to be represented as the altogether human expression of a
revelation altogether divine; — what, for example, must we think of that of
Baumgarten, [31] who says, that inspiration is but the means by which
revelation, at first immediate, became mediate, and took the form of a book
(medium quo revelatio inimediata, mediata facta, inque libros relata est?)

These definitions are not exact, and may give rise to false notions of
inspiration. I say they are not exact. They contradict facts. Immediate
revelation does not necessarily precede inspiration; and when it precedes it, it
is not its measure. The empty air prophesied; (Gen 3:14, &c., Gen 4:6; Exo 3:6,
&c., Exo 19:3, &c.; Deu 4:1-23Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5.) a hand coming forth from a
wall wrote the words of God; (Dan 5:5) a dumb animal reproved the madness of a
prophet. (2Pe 2:16) Balaam prophesied without any desire to do so; and the
believers of Corinth did so without even knowing the meaning of the words put by
the Holy Ghost on their lips. (1 Corinthians 14.)

I would next observe, that these definitions produce or conceal false notions of
inspiration. In fact, they assume its being nothing more than the natural
expression of a supernatural revelation; and that the men of God had merely of
themselves, and in a human way, to put down in their books what the Holy Ghost
made them see in a divine way, in their understandings. But inspiration is more
than this. Scripture is not the mind of God elaborated by the understanding of
man, to be promulgated in the words of man; it is at once the mind of God and
the word of God.

VII. The Holy Ghost having in all ages illuminated God’s elect, and having
moreover distributed miraculous powers among them in ancient times, in which of
these two orders of spiritual gifts ought we to rank inspiration?

We must rank it among the extraordinary and wholly miraculous gifts. The Holy
Ghost in all ages enlightens the elect by his powerful inward virtue; he
testifies to them of Christ; (John 15:26) gives them the unction of the Holy
One; teaches them all things, and convinces them of all truth. (1Jn 2:20; 1Jn
2:27; John 14:16 -

26; 7:38, 39) But, besides these ordinary gifts of illumination and faith, the
same Spirit shed extraordinary ones on the men who were commissioned to
promulgate and to write the oracles of God. Divine inspiration was one of those
gifts.

VIII. Is the difference, then, between illumination and inspiration a difference
of kind or only of degree?

It is a difference of kind, and not of degree only.

IX. Nevertheless, did not the apostles, besides inspiration, receive from the
Holy Ghost illumination in extraordinary measure, and in its most eminent
degree? In its most eminent degree, is what none can affirm; in an extraordinary
degree, is what none can contradict. The apostle Paul, for example, did not
receive the gospel from any man, but by a revelation from Jesus Christ. (Gal
1:12; Gal 1:16;1Co 15:3)

He wrote “ALL HIS EPISTLES,” St Peter tells us, (2Pe 3:15-16) not only in words
taught by the Holy Ghost, (1Co 2:13) as had been the OTHER SCRIPTURES (of the
old Testament), but according to a wisdom which had been given to him. (2Pe
3:15-16) He had the knowledge of the mystery of Christ. (Eph 3:3) Jesus Christ
had promised to give his disciples not only “a mouth, but wisdom to testify of
him.” (Luk 21:15) David, when he seemed to speak only of himself in the Psalms,
KNEW that it was of the Messiah that his words were to be understood: “Being a
prophet, and knowing that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, God
would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.” (Acts 2:30) X. Why, then, should we
not say that divine inspiration is but illumination in its most exalted and
abundant measure?

We must beware of saying so; for thus we should have but a narrow, confused,
contingent, and constantly fluctuating idea of inspiration. In fact, —

[1]. God, who often conjoined those two gifts in one man, often also saw fit to
disjoin them, in order that he might give us to understand that they essentially
differ, the one from the other, and that, when united, they tire independent.
Every true Christian has the Holy Ghost, (1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27; Jer 31:34; John
6:45.) but every Christian is not inspired, and such an one who utters the words
of God, may not have received either life-giving affections or life-giving
light.

[2]. It may be demonstrated by a great many examples, that the one of these
gifts was not the measure of the other; and that the divine inspiration of the
prophets did not observe the ratio of their knowledge, any more than that of
their holiness.

[3]. Far, indeed, from the one of those gifts being the measure of the other,
one may even say that divine inspiration appeared all the more strikingly the
more that the illumination of the sacred writer remained in arrear of his
illumination. When you behold the very prophets, who were most enlightened by
God’s Spirit, bending over their own pages after having written them, and
endeavouring to comprehend the meaning which the Spirit in them had caused them
to express, it should become manifest to you that their divine inspiration was
independent of their illumination.

[4]. Even supposing the prophet’s illumination raised to its utmost pitch, still
it did not reach the altitude of the divine idea, and there might be much more
meaning in the word dictated to them than the prophet was yet cognisant of.
David, doubtless, in hymning his psalms, knew (Acts 2:30) that they referred to
“Him who was to be born of his loins, to sit upon his throne for ever.” Most of
the prophets, like Abraham their father, saw the day of Christ, and when they
saw it, were glad; (John 8:56) they searched what the Spirit of Christ, which
was in them, did signify, when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of the
Messiah, and the glory that should follow, (1Pe 1:11) Yet notwithstanding all
this, our Lord attests to us that the simplest Christian, the least (in
knowledge) in the kingdom of God, knows more on that subject than the greatest
of the prophets. [32] [5]. These gifts differ from each other in essential
characters, which we will presently describe.

[6]. Finally, it is always the inspiration of the book that is presented to us
as an object of faith, never the inward state of him that writes it. His
knowledge or ignorance nowise affects the confidence I owe to his words; and nay
soul ought ever to look not so much to the lights of his understanding as to the
God of all holiness, who speaks to me by his mouth. The Saviour desired, it is
true, that most of those who related his history should also have been witnesses
of what they related. This was, no doubt, in order that the world might listen
to them with the greater confidence, and might not start reasonable doubts as to
the truth of their narratives. But the Church, in her faith, looks much higher
than this: to her the intelligence of the writers is imperfectly known, and a
matter of comparative indifference — what she does know is their inspiration. It
is never in the breast of the prophet that she goes to look for its source; it
is in that of her God. “Christ speaks in me,” says St Paul, “and God hath spoken
to our fathers in the prophets.” (2Co 13:3; Heb 1:1 (ἐν).) “Why look ye so
earnestly on us,” say to her all the sacred writers, “as though by our own power
or holiness we had done this work?” (Acts 3:12) Look upwards.

XI. If there exist, then, between these two spiritual graces of illumination and
inspiration a specific difference, in what must we say that it consists?

Though you should find it impossible to say what that difference is, you would
not the less be obliged by the preceding reasons to declare that it does exist.
In order to be able fully to reply to this question, it were necessary that you
should know the nature and the mode of both these gifts; whereas the Holy Ghost
has never explained to us, either how he infuses God’s thoughts into the
understanding of a believer, or how he puts God’s words into the mouth of a
prophet. Nevertheless, we can here point out two essential characters by which
these two operations of the Holy Ghost have always shown themselves to be
distinct: the one of these characters relates to their duration, the other to
their measure. In point of duration, illumination is continuous, whereas
inspiration is intermittent. In point of measure, illumination admits of
degrees, whereas inspiration does not admit of them.

XII. What are we to understand by saying that illumination is continuous, and
inspiration intermittent? The illumination of a believer by the Holy Ghost is a
permanent work. Having commenced for him on the day of his new birth, it goes on
increasing, and attends him with its rays to the termination of his course. That
light, no doubt, is but too much obscured by his acts of faithlessness and
negligence, but never more will it leave him altogether. “His path,” says the
wise man, “is like the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect
day.” (Pro 4:18) “When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb,
to reveal his Son in me,” (1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27; John 3:34) he preserves to the
end the knowledge of the mystery of Jesus Christ, and can at all times set forth
its truths and its glories. As it was not flesh and blood that had revealed
these things to him, but the Father, (Gal 1:15) that unction which he received
from the Holy One (Mat 16:17) abides in him, says St John, and he needs not that
any man teach him; but as the same anointing teacheth him of all things, and is
truth, so, even as he hath been taught by it, he will remain in it.
Illumination, therefore, abideth on the faithful; but it is not so with
miraculous gifts, nor with the divine inspiration, which is one of those gifts.
(1Co 14:1; Acts 19:6) As for miraculous gifts, they were always intermittent
with the men of God, if we except the only mart who received not the Spirit by
measure. (John 3:34) The apostle Paul, for example, who at one time restored
Eutychus to life, and by whom God wrought such special miracles (Acts 19:11-12)
(so as that it sufficed that handkerchiefs and aprons should touch his body and
be laid upon the sick, in order to cures being effected); at other times could
not relieve either his colleague Trophimus or his beloved Epaphroditus, or his
son Timothy. (2Ti 4:20; Php 2:27; 1Ti 5:23) It is the same with inspiration,
which is only the most excellent of miraculous gifts. In the Lord’s prophets, it
was exerted only by intervals. The prophets, and even the apostles, who (as we
shall show)were prophets, and more than prophets, (Eph 3:4-5; Eph 4:11; Rom
16:25 -

27) did not prophesy as often as they pleased. Inspiration was sent to them by
intervals; it came upon them according as the Holy Ghost saw fit to give it to
them (καθὼς τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐδίδου αὐτοῖς ἀποφθέγγεσθαι); (Acts 2:4) for “never did
prophecy come by the will of man, says St Peter;” (2Pe 1:21) but holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” God spake in the prophets (ἐν τοῖς
προφήταις), says St Paul, when he wished to do so, at sundry times (πολυμερῶς),
as well as in divers manners (πολυτρόπος). On such a day, and at such a time, it
is often written, “the word of Jehovah was upon such a man (ויהידבראּיחוהאליו)”
“In the tenth year, on the twelfth day of the tenth month, the word of Jehovah
came to me,” said the prophet, (Ezekiel 29 :l, and elsewhere.) In the fifteenth
year of the reign of Tiberius, the word of the Lord came unto John, the son of
Zacharias (ἐγένετο ῥῆμα Θεοῦ ἐπὶ ᾿Ιωάννην); (Luk 3:1-2) and on the eighth day,
Zacharias, his father, was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, …
(Luk 1:59; Luk 1:67; Luk 1:41-42) So then we ought not to imagine that the
divine infallibility of the language of the prophets (and even of the apostles),
lasted longer than the times in which they were engaged in their miraculous
task, and in which the Spirit caused them to speak. Without divine inspiration,
they were in most instances enlightened, sanctified, and preserved by God, as
holy and faithful men in our own days’ may still be; but then they no more spoke
as moved by the Holy Ghost; — “their language might still be worthy of the most
respectful attention; but it was a holy man that spoke; it was no longer God:
they again became fallible.”

XIII. Can any examples be adduced of this fallibility being attached to their
language, when unaccompanied with Divine inspiration? A multitude of instances
occur. Men are often, after having been for a time the month of the Lord, seen
to become false prophets, and mendaciously to pretend to utter the words of
Jehovah, after the Spirit had ceased to speak in them; “although the Lord sent
them not, neither commanded them, neither spake unto them.” “They speak a vision
of their own heart, not out of the mouth of the Lord.” (Jer 14:14; Jer 23:11;
Jer 23:16; Eze 13:2-3) But without referring to those wicked men, or to the
profane Saul, or to Balaam, who were for some time numbered among the prophets,
shall it be thought that all the words of king David were infallible during the
course of that long year which he passed in adultery? Yet “these,” saith the
Scripture, “be the last words of David, the sweet psalmist of Israel: THE SPIRIT
OF THE LORD SPAKE BY ME, AND HIS WORD WAS IN MY TONGUE.” (2Sa 23:1-2) Shall it
be thought that all the words of the prophet Solomon still continued infallible,
when he fell into idolatry in his old age, and the salvation of his soul became
a problem for the Church of God? And to come down to Christ’s holy apostles and
prophets (Eph 3:5), shall it be thought that all the words of Paul himself were
infallible, and that he still could say that

“Christ spoke by him” (2Co 13:3) when there was a sharp contention (πυροξυσμὸς)
betwixt him and Barnabas; (Acts 15:39) or when, in the midst of the council,
under a mistaken impression with regard to the person of the High Priest, he
“spoke evil of the Ruler of his people,” and cried, “God shall strike thee, thou
whited wall;” or further (since there may remain some doubt as to the character
of this reprimand), shall it be thought that all the words of the apostle St
Peter were infallible, when, at Antioch, he showed himself “so much to be
blamed” (κατεγνωσμένος); when he feared those that came from St James; when he
dissembled; and when he forced the apostle St Paul to withstand him to his face
before them all, because he walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel (οὐκ η῏ν ὀποδήσας)? (See Gal 2:11; Gal 2:14) XIV. What, then, are we to
conclude from this first difference which we have recognised as existing between
illumination and inspiration, with respect to the duration of those gifts?

We must conclude from it, [1]. That these two operations of the Holy Ghost
differ in their essence, and not in their degree only.

[2]. That the infallibility of the sacred writers depended not on their
illumination (which, although raised to art extraordinary measure in the case of
some of them, they nevertheless enjoyed in common with all the saints), but
solely on their divine inspiration.

[3]. That divinely-inspired words, having been miraculous, are also all of them
the words of God.

[4]. That as our faith in every part of the Bible rests no longer on the
illumination of the writers, but on the inspiration of their writings, it may
dispense henceforth with the perplexing study of their internal state, of the
degree in which they were enlightened, or of that of their holiness; but must
stay itself in all things on God, in nothing on man.

XV. If such have been the difference between illumination and inspiration in the
prophets and the apostles, as respects the duration of those gifts what has it
been as respects their measure?

Illumination is susceptible of degrees; inspiration does not admit of them. A
prophet is more or less enlightened by God; but what he says is not more or less
inspired. It is so, or it is not so; it is from God, or it is not from God; here
there is neither measure nor degree, neither increase nor diminution. David was
enlightened by God; John Baptist more than David; a simple Christian possibly
more than John Baptist; art apostle was more enlightened than that Christian,
and Jesus Christ more than that apostle. But the inspired word of David, what do
I say? the inspired word of Balaam himself is that of God, as was that of John
Baptist, as was that of St Paul, as was that of Jesus Christi IT IS THE WORD OF
GOD. The most enlightened of the saints cannot speak by inspiration, whilst the
most wicked, the most ignorant, and the most impure of men, may speak not of his
own will (ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ οὐκ εἰπεῖν) inspiration (ἀλλά προφητεύσαι.) (John 11:51) In
a man who is truly regenerated, there is always the divine spirit and the human
spirit, which operate at once — the one enlightening, the other darkening; and
the illumination will be so much the greater, the more that of the divine Spirit
surpasses that of the human spirit. In the prophets, and, above all, in the
apostles, these two elements also are to be found. But, thanks be to God, our
saith in the words of Scripture nowise depends on the unknown issue of that
combat which was waged between the Spirit and the flesh in the soul of the
sacred writers. Our faith goes directly to the heart of God.

XVI. Can much harm result from the doctrine according to which the language of
inspiration would be no more than the human expression of a superhuman
revelation, and, so to speak, of a natural reflection of a supernatural
illumination?

One or other of two evils will always result from it; either the oracles of God
will be brought down to the level of the words of the saints, or these last will
be raised to the level of the Scriptures. This is a deplorable consequence, the
alternative involved in which has been reproduced in all ages. It became
unavoidable.

All truly regenerated men being enlightened by the Holy Ghost, it would follow,
according to this doctrine, that they would all possess, though in different
degrees, the element of inspiration; so that, according to the arbitrary idea
which you would form to yourselves of their spiritual condition, you would be
led inevitably sometimes to assimilate the sacred writers to them, sometimes to
raise them to the rank of writers inspired from above.

XVII. Might religious societies be mentioned in which the former of these two
evils is realized; I mean to say, where people have been led, by. this path, to
lower the Scriptures to the level of the sayings of saints?

All the systems of the Protestant doctors who assume that there is some mixture
of error in the Holy Scriptures, are based on this doctrine; from Semler and
Ammon to Eichhorn, Paulus, Gabler, Schuster, and Restig; from M. de Wette to the
more respectable systems of Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, Scaliger, Capellus, John le
Clerc, or of Vossius. According to these theories, the divine light with which
the intellects of the sacred writers was enlightened, might suffer some partial
eclipses, through the inevitable effect of their natural infirmities, of a
defect of memory, of innocent ignorance, of popular prejudice; so that traces of
these have remained in their writings, and so that we can perceive in these
where their shadows have fallen.

XVIII. Might religious societies be mentioned also, where the latter of these
evils has been consummated; I mean to say, where, in consequence of having been
willing to confound inspiration with illumination, saints and doctors have been
elevated to the rank of divinely inspired men? Of these, two in particular may
be mentioned, the Jews and the Latins.

XIX. What have the Jews done?

They have considered the rabbins of the successive ages of the Dispersion as
endowed with an infallibility which put them on a level with (if not above)
Moses and the prophets. They have, to be sure, attributed a kind of divine
inspiration to holy Scripture; but they have prohibited the explanation of its
oracles otherwise than according to their traditions. They have called the
immense body of those commandments of men the oral law (תורהשבעלפה), the
Doctrine, or the Talmud (תלמוד), distinguishing it into the Mishna, or Second
Law (משנה), and Gémara, complement or perfection (גמיא). They have said that it
passed from God to Moses, from Moses to Joshua, from Joshua to the prophets,
from the prophets to Esdras, from Esdras to the doctors of the great synagogue,
and from them to the rabbins Antigone, Soccho, Shemaia, Hillel, Schammai, until
at last Juda the saint deposited it in the traditions or repetitions of the law
(משניות, δευτερώσεις), which afterwards, with their commentary or complement
(the gémara), formed, first, the Talmud of Jerusalem, and afterwards that of
Babylon.

“One of the greatest obstacles that we have to encounter in dealing with the
Jews,” says the missionary MacCaul, “is their invincible prejudice in favour of
their traditions and of their commentaries, so that we cannot prevail on them to
buy our Bibles without notes or commentaries.” [33]

“The law they say is salt; the mishna, pepper; the talmuds, aromatics:” “the
Scripture is water; the mishna, wine; the gémara, spiced wine.” “My son,” says
rabbi Isaac, “learn to pay more attention to the words of the scribes than to
the words of the law.” “Turn away your children” (said rabbi Eleazar, on his
deathbed, to his scholars, who asked him the way of life), “turn away your
children from the study of the Bible, and place them at the feet of the wise.”
“Learn, my son,” says the rabbi Jacob, “that the words of the scribes are more
agreeable than those of the prophets!” [34] XX. And what has been the result of
these monstrous principles?

It is, that by this means millions and millions of immortal souls, although
wandering upon the earth, although weary and heavy laden, although everywhere
despised and persecuted, have contrived to carry the book of the Old Testament,
intact and complete, among all the nations of the whole world, without ceasing
to read it in Hebrew every Sabbath, in thousands of synagogues, for the last
eighteen hundred years, … without, notwithstanding all this, recognising there
that Jewish Messiah whom we all adore, and the knowledge of whom would be at
this day their deliverance, as it behoves one day to be their happiness and
their glory!

“Full well,” said Jesus to them, “full well ye reject the commandment of God,
that ye may keep your own tradition.” [35] XXI. And what have the Latins done?

They have considered the fathers, the popes, and the councils of the successive
ages of the Roman Church, as endowed with an infallibility which puts them on a
level with Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles, if not above them. They have
differed greatly, it is true, from each other on the doctrine of the inspiration
of the Scriptures; and the faculties of Douay and Louvain, for example, have
vigorously opposed [36] the opinion of the Jesuits, who would see nothing in the
operation of the Holy Ghost but a direction preserving the sacred writers from
error; but all have forbidden the explanation of the Scriptures otherwise than
by their traditions. [37] They have thought themselves entitled to say, in all
their councils, as did the apostles and prophets at Jerusalem, “It hath seemed
good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” They have declared that it appertained to
them to pronounce upon the true meaning of holy Scripture. They have called the
immense body of those commandments of men, the oral law, the unwritten
traditions, the unwritten law. They have said that they have been transmitted by
God, and dictated by the mouth of Jesus Christ, or of the Holy Ghost, by a
continual succession.

“Seeing,” says the Council of Trent, [38] “that the saving truth and discipline
of manners are contained in the written books and the unwritten traditions,
which, having been received by the apostles from the mouth of Jesus Christ, or
from the respiration of the Holy Ghost, by succession of time are come down to
us, following the example of the apostolic fathers, the Council receives with
the same affection and reverence (pari pietatis et reverentiœ affectu), and
honours all the books of the Old and New Testament (seeing that God is their
author), and together with them the TRADITIONS relating to faith as well as
manners, as having been dictated by the mouth of Jesus Christ or of the Holy
Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by continual succession.” “If any
one receive not the whole of the said books, with all their parts, as holy and
canonical as they have been wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and in the
old vulgate translation” (that of Jerome, [39] which, especially in Job and the
Psalms, is crammed with very numerous, very serious, and very evident errors,
and has even been corrected abundantly since by other popes), [40] “or knowingly
despises the said traditions, let him be accursed!” They have thus put the bulls
of the bishops of Rome, and the decrees of their synods, above the Scriptures.
“Holy Scripture,” say they, “does not contain all that is necessary for
salvation, and is not sufficient.” [41] “It is obscure.” [42] “It does not
belong to the people to read Holy Scripture.” [43] “We must receive with
obedience of faith many things that are not contained in Scripture.” [44] “We
must serve God according to the tradition of the ancients.” [45] The bull
Exsurge of Leo X. [46] places in the number of Luther’s heresies his having
said, “That it is not in the power of the Church, or of the Pope, to establish
articles of faith.” The bull Unigenitus[47] condemns to perpetuity, as being
respectively false, captious, scandalous, pernicious, rash, suspected of heresy,
savouring of heresy, heretical, impious, blasphemous, &c., the following
propositions: — “It is profitable at all times, in all places, and for all sorts
of persons, to study the Scriptures, and to become acquainted with their spirit,
piety, and mysteries,” (on 1Co 16:5.) [48] “The reading of Holy Scripture in the
hands of a man of business, and a financier, shows that it is intended for every
body,” (on Acts 8:28.) [49] “The holy obscurity of the Word of God is no ground
for the laity’s being dispensed from reading it,” (on Acts 8:30-31.) “The Lord’s
day ought to be sanctified by the reading of books of piety, and especially of
the Scriptures. They are the milk which God himself, who knows our hearts, has
supplied for them. It is dangerous to desire being weaned from it.” — (Acts
15:29.) “It is a mistake to imagine that the knowledge of the mysteries of
religion ought not to be communicated to that sex (women) by the reading of the
holy books, after this example of confidence with which Jesus Christ manifests
himself to this woman (the Samaritan).” “It is not from the simplicity of women,
but from the proud learning of men, that abuse of the Scriptures has arisen, and
heresies have been generated.” — (John 4:26.) “It amounts to shutting the mouth
of Christ to Christians, and to wresting from their hands the holy book, or to
keep it shut to them by depriving them of the means of hearing, it. — (1Th 5:2.)
“To interdict Christians from reading it, is to interdict children from the use
of light, and to subject them to a kind of excommunication,” (on Luk 11:33.)
(Exo 20:4-5)

Still more lately, in 1824, the encyclical epistle of Pope Leo XII. mournfully
complains of the Bible Societies, “which,” it says, “violate the traditions of
the fathers (!!!) and the Council of Trent, by circulating the Scriptures in the
vernacular tongues of all nations.” (“Non vos latet, venerandi fratres,
socletatem quamdam, dictam vulgo BIBLICAM, per totum orbem audacter vagari quoe
spretis S. S. Patrum traditionibus (!!!) et contra notissimum Tridentini
Concilii decretum in id collatis viribus ac modis omnibus intendit, ut in
vulqares linguas nationumomnium sacra vertantur vel potius pervertantur
Biblia.”) “In order to avert this pest,” he says, “our predecessors have
published several constitutions, … tending to show bow pernicious for the faith
and for morals this perfidious institution (the Bible Society) is! (ut
ostendatur quantopere fidei et moribus vaferrimum hocce inventum noxium sit!)”

XXII. And what has been the result of these monstrous principles?

It is this, that millions and millions of immortal souls in France, in Spain, in
Italy, in Germany, and in America, and even in the Indies, although they carry
everywhere intact and complete the New Testament, although they have not ceased
to read it in Latin, every Lord’s day, in thousands and thousands of churches,
for twelve hundred years, … have been turned away from the fountains of life,
have, like the Jews, “paid more attention to the words of the scribes than to
those of the law;” have diverted their children, according to the counsel of
Eleazer, “from the study of the Bible, to place them at the feet of the wise.”
They have found, like rabbi Jacob, “the words of the scribes more agreeable than
those of the prophets.” It is thus that they have contrived, for twelve
centuries, to maintain doctrines the most contrary to the Word of God, (Exo
20:4-5) on the worship of images; [50] on the exaltation of the priests; on
their forced celibacy; on their auricular confession; on the absolution which
they dare to give; on the magical power which they attribute even to the most
impure among them, of creating his God with three Latin words, opere operato; on
art ecclesiastical priesthood, of which Scripture has never said a word; on
prayers to the dead; on the spiritual pre-eminence of the city which the
Scripture has called Babylon; on the use of an unknown tongue in worship; on the
celestial empire of the blessed but humble woman to whom Jesus himself said,
“Woman, what have I to do with thee?” on the mass; on the taking away of the
cup; on the interdiction of the Scriptures to the people; on indulgences; on
purgatory; on the universal episcopate of an Italian priest; on the interdiction
of meals; so that just as people annul the sole priesthood of the Son of man by
establishing other priesthoods by thousands, just as they annul his divinity by
acknowledging thousands of demigods or dead men, present in all places, hearing
throughout the whole earth the most secret prayers of human beings, protecting
cities and kingdoms, working miracles in favour of their worshippers; … just so,
also, they annul the inspiration of Scripture, by acknowledging by thousands
other writings which share in its divine authority, and which surpass and
swallow up its eternal infallibility!

It was in opposition to the very similar tenets maintained by the heretics of
his time, that Saint Irenæus said, “For when convicted by the Scriptures, they
turn about and accuse the Scriptures themselves, as if they were imperfect, and
wanting in authority, and uncertain, and as if one could not find the truth in
them, if ignorant of tradition; for that was given, not in writing, but by the
living voice.” [51]

“Full well,” says Jesus to them too, “ye reject the commandments of God, that ye
may keep your own traditions! Bene irritum facitis præceptum Dei, ut traditionem
restrain servetis!” — (Mark 7:9.)

XXIII. Without pretending anyhow to explain how the Holy Ghost could dictate the
thoughts and the words of the Scriptures (for the knowledge of this mystery is
neither given to us, nor asked of us), what is it that one can perceive in this
divine action?

Why, two things; first, an impulsion, that is, an action on the will of the men
of God, in order to make them speak and write; and, secondly, a suggestion, that
is to say, an action on their understandings and on their organs, in order to
their producing, first, within them more or less exalted notions of the truth
they were about to utter; and, then, without them such human expressions as were
most divinely suitable to the eternal thought of the Holy Ghost.

XXIV. Meanwhile, must it be admitted that the sacred writers were no more than
merely the pens, hands, and secretaries of the Holy Ghost?

They were, no doubt, hands, secretaries, and pens; but they were, in almost
every case, and in very different degrees, living pens, intelligent hands,
secretaries docile, affected by what they wrote, and sanctified.

XXV. Was not the Word of God, however, often written as suggested by the
occasion?

Yes, no doubt; and the occasion was prepared by God, just as the writer was.
“The Holy Ghost,” says Claude, [52] “employed the pen of the evangelists … and
of the prophets. He supplied them with the occasions on which they wrote; he
gave them the wish and the strength to do so; the matter, form, order, economy,
expressions, are from his immediate inspiration and direction.”

XXVI. But do we not clearly recognise, in the greater part of the sacred books,
the individual character of the person who writes?

Far from disowning this, we, on the contrary, admire its being so. The
individual character which comes from God, and not from sin and the fall, was
prepared and sanctified by God for the work to which it had been destined by
God. XXVII. Ought we, then, to think that all has been equally inspired of God,
in each of the books of Holy Scripture?

Scripture, in speaking of what it is, does not admit any distinction. All these
sacred books, without exception, are the word of the Lord. ALL SCRIPTURE, says
St Paul (πᾶσα γραφή), IS INSPIRED BY GOD. This declaration, as we have already
said, is susceptible of two constructions, according as we place the verb, not
expressed but understood, before or after the Greek word which we here translate
inspired by God; — both these constructions invincibly establish, that in the
apostle’s idea, all without exception, in each and all of the books of the
Scriptures, is dictated by the Spirit of God. In fact, in both the apostle
equally attests that these HOLY LETTERS (τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα), of which he had been
speaking to Timothy, are all divinely inspired Scriptures.

Now, we know that in the days of Jesus Christ, the whole Church meant one SOLE
AND THE SAME COLLECTION OF BOOKS by the Scripture, the Holy Scripture, or the
Scriptures, or the Holy Letters, or the Law and the Prophets, (γραφὴ, (2Pe 1:20;
John 10:35; John 17:12; John 19:37) or ὴ γραφὴ ἁγία, (Rom 1:2) or αἱ γραφαὶ,
(John 5:39; Mat 21:42; Mat 26:54; Rom 15:4; 1Co 15:3) or ὁ νόμος καὶ οἱ
προφήται, (Acts 24:14; Luk 16:16; Luk 16:29; Luk 16:31; Mat 5:17-18; John 10:34)
or τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα (2Ti 3:15)). These were the twenty-two sacred books which
the Jews held from their prophets, and on which they were all perfectly agreed.
[53] This entire and perfect divine inspiration of all the Scriptures of the
Jews was so fully, in the days of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the whole of
that ancient people of God (as it was that of Jesus Christ, of Timothy, and of
St Paul), that we find the following testimony to it in the works of the Jewish
general Josephus (who had reached his thirtieth year [54] at the time when the
Apostle Paul wrote his Second Epistle to Timothy). “Never” (says he, in speaking
of “the twenty-two books” [55] of the Old Testament, which he calls τὰνἰδία
γράμματα, as St Paul calls them here τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα), “never, although many
ages have elapsed, has any one dared either to TAKE AWAY, or to ADD, or to
TRANSPOSE in these anything whatever; [56] for it is with all the Jews, as it
were an inborn conviction (ΠΑΣΙ δὲ σύμφυτόν ἐστιν), from their very earliest
infancy, [57] to call them GOD’S TEACHINGS, to abide in them, and, if necessary,
to die joyfully in maintaining them.” [58]

“They are given to us” (he says further) “by the inspiration that comes from God
(κατὰ τὴν ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ᾿; but as for the other books, composed
‘since the times of Artaxerxes, they are not thought worthy of a like faith.”
[59] …

These passages from Josephus are not quoted here as an authority for our faith,
but as an historical testimony, showing the sense in which the apostle St Paul
spoke, and attesting to us that, in mentioning the holy letters (τὰ ἰερὰ
γράμματα), and in saying that they are all divinely inspired Scriptures, he
meant to declare to us that, in his eyes, there was nothing in the sacred books
which was not dictated by God.

Now, since the books of the New Testament are; ἱεπὰ γράμματα, Holy Scriptures,
the Scriptures, the Holy Letters, as well as those of the Old; since the
apostles have put their writings, and since St Peter, for example, has put ALL
THE LETTERS OF PAUL (πάσα τὰς ἐπιστολὰς) in the same rank with the REST OF THE
SCRIPTURES (ὡς καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς ΓΡΑΦΑΣ), hence we ought to conclude that all is
inspired by God in all the books of the Old and New Testament.

XXVIII. But if all the sacred books (τα ἱερὰ γράμματα) are divinely inspired,
how can we discover that such and such a book is a sacred book, and that such
another is not one?

This, in a great measure, is a purely historical question.

XXIX. Yet, have not the Reformed Churches maintained that it was by the Holy
Ghost that they recognised the divinity of the sacred books; and, for example,
has not the Confession of Faith of the Churches of France said in its 4th
article, that we know these books to be canonical, and a very certain rule of
our faith, not so much by the common accord and agreement of the Church, as by
the testimony and the persuasion of the Holy Ghost, which enables us to discern
between them and the other ecclesiastical books? This maxim is perfectly true,
if you apply it to the sacred books as a whole. In that sense the Bible is
evidently ἀυτόπιστος book, which needs itself only in order to be believed. To
the man, whoever he be, that studies it “with sincerity and as before God,” (2Co
2:17) it presents itself evidently, and of itself, as a miraculous book; it
reveals all that is hidden in men’s consciences; it discerns the thoughts and
affections of the heart. It has foretold the future; it has changed the face of
the world; it has converted souls; it has created the Church. Thus it produces
in men’s hearts “an inward testimony and conviction of the Holy Ghost,” which
attests its inimitable divinity, independently of any testimony of men. But we
do not think that our Churches ever ventured to affirm that one might be content
to abide by this mark for discerning such or such a book, or such or such a
chapter, or such or such a verse of the Word of God, and for ascertaining its
celestial origin. They think that for this detail one must look, as they did,
“to the common accord and agreement of the Church.” We ought to admit as divine
the entire code of the Scriptures, before each of its parts has enabled us to
prove by itself that it is of God. It does not belong to us to judge this book;
it is this book which will judge us.

XXX. Nevertheless, has not Luther, [60] starting from a principle laid down by
St Paul (1Co 3:9-10) and by St John, (1Jn 4:2) said, that “the touchstone by
which one might recognise certain scriptures as divine, is this: Do they preach
Christ or do they not preach him?” [61] And among the moderns, has not Dr
Twesten also said, “that the different parts of the Scriptures are more or less
inspired, according as they are more or less preaching; and that inspiration
does not extend to words and historical matters beyond what has a relation to
the Christian conscience, beyond what proceeds from Christ, or serves to show us
Christ.” [62]

Christ is, no doubt, the way, the truth, and the life; the spirit of prophecy,
no doubt, is the testimony of Jesus; (John 14:6. — Rev 19:10) but this
touchstone might in our hands prove fallacious: 1st, Because many writings speak
admirably of Christ without being inspired; 2d, Although all that is to be found
in the inspired Scriptures relates to Jesus Christ, possibly we might fail to
perceive this divine character at a first glance; and 3d, In fine, because we
ought to BELIEVE BEFORE SEEING it, that all Scripture is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness:
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
(2Ti 3:16)

XXXI. What reasons have we, then, for recognising as sacred each of the books
which, at the present day, form for us the collection of the Scriptures? For the
Old Testament we have the testimony of the Jewish Church; and for the New
Testament the testimony of the Catholic Church. XXXII. What must here be
understood by the testimony of the Jewish Church? We must understand by it the
common opinion of all the Jews, Egyptian and Syrian, Asiatic and European,
Sadducean and Pharisees, [63] ancient and modern, good and bad.

XXXIII. What reason have we to hold for divine, the books of the Old Testament
which the Church of the Jews has given us as such?

It is written, “that unto them were committed the oracles of God;” (Rom 3:2)
which means, that God in his wisdom chose them for being, under the Almighty
government of his providence, sure depositories of his written word. Jesus
Christ received their sacred code, and we accept of it as he did. XXXIV. Shall
our faith then depend upon the Jews? The Jews often fell into idolatry; they
denied the faith; they slew their prophets; they crucified the King of kings;
since that they have hardened their hearts for near two thousand years; they
have filled up the measure of their sins, and wrath “is come upon them to the
uttermost.” (1Th 2:16) Nevertheless, to them were committed the oracles of God.
And albeit that these oracles condemn them, albeit that the veil remains on
their hearts when they read the Old Testament; (2Co 3:15) albeit they have for
ages despised the Word of God, and worshipped their Talmud; they HAVE NOT BEEN
ABLE not to give us the book of the Scriptures intact and complete; and the
historian Josephus might still say of them what he wrote eighteen hundred years
ago: “After the παρῳχηκότος), no one among the Jews has dared to ADD or to TAKE
AWAY, or to transpose anything in the sacred Scriptures.” [64] XXXV. What, then,
have been the warranty, the cause, and the means of this fidelity on the part of
the Jews?

We shall reply to this question in but a very few words. Its warranty is to be
found in the promises of God; its cause in the providence of God; and its means
in the concurrence of the five following circumstances: —

[1]. The religion of the Jews, which has carried their respect for the very
letter of Scriptures even to a superstitious length.

[2]. The indefatigable labours of the Masorethes, who so carefully guarded its
purify, even to the slightest accents.

[3]. The rivalry of the Judaical sects, none of which would have sanctioned any
want of faithfulness on the part of the others.

[4]. The extraordinary dispersion of that people in al| countries long before
the ruin of Jerusalem; for “of old time,” says St James, [65] “Moses hath in
every (pagan) city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every
Sabbath-day.”

[5]. Finally, the innumerable copies of the sacred book diffused among all
nations.

XXXVI. And with respect to the New Testament, what are we now to understand by
the testimony of the Catholic Church? By this we are to understand the universal
agreement of the ancient and modern Churches, Asiatic and European, good and
bad, which call on the name of Jesus Christ; that is to say, not only the
faithful sects of the blessed Reformation, but the Greek sect, the Arminian
sects, the Syrian sect, the Roman sect, and perhaps we might add the Unitarian
sects? [66] XXXVII. Should our faith then be founded on the Catholic Church?

All Churches have erred, or might have erred. Many have denied the faith,
persecuted Jesus Christ in his members, denied his divinity, made his cross of
none effect, restored the worship of statues and graven images, exalted the
priests, shed the blood of the saints, interdicted the use of the Scriptures to
the people, committed to the flames those of the faithful who desired to read
them in the vernacular tongue, have set up in the temple of God him who sits
there as a God, have trampled upon the Scriptures, worshipped traditions, warred
against God, and cast down the truth. Nevertheless, the new oracles of God have
been committed to them, as those of the Old Testament were to the Jews. And
albeit these oracles condemn them; albeit for ages they have despised the
Scriptures and almost adored their traditions; — they have NOT BEEN ABLE not to
give us the Book of the Scriptures of the New Testament intact and complete; and
one may say of them, as Josephus said of Jews, “After the lapse of so many ages,
never has any one in the Churches dared either to add or take away anything in
the Holy Scriptures.” They have been compelled, in spite of themselves, to
transmit them to us in their integrity.

XXXVIII. Nevertheless has there not been in Christendom one powerful sect, which
for three hundred years has introduced into the canon of the Scriptures the
Apocryphal Books, disavowed as they have been by the Jews [67] (as even Pope St
Gregory himself attests), [68] and rejected by the fathers of the ancient Church
[69] (as St Jerome attests)?

This, it is true, is what was done for the Latin sect by the fifty-three persons
who composed, on the 8th of April 1546, the famous Council of Trent, and who
pretended to be the representatives of the CHURCH UNIVERSAL OF JESUS CHRIST.
[70] But they could do it for the Old Testament only, which was entrusted to the
Jews and not to the Christians. Neither that Council, nor any even of the most
corrupt and idolatrous Churches, have been able to add a single Apocryphal Book
to the New Testament. God has not permitted this, however mischievous may have
been their intentions. It is thus that the Jews have been able to reject the New
Testament, which was not committed to them; while they HAVE NEVER, BEEN ABLE to
introduce a single book of man into the Old Testament. God has never permitted
them to do so; and, in particular, they have always excluded from it those which
the fifty-three ecclesiastics of Trent were daring enough to cause to be
inserted in it, in the name of the universal Church.

XXXIX. And what have been the warranty, the cause, and the means of that
fidelity, which the universal Church has shown in transmitting to us the oracles
of God in the New Testament? To this question we shall reply but in a very few
words. The warranty has lain in the promises of God; the cause in the providence
of God; and the means principally in the concurrence of the following
circumstances: —

[1]. The religion of the ancient Christians, and their extraordinary respect for
the sacred texts; a respect shown on all occasions in their churches, [71] in
their councils, [72] in their oaths, [73] and even in their domestic customs,
[74] [2]. The pains taken by learned men in different ages to preserve the
purity of the sacred text.

[3]. The many quotations made from Scripture by the fathers of the Church.

[4]. The mutual jealousy of the sects into which the Christian Church has been
subdivided.

[5]. The versions made from the first ages in many ancient tongues.

[6]. The number and abundant dissemination of manuscripts of the New Testament.

[7]. The dispersion of the new people of God as far as the extremities of Asia,
and to the farthest limits of the west.

XL. Does it then result from these facts that the authority of the Scriptures is
founded for us, as Bellarmin has said, on that of the Church? The doctors of
Rome, it is true, have gone so far as to say, that without the testimony of the
Church the Scripture has no more authority than Livy, the Alcoran, or Æsop’s
fables; [75] and Bellarmin, horrified no doubt at such impious opinions, would
fain distinguish the authority of the Church in itself, and with respect to us
(quoad se, et quoad nos). In this last sense, he says, the Scripture has no
authority except by the testimony of the Church. Our answer will be very simple.

Every manifestation having three causes, all objective cause, a subjective
cause, and an instrumental cause, one may say also that the knowledge that we
receive of the authority of the Scriptures has, first of all, for its objective
cause, the Holy Bible itself, which proves its divinity by its own beauty, and
by its own doings; in the second place, for subjective or efficient cause, the
Holy Ghost, (Isa 54:13; Isa 59:21) who confirms and seals to our souls the
testimony of God; and in fine, in the third place, for instrumental cause, the
Church, not the Roman, not the Greek, more ancient than the Roman, not even the
Syriac, more ancient than either, but the Universal Church. The pious St
Augustine expresses this triple cause, in his book against the Epistle of
Manicheus, called Fundamenti. In speaking of the time at which he was still a
Manichean, he says: [76] “I should not have believed in the gospel had I not
been drawn to it by the authority of the Church;” but he takes care to add: “Let
us follow those who invite us first to believe, when we are not yet in a state
to see: in order that, being rendered more capable (valentiores) by faith
itself, we may deserve to comprehend what we believe. Then it will no more be
men, it will be God himself within us, who will confirm our souls and illuminate
them.” In this affair, then, the Church is a servant and not a mistress; a
depositary and not a judge. She exercises the office of a minister, not of a
magistrate, ministerium non magisterium. [77] She delivers a testimony, not a
judicial sentence. She discerns the canon of the Scriptures, she does not make
it; she has recognised their authenticity, she has not given it. And as the men
of Sichem believed in Jesus Christ by means of the impure but penitent woman who
called them to him, we say to the Church: “Now we believe, not because of thy
saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the
Christ, the Saviour of the world.” (John 4:42.) We have believed, then, per
earn, not propter earn, through her means, not on her account. We found her on
her knees; she showed us her Master; we recognised him, and we knelt down along
with her. Were I to mingle in the rear of an imperial army, and should I ask
those around me to show me their prince, they would do with respect to him, for
me, what the Church has done with regard to the Scriptures. They would not call
their regiment the œcumenical army; above all, they would not say that the
emperor has no authority but what is derived from its testimony, whether as it
respected itself or with respect to us; whether quoad se or quoad nos (to use
Bellarmin’s language). The authority of the Scriptures is not founded, then, on
the authority of the Church: it is the Church that is founded on the authority
of the Scriptures.

XLI. If the authenticity of the Scriptures is proved in a great measure by
history, how is their inspiration established?

Solely by the Scriptures. question, and the proving of inspiration by
inspiration?

There would be a begging of the question here, if: in order to prove that the
Scriptures are inspired, we should invoke their testimony while assuming them to
be inspired. But we are far from adopting this process. First of all, the Bible
is viewed solely in the light of an historical document, deserving our respect
from its authenticity, and by means of which one may know the doctrine of Jesus
Christ, nearly as one would learn that of Socrates from the books of Plato, or
that of Leibnitz from the writings of Wolff. Now this document declares to us,
in all its pages, that the whole system of the religion which it teaches, is
founded on the grand fact of a miraculous intervention of God in the revelation
of its history and its doctrines. The learned Michaelis, who held such loose
principles on inspiration, himself declares that the inspiration of the
apostolic writings necessarily results from their authenticity. There is no
other alternative, says he; if” what they relate is true, they are inspired; if
they were not inspired, they would not be sincere; but they are sincere,
therefore they are inspired.

There is nothing in such reasoning that can be thought like a begging of the
question.

XLIII. If it be by the Bible itself that we establish the dogma of a certain
inspiration in the sacred books, by what can it be proved that that inspiration
is universal, and that it extends to the minutest details of the instructions
they convey?

If it be the Scriptures that tell us of their divine inspiration, it is they too
that will be able to inform us in what divine inspiration consisted. In order to
our admitting their inspiration on their own sole testimony, it should have
sufficed for us to be assured that they were authentic; but, in order to our
admitting their plenary inspiration, we shall have something more; for we shall
then be able to invoke their testimony as writings already admitted to be
divine. It will no longer be authentic books only that say to us, I am inspired;
but books, both authentic and inspired, will say to us, I am so altogether. The
Scriptures are inspired, we affirm, because, being authentic and true, they say
of themselves that they are inspired; but the Scriptures are plenarily inspired,
we also add, because, being inspired, they say that they are so entirely, and
without any exception.

Here, then, there is neither more nor less than a doctrine which the Bible will
teach us, as it teaches us all the rest. And just as we believe, because it
tells us so, that Jesus Christ is God, and that he became man; so also we
believe that the Holy Ghost is God, and that he dictated the whole of the
Scriptures.

Defenders of the Doctrine Xliv. Who are the divines that have impugned the
doctrine of the divine inspiration?

We have one general remark to make before enumerating them here, namely, that
with the single exception of Theodore of Mopsuestia, that philosophical divine
whose numerous writings, so strongly tainted with Pelagianism, were condemned
for their Nestorianism in the fifth œcumenical council (Constantinople, 553),
and whose principles on the divine inspiration were very loose, — with the
exception, we say, of Theodore of Mopsuestia, it has been found impossible to
produce, in the long course of the EIGHT FIRST CENTURIES OF CHRISTIANITY, a
single doctor who has disowned the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, unless
it be in the bosom of the most violent heresies that have tormented, the
Christian Church; that is to say, among the Gnostics, the Manicheans, the
Anomeans, and the Mahometans. St Jerome himself, who sometimes permitted
himself, while speaking of the style of certain parts of the sacred books, to
use a language whose temerity will be censured by all pious persons, [78]
nevertheless maintains, even for such passages, the entire inspiration of all
the parts of the sacred Scripture; [79] and in that he further sees, under what
he calls the grossness of the language and the seeming absurdity of the
reasonings, intentions on the part of the Holy Spirit full of profound art and
wisdom. And if, transporting ourselves from the days of St Jerome to four
hundred years farther down, we come to the celebrated Agobard, who is alleged by
Dr Du Pin to have been the first of the fathers of the Church that abandoned the
doctrine of a verbal inspiration, [80] it is most unjustly, says Dr Rudelbach,
that such a charge has been brought against that bishop. It is true, that in
disputing with the Abbot Fredigise, [81] touching the latitude to be allowed to
Latin translators of the sacred text, he maintains that the dignity of the Word
of God consists in the force of meaning, not in the pomp of words; but he took
care to add, that the authority of the apostles and the prophets remains intact,
and that no one is permitted to believe that they could have placed a letter
otherwise than they have done; for their authority is stronger than heaven and
earth. [82]

If, then, we would class, in the order of time, the men who controverted the
entire divine inspiration of our sacred books, we must place: — In the 2d
century, the Gnostics (Valentine, Cerdo, Marcio, his disciple, &c. They believed
in two equal principles, independent, contrary, and co-eternal; the one good and
the other bad; the one the father of Jesus Christ, and the other the author of
the law; and, entertaining this idea, they rejected the Pentateuch, at the same
time admitting no more of the New Testament than the gospel of Luke, and part of
Paul’s epistles. In the 3d century Manes or Manicheus, who, calling himself the
paraclete promised by Jesus Christ, corrected the books of the Christians, and
added his own. In the 4th century, the Anomeans or Ultra-Arians (for Arius
himself held a more reserved language), who maintained, with their leader Ætius,
that the Son, a created intelligence, unlike[83]to the Father, took to himself a
human body without a human soul. They spoke of the Scriptures with an
irreverence tantamount to the denial of their entire inspiration. “When pressed
with Scriptural reasons,” says St Epiphanius, “they escape by saying: That it
was as a man that the apostle said those things;” or, “Why do you bring the Old
Testament against me?” And what does the holy bishop add? “It was to be expected
that those who denied the glory of Christ, should deny still more that of the
apostles.” [84] In the 5th century, Theodore of Mopsuestia, chief of the Antioch
school, an able philosopher, and learned but rash divine. All that remains to us
of his numerous works, is some fragments only, preserved to us by other authors.
His books, as we have said, were condemned (two hundred years after his death)
at the Council of Constantinople. There were quoted there, for example, his
writings against Appollinarius, in which he had said that the book of Job is
merely a poem derived from a pagan source; that Solomon had no doubt received
λόγος γνώσεως, but not λόγον σοφίας; that the Song of Songs is but a long and
insignificant epithalamium, without any character prophetical, historical, or
scientific, and in the manner of the Symposion of Plato, etc, etc. [85] In the
7th century, Mahomet (whose false religion is nothing more than a heresy of
Christianity; and who speaks of Christ at least as honourably as most part of
the Socinians have done,) — Mahomet acknowledged, and often quoted as inspired,
the books of the Old and New Testament; but he said they had been corrupted,
and, like Manes, he added his own. In the 12th and 13th centuries, as it would
appear, there sprang up and took a regular shape, first among the Talmudist
Jews, [86] the system of those modern doctors who have thought fit to class the
various passages of holy Scripture under various orders of inspiration, and to
reduce the divine inspiration to more or less natural proportions. It was under
the double influence of the Aristotelian philosophy, and of the theology of the
Talmud, that the Jews of the middle ages, differing much in this from the
ancient Jews, [86] imagined this theory. That was the time of the Solomon.
Jarchis, the David Kimchis, the Averroeses, the Aben-Ezras, the Joseph Albos;
and above all of Moses Maimonides, that Spanish Jew who has been called the
eagle of the doctors. Maimonides, borrowing the vague terms of the peripatetic
philosophy, taught that prophecy is not an exclusive product of the action of
the Holy Ghost. Just, says he, as, if the intellectus agens (the intellectual
influence that is in man) associate itself more intimately with reason, there
results from it the secta sapientum speculatorum; and as, if that agent operates
more on the imagination, there results from it the secta politicorum,
legislatorura, divinatorum, et præstigiatorum; so also, when this superior
principle exercises its action in a more perfect manner on those two faculties
of the soul at once, the result is the secta prophetarum. Almost all the modern
Jewish doctors have adopted the ideas of Maimonides; and there, also, seems to
have originated Schleiermacher’s modern system of inspiration. It is in starting
from these principles that the doctors have admitted several degrees of
inspiration in the prophets. Of these, Maimonides reckoned sometimes eight,
sometimes eleven. Joseph Albo reduced them to four, and Abar-banel to three.
They applied these distinctions of different degrees of inspiration to the
division of the Old Testament into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa
(וכתוביםתודהנביאים.) The kethubim, according to him, had not received the
prophetic spirit (יוחנבואה), but only the Holy Spirit (יוחהקדש), which,
according to him, was no more than a human faculty, by means of which a man
pronounced words of wisdom and holiness. [87] The modern German school of the
adversaries of inspiration, seems accordingly to be a mere reproduction of the
theory of the rabbins of the 13th century, or a borrowing from the Talmudist
doctors of our own days. In the 16th century, Socinus [88] and Castellio [89]
maintained that the sacred writers sometimes show a failure of memory, and might
err on subjects of slight importance.

1n the 17th century, three orders of adversaries, according to the celebrated
Turretine, [90] combated inspiration. These were, besides the infidels properly
so- called (atheos et gentiles):

1. the fanatics (enthusiastæ), who charged Scripture with imperfection in order
to exalt their own particular revelations;

2. those of the Pope’s sect (pontificii), who scrupled not, says he, to betray
the cause of Christianity by alleging the corruption of the original text
(fontium), in order to exalt their Vulgate translation;

3. The rationalists of different classes (libertini), who, without going out of
the Church, unceasingly attempted to shake the authority of the Scriptures, by
pointing to difficult passages and apparent contradictions (ἄπορα καὶ
ἐναντιοφανῆ). In the latter half of the 18th century, this last class of
adversaries became very numerous in Germany. Semler gave the first impulsion to
what he called the liberal interpretation of the Scriptures; he rejected all
inspiration, denied all prophecy, and treated all miracle as allegory and
exaggeration. [91] Ammon, more lately, laid down positive rules for this impious
manner of explaining the miraculous facts. [92] The writings of a legion of
doctors no less daring, Paulus, Gabler, Schuster, Restig, and many others,
abound in practical applications of these principles. Eichhorn, more recently
still, has reduced into system the rationalist doctrine of prophecy. [93] De
Wette, in his Preliminary Manual, appears not to see any true prediction in the
prophets, and not to find any difference between those of Israel and those of
the Pagan nations, beyond the spirit of morality and sincerity which
characterises monotheism, and which, says he, purified Hebrew prophecy, while it
was wanting to the seers among the pagans. [94] Hug, in his Introduction to the
New Testament Scriptures, [95] nowhere speaks of inspiration. Michaelis admits
it for a part of the Scriptures, and rejects it for the other. So did John
Leclerc in the last century, [96] Rosenmüller is still more wavering in his
sentiments. Of late years, however, there have been German divines more
reverentially inclined, who have admitted different degrees of inspiration in
the different parts of the Scriptures; by distinguishing the passages which do
not relate, say they, to salvation; and making bold to see in them, as Socinus
and Castellio did of old, slips of memory, and errors, on subjects which, in
their eyes, seemed of little importance.

Among the English, too, there have been seen, of late years, persons otherwise
respectable, who have allowed themselves to range the sentences of God’s Word
under different classes of inspiration.

XLV. Can many illustrious doctors of the Church be mentioned as maintaining the
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures?

It is the uniform doctrine of THE WHOLE CHURCH down to the days of the
Reformation.

“Hardly,” says Rudelbach, “is there a single point with regard to which there
reigned, in the eight first ages of the Church, a greater or more cordial
unanimity.” [97] To the reader who wishes to consult these testimonies of
history, we recommend the dissertation lately published on this subject by the
learned doctor of Glogau, already mentioned. The author, commencing with a
review of the first eight hundred years of the Christian era, establishes the
following principles there, by very numerous quotations from the Greek and Latin
fathers.

[1]. The ancient Church, with one unanimous voice, teaches that all the
canonical writings of the Old and New Testaments ARE GIVEN BY THE HOLY SPIRIT of
God; and it is on this sole foundation (and independently of the fragmentary
information that human imperfection may acquire from them) that the Church
founded her faith on the perfection of the Scriptures.

[2]. The ancient Church, following out this first principle, no less firmly
maintains the INFALLIBILITY of the Scriptures as their sufficiency (αὐτάρχειαν)
and their plenitude. She attributes to their sacred authors not only axiopistia,
to wit, a fully deserved credibility, but also autopistia, to wit, a right to be
believed, independently of their circumstances or of their personal qualities,
and on account of the infallible and celestial authority which caused them to
speak.

[3]. The ancient Church, viewing the whole Scripture as an utterance, on the
part of God, addressed to man, and dictated by the Holy Ghost, has ever
maintained that there is NOTHING ERRONEOUS, nothing useless, nothing superfluous
there; and that in this divine work, as in that of creation, one may always
recognise, amid the richest plenty, the greatest and the wisest economy. Every
word there will be found to have its object, its point of view, its sphere of
efficacy. “Nihil otiosum, nec sine signo, neque sine argumento apud eum.” —
(Irenæus); πᾶν ῥῆμα … ἐργαζόμενον τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἔργου. — (Origen.) It is in
vigorously establishing and defending both these characters of the Scriptures,
that the ancient Church has shown the elevated and profound idea she entertained
of their divine inspiration.

[4]. The ancient Church has always maintained that the doctrine of holy
Scripture is the SAME THROUGHOUT, and that the Spirit of the Lord gives
utterance in every part of it to one and the same testimony. She vigorously
opposed that science, falsely so called (1Ti 6:20), which even in the first ages
of her history, had taken a regular shape in the doctrines of the Gnostics, and
which, daring to impute imperfection to the Old Testament, made it appear that
there were contradictions between one apostle and another apostle, where there
were really none.

[5]. The ancient Church thought that inspiration ought chiefly to be viewed, it
is true, as a passive state, but as a state in which the human faculties, FAR
FROM BEING EXTINGUISHED or set aside by the action of the Holy Ghost, were
exalted by his virtue, and filled with his light. She has often compared the
soul of the prophets and of the apostles to “a stringed instrument, which the
Holy Ghost put in motion, in order to draw out of it the divine harmonies of
life.” — (Athenagoras.) [98] “What they had to do, was simply to submit
themselves to the powerful action of the Holy Ghost, so that, touched by his
celestial influence, the harp, though human, might reveal to us the knowledge of
the mysteries of heaven.” (Justin Martyr.) [99] But, in their view, this harp,
entirely passive as it was as respects the action of God, was the heart of a
man, the soul of a man, the understanding of a man, renewed by the Holy Ghost,
and filled with divine life.

[6]. The ancient Church, while it maintained that there was this continued
action on the part of the Holy Ghost in the composition of the Scriptures,
strenuously repelled the false notions which certain doctors, particularly among
the Montanists, sought to propagate respecting the activity of the Spirit of
God, and the passiveness of the spirit of man in divine inspiration; as if the
prophet, ceasing to have the mastery of his senses, had been in the state which
the pagans attributed to their sibyls (μανίᾳ or ἐκστάσει). While the
Cataphrygians held that an inspired man, under the powerful influence of the
divine virtue, loses his senses (excidit sensu, adumbratus, silicet, virtute
divina). [100] the ancient Church maintained, on the contrary, that the prophet
DOES NOT SPEAK IN A STATE OF ECSTASY (non loquitur in ἐκστάσει,) [101] and that
one may distinguish by this trait false prophets from the true. This was the
doctrine held by Origen against Celsus (lib. 7: c. 4); as also of Miltiades, of
Tertullian, of Epiphanius, of Chrysostom, of Basil, and of Jerome, against the
Montanists.

[7]. The ancient Church in her endeavours, by means of OTHER DEFINITIONS, which
we shall not indicate here, to give greater dearness to the idea of divine
inspiration, and to disentangle it from the difficulties with which it was
sometimes obscured, still further showed how much she cherished this doctrine.

[8]. The ancient Church thought that if the name of action on the part of God is
to be applied to inspiration, it must be understood to extend TO WORDS as well
as to things.

[9]. The ancient Church, by her constant MODE OF QUOTING the Scriptures, in
order to the establishment and defence of her doctrines; by her manner, too, of
EXPOUNDING and COMMENTING on them; and, in fine, by the USE which she recommends
all Christians, without exception, to make of them as a privilege and a duty;
the ancient Church, by these three habitual practices, shows, still more
strongly, if it be possible, than she could have done by direct declarations,
how profoundly attached she was to the doctrine of a verbal inspiration. And it
is not only by her exposition of the Word that the ancient Church shows us to
what point she held the entire inspiration of the Scriptures, as an
incontrovertible axiom; she will show you this still more strongly, if you will
follow her while she is engaged IN RECONCILING THE apparent CONTRADICTIONS
sometimes presented by the Gospel narratives. After having made an essay of some
explanation, she does not insist upon it; but hastens to conclude, that whatever
be its validity, there necessarily exists some method of reconciling those
passages, and that the difficulty is only apparent, because the cause of that
difficulty lies in our Ignorance, and not in Scripture. “Whether it be so, or
otherwise (she says with Julius Africanus), it matters not, the Gospel remains
entirely true (τὸ μέντοι εὐαγνέλιον πάντως ἀληθεύει)![102] This is her
invariable conclusion as to the perfect solubility of all the difficulties that
one can present to her in the Word of God.

[10]. The ancient Church was so strongly attached to the doctrine of the
personality of the Holy Spirit, and of his sovereign action in the composition
of the whole Scriptures, that she made no difficulty in admitting at one and the
same time the greatest variety and the GREATEST LIBERTY in the phenomena, in the
occasions, in the persons, in the characters, and in all the external
circumstances, under the concurrence of which that work of God was accomplished.
At the same time that she owned with St Paul, that in all the operations of this
Spirit, it is one and the self- same Spirit that divideth to every man severally
as he will (1Co 12:11), she equally admitted that in the work of divine
inspiration, the divine causation was exercised amid a large amount of liberty,
as respects human manifestations. And be it carefully remarked, that you will
nowhere find, in the ancient Church, a certain class of doctors adopting one of
these points of view (that of the divine causation and sovereignty), and another
class of doctors attaching themselves exclusively to another (that of human
personality, and of the diversity of the writer’s occasions, affections,
intelligence, style. and other circumstances). “If this were so,” says
Rudelbach, “one might justly accuse us of having ourselves forced the solution
of the problem, instead of faithfully exhibiting the views of the ancient
Church.” But no; on the contrary, you will often see one and the same author
exhibit, at once and without scruple, both of these points of view: the action
of God and the personality of man. This is what we see, for example, abundantly
in Jerome, who, even when speaking of the specialties of the sacred writers,
never abandons the idea of a word introduced by God into their minds. This we
farther remark in Irenæus, who, while he insists more than any one else on the
action of God in the inspiration of the Scriptures, is the first of the fathers
of the Church that relates in detail the personal circumstances of the
Evangelists. This is what you will find again in St Augustine; this is what you
will see even in the father of Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Cæsarea, who
gives so many details on the four authors of the Gospels, and who, nevertheless,
professes the most rigorous principles on the plenary inspiration of the
Canonical Scriptures. [11]. The ancient Church shows us more completely still,
by two other traits, the idea she had formed of divine inspiration, by the care
she took, on the one hand, TO FIX THE RELATIONS which the doctrine of divine
inspiration bore to the doctrine of the gifts of grace; and, on the other, TO
EXHIBIT THE PROOFS of inspiration. In fine, although the ancient Church presents
this spontaneous (ungesuchte) and universal agreement in the doctrine of
inspiration, we must not imagine that this great phenomenon is attached, as some
have been fain to say, to some particular system of theology, or may be
explained by that system. No more must we regard this wonderful agreement as the
germ of a theory that was to establish it, at a later period in the Church. No.
The very assertions of an opposite opinion which, from time to time, made
themselves heard on the part of the heretics of the first centuries, and the
NATURE OF THE REPLIES that were put forth by the ancient Church, clearly
demonstrate, on the contrary, that this doctrine was deeply rooted in the
Church’s conscience. Every time that the fathers, in defending any truth by
passages from Scripture, succeeded so far as to drive their adversaries into the
impossibility of defending themselves, otherwise than by denying the full
inspiration of the divine testimonies, the Church thought the question was
decided. The adversary was tried; he had no more to say for himself; he denied
the Scripture to be the Word of God! What more remained to be done, but to
compel him to look his own ill-favoured argument in the face, and to say to him,
See what you have come to! as one would bid a man who has disfigured himself,
look at himself in a glass? And this the fathers did. Such are facts of the
case; such is the voice of the Church.

We had at first brought together, with the design of giving them here, a long
series of passages, taken first from Irenæus, [103] Tertullian, [104] Cyprian,
[105] Origen, [106] Chrysostom, [107] Justin Martyr, [108] Epiphanius, [109]
Augustine, [110] Athanasius, [111] Hilary, [112] Basil the Great, [113] and
Gregory the Great, [114] Gregory of Nyssa, [115] Theodoret, [116] Cyril of
Alexandria; [117] then, the most revered fathers of after centuries; and,
finally, the most holy doctors of the Reformation. [118] But we soon perceived
that all these names, were we to give them by themselves, would seem nothing
better than an idle appeal to the authority of men; and were we to give them
along, with the passages referred to, in full, we should run into an excessive
multiplication of words.

We shall proceed, therefore, with a careful examination of the difficulties and
the systems that are opposed to the doctrine of a plenary inspiration. Those
difficulties constitute what are objections, and those systems what are rather
evasions. The two next chapters we shall devote to the study of both.


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  CHAPTER 7: 04 EXAMINATION OF OBJECTIONS
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Examination of Objections

IT is objected that the fallibility of the translators of the Bible, renders the
infallibility of the original text illusory; that the fact of the apostles
having availed themselves of the merely human version made by the Seventy,
renders their divine inspiration more than questionable. Objections are grounded
on the various readings presented by different manuscripts, on the imperfections
observed in the reasonings and in the doctrines, and on errors discovered in
matters of fact. Objectors tell us that the laws of nature, now better
understood than formerly, give the lie to certain representations of the sacred
authors. Finally, we are told to look to what objectors are pleased to call the
admissions made by St :Paul. To these difficulties we proceed to reply, taking
them one after another; and we can afterwards examine some of the theories, by
the help of which some have sought to rid themselves of the doctrine of a
plenary inspiration.

Section 1. The Translations. The first objection may be stated thus. It is
sometimes said to us, You assert that the inspiration of the Scriptures extended
to the very words of the original text; but wherefore all this verbal exactness
of the Holy Word, seeing that, after all, the greater number of Christians can
make use of such versions only as are more or less inexact? Thus, then, the
privilege of such an inspiration is lost to the Church of modern times; for you
will not venture to say that any translation is inspired. This is a difficulty
which, on account of its insignificance, we felt at first averse to noticing;
but we cannot avoid doing so, being assured that it has obtained some currency
among us, and some credit also. Our first remark on this objection must be, that
it is not one at all. It does not bear against the fact of the verbal
inspiration of the Scriptures; it only contests the advantages of that
inspiration. With regard to the greater number of readers, it says, the benefit
of such art intervention on the part of God, would be lost; because, instead of
the infallible words of the original, they never can have better than the
fallible words of a translation. But no man is entitled to deny a fact, because
he does not at first perceive all the use that may be made of it; and no man is
entitled to reject a doctrine for no better reason than that he has not
perceived its utility. All the expressions, for example, and all the letters of
the Ten Commandments were certainly written by the finger of God, from the aleph
with which they commence, to the caph with which they end; yet, would any one
venture to say that the credibility of this miraculous fact, is weakened by most
unlettered readers, at the present day, being under the necessity of reading the
Decalogue in some translation? No one would dare to say so. It must be
acknowledged, then, that this objection, without directly attacking the dogma
which we defend, only questions its advantages: these, it tells us, are lost to
us, in the operation of translating from the original, and in that metamorphosis
disappear.

We proceed, then, to show how even this assertion, when reduced to these last
terms, rests on no good foundation. The divine word which the Bible reveals to
us, passes through four successive forms before reaching us in a translation.
First, it was from all eternity in the mind of God. Next, it was passed by Him
into the mind of man. In the third place, under the operation of the Holy Ghost,
and by a mysterious process, it passed from the prophets’ thoughts, into the
types and symbols of an articulate language; it took shape in words. Finally,
after having undergone this first translation, alike important and inexplicable,
men have reproduced and counter-chalked it, by a new translation, in passing it
from one human language into another human language. Of these four operations,
the three first are divine; the fourth alone is human and fallible. Shall it be
said, that because the last is human, the divinity of the three former should be
a matter of indifference to us? Mark, however, that between the third and the
fourth

— I mean to say, between the first translation of the thought by the sensible
signs of a human language, and the second translation of the words by other
words — the difference is enormous. Between the doubts that may cleave to us
respecting the exactness of the versions, and those with which we should be
racked with respect to the correctness of the original text (if not inspired
even in its language), the distance is infinite. It is said; of what consequence
is it to me that the third operation is effected by the Spirit of God, if the
last be accomplished only by the spirit of man? In other words, what avails it
to me that the primitive language be inspired, if the translated version be not
so? But people forget, in speaking thus, that we are infinitely more assured of
the exactness of the translators, than we could be of that of the original text,
in the case of all the expressions not being given by God. Of this, however, we
may become perfectly convinced, by attending to the five following
considerations: —

[1]. The operation by which the sacred writers express with words the mind of
the Holy Ghost, is, we have said, itself a rendering not of words by other
words, but of divine thoughts by sensible symbols. Now this first translation is
an infinitely nicer matter, more mysterious and more liable to error (if God
puts not his hand to it) than the operation can be afterwards, by which we
should render a Greek word of that primitive text, by its equivalent in another
tongue. In order to a man’s expressing exactly the thought of God, it is
necessary, if he be not guided in his language from above, that he have
thoroughly comprehended it in its just measure, and in the whole extent and
depth of its meaning. But this is by no means necessary in the ease of a mere
translation. The divine thought being already incarnated, as it were, in the
language of the sacred text, what remains to be done in translation is no longer
the giving of it a body, but only the changing of its dress, making it say in
French what it had already said in Greek, and modestly substituting for each of
its words an equivalent word. Such an operation is comparatively very inferior,
very immaterial, without mystery, and infinitely less subject to error than the
preceding. It even requires so little spirituality, that it may be performed to
perfection by a trustworthy pagan who should possess in perfection a knowledge
of both languages. The version of an accomplished rationalist who desires to be
no more than a translator, I could better trust than that of an orthodox person
and a saint, who should paraphrase the text, and undertake to present it to me
more complete or more clear in his French than he found it in the Greek or in
the Hebrew of the original. And let no one be surprised at this assertion; it is
justified by facts. Thus, is not De Wette’s translation, among the Germans,
preferred at the present day to that even of the great Luther? At least, is
there not greater confidence felt in having the mind of the Holy Ghost in the
lines of the Basel professor than in those of the great reformer; because the
former has always kept very close to the expressions of his text, as a man of
learning subject to the rules of philology alone; while the latter seems at
times to have momentarily endeavoured after something more, and sought to make
himself interpreter as well as translator? The more, then, one reflects on this
first consideration, the more immeasurable ought the difference to appear
between these two orders of operations; to wit, between the translation of the
divine thoughts into the words of a human language, and the translation of the
same thoughts into the equivalent terms of another language. No longer,
therefore, be it said, “What avails it to me, if the one be human, that the
other is divine?”

[2]. A second character by which we perceive how different these two operations
must be, and by which the making of our versions will be seen to be infinitely
less subject to the chances of error than the original text (assuming that to be
uninspired), is, that while the work required by our translations is done by a
great many men of every tongue and country, capable of devoting their whole time
and care to it — by men who have from age to age controlled and checked each
other, and who have mutually instructed and perfected each other — the original
text, on the contrary, behoved to be written at a given moment, and by a single
man. With that man there was none but his God to put him right if he made a
mistake, and to supply him with better expressions if he had chosen imperfect
ones. If God, therefore, did not do this, no one could have done it. And if that
man gave a bad rendering of the mind of the Holy Ghost, he had not, like our
translators, friends to warn, predecessors to guide, successors to correct, nor
months, years, and ages in which to review and consummate his work. It was done
by one man, and done once for all. This consideration, then, further shows how
much more necessary the intervention of the Holy Ghost was to the sacred authors
than to their translators.

[3]. A third consideration, which ought also to lead us to the same conclusion,
is, that while all the translators of the Scriptures were literate and laborious
persons, and versed in the study of language, the sacred authors, on the
contrary, were, for the most part, ignorant men, without literary cultivation,
without the habit of writing their own tongue, and liable, from that very
circumstance, if they expressed fallibly the divine revelation, to give us an
infallible thought in a faulty way.

[4]. A fourth very powerful consideration, which will make one feel still more
sensibly the immense difference existing between the sacred writers and their
translators, is, that whereas the thought from God passed like a flash of
lightning before the soul of the prophet; whereas this thought could, nowhere be
found again upon earth, except in the rapid expression which was then given to
it by the sacred writer; whereas, if he have expressed it ill, you know not
where to go in search of its prototype in order to recover the thought meant to
be conveyed by God in its purity; whereas, if he have made a mistake, his
blunder is for ever irreparable; it must last longer than heaven and earth, it
has blemished the eternal book remedilessly, and nobody on earth can correct it;
— it is quite otherwise with translators. These, on the contrary, have always
the divine text at hand, so as to be corrected and re-corrected, according to
the eternal type, until they have become an exact counterpart of it. The
inspired word leaves us not; we need not to go in search of it to the third
heaven; it is still upon the earth, just as God himself first dictated it to us.
You may thus devote ages to its study, in order that the human process of our
translation may be subjected to its immutable truth. You can now, after the
lapse of a hundred and thirty years, correct Osterwald and Martin, by means of a
closer comparison of them with their infallible standard; after the lapse of
three hundred and seventeen years, you can correct the work of Luther; after
that, of fourteen hundred and forty years, that of St Jerome. God’s phraseology
is still before us, with which to confront our modern versions, as dictated by
God himself, in Hebrew or in Greek, on the day of its being revealed; and, with
our dictionaries in your hand, you may, age after age, return to the examination
of the infallible expression which it has been his good pleasure to give to the
divine thought, until you become assured that the language of the modem ones has
truly received the counter impression, and given you the most faithful facsimile
of it for your own use. Say no more then, What avails it to me, that the one is
divine since the other is human? If you would have a bust of Napoleon, would you
say to the sculptor, What avails it to me that your model has been moulded at St
Helena on the very face of Bonaparte, seeing that, after all, your copy cannot
have been so?

[5]. In fine, what further distinguishes the first expression which the mind of
God has received in the individual words of the sacred book, from its new
expression in one of our translations, is that, if you assume the words of the
one to be as little inspired as those of the other, nevertheless, the range of
conjectures which you might make on their possible faults would be, as respects
the original text, a space without bounds and ever enlarging itself; while that
same range, as respects the translations, is a very limited space, which is
constantly diminishing the longer you remain in it.

If some friend, returning from the East Indies, where your rather has, at a
great distance from you, breathed his last, were to bring you from him a last
letter, written with his own hand, or dictated by him, word for word, in
Bengalee, would that letter’s being entirely from him be a matter of
indifference to you, because you are not acquainted with the Bengalee language,
and can read it only in a translation? Don’t you know that you can cause
translations of it to be multiplied, until they leave you no more doubt of the
original meaning than if you had been a Hindoo? Will you not allow, that after
each of these new translations your uncertainties will be always growing less
and less, until they cease to be appreciable, as is the ease in arithmetic with
those fractionary and convergent progressions, the last terms of which are
equivalent to zero; while, on the contrary, if the letter were not from your
father himself, but from some stranger, who says he has only reproduced his
thoughts, then you would find no limits to possible suppositions; and your
uncertainties, transported into spheres new and boundless, would go on
increasing the more you allowed your mind to dwell upon them; as is the case in
arithmetic with those ascending progressions, the last terms of which represent
infinitude. It is the same with the Bible. If I believe that God has dictated
the whole of it, my uncertainties with respect to its translations are confined
within a very narrow range; and even in this range, in proportion as it is
re-translated, the limits of doubt are constantly drawn in more closely. But if
left to think, on the contrary, that God has not entirely dictated it, and that
human infirmity may have had its share in it, where shall I stop in assuming
that there may be errors? I know not. The apostles were ignorant — shall I say,
they were illiterate — they were Jews; they had popular prejudices; they
judaized; they platonized; … I know not where to stop. I will begin like Locke,
and end like Strauss. I will first deny the personality of Satan, as a
rabbinical prejudice; I will end with denying that of Jesus Christ, as another
prejudice. Between these two terms, in consequence, moreover, of the ignorance,
on many points, to which the apostles were subject, I will proceed, as so many
others have done, to admit, in spite of the letter of the Bible, and with the
Bible in my hand, that there is no corruption in men, no personality in the Holy
Ghost, no divinity in Jesus Christ, no expiation in his blood, no resurrection
of the body in the grave, no eternity in future punishments, no anger in God, no
devil, no miracle, no damned souls, no hell. St Paul was orthodox, shall I say?
as others have done; but he misunderstood his Master. Whereas, on the contrary,
if all have been dictated by God in the original, and even to the smallest
expression, “to the least iota and tittle,” who is the translator that could
seduce me, by his labours, into any one of these negations, and make even the
least of these truths disappear from my Bible?

Accordingly, who now can fail to perceive the enormous distance interposed by
all these considerations between those two texts (that of the Bible and that of
the translations), as respects the importance of verbal inspiration? Between the
passing of the thoughts of God into human words, and the simple turning of these
words into other words, the distance is as wide as from heaven to earth. God was
required for the one; mail sufficed for the other. Let it no longer be said,
then, What would it avail to us that we have verbal inspiration in the one case,
if we have not that inspiration in the other case? for between these two terms,
which some would put on an equality, the difference is almost infinite.

Section 2. Use of Septuagint in New Testament.

People insist and say, We agree that the fact of these modern translations does
not at all affect the question of the first inspiration of the Scriptures; but
we have much more to urge. The sacred authors of the New Testament, when they
themselves quote the old Hebrew Scriptures in Greek, employ for that purpose the
Greek translation, called that of the Seventy, executed at Alexandria two
centuries and a half before Jesus Christ. Now, no one among the moderns will
dare to affirm (as was done in former times) that the Alexandrine interpreters
were inspired. Would a man any more dare to contend that that version, still
human at the time of Jesus Christ, acquired, by the sole fact of the apostolic
quotations, a divinity which it did not previously possess? Would not this
strange allegation resemble that of the Council of Trent, when it pronounced to
be divine apocryphal writings, which the ancient Church rejected from the canon,
and which St Jerome called “fables, and a medley of gold and clay;” [119] or
when it pronounced that translation by St Jerome to be authentic, which, at
first, in the opinion of St Jerome himself, and thereafter in that of the Church
for above a thousand years, was no more than a human work, respectable, no
doubt, but imperfect? Would it not further resemble the silly infallibility of
Sixtus V., who declared his edition of 1590 to be authentic; or that of his
successor, Clement VIII., who, finding the edition of Sixtus V. intolerably
incorrect, suppressed it in 1592, in order to substitute in its place another
very different, and yet still more authentic? [120]

Here we gladly recall this difficulty; because, like many others, when more
closely examined, it converts the objections into arguments. No more is
required, in fact, than to study the manner in which the apostles employ the
Septuagint, in order to see in it a striking sign of the verbal inspiration
under which they wrote. Were a prophet to be sent by God in our day to the
churches speaking the French tongue, how shall it be thought he would act in
quoting the Scriptures? He would do so in French no doubt; but according to what
version? As Osterwald and Martin’s are those most extensively circulated, he
would probably make his quotations in the words of one or other of them, in all
cases where their translation should seem to him sufficiently exact. But also,
notwithstanding our habitual practice and his, he would take care to abandon
both those versions, and translate in his own way, as often as the thought
intended to be conveyed by the original did. not seem to him to be rendered with
sufficient fidelity. Nay, he would sometimes even do more. In order to our being
enabled to comprehend more fully in what sense he meant to make for us the
application of such or such a Scripture, he would paraphrase the passage quoted,
and in citing it, follow neither the letter of the original text nor that of the
translations. This is precisely what has been done by the sacred writers of the
New Testament with respect to the Septuagint.

Although it was the universal practice of the Hellenistic Jews, throughout the
whole of the East, to read in their synagogues and to quote in their discussions
the Old Testament according to that ancient version, [121] the apostles show us
the independence of the Spirit that” guided them, by the three several methods
they follow in their quotations.

First, when the Alexandrine translators seem to them correct, they do not
hesitate to conform to the recollections of their Hellenist auditors, and to
quote the Septuagint version literatim and verbatim .

Secondly, and this often occurs when dissatisfied with the work of the Seventy,
they amend it, and make their quotations according to the original Hebrew,
translating it more correctly.

Thirdly, in fine, when they would point out more clearly in what sense they
adduce such or such a declaration of the holy books, they paraphrase it in
quoting it. It is then the Holy Ghost who, by their mouth, quotes himself,
modifying at the same time the expressions which he had previously dictated to
the prophets of his ancient people. One may compare, for example, Mic 5:2 with
Mat 2:6; Mal 3:1 with Mat 11:10, Mark 1:2, and Luk 7:27, &c. &c. The learned
Horne, in his “Introduction to the Critical Study of the Bible” (vol. 1, p. 503)
has ranged under five distinct classes, relatively to the Septuagint version,
the quotations made in the New Testament from the Old. We do not here warrant
all his distinctions, nor all his figures; but our readers will comprehend the
three of our argument, on our informing them that that learned author reckons
eighty-eight verbal quotations that agree with the Alexandrine translations;
sixty-four more that are borrowed from them, but with some variations;
thirty-seven that adopt the same meaning with them without employing their
words; sixteen that differ from them in order to agree more nearly with the
Hebrew; and, finally, twenty that differ from both the Hebrew and the
Septuagint, but in which the sacred authors have paraphrased the Old Testament,
in order that the sense in which they quote it may be better understood.

These numerical data will sufficiently enable the reader to form a just idea of
the independence claimed by the Holy Ghost with regard to human versions, when
he desired to quote, in the New Testament, that which he had previously caused
to be written in the Old. Accordingly, they not only answer the objection — they
convert it into a testimony.

Section 3. The Various Readings.

We must give up the translations, then, other opponents will say, and admit that
they nowise affect the question of the primary inspiration of the original text.
But in that very text there are numerous differences among the ancient
manuscripts which our Churches consult, and on which our printed editions are
based. Confronted with proofs of such a fact, what becomes of the doctrine of
verbal inspiration, and what purpose can it serve?

Here, too, the answer is easy. We might say at once of the various readings of
the manuscripts, what we have said of the translations: Why confound two orders
of facts that are absolutely distinct: that of the first inspiration of the
Scriptures, and that of the present integrity of the copies that have been made
of them? If it was God himself that dictated the letter of the sacred oracles,
that is a fact past recall; and no more can the copies made of them, than the
translations given to us of them, undo that first act. When a fact is once
consummated, nothing that happens subsequently can efface it from the history of
the past. There are here, then, two questions which we must carefully
distinguish. Was the whole of Scripture divinely inspired? — this is the first
question; it is that with which we have now to do. Are the copies made of it
many centuries afterwards by doctors and monks correct? or are they not correct?
— that is the second question. This last can nowise affect the other. Don’t
proceed, then, to subject the former, by a strange piece of inattention, to the
latter; they are independent of each other. A book is from God, or it is not
from God. In the latter case, it were idle for me to transcribe it a thousand
times exactly — I should not thereby render it divine; and in the former case, I
should in vain take a thousand incorrect copies; — neither folly nor
unfaithfulness on my part, can undo the fact of its having been given by God. —
The Decalogue, yet once more we repeat it, was entirely written by the finger of
Jehovah on two tables of stone; but if the manuscripts that give it to me at the
present day present some various readings, this second fact would not prevent
the first. The sentences, words, and letters of the Ten Commandments, would not
the less have been all engraven by God. Inspiration of the first text, integrity
of the subsequent copies — these are two orders of facts absolutely different,
and separated from each other by thousands of stadia, and thousands of years.
Beware, then, of confounding what logic, time, and space compel you to
distinguish. It is by precisely a similar process of reasoning, that we reprove
the indiscreet lovers of the apocryphal writings. The ancient oracles of God, we
tell them, were committed to the Jewish people, as the new oracles were
committed afterwards to the Christian people. If, then, the Book of Maccabees
was a merely human book in the days of Jesus Christ, a thousand decrees of the
Christian Church could not have any such effect thereafter as that, in 1560,
becoming what it had never been till then, it should be transubstantiated into a
divine book. Did the prophets write the Bible with the words which human wisdom
dictated, or with words given them by God?

— such is our question. But have they been faithfully copied from age to age,
from manuscripts into manuscripts? — this as yours, perhaps. It is very
important no doubt; but it is entirely different from the first. Do not, then,
confound what God has separated.

It is true, no doubt, will people say, that the fidelity of one copy does not
make the original divine, when it is not so; and the incorrectness of another
copy will not make it human, if it was not so. Accordingly, this is not what we
maintain. The fact of the inspiration of the sacred text in the days of Moses,
or the days of St John, cannot depend upon the copies which we shall have made
of it in Europe and Africa, two or three thousand years after them; but though
the second of these facts does not destroy the first, it at least renders it
illusory, by depriving it of its whole worth and utility.

Now, then, mark to what the objection is confined. The question is no longer
about the inspiration of the original text — the whole attack here is directed
against its present integrity. It was first a question of doctrine: “Is it
declared in the Bible that the Bible is inspired even in its language?” But it
is no more now than a question of history, or of criticism: “Have the copyists
copied faithfully? are the manuscripts faithful?” Accordingly, we might say
nothing now on a position of which we are not here called upon to undertake the
defence; but the answer is easy; I will say more — God has rendered it so
triumphant that we will not restrain ourselves from giving it. Besides, the
faith of simple minds has been so often disquieted on this subject by a
phantasmagoria of learning, that we consider it useful here to expose its
hollowness. And, although this objection in some sort withdraws us from the
field which we had traced out for our ourselves, we will follow it, for the
purpose of answering it. No doubt, had this difficulty been presented to us in
the days of Anthony Collins and the Free Thinkers, we should not have been left
without reply, but we should have felt perhaps some embarrassment, because full
light had not then been thrown upon the facts, and because the field of
conjectures, as yet unexplored, remained undefined. We know the perplexities of
the excellent Bengel on this question; and we know that these led, first, to his
laborious researches on the sacred text, and, next, to his pious wonder and
gratitude at the preservation of that text. Of what use, one might have said, is
the assurance that the original text was dictated by God eighteen hundred years
ago, if I have no longer the certainty that the manuscripts of our libraries
still present it to me in its purity, and if it be true (as we are assured) that
the various readings of these rolls are at least thirty thousand in number?

Such is the old objection: it was specious; but now-a-days it is known, by all
who have studied it, to be a mere illusion. The Rationalists themselves have
admitted that it can no longer be made, and must be given up. The Lord has
watched miraculously over his Word. This the facts of the case have
demonstrated. In constituting as its depositaries, first, the Churches of the
Jewish people, and then those of the Christian people, his providence had by
this means to see to the faithful transmission of the oracles of God to us. It
has done this; and in order to the attainment of this result, it has put
different causes in operation, of which we shall have again to speak afterwards.
Late learned researches have thrown the dearest light on this great fact.
Herculean labours have been bestowed, during the whole of the last century
(particularly in its last half) and the first part of this, on the task of
bringing together all the various readings that either the detailed examination
of the manuscripts of holy Scripture preserved in the different libraries of
Europe, or the study of the most ancient versions, or the searching out of the
innumerable quotations made from our sacred books in all the writings of the
fathers of the Church, could furnish; and this immense toil has ended in a
result wonderful by its insignificance, and (shall I say?) imposing by its
nullity. As respects the Old Testament, the indefatigable investigations and the
four folios of Father Houbigant; the thirty years’ labours of John Henry
Michaelis; above all, the great Critical Bible and the tell years’ study of the
famous Kennicott (who consulted five hundred and eighty-one Hebrew manuscripts);
and, in fine, Professor Rossi’s collection of six hundred and eighty
manuscripts; — as respects the New Testament, the no less gigantic
investigations of Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, and Griesbach (who consulted three
hundred and thirty-five manuscripts for the Gospels alone); the latest
researches of Nolan, Matthæi, Lawrence, and Hug; above all, those of Scholz
(with his six hundred and seventy-four manuscripts for the Gospels, his two
hundred for the Acts, his two hundred and fifty-six for the Epistles of Paul,
his ninety-three for the Apocalypse, (without reckoning his fifty-three
Lectionaria): all these vast labours have so convincingly established the
astonishing preservation of that text, copied nevertheless so many thousands of
times (in Hebrew during thirty-three centuries, and in Greek during eighteen
hundred years), that the hopes of the enemies of religion, in this quarter, have
been subverted, arid as Michaelis has said, “They have ceased henceforth to look
for anything from those critical researches which they at first so warmly
recommended, because they expected discoveries from them that have never been
made.” [122] The learned Rationalist Eichhorn himself also owns that the
different readings of the Hebrew manuscripts collected by Kennicott hardly offer
sufficient interest to compensate for the trouble they cost! [123] But these
very misreckonings, and the absence of those discoveries, have proved a precious
discovery for the Church of God. She expected as much; but she is delighted to
owe it to the labour of her very adversaries. “In truth,” says a learned man of
our day,

“but for those precious negative conclusions that people have come to, the
direct result obtained from the consumption of so many men’s lives in these
immense researches may seem to amount to nothing; and one may say that in order
to come to it, time, talent, and learning have all been foolishly thrown away.”
[124] But, as we have said, this result is immense in virtue of its nothingness,
and all-powerful in virtue of its insignificance. When one thinks that the Bible
has been copied during thirty centuries, as no book of man has ever been, or
ever will be; that it was subjected to all the catastrophes and all the
captivities of Israel; that it was transported seventy years to Babylon; that it
has seen itself so often persecuted, or forgotten, or interdicted, or burnt,
from the days of the Philistines to those of the Seleucidæ; — when one thinks
that, since the time of Jesus Christ, it has had to traverse the first three
centuries of the imperial persecutions, when persons found in possession of the
holy books were thrown to the wild beasts; next the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries,
when false books, false legends, and false decretals, were everywhere
multiplied; the 10th century, when so few could read, even among princes; the
12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, when the use of the Scriptures in the vulgar
tongue was punished with death, and when the books of the ancient fathers were
mutilated, when so many ancient traditions were garbled and falsified, even to
the very acts of the emperors, and to those of the councils; — then we can
perceive how necessary it was that the providence of God should have always put
forth its mighty power, in order that, on the one hand, the Church of the Jews
should give us, in its integrity, that Word which records its revolts, which
predicts its ruin, which describes Jesus Christ; and, on the other, that the
Christian Churches (the most powerful of which, and the Roman sect in
particular, interdicted the people from reading the sacred books, and
substituted in so many ways the traditions of the middle ages for the Word of
God) should nevertheless transmit to us, in all their purity, those Scriptures,
which condemn all their traditions, their images, their dead languages, their
absolutions, their celibacy; which say, that Rome would be the seat of a
terrible apostasy, where “the Man of Sin would be seen sitting as God in the
temple of God, waging war on the saints, forbidding to marry, and to use meats
which God had created;” which say of images, “Thou shall not bow down to them” —
of unknown tongues, “Thou shalt not use them” — of the cup, “Drink ye all of it”
— of the Virgin, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” — and of marriage, “It is
honourable in all.”

Now, although all the libraries in which ancient copies of the sacred books may
be found, have been called upon to give their testimony; although the
elucidations given by the fathers of all ages have been studied; although the
Arabic, Syriac, Latin, Armenian, and Ethiopian versions have been collated;
although all the manuscripts of all countries and ages, from the third to the
sixteenth century, have been collected and examined a thousand times over, by
countless critics, who have eagerly sought out some new text, as the recompense
and the glory of their wearisome watchings; although learned men, not content
with the libraries of the West, have visited those of Russia, and carried their
researches into the monasteries of Mont Athos, Turkish Asia, and Egypt, there to
look for new instruments of the sacred text; — “Nothing has been discovered,”
says a learned person, already quoted, “not even a single reading, that could
throw doubt on any one of the passages before considered as certain. All the
variantes, almost without exception, leave untouched the essential ideas of each
phrase, and bear only on points of secondary importance;” such as the insertion
or the omission of an article or a conjunction, the position of an adjective
before or after its substantive, the greater or less exactness of a grammatical
construction. And would we be less rigorous in our demands with respect to the
Old Testament?

— the famous Indian manuscript, recently deposited in the Cambridge library,
will furnish an example.

It is thirty-three years since the pious and learned Claudius Buchanan, while
visiting, in the Indian peninsula, the black Jews of Malabar (who are supposed
to be the remains of the first dispersion under Nebuchadnezzar), saw in their
possession an immense roll, composed of thirty-seven skins, tinged with red,
forty-eight feet long, twenty-two inches wide, and which, in its originally
entire state, must have had ninety English feet of development. The Holy
Scriptures had been traced on it by different hands. There remained one hundred
and seventeen columns of beautiful writing; and there was wanting only Leviticus
and part of Deuteronomy. Buchanan succeeded in having this ancient and precious
monument, which served for the worship of the synagogue, committed to his care,
and. he afterwards deposited it in the Cambridge library. The impossibility of
supposing that this roll had been taken from a copy brought by European Jews,
was perceived from certain evident marks. Now, Mr Yeates lately submitted it to
the most attentive examination; and took the trouble to collate it, word by
word, letter by letter, with our Hebrew edition of Van der Hooght. He has
published the results of his researches. And what have they been? Why, this:
that there do not exist, between the text of India and that of the West, above
forty small differences, not one of which is of sufficient importance to lead to
even a slight change in the meaning and interpretation of our ancient text; and
that these are but the additions or retrenchments of an éor a å, —letters the
presence or absence of which, in Hebrew, cannot alter the import of the word.
[125]

We know the peculiar character, among the Jews, of those Massorethes, or doctors
of tradition, whose whole profession consisted in transcribing the Scriptures, —
we know to what a pitch these learned men carried respect for the letter; and
when we read the rules that regulated their labours, we can comprehend what use
the providence of the Lord, who had “committed his oracles to the Jewish
people,” knew to make of their reverential respect, their strictness, and even
their superstition. In each of the books they counted the number of verses, of
words, of letters: they could have told you, for example, that the letter
àappears forty-two thousand three hundred and seventy-seven times in the Bible,
the letter áthirty-eight thousand two hundred and eighteen times, and so on:
they would have scrupled at changing the position of a single letter evidently
displaced; they would only have called your attention to it on the margin, and
would have supposed some mystery involved in it; they would have told you the
middle letter in the Pentateuch, and that which is in the middle of each of the
particular books of which it is composed: they never would permit themselves to
retouch their manuscript; and if any mistake had escaped from them, they would
have rejected the papyrus or the parchment which it had spoilt, and would have
begun anew; for they were equally interdicted from ever correcting any of their
blunders, and from preserving for their sacred volume a parchment or skin that
had suffered any erasure. This intervention of God’s providence in the
preservation of the Old Testament becomes still more striking in our eves, if we
compare the astonishing integrity of the original Hebrew (at the close of so
many centuries) with the rapid and profound alteration which the Greek version
of the Septuagint had undergone in the days of Jesus Christ (after the lapse of
only two hundred years). Notwithstanding that that book had acquired throughout
the whole East, after the almost universal propagation of the Greek language, a
semicanonical authority, first among the Jews and then among the Christians;
notwithstanding its being afterwards the only text to which the fathers of the
East and of the West (with the exception of Origen and of Jerome) had recourse
for what they knew of the Old Testament, the only one that was commented on by
the Chrysostoms and the Theodorets the only one whence such men as Athanasius,
Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzus drew their arguments; notwithstanding that the
Western no more than the Eastern world had any better source of illumination,
during so many ages, than that borrowed light (seeing that the ancient Italian
Vulgate, which was in universal use, had been translated from the Greek of the
Septuagint, and not from the Hebrew of the original); yet hear what the learned
tell us of the alteration of that important monument — of the additions,
changes, and interpolations to which it had been subjected, first through the
doings of the ancient Jews before the days of Jesus Christ, after that by the
unbelieving Jews, and later still through the heedlessness of Christian
copyists: “The evil was such (mirum in modum),” says Dr Lee, “that in certain
books the ancient version could hardly be recognised; and when Origen, in the
year 231, had devoted twenty-eight years of his noble life in searching for
different manuscripts of it, with the view of doing for that text (in his
Tetrapla and his Hexapla) what modern critics have done for that of the Old and
New Testaments, not only could he not find any copy that was correct, but he
further made matters worse. Through the unskilfulness of the copyists (who
neglected the transcriptions of his obelisks, asterisks, and other marks), the
greater number of his marginal corrections found their way into the text; so
that new errors having spread there, one could no longer, in the time of Jerome,
distinguish between his annotations and the primitive text.” [126] We repeat,
these facts, placed in contrast with the astonishing preservation of the Hebrew
text (older than that of the LXX. by more than twelve hundred years), proclaim
loudly enough how necessary it was that the mighty hand of God should intervene
in the destinies of the sacred book. So much for the Old Testament. But let it
not be thought that the Providence that watched over that sacred book, and which
committed it to the Jews (Rom 3:1-2), has done less for the protection of the
oracles of the New Testament, committed by it to the new people of God. It has
not left to the latter less cogent motives to gratitude and feelings of
security.

Here we would appeal, by way of testimony, to the late experience of the authors
of a version of the New Testament which has just been published in Switzerland,
and in the long labours of which we ourselves had a part. A single trait may
enable all classes of readers to understand how very insignificant are the
different readings presented by the manuscripts. The translators to whom we
refer followed, without the smallest deviation, what is called the received
edition, that is to say, the Greek text of Elzevir, 1624, so long adopted by all
our Churches; but as, in conformity with the original plan of the work they had
undertaken, they had first of all to introduce into their original text the
various readings that have been most approved by the criticism of the last
century, they very often found themselves embarrassed, from perceiving the
impossibility of expressing, even in the most literal French, the new shade of
meaning introduced by that correction into their Greek. The French language, in
the most scrupulous version, has not flexibility enough to enable it to assume
these differences of manner, so as to put them in proper relief; just as the
casts taken from the face of a king reproduce in brass his noble features, yet
without being capable of marking every vein and wrinkle.

We desire, however, to give such of our readers as are strangers to sacred
criticism, two or three other and still more intelligible means of estimating
that providence which has for thirty centuries watched over our sacred texts.
The first is as follows: We would bid them compare the two Protestant
translations by Osterwald and Martin. There are few modern versions that come so
close to each other. The old version of the Geneva pastors having been taken as
the basis of both — both having been written at nearly the same time and in the
same spirit — they differ so little, especially in the New Testament, that our
Bible societies distribute them indifferently, and that one finds it hard to say
which of the two ought to be preferred. Nevertheless, if you take the trouble to
note their differences, taking all things into account, as has been done on
comparing our four hundred manuscripts of the New Testament, the one with the
other, we affirm beforehand (and rather think that in this we under-state the
truth), that these two French texts are three times, and in many chapters ten
times, wider from each other than the Greek text of our printed editions is, we
will not say only from the least esteemed of the Greek manuscripts of our
libraries, but FROM ALL THEIR MANUSCRIPTS PUT TOGETHER. Hence we will venture to
say, that were some able and ill-meaning person (such as we may suppose the
wretched Voltaire or the too celebrated Anthony Collins to have been in the last
century) to study to select at will, out of all the manuscripts of the East and
the West, when placed before him, the worst readings and the variations most
remote from our received text, with the perfidious intention of composing at
pleasure the most faulty text — such a man, we say (even were he to adopt such
various readings as should have in their favour no more than ONE SOLE manuscript
out of the four or five hundred of our libraries), could not, in spite of all
his mischievous inclination, produce a Testament, as the result of his labours,
that would be less close to that of our Churches than Martin is to Osterwald.
Further, you might send it abroad instead of the true text, with as little
inconvenience as you would find in giving French Protestants Martin rather than
Osterwald, or Osterwald rather than Martin; and. with far less scruple than you
would feel in circulating De Sacy’s version among the followers of the Church of
Rome. No doubt these last books are only translations, whereas all the Greek
manuscripts profess to be original texts; and it must be admitted that, in this
respect, our comparison is very imperfect: but it is not less fitted to
re-assure the friends of the Word of God, by enabling them to understand the
extreme insignificance of the various readings.

Meanwhile, what follows is something more direct and more precise. In order to
give all our readers some measure at once of the number and of the harmlessness
of the readings that have been collected together in the manuscripts of our
libraries, we proceed to present two specimens of these. It will consist, first,
of a schedule containing the first eight verses of the Epistle to the Romans,
with ALL THE VARIOUS READINGS relating to these IN ALL THE MANUSCRIPTS of the
East and of the West. This will be followed by a schedule of the whole epistle,
with ALL THE CORRECTIONS that the celebrated Griesbach, the oracle of modern
criticism, thought he ought to introduce into it.

We have taken these passages at random, and declare that we have not been led to
make choice of them in preference to others, by any reason bearing upon our
argument.

We feel gratified at placing these short documents before the eyes of persons
who are not called by their position to follow out, of themselves, the
investigations of sacred criticism, and whose minds, nevertheless, may have been
somewhat discomposed by the language, at once mysterious and imposing, which the
rationalists of the last century have so often employed on the subject. To hear
them speak, would you not have said that modern science was about to give us a
new Bible, to bring down Jesus Christ from the throne of God, to restore to man,
when calumniated by our theology, all his titles to innocence, and to set to
rights all the dogmas of our old orthodoxy? As a first term of comparison, our
columns will present first of all, in the eight first verses of the Epistle to
the Romans, the differences betwixt the one text of Martin (1707) and the one
text of Osterwald, (Bagster’s edition), while the following columns, instead of
comparing any one sole manuscript with any other sole manuscript whatsoever,
will present the differences between our received text and ALL THE MANUSCRIPTS
that one has been able to collect down to Griesbach. That learned and
indefatigable person, for the Epistle to the Romans, scrutinized first of all
seven manuscripts written WITH UNCIAL LETTERS (or Greek capitals), and it is
thought, from thirteen to fourteen centuries old, (the Alexandrine, in the
British Museum; that of the Vatican, and that of Cardinal Passionei at Rome;
that of Ephrem at Paris; that of St Germain, that of Dresden, and that of
Cardinal Coislin); and after that, a hundred and ten manuscripts in small
letters, and thirty others, brought for the most part from Mount Athos, and
consulted by the learned Matthei, who travelled long for that purpose in Russia
and the East. For the four Gospels, the same Griesbach had opportunities of
consulting as many as three hundred and. thirty-five manuscripts.

Various Readings.

FIRST TABLE.

OSTERWALD’S TEXT Ver. 2. qu’il. promis auparavant.

… 3. de la race.

… 4. et quì selon l’Esprit… a été. a été declare. avec puissance. par sa
resurrection. l’Esprit de sainteté, Savoir. J. C. notre Seigneur.

… 5. afin d’amener tousles Gentils a l’obeissance de la foi.

… 6. du nombre desquels vous êtes aussi, vous. qui avez etè appelés.

… 7. appelés et saints. la grace et la paix vous soiènt données de la part de
Dieu notre père et de notre Seigneur J. C.

… 8. Avant toutes choses. au sujet de vous tons. est celebre.

MARTIN’S TEXT (1707.) lequel. auparavant promis. de la semence. et qui a été
selon, … l’Esprit. a été pleinement declaré. en puissance. par la resurrection.
1 Esprit de sanctification. c’est a dire. notre Seigneur J. C. afin qu’il y ait
obeissance de foi parmi tousles Gentils. entre lesquels aussi vous etes, vous
qui etes appelés. appelés á etre saints. grace vous soit et paix vous soient
données de par Dieu notre père et de par le Seigneur J. C. Premierement.
touchant vous tous. est renommée. These differences between the two French texts
are sufficiently insignificant; and were one to tell us that, in all these
verses, one or other of the two is inspired of God, our faith would receive
great aid from this. Now it will be seen that the various readings of the Greek
manuscripts are still more insignificant.

Let us now examine, on the same verses, the table containing the received text,
compared with all the different readings that could be presented by the hundred
and fifty Greek manuscripts collected and consulted for the Epistle to the
Romans. Here we shall not point out either the differences presented by the
ancient translations, or those that belong only to the punctuation (that element
being almost null in the most ancient manuscripts).

We shall translate the first column (that of the received text) according to the
old version, which is more literal than Osterwald’s; and we shall also endeavour
to render the Greek readings of the second column as exactly as possible.

SECOND TABLE THE RECEIVED TEXT — (THAT OF ELZEVIR, 1624.) Ver. 1. No difference.

… 2. by his prophets.

… 3. who was made.

… 4. and declared.

… 5. No difference.

… 6. No difference.

… 7. that be in Rome, beloved of God, called. from God our Father.

… 8. First. for you all.

VARIOUS READINGS~ COLLECTED FROM AMONG ALL THE GREEK MANUSCRIPTS UNITED. by the
prophets.

(In a single Parisian manuscript.) who was begotten.

(In a single Upsala manuscript, and by the mere change two letters.) and
predeclared.

(In only one of the twenty-two manuscripts of the Barberini Library.) who are in
the love of God, called.

(A single manuscript — that of Dresden, in uncial letters.) that be in Rome,
called.

(Only two manuscripts — that of St Germain, in uncial letters, and a Roman one,
in small letters.) from God the Father.

(A single Upsala manuscript.) First.

(The difference untranslatable, It is to be found in only one manuscript.) with
respect to you all.

(Two manuscripts.) Here we have nine or ten different readings of no importance
in themselves; and, moreover, they have in their favour only one or two
manuscripts of the hundred and fifty open to consultation on those eight verses,
with the exception of the last (“for you all,” instead of “with respect to you
all”), which reckons in its favour twelve manuscripts, four of which are in
uncial letters. The differences between Osterwald’s and Martin’s translations
are three times as numerous; and, generally speaking, these differences are far
more important in point of meaning. This comparison, were we to continue it
through the whole New Testament, would bear the same character, and become even
still more insignificant.

Nevertheless, those of our readers who have hitherto been strangers to such
researches will not be displeased, we believe, at our offering, in a third
table, a fresh method of estimating the harmlessness of the variations, and the
nullity of the objection that has been drawn from them. This last table will
present the totality of the corrections which, according to the learned
Griesbach, the father of sacred criticism, ought to be introduced into the text
of the Epistle to the Romans, after the prolonged study of the extant
manuscripts to which he had devoted himself, and after all that had been done by
his predecessors in the same field of research. No one who has not entered on
these researches, can form a just idea of the immensity of those labours.

Before perusing this third table, however, we would have the reader to know —

First, That Griesbach is, in general, charged by the learned (such as Matthæi,
Nolan, Lawrence, Scholz, and others) with an excessive eagerness for the
admission of new readings into the ancient text. This tendency is explained by
the habits of the human heart. The learned Whitby had, before that, charged Dr
Mill, not without some foundation, with the same fault, although he had never
ventured on so many corrections as Griesbach.

Secondly, Observe, further, that in this table we give not only those
corrections which the learned critic was fully persuaded people ought to adopt,
but those also which he has said were as yet only doubtful in his eyes, and not
to be confidently preferred to the generally received text.

THIRD TABLE GRIESBACH’S CORRECTIONS, EXTENDING TO THE WHOLE OF THE EPISTLE TO
THE ROMANS RECEIVED TEXT. — SUBSTANTIALLY OUR ENGLISH VERSION.

NEW TEXT. — CORRECTED BY GRIESBACH. CHAPTER I Ver. 13. that I might have some
fruit.

… 16. I am not ashamed.

… — the gospel of Christ.

… 19. for God.

… 21. glorified him not.

… 24. Wherefore God also.

… 27. And likewise.

… 29. with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness.

… 31. without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. that I might have some
fruit.

(There is here a mere inversion of the words.) I am not ashamed.

(Difference cannot be explained by translation.) the gospel. for God.

(Difference cannot be explained.) glorified him not.

(Difference one of orthography.) Wherefore God. And likewise.

(Difference not translatable.) with all unrighteousness, wickedness. without
natural affection, unmerciful.

CHAPTER II Ver. 8. indignation and wrath.

… 13. the hearers of the law. wrath and indignation. the hearers of the law.

(The mere absence of the article.)

CHAPTER III Ver. 22. unto all and upon all them that believe.

… 25. through the faith.

… 28. Therefore we conclude, that a man is justified by the faith.

… 29. is he not. unto all them who believe. through faith. In fact we conclude,
that a man is justified by faith. is he not.

(Difference not translatable.)

CHAPTER IV Ver. 1. What shall we then say, that Abraham hath found. Abraham our
father.

… 4. as a debt.

… 12. in the circumcision.

… 13. heir of the world.

… 19. And being not weak in faith, he considered not.

What shall we then say, that hath found Abraham. Abraham our ancestor. as debt.
in circumcision. heir of the world.

(A difference that cannot be rendered.) and did not, weak in the faith,
consider.

CHAPTER V Ver. 14. to Moses. to Moses (Difference in, spelling.)

CHAPTER VI Ver. 1. Shall we continue.

… 11. yourselves to be dead. through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

… 12. that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 16. whether of sin unto
death, or of obedience unto righteousness. Shall we continue.

(Pronoun understood — not expressed.) yourselves dead. through Jesus Christ.
that ye should obey it. whether of sin, or of obedience unto righteousness.

CHAPTER VII Ver. 6. the law by which … being dead.

… 10. the commandment which.

… 14. carnal.

… 18. I find not. being dead to the law by which, the commandment which.

(Difference of a simple accent.) carnal.

(Difference of a letter.)

I find not.

(Difference of orthography.)

CHAPTER VIII Ver. 1. to them which are in Jesus Christ, who walk not after the
flesh but after the Spirit.

… 11. by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

… 26. our infirmities. what we should pray for. maketh intercession for us with
groanings.

… 36. For thy sake. To them which are in Christ Jesus.

(The words left out here re-occur at verse 4.) on account of his Spirit that
dwelleth in you. our infirmity. what we should pray for. (Difference cannot be
rendered.) maketh intercession with groanings. for thy sake.

… 38. nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come.

(Difference untranslatable.) nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers.

CHAPTER IX Ver. 11. neither good nor evil that the purpose, according to the
election of God.

… 15. He saith to Moses.

… 32. as it were by the works of the law. for they stumbled.

… 33. whosoever believeth on him. neither good nor evil that the purpose of God
according to the election. (Differences, not easily rendered.) he saith to
Moses. (Difference in spelling.) as it were by works. they stumbled. he that
believeth on him.

CHAPTER X Ver. 1. prayer to God for Israel. that they might be saved.

… 5. Moses.

… 15. bring glad tidings.

… 19. Did not Israel know? Moses. prayer to God for them. that they might be
saved. (Difference cannot be expressed.) Moses.

(Different spelling.) bring glad tidings.

(Difference cannot be translated.) Did it not know, Israel ?

Moses.

(Difference in spelling.)

CHAPTER XI Ver. 2. against Israel, saying: Lord…

… 3. and they have digged down the altars.

… 6. And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more
grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no
more work.

… 7. he hath not obtained … 19. The branches were broken off.

… 21. spare not thee.

… 23. And they also.

… 30. and as ye have been yourselves in times past. against Israel : Lord… they
have digged down the altars And if by grace, then it is no more of works;
otherwise grace is no more grace. he hath not obtained. (Difference not
translatable.) branches were broken off. spare not thee.

(Difference cannot be rendered.) and they also. (Difference in spelling.) and as
ye have been in times past.

Ver. 2. And be not conformed, … but be ye transformed. by the renewing of your
mind.

… 11. serving the Lord.

… 20. Therefore if thine enemy hunger. And that ye be not conformed, … but that
ye be transformed. by the renewing of the mind. serving the occasion.

(The difference lies but in two letters, the one changed, the other transposed.)
if thine enemy hunger.

CHAPTER XIII Ver. 1. but of God; and the powers that be. are ordained of God.

… 8. but that ye love one another.

… 9. thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not
covet. but from God, and those that be. are ordained of God.

(Difference not translatable.) but that ye one another love•

Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet.

CHAPTER XIV Ver. 9. Christ both died, and rose, and revived that.

… 14. Nothing is unclean of itself.

Christ both died and lived that.

(The difference lies only in adding two letters.). Nothing is unclean of itself.
(Difference untranslatable.)

CHAPTER XV Ver. 1. We then that are strong ought to.

… 2. Let every one of us please.

… 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime … were written.

… 8. Now I say.

… 19. by the power of the Spirit of God.

… 24. I will come to you whensoever I take my journey into Spain, and I hope
that I shall see you.

… 29. in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.

(Griesbach thinks that probably here ought to be placed the three verses at the
end of the Epistle) Now, to him … We then that are strong ought to.

(The question is merely about a transposition; and one which Scholz has not
adopted.) (A difference that cannot be rendered.) (A difference that cannot be
rendered.) for I say. by the power of the Spirit. whensoever I take my journey
into Spain, I hope that I shall see you. in the fulness of the blessing of
Christ.

Ver. 2. for she hath been a succourer.

… 3. Priscilla.

… 5. Who is the first fruits of Achaia.

… 6. Who bestowed much labour on us.

… 18. serve not our Lord Jesus Christ.

… 20. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you ! Amen.

… 25. Now to him that is of power…

(The difference cannot be rendered.) Prisca. Who is the first fruits of Asia.
Who bestowed much labour on you. Serve not our Lord Christ. the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

(These words according to Griesbach, ought rather to be placed at the beginning
of chapter 15) Here, then, the thing is evident: such is the real insignificance
of the various readings about which so much noise was made at first. Such has
been the astonishing preservation of the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament
that have been transmitted to us.

After the copying and recopying of the sacred text, whether in Europe, in Asia,
or in Africa, whether in monasteries, or in colleges, or in palaces, or in the
houses of the clergy (and this, too, almost without interruption, during the
long course of fifteen hundred years); — after that during the three last
centuries, and, above all, in the hundred and thirty years that have just
elapsed, so many noble characters, so many ingenious minds, so many learned
lives have been consumed in labours hitherto unheard of for their extent,
admirable for their sagacity, and scrupulous as those of the Massorethes; —
after having scrutinized all the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that are
buried in the private, or monastic, or national libraries, of the East and of
the West; — after these have been compared, not only with all the old
translations, Latin, Armenian, Sahidic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Sclavonian, Persian,
Coptic, Syrian, and Gothic, of the Scriptures, but further, with all the ancient
fathers of the Church, who have quoted them in their innumerable writings, in
Greek and in Latin;

— after so many researches, take this single example, as a specimen of what
people have been able to find!

Judge of the matter by this one epistle which you have before you. It is the
longest and most important of the epistles of the New Testament, “the golden key
of the Scriptures” (as it has been called), “the ocean of Christian doctrine.”
It contains four hundred and thirty-three verses, and in these four hundred and
thirty-three verses, ninety-six Greek words that are met with nowhere else in
the New Testament. And how many (admitting even all the corrections that have
been adopted, or only preferred by Griesbach), how many have you found, in
these, of readings that go to further, wrhat are these? We shall repeat them;
they are as follows: — The first (Rom 7:6) instead of “That in which … being
dead,” Griesbach reads, “Being dead to that in which.” And note well that here
in the Greek, the difference depends only on the change of a single letter (an o
instead of an e); and besides that, the greater number of manuscripts were so
much in favour of the old text that, since Griesbach’s time, Mr Tittman, in his
edition of 1824, has rejected this correction, and Mr Lachman has done so also,
in his edition of 1831 (Scholz, however, has retained it). The second is as
follows, Rom 11:6 : —

Instead of, “And if by, grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is
no more grace; but if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work
is no more work ,” Griesbach takes away the latter half of this phrase. The
third is as follows, Rom 12:11 : —

Instead of, “Serving the Lord,” Griesbach reads, “Serving the occasion.” Note
that the correction depends only on the change of two letters in one of the
Greek words, and that, moreover, it does not appear to be justified by the
number of the manuscripts. Further here, Whitby told Mill that more than thirty
manuscripts, that all the ancient translations, that Clement of Alexandria, St
Basil, St Jerome, all the scholiasts of the Greeks, and all those of the Latins
with the exception of Ambrose, followed the old text; and the two learned men
whom we have just named (Lachman and Tittman), the one labouring at Berlin, the
other a professor at Leipsic, have restored the old text, in their respective
editions of the New Testament. This has been done also by Scholz, in his edition
of 1836, which the learned world seems to prefer to all that have preceded it.
The fourth is as follows, Rom 6:16 : —

Instead of, “Whether of sin unto death or of righteousness,” Griesbach reads,
“Whether of sin or of righteousness;” but he himself puts at the place the
simple sign of a feeble probability; and Tittman and Lachman, in their
respective editions, have further rejected this correction. Scholz, following
their example, has equally rejected it. The fifth is as follows, Rom 16:5 —
Instead of, “The first fruits of Achaia,” Griesbach reads, “The first fruits of
Asia.” Here we have taken no notice of the words that are taken away from the
first paragraph of chapter 8, because we find them again at the 4th verse.

We see, then, the amount of the whole: such is the admirable integrity of the
Epistle to the Romans. According to Griesbach five insignificant corrections, in
the whole epistle — according to more modern critics ONLY TWO, and these the
most insignificant of the five; — and according to Scholz THREE!

We repeat, that we have chosen the Epistle to the Romans, as a specimen, only
because of its length and its importance. We have not given ourselves the time
to examine whether it presents more or fewer various readings than any other
part of the New Testament. We have run over, for example, in Griesbach, while
reviewing these last pages, the EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, written at the same
time and on the same subject with the Epistle to the Romans; and there we have
been unable to find more than the three following corrections that can affect
the sense, or, to speak more correctly, the form of the sense —

Gal 4:17. “They would exclude us” — say, “They would exclude you.”

Gal 4:26. “She is the mother of us all” — say, “She is the mother of us.”

Gal 5:19. “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness” — say, “Fornication,
uncleanness.”

These simple schedules, in our opinion, will speak more loudly to our readers
than all our general assertions could do. Of this we ourselves have felt the
happy experience. We had read, no doubt, what others before us have been able to
say on the insignificance of the different readings presented by the
manuscripts; and we had often studied the various readings of Mill and the
severe reproaches of his adversary Whitby; [127] we had examined the writings of
Wetstein, of Griesbach, of Lachman, and of Tittman; but when, on two occasions,
while taking part in the work of a new translation of the New Testament, we have
been called upon to correct the French text according to the most esteemed
various readings, first to introduce these into it, and afterwards to remove
them out of it again, and to replace there in French the sense conveyed by the
old reading; then we have had on two occasions, as it were, an intuition of that
astonishing preservation of the Scriptures, and we have felt ourselves
penetrated with gratitude towards that wonderful providence which has not ceased
to watch over the oracles of God, in order to preserve their integrity to this
point.

Let its true value be then assigned to the objection that has been made to us.

Let it be shown us, for example, how three or four various readings that we have
passed under review in the Epistle to the Romans, and which, in the opinion of
the most modern critics, are reduced to two or to three, could render the fact
of its original inspiration illusory for us.

:No doubt, in these three or four passages, as well as in those of the other
sacred books where the true word of the text might be contested, no doubt there,
and there alone, of the two different readings of the manuscripts, one is the
inspired word, and not the other; no doubt people must in this small number of
cases divide or suspend their confidence between two expressions; but such is
the extent that uncertainty reaches; such the point beyond which it must not go.

It is reckoned, that of the seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine verses of
the New Testament, there hardly exist ten or twelve in which the corrections
that have been introduced by the new readings of Griesbach and Scholz, as the
result of their immense researches, have any weight at all. Further, in most
instances they consist but in the difference of a single word, and sometimes
even of a single letter.

We should be doing well, perhaps, to point these out here also, as an addition
to those to which we have directed the reader’s attention in the Epistle to the
Romans. The twelve or thirteen following have usually been regarded as the most
important among the various readings collected by Griesbach, and more recently
by Scholz. The four first even have appeared the most serious, only because they
strike at the divinity of Jesus Christ.

[1]st, (Acts 20:28.) — Instead of — “Feed the Church of God, which he hath
bought with his own blood,” The text of Griesbach bears — “Feed the Church of
the Lord, which he hath bought with his own blood.”

Here the difference of the reading preferred by Griesbach consists in A SINGLE
LETTER (ΚΥ Instead of ΘΥ). Scholz even preserves the old text.

[2]d, (1Ti 3:16.) — Instead of — “And without controversy great is the mystery
of godliness, God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,” …

Some manuscripts bear — “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness,
which was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit.” But some other
manuscripts adopted by Griesbach bear — “Great is the mystery of godliness, he
who was manifest in the flesh was justified in the Spirit.” …

Here the difference is still no more than that of a single letter, or even only
that of two strokes of a letter (some manuscripts instead of ΘΣ, having ΟΣ, and
others Ο). Scholz has not admitted Griesbach’s correction. Almost all the Greek
manuscripts, says he, bear Θεὸς; (God). He assures us he has found it in
eighty-six manuscripts, examined by himself, [3]d, (Jude 1:4.) — Instead of —
“Who deny our only ruler, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” The text of Griesbach
and that of Scholz bears — “Who deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.”

Here the difference is only in these two letters (ΘΝ, God), omitted in the
manuscripts which Griesbach has preferred.

We approve of the adversaries of the divinity of Jesus Christ attaching
importance to these three first corrections, in respect of criticism (for every
thing is of importance in the Scripture), but in respect of doctrine, we cannot
Comprehend how they should do so; inasmuch as, by their own admission, there are
many other passages without various readings, in which our Lord is called by the
name of God, of true God, of the great God. No manuscript, for example, presents
variations on the first verse of the Gospel of St John: “In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [128] So, too, no
Greek manuscript whatsoever presents a variation in the reading of that verse of
the Epistle to Titus (Tit 2:13) — “Looking for the glorious appearance of our
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” [129]

[4]th, (1Jn 5:7-8.) — Instead of — “There are three that bear witness [in
heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are ONE (‘ΕΝ);
and there are three that bear witness] in the earth, the Spirit, and the water,
and the blood; and these three agree in that ONE” (τὸ ᾿ΕΝ),

Griesbach’s text bears — “There are three that bear witness on the earth: the
Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three agree in that ONE” (τὸ ᾿ΕN),

Here, without doubt, there is the most serious variation, and, at the same time,
that which is the most justified by the testimony of the manuscripts that have
been preserved down to the present day (more than a hundred and forty against
three), as well as by the universal silence of the Greek fathers. We should be
travelling out of our subject were we to undertake to discuss here the
historical testimonies [130] and the grammatical considerations that plead, on
the contrary, for retaining the old reading. We shall confine ourselves to these
two remarks by Bishop Middleton: —

[1]. Why is the word three, the three, in the masculine in the Greek (τρεῖς οἱ
μαρτυροῦντες,καὶ οἱ τρεῖς), while the words spirit, water, and blood, to which
it relates, are all neuter (for it would have been necessary to say τρία τὰ
μαρτυροῦντα)? This irregularity, which is fully justified by what is called in
grammar the principle of attraction, if the passage remains entire, becomes
inexplicable when you would deprive it of the contested words.

[2]. Wherefore, above all, this word, that one (τὸ ἓν, the ONE), if some certain
ONE have not been spoken of in the preceding words? That expression (τὸ ἓν), in
that case, would be without example. To this Bishop Middleton devotes eighteen
pages in his beautiful work on the Doctrine of the Greek Article (in 8vo,
(Cambridge, 1828, pp. 606 to 624). “I cannot conceive, says he in conclusion,
how this word, that ONE τὸ ἓν) can be reconciled with the taking away of the
preceding words. I am aware that the greater number of the learned are
favourable to these retrenchments; but, taking all things into view, I am led to
suspect that, notwithstanding the immense labour bestowed on this celebrated
passage, something more yet remains to be done in order to clear away the
mystery in which it is still involved.” The learned Bengel, for still further
reasons, said that the two verses of this passage remain united adamantinâ
adhærentiâ.

Scholz has, like Griesbach, taken away the three heavenly witnesses.

[5]th, (Rev 8:13) — Instead of, “And I beheld and heard an angel flying,”
Griesbach’s text and that of Scholz bear, “And I beheld and heard an eagle
flying.”

[6]th, (Jas 2:18) — Instead of, “Show me thy faith by works,” Griesbach’s text
and that of Scholz bear, “Show me thy faith without works.”

[7]th, (Acts 16:7) — Instead of, “But the Spirit suffered them not,” Griesbach’s
text and that of Scholz bear, “But the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.”

[8]th, (Eph 5:21) — Instead of, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the
fear of God,” Griesbach’s text and that of Scholz bear, “Submitting yourselves
one to another in the fear of Christ.”

[9]th, (Rev 1:11) — Instead of, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,”
the text of Griesbach suppresses these words, which it has retained, however, at
the 8th verse, as well as at Rev 22:13. Scholz has made the same correction.

[10]th, (Mat 19:17) — Instead of, “Why callest thou me good?” Griesbach’s text
bears, “Why do you ask me about the good (or about happiness)?” But Scholz does
not admit this correction, and retains the old text.

[11]th, (Php 4:13) — Instead of, “I can do all things through Christ
strengthening me,” Griesbach’s text and that of Scholz bear, “I can do all
things through him who strengtheneth me.’”

[12]th, Finally, (Acts 8:37; Acts 9:5-6; Acts 10:6). Griesbach’s text and that
of Scholz suppress the 37th verse and these words, “It is hard for thee to kick
against the pricks; and he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do?” and, “He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.” No doubt, in
these passages (I repeat), among the different readings which the manuscripts
present, it will not be possible to know infallibly which is the one that ought
to be regarded as the primitive text, or the very word given by God; but, as to
the meaning of the sentence, our uncertainties will always be circumscribed
within a very narrow and very clearly defined field. It is true, that choose I
must between one word and another word — between one letter and another letter;
but there all my doubts are limited, there they stop: they are not allowed to go
any farther. Not only, in fact, have I the assurance that the rest of the text
is entirely from God; but I further know, that of the two different readings
which the manuscripts present to me, one is certainly the inspired word. Thus
you see how it stands: here my uncertainties can bear only on the alternative of
two readings, almost always very much alike; while, on the contrary, under the
system of partial inspiration, the field of our doubts and of our perplexities
will have no bounds. If the language of the sacred books has been so far left to
the ever fallible choice of human wisdom — and if divine wisdom, which alone is
infallible, have not controlled and guaranteed it — I am exposed incessantly to
the temptation of abstracting something from it, modifying something in it, or
adding something to it.

Thus, then, have all the efforts of the adversaries of inspiration to shake our
faith by attacks on this side, only served, as a last result, to confirm it.
They have obliged the Church to follow them in their investigations, and soon
thereafter to precede them in these; and what has she found in this pursuit? Why
this: that the text is still purer than the most godly men had ventured to hope;
that the adversaries of inspiration, and those of the orthodox dogmas, at least
in Germany, have been compelled to admit it. After the labours of Erasmus, of
Stephanus, and of Mill, they hoped to find, among all the manuscripts of our
libraries, readings more favourable to the Socinian doctrines than those adopted
by the Bezas and the Elzevirs. Many even thought that the uncertainties would
become such, and the differences so serious, that all the positive evangelical
doctrines — exclusive, as they call them — would be shaken. But it has not been
so. The process has now been brought to a close — the complainants have lost
their cause; the trial having been conducted at their demand by modern
criticism, all the judges, on the benches of the Rationalists, [131] have with
one voice pronounced it a lost case, and that the objectors must go elsewhere to
look out for arguments and complaints. When this question, respecting the
integrity of the original text, presented itself for the first time to the
excellent and learned Bengel, more than a hundred and twenty years ago, he was
dismayed at the thought of it; it gave his upright and godly soul profound
distress. Then did there commence on his part those labours of sacred criticism,
which gave a new direction to that science among the Germans. The English had
preceded the Germans in it; but the latter soon got before them. At last, after
long researches, Bengel, in 1721, happy and reassured, wrote to his disciple
Reus: “Eat simply the bread of the Scriptures as it presents itself to thee; and
do not distress thyself at finding here and there a small particle of sand which
the millstone may have left in it. Thou mayst, then, dismiss all those doubts
which at one time so horribly tormented myself. If the Holy Scriptures — which
have been so often copied, and which have passed so often through the faulty
hands of ever fallible men — were absolutely without variations, the miracle
would be so great, that faith in them would no longer be faith. I am astonished,
on the contrary, that the result of all those transcriptions has not been a much
greater number of different readings.” The comedies of Terence alone have
presented thirty thousand; and yet these are only six in number, [132] and they
have been copied a thousand times less often than the New Testament.

How shall we not recognize the mighty intervention of God in this unanimous
accord of all the religious societies of the East and of the West! everywhere
the same Scriptures! What distances separate Christians from Jews in their
worship! And yet, walk into our schools of learning, examine our Hebrew
Testaments; then go into their synagogues, ask their rabbis to show you their
sacred rolls — you will there find the same books, without the difference of a
letter! What distances separate, in their worship, the Reformed Christians from
the members of the Roman sect! And yet, pursue your search, you will find in our
respective schools the same Greek Testament, without the difference of an iota!
We take theirs as they take ours — Erasmus or Beza, Ximenes or Mill, Scholz or
Griesbach! What distances, further, separate the Latin Church from the Greek
Church — which also calls itself catholic, but orthodox, apostolic daughter of
Antioch, and condemning the Romans as rebellious and schismatical sons! And yet,
ask both for their sacred texts, no more will you find here any difference; here
the various readings will not at all make two schools that distinguish them;
here the same manuscripts will be consulted — the priests and. the pope, Munich
and Moscow, will make you hear one and the same testimony. The necessary result,
then, has been, that we all — Greeks, Latins, and Protestants — should have
among us the same sacred book of the New Testament, without the difference of a
single iota!

We have said enough on this great fact. We have felt it right merely to glance
at it for the purpose of repelling an objection, since it took us away from our
subject. What we had undertaken was to prove a doctrine — to wit, the primary
inspiration of Holy Scripture; and some have thought they could oppose us by
urging, that, even were this doctrine true, it would be deprived of all effect
by the alterations which Holy Scripture must have undergone. We behoved to show
that these alterations are a vain and harmless phantom. While engaged in
establishing a doctrine, we have already said, we have been led to write a
history. We would now, then, return to the doctrine. Nevertheless, before
returning to it, we must once more conclude, that not only was the Scripture
inspired on the day when God caused it to be written, but that we possess this
word inspired eighteen hundred years ago; and that we may still, while holding
our sacred text in one hand, and in the other all the readings collected by the
learned in seven hundred manuscripts, [133] exclaim, with thankfulness, I hold
in my hands my Father’s testament, the eternal word of my God!

Section 4. Errors of Reasoning or Doctrine.

We abandon the various readings, other opponents will say; and we own that one
may regard the sacred text as the original language of the prophets and the
apostles. But this very text, intact as it is, we cannot study without being
compelled to recognise in it the part that has been taken in it by human
weakness. We find there reasonings ill conducted or ill wound up, quotations ill
applied, popular superstitions, prejudices, and other infirmities — all this
being the unavoidable tax which the simplicity of the men of God had to pay to
the ignorance, on various points, of their times and of their condition. “St
Paul,” St Jerome himself has said, [134] “does not know how to develop a
hyperbaton, or how to conclude a sentence; and as he had to do with rude,
uncultivated persons, he has availed himself of conceptions which (if he had not
taken care to let us know beforehand that he spoke after the manner of men)
might have given umbrage to persons of good sense.” Such, then, being the marks
of human infirmity which we can trace in the Scriptures, it remains an
impossibility to recognise in such a book an inspiration that has descended even
to the smallest details of their language. To these charges brought against the
Scriptures our reply is fourfold.

[1]. First of all, we protest, with the utmost force of our convictions, against
such reproaches. We maintain, that a more attentive and a more serious study of
the Word of God would reduce them to nothing; and we protest, that they have no
foundation but in the errors and the precipitation of those who advance them.
This we could demonstrate, by repelling, one by one, all these charges, in each
of the cases in which they have been sought to be renewed. It would prove a task
more long than difficult, and we cannot find room for it here, for its details
would be endless. There is not, in fact, a line of argument — there is not a
quotation — there is not a doctrine — which the adversaries of the inspiration
of the Scriptures have not at various times made a subject for reproaches; and
it is well enough known that the greater part of objections that can be stated
clearly in three words, require three pages for a clear refutation. It is
necessary, therefore, that in proportion as the men of the world recommence
their attacks, the Church should renew her replies; and that, like those
respectful and indefatigable servants who, among the Eastern nations, watch day
and night near the face of their king, she stand constantly by the side of the
Word of her God, to repel those swarms of objections, which are no sooner seen
to be driven off than they re-appear by another way, and incessantly return to
plant some sting in it anew. Before inquiry — and this the experience of all
ages, and in particular that of these last times, has sufficiently shown —
before inquiry, those difficulties which some would object to the Scriptures are
smoothed away; those obscurities burst into light; and erelong unexpected
harmonies, beauties which no human eye had till then suspected, reveal
themselves in the Word of God, by means of those very objections. Though today
objects of doubt, to-morrow, when better studied, they would become to you
motives to faith: to-day, subjects that distract and perplex you; to-morrow they
would become proofs to convince and assure you.

[2]. Meanwhile we have no wish to evade any one of these charges brought against
the Scriptures by the adversaries of the full inspiration of that sacred book,
for it is an advantage which they give us. — Yes, and we are not afraid to say
it: on hearing such objections, we feel ourselves at one and the same time under
the too opposite impressions of satisfaction and of sadness; of sadness at
seeing persons who acknowledge the Bible to be a revelation from God, not
afraid, notwithstanding, to bring so hastily the most serious accusations
against it; and of satisfaction, from considering with what force such language
confirms the doctrine which we defend. In the mouth of a deist, they would be
objections, and we behoved to reply; but in that of the Christians who advance
them, they involve a flagrant abandonment of their own proper principle, and an
admission of all the evil to be found in that abandonment.

Let us not be misunderstood: it is not at the bar of professed infidels that we
here maintain the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures; it is before men who
say that they hold the Bible to be a revelation from God. Inspiration, we have
told them, is a doctrine written down in that sacred book: according to its own
testimony, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God; it is perfect, it is
pure, it is silver seven times refined. What has been their reply? — They do not
reject, they say, such an inspiration except with regard to the language, the
forms of discourse and unimportant details; they believe, moreover, that a
continual providence directed the minds “of the sacred writers, to preserve them
from all serious error. But how do they prove this position? Is it to the
language only, is it to the forms of discourse, is it to insignificant details,
that they object? — Alas! let us hear their own words: In the doctrines there
are superstitions; in the quotations there are things misapprehended; in the
reasonings there are weak points! — You see, then, it is thus that, in order to
attack the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, they descend into the ranks of
the unbelievers who cast stones at the Word of God; and if they will not
venture, like them, to take away God from the Holy Bible, they would fain at
least rectify God’s errors in the Holy Bible. Which of these two attempts would
be the most outrageous, it were hard to say. We conclude, therefore, that since
it is impossible to combat plenary inspiration without charging the Word of God
with error, we must necessarily cleave ever more and more to this sentence of
Scripture, that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

[3]. But we have to call attention to a still more serious view of the matter.
We ask, Where do they mean to stop in the course they have begun? And by what
reasons would they stop those, in their turn, who would fain advance farther
than they are willing to go? They make bold to correct one saying of God’s Word;
what right, then, have they to censure those who would rectify all the rest?
Creatures of a day, during which they fleet through this world, with the
everlasting book of God in their hands, they are foolhardy enough to say to him:
This, Lord, is worthy of thee, this is not worthy of thee! They make bold of
themselves to sift God’s oracles, to assign a share in them to the folly of man,
to separate in them from the thought of the divine mind, proofs of ignorance
shown by Isaiah and Moses, the prejudices of St Peter and St Jude, the
paralogisms of St Paul, the superstitions of St John! Lamentable temerity! We
repeat it: Where will they stop in this fatal task? for they proceed to take
their seats at the same table where the Socinuses, the Grimaldis, and the
Priestleys occupy one side, and the Rousseaus, the Volneys, and the Dupuis the
other. Betwixt them and Eichhorn, betwixt them and William Cobbet, betwixt them
and Strauss, where will you find the difference? It is in the species, not in
the genus. It is in the quantity, and no longer in the quality, of imputations
of error and tokens of irreverence. There is a difference in point of hardihood,
none at all in point of profanation. Both pretend to have found errors in the
Word of God; both take it upon them to rectify it. But will they tell us, is it
less absurd on the part of a creature to set about correcting in the works of
God the creation of the hyssop that springs from the wall, than that of the
cedar that grows on Lebanon; to pretend to rectify the organism of a glow-worm
than to send a supply of light to the sun? What right have ministers, who say
they see only the language of Jewish prejudices in what the Evangelists relate
about the demoniacs and the miracles of Jesus Christ in casting out unclean
spirits, — what right have they to think it strange that such or such another
person should see in the miracles of the conversion of St Paul, of the
resurrection, of the multiplication of the loaves, or of the day of Pentecost,
no more than an useful and sage complaisance for the ignorant minds of a people
that were fond of the marvellous? What right would a professor, who should deny
the inspiration of the reasonings of St Paul, have to blame M. de Wette for
rejecting that of the prophecies of the Old Testament, [135] or M. Wirgmann for
proceeding to his Divarication of the New Testament , [136] or M. Strauss, for
changing into myths the miracles, and even the person of Jesus Christ? Three or
four years ago, a young Bernese minister gave us a reading of a manual of
theology, which, he said, had been put into his hands in one of the academies of
Eastern Switzerland. We have forgotten the name of the author, together with
that of his residence: but having at the time taken a note of his principal,
arguments against the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, we can reproduce
here the quotations by which he sought to prove that the sacred books, as they
contained evident errors, could not be altogether the Word of God. The reader
will understand that we cannot stop here to reply to him. All we wish to do is
merely to give one an idea of the measure of these temerities.

“St Paul speaks of ‘having delivered an incestuous person over to Satan.’ — (1Co
5:5.) Could this passage (fanatical no doubt) have been inspired?”

“He tells them that ‘we shall judge the angels.’ — (1Co 6:3). A gnostic reverie,
no doubt. Could such a passage be inspired?”

“He even goes so far as to tell them that, ‘in consequence of their unworthy
communions, many among them are sick, and some are dead.’ — (1Co 11:30.) This
passage cannot be inspired!”

“He tells them, further, ‘that in Adam all die.’ — (1Co 15:22.) Juridical
superstition! It is impossible that such a passage can be inspired!”

“And when St Paul assures the Thessalonians (1Th 4:15), which St James repeats
(Jas 5:8), ‘that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,’ could so manifest an
error be inspired?” [137]

It is thus, then, that men dare to sit in judgment on the eternal Word! We still
remain unaware, we have said, if these doctrines, professed in Switzerland ten
or twelve years ago, were so professed at Zurich more than elsewhere. But if
they were actually in vogue there, then one must excuse, alas! the magistrates
of that city, if we would not deal unfairly by them. It was not they who called
Strauss into their country, in order to subvert the faith of a whole people
there; for Strauss was already in their professors’ chairs, if such teachers
delivered their opinions from them. They had seen them with ample scissors in
hand, cutting out from the Scriptures the errors of the apostles. What
difference could they perceive betwixt such men and the man they called? A
little more learning, boldness, consistency, in following out his principles;
and in his more practised hand, a longer and sharper instrument; but hardly more
heartfelt contempt for the Scriptures of God! Among the judges of the Sanhedrim
who smote Jesus on the face we should make little difference as to the number of
blows they severally dealt; and when sixty conspirators in the palace of Pompey
threw down Cæsar from his throne of gold in the midst of the senate, Cased, who
first grazed him with his sword, was no less his murderer than Cassius, who
clove his head, or than the sixty conspirators, who on all sides drew their
swords on him, and pierced him with twenty-three wounds. Is the doctor, then,
who denies the inspiration of an argument or of a doctrine of the Scriptures,
less in revolt against the God of the Scriptures than the man who rejects the
inspiration of a whole book? We think not.

We conclude, that since the man who denies the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures necessarily enters on the career of daring temerities, and gives the
signal, by the first thrust of his sword, for all the revolts that may follow
against the Word of God, we must, once more, look more narrowly to that saying
of the Holy Ghost: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” But we have
one last reflection farther to make.

[4]. You do not, it seems, comprehend the divinity, the propriety, the wisdom,
the utility of such or such a passage of the Scriptures; and, on that account,
you deny their inspiration! — Is this an argument that can have any real value,
we do not say in our eyes, but in yours? Who are you? “Keep thy foot when thou
goest into the house of God,” feeble child of man, “and be more ready to hear,
than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not the evil that they
do. Be not rash with thy mouth: God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.” (Ecc
5:1-2) Who art thou, then, who wouldst judge the oracles of God? Hath not the
Scripture itself told us beforehand, that it would be to some a stumbling-block,
and to others foolishness; (1Co 1:23) that the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, and that he cannot even do so, and that they are
spiritually discerned? (1Co 2:14) Ought you not, therefore, to expect to feet at
first some repugnance in mind, in heart, in conscience, even to its first
teachings? Man must first return to his place as a weak, ignorant, and
demoralized creature! He cannot comprehend God until he has humbled himself. Let
him go and cast himself upon his knees in his closet; let him pray, and he will
comprehend what it means! An argument is ill grounded, because you do not seize
its scope! a doctrine is a prejudice, because you do not admit it! a quotation
is not to the point, because its true meaning has escaped you! What would remain
in the world, were God to leave nothing there but what you could explain? The
Emperors of Rome, incapable of understanding either the lives or the faith of
our martyrs, threw them to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre, and had their
bodies dragged to the Tiber. It is thus that people strike their own defective
knowledge, like an impure hook, into the Word of God, and drag to the public
dunghill whatever they have been unable to understand, and have condemned! While
tracing these lines, we are reminded of a teacher of divinity, in other respects
an honourable man, but imbued with the wisdom of his own age, who set himself to
prove that the reasonings of St Paul are not inspired. Now, how went he about to
demonstrate this? Why, he quoted as a convincing example a passage (Gal 3:16) in
which St Paul proposes, not to prove (mark this well — the whole solution lies
here), not to prove, but to AFFIRM that the promise made by God to Abraham and
his posterity, regarded not all his posterities (since it was evident enough
that his posterities by Agar, by Keturah, by Esau, were rejected), but one
special, elected and personal posterity. And what think you the professor did to
establish his thesis on this passage? Why, he palmed on the apostle an argument
so puerile, that the merest child among the Galatians might have reproved him
for it! St Paul, according to him, instead of doing no more than affirm a fact,
meant to argue from the singular of a collective noun that such a word could
designate no more than a single person! Absurd as it is for us, said he, this
argument might be good for the Jews, or for the gross-minded Gauls of Asia
Minor. We give this example; a hundred more of the same value might easily be
produced. May the author venture here to refer to his own experience? He
recollects, with no less humiliation than gratitude, his earliest and his latest
impressions oil the Epistles of St Paul. He was enabled, from his earliest
years, to come to the conviction that the Bible is from God; but he did not yet
understand the doctrines which it teaches. He wished to respect the apostle’s
pages, because he saw, through other marks, that the not-to-be-counterfeited
seals of the most high God are suspended there; but in reading them he was
agitated with a secret uneasiness, which drove him to other books. St Paul
appeared to him to reason wrong — not to go straight to his point; to discourse
in a round-about and embarrassed manner; to wind about his subject in long
spiral turnings, and to say the things that were attributed to him quite
differently from what one himself would have wished to have done. In a word, he
felt, in reading them, somewhat of the painful discomfort of a tenderly
affectionate son as he waits on a declining parent whose memory is beginning to
fail, and who stammers in his attempts to speak. O how anxiously would he
conceal from others, and dissemble to himself, that his venerated father
totters, and seems no longer to be himself! But no sooner had Divine grace
revealed to us that doctrine of the righteousness of faith, which is the burning
and shining flame of the Scriptures, than every word became light, harmony, and
life; the apostle’s reasonings seemed limpid as the water that flows from the
rock; his thoughts profound and practical; all his epistles a power of God unto
salvation for those who believe. We saw abundant proofs of divinity shine forth
from those very parts of the Scriptures which had long given us such uneasiness;
and we could say, with the joy of one who has made a discovery, and with the
gratitude of a tender adoration, as we felt inimitable, and until then silent,
chords vibrate within us, in unison with the Word of God, “Yes, my God, all the
Scriptures are divinely inspired!” … But people insist.

Section 5. Errors in Narratives.

All these just repugnances felt to the reasonings or the doctrines of the sacred
writers, will be abandoned, we are told, if it must be so, by admitting, that,
on these matters, what is a difficulty for some may be none at all for others.
But, if an appeal be now made to facts — if it be shown that there are manifest
contradictions in the narratives of the Bible, in its dates, in its allusions to
contemporary history, in its scriptural quotations — we might farther, perhaps,
reproach those who object on the ground of having seen these, with not being
consistent with themselves, and with going farther in this respect than their
own thesis will admit. This, however, matters not; these, if facts at all, are
facts which cannot be thrown out on any such preliminary plea, and which no
reasoning can destroy. Reasoning no more destroys facts than it creates them.
If, then, it is added, these contradictions exist, they may, indeed, convict
their thesis of not going far enough; but they are three times more relevant
against ours, in charging it with error.

First of all, we acknowledge that, were it true that there were, as they tell
us, erroneous facts and contradictory narratives in the Holy Scriptures, one
must renounce any attempt to maintain their plenary inspiration. But we are not
reduced to this: these alleged errors do not exist.

We admit, no doubt, that, among the numerous attacks made on the smallest
details of the narratives of our sacred books, there are some which, at first
sight, may give some embarrassment; but no sooner do we look at them more
closely than these difficulties are cleared up and vanish. We proceed to give
some examples of this, and will be careful to select them from among those which
the adversaries of a plenary inspiration have seemed to regard as the most
insurmountable.

These we shall preface with some observations.

[1]. The Scriptures have in all ages had their adversaries and their defenders —
their Celsuses as well as their Origens — their porphyries as well as their
Eusebiuses — their Castellios and their Calvins, their Strausses and their
Hengstenbergs. It is now sixteen hundred years since Malchus:Porphyry, that
learned and spiteful Syrian, who lived in Sicily under the reign of Diocletian,
and whom Jerome calls rabidum adversus Christum canem, [138] wrote fifteen books
against Christianity. In these fifteen books — the fourth of which was directed
against the Pentateuch, the twelfth and the thirteenth against Daniel — there
was one (the first) entirely devoted to the bringing together of all the
contradictions which, he maintained, he had found in the Scriptures. [139] From
Celsus and Porphyry down to the English unbelievers of the 18th century, and
from these down to Strauss, who has had hardly more to do than copy them, [140]
unceasing endeavours have been made to discover more, by comparing Scripture
with Scripture, line with line, word with word, detail with detail. It was easy,
therefore, to multiply them, and even to find some that were specious, in a book
eminently anecdotic — where narratives of the same events are often repeated
under different forms, by different historians, in different circumstances, with
manifold objects, and with more or less extensive developments. After this, the
reader must see that this fifth objection, which is composed altogether of
detached observations, and resolves itself into an infinity of minute details,
can only be refuted in detail, and by detached answers. The matter, accordingly,
is inexhaustible. Every passage has its objection, and every objection its
reply. Our sole general response, then, can only be this — Examine, and the
obscurity will vanish.

It is acknowledged, besides, by all parties, that the alleged contradictions,
adduced by the adversaries of inspiration have not in themselves any religious
importance, and bear only on dates, numbers, and other very minute
circumstances. But though incapable of directly affecting Christian doctrine,
they would tend, nevertheless, not less directly to subvert the plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures. It is necessary, therefore, that they should be
met. This is what the friends of religion have done in all ages; and this is
what Mr Hengstenberg, at Berlin, has lately accomplished with such honourable
success; it is this, too, which has been done, in these last times, by Messrs
Barrett, Hales, Gerard, Dick, Home, and others, in England.

[2]. It is very easy to say, in a general manner, and in a peremptory tone, that
there are contradictions in the Bible; and it has often happened that
unreflecting though, pious Christians have not taken the pains to look narrowly
into the matter, and have suffered themselves to be led away into loose maxims
on inspiration, before having sufficiently studied, on one hand, the general
testimonies of the Scriptures on that doctrine, and, on the other, the nature of
the objections that have been opposed to them. Then it is that they have been
seen to seek in their own minds, rather than in the Bible, for a mitigated
system of inspiration, such as can be reconciled with the alleged existence of
some errors in the Word of God. Here, in the sixteenth century, lay the doctrine
of Socinus, [141] of Castellio, [142] and some others; but it was then loudly
rejected by all pious men. “Hoc non est causam tueri adversus atheos,” said
Francis Turretine, [143] “sed illam turpiter prodere.” “Non est eo concedendum,
ad ea concilianda, ut dicamus codicem sacrum mendosum,” [144] said the learned
and pious Peter Martyr, “the wonder of Italy,’” as Calvin called him. In our
days, the estimable Mr Pye Smith, [145] in England, and the worthy bishop of
Calcutta, [146] have allowed themselves to run into statements of opinion which
we deplore, and which they would probably correct had they to make them again.
And at Berlin, the learned rector of the university, M. Twesten, whom, for his
labours and reputation in other respects, we honour, has not been afraid to say,
in his work on dogmatic theology, [147] that all is not equally inspired in the
holy Bible; and that if we refuse to admit that there are errors in the details
of the evangelical narratives, we throw ourselves into inextricable difficulties
in our endeavours to explain them. And what examples does he give, in passing,
in justification of such maxims? Why, he quotes two of the passages which we are
about to expound, (the first, that of the blind man of Jericho, the seventh,
that of the census taken under Cyrenius). The reader may judge of the ease with
which some can abandon the testimony which the Scriptures themselves render to
their entire inspiration.

We proceed, then, to give some examples both of the contradictions which
objectors have fancied they could oppose to us, and of the causes of the
precipitation with which some allow themselves to call certain passages
contradictory; which, however, only require a little reflection in order to
their being reconciled.

We have said, and we repeat, that as it is out of our power to adduce more than
a small number here, we have been at pains to select such as our adversaries
have apparently regarded as the most embarrassing.

[In the interval between the first and second edition of this book, several
pious persons have blamed us for having resolved difficulties which were not
such to them, while we had neglected others which seemed to them of greater
weight. Other readers will, no doubt, pass a directly contrary judgment on these
relative values. Such appreciations are altogether subjective. None is judge of
the importance that may be attached elsewhere to his objections on such matters;
so that they present a boundless field. Still, however, we think it right to
bring under consideration, in this volume, the new difficulties that have been
pointed out to us.]

FIRST CAUSE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — The complement of the circumstances of
two facts which happened in the East, eighteen hundred years ago, remains
unknown, because the sacred historians relate them to us with signal brevity.
Some persons, nevertheless, should the narrative not explain to us in what
manner some of their traits may be reconciled, are in haste to declare them
contradictory. Nothing is more irrational. Suppose (to give an instance not from
the Scriptures) that a Hindu pundit happened to read three succinct histories,
all three veridical, of the illustrious Napoleon. The first will tell him that
the capture of Paris, preceded by much bloodshed at the gates of that capital,
compelled him to abdicate; and that an English frigate was commissioned to
transport him to an island in the Mediterranean. A second will relate that this
great captain, vanquished by the English, who made themselves masters of Paris
without opposition, was transported by them to St Helena, whither General
Bertrand desired to follow him, and where he breathed his last in the arms of
that faithful servant. A third will relate that the fallen emperor was
accompanied in his exile by Generals Gourgaud, Bertrand, and Montholon. All
these narratives would be true; and yet, how many palpable contradictions in
these few words! the learned man of Benares might say. St Helena in the
Mediterranean! Who knows not that it rises like a rock in the great ocean? So
much for a first contradiction: one of these books must be false; we must reject
it. But again: Paris taken without a blow being struck! and Paris taken after a
bloody battle at the gates! There is a second. Once more: here we find one
general, there three generals! showing a third contradiction.

Now, compare these supposed precipitate judgments with many of the objections
that have been started against the narratives of our Gospels!

First example. — Mark (Mark 16:5) relates to us, that the women “saw A YOUNG MAN
(only one) sitting on the right side … who said to them, Be not affrighted.. Ye
seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen.” And Luke relates (Luk
24:4), that “TWO MEN stood by them who said to them, Why seek ye the living
among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.”

These passages are objected to as irreconcilable with each other; but on what
good grounds? No doubt there is a difference; but there is neither contradiction
nor disagreement between the two narratives. If they are both true, wherefore
would you insist on their being identical? It is enough that they be true,
particularly in histories so admirably succinct. Does it not often happen with
us, that, without ceasing to be exactly accordant with truth, we tell, twice in
succession to different persons, the same adventure in two very different
manners? Now, why should the apostles not do as much? Luke relates, that two
personages presented themselves to the women; while Mark speaks only of that one
of the two who at first had alone rolled away the stone, who sat on the right
side of the sepulchre, and who addressed himself to them. It was thus that one
of our (supposed) historians of the Life of Bonaparte spoke of three generals;
while the other, without ceasing to be true, spoke only of Bertrand. It is thus
that Moses, after having spoken of three men as appearing to Abraham at Mamre
(Genesis 18), forthwith confines himself to speaking of one (ver. 2, 10, 17), as
if he had been alone. It is thus that, twice in succession, and in a different
manner, I may relate the same circumstance, without ceasing to be true: “I met
three men, who told me the right way. I met a man, who put me on the proper
road.” Thus, though there be in the passages adduced a marked difference, still
there is not even the semblance of a contradiction.

Second example. — Matthew (Mat 20:30) says that as Jesus “departed from Jericho,
a great multitude followed him. And, behold, two blind men, sitting by the
way-side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, have mercy on
us!” And Mark (Mark 10:46) tells us that “as Jesus went outer Jericho with his
disciples, and a great number of people, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat
by the highway-side begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he
began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.”

Luke likewise (Luk 18:35) speaks of one blind man only.

What is there here, we again ask, contradictory or incorrect? Of those two blind
men whom Jesus, amid so many other works, healed at Jericho, there was one more
remarkable than the other, better known perhaps in the country, and who spoke
for both. Mark speaks of him only; he even goes on to tell us his name: he does
not assure us that he was alone. Matthew, accordingly, might speak of two. The
narratives of the three evangelists are equally true, without being like each
other throughout. What, then, is there extraordinary in this?

But, in this same narrative we are told there is a still greater difficulty; let
us hear it. This forms a third example. — Matthew and Mark relate that the
occurrence took place as Jesus departed from Jericho.

Whereas Luke tells us that it happened as Jesus drew near to Jericho. Here, once
more, people have been found to exclaim, What a palpable contradiction!

We must reply, How would you prove this? what know you about it? The details of
this fact being unknown to you, how could you possibly demonstrate that they are
irreconcilable? While it is very easy, on the contrary, by the simplest
supposition, to make them agree?

Luke, as he does so often in every part of his Gospel, has united in his
narrative two successive circumstances of the same event. Mark well that he is
the only one of the three historians who makes mention of the first question put
by Bartimeus; “And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant .” This
question the blind man put before the entrance of Jesus into Jericho. Being then
made aware who this great prophet was, whom hitherto he had not known, he
followed him, and during our Lord’s repast in the house of Zaccheus, took his
place in the crowd that waited for his coming out. It was then that there was
announced to him that “Jesus of Nazareth passed by” (these words are in St
Luke). He followed him long thus; he was joined by the other blind man; and
their cure was performed only when Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, left Jericho,
where he had stopped only for the purpose of being the guest of the happy
Zaccheus. This very simple explanation instantly removes the alleged discrepancy
of the three texts.

Fourth example. — Matthew (in his 27th chapter verse 5) says that Judas “hanged
himself;” St Peter, in the Acts (Acts 1:18), says that “falling headlong, he
burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.”

Here, again, we have been told, there is a contradiction.

We remember that once, at a public conference at Geneva, where we defended this
same thesis, our much-valued friend, professor Monod, at that time pastor at
Lyons, adduced the analogous traits of a lamentable death of which he had almost
been witness. An unhappy inhabitant of that city, in order to make the surer of
committing suicide, and to give himself a double death, having seated himself
outside of a fourth- storey window, fired a pistol into his mouth. The same
relater of that sad event, said he might have given three different accounts of
it, and all three correct. In the first he might have reported the whole that
had happened; in the second, he might have said the man shot himself; and, in
the third, he threw himself from a window and was killed.

Such, also, was the self-inflicted punishment by which the unhappy Judas
departed into his own place. He hanged himself, and fell headlong; he burst
asunder, in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. One single particular more
on the frightful circumstances of one same death, would have showed us the
connection. It has not been given to us; but who will venture, on that account,
to maintain that here there is a contradiction?

Fifth example. — Here ought to be placed the greater number of those cases where
different numerical calculations may seem to disagree, such as that of the
talents of gold brought from Ophir to King Solomon (1Ki 9:28; 2Ch 8:18); that of
the census taken of the Israelites in the days of David (2Sa 24:9; 1Ch 21:5);
that of the children of the patriarch Jacob, transported into Egypt (Gen 46:27;
Deu 10:22; Acts 7:14), &c.

One single additional circumstance in these rapid narratives would have
instantly furnished the reconciliation required. King Solomon might, in the one
ease, reckon his gross revenues; and, in the other, deduct thirty talents for
the expenses of the fleet. David’s census might present two results, according,
as the ordinary and already numbered militia of the kingdom was included or left
out (288,000 men with their officers of all ranks.) — (2Ch 27:1; 2Sa 23:8.)
Finally, you might have sixty-six, seventy, or seventy-five persons as the
patriarch’s family, according as you reckon in it, or do not reckon, on the one
hand, Jacob with Joseph and his two sons; on the other, Er, Onan, and Dinah; or
again, the wives of the eleven patriarchs. We enter not into the combination of
these details; we need only to point them out.

Sixth example. — St Matthew, in his 27th chapter (Mat 27:9-10), quotes as those
of Jeremiah words not to be found in the book of that prophet. “Then,” says he,
“was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they
took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of
the children of Israel did value.”

Here, it has been said, what an evident error. — these words are met with only
in the book of Zechariah (Zec 11:13).

We do not answer, with Augustine, that as several Greek manuscripts have only
these words, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet ,” “one
might say that the reference is to one of those who did not bear the name of
Jeremiah.” [148]It is true, that even at this day, among the Greek manuscripts
of our libraries, there are two which have not the name of that prophet; and
that, among the most ancient versions, the Syrian and the Persian have it not.
This solution, however, does not appear to us conformable to the ordinary rules
of sacred criticism; and Augustine himself candidly admits that it does not
satisfy him, seeing that, even in his time, the greater number of Latin copies,
and of Greek copies, bore in this sentence the name of Jeremiah.

Some learned men, consequently, presume that this name may have easily slipt
into the text by some mistake; and that the copyists, having noticed on the
margin the letters Ζου (signifying in abridgment the name of Zechariah), and
having mistaken them for ‘Ιου, had slipped it into the text, thinking what they
saw was the name Jeremiah. Meanwhile, even this explanation does not satisfy us
any better, for it rests on a mere hypothesis gratuitously opposed to the
testimony of the manuscripts, and opens a door for the admission of rash
alterations. Our safety must ever lie in having the manuscripts respected.

I prefer, therefore, Whitby’s explanation, which is as follows: — “We know,”
says he, “from St Jerome, that there was still extant in his time, an apocryphal
book of the prophet Jeremiah, in which was found every letter of the words
quoted by St Matthew.” [149] We know also that the Second Book of Maccabees
(2:1-9) relates many of the actions and words of Jeremiah, which are taken from
another book than that of his canonical prophecies. Why, then, might not the
words quoted by the evangelist have been pronounced really by Jeremiah, and have
remained in the memory of the Church to the days of Zechariah, who might then
have again given them a place theopneustically in holy Scripture, (as is the
case with the unwritten words of Enoch, quoted in the Epistle of Jude (Jude
1:14-15), or the unwritten words of Jesus Christ, quoted by St Paul in the Book
of the Acts?)

(Acts 20:35) What confirms this supposition is, that part only of the words
quoted by St Matthew are found in Zechariah. Besides, it is known that this
prophet was fond of recalling the words of Jeremiah. (See Zec 1:4, and Jer
18:11; Zec 3:8, and Jer 23:5) The Jews used to say that the spirit of Jeremiah
was in Zechariah, and that the two prophets made only one. Mede thought it very
probable that the 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters of Zechariah were written in the
first instance by Jeremiah. Now, it is in the last of these chapters that we
find the words quoted by St Matthew. That evangelist, therefore, could quote
them as those of Jeremiah, in like manner as the apostle Jude has quoted as
those of Enoch the words of his 14th and 15th verses.

Seventh example. — Many difficulties have been started of late, especially in
Germany, on the fourfold narrative given us of our Lords resurrection. For the
sake of briefness we shall treat of the whole four accounts at once, taking care
to distinguish them, in both objection and reply, by corresponding letters.

A. According to St Luke (it has been said), the women of Galilee, on their
return from the sepulchre, had prepared their spices before the Sabbath (Luk
23:56); while according to St Mark (Mark 16:1-2), they bought them only on the
Saturday evening, after the expiration of that sacred repose.

B. The reading of St Matthew gives us to understand that these women were Mary
of Magdala and the other Mary; while there must have been, besides, Salome,
according to Mark (Mark 16:1); and even, according to Luke (Luk 24:10), there
must further have been Joanna, and others, with them.

C. According to Mark (Mark 16:2) they went to the sepulchre “at the rising of
the sun:” according to John (John 20:1) “it was yet dark.”

D. If (according to St Matthew alone) the Jews had set men to guard the
sepulchre, one can hardly comprehend how these women should risk visiting it,
and think of opening it.

E. According to Matthew (Mat 28:5) and Mark (Mark 16:5), the women saw only one
angel at the sepulchre; they saw two according to St Luke (24:4). F. According
to Matthew (Mat 28:8) and Luke (Luk 24:9-10), the women, on departing from the
sepulchre, “with fear and great joy,” ran to tell the disciples what they had
seen; whereas, according to Mark (Mark 16:8), they fled; “they trembled and were
amazed; neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid.”

G. If, according to the first and the third Gospels, the women informed the
disciples of what had passed (Mat 28:8; Luk 24:9), according to the fourth,
Simon Peter and John alone were informed.

H. According to the three first Gospels, Mary of Magdala, on reaching the
sepulchre, saw two angels, who informed her of the resurrection of Jesus; while
according to St John (John 20:2), she had contented herself with saying to the
disciples, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre!” and said
nothing either about his resurrection or even about the angels. “We know not
where they have laid him!” she adds.

I. According to Luke (Luk 24:12), it would appear that Peter, on being told, ran
alone to the sepulchre; according to John, there was with Peter “that other
disciple whom the Lord loved.” (John 20:2).

K. If you attend to the three first evangelists only, several women seem to have
witnessed the appearance of the angels and the resurrection of Jesus; while from
reading St John, you would believe that Mary of Magdala alone was honoured with
these revelations.

L. According to Luke (Luk 24:2; Luk 24:9; Luk 24:24), and even according to John
(John 20:2), Mary and the women, on returning from the sepulchre, merely told
the disciples of the removal of the body of Jesus, and of their having seen the
angels; they had not seen the Lord himself; while according to Matthew (Mat
28:9), Jesus had appeared to them “while they were yet in the way.”

Here, then, we are told there are eleven contradictions, which do not, it is
true, affect the essence of the sacred narrative, and which ought not by any
means to affect our faith, but which rise irresistibly to testify against the
alleged fact of an entire divine inspiration.

[This objection, we will avow it, appeared to us too ill-founded, and to have
been too often solved already, to find a place in the first edition of this
work. Nevertheless it has been reproduced against us, and we have thought proper
to make a reply.] The day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for the
disciples, began with the first dawnings of morning (John 20:1), and was
lengthened out to midnight (Luk 24:29; Luk 24:33; Luk 24:36). The sepulchre
where their Lord had been laid was not far from where they dwelt, seeing that at
this day it is placed within the circuit of modern Jerusalem. Thus the disciples
and the women may have repaired thither often, and in various ways, during the
course of that incomparable Sunday. But as each of the four evangelists imposed
on himself a marvellous brevity in relating that event, it is quite natural that
at the first aspect their narratives should present, on the innumerable
incidents of the day, an apparent confusion. Each was called upon to relate the
truth, and nothing but the truth; but none of them was bound to tell the whole;
and owing to this conciseness, you may not at once perceive their perfect
agreement. They relate, each for himself; according to one special point of
view, and without embarrassing himself about a reconciliation which they knew
lay in the reality of the facts. What more would you have? One speaks specially
of Mary Magdalene, for to her Jesus desired to make his first appearance; the
other of Peter, because Jesus made himself appear to him notwithstanding his
crime, and because he was called to occupy a leading place in the Church of God;
two others, of the astonishing meeting on the road to Emmaus, because that
manifestation was the most significant and the most affecting; three others, in
fine, of his appearing to the eleven, because these were to be the foundations
and the pillars of the Church.

Moreover, you can perceive in their writings several traits which sufficiently
indicate that, in giving an account of certain scenes, they knowingly abstain
from mentioning others, the remembrance of which was no less dear to them, but
which it was necessary to omit introducing, in order that their Gospels might be
divinely short. Let us give some examples.

[1]. You will hear St Paul reminding the Corinthians (1Co 15:5) that Jesus “was
seen first by Cephas, and then by the twelve;” — yet, not one of the four
evangelists has told us of this appearance of Jesus to Simon Peter. Certainly it
is well that it so happens that we read afterwards in St Luke (Luk 24:34) these
words, said in passing, “The Lord hath appeared unto Simon.” Without this
expression (which occurs only casually in a conversation among the eleven and
Cleopas), the adversaries of inspiration would not have failed to say that Paul
was mistaken as to this fact, and that he had been a careless reader of his
Gospels, seeing that not a word is said of this appearance in their four-fold
account of the resurrection.

[2]. It is thus, too, that St Luke, who (at the 12th verse) speaks only of
Peter, takes care, however, to make the disciples of Emmaus say afterwards,
“Certain of them that were with us went to the sepulchre.”

[3]. It is thus, also, that St Mark, who does not mention either the appearing
of Jesus to the women or to Simon Peter, takes care, however, to insert in his
account (Mark 16:9) a very few words which give us to understand that there were
other manifestations, of which he was not to speak. “Jesus,” says he, “appeared
first (first!) to Mary of Magdala.’”

[4]. Finally, it is thus that St John, whose sole purpose it was to complete the
preceding Gospels, and who speaks only of Mary Magdalene, informs us, by a
simple pronoun, that she, notwithstanding, was not alone: “They have taken away
the Lord, and WE KNOW NOT WHERE THEY HAVE LAID HIM.”

Thus, then, in order to establish contradiction among the different parts of the
quadruple statement, it were necessary that they should be proved irreconcilable
with all the suppositions one must make on the unknown connecting links of the
events of the day. But who can do this? On the contrary, it is easy to figure
for ourselves the sequence of events in such a manner as that the separate
details of the narrative should come to agree with each other. This is what
several persons have attempted with success, and in different ways; so far is
the problem from being incapable of being solved. All that was necessary for
this, was to make different but equally admissible suppositions on the number
and the sequence of the visits made to the tomb by Mary, the disciples, and the
women. Olshausen, Hess, and Griesbach, reconcile the difficulties by assuming
that at daybreak Mary of Magdala, while on the way to the sepulchre, parted from
her companions, and arrived first. John Le Clerc figured to himself rather that
Mary, coming to the sepulchre a second time, with the two apostles, remained
longer than them near the tomb, and that the other disciples went home.
Hengstenberg has made other suppositions, more simple perhaps, and not less
acceptable.

Such hypotheses, shall we be told, do not necessarily do away with the
contradiction — they only show that possibly there may be none. What would we
have more? The adversaries of inspiration only in their turn make contrary
hypotheses.

Now, then, instead of replying separately to each of the eleven objections above
adduced, we will content ourselves with exhibiting the course of events, such as
we may conceive it to have been, according to the four accounts taken as a
whole. What we give is very nearly the arrangement proposed by John Le Clerc in
his “Evangelical Harmony.” [150] Others will prefer, perhaps, that lately
proposed by Olshausen, in his “Biblical Commentary,” [151] or that which
Hengstenberg more recently still has exhibited in his “Evangelical Gazette.”
[152] But it is of no consequence. Our account, it will be seen, dissipates, one
after another, the eleven alleged contradictions. (The same letters that
distinguish them in the objection, will be re- inserted here before the
particulars that correspond with them, and serve to solve them.)

A. Jesus had yielded up the ghost on the cross on Friday evening, at the ninth
hour of the day. The Sabbath, which began three hours later, was doubly solemn
(being both the weekly and the paschal Sabbath). As it grew late (Mat 27:46; Mat
27:57; Mark 15:34; Mark 15:42), Joseph of Arimathea went to ask from Pilate the
body of the crucified one. tie obtained it, and, accompanied by Nicodemus, who
saw to there being taken to the sepulchre about a hundred-weight of myrrh and
aloes (John 19:39); he bought a pall, had the body of Jesus taken down, wound it
in linen clothes with the spices (John 19:40), and wrapped it in a
winding-sheet, (Luk 23:53; Mark 15:46; Mat 27:59); then at last, for want of
time, he hastened to deposit it in a sepulchre not far from Golgotha. One will
see, therefore, that the godly women (who had beheld from a distance these
funereal scenes, down to the moment when a huge stone was placed on the entrance
to the tomb), had very little time for going home and preparing the perfumes
which they had at their disposal. The Sabbath was about to commence; and
whatever might be, in their eyes, the sacred nature of their occupations, they
ceased from them from the time of sunset; nothing could withdraw them from the
repose and silence of that day (ἡσύχασαν, Luk 23:56). But as soon as it was over
(that is to say, on Saturday at six o’clock at night), they ran to purchase
aromatics to complete the pious preparations which they had been able only to
commence. This funereal operation required a very considerable quantity of
myrrh, aloes, and other substances; and, no doubt, in the evening, they could
not have seen, from such a distance, that Nicodemas had already deposited in the
sepulchre as much as a hundred-weight of perfumes.

Thus far, then, all is perfectly consistent; and it is by these touching details
that Luke and Mark desired, each on his own side, to give prominence to the
humble respect of these godly women for the law of the Sabbath; the one (Luk
23:56), by showing how submissively they at once intermitted the most sacred
cares; and the other (Mark 16:1), with what scrupulous attention they resumed
them only at the hour when they were again at liberty to work.

B. Meanwhile they left their homes to go to the sepulchre. John names Magdalene
only, because Jesus Christ had chosen her to be the first witness of the
greatest of his miracles, and because she was the essential actor in his
narrative. He takes care, however, to make her say, “We know not where they have
laid him” (John 20:2)! In general, the evangelists show little anxiety about
accumulating testimonies. And if the appearance with which the holy women were
favoured had not been the first, it is probable that the sacred historians would
not even have mentioned it. This is what we might conclude, by analogy, from
Paul’s mode of procedure (1Co 15:5; 1Co 15:8), who speaks only of the apostles,
and says not a word about the women. His complete silence sufficiently explains
to us the partial silence of the evangelists. [153]C. It was still almost night
(John 16:1), when the women left their residence, carrying the spices, to go to
the sepulchre (εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, Mark 16:3); but the sun had risen on their
reaching it (ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεἴον,Mark 16:2). We know that in those southern
latitudes, the evening and morning twilights are of very short duration.

D. They asked themselves on the way how they should roll away the huge stone
that covered the mouth of the sepulchral cave. — (Mark 16:3.) During the repose
and the silence of the Sabbath (Luk 23:56), how could they have known that
guards had been appointed? — (Mat 27:66.)

E. Meanwhile there had been an earthquake. — (Mat 28:2.) An angel, whose
countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow, had come from
heaven and rolled away the stone. The guards were overcome with fear, and, after
having become as dead men, fled. But what was not the astonishment of the women,
when, on reaching the tomb, they found it open and empty! Only one young man,
clothed in white, sat in the sepulchre, on the right side. — (Mark 16:5.) Then
two men presented themselves in shining raiment (Luk 24:4); these were angels
(Mark and Matthew mentioning only the one that had rolled away the stone, and
spoken to them).

F. Meanwhile, these holy women, hastening out of the sepulchre, fled, being
overcome with feelings at once of terror and joy. — (Mat 28:8; Mark 16:8.) In
returning to the city they were careful not to speak to any one of what had
happened. Did they dread the wrath of the Sanhedrim? At least, were they not
unwilling to pour their emotions into the breasts of any but their brethren?
Notwithstanding the early hour, they must have met a great many Israelites in
the leading streets and squares of that immense city, where, during festivals,
there were reckoned to be no fewer than three millions of inhabitants. The
governor Florus, in the year 65, reckoned two hundred and fifty thousand paschal
lambs, says Josephus; and this supposes at least two and a half millions of
worshippers, without including the sick, unclean persons, and young children.
[154]

G. On arriving among the eleven and the other disciples, the women told all that
they had seen. — (Mat 28:8; Luk 24:9.) But this recital seemed to them nothing
but an idle tale. — (Luk 24:10.) Then Mary of Magdala, addressing herself more
particularly to Peter and John, assured them that, at least, if their Master
were not risen again, he must have been taken away. — (John 20:2.)

H. According to the account itself of John, Mary must necessarily have said to
those two disciples more than what that evangelist relates to us directly; for
he adds, that they ran to the sepulchre; and that no sooner had John seen the
arrangement of the linen clothes than he believed. But, alas! this language of
Mary: “They have taken away the Lord, and I know not where they have laid him!”
was but too natural. The fleeting apparition of the angels had not produced so
firm a conviction in her mind as not to have been violently shaken by the cold
and incredulous reception her tale had met from the apostles. These men,
according to whose directions she habitually conformed herself, had doubtless
more than once repressed the warmth of her imagination. She saw them treat her
heavenly vision as a mere revery. After that, she felt only enough of confidence
in herself to attest the ordinary and material part of the fact. At least, says
she, the tomb is open, and the body is no longer there.

I. Nevertheless, on hearing these words, and whilst Cleopas went away to Emmaus,
Peter rose, Luke tells us (Luk 24:12), and ran to the sepulchre, but he did not
run thither alone (24); and John tells us that he was accompanied by that “other
disciple whom Jesus loved.” — (John 20:2-3.) John being the younger, arrived
first; he did not go in; but stooping down he saw the linen clothes lying on the
ground. Peter, stooping also, saw the linen clothes lying (Luk 24:12), and the
napkin that was about his head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped
together in a place by itself. He had the courage to go in, and wondered at what
had come to pass (Luk 24:12); hut John did more; he entered in his turn and
believed. They then departed unto their own home. — (John 20:10; Luk 24:12.)
Still there is nothing inconsistent in all this.

K. Meanwhile, Mary of Magdala, who had followed them, having returned to the
sepulchre, remained alone at the spot, weeping and disconsolate at not even
being able to find again her Master’s remains. She stooped down to look into the
interior of the sepulchre, and then it was that anew two angels clothed in white
presented themselves to her sight. They were seated, the one at the head and the
other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had lain. — (John 20:11;
John 20:13.) Soon after, Mary having resumed her position, it was Jesus himself
whom she saw behind her. “Go,” said he to her, “to nay brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God!” Mary
hastened to go and tell the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he
had spoken these things to her (John 20:18); but they believed not. — (Mark
16:10.) Thus, then, was it, as St Mark has said (Mark 16:9), that Jesus appeared
first to Mary of Magdala. The whole of this narrative is natural and harmonious;
the historians here agree together in a manner which it is easy to comprehend.
Only they relate each someone of the great facts of that incomparable day,
without considering themselves called upon to relate the whole.

L. The two disciples on their departure from Jerusalem for Emmaus (Luk 24:21;
Luk 24:24), were as yet unaware of the events of the day beyond the first report
of the women and of the two disciples, the opening of the sepulchre, the removal
of the Lord, the appearing of the angels; but they had not yet learned the last
news — the appearing of Jesus to Simon — Peter and Mary’s second report. — (John
20:18; Mark 16:10.) Mark, however, what had afterwards happened. Following the
Magdalene’s example, who had returned a second time to the sepulchre, after
having informed the apostles of her first discoveries, the other women also had
betaken themselves thither while Mary was returning to the disciples; they had
found the tomb empty; and, as they were returning to give a farther attestation
to their brethren that the body of Jesus could not be found there, Jesus himself
had condescended to appear to them alive and full of sympathy. They had
worshipped him, and he had said to them: “Be not afraid: go tell my brethren,
that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.” — (Mat 28:9-10.)

Such is the harmony of the sacred narratives. This concatenation seems to us
satisfactory. One might, as we have said, propose some other; but this is
enough. We must confess that we cannot understand the difficulties that have
been found in it, or the noise that has been made about it.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — Certain reigns, such as that of
Nebuchadnezzar, that of Jehoiachim, and that of Tiberius, had two commencements;
and the dates that relate to these are pronounced irreconcilable! The first,
previous to mounting the throne, reigned three years with his father; the second
reigned ten years with his; the third was assumed by Augustus as his associate
in the empire, from the 28th of August, of the 2d year of the Christian era, but
succeeded him on the 19th of August, of the year 14. — (Velleius Paterculus, 2:
c. 121.)

Some examples. — See, for Jotham, 2Ki 15:33, (he reigned sixteen years alone;
but four years also during the lifetime of his father, who was leprous). See for
Joash, 2Ki 13:1; 2Ki 13:10, (he must have reigned two or three years with his
father, as did Jehoshaphat and his son, 2Ki 8:16.) See 2Ki 24:8; and 2Ch 36:9.
See also Dan 1:1; Jer 25:1; 2Ch 36:5-7. See farther, Luk 3:1.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — The design of the Holy Ghost in one of
the Gospels, is not often the same as his design in another Gospel while
relating the same fact; yet some would have them all give the same turn to their
narratives; nay, make bold, because of their differences, to declare them
irreconcilable, and to assume that they are directly opposed to each other.

Example. — The Holy Spirit, in the genealogy of Jesus Christ, given in St
Matthew (Mat 1:16), would show the Jews, that, according to the strict rigour of
their law, Jesus Christ is the son and the heir of all the kings of Judah, by a
legal descent; while the same Holy Spirit, in the genealogy given by St Luke
(Luk 3:23-38), would show the Gentiles that Jesus Christ is the Son of David by
a natural descent. And because, with this double object in view, they give us,
the one his genealogy according to the law, by Solomon, the son of David, and by
Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary; and the other, his genealogy
according to nature, by Nathan, another son of David, and by Hell, the father of
Mary, people have thought, very absurdly, that they could make the one refute
the other! [155]

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — A text mistranslated produces a
meaning that is contrary to reason or to history; and forthwith the sacred
writer is accused of committing the grossest blunder! People don’t examine
whether, in the simplicity of a literal translation, the same passage, better
rendered, would not present itself free from every difficulty!

First example (again one of those adduced by M. Twesten). — St Luke, we are told
(Luk 2:1), has no sooner spoken of the taxing ordained by a public decree issued
by Augustus Cæsar, at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, than he adds these
words at verse 2: “This taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria.”

Hence it would follow that St Luke is here caught in flagrant contradiction with
contemporary history; for, at the birth of Jesus Christ, Judea was governed by
Herod, and Syria either by Saturninus, or rather (from the seventh year of the
Christian era) by Quintilius “Varus, who replaced him, and during whose
administration the death of Herod the Great took place The Cyrenius (Publius
Sulpicius Quirinius), under whom a second census took place, was not sent to the
East until eleven or twelve years, at the least, after the birth of Jesus
Christ. The historian Josephus [156] tells us in express terms, that this census
took place the thirty-seventh year after the defeat of Anthony; and Jesus Christ
was born, at the latest, the twenty-sixth year after that great event. Luke,
then, must have made a mistake of eleven years, and must have confounded these
two epochs and these two censuses.

Before replying to this strange accusation, we would have the reader observe its
extreme improbability, even taking St Luke to have been a mere uninspired man.
What! Luke, the only one of the evangelists that was a person of erudition —
Luke, the physician — Luke, who subsequently resumes the mention of the census
of Quirinius, when he recalls that famous revolt of Judas the Galilean, which
stirred up all Judea and caused the destruction of a great many people, who
perished along with him (Acts 5:37) — Luke, writing for all nations, and in four
and twenty pages, an historical work, which he knew would be immortal — Luke
could make such a mistake as to place in the days of Herod the Great so very
serious an event which had happened within the preceding thirty years! What
should we say at the present day of a physician, who, even in a simple
conversation, should put the battle of Austerlitz in the days of Catherine II.
and of the National Convention? And if this doctor were to publish a short
narrative, in which such an absurdity should be found, what reception, think
you, would” he find even among his most unlettered contemporaries.?

It is thus, then, that often, when people would make the sacred writers
contradict themselves, they scruple not to impute to them such silliness as
would be almost miraculous. But let us return to the passage. There is nothing
simpler than its translation: it is a parenthesis. According to the accent
placed on the first word (αὓτη), it becomes either a demonstrative pronoun, or a
pronominal adjective; and, in this alternative, the phrase ought to be
translated literally, in the former case, by “This first census,” and, in the
latter case, by” The first census itself.’” It is in this latter sense that the
word has been rendered by the authors of the new version, published some months
ago by a society of ministers in Switzerland, [157] and it is that also which we
think ought to be adopted.

Thus, then, there is nought but what is quite natural and quite correct in St
Luke’s narrative. After having spoken in the first verse of a decree from
Augustus, which began to be executed under Herod’s reign, he intimates (in the
parenthesis of verse 2) that one must not confound what was done then with the
too famous census of which all Judea still retained so tragical a recollection.
The first census itself, says he, was effected while Cyrenius was Governor off
Syria. Such is the plain literal translation of the Greek. [158]

Second example. — St Matthew (Mat 4:5), immediately after the first temptation,
says, that “THEN the devil led Jesus into the holy city.” … And when this second
temptation was over, he adds (Mat 5:8), in beginning, to relate the third, that
“AGAIN the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,” &c. St Luke, on
the contrary (Luk 4:5), immediately after the first temptation, says, that “THEN
took him up into an high mountain;” and when this second temptation was ended,
he adds, in beginning to tell of the third, “He brought him also to Jerusalem.”
…

Here, then, we find two of the evangelists manifestly at variance as to the
order in which the three temptations took place. One of the two must of
necessity have been mistaken in putting the last before the second. Such is the
objection.

You will see this difficulty equally vanish as soon as, instead of following
Osterwald’s version or Martin’s, you seek only to give a more faithful rendering
to the original text. We might here adduce a good many other passages (chiefly
in the Epistles) which these two translators have darkened, by not sufficiently
marking the import of the conjunctions and adverbs καὶ,δὲ,γὰρ,οὗν,τότε, &c.

Every one knows [159] that St Luke, in writing his Gospel, did not restrain
himself to the order of time, and. that he had proposed to himself in his
narratives to group together events and lessons rather according to the order of
things (καθεξῆς). Both these methods of writing biography have their advantages.
Among heathen writers, for example, Nepos has followed the first, and Suetonius
the second. It was necessary, therefore, that the translators of St Luke,
marking well his language, should not make him appear to use adverbs of time,
order, or events, which he had no thought of employing, and which come in much
out of place to alter the meaning of what he has to say. Reestablish here the
conjunctions of the Greek, and you will see forthwith the contradiction which
the two French texts had presented to you disappear.

St Matthew, who always follows the chronological order of the facts, takes care
to employ very exact adverbs in proportion as he advances in his account of the
temptation; τότε,τότε,πάλιν,τότε,τότε, then, then, anew, then, then. But Luke,
on the contrary, who had not proposed to himself to follow the same course, and
who confines his intention simply to letting us know the three attacks to which
the Son of God behoved to subject his holy humanity, studiously abstains from
using any adverb of order or of time, and contents himself with coupling, ten
several times, the facts of his narrative by the copulative AND (καί), which our
translations have so improperly rendered by the adverb ALORS, or ENSUITE
(English, THEN, or AFTERWARDS.) The contradiction then does not belong to the
sacred text. [160]

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — It has not been sufficiently borne in
mind, that certain discourses and certain acts were repeated more than once in
the course of our Saviour’s ministry. Hence the utmost rashness in concluding
that certain detailed accounts given by two evangelists contradict each other,
where there has been no more than an incomplete resemblance, and yet where
people have imagined that the facts they read of were identically the same.

Examples. — In the double miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, we have a
very striking instance of the ease with which one may in this way be led into
error. On two occasions Jesus Christ, moved with compassion for the people, fed
a famished multitude in the wilderness. Between these two miracles there are
numerous and striking points of resemblance. Had it so happened that two of the
evangelists had related only the first, and two others only the second, there
would have been sure to be a cry that the two were but one, and that there was a
contradiction in the statement of their details. What! in the one, five thousand
men fed with five loaves; in the other, four thousand men fed with seven loaves!
In the one twelve baskets (χοφίνους) taken away; in the other, seven hampers
(σπυρίδας)! What a disagreement! Well it is that if Luke and John have mentioned
the first only, Matthew and Mark, who relate the second, have also reported the
first. But for this what a noise would not our adversaries have raised in the
schools about such a passage! This remark may be applied to several particulars
of the New Testament; for example, to the Lord’s prayer, which was given twice,
at least, to the disciples during our Lord’s ministry. — (Mat 6:9; Luk 11:2).

See also Mat 12:39; Mat 16:1; Mat 16:4; Luk 8:21; Luk 11:27, and Mat 12:49; Luk
9:1; Luk 10:1, and Mat 10:1. We shall adduce one further example. It does not
appear, on close examination, that the sermon called that of the mount (Matthew
5, 6, 7), and that given by St Luke in the latter half of his sixth chapter,
were delivered on the same occasion, [161] In fact, first, St Luke omits many of
the sentences reported by St Matthew,” [162] and he alone adds some others (Luk
6:24-26); secondly, Matthew lets us know, that the sermon which he reports
preceded the healing of the leprous person (Mat 8:3), and Luke that his followed
it (Luk 5:12); thirdly, Luke puts Matthew in the number of those whom Jesus
called to the apostleship, and who came down with him from the mountain, before
he addressed to them his discourse; whereas Matthew himself tells us, that the
sermon of which he speaks, long preceded his vocation; fourthly, one of those
discourses was delivered on the mountain, while Jesus, who had sat down, had his
disciples ranged around him; the other, on the contrary, was delivered on the
plain, and with other circumstances attending it. We pause at this remark, in
order to reassure such persons as may have heard adduced against the doctrine of
inspiration, the alleged contradiction of the sentence in which Matthew (Mat
5:40) makes Jesus say, “If any man will take away thy coat (χιτῶνα), let him
have thy cloak (ἱμάτιον) also;” and of that in which, according to Luke, he had
said, “Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also.” (Luk
6:29) One can no more, then, we say, make an objection of this diversity, seeing
these two sentences were pronounced on different days.

Nevertheless, we must not forget, at the same time, to observe, inasmuch as this
remark applies to several other objections of the same nature. Even were it true
that these two passages were cited as the same fragment of one and the same
discourse, still their differing would not have anywise astonished us. We
believe that the Holy Ghost, when he quotes the Holy Ghost, is not bound to use
the same terms, provided the same meanings be retained. A man of an exact mind,
in repeating what he has said before, or in quoting himself, by no means thinks
himself bound to carry imitation thus far. And we think, that here our Lord’s
whole idea is found equally in the sentences of Luke and Matthew.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — One may sometimes pay no attention to
a various reading critically respectable, and which resolves a difficulty; and
prefer imputing some contradiction to the sacred writer.

Example. — According to the three first evangelists (Mark 15:25; Mark 15:33-34;
Mat 27:45-46; Luk 23:44-45), our Saviour was put upon the cross at the third
hour of the day (that is to say, at nine o’clock in the morning); the sun was
darkened at the sixth hour, and Jesus gave up the ghost at the ninth hour;
whereas, if we are to believe St John (John 19:14), the execution did not begin
until the sixth hour of the day (at noon). Palpable contradiction! say some
objectors.

Before replying to this difficulty, we shall offer a remark, much like that
already made on the census of Cyrenius. Was it likely that the apostle John was
ignorant of the length of time that his Master’s execution lasted, and could he
possibly have made a mistake of three hours out of six — he who had remained
beside the cross!

But, if we consult the Greek manuscripts of St John, we shall find four in small
letters, and three in uncial letters (among others, Beza’s famous roll,
preserved at Cambridge), which have here the third hour instead of the sixth.
Numbers, in the Greek manuscripts, are often expressed in numerals; that is to
say, in simple Greek letters; and 3 and 6 are expressed by two letters that are
very easily confused (the γάμμα and the ἐπίσημον); several of the ancients
thought that the variation might have arisen from this cause. Griesbach, who has
marked this variation with a sign of preference, quotes Severus of Antioch and
Ammonius in Theophylact; and he adds, that the Chronicle of Alexandria appealed,
in favour of this reading, to the best copies, and even to the original
autograph (ἰδιοχείρῳ) of the Gospel of St John.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — People fail to seize the meaning of
certain particulars in a narrative, and hasten to conclude that the author was
mistaken!

First Example. — Jesus in St Matthew (Mat 23:35-36), denounced the most terrible
judgments of God on the Jews, on account of the treatment they had given his
saints, “in order,” says he, “that upon this race (or this generation, γενεαὰν)
may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of the
righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew
between the temple and the altar!”

Here, certainly, we are told, there is an awkward inadvertence, not on the part
of Jesus Christ, no doubt, but of the evangelist who reports these words, and
whose memory must have failed him. We know, from the Second Book of Chronicles
(2Ch 24:21), that this Zacharias, who was stoned to death by the Jews in the
holy place (ἱερῷ), was the son, not of Barachias, but of Jehoiada. Here, then,
there is an evident error. It does not affect doctrine, and cannot in the
slightest degree disquiet our faith; but it suffices to attest, that the divine
inspiration has not descended, as has been maintained, to the choice of
expressions, or to matters of indifference, in the inspired narratives. The
answer is simple; would we could make it as short as it is conclusive. We shall
first briefly state what it is. The Zacharias here is not the Zacharias you
speak of: the Evangelist, therefore, has made no mistake in not naming him, for
he was not thinking of him. Is there not, in fact, a manifest incompatibility in
such a supposition with the idea that occupied our Lord’s mind? Was it not his
purpose to recall the long succession of homicides for which the Jewish race
will have to render an account? And when he takes his first instance of murder
from times preceding the flood, at the gate of paradise, to make them
accountable for it, you would have him think it enough to adduce as the last, a
crime committed above eight centuries before! After commencing with a son of
Adam, can you imagine that he could end with the son of Jehoiada; thus holding
the Jews innocent of the blood shed, during the 873 most scandalous years of
their history? Would it not have been more rational to begin rather than to end
with Jehoiada? Were not the Jews far more responsible for the murders they had
committed during the last preceding nine centuries of their history, than they
could be for blood shed before the deluge? Had they not persecuted, for example,
and slain with frightful atrocity the prophet Urijah, 240 years after Jehoiada?
— (Jer 26:23.) “Which of the prophets,” said St Stephen to them~ “have not your
fathers persecuted? They have even slain them which showed before of the coming
of the Just One!” — (Acts 7:52.) In this passage of St Matthew, then, it is not
the son of Jehoiada that is spoken of.

Here our reply might close; but we shall no doubt, be asked, Who then was the
Zechariah spoken of by Jesus Christ? Even although we did not know., this would
by no means be a difficulty, and we should content ourselves with replying: It
was some just person whom the Jews slew, not only in the court of the temple (ἐν
τῷ ἱερῷ) like the son of Jehoiada, but between the temple (τοῦ ναοῦ) and the
altar; and this just person was son of Barachias! Nevertheless, one may go
further still; for history speaks of two or three other Zachariahs, sons of
Barachias (Βαραχίου or Βαροὺχου), among whom the learned divide their suffrages.
The first was a man who had understanding in the visions of God (as he is called
in the second book of Chronicles), (2Ch 26:5) and who is believed to be the same
as he that is spoken of by Isaiah, in his 8th chapter. [163] Be that as it may,
he lived too short a time after the son of Jehoiada, for our objections against
the one not to be equally valid against the other. The second is the prophet
“Zachariah, the son of Berechiah, and the grandson of Iddo” (Zec 1:1), who
returned from Babylon with Zorobabel, 325 years after the days of Jehoiada, and
whose writings form the second last book of the Old Testament. The Scripture, it
is true, has not related his martyrdom to us, any more than that of the other
prophets, who were almost all persecuted and put to death. But the temple and
the altar were rebuilt by his care, as well that of Haggai (Ezr 4:14-15); and
Zechariah, as it would appear, was slain “between that temple and that altar.”
We read in the Targum, or the Chaldee paraphrase of Jonath, an Ben-Uziel (said
to have been a contemporary of Jesus Christ), [164] the following passage, which
attest to us what was even then, previous to the days of our Saviour, the
tradition of the Jews with regard to, this prophet, called indifferently the son
of Hiddo and the son of Barachias (Zec 1:1; Ezr 5:1; Ezr 6:14): The paraphrast
(Lam 2:20) introduces the “House of Judgment” replying to this complaint of
Jeremiah: “Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the
Lord?” “Was it well in you … to slay a prophet as you did Zechariah, the son of
Hiddo, in the house of the Lord’s sanctuary, because he endeavoured to withdraw
you from your evil ways?” [165] Thus it will be seen that Jesus Christ might
remind the Jews of the sacrilegious murder of that prophet, son of Barachias,
and son of Hiddo, with whom the prophecy of the Old Testament was to close.

However, there is still a third Zacharias, son of Barachias, (or of Baruch,
Βαρόυχου), to whom our Lord’s saying might be applied with still more
likelihood. Flavius Josephus has made him known to us in that inestimable
“History of the Jewish War,” which confirms so many other prophecies of the New
Testament. It was only three years before the final destruction of Jerusalem,
that people saw a Zacharias, son of Barach slain by the Jewish zealots in the
middle of the holy place (ἐν μέσῳ τῷ ἱερῷ), [166] and his body was thrown over
the walls of the mount on which the temple stood. He was a just man, according
to Josephus; he was hated for his virtues, for his influence, for his hatred of
evil, and for his zeal for liberty. [167] At the close of that frightful night,
which was, says Josephus, “the real commencement of the destruction of
Jerusalem,” (and in which the zealots butchered the chief of the nation, the
high priest Ananus, and, soon after, twelve thousand youths of the Israelitish
nobility), these infuriated men, affecting the forms of justice, had him dragged
before a court of seventy judges, all of whom, however, had the courage to
declare him innocent. Then, maddened with rage at hearing his reproaches, and at
the noble spirit in which he addressed them, they rushed upon him and massacred
him in the middle of the holy place.” Here, as many commentators think, we
behold the last of the just persons whose blood has to be required of that
homicidal race. Abel is the first, Zacharias the last. Thus it is, that Jesus
Christ, assuming the style of the prophets in using the past for the future,
speaks of this crime as already committed: “Whom ye slew,” he says to them,
“between the temple and the altar!” The historian Josephus, it is true, speaks
of Zacharias only as a righteous man, and not as a Christian or as a prophet.
But, being a Jew, he could not hold any other language. And we see at another
place (Antiq., lib. 20: c. 8), that as little does he speak of the apostle James
(who, nevertheless, was also a prophet) as more than a good man, whom the high
priest Ananus caused to be stoned, [168] to the great regret of the more
respectable classes, during the interregnum that followed the unexpected death
of the governor Festus. No more does it appear to us that the difference in the
terminations of the names Barachias and Baruch, is enough to destroy the
argument arising from their etymological and radical resemblance. We see, in
fact, in the New Testament, how much people were accustomed, among the Jews,
Hebrew or Hellenist, to change the termination of their proper names. (Silas and
Silvanus, (2Co 1:19; Thessalonians 1:1; Acts 15:22; Acts 15:34; Acts 16:25; Acts
17:15) Prisca and Priscilla, (2Ti 4:19; Rom 16:3; Acts 18:2; Acts 18:26.) Rabba
and Rahbath, Lucas and Lucius (Acts 13:1; Rom 16:21; Phm 1:21.)). Be this as it
may, we conclude once more, that this passage could not refer to the son of
Jehoiadah; and we leave to the reader to decide which of the two personages whom
we have pointed out was the one contemplated by Jesus Christ.

Second example. — Mark 11:12-14. — Jesus cursed a fig-tree which had only
leaves; for the time for figs was not yet come.

Here, we are told, there is no doubt a mistake: why look for fruit at a time
when it could not reasonably be expected?

Yet there is nothing here but what is very simple. Had it been the season for
gathering figs, the tree might have been stripped of all its fruit by the hand
of man; and, in that case, there was no evidence of its barrenness, But is a
tree (we mention the objection in passing) guilty because it bears no fruit? Why
punish it? We reply, that in this miracle, which is a type, the tree is as
little a sufferer as it is a criminal, nor is its suffering more real than its
morality. The one is symbolical, and so also is the other.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. — In questions of chronology, regard has
not been paid to the following rule (which we take pleasure in expressing here
in the very words of the great reformer of Italy, the excellent Peter Martyr).
[169]

[The great divisions of time in the history of the people of God are pointed out
to us by numerical dates of great precision. From the passing of Abraham into
Canaan to the entrance of his grandson into Egypt, 215 years; from that to the
passage of the Red Sea, 215 years more — hence in all 430 years (Gal 3:17; Exo
12:40); from that, further, to the foundation of the temple, 480 years (1Ki
6:1); and from that, in fine, to the Babylonish captivity, 422 years more. But
within these grand divisions of history, the precise and co-ordinate arrangement
of all the short intermediate dates, the reconciling of the numbers presented to
us by books of an almost monumental conciseness, and of an age contemporary with
the siege of Troy (that of Judges, Kings, and Chronicles), respecting the reigns
and interregnums, first of the Judges, then of the Kings, especially after the
subdivision of the twelve tribes into two distinct kingdoms; this arrangement,
we say, presents numerous difficulties, for which we find the elements of an
entire solution sometimes wanting.] The following is the rule of Peter Martyr: —

“Although obscure passages occur as to chronology, we must beware of pretending
to reconcile them by imputing blunders to the inspired books. Therefore it is,
that, should it sometimes happen that we know not how to account for the number
of years, we ought simply to confess our ignorance, and consider that the
Scriptures express themselves with so much conciseness that it is not always
possible for us to discover at what epoch we ought to make such or such a
computation commence. It often enough happens, that, in the history of the kings
of Judah and of Israel, the respective numbers of their years are not easily
reconciled; but these difficulties admit of explanation or adjustment in several
ways.

1. The same year commenced by one of two, and finished by the other, is
attributed to both.

2. Often the sons have reigned with their fathers during some years, which have
been imputed sometimes to the fathers, sometimes to the sons.

3. There were often interregnums, which the Scripture attributes sometimes to
the predecessor, sometimes to the successor. Finally, it sometimes happens that
certain years, in which oppressive and profane princes have reigned, are not
reckoned to them, being imputed to their immediate successor; thus, the twenty
last years of Joram to his son Ahaziah. — (2Ki 8:26; 2Ch 22:2.)”

We think that the examples we have thus far adduced, may suffice. We refrain
from adducing more. What we have said may give one an idea of the weight to be
attached to these difficulties, [170] for (we repeat) we have been careful to
adduce those which have been held as the most serious. Warned by these examples,
and by so many others, let us learn then, should any embarrassment of the same
kind occur to us in future, how to judge as did Origen’s friend, Julius
Africanus, sixteen hundred years ago, and as, before and after him, all the men
of God have done. “Be that as it may (said he on the occasion of the two
genealogies of Jesus Christ, which he had reconciled) be that as it may, the
gospel certainly everywhere speaks true!” — Τὸ μέντοι Εὐαγγελιον τάντως
ἀληθεύει. [171] Section 6. Errors Contrary to Natural Philosophy.

It will be admitted, we have been sometimes told, that the apparent or real
contradictions in the dates, quotations, and narratives of the Holy Bible, may
possibly be removed by the resources of a more or less laborious exegesis; but
there are others which you cannot reconcile: such are all those expressions in
which the sacred writers appear in manifest opposition to the now better known
laws of nature. Nevertheless (these objectors desire to add), though this
argument be irrefragable against the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, it
compromises in nothing the divinity of their doctrines, any more than the great
religious facts which they report to us. In inspiring his apostles and his
prophets, God desired to make us, not scientific, but holy persons. Thus he
could, without danger, allow the writers he employed to speak in ignorance of
the phenomena of the material world; and their prejudices on such matters are
innocent though incontestable. Do you not often find them expressing themselves
as if the earth were immovable and the sun in motion? That star, according to
them, rises and falls: “his going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his
circuit unto the ends of it” (Psalms 19); the moon and the stars are equally in
movement; the sun, at the command of Joshua became immovable in the midst of the
heavens, it “stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon” (Jos
10:12); the earth is “founded on the seas” (Psa 24:2); “drawn from the water, it
subsists amid the water” (2Pe 3:5); “God hath laid. its foundations, it shall
never be moved” (Psa 104:5) — Can you admit that this is really the language of
the Creator of the heavens and of the earth, when addressing his creatures?

We proceed to reply to this objection, and we are delighted to meet it on our
path, seeing that the examination of it can only redound to the glory of the
Scriptures.

We most fully admit that were there some physical errors, duly ascertained, in
the book of the Scriptures, it would not be entirely from God; but we proceed to
put it beyond a doubt that there are no such errors; and we will venture to defy
our adversaries to produce a single such error in the whole of the Bible. Nay,
we will even go much farther; and will show how much latent science, on the
contrary, betrays itself there, beneath the simplicity of its language.

We shall begin by saying a few words on Joshua’s miracle, inasmuch as a
disposition has often been shown to turn it to account in combating either the
plenary inspiration, or even the divine mission of the men of God. Several
unbelieving writers have attacked it with that arrogance and irony which too
often characterize them. Bat it is easy to reply to them. We have no thoughts of
discussing here the methods by which the miracle might have been accomplished;
we would only remark, from this example, how lightly people hasten to pronounce,
that because certain passages of Scripture are not understood, therefore they
must needs be irrational. The sun, on the day of the battle of Beth-boron, stood
still in the midst of heaven, we are told in the 10th chapter of Joshua; and
there was no day like that before it or after it.

It has been said in Germany — “This phrase, taken in its natural sense, seems to
us absurd; it is erroneous, therefore, and altogether human.” Elsewhere it has
been pronounced so absurd, that another meaning must be given to it. But both
opinions are drawn from false premises. The fact is far from being absurd; it is
only miraculous.

We shall give the objection in the very words in which it has been stated: —
“The most fearless methodist,” it has been said, “will feel constrained to own
that in the system of our globe, were the sun to stop for an instant, or were
the earth’s motion to be slackened, belligerent armies, and all that is on the
earth’s surface, would be swept away like chaff before the wind!”

Nevertheless, it is this very objection which is an error. In point of fact, if
the miracle, instead of stopping the rotation of the globe suddenly, in an
indivisible instant, took only the short space of a few seconds to accomplish
it, by a supple and continuous action, then you have enough in this feeble
circumstance to be assured that such a phenomenon would have had no very
sensible effect mechanically beyond that of raising the waters diffused over the
surface of the earth, and making them to flow from west to east. A child might
tell it you. Let a carriage in rapid motion meet a curbstone — it shatters
itself upon it, because the stone is immovable; and all that are in the carriage
are projected to a distance, and thrown with violence on the ground. But let it
be stopt by a continuous resistance, operating in a successive manner, and
consummating itself in three or four seconds: then the smallest children seated
in the carriage will remain in their seats; they will not even feel the
impulsion which three seconds before was impressed on them by the impetuous
movement of the horses, and which, without this precaution, would have sufficed
to launch them to a distance. The rotation of the earth is, at the equator, 1426
feet the second; at Jerusalem, 1212 feet. This is the initial speed of a canon
ball projected by a charge the fifth part of its own weight. It is capable
(abstraction being made of the resistance of the air) of raising that projectile
to the extreme height of 24,000 feet; and yet a child, six years old, would
destroy, without danger, in two-thirds of a minute, the whole of this force by
the continued action of his fingers. Put into his little hands a canon ball of
eight pounds weight, and let him hold it against the action of its weight during
two- thirds of a minute; during the same time, allow another bullet of quite the
same weight to drop freely through the air, and from the height of the summit of
the Himalaya range. When forty seconds only have expired, the force of
gravitation, after having acted by the same impulsion upon both these
projectiles, will not have done more with respect to the first than have
fatigued the feeble hands that resist it, while it would have made the other
acquire a speed equal to that which the rotation of the earth impressed on the
belligerent armies on the hill of Beth-boron. Since, then, a child might
destroy, by the continuous effort of his little hands, a force capable (if
concentrated on a single instant) of launching a canon bullet to the height of
Chimborazo, we can easily conceive that, if God, on the day of the battle of
Beth- horon, had employed two-thirds of a minute to arrest, by short and
successive resistances, the rotation of our globe, then the projectile
impulsions which a mass of eight pounds of iron would have received continually
during these forty seconds, would not even have been so strong as that a child
might not have destroyed them by the sole effort of his fingers, and without
expending more three than he would have to put forth it, sustaining with his
hands a weight of eight pounds during the same space of time. And if the mass,
instead of having the form of a bullet, had had that of a quoit or a cube, it
would not have had enough of that impulsion to make it overcome the resistance
of friction, and to change its place on the surface of the ground.

It will be objected, perhaps, that the rotation of the earth at Beth-boron, was
twenty-seven times more rapid than that of a steam-carriage on a railway. This
is true; but since the retarding force necessary for exhausting a given
impulsion is in the inverse ratio of the time employed in it, grant that the
miracle took eighteen minutes for its consummation; take eighteen minutes
(instead of forty seconds) for the entire stoppage of the movement of the
terrestrial globe at the voice of Joshua; and then the belligerent armies,
instead of being “swept away as if by a tempest,” would not have felt more from
what happened, than do the thousands of travellers that are stopt at each of the
stations on a railway.

Other difficulties of a like kind have been started with regard to this miracle
of Joshua. Had the earth, it has been said, suspended its motion during ten
hours, the attractive force of the sun acting singly upon it, would in that time
have made it fall 900 leagues in the direction of the sun’s blazing focus, and
the annual conditions of our orbit would have been sensibly troubled. This
objection is no less futile than the preceding. The miracle, in fact, does not
imply the slightest perturbation in the progressive movement of the earth; it
requires it only in its rotation. Now, according to the laws of the celestial
mechanism, the rotation of a star upon its axis is entirely independent of the
movement impressed on its centre of gravity, and which makes it move onwards in
its elliptical course. Experience had attested this before it was demonstrated
by calculation. It had long been observed that the speed of the sun (or rather
of the earth) in its orbit, ceases not to vary from one end of the year to the
other; and yet there does not exist in nature a more uniform movement than that
which makes the whole celestial sphere daily revolve to our eyes. We are even
assured, from the observations of the movement of the moon, that for more than
2000 years the sidereal day has not varied so much as the hundredth part of a
second.

Let there be supposed, then, a double shock impressed upon the earth above and
below its centre, and in two contrary and parallel directions, and we shall have
explained how its rotation on its axis might have been suspended without any
change in its onward movement. But here I check myself. It would be rash, do I
say It would be childish to pretend to enter into the details of the prodigy
with the view of ascertaining its causes; and my only wish has been to show the
futility of the objections. The true one, which people do not state, is that
they find the miracle too great for its object. But, for men who believe in the
great miracle of redemption by the Son of God, nothing is too great, and all
things advance in due proportions, in the divine revelations. Moreover, and I
hasten to say it, it would not even be necessary, in order to account for this
prodigy, to suppose so sovereign an act of Omnipotence as the suspension of the
rotation of our globe. God might have employed for this purpose only one of
those numerous means which divert the light from its paths, and produce the
innumerable illusions of optics; some one of those refractions, for example,
which daily displace to our eyes, in different measures, all the stars of the
celestial sphere. Is it not matter of notoriety, that in the polar regions the
power of the horizontal refractions makes the sun appear to the inhabitants of
those cold countries ten days before he really rises above the horizon? Such
might have been the cause of the miracle of Beth-horon. We decide nothing; we do
not even venture on a hypothesis. We would only say, that the miracle was duly
consummated (whatever the means by which it was produced), provided that the
sun, to the eyes of the inhabitants of Palestine, stood still upon Gibeon, and
the moon in the valley of Ajalon. [172]

Meanwhile, the Scriptures are reproached with holding a language on the daily
phenomena of nature, apparently betokening ignorance, and incompatible with a
plenary inspiration. According to the writers of the Bible, the sun rises, the
sun sets, the sun stands still, the earth remains unmoved. People will have it
that the Creator, in speaking to us in a book inspired by him, would have more
clearly shown us that the Spirit, that made the sacred historians speak, knew
before we did the rotation of our globe, its periodical revolution, and the
respective immobility of the sun.

Let us, then, examine this reproach.

We ask, first of all, of the persons who give utterance to it, if they would
have had the Bible to speak like Sir Isaac Newton. Would they dismiss from their
minds the consideration that if God, in speaking of the decrees of nature, were
to express himself, I do not say only as he sees them, but as the scientific men
of future ages will be able to see them, then even the great Newton could have
understood nothing of what was said? Moreover, even the most advanced language
of science is not yet, and never will be, after all, more than the language of
appearances. The visible world, much more than you suppose, is a passing shadow,
a scene of illusions and of phantoms. What you call a reality is still in itself
but a phenomenon considered in its relation to a more exalted reality, and to an
ulterior analysis. In our mortal lips the word reality has nothing absolute; it
is a term altogether relative, merely intimating that people think they have
added one new step to the deep ladder of our ignorances. The human eye sees
objects under only two dimensions, and projects them all as if on the same
canvass, until touch and repeated experience have assured us of the reality of a
depth, or of a third dimension. Colours are accidents; and it is only by
reflection or illusion that they belong to the object which presents them to
you. Even the impenetrability of bodies, their solidity, their extension, are no
more than an appearance, and present themselves as a reality only until the
farther progress of one science shall substitute another for it. Who would
venture to say where this analysis ought to stop, and in what terms should we
speak of creatures with which we are most familiar, were we but endowed with one
more sense, with antennæ, for example, like ants and bees? The expression of
appearances, accordingly, provided it be exact, is, among men, philosophically
correct, and what it behoved the Scriptures to employ. Would men have the Bible
speak to us of the scenes of nature otherwise than we speak of them to one
another, in our social or domestic intercourse, otherwise even than they are
spoken of among the most enlightened persons? When Sir John Herschel tells his
domestics to waken him precisely at midnight, to observe the passage of some
star over his meridian telescope, does he feel himself called upon to speak to
them about the rotation of the earth, and of the moment when it will have
brought their nadir into the plane of its orbit? I should think not; and were
you even to hear him converse in Greenwich Observatory with the scientific
Airey, you would find, that even in that sanctuary of science, the habitual
language of these astronomers is still quite like that of the Scriptures. For
them the stars rise, the equinoxes recede, the planets go forward and accelerate
their speed, stop and go back. Would you, then, that Moses should speak to all
the generations of men in a more scientific language than La Place or Arago? But
more than this. Here we would bid the reader notice two general facts, that
throw out a deal of light the moment we study them, and which soon betray in the
Scriptures the pen of Almighty God. Here, as everywhere else, the objections,
when narrowly examined, come back upon you, loudly retract themselves, and
become arguments on the other side.

These two facts are analogous to what you might observe in the words of a
scientific astronomer conversing with his sons in their boyhood, and pointing
out the earth and the heavens to them with his finger. If you follow him into
these conversations, where his affection, stooping to their level, presents to
their growing intelligence such images and words as it can comprehend, you will
soon notice his respect for truth shown under a double character. First, he will
never say anything to them that is not true; and, secondly, there will be many
intimations in his words that he knows more on the subject than he wishes to
tell them. He will make no pretension, it is true, to teach them science; but,
on the one hand, nothing in all he says will contradict its principles; and, on
the other hand, several of his words will at once reveal that while he restrains
himself from speaking about it, still he knows it. Afterwards, when his
children, grown up to manhood, come to recall his words, not only will they find
them exempt from all error, but they will farther recognize in them such a
skilful choice of expression as to put them at once in a pre-established harmony
with science, and to present it to them, while not aware of it, in its germ. In
proportion to the gradual advance of their own knowledge, they will see with
admiration, under the reserve and simplicity of his language, concealed marks of
wisdom, instances of a scientific precision, a general phraseology and
particular expressions harmonizing with events then unknown to them, but that
had long been known to him.

Well, then, such also is the double observation which every attentive reader may
make on the phraseology of the Scriptures. They speak poetically, but with
precision, the true language of appearances. In them we hear a father
condescending to address his youngest sons, yet in such a manner that the oldest
can never find there a single sentence contrary to the true condition of the
things he has created; and in such a manner also he suffers to escape from him,
without affectation, enough to demonstrate to them that all that they have
learned of his works during the last tour thousand years, he knew before them
and better than they. It is thus that, in the Bible, Eternal Wisdom addresses
his children. In proportion as they advance in growth, they see that the
Scripture is made for their age, is adapted to their development, appearing to
grow with their growth, and always presenting the two facts which we have
pointed out: on the one hand, the absence of all error; on the other, indirect
yet incontestable indications of a science which preceded all that of man.

First fact. — There is no physical error in the Word of God.

If there were any, we have admitted it, the book would not be from God. “God is
not man that he should lie,” nor the son of man that he should be mistaken. He
behoves, no doubt, in order to his being understood, to stoop to our weakness,
but without in the least partaking in it; and his language will always be found
to witness to his condescension, never to his ignorance. This remark is still
more serious than one would suppose before having reflected on it. It becomes
very striking on a close examination.

Examine all the false theologies of the ancients and moderns; read in Homer or
in Hesiod, the religious codes of the Greeks; study those of the Buddhists,
those of the Brahmins, those of the Mahommedans; you will not only find in these
repulsive systems on the subject of the Godhead, but will meet with the grossest
errors on the material world. You will be revolted with their theology no doubt;
but their natural philosophy and their astronomy also, ever allied to their
religion, will be found to rest on the most absurd notions.

Read in the Chou-king and the Y-king of the Chinese, their fantastic systems on
the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), and on their omnipotent
influences on all divine and human affairs. [173] Read in the Shaster, in the
Pouran, in the four books of the Vedham, or law of the Hindus, their revolting
cosmogony. The moon is 50,000 leagues higher than the sun; it shines with its
own light; it animates our body. Night is caused by the sun’s setting behind the
mountain Someyra, situated in the middle of the earth, and several thousand
miles high. Our earth is flat and triangular, composed of seven stages, each
with its own degree of beauty, its own inhabitants, and its own sea, the first
of honey, another of sugar, another of butter, another of wine; in fine, the
whole mass is borne on the heads of countless elephants which, in shaking
themselves, cause earthquakes in this nether world! [174] In one word, they have
placed the whole history of their gods in relations at once the most fantastic
and the most necessary with the physical world and all the phenomena of the
universe. Thus, the missionaries of India have often repeated that a telescope,
silently planted in the midst of the holy city of Benares, or in the ancient
Ava, would prove a battery, powerful as lightning, for overturning the whole
system of Brahma, and the whole of that of Boudhou.

Read farther the philosophers of Greek and Roman antiquity, Aristotle, Seneca,
Pliny, Plutarch, Cicero. How many expressions of opinion will you not find
there, any single one of which would be enough to compromise all our doctrines
of inspiration, if it could be met with in any book of Holy Scripture! Read
Mahomet’s Koran, making mountains to be created “to prevent the earth from
moving, and to hold it fast as if with anchors and cables.” What do I say? Read
even the cosmogony of Buffon, or some of Voltaire’s sneers on the doctrine of a
deluge, or on the fossil animals of a primitive world. We will go much farther.
Read again, we do not say the absurd reasonings of the pagans, of Lucretius, of
Pliny, or of Plutarch, against the theory of the antipodes, but even the lathers
of the Christian Church. Hear the theological indignation of the admirable
Augustine, who says that it is opposed to the Scriptures; and the scientific
eloquence of Lactantius, who considers it so opposed to common sense: “Num
aliquid loquuntur!” he exclaims; “is there any man so silly as to believe that
men exist having their feet above their heads, trees with their fruit hanging
downwards, rain, snow, and hail falling topsy turvy!” “They would answer you,”
he adds, “by maintaining that the earth is a globe! Quid dicam de iis nescio,
qui cum semel aberrarerint, constanter in stultitia perseverant, et vanis vana
defendunt!” “One knows not what to say of such men, who, when they have once run
into error, persist in their folly, and defend one absurdity by another!” [175]

Listen, farther, to the legate Boniface, who brought Virgilius, for his opinion
in this matter, as a heretic before the Pope; listen to Pope Zachary treating
that unhappy bishop as homo malignus. “If it be proved,” says he, “that
Virgilius maintains the existence of other men under this earth, call a council,
condemn him, put him out of the Church, depose him from the priesthood!” Listen,
at a later period, to the whole clergy of Spain, and especially to the imposing
Council of Salamanca, indignant at the geographical system by which Christopher
Columbus was led to look for a whole new continent. Listen, at the epoch of
Newton’s birth, to the great Galileo, who “ascended,” says Kepler, “the highest
ramparts of the universe,” and who justified at once by his genius and by his
telescope the disowned and condemned system of Copernicus; behold him groaning,
at the age of eighty, in the prisons of Rome, for having discovered the movement
of the earth, after having had to pronounce these words, ten years before (28th
June 1633), before their Eminences, at the palace of the Holy Office: “I,
Galileo, in the seventieth year of nay age, on my knees before your Eminences,
having before my eyes, and touching with my own hands, the Holy Scriptures,
abjure, curse, and detest, the error of the earth’s movement.”

What might we not have been entitled to say of the Scriptures, had they
expressed themselves on the phenomena of nature, as these have been spoken of by
all the ancient sages? — had they referred all to four elements, as people did
for so long a period? — had they said the stars were of crystal, as did
Philoläius of Crotona; and had they, like Empedocles, lighted up the two
hemispheres of our world with two suns? — had they taught, like Leucippus, that
the fixed stars, set ablaze by the swiftness of their diurnal movement round the
earth, feed the sun with their fires? — had they, like Diodorus of Sicily, and
all the Egyptian sages, formed the heavens and the earth by the motion of the
air and the natural ascent of fire? — or had they thought, like Philoläius, that
the sun has only a borrowed light, and is only a mirror, which receives and
sends down to us the light of the celestial spheres? — had they, like
Anaxagoras, conceived it to be a mass of iron larger than the Peloponnesus, and
the earth to be a mountain, whose roots stretched infinitely downwards? — had
they imagined the heaven to be a solid sphere, to which the fixed stars are
attached, as was done by Aristotle, and almost all the ancients? — had they
called the celestial vault a firmamentum, or a στερέωμα, as their interpreters
have done, both in Latin and in Greek? — had they spoken, as has been done so
recently, and even among people professing Christianity, of the influence
exerted by the movements of the heavens on the elements of this lower world, on
the characters of men, and on the course of human affairs? Such is the natural
proneness of all nations to this superstition, that, notwithstanding their
religion, the ancient Jews, and the Christians themselves, equally fell into it.
“The modern Greeks,” says D’Alembert, [176] “have carried it to excess; hardly
do we find one of their authors who does not, on all occasions, speak of
predictions by the stars, of horoscopes, and talismans, so that there was hardly
an edifice in Constantinople, and in all Greece, that had not been erected
according to the rules of the apotelesmatic astrology.” French historians
observe, that astrology was so much in fashion under Catherine de Medicis, that
people dared not undertake anything of importance without having consulted the
stars; and even under Henry III. and Henry IV., the predictions of astrologers
formed the engrossing subject of ordinary conversation at court “We have seen,
towards the close of the last century,” says Ph. Giulani, [177] “an Italian send
Pope Innocent XI. a prediction, in the manner of a horoscope, on Vienna, at that
time besieged by the Turks, and which was very well received.” And in our own
days the Count de Boulainvilliers has written very seriously on the subject.

Open now the Bible; study its fifty sacred authors, from that wonderful Moses
who held the pen in the wilderness, four hundred years before the war of Troy,
down to the fisherman, son of Zebedee, who wrote fifteen hundred years
afterwards, in Ephesus and in Patmos, under the reign of Domitian; open the
Bible, and try if you can to find anything of this sort there. No. None of those
blunders which the science of every successive age discovers in the books of
those that preceded it; none of those absurdities, above all, which modern
astronomy points out, in such numbers, in the writings of the ancients, in their
sacred codes, in their systems of philosophy, and in the finest pages even of
the fathers of the Church; no such errors can be found in any of our sacred
books; nothing there will ever contradict what, after so many ages, the
investigations of the learned world have been able to reveal to us of what is
certain in regard to the state of our globe or of that of the heavens. Carefully
peruse our Scriptures from one end to the other, in search of such blemishes
there; and while engaged in this research, remember that it is a book which
speaks of everything, which describes nature, which proclaims its grandeur,
which tells the story of its creation, which informs us of the structure of the
heavens, of the creation of light, of the waters, of the atmosphere, of the
mountains, of animals, and of plants; — it is a book that tells us of the first
revolutions of the world, and foretells to us also the last; a book that relates
them in circumstantial narratives, exalts them in a sublime poesy, and chants
them in strains of fervent psalmody; — it is a book replete with the glow of
oriental rapture, elevation, variety, and boldness; it is a book which speaks of
the earth and of things visible, at the same time that it speaks of the
celestial world and of things invisible; — it is a book to which nearly fifty
writers of every degree of mental cultivation, of every rank, of every
condition, and separated by fifteen hundred years from each other, have
successively put their hand; — it is a book composed first in the centre of
Asia, among the sands of Arabia, or in the deserts of Judea, or in the
fore-court of the temple of the Jews, or in the rustic schools of the prophets
of Bethel and of Jericho, or ill the sumptuous palaces of Babylon, or on the
idolatrous banks of Chebar; and afterwards, at the centre of western
civilisation, amid the Jews with their manifold ignorance, amid polytheism and
its ideas, as well as in the bosom of pantheism and its silly philosophy; — it
is a book the first writer of which had been for the space of forty years a
pupil of the magicians of Egypt, who looked upon the sun, and the stars, and the
elements as endowed with intelligence, as re-acting upon the elements, and as
governing the world by continual effluxes; — it is a book the first chapters of
which preceded by more than NINE HUNDRED YEARS the most ancient philosphers of
ancient Greece and of Asia, the Thaleses, the Pythagorases, the Zaleucuses, the
Xenophaneses, the Confuciuses; — it is a book which carries its narratives even
into the field of the invisible world, even into the hierarchies of the angels,
even into the remotest realms of futurity, and the glorious scenes of the last
day; — well then, search through these 50 authors, search through these 66
books, search through these 1189 chapters, and these 81,173 verses search for
one single error of those thousands with which ancient and modem books abound,
when they speak either of the heaven or of the earth, or of their revolutions,
or of their elements; search, but you will search in vain.

There is nothing constrained or reserved in its language; it speaks of all
things and in all tones; it is the prototype, it is the unapproachable model; it
has been the inspirer of all the most exalted productions of poetry. Ask this of
Milton, of the two Racines, of Young, of Klopstock. They will tell you that this
divine poesy is of all the most lyrical, the boldest in its flights, and the
most sublime: it rises on a cherub and soars on the wings of the wind. And yet
never does this book do violence to the facts or to the principles of a sound
philosophy of nature. Never will you find it in opposition, in the case of a
single sentence, with the correct notions which science has enabled us to reach
with regard to the form of our globe, its size, or its geology; on the vacuum
and on space; on the inert and obedient materiality of all the stars; on the
planets, on their masses, on their courses, on their dimensions, or on their
influences; on the suns that people the depths of space, on their number, on
their nature, or their immensity. Just as in speaking of the invisible world,
and of a subject so new, so unknown, and so delicate, as that of the angels,
this book has not one of its authors that, in the course of the 1560 years which
it took to write it, has varied in the character of charity, humility, fervour,
and purity which belongs to those mysterious beings; just as in speaking of the
relations of the celestial world with God, never has one of these fifty writers,
either in the Old or in the New Testament, uttered a single word that favours
that constant leaning to pantheism which characterises the whole philosophy of
the Gentiles; so likewise you will not find one of the authors of the Bible who,
in speaking of the visible world, has suffered a single one of those expressions
of opinion to escape him, which, in other books, contradict the reality of facts
— not one which makes the heaven to be a firmament, as has been done by the
Septuagint, St Jerome, and all the Fathers of the Church — not one that makes
the world, as Plato did, an intelligent animal — not one that reduces all things
here below to the four elements of the physical system of the ancients — not one
that holds with the Jews, with the Latins, with the Greeks, with the finest
minds of antiquity, with the great Tacitus among the ancients, with the great De
Thou among the moderns, with the sceptic Michael Montaigne, that “the stars have
domination and power, not only over our lives and the conditions of our fortune,
but even over our inclinations, our discourses, our wills; that they govern,
impel, and agitate them at the mercy of their influences; and that (according as
our reason teaches us and finds it to be) the whole world feels the impulsion of
the slightest celestial movements. Facta etenim et vitas hominum suspendit ab
astris;” [178] — not one that speaks of the mountains as Mahomet has done, of
the cosmogony like Buffon, of the antipodes like Lucretius, like Plutarch, like
Pliny, like Lactantius, like St Augustine, like Pope Zachary. — Assuredly, were
there to be found in the Bible a single one of those errors that abound among
philosophers, as well ancient as modern, our faith in the plenary inspiration of
the Scriptures would be more than compromised by it; we should have to
acknowledge that there are errors in the Word of God, and that these delusive
expressions are those of a fallible writer, not those of the Holy Ghost; for God
is not man that he should lie; in him there is no variableness, neither shadow
of falsity; and He to whom lying lips are an abomination, could not have been
capable of contradicting himself and dictating that which is false.

There is no physical error, then, in the Scriptures; and this great fact, which
becomes all the more striking the more narrowly we look into it, is the manifest
proof of an inspiration carried into their choice of the smallest expressions
they employ. But we have more to say than this, and now come to the second fact.
Not only has the Bible not admitted any false statement of opinion or
expression; but further, it has often allowed words to escape which enable us to
see, beyond all possibility of our being mistaken, the science of the Almighty.
His grand aim, no doubt, is to reveal to us the eternal glories of the invisible
world, not the barren secrets of that which is doomed to perish. Meanwhile,
however, it often happens that his language, when we listen to it with
attention, allows a science to be seen which it is not his design to teach, but
of which he cannot be ignorant, because it is in him a great deep. Not only will
he never teach us anything false, even cursorily; but, further, you will often
stumble on words which betray the voice of the Creator of all worlds. Often you
will remark in these a wisdom, a forethought, an exactness, of which the ages of
antiquity had no idea, and which nothing but the discoveries of the telescope,
the calculating processes, and the science of the moderns, have enabled us to
appreciate; so that its language will be found to bear, by means of these
traits, the evident characters of the most entire inspiration. The discretion
and departure from usual practice shown in its expressions, the nature of
certain details, the perfect propriety and divine adaptation of which to the
facts have remained unrevealed till three thousand years afterwards; the reserve
of the language, sometimes its very hardihood, and its strangeness for the time
in which it was written: all these signs will enable you to recognize the savant
par excellence, the Ancient of days, who addresses himself to his children no
doubt, but who speaks as the lather of the family, and who knows the whole of
his house. When the Scripture speaks of the form of our earth, it makes it A
GLOBE. (Isa 40:22; Job 26:10; Pro 8:27) When it speaks of the position of this
globe in the bosom of the universe, it HANGS IT UPON NOTHING (עלבלימה).
[179]When it speaks of its age, not only does it place its creation, as well as
that of the heavens, IN THE BEGINNING, that is, before ages which it cannot or
will not number; but, further, it takes care to place before the disembroilment
of chaos and the creation of man, that of angels and archangels, principalities
and powers, their probation, the fall of some and their ruin, the perseverance
of others and their glory. [180] When it speaks, afterwards, of the origin of
our continents, and of the last creation of plants, animals, and men, it then
gives to our new world, and to this proud race of ours, so young an age, that
men of all times, among all earth’s peoples, and even in our modern schools,
have foolishly revolted at it; still it is an age to which they have been
compelled to resign themselves since the labours of the De Lucs, the Cuviers,
and the Bucklands, have so fully demonstrated that the state of the globe’s
surface, as well as the monuments of history and those of science, must compel
alike the learned and the vulgar to submit to it. When it speaks of the heavens,
it employs, in alluding to them and defining them, the most philosophic and the
most beautiful expression; an expression which the Greeks in their Septuagint,
the Latins in the Vulgate, and all the Church Fathers in their discourses, have
made bold to correct, and which they have perverted from its proper meaning,
because it seemed opposed to the science of their times. The heavens, in the
Bible, are the EXPANSE, expansum, רקיע; (Gen 1:6; Psa 19:6) that is to say, it
is the void, or the ether, or the immensity, and not the firmamentum of St
Jerome; nor the στερέωμα of the Alexandrine interpreters; nor the eighth heaven,
firm, solid, crystalline, and incorruptible of Aristotle, and all the ancients.
And although this, which is so remarkable a term of the Hebrew, recurs seventeen
times in the Old Testament, and although seventeen times the seventy have
rendered it by στερέωμα (firmament ), never has the New Testament thought fit to
make use, in this sense, of that expression of the Greek interpreters. [181]
When it speaks of light, it represents it to us as an element independent of the
sun, and as anterior by three epochs to that in which that great luminary was
kindled; (Gen 1:4; Gen 1:14) thus anticipating the systems of the moderns, whom
we have seen led, along with the great Newton, to suppose in the universe an
ether, eminently subtile, powerfully elastic, and diffused everywhere, the
contractions and dilatations of which would produce, not only the various
phenomena of light, but those too of gravitation. [182] When it speaks of the
creation of plants, it makes them vegetate, grow, and bear seed before the
appearance of the sun, and under conditions of light, heat, and humidity, which
were not those under which our vegetables live at the present day; (Gen 1:12)
and it is thus that it reveals to us, some thousands of years ago, an order of
things which the Fossil Botany of these late times of ours has declared
incontestable, and the necessary existence of which is attested by the gigantic
forms of the vegetables lately discovered in Canada, and at Baffin’s Bay; some,
like M. Marcel de Serres, [183] having recourse, in order to explain it, to a
terrestrial magnetism at that time more intense, or to more luminous auroræ
boreales; others, like M. de Candolle, [184] to a great inclination of the
ecliptic, although in reality (according to the famous theorem of La Grange) the
mechanism of the heavens confines within very narrow limits this variation of
the planetary orbs. [185] When it speaks of the air, the weight of which was
unknown before the time of Galileo, it tells us that at the creation “God gave
to the air ITS WEIGHT (סשקל), and to the waters their just measure.” (Job 28:25)
When it speaks of our atmosphere and of the upper waters, (Gen 1:7) it assigns
to them an importance which the science of the moderns alone has been able to
demonstrate; [186] seeing that, according to their calculations, the three
annually employed by nature for the formation of clouds is equal to an amount of
work which the whole human race could not do in less than 200,000 years. [187]
And when it separates the higher waters from the lower, it is by an expansion,
and not by a solid sphere, as its imprudent translators would do, both in Greek
and in Latin. When it speaks of the mountains, it distinguishes them, in point
of fact, into primitive and secondary; it speaks of them as generated, as
raised, as melted like wax; it lowers the valleys; in a word, it speaks as a
geological poet of our own days would do.

“The mountains arose, O Lord, and the valleys went down unto the place which
thou hadst founded for them.” (Psa 104:8; Psa 104:6; Psa 104:9; Gen 2:14; Gen
8:4; Psa 90:2; Pro 8:25; Psa 97:5; Psa 144:6; Zec 14:4; Zec 14:8; Ezekiel 47)
When it speaks of the human races of every tribe, of every colour, and of every
language, it gives one and the same origin, notwithstanding that the philosophy
of all ages would so often have revolted against this truth; which we have seen
that of the moderns forced at length to acknowledge. [188] When it speaks of the
internal state of our globe, it declares to us two great facts, of which the
learned were long ignorant, but now rendered incontestable by their last
discoveries; the one relating to its solid crust, and the other to the great
waters which it covers. When it speaks of its solid envelope, it informs us,
that if its surface gives us bread, underneath (תהתיה) the earth is ON FIRE;
[189] that, besides, it is reserved unto fire, and that it will be burnt in the
last times, with all the works that are therein. (2Pe 3:7; 2Pe 3:10) And when it
speaks of the waters which our globe contains, it alone accounts, at least in
this respect, for the immense cataclysms which (according to what we are told by
men of science themselves) have completely, and for long periods, submerged it
at different epochs. And while the latter tell us of the inconsiderable depth of
the seas; while they assure us that a rise of two hundred metres only, or of
once-and-a-half the height of the tower of Strasbourg, would suffice for the
disappearance of the Baltic, the North Sea, the English and St George’s
Channels; and that Mont Blanc, or at least Chimborazo, if thrown into the
deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, would be found high enough to form an island;
while La Place thought there was ground to conclude, from the size of the tides,
that the mean depth of the ocean does not exceed a million of metres (the height
of the Saleve or of Hecla); while we have thus demonstrated to us the absolute
insufficiency of the seas for these immense submersions which our globe has
undergone; … the Scripture teaches us that the earth was taken out of the water,
and subsists in the water, (2Pe 3:5) and that its solid crust covers a GREAT
DEEP (תהום.), the waters of which were broken up (נבקעו), with surges and
violence, (Gen 7:11) at the epoch of the deluge, as at that of chaos and of the
countless ages that preceded it. When it speaks of the deluge, it supposes
submersions and subversions, which all unbelievers of former times said were too
great to be believed, and which at the present day geologists have found too
insufficient rather to explain all the subversions which our earth has
discovered to them. When it relates the preparatives and the progressive steps
of that immense cataclysm, it reveals facts which the science of the moderns may
not yet have universally adopted, but neither has it been able to contradict
them by other facts: it assumes the existence of an interior fire, which, by
raising the temperature of the seas and of the deep waters, must have produced,
on the one hand, an enormous evaporation, and impetuous rains, as if the
flood-gates of the heavens had been opened; and, on the other, a resistless
dilatation, which not only raised the waters from their abysses, broke up the
fountains of the GREAT DEEP, and swelled them into mighty waves reaching to the
top of the highest mountains, [190] but caused immense stratifications of
carbonate of lime, under the double action of an enormous heat and of a pressure
equivalent to 80,000 atmospheres. When it describes the state of our globe, in
the days which preceded the bringing of order out of chaos, it assumes the
existence in it of an internal heat, and of submarine fires, while covering the
whole of it with water in a liquid state. (Gen 1:2) When it speaks of the
creation of birds and fishes, it assigns them a common origin; and we know that
modern naturalists have ascertained, that between those two classes of animals
there are deep-seated points of resemblance, which there is nothing to indicate
to our eyes, but which are revealed in their anatomy, and even in the
microscopic form of the globules of their blood. [191] When it lays an arrest on
the sun — that is to say, on the earth’s rotation in the days of Joshua the son
of Nun, it takes care, too, to make the moon to stop also, in the same
proportion with the sun, and from the same cause; a precaution, as Chaubard has
shown, [192] which never would have been thought of by an astronomy that was a
stranger to the knowledge of our daily movement; since, after all, nothing more
was required for the purposes of this miracle than the prolongation of the day.
(Jos 10:12) When it speaks of the Lord’s coming as a flash of lightning, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last day, it once more bears witness to the rotation
of the earth, and to the existence of the antipodes; for, at that solemn moment,
it says it will be day for one part. of men, and it will be night at the same
hour for another part. (Luk 17:31; Luk 17:34; Mat 24:3, &c.) When it describes
the past and future riches of the land of Canaan, to which a marvellous force of
vegetation is promised for the last times, it speaks of it as rich, not only in
springs, but in subterranean waters, [193] and seems to anticipate the
perforations by which the moderns have learned to fertilize an arid country, by
boring the soil, so as to cause water to gush up. When it speaks of the language
of men, it gives it a primitive unity, which a first study of our innumerable
idioms seems to contradict, but which comes to be confirmed by a more profound
examination. When it describes the deliverance of Noah, it gives to the ark
dimensions which we at first sight pronounce to be too small, which we would
have made a hundred times greater had we been charged with that narrative, but
which a study of the fact has made appear sufficient. When it speaks to us of
the number of the stars, instead of supposing them to be a thousand (1022), as
in the catalogue of Hipparchus, or as in that of Ptolemy; whilst, in both
hemispheres taken together, the most practised eyes are incapable of discovering
more than five thousand; whilst, before the invention of the telescope, a man
could not see, even in the finest night, more than a thousand, the Scripture
calls them INNUMERABLE; it compares them, as Herschel would do, to sand on the
sea- shore; it tells us that God has sown them with his hand in the immensity of
space like dust, and that, nevertheless, “he calls them all by their name.” When
it speaks of that immensity, hark with what a learned and divine wisdom it
portrays it to you! how guarded it remains in its noble poesy, and how wise in
its sublimity! “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the EXPANSE showeth
his handywork. There is no speech nor language; nevertheless we hear their
voice.” When it speaks of the relations borne by the stars to this sublunary
world, instead of supposing them animated, as the ancients did — instead of ever
attributing to them some influence on human affairs, as was fondly imagined for
so long a period even by the professedly Christian populations of Italy and
France, down to the days of the Reformation, they are composed of inert matter,
it tells you, shining, no doubt, but passively acted upon. The heavens, even the
heaven of heavens, advance with the order, consistency, and unity of an army
which advances to battle. “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath
created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them
all by names; not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, My way is hid from the
Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?” (Isa 40:26-27) When it
describes the heavens, it takes care to distinguish three; first, the heaven of
the birds, of tempests, of the powers of the air and spiritual wickednesses;
next, the heaven of the stars; and, finally, the third heaven, the heaven of
heavens. But when it speaks of the God of all this, mark how beautiful its
language! The sound of his thunder is in the rotundity of the air, it tells us;
(Psa 77:18) but the heavens, and even the heaven of heavens, cannot contain him.
(1Ki 8:27) “In what place would you enclose him? and what likeness will ye
compare unto him? He hath set his glory above the heavens, and he even humbleth
himself when he beholds the heavens! Were you to take the wings of the morning,
and fly with the speed of light, whither shouldst thou go from his face, or
whither shouldst thou flee from his presence?” (Isa 40:18; Psa 8:1; Psa 113:6;
Psa 139:7) But after having deemed that it has said enough of all those visible
grandeurs, it tells us that “these are but the skirts of his ways; and how small
is the portion that we know of them!” And, finally, when holy Scripture thinks
enough has been said of all the grandeurs even of the Creator of these
immensities, listen to it farther. “He telleth the number of the stars,” it says
to you, “and he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” (Psa
147:3-4) “Wonderful in counsel, and magnificent in the means he employs, he
putteth thy tears into his bottle; a sparrow falleth not to the ground without
his permission; the very hairs of your head are numbered.” (Psa 56:8; Isa 28:29;
Mat 10:29-30) “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting
arms.” (Deu 33:26-27) “O my God, how manifold are thy works! and thou hast
magnified thy Word above all thy name!” (Psa 138:2) And now, amid all these
proofs of greatness … “where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of
understanding? The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea answers, It is not
with me! God alone understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place
thereof.... He who looketh unto the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole
heaven; to make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.
When he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder;
then did he see wisdom, and sound it to the bottom; and unto man he said, Behold
the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, is
understanding!” (Job 28.)

Such, then, is the inspiration of the holy Scriptures; and it is thus we may see
there celestial reflections emanating from the very places where people had
thought they might detect blemishes. If, with a calm and reverential hand, you
uplift the veil of obscurity with which it required, on your account, to shroud
its face, you will discover there a majestic brightness; for it comes down, as
Moses did, from the holy mountain, and brings to you in its hands the tables of
the testimony! At the very place where you had dreaded an obscurity, you find a
splendour; at the place where people had noted an objection, God has turned it
into a testimony; at the place where there was a doubt, you find an assurance.

We conclude, then, again, that with regard to this seventh objection, the
difficulties become proofs; and that, on this head, as well as on so many
others, we cannot fail at every page to recognise in the whole of the Bible a
communication from God. But let us listen farther to a last objection.

Section 7 The Declarations of Paul Himself

It is idle to dream of disputing the fact of a partial and intermittent
inspiration in the Scriptures (we are sometimes told) since the apostle Paul
himself has clearly decided the question. Has he not carefully, in point of
fact, distinguished what he pronounced by inspiration from what he advanced in
his own name only, as a simple believer? And do we not find him, in his First
Epistle to the Corinthians, express this distinction in the clearest manner,.
And three several times, on the occasion of the several questions that had been
addressed to him on the subject of marriage?

First of all, at the 25th verse of chapter 7, when he says in so many terms,

“Now, concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord; yet I give AN
ADVICE as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful;”

Next, at the 20th verse, when he writes,

“And unto the married I command (NOT I, BUT THE LORD), Let not the wife depart
from her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife;” And finally, at
the 12th verse, where he adds,

“But to the rest speak I, not the Lord (I, AND NOT THE LORD), If a brother hath
a wife that believeth not, … let him not put her away,” &c.

One sees clearly, then, say the objectors, from these three sentences, that
there are in the apostles epistles, passages that are Paul’s, and other passages
that are God’s; that is to say, inspired passages and others that are not so.
The reply is easy. No sooner do we examine more narrowly into the passages on
which the objection is laid, than we perceive that they cannot be legitimately
employed against the doctrine of a plenary inspiration. Far from imposing limits
on the divinity of the apostolic sayings, these verses, on the contrary, hold a
language which the most entire and sovereign inspiration alone could authorize.
Paul could not speak thus without putting his epistles, as Peter has done, I was
about to say “ON A LEVEL WITH THE OTHER holy Scriptures,” we must say ABOVE them
(inasmuch as he gives utterance there to a more recent and more obligatory
expression of the Lord’s desires). We proceed to judge how far this is the case.
What is it that, in this 7th chapter, the apostle of Jesus Christ does? He
treats three cases of conscience. As to one of these cases, God, says he, has
neither commanded nor interdicted any thing. “He that marrieth his virgin
sinneth not. I am not, therefore, charged with any order; but, in my character
as an apostle, it is only an advice that I have to give you on the Lord’s part,”
— and he then takes care to add, at the 40th verse, “And I think, also, that I
have the Spirit of God.” The Lord, therefore, here desires to leave you free,
says the apostle; he would not lay a snare for you; and if you do not think
yourselves bound to follow the general advice that is given you, you violate no
commandment — you sin not. Only, he who marries does well; he who marries not,
does better. As for the other case, on the contrary, beware; FOR THERE IS A.
COMMANDMENT OF THE LORD. The Lord has already pronounced his will (Mat 5:31-32;
Mal 2:14-15); and I have nothing new to declare unto you: the Old Testament and
Jesus Christ have spoken. It is NOT I, therefore, the apostle of Jesus Christ,
it is THE LORD who has already made known his will to you: “To such Christians
as are married, I command (not I, but the Lord), that the wife depart not from
her husband, and that the husband put not away his wife.” — (Verses 10, 11.)

But, as for the third case, that is to say, as respects the brethren who may
find themselves united to unbelieving wives, you have a commandment of the
Lord’s under the Old Testament; “I have repealed it; and I think that I have the
Spirit of God! I abolish, therefore, the old order of things, and am
commissioned to put a contrary order in its place. It is not the Lord (5:12),
that tells you to keep with you an unbelieving wife; it is I, Paul, the apostle
of Jesus Christ, not of men, neither by man, but by God the Father, and. by
Jesus Christ, whom he raised from the dead.” (Gal 1:1)

Here, then, we see it as clear as noonday, that the apostle, instead of
appealing to the Lord’s utterance of old, repeals it, in order to substitute an
opposite order in its place; so that this passage, far from invalidating
inspiration, fully confirms it; seeing that it would amount to the most
outrageous blasphemy, if the apostle had not felt that in holding this language
he was the mouth of God, and had he ventured to say of his own proper authority,
“It is not the Lord, IT IS I! I, I say, and not the Lord — if any brother has an
unbelieving wife, let him not send her away!” — The Lord had said the very
contrary. (Deu 7:3; 1Ki 11:2; Ezr 10:2-3; Ezr 10:11; Ezr 10:19)

We must acknowledge, then, that these verses of St Paul, far from giving their
sanction to the supposition of any human mixture in the writings of the New
Testament, stand there to attest to us that in their epistles, and in the most
familiar details of their epistles, the apostles were the mouth of God, and
placed themselves, not only in the same line with Moses and the ancient
prophets, but, further, above them; inasmuch as a second expression of God’s
will ought to take precedence of that which went before it; and as the New
Testament ought to surpass the Old, if not in excellence, at least in authority.

We have heard some persons still further oppose to us, as an admission of the
intermittence and imperfection of his inspiration, those words of St Paul, in
which, After having told the Corinthians (2Co 12:2-3) of his having been caught
up into the third heaven, he adds, “Whether in the body or out of the body, I
cannot tell: God knoweth.” “Can it be supposed,” it has been said, “that the
Holy Ghost knew not how this miracle was performed? Necessarily, therefore, we
must refer such a verse to Paul not to God.”

We reply, that though the Holy Ghost was not ignorant of it, Paul was; and that
the Holy Ghost desired that Paul himself should tell us of his ignorance. Can it
be forgotten that God has never ceased, in revealing himself to us in the
Scriptures, to employ the personality of the sacred writers, and that it is
under this form that he has desired almost constantly to instruct his Church?
When David, “speaking by the Spirit,” (Mark 12:36; Acts 4:25) exclaims in the
Psalms, “that he acknowledges his transgressions, and that his sin is ever
before him, and that he was shapen in iniquity,” it is not the Holy Ghost,
doubtless, that acknowledges his own transgressions, and that has his own sin
before his eyes; but it is the Holy Ghost that put, for our sakes, those
expressions of repentance in the heart and on the lips of his humbled prophet.
It was in an analogous sense, that, that He could make St Paul say, “Whether in
the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth.”

We are not yet done, however, with these objections. There still remain three
more, which we have called evasions; because, instead of resting, like the
former, on some certain argument, or facts, they are rather systems by which
people imagine they can withdraw a part of the Scriptures from the action of the
divine inspiration. It remains for us, therefore, to examine these.


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  CHAPTER 8: 05 INSPIRATION OF EVASIONS
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Inspiration of Evasions

SEVERAL systems of exceptions, we have said, have been proposed by some. There
are persons who, while they fully admit that the thoughts found in Scripture
have been given by God, would maintain, nevertheless, that its style and
expressions are purely human; others have excluded the inspiration of the
historical books; others, in fine, would make an exception of certain details,
at least, which to them have appeared too trite, and too remote from
edification, to admit of our attributing them to the Spirit of God.

Section 1. Might not Inspiration Pertain to the Thoughts only, Without Extending
to the Words?

“The prophets and the apostles,” some say, “were, no doubt, inspired when they
wrote their sacred books, in so far as respected their thoughts; but we must
believe, that, beyond this, they were left to themselves as respects their
language; so that in this written revelation the ideas are God’s, and the
expressions those of a man. The task of the sacred writers resembles, in some
sort, that of a man before whose eyes there have been successively passed some
very highly coloured pictures, while he has been charged to describe them merely
in so far as they have passed before his eyes. It is thus that the Divine Spirit
is considered to have presented the holy truths they announce to the view of the
evangelists and the prophets, leaving them no more to do than simply to express
them; and this mode of conceiving of what they did,” it is added, “at once
accounts for the striking differences of style which their writings exhibit.”

We reply: —

[1]. That this system is directly contrary to Scripture testimony. The Bible
declares itself to be written, “not with the words which man’s wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. (1Co 2:13) It calls itself “the word of God,”
“the words of God,” [194] “the voice of God,” “the oracles of God,” (Rom 3:2)
“the lively oracles of God,” (Acts 7:38) “the holy letters of God,” (2Ti 3:15)
“the scripture of God.” A scripture, or writing, is made up of letters and
words, and not of invisible thoughts only: but, we are told, (2Ti 3:16) “all
SCRIPTURE is given by inspiration of God.” What is WRITTEN, therefore, is
inspired of God (θεόπνευστος); and that which is inspired of God is ALL.
SCRIPTURE — it is all that is written (πᾶσα γραφὴ).

[2]. While this system is contradictory to the Bible, it is also most
irrational. The ideas of our fellow-men embody themselves in words; and it is
there only that you can seize them. Souls are revealed to us only in the flesh.
You do not learn their character; you know nothing of their desires or their
experiences; you do not even suspect their existence; and betwixt you and them
there are no ties, until they have become clothed with bodies, and have received
organs, so that they can manifest themselves to you. My most intimate friend is
known to me only by the language of his voice and his gestures. If he had no
power of employing these, in vain might he remain for twenty years at my side:
he would be to me as if he were not.

More than this. There exists, in so far as we are concerned, an inevitable
dependance between souls and their organs, betwixt their ideas and words. Not
only do we come to know the existence of the former only by the language of the
latter, but (even after they have spoken to us) we can but guess only at their
true character, as long as we have not the assurance that the organ has been the
faithful interpreter of the mind, that the word has truly reflected the idea,
and the proposition the thought. And if we have some room to apprehend that
language has not been the pliant and adequate servant of the will, we possess no
certainty that we have not been mistaken. Though we might know that God himself
had placed in the soul of a writer the purest thoughts of heaven, still there
would always be required, in order to our having through these words a certain
revelation of them, that there should be given us the assurance that the
language is exact, that the reflections are faithful, and that they reproduce to
us without alteration the objects deposited in the secret chambers of that soul.
Language, then, is the wondrous mirror which reflects to us the depths of the
soul. Were you a son weeping for the loss of a mother, and were God, for your
consolation, to desire that you should see again, for some moments, in a
looking-glass, the ever-to-be-venerated features of that mother, would it be
enough that she herself were made to come down behind you and occupy the place
where the reflected light would come from the object to your eyes in most
abundance? Doubtless not, it would further be necessary that the mirror should
be without any twist, furrow, or blemish. Were it unequal and faithless, of what
use would it be to you? You would have near you, it is true, the smiling
features of your own mother; her inimitable look would bear towards you the
ardent expression of her maternal good wishes and her august benediction; but
all this would be in vain; you would have no better than a stranger before your
eyes, one perhaps of a hideous expression — a deformed creature, with features
positively revolting! O my good mother, it is, then, no longer you! you would
exclaim. Thus would it also be for you with the thoughts of God, if left to
receive them disfigured by the errors of the human language that reflected them
to us. It is no longer thou, O thought of my God! we should have to say to it.
It is necessary then for our security, that we should have the divine guarantee
as well for the fidelity of the mirror as for the faithfulness of the objects.

These reflections will suffice, no doubt, to enable us to comprehend how
irrational it is to think of receiving with exactness and certainty the thoughts
of another through the medium of inexact and uncertain expressions. Can you lay
hold of these thoughts otherwise than by words? And without God’s words, how can
you be sure of possessing his thoughts?

[3]. This theory of a divine revelation, in which you would have the inspiration
of the thoughts without the inspiration of the language, is so inevitably
irrational that it cannot he sincere, and proves false even to those who propose
it; for, without their suspecting it, it makes them come much further down in
their arguments than their first position seems at a first glance to indicate.
Listen to them. Though the words are those of man, say they, the thoughts are
those of God. And how will they prove this to you? Alas! once more, by
attributing to this Scripture from God, contradictions, mistakes, proofs of
ignorance! Is it then the words alone that they attack? and are not these
alleged errors much more in the ideas than in the words? So true it is that we
cannot separate the one from the other, and that a revelation of God’s thoughts
ever demands a revelation of God’s words also.

[4]. This theory is not only antibiblical, irrational, and mischievous; further,
it is taken up arbitrarily, and amounts at 1est to a gratuitous hypothesis.

[5]. Besides, it is very useless; for it resolves no difficulty. You find it
difficult, say you, to conceive how the Holy Ghost could have given the words in
Holy Scripture; but can you tell us any better how he gave the thoughts? Will it
be more easy for you, for example, to explain how God suggested to Moses the
knowledge of the different acts of the creation, or to St John that of all the
scenes of the last day, than to conceive how he made them write the narrative of
these things in the language of the Hebrews, or in that of the Greeks?

[6]. But we have much more to say than this. That which in this theory ought
above all to strike every attentive mind, is its extreme inconsistency, seeing
that those even who hold it most strenuously, are forced withal to admit that,
in its greatest part, the Scripture behoved to be inspired to the men of God
EVEN IN ITS WORDS.

Suppose that the Holy Ghost were to call on you to go down this morning to the
public street, there to proclaim, in Russian or in Tamil, “the wonderful works
of God;” what would become of you, were he to he content with inspiring you with
ideas, without giving you words? You might have the third heaven before your
eyes, and in your heart the transports of archangels, still you would have to
remain as if dumb and stupid before the persons composing this multitude. In
order to your inspiration being of any use to you, it would be necessary that
the periods, the phrases, and even the smallest words of your discourse, should
he entirely given to you? What do I say? People might very well dispense with
your own thoughts, provided you could make them hear, without even understanding
them, the thoughts of God in the words of God. Well, then, let us carry this
supposition into Jerusalem, and into the persons of the apostles. When the
fishermen of Capernaum and Bethsaida, met in their upper chamber on the day of
Pentecost, received the command to come down, and to go forth and publish,
before that people which had assembled from every region under heaven, the
wonderful works of God, in Latin, in Parthian, in Elamite, in Chaldean, in
Coptic, in Arabic, would not the giving of the words be necessary? What could
they have done on that occasion without the words? Why, nothing; while, with
their words, they could convert the world!

When, afterwards, in the church of Corinth, the faithful who had received
miraculous powers spoke in the midst of the congregations in strange tongues,
and found it necessary that some other, to whom the gift of interpretation had
been given, should translate after them the unknown words which they had uttered
in the ears of their brethren, was it not equally necessary that the words and
all the phrases should be entirely dictated to them? (1 Corinthians 14) When all
the prophets, after having written their sacred pages, set themselves to
meditate upon them with so much respect and care, as they would have done to the
oracles of a stranger prophet; when they meditated upon them night and day,
searching what (as Peter tells us (1Pe 1:10-11)) the Spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and
the glory that should follow — was it not, then, also necessary that all the
words should have been given them? When Moses gives an account of the creation
of the world, and of the extrication of chaos; when Solomon describes the
Eternal Wisdom; when David recites, a thousand years beforehand, the prayers of
the Son of God on the cross; when Daniel relates in detail, and without very
well understanding them himself, the remote destinies of the World and of the
Church; and when, in fine, John continues, in his own prophecies, the
revelations of the prophet Daniel, was it not necessary that the smallest words
should be given to them? and do not all interpreters, in reading them,
acknowledge how far we might be led away from the true meaning, by the smallest
word being put in the place of some other word, by the tense of the verb being
ill-chosen, by the imprudent placing of a particle? From this, therefore, we
must conclude, since so considerable a part of the Scriptures is necessarily
inspired, even in its words, that the system of an inspiration of the thoughts,
without an inspiration of the language, is inconsistent in the highest degree.
There are not two kinds of the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures; there are not
two sorts of God’s Oracles. If it was “as moved by the Holy Ghost that holy men
spoke,” then all the Sacred Letters are divinely inspired; and that which is
divinely inspired in the Sacred Letters is ALL SCRIPTURE. But these last
reflections are about to conduct us to something at once more simple and more
important. Here let the utmost caution be observed, for the question has been
misrepresented. It has been said that the sacred Scriptures were inspired by
God; and people have asked themselves up to what point this behoved to be the
case. The matter for inquiry, however, did not lie there.

[7]. We have said, that the question relates to the BOOK and not to the WRITERS.
You believe that God gave them the thoughts always, and not always the words;
but the Scripture tells us, on the contrary, that God has given them always the
words, and not always the thoughts. As for their thoughts, while they were in
the act of writing, God might inspire them with ideas more or less lively, more
or less pure, more or less elevated: that interests my charity alone, but has no
bearing on my faith. The SCRIPTURE — the Scripture which they have transmitted
to me, perhaps without themselves seizing its meaning, at least without ever
entirely comprehending it, this is what concerns me.

Paul might have been mistaken in his thoughts, when, on appearing before the
council of the priests, and not recognizing God’s high-priest, he ventured to
say to him,

“God shall strike thee, thou whited wall!” This is of little consequence,
however, provided I know that WHEN HE WRITES THE WORD OF GOD, “it is Jesus
Christ that speaks in him!” (2Co 13:3)

Peter might have been mistaken in his thoughts when, refusing to believe that
God could send him among the heathen, he did not perceive and acknowledge that
“in every nation, they who turn to God are accepted of him.” He might have been
still more grievously mistaken when, at Antioch, he compelled Paul to withstand
him to the face, because he was to be blamed, and because he walked not
uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. (Gal 2:11-14) But how does this
concern me, after all, I repeat, at least as respects my faith? For the question
is, not how I can know at what moments, or in what measure, Paul, John, Mark,
James, or Peter, were inspired in their thoughts, or sanctified in their
conduct: what, above all, interests me, is to know that all the sacred pages
were divinely inspired; that their written words were the words of God; and
that, in giving these to us, they spoke, not in the words which man’s wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,

(1Co 2:13) (οὐκ ἐν διδακτοῖς ἀνδρωτίνης σοφίας λόγοις); that then it is NOT THEY
that speak, but the Holy Ghost; (Mark 13:11) in a word, that “God has spoken BY
THE MOUTH of his prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:21) The sacred writers
were SOMETIMES inspired; but the Holy Scriptures were so ALWAYS. Accordingly,
the times, the measures, the degrees, the alternations of the inspiration of the
men of God, are not for us an object of faith; but that which is an object of
faith, is that the Scripture is divinely inspired, and that that which is
divinely inspired is the whole, Scripture. “Not one jot or tittle of it shall
pass away.”

There is doubtless an inspiration of thoughts, as there is an inspiration of
words; but the first makes the CHRISTIAN, while it is the second that makes the
PROPHET. A true Christian is inspired in his thoughts: the Spirit of God reveals
to him the deep things of God; (1Co 2:10) it is not flesh and blood that have
made him know the counsels of God and the glories of Jesus Christ, it is God the
Father; (Mat 16:17) for the Holy Ghost leads him into all truth; (John 16:13)
and he has been incapable of truly owning in his soul Jesus as Lord (the Lord of
lords) but by the Holy Ghost. (1Co 12:3) Every true believer, then, is more or
less inspired by God in his thoughts; but he is not so in his words. He is
Christian, but not Prophet. The holiest discourses of Cyprian, Augustine,
Bernard, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Leighton, are only the words of men on the truths
of God — venerable words, no doubt, precious and powerful words, and worthy, of
our utmost attention, because of the wisdom that has been given to them, and of
the abundant expression which we find in them of the thought of God; still
these, after all, are but the words of men — they form but a sermon. It is quite
otherwise in the case of the prophet. The latter may have, and he may not have,
the thought of God in his thought; but that which he will always have, as long
AS HE SHALL SPEAK AS A PROPHET, is “the word of God IN HIS MOUTH.” The Spirit of
God will speak by him, and the word of God will be on his tongue. (2Sa 23:2) He
will be the mouth of God, a mouth intelligent or unintelligent, voluntary or
involuntary — that is of little consequence, provided that God’s oracles flow
from him, and that I receive the thought of my God in the words of my God. In a
word, one may be a Christian without having on his lips the words of God, and
one may be a prophet without having on his heart or in his understanding the
thoughts of God; but one cannot be a Christian without having in his heart the
thoughts of God, and one cannot be a prophet without having on his lips the
words of God. In the language of the Bible (this we shall ere long establish), a
prophet is a person in whose mouth God puts, for a time, the words which he
wishes to have uttered upon earth. Such a person prophesied only by intervals,
“according as the Spirit gave him utterance.” (Acts 2:4) One might not be a
prophet, like King Saul, more than twice in his life; and, as his soldiers, more
than once. (1Sa 19:20-21) One might then pronounce the words of God while
understanding them, or without understanding them, often even without having
been previously apprized, and sometimes even without having wished it. When
Daniel had traced his last pages, he did not understand, he himself tells us,
what the Spirit had made him write. (Dan 12:8-9) When Caiaphas uttered prophetic
words, “he spoke not of himself ;” he had the will, but he had neither the
consciousness nor the comprehension of what God caused him to pronounce. (John
11:51) When Balaam went up three times to the top of a hill to curse Israel, and
when, three times, words of benediction proceeded from his lips, as it were in
spite of himself, because “the Lord had met him and put a word into his mouth,”
(Num 23:16) he had the consciousness of what he did, but neither fully
comprehended, nor fully willed it. When Saul’s armed followers went in search of
David to Ramah, and when the Spirit of the Lord was upon them, so that they also
prophesied; and when Saul, three successive times, sent others of them, who also
three successive times prophesied; and when the profane Saul went himself
likewise to the great well in Sechu, and when God (to illustrate his power, and
to manifest more clearly to us what it is to be a prophet, and what his word is)
had made his Spirit to come on that unbelieving man also; when he went on and
prophesied; when the word of the Lord was in that ordinarily profane mouth, and
he prophesied before Samuel all that day and all that night, “what was it that
happened to the son of Kish? Was Saul also among the prophets?” (1Sa 19:23-24)
Yes, and Saul had the consciousness of his condition, and of the part he acted
as a prophet; but of this he had neither the full will, nor the anticipation,
nor probably the full comprehension. When the old prophet had seated himself
amicably at table with the man of God, whom he had seduced from his road by an
unbelieving and carnal kindness, and when, all of a sudden, under an impulse
from on high, menacing words proceeded in a loud voice from his mouth against
his imprudent and guilty guest, he prophesied with the consciousness of what he
did, but he prophesied without having the wish to do so. What do I say? Did not
God make his voice be heard in the empty air, in the presence of Moses and of
all the people, on Mount Sinai? Did he not cause it to be heard by the couch of
a child in the tabernacle at Shiloh? To the ears of the three apostles, and of
the two saints who had risen again from Hades, on Mount Tabor? To John the
Baptist, and to all the people, on the banks of the Jordan? Be it well
understood, then, it is the holy letters (τὰ ἱερὰ γράματα, 2Ti 3:15); it is all
that is written, that is to say, the phrases and the words, that are divinely
inspired, that are θεόνευστοι. The question, then, is about the words, and not
about the men who have written. As to the latter, that concerns you little. The
Spirit was able more or less to associate their individuality, their conscience,
their recollections, their affections, with what he caused them to write, and
you are nowise obliged to know how far this was the case; but that which it
behoves you to know is (as St Peter has said), “that NO WRITTEN PROPHECY came by
the will of man, but that it was as moved by the Holy Ghost , holy men of God
spake;” and just as at Belshazzar’s feast people troubled themselves little
about knowing what was passing in the fingers of that terrible hand which came
forth from the wall over against the candlestick, while, on the contrary, all
the thoughts of the guests were turned to the words that were traced on the
plaster of the wall, “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” because they knew well that
these words were from God; so likewise it concerns you little, in point of
faith, to penetrate into what passed in the thoughts of Mark, the thoughts of
John, the thoughts of Luke, the thoughts of Matthew, during the time that they
were writing the roll of the Gospels. It behoves you rather to direct your
entire attention towards the words which they have written, because you know
that these words are from God. Be the prophet holy like Moses, wise like Daniel,
an enemy of God like Caiaphas, ignorant of the language in which he speaks like
the prophets at Corinth, impure like Balaam — what do I say? — insensible, like
the hand that wrote on the wall in the palace at Babylon; without form, without
body, without soul, like the empty air in which was heard the voice of God. (on
Sinai, on the banks of Jordan, on Mount Tabor …), it is of little consequence,
once more (unless it be where their personality itself should be found so
interested as to make an essential part of their revelation.) Thy thoughts, O my
God, thy thoughts and thy words, these are what concern me!

Section 2. Should We Except From Inspiration the Historical Books?

“One will admit,” we are told, “that the inspiration of the Scriptures might
have been extended to the choice of expressions, wherever this miraculous
operation was necessary: in the laying down of doctrines, for example, in
announcing the history of a past more ancient than the birth of the mountains,
or in unveiling a future which God only can know. But would you proceed to
maintain that men who lived at the time of the events they relate, had any need
of the Holy Ghost in order to tell us facts of which they themselves were either
agents or witnesses, or which they had heard related by others; the humble
marriage of Ruth in the small town of Bethlehem, for example, or the emotions
felt by Esther in the palace of Shusan, or the nomenclatures of the kings of
Israel and Judah, their reigns, their lives, their deaths, their genealogies? —
Luke, who, from Troas, accompanied the apostle to Jerusalem, to Cesarea, to the
isle of Malta, and as far as Rome, had he not enough of recollections of what
had passed in order to tell us how Paul had been laid hold of under the porches
of the temple; how his nephew revealed to him, in the castle, the conspiracy of
the forty Jews; how the centurion took the young man to the chief captain, and
how the chief captain took him by the hand, and went with him aside privately,
and asked of him all that he knew? Did he then absolutely require for facts so
simple and so well-known, a continual intervention of power from on high?” Some
do not think so, and maintain, on the contrary, that it is neither necessary nor
rational to believe that all the historical chapters of the two Testaments are
divinely inspired. To such objections our first answer will always be very
simple. “All Scripture,” we say, “is divinely inspired.” — Thou hast known the
holy letters, O Timothy: well then, “all the holy letters, all the Scriptures
are given by the breath of God.” — We have not heard the Holy Ghost make an
exception anywhere to these declarations; accordingly, neither in man, nor in
angel, do we acknowledge any right to hazard any. But we will say more. Were it
allowable to place one book of God before another — if we must distinguish in
the firmament of the Scriptures the more glorious constellations and stars of
the first magnitude, we should certainly give the preference to the historical
books. — In fact:

[1]. It is to the historical books that the most striking and most respectful
TESTIMONIES are rendered by the prophets in the Old Testament, and by the
apostles in the New. — What is there more holy in the Old than the Pentateuch?
what is there greater in the New than the four Gospels? — Is it not solely of
the historical books of the Bible that it is written: “The. law of the Lord is
perfect; his testimonies are wonderful; they are sure; they make wise the
simple; they are pure; they are more to be desired than gold; the words of the
Lord are pure words; they are like silver seven times refined. Blessed is the
man who meditates on his law day and night.” (Psa 19:7-10; Psa 1:1-2)

[2]. Besides, mark with what respect our LORD HIMSELF QUOTES THEM, and how in
doing so he takes a pleasure in pointing to the smallest details in the divine
decrees, and sometimes to the use of a single word.

[3]. The histories in the Bible have not been given “as solely for the
transmission to future ages of the memorials of past events: they are presented
to the Church of all ages, for the purpose of making her know by facts THE
CHARACTER OF HER GOD; they are there as a mirror of providence and grace; they
are destined to reveal to us God’s thoughts, God’s designs, the invisible things
of God, his heaven, his glory, his angels, and those mysteries which the angels
desire to look into. (1Pe 1:12) — For all this the most entire inspiration is
requisite.

[4]. Remark further, that the historical Scriptures are given to us for the
purpose of revealing to us THE DEEP THINGS OF MAN. It has been said of the Word
of God, “that it pierces like a sword, to the division of the soul and spirit;
that all is naked and open to it, and that it is a discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart.” This holds true of the written Word as well as of the
personal Word of God, for the one is the language of the other; but it is
especially true of the historical word. Do you not see that that word, in its
narratives, is a two-edged sword, and that it tries men’s consciences? And in
like manner as it describes to you what took place on our globe in the days of
chaos, when the Spirit of God moved on the face of the abyss, it equally tells
you of what takes place in the abyss of the human heart, the mysteries of the
invisible world, the secret motives, the hidden faults, and many a thought
which, but for it, would only have been known in the great day when the Lord
will bring to light things hid in darkness, and will make manifest the purposes
of men’s hearts. Is it thus, then, that men write history?

[5]. The historical Scriptures behoved on another account to have the most
entire inspiration, namely, in order that they might relate to us without any
error the mysterious interventions of the ANGELS in this world’s affairs, in
those of the Church, and in those of Heaven. Is there a subject more delicate,
more novel, more difficult? Do not those ardent and pure, humble and sublime
creatures, whose existence we know of only from the Bible, differ as much from
man as the heavens differ from the earth? Was anything similar to the angels
ever conceived by the imaginations of the peoples, by their poets, or by their
sages? No, they never even show the slightest approach to it. One will perceive,
then, how impossible it was, without a constant operation on the part of God,
that the biblical narratives, in treating of such a subject, should not have
constantly borne the all too human impression of our narrow conceptions; and
that the sacred writers should not have often let slip from their pen imprudent
touches, investing the angels by turns with attributes too divine, or affections
too human. All nations have taken a fancy for figuring to themselves invisible
beings, as the inhabitants of the celestial regions, whom they have tricked out
with all those marks of superiority that charm the heart of man. But how have
all their conceptions been creeping, childish, and vulgar, compared with what
the angels are! How have all those creations of our fancy been comparatively
earthly, passionate, selfish, impure, and often odious! See the gods, the
demigods, and the whole Olympus of the ancients; see the fairies, the genii, and
the sylphs of the moderns: see even farther, the angels of Scripture speedily
disfigured in the books of man, in the Apocrypha of Enoch, for example, in
several of the Fathers, in the legends of Rome, and even in the more recent
creations of several of the French poets. Winged passions, devout puerilities,
sacrilegious idols, immortal egotisms, celestial wickednesses, deified
impurities! But study the angels of Scripture; there not only is every thing
great, holy, and worthy of God; not only is that character at once ardent and
sublime, compassionate and majestic, constantly recalled to us by their names,
their attributes, their employments, their dwellings, their hymns, their
contemplations of the depths of redemption, and the ineffable joys of their
love; but that which above all ought to strike us, is the perfect harmony of all
this as a whole; it is that all these features accord together; it is that all
these attributes correspond to each other, and maintain themselves in the
justest proportions. In a word, this whole doctrine, sustained from one end to
the other of the Scriptures, throughout a course of fifteen hundred years,
presents to us a unity which of itself alone will be found to attest the
inimitable reality of its object, but which bears the most striking testimony to
their entire inspiration.

While all the mythologies speak to us of the inhabitants of the moon and of the
planets, the Bible says not a word of them: it says nothing to us about the
second heaven; but it pictures to us, with no less fulness than precision, the
sublime inhabitants of the third heaven, or of the heaven of heavens. This
subject recurs constantly there, and under the most varied forms. Descriptions
of the angels are often found in the Bible; descriptions unembarrassed, full of
details, independent of each other. They are exhibited to us in all situations
in heaven and on earth, before God and with men, ministers employed in executing
acts of mercy and sometimes also acts of vengeance, bathed in the radiance of
the divine glory, standing before God and worshipping him night and day; but
also engaged in ministering to the humblest believers, helping them in their
distresses, in their travels, in their imprisonments, on their deathbeds; and
finally coming, at the last day, on the clouds of heaven, with the Son of man,
to remove all the wicked from his kingdom, and to gather in his elect from the
four winds. And what were the historians of the angels? Let us not forget this:
some were shepherds; others were kings, or soldiers, or priests, or fishermen,
or tax-gatherers; some writing in the days of Hercules, of Jason and the
Argonauts, three hundred years before the war of Troy; others in the age of
Seneca, of Tacitus, and of Juvenal. And yet we see that the relater has the same
beings throughout before his eyes. Unlike men, they are always like themselves.
We are defiled, they are perfect; we are selfish, they glow with love; we are
haughty, they are gentle and meek. We are vain and proud in a body which will be
gnawed by the worms, they are humble in their glory and immortality. We would
sometimes fain worship them; “See thou do it not,” they say to us, “I am but thy
fellow-servant!” (Rev 22:9) We are disquieted with lusts, they are fervent in
spirit, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die. (Luk
20:36) We are hard-hearted, they are compassionate; we leave the poor Lazarus to
groan as he lies famished at our gate and our dogs lick his sores, but they come
to take him when he is dead, and convey him away to Abraham’s bosom; (Luk 16:22)
they utter shouts of joy at the conversion of a sinner; and yet, Jesus said,
“the angel of one of these little ones continually beholds in the heavens the
face of my Father.” (Mat 18:10) Such is the angel of the whole of the
Scriptures.

Now, let each ask himself, how, without a constant inspiration of all the
historical books, it could have happened, that over a course of so many ages,
not one of the authors who had occasion to bring such beings before us, has let
slip, with regard to them, either words fraught with excessive respect, after
the manner of the liturgies of Rome, or other words bearing too much of the
impress of our humanity, after the manner of many of the Fathers? and, how not a
single discordant trait falling from their pen, spoils the perfect harmony of
that inimitable character, or derogates from the ever amiable dignity of that
sublime creation?

Once more, this unity, this purity, this perfection, comes not from man: it is
from God! and we ought to own that here, as well as elsewhere, it was necessary
that the Holy Ghost should himself superintend nil that is written by his
historians, and make himself the guarantee of their slightest expressions.

[6]. But this is not all. See farther how, even without the knowledge of the
authors, the histories in the Bible are full of the future. Even in relating the
events of the past, “they are types,” says Paul, “for us upon whom the ends of
the world are come.” (1Co 10:6; 1Co 10:11) They relate, it is true, national
scenes or domestic scenes; but while they relate, Jesus Christ is incessantly
and prophetically portrayed under all his aspects, and in all his characters.
See the history of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Joseph, of Moses, of
the sacrificial lamb, of the deliverance from Egypt, of the pillar of fire, of
the manna, of the rock which was Christ (1Co 10:4), of the goat Azazel, of all
the sacrifices, of Joshua, of David, of Solomon, of Jonah, of Zorobabel. One
would need to write a commentary on the whole history; in order to do justice to
this truth. Read over, in order that you may appreciate it, the pages of Paul on
Agar, on Sarah, on Aaron, on Melchisedec.

If, then, one would reflect upon this, he would soon acknowledge, with wonder,
the constant forth-putting of the power of inspiration in all parts of these
Scriptures; and one would feel assured, that if there be pages in the Bible that
have need to be inspired in every line and in every word, these are the
historical books: they preach, they reveal, they set forth doctrine, they
legislate, they prophesy. Compare them not, therefore, with other histories:
they have quite another scope. They behoved to have this full inspiration, in
order to recite, without any error, facts inaccessible to man’s knowledge, the
creation of the universe, the extrication of chaos, the birth of light, the rise
of the mountains, the intervention of angels, God’s secret counsels, the
thoughts of man’s heart and his secret faults; but they specially behoved to
have it in order that they might prefigure Christ by a thousand types
unperceived by the writer himself, and thus exhibit even in their naratives of
the past, the character of the Messiah, his sufferings, his death, and the
glories that were to follow. It was necessary for them, in order that they might
speak in a suitable manner of those events even that were known to them, to pass
some over in silence, to relate others, to characterize them, to judge them, and
thus to show in them the thought of God; but it was above all necessary for
enabling them to describe in the just measure prescribed by that thought of God,
and by the needs of the future Church, the scenes, whether national or domestic,
which behoved to carry along with them the types of the work of redemption, to
prefigure the last times, and to take in a vast sweep of thousands of years
posterior to them. They required it for the purpose of determining the measure
of what they might confide to their readers, and what they should withhold, for
the discreet use of their expressions, and for that admirable restraint upon
themselves which they have uniformly preserved.

[7]. We could wish we had time to speak here of their dramatic power (if such an
expression may be permitted), that divine and indefinable charm, that mysterious
and ever-recurring attraction, which we find attached to all their narratives,
which captivates man’s soul under all climates, which makes us find in them,
throughout all our lives, as in the scenes of nature, an ever fresh charm; and
after being delighted and moved by these incomparable narratives in our early
childhood, affects our tender feelings even in hoary age. Certainly, there must
needs be something superhuman in the very humanity of these forms, so familiar
and so simple. — Men are incapable of telling a story thus. — Who shall tell us
the secret of this attractiveness? In what does it consist? We should find it
not easy to say, perhaps: it seems to lie in an ineffable mixture of simplicity
and depth, of the natural and the unlooked for, of local colouring and
spirituality; it further lies in this, that the narratives are marked by
rapidity and simplicity, that they are at once minute in detail and concise; it
lies, finally, in the harmony and the truth of the sentiments; it presents man,
it presents nature, in their inmost reality. — In a word, you cannot fail to
feel (even without being able to account for it) that He who speaks in this
book, has immediately before him all the most hidden strings of man’s heart, so
as to be able to touch them at will, with a hand light or powerful, in the
precise measure that his Spirit has proposed to itself. Read over the scenes in
which Ruth and Boaz appear on the plains of Bethlehem, those where Abraham and
Isaac meet on mount Moriah, those of David and Jonathan, those of Elijah and
Elisha, those of Naaman the Syrian, of the widow of Zarephath, or of the
Shunamite, and, above all, those of the life and death of the Son of man; and,
after that, search everywhere else in the books of men, and see if you can find
anything similar. Read, if you like, the four Vedahs, mad the voluminous
collection of Pauthier, the sacred books of the East, Confucius, Manon, Mahomet;
[195] and see if there are to be met with there eight lines that can be compared
to these incomparable narratives of Scripture. — But that we dreaded enlarging
too far, we could have wished to make some comparisons here, and to take in
turns the relations of the same facts in the Old Testament and in the Koran, in
the New Testament and in the spurious Gospels, in the patriarchal scenes of
Genesis, and in what has been made of them by men every time they have related
them. Read over, for instance, in Moses, the life of Joseph, his infancy, his
misfortunes, his temptations, and as far as that inimitable scene in which
Jacob’s eleven sons appear before their brother; as far as that “God be gracious
unto thee, my son!” (Gen 43:29), and as far as “I am Joseph (יוסŠאני)!” which at
no time of life can one peruse without fresh emotion; and, then, go and take up
that history again in Mahomet; go read his 12: chapter, intitled Joseph, written
at Mecca in a hundred and eleven verses, and beginning with these words: “We
have made this book come down from heaven in the Arabic tongue, in order that
people may understand it, and we proceed to relate the most beautiful story that
we have revealed to thee in this Koran.” “Let, then,” says the celebrated
Duplessis Mornay, [196] “the hardest hearts, and the most squeamish palates in
the world, come and read over these histories of our Bible; … they will feel
their whole bodies thrill, their hearts move, and a tenderness of affection come
over them in a moment, more than had all the orators of Greece and Rome preached
to them the same matters for whole days. Let them go and read the same histories
in Flavius Josephus, to whom the emperor Titus ordered a statue to be erected on
account of the elegance of his history, he will leave them colder and less moved
than he found them. What, then, if this Scripture has in its humility more
elevation, in its simplicity more depth, in its absence of all effort more
charms, in its grossness more vigour and point, than we know to find any where
else of these qualities?”

Oh not we must say of the historical Scriptures, even in this respect, that
never have men related events as they have done, neither before nor after.

[8]. People have not perhaps sufficiently remarked, they have not sufficiently
admired their divine brevity. If you would, in this respect, appreciate the
Scriptures, compare them with the biographies that men have written, or with the
systems of doctrine which they have given, when left to do so. See, for example,
the modern Church of the Jews, and see that of the Latins. While the former has
joined to the Scripture its two TaImuds, by attributing to them the same
authority, one of which (that of Jerusalem) forms a large folio volume; and the
other (that of Babylon), which is most followed, and which must be studied by
all its doctors, is a work of twelve folio volumes; [197] and while the Roman
Church in its Council of Trent declares, “that it receives, with the same
affection and reverence as the Holy Scripture, its traditions respecting faith
and morals;” that is to say, the vast repertory of its synodal acts, of its
decretals, of its bulls, of its canons, and of the writings of the holy fathers;
[198] behold what the Spirit hath done in the Bible, and there admire the
celestial prudence of its inimitable brevity. Who among us could have been, for
three years and a half, the constant witness, the passionately attached friend,
of a man like Jesus Christ, and could have been able to write in sixteen or
seventeen short chapters, or in eight hundred lines, the history of the whole of
that life — of his birth, of his ministry, of his miracles, of his preachings,
of his sufferings, of his death, of his resurrection, and of his ascension into
the heavens? Who among us would have found it possible to avoid saying a word of
the first thirty years of such a life? Who among us could have related so many
acts of kindness without an exclamation; so many miracles without reflections on
them; so many sublime thoughts without any emphasis; so many sufferings without
complaint; so many acts of injustice without bitterness; so many sinless
infirmities in their Master, and so many sinful infirmities in his disciples,
without any suppression; so much ingratitude in their cowardly abandonment of
him; so many instances of resistance, so much ignorance, so much hardness of
heart, without the slightest excuse or comment? Is it thus that man relates a
history? Who among us, further, could have known how to distinguish what behoved
to be said cursorily from what required to be told in detail? Who among us, for
example, could have thought that the whole creation of the world behoved to be
related in a chapter of thirty-one verses; then the probation, the fall, and the
condemnation of our race, in another chapter of twenty-four verses; while he
consecrated so very many chapters and pages to the construction of the
tabernacle and of its utensils, because these presented to future ages a
continual and typical view of Jesus Christ and of his redemption? Who among us,
for the same reason, would have devoted the fifth part of the book of Genesis to
relating the history of one alone of the twelve children of Jacob, while two
chapters only had seemed to suffice for seventeen hundred years of the history
of the human race, from Adam’s fall to the deluge? Who among us would have
thought, like Matthew, of mentioning only four women (and such women!) in the
forty-two generations of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, and of their recording
there the names of the incestuous Tamar, the impure Rahab, Ruth the Moabitess,
and the adulterous spouse of Uriah, without tempering the scandal by a single
reflection? Who among us would have consecrated but a single verse to the
conversion of a Roman proconsul (Acts 13:12)? Who among us, after having shared,
during ten years, in the labours of Paul, his perils, his imprisonments, his
preachings, and his prophetical gifts, could have related twenty-two years of
such a life without saying a word about himself, and without making known,
except by the mere change of the personal pronoun (at chap. 16, ver. 10), that
from Troas to Jerusalem and Cesarea, and from Jerusalem and Cesarea to Malta and
thence to Rome, he had been his suffering, faithful, indefatigable companion? It
is necessary, in order to our being aware of this, that it should be Paul
himself who, during his last imprisonment, should write to Timothy: “At my first
answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me; Luke only is with me.” —
(2Ti 4:16; 2Ti 4:11; Phm 1:24; Col 4:14.) Holy and heavenly reserve, humble and
noble silence, such as the Holy Ghost alone could have taught! Where will you
find, among all uninspired narrators, a man who could have written, like Luke,
the Acts of the Apostles?, Who could have contrived to relate within thirty
pages the church history of the thirty noblest years of Christianity — from the
ascension of the Son of man above the clouds of heaven, to the imprisonment of
St Paul in the capital of the Roman world? Incomparable history! See, at once,
how short it is, and yet how full! What do we not find in it? Addresses
delivered to the Jews, to the Greeks, before the tribunals, before the
Areopagus, and before the Sanhedrim, in places of public resort and before a
proconsul, in synagogues and before kings; admirable descriptions of the
primitive Church; miraculous and dramatic scenes witnessed in the midst of her;
the interventions of angels, to deliver, to warn, or to punish; controversies
and divisions in Christian congregations; new institutions in the Church; the
history of a first council and its synodic epistle; commentaries on the
Scripture; accounts of heresy; judgments from God, solemn and terrible;
appearances of the Lord in the highway, in the temple, and in prison; details of
conversions, often miraculous and singularly varied — that of Eneas, that of the
eunuch, that of Cornelius the centurion, that of the Roman jailer, that of the
proconsul, that of Lydia, that of Apollos, that of a numerous body at Jerusalem
— not to mention such as were only commenced, as in the emotion felt by king
Agrippa, in the troubled state of Felix’s mind, in the kind acts of the
centurion Julius; missionary excursions; different solutions of sundry cases of
conscience; permanent divisions with respect to external matters among different
classes of Christians; mutual prejudices; disputes among the brethren and among
the apostles; warm expressions, explanations, and yet triumphs of the spirit of
charity over these obstacles; communications from one military officer to
another, from one proconsul to another; resurrections from the dead; revelations
made to the Church, in order to hasten the calling of the Gentiles; collections
for the poor by one Church for another; prophecies; national scenes; punishments
consummated or prepared; appearances before Jewish tribunals or Roman
municipalities, before governors and kings; meetings of Christians from house to
house; their emotions, their prayers, their charity, their doubts; a persecuting
king struck by an angel and eaten by worms, just as when, in order to gratify
the populace, he had actually slain one apostle and was meditating the death of
another; persecutions under every form — by synagogues, by princes, by
municipalities, by the Jews, or by popular tumults; deliverances experienced by
men of God, through the instrumentality sometimes of a child, sometimes of an
angel, sometimes of a Roman tribune or ship-captain, of pagan magistrates or
idolatrous soldiers; storms and shipwrecks described with a nautical exactness
of detail which, as we ourselves have witnessed, continues to charm the sailors
of our own day; — and all this in thirty pages, or twenty-eight short chapters.
Admirable brevity! Was God’s Holy Spirit not necessary for this conciseness, for
this choice of details, for this manner at once pious, varied, brief, richly
significative, so sparing in the employment of words, and yet teaching so many
things? — Fulness, conciseness, clearness, unction, simplicity, elevation,
practical richness; such is the book of Church history that was needed for God’s
people. True; but, once more, it is not thus that men compose histories. Could
you find upon the earth a man capable of relating the murder of his mother with
the calmness, the moderation, the sobriety, the apparent impassibility of that
quadruple narrative of the evangelists, telling of the crucifixion of Jesus, of
that Jesus whom they loved more than one loves his mother, more than one loves
his life L of that Jesus whom they had seen on his knees in Gethsemane; then
betrayed, forsaken, dragged with his hands bound to Jerusalem, and finally
nailed naked to a cross, while the sun hid his light, and the earth quaked and
opened, and when He who had raised the dead to life again, was himself reduced
to the state of the dead! Was not God’s Spirit then required at every line, at
every word of such a narrative, in order to make a suitable choice of details,
amid an age and a world of recollections?

[9]. There was a necessity, moreover, for an entire guidance by the Holy Ghost,
in order to the maintenance of that prophetical reserve which the sacred
historians were enabled in so many respects to observe; and of that altogether
divine prudence, which reveals itself not only in what they teach, but also in
what they withhold; not only in the terms which they employ, but also in those
they avoid. And here, to enable one to form some estimate of this, observe them,
for example, when they speak of the mother of Jesus. What divine foresight, and
what prophetical wisdom, both in their narratives and in their expressions! How
readily might they have been led, in their ardent adoration of the Son, to
express themselves, when speaking of the mother, in terms of too much respect!
Would not a single word, suffered to escape from the want of circumspection so
natural to their first emotions, have for ever sanctioned the idolatries of
future ages towards Mary, and the crime of the worship which is paid to her? But
they have never allowed themselves to drop any such word. Had they so much as
merely called her the mother of God? No, not even that; although he was in their
eyes Emmanuel, the God-Man, the Word which was in the beginning, which was with
God, which was God, and which was made flesh. Listen to them. What do we find
them say of her after the death and the resurrection of their Saviour? One
single sentence, after which they say not a word more about her. “These all
continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary
the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” (Acts 1:14.) (“Hi omnes erant
perseverantes unanimiter in oratione cum mulieribus, et Mariâ et matre Jesu et
fratribus ejus.”) Here they name her neither first nor last; here she appears,
as the mother of Jesus, among the brethren of Jesus, and the women of Galilee.
And what do we find them say of her before the Lord’s death? Note this
carefully. Ah, it is not thus that men relate events! Of all that Jesus Christ
may have said to his mother after the opening of his mission, they have selected
but three sayings to be handed down to us. The first is as follows: “Woman (when
she interfered with his commencing ministry, and asked of him a miracle), woman
(woman!) what have I to do with thee?” (John 2:4) Then, when a woman from among
the people, in the warmth of her enthusiasm, cried out from amid the crowd;
“Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked!” “Yea,
rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luk 11:27-28)
Such is the second. Hear now the third: His mother and his brethren were shaken
in their faith, and some of them had been heard to say, “He is beside himself
(dicebant enim, quoniam in furorem versus est); and one said unto him, ‘Behold
thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee.’” “Who is
my mother?” was his reply; and stretching forth his hand towards his disciples
he said: “Behold my mother … every woman that shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my mother.” “Ecce mater mea.” And when, in his
last agony, he beholds her from the cross, he no longer calls her by the name of
mother; but he bequeaths her to the disciple whom he loved, saying, “Woman,
behold thy son; John, behold thy mother;” and from that hour that disciple took
her to his own home, not to worship her but to protect her, as a weak and
suffering creature whose soul had been pierced through with a sword. Is it thus,
then, we again ask, that men relate events, and must not the prophetic Spirit
alone have been the relater of these facts?

We could wish to give other examples: they at this moment crowd upon our mind,
and it costs us a sacrifice to omit mentioning them; for the more narrowly we
study these historical books, the more does the prophetical wisdom of God’s
Spirit who dictated them reveal itself there in details, at first sight far from
obvious. We could wish to point out among others the altogether prophetic wisdom
with which the Holy Spirit often, on coming to relate some one important fact
more than once, is careful to vary his expressions, in order to prevent the
false interpretations that might be put upon it, and to condemn beforehand the
errors which were in a distant future to be attached to it. We would cite, for
example, the manner, so remarkable and so unexpected, in which the tenth law of
the Decalogue is repeated in Deuteronomy, (Deu 5:21; Exo 20:17) with a
remarkable transposition of its first terms; the Holy Ghost thus desiring to
confound prophetically the artifice whereby the doctors of Rome were to
endeavour, fifteen centuries afterwards, to divide that commandment into two, in
order to veil over the criminal omission they have dared to make of the second:
“And thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, nor any likeness … thou
shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them.” We could wish to point farther to
the variety of expression with which the Holy Ghost has related to us the divine
institution of the holy Supper, and has paraphrased it several times, for the
purpose of enabling us better to comprehend what was the meaning of Jesus
Christ, and to condemn beforehand the carnal sense which people were to give to
these words: “THIS IS MY BLOOD; this CUP is the New TESTAMENT in my blood,” he
also said: “This cup is the COMMUNICATION of the blood of the New Testament.” We
would desire to call attention to the prophetic wisdom with which the Holy
Ghost, in order to confound those who in the sequel were to allege that Judas
did not participate in the last Supper, and that he went out before, or did not
come in till after it, has taken care to let us know, by Mark and Matthew, (Mat
26:21-25; Mark 14:18-20) that Jesus gave notice of the treachery of Judas before
the communion, Judas being present; and by Luke, that he gave notice of it also
afterwards, Judas being present. (Luk 22:19-23) We could wish to show in the
case of all the New Testament writers, the constant sobriety of their words,
when the subject in hand bears on the relations of pastors to the churches; and
that admirable prudence with which they have always abstained from applying,
even in a single instance, to the ministers of the Christian Church, the name
sacerdotes, or sacrificers; reserving to them that title of elders or presbyters
which was given to laymen in Israel, and distinguishing them always from the
sacerdotal race (which represented Jesus Christ, and which behoved to cease when
the sole true priest had appeared). We could wish to point out, also, that
prudence with which never do we find a soul conducted to any other pastor, any
other director (καθηγητής) (Mat 23:8-10) than Jesus Christ, and with which, in
recommending deference towards spiritual guides, the Scripture is careful to
name them always in the plural, in order that none might ever have its authority
to appeal to in support of that idea, so natural to pastors and. to the members
of flocks, that every soul ought to have its pastor among men. “Call no man on
earth your father; and do not make yourself be called DIRECTOR, for Christ alone
is your director.” What precaution, what reserve in the narratives, in order
that too much might never be attributed to man, and to recount “the great things
that God did by means of the apostles,” (Acts 14:27; 1Co 3:6) in such a manner
that self in all might be abased, that all glory might redound to God, and that
all the Lord’s servants may learn to say with the last prophet of the Old
Testament and the first prophet of the New, “He must increase, and I must
decrease.”

We repeat it, one must do violence to his own feelings, with the volume of the
Bible before him, not to cite more such examples from it. From all these traits
taken together, it behoves us then to conclude, that, though the whole Scripture
is divinely inspired, the historical books, more than all the rest, make this
divine intervention most manifest; they show it to be most indispensable; they
attest, that for such pages it was necessary that the invisible and almighty
hand of the Holy Ghost should be placed over that of the sacred writer, and
guide it from the first line to the last. Here something more was necessary than
learned men, than saints, than enlightened minds, than angels or archangels —
here God was necessary. We will say, then, with Origen, that the sacred volumes
breathe the plenitude of the Spirit, and that there is nothing either in
Prophets, or in Law, or in Gospel, or in Apostle, which does not come down from
the fulness of the majesty of God; [199] and with St Ambrose, [200] — “drink
both the cup of the Old and that of the New Testament, for, in both, it is
Christ that thou drinkest. Drink Jesus Christ, that thou mayest drink the blood
by which thou hast been redeemed. Drink Jesus Christ, in order that thou mayest
drink in all his sayings. We drink holy Scripture, we devour holy Scripture,
when the juice of the everlasting Word descends into the veins of our mind, and
penetrates the energies of our soul.” And with Augustine: [201] Wonderful are
the depths of thine oracles! Behold how their surface charms little ones; but
wonderful depth, O my God, what wonderful depth! One shudders at the
contemplation of it — a thrill of reverence and trembling of love!”

But, how now (it has been sometimes said further), must we believe that the
letter of the Pagan Lysias, (Acts 23:25) or the harangue of the Jew Gamaliel,
(Acts 5:34.) or the discourses of Job’s harsh friends, were all inspired? No,
without doubt. No more than those of Cain, or of Lamech, or of Rabshakeh, or of
Satan. But the sacred writers were as really guided by God, in order that they
might transmit them to us, as they were to tell us (Luk 1:46) the song of Mary
in the hill country, or that of the seraphim in the year that king Uzziah died,
or that of the celestial army at Bethlehem. The Holy Ghost is not always the
author of the words which he reports, but he is always the historian.

Meanwhile another evasion is made in order to except a part of the Scriptures
from the Theopneustia. If this is not the most serious objection, it is, at
least, one of those that are most frequently advanced.

Section 3. Will the Apparent Insignificance of Certain Details in the Bible
Authorize their being Excepted from Inspiration?

“Was it suited to the dignity of inspiration to accompany the thoughts of the
apostle Paul, even into those vulgar details to which we see him descend in many
of his letters? Could the Holy Ghost have gone so far as to dictate to him those
ordinary salutations with which they close? or those medicinal counsels which he
gives to Timothy with respect to his stomach and his frequent infirmities? or
those commissions with which he charges him with respect to his parchments and a
certain cloak which he had left with Carpus at Troas, when he quitted Asia?”

We beg the reader will allow us to beseech him to ponder well, when, on taking
the Bible into his hands, he does not perceive, from his very first readings,
the tokens of God in such or such a passage of the Word. Let not those reckless
hands proceed to cast a single verse out of the temple of the Scriptures. They
clasp an eternal book, all the authors of which have said, like Paul, “And I
think that I also have the mind of the Lord.” If then he does not as yet see
anything divine in such or such a verse, the fault is in himself; not in the
passage. Let him say rather, like Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and
I knew it not.” (Gen 28:16) Let us examine more closely the passages alleged.

Paul, from the recess of his prison, asks for the return of his cloak; he had
left it with Carpus at Troas; he begs Timothy to hasten before winter, and not
to forget to bring it with him. This domestic detail, so many thousand times
adduced as an objection to the inspiration of the Scriptures, from the days of
the Anomeans, spoken of by Jerome, [202] this detail seems to you too trivial
for an apostolical book, or, at least, too insignificant, and too remote from
edification, for the dignity of inspiration. Unhappy is the man, nevertheless,
who does not perceive its pathetic grandeur!

Jesus Christ also, on the day of his death, spoke of his garment and his
vesture. Would you have that passage dismissed from the number of inspired
sayings? It was after a night of fatigue and anguish. He had been led through
the streets of Jerusalem for seven hours in succession, by torch-light, from
street to street, from tribunal to tribunal, beaten and buffetted, blindfolded
in mockery, and struck with sticks on the head. The morrow’s sun had not risen
when they bound his hands to lead him further from the sacerdotal palace to
Pilate’s pretorium. There, his flesh torn with stripes, bathed with blood, then
delivered over in order to his final execution into the hands of ferocious
soldiers, he saw all his clothes taken from him that he might be arrayed in a
purple robe, while people knelt before him, and put a reed in his hand, and spit
in his face. Then, before placing the cross on his torn limbs, his garments were
thrown over his wounds, in order to his being taken to Calvary; but, when they
were about to proceed to his execution, they were taken from him for the third
time; and it was then that, spoiled of every thing, first of his upper garment,
then of his very inner vesture, he was to die on the felon’s gibbet, in view of
an immense concourse of people. Was there ever found under heaven a man who has
not found these details deeply moving, sublime, inimitable? and was there ever
found one who, from the recital of this death-scene, would think of retrenching,
as useless or too commonplace, the account given of those garments which were
parted, and of that vesture on which a lot was east? Has not infidelity itself
said, in speaking of it, that the majesty of the Scriptures astonished it, that
their simplicity addressed itself to the heart, that the death of Socrates was
that of a sage, but that the death of Jesus Christ was that of a God? [203] And
if divine inspiration was reserved for a portion only of the holy books would it
not be for these very details? Would it not be for the history of that love
which, after having lived upon the earth more poor than the birds of the air and
the foxes of the field, desired to die poorer still, despoiled of every thing,
of his upper and under garments, fixed to a felon’s gibbet, with his arms
extended and nailed to the tree? Ah! let your mind be at ease with respect to
the Holy Ghost! He has not derogated from his dignity; and very far from having
thought that he descended too far in reporting these facts to the earth, he
hastened to relate them; and it was a thousand years beforehand, it was in the
age of the war of Troy, that he sang them to the harp of David: “They pierced my
hands and my feet (he said); they look and stare upon me; they part my garments
among them, and cast lots upon my vesture!” (Psa 22:16-18; John 19:23-24)

Well then, this is the same Spirit who has desired to show to us Paul writing to
Timothy and asking for his cloak. Mark what he says He, too, was spoiled of
every thing. Even while as yet but a youth, he was great among men, a favourite
of princes, admired by all: he forsook all for Jesus Christ. For thirty years
and more he has been poor; in labours more abundant than others, in stripes
above measure, in prisons more frequent; of the Jews five times received he
forty stripes save one; thrice was he beaten with rods; once was he stoned;
thrice he suffered shipwreck; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils on the sea; in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness (we quote his own
words.) (2Co 11:23-27) Mark now what he says: behold him advanced in years; he
is in his last prison; he is in Rome; he is waiting for his sentence of death;
he has fought the good fight; he has finished his course; he has kept the faith;
but he is shivering with cold; … winter has commenced; and he is in want of
clothes! Buried in one of the dungeons of the Mamertine prisons, he lies under
such a load of opprobrium that even all the Christians of Rome are ashamed of
him, and when first called to appear before his judges, no man stood by him. The
time was, ten years before, when already a prisoner in Rome, and loaded with
chains, he had at least received some money from the Philippians, who, knowing
his wretched state, had subscribed among themselves in their indigence something
to be sent as alms to him there; but now behold hint forsaken; nobody was with
him but Luke; all had abandoned him; winter was at hand. He needed a cloak; he
had left his two hundred leagues off, with Carpus at Troas; in the chilly
dungeons of Rome there was nobody to lend him one: had he not joyfully parted
with all for Jesus? (Php 3:8) had he not counted all the world’s glories as dung
that he might win Christ? and does he not willingly endure all things for the
elect’s sake? (2Ti 2:10) We were ourselves last year in Rome, in a hotel at the
beginning of November, on a rainy day. With what a lively feeling, under the
chill impressions of the evening, did we represent to ourselves the holy apostle
Paul in the subterranean prisons of the Capitol, dictating the last of his
letters, expressing his regret at the want of his cloak, and begging Timothy to
send it to him before winter! Who is there now that would wish to retrench from
the inspired epistles a trait so affecting and so pathetic? Does not the Holy
Ghost take you as it were into Paul’s prison, there to have instant occular
evidence of his affectionate self-renunciation and sublime poverty; so as to
make us see also, as with our own eyes, what was the depth of his love, sometime
before, when it made him write in his letter to the Philippians: “I tell you,
even weeping, that there are many among you who mind only earthly things, and
whose end is destruction!” Do you not seem to behold him in his prison, loaded
with his chain, engaged in writing, and the tears dropping on his parchment? And
do you not seem also to behold that poor body of his, one day ill- clothed,
suffering, and benumbed; the next, beheaded and dragged into the Tiber, in
expectation of “that day when the earth will give up her dead, and the sea the
dead that are in it, and. when Christ shall change our vile body to be fashioned
like unto his glorious body?” And if these details are beautiful, do you think
they are not useful too? And if useful for the man who reads them as a simple
historical truth, what do they not become for him who believes in their
inspiration, and who says to himself:

“O my soul, these words are written by Paul; but it is thy God that addresses
them to thee!” Who could tell the strength and the comfort which, by their very
familiarness and their actuality, they may have carried into prisons and
cottages? Who could reckon up the poor men and the martyrs to whom such traits
have imparted encouragement, example, and joy? We recollect, in Switzerland, in
our day, the pastor Juvet, who was refused a coverlet, twenty years ago, in the
prisons of the Canton de Vaud. One may call to mind in the Universal Church that
Jerome of Prague, who was shut up for three hundred and forty days in the
prisons of Constance, in the bottom of a dark fœtid tower, and never allowed to
leave it except to appear before his murderers. No more has there been
forgotten, among the English, holy Bishop Hooper, dragged from his damp,
disgusting cellar, covered with wretchedly poor clothes and a borrowed cloak, as
he proceeded to the stake, tottering on his staff, and bent double with
rheumatism. Venerable fathers, blessed martyrs, you would no doubt call to mind
your brother Paul, shut up in the prisons of Rome, suffering from cold and
nakedness, and asking for his cloak! Ah! unhappy he who feels not the sublime
humanity, the tender grandeur, the provident and divine sympathy, the depth and
the charm of such a mode of instruction! but more to be pitied still, perhaps,
is he who declares it to be human, because he does not comprehend it! Here we
would quote the noble words of the venerable Haldane [204] on this verse of
Paul: — “Here, in his solemn farewell address, of which the verse before us
forms a part — the last of his writings, and which contains a passage of
unrivalled grandeur — the apostle of the Gentiles is exhibited in a situation
deeply calculated to affect us. We behold him standing upon the confines of the
two worlds

— in this world about to be beheaded, as guilty, by the Emperor of Rome — in the
other world to be crowned, as righteous, by the King of kings — here deserted by
men, there to be welcomed by angels — here in want of a cloak to cover him,
there to be clothed upon with his house from heaven.”

Ah! rather than bring forward these passages in order to rob the Scriptures of
their infallibility, one should have owned in them that wisdom of God, which so
often, by a single stroke, has contrived to give us instructions for which,
without that, long pages would have been necessary. One should have adored that
tender condescension which, stooping to our feebleness, has been pleased not
only to reveal to us the loftiest conceptions of heaven in the simplest words of
earth, but also to present them to us in forms so lively, so dramatic, so
penetrating, by often concentrating them, so as to enable us the better to seize
them, in the narrow compass of a single verse.

It is thus, then, that St Paul, by these words thrown out at random, among the
very last commissions of a familiar letter, darts for us a sudden light on his
ministry, and discovers to us with a word the whole of the apostle’s life, as a
single flash of lightning, during night, illuminates in an instant all the
summits of our Alps, and as some people reveal to you their whole soul by a
look.

How many striking instances of this might we cite! They crowd upon us; but we
are obliged to restrain ourselves; and it will behove us rather to keep to the
precise passages which have been adduced as objections. Before proceeding
farther, we must, however, frankly avow, that we are almost ashamed to defend
under this form the Word of the Lord; and for any such apology we experience, as
it were, a disgust of conscience. Is it altogether becoming? and can we engage
in it without some irreverence? We ought to look well at all times to the manner
in which we defend the things of God, and see to it that we do not imitate the
recklessness of Uzzah in putting forth his hand to the ark of God, and wishing
to hold it, for the oxen stumbled. The anger of the Lord, we are told, was
kindled against him for his error. (2Sa 6:6-7)

If it be fully acknowledged, on both sides, that any word is contained in the
oracles of God, then why defend it … as worthy of him, by man’s reasonings? You
may do so, no doubt, before unbelievers, but with men who own the divinity of
the Scriptures, is it not to commit an insult on that word — is it not to take
up a false position, and to lay your hand on the ark, as Uzzah did? Did this
Word present itself to your eyes as a root out of a dry ground; had it. no form
nor comeliness, and no beauty to make you desire it, still you ought to venerate
it, and look for every thing for it from him who has given it. Does it not
imply, then, our being wanting in respect for him when he speaks, when we would
prove the respect that is due to him Should I not have been ashamed when shown
my Saviour and my God rising from supper, taking a bason, laying aside his
garments, girding himself with a towel, and proceeding to wash his disciples’
feet — should I not have been ashamed to set myself to prove that, in spite of
all this, still he was Christ! Ah, I should rather have wished to worship him
more fervently than ever! Well, then, the majesty of the Scriptures desires to
stoop to us! There do you not behold one who rises from the table, lays aside
his garments, girds himself like a servant, and kneels before sinners, in order
to wash their feet? “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me!” Is there
not in that very humiliation, which reveals itself to us with such a charm, as
it were the voice of the Word in his humiliation? As for us, it strikes us that
there is no arrogance to be compared with that of a man who, owning the Bible to
be a book from God, then makes bold to sift with his hand the pure in it from
what is impure, the inspired from what is uninspired, God from man. This is to
overturn all the foundations of the faith; it amounts to placing it, no more in
believing God, but in believing ourselves. It ought to be enough for us that a
chapter or a word form part of the Scriptures, in order to our knowing it to be
divinely good; for God has pronounced upon it as he has upon the creation, “I
beheld all that I had made, and behold all was good.” We will never say then, I
find this saying admirable, therefore it is from God; and still less, I see no
use in it, therefore it is from man. God preserve us from so doing! But we say,
it is in the Scriptures, therefore it is from God. It is from God, therefore it
is useful, therefore it is wise, therefore it is admirable; and if I do not yet
see it to be so, the fault lies only with myself. We hold there is an error in
this protection which man’s wisdom would accord to that of God; we hold there is
an outrage involved in that clumsy stamp with which it sets itself to legalize
the holy Scriptures, and in that absurd signature with which it dares to mark
its pages.

If, then, we still go on here with the work of showing how the divine wisdom
shines out in some passages which people dare to consider human, it is not for
the purpose of establishing their divine origin oi1 the judgments of our better
informed wisdom, or to procure a tardy respect for them from the mere fact of
the beauty they disclose. Our respect goes before; it was founded on the passage
being written in the

“Oracles of God.” Henceforth, before having seen, we have believed. We have no
thought, therefore, but that of refuting the objection by some examples of its
temerity. Let us listen, further, to two or three passages to which people have
made bold to refuse the honours of inspiration, because they have started with
the idea that they are without any spiritual bearing. We will quote but a very
small number here. It takes no time to pronounce of a sentence that it is
useless or vulgar — to demonstrate that there is a mistake in the objection,
requires pages.

One of the passages which we have most frequently heard adduced, when people
have wished to justify the distinction between what is inspired in the Word of
God, and what is not, is Paul’s recommendation to Timothy with regard to the
stomach complaints and ailings with which that young disciple was afflicted.
“Drink no longer water, but use a little wine, for thy stomach’s sake and
frequent infirmities.” (1Ti 5:23)

Nevertheless examine this passage more closely; what an admirable and living
revelation do we find in it of the grandeur of the apostolic calling, and of the
amiability of the Christian character! Mark, first, that it was as it were in
the temple of God that it was pronounced; for immediately before you hear those
solemn words: — “I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
elect angels, that thou observe these things, without preferring one before
another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, keep thyself
pure, drink no longer water.” One sees that it is in the presence of their
common Master, and of his holy angels, that Paul desired to speak to his
disciple; let us enter then into the same temple, in order to comprehend him —
let us place ourselves on the same heights, “before the Lord and his holy
angels,” then shall we speedily perceive how many beauties are revealed by these
words, both in the ministry of the apostles, and in the ways of the Lord. This
the celebrated Chrysostom well understood, when, preaching on those very words,
he observed how little the Lord’s most useful servants should be surprised,
should it so happen that their Lord should deem it fit to prove them, as he did
Timothy, with complaints in their chest, or head, or stomach — should he put
some thorn in their flesh; and should he thus buffet them by some angel of
Satan, in order to fashion them, on the one hand, for sympathy, for cordial
affections, for tender compassions; and, on the other, for patience,
self-denial, and, above all, for prayer. Read over seriously, and as if in the
light of the last day, this beautiful passage of the apostle’s; ere long, within
the small compass of this single verse, you will wonder how many precious
lessons the Holy Ghost would give us, besides that pointed out by the pious
bishop of Constantinople. How many words, and almost chapters, would have been
required, in order that as much might be said to us under another form l Here
you will learn, for example, Timothy’s sobriety; he had wished, like Paul, to
bring his body under — he abstained entirely from wine. You will see here, in
the third place, with what a tender and fatherly delicacy the apostle reproved
him, either for his imprudence, or for austerity carried too far. You will
remark here with what wisdom the Lord authorizes, and even bids, by these words,
the men of God to pay the necessary attention to their health, at a time,
nevertheless, in which he has thought fit to compromise it by sicknesses. In the
fifth place, you will here admire the prophetic forecast with which these words,
put in the mouth of an apostle, condemn beforehand those human traditions which
were afterwards to interdict the use of wine to believers as an impurity. Here
you will see, in the sixth place, with what tender solicitude, and with what
fatherly watchfulness, the apostle, in the midst of his high functions, and
notwithstanding the cares with which all the churches overwhelmed him (from
Jerusalem to Illyricum, and from Illyricum to Spain), directed his regards to
the personal circumstances, to his health, to the weakness of his stomach, to
his often infirmities, and to the imprudent habits of his daily regimen. You
will further learn here an historical fact, which will throw an useful light for
you on the nature of the miraculous gifts. Notwithstanding all the interest felt
by Paul in his disciple, he is incapable of re-establishing Timothy’s health,
even he who, however, had so often healed the sick, and even raised the dead to
life again; for the apostles (and we learn it again by this verse, as well as by
the illness of Epaphroditus), (Php 2:27) did not receive the gilt of miracles
for a continuance, any more than that of inspiration; it was a power that was
renewed to them for every particular occasion. But if these numerous lessons
from the apostle are important, and if we thus receive them all in a single
verse, and in a way the best fitted to affect us, oh! how penetrating do they
not become to the Christian soul, from the moment he has the certain conviction
that here we have not the words of a good man only; that they are not even those
of an apostle only; but that it is the voice of his God who desires to teach
him, under so affecting a form, sobriety, brotherly love, an affectionate
interest for each other’s heath, the usefulness of infirmities and afflictions
even for God’s most zealous servants, and who, in order to convey so many
precious lessons to him, condescends to address him by the mouth of a simple
creature!

People, further, often object to us those greetings which close the epistles of
Paul, and which, after all, we are told, are of no more importance than those
ordinary compliments with which we all usually conclude our letters. Here there
is nothing unworthy of an apostle, no doubt; but no more is there anything
inspired. Here the Holy Ghost has allowed Paul’s pen to run on, as we ourselves
would allow a clerk to conclude by himself, in the usual form, a letter, the
first pages of which we had dictated to him. Look, for example, at the last
chapter of the epistle to the Romans. Is it not evident there, that the apostle
surrenders himself, in the course of sixteen verses, to the purely personal
reminiscences of his friendships? Was there any need of inspiration for the dry
nomenclature of all those persons? The apostle mentions eighteen by their names,
without reckoning art to whom he sent remembrances collectively in the house of
Aquila, in that of Narcissus, or in that of Aristobulus. These verses require no
inspiration; and, what would have sufficed at most, in order to their being
written, would have been such a superintendence on the part of the Holy Ghost,
as that which he still exercised when he left them to their personality.

We are not afraid to avow that we delight to recall here these sixteen verses
that have been so often objected to; for, far from furnishing any ground for
objection, they belong to the number of passages in which the divine wisdom
recommends itself by itself; and, if you will examine more closely, you will,
ere long, join us in admiring the fecundity, the condescension, and the
elevation of this method of instruction; you will find in it, under the most
practical and the most artless form, a living picture of a primitive church; and
you will recognize in it to what an elevation, even the least known, and the
most feeble among them, may rise in its bosom.

Listen first, with what an affectionate interest the apostle recommends to the
kind regard of the church of Rome that humble woman, who, it would appear,
undertook the voyage from Corinth to Rome for the sake of his temporal affairs.
She was a sister well beloved, who had put herself at the service of the saints,
and who had not been afraid to open her house to a great many of the believers,
and to Paul himself, notwithstanding the perils of that hospitality. She was
servant to the church of Cenehrea. It behoved the brethren who were settled at
Rome, therefore, to receive her in the Lord, and to aid her in all her needs.
Behold, then, what an example the apostle sets us, in some words, of that
Christian urbanity which ought to characterize all the mutual relations of God’s
children. Admire, as he passes so rapidly under review the brethren and the
sisters of the church of Rome, the manner in which he contrives to pour even
over this list of names which is called dry, the sweet unction of his charity.
He has some words of encouragement and affectionate esteem for each of them; he
recalls in it the generous hospitality of Phebe, the risk of death which Aquila
and his companion braved for him, the honour which Epenetus had of having been
the first of the Achaians that were converted to Jesus Christ, the great labours
of Andronicus and of Junia, who were even in the faith before him; his Christian
love for Amplias, the evangelical labours of Urbane, the proved fidelity of
Apelles, the manifold labours of Tryphena and Tryphosa in the Lord, and those of
the beloved Persis. What an appeal, too, to the conscience of every serious
reader is there in this rapid catalogue! See, then, he ought to say to himself,
who the faithful were to whom salutations were sent in the church of Rome! And
were the same apostle to write a letter to the church in which I myself occupy a
place for some days, what would he say of me? would my name be found in it?
could he add that, like Phebe, I receive the saints into my house; that, like
Aquila and Priscilla, I hold Christian meetings under my happy roof; that, like
Mary, I have bestowed much labour on the Lord’s ministers; that, like Andronicus
and Junia, I had suffered for Jesus Christ; that, like Rufus, I am chosen in the
Lord; that, like Urbane, I am his helper; that, like Tryphena, and Tryphosa, I
labour in the Lord; and that I even labour much, like the beloved Persis? But
behold, above all, what a lesson there is for Christian women in these admirable
verses! In the unaffected familiarity which terminates this letter, what a lofty
idea is given us of their vocation! What an important part, then, is assigned
them in the church, and what a place in heaven! Without having yet seen the city
of Rome, Paul mentions there by their own names, no fewer than nine or ten women
among his fellow-labourers. First we have, besides Phebe, that admirable
Priscilla, who had even exposed herself to death for the apostle, and towards
whom all the churches of the Gentiles felt so much gratitude. Then we have a
lady, called Mary, who had, he says, bestowed much labour on the apostles; there
was Tryphena; there was Tryphosa, who laboured also in the Lord; there was
Persis, who was particularly dear to him, and who had laboured much in the Lord;
there was Julia; there was the sister of Nereus; there was Olympia, perhaps;
[205] there was, in fine, the venerable mother of Rufus. And observe, in
passing, with what respect he has named this lady, and with what delicacy he
proceeds to salute her with the tender name of mother. Have we not here the very
Christian politeness which he recommends to these same Romans in the 12th
chapter of this epistle: “Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord,” he writes, “and his
mother, WHO IS ALSO MINE!” (Rom 16:13) What an affecting pattern do not these
verses propose to husbands and wives, in the persons of Aquila and of Priscilla!
You see them here in Rome; you may have seen them, five years before, banished
from Italy by the Emperor Claudius, arriving at Corinth, and receiving in their
house the apostle Paul; then, eighteen months afterwards, setting off with him
to Asia, and staying at Ephesus, where they already had a church in their house,
(1Co 16:19) and where they received with so much success the young and brilliant
Apollos, who, notwithstanding his talents, thought himself fortunate in having
it in his power to put himself to the school of their Christian conversation and
their charity. Now that Claudius had died, so as to make way for Nero, you see
them, when hardly returned to Rome, immediately consecrate their new residence
to the church of God. It is in their house that it meets; and you learn here,
further, as it were in passing, that these spouses had not hesitated to lay down
their lives for the life of Paul.

But, besides all these lessons, which, in these sixteen short verses, are
offered to our consciences, you may there learn further two facts of deep
importance for the history of the church. And, first, you see there, with the
most unsought and the fullest evidence, that at that time there was no question
in Rome about Peter, or his episcopate, or about his popedom, or his primacy, or
even his presence. Do you not perceive a prophetical foresight in the care taken
by the Holy Ghost to do, for this epistle to the Romans, what he has not done
for any other of the fourteen of Paul’s epistles, and to close it thus with a
long catalogue of the women and of men that were the most esteemed at the time
in the whole Roman church? Behold, then, the apostle of the Gentiles, who,
twenty years after his conversion, writes to them with greetings addressed to as
many as twenty-eight persons living in the midst of them, by their proper names,
and many others besides by collective designations, and who has not a word to
send. them for the prince of the apostles, as he is called, for the vicar of
Jesus Christ, for his superior, for the bishop of the universal church, for the
founder of the Roman church!! Peter was the apostle of the Circumcision, and not
of the Gentiles; (Gal 2:8-9) his place was at Jerusalem; there we have to look
for him, and there Paul had always found him. In his first journey, three years
after his conversation, Paul visited him and. abode fifteen days in his
house.(Gal 1:18) In his second journey, to go to the first council, he again
meets him there. In his third journey, in the year 44, at the time of the death
of Herod Agrippa, again it is there that Peter has his residence. (Acts 12:1,)
In his fourth journey, seventeen years after his conversion. (Gal 2:7.) Paul
finds him still there, in the charge of an apostle, not of the Gentiles (mark
this well) but of the Circumcision. And when at last he was on the way
accomplishing his fifth and last journey, he writes to the Romans and the
Galatians; and then in order that the whole Church might know well that Peter is
not at Rome, and never was there, we find Paul taking care to salute by their
names all the most eminent among the believers at Rome, even among the women.
What bishop in our days, of the Latin sect, would dare to write a letter of
sixteen chapters to the church of Rome, without saying to it a single word
either about its pope, or about Peter, or about a vicar of Jesus Christ? [206]
But there is another historical fact, still more interesting, to the knowledge
of which these very sixteen verses, said to be useless, conduct us by the most
striking traits. See, in the very details of these short salutations, by what
humble instruments, and yet how extensively, the gospel had established itself
in so short a time, in the mighty city of Rome. No apostle had set his foot
there, (Rom 1:11; Rom 1:13-15; Rom 15:22) yet behold with wonder what progress
had already been made by the Word of God, solely through the labours of
artizans, merchants, women, slaves, and freedmen, who happened to be in Rome!
Jesus Christ had his disciples there, even in the palaces of the Jewish princes
who resided at the imperial court, and even among the pagans who served nearer
the person of Nero. Paul asks that salutations should be sent from him, first
(among other Christians) to those of Aristobulus’ household; and, secondly, to
those of the household of Narcissus “who are in the Lord.” Now, the former of
these two great personages was the brother of Agrippa the Great and of Herodias;
the second was the all-powerful favourite of the emperor Claudius. Agrippina
caused him to be put to death only at the close of the year 54.

Ah! let all who call themselves Christians renounce then, and for ever, those
rash systems in which people rise against the words of the Scriptures, to impugn
their propriety; in which people take away from God’s Bible such and such a
passage, and such and such a word, in order to make (at least as respects that
passage and that word) a Bible of man’s; and in which people thus charge
themselves with the responsibility of the temerities that shall be ventured upon
besides, by doctors of greater hardihood, imitating upon a book what they shall
have seen you do upon a verse ! What idea can a man have of the sacred writers,
when he would impute to them the mad audacity of mingling their own oracles with
those of the Most High? We recollect the case of a man who had lost his reason,
who was supported by our hospitals, whose handwriting, however, as a copyist,
was so beautiful that one of the Geneva ministers engaged him to transcribe his
sermons. Great was the confusion of the latter, when on looking at his papers
again, he ascertained that the unhappy man had thought it his duty to enrich all
the pages with his own thoughts. The distance is less, however, between a
lunatic and a minister, even were he holy as Daniel and sublime as Isaiah, than
between Daniel and Isaiah and the Eternal Wisdom!

Now, then, having advanced thus far, we would wish, before proceeding farther,
to recommend to our readers, in the practice of sacred criticism, three
precautions, the importance and necessity of which ought to be impressed upon
them by the theopneustic doctrine.


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  CHAPTER 9: 06 ON SACRED CRITICISM, IN THE RELATIONS IT BEARS TO DIVINE INSPIRATION.
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On Sacred Criticism, in the Relations it Bears to Divine Inspiration.

HERE we must not be misunderstood. Far from us be the idea of attaching the
smallest disfavour to works of sacred criticism! These, on the contrary, we
honour; we pronounce them necessary; we study them; we consider all ministers of
the gospel bound to know them, and that the Christian church is bound to be
warmly grateful to them. That is indeed a noble science! It is so because of its
object; to study the destinies of the divine text, its canon, its manuscripts,
its versions, its witnesses, and the innumerable authors who have quoted it! …
it is so because of the services it has rendered: how many triumphs achieved
over infidelity, how many objections silenced, how many mischievous doubts for
ever dissipated! it is so by its history: how many eminent men have consecrated
to it either the devotedness of a pious life, or the might of the finest genius!
it is so, in fine, by its immense results, of which no one, perhaps, will ever
know the measure if he has not studied it. May God preserve us, then, from
setting faith here against science; faith which lives on the truth against
science which studies it! faith which goes and lays hold of it in the hand of
its God, against science which seeks it elsewhere more indirectly, and which
often finds it! All that is true in one place, is in pre-established harmony
with all that is true in another more elevated place. Faith knows, then, from
the first, and before having seen any thing, that all truth will render
testimony to it. All true science, be it what it may, is its friend; but sacred
criticism is more than its friend — it is almost of its kindred. Nevertheless it
is all this only as long as it remains true, and as it keeps its own place. The
moment it quits it, it must be kept down; it then ceases to be a science; it is
but a silly piece of guesswork. Now, as there are three temptations to wander
from it, we desire here to recommend three precautions to young men studying it.

Section 1. Sacred Criticism is a Scientific Inquirer, and not a Judge

First of all, critical science does not keep its place when, instead of being a
scientific inquirer, it would be a judge; when, not content with collecting
together the oracles of God, it sets about composing them, de-composing them,
canonizing them, decanonizing them; and, when it gives forth oracles itself!
Then it tends to nothing less than to subvert the faith from its foundation.
This we proceed to demonstrate.

Employ your reason, your time, all the resources of your genius, to assure
yourself whether the book which has been put into your hands, under the name of
the Bible, contains, in fact, the same oracles, the first de-posit of which was
confided, under the divine Providence, to the Jewish people, (Rom 3:2) and of
which the second deposit, under the same guarantee, was committed to the church
universal of the apostolic times. Assure yourself, then, if this book be
authentic, and if the copyists have not altered it. All this labour is
legitimate, rational, honourable; it has been undertaken before you abundantly;
and if the investigations of another have not satisfied you, resume them, follow
them out, get all the information in your power; all the churches of God will
thank you. But when this work is over, when you have ascertained that the Bible
is an authentic book, and that the unexceptionable seals of God Almighty are
attached to it, then listen to what science and reason alike call to you; then
listen to God; then sursùm oculi, flexi poplites, sursùm corda! then down upon
your knees! lift up your hearts on high, in reverence, with profound humility!
Then science and reason have no longer to judge, but to receive; no longer to
pronounce, but to comprehend. There is still a task, and it is a science, if you
will; but it is no longer the same; it is that of understanding and submission.
But if your wisdom, on the contrary, after having received the Bible as an
authentic book, makes bold to constitute itself the judge of what is found
contained there; if, from this Scripture, which calls itself inspired, and which
declares that it is, at the last day, to judge you yourself, that wisdom of
yours dares to take away any thing; if, seating itself like the angels of the
last judgment, (Mat 13:48-49) it drag the book of God to the seashore of
science, in order to collect in its vessels what it sees in it to be good, and
to throw out what it finds in it to be bad, if it pretend to separate there the
thought of God from the thought of man; if, for example (to adduce but one trait
among a thousand) it venture to deny, like Michaelis, that the first two
chapters of Matthew are from God, because it does not approve the Scriptural
quotations found in them; next, to deny the inspiration of Mark and that of
Luke, because it has found them, it says, in contradiction with Matthew; [207]
in a word, if it think it has the power of subjecting the book, acknowledged to
be authentic, to the outrageous control of its ignorance, and of its carnal
sense; then, it is necessary that it should be reproved; it is guilty of revolt,
it judges God. Here there is no longer science, there is fascination; there is
no longer progress, there is obscurantism.

One may judge of this, if he compare with this blundering of theologians on the
word of God, the more rational procedure of physicians and naturalists in
studying his works. Here, at least, people hold beforehand as an axiom, that all
objects in creation answer to ends that are full of wisdom and harmony. Here
science sets itself, not to contest these ends, but to discover them. Here, what
people call progress, is not the daring rashness of controlling the works of
their God; it is the good fortune to have sounded them, to have obtained a
better recognition of their marvels, and. to have been able to present them
under some new aspects to the admiration of men.

Why, then, will Christians not do with the works of God in the works of
redemption, what naturalists do with the works of God in creation? Why, if, even
among the pagans, a physician — the great Galen — could say “that in describing
the different parts of the human body, he was composing a hymn in honour of Him
who has made us,” will not the Christian comprehend that to describe with truth
the various parts of the Word of God, would be always “composing a hymn in
honour of Him who has made it?” Thus thought the apostolic fathers; thus the
pious Irenæus, the disciple of Polycarp, the pupil of John. “The Scriptures are
perfect,” said he. “In the Scriptures let God always teach, and let man always
learn! Thus it is that from the confused polyphony of their instructions, one
sole and admirable symphony will make itself heard in us, praising by its hymns
the God who has made all things.” [208] Were we to be told, there was a very
studious nation in existence, among whom the science of Nature, taking a new
direction, had begun immense works with the purpose of establishing that there
are mistakes in creation; plants badly constructed, animals ill conceived,
organs ill adapted — what would you think of such a people and their grand
attempt? Would you say that they effected any advance in science? Would you not
rather conceive that they darkened and degraded it, and that people there were
putting themselves to a deal of learned labour in finding out the art of being
ignorant? While anatomists have been unable to explain the use of the liver in
the human body, or of antennæ in that of insects, they have not on that account
found nature in fault; they have put it all to the account of their own
ignorance. Why, then, when you happen not yet to have discovered the use of
something that is said in the Scriptures, do you lay the blame on any but
yourselves, and why will you not wait ? This is no new idea. It is now sixteen
hundred years since a godly man expressed it better than we have done, and
preached it with unction to his contemporaries. “If ever, in reading
Scriptures,” says Origen, in the thirty-ninth of his homilies, [209] “you happen
to stumble on some thought which becomes for thee a stone of stumbling mid a
rock of offence, blame none but thyself (αἰτιῶ σαυτόν); doubt not that this
stone of stumbling and rock of offence has some great meaning (ἔχειν νοήματα),
and is to fulfil that promise, ‘He that believeth shall not be confounded.’ —
(Rom 9:33.) Begin, then, with believing; and soon you will find, under this
imaginary stumbling-block, a plentiful and holy utility. [210] If we have
received the commandment not to speak idle words, for we shall give account
thereof at the last judgment, how much more ought we to think, with regard to
God’s prophets, that every word proceeding from their mouth had its object to
effect and its utility! [211] I believe, then, that for those who know how to
make use of the virtue of the Scriptures, each of the letters written in the
oracles of God, has its object and its use (ἐργάζεται), even to an iota and
single jot… And in like manner as among plants, there is not one which has not
its virtue; and, nevertheless, it belongs only to those who have acquired a
knowledge of botany to be able to tell us how each ought to be applied and
prepared in order to its becoming useful; so likewise whoever is a holy and
spiritual botanist of the Word of God (τίς Βοτανικός ἐστιν ὁ ἄγιος καὶ
πνευματικός), he, collecting each iota and each element, will find the virtue of
that Word, and will perceive that nothing in that which is written is
superfluous (ὁτι οὐδὲν παρέλχει). Would you have another comparison ? Every
member of our body has its office for which it has been placed there by the
great Architect. Nevertheless, it belongs not to all to be acquainted with its
use and virtue, but only to those physicians who have occupied themselves with
anatomy … Well, then, I consider the Scriptures as the collection of the plants
of the Word, or as the perfect body of the Word. But if thou art neither
botanist of the Scriptures nor anatomist of the prophetical words, go not to
imagine that there is anything superfluous there; and when you have been unable
to find the reason for that which is written, blame not the holy letters; lay
the blame on thyself alone.” [212] Thus spake Origen; but we might have found
thoughts quite to the same effect in other fathers, and particularly in Irenæus,
[213] who lived still nearer the apostolic times.

However, we must further bid the reader remark, that this pretending to judge
the Word of God overthrows all the foundations of the faith. It would even
render it impossible in the hearts of all who are but a little consistent. This
it is but too easy to demonstrate. In order that a soul receive life, it must
receive faith; in order that it may have faith, it must believe God; in order
that it believe God, it must begin with renouncing the prejudices of its own
wisdom on sin, on the future, on the judgment, on grace, on itself, on the
world, on God, on all things… Is it not written that the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, that he even cannot receive them, and that
they are foolishness unto him? (1Co 2:14) The gospel, accordingly, will shock
his reason or his conscience, or both. And yet he must submit upon the sole
testimony of God; and it is not until after having thus settled his relation to
it, that he will recognize it as being “the wisdom of God and the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” He must believe, then, without
having seen; that is to say, the gospel, before he has comprehended it, ought to
confound his own wisdom, revolt his natural heart, buffet his pride, and condemn
his own righteousness! How then would you ever get it to be accepted by men who
would, like you, wait to have every thing approved, before receiving every
thing? Imbued with your principles, they will impute to man in the Scriptures
every thing that shocks their natural feelings. They will think that they ought
to retrench from it the prejudices of the apostles on the consequences of Adam’s
sin, on the Trinity, on the expiation, on eternal punishments, on the gehenna,
on the resurrection of the body, on the doctrine of devils, on election, on the
gratuitous justification of the sinner by faith, perhaps also on miracles. How
shall a man, if he be unhappy enough to imitate you, ever find life, peace, and
joy, by means of faith? How shall he hope against hope? How shall he believe
that he is ever saved, wretched man that he is? He will have to pass his days
lost in vague, misty, uncertain doctrines! and his life, his peace, his love,
his obedience must remain, until death, such as his doctrines are! We conclude,
then, with this first advice: Make critical science a learned inquirer; don’t
make it a judge.

Section 2. Let Sacred Criticism be an Historian, not a Soothsayer

There is, in relation to the inspiration of the Scriptures, one other lot less
important precaution, which we must point out in the use that is made of
science. The task of sacred criticism is to collect facts on the Scriptures: do
not suffer her to engage you in vain hypotheses; there she will do you much
mischief. She ought to be an historian; make her not a prophetess. When she
divines, do not listen to her; turn your back upon her; for she will dissipate
your time, and more than your time. Now, the believer’s safeguard here is still
the doctrine of inspiration such as we have exhibited it; I mean of the
inspiration, not of the men, but of the book.

All Scripture is divinely inspired: such is the declaration of the authentic
book of the Scriptures. But as for what passed in the understanding and in the
conscience of the sacred writers, that is hardly ever revealed to us, and it is
what we are not required to know. Much time and many words have been lost owing
to men having neglected this grand principle. Scripture is inspired, whether the
author knew or did not know beforehand what God was making him write. In such
researches, therefore, as studying in each book of the Bible the particularities
of its style, of its language, of its reasoning, and all the circumstances of
its sacred writer, we can see nothing but good; they are useful, legitimate,
respectful; and it is in these, certainly, there is science. Should the student
proceed to endeavour, by these same characters, to fix its date, and the
occasion of its being written, still we can perceive nothing but what is
instructive and becoming in such an investigation. It may be well, for example,
to know that it was under Nero that Paul wrote to the Jews, (Rom 13:1) enjoining
them “to be subject to the powers that be.” It may be useful to know, that Peter
had been married more than twenty-three years when Paul reminded the Corinthians
(1Co 9:5) that he (the first of the popes, as he is called) still continued, in
all his apostolic journeyings, to lead his wife about with him, and that the
other apostles, and James himself (who was reputed the first of the pillars of
the church (Gal 2:9)), did the same thing. In this, too, there is science. We
highly value, for the sake of the church of God, all labour which enables it to
comprehend better a passage, aye, were it but a single word of holy Scripture.
But to proceed from that to crude hypotheses on the sacred writers, to make what
they say depend on the haphazard of their presumed circumstances, instead of
considering their circumstances as prepared and willed by God for what they were
to teach, to subordinate the nature, the abundance, or the conciseness of their
teachings to the concurrence, more or less fortuitous, of their ignorances, or
their recollections — this is to degrade inspiration; it is to lay the
foundations of infidelity; it is to forget that “the men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost (φερόμενοι), not with words which man’s wisdom
teacheth, but with those which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” (1Co 2:13; 2Pe 1:21)
Did the evangelists, it has been asked, read each other? And of what consequence
is this to me, provided they were “moved by the Spirit;” and if, after the
example of the Thessalonians, I receive their book, not as the word of men, but,
as it is in truth, the word of God? (1Th 2:13) The putting of this question, we
may remark in passing, may be very innocent, but it is no longer so in the
manner in which it is treated, and in the importance that is attached to it.
When people inquire whether John had read the gospels of the other three;
whether Mark and Luke had read the gospel of Matthew before writing their own
(as Dr Mill [214] and Professor Hug [215] would have it, and as Dr Lardner [216]
and Professor Michaelis [217] would not have it); when it is asked whether they
only caused to be transcribed with discernment the most important portions of
the oral tradition (as Dr Gieseler [218] would have it); when on this huge
volumes are written, in attack or defence of these systems, as if faith and even
science were really interested in them, and as if great things behoved to result
from them to the Christian church; when it is affirmed that the three first
evangelists had consulted some original document now lost, Greek according to
some, Hebrew according to others (an idea first conceived by Le Clerc, and taken
up sixty years after him by Messrs Kopp, Michaelis, Lessing, Niemeyer, Eichhorn,
and others [219]); when people plunge still deeper into this romantic field;
when they reach at last a drama so complicated as the Bishop of Landaff’s, [220]
with his first Hebrew historical document, his second Hebrew dogmatical
document, his third document, his fourth document (a translation of the first),
then his documents of the second class, formed by the translation of Luke and
Mark and Matthew, which brings the sources at last to the number of seven,
without reckoning three more of them peculiar to St Luke and St; Mark; or
further still, with Mr Veysie [221] in England, and Dr Gieseler in Germany, we
would trace up either the three first gospels, or the four gospels, to
apocryphal narratives in previous circulation in the Christian churches; when,
with the first of these doctors, people will have it that Mark copied them with
a more literal exactness than Luke, on account, it is said, of his ignorance of
Greek, while Matthew, first written in Hebrew, must, beyond doubt, have been
afterwards translated into Greek by some one, who must have modified it out of
Mark and Luke, and transmitted it to us at last in the state in which we possess
it; when, not content with sketching these systems in a few phrases, as a task
of passing curiosity, people have written thereon so many and such bulky
volumes, as if the interests of the kingdom of God were involved in them, oh! we
cannot avoid saying that we experience, in the view of all this science, a
profound sense of grief! But after all, is this science? No! these are no longer
scientific inquirers — they have forsaken facts — they prophetize the history of
the past; these are the astrologers of theology. It is thought, in astronomy,
that a book of observations on the smallest satellite discovered near Uranus, or
on the finding of a second of parallax in the case of some star, or on a single
spot measured in the moon, is a precious acquisition for science, whilst all the
writings of the Count de Boulainvilliers, and the three hundred volumes on the
Barbaric sphere, on the influences, the aspects, or the horoscopes of the seven
planetary bodies, can be for it no better than a piece of folly, or a useless
encumbrance. Thus we should set a higher value, in the pursuits of sacred
criticism, on whatever might throw some surer light on the smallest passage of
the Scriptures; but what end could all these crude hypotheses ever serve? In
these, people desert the luminous paths of science, as well as those of faith;
they weary themselves in the pursuit of empty nothings! Vain and noisy toil
expended in misty conjectures formed upon the clouds! Nothing good can come down
from them! Wretched pursuits, which teach men to doubt where God teaches them to
believe! “Who is he,” saith the Lord, “who darkens, by words without knowledge,
the counsels of the Most High?” In fact, would that we could say that there was
nothing there beyond idle fancies, and an enormous loss of time! But in these,
people do much worse than waste their precious hours: they lose their faith
there; they fascinate their mind’s eyes; they draw away young students from the
great and first Author of the Scriptures. It is clear that these idle pursuits
can proceed only from a want of faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures.
Believe, for one moment, that Jesus Christ had given to his apostles (the πῶς
καὶ τί, Mat 10:19-20) the what and the how that they were to speak; admit that
the Holy Ghost made them relate the life of Jesus Christ, as he made them relate
his sitting at the right hand of God, and you instantly perceive that all these
hypotheses vanish into nothing. Not only do they teach you nothing, they cannot
teach you any thing; but they put your believing thoughts into a wrong track;
they gradually undermine the doctrine of inspiration; they indirectly weaken
God’s testimony, its certainty, its perfection. They turn the thoughts of your
piety from their true direction; they mislead those young persons who were
looking for the living waters from the wells of the Scriptures, and who are
drawn away to heal themselves amid the sands, far from the springs that gush up
into eternal life. What, after all, will they find there? Broken cisterns,
clouds without water, and at most, perhaps fantastic streams, gleaming to them
for some days in the sun, like a deceitful mirage on the deserts of human
thought. What would you say of a learned divine who should endeavour to trace
the discourses and the doctrines of Jesus Christ to the instructions of Joseph
the carpenter, or to the lessons of the school at Nazareth? Idle and pernicious
task, you would exclaim. Well, then, the same must be said of all those
conjectural systems which would, on human principles, explain the composition of
the Scriptures. Idle and pernicious, we say! Admit inspiration, and all this
labour vanishes like an idle dream. The Scriptures are the word of God; they are
given by him, and we know that no prophecy ever came by the will of man; but
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2Pe 1:21) The story
of Paul’s nephew giving warning to his uncle in the prison of Antonia, is
respired by God, although Luke may have heard it twenty times from the mouth of
the apostle before receiving it from the Holy Ghost. That story is inspired,
equally with the account of the invisible angel who was commissioned by God to
strike the king of the Jews upon his throne, in the city of Cesarea. The account
given us of Jacob’s ring-straked and speckled sheep is from God, as well as that
of the creation of the heavens and the earth. The history of the fall of Ananias
and Sapphira is as divinely inspired, as is that of the fall of Satan and his
angels.

Ah! no doubt the evangelists had one common document after which these holy men
of God spoke; but as has been so well said by Bishop Gleig, [222] that document
was neither more nor less than just the preaching and the life of our divine
Saviour. That was their prototype.

Accordingly, when you hear it asked, from what documents Matthew could have
taken his account of the birth of Jesus Christ? Luke, that of his early years?
Paul, the Saviour’s appearance to St James, or the Saviour’s words on the
blessedness of giving? whence Hosea took what he says of the tears of Jacob? and
Jude, Enoch’s prophecy? and Michael’s contention about the body of Moses? — you
may reply, that they were derived from the same source from which Moses learned
the creation of the heaven and the earth.

We have shown how sound views on the inspiration of the Scriptures, will
preserve youthful students from being led into the two grand errors of modern
criticism, and at the same time enable them to derive from that noble science
the utmost possible amount of good. The former of these errors, we have said,
consists in pretending to subject the Scriptures to our judgment, after having
admitted their authenticity; the latter consists in indulging dangerous
conjectures on the sacred books. But we have still to make an important
reflexion on the relations of learning to the great question which occupies us.

Section 3. Sacred Criticism is the Doorkeeper of the Temple, not its God. This
reflexion will present itself at once under the form of an advice and of an
argument. But let not this alarm the reader. We venture on the advice only as a
prelude to the argument; for we do not forget that our task in this book is to
establish the fact of the divine inspiration, not to preach it. To begin with
the advice; it is as follows: —

Learning is a doorkeeper who conducts you to the temple of the Scriptures. Never
forget, then, that she is not the God, and that her house is not the temple. In
other terms, when you study sacred criticism, beware of keeping to that, even as
regards learning. She leaves you in the street; you must enter. And now for the
argument.

If you penetrate, in fact, into the sanctuary of the Scriptures, then not only
will you find inscribed by the hand of God on all its walls that God fills it,
and that he is everywhere there, but, further, you will receive the proof of it
experimentally. There you will behold him every where; there you will feel him
every where. in other terms, when one reads God’s oracles with care, he not only
meets with the frequent declaration of their entire inspiration, but, further,
through unexpected strokes, and often through a single verse or the power of a
single word, he receives a profound conviction of the divinity stamped upon it
throughout. As regards advice, it must not be imagined that we have given it
with the view of discrediting learned investigations; we offer it, on the
contrary, in their interest, and in order to their completion. In fact, it too
often happens that a prolonged course of study, devoted to the extrinsic parts
of the sacred book (its history, its manuscripts, its versions, its language),
by entirely absorbing the attention of the men who give themselves to it, leaves
them inattentive to its more intrinsic attributes, its meaning, its object, the
moral power which displays itself there, the beauties that reveal themselves
there, the life that diffuses itself there. And as there exist, nevertheless,
necessary relations between these essential attributes and those exterior forms,
two great evils result from this pre-occupation of the mind. By this absorption
the student stifles his spiritual life as a man, and compromises final
salvation. This, however, is not the evil we have to do with in these pages: as
a learned inquirer, he compromises his science by it, and renders himself
incapable of forming a sound estimate of the very objects of his studies. His
learning is wanting in coherence and consistency, and from that very cause
becomes contracted and creeping. How can a man become acquainted with the
temple, when he has seen but the stones, and knows nothing of the Shekinah? Can
the types be understood, when he has not even a suspicion of their antitype? he
has seen but altars, sheep, knives, utensils, blood, fire, incense, costumes,
and ceremonies; he has not beheld the world’s redemption, futurity, heaven, the
glory of Jesus Christi And, in this state, he has been unable so much as to
comprehend the relations which these external objects have amongst themselves,
because he has not comprehended their harmony with the whole. A learned man,
without faith, living in the days of Noah, who had studied the structure of the
ark, would have lost his soul, no doubt; but, further, he would have remained
ignorant of a great part of the very objects which he pretended to appreciate.

Suppose that a Roman traveller, in the days of Pompey the Great, had wished to
describe Jerusalem and its temple. Arriving in the city on a Sabbath day, he
repairs to the holy place with his guide; he makes the tour of it; he admires
its enormous stones; he measures its porticoes; he inquires about its antiquity
and the names of the architects; he passes through its gigantic gates, which two
hundred men daily open at sunrise and shut again at noon; there he sees arriving
by thousands, in regular order, the Levites and choristers in their linen
habits; and while in the interior, the sons of Aaron perform their rites; while
the psalms of the prophet king resound under the sacred-vaults, and thousands of
choristers, accompanying them with their instruments, respond to each other in
their sublime antiphonies; while the law is read, the word preached, and the
souls that look for the consolation of Israel are lifted up with delight to the
glories that are invisible, and filled with the deepest awe in contemplating,
that God “with whom there is plenteous redemption;” while aged Simeons are
raising their thoughts to “that glorious salvation unceasingly waited for; while
sinners are turning to God; while more than one poor publican strikes upon his
breast; while more than one poor widow, with joyous emotion, takes out her two
mites for God’s treasury; and while so many invisible but ardent prayers are
rising towards heaven; — what may we suppose our traveller to be doing? Why,
counting the pillars, admiring the pavements, measuring the courts, scrutinizing
the congregation, taking drawings of the altar of incense, the candlestick, the
table of shewbread, the golden censer; after which, he walks off, mounts to the
battlements of the fortress, goes down to the Xystus and to the brook Kedron,
makes the circuit of the walls, counting his steps as he goes, and then returns
to his quarters, there to write out his observations and to prepare his book. No
doubt, he might boast of his having seen the Hebrew nation, and their worship
and temple; he might publish his journey, and find numerous readers; but, even
with respect to the scientific knowledge which his book is meant to diffuse, how
many errors of judgment will be found in it! and how many errors would the
worshippers in the temple have to refute in it!

Here, then, is the advice we proffer, in the sole interests of your theological
learning. It necessarily follows, from the necessary relations that subsist
betwixt the eternal ends contemplated by God in his Word and its external forms,
that, in order to judge correctly of the latter, you must first have made
yourselves acquainted with the former.

If you would form a judgment of a physician, you would no doubt desire to know
what country he is from, what has been his course of study, what universities he
has attended, and what testimonials he can produce; but should he be the first
to tell you what are your most latent disorders; should he reveal to you
sensations in your system which you have hitherto vaguely felt, and the secret
reality of which you recognize as soon as he has defined them to you; should he,
above all, prescribe and supply the only remedy that could ever give you relief;
would not such an experience tell you far more about him than his diplomas can
do?

Well, then, the following is the counsel we venture to give to all such of our
readers as have made any acquaintance with sacred criticism. Read the Bible,
study the Bible by itself and for itself; ask it, if you like, where it has
taken its degrees, and in what school its writers have studied; but come to its
consultations, as a sick person eager to be cured; be as careful to make the
experience of its words, as you can have been in studying its language and its
history; and then, not only will you be healed (which is not the question at
issue here), but you will be enlightened. “He that healed me said: Take up thy
bed and walk! Whether he be a sinner I know not: one thing I know, that whereas
I was blind, now I see!” (John 9:25)

Here the author would take occasion to mention what a thirst he felt for
apologetical books during his youthful studies; how Abbadie, Leslie, Huet,
Turretine, Grotius, Littleton, Jennings, Ranhardt, and Chalmers formed his
habitual reading; and how, while tormented with a thousand doubts, he came at
last to be convinced and satisfied only by the word itself of the Scriptures.
That word gives testimony to itself, not only by its assertions, but by its
effects, like light, like heat, like life, like health; for it carries in its
beams health, life, heat, and light. A man might prove to me, by correct
calculations, that at this moment the sun ought to be above the horizon; but can
I have any need of these, if my eye behold him, if I am bathed in his beams and
invigorated by them?

Read the Bible, then; do not be learned by halves; let every thing have its
proper place. It is the Bible that will convince you. It will tell you whether
it came from God. And when you shall have heard a voice there, sometimes more
powerful than the sound of mighty waters, sometimes soft and still as the sound
that fell on the ear of Elijah: “The Lord, merciful and compassionate, the God
who is pitiful, slow to wrath, abundant in mercy, the God of all consolation,
the God who pardons so much, and more!!” … all, then, we venture to tell you
beforehand, that the simple reading of a psalm, of a story, of a precept, of a
verse, of a word in a verse, will, erelong, attest the divine inspiration of all
the Scriptures to you more powerfully than could have been done by all the most
solid reasonings of doctors or of books. Then you will see, you will know by
experience, that God is everywhere in the Scriptures; then you will not ask of
them if they are inspired; for you will feel them to be quick and powerful
searchers of the thoughts and desires of the heart, sharper than any two- edged
sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of your soul and spirit, and of your
joints and marrow, causing your tears to flow from a deep and unknown source,
overthrowing you with resistless power, and raising you up again with such a
tenderness, and such sympathies, as are found only in God.

All this is as yet mere advice; but we proceed to show in what respect,
nevertheless, these considerations may be presented, if not as a proof, at least
as a strong presumption, in favour of the inspiration of the very words of
Scripture. In them, in fact, we indicate to our readers a threefold experience,
which at all times has borne the fruit of profound convictions among other
Christians, and the testimony rendered by which ought, at least, to strike them
as demanding the most serious consideration.

One of the strongest proofs, no doubt, of the divine authority of the
Scriptures, is that majesty of theirs which fills us with respect and awe; it is
the imposing unity of that book, the composition of which extends over a period
of fifteen hundred years, and which has had so many authors, some of whom wrote
no less than two centuries before the fabulous times of Hercules, Jason, and the
Argonauts; others in the heroic days of Priam, Achilles, and Agamemnon; others
in the days of Thales and Pythagoras; others in the age of Seneca, Tacitus,
Plutarch, Tiberius, and Domitian; and who all, nevertheless, pursue one and the
same plan, constantly advancing, as if they had all understood each other,
towards one sole grand end, the history of the world’s redemption by the Son of
God; it is this vast harmony of all the Scriptures; this Old Testament filled
with Jesus Christ, as well as the New; this universal history, which nothing
stops, which tells of the revolutions of empire to the end of time, and which,
when its scenes of the past have come to a close, continues them onward with
those of the future, until the moment arrive when all the world’s empires shall
have become the possession of Jesus Christ and his saints: — at the first page,
the earth created for the reception of sinless man; in the following pages, the
earth cursed for the reception of man ever sinning; at the last page, a new
earth for the reception of man who will never sin more! — at the first page, the
tree of life interdicted, paradise lost, sin entering into the world by the
first Adam, and death by sin; at the last page, paradise found again, life again
entering into the world by the second Adam, death vanquished, no more sorrow to
he found, God’s image restored in man, and the tree of life in the midst of the
paradise of God. Assuredly there is in this majestic whole, commencing before
there were men, and continued on to the end of time, a powerful and altogether
heavenly unity; a convergence of long ages, universal, immense, whose grandeur
captivates thought, transcends all our human conceptions, and proclaims its
Author’s divinity as irresistibly as, on a summer night, the view of a sky
glittering with stars, and the thought of all those shining worlds which revolve
night and day in the immensity of space. “Myriads of things in perfect intimacy
and symphony,” says one of the earliest fathers of the Church. [223] And yet,
over and above the beauties presented by the Scriptures, viewed thus as a whole,
we have to contemplate something not less glorious, which reveals to us also the
divine action in their smallest parts, and attests to us their verbal
inspiration.

Three orders of persons, or rather three orders of experiences, testify to this.

[1]. And first, if you consult ministers who have spent their whole lives in
meditating on the Scriptures, with the view of finding daily nourishment from
them for the Lord’s flocks, they will tell you that the more they have given
themselves to this blessed study, and have set themselves to look more narrowly
into the oracles of God, the more also has their admiration of the letter of
that Word increased. Surprised, as they proceed, by unexpected beauties, they
have recognised in these, even in the most minute expressions, instances of
divine foresight, profound mutual hearings, spiritual grandeurs which reveal
themselves there by the sole fact of a more exact translation, or of the
attention of the mind being longer directed to the detail of a single verse.
They will tell you that the man of God who keeps for some time close to the eyes
of his soul some text of that holy book, soon feels himself called to adopt the
language of the naturalist who, with the microscope, studies a leaf from the
forest, with its integuments, its nerves, its thousand pores, and its thousand
vessels. He that made the forest made the leaf! he exclaims; yes, says the
other, and he who made the Bible, made its verses also!

[2]. A second order of experiences, of which we would here cite the testimony,
is that of the interpreters of the prophecies. All of them will tell you with
what evidence, after one has bestowed some time on that study, it is perceived
that in these miraculous pages every verse, every word, without any exception,
and even down to apparently the most indifferent particle, must have been
guaranteed by God. The slightest alteration in a verb, in an adverb, or even in
the simplest conjunction, might lead an interpreter into the most serious error.
And it has often been remarked, that if the prophecies that are now fulfilled
were ill understood before the event, this arose, in a great measure, from the
circumstance that people had not examined, with sufficient attention, all the
details of their text. Of this we might adduce many examples.

[3]. But there is yet another order of persons who attest to us more loudly, if
possible, the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, even in their smallest
parts; these are Christians who have experienced their power, first in their
conversion, and afterwards in the conflicts that followed. Go, and in the
biographies of those who have been great in the kingdom of God, look for the
moment at which they passed from death unto life; inquire, around you, about the
same fact, of the Christians who in their turn have experienced this virtue of
the Word of God: they will all bear one unanimous testimony. When the holy
Scripture, overmastering their conscience, made them lie low at the foot of the
cross, and there revealed to them the love of God, what seized hold of them was
not the Bible as a whole, it was not a chapter, it was a verse; aye, a word,
which was for them like the humble and powerful knob of the electric pile, the
disks of which should mount to heaven, or, as it were, the point of a sword
wielded by the very hand of God. They found it quick and powerful. It was an
influence from above which was concentrated in a single word, and which made it
become for them, “as a fire, saith the Lord, and as a hammer that breaketh the
stone.” (Jer 23:29) They perused, in the moment of their need, a psalm, or some
words of the prophets, or some sentences from the epistles, or some narratives
of sacred history; and as they were reading, behold, a word seized their
conscience with an unknown, sweeping, irresistible force. It was no more than a
single word, but that word remained upon their soul; there it spoke, there it
preached, there it resounded, as if all the church bells of the city of God had
been struck to call him to fasting, to the bending of the knee, to prayer, to
meeting with Jesus Christ! It was but a word, but that word was from God. It was
but one of apparently the meanest chords of the harp from heaven; but that chord
was so stretched as to be in unison with the heart of man; it gave forth
unexpected sounds, all-powerful harmonies, which stirred their inmost souls; and
then they felt that those tones are miraculous, that those harmonies proceed
from heaven. They knew it to be the call of Jesus Christ.

Such, then, is the voice of the Church; such has been in every age the unanimous
testimony of the saints. The inspiration which the Bible attributes to itself,
they have said, we ourselves have experienced. We believe it, no doubt, because
it attests it; but we believe it also because we have seen it, and because we
ourselves can bear to it the testimony of a blessed experience, and of an
irresistible impulse of feeling. One might adduce such examples by thousands.
Let us be content to name here two of the noblest minds that have ever served as
guides to humanity. Let the reader call to his recollection how the two greatest
lights of ancient and modern times were kindled. It was a word a single word of
the Scriptures — which, just at the moment that had been prepared by God, put
into their souls the light of the Holy Ghost.

Luther, while as yet a monk, went off to Rome. He lay ill a-bed at Bologna, in a
foreign land, overwhelmed with the burden of his guilt, and believing himself to
be at the gates of death. It was then that the 17th verse of the 1st chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans, “Justus ex fide rivet ” — “the just shall live by
faith” came like a beam from heaven, and enlightened his whole being. These
simple words seized him twice with a superhuman power; first at Bologna, there
to fill him with inexpressible energy and peace; after that at Rome itself,
there to check and elevate him, while with an idolatrous crowd he dragged
himself on both knees up Pilate’s fabulous staircase. It was with these words
that the Reformation of the West commenced. “Words of creative power for the
Reformer and the Reformation,” exclaims on this subject my precious friend Merle
D’Aubigné. It was by them that God then said, “Let there be light, and there was
light.” [224] “In truth,” says the Reformer himself, “I felt as if entirely born
again; and these words were for me the very gate of paradise.” “Hic me prorsus
renatum esse sensi, et apertis portis in ipsum paradisum intrasse.”

Here, too, shall we not call to mind the greatest of the doctors of Christian
antiquity (the admirable Augustine), when, in his garden near Milan, wretched,
ill at ease, feeling, as Luther felt, a tempest in his soul, as he reclined
under a fig-tree, “jactans roces miserabiles et dimittens habenas lacrymis,”
groaning, and giving vent to a flood of tears, he heard from an adjoining house
that youthful voice, which sang, with a rapid repetition of the burthen of the
song: “Tolle, lege! tolle, lege!” “Take and read; take and read!” He went off to
the neighbourhood of Alypius for the roll of the Epistles of Paul, which he had
left there; (adripui, aperui et legi in silentio) — he grasped it, opened it,
and read in silence the first chapter that caught his eye. And when he came to
the 13th verse of the 13th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, then all was
decided by a word. Jesus had overcome: the grand career of the holiest of the
doctors began its course. A word, but a word from God, had lighted up that
mighty beacon which was to illuminate ten centuries of the church’s existence,
and whose rays delight her still. After thirty-one years of revolt, of
conflicts, of relapses, of wretchedness, faith, life, peace had descended into
that loving soul; a new light, but an everlasting light, had risen upon it.
After these words, he wanted nothing more; he shut the book, he tells us; he no
longer felt doubt. “Nec ultrà volui leqere, nec opus erat;” for with the close
of that sentence, a stream of light and security was poured into his soul; and
all the night of his doubts had vanished. “Statim quippe cum fine hujus
sententiæ, quasi luce securitatis infusa cordi meo, omnes dubitationis tenebræ
diffugerunt!”

There is one experience more of the same kind with which we have been too deeply
struck not to refer to it in these pages, although its testimony may probably be
admitted by those only who are already pious men. The farther a man advances in
the Christian life — the more abundant the measure he receives of God’s Spirit —
the more, also, you must have observed what, in two contrary senses, on the one
hand, our sacred books, and, on the other, the best writings of men, become for
him. While you will see him ever more and more independent of the latter,
because more fully aware that they have hardly anything more to teach him, or at
least, because, after having read. them once, he has received all that they have
to give him, mark with admiration how very much otherwise it is for him with
respect to the divine sayings, and with what a marvellous contrast he is seen to
be ever more attached to the letter of the Scriptures, ever more convinced of
the wisdom that is revealed there, and of the divine power put forth there, ever
more eager to drink in their slightest expressions, ever more capable of
deriving delicious nourishment, for whole days and nights, from a single
passage, and from a single verse ! Certainly, there is in this fact, to the
person who has witnessed it, something peculiarly striking. We ourselves have
seen it.

Such, then, is the triple testimony which we would invoke, and by which the
Church attests to us that an influence from God has been infused into the
smallest parts of the sacred Word, in such wise, that “all Scripture is divinely
inspired.”

We must, however, be properly understood. We have made no pretension here to
impose upon some the experience of others. Proofs from feeling, are proofs to
those alone who have felt. They have, no doubt, art irresistible force for men
who, having experienced them, have seen the testimonies of the Word confirmed in
them with unquestionable evidence; but nothing would be less logical than to
offer them as demonstrations to souls who are strangers to them. If you have had
these experiences, you will be more than convinced, and we should have no more
to say to you. Accordingly, we have presented them only as strong historical
presumptions, to dispose you in this way to receive with readier submission the
Scriptural proofs already put before you. A whole multitude of well-informed and
pious persons, we say, attest to you for ages past, and by a threefold
experience, that in the close study of the Word of God, one is brought to
recognise, on the clearest evidence, its inspiration, even in its words. Let
this act, at least, as a powerful recommendation to listen with respect and
candour to the testimonies in which the Bible itself has told you what it is. At
least, let this voice of the church call to you, as it were, from an adjoining
house, Take and read, take and read! adripe, aperi, lege in silentio! Read it in
silence; and you yourself will feel how far its inspiration goes. No more doubt,
you will say, like Augustine; for the morning star has risen in my heart; and
you will not need to read more. Nec ultrà voles legere, nec opus erit; statim
quippe cure fine unius sententiæ, quasi luce securitatis infusa cordi tuo, omnes
dubitationis tenebræ diffuqient!


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  CHAPTER 10: 07 CONCLUSION.
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Conclusion. THE question has been put, Is the Bible inspired, even in its
language? We have affirmed that it is. In other words (for we have willingly
consented to reduce our whole thesis to this second form, equivalent to the
first), the question has been put, Have the men of God given us the Scriptures
exempt from all error, great or small, positive or negative. We have affirmed
that they have. The Scriptures are composed of books, phrases, and words.
Without starting any hypothesis as to the manner in which God has dictated them,
we maintain, with the Scriptures, that this word is divine, without any
exception. And were anyone to ask of us how God proceeded in order to guarantee
all their words, we should wait, before replying to him, until he has let us
know in what manner God proceeded in order to guarantee all their ideas; and we
should be reminded of the child who said to his father, “Father, where does God
get his colours when he dies the cherries with such a beautiful red?” “My boy, I
will tell you that when you have let me know how he paints all the leaves with
so fine a green.”

Section 1. Retrospect.

Divine inspiration, we have said, is not a system; it is a fact: and that fact,
if attested by God, becomes to us a dogma, But it is the book that is inspired;
it is with the book that, above all things, we have to do, and not with the
writers. We might almost dispense with believing the inspiration of the
thoughts, while we could not dispense with believing that of the language. If
the words of the book are God’s words, of what consequence to me, after all, are
the thoughts of the writer?

Whatever his mental qualifications, what proceeded from his hands would always
be the Bible: whereas, let the thoughts be given him, and not the words, and it
is not a Bible that he gives me, it is only something more than a sermon.

Nevertheless, we have been at great pains to make our reservations.

Scripture is entirely the word of man, and Scripture is entirely the word of
God. O man, we have said, it is here especially that you are called to wonder
and admire! It has spoken for thee, and like thee; it presents itself to thee,
wholly clothed in humanity; the Eternal Spirit (in this respect at least, and in
a certain measure) has made himself man, in order to speak to thee, as the
Eternal Son made himself man, in order to redeem thee. It was with this view
that he chose, before all ages, men subject to the same affections with thyself.
(Jas 5:17) He provided for this, and prepared their character, their
circumstances, their style, their manner, their times, their way. And thus it is
that the gospel is the tenderness of God, and the sympathy of God; as it is, to
speak with St Paul, “the wisdom of God and the power of God.”

Let it not be imagined, then, that the stamp of the individual character of the
sacred writers in the several books of the Bible, authorizes us to regard their
inspiration as intermittent or incomplete. It matters little for the fact of
their divine inspiration whether there be the absence or the concurrence of the
sacred writer’s emotions. God may either employ or dispense with them.

If he uses second causes in all his other works, why should he abstain from
doing so in divine inspiration? Besides, as we have remarked, this
individuality, which is made the ground of objection, equally shows itself in
those parts of Scripture which are most incontestibly dictated by God. This
system of a gradual and intermittent inspiration presents characters at once of
complication, rashness, and childishness; but what, above all, condemns it, is
its being directly contrary to the testimony which the Scripture has borne to
its own nature. After all, think not that, in employing our personality, it has
done so at random. No: all its several writers were chosen from before the
foundation of the world for the work to which they were destined, and God
prepared them for it, as he did St Paul, “from their mother’s womb.” Oh, but the
sacred books are admirable in this respect; how incomparable do they appear, and
how soon do we abundantly recognize in them the divine power which caused them
to be written!

Scripture is then from God; it is everywhere from God, and everywhere it is
entirely from God. That is our thesis; and this is what we have done to
establish it; this we could do only by Scripture.

If God reveals himself, it is for him to tell us, in that same revelation, in
what measure he has been pleased to do so. Far from us be all idle hypotheses!
In these we should only meet with our own fancies, and fascinate the eye of our
faith. What then say the Scriptures? The whole question lies there.

First of all, we have said, they declare to us, that all the words of the
Proverbs 6 phets are entirely given and warranted by God. In the second place,
they attest to us that all the scriptures of the Old Testament, are the words of
the prophets. Finally, they demonstrate to us that the New Testament Scriptures
are no less so. All the words of the New Testament, then, are equally warranted
by God.

This, too, was the conviction of the apostles of Jesus Christ. See what use they
made of the Bible. What was it in their eyes? Did they not believe in its entire
divine inspiration? Is it possible not to conclude from their whole conduct
that, for them, the Scriptures were inspired of God, even to their most minute
expressions? But there is for us a proof still more decisive than all the rest.
Let us consult the example of the Son of God himself. Let us attend to what he
says of the Scriptures. Let us listen to him, especially when he quotes them.
Assuredly (we must not be afraid to say it) among the most ardent defenders of
their verbal inspiration, there is not one to be found who has ever expressed
himself with more respect for the altogether divine authority, and the
perpetuity of their most minute expressions, than has been done by the man
Jesus. And when a modern writer happens to quote the Bible in the way that Jesus
Christ quoted it, in order to deduce some doctrine from it, you will see him
forthwith ranked among the most enthusiastic partisans of our doctrine of
plenary inspiration.

Nevertheless we have had objections to consider.

Some opposed to us the necessity for translations, and their unavoidable
imperfection; others, the numerous various readings presented by the ancient
manuscripts which had to be employed in printing our Scriptures. We replied that
those two facts could nowise affect the question. It is the primitive text that
we have to do with. Were the apostles and prophets commissioned to give us a
Bible entirely inspired and without the admixture of any error? — such is the
question. But, at the same time, we have been called to participate in the
Church’s triumph at the state in which our sacred manuscripts are found, and the
astonishing insignificance of the various readings. The Lord’s providence has
watched over this inestimable deposit.

What was farther adduced as an objection to the inspiration of the words, was
the use made by the apostles, in the New Testament, of the Septuagint; but we,
on the contrary, pointed to the fact that in the independent and sovereign
manner in which they have made use of it, you have a fresh proof (of the
presence) of the Spirit who caused them to speak.

Finally, some have gone so far as to object to us, that, after all, there are
errors in the Scriptures; and these errors they have specifically stated to us.
This fact we denied. Because they have not at once understood some narrative, or
some expression, some have rashly ventured to censure the Word of God! While
willing to present some examples of the recklessness and erroneousness of such
reproaches, we hastened at the same time to take note of this objection, for the
purpose of showing its authors that they could not attack the inspiration of the
language without imputing error to the thoughts of the Holy Ghost. Reckless
indeed they are! At the very time that they say of the Bible, as Pilate said of
Jesus Christ, “What evil hath he done?” they put it upon its defence at the bar
of their tribunal! To such objectors we would say, “What then would you do to
those who smite him on the cheek, who spit upon him, and who say to him,
‘Prophesy who it is that smote thee?’ Surely it is not for you to place
yourselves on such a judgment-seat.” The language of Scripture has been blamed
for erroneous expressions, betraying, on the part of the sacred authors, an
ignorance (otherwise, it is said, pardonable enough) of the constitution of the
heavens, and of the phenomena of nature. But here, as elsewhere, “the
objections, on being viewed more closely, pass into subjects of admiration. It
is as if, in making us polish the diamonds of holy Scripture by a more diligent
examination, they elicited unexpected splendours, and served only to dazzle us
with more brilliant reflections of its divinity. At the same time that you
cannot find in the Bible any of those errors which abound in the sacred books of
all Pagan nations, as well as in all the philosophical systems of antiquity, it
in a thousand ways discloses in its language the knowledge of “the Ancient of
Days;” and you will, erelong, ascertain that — whether we look to the
expressions which it employs, or to those which it avoids employing — that
language maintained, throughout thirty centuries, a scientific and profound
harmony with the eternal truth of facts. In that language it seems to say: What
you knew only but as yesterday, I spoke not of to you, yet I knew it from
eternity. The words of Paul also were objected to us, in which that apostle
distinguishes that which the Lord says from that which he himself says. We
believe we have shown that, on the contrary, he could not have given a more
convincing proof of his inspiration than is found in the boldness of such a
distinction, seeing that, with art authority altogether divine, he repeals some
of the laws of the Old Testament.

Still this was not all; we had to reply to other objections, presenting
themselves rather under the form of systems, and which would make bold to
exclude a part of God’s book from being held to be inspired.

Some have been willing to admit the inspiration of the thoughts of the Bible,
and to contest that of the language only; but we reminded such, first, that
there exists so necessary a dependence between the thoughts and the words, that
it is impossible to conceive a complete inspiration of the former without a full
inspiration of the latter.

We charged this fatal system, besides, with being no better than a purely human
hypothesis, fantastically assumed, without there being anything in Scripture to
authorize it. Accordingly we said that it led inevitably to suppositions that
were most disparaging to the Word of God; while, at the same time, to our mind,
it removed no difficulty, seeing that, after all, it but substitutes for one
inexplicable operation of God another which is no less so. But further, we
added, what purpose does this system serve, since it is incomplete, and since,
by the confession of those even who maintain it, it applies to one portion only
of the Scriptures?

Others, again, have been ready sometimes to concede to us the plenary
inspiration of certain books, but with the exclusion from these of the
historical writings. Besides that every distinction of this kind is gratuitous,
rash, opposed to the terms of the Scriptures, we were fain to show that these
books are perhaps, of the whole Bible, those whose inspiration is best attested,
most necessary, most evident; those which Jesus Christ quoted with most respect;
those which sound men’s hearts and tell the secrets of their consciences. They
foretell the most important events of the future in their most minute details;
they constantly announce Jesus Christ; they describe the character of God; they
inculcate doctrines; they give forth laws; they make revelations. In a word,
they exhibit the splendour of a divine wisdom, both in what they say, and in
what they are silent about. In order to write them, more than men, more than
angels, were called for.

We have been asked, finally, if we could discover anything divine in certain
passages of the Scriptures, too vulgar, it has been said, to be inspired. We
believe we have shown how much wisdom, on the contrary, shines out in these
passages, as soon as, instead of passing a hasty judgment on them, we would look
in them for the teaching of the Holy Ghost. In fine, we besought the reader to
go directly to the Scriptures, for the purpose of devoting to the prayerful
study of them that time which he might hitherto have given to judging them; and
we assured him, on the testimony of the whole church, and after, a threefold
experience, that the divine inspiration of the minutest; parts of the Holy Word
will erelong reveal itself to him, if he will but study it with reverence. But
we must draw to a close.

Section 2. Religious: Bible Above Every Thing

It follows from all we have said, that there are in the Christian world but two
schools, or two religions: that which puts the Bible above every thing, and that
which puts something above the Bible. The former was evidently that of Jesus
Christ; the latter has been that of the rationalists of all denominations and of
all times. The motto of the former is this: The whole written Word is inspired
by God, even to a single jot and tittle; the Scripture cannot be destroyed. The
motto of the second is this: There are human judges lawfully entitled to pass
judgment on the Word of God.

Instead of putting the Bible above all, it is, on the contrary, either science,
or reason, or human tradition, or some new inspiration, which it places above
that book. Hence all rationalisms; hence all false religions.

They (profess to) correct the Word of God, or (to) complete it; they contradict
it, or they interdict it; they make it be read without reverence by their
pupils, or they prohibit the reading of it.

Those rationalists, for example, who, at the present day, profess Judaism, place
above the Bible, if not their own reason, that at least of the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th,
and 6th centuries; that is to say, the human traditions of their Targums, the
Mischna, and the Gemara of their two enormous Talmuds. That is their Alkoran:
under its weight, they have smothered the law and the prophets.

Those rationalists who profess the Roman religion, will, in their turn, subject
the Bible, not to their own reason, but, first, to the reason of the 7th, 8th,
9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, which they call tradition, (that is
to say, the reason of Dionysius the Little, Hincmar, Radbert, Lanfranc,
Damascenus, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Burkardt, Ives of Chartres, Gratian,
Isidore Mercator); and next, to that of a priest, ordinarily an Italian, whom
they call Pope, and whom they declare to be infallible in the definition of
matters of faith. [225] Does the Bible require the adoration of the virgin, the
service of angels, payment for pardons, the worshipping of images, auricular
confession to a priest, forbidding to marry, forbidding the use of meats,
praying in a foreign tongue, interdicting the Scriptures to the people, [226]
and that there should be a sovereign pontiff? And when it speaks of a future
Rome, [227] is it otherwise (all the first fathers of the church are agreed
about this [228]) than by pointing to it as the seat of the Man of Sin; as the
centre of a vast apostasy; as a Babylon, drunk with the blood of the saints and
the witnesses of Jesus Christ, which made all the nations to drink of the wine
of the fury of her fornication; as the mother of fornications and abominations
of the earth?

Those rationalists that profess an impure Protestantism, and who reject the
doctrines of the Reformation, will put above the Bible, if not the reason of
Socinus and Priestley, or of Eichhorn and Paulus, or of Strauss and Hegel, at
least their own. There is a mixture, they will tell you, in the Word of God.
They sift it, they correct it; and it is with the Bible in their hand that they
come to tell you: There is no divinity in Christ, no resurrection of the body,
no Holy Ghost, no devil, no demons, no hell, no expiation in the death of Jesus
Christ, no native corruption in man, no eternity in punishments, no miracles in
facts, (what do I say even?) no reality in Jesus Christ!

Those rationalists, in fine, who profess Mysticism (the Illuminati, the Shakers,
the Paracelsists, the Bourignonists, the Labadists, the Bœhmists) will put above
the text (of the Bible) their own hallucinations, their inward word, their
revelations, and the Christ who (they say) is within them. They will speak with
disdain of the letter, of the literal meaning, of the gospel facts, of the man
Jesus, or of the outward Christ (as they call him), of the cross of Golgotha, of
preaching, of worship, of the sacraments. They are above all these carnal helps!
Hence their dislike for the doctrine of God’s judiciary righteousness, of the
reality of sin, of the divine wrath against evil, of grace, of election, of
satisfaction, of Christ’s imputed righteousness, of the punishments to come.

Disciples of the Saviour, hearken to what he says in his Word: there it is that
he speaks to us; there is our reason, there our inspiration, there our
tradition. It is the lamp for our feet. “Sanctify me by thy truth, O Lord, thy
word is truth!”

Let our reason, then, put forth all its energies, under the eye of God, first,
in order to recognize the Scriptures as being from him, and then to study them.
Let it every day turn more closely to these divine oracles, in order to correct
itself by them, not to correct them by it; there to seek for God’s meaning, not
to put our own in its place; to present itself before their holy utterances as a
meek and teachable handmaiden, not as a noisy and conceited sybil. Let its daily
prayer, amid the night that surrounds it, be that of the infant Samuel, “Speak,
Lord, for thy servant heareth!” “The law of the Lord is perfect; the words of
the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times.” (Psa 12:6)

And, on the other hand, let us seek the Holy Spirit; “let us have the unction of
the Holy One;” let us be baptized with it. It is the Spirit alone that will lead
us into the whole truth of the Scriptures; which will by them shed the love of
God abroad in our hearts, and will witness with our spirits that we are the
children of God; by applying to us their promises, by giving us in these the
earnest of our inheritance, and the pledges of his adoption. In vain should we
bear in our hands, during eighteen hundred years, the holy Scriptures, as the
Jews still do: without that Spirit we should never comprehend in them the things
of the Spirit of God: “They would appear to us foolishness, because the natural
man receives them not, and even cannot do so, seeing that they are spiritually
discerned.” (1Co 2:14.) But at the same time, while we ever distinguish the
Spirit from the letter, let us beware of ever separating them. Let it always be
before the Word, in the Word, and by the Word, that we seek this divine Spirit.
It is by it that he acts; by it that he enlightens and affects; by it that he
casts down and raises up. His constant work is to make it understood by our
souls, to apply it to them, and to make them love it. The Bible, then, is in all
its parts from God.

Still, no doubt, we shall have to meet with many passages of which we shall fail
to perceive either the use or the beauty; but the light of the last day will
erelong bring out their now hidden radiance. And as in the case of those deep
crystalline caves, into which torches have been brought, after having been long
consigned to darkness, the dawning of the day of Jesus Christ, bathing all
things in a flood of light, will pierce into every part of the Scriptures,
revealing everywhere gems unseen till then, and causing them to dazzle us with
innumerable splendours. Then will the beauty, the wisdom, the proportions, the
harmony of all their revelations be manifested; and the prospect will fill the
elect with ravishing admiration, with ever fresh raptures, with unutterable joy.
In this respect, the history of the past ought to lead us to anticipate that of
the future; and we may judge, from what has already taken place, of the flood of
light which we may look to see poured upon the Scriptures at the second coming
of Jesus Christ.

Behold what beams of living light were at once diffused over all parts of the
Old Testament, at the first advent of the Son of God; and from this sole fact
try to form an idea of what will be the splendour of both Testaments, at his
second appearance. Then will God’s plan be consummated, then will our Lord and
our King, “fairer than any of the sons of men,” be revealed from heaven, upborne
on the word of truth, meekness, and righteousness; then shall his brightness
fill the hearts of the redeemed; and the awful grandeur of the work of
redemption burst in all its glory on the contemplation of the children of God.
Mark how many chapters of Scripture, even as early as the age of Jeremiah, or
later, during the long reign of the Maccabees, and during the whole time that
the second temple lasted, from Malachi to John the Baptist; mark, we say, how
many chapters of the Scripture, now radiant for us with the divinest lustre,
must have then appeared vapid and meaningless to rationalistic men in the
ancient synagogue. How childish, commonplace, senseless, and useless must have
seemed to them so many verses and so many chapters that now nourish our faith,
that fill us with wonder at the majestic unity of the Scriptures, that compel us
to weep, and that have ere now led so many weary and heavy-laden souls to the
feet of Jesus Christ! What would people say then of the fifty-third chapter of
Isaiah? — Doubtless, with the Ethiopian of Queen Candace: — “How can I
understand except some man should guide me? Of whom speaketh the prophet this?
of himself, or some other man?” What purpose seems likely to be served by this
mysterious history of Melchizedec? Why these long details about the tabernacle,
Aaron’s garments, things clean and unclean, worship, and sacrifices? What
meaning could there be in the words — “Neither shall ye break a bone thereof?”
What meaning could be attached to the twenty-second, sixty- ninth, and so many
other psalms: — “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” “They have pierced
my hands and my feet.” Why (they must have thought) does David occupy himself at
such length, in his psalms, with the common incidents of his adventurous life?
When was it, besides, that they parted his garments among them, and cast lots on
his vesture? What mean those words — “All they that see me shake the head,
saying, He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him,
seeing he delighted in him?” What, then, is that vinegar, and what is the
meaning of the gall — “They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they
gave me vinegar to drink?” And those exaggerated and inexplicable words — “I hid
not nay face from shame and spitting; they smote me on the cheek, and the
ploughers ploughed my back?” And what would the prophet mean — “Behold, a virgin
shall be with child?” Who, again, is that king, lowly, and mounted on an ass: —
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is
just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the
foal of an ass?” What, then, is that sepulture — “And he made his grave with the
wicked, and with the rich in his death?”

How must all these expressions, and many others of a like kind, have appeared
strange, and little worthy of the Lord, to the presumptuous scribes of those
remote times! What humanity, would they have said, what individuality, what
occasionality (to put into the mouths of those men of ancient times the language
of the present day)! They were taught, no doubt, in their academies, at that
time, learned systems and long conjectural speculations on the conjunctures in
which the prophets were placed when writing such details, and no more would be
seen in their words than the ordinary impress of the entirely personal
circumstances which had given rise to their emotions. But what, then, was done
by the true disciples of the Word of life? How did ye act, Hezekiah, Daniel,
Josiah, Nehemiah, Ezra — our brethren in the same hope and in the same faith?
and ye, too, holy women, who hoped in God, and waited for the consolation of
Israel? Ah! ye bowed with respect over all those depths, as the angels of light
still do; and desiring to see them to the bottom, ye waited! Yes, they waited!
They knew that in what was the most insignificant passage in their eyes, there
might be, as was said by one of the church fathers, “mountains of doctrine.”
Thus it was that in “searching (as Peter has said) what the Spirit of Christ,
which was in the prophets, did signify, when it testified beforehand of the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow,” they never doubted that
afterwards, when time and events should have passed their hand over this
sympathetic ink, there would come forth from it wondrous pages, all bearing the
stamp of divinity, and all full of the gospel. The day was to come, after the
first appearance of the Messiah, when the least in the kingdom of God would be
greater than the greatest of the prophets; and that day has arrived. But we
ourselves know, also, that the day is yet to come, after his second appearance,
when the least among the redeemed shall be greater in knowledge than ever were
the Augustines, the Calvins, the Jonathan Edwardses, the Pascals, and the
Leightons; for then the ears of children will hear, and their eyes will see,
“things which the apostles themselves desired to see and did not see, and to
hear and did not hear.”

Well, then, what doctors, prophets, and saints used to do with passages that
were still obscure to them, and now luminous to us, we will do with passages
that are still obscure to us, but which will erelong be luminous to the heirs of
life, when all the prophecies will be accomplished, and when Jesus Christ will
appear in the clouds, in the last epiphany of his glorious advent.

What lustre, as soon as it has been perceived, have we not seen shed on many a
passage, many a psalm,, many a prophecy, many a type, many a description, the
profound beauty of which had until then passed unobserved! What a wondrous
gospel has there not emanated from them! what appeals to the conscience! what a
display of the love shown in redemption! Let us wait, then, for analogous
revelations, but much more glorious still, on the day when our Master shall
descend again from the heavens; “for in the Scriptures,” says Irenæus, “there
are some difficulties which even at present we can resolve by the grace of God;
but there are others which we leave to him, not only for this age but for the
age which is to come, in order that God. may perpetually teach, and man also
perpetually learn from God the things that are God’s.” [229] If the lights of
grace have eclipsed those of nature, how shall the lights of glory, in their
turn, eclipse those of grace? How many stars of the first magnitude, as yet
unseen by us, shall, at the approach of that great day, be kindled in the
firmament of the Scriptures? and when, at last, it shall have arisen without a
cloud over the ransomed world, what harmonies, what celestial tints, what new
glories, what unlooked-for splendours, shall burst upon the heirs of eternal
life!

Then will be seen the meaning of many a prophecy, many a fact, and many a
lesson, the divinity of which, as yet, reveals itself only in detached traits;
but the evangelical beauties of which will shine forth from every part of them.
Then will be known the entire bearing of those parables, even now so
solemnizing, — of the fig tree, of the master returning from a far country, of
the bridegroom and the bride, of the net drawn to the shore of eternity, of
Lazarus, of the invited to the feast, of the talents, of the vine dressers, of
the virgins, of the marriage feast. Then will there be known all the glory
involved in such expressions as the following: — “The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” “Thy
people, O Lord, shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of
holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.” “He
shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.” “He shall drink of the
brook in the way; therefore shall he lift up the head.”

Then, also, shall our eyes behold, in all his glory, Jesus Christ, the Saviour,
the Comforter, and the Friend of the wretched, our Lord and our God! He that
liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore! Then all the science of the
heavens will be summed up in him. This was ever all the science of the Holy
Ghost, who cometh down from heaven; it was all the science of the Scriptures,
for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10). It is even now
all the life of the saints; “their life eternal is to know him!” The celebrated
traveller, who first brought to us from Constantinople the only horse- chestnut
that the West had ever seen, and who planted it, they say, in the court of his
mansion-house, could he have told all that he held in his hand, and all that was
to come forth from it? — The infinite in the finite! forests innumerable in a
humble nut, and within its insignificant shell trees in thousands, adorning with
their majestic foliage and bunches of flowers our gardens and shrubberies,
darkening with their shade our public squares, and the terraces and avenues of
our cities; people celebrating their national festivals under their ample
bowers; our children playing at their feet, and the house sparrow twittering to
its mate in their branches; whilst each of those trees will itself produce, year
after year, thousands of nuts similar to that from which it sprung, and all
likewise bearing in them the imbedded germs of countless forests in countless
generations! Thus the Christian traveller, on passing from the church militant
into his heavenly country, into the city of his God, to his Father’s house, with
one of the thousand passages of the Holy Bible in his hands, knows that in that
he brings the infinite in the finite — a germ from God, of the developments and
the glory of which he may doubtless even now have a glimpse, but all the
grandeurs of which he cannot yet tell. Possibly it may be the smallest of seeds;
but he knows that there is to come forth from it a mighty tree, an eternal tree,
under the branches of which the inhabitants of heaven will take shelter. As to
many of these passages he can as yet, perhaps, see no more than their germ lying
within a rough shell; but he knows, at the same time, that once admitted to the
Jerusalem that is from above, under the bright effulgence of the Sun of
Righteousness, he will see beaming in those words of wisdom, on their being
brought to the light of which the Lamb is the everlasting source, splendours now
latent, and still enclosed in their first envelopment. Then it is that in art
ineffable melting of the heart with gratitude and felicity, he will discover
agreements, harmonies, and glories, which here below he but dimly saw or waited
to see with lowly reverence. Prepared in God’s eternal counsels before the
foundation of the world, and enclosed as germs in his Word of life, they will
burst forth under that new heaven, and for that new earth wherein will dwell
righteousness. The whole written Word, therefore, is inspired by God.

“Open thou mine eyes, O Lord, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law!”


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  CHAPTER 11: 08 ANALYSIS
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Analysis

Chapter 1 DEFINITION OF THEOPNEUSTIA.

Section 1. — Section 2. — Section 3. —

Section 4. —

Section 5. —

Section 1. — Section 2. —

Theopneustia defined, Theopneustia asserted, not explained, Theopneustia
rejected as to its existence, universality, plenitude, By some four degrees
distinguished, viz., — Superintendence, elevation, direction, suggestion, This
book designs, therefore, to prove existence, universality, plenitude, Man’s part
in God’s book; illustration from Pascal and Newton, Theopneustia (further)
defined and stated, Neither a priori (“ necessary”), nor from beauty, wisdom,
&c, of Scriptures, but solely on divine declaration, This addressed, of course,
to those who admit Scriptures, Scriptures declare their own Inspiration,
Individuality of sacred writers, False inferences; different statement, s
thereon, REPLY (1.) Human individuality acknowledged, (2.) God’s acting, (3.)
What is God’s style?

(4.) Human personality how employed, (5.) Inconsistency of objection to
(alleged) difficulty,

(6.) Intermittent Inspiration is complicated, rash, childish, (7.) “ALL
Scripture is given by inspiration of God,”

(8.) Inspiration in book, not in man, Three illusions: excitation, degree,
already known,

(9, 10.) Different styles — one God: illustration from music, Freiburg, (11.)
This individuality gives beauty, variety, unity, harmony

Chapter 2 SCRIPTURAL PROOF OF THEOPNEUSTIA.

All Scripture is divinely inspired (2Ti 3:16), All prophetic utterances given by
God, 2Pe 1:20-21, Section 3. —

Section 4. —

Section 5. —

What is a prophet? The prophets, in Bible, speak the words of Jehovah, False
prophets, Scripture prophecies “the words of God in mouth of man,” Scripture
prophecies sometimes without foresight, knowledge, or even desire, of prophets,
Occasional gift of prophecy, Church of Corinth had (1 Ep.xii. 4-11), —

(1) Diversities of gifts, (2.) Divided severally, (3.) The subject of desire,
(4.) Different forms, (5.) Words of Holy Ghost spoken by man, (6.) Of long
continuance,

(7.) Prophets not absolutely passive, Hence,2Pe 1:20-21establishes plenary and
entire Inspiration of Scriptures: these are written prophecies, All Old
Testament Scriptures are prophetic, The whole book is the “Word of God,” (α)
“Moses” may not be excepted, (β) Nor “the Prophets,”

(γ) Nor “the Psalms,”

Hence, the whole Old Testament is a written prophecy, All New Testament
Scriptures are prophetic, 2Pe 3:15-16, 2Pe 3:2 : — hence, writings of Apostles
are written prophecies, Writers of New Testament superior to writers of Old
Testament, in

—

(α) Mission, (β) Promises, (γ) Gifts,

(δ) Rank , Apostles are prophets (Rom 16:25); more than prophets (Mat 11:9; Mat
11:11); above the prophets (1Co 12:28), Were Mark and Luke prophets?

Luk 1:1-4, Inspiration does not imply ecstasy, Testimony of Apostles and the
Lord Jesus Christ, St Paul (Ep. Hebrews), The Lord Jesus Christ, (Unconscious
blasphemy of rationalists), (α) In the temple (Luk 2:41), (β) The temptation
(Matthew 4), (γ) At Nazareth (Luk 4:16),

(δ) Before Sadducees (Mat 22:32), (ε) Before Pharisees (Mat 22:43), (ζ) On the
cross (Mat 27:46), (η) After resurrection (Luk 24:27), (θ) Luk 16:17, and Mat
5:18, (ι) John 10:22-40, (κ) The Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), Hence,
PLENARY VERBAL INSPIRATION,

Chapter 3 DIDACTIC ABSTRACT OF THE DOCTRINE.

Section 1. — Catechetical sketch, i.-iii. Inspiration: its effects, iv.-vi.
Degrees of Inspiration: mediate revelation, vii.-xi. Inspiration and
illumination, (These differ in kind, characteristics, degree.) xii. Miraculous
gifts intermittent: Inspiration by intervals, xiii. Language fallible when
uninspired, xiv., xv. Inspiration differs from illumination in essence:
infallibility of sacred writers depends solely on Inspiration: Inspired words,
miraculous, words of God: our faith not on illumination of writers, but on
Inspiration of writings: one has degrees, other has no degrees: it goes to heart
of God, xvi. Much harm from confusion hereon; either the Word of God degraded,
or uninspired writings exalted, xvii., xviii: Rationalists the former, Jews and
Latins the latter, xix., xx: The Jewish Talmud, xxi., xxii: Papal Traditions,
xxiii.-xxvi. Inspiration shews impulsion, (will) and suggestion: internal and
external (understanding): writers were living pens: they (and the occasion)
prepared by God; their individuality sanctified, xxvii. All the Scripture (Old
Testament and New Testament) equally Inspired, xxviii. The authenticity of each
book an historical question, xxix., xxx: Test of Reformed Churches; of Luther,
xxxi.-xxxv. Jews bear testimony to authenticity of each book of Old Testament,
xxxvi., xxxvii, xxxix, Catholic Church bears testimony to each book of New
Testament, xxxviii., Apocrypha; no addition to New Testament, xl.-xliii. Church
a depositary of Scripture: that (an historical document) declares its own
PLENARY INSPIRATION.

Section 2. —

Adversaries and defenders, xliv. Adversaries — to 8th century among Heretics
(except Theodore of Mopsuestia), 2d century, Gnostics, 3d century, Manicheans,
4th century, Anomeans, 5th century, Theodore of Mopsuestia, 7th century,
Mahomet, 12th and 13th century, Talmudistic Jews — Moses Maimonides, 16th
century, Socinus and Castellio, 17th century, Fanatics, Latins, Rationalists,
18th century, Rationalists, xlv. Defenders — whole Church to days of
Reformation, Rudelbach gives REVIEW OF FIRST EIGHT CENTURIES; proves that, —

(1.) Ancient church teaches Old and New Testament Canonical writings Inspired,
(2.) Teaches infallibility of Scripture, (3.) Teaches nothing erroneous,
useless, superfluous therein, (4.) Teaches doctrine same throughout, (5.)
Teaches passive intelligent Inspiration, (6.) Teaches inecstatic Inspiration,
(7, 8.) Teaches verbal Inspiration, (9.) She respectfully quotes, &c.;
reconciles, &c., (10.) She admits liberty in phenomena, (11.) She fixes
relations; proves; replies,

Chapter 4.

OBJECTIONS EXAMINED.

Section 1. —

Section 2. —

Translations, Are they inspired?

Insignificant objection: really no objection; not bearing against fact of verbal
Inspiration; only contests advantage, Difference of original and translated
text,

(1.) Sacred writers rendered Divine thoughts by sensible symbols, (2.) Original
text written at given moment to single man, (3.) Translators learned; sacred
writers illiterate, (4.) Thought of God only found in expression of sacred
writer; but translators have Divine text,

(5.) Possible faults as to original text boundless, as to translation limited,
Hence, limitation of doubt, God required for one, Man sufficed for other, Use of
Septuagint in New Testament, How did Apostles use Septuagint? illustration, When
Septuagint correct, quoted verbatim, Section 3. —

Section 4. —

Section 5. —

Section 6. — When Septuagint incorrect, amended, When Septuagint in particular
sense, paraphrased, Various Readings, Inspiration and integrity of present
copies not to be confounded, Objection is against present integrity; a question
of history, criticism, Modern researches, unimportant results, Buchanan —
Massoretics, Divine care of Old and New Testament text, Osterwald & Martin —
illustration, comparison, Received text and ALL Greek manuscripts, Received text
and Griesbach (Ep. to Romans), Received text and Griesbach results examined,
Received text and Griesbach (Ep. to Galatians), Received text and Griesbach (and
Scholz) new.Readings, Limitation of doubt — Bengelius, ALL churches have same
Hebrew Old Testament, Greek New Testament, Errors of reasoning or doctrine,
(Supposed)reasonings, quotations, superstitions, prejudices, &c., St Jerome,
REPLY

(1.) Protest, (2.) Inconsistency — involve abandonment of principles (3.) Where
stop?

(4.) Human vanity, ignorance, Errors in narratives — contradictions in facts,
(Supposed) dates, allusions, &c.,

(1.) Scriptures always adversaries and defenders,, (2.) Ease of general
assertion. PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT: various causes,

(α) Brevity (See Scripture Index — our Lord’s resurrection, &c.), (β) Two
date-commencements (See Scripture Index), (γ) Different designs in gospels
(do.), (δ) Mistranslations, contrary meanings (do.), (ε) Repeated acts,
discourses (do.), (ζ) Disregard of various readings (do.),

(ηPoint of narration not discerned (do.), (θ) Want of care in chronology (do.),
Errors in Natural Philosophy, Jos 10:12 — illustration, Popular language of
Scripture — illustrations, Herschel, Airey, &c., Two GRAND FACTS — God says
true; knows more than directly tells us, FIRST FACT: No physical error in the
Word of God, Ancient and modern false theologies, &c., Scriptures no blunders,
absurdities: various, and true; poetical, and true, Section 7. —

SECOND FACT: Intimations escape of science of the Almighty, Profound science of
Scripture as to the earth, the heavens, light, plants, air, mountains, primary —
secondary, races of men, seas, submarine fires, subterranean waters, languages
of men, stars, heaven, God turns objections into testimonies — difficulties into
proof, Declarations of St Paul, 1Co 7:10; 1Co 7:12; 1Co 7:25, &c. &c. (See
Scripture Index),

Chapter 5.

EVASIONS EXAMINED.

Section 1. —

Section 2. —

Section 3. — Does Inspiration pertain to thoughts only, or to WORDS also ? Some
confine to thoughts only, REPLY (1.) Contrary to testimony — a Scripture of
letters and words, (2.) Irrational also — language, the mirror of the soul, (3)
Leads further — “errors (more) in ideas (than) in words,” (4, 5.) Gratuitous
hypothesis: useless, (6.) Extreme inconsistency,

(7.) Question relates to book, not to writers: latter sometimes, former always,
Inspired — unwilling prophets, The historical books, should they be excepted
from Inspiration? Some think their inspiration unnecessary, but REPLY (1.) To
them Old Testament Prophets and New Testament Apostles give striking, most
respectful testimonies, (2.) Our Lord’s manner of quotation, (3.) They reveal
the character of God, (4.) They reveal deep things of man, (5.) They reveal
angelic nature and office, (6.) Are full of the future, (7.) Their dramatic
power and indefinable charm, (8.) Divine brevity — reserve,

(9.) Divine prudence, foresight, wisdom, Details (insignificant), do they
deserve exception? St Paul. — (See Scripture Index), Important insight, lessons,
inferences,

Chapter 6.

SACRED CRITICISM, ITS RELATION TO DIVINE INSPIRATION.

(A science noble in its object, services, history, immense results; yet
necessary three warnings), Section 1. — Section 2. — Section 3. —

Criticism a scientific inquirer, not a judge — else faith undermined and
overthrown, Criticism an historian, not a soothsayer — else encourages (really
dismisses) impertinent and idle questions, Criticism the doorkeeper, not the
God, of the temple, Advice — illustration, a Roman traveller, Counsel (the
argument), study the Bible by and for itself, The Bible its own witness, The
Bible its majesty, beauty — above all Divine action in smallest parts, (1.)
Testimony of ministers, (2.) Interpreters.

(3.) Believers — Luther — Augustine, TAKE AND READ, CHAPTER 7

Conclusion.

Section 1. —

Section 2. —

1. Retrospect, Inspiration not a system, but fact: the book is Inspired: we have
to do with its words, not writers, Scripture entirely the word of man and GOD:
human individuality: not gradual intermittent Inspiration, but “everywhere and
entirely” from God: this established by Scripture, Scripture declares all
prophetic words given by God: all Old, all New Testament prophetic, warranted by
God: — Examples of the apostles and of the Lord Jesus Christ, Objections
considered: translations, readings, Septuagint in New Testament, philosophical
errors, words of St Paul, Other objections: verbal Inspiration contested,
historical writings excluded, insignificant details, &c., 2. Religious: Bible
above every thing (CHRISTIAN), Something above Bible, namely, (α) Judaism, (β)
Romanist, (γ) Impure Protestantism, (δ) Mysticism, Light and growing radiance of
Scriptures, Grace and glory, “The whole written WORD is inspired by God,”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: 09 FOOTNOTES
========================================================================

Footnotes [1] --2Ti 3:16. (Theopneust, less euphonious, would be more exact.)
[2] -- p. 1036, edit. Aurel. Allob. 1611.

[3] -- See on this number our chap. 3: Sect. 2, ques. 27.

[4] --Κατὰ τὴν ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν απὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ.

[5] -- p. 1022, edit. Francot.

[6] --Θεόχρστα (ὠν χρησμῷΘεοῦ).

[7] -- Schleiermacher, der Christliche Glaube, band 1: S. 115.

[8] -- De Wette, Lehrbuch Anmerk. Twesten, Yorlesungen über die Dogmatik, tome
1: p. 424, &c.

[9] -- Michaelis, Introd. to the New Testament.

[10] -- See our chap. 5: sect. 2, quest. 44.

[11] -- Drs Pye Smith, Dick, Wilson.

[12] --Acts 4:25; 2Sa 22:1-2. See our chap. 2: Sect. 2.

[13] -- Edwards’ Remarks, &c., p. 251.

[14] -- See on this subject the learned dissertation in which Dr Rudelbach
establishes the sound doctrines on inspiration historically, as we have sought
to establish them by Scripture. (Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Lutherische
Theologie und Kirche, von Rudelbach und Guericke, 1840.) [15] -- Lectures on the
Evidences of Christianity, p. 506.

[16] -- Vörles. ueber die Dogmatik, tome 1:

[17] -- See an Essay on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by the late John
Dick, D.D. Fourth edition. Glasgow, 1840. Chapter 1.

[18] --Ut supra.

[19] -- See further upon this passage, our Chap. III. question 27.

[20] -- Tom. IX. ed. Bipont., p. 392.

[21] -- Georg. lib. 10:

[22] -- In voce Εσίμιν.

[23] -- Vita Epimen.

[24] --John 10:34. St Paul (Rom 3:19) calls the whole Old Testament equally by
the name of LAW, trod more especially Isaiah, the Proverbs, and the Psalms
(which he quotes). This remark has not escaped Chrysostom (Homil. 8): ἐνταῦθα
τους ψαλμοὺς Νόμον ἐκάλεσεν; and Theophylact adds, και τὰ᾿Ησαίου.

[25] -- Introd., t. 1: p. 118, French edition, [26] -- Introd. tome 1, p. 118,
119, &c., French edition.

[27] -- Epiph., Haeres., 51 and others — Orig., De recta in Deum fide, Doroth.
in Synopsi. — Procop. Diacon., apud Bolland., 25th April.

[28] -- Introd., vol. 1: pp. 112-129, English ed.

[29] --Παρηχολευθηχότι. — Thus Demosthenes de Corona, 1:55. Περακολουθηκὼς τοῖς
πράγμασινἀπἀρχῆς. Theophrast., Char. Proem, 4: Σὸν δὶπαρακολουθῆσαι καὶεἰδῆσαι,
εἰὀρθώς λέγω. — Josephus, in the first lines of his book against Apion, opposes
this same word παρακολουθηκότα (diligenter assecutum) to τῷπυνθανομένῳ
(scisitanti ab aliis)

[30] -- Hist. Eccles., lib. 5: c. 17. — Ε᾿νῳἀποδείκνυσι περὸτοῦμηδένα Προφη.
τηνἐν εκστάσει λαλεῖν. — See also Incept., lib. 4: c. 24. See the same
principles in Tertullian (against Marcion, lib. 4: c. 22); in Epiphan. (Adv.
hæreses, lib. it. hæres., 48, c. 5); in Jerome (Prœmium in Nahum.); in Basil the
Great (Commentar. in Esaiam, proem, 5).

[31] -- De Discrimine Revelat. et Inspirationis.

[32] -- Mathew 11:11. Michaelis Introd. tome 1: p. 116-129, French translation.
(That author thinks, that in this passage the least means the least prophet.)
[33] -- Letter from Warsaw, 22d March 1827.

[34] -- In the Talmud of Jerusalem — Encycl. Method. at the word Juifs.

[35] --Mark 7:9, see also 13: and Mat 15:3-9. The mischief of those traditions
begins at last to reveal itself to the Jews of our days: “The time is come,”
says the Israelite doctor Creissenach (Entwlckelungs Geschichte des Mosaischen
Ritual Gesetzes, Pref.), “the time is come when the Talmud will precipitate the
Jewish religion into the most profound and humiliating downfall, if all the
popular teachers of the Jews do not loudly declare that its statutes are of
human origin, and may be changed.”

[36] -- Censure of 1588.

[37] -- Council of Trent, session 4, 2d decree of 28th April 1546. — Bellarmin.
De Eccl. lib. 3: cap. 14; lib. 4: cap. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8. — Coton, lib. 2: cap. 24,
34, 35. — De Perron contre Tilenus.

[38] -- Council of Trent, first decree, session 4.

[39] -- It was in vain that the Abbot Isidore Clarius represented at the Council
that there was temerity in ascribing inspiration to a writer who himself assures
us that, he had none (Father Paul, Hist. of the Council of Trent, p. 148 of
Edition London, 1676).

[40] -- See Thomas James, Bellum Papale sive Concordia Discors Sexti V. et
Clementis VIII.

[41] -- Bellarmin. De Verbo Dei, lib. 4:

[42] -- Idem, lib. 3: — Charron, Verite 3. — Coton, lib. 2: cap. 19. — Bayle,
traité.

[43] -- Bellarmin. De Verbo Dei, lib. 2: cap. 19.

[44] -- Bellarmin. lib. 4: cap. 3, and De Perron contre Tilenus. — Coton, lib.
2: cap. 24.

[45] -- Id. Bellarmin. lib. 4: cap. 5. — Coton, lib. 2: cap. 34, 35. — Council
of Trent, sess. 4.

[46] -- Concil., Harduini, t. 9: p. 1893.

[47] -- Clement XI. of 8th September 1713.

[48] -- Proposition 79.

[49] -- Proposition 80.

[50] -- Quisquis elanguerit erga venerabilium imaginum adorationem
(προσκύνησιν), hunc anathemizat sancta nostra et universalis synodus! (was
written to the Emperor, in the name of the whole Second Council of Nice).
(Concil., tom. 7: p. 585).

[51] -- Adv. Hæres., lib. 3: cap. 2. “Cum enim ex Scripturis arguuntur, in
accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum, quasi non recte habeant, neque
sint ex auctoritate, et quia varie sunt dictæ, et quia non possit ex his
inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciant traditionem. Non enim per litteras traditam
illam, sed per vivam vocem.”

[52] -- Claude Œuvres Posthumes, vol. 4: p. 238.

[53] -- See Krebs and Læsner, on 2Ti 3:15.

[54] -- He was born in the year 37. See his Life, Edit. Aureliæ Allobr. p. 999.

[55] -- Contra Apion, lib. 1: p. 1837, (δύο μόνα πρὸς τοῖςἐίκοσι βιβλία.) Our
Bibles reckon thirty-nine books in the Old Testament; but Josephus.and the
ancient Jews, by making one book each of the two books of Samuel, of Kings, and
of Chronicles, by throwing together Ruth and Judges, Esdras and Nehemiah,
Jeremiah and Lamentations, and finally, Hosea and the eleven minor prophets that
follow respectively, into one book, reduced our modern calculation of their
sacred books by seventeen units.

[56] --᾿Ούτε ΠΡΟΣΘΕΙΝΑΙ τις οὐδὲν οὔτε ΑΦΕΑΕΙΝ αὐτῶν, οὔτε ΜΕΤΑΟΕΙΝΑΙ
τετόλμηκεν.

[57] --Εὐθὺςἐκ τῆς πρωτης γενέσεωςὀνομάζειν ΘΕΟΥ ΔΟΓΜΑΤΑ (according to others:
from the first generation.)

[58] --῾Υπὲρ αὐτῶν εἰδέοι ζνήσκεινἠδίως.

[59] --Πίστεως δὶουχ᾿ὁμοίαςἠξίωται.

[60] -- In his preface to the Epistles of James and Jude.

[61] -- Ob sie Christum treiben, oder nicht.

[62] -- Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik, 1829, I. B. p. 421-429.

[63] -- See Josephus agt. Appion, 54: 1: p. 1037. Philo in Eichorn. Joseph. in
Nov. Repert., p. 239. De Ægypticis Judæis; cf. Eichorn-Einleit ins A. T. R. I.,
§21, p. 73, 89, 91, 113, 114, 116. De Sadducceis, §35, p. 95. And Semler (App.
ad liberal., V. T. interpret., p. 11.) Eichorn Alg. Bibl. der Bibl. Litterat. T.
IV. p. 275, 276.

[64] -- See this quotation at question 27.

[65] --Acts 15:21. Josephus often attests the same fact.

[66] -- Following the example of the Scripture, we believe we may employ the
word church as denoting, sometimes all that are enclosed in the nets of the
Gospel, sometimes only all that in these is pure and living. And as for the word
sect (αἵρεσις, Acts 24:14; Acts 26:5; Acts 28:22), following the apostle’s
example, we employ it here neither in- a good sense nor in a bad sense.

[67] -- Joseph. agt. Ap. book I. 8. Euseb. H. E. lib. III. c. 9: 10:

[68] -- Exposition of the Book of Job. See Father Paul’s Hist. of the C. of
Trent, book it. p. 143. (London, 1676.)

[69] -- Origen (Euseb. H. E. lib. 4: c. 26). St Athanasius (Pascal Epistle). St
Hilary (Prolog. in Psalmos, p. 9. Paris, 1693.) St Epiph. (Lardner, vol. 4: p.
312.) St Gregory Nazianzen (Carm. 33, Op. tom. 2: p. 98).

[70] -- In præf, ad libr. Regum; sire Prologo-galeato. (See Lard. vol. 5: p.
16-22). Judith, et Tobiæ et Macchabæorum libros legit quidem celesta: sed eas
inter canonicas Scripturas non recipit (Præfat. In Libros Salom-Epist. 115). See
also Symbolum Ruffini, tom. 9: p. 186 (Paris, 1602). “Some thought it strange
that five cardinals and forty-eight bishops should so easily define the most
principal and important points of religion, never “decided before, giving
canonical authority to books held for uncertain and apocryphal,” &c. — Father
Paul’s Hist. of the C. of Trent, book it. p. 153 (London, 1676). Most were
Italians.

[71] -- Plotius contra Manich., t. 1,; apud Wolf. anecd., p. 32 sq. I. Ciampini
Romans vetera monum., 1: p. 126 sq. All the Christian congregations in the East,
even the poorest, kept a collection of the sacred books in their oratories. See
Scholz Proleg.

[72] -- Cyrill. Alex. in Apol. ad Theodos., imp. Act. Concil. ed. Mansi, t. 6:
col. 579, 7: col. 6, 9: col. 187, 12: col. 1009, 1052, al. Prohibition, under
pain of excommunication, against selling the sacred book to druggists, or other
merchants, who don’t buy them to read (6th Council, in Trullo. Can. 63).

[73] -- Corb. byz., 1: p. 422, al.

[74] -- See St Jerome, pref. on Job. S. Chrysost. Horn. 19, De Statuis. Women,
says he, are wont to suspend copies of the Gospels from their children’s necks.
See the 68th canon of the VI. Coun. in Trullo.

[75] -- Hosius contra Brentium, lib. 3: Eckius, de auth. Ecclesiæ. Bayli
Traetat. 1, Catech., 9. 12. Andradius, lib. 3: Defens. Conc. Trident. Stapleton,
adv. Wittaker, lib. 1: c. 17.

[76] -- Evangelio non crederem (according to the African usage for credidissem,
as confession, lib. 2: e. 8: Si tune amarem, for amavissem) nisi me Ecclesiæ
commoveret (commovisset) authoritas (ch. 5). (This, besides, is very classical
Latin: Non ego hoc ferrem, says Horace, for tulissem, lib. 3: ode 14). Eos
sequamur qui nos invitant prius credere, quum nondum valemus intueri, ut ipsâ
fide valentiores facti, quod credimus intelligere mereamur, non jam hominibus,
sed ipso Deo intrinsecus mentem nostram firmante et illuminante (c. 14). Qpera
August., Paris, Mabillon, t. 8:

[77] -- Turretini, Theologia elenct., vol. 1: loc 2, quest. 6.

[78] -- Qui solœcismos in verbis facit, qui non potest hyperbaton reddere,
sententiamque concludere. (Comment. in epist. ad Titum. lib. 1: [ad cap. 1:1.]
Et ad Ephes., lib. 2: [ad cap. 3: 1.] See also his Comment on the Ep. to the
Galatians).

[79] -- Proem. in Ep. ad Galat., lib. 2:

[80] -- Du Pin, doctor of the Sorbonne. Prolegom. on the Bible, 54, 1, 5, 256.

[81] -- Agobard, adv. Fredeg. lib. c. 9-12.

[82] -- Rudelbach, Zeitschrift, 1st part, 1840, p. 48.

[83] --᾿Ανόμοιοσ: hence their name.

[84] -- Epiphan., Advers. hær., LXX. 6: Ætii salutat. Confut., 6:

[85] -- Acta concilii Constantinop., 2, 65, 71, apud Harduin. Acta Concil., tom.
3: p. 87-89.

[86] -- See Josephus agt. Apion. lib. 1: c. 7, 8; and Philo, ed Hæschel, p. 515,
and p. 918.

[87] -- Mosis Maimonides, More Nebuchim, part~ 2: c. 37, et 45. Rudelbach (ut
supra) p. 53.

[88] -- De Author. Script.

[89] -- In Dialogis.

[90] -- Theol. Elenct., loc. 2, quæst. 5.

[91] -- Preface to Schultens’s Compendium, on the Proverbs, by Vogel. Italic,
1769, p. 5.

[92] -- De interpret, narrationum mirabil. N. N. (at; the beginning of his
Ernesti.) [93] -- Einleitung in das alte Testament; 4 edit., Gœtting., 1824,
tom. 4: p. 45.

[94] -- Zweyte Verbesserte Auflage. Berlin 1822, p. 276. Lehrbuch. Anmerkungen.

[95] -- Einleitung, &c., 2d edit. 1821.

[96] -- Sentiments de quelques theologiens de Holland. Lett. XI. XII. La Chamb.,
Traité de la Religion, tom. 4: p. 159, and the following.

[97] -- Kaum ist irgend ein Punet, worüber im Alterthume eine grössere und
freudigere Einstimmigkeit herrschte. (Zeitschrift yon Rudelbach und Guerike,
1840, 1st vol. p. 1-47. Die lehre von der Inspiration der heiligen Schrift, mit
Berücksichtigung der neuesten Untersuchungen darüber, von Schleiermacher,
Twesten und Steudel.) [98] -- Legatio pro Christianis, c. 9.

[99] -- Ad Græcos cohortatio, c. 8.

[100] -- Tertullian adv. Marcion. lib. 4: ch. 22.

[101] -- Hieronym., Proem. in Nahum. Præfat. in Habak. in Esaiam, Epiphan. adv.
Hæreses, lib. 2: Hæres., 48, c. 3.

[102] -- In his letter to Aristides, on the agreement of the Gospels that relate
the two genealogies of Jesus Christ. — (Euseb., Hist. Eccl. lib. 1: C. 7.) [103]
-- Advers. Hæreses, lib. 2: c. 47. Lib. 3: c. 11. Lib. 4: c. 34.

[104] -- De animâ, c. 28, Advers. Marcion. lib. 4: c. 22. De Præscript. advers,
hæret., c. 25. Advers. Hermog. c. 22.

[105] -- De Opere et eleemos: p. 197-201. Adv. Quirim, Adv. Judæos, præfat.

[106] -- Hom. xxxix, in Jerem. (quoted here ch. VI. sect. 1.) Homil. 2: in
cured. (cap. 19: & 1.) Homil. 25: in Matth. Ejusdem Philocalia, lib. 4:
Commentar. in Matth. p. 227-428, (edit. Huet.) Homil. xxvii, in Numer. — in
Levit., homil, 5:

[107] -- Homil. 49: in Joan. Homil. 40, in Joan. 5: Homil. 9, in 2 Timothy 4 :
Serm. 53, de utilit, leer. Script. Serm. 3, de Lazaro.

[108] -- Apol. 1: c. 53, and 35, 50, 51. Dial. cont. Tryph., cap. 7. Ad Græcos
cohort., c. 8.

[109] --Σύντομος λόγος περὶπίστεως. De doctrin. Christi. lib. 2: c. 9. De
Pastor., cap. 2. Epist. 42:

[110] -- Epist. xcvii. (ad Hieronym.) De unitate Ecclasiae. C. 3: t. 9, p. 341.
(Paris, 1694.) [111] -- Contra Gentes, t. 1: p. 1. De Incarnat. Christi.
(Parisiis 1627.) [112] -- Ad Constant. Aug., p. 244. De Trinit. lib. 8.
(Parisiis, 1652.)

[113] -- Comment. in Isaiam, t. 1: p. 379. (Ed. Bened.) Homil. 29: advers,
calumniantes S. Trinit. In Ethicis regni 16: lxxx., cap. 22.

[114] -- Moralia in Job, Praefat., c. 1:

[115] -- Dialog. De anima et ressurrectione, t. 1: edit. Graecolat. P. 639. De
cognit. Dei cit. Ab. Euthymio in Panoplia, t. 8.

[116] -- Dial. 1: ᾿Αρεπτ. Dial. 2: ᾿Ασύγχυν. In Exodus, Qu. 26: In Genesis
Quest. 45:

[117] -- Lib. 7: cont. Jul. Glaphyrorum in Genesis, lib. 2:

[118] -- See Lardner, vol. 2: p. 172, 488. 475. Haldane, The Inspiration of the
Holy Scriptures, p. 167 to 176.

[119] -- Caveat omnia apocrypha … Sciat multa his admixta vitiosa, et grandis
esse prudentiæaurum in luto quærere. See Epist. Ad Lætam. Prolog. Galeat. sire
Præfat. ad. lib. Regum. Symbol. Ruffini, tom. 9: p. 186. See Lardner, vol. 5: p.
18-22.

[120] -- See Korholt. De Variis S. Scripturæ editionibus, p. 110-251. Thomas
James, Bellum Papale, sire Concordia Discors Sixti V. etc., Lend. 1600.
Hamilton’s Introduction to the Reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, p. 163,166.

[121] -- The Talmud even forbids the translation of the Scriptures, except into
Greek. (Talmud Megillah, fol. 86.) [122] -- Michaelis, t. 2: p. 206.

[123] -- Einleitung, 2. Th. s. 700.

[124] -- Wiseman’s Discourses on the Relations, etc., 2: Disc. 10.

[125] -- See Christian Observer, vol. 12: p. 170. Examen d’un exemplaire Indien
du Pentateuque, p. 8. Horne’s Introduction and Appendix, p. 95, edition 1818.

[126] -- Proleg. In Bibl. Polyglott. Bagsteriana (4: sec. 2).

[127] -- Examen variantium lectionum, J. Millii, Lond. 1710.

[128] -- One sole manuscript, among three hundred and fifty, that of Stephanus,
of the 8th or 9th century, puts an article before the name of God, which would
not even change the meaning here.

[129] -- We know that Mr Wordsworth, to ascertain the meaning that was given to
that passage and the following (Eph 5:5; 2Th 1:12; 2Ti 4:1; Jude 1:4; 2Pe 1:1;
Jas 1:1; 1Ti 1:1), at the time when the Greek was a living tongue, was not
afraid to consult; the voluminous writings of seventy Greek and sixty Latin
contemporary fathers, and that he saw that they invariably put the same sense on
these constructions, as designating one and the same person. In the space of a
thousand years (from the 2d to the 12th century) he found fifty-four authorities
of Greek fathers and sixty of Latin fathers, unanimously giving the same meaning
to those words of Paul (Tit 2:13): Our great God and Saviour. The heretics
themselves, says he, during the long triumph of Arianism,

[130] -- That of several Latin fathers of the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th centuries;
that of the Latin Vulgate, more ancient than the most ancient manuscripts of our
libraries (supposed to date from the 5th or the close of the 4th century): and,
above all, that of the Confession of Faith publicly presented in 484, by four
hundred bishops of Africa, to the king of the Vandals, who, as an Arian,
persecuted them, and called on them to give an account of their doctrines. —
(See the Dissertations of Mill, Griesbach, Bengel, Wetstein, and Lee.) [131] --
Read Michaelis, vol. 2: p. 266. Eichhorn, Einleitung, 2th. S, 700. Edit. Lips.,
1824.

[132] -- Archives du Christianisme, tom. 7: No. 17. Wiseman’s Discourses on the
Relations of Science, &c., vol. 2: p. 189.

[133] -- Scholz has quoted 674 for the gospel alone.

[134] -- Comment. on the Ep. to the Galatians (book 2),to Titus (book 1: on
1:1), and to the Ephes. (book 2: on 3:1.)

[135] -- This was his opinion some years ago. We know not whether this
professor, whose learning and candour we have admired in his translation of the
New Testament, has not withdrawn such assertions.

[136] -- This is the title of his book (translated from the English by Lambert,
Paris, 1838.) “He says he understands by it, the separation of the New Testament
into Word of God or moral precepts, and word of man or facts of the sensible
world.”

[137] -- We have not felt ourselves called upon to answer such charges. It would
be going out of our subject. The Lord’s coming is nigh to each of us; from one
instance to another, three sighs separate us from it. When a man dies he is
immediately transported to the day of Jesus Christ. As for the distance of that
day relatively to this world, see in the 2d chap. of the 2d. Ep. to the
Thessalonians if the apostle Paul deceived himself about it.

[138] -- A rabid dog against Christ. Preface to his Eccles. writers.

[139] --Τὸν καθ᾿ἡμῶν συσκευὴνὑπερζολῇμισοῦς προδεδλημένος, says Eusebius, in
speaking of him. — Euseb. Prepar. Evangel., book 10: ch. 9, and Eusebius’
Eccles. Hist. 6:19.

[140] -- He says himself, that on the criticism of the gospels he had studied
and collected from Celsus to Paulus, and even to the fragments of Wolfenbüttel.

[141] -- De Autor. Script.

[142] -- In Dialogis.

[143] -- Théol. elencht., tom. 1: p. 74.

[144] -- In Reg. 8:17.

[145] -- Defence of Dr Haffner’s Preface to the Bible.

[146] -- Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity.

[147] -- Vorlesungen uber die Dogmatik, t. 1: pp. 421-429, Hamburg, 1829.

[148] -- Possumus ergo dicere his potius codicibus esse credendum qui Jeremiæ
nomen non habent. (De consensu Evang. lib. 3: cap. 7.)

[149] -- Legi nuper, in quodam Hebraico volumine quod Nazarenæ sectæ Hebræus
mihi obtulit, Hieremiæ apocryphum, in quo hæc ad ver bum scripta reperi.
(Hieron. in Matthew 27) [150] -- Pag. 224-231. Lugduni, 1620.

[151] -- Zweiter Band, p. 517, Kœnigsberg, 1834.

[152] -- Evangel. Kirehen-Zeitung, Aug. 1841, § 489-523.

[153] -- This is a remark of Hengstenberg’s. We recommend his dissertation to
readers desirous of a more ample explanation. In order to show a priori, the
improbability of the contradictions imputed to the Evangelists, he makes it
certain that Mark had evidently Matthew’s work before his eyes and John that of
Luke. “An attentive comparison,” says he, “of Luk 7:12 with John 3:6-19 does not
permit us to doubt this. John in order to make his narrative, which is more
complete, clearly harmonize with that of Luke, borrows from him almost all the
terms he had employed.”

[154] -- Jewish War, 2:13.

[155] -- This difficulty is hardly any longer insisted on. We can do no more
here than point to the solution of it. Its exposition requires development which
would be inadmissible in these pages. It may be easily found elsewhere.

[156] -- Ant. Jude. 17:15; 18:8.

[157] -- Lausanne, 1839, p. 105.

[158] -- Others, taking πρώτη in the sense of πρωτίρα as in the πρῶτός μου η῏ν
of John the Baptist (John 1:15; John 1:30), translate, “This census took place
before Cyrenius was governor of Syria.” This translation would still be
legitimate, though perhaps less natural, because the Greek, with this meaning,
would less resemble St Luke’s ordinary style.

[159] -- See Horne’s Introd., vol. 2: p. 3, book 2d, § 4.

[160] -- In the first edition of this work, we corrected here the faulty
interpretation given of Job 37:8. We have suppressed it only to make room for
other objections.

[161] -- See Whitby on Mat 5:5.

[162] -- For example, Mat 5:13; Mat 5:39. The whole 6Tobit , 7 th chap., 6-16.

[163] -- Hieron, in Isaiam, 8: 2 (in the LXX. Ζαχαρίαν υἱὸν Βαραχίου.) [164] --
Prolegom. de Walton, 12.

[165] -- Whitby’s Commentary on Mat 23:35.

[166] -- Bell. Judaic., lib. 4: c. 19.

[167] --παρώξυνι δ᾿αὐτοὺς τὸλίαν τἀιδρὸς μισοπόνηρον καὶφιλελεύθερον.

[168] --Επιειυχέσταταν.

[169] -- In his Commentary on 2Ki 8:17, and 1Ki 15:1.

[170] -- See, for further details, the authors whom we have quoted, and in
particular the useful compilation of Horne. — (Introduction to the Critical
Study of the Bible).

[171] -- Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. 1: c. 7.

[172] -- One may read, besides, on this miracle, some striking historical and
geological considerations in Chaubard’s Elements de Geologie.

[173] -- Panthier, Les livres sacrés de l’Orient (Paris, 1840), pp. 15, 89, 94,
146, &c.

[174] -- Modern Uni. Hist. vol. 6: p. 275.

[175] -- On False Knowledge, book 3: chap. 24.

[176] -- Encycl. ou Dict. rais. des Sciences, &c., t. 1: p. 663. (Lucca, 1758).

[177] -- Encycl. ou Dict. rais. des Sciences, &c., t. 1: p. 664.

[178] -- Essays, book 2: chap. 12.

[179] --Job 26:7 (χρεμάζων γῆν επὶοὐδενός).

[180] --Neh 9:6; Col 1:16; Dan 7:10, compare with Jude 1:6; Genesis 3 :l, 13,
15; Rev 20:2; Rev 12:9; Rev 12:12; Gen 3:24; John 8:44; 2Pe 2:4; 2Pe 2:9-10;
John 12:31.

[181] -- It has made use of it only once, and that in speaking of something
quite different from the heavens, Col 1:5.

[182] -- This hypothesis of etherial pulsations and of a vibrating medium
expanded every where, was the constant idea of ~his incomparable philosopher, in
his most elevated views on the constitution of the universe. He even deduced
from it the explanation of all the phenomena of combination, cohesion,
elasticity, and of movement, which seem to be produced by intangible and
imponderable principles. — (See his Letter to Dr Boyle on the Cause of Weight:
his Memoir addressed to the Royal Society of London in Dec. 1675: and two
articles of Baron Meurice in the Bibl. Uni. de Genève, 1822, p. 79).

[183] -- Memoires de Marcel de Serres.

[184] -- Bibliothèque Universelle, 58, 1835.

[185] -- The oscillations of the ecliptic, including both sides of its mean
position, cannot exceed 1.333 degree.

[186] -- See Leslie’s Calculations.

[187] -- Annuaire du Bur. des Longitudes, 1835, p. 196. Arago, in this
calculation, supposes that 800 millions form the population of the globe, and
that the ball only of that number can work.

[188] -- See Sumner, The Records of the Creation, vol. 1: p. 286; and Professor
Zimmerman, Histoire Geographique de l’Homme; Wise-man, Third Discourse on the
Natural History of the Human Race, vol. 1: p. 149.

[189] --Job 28:5. Literally, “Underneath it is turned up, and as it were fire.”

[190] -- Water dilates by 1-23d in passing from the temperature of melting ice
to that of boiling water: a rise of 16 or 17 degrees of Reaumur will augment its
volume, then, by 1-111th. Now we find, by an easy calculation, that the quantity
of water necessary to submerge the earth to the height of 1-1000th of the radius
of our globe, is equal to 1-333d of its entire volume, or to 1-111th of its
third. If; then, we suppose the third of the terrestrial globe to be metallic
(at the specific mean weight of 12½), that the second third is solid (at the
weight of 2½), and that the third third is water; then, let, the mean specific
weight of the whole globe will be equal to 5½ (according to the conclusions of
Maskeline and of Cavendish); and, 2d, a rise of 16 degrees of Reaumur in the
mean temperature of the mass of the waters, would suffice, in the days of the
deluge, to submerge the earth to the depth of 6368 metres — that is to say, to
1546 metres above Mont Blanc. This was very nearly the hypothesis previously
suggested by Sir Henry Englefield.

[191] -- Memoires du Dr J. L. Prevost, à Genève.

[192] -- Elemens de Geologic par Chaubard; 1 vol. in 8vo, Paris. — The author
establishes there, by numerous arguments, the chronological coincidence of
Joshua’s miracle with the deluges of Ogyges and Deucalion. He there remarks,
that these two cataclysms relate to the same epoch, lasted the same time, were
accompanied with the same catastrophes, and produced currents in the same
direction, flowing from west to east.

[193] --Deu 8:7 : “A land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that
spring out of valleys and hills” (תהמת). See also Isa 35:6; Eze 31:4; Psa
78:15-16.

[194] -- Throughout.

[195] --Les Livres sacrés de l’Orient, comprenant le Chouking, ou Livre par
excellence le See Chou, ou les Quatre livres moraux de Confucius et de ses
disciples; les Lois de Manou, premier legislateur de l’Inde; le Koran de
Mahomet, par Pauthier, Paris 1840.

[196] -- De la Verité de la religion Chrètienne, pp. 613, 614.

[197] -- La dernière edition d’ Amsterdam. Maimonides has made a learned extract
from it in his Yad Hachazakah. See Prideau, Histoire des Juifs, Amsterdam, vol.
2: p. 130.

[198] -- Concile de Trent, sess. 4, 1James , 2 d decrees, published 28th Apr.
1546. Bellarmin. de Verbo Dei, lib. 4: cap. 3, 5, 6. Coton, lib. 2: cap. 24, 34,
35. Baile Traité 1: du Perron contre Tilenus.

[199] --Homilia 2: in Jerem., cap. 1.

[200] -- “Utrumque poculum bibe Veteris et Novi Testamenti, quia ex utroque
Christum bibis. Bibe Christum, ut bibas sanguinem quo redemptus es: bibe
Christum, ut bibas sermones ejus. Bibitur Scriptura sacra, et devoratur
Seriptura divina, cum in venas mentis ac vires animi succus verbi desccndit
eterni.” (Ambrosius in Psalm i Enarratio.

[201] -- Mira profunditas eloquiorum tuorum, quorum ecce ante nos superficies
blandiens parvulis; sed mira profunditas, Deus mcus, mira profunditas! Horror
est intendere in earn, horror honoris et tremor amoris! (Confess. lib. 12: cap.
14.) [202] -- See Proemium in epist. ad Philem.

[203] -- Rousseau’s Emile.

[204] --The Verbal Inspiration of the Old and New Testament maintained and
established, by Robert Haldane, Esq. Edinburgh 1830. We warmly recommend to our
readers the book of a man whose memory ought to be dear to our churches, and
whose short residence at Geneva bore so much fruit. We would also refer, on the
same subject, to a treatise by Mr Alexander Carson: The Theories of Inspiration,
&e. &c. Dublin 1830. Both these works have been of much use to us.

[205] -- Or Olympias. This name might have been that of a woman; but it is
probably that of a man.

[206] -- See on this subject the excellent dissertation of Pastor Bost:; “Du
pouvoir deSt Pierre dans l’ Eglise. Geneva 1833.”

[207] -- Introduction to the New Testament, by Michaelis, vol. 2: p. 17; vol. 1:
pp. 206, 214 (English translation.)

[208] -- Sic, per dictionum multas voces, una consonans melodia in nobis
sentietur, laudans hymnis Deum qui fecit omnia,” According to the Greek, as
preserved by John Damascenus: Διὰτη῏ς τω῏ν λίξιων κολυφωνίας, σύμφωνον
μέλοςἐνἡμι3ν αἰσθήσεται. (Adv. Hæreses, lib. 2: c. 47.) [209] -- Origenes
adamantius, Hom. xxxix, in Jerem. 44:22.

[210] --Πολλὴνὠφίλειαν.

[211] --᾿Εργατικόνἧν.

[212] -- And he adds, Ταῦτο μοι τὸρποοίμιον ει῏ρηται καθολικῶς χρήσιμον ει῏ναι
δυναμίνον εἰςὁλην τνvν γραφὴν, ἱνα προτράπωσιν οἱθέλοντες προσέχειν τῇἁνάγνωσει,
μηδὲν παραπέμπισθαιἀναξίτασψον καὶἁνεξερεύνητον γραμμά.

[213] -- Irenæus, Adv. Hæres., lib. 2: Cap. 47.

[214] -- Millii Proleg., § 108.

[215] -- Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments. Stuttgart 1821.

[216] -- Vol. 6: p. 220-250.

[217] -- Introduction, &e., vol. 1: p. 112-129.

[218] -- Historisch-kritischer Versuch, &c. Minden 1818.

[219] -- Horne’s Introd. vol. 2: p. 443, edit. 1818.

[220] -- Bishop Marsh’s Michaelis, vol. 3: Par. 2: p. 361.

[221] -- Veysie’s Examination, p. 56.

[222] -- Remarks on Michaelis’ Introd. to the New Testament, the 32d and
following pages, Horne’s introd, 2: p. 458. Ed. 1818.

[223] -- “Μυρία φιλα καὶσύμφανα.” Theophilus ad Autolyc., lib. 1: cap. 36. See
also Justin Martyr, ad Græcos cohort. c. 8.

[224] -- See Preface to the History of the Reformation.

[225] -- This is the doctrine of the Ultramontatists, supported both by popes
(Pascal, Pius, Leo, Pelagius, Boniface, Gregory) and by councils. Bellarmin,
Dural, and Arsdekin assure us that it is the common sentiment of all theologians
of any note. “Haec doctrina communis est inter omnes notæ theologos.” (Arsdekin,
Theol, vol. 1: p. 118, Antwerp 1692.

[226] -- Prohibemus etiam, ne libros Veteris Testamenti aut Novi laici
permittantur habere, nisi forte psalterium, vel breviarium pro divinis ofliciis,
aut horas beatæ Maritæ, aliquis ex devotione habere velit. Sed ne præmissos
libros habeant in vulgari translatos, arctissimè inhibemus. (The 14th canon of
the Council of Toulouse, under Pope Gregory IX., year 1229.) Concilia Labbæi,
tom. 2: par. 1-8, Paris 1771.

[227] -- Thessalonians 2:1-12; Rev 13:1-8; Rev 18:1-24. St Jerome, Exhortat. to
Marcella to induce her to emigrate from Rome to Bethlehem: “Lege Apocalypsim
Johannis, et quid de muliere purpurata,” &c… “septem montibus, et Babylonis
cantetur exitu, contuere,” &c… “Tertullian: Sic et Babylon apud Johannen nostrum
Romanæ urbis figura est,” &c. (Adv. Judæos, Parisiis 1675.)

[228] -- Chrysostom (Horn. 4: in 2d epist, ad Thessal., c. 2.) “What hindered,”
says he (of his own time) “the manifestation of the man of sin, was the Roman
Empire: ‘ΤουτίστινἡἀρχὴΡωμαική. Οτανἀρθηἰκ μισοῦἐκεῖνοςἤξει.’”.

[229] -- Irenæus, Adv. Hær. lib. 2: cap. 47: ΙναὁΘεὸς διδάσκη, αἴνθρωπος
δὲδιὰπαντὸς μανθάνῃΘεοῦ.


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