WITH PRELIMINARY REMARKS:
By the same Author.
A PLAIN COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR HOLY GOSPELS.
7 vols. Fcap. 8vo.
NINETY SHORT SERMONS FOR FAMILY READING. 2 vols. Fcap. 8vo.
THE PORTRAIT OF A ChristIAN GENTLEMAN: A MEMOIR OF P. F. TYTLER, ESQ. (2nd. Ed.) 1859. Crown 8vo.
WITH PRELIMINARY REMARKS:
Oxford & London:
J. H. and Jas. PARKER.
1861.
Printed by Messrs. Parker, Cornmarket, Oxford.
My Dear Friend,
Let me have the satisfaction of inscribing this volume to yourself. I know of no one who has more faithfully devoted himself to the sacred cause of Christian Education no one to whom those blessed Truths are more precious, which of late have been so unscrupulously assailed, and which the ensuing pages are humbly designed to uphold in their integrity.
Affectionately yours,
JOHN W. BURGON.
ΔΕΙ ΓΑΡ ΚΑΙ ἉΙΡΕΣΕΙΣ ἘΝ ὙΜΙΝ ΕΙΜΑΙ, ἹΝΑ ΟΙ ΔΟΚΙΜΟΙ
ΦΑΝΕΡΟΙ ΓΕΝΩΝΤΑΙ ἘΝ ὙΜΙΝ.
Ac si diceret: Ob hoc haerescôn non statim divinitus eradicantur auctores, ut probati manifesti fiant; id est, ut unusquisque quam tenax, et fidelis, et fixus Catholicae fidei sit amator, appareat. Et revera cum quaeque novitas ebullit, statim cernitur frumentorum gravitas, et levitas pelearum: tunc sine magno molimine excutitur ab arcâ, quod nullo pondere intra aream tenebetur.—Vincentius Lirinensis, Adversus Haereses, § 20.
I AM unwilling that this volume should go forth to the world without some account of its origin and of its contents.
I. Appointed last year, (without solicitation on his part,) to the office of Select Preacher, the present writer was called upon at the commencement of the October Term to address the University. His Sermon, (the first in the volume,) was simply intended to embody the advice which he had already orally given to every Undergraduate who had sought counsel at his hands for many years past in Oxford; advice which, to say the truth, he was almost weary of repeating. Nothing more weighty or more apposite, at all events, presented itself, for an introductory address: nor has a review of the current of religious opinion, either before or since, produced any change of opinion as to the importance of what was on that first occasion advocated.
Another, and another, and yet another preaching turn unexpectedly
presented itself, in the course of the same Term; and the IInd, IIIrd, and IVth
of the ensuing Sermons, (preached on alternate Sundays,) were the result. The study
of the Bible had been advocated in the first Sermon; but it was urged from a
hundred quarters that a considerable amount of unbelief The reader is invited to refer to the passages cited in
the present volume, at pp. lxxxvii. and lxxxviii. See p. 47
to p. 50. Also Appendix (B.)
It is not necessary to speak particularly of the contents of
the next two Sermons; except to say that the train of thought thus started conducted
the author inevitably over ground which was already occupied in the public mind
by a volume which had already In illustration of what is meant, may be particularized
a highly
objectionable Sermon which Dr. Temple preached before the University some years
ago, and which occasioned no small offence to many who heard it,—as all in
Oxford well remember. It was almost as unsound as the same writer’s Essay “On the Education of the
World,” which, to the best of my remembrance, it strongly resembled.—A
printed Sermon by Dr. Temple may also be referred to, “preached on Act-Sunday,
July 1, 1860, before the University of Oxford, during the Meeting of the British
Association,” entitled “The present
Relations of Science to Religion.”—Professor Jowett’s handling of the Doctrine of the
Atonement, needs only to be referred to. Page 80 to
82.
But in the meantime, the respectability of the authors of that
volume had attracted to their work an increasing share of notice. An able article
in the ‘Westminster Review’ first aroused public attention. A still
abler in the ‘Quarterly’ awoke the Church to a sense of the enormity of the offence
which had been committed. It was not that danger
was apprehended. There could be but one opinion as
to the essential impotence of the attack. But the circumstances which aroused public
indignation were twofold. First,—Here was a conspiracy
against the Faith. Seven Critics had avowedly combined “to illustrate
the advantage derivable to the cause of Religious and Moral Truth from a free handling,
in a becoming spirit, of” what they were pleased to characterize as “subjects
peculiarly liable to suffer by the repetition of conventional language, and from
traditional modes of treatment “To the reader,” prefixed
to Essays and
Reviews.
Secondly,—“Essays and Reviews” attracted notice because six
of its authors were Ministers of the Church of England.
Here were six Clergymen openly making light of
their sacred profession, and apparently worse than regardless of their Ordination
vows. As an infidel but certainly in this instance most truthful as well as able
Reviewer, remarked concerning the work in question,—“In their ordinary, if not
plain sense, there has been discarded the Word of God, the Creation, the Fall,
the Redemption, Justification, Regeneration, and Salvation, Miracles, Inspiration,
Prophecy, Heaven and Hell, Eternal punishment and a Day of Judgment, Creeds, Liturgies,
and Articles, the truth of Jewish History and of Gospel narrative; a sense of doubt
thrown over even the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and Ascension, the Divinity
of the Second Person, and the personality of the Third. It may be that this is a
true view of Christianity; but we insist, in the name of common sense, that it is a new view. Surely it is waste
of time to argue that it is agreeable to Scripture, and not contrary to the Canons
‘Neo-Christianity’ in the Westminster
Review, No. 36.—How true is what follows:—“The Bible is one; and it is too late now to propose to divide it. We shall only
point out that the moral value of the Gospel teaching becomes
suspicious when the whole miraculous element
is discarded. “We certainly do think that the Gospels assert a miraculous
Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension; and that the Epistles teach Original
sin, and a vicarious Sacrifice. If this be doubted by our authors, it is
sufficient for us to say that such is the impression they have created on all
ages of Christians.” “We desire that if the Bible, or any part of it be retained
as Holy Writ, it be defended as a miraculous gift to Man, and not
by distorting the principles of modern Science. Let the Essayists be assured that
there exists no middle course; that there is no Inspiration more than is natural,
yet not supernatural; no Theology which can abandon its
doctrines and retain its authority.” Lastly, with what sickening and almost Satanic power, does the
same writer invite the Essayists and Reviewers to make shipwreck of their souls
in the following terrible passage. And yet, who sees not that on their principles absolute and professed unbelief is
inevitable? He says:—“How long shall this last? Until
men have the courage to bury their dead convictions out of sight, and the greater
courage to form new. All honour to these writers for the boldness with which they
have, at great risk, urged their opinions. But what is
wanted is strength not merely to face
the world, but to face one’s own conclusions.
We know the cost. It must be endured. Let
each who has thought and felt for himself, ask himself first what he does not believe, and
then, if wise or needful, avow it. Next let him ask himself what he does believe, and pursue
it to its true and full conclusions. Neither loose accommodation nor sonorous principles
will long give them rest. It is of as little use to surrender the more glaring contradictions
of Science as it is to evaporate discredited doctrine into a few vague
precepts. That end will not be attained by our authors by subliming Religion into
an emotion, and making an armistice with Science. It will not be obtained by any
unreal adaptation; nor by this, which is, of all recent
adaptations, at once the most able, the
most earliest, and the most suicidal.”
This twofold. phenomenon, which has shocked the public conscience
and perplexed common sense, has been the sole cause
of the amount of attention “Essays and Reviews” has excited. Laymen might have
combined to produce this volume, almost unheeded. An obscure Clergyman might possibly
have published any one of these seven papers and with a rebuke for his immorality
or his insolence, he would probably have been unnoticed by the world. But hero is
a combination of Doctors of Divinity;
Professors; Fellows,
The Jesuitical notice prefixed to the book, (deprecating the
idea that its authors should be held responsible, except severally for their several
articles,) completed the scandal. As if seven men, each armed with his own appropriate
weapon of violence, breaking into a house, and spreading ruin around them, could
“readily be understood,” (to quote their own language,) to incur each a limited
responsibility! . . . . . Charity doubtless would have rejoiced to spread her mantle over
any one or more of the number, “who, on seeing the extravagantly vicious manner
in which some of his associates had performed their part, had openly declared his
disgust and abhorrence of such unfaithfulness, and had withdrawn his name The Bishop of Exeter to Dr. Temple. The Bishop of Manchester exactly expressed the general opinion,
when he said,—“Nor will I for a single moment, however my personal feelings might
interfere, conceal my deliberate conviction that every partner in that work is equally guilty.”—(Guardian,
A letter from Dr. Rowland Williams, which has appeared in the
newspapers, contains the following language with reference to the American reprint
of “Essays and Reviews:”—“I confess myself personally gratified that my own work,
and that of my far more distinguished coadjutors, with whom it is sufficient honour
for me to be included in the same volume, should have obtained the honour of a reprint
in another hemisphere. Still more would I hail the circumstance as an auspicious
token of the sympathy which should prevail between kindred nations, as regards subjects
of the highest import, and as a sign of the prospects of Christian freedom beyond
the Atlantic. . . . . “I have not yet discovered any community or individual
possessing the right to cast the first stone at those who interpret the Bible in
freedom, and who subordinate its letter to its spirit, or its parts to its
whole. Even if Holy Scripture were, as is popularly fancied, the foundation,—and
not, as I believe, the expression and the memorial,—of Religious Truth in man,
it would be absurd to render it honours essentially different from those which
it claims for itself, or to make it a master, where it claims only to be a
servant.”
“Essays and Reviews,” as already stated, with the turn of the
year, experienced a vast increase of notoriety. The entire Bench of Bishops condemned
the book; and both Houses of Convocation endorsed the Episcopal censure. A very
careful perusal of the volume became necessary; and it proved to be infinitely
weaker in point of ability, infinitely more fatal in point of intention, than could
have been suspected from the known respectability and position of its authors. A
clamour also arose for a Reply to these Seven Champions,—not exactly of Christendom.
It was useless to urge, in private, such considerations as the following:—To reply to a volume of 433 pages, each of which contains a fallacy or a falsity,—while some pages are packed full of both,—is a serious undertaking.—Besides, the book has been replied to already for there is scarcely an objection urged within its pages which was not better urged, and effectually disposed of, in the last century. Nay, every good Review of “Essays and Reviews” has answered the book: for what signify the details, if the fundamental lie has been detected, and unrelentingly exposed? The man who plants his heel on the serpent’s head, and refuses to withdraw it, can afford to disregard the tortuous writhings of the long supple body.—Again. These attacks are seven. Must seven men with “concert and comparison,”—with leisure and inclination too,—be procured to demolish this flimsy compound of dogmatism and unbelief? to disperse these cloudy doubts, and to analyse and repel these many ambiguous statements?—Once more. A fool can assert, and in a moment, that ‘There is no God.’ But it requires a wise man to refute the lie and his refutation will probably demand a volume.—I say, it was in vain to urge such considerations as these. “Why does no one reply to these ‘Essays and Reviews?’” was asked,—till, I apprehend, pens enough have been unsheathed to do the work effectually.
It struck me, in the meantime, that I should be employing myself
not unprofitably at such a juncture, if (laying aside all other work for a month
or two) Serm. V. See Sermon
VII.
II. And now, for a few words on the general question which has called out these “Sermons” and “Preliminary Remarks.”
At the root of the whole mischief of these last days lies disbelief in the Bible as the Word of God. This is the fundamental error. Dangerous enough is it to the moral and intellectual nature of Man, when the authority of the Church is doubted: or rather, this is the first downward step. Not to believe that Christ bequeathed to His Church a Divine form of polity: not to believe that He set officers over His Kingdom, of which He is Himself the sole invisible Head: not to believe that He invested His Apostles with authority to delegate to others the Commission He had Himself conveyed to them and that, by virtue of such transmitted powers, the Church has authority in the Ministration of God’s Word and Sacraments: not to believe that He vouchsafed to His Church extraordinary guidance at the first, and that He vouchsafes to His Church effectual guidance still:—an utter want of faith in the Church and her Ordinances, is the first step, I repeat, in a soul’s downward progress.
Next comes an impatience of Creeds. It has been falsely asserted
by an Essayist and Reviewer that Essays and Reviews, p. 166. See p. clxxvii. to p. clxxxiii.
That marvellous concrete fact, the Bible,—has next to be encountered.
Unmethodical as it seems to be, the Bible arrests a man in his impatient course
with many a significant History,—many an unmanageable precept. Much of its contents,
it is true, are of such a nature that they may be glossed over,—explained away,—ignored,—set
aside. The reading is doubtful: or there are two opinions, (perhaps twenty,) concerning
it: or the language may be figurative: or the words are not to be pressed too
closely: or a perverse logic may pretend to find in it agreeable confirmation,
instead of stern reproof. Not a few places there are, however, which defy any such
handling stubborn rocks which refuse to yield a single trace of the wished-for vegetation,
in return for the most determined husbandry. Nothing of the kind ever will or can
be made to germinate upon them. They are absolutely unmanageable, and hopelessly
in the way of the man who is determined to cast off restraint,—
Systematically to cope with such irreverence, such entire ignorance
rather of all the questions at issue, from the pulpit, would be clearly impracticable.
Men require to be taught “which be the first principles.” They require to be educated
in Divinity. And thus we come back to the fontal source of all the mischief of our
own Day. We, in Oxford, give no systematic training to our Candidates for Holy Orders.
We do not even attempt it. Nay, incredible to relate, we do not
give them any training at all. And the fatal consequences of this omission
are to be seen on every side. A youth no sooner gets through “the Schools,”
The plain truth is, (and it is really better to speak
plainly,)—the plain truth is, that the offensive Sermons one sometimes hears
from the University pulpit,—the offensive Essays and Reviews which have lately
occasioned so much public scandal,—are the work of men who discuss that which
they do not understand; Mr. Jowett in Essays and Reviews, p. 433. Article XX. Essays and Reviews, p. 45.
To cope systematically with all this from the University pulpit,
as already remarked, is plainly impossible. The preacher must take up the question
at some definite stage, and arrest the false teachers there. “That
wicked,” or rather “THE LAWLESS ONE,”
ὁ ἄνομος, as he is called in
III. When a few words have been added concerning the manner in which I have executed my task, this Preface shall be brought to a close.—If the style of the present Sermons,—considering the auditory, and above all considering the subject,—shall be thought by competent judges not sufficiently dignified in parts, I will bow to their decision without remonstrance. Everybody can divine the defence which would be set up; but perhaps it may not be quite a valid defence. A man feels strongly and warmly; writes fast and freely; is determined to be clearly understood: is weary of the dignified conventionalities under which Scepticism loves to conceal itself when it comes abroad. Perhaps some expressions which may be permitted in delivery, ought to be remodelled when a Sermon is sent to the press.
But with regard to the ensuing
Preliminary Remarks, I shall not
so easily be persuaded to think that I am mistaken as to the style in which Essayists
and Reviewers are to be dealt with It should perhaps be stated that the edition of
“Essays and Reviews” which I have employed is the Third (1860.)
It will be found, it is hoped, that when these writers have the
courage to descend to argument, there I have pp. 72-3.
Gentlemen who come abroad in the fashion above described, have no right to complain if they encounter rough usage on the road. When Critics are clamorous for the “free handling” of Divine Truth, they must not be surprised to find themselves freely handled too. If free discussion is to be the order of the day, then let there be free discussion of “Essays and Reviews,” as well as of the Bible. Six Clergymen of the Church of England who enter upon a crusade against the Faith of the Church of England must not be astonished if they are looked upon in the light of immoral characters, and treated as such. Accordingly, I have handled them just as freely as they have handled the Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists of Christ.
I cannot therefore pretend to offer anything in extenuation of
the style in which I have examined the statements of these Essayists and Reviewers.
Perfectly sensible as I am of the gracefulness of highly courteous language in controversial
writing, I will not so far violate my own conviction of what is right as to bandy
compliments on such an occasion as this. This is no
literary misunderstanding, or I could have been amicable enough: no private or
personal matter, or I could have flung it from me with unconcern. No other than
an attempt to destroy Man’s dearest hopes, is this infamous book: no other than
an insult, the
If it should be thought strange that one thinking so meanly of ‘Essays and Reviews,’ should have produced a yet larger volume in reply to them, it must suffice to point out that the refutation of a fallacy is almost of necessity the ampler writing.—Or again, if it be remarked that by far the largest part of what I have written is directed against the hundred pages of Professor Jowett, the explanation is still obvious. For not only does that concluding Essay of his bring to a terribly practical issue the speculative doubts and difficulties which had been started by all his predecessors; (namely, doubts as to (1) the relation in which the Bible stands to Man;—(2) the nature of Prophecy,—(3) the reality of Miracles;—(4) the worth of Creeds and formularies;—(5) the authenticity of Genesis,—(6) the basis on which Revelation is by the Church of England supposed to rest;)—by proposing that we should henceforth regard the Bible as a book no otherwise inspired than Sophocles and Plato:—not only does Professor Jowett’s essay discharge this fatal office; but his style is somewhat peculiar; and what he says, cannot always be effectually disposed of by a few words. Let me explain.
There is a certain form of fallacy of statement in which this
Gentleman’s writings abound, which calls aloud for notice and signal reprobation.
He has a marvellous aptitude, (one would fain hope through some intellectual infirmity,)
of connecting together in the same sentence two or three clauses; one or two of
which shall be true as Heaven, while the other
The fallacy then is of this nature. When Professor Jowett would
put forth something especially deserving of reprehension,—some sentiment or opinion
which he either knows, or ought to know, that the whole Church will resent with
unqualified abhorrence,—he assumes a plaintive manner, and puts himself into an
interesting attitude; sometimes even folds his hands, as if in prayer. He then
begins by (1) throwing out a remark of real beauty, and so conciliating for himself
an indulgent hearing; or (2) he goes off on some Moral question, and so defeats
attention; or (3) he delivers himself of some undeniable truth, and so disarms
censure; or (4) he says something of an entirely equivocal kind, and so leaves
his reader at fault. Candour, of course, gives him the benefit of the doubt.
It shall suffice to have said thus much. These pages must now be suffered to go forth; not without a hearty aspiration that a blessing may attend them from Him sine Quo nihil est validum, nilil sanctum; and that what was intended for the strength and help of those who want helping and strengthening, (I am thinking particularly of what has been offered on the subject of Inspiration,) may not prove misleading or perplexing to any.
Oriel, June 24th, 1861.
MY Friends,—I have determined to address to yourselves the present remarks; their subject, a volume which has recently obtained such a degree of notoriety that it is almost superfluous even to specify it by name.
With unfeigned reluctance do I
mix myself up in this strife; but the course of events, when
I first took up my pen, left me almost without
an alternative. Far more reluctant should I
be to seem to make yourselves the arbiters of Theological controversy. But
in truth nothing is further from my present intention. As a plain matter of fact,
you are called upon weekly, at St. Mary’s, to listen to Sermons which indicate plainly
enough the troubled state of the religious atmosphere; and which, of late, (too
frequently alas!) have inevitably assumed a controversial aspect. The Sermons here
published, (which form the constructive part of the present volume,) were preached
expressly with an eye to your advantage, and were intended
to warn you against (what I deemed) a very serious
The case of “Essays and Reviews” is, in fact, altogether exceptional,—whether the respectability of its authors, the wickedness of its contents, or the reception which it has met with, is considered. That volume embodies the infidel spirit of the present day. Turn where you will, you encounter some criticism upon it. No advertizing column but contains repeated mention of its name. To ignore so flagrant a scandal to the Church, is quite impossible. I have thought it better, therefore, to encounter the danger in this straightforward way; and I proceed, without further preamble, to remark briefly on each of the Seven “Essays and Reviews,” in order.
I. The feeblest essay in the volume is the first. It is not without
grave concern that I transcribe the name of its amiable, and (in every relation
of private life) truly excellent author,—“Frederick Temple, D.D., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen; Head Master of Rugby
School; Chaplain to the Earl of Denbigh.” Under the imposing title of “The
Education of the World,” we are presented with a worthless allegory, which has
all the faults of a schoolboy’s theme, (incorrect grammar included;) and not one
of the excellencies which ought to characterize the product of I abstain from enumerating Dr. Temple’s mistakes,—for such
things do not belong to the essence of a composition. And yet I must remark that
it is hardly creditable in a Doctor of Divinity to
write as he does. “In all (!) the doctrinal
disputes of the fourth and fifth centuries, the decisive voice came from Rome. Every
controversy was finally settled by her opinion, because she alone possessed
the art of framing formulas,” &c. (p. 16.) Would the learn ed writer favour us
with a single warrant for this assertion? . . . At p. 9, Dr. Temple mistakes
for Micah’s, words spoken 700 years before by Balaam. At p. 10, he says that
“Prayer, as a regular and necessary part of worship, first appears in the later books
of the Old Testament.”—His account of the papacy is contained in the following words:—“Law was the lesson which Rome was intended to teach the world. Hence (?) the
Bishop of Rome soon became the Head of the Church. Rome was in fact the centre of
the traditions which had once governed the world; and their spirit still remained; and the Roman Church developed into the papacy simply because a head was wanted
(!), and no better one could be found.”—p. 16. At p. 10 we have a truly puerile
misconception of the meaning of
Dr. Temple’s opening speculations are at once unintelligible,
irrelevant, and untrue. But they are immaterial; and serve only to lug in, (not
to introduce,) the assumption that the “power, whereby the present ever gathers
into itself the results of the past, transforms the human race into a colossal man
whose life reaches from the Creation to the clay of Judgment. The successive generations
of men are days in this man’s life. The discoveries and inventions which characterize
the different epochs of the world’s history are his works. The creeds and doctrines,
the opinions and principles of the successive ages, are his thoughts.” [Alas, that
the Creeds and Doctrines of the Church should be spoken of by a Professor of Divinity
as the “thoughts” of men!] “The state of society at different times are (sic)
his manners.
The Answer, to all this is sufficiently obvious, as well as sufficiently damaging; and need not be delayed for a minute.
That the Human Race has made considerable progress in Knowledge,
from first to last,—is a mere
To this theory, however, Dr. Temple even ostentatiously commits himself. It is the purpose of his entire Essay, to establish the fanciful analogy already indicated,—which is proclaimed to be “no figure” but a “fact.” (p. 3.) But an educated man of ordinary intelligence, on reaching p. 7, (where the writer first discloses his view,) summons the known facts of History to his recollection; and before he proceeds any further, reasons with himself somewhat as follows:—
The Human Race had inhabited the Earth’s surface for upwards
of sixteen hundred years, when it was destroyed by the waters of the Flood. After
that, the descendants of Noah peopled the earth’s surface; a transaction of which
the sole authentic record is to be found in the
The Jews, (he says,) were subject to Law from the period of the
Exode to the coming of Christ.—We listen to the statement of a familiar fact without
surprise: but we are inclined to express some stronger feeling than surprise when
we discover that this is the whole of the proof concerning
the infancy of the Colossal Man! Does this writer then mean to tell us that the
Jews were all Mankind? If they were not the Colossal
Man,—if, instead of being the whole Human Race, they were one of the most inconsiderable
and least known of the nations,—an isolated family, in fact, inhabiting Canaan,—what
becomes of the analogy? We really pause for an answer. . . . Such a theory might
have been expected, and would have been excusable if it had proceeded from a Sunday-school-boy
of fifteen,—who had read the Bible indeed, but who was unacquainted with any book
besides and so, had jumped
Once more. The Mosaic Law was not given till B.C. 1491. But the world was then upwards of 2500 years old. Far more than one-third, therefore, of recorded time had already elapsed. How does it happen that the theory under consideration gives no account of those 2500 years; or rather, does not begin to be applicable, until they have rolled away?
Other inconveniences await this silly speculation. Thus, the
Colossal Man, (who was under Law from
B.C. 1491 to the Christian æra,) proves to have been a marvelously
precocious Infant. He wrote the Song of Moses in the year of
his birth. Nay, he built pyramids,—had a Literature, Arts, amid Sciences,—ages
Again. At this writer’s dogmatic bidding, we force ourselves to think of Mankind as a Colossal Man, who has already gone through three ages,—Infancy, Boyhood, and Manhood. Old Age is therefore to come next. When, (if it is a fair question,) may it be expected that the sad period of senile decrepitude will set in? What proof, in the mean time, is there, (we venture to ask,) that this period of decay has not begun already? Or does Dr. Temple perhaps imagine that the world is moving in cycles, (to adopt the grotesque speculation of his own first pages); and that after having run through the curriculum of Infancy, Boyhood, and Manhood, the Colossal Man, (escaping, for some unexplained reason, the penalty of Old Age,) is to grow young again,—shake his rattle and cut his teeth afresh? There is a childish vivaciousness, a juvenile recklessness, a skittish impatience of restraint, in this amiable author’s speculations, which powerfully corroborate such a view of the case.
“The Childhood of the World was over when our
Lord appeared on earth,” (p. 20.) says Dr. Temple. But when at last he is
compelled to introduce to our notice his Colossal Child (p. 9, bottom.) now developed into a Colossal
Youth, he is painfully sensible that the Consider
The facts of the case, in the meantime, sorely perplex
the truth-loving writer. “For it is undeniable that, in the time of our
Lord, the Sadducees had lost
In like manner, the great fact that our Redeemer
came to republish His own two primæval ordinances,—the spiritual observance
of the Sabbath and the sanctity of Marriage,—is quietly ignored.
A youth utterly degraded by sensuality
Behold the Colossal Child therefore, now grown into a Colossal “Youth too old for discipline.” (p. 20, bottom.) “The tutors and governors have done their work;” (p. 20;) and he is now to go through a distinct process of training. Three tutors are now brought in to give the finishing touches to the youth’s education, and to inaugurate his new career. Rome, Greece, and Asia,—which for some unexplained reason never become (according to Dr. Temple) any part of the Colossal Man at all,—now come in; “Rome to discipline the human will; Greece, the reason and taste; Asia, the spiritual imagination.” (p. 19.) The Law and the Prophets had disciplined the Colossal Child’s conscience,—with what success we have seen. At all events, Moses and Isaiah are for infants: we have passed the age for such helps as they could supply. In a word,—“The childhood of the world was over when our Lord appeared on earth.” (p. 20.) It was “just the meeting-point of the Child and the Man; the brief interval which separates restraint from liberty.” (p. 22.) “It was time that the second teacher of the Human Race should begin his labours. The second teacher is Example:” (p. 20:) and “the period of youth in the history of the world, when the human race was, as it were, put under the teaching of example, corresponds, of course, to the meeting point of the Law and the Gospel. The second stage therefore in the education of man was the presence of our Lord upon earth.” (p. 24.)
Let not this stage of Dr. Temple’s allegory suffer by being stated
in any language besides his own. “The world” had been a
Colossal Child for 1490 years. It was to be a Youth for almost 100. “The
whole period from the closing of the Old Testament
We come now to the conclusion of the allegory; and Dr, Temple
shall again speak for himself. “The age of reflection begins. From the storehouse
of his youthful experience the Man begins to draw the principles of his life. The
spirit or conscience comes to full strength and assumes the throne intended for
him in the soul. As an accredited judge, invested with full powers, he sits in the
tribunal of our inner kingdom, decides upon the past, and legislates upon the future
without appeal except to himself. He decides not by what is beautiful, or noble,
or soul-inspiring, but by what is right. Gradually he frames his code of laws, revising,
adding, abrogating, as a wider and
And now, it will reasonably be asked,—May not the head-master of Rugby write a weak and foolish Essay on a subject which he evidently does not understand, without incurring so much not only of public ridicule, but of public obloquy also? If his own sixth-form boys do not laugh at him, need the Church feel aggrieved at what he has written? Where is the special irreligion in all this?
I answer,—The offence is of the very gravest character; and in the course of what follows, it will appear with sufficient plainness wherein it consists. For the moment,—singly considered,—it is my painful duty to condemn Dr. Temple’s Essay on the following grounds.
Whereas the Church inculcates the paramount necessity of an
external authoritative Law to guide all her members;—Creeds to define the foundation
of their Faith,—a Catechism to teach them the necessary elements of Christian Doctrine,—the
several forms of Prayer contained in the Prayer Book to instruct them further in
Religion, as well as to prescribe their exact mode of worshipping
Almighty God: whereas too the Church requires of her ministers subscription
to Articles “for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions, and for the establishing
of Consent concerning true Religion;”—above all, since all Christian men alike
are taught to acknowledge the external guidance of the Divine Law itself contained
in Holy Scripture,—and every Minister of the Church of England is further called
upon to admit the authority of that Divine Law as it is by the Church systematized,
explained, uphold, enforced:—notwithstanding all this, Dr. Temple,
Now this is none other than a deliberate dethroning of
God; and a setting up of Self in his place. “A revelation
speaking from without and not from within, is an external. Law, and not a spirit,”—(p.
36,) says Dr. Temple. But I answer,—A revelation speaking from within, and not from
without, is no revelation at all. “The thought of building
a tower high enough to escape God’s wrath, could enter into
no man’s dreams,” (p. 7,) says Dr. Temple in the beginning of his Essay, in derision of the Old World. But
he has carried out into act the very self-same thought, himself; and his “dreams” occupy the foremost place in ‘Essays and Reviews.’ He teaches, openly, that
henceforth Man must learn by “obedience to the rules of his own mind.” (p. 34.) He is express in declaring that “an external law “is for the
age which is past. (pp. 34-5.) Ours is “an internal law;” “which bids “Had the revelation of
Christ been delayed till now, assuredly it would have been
hard for us to recognize His Divinity. . . . We, of course, have in our turn counterbalancing
advantages. (!) If we have lost that freshness of faith which would be the first (sic) to say
to a poor carpenter,—Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God,—yet we possess in the
greater cultivation of our religious understanding, that which perhaps we ought
not to be willing to give in exchange (!) . . . . They had not the same clearness
of understanding as we; the same recognition that it is God
and not the Devil who rules the World; the
same power of discrimination between different kinds of truth. . . . Had our
Lord
come later, He would have come to mankind already beginning to stiffen into the
fixedness of maturity. . . . The truth of His Divine Nature would not have been
recognized.” (pp. 24-5.)—Is this meant for bitter satire on the age we live in;
or for disparagement of the Incarnate Word? . . . But in the face of such anticipations,
the keenest satire of all is contained in the author’s claim to a “religions understanding,
cultivated” to a degree unknown to the best ages of the Church; as well as to surpassing
“clearness of understanding,” and “powers of discrimination.” Lamentable in
any quarter,
how deplorable is such conceit in one who shews himself
unacquainted with the fret principles of Theological Science; and who puts forth an Essay on the Education
of the World, which would have been discreditable to an advanced school-boy! Quite ineffectual, at the very
close of this unhappy composition, as a set off to the compacted and often repeated
asseverations of his earlier pages, is the amiable author’s plaintive plea for “even
the perverted use of the Bible;” adding,—“And meanwhile, how utterly impossible
it would be in the manhood of the world to imagine any other instructor of mankind!” (p. 47.) It is one of the favourite devices of these seven writers, side by side
with their most objectionable statements, to insert isolated passages of admitted
truth,—and occasionally even of considerable beauty: which however are utterly
‘, leaning,
and out of place where they stand; and (like the sentence above written,) powerless
to undo the circumstantial wickedness of what went before. I repeat, that the words
above-written are meaningless where they stand:
for if Dr. Temple really means that it is “utterly impossible in the manhood of the world to
imagine
any other instructor of mankind” than the Bible,—what becomes of his
Essay?
I forbear to dive into the depth of irreligion and unbelief implied
in what is contained from p. 37 to p. 40, and other parts of the present Essay:
but I cannot abstain from asking why does this author,—who, in all the intercourse
of private life, is so manly a character,—fall into the unmanly trick of his brother-Essayists, of insinuating what they dare not openly avow? The great master of
this cloudy shuffling art is Mr. Jowett. Even where he and his associates in “free
handling,” are express and definite in their statements, yet, as their rule is prudently
to abstain from adducing a single example of their meaning, it is only by their
disingenuous reticence that they escape punishment or exposure. Thus, Dr. Temple
Dr. Temple’s estimate of the corruptions of the Papacy is of
a piece with the rest of what I must be excused for calling a most unworthy performance.
“Purgatory,” &c. (he says) “was in fact, neither more nor less than
the old schoolmaster come back to bring some new scholars
to Christ.” (p. 42.) (Is the Romish fable of Purgatory then to be put on the
same footing as the Divine Revelation to Moses on Sinai?) It follows,—“When the
work was done, men began to discover that the Law was no longer necessary.” (Ibid.) (Is it thus that
the head-master of Rugby accounts for, and explains the Reformation?) “The time
was come when it was fit to trust to the conscience as the supreme
guide.” (Ibid.) “At the Reformation, it might have seemed at first as
if the study of theology were about to return. But in reality an
It may occur to some persons to inquire whether St. Paul, in
a well-known place, does not affirm, (somewhat as it is affirmed in this Essay,)
that “the heir, as long as he is a child, . . . is under tutors and governors until
the time appointed of the father?” And that, “Even so we, when we were children,
were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when παρα τηρεῖσθε: i.e. “ye misobserve,” “keep in a wrong way.”
But it does not require much knowledge of Divinity
The Christian dispensation, (the scheme of Man’s Justification
by Faith in Christ,) is the fulfilment, (St. Paul
says,) of the covenant which Gm) once solemnly made with Abraham. The Mosaic Law,
(which was not given till 430 years after the time of Abraham,) is powerless to
cancel that earlier covenant of Faith. What was the use of the Law, then? some
one may ask. It was a supplementary, parenthetical, superadded thing, which came
in, as it were, accidentally, for certain assignable purposes. But now that the
original covenant of Faith has at length found fulfilment in the person of
Christ, it were monstrous (argues the Apostle)
to revert to Judaism: which was a species of prison-house where we suffered bondage
until Messiah came to set us free.
We were as prisoners, says the Apostle. We were also
as children,—(who, anciently, from the age of six to
fourteen, used to be consigned by their father to the care of
How different a view of our true state is thus discovered, from
that which Dr. Temple describes! A glorious liberty is in reserve
for us indeed It is presumed that the article in the Dict. of Antiquities will
be held unexceptionable authority as to the office of the παιδαγωγός.—“Rex filio pædagogum constituit, et singulis
diebus ad eum invisit, interrogans eum: Num comedit filius meus? num in scholam
abiit? num ex scholâ rediit?”—Wetstein, in loc.—So Plato Lysis,
p. 118.
How different a view of the Education of the World does the
Holy
Spirit,—does our Lord himself—furnish, from that which Dr.
Temple here advocates! . . . Fallen, in the person of Adam, and made subject to
the penalty of eternal death, behold Mankind from
But Dr. Temple may say,—My parable relates to one person: that which you have quoted pourtrays two, and thus all parallelism is lost. (In other words, our Lord’s picture of “the Education of the World” is altogether unlike Dr. Temple’s!)—Take, however, a parable which ought to suit exactly for in it mankind are exhibited in the person of “a certain man.”
This individual is represented as one who, as he travels, is
by thieves stripped, wounded, and left half dead. Such then, by nature, is the state
of the human race! Priest and Levite, who “look on him,” but “pass by on the
other side,” set forth the Education of the World (!) until Christ
came. A certain
Our Saviour Christ is indeed set
before us in Scripture as our great Exemplar
Neither is it true that the world has been old enough, for the
last 1800 years, to be taught by “seeing
Conscience has her office, doubtless; and a most important one
it is. Conscience is the very candle of the Lord within us.
But, (as I have elsewhere shewn,) it were base treason to speak of conscience as
Essayists and Reviewers speak of it. With them, it is indeed impossible to
argue. They must first withdraw
But speaking to others, it will abundantly suffice to point out
that such principles as the present Essay advocates are incompatible with the profession
of Christianity in any country, and in
any age. If the spirit or conscience of Man is to legislate “without appeal except to himself;” (p. 31;) if men
are to “refuse to be bound” (p. 44.) by the Creeds
of the Church; if the very Bible is not to be looked upon as “an outer law:” (p. 45:)—how is sentence
ever to be pronounced with authority? how are men
to know what they have to believe? how are we to enjoy
the guidance of any “outer law” at all? I do not
ask these questions as a clergyman; neither am I addressing those exclusively who
have been admitted to the Christian priesthood. Common sense, ordinary piety, natural
reverence, seem to cry out, and ask,—If the Church have no “authority in controversies of Faith Art. XX. Art. VIII.
Let me in conclusion do this writer an act of justice, (for which
he will not perhaps altogether thank me,) even while with shame and sorrow I now
dismiss his Essay. Unpardonable as he is for having written thus; and
wholly without excuse for having suffered
nine editions of his blasphemous allegory to go forth
to the world without apology, explanation, or retractation of
any kind,—although he labours under a weight of competent censure without
a parallel, I believe, in the annals of the English Church I allude especially to the terrible castigation he has individually received
at the hands of the Bishop of Exeter. See the Times, of
March 4th, 1861.
II. On turning
the first page of the review which follows, follows, “by Rowland Williams, D.D. Vice-Principal and Professor of Hebrew, St. David’s College, Lampeter; Vicar
of Broad Chalke, Wilts,”—we are made sensible that we are in company of a writer
considerably in advance of Dr. Temple, though altogether of the same school. In
fact, if Dr. Williams had not been Vice-Principal of a Theological College, and
a Doctor of Divinity, one would have supposed him to be a complete infidel,—who
found it convenient to vent his own unbelief in a highly laudatory review of the
principles of the late Baron Bunsen. Hear him:—“When Bunsen asks ‘How long shall
we bear this fiction of an external Revelation,’—that is, of one violating the heart
and conscience, instead of expressing itself through them;—or when he says, ‘All this is delusion for those who believe it; but what is it in the mouths
of those who teach it?’—Or when he exclaims, ‘Oh the fools! who, if they do see
the imminent perils of this age, think to ward them off by narrow-minded persecution’!—and when
he repeats, ‘Is it not time, in truth, to withdraw the veil from our misery? to tear off the mask from hypocrisy, and destroy that sham which is undermining
all real ground under our feet? to point out the dangers
But even the Prussian infidel is not advanced enough for the Vicar of Broad Chalke. Bunsen, it seems, was weak enough to believe that the prophet Jonah was a real personage. This evokes the following singular burst of critical indignation from the Reverend author of the present Essay:—“It provokes a smile on serious topics,”—(a kind of impropriety which the Vice-Principal of Lampeter will not commit except under protest and with an apology!)—“to observe the zeal with which our critic vindicates the personality of Jonah, and the originality of his hymn, (the latter being generally thought doubtful), while he proceeds to explain that the narrative of our book in which the hymn is imbedded, contains a late legend founded on misconception. One can imagine the cheers which the opening of such an essay might evoke in some of our circles, changing into indignation (!) as the distinguished foreigner developed his views. After this he might speak more gently of mythical theories.” (p. 77.)
For the most part, however, the Vicar of Broad Chalk() is able
to cite the opinions of Bunsen with “And when the Angel stretched
out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord . . . said
to the Angel that destroyed the people,” &c. “And the Angel of the Lord was by
the threshing-place of Araunah the Jebusite.”— “The Angel of the Lord stood by the threshing-floor of Oman
the Jebusite. And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the Angel of the Lord stand
between the Earth and the Heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out
over Jerusalem.”—
The whole of Scripture, in the hands of this Doctor of Divinity,
undergoes corresponding treatment. They who “twist Prophecy into harmony with the
details On the Creed, Art.
iv. p. 244, notes (u) and (x). “It would take no great space,” (says Dr. Pusey,) “to shew that the rendering
‘as a lion,’ is unmeaning, without authority, against
authority; while the rendering ‘they pierced’ is borne out alike by authority and
language.”
The absolute worthlessness of unsupported dicta such as these, ought to be apparent to all. It is useless to reason with a madman. We desiderate nothing so much as “searching enquiry,” (p. 69,) but we are presented instead with something worse than random assertion. If the writer would state a single case, with its evidence,—we should know how to deal with him. We should examine his arguments seriatim; and either refute them, or admit their validity. From such “free handling,” the cause of sacred Truth can never suffer. But when, in place of argument and evidence, we have merely bluster,—what is to be. said? Pity and disregard are the only reply we can bestow; or our answers must be as brief as the calumny which provokes them. “how,” (asks the Regius Professor of Hebrew,) “can such an undigested heap of errors receive a systematic answer in brief space, or in any one treatise or volume?”
“If any sincere Christian now asks, is not then our
Saviour
a spoken of in Isaiah; let him open
his New Testament, and ask therewith John the Baptist, whether he was Elias? If
he finds the Baptist answering I am not, yet our
Lord testifies that in spirit and power this was Elias;
a little reflexion will shew how the historical representation in St. As the Fathers generally teach. See Brown’s Ordo
Sæclorum, pp. 702-3, &c., &c.
The theory of one who writes like an open unbeliever concerning Divine things is really not worth developing: and yet, as I am examining an Essay which seems to be entirely built upon such a theory, it may be desirable, in this instance, that the deformity of the writer should be uncovered: especially since Dr. Williams writes such very dark English, that, until some of his sentences are translated, they are barely intelligible.
Anticipating that his doctrines may “alarm those who think that,
apart from Omniscience belonging to the Jews, (!) the
proper conclusion of reason is Atheism;”—(in other words, that the rejection of
a belief in the inspiration of Prophecy will eventually
conduct a man to the rejection of God Himself;) the
Reverend writer declares that “it is not inconsistent with the idea that
Almighty God has
been pleased to educate men and nations, employing imagination no less than conscience,
and suffering His lessons to play freely within the limits of humanity and its shortcomings.”
(p. 77.) (In other words, that what Scripture
Let this miserable but conceited man yet further map out the
nature of his own delusion respecting Prophecy. He applauds the wisdom of one who
cc “accepts freely the belief of scholars, and yet does not despair of Hebrew Prophecy
as a witness to the Kingdom of God:” (p. 70:) (that is, of one who, like Bunsen,
altogether disbelieves in prophecy as prophecy, and yet is bent on finding
something of an Evangelical character in the prophetic writings.) “The way of doing
so left open to him, was to shew pervading the Prophets those deep truths which
lie at the heart of Christianity, and td trace the growth of such ideas, the belief
in a righteous God) and the nearness of Man to
God, the power of prayer, and the victory of self-sacrificing
patience, ever expanding in men’s hearts, until the fulness of time came, and the
ideal of the Divine thought was fulfilled in the Son of Man.” (p. 70.)
In other words, Christ was nothing more than the fullest development and impersonation
of the best thoughts and feelings of the (so-called) prophets! He “fulfilled in
His own person the highest aspiration of Hebrew seers and of mankind, thereby lifting
the ancient words, so to speak, into a new and higher power; and therefore was
recognized as having eminently the unction of a prophet whose words die not,—of
a priest in a temple not made with hands,—and of a king in the realm of thought,
delivering his people from a bondage of moral evil, worse than Egypt or Babylon.”
(pp. 74-5.) “A notion of foresight by vision of particulars, or a kind of
clairvoyance,” (p. 70,)—(such is this Doctor of Divinity’s notion of the gift of
prophecy!)—he deems inadmissible. “Literal prognostication,” (p. 65,) is
his abhorrence. He would eliminate the Messianic passages
We are left to infer that “the Fall of Adam represents ideally
the circumscription of our spirits in limits of flesh and time:” (p. 88:) that
Christ is “the moral Saviour of mankind;” (p. 80;) and
that Salvation from evil is to be attained by the conformity of our souls to a “religious idea” which was “brought to perfection” in
Christ. (p. 80.) This “religious idea” “is the thought of the Eternal.” (Ibid.) In other words,
“Salvation
from evil” is “through sharing the Saviour’s Spirit.” (p.
87.)—We are further left to infer that “Justification by faith means the peace of
mind, or sense of Divine approval, which comes of trust in a righteous
God:” (p. 80:) that “Regeneration is a correspondent giving
of insight, or an awakening of forces of the soul: Resurrection, a spiritual quickening: Salvation, our deliverance, not from the life-giving
God, but from evil and darkness.”
(p. 81.) . . . And this from a Clergyman who has just subscribed, “willingly and
ex animo,” the three And yet,—“I go to prepare
a place for you!”—St.
The nebulous is a striking peculiarity
of the style of the Vicar of Broad Chalke See, for example, p. 60, (lower
half) p. 62, (middle,) &c. Comp. p. 45.
The Sacrament of Baptism, (he says,) has “degenerated into a
magical form,” (p. 86,) since it has “become twisted into a false analogy with
circumcision,”—(twisted, at all events, by St. Paul
On reaching the last page of the present Essay, one is irresistibly
led to remark that if a single word could convey an adequate notion of the author’s
manner, that word would be Insolence. When. Dr. Williams
would express difference of opinion, he has recourse to violence and bluster:
when he would patronize, he is sure to make himself unspeakably offensive. But he
seldom agrees with anybody, even with disciples of the same school with himself,—as
Messrs. Bunsen and Arnold, Coleridge and Francis Newman. Professor Mansel is “a
mere gladiator hitting in the dark,” whose “blows fall heaviest on what it was
his duty to defend.” (p. 67.) Dr. Pusey receives a menacing intimation of what his
Commentary must not be. Davison’s reasoning labours
under the inconvenient defect of an unproved minor premiss. (p. 66.) The majestic
memory of Bp. Pearson is insulted by this vulgar man, and the fairness of his citations
are impeached. (p. 72.)—Bp. Butler is declared to have turned aside from an unwelcome
idea (!), literature not being his strong point (!) (p. 65.)—Justin, (p. 64,)—Augustine,
(p. 65,)—Jerome, (pp. 65, 71,)—Anselm, (p. 67,)—all come in for
a share of the Vice-Principal of Lampeter’s contempt. Even the Apologist
of Essays and Reviews is constrained to admit that “anything more” unbecoming
“than some of Dr. Williams’s remarks we have never
read, in writings professing to be written seriously Edinburgh Review,
(
But faults of mind and manner, however gross, do but disqualify
a writer for being the associate of men of taste and good breeding and blemishes
of style are, at least, venial. Not so easily to be excused is the deplorable spectacle
of a Minister of the Gospel,
I have now said as much as I think necessary concerning Dr. Williams’s
Essay. The entire refutation of such a tissue of groundless assertions and unfounded
statements, and unscholarlike criticisms, and unphilosophical views,—would fill
many volumes. It is to be feared also that, to him,
the result would not be convincing after all. To have stated in brief outline,
as I have already clone, the leading positions to which he commits himself, ought
to suffice. The mere exhibition of such principles (?) ought to be their own abundant
refutation. . . . God give the unhappy author repentance of
his errors!—And will not men believe that in the pages of the present Essay is
to be seen the lawful development, and inevitable result of the opinions advocated
in every other part of the present volume? I perceive
scarcely any essential difference between the views
of any of these seven writers. All
III. The third Essay in the present volume is by “the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford,”—a gentleman with whose labours I shall deal briefly and gently for two reasons. His assertions admit of summary refutation; and he has already, (alas!) passed beyond the limit of earthly Criticism. I desire to add concerning him, that in the private relations of life he was a friendly and amiable person.
The solemn circumstance already adverted to, would have kept me silent altogether. When a writer is no longer able to defend himself, it is ungenerous to attack him: and at a time when he knows far more wonders than are dreamed of by any one on the Earth’s surface, it seems unbecoming to stand reasoning over his grave about an “antecedent probability.” But I am addressing not the dead, but the living,—to whom, in the pages of ‘Essays and Reviews,’ Professor Powell “being dead yet speaketh.”
He entitles his contribution,—“On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity:” but, as often happens with performances of the like nature, the title of his Essay gives a wrong notion of its contents. It ought to have been called “The Validity of the Evidence from Miracles considered,” or rather “denied.”
There is nothing new in the present attack on the Miracles of
Scripture. The author disposes of them Analogy,
P. II. ch. ii., ad fin.
Professor Powell’s objection against Miracles is, in fact, practically that of the infidel Hume; who asserted “that no testimony for any kind of Miracle can ever possibly amount to a probability, much less to a proof.” He argued that Miracles, being contrary to general experience, are incapable of proof. He maintained also, (with Spinoza,) that Miracles, being contrary to the established laws of Nature, imply, in the very character of them, a palpable contradiction. This latter position seems to be identical with that adopted by Professor Powell.
In a certain place, this author finds fault with “the too frequent
assumption . . . of the part of the . . . . Advocate,
when the character to be sustained should be rather that of the unbiassed Judge.” (p. 95.) But what are we to
think of the judicial fairness of one who is not only Advocate and Judge in his
own cause; but who even turns the Witnesses out of Court; and will listen to no
evidence,—on the plea that it cannot be trustworthy; or at least,
that it shall be unavailing?—“I express myself with caution,” (says Bp.
Butler, with reference to arguments against the credibility of Revelation,)
“lest I should be mistaken to vilify Reason; which is indeed the only faculty we
have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even Revelation itself: or be
misunderstood to assert that a supposed revelation cannot be proved false, from
internal characters. For it may contain clear immoralities,
or contradictions; and either of these would prove it false. Nor will I take upon
me to affirm, that nothing else can possibly render any supposed revelation incredible.
Yet still the observation is, I think, true beyond doubt; that objections against
Analogy, P.
II. ch. iii., ad init.
That a certain occurrence or phenomenon “is due to supernatural
causes,” Professor Powell maintains is “entirely dependent on the previous belief
and assumptions of the parties.” (p. 107.) He forgets that he grounds his own denial
of the possibility of a Miracle, on nothing stronger than “the nature of” his own
“antecedent convictions.” Thus, the question becomes merely a personal one between
Mr. Baden Powell and the Apostles of Christ. The reasonableness
of the “antecedent convictions” in the one case have to be set against the reasonableness
of the “antecedent convictions” in the other. Either party, (according to this
view,) has its own “previous belief and assumptions;” which, in the one case,
are known to have produced conviction; in the other, they are unhappily found to
have resulted in a rejection of Miracles. But then it happens, unfortunately, that
in the case of the Apostles and others, conviction of the truth of our
Lord’s Miracles was based on knowledge,
and experience of a matter of fact: in the case of Professor Powell, disbelief is founded
on certain “antecedent convictions” only: namely, “the inconceivableness of imagined
interruptions of natural Order, or supposed suspensions of the Laws of matter.”
(p. 110.) He is never tired of repeating that “in an age of physical research like
the present, all highly cultivated minds and duly advanced intellects (!) have imbibed,
more or less, the lessons of the Inductive Philosophy; and have, at least in some
measure, learned to appreciate the grand foundation conception of universal Law:” (p. 133:) that
“the entire range
I gladly avail myself of a page from the writings of a thoughtful
writer of our own, who, half a century ago, reviewed the very errors which are being
so industriously reproduced among ourselves at this day,—certainly not with more
ability than of old:—“Let us examine a little farther into the weight of the argument
derived from the supposed immutability of the Laws of Nature. It has constantly
been the theme of modern Unbelievers, that the course of Nature is fixed, eternal,
unalterable; and that nothing which is supposed to violate it can possibly take
place. Now, we may readily allow, that the course of Nature is unalterable by
human power; nay, even by the power of any
created being whatsoever. But the question is,—Are
these Laws unalterable by Him who made them? Proof
of this is requisite, before the argument from the immutability of the Laws of Nature
can have the least force. We may safely assert, however, that proof of this is absolutely
impossible.—‘Facts,’ it may be said, ‘daily passing before us, warrant us in supposing
its laws to be unchangeable.’ Perhaps so. But if a thousand or more facts
have occurred, since the Creation of the World, in which those Laws appear to have
been over-ruled, or suspended, is such a conclusion then
warrantable? Even if there had never been a single instance of a Miracle
recorded, since the
“This latter opinion appears, indeed, to be the tenet of all who resort to arguments of this kind, in opposition to the credibility of Miracles. Thus it is said, [by Hume,] that every effect must have a cause; and. that, therefore, a Miracle must have a cause in Nature; otherwise, it cannot be effected.—But, is not the Will of God, without any other agency, or pro-disposing cause, sufficient for the purpose? When God created the World out of nothing, what preexisting cause was there, except His own omnipotent Will to produce the effect? Why then is not the same Will sufficient to work Miracles?
“‘But,’ says another Sophist, [Spinoza,]—‘God is the Author of the Laws of Nature; so that whatever opposes those Laws, is necessarily repugnant to the Divine nature: if, therefore, we believe that God may act in a manner contrary to those laws, we, in effect, believe that He may do what is contrary to His own nature; which is absurd and impossible.’
“The reasoning turns upon the supposition that
God is actuated
by an absolute necessity of His Nature, Van Mildert’s Historical View of the Rise and Progress of Infidelity,
&c. Serm. xxi., (ed. 1806,) vol. ii. pp. 313-17.
It is by no means inconceivable, therefore, that the great
Cause of Creation, and first Author of Law should interfere at any given time in
the established Order of Nature. Moreover, it is irrational, on sufficient testimony,
to disbelieve that He has sometimes so interposed. To deny that this is conceivable,
is to make God inferior to His own decree; to pronounce it
incredible that the Lawgiver should be superior to His own Laws. “The universal
subordination of causation,” (p. 134,) we as freely admit as the Professor himself:
but then we contend that everything else must be subordinate
to the First great Cause of all. Worse than unphilosophical is it to argue
as the Professor presumes to do, concerning the Most High; but unphilosophical in the strictest sense it is. For it is to reason about Him,
(the finite concerning the
We are anxious to know if the whole of the case is really before
us. A few more extracts from Professor Powell’s Essay seem necessary to do full
justice to his view of the matter:—“All moral evidence must essentially have respect
to the parties to be convinced. ’Signs’ might be adapted peculiarly to the state
of moral or intellectual progress of one age, or one class of persons,
and not be suited to that of others. . . . And it is to the entire difference in the
ideas, prepossessions, modes, and grounds of belief in those times, that we may
trace the reason why Miracles, which would be incredible now,
were not so in the age, and under the circumstances, in which they are
stated to have occurred.” (p. 117.) . . . “An evidential appeal which in
a long past age was convincing, as made to
the state of knowledge in that age “Columbus’ prediction of the eclipse to the native islanders,
was as true an argument to them as if the event had really been supernatural.” p.
115.
“In a period of advanced physical knowledge, the reference to what was believed in past times, if at variance with principles now acknowledged, could afford little ground of appeal: in fact, would damage the argument rather than assist it.” (p. 126.)
“It becomes imperatively necessary, that such views should be
suggested as may be really suitable to
There is nothing in the additional suggestions thus thrown out which in reality affects the question at issue. Certain antecedent considerations were before insisted on, which (it was said) “must be paramount to all attestation.” (p. 107.) These have been disposed of. The writer now tells us that he does not question “the honesty or veracity of the testimony, or the reality of the impressions on the minds of the witnesses.” (p. 106.) It remains to inquire therefore to what natural causes, events which were once thought miraculous, may reasonably be referred since the so-called Miracles of the imperfectly-informed age of our Lord and His Apostles will not endure the scrutiny of the present age of scientific enlightenment.
But this, unless it be a proposal to open the whole question
afresh,—to examine the Miracles themselves,—to consider
them one by one,—to inquire into their exact nature,—and to investigate their attendant
circumstances,—is unmeaning. For we cannot, as reasonable men, dismiss a vast body
of august events, differing so considerably one from another, with a vague inuendo
that there was probably “some kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we
do not know where:” (p. 106:) a hint that natural events may have been regarded
as supernatural by an unscientific age, (which I believe was Schleiermacher’s view:) and so forth. The two miraculous Draughts of fishes,—the Stater found in the
fish’s mouth,—the stilling of the Storm,—might perhaps, by a little rhetorical sophistry,
in unscrupulous hands, be so disposed of. But the Creative Power
displayed on the two occasions of St. St. St.
This may suffice on the subject of Professor Powell’s Essay. On the great question itself, I have said something in my Seventh Sermon, to which the reader is requested to refer.—The performance now under consideration abounds in incorrect statements, while it revives not a few exploded objections; but I have considered the only points in it which are material.
Thus the author assumes “that, unlike the
essential Doctrines of Christianity, ‘the same yesterday, to-day, Consider St.
To begin Divinity with a discussion of the “Evidences,” we do indeed hold to be a beginning at the wrong end. At the same time, all of Professor Powell’s opening remarks, in which he insinuates that the Church would bar, or would stifle discussion concerning the evidences of Religion, are obviously untrue. No scrutiny of Christian Miracles, however rigid, is stopped by the admonition that such narratives “ought to be held sacred, and exempt from the unhallowed criticism of human Reason.” (p. 110.) We do not, by any means, “treat all objections as profane, and discard exceptions unanswered as shocking and immoral.” (p. 100.) Neither does the Church think herself “omniscient and infallible;” (p. 96;) though she holds Omniscience to be an attribute of God; and Infallibility, of the Bible. But she deprecates in the strongest manlier vague insinuations and unsupported doubts of the reality of her Lord’s Miracles, sown broad-cast over the land; and she is at a loss to understand how the “difficulties” of any, can be in this manner “removed;” (p. 96;) except by a process analogous to that which would cure a malady by taking away the life of the patient. We are not in fact at all disposed to admit that “Miracles, which in the estimation of a former age were among the chief supports of Christianity, are at present among the main difficulties, and hindrances to its acceptance,” (p. 140,)—although Professor Powell and Dr. Temple say so.
This Essay in fact is full of incorrect, or objectionable St.
This writer reasons also with singular laxity and inaccuracy.
After quoting the dictum that “on a certain amount of testimony we might believe
any statement, however improbable,” (pp. 140-1,) he scornfully adds;—“So that
if a number of respectable witnesses were to concur in asseverating that on a certain
occasion they had seen two and two make five, we should be bound to believe them!” (p. 141.) Does he fail to perceive, (1) that mathematical truths do not come
within the province of probable reasoning, and (2) are not dependent on testimony? . . . . Again,
“The case of the antecedent argument
of Miracles St.
Far graver exception, however, must be taken against certain
parts of Professor Powell’s labours, which betray an animus fatally indicative of
the tendency of such Essays and Reviews as these. Witness his assertion that “it
is now acknowledged that ‘Creation’ is only another name for our ignorance of the mode
of production;” (p. 139;) and that a recent work on the Origin of Species “substantiates
on undeniable grounds the very principle so long denounced
One object of the present Essay is to insist that since Miracles belong to the world of matter, “we must recognize the due claims of Science to decide” upon them. We are reminded that “beyond the domain of physical causation and the possible conceptions of intellect or knowledge, there lies open the boundless region of spiritual things, which is the sole dominion of Faith:” (p. 127:) and that “Advancing knowledge, while it asserts the dominion of Science in physical things, confirms that of Faith in spiritual.” (p. 127.) It is proposed that “we thus neither impugn the generalizations of Philosophy, nor allow them to invade the dominion of Faith; and admit that what is not a subject for a problem, may hold its place in a Creed.” (p. 127.)
But the fatal consequences of this plausible fallacy become apparent
the instant we turn the leaf, and read that “the more knowledge advances, the more
it has been, and will be acknowledged, that Christianity, as a real religion, must
be viewed apart from connexion with physical things.” (p. 128.) That “the first
dissociation of the spiritual from the physical was rendered necessary by the palpable
contradictions disclosed by astronomical discovery with the letter of Scripture.
Another still wider and more material step has been effected by the discoveries
of Geology. More recently, the antiquity of the human Race, and the development
of Species, and the rejection of the idea of ‘Creation’ (!)
have caused new advances in the
Faith, on the other hand, does not object to the constant visits
of Science to any part of her treasure. She does but
insist that all discussion shall be conducted according to the
rules of right Reason. Vague insinuations about “a progressing Age,”
(p. 131,)—“modes of speculation,” (p. 130,)—“the advance of Opinion,” (p. 131,)—and
so forth, are as little to the purpose, apart from specific objections,
as sneers at “the one-sided dogmas of an obsolete school, coupled with
awful denunciations of heterodoxy on all who refuse to listen to them,” (p. 131,)
are unsuited to the gravity of the occasion. Faith insists moreover that a
divorce between the miraculous parts of Scripture, and the context wherein they stand,
is simply impossible. The unbeliever who boldly says, “I disbelieve the Bible,”—however
much we may deplore his blindness and pity his misery,—is yet intelligible in his
unbelief. But the man who proposes to believe the narrative
of the Exode of Israel from Egypt, (for instance,) apart from the supernatural
character of the events which are related to have attended it; who believes
the history of the Gospels, (holding the Evangelists
to have been veracious writers,) yet rejects the Divine nature of the Miracles which
the Gospels relate; and proposes, after eliminating from the historical narrative
everything which claims to be miraculous,
Finally, we are presented in this Essay with the same offensive
assumption of intellectual superiority on the part of the writer, which disfigures
the entire volume. “It becomes imperatively necessary
that views should be suggested really suitable to better informed minds.” (p. 126.)
“Points which may be seen to involve the
greatest difficulty to more profound inquirers, are
often such as do not occasion the least perplexity to ordinary
minds, but are allowed to pass without hesitation.” (p. 125.) (And this,
from one of those “profound inquirers,” one of “those who have reflected most
deeply,” (p. 126,) who yet cannot get beyond a resuscitation of Hume and Spinoza’s
exploded objections to the truth of Miracles!)—Butler’s unanswerable arguments,
(for the allusion is evidently to him,) are spoken
of as “a few trite and commonplace generalities as to the moral government of the
World and the belief in the Divine Omnipotence; or as to the validity of human testimony; or the limits of human experience.” (p. 133.) And yet the author is for ever informing
us that his hostility to Miracles “is essentially built upon those
grander conceptions of the order of Nature, those comprehensive
primary elements of all physical knowledge, those ultimate ideas of universal causation,
which can only be familiar to those thoroughly versed in cosmical
philosophy in its
Finally, after all that has gone before we are not much astonished,
but we are considerably shocked, to read as follows:—“The Divine Omnipotence is entirely an inference from the
language of the Bible, adopted on the assumption
of a belief in Revelation. That ‘with God nothing is impossible’ is
the very declaration of Scripture; yet on this, the whole belief in Miracles is
built P. 113. The italics are in the original. See the
Quarterly Review, (on Prof. Baden Powell’s
“Order of Natnre,”)—for
Oct. 1859, (No. 212,) pp. 420-3.
IV. The next performance is mainly directed against faith in
the Church, as a society of Divine origin. “The Rev. Henry
Bristow Wilson, B.D., Vicar
of Great Staughton, Hunts,” claims that a National Church shall be regarded as a purely secular Institution,—the spontaneous development
of the State. “If all priests and ministers of religion could at one moment be
swept from the face of the Earth, they would soon be reproduced p. 169.—“Priests have neither been, as some would represent,
a set of deliberate conspirators against the free thoughts of mankind; nor, on
the other hand,” &c. lbid.—How partial becomes the judgment,
when we have to discuss the merits of our own order!
To all this, the answer is very obvious. Viewed as an historical fact, the Church is not of human origin. The Church a a Divine Institution. That a Priest of the Church, charged with a cure of souls, should desire her annihilation,—the reversal of the facts of her past History,—her reconstruction on an unheard-of basis, without even Creeds as terms of communion with her,—and so forth; all this may suggest some very painful doubts as to the objector’s honesty in continuing to employ the formularies of that Church, and in professing to teach her doctrines;—but it can hardly be supposed to have any effect whatever on the question at issue.
Foreseeing this, Mr. Wilson begins by asserting,—(for to insinuate
is not for so advanced a disciple of “the negative Theology,”) (p. 151,)—“the
fact of a very wide-spread alienation, both of educated and uneducated persons,
from the Christianity which is ordinarily presented in our Churches and Chapels.”
(p. 150.) “A self-satisfied Sacerdotalism, confident in a supernaturally transmitted
illumination,” may amuse itself in trying to “keep peace within the walls of emptied
Churches:” (p. 150:) but the day for “traditional Christianity” (p. 149.) has
gone by.
Why then does not this man proceed openly to discuss? is the obvious rejoinder. Instead of vaguely hinting that either the Reason or the Moral sense is shocked by what people hear “in our Churches and Chapels,”—why has not this writer, first, the honesty to withdraw from the Ministry of the Church of England and next, the courage to indicate the particular doctrines which offend? To say that “the ordinances of public worship and religious instruction provided for the people of England” are not “really adapted to the wants of their nature as it is,” (p. 150,) is a very vague and unworthy style of urging an objection. Why does not the reverend writer explain wherein the Doctrine and Discipline of the English Church are not really adapted to the actual wants of Man’s nature?
Let every unbeliever however be allowed to state his difficulties
in his own way. Mr. Wilson’s difficulties certainly take a very peculiar shape.
The increased Geographical knowledge of the present
generation has evidently disturbed his faith. “In our own boyhood, the World as
known to the ancients was nearly all which was known
to ourselves (!). We have recently become acquainted,—intimate,—with the teeming
regions of the far East, and with empires,
But granting even that the heathen world “for many ages
before the Christian era” was more populous than all Christendom now is:—what then? This fact “suggests questions
to those who on Sundays hear the reading and exposition of the Scriptures
as they were expounded to our forefathers, and on Monday peruse the news of a World
of which our forefathers little dreamed.” (pp, 152-3.)—And pray, (we calmly inquire,)
Why are the Scriptures to be read or expounded after
a novel fashion, even though our geographical knowledge has
made a considerable advance? To this, we are favoured with no answer.
The “questions” suggested are, we presume, the same which are contained in the
following sentence. “In what relation does
the Gospel stand to these millions Ans. Clearly in the relation of a blessing which has by
all means to be communicated to them. Ans. Certainly there
is. Those which most obviously present themselves are such as the following:—St.
These last seven words, (which scarcely seem of a piece with
the rest of the sentence,) we confess have always seemed a sufficient answer to
the badly-expressed speculative difficulty which immediately precedes; a difficulty,
be it observed, which does not depend
at all on the popular advancement of Geographical knowledge; for
it was urged with the self-same force anciently, as now; and was met by Bp. Butler,
almost in the self-same words Analogy, P. II. n. c.
vi.
I forbear to dwell upon the grievous spectacle with which we
are thus presented. Here is a Clergyman of the Church of England deliberately proposing
the following dilemma:—Either the Prayer Book is incorrect in its most important
doctrinal inferences from
And it seems sufficient to reply:—It is not
we who “wrap up the question,” but God. As
a mystery we find it; and as a mystery, we not only “can,” but
must be content to “leave it.” Further, it is not “our
traditions,” but Holy Scripture itself which tells
us that “by one man Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin; and so Death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned Analogy, P. II. c. v. note (d).
We have been so particular, because whenever any of these writers condescend to be argumentative, we are eager to bear them company. No wish at all have we, in the abstract, to stifle inquiry; no objection whatever have we to the principle of free discussion. And yet, as a clergyman, I cannot discuss such questions as these with a Minister of the Church of England, except under protest. I deny that these are in any sense open questions. To dispute concerning them,—εἰ μὴ θέσιν διαφυλάττων,—one of the disputants must first, at least, resign his commission. It is simply dishonest in a man to hold a commission in the Church of England, under solemn vows, and yet to deny her doctrines. An Officer in the Army who should pursue a similar line of action, would be dismissed the Service,—or worse.—Under protest, then, we follow the Rev. H. B. Wilson, B.D.
Next come three other specimens “of the modern questionings
of traditional Christianity,” “whereby observers are rendered dissatisfied with
old modes of speaking:” (p. 156:) viz. (1) St. Paul “speaks of the Gospel which
was preached to every nation (sic) under heaven,’ when
it has never yet been preached to the half
For my own part, I see not how Mr. Wilson’s proposed remedy meets
the case unless he means to say that in the time of St. Paul the Gospel had been
literally preached to the whole World as far as the World was
then known. If not, it is clear that recourse must be had to some other
expedient. Instead then of the “candid acknowledgment” required of
us by the learned writer, may we be allowed to suggest
to him the more prosaic expedient
(1st) of making
Following Mr. Wilson through his successive vagaries of religious
(?) thought, we come upon a succession of strange statements; the object of which
seems to be to cast a slur on Doctrine generally.—The doctrine of Justification by faith “is not met with . . . . in the Apostolic
writings, except those of St. Paul.” (p. 160.) [A minute
exception truly!].—“Then, on the other hand, it is maintained by a large body
of Theologians, as by the learned Jesuit Petavius and many others, that the doctrine
afterwards developed into the Nicene and Athanasian, is not to be found explicitly
in the earliest fathers, nor even in Scripture, although provable by it.” (p. 160.)
[Would it not have been fair, however, to state what appears to have been the design
of Petavius therein See Nelson’s
Life of Bp. Bull,
p. 215. See Nelson’s Life of Bp. Bull,
p. 242. “The horizon which his
view embraced was much narrower than St.
Paul’s,”—who had enlarged his mind by foreign travel. (p. 168.) In a note, we are informed that at any rate his Gospel cannot,
by external evidence, be attached to the person (!) of St. John as its author.”
“Many persons,” (it is added,) “shrink from a bonâ fide examination of the
‘Gospel question,’ because
they imagine, that unless the four Gospels are received as . . . entirely the composition
of the persons whose names they bear, mid without any admixture of legendary
matter or embellishment in their narratives, the only alternative is to suppose
a fraudulent design in those who did compose them.” (p. 161.) . . . . May one
who has not shrunk from ‘the Gospel question’ be permitted to regret that
the Reverend writer has not specified the charges which he thus vaguely brings
against the Gospels? What,
pray, is the legendary matter; and
which are the embellishments? In the same page we read of “the first, or genuine, epistle of
St. Peter.” Is not his second epistle genuine, then?
The object of three pages which follow (pp. 162-5.) seems to
be to shew that in the Apostolic Age, Immorality of life was more severely dealt
with, even than erroneousness of Doctrine. Except because the writer is eager to
depreciate the value of orthodoxy of belief, and to cast
a slur on doctrinal standards generally,—it
is hard to see why he should write thus. Let him be reminded however that our
Saviour makes Faith itself
a moral,
not an intellectual habit See above, p. lviii.
And thus we come back to the theme originally proposed. “A national
Church,” we are informed, “need not, historically speaking, be Christian (!); nor, if it
be Christian, need it be tied down to particular forms which have been prevalent
at certain times in Christendom (!). That which is essential to a National Church
is, that it should undertake to assist the spiritual progress of the nation and
of the individuals of which it is composed, in their several states and stages.
Not even a Christian Church “Pleas for ‘liberty of conscience’ and ‘freedom of opinion,’” (as an excellent writer has recently pointed out,)
“can have neither place
nor pretext, while there is liberty, for all who choose, to decline joining the
Church of England; and freedom, for all who choose, to leave
her.”—Rev. C. Forster’s ’Spinoza Redivivus,’ (1861,) p. 6.
The phrase “Word of God,” (he says,) is unauthorized and
begs the question. The epithet “Canonical” “may mean either books ruled and determined
by the Church, or regulation books; and the employment of it in the Article hesitates
between these two significations.” (p. 175.) The declaration of the sixth Article
simply implies “the Word of God is contained in Scripture; whence it does not
follow that it is coextensive with it.” (p. 176.) “Under the terms of the Sixth
Article one may accept literally, or allegorically, or as parable, or poetry, or
legend, the story of a serpent-tempter, of an ass speaking with man’s voice, of
an arresting the earth’s motion, of a reversal of its motion In what part of the Bible, (one
begs respectfully to inquire,) is one called upon to “accept the story of an arresting
of the Earth’s motion, or of a reversal of its motion?” . . . Would it not
be as well to be truthful in one’s references to the Bible?
We cannot “suppose Him to suggest contradictory accounts:” [not contradictory, of course; because contradictories
cannot both be true:] “or accounts only to be reconciled in the way of hypothesis
and conjecture.”—(Ibid.) Why not See below, p. 68.
“To suppose a supernatural influence to cause the
record of that which can only issue in a puzzle, is to lower indefinitely our
conception of the Divine dealings in respect of a special Revelation.” (Ibid.)—Why more of a lowering puzzle in God’s Word than in God’s Works See Butler’s
Analogy, P. II. c. iii.
Mr. Wilson proceeds:—“It may be attributed to
It follows:—“But neither to any defect in our capacities, nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any partial spiritual endowments in the narrators, can we attribute the difficulty, if not impossibility, of reconciling the genealogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke i or the chronology of the Holy Week; or the accounts of the Resurrection: nor to any mystery in the subject-matter can be referred the uncertainty in which the New Testament writings leave us, as to the descent of Jesus Christ according to the flesh, whether by His mother He were of the tribe of Judith or of the tribe of Levi.”—(pp. 179-180.) I, for my part, can declare that I have found the reconcilement in the three subjects first alluded to, as complete as could be either expected or desired. The last part of the sentence discovers nothing so much as the writer’s ignorance of the subject on which he presumes to dogmatize.
Presently, we read,—“It may be worth while to consider how far
a liberty of opinion is conceded by our existing Laws, Civil and Ecclesiastical.”—(p.
180.) “As far as opinion privately entertained is concerned,
the liberty of the English Clergyman appears already to be complete.
For no Ecclesiastical person can be Quarterly Review, Jan. 1861, p. 275.
The remarks just quoted serve to introduce a series of views
on subscription to the Articles, which, if they were presented to me without any
intimation of the quarter from which they proceed, I should not have hesitated to
denounce as simply dishonest Take a few as a specimen:—“A great restraint is supposed to
be imposed upon the Clergy by reason of their subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles.
Yet it is more difficult than might be expected, to define what is the extent of
the legal obligation of those who sign them; and in this case, the strictly legal
obligation is the measure of the moral one. Subscription may be thought even to
be inoperative upon the conscience by reason of its vagueness. For the act of subscription
is enjoined, but its effect or meaning nowhere plainly laid down; and it does not
seem to amount to more than an acceptance of the Articles of the Church as the formal
law to which the subscriber is in some
sense subject. What that subjection
amounts to, must be gathered elsewhere; for it does not appear on the face of the subscription itself.”—(p. 181. See down to
page 185.) Can equivocation such as this be read without a sense of humiliation
and shame, as well as of disgust and abhorrence? p. 180 to p.
190. Heading of the XXXIX Articles.
The last stage of all in this deplorable paper is an
“The application of Ideology to the interpretation of Scripture,
to the doctrines of Christianity, to the formularies of the Church, may undoubtedly
be carried to an excess; may be pushed so far as to leave in the sacred records
no historical residue whatever. . . . . An example of the critical Ideology carried
to excess, is that of Strauss; which resolves into an ideal the whole of the
historical and doctrinal person of Jesus. . . . . But it by no means follows, because
Strauss has substituted a mere shadow for the Jesus
of the Evangelists, that there are not traits in the scriptural person of
Jesus, which are better explained by referring them to an ideal than an historical
origin: and without falling into fanciful exegetics, them are parts of Scripture
more usefully interpreted ideologically than in any other manner,—as for instance,
the history of the Temptation of Jesus by Satan, and accounts of demoniacal
possessions.” (pp. 200-201.) “Some may consider the descent
of all Mankind from Adam and Eve as an undoubted historical fact; others may rather
perceive in that relation a form of narrative into which in early ages tradition
would easily throw itself spontaneously. . . . . Among a
particular
To such dreamy nonsense, what “Answer” can we return The reader is referred to some remarks on Ideology towards the close
of Sermon VII., p. 243 to p. 251. “Unhappily, together with his
inauguration of Multitudinism, Constantine also inaugurated a principle essentially
at variance with it, the principle of doctrinal limitation.” (p. 166.) . . . “The opportunity of reverting to the freedom of the
Apostolic, and immediately succeeding periods, was finally lost for many ages by
the sanction given by Constantine to the decisions of Nicæa.”
(Ibid.) “At all events, a principle at variance with a true
Multitudinism was then recognised.” (Ibid.) How does it happen, by the way, that one writing B.D. after his
name, however bitter his animosity against the Nicene Creed may be, is not aware
that Creeds are co-eval with Christianity? Thus we find the Creed of Carthage in
the works of Cyprian, (A.D. 225,) and Tertullian, (A.D. 210, 203): that of Lyons
in the works of Remus, (A.D. 180.) [see Heurtley’s
Harmonia Symbolica, pp. 7-20.] We recognize fragments
of the Creed in Ignatius, (A.D. 90.) We hear St. Paul himself
saying—ὑποτύπωσιν ἔχε ὑγιαινόντων λόγων ὧν
(i.e. the words themselves!) παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἤκουσας . . . . τὴν καλὴν παραθήκην φύλαξον—
But it is time to dismiss this tissue of worthless as well as
most mischievous writing;—even to exhibit which, in the words of its misguided author,
ought to be its own sufficient exposure. Do men really expect us to “answer “such
groundless assertions, and vague speculations as those which go before? A Faith
without Creeds: a Clergy without authority or fixed opinions: a Bible without
historical truth:—how can such things, for a moment, be supposed to be It is really impossible to argue with a man who informs us that “previous to the time of the divided Kingdom,
the Jewish History presents little which is
thoroughly reliable:” (p. 170:)—that “the greater probability seems on the side
of the supposition, that the Priesthood, with its distinct offices and charge, was
constituted by Royalty, and that the higher pretensions
of the priests were not advanced till the reign of Josiah:” (Ibid.:)—that, “The negative Theologian” demands
“some
positive elements in Christianity, on grounds more sure to him than the assumption of an objective
‘faith once delivered to the saints,’ which he cannot identify with the Creed of any Church
as yet known to him:” (pp. 174-5:)—a man who can remark concerning the Bible,
that,—“Those who are able to do so, ought to lead the less educated to distinguish
between the different kinds of words which it contains, between the dark patches of human passion and error which form a partial
crust upon it, and the bright centre of
spiritual truth within.” (p. 177.) Quarterly Review, (Jan. 1851,) No. 217, p. 259.
“Discrepancies in narratives, scientific difficulties, defects
in evidence, do not disturb the ideologist as they do the literalist.” (p. 203.)
No, truly. Nothing troubles him simply because he
believes nothing!
V. IN the present crusade against
the Bible and the Faith of Christian men, the task of destroying confidence in the
first chapter of Genesis has been undertaken by Mr. C. W.
Goodwin, M.A. He requires us to “regard it as the
speculation of some
Mr. Goodwin remarks with scorn, that “we are asked to believe that a vision of Creation was presented to him by Divine power, for the purpose of enabling him to inform the world of what he had seen which vision inevitably led him to give a description which has misled the world for centuries, and in which the truth can now only with difficulty be recognized.” (p. 247.) He puts “pen to paper,” therefore, (he says,) in order to induce the world to a “frank recognition of the erroneous views of nature which the Bible contains.” (p. 211.) The importance of the inquiry, he vindicates in the following modest terms:—“Physical Science goes on unconcernedly pursuing its own paths. Theology, (the Science whose object is the dealing of God with Man as a moral being,) maintains but a shivering existence, shouldered and jostled by the sturdy growths of modern thought, and bemoaning itself for the hostility it encounters.” (p. 211.)—A few remarks at once suggest themselves.
I cannot help thinking that if any person of ordinary intelligence,
unacquainted with the Bible, were to be left to obtain his notion of its contents
from “Essays and Reviews,” infidel publications generally, and
(absit invidia verbo!) from not a few of the Sermons which have been
preached and printed in either University of late years,—the notion so obtained
would be singularly at variance with the known facts of the case. Would not a man
infallibly carry away an impression that the Bible is a book abounding in statements
concerning matters of Physical Science A writer in the Saturday Review,
(April 6, 1861,) in an admirable Article on
the importance of retaining the office of ‘Dean’ in its integrity, (instead of suicidally
merging it in the office of ‘Bishop,’) speaks of there being “no English Commentary on the
New Testament brought up to the level of modern Theological Science.” [As if “the
level” had been rising of late!] “Butler and Paley are still our text-books on
the Evidences; and we are defending old belief’s
behind wooden walls
against the rifled cannon and iron broadsides of modern Philosophy.”—p.
337. What a strange misapprehension of the entire question,—of the relation of
Theological to Physical Science,—does such a sentence betray!
But the surprise would grow considerably when the conditions
of the problem came to be a little more fully stated. Has then the actual history
of the World’s Creation been ascertained from some other independent and infallible
source? No! Are Geologists as yet so much as agreed even about a theory of the
Creation? No! Can it be proved that any part of the Mosaic account is false?
Certainly not! Then why all this hostile dogmatism?—To witness the violence of
the partisans of Geological discovery, and the arrogance of their pretensions, one
would suppose that some Divine Creed of theirs had been impugned: that a revelation
had been made to them from Heaven, which the profane
and unbelieving world was reluctant
One single additional consideration completes the strangeness
of the picture. If our account of the Six Days of Creation were a sybilline leaf
of unknown origin, it would not be unreasonable to treat its revelations as little
worth. But since the author of it is confessedly Moses,—the great Hebrew prophet,
who lived from B.C. 1571 to 1451, who enjoyed the vision
of the Most High; nay, who conversed with God face to face,
was with Him in the Mount for thrice forty days, and received from Him the whole
details of the Sacred Law;—since this first chapter of Genesis is known to have
formed a part of the Church’s unbroken heritage from that time onward, and therefore
must be acknowledged to be an integral part of the volume of Scripture which,
(as our Lord
says,) of οὐ δύναται λυθῆναι,—“cannot be broken, diluted, loosened, explained away;”—since, further, this account of Creation is observed to occur in the most conspicuous
place of the most conspicuous of those books which are designated by an Apostle
by the epithet θεόπνευστος, or, “given by inspiration,” “filled with the breath,” or
“Spirit of God;” and when
it is considered that our Saviour and His Apostles refer to
the primæval history contained in the first two chapters about thirty times See below, p. 235.
It is even amusing to see how vain a little mind can become of a little knowledge. Mr. Goodwin remarks,—“The school-books of the present day, while they teach the child that the Earth moves, yet assure him that it, is a little less than six thousand years old, and that it was made in six days.” (p. 210.) (I am puzzled to reconcile this statement with the author’s declaration that “no well-instructed person now doubts the great antiquity of the Earth any more than its motion.” (Ibid.) Would it not have been fairer to have named at least one of the school-books which perpetuate so wicked a heresy?) “On the other hand, Geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the Earth has existed for an immense series of years,—to be counted by millions rather than by thousands; and that indubitably more than six days elapsed from its first Creation to the appearance of Man upon its surface. By this broad discrepancy between old and new doctrine is the modern mind startled, as were the men of the sixteenth century when told that the earth moved.” (p. 210.)
But begging pardon of our philosopher, if all he means is that
more than six days elapsed between the Creation of “Heaven and Earth,” (noticed
in
But we must hasten on. The business of the Essayist, as we
have said, is to undermine our confidence in the Bible, by exposing the
ignorance of the author of the first chapter. “Modern theologians,” (he remarks,
with unaffected displeasure,) “have directed their attention to the possibility
of reconciling the Mosaic narrative with those geological facts which are
admitted to be beyond dispute.” (p. 210.)—And pray, (we modestly ask,) is not
such a proceeding obvious? A “frank recognition of the erroneous views of Nature
which the Bible contains,” (p. 211,) we shall be prepared to yield when those
“erroneous views” have been demonstrated to exist,—but not till then. Mr. Goodwin
must really remember that although,
After what is evidently intended to be a showy sketch of the past history of our planet,—“we pass” (says Mr. Goodwin) “to the account of the Creation contained in the Hebrew record. And it must be observed that in reality two distinct accounts are given us in the book of Genesis; one, being comprised in the first chapter and the first three verses of the second; the other, commencing at the fourth verse of the second chapter and continuing till the end. This is so philologically certain that it were useless to ignore it.” (p. 217.) Really we read such statements with a kind of astonishment which almost swallows up sorrow. Do they arise, (to quote Mr. Goodwin’s own language,) “from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of assertion which the spirit of true science has taught us?” (p. 252.) Convinced that my unsupported denial would have no more weight than Mr. Goodwin’s ought to have, I have referred the dictum just quoted to the highest Hebrew authority available, and have been assured that it is utterly without foundation.
After such experience of Mr. Goodwin’s philological “certainties,” what amount of attention does he expect his dicta to
command in a Science which, starting from “a region of uncertainty, where Philosophy
is reduced to mere guesses and possibilities,
and pronounces nothing definite,” (p. 213,) has
to travel
For my own part, I freely confess that Mr. Goodwin’s final admission
that “the advent of Man may be considered as inaugurating a new and distinct epoch,
that in which we now are, and during the whole of which
the physical conditions of existence cannot have been very materially different
from what they are now;” (p. 216;) and that “thus much is clear, that Man’s existence
on Earth is brief, compared with the ages during which unreasoning creatures were
the sole possessors of the globe:” (p. 217:)—these statements, I say, contain
as much as one desires to see admitted. For really, since the fossil Flora, and
the various races of animated creatures which Geologists have classified with so
much industry and skill, confessedly belong to a period of immemorial antiquity; and, with very rare exceptions indeed, represent
extinct species,—I, as an interpreter of Scripture,
am not at all concerned with them. Moses asserts nothing at all about them, one
way or the other. What Revelation says, is, that nearly 6000 years ago, after a
mighty catastrophe,—unexplained alike in its cause, its nature, and its duration,—the
Creator of the Universe instituted upon the surface of this Earth of ours that
order of things which has continued ever since; and which is observed at this instant
to prevail: that He was pleased to parcel out His transcendent operations, and
to spread them over Six Days; and that He ceased from the work of Creation on
the Seventh
In my IInd Sermon, I have ventured to review the Mosaic record sufficiently in detail, to render it superfluous that I should retrace any portion of it here. The reader is requested to read at least so much of what has been offered as is contained from p. 28 to p. 32. My business at present is with Mr. Goodwin.
And in limine I have to remind him
that he has really no right first to give, in his own words, his own notion of the
history of Creation; and then to insist on making the Revelation
of the same transaction ridiculous by giving it
also in words of his own, which become in effect a
weak parody of the original. What is there in Genesis about “the air or wind fluttering over the waters of the deep?” (p. 219.) Is this meant for the august announcement that
“the
Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters?”—“On the third day, . . . we wish to call attention to the fact that trees and
plants destined for food are those which are particularly singled out as the earliest
productions of the earth.” (p. 220.) The reverse is the fact; as a glance at
“Light and the measurement of time,” (proceeds As the excellent Townson observed long since,—“The brightness of countenance
and raiment which dazzled and overcame the sight of His Apostles when He was
Transfigured on the Mount, was to Him but a ray of
that glory in which He dwelt before the Worlds were made.”—Sermon
on “The manner of our Saviour’s Teaching,”—Works,
vol. i. p. 282. St. St. But, (to return to the first three days of Creation,)—since the
Author of Revelation seems to design that I should understand that Sun, Moon, end
Stars not only did not come to view until the fourth day,—but also that they were
not re-invested with their immemorial function and office until then,—I find no
difficulty, remembering with whom I have to do,
even with Him who
sowed the vault of Heaven so thick with stars, each one of which may be not a sun but a system[Herschel];—when, I
say, I attend to the emphatic nature of the inspired record, on the one hand, and
to God’s Omnipotence on the other,—I have no difficulty in supposing that He embraced
the Sun in a veil, for just so long a period as it seemed Him good, and when He
willed that it should re-appear, that He withdrew the veil again. The name for the operation
just now alluded to belongs to the province of Philosophy. Divinity is all the while
thinking about something infinitely better and higher.
“The work of the second day of Creation is to erect the vault
of Heaven (Heb. Rakia; Gr. στερέωμα;
Lat. Firmamentum,) which is represented as
supporting an ocean of water above it. The waters are said to be divided,
so that some are below, and some above the vault. . . . No quibbling about the derivation
of the word Rakia, which is literally ’something beaten
out,’ can affect the explicit description of the Mosaic writer contained in the
words ‘the waters that are
For first; Why does Mr. Goodwin parody the words of Inspiration? The account as given by Moses is,—“And God
said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters
The Hebrew word here used to denote “firmament,” on which Mr.
Goodwin’s indictment turns, (“rakia,”) is derived from a verb which means to
“beat.”
Now, what is beaten, or hammered out, while (if it be a metal) it acquires
extension, acquires also solidity. The Septuagint translators seem to have fastened upon the latter notion,
and accordingly represented it by στερέωμα; for which, the earliest
Latin translators of the Old Testament coined an equivalent,—firmamentum. But
that Moses by the word “rakia” intended rather
to denote the expanse overhead, than to predicate
solidity for the sky, I suspect will be readily admitted
by all. True that in the poetical book of Job, we read that the sky is “strong,
as a molten looking-glass See also
The actual fact of the case,—the truth concerning the physical phenomenon alluded to,—comes in, and surely may be allowed to have some little weight. Since expansion is a real attribute of the atmosphere which divides the waters above from the waters below,—and solidity is not,—it seems to me only fair, seeing that the force of the expression is thought doubtful, to assign to it the meaning which is open to fewest objections.
But “the Hebrews,” (says Mr. Goodwin,) “understood the sky,
firmament, or heaven to be a permanent solid vault, as it appears to the ordinary
observer.” This, he adds, is “evident enough from various expressions made use
of concerning it. It is said to have pillars Comp. See
For the foregoing reasons, I distrust Mr. Goodwin’s inference that “the Hebrews understood the sky to be a solid vault, furnished with pillars, foundations, doors, and windows.” But whether they did, or did not, it is to be hoped that he is enough of a logician to perceive that the popular notions of God’s ancient people on this subject, are not the thing in question. The only Fact we have to do with is clearly this,—that Moses has in this place employed the word “rakia:” and the only Question which can be moved about it, is (as evidently) the following,—whether he was, or was not, to blame in employing that word; for as to the meaning which he, individually, attached to the phenomenon of which “rakia” is the name, it cannot be pretended that any one living knows anything at all about the matter. A Greek, Latin, or French astronomer who should speak of Heaven, would not therefore be assumed to mean that it is hollow; although κοῖλον, ‘cœlum,’ ‘ciel,’ etymologically imply no less.
Now I contend that Moses employed the word
“rakia” with exactly the same propriety, neither more nor less, as when
a Divine now-a-days employs the English word “firmament.” It does not follow ἐκλείπειν τὴν ἕδραν. (Herod.) See Copleston’s Remains, p. 107.
Did Shakspeare expect his beautiful language would be tortured into a shape which would convict him of talking nonsense?—But this is poetry. Then take Hooker’s prose:—
“If the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should
loosen and dissolve itself; . . . if the Moon should wander from her beaten way Eccl.
Pol. I. iii. § 2.
Did Hooker suppose that heaven is “an arch,” which could be “loosened and dissolved?” or that “the way” of the moon is “beaten?”—But this is a highly poetical passage, written three centuries ago.—Let an unexceptionable witness then be called; and so, let the question be brought to definite issue. I, for my part, am quite content that it shall be the philosopher in person. The present Essayist shall be heard discoursing about Creation, and shall be convicted out of his own mouth. Mr. Goodwin begins his paper by a kind of cosmogony of his own, which he prefaces with the following apology:—“It will be necessary for our purpose to go over the oft-trodden ground, which must be done with rapid steps. Nor let the reader object to be reminded of some of the most elementary facts of his knowledge. The human race has been ages in arriving at conclusions now familiar to every child.” (p. 212.) After this preamble, he begins his cc elementary facts,” as follows:—
“This Earth, apparently so still and stedfast, lying in majestic repose beneath the ætherial vault,”—(p. 212.)
But we remonstrate immediately. “The ætherial vault!” Do you then understand the sky, firmament, or heaven to be “a permanent solid vault, as it appears to the ordinary observer?” (p. 220.)
“The Sun which seems to leap up each morning from the east, and traversing the skyey bridge,”—(p. 212.)
The skyey bridge!” And pray in what part of the universe do you discover a “skyey bridge?” Is not this calculated “to convey to ordinary apprehensions an impression at variance with facts?” (p. 231.)
“The Moon which occupies a position in the visible heavens only second to the Sun, and far beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness,”—(p. 212.)
Nay, but really Mr. Philosopher, while you remind us “of some of the most elementary facts of our knowledge,” (p. 212,) you write (except in the matter of the “leaping Sun” and the “skyey bridge,”)—exactly as Moses does in the first chapter of Genesis! What else does that great Prophet say but that “the Moon occupies a position in the visible heavens only second to the Sun, and far beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness?” (p. 212.)
Enough, it is presumed, has been offered in reply to Mr. Goodwin,
and his notions of “Mosaic Cosmogony.” He writes with the flippancy of a youth
in his teens, who having just mastered the elements of natural science, is impatient
to acquaint the world with his achievement. His powers of dogmatism are unbounded
but he betrays his ignorance at every step. The Divine decree, “Let us make Man
in Our image, after Our likeness
To return, and for the last time, to Mr. Goodwin’s Essay.—His
object is, (with how much of success I have already sufficiently shewn,) (1) To
fasten the charge of absurdity and ignorance on the ancient Prophet who is confessedly
the author of the Book of Genesis: (2) To prove that a literal interpretation of
But Dr. Buckland “appears to assume” nothing of the kind. His words are,—“The first verse of Genesis seems explicitly to assert the creation of the Universe: the Heaven, including the sidereal systems,—and the Earth, . . . the subsequent scene of the operations of the six days about to be described.” (pp. 224-5.)
“This,” continues Mr. Goodwin, “is the fallacy of his argument.” (p. 227.)
But if this is “the fallacy of his argument,” we have already seen that it is a fallacy which rests not with Dr. Buckland, but with Mr. Goodwin. He proceeds:—
“The circumstantial description of the framing of the Heaven out of the waters proves that the words ‘Heaven and Earth,’ in the first verse, must be taken proleptically.”—(p. 227.)
But we may as well stop the torrent of long words, by simply
pointing out that “the heavens,” (kashamaim,) spoken of in “The difficulty,” he says, (alluding to
The entire subject shall be dismissed with a very few remarks.—Mr.
Goodwin delights in pointing out the incorrectness of “the sense in which the Mosaic
narrative was taken by those who first heard it:” (p. 223:) and in asserting “that this meaning is
primâ facie one wholly adverse
to the present astronomical and geological views of the Universe.” (p. 223.) But
we take leave to remind this would-be philosopher that “the idea which entered
into the minds of those to whom the account was first given,” (p. 230,) is not the
question with which we have to do when we are invited to a “frank recognition of
the erroneous views of Nature which the Bible contains.” (p. 211.) “It is manifest,”—(in this I cordially agree with Mr. Goodwin,)—“that the whole account is given
from a different point of view from that which we now unavoidably take:” (p. 223:) and, (I beg leave to add,) that point of view is
somewhere in Heaven,—not hero on Earth! The “Mosaic
Cosmogony,” as Mr. Goodwin phrases it, (fond, like all other smatterers in Science,
of long words,) is a Revelation: and the same Holy
Ghost who gave it, speaking by the mouth of St. John, not
obscurely intimates that it is mystical, like the rest of Holy Scripture,—that
is, that it was fashioned not without a reference to the Gospel Consider especially
“After all,” (as Dr. Buckland remarked, long since,)
“it should be recollected that the question is not respecting the correctness of
the Mosaic narrative, but of our interpretation of it:” (p. 231:)—“a proposition,”
(proceeds Mr. Goodwin,) “which can hardly be sufficiently reprobated.” But I make
no question which of these two writers is most entitled to reprobation. For the
view which will be found advocated in Sermon II., (which is substantially Dr. Buckland’s,)
(p. 24 to p. 32,) it shall but be said that it recommends itself to our acceptance
by the strong fact that it takes no liberty with the
sacred narrative, whatever; and receives the Revelation of
God in all its strangeness, (which it
cannot be a great mistake to do;) without trying to
reconcile it with supposed discoveries, (wherein we may fail altogether.) I defy anybody to shew that it is
impossible that God may have disposed of the
actual order of the Universe, as in the first chapter of Genesis He is related
to have done; and probability can clearly have no place
in “There have been found
within the area of these islands upwards of 15,000 species of once living things,
every one differing specifically from those of the present
Creation. Agassiz states that, with the exception of one small fossil fish,
(discovered in the clay-stones of Greenland,) he has not found any creature of this class, in all the Geological strata,
identical with any fish now living.” (Pattison’s The Earth and the World,
p. 27.)
Mr. Goodwin’s method contrasts sadly with that of the several
writers he adduces,—whether Naturalists or Divines. Those men, believing in the
truth of Gov’s Word, have piously endeavoured, (with whatever success,) to
shew
that the discoveries of Geology are not inconsistent with the revelations of Genesis.
But he, with singular bad taste, (to use no stronger language,) makes no secret
of the animosity with which he regards the inspired record; and even finds “the
spectacle of able, and we doubt not conscientious
writers engaging in attempting the impossible,—painful and humiliating.” He says,
“they evidently do not breathe freely over their work; but shuffle and stumble
over their difficulties in a piteous manner.” (p. 250.) He asserts dogmatically
that “the interpretation proposed by Buckland to be given to the Mosaic description,
will not bear a moment’s serious discussion:” (p. 230:) while Hugh Miller “proposes
to give an entirely mythical or enigmatical sense to the Mosaic narrative.” (p.
236.) He is clamorous that we should
admit the teaching of Scripture to be “to some extent erroneous.” (p. 251.)
He “recognizes in it, not an authentic
utterance of Divine Knowledge, but a human utterance.” (p. 253.) “Why
With one general reflexion, I pass on to the next Essay.—The
Works of God, the more severely they
have been questioned, have hitherto been considered to bear a more and more decisive
testimony to the Wisdom and the Goodness of their Author. The animal and the vegetable
kingdoms have been made Man’s instructors for ages past; and ever since the microscope
has revealed so many unsuspected wonders, the argument from contrivance and design,
Creative Power and infinite Wisdom, has been pressed with increasing cogency. The
Heavens, from the beginning, have been felt to “declare the glory of
God.” One department only of Nature,
alone, has all along remained unexplored. Singular to relate, the Records of Creation,
(as the phenomena of Geology may I suppose be properly called,)—though the most
obvious phenomena of all,—have been throughout neglected. It was not till the other
day that they were invited to give up their weighty secrets; and lo, they have
confessed them, willingly and at once. The study of Geology does but date from yesterday; and already it aspires to the rank of a glorious Science. Evidence has been at
once furnished that our Earth has been the scene of successive cycles of Creation; and the crust of the globe we inhabit is found to contain evidence of a degree
of antiquity which altogether defies conjecture. The truth is, that Man, standing
on a globe where his deepest excavations bear the same relation to the diameter
which the scratch of a pin invisible to the naked eye, bears to an ordinary globe;—learns that his powers of interrogating Nature break down marvellous soon: yet
Nature is observed to keep
In the meantime, the attitude assumed by certain pretenders
to Physical Science at these discoveries, cannot fail to strike any thoughtful person
as extraordinary. Those witnesses of God’s
work in Creation, which have been dumb for ages only because no man ever thought
of interrogating them, are now regarded in the
light of depositaries of a mighty secret which, because
God knew that it would be fatal to the credit
of His written Word, He had bribed them to keep back, as long as, by shuffling and
equivocation, they found concealment practicable. It seems to be fancied, however,
that that fatal secret the determination of
Man has wrung from their unwilling lips, at last; and lo, on confronting
God with these witnesses, He is convicted
even by His own creatures of having spoken falsely in His
Word I allude to such passages as
the following,—all of which are to be found in Mr. Goodwin’s Essay:— “We are asked to believe that a vision of creation was presented
to him (Moses) by Divine power, for the purpose of enabling him to inform the world
of what he had seen; which vision inevitably led him to give a description which
has misled the world for centuries, and in which the truth can now only with difficulty
be recognized.” (p. 247.) “The theories [of Hugh Miller and of Dr. Buckland] assume
that appearances only, not facts, are described; and that, in riddles which would
never have been suspected to be such, had we not arrived at the truth from other
sources.” (p. 249.) “For ages, this simple view of Creation satisfied the wants
of man, and formed a sufficient basis of theological teaching:” but “modern research
now shews it to be physically untenable.” (p. 253.) “The writer asserts solemnly
and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority.”
But this was only because “the early speculator was harassed by no such
scruples” as “arise from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of
assertion (!) which the spirit of true science has taught us.” He therefore “asserted as facts what he knew in reality only
as probabilities. . . . He had seized one great truth. . . . With regard
to details, observation failed him.”—(pp. 252-3.)
What need to declare that to the well-informed eye of Faith,—(and
surely Faith is here the perfection of Reason for Faith,
remember, is the correlative not of Reason, but of Sight;)—the phenomenon presented is of a widely
different character. Faith, or rather Reason, looks upon
God’s Works as
a kind of complement of His Word. He who gave the one, gave the other
also. Moreover, He knew that He lead given it. So far from ministering to unbelief,
or even furnishing grounds for perplexity, the record of His Works was intended,
according to His gracious design, to supply what was lacking to our knowledge in
the record of His Word. . . . “Behold My footprints,
(He seems to say,) across the long tract of the ages! I could not give you this evidence in My
written Word. The record would have been out of place, and out of time.
It would have been unintelligible also. But what I knew would be inexpedient in
the page of Revelation, I have given you abundantly in the page of Nature, I have
spared your globe from combustion, which would have effaced those footprints,—in
order that the characters might be plainly decipherable to the end of Time. . . . . O fools
and blind,
to have occupied a world so brimful of wonders for
wellnigh 6000 years, and only now to have begun to open your eyes to the structure
of the earth whereon ye live, and move, and have your being! Yea, and the thousandth
part of the natural wonders by which ye are surrounded has not been so much as dreamed
of,
VI. By far the ablest of these seven Essays is from the pen of the “Rev. Mark
Pattison, B.D., Rector of Lincoln College,
Oxford.” It purports to be an Essay on the “Tendencies of
Religious Thought in England, 1688-1760;” but it can hardly be said to correspond with
that description. In the concluding paragraph, the learned writer gives to his
work a different name. It is declared to be “The past History of the Theory of Belief in the
Church of England p. 329.
Had we met with this production, isolated, in the pages of a
Review, we should have probably passed it by as the work of a clever man, who, after
amusing himself to some extent with the Theological literature of the last century,
had desired to preserve some record of his reading; and had here thrown his random
jottings into connected form. There is a racy freshness in a few of Mr. Pattison’s
sketches, (as in his account of Bentley’s controversy with Collins pp. 307-309. Notice prefixed to Essays and Reviews.
We are surprised then to find how slightly Mr. Pattison’s Essay
fulfils its avowed purpose.. The learned author does not, in fact, directly “handle” the class of subjects referred to,
at all: or if he does, it is achieved in a couple
of pages. And yet it is not difficult to point out the part which his Essay performs
in the general scheme of this guilty volume. With whatever absence of “concert
or comparison” the
While Mr. Goodwin demolishes the Law, and Dr. Williams disbelieves
the Prophets; while Professor Powell denies the truth of Miracles, and Professor
Jowett evacuates the authority of Holy Scripture altogether,—while Dr. Temple substitutes
the inner light of Conscience for an external Revelation; and Mr. Wilson teaches
men how they may turn the substance of Holy Scripture into a shadow, evade the plain
force of language, and play fast and loose with those safeguards which it has been
ever thought that words supply;—Mr. Pattison, reviewing the last century and a
half of our own Theological history, labours hard to produce an impression that,
here also “all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
He calls off our attention from the Bible, and bids us contemplate the unlovely
aspect of the English “religious world” from the Revolution of 1688 down to the
publication of the ‘Tracts for the Times,’ in 1833 p. 255.
The curtain falls; and now, pray how do you like it? I invite
you, in conclusion, to “take the religious literature of the present day, as
a whole; and endeavour to make out clearly on what
basis Revelation is supposed by it to rest; whether on Authority, on the Inward
Light, on Reason, on self-evidencing Scripture, or on the combination of the
Such is the impression which Mr. Pattison’s Essay is calculated to leave behind. That he had no wicked intention in writing it, no one who knows him could for an instant suppose: but the effect of what he has done is certainly to set his reader adrift on a dreary sea of doubt. Discomfort and dissatisfaction, confusion and dismay, are the prevailing sentiments with which a religious mind, unfortified with learning, will rise from the perusal of the present Essay: while the irreligious man will study it with a sneer of ill-concealed satisfaction. The marks of Mr. Pattison’s own better knowledge, (sufficiently evident to the quick eye of one who is aware of the writer’s high theological attainments;)—the indications of a truer individual judgment, (discoverable throughout by one who knows the author’s private worth, and is himself happily in possession of the clue by which to escape from this tangled labyrinth:)—these escape the common reader. To him, all is dreary doubt.
I must perforce deal with Mr. Pattison’s labours in a very summary
manner. The chief complaint I have to make against him is that he has altogether
omitted what, to you and to me, is the most important
feature of the century which he professes to describe,—namely, the vast amount
of lofty Churchmanship, the unbroken Catholic tradition, which, with no small amount
of general short-coming, is to be traced throughout the eighteenth century. To
insinuate that the return to Catholic principles began
with the publication of the ‘Tracts for the Times,’ (p. 259,) in
1833, Nos. 74, 76, 78, 81.
In short, to exclude from sight, as this author so laboriously
endeavours to do, the Catholic element of the last century and the early part of
the present, is extremely unfair. There had never failed in the Church of
England a succession of illustrious men, who transmitted the Divine fire unimpaired,
down to yesterday. Quenched in some places, the flame burned up brightly and beautifully
in others. As for the ‘Tracts for the Times,’ they speedily assumed I allude particularly to the late Hugh James Rose, B.D.
The truth is, that in every age, (and the last century forms
no exception to the rule,) the history of the Church on Earth has been
a warfare. Mr. Pattison says contemptuously,—“The
current phrases of ‘the bulwarks of our faith,’ ‘dangerous to Christianity,’ are but
instances of the habitual position in which we assume ourselves to stand. Even more
philosophic minds cannot get rid of the idea that Theology is polemical.” (p. 301.)
And pray, whom have we to thank, but such writers as Mr. Pattison, that it is so? I am one of the many who at this hour are (unwillingly) neglecting
constructive tasks in order to be
destructive with Mr. Pattison and his colleagues So long as Infidelity
abounds, our service must be a warfare. ‘The Prince
of Peace’ foretold as much, when He prophesied to His Disciples that it would be
found that He had “brought on earth, a sword.” As much was typically adumbrated,
I suspect, (begging Mr. Jowett’s pardon,) when, at the rebuilding of the walls of
the Holy City, “they which builded on the wall, and they that bare
The character of the last dismal century, Mr. Pattison has drawn with sufficient vividness: but that century armed the Church, (as we shall be presently
reminded,) on the side of the “Evidences of Religion;” and if it taught her the
insufficiency of such
When the spirit of the Age comes into collision with the spirit of the Gospel, the result is sometimes (as in the earliest centuries,) portentous;—sometimes, (as in the last,) simply deplorable and grievous. The battle which seems to be at present waging is of a different nature. Physical Science has undertaken the perilous task of hardening herself against the God of Nature. We shall probably see this unnatural strife prolonged for many years to come;—to be succeeded by some fresh form of irreligion. Somewhat thus, I apprehend, will it be to the end: and the men of every age will in those conflicts find their best probation; and it will still be the office of the Creator, in this way to separate the Light from the Darkness,—until the dawn of the everlasting Morning!
It is not proposed to enter into the Rationalism of the last
century, therefore; or to inquire into the causes of the barren lifeless shape
into which Theology then, for the most part, threw itself. I have never made that
department of Ecclesiastical History my study: and
who does not turn away from what is
joyless and dreary, to greener meadows, and more fertile fields? It shall only
be remarked that when the Credibility
of Religion is the thing generally denied,
Evidences will of necessity be the form which much of the Theological
writing of the Day will assume. Let it not be imagined for an instant that one is
the apologist of what Mr. Pattison has characterized as “an age of Light without
Love.” (p. 254.) But I insist that the theological picture of the last century
Thus, in the department of sacred scholarship, who can forget that our learned John Mill, in 1707, gave to the world that famous edition of the New Testament which bears his name, after thirty years of patient toil? Who can forget our obligations in Hebrew, to Kennicott? (1718-1783.) Humphrey Hody’s great work on the Text, and older Versions of Holy Scripture, was published in 1705.—Bingham’s immortal ‘Origines’ began to appear in 1708; and William Cave lived till 1714.
In the same connexion should be mentioned Bp. Gibson, who died in 1748, and Humphrey Prideaux, whose ‘Connexion’ is dated 1715. Pococke died on the eve of the commencement of the last century (1691); but so great a name casts a bright beam through the darkness which Mr. Pattison describes so forcibly. Archbishop Wake died in 1737. Warton, the author of ‘Anglia Sacra,’ died at the age of 35 in 1695.
Survey next the field of Divinity, properly so called; and in
the face of Mr. Pattison’s rash statement that “we have no classical Theology since 1660,” (p. 265,) take notice
that Bp. Bull, one of the greatest Divines which the Church of
Christ ever bred, did not begin to write until
1669, and lived to the year 1709. This was the man, remember, who received the thanks
of the whole Gallivan Church for his ‘Judicium Ecclesiæ Catholicæ,’ (i. e. his learned
assertion of our Saviour’s Godhead See Nelson’s
Life of Bull, p. 329, &c.
Such names do not require special comment. They are their own
best eulogium, and present a high title to their country’s gratitude. The name of
Prebendary Lowth, (the author of an excellent commentary on the prophets,) reminds
us that there was living till 1732 one who fully appreciated the calling of an Interpreter
of God’s Word See his admirable Preface. Newman’s dedication of his ‘Lectures on Romanism and popular
Protestantism.’ See the ‘Monitum’ prefixed to Dr.
Routh’s Testimonia De Auctoritate S. Scripturæ Ante-Nicæna.—Reliqq. Sacræ, vol. v. p. 335.
More ancient names present themselves as furnishing exceptions to Mr. Pattison’s dreary sentence. From Abp. Potter and Leslie, down to Abp. Laurence and Van Mildert,—how many might yet be specified! We have not hitherto mentioned Abp. Leighton, who died in 1684: Hickes, Johnson, and Brett, who survived respectively till 1715, 1725, and 1743: the truly apostolic Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man (1663-1755,)—a name, by the way, which deserves far more distinct and emphatic notice than can here be bestowed upon it; and Nelson, the pious author of ‘Fasts and Festivals,’ who died in 1715. We had good Iz. Walton, till 1683, and holy Ken till 1711. Richard Hole, author of ’Select Offices,’ (which appeared in 1717,) is a name not forgotten in Heaven certainly, though little known on Earth; while Kettlewell and Scandret begin a Catena of which good Bishop Jolly would be only one of the later links. Meanwhile, the reader is requested to take notice that there were many other excellent Divines of the period under consideration, (as Long and Horbery;) men who made no great figure indeed, but who were evidently persons of great piety and sound judgment; while their learning puts that of ‘Essayists and Reviewers’ altogether to the blush.
But I have reserved for the last, a truly noble name,—which Mr.
Pattison, (with singular bad taste, to say no worse,) mentions only to disparage.
I allude to Dr. Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham; whose ‘Analogy of Religion, Natural
and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature,’—remains, at the end of
a century, unanswerable as an Apology,—unrivalled as a text-book,—unexhausted
as a mine of suggestive thought. It may be convenient for an
Let me turn from this illustrious individual, to one whose very
name is perhaps unknown. One loves to think that there are at all times plenty of
good men, who are doing God’s
work in the world, in quiet corners; but whose names do not perhaps rise to the
surface and emerge into notice, throughout the whole of a long life. Conversely,
how many must there be, the blessing of whose example and influence has extended
down from the surface, (where perhaps it was acknowledged and appreciated by all,)
until it made itself felt by the humblest units of a lowly country parish! . . .
The obscure village of Finmere, (in Oxfordshire,) was so happy as to enjoy for its
Rector, from 1734 to 1771, the Rev. Thomas Long, M.A.,—“a man,” (says the Register,) “of the most exemplary piety and
charity.” He presented to the church twelve acres of land, “charging it with a
yearly payment of fifteen shillings to the Clerk, as a recompense
to him for attending on the Fasts and Festivals; and ordering sixpence
to be deducted from the payment, for each time the Clerk failed to attend on those
days,—unless let by sickness.” About ten years ago, there was found in the hands
of a labouring man at Finmere, a solitary
Shall we omit, after this enumeration, to notice the singular
fact that Discipline still lingered on,—even the discipline
of public penance,—until within the memory of aged
persons yet living? Merchants in the city of London wore mourning during Lent,
within the present century. It is only within the last thirty years that formula
expressive of reliance on the Divine blessing have been expunged from bills-of-lading,
and similar printed documents. In the beginning of the period discoursed of by Mr.
Pattison, (viz. in the year 1714,) the excellent Robert Nelson, in “An Address
to Persons of Quality and Estate,” proposed as objects for the generosity of the
affluent, such institutions as the following:—“the creating of Charity Schools,”—of
“Parochial Libraries in the meanly endowed Cures throughout England,”—of “a
superior School for training up Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses,”—and of “Colleges
or Seminaries for the Candidates of Holy Orders.” He suggested that there should
be “Houses of Hospitality for entertaining Strangers;” “Suffragan Bishops, both
at home and in the Western Plantations;”
“In 1781, the first Sunday
School was established in England by Robert Raikes, a publisher and bookseller
in Gloucester.”—National Society’s Circular.
We are abundantly prepared therefore for Mr. Pattison’s admission that “public opinion was throughout on the side of the defenders of Christianity:” (p. 313:)—that, “however a loose kind of Deism might be the tone of fashionable circles, it is clear that distinct disbelief of Christianity was by no means the general state of the public mind. The leaders of the Low-Church and Whig party were quite aware of this. Notwithstanding the universal complaints of the High-Church party of the prevalence of infidelity, it is obvious that this mode of thinking was confined to a very small section of society.” (p. 313.)
And surely it should not escape us that the peculiar form which
unbelief assumed during the period under discussion, resulted in a benefit to the
Church. “The eighteenth century,” (says our author)) “enforced the
So far, we have little to complain of in Mr. Pattison’s Essay, except on the side of omission. But for the fatal circumstance of the company in which the learned writer comes abroad, and the avowed purpose with which he is found there, a charitable construction might have been put upon most of the present performance. The following sentences, on the other hand, are not excusable.
“In the present day when a godless orthodoxy threatens, as in the fifteenth century, to extinguish religious thought (!) altogether, and nothing is allowed in the Church of England but the formulae of past thinkings, which have long lost all sense of any kind, (!) it may seem out of season to be bringing forward a misapplication of common-sense in a bygone age.” (p. 297.)
The “orthodoxy” of the fifteenth century is something new to
us. So is the prospect “in the present day,” of
an “extinction of religious
thought,”—the result of “godless orthodoxy.” The fault, or the misfortune of the
Church of England then, is, that she retains “the formulæ of
past thinkings, which have long
But this is ad hominem. The learned writer proceeds:—“There are times and circumstances when religious ideas will be greatly benefited by being submitted to the rough and ready tests by which busy men try what comes in their way; by being made to stand their trial, and be fully canvassed, coram populo. As Poetry is not for the critics, so Religion is not for the Theologians.” (p. 297.)
No doubt. But does Mr. Pattison then really mean to tell us that the proper tribunal before which the Creeds, (for example,) of the Catholic Church,—our Communion and Baptismal offices,—the structure of our Calendar, and so forth, should “stand their trial, and be freely canvassed,” is, “coram populo?” A “rough and ready test,” this, of Truth, I grant; aye, a very “rough” one. But was it ever,—can it ever be,—a fair test? Let us hear Mr. Pattison out, on the subject of Religion:—
“When it is stiffened into phrases, and these phrases are declared to be objects of reverence but not of intelligence, it is on the way to become a useless encumbrance; the rubbish of the past; blocking the road. Theology then retires into the position it occupies in the Church of Rome at present, an unmeaning frost-work of dogma, out of all relation to the actual history of Man.” (pp. 297-8.)
It cannot be necessary to discuss such sentiments. With Mr. Pattison
personally, I will not condescend
But speaking to others,—speaking to
you, my friends,—let me point out that “the tendencies of irreligious thought
in England, 1860-1861,” are indeed in a direction where the Prayer-Book is found to be
effectually
“blocking up the
road.” (pp. 297-8.) Mr. Pattison is simply dreaming,—haunted by the phantoms of
his own brain, and talking the language of the den,—when he complains that “the
Philosophy, now petrified into tradition, may once have been a vital Faith; but
now that” it is “withdrawn from public life,” has ceased to be a “social influence.”
(p. 298.) And when he would exalt the last century at the expence of the present,
(pp. 298-9,) he shews nothing so much as the morbid state of his own imagination,—the
disordered condition of his own mind. He has blinded himself; and he will not or
he cannot see in the healthier tone of our popular Divinity,—in the increased attention
to the study of Holy Scripture,—in the impulse which Liturgical inquiries have received
since Wheatly’s useful volume appeared;—or again, in the immense number of Schools
and Churches which have been recently built,—in the marvellous change for the
better which has come over the Clergy of the Church of England within the present
century,—in the vast development of our Colonial Episcopate within the last few
years,—in the rapid increase of Institutions connected more or less directly with
the Church,—and I will add, in the conspicuous
The age we live in, (Heaven knows!) has many drawbacks. What
age of the Church has not had them? The fatal disposition
which prevails to relax all the ancient safeguards,—the desire to tamper yet further
with the Law of Marriage, and to desecrate the Christian Sabbath,—these are grievous
features of the times; which may well occasion alarm and create perplexity. But
nothing of the kind should ever make us despond; much less despair. There is One
above “who is over all, God blessed for ever.” Shall we not
rather seek to employ these advantages which we have, with a single heart, a single
eye to God’s glory; and leave the issue, with a generous
confidence, to Him? . . . . It was thus that the great
philosophic Divine of the last century comforted himself, amid darker days than
we shall ever experience. Primary Charge, at
the end of his Sermons.
It is time to dismiss Mr. Pattison’s Essay. In doing so, I will not waste my time and yours by carping at the many errors of detail into which he has (not inexcusably) fallen. These are the accidents,—not the essence of his paper. The root of bitterness with the Author is, clearly enough, the Theory of Religious Belief in the Church of England. His concluding words shew this plainly. The sting of the Essay is in the tail:—
“In the Catholic theory the feebleness of Reason is met half-way,
and made good by the authority of the Church. When the Protestants threw off this
authority,
Now all this is discreditable to Mr. Pattison as a Philosopher
and as a Divine. When did Protestant
“Whoever will take the religious literature of the present day as a whole, and endeavour to make out clearly on what basis Revelation is supposed by it to rest, whether on Authority, on the Inward Light, on Reason, on self-evidencing Scripture, or on the combination of the four, or some of them, and in what proportions; would probably find that he had undertaken a perplexing but not altogether profitless inquiry.”—(p. 329.) And so the Essay ends.
With a short comment on the proposed problem, I also shall conclude.
No one but a fool would set about the task which Mr. Pattison
here proposes. The current “religious literature of the day” cannot be supposed, for an instant, to be an adequate exponent of the
mind of the Church of England,—or of any other Church. Revelation
In truth, however, it is idle thus to speculate. We have been
born into the world during the nineteenth Century, whether we wish it or not. We
have been nourished, (God be thanked!) in the bosom of the Christian Church, whether
we would or no. The glory of the Gospel has informed our natural reason, and we
cannot undo the blessed process, strive we as much as we will. The “inward Light,”
(as we call it,) is the lingering twilight of the Day of Creation, in the case of
the heathen,—the reflected ray of the noontide of the Gospel, even in the case of
the modern unbeliever.
VII. The Essay which brings up the rear in this very guilty
volume is from the pen of the “Rev. Benjamin Jowett, M.A., [Fellow
and Tutor of Balliol College, and] Regius Professor of Greek in the University of
Oxford,”—“a gentleman whose high personal character and general respectability
seem to give a weight to his words, which assuredly they do not carry of themselves Rev. M. Pattison, in Essays and Reviews, p. 307.
Mr. Jowett’s quarrel is with the whole body of Commentators on the Bible,—ancient and modern; with the whole Church Catholic. He cannot endure the claim of that Book, (like its Divine object and Author,) to “a Name which is above every other Name.” That Plato and Sophocles should be capable of but one method of Interpretation, and that the literal,—while the Bible lays claim to a yet profounder meaning,—so distresses the Regius Professor of Greek, that he has appropriated to himself almost a quarter of the present volume, in order that he may cast laborious mid systematic ridicule on the very. supposition. Some parts of his method I propose presently to submit to exactly the same “free handling” which he has himself applied to the Word of God. In the meantime, since it is my intention not only to demonstrate the worthlessness of the structure which Mr. Jowett has with so much perverse industry here built up, by an examination of some parts of it in detail, but also to pull down as much of the fabric as I am able within a small compass,—(the construction of something which it is hoped will prove more durable, being to be found in my IIIrd and IVth, Vth and VIth Sermons,)—I proceed at once to inspect the foundation-stone of his edifice; and briefly to demonstrate its absolute insecurity.
1. Mr. Jowett’s fundamental principle is expressed in the following
brief precept: “Interpret the Scripture like any other book.” (p. 377.) To this favourite tune, (although he plays many intricate variations
on it,) he invariably reverts in the end pp. 338, 375,
420 top line, 428, &c.
Mr. Jowett’s formula may be cheerfully and entirely accepted,—apart from the sinister glosses which he immediately proceeds to put upon it. By all means “Interpret the Scripture like any other book.” Let us see to what result this principle will conduct us. As for the formula itself, I take the liberty to assume that it ought to mean somewhat as follows:—“Approach the volume of Holy Scripture with the same candour, and in the same unprejudiced spirit with which you would approach any other famous book of high antiquity. Study it with at least the same attention. Give at least equal heed to all its statements. Acquaint yourself at least as industriously with its method, and with its principle; employing and applying either, with at least equal fidelity, in its interpretation. Above all, beware of playing tricks with its plain language. Beware of suppressing any part of the evidence which it supplies as to its own meaning. Be truthful, and unprejudiced, and honest, and consistent, and logical, and exact throughout, in your work of Interpretation. ‘Interpret Scripture like any other book.’”
Now, (not to be tedious,) if this
were Mr. Jowett’s principle, all further discussion would be at an end. The
general question of the right method of interpreting the Bible would be easily settled
but it would be hopelessly settled—against the Regius Professor
of Greek. As I have briefly shewn, (from p. 144 to p. 160 of the present
volume,) our Lord and His Apostles
openly and repeatedly claim for Scripture that very depth of meaning, that very
extent of signification, which Mr. Jowett so strenuously
It is clear however that the paraphrase above hazarded does not express Mr. Jowett’s principle. “Interpret the Bible like any other book,” means with him something else. And what it does mean, the Reverend author does not suffer us to doubt. He shews that his meaning is, Interpret the Bible like any other book, for it is like any other book. I proceed to shew that this is Mr. Jowett’s meaning.
It becomes necessary however at once to introduce to the reader’s
notice the main inference which, (as already hinted,) flows from Mr. Jowett’s favourite
position. “Interpret Scripture like any other book,”—he says. His business is with the Interpretation of “the Jewish and Christian Scriptures;” and he begins by eagerly assuring us,—and
is strenuous in all that follows to make us believe,—(but simply on
à priori grounds!)—that “the true glory and note
Let us hear what reasons the Reverend author of this seventh Essay is able to produce in support of his favourite opinion. He approaches the subject from a respectful distance:—
(i) “It is a strange, though familiar fact,”—(such are the opening words of his Essay,)—“that great differences of opinion exist respecting the Interpretation of Scripture.” (p. 330.)—‘Familiar,’ the fact is, certainly; but why ’strange?’ A Book of many ages,—of immense antiquity,—of most varied character,—treating of the unseen world,—purporting to be a mysterious composition,—and by all Christian men believed to have God for its true Author: a book which has come into collision with every form of human error, and has triumphed gloriously over every form of human opposition:—how can it be thought ’strange’ that the interpretation of such a book should have provoked “great differences of opinion?” . . . Surely none but the weakest of thinkers, unless committed to the assumption that the Bible is like any other book, could ever have penned such a silly remark.
(ii) “We do not at once see the absurdity
of the same words having many senses, or free our minds from
the illusion that the Apostle or Evangelist must have
written with a reference to the creeds or controversies or circumstances of other
times. Let it be considered, then, that this extreme variety of interpretation
But the “phenomenon” which Mr. Jowett represents as “so extraordinary that it requires an effort of thought to appreciate it,” (Ibid.,) does not seem at all extraordinary to any one who does not begin by assuming that the Bible is “like any other book.”—If the Bible be inspired,—then all is plain!
(iii) “Who would write a bulky treatise about the method to be pursued in interpreting Plato or Sophocles?”—asks Mr. Jowett. (p. 378.)—No one but a fool!—is the obvious reply. Plato and Sophocles are ordinary books; and therefore are to be intetpreted like any other book. The Bible not so, as we shall see by and by. Again,—
(iv) “Each writer, each successive age, has characteristics
of its own, as strongly marked, or more strongly, than those which are found
in the authors or periods
of classical Literature. These differences are not to be lost in
the idea of a Spirit from whom they proceed, or by which they were overruled.
And therefore, illustration of one part of Scripture by another should
be confined to writings of the same age and the same authors, except where the writings
of different ages or persons offer obvious similarities. It may be said, further,
that illustration should be chiefly derived, not only from the same author,
but from the same writing, or from one of the same period of his
life. For example, the comparison
of St. John and the ’synoptic’ Gospels, or of the Gospel of St. John with the Revelation
of St. John, will tend rather to confuse than to elucidate the meaning of
either.” (pp. 382-3.)—But really, in reply, it ought to suffice
to point out that the result of the Church’s experience for 1800 years
(v) “To attribute to St. Paul or the Twelve the abstract notion of Christian Truth which afterwards sprang up in the Catholic Church . . . is the same error as to attribute to Homer the ideas of Thales or Heraclitus, or to Tildes the more developed principles of Aristotle and Plato.” (p. 364.)—Not if St. Paul and the Twelve were inspired.
(vi) He bids us remark, with tedious emphasis, that although the same philological and historical difficulties which occur in Holy Scripture are found in profane writings, yet “the meaning of classical authors is known with comparative certainty and the interpretation of them seems to rest on a scientific basis. . . . Even the Vedas and the Zendavesta, though beset by obscurities of language probably greater than are found in any portion of the Bible, are interpreted, at least by European scholars, according to fixed rules, and beginning to be clearly understood.” (p. 335.)
But at the end of several weak sentences, through which the preceding
fallacy is elongated into distressing tenuity, who does not exclaim,—The supposed
“scientific” basis on which the interpretation of
books
For (α),—If any book were even suspected to be Divine, the manner of interpreting it would of course be different. Not that the “basis” of such Interpretation would therefore cease to be “scientific!” Take the only known instance of such a Book. The Bible has been suspected (!) for 1800 years to be inspired. How has it fared with the Bible?
The Science of Biblical Interpretation is one of the noblest and best understood in the world. It has been professed and practised in every country of Christendom. The great Masters of this Science have been such men as Hilary of Poictiers, Basil and the two Gregories in Asia Minor, Epiphanius in Cyprus, Ambrose at Milan, John Chrysostom at Antioch, Jerome in Palestine, Augustine in Africa, Athanasius and Cyril at Alexandria. The names descend in an unbroken stream from the first four centuries of our sera down to the age of Andrewes, and Bull, and Pearson, and Mill. These men all interpret Scripture in one and the same way. Their principles are the same throughout. They were all Professors of the same Sacred Science.
But (β),—If a book even professes
to have a hidden meaning, it is interpreted by a special set of canons. Thus
Dante’s great poem See all this very ably and interestingly explained in an article
reprinted from the ‘Christian Remembrancer’ (Jan. 1861,)
On certain Characteristics of Holy Scripture, by the Rev. J. G. Cazenove, p. 11, &c.
(vii) Sophocles is perhaps the most subtle of the ancient Greek poets. “Several schools of critics have commented on his works. To the Englishman he has presented one meaning, to the Frenchman another, to the German a third the interpretations have also differed with the philosophical systems which the interpreters espoused. To one the same words have appeared to bear a moral, to another a symbolical meaning a third is determined wholly by the authority of old commentators while there is a disposition to condemn the scholar who seeks to interpret Sophocles from himself only and with reference to the ideas and beliefs of the age in which he lived. And the error of such an one is attributed not only to some intellectual but even to a moral obliquity (!) which prevents his seeing the true meaning.” (p. 336.)
It has fared with Sophocles therefore, (according to Mr. Jowett,) in all respects as it has fared with the Bible. “It would be tedious,” (he justly remarks,) “to follow the absurdity which has been supposed into details. By such methods,” Sophocles or Plato might “be made to mean anything.” (p. 336.)
But who does not perceive that the obvious way to escape from the supposed difficulty, is to remember that neither Sophocles nor Plato was inspired! . . . . Mr. Jowett’s difficulty is occasioned by his assumption that the Bible stands on the same level as Plato and Sophocles.
(viii) Again,—“If it is not held to be a thing impossible that there should be
agreement in the meaning of Plato and Sophocles, neither is it to be
regarded as absurd, that there should be a like agreement in the interpretation
of Scripture.” (p. 426.)—The whole force of this argument clearly consisting
in the strictly
(ix) “Still one other supposition has to be introduced, which will appear, perhaps, more extravagant than any which have preceded. Conceive then that these modes of interpreting Sophocles (!) had existed for ages; that great institutions and interests had become interwoven with them; and in some degree even the honour of Nations and Churches;—is it too much to say that, in such a case, they would be changed with difficulty, and that they would continue to be maintained long after critics and philosophers had seen that they were indefensible?” (pp. 336-7.)
I suppose we may at once allow Mr. Jowett most of what he asks.
We may freely grant that if the Tragedies of Sophocles had
exercised the same wondrous dominion over the world which the Books of the
Bible have exercised:—if Œdipus and Jocasta and Creon; if Theseus and Dejanira
and Hercules; if Ajax, Ulysses and Minerva;—had done
for the world what Enoch and Noah;—what Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;—what Joseph,
and Joshua, and Hannah, and Samuel, and David;—what Elijah and Elisha;
But since it unfortunately happens that they have done nothing of the kind, we do not seem to be called upon to follow the Regius Professor of Greek into the supposed consequences of what he admits to be an “extravagant supposition;” and which we humbly think is an excessively foolish one also.
When, however, the Reverend Author of this speculation establishes
it as a parallel with what has taken place with regard to the Word of
God, we tell him plainly that his insinuation that “critics
and philosophers are maintaining the present mode of interpreting Scripture
long after they have seen that it is indefensible,”—is
a piece of impertinence which seems to require a public apology. A man may
retain Orders in the Church of England, if he pleases, while yet he repudiates her
doctrines: may declare that he subscribes her Articles
ex animo, and yet seem openly to deny
them. But he has no right whatever to impute corresponding baseness to others. The
charge should be either plainly made out, or openly retracted Nor is this a mere slip of Mr.
Jowett’s pen. At p. 372, he states that “a majority of the Clergy throughout the
world,”—(with whom he associates the “instincts of many laymen,
perhaps also individual interest,”)—are in favour of “withholding the Truth.”
But, he adds, (with the indignant
emphasis of Virtue when she is reproaching Vice,)—“a higher expediency pleads that
‘honesty is the best policy,’ and that truth alone makes free!”—How would such
insolence be treated in the common intercourse of daily life?—(I will not pause
to remark on Mr. Jowett’s wanton abuse of the Divine saying recorded in St.
By such considerations then does Professor Jowett attempt to chew that we ought to “interpret Scripture like any other book.” The gist of his observations, in every case, is one and the same,—namely, from à priori considerations to insinuate that the Bible is not essentially unlike any other book.
Now, quite apart from its Inspiration,—which is, obviously, the one essential respect wherein the Bible is wholly unlike every other book in the world; (inasmuch as, if it is inspired, it differs from every other book in kind; stands among Books as the Incarnate Word stood among Men,—quite alone; notwithstanding that He spoke their language, shared their wants, and accommodated Himself to their manners;)—apart, I say, from the fact of its Inspiration, it is not difficult to point out several particulars in which the Bible is utterly unlike any other Book which is known to exist; and therefore to suggest an à priori reason why neither should it be interpreted like any other book.
1. The Bible then contains in all (66–9=)
67 distinct writings,—the work of
perhaps upwards of forty different Authors I suppose that there may have been many inspired Psalmists;
and that perhaps the book of Judges was not all by one hand. With reference to the
two books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, see
2. The Bible is divided into two parts, which are severed by an interval of upwards of four centuries. On these two great divisions of the Bible, respectively, has been bestowed the title of the Old and the New Covenant. And, what is remarkable,—The same phenomena which are observable in respect of the whole Bible, are observable in respect of either of its parts. Thus,
(α) The several writings of which the Old Testament
is composed,—(39–3=) 36 in all By the Jews themselves they were reckoned as 22.
(β) Those many writings of the Old Testament are found to have
been collected into a single volume about four hundred years before the Christian
æra; when they were denominated by a common name, ἡ γραφή,—“The Scripture “It is remarkable that the word Γραφή, which means simply Writing, is reserved
and appropriated in the New Testament (where it occurs fifty times) to the
Sacred writings,
i.e. to the Holy Scriptures; and marks the separation of the Scriptures from
all “common books,” indeed from all other writings
in the world.”—Wordsworth ‘On Inspiration,’—p.
85. St. οὐ δύναται λυθῆναι ἡ γραφή,—St.
(γ) Although the books of the Old Covenant are scattered
at intervals over the long period of upwards of a thousand years, the writers of
the later books are observed to quote the earlier ones, as if by a peculiar secret
sympathy: now, incorporating long passages,—now, simply adapting one or two sentences,—now,
blending allusive references. For some proof of this assertion, (as far as
I am able to produce it at a moment’s notice,)
the reader is referred to the foot of the page e. g. (i) Long passages:— (ii) One or two sentences:— (iii) Allusive references.—(This would involve a prolonged reference to the Hebrew Scriptures,
which would be even out of place here.)
The self-same phenomenon is observable with regard to the New
Testament Scriptures. Although all the books were written within so short a space
as about fifty years, the later writers quote the earlier ones to a surprising extent.
In the Gospels, the Gospels See pp. 234-5.
“The fact, I believe, on close examination, will be found
to stand thus:—The Holy Bible abounds in quotations, even more perhaps than most
other books; but they are introduced in a way which is peculiar to Revelation,
and its own. When a Prophet or Apostle mentions one of his own holy brethren, as
when Ezekiel names Daniel, or Daniel Jeremiah; when St. Peter speaks of St.
Paul, or St. Paul of St. Peter, or of St. Luke the Physician; when they
mention them, they do not quote them; and when they quote them, they do not
mention them Rev. Ralph Churton’s Sermon “On the Quotations in the Old Testament,”
(1807,) published in Townson’s Works, vol. i. p. cxxxiv.,—where see the interesting note.
(δ) The later writer in the Old Testament who quotes some earlier
portion of narrative is often observed to supply independent information,—entering
into minute details and particulars which are not to be found in the earlier record.—Now,
“with the same Almighty Spirit for their guide, what was
it to be expected that the historians of our Blessed Lord
would do? What, but the very thing which they have done? that they would walk
in the path, which the holy Prophets of old had marked out? that they would often
tread full in each other’s steps; often relate the same miracle, or discourse,
or parts of it, in the words of the same prior writer; sometimes compress, Rev. Ralph Churton’s Sermon,
quoted in note (t), pp. cxliv-v.
(ε) It may be worth remarking that though the Inspiration of no part of either Testament has ever been doubted in the Church, there do exist doubts as to the Authorship of more than one of the Books of the Old Testament; and one Book in the New, (the Epistle to the Hebrews,) has been suspected by some orthodox writers not to have been from the pen of St. Paul, but to have been the work of some other inspired and Apostolic writer.
(ζ) History, Didactic matter, and Prophecy,—is found to be the subject of either Testament.
(η) In the New Testament, as in the Old, we are presented with the singular phenomenon of more than one Book being in a manner copied from another,—yet with the addition of much independent original matter. It is superfluous to name Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, on one side,—and the Gospels on the other. To the Gospels may be added the Second Epistle of St. Peter and the Epistle of St. Jude.
(θ) Lastly, the same modest use
of the Supernatural is to be found in either Testament.—In both, the writers are
observed to pass without effort, and as it were unconsciously, from revelations
of the most stupendous character, to statements of the simplest and E. g. E.g. Jacob,
Joseph, David.—St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John. E.g.
3. But by far the most remarkable phenomenon remains to be noticed; namely,
the immense number of quotations, (so far more numerous than is commonly suspected,)—extending
in length from a single word to nearly a hundred and fifty E. g. It is supposed that the three well-known
references to profane writers, (
4. When the nature of these quotations, references, and allusions is examined
with care, several extraordinary phenomena present themselves, which it seems
impossible to consider without the deepest interest, surprise, and admiration.
Thus,—(i.) The New Testament writers, on repeated occasions, display
independent knowledge of the Old Testament History
to which they make reference See above,—(δ). Only given by St. Matthew and St. Luke. Only
found in St. Only found in St. Only found in Only found in St. See Compare
(ii.) The same New Testament writers are observed to handle the Old Testament. Scriptures with an air of singular authority, and to exercise an extraordinary license of quotation; inverting clauses,—paraphrasing statements,—abridging or expanding;—and always without apology or explanation;—as if they were conscious that they were dealing with their own.
(iii.) Most astonishing of all, obviously, as well
as most important, is the purpose for
which the Evangelists and Apostles of our Lord
make their appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures; invariably in order to establish some part of
the Christian Revelation. “Every
thoughtful student of the Holy Scriptures has been struck with the circumstance
which I now allude to: Sermons, by the Rev. C. P.
Eden, p. 185.
5. And thus we are led naturally to notice the extraordinary
connexion which subsists between the two Testaments. “For what is the Law,” (asks
Justin, A.D. 140,) “but the Gospel foretold? or what is
the Gospel, but the Law fulfilled Τί γάρ ἐστιν ὁ Νόμος; Εὐαγγέλιον προκατηγγελμένον· τί δὲ τὸ
Εὐαγγέλιον; Νόμος πεπληρώμενος. Justin:
Quæst. ci. p. 456. Eadem sunt
in Vetere et Novo: ibi obumbrata, hic
revelata; ibi præfigurata, hix manifesto. (Augustine:
Quæst. xxxiii., in
Num. § 1. m. iii. p. 541.)—In Veteri Testamento est occultatio Novi: in Novo Testamento
est manifestatio Veteris. (Id. De Catechiz. Rudibus, §
8.—See also Quæst. lxxiii. in Exod.)
6. Now I might pursue these remarks much further: for it would
be well worth while to exhibit what an extraordinary sameness of imagery, similarity
of allusion, and unity of purpose, runs through the writings of either Covenant;—phenomena which can only be accounted for in one way. This subject will be found
dwelt upon elsewhere; and to what has been already delivered, I must be content
here to refer the reader See below, from the foot of p. 174 to the beginning of p. 176.
(Mr. Jowett himself has been struck by the phenomenon thus alluded
to: but after hinting at “some natural association” as having suggested the language
of the Prophets, he proceeds: “We are not therefore justified in supposing any
hidden connexion in the prophecies where [the prophetic symbols] occur.
Neither is there any other ground for assuring design of
7. Still better worthy of notice, in this connexion, is
the singular fact (which will also be found adverted to in another place Below, p. 108. The render is requested to refer to the place. E. g. E. g. E.g. Analogy, P.
II. ch. vii.
8. And yet the grand external characteristic feature of
the Bible remains unnoticed! The one distinctive feature of the Bible, is this,—that
the four-fold Gospel,
Enough surely has been already adduced to warrant a reasonable man in refusing to accept Professor Jowett’s repeated asseveration that the Bible is “to be interpreted like any other book.” A Book which proves on examination to be so wholly unlike every other book,—so entirely sui generis,—may surely well create an à priori suspicion that it is not to be interpreted either, after any ordinary fashion. But the grand consideration of all is still behind! The one circumstance which effectually refutes the view of the Reverend Professor, remains yet to be specified; namely, that the Bible professes to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost is again and again declared to speak therein, διά, “by the instrumentality,” “by the mouth,” of Man. In other words, God, not Man, professes to be the Author of the Bible!
That the Bible does set up for itself
such a claim, will be found established at p. 53 to
p. 57 of the present volume. Professor Jowett’s assurance that “for any of the
higher or supernatural views of Inspiration, there is no foundation in the
Gospels or Epistles,” (p. 345,)—must therefore be regarded as an
extraordinary, or rather as an unpardonable oversight on
Very much is it to be feared however that the same gentleman
has overlooked a consideration of at least equal importance; namely, the inevitable
inference from the discovery that the origin of the
Bible is Divine. He informs us that,—“It will be a further assistance (!) in the
consideration of this subject, to observe that the Interpretation of Scripture has
nothing to do with any opinion respecting its origin.”
(p. 350.) “The meaning of Scripture,” (he proceeds,) “is one thing: the Inspiration of Scripture is another.”—True.
But when we find the Reverend Author insisting, again and again, that “it may be
laid down that Scripture has one meaning,—the meaning which it had to the
mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered, or wrote it,” (p. 378,)—we are constrained to remind him that, “To say that the Scriptures,
and the things contained in them, can have no other or farther meaning than those
persons thought or had, who first recited or wrote them; is evidently saying,
that those persons were the original, proper, and sole authors of those books,
i. e.
that they are not inspired Butler’s Analogy,
P. II. ch. vii.
On a review of all that goes before, it will, I think, appear plain to any person of sound understanding, that Professor Jowett’s à priori views respecting the Interpretation of Holy Scripture will not stand the test of exact reason. To suggest as he has done that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other book, on the plea that it is like any other book, is to build upon a false foundation. His syllogism is the following:—
If the Bible is a book like any other book, the Bible is to be interpreted like any other book.
The Bible is a book like any other book.
Therefore,
But it has been shewn that the learned Professor’s minor premiss is false. It has been proved that the Bible is NOT a book like any other book.
Nay, I claim to have done more. I claim to have established the contradictory minor premiss. The syllogism therefore will henceforth stand as follows:—
If the Bible can be shewn to be a book like no other book, but entirely sui generis, and claiming to be the work of Inspiration,—then is it reasonable to expect that it will have to be interpreted like no other book, but entirely after a fashion of its own.
But the Bible can be shewn to be a book like no other book entirely sui generis; and claiming to be the work of Inspiration.
Therefore,—
2. It remains however, now, to advance an important step.—Mr.
Jowett, in a certain place, adopts a principle, the soundness of which I am able,
happily, entirely to admit. “Interpret Scripture from itself,—like any other book
about which we know almost nothing except what is derived from its pages.” (p. 382.)
Scarcely has he made this important admission however, and enunciated his golden Canon of interpretation, when he hastens to nullify it. his very next words are,—“The meaning of the Canon is only this,—‘That we cannot understand Scripture without becoming familiar (!) with it.’”
But, (begging the learned writer’s pardon,) so far from that being the whole of the meaning of the Canon, his gloss happens exactly to miss the only important point. The plain meaning of the words,—“Only out of the Scriptures can you explain the Scriptures,”—is obviously rather this:—“That in order to interpret the Bible, our aim must be to ascertain how the Bible interprets itself.’ In other words, Scripture must be made its own Interpreter.’ More simply yet, in the Professor’s own words, (from which, more suo) he has imperceptibly glided away,)—“Interpret Scripture from itself.” (p. 382.) . . . . How then does Scripture interpret Scripture? That is the only question! for the answer to this question must be held to be decisive as to the other great question which Mr. Jowett raises in the present Essay,—namely, How are we to interpret Scripture?
Now this whole Inquiry has been conducted elsewhere and will
be found to extend from p. 144 to p. 160 of the present volume. It has been there
established, by a sufficiently large induction of examples, that the Bible is
to be interpreted as no other book is, or can be interpreted; and for the plain
reason, that the inspired Writers themselves, (our Lord
Himself at their head!) interpret it after an altogether extraordinary
fashion. Mr. Jowett’s statement at p. 339 that “the
And in the course of this proof, (necessarily involved in it, in fact,) it has been incidentally shewn that the sense of Scripture is not, by any means, invariably one; and that sense the most obvious to those who wrote, heard, or read it. It has been fully shewn that the office of the Interpreter is not, by any means, (as Mr. Jowett imagines,) “to recover the meaning of the words as they first struck on the ears, or flashed before the eyes of those who heard or read them.” (p. 338.) The Reverend writer’s repeated assertion that “we have no reason to attribute to the Prophet or Evangelist any second or hidden sense different from that which appears on the surface,” (p. 380,) has been fully, and as it is hoped effectually refuted.
And here I might lay down my pen. For since, at the end of 74
pages, the Professor thus delivers himself, (in a kind of imitation of St. Paul’s
language
We are presented then, in the New Testament Scriptures, with
the august spectacle of the Ancient of Days holding the entire volume of the Old
Testament Scriptures in His Hands, and interpreting it of Himself.
He, whose Life and Death are set forth in the Gospel;—whose Church’s
early fortunes are set forth historically in the Acts, while its future prospects
are shadowed prophetically in the Apocalypse;—whose Doctrines, lastly, are explained
in the twenty-one Epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter, St. James and St. John and
St. Jude:—He, the Incarnate Word, who was “in the beginning;” who “was with
God,” and who
“was God:”—that same Almighty One, I repeat,
is exhibited to us in the Gospel, repeatedly, holding the Volume of the Old Testament
Scriptures in His Hands, and explaining it of Himself. “To day
is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears St. St. St. St.
“Christ was before Moses. The
Gospel was not made for the Law; but the Law was made for the Gospel. The Gospel
is not based on the Law, but the Law is a shadow of the Gospel. In order to
believe the Bible, we must look upward; and fix our eyes on
Jesus Christ, sitting in Heavenly
Glory, holding both Testaments in His Hand sealing both Testaments with His seal; and delivering both Testaments as Divine Oracles, to the World. We must receive
the written Word from the Hands of the Incarnate Word Dr. Wordsworth (Occasional Sermon 54,)
On the Inspiration of the Old Testament, (I859.)—p. 70.
This august spectacle, let it be clearly stated,—(1) Establishes, beyond all power of contradiction, the intimate connexion which subsists between the Old and the New Testament; as well as the altogether unique relation which the one bears to the other:(2) Invests either Testament with a degree of sacred importance and majestic grandeur which altogether makes the Bible unlike “any other book:”—(3) Proves that the Bible is to be interpreted as no other book ever was, or ever can be interpreted:—(4) Demonstrates that it has more than a single meaning:—and lastly, (5) Convincingly shews that God, and not Man, is its true Author.
It will of course be asked,—Then does Mr. Jowett take no notice
at all of this vast and complicated problem? How does he treat of the relation
between the Old Testament and the New? . . . He despatches the entire subject in
the following passage:—“The question,” (he says,) “runs up into a more general
one,
“And this question,” (lie proceeds,) “stirs up another question
respecting the Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. Is such Interpretation
to be regarded as the meaning of the original text, or an accommodation of it
to the thoughts of
other times?” (Nay, but Reverend and learned Sir: “nothing so plain,” as you justly observe,
“that it may not be explained away;” (p. 359;) yet we cannot consent to have the sense of plain words thus clouded
over at your mere bidding. It is now our turn to declare
that the Interpreter’s “object is to read Scripture like any
other book, with a real interest and not merely a conventional one.”
It is now we who “want to be able to open our eyes, and see things as
they truly are.” (p. 338.) We simply petition for leave to “interpret Scripture
like any other book, by the same rules of evidence and the
same canons of criticism.” (p. 375.)
“Our object,” (lie says, and with this he dismisses the problem!)—“Our object is not to attempt here the determination of these questions; but to point out that they must be determined before any real progress can be made, or any agreement arrived at in the Interpretation of Scripture.” (p. 370.) . . . They must indeed. But can it be right in this slovenly, slippery style to shirk a discussion on the issue of which the whole question may be said to turn? especially on the part of one who scruples not to prejudge that issue, and straightway to apply it., (in a manner fatal to the Truth,) throughout all his hundred pages. Mr. Jowett’s method is ever to assume what he ought to prove, and then either to be plaintive, or to sneer. “It is a heathenish or Rabbinical fancy:”—“Such complexity would place the Scriptures below human compositions in general; for it would deprive them of the ordinary intelligibleness of human language” (p. 382):—&c.
“Is the Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New to be
regarded as the meaning of the original text; or an
accommodation of it to the thoughts of other times?”
(p. 370.) This is Mr. Jowett’s question; the question which it is “not his object to attempt to determine;” but which
I, on the contrary, have made it my object to discuss
in my VIth Sermon,—p. 183 to p. 220. Without troubling the reader however now
3. The case of Interpretation has not yet been fully set before
the reader. Hitherto, we have merely traced the problem back to the fountain-head,
and dealt with it simply as a Scriptural question. We have shewn what light is thrown upon Interpretation
by the volume of Inspiration. The subject has
been treated in the same way in the Vth and VIth of my
Now, there is a family resemblance in the method of all ancient expositions of Holy Scripture which vindicates for them, however remotely, a common origin. There is a resemblance in the general way of handling the Inspired Word which can only be satisfactorily explained by supposing that the remote type of all was the oral teaching of the Apostles themselves. In truth, is it credible that the early Christians would have been so forgetful of the discourses of the men who had seen the Lord, that no trace of it,—no tradition of so much as the manner of it,—should have lingered on for a hundred years after the death of the last of the Apostles; down to the time when Origen, for example, was a young man? . . . . It cannot possibly be!
(i.) “The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses,”
(writes the great Apostle to his son Timothy,) “the same commit thou to faithful
men, who shall be able to teach others also See the middle of p. cxcvii. Photius, p. 195, ed. Bekker.—“Eos simul jungendos censui,—Polycarpum, Irenæum, Hippolytum; cum Hippolytus discipulus Irenæi fuisset, Irenæusque
Polycarpum, Joannis Apostoli discipulum, audivisset.”—Routh, Preface to Opuscula, p. x.
(ii.) Our Saviour is repeatedly declared
to have interpreted the Old Testament to His Disciples. For instance, to the two
going to Emmaus, “beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He
interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself St. St.
(iii.) And yet,—(for we would not willingly incur the charge of being
fanciful in so solemn and important a matter,)—the great fact to be borne in mind,
(and it is the great fact which nothing can ever set aside or weaken,) is, that
for the first century at least of our æra, there existed
within the Christian Church the gift of Prophecy; that is, of Inspired Interpretation
St.
Enough has been said, it is thought, to shew that many of Mr.
Jowett’s remarks about the value of Patristic evidence are either futile or incorrect; or that they betray an entire misapprehension of the whole question, not to say
a thorough want of appreciation of the claims of Antiquity. We do not yield to the
‘Essayist and Reviewer’ in veneration for the Inspired page; and trust that enough
has been said to shew it. Our eye, when we read Scripture, (like his,) “is fixed
on time form of One like the Son of Man; or of the Prophet who was girded with
a garment of camel’s hair; or of the Apostle who had a thorn in the flesh.” (p.
338.) See Mr. Jowett’s Essay, p. 354.
(iv.) To assume however that our defective knowledge “cannot
be supplied by the conjectures of Fathers or Divines,”
(p. 338,) is in some sort to beg the question at issue. To say of the student of
Scripture that “the history of Christendom, and all the afterthoughts of Theology,
are nothing to him:” (p. 338:) that “he has to imagine
himself a disciple of Christ or Paul, and to disengage himself from all that follows:” (Ibid.:) is not the
language of modesty, but of inordinate conceit. In Mr. Jowett it is in fact something
infinitely worse for he shews that his object thereby is to “obtain an unembarrassed
opportunity Dr. Moberly, as before, pp. liii.-iv.
“True indeed it is, that more than any other subject of human
knowledge, Biblical criticism has hung (sic.) to the
past;” (p. 340;) but the reason is also obvious. It is because, in the words of
great Bishop Pearson, “Philosophia quotidie progressu,
Theologia nisi regressu non crescit Minor Works, vol. ii. p. 10. Ibid. p. 6.
When therefore Mr. Jewett classes together “the early Fathers,
the Roman Catholic mystical writers, the Swiss and German Reformers, and the Nonconformist
Divines,” (p. 377,)—he either shews a most
lamentable want of intellectual perspective, or a most perverse understanding. So
jumbled into one confused heap, it may not be altogether untrue to say of Commentators
generally, that “the words of Scripture suggest to them their
own thoughts or feelings.” ,(p. 377.) But when it is straightway added, “There is nothing in such a view derogatory to
the Saints and
Doctors of former ages,” (Ibid.,) we are constrained, (for the reasons
Very far am I from denying that “any one who, instead of burying
himself in the pages of the commentators, would learn the Sacred Writings by heart,
and paraphrase them in English, will probably make a nearer approach to their true
meaning than he would gather from any Commentary.” Quite certain is it that “the
true use of Interpretation is to get rid of interpretation, and leave us alone in
company with See Serm. I. pp. 10-11, 13, &c.
Apart from what has been already urged concerning “the torrent
of Patristic Interpretation See below, p. 142.
How did Christianity originate? how did it first establish a
footing in the world? “The answer is, By the preaching of living men, who
said they were commissioned by God to proclaim it. That
was the origin and first establishment of Christianity. There is indeed a vague
and unreasoning notion prevalent that Christianity was taken from the New Testament.
The notion is historically untrue. Christianity was widely extended through
the civilized world before the New Testament was written and its several books were
“What, then, was the Christianity which was thus established? Have we any record of it as it existed before the New Testament became the sole authoritative standard? I answer, we have. The Creeds of the Christian Church are the record of it. That is precisely what they purport to be: not documents taken from the New Testament, but documents transmitting to us the Faith as it was held from the beginning; the Faith as it was preached by inspired men, before the inspired men put forth any writings; the Faith once for all delivered to the Saints. Accordingly you will find that our Church in her viiith Article does not ground her affirmation that the Creeds ought to be ‘thoroughly received and believed,’ on the fact that they were taken from the New Testament, (which they were not;) but on the fact that ‘they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.’”
It follows therefore from what has been said, that even if bad
men could succeed in destroying the authority of the Bible as the Word of
God, all could not be From a Sermon by the Rev. F. Woodward, quoted below, at p. 249.—In
illustration of the learned writer’s concluding remark, take this from the Creed
of Lyons, contained in
Irenæus (A.D. 180),—Καὶ εἰς Πνεῦμα Ἅγιον, τὸ διὰ τῶν Προφητῶν κεκηρυχὸς τὰς οἰκονομίας, καὶ
τὰς ἐλεύσεις In the Creed of Constantinople, we read,
Τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον . . . τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν Προφητῶν.
It remains to shew the bearing of these remarks on Mr. Jowett’s
Essay.—With infinite perseverance, he dwells upon “the nude Scripture,
the merest letter of the Sacred Volume, as if in
it and in it alone, resided the entire Revelation of Christ,
and all possible means of judging what that Revelation consists of: whereas
this is very far indeed from being the The Creed of Lyons begins by describing itself as that which
ἡ μὲν Ἑκκλησία, καίπερ κηθ᾽ ὅλης τῆς οἰκουμένης ἕως περάτων τῆς γῆς
διεσπαρμένη, παρὰ δὲ τῶν Ἁποστόλων καὶ τῶν ἐκείνων μαθητῶν παραλαβοῦσα,
κ.τ.λ. Most refreshing
of all, however, are the concluding words of that Creed: so comfortable are they
that I cannot deny myself the consolation of transcribing them
here, where indeed they are very much ad rem:— Τοῦτο τὸ κήρυγμα παρειληφυῖα, καὶ ταύτην τὴν πίστιν, ὡς προέφαμαν, ἡ
ἐκκλησία, καίπερ ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ διεσπαρμένη, ἐπιμελῶς φυλάσσει, ὡς ἕνα
οἶκον οἰκοῦσα· καὶ ὁμοίως πιστεύει τούτοις, ὡς μίαν ψυχὴν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν
ἔχουσα καρδίαν· καὶ συμφώνως ταῦτα κηρύσσει, καὶ διδάσκει, καὶ παραδίδωσιν,
ὡς ἓν στόμα κεκτημένη· Καὶ γὰρ αἱ κατὰ τὸν κόσμον διάλεκτοι
ἀνόμοιαι, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ δύναμις τῆς παραδόσεως μία καὶ ἡ αὐτή. Καὶ οὔτε αἱ ἐν
Γερμανίαις ἱδρυμέναι ἐκκλησίαι ἄλλως πεπιστεύκασιν, ἢ ἄλλως παραδιδόασιν,
οὔτε ἐν ταῖς Ἰβηρίαις, οὔτε ἐν Κελτοῖς, οὔτε κατὰ τὰς ἀνατολὰς, οὔτε ἐν
Αἰγύπτῳ, οὔτε ἐν Λιβύῃ, οὔτε αἱ κατὰ μέσα τοῦ κόσμου ἱδρυμέναι. Ἀλλ᾽
ὥσπερ ὁ ἥλιος, τὸ κτίσμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ εἶς καὶ ὁ αὐτὸς, οὕτω
καὶ τὸ κήρυγμα τῆς ἀληθείας πανταχῇ φαίνει, καὶ φωτίζει πάρτας ἀνθρώπους
τοὺς βουλομένους εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν. Καὶ οὔτε ὁ πάνυ δυνατὸς
ἐν λόγῳ τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις προεστώτων ἕτερα τούτων ἐρεῖ, (οὐδεὶς γὰρ
ὑπὲρ τὸν διδάσκαλον,) οὔτε ὁ ἀσθενὴς ἐν τῷ λόγῳ ἐλαττώσει τὴν παράδοσιν.
Μιᾶς γὰρ καὶ τὴς αὐτῆς πίστεως οὔσης, οὔτε ὁ πολὺ περὶ αὐτῆς δυνάμενος
εἰπεῖν ἐπλεόνασεν, οὔτε ὁ τὸ ὀλίγον ἡλαττόνησε.—See
Heurtley’s Harmonia Symbolica, p. 9. Abridged from Dr. Moberly, as before, pp. lii.-v.
When therefore Mr. Jowett speaks contemptuously of “the attempt
to adapt the truths of Scripture to the doctrines of the Creeds,” (p.
353,) the kindest thing which can be said is that he writes like an ignorant, or
at least an unlearned man. “The Creeds” (he says) “are acknowledged to be a part
of Christianity . . . . Yet it does not follow that they should be pressed into
the service of the Interpreter.” Why not? we ask. “The growth of
ideas,” (he replies,) “in the interval which separated the first
century from the fourth or sixth makes it impossible
to apply the language of the one to the explanation of the other. Between
Scripture and the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds, a world of the understanding
comes in; and mankind are no longer at the same point
as when the whole of Christianity was contained in the words ‘Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou mayest be saved;’ when the Gospel
centred in the attachment
But there is a fallacy or a falsity at every step of this argument.
For when did the Gospel ever “centre in attachment?” or when was “the whole of Christianity contained” in one short sentence? Supposing too
that “a world of the understanding”
does come in between the first century and the sixth; how does it follow that it is
“impossible” to apply the language of the Creeds
to the interpretation of Holy Scripture? Explain to me how that “world of understanding” affects the Nicene Creed? Even in the case of that
most precious Creed called the Athanasian,—why need we assume
that “the growth of ideas” has been a spurious growth? What if it should
prove, on the contrary, that the development had been that of the plant from the
seed Καὶ ὅνπερ τρόπον ὁ τοῦ σινάπεως σπόρος, ἐν μικρῷ κόκκῳ, πολλοὺς
περιέχει τοὺς κλάδους, οὕτω καὶ ἡ Πίστις αὕτη, ἐν ὀλίγοις ῥήμασι, πᾶσαν
τὴν ἐν τῇ Παλαιᾷ καὶ Καινῇ τῆς εὐσεβείας γνῶσιν ἐγκεκόλπισται.—Cyril. Hieros. Cat. v.
§ 12,—quoted by Heurtley.
Indeed Mr. Jowett seems to be altogether in the dark on the subject
of the Creeds: for he speaks of them as “the result of three or four centuries
of reflection and controversy,” (p. 353,)—which is by no means true of all of them; nor, except in a certain sense, of ally. But when he inquires,—“If the occurrence
of the phraseology of the Nicene age in a verse of the Epistles would detect the
spuriousness
“Absorbed as St. Paul was in the person of Christ, . . . . he
does not speak of Him as ‘equal to the Father,’ or of one substance with the Father Answer.
He certainly does not employ the identical language of the Nicene
Council, or of the (so called) Athanasian Creed. But what then? Ans. Passages of the Epistles “distributed in alternate
clauses between our Lord’s Humanity and Divinity,” begging Mr. Jowett’s pardon,
is nonsense. But no passage in St. Paul’s Epistles which relates to the
Humanity, or to the Divinity of Christ,
could be said to “lose its meaning” by being
unlocked by its own proper clue: or, if the statement be complex, by being distributed
under two heads. Ans. But not, I suppose,
to reconcile them? Why use inaccurate language on so solemn a subject? Ans.
Doubtless we have to suppose this! Ans. Not so. For “there is one Person of the Father, and another of the
Son.” Ans. Doubtless we have to suppose this! Ans. But He did not doubt!
Now if what precedes means anything at all,—(I am by no means
certain however that it does!)—it means that the writer does not believe in the
Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Unless
the sentence which is without a reference to the foot of the page be not a denial
of the fundamental Doctrine of the Faith
But the whole of the case has not even yet been stated. Down
from the remote period of which we have been hitherto speaking,—the age of primitive
Creeds, and œcumenical Councils, and ancient Fathers,—in every country of the
civilized world to which the Gospel has spread,—the loftiest Intellect, the profoundest
Learning, the sincerest Piety, have invariably endorsed the ancient and original
method of interpretation. I am not implying that such corroboration was in any sense
required; but the circumstance that it has been
obtained, at least deserves attention.. Modes of thought
are dependent on times and countries. There is a fashion in all things. Great advances Dr. Moberly, as before, p. xlvii.
Now, to oppose (1) to the learning, and piety, and wisdom, of
every age of the English Church,—(2) to the unbroken testimony of the Church Universal,—(3)
to the torrent of Patristic Antiquity,—(4) to the decision of early Councils, and
(5) the ’still small
4. Our task might now be looked upon as completed.—It only remains, in justice to the gentleman whose method we have been considering, to ascertain by what considerations he is induced to reject that method of Interpretation which, as we have seen, enjoys such overwhelming sanction.
(i) In opposition to what goes before, then, he throws out a suggestion, that “nothing would be more likely to restore a natural feeling on this subject than a History of the Interpretation of Scripture. It would take us back to the beginning it would present in one view the causes which have darkened the meaning of words in the course of ages.” (p. 338-9.) “Such a work would enable us to separate the elements of Doctrine and Tradition with which the meaning of Scripture is encumbered in our own day.” (p. 339.)
Let us here be well understood with our author. The advantage
of a good “History of Interpretation” would indeed be incalculably great. But Mr.
Jowett, (like most other writers of his class,) assumes
the point he has to prove, when he insinuates
that the result of such a contribution to our Theological Literature would be to
shew that all the world has been in error for 1700 years, and that he alone is right.
That ‘erring fancy’ has often been at work in the fields
of sacred
But the Reverend Author forgets his Logic when he goes on from these undoubted generalities to imply that all has been confusion and utter uncertainty until now. Above all, common regard for the facts of the case ought to have preserved him from putting forth so monstrous a falsehood as the following:—“Among German Commentators there is for the first time in the history of the world, an approach to agreement and certainty.” (p. 340.)
Let us however,—passing by the many crooked remarks and unsound
inferences with which the Reverend writer, (more suo,)
delights to perplex a plain question E.g. “We should observe how the popular
explanations of Prophecy, as in heathen (Thucyd. ii. 54,) so also in Christian times, had adapted themselves
to the circumstances of mankind.” (The Reverend writer can never for a
moment divest himself of his theory that Thucydides
and the Bible stand on the same footing!) “We might remark that in our own country,
and in the present generation especially, the interpretation of Scripture had assumed
an apologetic character, as though making an effort to defend itself against some
supposed inroad of Science and Criticism.” (p. 340.) . . . . Just as if any other
attitude was possible when
one has to do with ‘Essayists and Reviewers!’ One would imagine that the Essayist and his critic were entirely
agreed. See below, p. 74,—“I refuse to accept any theory
whatsoever.” And p. 11 5,—“Theory I have none.”
But we may perhaps state the matter more intelligibly and simply, thus:—In order to ascertain the true principle of Scriptural Interpretation, let us,—divesting ourselves of the complicated and voluminous lore of 1700 years,—resort to the Bible itself. Let us go for our views to the fountain-head; and abide by what we shall discover there.
A fairer proposal (as I think) never was made. It exactly describes
the method which I have humbly endeavoured myself to pursue in the ensuing Sermons.
The inquiry will be found elaborated from p. 141 to
Now, the reader is requested to observe that what precedes is the direct contradictory of the position which Mr. Jowett has written his Essay in order to establish. And thus we keep for ever coming back to his πρῶτον ψεῦδος,—the fundamental falsity which underlies the whole of what he has written.
(ii) But although we have eagerly resorted to Scripture itself
in order to ascertain on what principle Scripture ought
to be interpreted, we cannot for a moment allow some of the sophistries which which
the Reverend Author has encumbered the question, to escape without castigation.
He may not first court an appeal to the School of Apostolical Interpretation; and
then, before the result of that appeal has been ascertained, go off in praise of
the illumination of the present age; and claim to represent the Theological mind
of Europe in his own person. “Educated persons,” (he has the
Very much of a piece with this, in point of flippancy,—(though
barely consistent with his frequent assertions that the entire subject is hemmed
in by grave difficulties,)—are the Regius Professor of Greek’s remarks on the
value of learning as a help to the Interpretation of Holy Writ. “Learning
obscures as well as illustrates.” (p. 337.)—“There seem to be reasons
for doubting whether any considerable light can be
thrown on the New Testament from inquiry into the language.” (p. 393.)—“Minute corrections of tenses or particles are
no good.” (p. 393.)—“Discussions respecting the chronology
of St. Paul’s life and his second imprisonment; or about the identity of James,
the brother of the Lord; or, in another department,
respecting the use of the Greek article,—have gone far beyond the line of
utility.” (p. 393.) “The minuteness of the study of Greek
in our own day has also a tendency to introduce into the text
associations which are not really found there.” (p. 391.)—Lastly, he
complains of “the error of interpreting every particle, as though it were a
So then, in brief, the Fathers are in a conspiracy to mislead: Creeds and Councils encumber the sense: Modern Commentators are not to be trusted: the comparison of Scripture with Scripture, except it be
“of the same age and
the same authors,” “will tend rather to confuse than to elucidate:” (p. 383:) “Learning obscures,” and an accurate appreciation of the meaning of the text is
“no good!”—“When the meaning of Greek words is once known Had the following passage occurred
sooner to my recollection, it should have been sooner inserted:—“Are we to conduct
the Interpretation of Holy Scripture as we would that of any other writing? We are
and we are not. So far as the words
are concerned, the mere words of Scripture have the same office with those of all language written
or spoken in sincerity.” They must be studied “by the same means and the same rules
which would guide us to the meaning of any other work; by a knowledge of the languages
in which the books were written, the Hebrew, the Chaldee, the Greek, and of those
other languages, as the Syriac and Arabic, which may illustrate them; and of all
the ordinary rules of Grammar and Criticism, and the peculiar information respecting
times and circumstances, history and customs,—all the resources, in a word, of the Interpretation
of any work of any kind. The Grammatical and _Historical interpretation of
profane or sacred writings is the same. . . . “All Scripture,” meanwhile, “is given by Inspiration of God:” and this at once introduces several important differences;
which whoever neglects may yet, with whatsoever advantages of learning and talent, fail
to discover the real meaning of the Word of God.”—From Dr. Hawkins (Provost of Oriel)
’s Inaugural Lecture as Dean Ireland’s Professor, delivered in 1847,—pp. 29-30. It is but fair to Mr. Jowett to add that,
in terms,
he has very nearly (not quite) said the self-same
thing himself, at p. 337, (upper half the page.) But it is the peculiar method of
this most slippery writer, or most illogical thinker, occasionally to grant almost
all that heart can desire, as far as words go; but straightway to deny, or evacuate, or explain away, the thing
which those words ought to signify.—Thus,
at p. 337, he volunteers the remark that “No one who has a Christian feeling would
place Classical on a level with Sacred Literature;” and at p. 377, he
observes that, “There are many respects in which Scripture is unlike any other
book.” And yet, (as I have shewn, p. cxliii. to p. cl.,) Mr. Jowett puts the Bible on a
level with Sophocles and Plato; and argues throughout as if Scripture were in
no essential respect unlike any other book! “Had this writer reminded us that the New Testament Greek
is a Greek of different age from that of the classical writers; had he simply warned
us that we must not press our Attic Greek scholarship too far, but study the Alexandrian
Greek of the Septuagint, Philo, &c. in order to ascertain the exact meaning of the words and
phrases of the writers of the New Testament;—still more, if, as the result of such
study on his own part, he had offered us some well-digested observations on the
use of tenses, articles, or particles in the sacred writings;—he would have done some service. But this
talk about ‘excessive attention to the article,’ and ‘particles being often mere excrescences
of style,’ is of no effect except to expose the writer to ridicule. It sounds as
if he had been accustomed to lay down the law to an admiring audience of ‘clever
young men,’ and had forgotten that there were still ‘men in Denmark’ who understood
Greek.”—Some Remarks on Essays and Reviews, prefixed to Dr. Moberly’s
’Sermons on the Beatitudes.’ (1861.) pp. lxii.-iii.
Mr. Jowett congratulates himself that “Biblical criticism has made two great steps onward,—at the time of the Reformation, and in our own day.” But his notion is amply refuted by the known facts of the case: for when he adds,—“The diffusion of a critical spirit in History and Literature is affecting the criticism of the Bible in our own day in a manner not unlike the burst of intellectual life in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries;” (p. 340;) he clearly requires to be reminded that the success of the Divinity of the Reformation wag owing to the grand appeal then made to the Patristic writings.
So far then as any of ourselves are resorting to those sources of information, there may be a faint resemblance in kind between the spirit which animates us, and that which wrought so nobly in the Fathers of our spiritual freedom,—Cranmer and Ridley and the other learned and holy men who revised our Offices. But if “German Commentators” and their method be supposed to be the ideals to which the age is tending, then the Theology of the middle of the nineteenth century stands in marked contrast to what prevailed in the middle of the sixteenth , and our spirit is the very reverse of theirs.—But I hasten on.
(iii) “The uncertainty which prevails in the Interpretation of
Scripture,” Mr. Jowett proposes to get rid of,—(this is in fact the aim of his
entire Essay,)—
(α) “The failure of a prophecy is never admitted, in
spite of Scripture and of history, (
Now this can only mean two things: viz. first, that a Divine Prophecy is not an infallible utterance: and secondly, that the three places quoted from the Old Testament are proofs of the fallibility of Prophecy; proofs which ought to overcome prejudice, and persuade men to renounce their “previous supposition” that Prophecy is infallible.
Certainly the charge is a grave one. For if Prophecy is untrue, then what becomes of Inspiration?
And yet, how stands the case? The writer seems to have
expected “that no one would refer to the passages that he has bracketed, or that
all would be too ignorant to know the utter groundlessness of his assumption. If
there are, in the whole Scripture, two past prophecies which were signally and
remarkably fulfilled, they are the first two which he has selected as instances
to be dropped down, without a remark, of the failure of Scripture prophecies I
And as to the third passage, surely it implies an ‘incuria’
which might be deemed ‘crassa’ to have asserted that
it contained an instance of the non-fulfilment of Prophecy Quarterly Review, No. 217, p. 298.
And this, from a gentleman who has the impertinence to remind
us oracularly, that “he who would understand the nature of Prophecy in the Old
Testament, should have the courage to examine how far its details were
minutely fulfilled!” (p. 347.) Are we then to infer that Mr. Jowett’s
courage failed him when he came to
(β) “The mention of a name later than the supposed age of the
prophet is not allowed, as in other writings, to be taken in evidence of the date. (
But what is the meaning of this complaint when applied to
Isaiah’s well known prophecy concerning Cyrus? In
the words of the excellent critic last quoted,—“We know not that we could
point to such an instance as this in the writings of any other author of credit.
Of course, Mr. Jowett knows as well as we do the distinction between History and
Prophecy; and that the mention in any document of the name of one who was unborn
at the time fixed as the date of the writing, would be at once
a complete disproof
of its accuracy as a history of the
past, and a proof of its accuracy as a prediction of
the future. Of course he also remembers that the point he has
to prove is that this passage is History and not Prediction; Quarterly Review, No. 217, pp. 265-6.
And thus, into whatever department of speculation we follow this writer, the tortuous path is still found to conduct us back to the same underlying fallacious assumption,—viz. that the Bible is like any other Book; in other words, is not inspired.
(γ) Persons in Mr. Jowett’s position, “find themselves met by a sort of presupposition that ‘God speaks not as Man speaks.’”—(p. 343.)
“A sort of presupposition,” indeed! . . . . Does the Reverend gentleman really expect that we will stoop so low as argue this point also with him? It shall suffice to have branded him with his own words.
“The suspicion of Deism, or perhaps of Atheism, awaits inquiry. By such fears, a good man (!) refuses to be influenced: a philosophical mind (!) is apt to cast them aside with too much bitterness. It is better to close the book, than to read it under conditions of thought which are imposed from without.” (p. 343.)
Well surely, the proximity to Balliol College of the scene of
Crammer and Ridley’s martyrdom, must have turned the brain of the Regius Professor
of Greek!—Let him be well assured however that not rational “Inquiry,” but irrational
assumption; not the modest cogitations of “a philosophical
mind,” but the arrogant dreams of a weak and confused intellect,
are what have
(iv) Subsequently, (p. 344,) Mr. Jowett professes to grapple
with the phenomenon of Inspiration. His method is instructive. He begins by inadvertently
advancing a direct untruth: for he asserts that for none “of the higher or supernatural
views of Inspiration is there any foundation in the
Gospels or Epistles.” (p. 345.)—Had he then forgotten St. Paul’s statements in
(α) Inspiration does not preserve a writer from inaccuracy.
And the charge is substantiated by the following ridiculous enumeration:—“One
[Evangelist] supposes the original dwelling-place of our Lord’s
Parents to have been Bethlehem St.
“In the same way,
he who would understand the nature of Prophecy in the Old Testament, should have
the courage to examine how far its details were minutely fulfilled.
The absence of such a fulfilment may further lead him
to discover that he took the letter for the spirit in expecting it.” (p. 347.) But
really this is again simply to beg the whole question. Unbecoming in any writer,
how absurd also is such a sentence from the pen of one who, (as we have lately seen,)
no sooner descends to particulars than he makes himself ridiculous by betraying
his own excessive ignorance. . . . “The letter for the spirit,” also! which
(β) Still bent on shewing that Inspiration does not secure Scripture from blots and blemishes, Mr. Jowett proceeds as follows. (I must present him to the reader, for a short space, in extenso; since by no other expedient can the complicated fallacies of his very intricate and perverse method be exposed.)
“Inspiration is a fact which we infer from the study of Scripture,—not
of one portion only, but of the whole.” (p. 347.) (Now even this
is not a correct way of stating the case. Still, because the words
may bear an honourable sense, we pass on.)—“Obviously
then, it embraces writings of very different kinds,—the book of Esther, for example,
or the Song of Solomon, as well as the Gospel of St. John.” (That
the volume of Inspiration is of this complex character, and that
it embraces writings so diverse, is beyond dispute.)—“It is reconcileable with the mixed good and evil of the characters of the Old
Testament, which. nevertheless does not exclude them from the favour of
God.”
(Why the Inspiration of a writer should not be ‘reconcileable’ with any amount of wickedness in the persons about
whom he writes,—I am quite at a loss to perceive. Neither do I see why “the mixed
good and evil” of certain “characters of the Old Testament,” (or of the New either,)
should “exclude them from the favour of God.” What else becomes of your hope, and
mine, of Eternal Life?)—“Inspiration is also reconcileable,” (he proceeds,)—“
with the attribution to the Divine Being of actions at variance
with that higher revelation which He has given of Himself in See Sermon VII., pp. 222-232.
(γ) The Reverend writer promises us help, from “another consideration
which has been neglected by writers on this subject.” (The announcement makes us
attentive.)—“It is this,—that any true Doctrine of Inspiration must conform to
all well-ascertained facts of History or of Science.” (We scarcely see the drift
of this ill-worded proposition; but are disposed to assent.)—“The same fact cannot
be true and untrue,” (Who ever supposed that it could?)—“any more than the same
words can have two opposite meanings.” (But why glide at once into a gross falsity? Essays and Reviews, p. 109.
(δ) We are next informed “that there are a class of scientific
facts with which popular opinions on Theology often conflict. . . . . Such especially are
the facts
relating to the formation of the Earth and the beginnings of the Human. Race.”
(p. 349.) (And pray, what “facts “are these, relative
to the “beginnings of the Human Race,” which conflict with Scripture?) . . . . “Almost all intelligent persons are agreed that the earth has existed for myriads
of ages:” (Which is perfectly true.)—“The best informed are of opinion that the
history of nations extends back some thousand
Now, what a curious picture of a perverse and crooked mind does
such a sentence exhibit Divine Revelation can “have no influence,” of course, on facts of any kind, (including
facts in Physical Science,)
And then, the maudlin tenderness of an “Essayist and Reviewer” (of all persons in the world!) for “the life of Man,”—meaning thereby his Christian hope, and Faith in the Redeemer! . . . As if, (first,) Man’s “Life” were in any sense endangered, by our upholding the honour and authority of the Bible! And (secondly,) as if the age had shewn itself in the least degree impatient of scientific investigation I And (thirdly,) as if Religion depended, or could be made to depend, on Physical phenomena, or on the progress of Natural Science, at all! . . . . I scruple not to say that arguments like these impress me with the meanest opinion of Mr. Jowett’s intellectual powers: while they prove to demonstration that he does not in the least understand the subject on which he yet writes with such feeble vehemence.
But I may not proceed any further, or my pages See Dr. Moberly, (as before,) p. lv-lx.
Professor Jowett shuts up his Essay with a passage which, for a certain amount of tender pathos in the sentiment, has been often quoted, and sometimes admired. He says:—
“The suspicion or difficulty which attends critical inquiries is no reason for doubting their value. The Scripture nowhere leads us to suppose that the circumstance of all men speaking well of us is any ground for supposing that we are acceptable in the sight of God. And there is no reason why the condemnation of others should be witnessed to by our own conscience. Perhaps it may be true that, owing to the jealousy or fear of some, the reticence of others, the terrorism of a few, we may not always find it easy to regard these subjects with calmness and judgment. But, on the other hand, these accidental circumstances have nothing to do with the question at issue; they cannot have the slightest influence on the meaning of words, or on the truth of facts. . . .
“Lastly, there is some nobler idea of truth than is supplied
by the opinion of mankind in general, or the voice of parties in a Church. Every
one, whether a student of Theology or not, has need to make war against his prejudices
no less than against his passions; and, in the religious teacher, the first is
even more necessary than the last. . . . . He who takes the prevailing opinions of Christians
and decks them out in their gayest colours,—who reflects the better mind of the
world to itself—is likely to be its favourite teacher. In that ministry of the Gospel,
even when assuming forms repulsive to persons of education (!), no doubt the good
is far greater than the error or harm. But there is also a deeper work which is
not dependent on the opinions of men, in which many elements combine, some alien
to Religion, or accidentally at variance with it. That work can hardly expect to
win much popular favour, so far as it runs counter to the feelings of religious
parties. But he who bears a
My respect for a fellow-man induces me to offer a few remarks on all this.
Let me be permitted then to declare that I am as incapable as
any one who ever breathed the air of this lower world, of making light of the sentiments
of true genius. I can respond with my whole heart to the passion-stricken cry of
one who, when “regarded with suspicion by many of his contemporaries,” is observed
to hail his fellows with confidence, across the gulph of Time; and as it were implore
them, after many days, to do him right. Nay, were I to behold a man of splendid,
but misguided powers, elaborating from God’s
Word a plausible system of his own, whereby to bring back the Golden Age to
suffering Humanity; and insisting that he beheld in the common revelations of
the Spirit, the unsuspected outlines of such a form of polity as Man never dreamed
of,—(nor, it may be, Angels either;)—I should experience a kind of generous sympathy
with this bright-eyed enthusiast; even while I proceeded to test his wild dream
by what I believed to be the standard of right Reason. Then, as the specious fabric
was seen suddenly to collapse and melt away, should I not, with affectionate sorrow,
secretly mourn that such brilliant parts had not been
Once more. Although the cold shade of unbelief has never for an instant, (thank God!) darkened my spirit; so that one may not be very apt to sympathize with men who walk about hampered with a doubt; yet, were one to know, (as one has often known,—too often, alas!) that the arrow was rankling in a friend’s heart,—who by consequence shunned the society of his fellows, and walked in moody abstraction,—looking as if life had lost its charm, and as if nothing on the earth’s surface were any longer to him a joy;—would one not be the first to go after such a sufferer; and seek whether a firm hand and steady eye might not avail to extract the poisoned shaft? If that might not be, at least by daily acts of unaltered kindness, and the ways which brotherly sympathy suggests, who would not strive to recover such an one? If all other arts proved unavailing, it would remain for a man with the ordinary instincts of humanity, in silence and sorrow at least, to look on, while the solitary doubter was paying the bitter penalty,—doubtless, of his sin.
But how widely different,—rather, how utterly dissimilar,—is
the phenomenon before us! Here is a singularly confused and shallow thinker
oppressed with the vastness of his discovery, that the Bible—has nothing in it! Here is a Clergyman of the Church of England, and
a Lecturer in Divinity, whose difficulty is how he
shall convince the world that the Bible is—like any other book! Here is the sceptical Edinburgh Review,
(April, 1861,) p. 476.
I shall be thought a very profane person, I dare say, by the
friends and apologists of Mr. Jowett, if I avow that the passage with which he
concludes his Essay, instead of sounding in my ears like the plaintive death-song
of departing Genius, sounds to me like nothing so much as the piteous whine of a
schoolboy who knows that he deserves chastisement,
and perceives that he is about to experience his deserts. System, or Theory, the
Reverend Gentleman has none to propose. Views, except negative ones, Mr. Jowett
is altogether guiltless of. Can anybody in his senses suppose that a man “has,
by a Divine help (!), been enabled to plant his foot somewhere beyond the
waves of Time,” (p. 433,) who doubts everything, and believes nothing? Can
any one of sane mind dream that posterity will come to the rescue of a man who,
when he is asked for his story, rejoins, (with a well-known needy mechanic,)
that he has “none to tell, Sir?” What then
is posterity to vindicate? What has the Regius Professor
of Greek written so many
But this is not all. Instead of coining abroad, (if come abroad he must,) in that garb of humility which befits doubt,—that self-distrust which becomes one whose fault, or whose misfortune it is, that he simply cannot believe,—Mr. Jewett assumes throughout, the insolent air of intellectual superiority the tone of one at whose bidding Theology must absolutely ‘keep moving.’ A truncheon and a number on his collar, alone seem wanting. The menacing voice, and authoritative air, are certainly not away,—as I proceed to shew.
“It may be observed that a change in some of the prevailing modes of Interpretation, is not so much a matter of expediency as of necessity. The original meaning of Scripture is beginning to be understood.” (p. 418.)
“Criticism has far more power than it formerly had. It has spread itself over ancient, and even modern history. . . .
Whether Scripture can be made an exception
“It has to be considered whether the intellectual forms under which Christianity has been described, may not also be in a state of transition.” (p. 420.)
“Now, as the Interpretation of Scripture is receiving another character, it seems that distinctions of Theology which were in great measure based on old Interpretations, are beginning to fade away.” . . . “There are other signs that times are changing, and we are changing too.” (p. 421.)
“These reflections bring us back to the question with which we began,—What effect will the critical Interpretation of Scripture have on Theology?” (p. 422.)
Again:—“As the time has come when it is no longer possible to ignore the results of criticism, it is of importance that Christianity should be seen to be in harmony with them.” (p. 374.) (The sentences which immediately follow shall be exhibited in distinct paragraphs, in order that they may separately enjoy admiration. Each is a gem or a curiosity in its way.)
“That objections to some received views should be valid, and yet that they should be always held up as the objections of Infidels,—is a mischief to the Christian cause.”
“It is a mischief that critical observations which tiny intelligent man can. make for himself (!), should be ascribed to Atheism or Unbelief.”
“It would be a strange and almost incredible thing that the Gospel, which at first made war only on the vices of mankind, should now be opposed to one of the highest and rarest of human virtues,—the love of Truth.”
“And that in the present day the great object of Christianity should be, not to change the lives of men, but to prevent them from changing their opinions; that would be a singular inversion of the purposes for which Christ came into the world.”
We are really constrained to pause for a moment, and to inquire what this last sentence means. Are not “the lives of men” mainly dependent on “their opinions?” Why then contrast the two? And which of our “opinions” does Mr. Jowett desire to see changed? Would he have us resign our belief in the Atonement? reject the Divinity of Christ? deny the Personality of the Holy Ghost? put the Bible on a level with Sophocles and Plato? ridicule the idea of Inspiration? . . . How would it be a “singular inversion of the purposes of Christ’s Coming,” that Christianity should “prevent” mankind from “changing” such “opinions” as these?
“The Christian religion is in a false position when all the tendencies of knowledge are opposed to it.” (All the tendencies of knowledge, then, are opposed to the Christian Religion!)
“Such a position cannot be long maintained, or can
only end in the withdrawal of the educated classes from the influences of
Religion.” (So we are to look for “the withdrawal of the educated classes
from the influences of Religion The Rev. H. B. Wilson says,—“If those who distinguish themselves
in Science and Literature cannot, in a scientific and literary age, be effectually
and cordially attached to the Church of their nation, they must sooner or later
be driven into a position of hostility to it.” (p. 198.) This is one of the many notes, if not of
“concert
and comparison,” at least of intense sympathy
between the Essayists and Reviewers.
After anticipating “religious dissolution,” because of “the progress of ideas, (!) with which Christian teachers seem to be ill at ease,” (!) Mr. Jowett, (who we presume is speaking of himself,) says, “Time was when the Gospel was before the Age:” (The Gospel is therefore now behind the age!)—“when the difficulties of Christianity were difficulties of the heart only:” (When was that?)—“and the highest minds found in its truths not only the rule of their lives, but a wellspring of intellectual delight.” (All this then has ceased to be the case! “The highest minds” being of course represented by—Mr. Jowett!)
“Is it to be held a thing impossible that the Christian Religion, instead of shrinking into itself, (!) may again embrace the thoughts of men upon the earth?” (that is to say, “embrace the thoughts” of—Mr. Jowett!)—“Or is it true that since the Reformation ‘all intellect has gone the other way?’”
“But for the faith that the Gospel might win again the minds of intellectual men,” (such men as Mr. Jowett?)—“it would be better to leave Religion to itself, instead of attempting to draw them together.” (p. 376.)
Now this kind of language, in daily life, would be called sheer
impertinence; and the person who could talk so before educated gentlemen would
probably receive an intimation that he was making himself offensive. He would certainly
be looked upon as a weak and conceited person. I really am unable to see why things
should be written and printed which no one would presume
to say! . . . Encircled by a little atmosphere of
fog of his own creating, Mr. Jowett is evidently under the delusion that his own
confused vision and misty language are the result of the giddy
True enough it is that had such airs been assumed by such an
one as Richard Hooker, who achieved the first four books of his ‘Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity’ before he was 40; and dying in his 46th year, proved himself to be the
greatest genius of his age:—had language like Mr. Jowett’s been found on the lips
of Joseph Butler, who when he was 44 produced his immortal ‘Analagy,’ and at the
age of 26 delivered his famous Rolls ’Sermons:’—had Bishop Bull been betrayed into
the language of self-complacency when, at the age of 35, he made himself famous
by his ‘Harmonia Apostolica:’—the proceeding would have been intelligible,
however much one might have lamented such an exhibition of weakness. . . . But when
the speaker proves to be one of the very shallowest of thinkers, and most confused
of reasoners;—a man who, although grey-headed, has done nothing whatever for Literature,
sacred or profane;—nor indeed is known out of Oxford except for having been thought
to deny the Doctrine of the Atonement;—a man who dogmatizes in a Science of which
he clearly does Quarterly Review, No. 217, p. 266. See at pp. 351, 352, 357, 358,
361, 365, 367, 413, &c.
On a review of these Seven Essays, few things strike one more
forcibly than the utterly untenable ground occupied by their authors. They are “in a position Quarterly Review, as before, p. 282.
To exactness of method or System, their work can hardly pretend; and yet they have
a system,—which has only not been rounded into symmetry, by the singular
circumstance that these seven writers “have written in entire independence of one another, and without
concert or comparison.” They avow a common purpose, however; for they “hope” that their joint labours
“will be received as an attempt
to illustrate,” (whatever that may mean,) “the advantage derivable to the
cause of Religion and Moral Truth” from what they have here attempted; and which
they justly characterize as “free handling.”
Putting oneself in their position, it is easy to imagine the sorrow and concern,—the
horror rather,—with which a good man, when the first
edition of ‘Essays and Reviews’ made its appearance, would have discovered the kind
of complicity into which he had been inadvertently betrayed; and how eagerly he
would have withdrawn from a literary partnership which had resulted so disastrously.
At the end of nine largo editions, however, the corporate responsibility of each
individual author has become fully established; and besides the many proofs of
sympathy between the several authors which these pages contain Take a few instances:—Mr. Wilson and Mr. Jowett speak of the
Gospels as more or less accurately embodying a common tradition,
pp. 161 and 346.—Dr. Temple and Mr. Jowett
propose the heart and conscience, as the overruling principle,
pp. 42-5, and 410:—and insist that the Bible is “a Spirit, not a Letter,” pp. 36
and 357, 375, 425.—Dr. Temple and Dr. Williams regard the Bible as the voice of conscience, pp. 45 and 78:—look for
a verifying faculty in the individual,
pp. 45 and 83:—dwell on the “interpolations” in Scripture, pp. 47 and 78.—Mr.
Wilson and Mr. Jowett insist on the meaning which Scripture had to those who first heard it, as its true meaning, pp. 219, 223, 230, 232, and 338,
378:—on the necessity of reconciling Intellectual men
to Scripture, pp. 198 and 374.—Professor
Powell and Mr. Jowett are of one mind as to Miracles, pp. 109 and 349.—Dr. Temple
and Mr. Jowett delight in the same image of the Colossal Man, pp. 1-49 and 331,
387, 422.—Dr. Williams and Mr. Jowett coincide in their estimate of the German Commentators,
pp. 67 and 340.—Dr. Temple and Dr. Williams are of one mind as to the past training
of our Race, pp. 1-49,
and 51. They are generally agreed as to the
untrustworthiness of Genesis, and of the Scripture generally, the hopeless contradictions
between the Evangelists, &c., &c. They hold the same language about our having outlived
the Faith, (‘Traditional Christianity,’ as it is called;) the impossibility of
freedom of thought; the necessity of providing some new Religious system; the
effete nature of Creeds and formularies of Belief; the advance in Natural Science
as likely to prove fatal to Theology, &c., &c.
What then is the system, or theory, or view, advocated by these
seven Authors?—They are all agreed that we are “placed evidently at an epoch
when
In the mean time, the Bible is a stubborn fact in the way of the new Religion. Nay, the English
Book of Common Prayer is a great hindrance for those “formulæ of past thinkings, have long lost all sense of any kind;” (p. 297;) so that the
Prayer-book “is on the way to become a useless encumbrance, the rubbish of the
past, blocking the road.” (Ibid.) But the See Creed of Lyons, A.D. 180; see above, p. clxxx., note.
It is plain that Prophecy must be evacuated of its meaning;
or rather, must be denied entirely: and to do this, falls to the share of the vulgar
awl violent Vice-Principal of Lampeter College. Disprove he cannot; so he sneers
and rails and blusters instead. Prophecy, he calls “omniscience;” “a notion
of foresight pp. cxciv.-v.
To deny the truth of Miracles falls to the lot of the Savilian Professor of Astronomy. His method has the merit of extreme simplicity: for it is based on the ground that, in the writer’s opinion, Miracles are impossible,—which of course must be held to be decisive of the question.
The battle against the Inspiration of the Word of God is reserved for the Regius Professor of Greek; who requires for his purpose twice the space of any of his fellows. His method is also of the simplest kind, when divested of its many encumbrances. He simply assumes it as proved that the Bible is a book not essentially different from Sophocles and Plato. In other words he assumes that the Bible is not inspired; and reproaches, pities, or sneers at every one who is not of his opinion.
In the meantime, What is Prophecy? What
are Miracles? Of what sort is
that Bible which has imposed upon mankind so grossly, and so long? They
are facts, and must be explained. What
are they? Prophecy, then, is “only
the power of seeing the ideal in the actual, or of tracing the Divine
Government in the movements of men.” (p. 70.) As for Miracles, “their evidential
force is wholly relative to the apprehensions of the
parties addressed. . . . Columbus’ prediction of the Eclipse to the native islanders,”
(p. 115,) is advanced as an illustration of the nature of the argument from. Miracles.
By whatever method
The great object, in short, is to bring about “a reconciliation” (p. 375,) between
“the minds of intellectual men” (p. 376,) and Christianity. Such
a reconciliation is to be regarded as a “restoration of belief.” (p. 375.) And
it is ‘to be effected by “taking away some of the external supports,
because they are not needed and do harm: also because they interfere with the meaning.”
(p. 375.)—Those “external supports” are (1) a belief in the Inspiration of the
Bible;—(2) the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church;—(3) Creeds
and the decisions of Councils ,—(4) the works of Anglican Divines;—(5) Learning; (p. 337;)—(6) a profound acquaintance with the Greek language; (p. 393;)—(7)
a minute knowledge of Greek Grammar; (p. 391;)—(8) the Doctrine of the Greek Article;—(9) the free use of the parallel passages. . . . The Bible, when interpreted by
any self-relying young man who knows a
little Greek, and attends to the meaning of words,—will be
But what kind of thing will this Bible be? The beginning of
Genesis, (pp. 207-253,) is to be rejected because it “is not an authentic utterance
of Divine knowledge, but a human utterance, which it has pleased Providence to use
in a special way for the education of mankind.” (p. 253.) We are invited to “a frank recognition of the erroneous views
of Nature which the Bible contains.” (p. 211.) Thus, all miraculous transactions
will have to be explained away. The volume of Prophecy will have to be regarded
as a volume of History. The very History will have to be read with distrust. Like
other records, it is subject to the conditions of “knowledge which existed in an
early stage of the world.” (p. 411.) It does not even begin to be authentic, until
B.C. 1900; or rather, until B.C. 900 See
pp. 57 and 170.
But this historical Bible is not to be regarded as the rule of a man’s life, or indeed as an external Law at all. (pp. 36, 45.) “We walk now by Reason and Conscience alone.” (p. 21.) The Bible is to be identified “with the voice of Conscience,” (p. 45,)—which it has “to evoke, not to override.” (p. 44.) “The principle of private judgment . . . makes Conscience the supreme interpreter.” (p. 45.) Ours is “a law which is not imposed upon us by another power, but by our own enlightened will:” (p. 35:) for the “Spirit, or Conscience” “legislates” henceforth “without appeal except to himself.” (p. 31.)
Having thus disposed of “Traditional Christianity,” (p. 1560 it is not obscurely hinted that something quite different is to be substituted in its place. And first, next to “a frank appeal to Reason, and a frank criticism of Scripture,” (p. 174,) the nature and “office of the Church is to be properly understood.” (p. 194.)
The Church then is a spontaneous development of the State, as
“part of its own organization,” (p. 195,)
It is high time to conclude. I cannot lay down my pen however until I have re-echoed the sentiments of one with whom I heartily agree. I allude to Dr. Moberly; who professes that he is “struck almost more with what seems to him the hardheartedness, and exceeding unkindness of this book, than with its unsoundness. Have the writers,” (he asks,) “considered how far the suggesting of innumerable doubts,—doubts unargued and unproved,—will check honest devotion, and embolden timid sin? For whom do they intend this book? Is it written for the mass of general readers? Is it designed for students at the Universities? Do they suppose that this multitude of random suggestions will be carefully wrought out by these readers, and be rejected if unsound; so as to leave their faith and devotion untarnished? . . . Have they reflected how many souls for whom Christ died may be slain in their weakness by their self-styled strength?”
“Suppose, for a moment, that the Holy Scriptures
are (p. 177,) the Word of the Spirit of Gov,—that the
Miracles, (cf. p. 109,) including the Resurrection of Christ, are actual objective
facts, which have really happened,—that the Doctrines of the Church are true, (p.
195,) and the Creeds (p. 355,) the authoritative expositions of them,—and that men
are to reach Salvation through faith in Christ, Virgin-born, according to the Scriptures,
and making atonement (cf. p. 87,) for their sins upon the Cross.
On this supposition,—Is not the publication of this book an act of real hostility to
God’s Truth;
and one which endangers the Faith and Salvation of Men?
And is this hostility less real, or the danger diminished, because the writers
are, all but one, Clergymen, some of them Tutors and Schoolmasters;
Some Remarks, &c., pp. xxiii.-xxv.
With this I lay down my pen. My last words shall be simple and affectionate, addressed solely to yourselves.
I trace these concluding lines,—(of a work which, but for
you, would never have been undertaken,)—in a
quite empty College; and in the room where we have
so often and so happily met on Sunday evenings. Can you wonder if, at the conclusion
of what has proved rather a heavy task, (so hateful
to me is controversy,) my thoughts revert with affectionate solicitude to
yourselves, already scattered in all directions; and to those evenings which more,
I think, than any other thing, have gilded my College life? . . .
In thus sending you a written
farewell, and praying from my soul that God may bless and keep you all, I cannot
suppress the earnest entreaty that you would remember the best words of counsel
which may have at any time fallen from my lips: that you would persevere in the
daily study of the pure Book of Life; and that you would read it,
not as feeling yourselves called upon to sit in judgment
on its adorable contents; but rather, as men who are permitted to draw near; and
invited to listen, and to learn,
and to live. And so farewell! . . . “Watch ye, stand fast in the Faith,”—nay,
take it in the original, which is far better:—Γρηγορεῖτε, στήκετε ἐν τῇ πίστει, ἀνδρίζεσθε,
Your Friend,
J. W. B.
Oriel,
June 22nd, 1861.
(For a detailed account of the Contents of these Sermons, the Reader is referred to the beginning of the Volume.)
I.—THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE RECOMMENDED; AND A METHOD OF STUDYING IT DESCRIBED |
p. 1 |
II—NATURAL SCIENCE AND THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE |
p. 23 |
III.—INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE.—GOSPEL DIFFICULTIES.—THE WORD OF GOD INFALLIBLE.—OTHER SCIENCES SUBORDINATE TO THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE |
p. 53 |
IV.—THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF EVERY PART OF THE BIBLE, VINDICATED AND EXPLAINED.—NATURE OF INSPIRATION.—THE TEXT OF SCRIPTURE |
p. 91 |
V.—INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.—INSPIRED INTERPRETATION.—THE BIBLE IS NOT TO BE INTERPRETED LIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.—GOD, (NOT MAN,) THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE |
p. 139 |
VI.—THE DOCTRINE OF ARBITRARY SCRIPTURAL ACCOMMODATION CONSIDERED |
p. 183 |
VII—THE MARVELS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, MORAL AND PHYSICAL—JAEL’S DEED DEFENDED.—MIRACLES VINDICATED |
p. 221 |
PRAEVENERUNT OCULI MEI AD TE DILUCULO, UT MEDITARER ELOQUIA TUA.
QUAM DULCIA FAUCIBUS MEIS ELOQUIA TUA: SUPER MEL ORI MEO.
LUCERNA PEDIBUS MEIS VERBUM TUUM, ET LUMEN SEMITIS MEIS.
ῼ ΚΑΛΩΣ ΠΟΙΕΙΤΕ ΠΡΟΣΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ, ΩΣ ΛΥΧΝῼ ΦΑΙΝΟΝΤΙ ΕΝ ΑΥΧΜΗΡῼ ΤΟΠῼ, ΕΩΣ ΟΥ ΗΜΕΡΑ ΔΙΑΥΓΑΣῌ, ΚΑΙ ΦΩΣΦΟΡΟΣ ΑΝΑΤΕΙΛῌ ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΚΑΡΔΙΑΙΣ ΥΜΩΝ.
Domine Deus meus, . . . sint castae deliciae meae Scripturae Tuae. Nec fallar in eis, nec fallam ex eis.—Augustinus, Confessiones, lib, xi. c. ii. § 3.
The Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to look into. That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire: the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore.—Hooker, Eccl. Pol., B. 1, ch. ii. § 5.
Preached in Christ-Church Cathedral, Oct. 21st, 1860.
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life.
IT was probably in that synagogue which the faithful Centurion
built at Capernaum τὴν συναγωγήν,—from which it would appear that there was but one. See Bishop Middleton
on St.
You perceive that St. Peter’s confession takes a peculiar form,—resting
the impossibility of unfaithfulness in the Apostles on the gracious discourse of
Him to whom they had been listening. “A hard saying,” and unpalatable, it had proved
to many; but to his own taste it had seemed “sweeter than honey and the
Here then, surely, a very solemn picture is set before us. The same message proves, in the case of some, the savour of death unto death: in the case of others, of life unto life. It is an image of what is still taking place in the world. The Gospel, whether veiled in the Old Testament, or unveiled in the New, is confessedly “a hard saying:”—to some, their very crown and joy; to others, only an occasion of distress and downfall. It was so, when proclaimed not by the tongue of men and of angels, but by the lips “full of grace and truth” of the Incarnate Word Himself: and it is so still. The temper of mankind is still the same as it was of old, and the instrument of man’s trial is still the same.
Of the written Gospel, many of the self-same things are said
in Scripture which are said of him by whom that Gospel was preached. Thus, it is
proclaimed to be “the power of
God to salvation St. St. St.
1. Thus, if the record has its difficulties, and its seeming
contradictions, so had He. It did not appear that “Jesus
of
Nazareth” was born, (according
to the prophet Micah’s prediction,) at Bethlehem St. St.
2. Somewhat less obvious, but not less true,
is the unattractive aspect,
at first sight, of the Gospel. Verily there is,
until we become intimately acquainted with it, “no beauty that we should
desire” it.—The style, (full of interest, to those who have tried to understand
it a little,) is not, I suppose, what critics would call altogether a good style.—The
Greek is not what learned men call pure.—Many a word, (brimfull of meaning to
those who will give to the words of the Gospel their best care,) reminds one,
that neither did He speak what, in the capital
of Jewry, was accounted a classical idiom. He employed the accent of the despised
Galilee.—The very reasoning, (until you give it your heart’s homage and best
attention,) often seems to be either inconsequential, or to contain a fallacy.
Certain words of our Lord have been even
cited as fallacious by a celebrated Divine whose
writings we are all familiar with Our
Lord’s words in St.
3.
Most surprising of all is the analogy observable between the union
of the Divine and the human element in the Gospels,—and the strictly parallel
union, as it seems, of the two natures, the Divine and the human, in the person
of our Lord.—As He was perfect and faultless,
so do we deem it infallible also, without spot or blemish of any kind. We reject
as monstrous any ‘theory of Inspiration,’ (as it is called,) which imputes blunders
to the work of the Holy Ghost—As, further, we claim for our
Lord’s recorded human actions
mysterious significancy, so do we seem warranted in looking for a mysterious purpose,
For whatever reason, and whether you please to accept the foregoing
remarks or not, it is a plain fact that the Gospel
is now
in the world, fulfilling the
same office towards mankind, which our Saviour Christ Himself
fulfilled, and experiencing the same treatment at the hands of men in return. It
is leavening society indeed, and remodelling the world, even while it is
practically overlooked by politicians or experiencing evil treatment from them.
It wins its way silently anti secretly, yet surely; and it works miracles here
and there. Moreover, it divides opinion; separating, as it will for ever
separate, the light from the darkness Consider all such places as St.
For I entreat you to consider, (trite and obvious as it may sound,)
What have we, in the whole wide world, which may be put in competition with
that Book which contains God’s revelation of Himself to man? In its early portions, how does it go back to the very birthday of Time, and discourse
of things which were done in the grey of that early morning! How mysterious is
the record,—so methodical, so particular, so unique; preserving the very words
which were syllabled in Paradise, and describing transactions which no one but the
Holy Ghost is competent to declare! Come lower down, and
where will
you find more beautiful narratives,—still fresh at the end of three and
four thousand years,—than those stories of Patriarchs, Judges, Kings, which wrap
up divinest teaching in till their ordinary details: where every word is weighed
in a heavenly balance, fraught with a divine purpose, and intended for some glorious
issue: where the very characters are adumbrations of personages far greater than
themselves; and where the course of events is made to preach to us, at this distant
day, of the things which concern our peace! Is it a light thing again to know in what terms Isaiah, and the
rest of “the goodly fellowship,” when they opened their lips to speak in that remote
age, foretold of the coming of the Son of Man? . . . But all seems to grow pale
before the Everlasting Gospel, and the other writings of the New Testament. Surely
we have become too familiar with the providence which
But, on the contrary,
it has become the fashion in certain quarters, on every imaginable pretext, to
call in question the credibility of the Bible. It seems to be the taste of the age to invent
hazy difficulties and
dim objections to its statements. Inspiration, under a miserable attempt to
explain it, is openly explained away. And the theory, however crude and
preposterous, is tolerated: at least it escapes castigation. It cannot fail but
that the unlearned and thoughtless ones of this generation will be growing up in
a notion that these are open questions after all, and that “Truth” is but a name,—not
a thing worth contending, aye dying for, if need be. The reason is but too obvious. It must be, party,
because we do not in reality prize the deposit nearly so much as we suppose. Partly,
because of the indifferentism which is everywhere so prevalent. Partly too
because, notwithstanding our intellectual activity, we are not a really learned
body. And partly, it must be confessed,
Now, it would be a mere waste of time, to inveigh for half an hour against the indifferentism, or the spurious liberality, of the age: and it would be a most unbecoming proceeding, (not to say a highly distasteful one,) from this place to be suggesting remedies for an evil which already lies very near the heart of every serious man among us; and which, if discussed at all, must be discussed elsewhere. To say the truth, while the neglect of Theology, and the low ebb of Theological attainments in our Clergy, is generally recognized, the remedy for the evil is by no means so clear. From this subject, then, I pass at once: and I shall content myself with the far humbler task, of urging upon the younger men present,—those especially who are destined for the Ministry,——one act of preparation, one duty, about which, at all events, there cannot be any difference of opinion: I mean the duty of applying themselves, now, to the patient study of the Bible.
The thing is soon said; but the hint requires expanding a little,
in order that it may become of any practical use.—By the “study of the Bible,”
I do not mean a chapter occasionally read with care: nor even a chapter regularly conned over at night; when a convivial meeting has
blunted the edge of observation, or severe study has exhausted
the powers of the brain.
No. The thing I would so strenuously urge upon you, is,—that, during your undergraduate period, you should read the whole Bible consecutively through, from one end to the other, by yourself and for yourself, with consummate method, care, and attention. The fundamental conditions of such a study of the Bible, in order to make it of any real use, are these:—
1. First, that you should deliberately apportion to this solemn duty the best and freshest and quietest half-hour in the whole day; and then, that you should determine, let what will go undone, never to abridge that half-hour. You may sometimes be enabled to afford a little more time to the chapter: but you will find it quite fatal ever to devote a shorter period to it. And half an hour, if you employ it in right good earnest, at present, must be thought enough.
2. Next, (except on Sundays and in Vacation, when you may safely double your
daily task and your daily time,) be persuaded to read each day exactly one chapter.
On no account attempt to go reading on; but rather spend the moments which remain
over,
The effect of building up your Bible knowledge in this manner, bit by bit, is what you would not anticipate. The whole acquires a solidity and compactness not to be attained by any other method. You will find at the end of many days, not only that the structure has attained to symmetry and beauty,—but that the disposition of its several parts, in some respects, has become intelligible also: while, (what is not of least importance,) the foundation on which all the superstructure rests, proves wondrous secure and strong.
3. Then, while you read,—safe from the risk of interruption, (as I began by supposing,) and with every faculty intent on your task,—try, as much as possible, to go over the words as if they were new to you; and watch them, one by one, so that nothing may by any possibility escape your notice. Do not slumber over a single word. Nothing can be unimportant when it is the Holy Ghost who speaketh. It is an excellent practice to mark the expressions which strike you; for it is a method of preserving the memory of what is sure else soon to pass away.
4. And next, be persuaded to read without extraneous helps of
any kind; except, of course, such help as a map, or the margin of your Bible,
supplies. Pray avoid Commentaries and notes. First, you cannot afford time for
them: and secondly, if you could, they would be as likely to mislead you as not.
But the real reason why you are so strenuously advised to avoid them, is,
because they will do more to nullify your reading, than anything which could be
imagined.
5. But then, though you are entreated not to have recourse to the notes of others, you are as strongly advised to make brief memoranda of your own: and the briefer the better. Construct your own table of the Patriarchs,—your own analysis of the Law,—your own descent of the Kings,—your own enumeration of the Miracles. A pedigree full of faults, made by yourself; will do you more good than the most accurate table drawn up by another: but if you are at all attentive and clever, it will not be full of faults.—You will perhaps make the parables 56 instead of 30: you will have gained 26 by your honest industry. Nay, keep a record of your difficulties, if you please; or of anything which strikes you, and which you would be sorry to forget. But, as a rule, it is well to write little, and to give your time and thought to the record before you.
6. Above all, is it indispensable that your reading of the
Bible should be strictly consecutive; and on no account may any one pretend to
begin such a study of that book as I am here recommending, except at the
first Chapter of Genesis. It is a great mistake, (though one of the
commonest of all,) for a man to imagine that he knows the beginning of the Bible
pretty well. I say it advisedly, that it would be easy to write down twelve
interesting questions on that first chapter, of which none of the younger men
present would be able to answer three,—and yet, they should all be questions of
such a sort that a labouring man’s child with an
7. It will follow from what has been offered, that you are invited to read every book in the Bible in the order in which it actually stands,—never, of course, skipping a chapter; much less a Book. In every mere catalogue of names, be resolved to find edification. Feel persuaded that details, seemingly the driest, are full of God. Remember that the difference between every syllable of Scripture and all other books in the world is, not a difference of degree, but of kind. All books but one, arc human: that one book is Divine!
Now, you will perceive that the kind of study of the Bible here recommended, is somewhat different from what is commonly pursued. I contemplate the continued exercise of a most curious and prying, as well as a most vigilant and observing eye. No difficulty is to be neglected; no peculiarity of expression is to be disregarded; no minute detail is to be overlooked. The hint let fall in an earlier chapter is to be compared with a hint let fall in the later place. Do they tally or not? and what follows? The chronological details spontaneously evolved by the narrative, are to be unerringly discovered by the student for himself. The course of every journey is to be attentively noted. Things omitted are to be spied out as carefully as things set down; and whatever can possibly be gathered in the way of necessary inference, is to be industriously ascertained. The imagination is not to slumber either, because no pains are taken by the sacred writer to move the feelings or melt the heart.
How soon will any one who takes the trouble to
Let me not be misunderstood if it is added that the Bible
should be read,—I do not say in the same manner,—that is, in the same
temper and spirit,—but at least with the same attention, as is bestowed
upon a merely human work. In truth, it should be read with much more attention.
But that diligence which a student commonly bestows on a difficult moral
treatise, or an obscure drama, or a perplexed history,—analyzing it, comparing
passage with passage, and learning a great deal of it by heart,—I am quite at a
loss to understand why a student of the Bible should be a stranger to.—“I do
much condemn,” (says Lord Bacon), “I do much condemn that Interpretation of the
Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane
book.” So do I. Scripture is to be approached and handled in quite a different
spirit from a common history. The mind, the heart rather, must bow down before
its revelations, in the most suppliant fashion imaginable. The book should ever
be approached with prayer:—“Lord, open Thou mine eyes
that I may see the wondrous things of Thy Law!” The very printed pages should be
handled
To what has gone before I will add one caution, and will trouble you with one only. It would be easy to multiply cautions: but I am talking to highly intelligent men and there is only one rock which I am really fearful of your running against.
It was the advice of a great and good man, (to his clergy, I
suspect,) that they should read the Bible with a special object: and an
excellent recent writer has repeated the same advice; namely that men should “read with a view to some particular inquiry, with purpose to clear up some
peculiar question of interest, which,” (says he,) you may create for yourselves Blunt’s
Duties of a Parish Priest,—p. 81. See Appendix A.
It seems right, in the fewest words, to state what we do,—and what we do not,—expect to result from such a study of the Bible as this; in other words, to assign the office of unassisted Biblical study. I would not willingly have my meaning mistaken here.
It is not implied then, for a moment, that a .man is either at liberty, or able, to gather his own Religion for himself out of the Bible. The very thought were monstrous. But it is a widely different thing for one of yourselves to read his Bible patiently, and humbly, mid laboriously, through,—without prejudice or theory,—unmolested by critical notes, undistracted by human comments, uninfluenced by party views: all this, I say, is a widely different thing from a man’s inventing his own system of Divinity. Members of the Catholic Church,—born in a Christian country,—educated amid the choicest influences for good,—you are by no means so left to yourselves. The Book of Common Prayer is your sufficient safeguard. The framework of the Faith,—the conditions under which you may lawfully speculate about Divine mysteries,—are all prescribed for you: and within those limits you cannot well go wrong.
On the other hand, the outlines of Moral Theology, St. Comp.
And need I point out, for a minute, the immense advantage with
which a mind so stored with Divine knowledge will approach the Ministry; and
finally take in hand the actual oversight of the flock? It is really not to be
expressed. The Bishop’s examination for Orders will become nothing but an
agreeable exercise, instead of an object of dread. You are quite sure of a few
approving words in that quarter. But, (what is a thousand times more
important,) you yourself
You will perceive that I am saying all this, (except the last
few words,) at you, (the younger men present;) because in you I
see many of the future Clergy of England. And I say it, because, (for the last
time,) I do entreat you, one and all, to follow the advice I have been giving
you; and to set about such
And just one word to those who aspire, (and all should aspire,) to University honours. You will not find what I have been recommending any hindrance to you at all. But even supposing you do, now and then, find the inexorable daily half-hour stand in the way of something else,—shall not the very thought of Him whose Voice you have deliberately resolved to hear daily at that fixed time, make you full amends? Shall you resolve to pluck so freely of the Tree of Knowledge) and yet begrudge the approach once a day to the Tree of Life, which grows in the midst of the Paradise of God? Shall ample time be found for works of fiction,—for the Review, and the Magazine, and the newspaper,—yet half an hour a day be deemed too much to be given to the Word of God? What? room for everything and everybody; yet still “no room in the Inn” for Christ!. . . . . I have, (I speak honestly,) I have far too high an opinion of your instincts for good, to think it possible. You have plenty of faults,—(God knoweth!),—but I am very much deceived indeed if there be not a spirit stirring among the young men of this place, overflowing with promise; a real inclination, (obscured at times, but still very energetic,) for whatever things are pure, and lovely, and of good report.
Of course, it is implied by what goes before, that you will read no work of Divinity just at present. Be counselled, on no account, to read any. Above all, shun the partial, ill-digested pamphlet,—and the one-sided review,—and the controversial letter,—and the Essay which seems to have been written in order to prove nothing. Be content, for the next three years, to study no book of Divinity but the Bible.
And the study of that Book, I repeat, you will find no
hindrance, no impediment, no burthen to you at all. On the contrary. It will
render you a very singular service,—let your classical and logical studies be as
severe as they will; (and they cannot well be too severe, too engrossing,—for
this is your golden opportunity which never will, never can, come back
again!) The undersong of “Siloa’s brook that flows, fast by the oracle of
God,”
will many a time soothe and refresh your else dry and weary spirit. What was
begun as a task will soon come to be regarded as a privilege. That
jealously-guarded half-hour will be found to be the one green spot in the whole
day,—like Gideon’s fleece, fresh with the dew of the early morning, when it is
“dry upon all the earth beside.” Your secret study of that Book of Books, I say,
will render you a very singular service. The contrast between the Divine and
Human method will strike you with ever-recurring power. Unlike every other
History, the Bible removes the veil, and discovers the causes of
things,—including the First Great Cause of all, who dwelleth in Light
unapproachable, but who yet humbleth Himself to behold, and to controul, and to
overrule for good, the things which are done in Heaven and on Earth. And thus,
it is not too much to say that the Bible, to one who reads its pages aright, is The Rev. C. Marriott’s Sermons,—vol. I. p. 441.
Profoundly sensible am I, that these have been very
unintellectual, and somewhat common-place remarks: but I would rather, a hundred
times, be of use to the younger men present; I would rather, a hundred times,
succeed in persuading one of them, to adopt that method of reading the
Bible which I have been recommending;—than try to say something which might be
thought fine and clever. . . . . Let me only, in conclusion, faithfully remind them,
that the true office of the study of Divine things is not, by any means,
that which, for obvious reasons, I have been rather dwelling and enlarging upon.
It is not merely to inform the understanding, that Holy Scripture is to
be read with such consummate attention, and studied with such exceeding care. It
is not for the illustration of History, or in order that it may be made a
test of the value of other systems of Morals. Not, by any means, in
order to facilitate admission into Holy Orders, (for which only some of you are
destined;)—or to render a man’s pulpit-addresses attractive and agreeable;—or
even to enable a parish priest to teach with confidence and authority;—is he
entreated now to “prevent the night watches,” if need be, that he may be
occupied (like one of old time Not so Essays and Reviews, pp. 36 and 45.
Preached in Christ-Church Cathedral, Nov. 11th, 1860.
Through Faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.
ST. PAUL, in a famous and familiar chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, having declared “what Faith is,” proceeds, (as the
heading of the chapter expresses it), to note “the worthy fruits thereof in the
Fathers of old time.” The Book of Genesis was obviously in his hands, or in his
heart, while he wrote: for he appeals to the transactions there recorded, in the
very order, and often in the very words, of Moses. The Holy Ghost, I say,
directs our attention to what is contained in the
Since, however, it is impossible to forget that we have sometimes seen heads, which are supposed to be very much indeed in advance of the age, shaken ominously at the very chapter which the text bequeaths and commends to the special acceptance of you and me,—I propose that, in the very briefest manner, we now review the contents of that chapter; in order that we may discover what is the special absurdity, or impossibility, or improbability, or by whatever other name the thing is to be called,—which makes it quite out of the question that you or I should undertake the act of Faith here assigned us.
I read then, that “In the beginning, God
created the Heaven and the Earth:”—by which I understand, that, at some remote
period,—which may or may not baffle human Arithmetic “The whole period, from the beginning of the primary fossiliferous strata to the present day,
must be great beyond calculation,
and only bear comparison with the astronomical cycles, as might naturally be
expected; the earth being without doubt of the same antiquity with the other
bodies of the solar system.”—Mrs. Somerville’s Physical Geography. Hooker’s Eccl. Pol., B. I. c. iii. § 2.
Now, it is reserved to the geologist,—(Nature’s High-priest!)—to guess at the condition of this Earth of ours throughout all the long period of unchronicled ages which immediately succeeded the birthday of Time. It is for him to guess at the successive changes which this globe of ours underwent; and the progressive cycles of Creation of which it was the theatre; and the many strange races of creatures which, one after another, moved upon its surface,—walking the dry, or inhabiting the moist. He shall guess; and I will sit at his feet and listen, with unfeigned gratitude, wonder, and delight, while he reports to me his guesses: (for the really great man is eager to assure me that they are no more.)—But when his tale of perplexity is ended, and the last 6,000 years of this world’s History have to be discussed, the geologist’s function is at an end. I bid him, in God’s Name, be silent; for now it is God that speaketh. If any question be moved as to how that actual system of things to which Man belongs, began,—I bid him come down, and take the learner’s place; for. now I mean to assume his vacant chair. This time, there shall at least be no guess-work. God is now the Speaker: and what God revealeth unto me, that I promise faithfully to report to him.
There was a time, then,—and it was certainly less than 6,000
years ago,—when “the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep.” What catastrophe it was which had caused that the fountains
of the abyss should be broken up, Alluding to a catastrophe which had recently occurred at St.
Mary’s Church, and which necessitated considerable repairs; in consequence of
which, the first four of these Sermons were preached in the Cathedral. St. St.
1. But it was now God’s pleasure to
bring Beauty out of Chaos, and to establish a fresh order of things upon the
surface of our Earth. And, as the first step thereto, “the Spirit of
God moved
upon the face of the waters.” The Hebrew phrase implies no less than the
tremulous brooding as of a bird,—causing the dreary waste to heave and swell
with coining life. “And God said, Let there be Light. And there was Light.” “He
spake and it was done “Can any one sensible of the value of words suppose,” (asks
Mr. Goodwin,) “that nothing more is here described, or intended to be described,
than the partial clearing away of a fog?” (Essays and Reviews, pp.
227-8.) No one,—we answer. But to the question, we venture to rejoin another. To
whom does this philosopher suppose his pleasantry likely to prove
injurious? Is he making Moses ridiculous, or—himself? St.
2. “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” The Hebrew word (an expansion), and the context, shew plainly enough what is meant. The atmosphere was now created,—whereupon the watery particles either subsided into sea, or rose aloft in the form of clouds. “And the evening and the morning were the second Day,”—which is the only day of which it is not said that God saw that it was good.
3. “And God said, Let the waters under
the Heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.”
Then it was that these continents were upheaved,—other than those which had been
continents before and the sea sank into the cavities which had been ordained for
its reception. Then, “God saw that it was good.”
The sentence of approval which had been withheld from the work of yesterday,
because that work, (namely, of dividing the
4. “And God said, Let there be Lights
in the firmament of the Heaven to divide the day from the night: and let them be
for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.” And so it was. Sun,
moon, and stars, came to view “Whether the writer regarded them as already existing, and
only waiting to have a proper place assigned them, may be open to question.” (E
and R., p. 221.) We accept the alternative given us by Mr. Goodwin.
5. “And God said, Let the waters bring
forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.” Thus the inhabitants of
the sea and of the air were called into existence and it was from the sea that
God seems to have commanded that they should derive
their being. He saw that it was good, and He blessed
6. It remained only to provide for the dry land its occupants;
and the Earth was accordingly commanded to bring forth the living creature after
his kind,—beast and cattle and creeping thing. Unlike that first Creation which
was of all things out of nothing, the work of the six days was a creation of new
things out of old.—To the Creation of Man, His crowning work, God is declared to
have come with deliberation; as well as to have announced His purpose with
significant solemnity of allusion. “Let us make Man in our image, after our
likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle.” “And the Lord God formed Man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul.”—Transferred
to the Garden of God’s planting in Eden, to dress it and
to keep it, (for inactivity is no part of bliss!)—and brought into solemn
covenant with God,—to Adam, God brings the beasts of the
field and the fowls of the air, of set purpose that God may “see
what he will call
them:” a wondrous tribute, truly, to the perfection of understanding in which
Man had been created! . . . “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:
and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the
rib which the Lord God had taken
from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is
now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because
she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a Man leave his Father and his
Mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” . . .
I have preferred thus to complete the history of Man’s
Creation; which presents us with the primal institution of all,—that, namely, of
Marriage.—“On the seventh Day, God rested from all His
work which He had made; and blessed the seventh Day, and sanctified it; because
that in it He had rested from all his work.”—This then is the other great
primæval institution; more ancient than the Fall,—the Law of the Sabbath;—which
in the sacred record is brought into such august prominence. And never do we
ponder over that record, without apprehension at what may be the possible
results of relaxing the stringency of enactments which would seem to be, to our
nature, as the very twin pillars of the Temple,—its establishment and its
strength Alluding to
Now, on a review of all this wondrous History, I profess
myself at a loss to see what special note of impracticability it presents that I
should hesitate to embrace it, in the plain natural sense of the words, with
both the arms of my heart. That it is not such an account of the manner of the
Creation as you or I should have ourselves invented, or anticipated, or on
questionable testimony have felt disposed to accept,—is very little to the
purpose. Apart from Revelation, we could really have known nothing at all
There exists however a vague suspicion after all that the
beginning of Genesis is a vision, or an allegory, or a parable,—or anything you
please, except true History. It is hard to imagine why. If there be a
book in the whole Bible which purports to be a plain historical narrative of
actual events, that book is the book of Genesis. In nine-tenths of its
details, it is as human, and as matter of fact, as any book of Biography
or History that ever was penned. Why the first page of it is to be torn
out, treated as a myth or an allegory, and in short explained away,—I am
utterly at a loss to discover. There is no difference in the style. Long since
has the theory that Genesis is composed of distinguishable fragments,
been exploded The test of Elohim and Jehovah has been, by
the Germans themselves, given up; “and for this plain reason,—that in many parts
of Genesis, [e. g. ch.
But we are assured that some of the statements in this first chapter of Genesis are palpably untrue;—as when it is said that the Sun, Moon, and Stars were created on the fourth Day,—which, it is urged, is a physical impossibility: for what forces else sustained, and kept this world a sphere? The phenomena of Geology again prove to demonstration, it is said, that the structure of the earth is infinitely more ancient than the Mosaic record states: and also that there must have been Light, and sunshine too, at that remote epoch,—which fostered each various form of animal and vegetable life.—Further, we are assured that it is unphilosophical to speak of the creation of Light before the creation of the Sun.—Then, the simplicity of the language is objected to:—“the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night:”—“dividing the light from the darkness:”—“waters above the firmament:” and so forth. The very ascription of speech to God, gives offence.—Again, some raw conceit of the advanced state of the human intellect rejects with scorn the notion of Adam oracularly bestowing names on God’s creatures. Finally, the creation of Eve, moulded by Goy from the side of the Protoplast, is declared to savour so plainly of the mythical, allegorical, or figurative; that the narrative must be allowed to be altogether unworthy of such wits as ours.
But we have seen that the creation of Sun, Moon, and
Stars is not assigned to the fourth day—but to “the beginning.”—The antiquity of this Earth we affirm to be a circumstance left wholly untouched
by Besides in Eccl. Pol., B. I. c. iii. § 2.
Whether or no South overestimated Adam’s knowledge, I will not
pretend to decide: but I am convinced the truth lies more with him than
with certain modern wits, when he says concerning our first Father:—“He came
into the world a philosopher; which sufficiently appeared by his writing the
nature of things upon their names . . . His understanding could almost pierce
into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the
certainties of prediction. Till his Fall, he was ignorant of nothing but sin
. . . There was then no struggling with memory, no straining for invention. His
faculties were ready upon the first summons . . . We may collect the excellency
of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now: and
guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins . . .
And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of
which are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was
very beautiful when he was young! An Aristotle was but the rubbish South’s Sermons, (Serm. II.)
And lastly, as for so much of the Divine narrative as concerns
the Creation of the first human pair, I am content to remind you of a
circumstance which in addressing believers ought to be of overwhelming weight:
namely, that our Saviour and His Apostles, again and
again, refer to the narrative before us in a manner which precludes the notion
of its being anything but severest History. Our Saviour Christ even resyllables the words spoken by the Protoplast in Paradise; and
therein finds a sanction for the indissoluble nature of the marriage bond See St.
I take leave to add that even the respectful attempt to make
Genesis accommodate itself to the supposed requirements of Geology, by boldly
assuming that the days of Creation were each a thousand years long,—seems
inadmissible. Even were such an hypothesis allowed, nothing would be gained: for
Geology does not by any means require us to believe that after a
thousand years of misty light, there came a thousand years of ocean deposit: and
again, a thousand years of moist and dry, during which vegetable life alone
prevailed: and then a thousand years of sun, moon, and stars. The very notion
seems absurd “Holding,” (says Hugh Miller,) “that the six days of
the Mosaic account were not natural days, but lengthened periods, I find myself
called on, as a geologist, to account for but three out of the six. Of the
period during which light was created; of the period during which a firmament
was made to separate the waters from the waters; or of the period during which
the two great lights of the earth, with the other heavenly bodies, became
visible from the Earth’s surface;—we need expect to find no record in the
rocks.”—Testimony, &c., p. 134.—This is ingenious, and is piously meant.
But the first three days remain to be accounted for by somebody, all the
same. If the last three days represent “lengthened periods,” so, I suppose, do
the first three.
Neither am I able to see what would be gained by proposing to prolong the Days of Creation indefinitely, so as to consider them as representing vast and unequal periods; (though I am far from presuming to speak of any pious conjecture with disrespect.) My inveterate objection to this scheme is again twofold. (1) The best-ascertained requirements of Geology are not satisfied by a sixfold division of phenomena corresponding with what is recorded in Genesis of the Six Days of Creation. (2) This method does even greater violence to the letter of the inspired narrative than the scheme of reconcilement last hinted at.
I dare not believe that what has been spoken will altogether
meet the requirements of minds of a certain Essays and Reviews, p. 252. Ibid. Id. p. 253. Id. p. 252.
But I shall be told,—with that patronizing air of conscious
intellectual superiority which a certain class of gentlemen habitually assume on
such occasions,—that I mistake the case completely: that no wish is entertained
in any quarter to invalidate the truth of Revelation, or to shake Men’s
confidence in the Bible as the Word of God: that it has been the way of
narrow-minded bigots in all ages, and is so in this, to raise an outcry of the
Bible being in danger, and so to rouse the prejudices of mankind: that the error
lies in claiming for the Bible an office which it nowhere claims for itself, and
which it was never meant to fulfil: that the harmony between the Bible and
Now, in reply, we have a few words to say. The profession of faithfulness we hail with pleasure: the imputation of imbecility we accept with unconcern. But when gentlemen tell us that the Bible was never meant to teach Science; and that wherever its statements are opposed to the clear inductions of reason, they must give way; and so forth: we take the liberty of retaliating their charge. We inform them that they really mistake the case entirely. When they go on to tell us that they believe in the truth of the Bible as sincerely as ourselves: that its harmonies are complete, but not such as we imagine; and so forth;—we venture to add that they really know not what they assert. In plain language, they talk nonsense. Of a simple unbeliever we know at least what to think. But what is to be thought of persons who disbelieve just whatever they dislike, and yet profess to be just as hearty believers as you or I?
That the Mosaic record of Creation has been thought at
variance with certain deductions of modern observation, is not surprising:
seeing that the deductions of each fresh period have been at variance with the
deductions of that which went before; and seeing that the theory of one existing
school is inconsistent Pattison’s The Earth and the World, p. 99.
You are never to forget the great fundamental position, that
the Bible claims to be the Word of God; and that God’s Word can never
contradict or be contradicted by God’s works.
We therefore reject, in limine, all insinuations about the “unscientific”
character of the Bible. A scientific man does not cease to be scientific because
he does not choose always to express himself scientifically. Again. A man of
universal Science does not forfeit his scientific reputation, if, in the course
of a moral or religious argument, his allusions to natural
phenomena are expressed in the ordinary language of mankind. Even so, Almighty
God) “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom St. St. St. St. St.
But there is this great difference between the cases supposed.
A man of universal scientific attainment will be less strong in one subject than
another: and in the course of his Geological allusions, if Mechanical
Science be his forte,—in the course of his Metaphysical allusions, if
Mathematical Science be his proper department,—he may easily err. Above
all, the limits of the knowledge of unassisted Man must infallibly be those of
the age in which he lives. But, with the Ancient of Days, it is not so. He at least cannot err. Nothing that man has ever discovered by laborious
induction was not known to him from the beginning: nothing that He hath
ever commissioned His servants to deliver, will be found inconsistent with the
anterior facts of History. “He that made the eye, shall He not
see
“I never said the contrary,” is the reply. “All I say is that you interpret the records of Creation wrongly: and that you are disposed to lay greater stress on the historical accuracy of the Bible than the narrative will bear.”
O but, sir, whoever you may be who censure me thus, let me in all kindness warn you of the pit, at the very edge whereof you stand!
Far be it from such an one as the preacher to assume that he so apprehends the First Chapter of Genesis, that if an Angel were to turn interpreter, he might not convince me of more than one misapprehension in matters of detail. But of this, at least, I am quite certain; that when I find it recorded that God took counsel about Alan’s Creation: and made hint in “His own image,” and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” whereby man became “a living soul:” and further, when I find it stated that Adam bestowed names upon all creatures: and spake oracularly of his spouse:—I am certain, I say, when I read such things, that Gov intended me to believe that Man was created with a Godlike understanding, and with the perfect fruition of the primaeval speech. Further, I boldly assert that he who could prove the contradictory, would make the Bible, even as a Theological Book, nothing worth, to you and me.
The same must be said of the Bible chronology. And here I will
adopt the words of one who is justly entitled to be listened to in this place;
and who must at least be allowed to be a competent judge of the matter, for he
made Chronology his province. Mr. Clinton says:—“Those who imagine themselves at
But there is a scornful spirit abroad which is not On this subject, the render is referred to Serm.
VII.
1)o we then undervalue the discoveries of Natural Science; or
view with jealousy the progress she has of late been making?
God forbid With unfeigned joy we welcome her honest triumphs, as so many
fresh evidences of the wisdom, the power, the goodness of God.
“Thou, Lord, hast made me glad
To conclude. The very phraseology with which men have presumed
to approach this entire question, is insolent mid unphilosophical. The popular
phraseology of the day, I say, hardly covers, so as to conceal, a lie. We constantly find
Science and Theology opposed to one another: just as if Theology were
not a
Science! History forsooth, with all her inaccuracy of observation, is a Science:
and Geology, with all her weak guesses, is a Science: and comparative Anatomy,
with nothing but her laborious inductions to boast of, is a Science: but
Theology,—which is based Cowper.
For subject-matter, what Science will you compare with this?
All the others in the world will not bring This paragraph is mostly copied from a Sermon (MS.) preached
before the University by the late Professor Hussey, Oct. 12, 1856.
And, for that whereon they are built, what Science again will
you compare with this? Let the pretender to Geological skill,—(I say not the
true Geologist, for he never offends!)—let the conceited sciolist, I say,
go dream a little longer over those implements of chipped flint which have
called him into such noisy activity,—and discover, as he will discover,
that the assumed inference from the gravel and the bones is fallacious after all Professor Phillips refers me to a paper by Mr. Prestwich in
the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1859, vol. x. No. 35, p. 58. Also in
the Transactions of the R. S. for 1860, p. 308. I allude to the supposed disclosures of Egyptian monuments. I allude to a recent work on the Origin of Species. The reader is requested to read what Bishop Pearson has most
eloquently written on this subject. It will be found in the Appendix (B).
O sirs,—we are constrained to be brief in this place. The
field must perforce be narrowed; and so, for this time, it must suffice to have
warned you against the men who resort to the armoury of Natural Science for
weapons wherewith to assail God’s Truth. Regard them as
the enemies of your peace; and learn to reject their specious, yet most
inconsequential reasonings, with the scorn which is properly their due. Contempt
and scorn God implanted in us, precisely that we might bestow them on
reasonings worthless in their texture, and foul in their object, as these; which
teach distrust of the earlier pages of God’s Word, on the pretence that they are
contradicted by the evidence of God’s Works. Learn to
abhor that spurious liberality which is liberal only with what is not its
own; and which reminds one of nothing so much as the conduct of leprous
persons who are said to be for ever seeking to communicate and extend their own
unhappy taint to others. I allude to that sham liberality which under pretence
of extending the common standing ground of Christian men, is in reality
attenuating it until it proves incapable of bearing the weight of a single soul.
There is room on the Rock for all; but it is only on the Rock that we are safe.
To speak without a figure,—lie who surrenders the first page of his Bible,
surrenders all. He knows not Πίστις does not occur once in St. John’s Gospel:
πιστεύω (which is found about thirty-five times, in all, in the first three
Gospels,) occurs about one hundred times, in the Gospel of St. John
alone.
Let me end, as the manner of preachers is, by gathering out of
what has been spoken one brief practical consideration.—This whole visible frame
of things wherein we play our part, is hastening to decay. Everything we
behold,—ourselves included,—carries St.
Preached in Christ-Church Cathedral, 25th Nov. 1860.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
BUT that is not exactly what St. Paul says. The Greek
for that, would be Ἡ γραφή—not
πᾶσα γραφὴ—θεόπνευστος. St. Paul does not say that the whole of Scripture, collectively, is inspired.
More than that: what he says is, that every writing,—every
several book of those ἱερὰ γράμματα, or Holy Scriptures, in which
Timothy had been instructed from his childhood,—is inspired by
God Πᾶσαι αἱ θεόπνευστοι γραφαί,—as it is worded in the
Epistle sent by the Council of Antioch in the case of Paul of Samosata, A.D.
269. (Routh Reliqq. 292.) See Middleton on the Greek Article,
(Rose’s ed.) in loc. And so, in effect, Wordsworth and Ellicott.—It is
right to add that it has been contended that πᾶσα γραφή = “the whole of
Scripture.” See Lee on Inspiration, p. 263, (note.) So Athanasius seems
to have taken it: Πᾶσα ἡ καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς γραφὴ,
παλαιά τε καὶ καινὴ, θεόπνευστός ἐστι. (Ep. ad Marcell. 1. 982.) That θεόπνευστος is the predicate, seems sufficiently
obvious. So Athanasius, in the passage above quoted. So Gregory of Nyssa:
διὰ τοῦτο πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος λέγεται, διὰ τὸ τῆς θείας ἐμπνεύσεως
εἶναι διδασκαλίαν. (Contr. Eunom. Orat. ii. 605.)
Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, quotes the place in the same way.—Basil also,
saying—Πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὡφέλιμος, διὰ τοῦτο συγγραφεῖσα
παρὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος, (Hom. in Psalm. I. i.
90,)—clearly adopts the construction assumed in the text.—Ambrose (De Spir.
Sancto, lib. II. c. 16. ii. 688,) says,—“In Scriptura Divina, θεόπνευστος omnis ex hoc dicitnr,
quod Deus inspiret quæ locutus est
Spiritus.” (The above are from Lee on Inspiration, which see, pp. 260,
493, 599.)—Tertullian (quoted by Tisch.) says, “Legimus omnem Scripturam
ædificationi habilem, divinitus inspirari.”—A. few modern scholars have
suggested that θεόπν. may be an epithet, not a predicate. The doctrine
will remain the same either way; for the meaning of the place can only be,
“Every Scripture, being inspired, is also profitable,” &c. This is
Origen’s view: but his criticism is not in point, inasmuch as he read the text
differently, (omitting the καὶ.) Lee aptly compares the construction of,
πᾶν κτίσμα Θεοῦ καλὸν, καὶ οὐδὲν ἀπόβλητον. (
But does not St. Paul himself in a certain place express a
doubt—saying “I think that I have the Spirit of God St. Montfaucon, præf. ad Euseb. Comm. in Psalm., cap. x. See also Æsch. Prom. V. v. 289. St. Comp.
“The Spirit of Christ” is said by St. Peter to have Τὸ ἐν αὐτοῖς πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ.— ὑπὸ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου φερόμενοι ἐλάλησαν οἱ ἅγιοι θεοῦ ἄνθρωποι προεῖπεν τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον διὰ στόματος Δαυὶδ.— καθὼς λέγει τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον.— ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ.— Δαυὶδ εἶπεν ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ Ἁγίῳ.—St. ὁ Θεὸς ὁ ποιήσας τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς,
ὁ διὰ στόματος Δαβὶδ τοῦ παιδός σου εἰπὼν.— τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ά̔γιον ἐλάλησε διὰ Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου.— μαρτυρεῖ δὲ ἡμῖν καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ά̔γιον— ὁ δὲ Θεὸς . . . . προκατήγγειλε διὰ στόματος πάντων τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν.— Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ . . . . ἐλάλησε διὰ στόματος τῶν ἁγίων τῶν ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος προφητῶν αὐτοῦ—St. τοῦτο δηλοῦντος τοῦ Πνεύματος τοῦ Ἁγίου.— οὐ γάρ ἐστε ὑμεῖς οἱ λαλοῦντες, ἀλλὰ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ά̔γιον.—St. οὐ γὰρ ὑμεῖς ἐστε οἱ
λαλοῦντες, ἀλλὰ τὸ Πνεῦμα τοῦ Πατρὸς ὑμῶν
τὸ λαλοῦν ἐν ὑμῖν.—St. ἐπεὶ δοκιμὴν ζητεῖτε τοῦ ἐν ἐμοὶ λαλοῦντος Χριστοῦ— Rev. B. Jowett, in E. and R.,—p. 345. Yet see
Strange to say, there is a marvellous indisposition in
Man to admit the notion of such a heaven-sent message. Not to dispute with those
who deny Inspiration altogether, (for that would be endless,) there are
many,—and, we fear, a daily increasing number of persons,—who, admitting
Inspiration in terms, yet so mutilate the notion of it, that their admission becomes
But this is a monstrous case, with which I will not waste your time. Far more numerous are they, who, admitting that the Authors of the Bible were inspired in quite a different sense from Homer and Dante, are yet for modifying and qualifying this admission after so many strange and arbitrary fashions, that the residuum of their belief is really worth very little. Ono man has a mental reservation of exclusion in favour of the two Books of Chronicles, or the Book of Esther, or of Daniel.—Another, is content to eliminate from the Bible those passages which seem to him to run counter to the decrees of physical Science;—the History of the Six Days of Creation,—of the Flood,—of the destruction of Sodom,—and of Joshua’s address to Sun and Moon.—Another regards it as self-evident that nothing is trustworthy which savours supremely of the marvellous;—as the Temptation of our first Parents,—the Manna in the Wilderness,—Balaam reproved by the dumb ass,—and the history of Jonah.—There are others who cannot tolerate the Miracles of the Old and the New Testament. The more timid, explain away as much of them as they dare. What remains, troubles them. The more logical sweep them away altogether. A miracle (they say) cannot be true because it implies a violation of the fixed and immutable laws of Nature.
And then,—(so strangely constituted are some men’s
minds,)—there are not a few persons who, without exactly denying the inspiration
of the Bible in any of its more marvellous portions,—(for that would be
an
Now, I shall have something to say to all these different
kinds of objectors, on some subsequent occasion. But I shall be rendering the
younger men a far more important service if to-day I address my remarks to a
different class of objectors altogether: that far larger body, I mean,
who without at all desiring to impugn the Inspiration of God’s
Oracles, yet make no secret of their belief that the Bible is full of
inaccuracies and misstatements. These men ascribe a truly liberal amount of
human infirmity to the Authors of the several Books of the Bible;—slips of
memory, misconceptions, imperfect intelligence, partial illumination, and so
forth;—and, under one or other of those heads, include whatever they are
themselves disposed to reject. The writers who come in for the largest share of
this indulgence, are the Evangelists; because the Historians of our
Lord’s
life, having happily left us four versions of the same story, and often three
versions of the same transaction, the evidence whereby they may be
convicted of error is in the hands of all. Truly, mankind has not been slow to
avail itself of the opportunity. You will seldom hear a Gospel difficulty
discussed, without a quiet assumption on the part of the Reverend gentleman that
he knows all about the matter in question, but that the Evangelist did
not. His usual method is, calmly to Dr. Temple, in Essays and Reviews, p. 25.
It will be convenient that we should narrow the ground to this
single issue: for the time is short. And in the remarks I am about to offer, I
shall not
To begin, then,—Is it, I would ask you, a reasonable anticipation that the narrative of one inspired by God would prove full of inconsistencies, misstatements, slips of memory:—or indeed, that it should contain any misstatements, any inaccuracies at ‘all? What then is the difference between an inspired and an uninspired writing,—the Word of God and the Word of Man?
The answer which I shall receive, is obvious. As a matter of
fact (it is replied) there are these inaccuracies: that is, the same
transaction is described by two or more writers, and their accounts prove
inconsistent. Thus, St. Matthew begins his account of the healing of the blind
at Jericho, with the words,—“And as they were going out of Jericho:” but
St. Luke, “While He was drawing nigh to Jericho.”—There are these
slips of memory; as when St. Matthew ascribes to “Jeremy the prophet” words
which are found in the prophet Zechariah.—There are these misstatements,
as where the Census of the Nativity
The great fundamental truth to be first laid down, is
this,—that the Gospels are not four—but one. The Ancients knew this very
well. Εὐαγγελισταὶ μὲν τέσσαρες,—Εὐαγγέλιον δὲ ἕν—says Origen Contra
Marcion, sect. I. p. 9.
And next,—There is one great principle, and one only, which needs to be borne in mind for the effectual reconciliation of every discrepancy which the four narratives present: namely, that you should approach them in exactly the same spirit in which you approach the statement of any man of honour of your acquaintance. Whether the Apostles of the Lamb,—men whom we believe to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit of the Everlasting God,—are not entitled to far higher respect, far higher consideration, at our hands,—I leave you to decide. As one whose joy and crown it has been to weigh every word in the Gospel in hair-scales, I am prepared to risk the issue. Be only as fair to the four Evangelists as you are to one another; and I am quite confident about the result.
I appeal to the experience of every thoughtful man among you
who has at all given his mind to the subject of evidence, whether it be not the
fact,—(1st) That when two or more persons are giving true versions of the same
incident, their accounts will sometimes differ so considerably, that it will
seem at first sight as if they could not possibly be reconciled: and yet
(2ndly), That a single word of explanation, the discovery of one minute
circumstance,—perfectly natural when we hear it stated, yet most unlikely and
unlooked-for,—will often suffice to remove the difficulty which before seemed unsurmountable and further, that when this has been done, the entire consistency
of the several accounts becomes apparent; while the harmony which is established
is often of the most beautiful nature. (3rdly) That when (for whatever reason)
two or more versions of the same incident are not correct, no ingenuity
can ever possibly
Now, these principles are fully admitted in daily life. If your friend comes to you with ever so improbable a tale, the last thing which enters into your mind is to disbelieve him. Is he in earnest? Yes, on his honour. Is he sure he is not mistaken? That very doubt of yours requires an apology: but your friend says,—“I am as sure as I am of my existence.” “Give it me under your hand and seal then.” Your friend begins to suspect your sanity; but the matter being of some importance, he complies. “It must be so then,” you exclaim, “though I cannot understand it.” . . . . I only wish that men would be as fair to the Evangelists as they are to their friends!
You are requested to observe,—for really you must
admit,—that any possible solution of a difficulty, however improbable
it may seem, any possible explanation of the story of a competent
witness, is enough logically and morally to exempt that man from the imputation
of an incorrect statement. The illustration which first presents itself may
require an apology; but the dignity of the pulpit shall not outweigh the dignity
of His Gospel after whose blessed Name this House is called See the first foot-note, p. 53.
It is a conceivable case, that, hereafter, three persons of
known truthfulness should meet, in a Court of Justice at the Antipodes; where
the entire difficulty should turn on a question of time. The case is
conceivable, that the first should be heard to declare that at Oxford, on such a
day, of such a year, he had seen
The difficulty supposed is not an imaginary one. St. John says
that when Pilate sat in judgment on the Lord of Glory,
“it was about the sixth hour St. St. The passage may be seen in John Bois’ Vet. Interpretis cum
Bezâ aliisque recentioribus collatio, (1655,) p. 333. See a Dissertation by Dr. Townson at the end of his
admirable book on the Gospels. Viz. St.
To come then to the three samples of difficulty propounded a moment ago. And first, for the blind men of Jericho.
I. The difficulty lies all on the surface. Listen to a plain tale.
Our Saviour, attended by His Disciples and followed by a vast concourse of persons, had reached the outskirts of Jericho. A certain blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. He heard the noise of a passing crowd, and inquired what it meant? He was told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He rose at once,—hastened down the main street through which, in due time, Christ perforce must come; joined another blind man, (named Bartimæus,—a well-known character, who, like himself, was accustomed to sit and beg by the road side;) and the two companions in suffering, having stationed themselves at the exit of Jericho, waited till the Great Physician should appear.
The crowd begins to approach; and the two blind men implore the Son of David to have pity on them. So importunate is their suit, that the foremost of the passers-by rebuke them. The men grow more urgent. Our Saviour pauses, and orders that they shall be called. At this gracious summons, both draw near; the more remarkable applicant flinging his outer garment from him as he rises from his seat; but both, when they appear in our Saviour’s presence, making the same request. The holy One, touched with compassion, laid His Hands upon their eyes, and grants their prayer: whereupon they both follow Him in the way.
Well, (you will ask,)—what then?—“What then?” I answer.
Then there is no difficulty in the three
For of course you are to believe that he who would understand
the Gospel must first study it. You must ascertain, by some crucial test,
confirmed by a large and careful induction, what the character of a narrative
purporting to be inspired, is. You have no right first to assume exactly what
Inspiration shall result in, and then to deny that there is Inspiration
because you fail to discover your assumed result And yet, we hear it asserted that we cannot “suppose the
Spirit of absolute Truth” “to suggest accounts only to be reconciled in the
way of hypothesis and conjecture.”—E. and R., p. 179.
I shall perhaps be thought to lay myself open to the rejoinder,—“Neither have you any right to assume that Inspiration will result in Infallibility.” But the retort is without real point. I do but assert that, just as every man of honour claims to be believed until he has been convicted of a falsehood,—inspired Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles have a right to our entire confidence in the scrupulous accuracy of every word they deliver, until it can be shewn that they have once made a mistake.
If you will take the trouble to compare any of the E.g.
Other characteristics of an inspired narrative,—the lesser
Laws of the Divine Harmony, as they may be called,—will be discovered by the
attentive reader. For example, that intervening circumstances are often passed
over, without any notice taken of them whatever: while yet it is singular how
often the Evangelist shews himself conscious of what he omits by some very
minute allusion to it Instances of this will be very familiar to every attentive
student of the Gospels. Thus St.
II. The next sample of difficulty will not occupy us long. St.
Matthew is charged with a bad memory, because he ascribes to “Jeremy the prophet St. E.g. St. E.g.
III. So, it is generally assumed that St. Luke made a mistake
when he said that the census of the Nativity was made when Cyrenius was
President of Syria,—because not Cyrenius but Varus is known to have been
President about that time.—Now, there are three fair conjectures,—each of which
is sufficient to meet this difficulty: but instead of developing them, I will
simply remind you of a minute circumstance in Jewish story which shews how
dangerous it is to press a general fact against a particular statement.—
Why then are difficulties of this, or of any kind, permitted
in the Gospel at all? it may be asked.—I answer,—that they may prove instruments
of probation to you and to me. The sensualist has his trials; and the
ambitious man, his. . The difficulties in Holy Scripture,—which are
numerous, and diverse, and considerable,—are admirable tests of the moral, the
spiritual, the intellectual temper of Man See Appendix (C).
I have confined myself to one class of objections, for an
obvious reason. Difficulties which arise out of the matter of Scripture,
as it is emphatically embodied in quotations from the Old Testament made in the
New, must be separately considered in one or more Sermons on Interpretation.
I must be content to-day with repudiating, in the most unqualified way, See Appendix (D).
To keep to the case of the Evangelists,—I appeal to your sense
of fairness, whether it be not reasonable to assume, that until those blessed
writers have been convicted of one single inaccuracy of statement, their
narratives ought to be accounted faultless, like Him whose Life they
record;—like Him by whose Spirit they are inspired. I would to Heaven that men
would have the decency to suspect themselves, and one another, rather than the
Evangelists,—of mistake; or at least, before they venture publicly to impugn the
Authors of the Everlasting Gospel, that they would be at the pains to weigh the
evidence with the care that evidence deserves, but which I am sure
that sermon-writers and essayists do not bestow. Let them spend the long summer
days of many a Long Vacation—from early morning until twilight,—dissecting every
syllable of the blessed pages; and then they will learn to adore instead of to
cavil. They will deem them absolutely limitless, instead of daring to charge all
their own pitiful misconceptions, and weak misapprehensions, and miserable
blunders, upon them.—They will be inclined, rather, to challenge the
world to establish one blot in what they love so well;
As for mistakes of the paltry kind last noticed (the days of Abiathar, the sixteenth of Tiberius, and so forth,)—I wonder the glaring absurdity of charging them against Evangelists, does not strike any modest man of sane mind. To suppose that St. Matthew quoted the wrong prophet, or that St. Luke did not know the regnal years of the reigning Emperor; that St. Stephen confused Abraham with Jacob, and Sychem with Hebron;—all this is really so grossly absurd, that I can hardly condescend to discuss the question. It is like maintaining that Sir Isaac Newton, after discovering the Law of Gravitation, and calculating the pathway of a planet, persisted in saying that two and two make five: or that Columbus, after discovering America, despaired of finding the way to his own door. It is simply ridiculous!—Admirable as a subject for men to exercise their wits upon,—as instruments of cavil, objections like these are about as formidable as a child’s sword of lathe in the day of battle.
I hear some one say,—It seems to trouble you very much
that inspired writers should be thought capable of making mistakes; but it does
not trouble me.—Very likely not. It does not trouble you, perhaps, to see
stone after stone, buttress after buttress, foundation after foundation, removed
from the walls of Zion, until the whole structure trembles and totters, and is
pronounced insecure. Your boasted unconcern is very little to the purpose,
unless we may also know how dear to you the safety of Zion is. But if you make
indignant answer,—(as would to Heaven you may!)—
Do you mean to say then, (I shall be asked,) that you maintain
the theory of Verbal Inspiration?—I answer, I refuse to accept any theory
whatsoever See Appendix (E). The Rev. II. Alford, Dean of Canterbury.
But if, instead of the “Theory of Verbal Inspiration,” I am
asked whether I believe the words of the Bible to be inspired,—I answer,
To be sure I do,—every one of them: and every syllable likewise. Do not you?——Where,—(if it be a fair question,)—Where do you, in your wisdom, stop?
The book, you allow is inspired. How about the chapters? How about
the verses? Do you stop at the verses, and not go on to the words? Or perhaps
you enjoy a special tradition on this subject, and hold that Inspiration is a
general, vague kind of thing,—here more, there less: strong, (to speak plainly,)
where you make no objection to what is stated,—weak, when it runs counter
to some fancy of your own.—O Sir, but this “general vague kind of thing” will not suffice to anchor the
fainting soul upon, in the day of trouble, and in the hour of death! “Here more,
there less,” will not satisfy a parched and weary spirit, athirst for the
water of Life, and craving the shadow of the great Rock. What security can
you offer me, that the promise which has sustained me so long occurs
in the “more,” and not in the “less?” How am I to know that your Bible is my
Bible: in other words, what proof is there that either of us possesses
And do you not feel, that this “will o’the wisp” phantom of your brain, can prove no guide to either of us in the pilgrimage of life Perceive you not that the unworthy spirit in which you approach the Book of God’s Law must effectually prevent you from getting any wisdom from it? Why, the pages which you look so coldly and carnally at, are written within and without, and burn from end. to end with unutterable meaning! While you are quarrelling about the title on the Cross, you are missing the common salvation! You keep us, Sunday after Sunday, disputing outside the gates of Paradise, instead of bidding us enter in, and cat of the delicious fruit! While you are persisting that there is no beauty in the garden, (because you choose to be deaf as well as blind,)—the shadows are lengthening out, and the glory is departing, and the angels are getting weary of harping upon their harps!
No, Sirs! The Bible (be persuaded) is the very utterance of
the Eternal;—as much Gov’s Word, as if high Heaven were open, and we heard Goy
speaking to us with human voice. Every book of it, is inspired alike; and is
inspired entirely. Inspiration is not a difference of degree, but of kind. The
Apocryphal books are not one atom more inspired than Bacon’s Essays. But the
Bible, from the Alpha to the Omega of it, is filled to overflowing with the Holy
Spirit of God: the Books of it, and the sentences of it,
and the words of it, and the syllables of it,—aye, and the very letters of it.
“Nihil in Scripturis est otiosum,” (said the great Casaubon): “non dictio, non
dictionis forma, non syllabi, non littera.” . . . . The Hooker, Serm. v. § 4. (Works,
vol. p. 663.)
To conclude. The first time I enjoyed this privilege, I urged
the younger men to a diligent and painful daily study of the Bible. On the next
occasion, opening the Bible at the first page, I attempted to define the
provinces of Theological and of Physical Science. All that was then offered may
be summed up in one brief formula God’s works
Cannot contradict God’s Word. I adverted to the method of
would-be geologists, (a class all apart from the grave and learned
few who give their days and nights to a truly noble branch of study,)—because
from them the most malignant attacks have proceeded: and I took my stand
on the first chapter of Genesis, because the enemies of Gov’s Truth have made
that chapter their favourite point of attack. But my argument was not directed
more against Geology than against any other of the physical Sciences. They are
all alike the handmaids of Theological Science. Geology, however,
singularly honoured by the Creator in that he hath bequeathed for her inspection
so many marvels of primæval Time,—evidences of how He was working in this remote
planet before the Creation of Man;—Geology, St.
We altogether repudiated, then, the contrast which is often
implied between Theology and Science; as if Theology were not a Science,
but some other thing. Theological Science we declared to be the noblest of the
Sciences,—the very Queen and Mistress of them all. And yet, supreme as she is,
she not only admits, but desires, and thankfully accepts the ministerial offices
of the other Sciences; all of which, like dutiful servants in a household, have
it in their power to render her most important acts of homage. Language, for
example, carries the keys of the casket wherein she keeps her treasures; and for
that reason Theology hath promoted Language to great honour. History, and
Geography, and Chronology, have each had their respective tasks assigned them.
It is for Astronomy to make answer if question be raised of the date of Paschal
full Moon, or of Eclipse. Let the physiologist explain, if he can, Scriptural
allusions to the vegetable and animal kingdoms. How precious are the guesses of
Geology, as she tries to fathom the Ocean of unrecorded Time!—Who would desire
the silence of the Professor of any department of physical Science?
Morals also have their place and their function assigned them; and a thrice
blessed place,—a most holy function is theirs! Why should not Moral Science have
an office even in the Court of
But when, instead of the submissive manners of a well-ordered
Court, symptoms of insolence and insubordination are witnessed on every
side,—then, the least and humblest takes leave, (time, and place, and occasion
serving,) to speak out fearlessly on behalf of that which he loves with an
unworthy, but a most undivided heart.—When Language impugns those Oracles which
she was hired to decypher,—and pretends to doubt the Inspiration of that Book of
which, confessedly, she barely understands the Grammar:—when History and
Chronology cry out that the annals of Theology are false and her record of
Time a fable that the Deluge, for instance, is an old wives’ story, and the
economy of times and seasons a human fabrication:—when Astronomical and
Mechanical Science strut up to the Throne whereon sits the Ancient of
Days,—prate to Him, (the first Author of Law,) about the “supremacy of
Law,”—and tell Him to His face that His miracles are things impossible: when
Physiology insinuates that Mankind cannot bb descended from one primæval pair; and that the lives of the Patriarchs cannot be such as they
are recorded to have been:—when the pretender Professor Kingsley’s Sermon,—“Why should we pray for fair
Weather?” See at the foot of p. 53, note (a).
The case is not altered,—rather is it made worse,—if this
hostility to God’s Truth proceeds from persons bearing Orders in the English
Church. (“O my soul, come not thou into their secret!”) The case is not
altered: for the requirements of Physical Science are still the plea; and Divines, in
no sense, these men are, however unsuccessful they may prove in
establishing their claim to the title of philosophers either. Nay, The complaint is a very old one. See Pearson’s Minor Works,
vol. i. pp. 429-30.
You are requested to observe, that not only cannot
God’s Works contradict God’s
Word,—simply because they are twin utterances of one and the same Divine
Intelligence;—but also the deductions of Physical Science cannot possibly run
counter to the decrees of Theology It becomes necessary to explain, that on the Sunday after
the delivery of the foregoing Sermon, a Sermon was preached directly
contravening its teaching. Next week, it became the present writer’s duty to
address the same auditory,—which will explain as much of what follows in the
present Sermon, (including something at p. 79,) as may seem to require
explanation. It was impossible to proceed with the argument, until what had been
advanced of a directly opposite tendency had been thus disposed of.
And how about Moral Science,—whom we beheld, a moment since, shrouded in her mantle, beneath the footstool of the Almighty;—afraid to look up into His awful Face,—and not presuming to speak, unless called upon to bear her solemn witness to what she learned of Him “in the beginning?”—Must we imagine her too rising from her lowly seat, and presuming to sit in judgment upon the Author of her Being? Are we to picture her arraigning the Goodness of Him who commanded Abraham to slay his son;—or the Justice of Him who sent Saul to destroy the Amalekites;—or the Mercy of Him who inspired certain of David’s Psalms;—or the Wisdom of Him who made the everlasting Gospel the mysterious fourfold thing it is?—Then, were she to do so, we should perforce exclaim,—This judgment of thine cannot possibly be just! For the echo must resemble the voice which woke it! Other spirits must have been intruding here; and the unholy din of their voices must have drowned the clear, yet still and small utterance of Almighty God within thy breast! . . . . . In other words, if there be antagonism, Ethics,—not Theology, but (that which calls itself) Moral Science,—must instantly and hopelessly give way.
For doubtless, that inference of ours as to what had happened,
would be a true inference.—It will be the fact, I fear, before the end of
all things; for it seems to be implied,—(a more heart-sickening sentence in all
Scripture, I know not!),—that when the Son of Man cometh, He will not find the
Faith on the Earth St.
This will explain the reason why, when “the
And therefore are we very bold to assert that it is all Davison’s Discourses on Prophecy,—p. 7. Ibid.
“The fact” (says the thoughtful writer already quoted,)—“the
fact is not to be denied; the Religion of Nature has had the opportunity
of rekindling her faded taper by the Gospel light,—whether furtively or
unconsciously availed of. Let her not dissemble the obligation, and make a boast
of the splendour, as though it were originally her own; or had always, in her
hands, been sufficient for the illumination of the World.”—“It is not to be
imagined that men fail to Davison’s Discourses on Prophecy,—p. 8.—The following
passage is from Bp. Horsley’s Primary Charge to the Clergy of Rochester,
(1796,):—“The question in this case is not abstract,—what Reason may have
the ability to do. The question is upon a matter of fact,—what she did.
Were these things, in point of fact, man’s own discovery?—The sacred history is
explicit that they were not. And notwithstanding the many useful lessons of
Morality we find in the writings of the heathen sages,—the many eloquent
discourses upon providence, and the immortality of the soul,—the many subtile
disquisitions upon the great questions of necessity and moral freedom, upon fate
and chance,—I am persuaded, that had it not been for the early communications of
the Creator with mankind, Man never would have raised the conceptions of his
mind to the idea of a God; he never would have dreamt of the immaterial
principle within himself; and he never would have formed any general notions of
Right and Wrong in the abstract; he would have had no Religion, perhaps no
Morality . . . . . The prudent dispensers of the Word will resort to Revelation for his
first principles, as well as for more mysterious truths. He will not trust to
philosophy for any discoveries. He will suffer philosophy to be nothing more
than his assistant in the study of the inspired Word. She must herself be
instructed by those lively oracles before she can be qualified to take part in
the instruction of men. To lay the foundation of Revelation upon any previous
discoveries of Reason, is in fact to make Reason the superior teacher. It is not
improbable, that Idolatry itself had its first beginning in an early adoration
of this phantom of Natural Religion,—the idol, in later ages, of impolitic
metaphysical Divines.”—Charges, pp. 50, 51.—Bp. Butler says the same thing, but
more briefly, in his Analogy, P. II., c. ii.: also 1’. I., c. vi.
I say, therefore, that it is all too late to vaunt the
supremacy of Conscience as opposed to Revelation,—Moral as opposed to
Theological Science. Moral Science owes all its renewed strength and vigour to
Physical Science therefore, (for the last time!)—all the other Sciences,—Moral Science not excepted,—are the handmaids of Theological Science: and Morality, to which we omitted before to assign an office, we have stationed somewhere beneath the footstool, which is before the Throne, of the Most High.—But this day’s Sermon,—(and with these words I conclude, sorry to have felt obliged to detain you so long!)—this Day’s Sermon has had for its object to remind you, that the Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every Book of it,—every Chapter of it,—every Verse of it,—every word of it,—every syllable of it,—(where are we to stop?)—every letter of it—is the direct utterance of the Most High!—Πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος. “Well spake the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of” the many blessed Men who wrote it.—The Bible is none other than the Word of God: not some part of it, more, some part of it, less; but all alike, the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the Throne;—absolute,—faultless,—unerring,—supreme!
Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἐῶτα ἓν ἢ μἰαν κεραἰαν οὐ πιστεύω κενὴν εἶναι θείων μαθημάτων.
Origenes, Comment. in S. Matth. tom. xvi. c. 12. p. 734.
Ταῦτά μοι εἴρηται . . . πρὸς σύστασιν τοῦ μηδὲν μέχρι συλλαβῆς ἀργόν τι εἶναι τῶν θεοπνεύστων ῥημάτων.
Basilius, in Hex. Hom. vi. c. 11. tom. i. p. 61 c.
Scripturæ quidem perfectæ sunt, quippe a Verbo Dei, et Spiritu ejus dictæ.
Irenæus, Contr. Hær. lib. ii. c. xxviii. 2.
Μηδεμία ὑπεναντίωσις ἢ ἀτοπία ἐν τοῖς θείοις λόγοις.
Methodius, Tyrius Episcopus, ap. Routh Reliqq. t. v. p. 351.
Ἔστι γὰρ ἐν τοῖς τῶν Γραφῶν ῥήμασιν ὁ Κύριος.
Athanasius, ad Marcellinum.
Ὅσα ἡ θεία γραφὴ λέγει, τοῦ Πνεύματός εἰσι τοῦ Ἁγίου φωναί.
Gregorius Nyssen. Contr. Eunom. Orat. vi.
Cedrimus igitur et consentiamus auctoritati Sanctæ Scripturæ, quæ nescit falli nec fallere.
Augustinus, De Peccator. Merit. lib. i. c. 22.
Preached in Christ-Church Cathedral, Dec. 9th, 1860.
Thy Word is Truth.
I THANKFULLY avail myself of the opportunity which, unexpected and unsolicited, so soon presents itself, to proceed with the subject which was engaging our attention when I last occupied this place.
Let me remind you of the nature of the present inquiry, and of the progress which we have already made.
Taking Holy Scripture for our subject, and urging, as best we
knew how, its paramount claims on the daily attention of the younger men,—who at
present are our hope and ornament; to be hereafter, as we confidently believe,
our very crown and joy;—even while we held in our hands that volume which our
Fathers were content to call the volume of Inspiration, we were constrained to
recollect that its claim to be inspired has of late years been repeatedly called
in question. It has even become the fashion to cavil at almost everything which
the Bible contains. We are
The objections which have been raised against the Bible,
although they have been industriously gleaned from various quarters, will all be
most effectually met, I am persuaded, by getting men to acquaint themselves with
the contents of the deposit itself. And yet, inasmuch as it is the nature of
doubts, when once injected into the mind, to fester and to spread; inasmuch also as the bold confidence of plausible assertion,
especially when recommended by men of reputation, and set off with some ability
and skill, is apt to impose on youth and inexperience;—we seem reduced to a kind
of necessity, to examine; and, as far as the limits of a sermon will allow, to
refute; the
The favourite objections of the day come partly from
without,—partly from within. The classification is not exact, but it may serve
to assist the memory. One class of objections is, in a manner, destructive,—for
it results in entire disbelief of the Bible:—the other class, suggesting
imperfections, results in a low and disparaging estimate of its contents. When
exception is taken against certain portions of Holy Scripture, on the ground of
discoveries in Physical Science,—of the dictates of the Moral Sense,—of the
supremacy of mechanical Laws,—and the like,—we consider that the supposed
difficulties come from without. As much as we care to say on this class
of objections has either been already offered, or must be reserved for a
subsequent occasion See Sermon VII. Ibid.
I. To this, it has been objected as follows:—
You cannot possibly mean what you say. You will not pretend to
assert that the list of the Dukes of Edom
The objection may, I believe, be fairly stated as follows.—It
is unreasonable to consider any part of
For I request you to observe, that there is absolutely no
middle state between Inspiration and non-inspiration. If a writing be inspired,
it is Divine: if it be not inspired, it is human. It is absurd to shirk the
alternative. Some parts of the Bible, it is allowed, are inspired;
other parts, it is contended, are not. Let it be conceded then, for the
moment, that the catalogue of the Dukes of Edom is not an inspired
writing; and let it be ejected from the Bible accordingly. We must by strict
parity of reasoning, eject the
It is clear that the history of the Flood,—very much of it at least,—is of the same nature: a kind of calendar as it were, and record of dates.
But we may go on faster, and use the knife far more freely.
Every thing in the Pentateuch of which Moses had been an eye or ear-witness, and
which he set down from his own personal knowledge, may be eliminated from the
Bible, as not inspired. According to the principle already enunciated by
yourself, I call upon you to excise from the Book of God’s
Law, Exodus, and Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy: those passages only
excepted which are prophetical,—as the See the Hulsean Lectures for 1833, (The Law of Moses
viewed in connexion with the history and character of the Jews, with a defence
of the Book of Joshua, &c.) by Henry John Rose, B.D.
We come .now to the New Testament; and two of the Gospels are found to be mutilated already, by the elimination of one chapter of St. Matthew and one of St. Luke. But on the principle that personal observation, a good memory, honesty of purpose, and so forth, are the only requirements necessary, we may proceed to carry forward the work of excision with spirit, so that we be but careful to use discernment. For example, we may begin with the Call of St. Matthew, and the Feast which he made to our Lord in his own house. Who so competent to relate this, as the Evangelist himself? Whenever, in short, the Twelve were present, St. Matthew, (as one of the Twelve,) may be assumed to have written from personal observation; and that portion of his narrative is to be rejected accordingly as uninspired.
It is painful to anticipate what will be the fate of St.
John’s Gospel, on this principle,—together with most of the Divine Discourses
therein recorded. Not, to be sure, that we shall lose the conversation with
Nicodemus, nor that with the woman of Samaria;
Quite superfluous must it be to state that the Acts of the
Apostles, under the expurgatory process which now engages our attention, will
cease to be regarded as an inspired Book; and therefore must be at once
disconnected from the confessedly inspired portions of Holy Scripture.—St.
Paul’s Epistles, you say, on the contrary, are probably inspired, and therefore
are probably to be spared. . . . . And I really think we need go no further. If your
own handling of Holy Scripture,—your own method, by yourself applied,—be not a
reductio ad absurdum, I know of nothing in the world which is. . . . Look
only at that handful of mutilated pages in the hands of one who is supposed to
be the impersonation of “common sense;” turn the tattered and mangled leaves
over and over, which you are pleased to call the Volume of Inspiration;
and get all the comfort and help out of it you can. But be not surprised to hear
that you are exposing yourself to the ridicule of the sane part of Mankind,—even
while haply you are acting a part which makes the Angels weep. . . . . How much of
Let us not be told, (as we doubtless shall,) that the human parts of Scripture need not be ejected from the Canon because they are human: that they may be allowed to stand with the rest, although uninspired; and the like. About this, we at least are competent judges. We are now bent on discovering how much of Holy Scripture is the Word of God; and we refuse, for the moment, to regard as such, and to retain, a single passage which, being (as you say) uninspired, is simply the word of Man.
II. Let me now be permitted to lay before you a somewhat different view of the office of Inspiration. Since the illumination of Science, falsely so called, and the process of Common Sense, would seem to have resulted in the extinction of the deposit, I ask your patience while I try to skew, that common sense, informed by a somewhat loftier Theological Instinct, may give such an account of the matter as will enable us to preserve every word of the deposit entire.
You call my attention to the catalogue of the Dukes of Edom, and tell me that it required no supernatural aid to enable Moses to write it. How, may I ask, do you ascertain that fact? No specimens of the documentary evidence of the land of Seir in the days of Moses, are known now to exist on the earth’s surface. You therefore know absolutely nothing whatever about the matter of which you speak so confidently.
But, that we may grapple with the question fairly, let us come
down from an age concerning which neither
But, do you not perceive that the great underlying fallacy in all you have been saying, is your own wholly gratuitous assumption that you are a competent judge of what did,—what did not,—require supernatural aid to deliver? that whatever seems as if it might have been written without Inspiration, was therefore written without it?—I see so many practical inconveniences, or rather I see such glaring absurdity, resulting from the supposition that Inspiration goes and comes before an authentic document, that I am constrained to think that you are altogether mistaken in the office which you assign to Inspiration,—in the kind of notion which you seem to entertain concerning its nature.
An Evangelist, if you please, is inspired. It becomes
necessary to introduce a genealogy. Following the Divine guidance, (the nature
of which, neither you nor I know anything at all about,) he applies in a certain
quarter, and obtains access to a certain document. Or he repairs to a well-known
repository
You are requested to remember that when we call the Bible an inspired book, we mean nothing more than that the words of it are the very utterance of the Holy Ghost,—that the Book is as much the Word of God as if high Heaven were open, and we heard God speaking to us with human voice. All I am contending for now, is, that this is at least as true of one part of the Gospel as of another: that if it be true of anything in the Gospel, it is at least as true of the Genealogy of Christ. The subject-matter indeed is different; but it is a mere confusion of thought to infer therefrom a different degree of Inspiration. Let me try and make this plainer by a few familiar illustrations.
1. When the Sovereign reads a speech from the Throne, does she
speak the words of it in any different sense from the words of a speech
which she has herself composed?—Nay, are words of investiture, mere
2. Again. The substance of paper and the substance of gold, are widely different. And yet, when paper has been subjected to a certain process, and stamped with a certain impress, there is practically no difference whatever between the value of what was, a moment ago, absolutely worthless, and an ingot of the purest gold.
3. Consider how the case stands with a merely human author. An historian has occasion to introduce into his narrative the descent of a House, or the preamble of an Act, or any other lifeless thing. Does his responsibility cease when he comes to it, and recommence immediately afterwards? Is he not responsible just to the same extent for that, as for every other part of his story?
That he did not compose it himself, is certain: but neither did he compose the sayings which he has recorded of great men.—True also is it that the edification to be derived from the pedigree is not so great,—certainly, not so obvious,—as from certain of the events which he describes. But it is nevertheless henceforth an integral part of his history. He sought for it,—and he found it: he weighed it,—and he approved of it: he transcribed it,—and he interwove it into his narrative. In a word, he adopted and by adopting, he made it his own. Henceforth, it will be quoted as authentic, because it is found to have satisfied him.
The utmost praise which can be accorded to any creature is,
that it thoroughly fulfils the office whereunto God
sends it. A genealogy is not intended to make men wise unto Salvation: the
threats and promises
None of these figures present a strict parallel; and yet, successively, they seem to set forth different aspects of the same case, with sufficient vividness and truth. . . . So bent am I on conveying to your minds the strong sense of certainty, the clear definite view, which I cherish for myself on this subject, that I take leave to add yet another illustration.
4. If I commission a Servant to deliver a message,—is not the
message which he delivers mine? If I give him words to deliver,—are not
the words which he delivers mine? So obvious a proposition is no
matter of opinion. You cannot deny it. Nor,—(to apply the illustration to
the matter in hand,)—nor do you deny it, probably, so far as Prophecy,
(in the popular sense of the term,) is concerned: but you begin to doubt, it
seems, when any other function of the prophetic office is in question. “Any
other function,” I say; for, (as all men ought to be aware,) a prophet,—(navē in
Hebrew, προφήτης in Greek,)—does not, by any means, of necessity imply one who
describes future events. Πρό does not denote futurity of time, but
vicariousness of office. The προ-φήτης. is one who speaketh πρό,
“on behalf of,” “in the person of,” God; whether “With the idea of a Prophet,” (says Gesenius in his Hebrew
Lexicon, on the noun,) “there was this necessarily attached; that he spoke not
his own words, but those which he had divinely received; (see Philo, t. iv. p.
116, ed. Pfeifferi,—προφήτης γὰρ ἴδιον
μὲν οὐδὲν ἀποφθέγγεται, ἀλλότρια δὲ πάντα ὑπηχοῦντος ἑτέπου); and that he was the messenger of God, and the declarer of His will.
This is clear from a passage of peculiar authority in this matter, ( Προφήτης in fact, means ‘an interpreter’ rather than
‘a prophet,’
(for which, in our popular sense, the Greek is rather μάντις:) hence the use of
the words προφήτης, προφητεύω, προφητεία in the New Testament,
e.g.
So long then as the message which the Servant delivers is prophetic, you do not object to the notion that it is God’s message; nay, that the words spoken are God’s words. You begin to doubt, it seems, when a collection of genealogies, (as the two Books of Chronicles;) or when a story like that contained in the Book of Esther is concerned.
But what is this but very trifling, and mere childishness? The message may be mine, it seems, if it be of a lofty character: it may not be mine if it be of a homely, ordinary kind!—send a message by my Servant, and he delivers it faithfully: but whether it is to be called my message, or is not to be called my message, is to depend entirely on the subject-matter! . . . . Thus, if a King, refusing to appear in person, should issue a reprieve to prisoners under sentence of Death, a proclamation of Peace or of War, an address to the representatives of the constitution, (Clergy, Lords, and Commons,) in parliament assembled,—the message would be his. But if, on the contrary, he were only to send a few homely words, the expression of some wish or intention which has nothing that seems particularly royal in it,—then, the message would cease to be his! . . . . I protest that as I am unable to see the reasonableness of such a method of regarding things human, so am I at a loss to understand why men should so regard things Divine.
5. This entire matter may be usefully illustrated by having
recourse to an analogy which was established on a former occasion: namely, the
analogy between See above, pp. 2-5.—The reader will find an interesting
passage based on this analogy, in the Appendix (F).
I may remind you, in passing, that the narrative of Scripture,
even in its humblest, and (to all appearance) most human parts, has a perpetual
note of Divinity set upon it. The historical portions are throughout
interspersed with indications that the writer is beholding the transactions
which he records, from a Divine, (not a human,) point of view.
God is invariably, (sooner or later,) mentioned as the Agent; or there is
some reference made to God; or to God’s
Word. As Butler expresses it,—“The general design of Scripture . . . . may be
said to be, to give us an account of the world, in this one single view,—as
God’s world: by which it appears essentially
distinguished from all other books, so far as I have found, except such as are
copied from it Analogy, P. II. c. vii.—The same thing has been more
fully expressed in a volume of Sermons which deserves to be far better known
than it is:—“I suppose that if there is one portion of the Old Testament
which a discriminator would set aside as less needing to be reckoned inspired
than other parts, it is the Historical; the books which are strictly narrative.
Now it may seem to have been providentially ordered, in the purpose of meeting
this view, that these books are made to bear on them most peculiarly the stamp
and the claim of Inspiration. For they do not profess to be so much the account
of what Man did, as what God did in ruling men, and
guiding human events. They are a history of a providential course of events,
and, (which is the point,) as seen from the providential point of view. They are
a history written not on Earth, but above the skies. Events are spoken of
therefore in this view. A man’s obduracy is recorded thus,—‘God hardened his
heart.’ A king numbers his people; it is recorded as a thing suggested in the
spiritual world. In fact, the historic volume of the old Testament is a history
of the secret springs of things; it is a narrative of things which none but
God Almighty could know; not Man’s Word therefore at
all, but God’s.”—Sermons, by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp. 153-155. Several
other extracts from the same suggestive volume of a very excellent Divine, will
be found in the Appendix.
I entreat you therefore to disabuse your minds of the very weak,—aye and very fatal,—notion that the catalogue of the Dukes of Edom is less, or in any different sense, inspired, from the rest of the narrative in which it stands. We may not multiply miracles needlessly, it is true; but neither may we deny the miraculous character of certain transactions, (as the two Draughts of Fishes,) which, apart from the recorded attendant circumstances, would not have been deemed miraculous.—In truth, however, Holy Scripture, in one sense, is a miracle from end to end; and if we may not multiply miracles needlessly, certainly we are not at liberty to dismiss the recorded details of a single miracle, as of no account.—Consider also, I entreat you, whether it is credible that Inspiration should be a thing of such a nature, that it comes and goes,—is here and is gone,—once and again in the course of a single page. What? does it vanish, like lightning, when the Evangelist’s pen has to record, the title on the Cross,—to re-appear the instant afterwards?
This allusion to the title on the Cross of our Blessed
Lord, variously given by each of the four Evangelists,
reminds me of the singular perversity of mankind when this subject of
Inspiration is being treated of; and to this, I now particularly desire to
invite your attention.—When a document is simply transcribed by the Evangelist,
or may be supposed to have been merely transferred to his pages, men
assert that so purely mechanical an act precludes the notion that Inspiration
has had any share in the transaction. Be it so!—Behold now, four inspired
writers exhibiting the brief title on our Lord’s Cross
with considerable verbal diversity; and you will hear the same critics
open-mouthed against the Evangelists’ claim to Inspiration,
Before dismissing the subject, I must ask you to observe, that
this arbitrary, irreverent method of approaching Holy Scripture, is absolutely
fatal and can result in nothing but general unbelief. It confessedly leaves the
individual reader to decide what parts of the Bible he thinks could, what parts
could not, have been written without Divine assistance;—a point on which I am
bold to say that he is not competent even to form an opinion. In other words, it
constitutes every man the judge of how much of the Bible he will retain,—how
much he will reject. To put the case yet more plainly, it makes every man a
God to himself, and the maker of his own Bible.—For,
mark you, the exceptions taken against a genealogy,
The Bible, it cannot be too often repeated, too clearly borne
in mind,—the Bible must stand or fall,—or rather, be received or rejected,—as
a whole. A Divinity hath over-ruled it, that those many Books of which it is
composed should come to be spoken of collectively as if they were one Book. As
it was formerly called ἡ γραφή—“the Scripture,”—so is it happily called “the
Bible”—(the Book)—now. “Moses—the Prophets—and the Psalms,” was the
recognized analysis of the volume of the Old Testament. The Gospels, the
Epistles, and the Apocalypse, exhibits the sum of the contents of the New.—There
is no disjoining the Law from the Gospel. There is no disconnecting one Book
from its fellows. There is no eliminating one chapter from the rest. There is no
taking exception against one set of passages, or supposing that Inspiration has
anywhere forgotten See the Appendix (G).
Nor may it occasion perplexity, or breed mistrust in any
thoughtful mind to find this Book of God’s Law so
complex in its character,—so various in its contents,—so fruitful in its
difficulties. Might it not, on the contrary, have been expected beforehand, that
some analogy would have been recognizable between the general complexion of
God’s Works and of God’s Word?
While I behold the creatures of God so various,—their
functions so marvellous,—their nature so little understood,—the very purpose of
their creation so great a mystery;—shall I think it strange that that
Book which is but another expression of
God’s Mind and Will, proves diverse in
texture, and difficult of interpretation?—Shall I grow rebellious against the
message, because the history of it is hid in the long night of ages; say rather,
in the counsels of
God’s inscrutable will? or shall I be incredulous that it
comes from Heaven, because I see the fingers of a Man’s hand writing upon the
plaister of the wall? or shall I despise those parts of it of which. I cannot
detect the medicinal value? As there are riddles in Nature, so are there riddles
in Grace. Anomalies too, it may be, are discoverable in both worlds. Hooker’s Eccl. Pol., B. I. c. ii. § 2.
And this brings me naturally back to the subject of my first
Sermon from this place; and enables me to conclude, as I began, with an earnest
entreaty to the younger men present, that,—whatever their future destination in
life may be,—but especially if the Ministry is to be their high privilege, (and
the blessedness of that choice they can have no idea of, until they prove
it by experience!);—an entreaty, I say, that they would now be assiduous,
and earnest, and regular, and punctual, and devout, in their daily study of one
chapter of the Bible.—And while you read the Bible, read it believing that you
are reading an inspired Book:—not a Book inspired in parts only, but a Book
inspired in every part:—not a Book unequally inspired,
I illustrated sufficiently, last time, in what way fulness of
Inspiration is consistent with the expression of individual character: even
while I availed myself of the ancient illustration that an inspired writer is
like an instrument in the harper’s hand See above, p. 77. The Inspiration of the Bible, five Lectures, by Chr.
Wordsworth, D.D. 1861,—p. 5. For some remarks on Theories of Inspiration, see the Appendix
(H.) “Quicquid Ille de Suis factis et dictis nos legere voluit,
hoc scribendum illis tanquam Suis manibus imperavit.” St. E. g. κεντυρίων: σπεκουλάτωρ: ξέστης Comp. St. The reader will be grateful for a beautiful and highly
suggestive passage from Eden’s Sermons, in the Appendix (I.)
And,—(forgive me for keeping you so long; but I cannot
let you go until I have emptied my heart a little more on this great, and most
concerning subject;)—mark you, Sirs, however reluctant some of you may be to
admit that you agree with me, you do agree with me,—almost to a man. For,
what mean your reasonings on Holy Scripture,—your sermons, and your
dissertations, and your catechizings,—your formulæ of belief, and your
definitions of Faith,—except you believe in a vast deal more than the
substance of Holy Scripture? How can you pretend to expound a text, unless
you hold the words of that text to be inspired? What inferences can you
venture to draw from words, the Divinity of which you dare not affirm?
You will perhaps be told hereafter, (I am speaking now to the
younger men,) that quite fatal to this view of the question, is the state of the
Text of Scripture: that no one can maintain that the words of Scripture
O no, Sirs! Banish the fancy at once and for ever from your
minds. You cannot thus dissect Inspiration into substance and form. It is a mere
delusion of these last days,—prated of from man to man, until respectable
persons begin to give in to the fallacy; and persuade themselves that they
themselves believe it. They hope thus to avoid the danger which is supposed to
attach to hearty belief in the Bible as the very Word of God;
as well as to secure for themselves a side-door, (so to speak,) by which to
escape, whenever they are inconveniently hard pressed. How much more faithful,
to leave God to take care of His own! How much more
manly, to be prepared sometimes to confess ignorance! . . . As for thoughts
being inspired, apart from the words winch give them expression,—you
might as well talk of a tune without notes, or a sum without figures. No such
dream can abide the daylight for a moment. No such theory of Inspiration, (for a
theory it is, and a most audacious one too!), is even intelligible. It is
as illogical as it is worthless; and cannot be too sternly put down. The
philosophical mind of Greece, (far better taught!), knew of only one word for
both Reason and the expression of it. Lodged within the chambers of the brain,
or put forth into living energy,—it was still, with them, the Λόγος.—I invite
you, as the only intelligible view of the matter,—your only alternative, unless
you resolve to run the risk of the most irrational rationalism,—to take this
high view of Inspiration:
And do you,—(for I am still addressing myself to the younger
men,)—learn to put away from your souls that vile indifferentism which is
becoming the curse of this shallow and unlearned age. Be as forgiving as you
please of indignities offered to yourselves; but do not be ashamed to be very
jealous for the honour of the Lord of Hosts; and to
resent any dishonour offered to Him, with a fiery indignation utterly unlike
anything you could possibly feel for a personal wrong. Attend ever so little to
the circumstance, and you will perceive that every form of fashionable impiety
is one and the same vile thing in the essence of it: still Antichrist, disguise
it how you will. We were reminded last Sunday that the sensualist, by following
the gratification of his own unholy desires, in bold defiance of
God’s known
Law, is in reality setting himself up in the place of God, and becoming a
God unto himself Alluding to a sermon preached by the Provost of Queen’s.
The trite antidote to all such forms of impiety, believe me,
is not controversy of any sort; but the childlike study of the Bible, each one
for himself,—not without prayer.—Humble must we be, as well as assiduous; for
the powers of the mind as well as the affections of the heart should be
prostrated before the Bible, or a man will derive little profit from his study
of it. Humble, I repeat, for mysteries, (remember), are revealed unto the meek St.
It is almost treason, in truth, to the Majesty of Heaven to
discuss the Bible on the low ground which I have been hitherto forced to occupy.
It is quite monstrous, in the first University of the most favoured of Christian
lands, that a man should be compelled thus to lift up his voice in defence of
the very Inspiration of God’s Word. O that Divine
narrative, which is for ever rending aside the veil, and disclosing to us the
counsels of the presence-chamber of the Almighty!—O those human characters,
beset with all the infirmities of our fallen nature,—whose words and actions yet
are shadows of things heavenly and eternal!—O that majestic retinue of types
which, from the very birthday of recorded Time, heralded the
THERE is yet another view of the nature and office of Inspiration,—another ‘Theory’ as it would perhaps aspire to be called,—which limits the extent of the Divine help and guidance which the writers, confessedly inspired, may be supposed to have enjoyed. According to this view, it is admitted that Inspiration was, from first to last, a continuous influence; exerted equally throughout: but then, it has been suggested that perhaps its office was not to protect a Writer against a certain class of errors. The office of the Bible, (it is argued,) is to make men wise unto Salvation. It does not follow that Inspiration, because it guided a sacred writer so long as he wrote of Christian Doctrine, so as to make what he wrote unerringly true, should have protected him against slips of memory; preserved him from inaccuracies of statement; from inconclusive reasonings; from incorrect quotations; from mistaken inferences; from scientific errors.—This is what is said: and because this is a view of the question which is observed to recommend itself occasionally to candid, and even to reverential minds, it seems to deserve distinct and careful consideration.
But I must preface all I have to reply by remarking that “a
Book cannot [properly] be said to be inspired, or to carry with it the authority
of being God’s Word, if only portions come from him, and
there exists no plain and infallible sign to indicate which those portions
1. Now, the first thing which strikes one in this theory, is
its extreme vagueness. We hardly know what we have to consider; for nothing is
definitely stated. Neither are we informed how many of the phenomena of
Inspiration, this view is intended to explain. Again, does the theory apply
equally to the Old Testament and to the New? If it does apply equally to the Old
Testament, (and I can see no possible reason why it should not,) then, I
apprehend this theory will be found practically to run up into, and to
identify itself with, that last described See above, p. 95-99.
But if this theory simply shirks the question of the Old Testament, then, those who are inclined to accept it, are bound to explain why there should be one theory of Inspiration applicable to the Old Testament, and another for the New:—in which difficulty, I must candidly profess that I am not able to render any assistance at all. It is clearly not allowable to overlook the intimate connexion which subsists between the two great divisions of Holy Scripture; the habitual references of the Writers of the New Testament to the writers of the Old,—Moses, David, Isaiah, and the rest rather, to the utterance of the Holy Ghost, speaking by the mouth of those writers. Whatever may have been the Inspiration of the Authors of the New Testament must be assumed to have been that of the Authors of the Old Testament also.
2. But further,—(to confine our remarks to the Scriptures of the New Testament; which, it is manifest, the view under consideration specially contemplates;)—however plausible in the abstract a theory may sound, which would account for a Chronological difficulty,—the insertion of what seems to be a wrong name,—a quotation made with singular license,—an unscientific statement,—the apparent inconsistency of two or more accounts of one and the same transaction, in respect of lesser details,—a (supposed) inconclusive remark, or specimen of reasoning which seems to be fallacious;—on the supposition that it is not the office of Inspiration to enlighten the understanding on points like these, or to preserve the pen from error;—however plausible, I say, this theory, abstractedly considered, may appear;—it will be found that it will not bear the searching test of a practical application.
It would indeed be a great advantage to the cause
For if any one who is disposed to regard it with favour,—instead of idly, (as is the way with nine-tenths of mankind,) repeating the formula in terms more or less vague and indefinite; and straightway wincing, falling back on generalities, and in a word shirking the point, the instant it is proposed to bring the question to a definite issue;—if a favourer of the present theory I say, instead of so acting, would take up a copy of the New Testament, and proceed, with a pen in his hand, to apply the theory, by running his pen through the places, (and they must be capable of individual specification!), which he suspects of being external to the influence of Inspiration—or, if you please, which he thinks have been penned without that Divine help which makes what is written infallible;—I venture to predict that such an one will speedily admit that his erasures are either so very few, or so very many, as to be fatal to the theory of which they are the expression.
If they be confined to “the fifteenth year of Tiberius St. St. St. St.
But if; on the other hand, the pen be freely used, then the
result will be fatal to the theory, because it St.
It cannot escape observation, therefore, that however plausible this view of Inspiration may sound, as long as some few petty historical, chronological, and scientific inaccuracies are all that have to be accounted for;—the theory (unhappily) proves worthless when it comes to be practically applied; inasmuch as in the writings of St. Paul, for example, there is little or nothing of the kind just specified, to be condoned. Erroneous dates, unscientific statements, wrong names, and the like, form no part of the staple of the New Testament. Such instances may be counted on one’s fingers; and are to be sufficiently explained to render any special theory of Inspiration in order to meet them, quite a gratuitous exercise of ingenuity.
3. On the other hand, if a wider class of phenomena is to be
dealt with by this theory, the reader is requested to observe that we involve
ourselves in a gross contradiction; for we forsake the very principle on which
it pretends to be built. The theory set out by reminding us that “the office of
the Bible is to make men wise unto Salvation,”—not to teach physical Science,
nor to deal with facts in chronology and the like: and the plea was allowed. But
the theory which was devised to account for one class of phenomena is now most
unwarrantably applied to account for another. We have travelled into a widely
different subject-matter,—namely, Divinity proper! Let it therefore be
respectfully asked,—If the Inspiration which the Apostles enjoyed did not
preserve them against unsound inferences in respect of Holy Scripture;
and illogical, inconclusive argumentation in things Divine;
4. It is high time also to remind the reader that although the office of the Bible, confessedly, is “to make men wise unto Salvation,” it does not by any means follow that that is its only office. In other words, we have no right to assume that we know all the possible ends for which the Bible was designed; and to lay it down, as if it were an ascertained fact, that it was not designed to enlighten men in matters of Chronology, History, and the like; seeing, on the one hand, that all the evidence we are able to adduce in support of such an opinion, does not establish so much as a faint presumption that any part of Scripture is uninspired; and seeing that, on the other, as a plain matter of fact, historical details constitute so large a part of the contents of the Bible; and that the sacred volume is the sole depository of the History and Chronology of the World for by far the largest portion of the interval since that World’s Creation.
5. In passing, it may also be reasonably declared, that it is to take a very derogatory view of the result of the Holy Spirit’s influence, to suppose that imperfections and inaccuracies can freely abound,—nay, can exist at all,—in a Revelation which the same Holy Spirit is believed to have inspired. They ought surely to be demonstrated to exist, before we are called upon to listen to the apologies which have been invented to account for their existence!
6. Let me also advert to a dilemma which seems hardly ever to
obtain from a certain class of critics the attention it deserves. If a writing
be not inspired, it is of no absolute authority. If a part of a writing
be not inspired, that part is of no absolute authority. If a single word in the
text of Holy Scripture be even uncertain,—(as, for example, whether we are to
read ΟΣ or
ΘΕΟΣ in
7. A far more important consideration remains to be offered,
and with this I shall conclude. Although, when St. Paul appears to reason
inconclusively, some of us do not hesitate to refer the Apostle’s (supposed)
imperfect logic to his personal infirmity,—yet, common piety revolts against the
proposal to apply the same solution to the same phenomenon when it is observed
to occur in the Discourses of our Blessed Lord Himself. It seems to have been
providentially ordained, however, that the discourses of Christ Himself should supply examples of every one of those difficulties
which it is thought lawful to account for,—when an Apostle or an Evangelist is
the speaker,
α. The well-known difficulty about “the days of Abiathar,”
is found in one of our Lord’s
discourses St.
β. However unworthy of scientific attention the Mosaic
account of the descent of Mankind from a single pair may be deemed,—the
universality of ‘the Noachian Deluge,’—the destruction of the Cities of the
plain,—the fate of Lot’s wife,—Jonah in the fish’s belly,—and so forth;—to all
these (supposed) unscientific statements our Blessed Lord
commits Himself unequivocally All will be found more fully insisted upon at the
beginning of the VIIth Sermon.
γ. When the Holy One inferred the Resurrection of the Dead
from the words spoken to Moses “in the bush St. St. St. ‘Essayists and Reviewers’ would reply, that in the first
instance, the supposed inference has no connexion with the premisses:—that in the second, (1) it has to be proved that the person
intended in
δ. When the Chief Priests and Scribes remonstrated with our
Lord because of the children crying in the Temple; and asked Him,—“Hearest Thou
what these say?” He replied,—“Yea, have ye never read, ‘Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise St.
ε. It seems clear from
ζ. In St. See above, p. 4.
Many more examples might be adduced: but these will suffice. It is plain that when the like phenomena are observed in the writings of Apostles and Evangelists, we need not, in order to account for them, have recourse to any theory of partial or imperfect Inspiration since nothing of the kind is supposed necessary when they occur in the Discourses of our Lord.—As much as I care to offer on the subject of Inspired Reasoning will be found in the course of the Sixth of these Sermons, where the Doctrine of ‘Accommodation’ is considered.
To say that the Scriptures, and the things contained in them, can have no other or farther meaning than those persons thought or had, who first recited or wrote them; is evidently saying, that those persons were the original, proper, and sole Authors of those Books, i.e. that they are not inspired: which is absurd, whilst the authority of those Books is under examination; i.e. till you have determined they are of no Divine authority at all. Till this be determined, it must in all reason be supposed, (not indeed that they have, for this is taking for granted that they are inspired; but) that they may have, some farther meaning than what the compilers saw or understood.
Bishop Butler, Analogy, P. II. ch. vii.
As the Literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the Moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the Allegorical or Typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use: not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions; but that I do much condemn that Interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book.
Lord Bacon, Advancement of Learning.
THE Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into. That little thereof which we darkly apprehend, we admire; the rest, with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore.
Hooker, Eccl. Pol., B. I. c. ii. § 5.
Open Thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of Thy Law!
ΟΥ ΛΟΓΟΣ ἈΝΘΡΩΠΩΝ, ἈΛΛΑ ΚΑΘΩΣ ἘΣΤΙΝ ἈΛΗΘΩΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ.
Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 3rd, 1861.
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
IT is impossible to preserve exact method in Sermons like
these, uncertain in number, and delivered at irregular intervals. It shall
only be stated that, having already spoken at considerable length, of the
Inspiration of Holy Scripture;—not, one part more, one part less, but
every part equally inspired throughout; not general, (whatever the exact
notion may be of a book generally inspired,) but particular, by which
I mean that every word is none other than the utterance of the Holy Ghost “It cannot be said that this, [viz. that
the Bible is the
word of God,] is always remembered. It cannot be said that they who
write respecting the Bible, even Christian writers who are looked up to, always
appear to have been in that frame of mind while contemplating the statements of
the Sacred Volume, which they, the same men, would have been in if they had been
listening for a voice out of a cloud; a word reaching them which was
simply, and in that sense, the Word of God. Yet the
Sacred Volume comes to us with no less claims than as conveying such a message;
and on every feature of it, it carries that claim. It professes to be this,—an
account of what went on in the secret council-chamber of the
Most High.”—Eden’s
Sermons, pp. 150-1. Exposition of the Creed, Art. II. (“Our
Lord,”)—vol. i. p. 183.
I. Interpretation, then, in the largest sense of the term, I
take to denote the discovery of the method and meaning of Holy Scripture.—I
exclude those critical labours which merely aim at establishing a correct
text.—I exclude also the learning which merely investigates the grammatical
force of single words. True, that even to translate is often to interpret; but
this results only from the imperfection of language,—which can seldom represent
the words of one idiom by the words of another, without at the
Of these three authorities concerning the sense of Scripture, it is evident that the last-named is entitled to least notice. So unimportant indeed is it, as scarcely to be of any weight at all. What one individual asserts, on his own unsupported authority, another individual may, with as much or as little authority, deny; and who is to decide?
But the authority indicated in the second place, clearly
challenges very different attention. When, for example, our own Hooker declares,
concerning the Eccl. Pol., B. v. c.
lix. § 3.
“Religio mihi est, eritque, contra torrentem
omnium Patrum,
Sanctas Scripturas interpretari; nisi quando me argumenta cogunt
evidentissima,—quod nunquam eventurum credo Bp. Bull, Defensio Fid.
Nic. I. i. 9, (Works,
vol. v. p. 22.) Disc. v. The elate of Man before the Fall. Bull’s
Works, vol. ii. p. 99. “Deus novit cordis mei secreta: in dogmatis theologicis a
novaturiendi prurigine (quam etiam supremi Judicis tribunal insiliens fidenter
mihi tribuit theologiæ professor) adeo alienus sum, ut quæcunque catholicorum
Patrum et veterum episcoporum consensu comprobata sunt, etiamsi meum ingeniolum ea
non assequatur, tamen omni reverentia amplexurus sim. Nimirum non paucis experimentis monitus didiceram, cum adhuc juvenis
Harmoniam scriberem, (quod
mihi jam confirmata ætate persuasissimum est,) neminem catholico consensui repugnare posse, quin is (utcunque
ipsi aliquantisper adblandiri videantur sacræ Scripturæ loca nonnulla
perperam intellecta, et levicularum ratiuncularum phantasmata) tandem et
Divinis Oraculis et sanæ rationi repugnasse deprehendatur.”—Bp. Bull’s
Works, vol. iv. p. 313.
The distinction thus drawn between individual opinion and the
collective voice of the Church, was far better understood anciently than at
present. The interpretation of a Council, especially if œcumenical, was
accounted decisive. Even the generally consentient voice of Doctors and Fathers, as far as it could be ascertained, was held to be of the same
authoritative kind. An interesting illustration occurs. Than Eusebius, Bishop of
Caesarea, few Fathers of the fourth century were more learned in Holy Scripture.
He, commenting upon “the Captain of the Lord’s Host,”
mentioned in the with chapter of the Book of Joshua, delivers it as his opinion
that it was the same Personage who spoke to Moses ‘in the Bush;’ viz. the Eternal
Son In days of unbelief, one is tempted to add a note even on a
Theological truism like that in the text,—“Esto igitur, inquies; fuerit
Deus,
qui in Veteri Testamento, sive per Angelum, sive sub angelicâ repræsentatione
sanctis viris apparuit et locutus est; at quâ demum ratione adducti crediderunt
doctores, fuisse Dei Filium? Respondeo: Ratione, ni fallor, optimâ,
quam ex
traditione Apostolicâ edidicerant.”—Def. Fid. Nicæn. I. i. 12. Bp. Bull’s Works,
vol. v. i, p. 27. Ἀλλ᾽ ἡ ἐκκλησία, ὦ ἁγιώτατε Εὐσέβιε, ἑτέρως τὰ περὶ τούτου νομίζει
καὶ οὐχ ὡς σύ. τὸν μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῇ βάτῳ φανέντα τῷ Μωϋσῇ θεολογεῖ· τὸν
δὲ ἐν Ἱεριχῷ τῷ μετ᾽ αὐτὸν ὀφθέντα, τὸν τῶν Ἑβραίων ἐπιστασίαν λαχόντα,
μάχαιραν ἐσπασμένον, καὶ τῷ Ἰησοῦ λῦσαι προστάττοντα τὸ ὑπόδημα, τοῦτον
δέ γε τὸν ἀρχάγγελον ὑπείληφε Μιχαήλ, κ.τ.λ.—The entire
passage may be seen in the best annotated editions of Eusebius,
(lib. I. c. ii. § 17.) since that of Valesius, who first introduced it to notice.
But to read it in a truly valuable context, reference should be made to Dr.
Mill’s Christian Advocate’s publication for 1841, p. 92. The note alluded
to has been reprinted in Dr. Lee’s Discourses On Inspiration, p. 535. Essays and Reviews, p. 31.
II. Before descending, however, to the business of
Interpretation, there is clearly one preliminary question to be settled: namely,
the principle on which Interpretation is to be conducted. And this is all
that can be discussed to-day. To seek for that principle in the contradictory
pages of solitary theorists, would of course be hopeless, as well as absurd. To
elicit it from Patristic Commentaries, would obviously leave a door open for
cavil. The ancient Fathers, (allowing See Appendix (J).
I desire to be very clearly understood. My position is this.
All Christian men allow that the Apostles and Evangelists of our
Lord were inspired. Before such an audience as the
present, I will not condescend even to allude to the absolute claim of
our Saviour Christ, who, as the
Son of Man, enjoyed the gift of the Spirit without measure; who, as very
God, “in the beginning created the Heaven and the
Earth,”—(for, “In the beginning was the Word; and
the Word
was with God; and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by Him, and without Him
was not anything made that was made St.
Now this method,—(of which, as I will presently remind you, we
possess a great many specimens,)—proves to be very extraordinary. It altogether
establishes the fact that the Bible is not to be interpreted “like any other
book.” That it could not be so interpreted, might have been
confidently anticipated beforehand, from the very fact of its Divine origin So Bp.
Butler, in a passage which will be found below, at p.
165-6.—Very different is the judgment of Professor Jowett, who is of opinion
that “it will be a further assistance in the consideration of this subject, to
observe that the Interpretation of Scripture has nothing to do with any
opinion respecting its origin.”—Essays and Reviews, p. 350. See above, pp. 55-57.
You are particularly requested to observe, further,—that
singular pains have been taken to mystify this entire subject. It has been a
favourite device to multiply difficulties,—real or imaginary,—and so, to create
a miserable sense of the dangers which fairly hem the subject in,—in order to
render more palatable a desperate escape from them all. Thus, we are told of the
risks to which Grammatical nicety, and Rhetorical accommodation expose us; and
again, the snares into which the Logical method may betray. Metaphysical aid, we
are assured, mystifies; and even Learning, (would to Heaven we had a little more
of it!) obscures the sense Professor Jowett in Essays and Reviews, pp.
393-402. He adds,—“Discussions respecting the use of the Greek article, have
gone far beyond the line of utility. There seem to be reasons for doubting
whether any considerable light can be thrown on the New Testament from
inquiry into the language. . . . Minute corrections of tenses or particles are
no good.” (p. 393.) And this, from a Regius Professor of Greek! See below, pp. 164-5. Essays and Reviews, p. 372.
Now, as for how the principles of Divine Interpretation are to be discovered, it is undeniable that there can be no surer way than by discovering what is the method of the Holy Ghost; by inquiring, what is the method of our Saviour Christ, and of His Evangelists, and of His Apostles?
1. Surely it is needless to remind an audience like the
present, what that method is! Turn the first page of St. Matthew’s
Gospel, and weigh well the three famous cases of Interpretation which there
encounter St. e.g. St.
2. But it is St. Paul who affords us the largest induction of
instances. When he would establish the right of the Clergy to have due provision
made for them, he finds his warrant in a most unexpected place of Scripture.
“Say I these things as a man? or saith not the Law the same also? For it is
written in the Law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that
treadeth out the corn.’ Doth God care for the oxen here
alluded to For consider St.
3. But St. Paul further largely interprets the ordinances of
the Mosaic Law. Thus, the provision that the high-priest alone should enter,
once a year, into the Holy of Holies, not without blood, he interprets as
follows ,—“the Holy Ghost this signifying,”—(“the Holy Ghost this
signifying!)—that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest,
while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing Διὰ τοῦ καταπετάσματος, τουτέστι τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ. Ὣ καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀντίτυπον νῦν σῴζει
βάπτισμα.
Now these samples of Inspired Interpretation would be abundantly sufficient for our present purpose. But before I proceed to make any use of them, it is right to draw attention to a phenomenon, even more extraordinary.
4. It is found then, that besides vindicating for the
Scriptures of the Old Testament this unsuspected depth and fulness of prophetic
and typical meaning, the very Narrative itself teems to overflowing with
mysterious purpose. You have but to weigh well what the Holy
Spirit hath
delivered concerning Abraham and Melchizedek, Hagar and Sarah,—to perceive that
the texture of the Historical Narrative itself is of supernatural fabric. All
are familiar with what I allude to; but I must remind you of it, in
detail. The Apostle is bent on sheaving the superiority of our Saviour’s
Priesthood to that of Aaron. How does he proceed? He lays his finger, unhesitatingly,
The compound name “Melchi-zedek,” being interpreted, denotes
“King of Righteousness:” while “King of Salem” denotes “King of Peace.” These
titles, (it is implied,) are emphatically appropriate to
Christ our King; to
Him who “is our Righteousness,” and the very “Prince of Peace.” It happens that
nothing is said in Genesis about the parentage of Melchizedek, nor about the
family from which he sprang: not a word as to when he was born, or when he died.
From this silence of Scripture, St. Paul collects the typical adumbration
of One who, as very God, was without human
parentage,—had no earthly lineage;—“was before all things,”
God from all eternity,—having indeed “neither
beginning of days nor end of life.”—Did not Abraham give to Melchizedek a tithe
of the spoils? Consider then, (St. Paul says,) how great an one Melchizedek must
have been! Nay, consider that the descendants of Levi are commanded to take
tithe of their brethren, although all are sprung from Abraham alike; but here is
one, altogether of a different family, taking tithes of Abraham,—aye and
blessing Abraham too;—(δεδεκάτωκε,
Essays and Reviews, pp. 338, 375, 377, 419-20, 426,
428, 429, &c. The advice is Professor Jowett’s.
Some there may be so utterly wanting in Theological instinct,
or so depraved of taste so utterly unused to the study of God’s
Word, or so unobservant of the characteristic method of it,—as to imagine that
there is something trifling in the specimens of Interpretation before us. I am
only concerned to maintain that they are Divine. You may think what you please
about them. They are the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Nay, if unfortunately any
persons here present should think themselves wiser than God,
I would request them to observe that, singularly enough, God
has connected with this very exposition a short address to themselves. It
runs as follows:—“Concerning Νωθροὶ γ^γόνατε ταῖς ἀκοαῖς.— Dr. Temple in
Essays and Reviews.
5. The time would fail, were we to enter as particularly into
the Divine Interpretation elsewhere given of another story, apparently as little
fraught with mystery as any in the Bible. Who would ever have imagined
that the brief narrative of Hagar’s dismissal from the house of Abraham at
Sarah’s instance, was the ἀλληγορία of so Divine a thing as St. Paul
declares;—the two Mothers setting forth the two Covenants, (one, bearing
children unto bondage,—the other, the free Mother of us all: Sinai symbolized by
that, the heavenly Jerusalem by this:) and even Ishmael’s
6. But I cannot dismiss the typical character of the Scripture
narrative, until I have reminded you of one striking intimation of it which you
might easily overlook. “O fools and slow of heart,” was our
Lord’s reproof to Cleophas and his companion on the evening of the first
Easter: “Ought not Christ St. St. Bp. Pearson.
I have already said enough to feel at liberty to gather out of it all, the two chief propositions concerning Holy Scripture, which it is my business this morning to establish. And first, I assert that it may be regarded as a fundamental rule, that the Bible is not to be interpreted like any other book. This I gather infallibly from the plain fact, that the inspired Writers themselves habitually interpret it as no other book either is, or can be interpreted.
Next, I assert without fear of contradiction that inspired
Interpretation, whatever varieties of method it may exhibit, is yet uniform and
unequivocal in this one result; namely, that it proves Holy Scripture to be of
far deeper significancy than at first sight appears Consider St.
I would not be misunderstood by this audience, nor do I fear
that I shall be. I am not denying (God forbid!) the literal sense of Scripture.
Rather am I, above all, contending for it. We may never play tricks with
the letter. Those Six Days of Creation, depend upon it, were six days:
and the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge, and the Serpent, were the very
things they are called,—and Ἐν στιγμῇ χρόνου.—St. St.
But I am proving that Scripture itself, literally understood, compels us to believe that under the letter of Scripture, (which of course is to be interpreted literally,) there lies a deeper and sometimes a far less obvious meaning; occasionally a meaning so improbable, (as men account improbability,) that, but for the finger of God pointing it out, we could never by possibility have discerned it; so extraordinary, that when it is shewn us, it needs an effort of the heart and of the mind to embrace it fully.
Cases of literal Interpretation are indeed of constant
occurrence in Scripture; but the principle on The learned reader,—(and the unlearned reader too, who will
bear in mind that ἀπεκδυσάμενος, [in the E. V. ‘having spoiled,’] certainly means
‘having stripped off from himself,’)—is invited
to consider with attention those words of
III. From the two foregoing negative positions, however, (which almost need an apology, such obvious truisms are they,) I eagerly pass on to something better and higher.
1. And first, I boldly declare that the clue to all that has
been advanced concerning the marvellous method of Holy Writ is supplied by the
single consideration that the Bible is the Word of God,—that Holy
Scripture, from the Alpha to the Omega of it, is the language of the Holy Ghost.
Incomprehensible and unmanageable on any other hypothesis,—all the disclosures
of inspired Interpretation, by the hearty reception of this one revealed truth,
are rendered perfectly intelligible and clear. The Holy
Spirit may surely be
assumed competent to interpret what the
Thus, to advert for a moment to the prophetic character (as it
may be called) of the historical parts of Scripture,—What is it which moves
secret unbelief, and prompts a reference to the human devices of Allegory and
Accommodation See Sermon VI.
I am constrained to be thus express and emphatic, because it
has been lately “laid down that Scripture has one meaning;—the
meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered
or wrote,—to the hearers or readers who first received it Professor Jowett in Essays and Reviews, p. 378. Professor Jowett in Essays and Reviews, p. 338. Consider St. See St. Analogy, Part
II. ch. vii.
2. Now, if God be in effect the
Speaker, why need we hesitate to believe that He has so framed the stories, that
they shall be throughout adumbrations of the things which concern our peace Augustine, speaking of the New Testament, says,—“Factum quidem
est, et ita ut narratur, impletum; sed tamen etiam ipsa, quæ a Domino facta
sunt, aliquid significantia erant,—quasi verba (si dici potest) visibilia, et
aliquid significantia.”—Opp., tom. v. p. 421 F.
3. The strong root of bitterness out of which springs unbelief
in this supernatural character of the historical parts of the Bible, is an
unworthy notion of God’s Power. Because human
histories are perforce barren and lifeless, it is assumed that the Book of
God’s
Law must be a dead thing also. And then, the conceit of self-relying Reason
glides in, (like a serpent,) and remonstrates as follows:—“Yea, can
God have sanctioned a method of such subtlety and
pliability as will make His own Scriptures mean anything Essays and Reviews, pp. 368, 372. Professor Jowett
in Essays and .Reviews, p. 374. Professor Jowett in Essays and Reviews, p. 418.
4. To all of which, we make summary answer:—Passing by thy self-congratulation on the enlightenment of the age,—of which, except in certain departments of physical Science, we see no evidence;—the whole of thy argument concerning Holy Scripture amounts to this;—that it would be very distasteful to thee, to find that it contained any sense beyond that which lies on the surface. Types, intended by the Author of Scripture to be types: Prophecy with sometimes more than a single application: historical events foreshadowing remote transactions:—all these thou deniest, because thou dislikest. Observe, however, that while thou art urging thine own private opinion, we are dealing with a revealed fact. Thou talkest about a probability, but we are establishing a proof. “It is written “that Scripture is thus significant, is thus mysterious in its historical outlines. And thou canst not explain away one syllable, though thou shouldest deny “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
5. Let us, however, examine the question merely by the light
of unaided reason.—Consider then! If God made this world the particular kind of
world which he is found to have made it, in order that it might in due
time preach to mankind about Himself, and about His providence:—if He contrived
beforehand the germination of seeds, the growth of plants, the analogies of
animal life; all, evidently, in order that they might furnish illustrations of
His teaching;
6. For let me remind you,—The very actions of men,—the
complicated transactions of our common lives,—are thus overruled by God’s
Providence; and, without restraint, are so controlled that they shall subserve
to the ulterior purposes of His will,—after a fashion which altogether defies
analysis. Beyond this inner circle of comprehensible causation,—external to the
immediate sphere of cause and effect which courts our daily scrutiny,—there is
an outer circle, which rounds our lives; and (as I said) overrules all we do;
fashioning, by virtue of a supreme fiat which is altogether beyond our
comprehension, all our ends. Why then, I ask, may not the Bible be, what
it purports to be,—the authentic record of transactions which the marvellous
skill of Him who governeth all things in Heaven and Earth did so overrule, that
they should become foreshadowings of chief transactions in the Kingdom of
Christ? Shall prophecy, in the ordinary sense of the
term, be admitted by all,—and yet a prophetic transaction be deemed
impossible with God? If Isaiah may prophesy of one “red
in His apparel,” after “treading the winepress alone Comp.
7. Take once more, if thou wilt, the analogy of Nature; and
thence infer what is probable concerning things Divine. Is it observed
that the works of God are thus single in their
office; or are they, on the contrary, manifold in their virtues and uses? Than
the metal Iron, what substance more serviceable for every ordinary mechanical
purpose of daily life? Yet, ask the physician which of the metals he
could least
8. To speak without a figure,—It is not of course to be
supposed that the inspired writers knew all the wondrous qualities of the
message they delivered, or of the narrative they were divinely guided to indite.
Altogether a distinct question this; although the two have been sometimes
confused together By Professor Jowett for example. “The time will come when
educated men will no more be able to believe that the words of
9. But between the words which a man delivers being
full of Divine significancy, and himself knowing the full scope and
purport of those words,—there is surely a mighty difference! When Caiaphas
foretold the universal efficacy of Christ’s Death,
who less than Caiaphas suspected the far-reaching truth of the words which
fell from his unholy lips? He knew nothing about the triumphs of the
Cross; and yet he could prophesy very accurately concerning them. “This spake he
not of himself’,” (says the Evangelist,) “but being high-priest that year, he
prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and
not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the
children of God that were scattered abroad St. Davison on Prophecy, p. 192.
10. Enough, however, of all this. In reply to à priori objections, I have been content to argue the question as if the Bible were a newly-discovered Book without a history; whereas the consentient writings of all the Fathers and Doctors of every age, in every portion of the Christian Church, is an overwhelming fact! Rather have I reasoned as if the Bible were a book altogether silent concerning itself. But the plain truth, as I have fully shewn, is the very reverse. Scripture is full of interpretations of Scripture;—and the constant method of Scripture in such interpretations, is spiritual or mystical;—and this witness of Scripture is the strongest proof possible that the principle involved is correct. Meanwhile, the great underlying truth which I now desire, more than any other to bring before you, is this:—that it is the Holy Ghost who, in the New Testament, interprets what the same Holy Ghost had delivered in the Old. This, believe me, is the true key, the only intelligible solution, to all those difficulties respecting places of the Old Testament, Whether interpreted, or only quoted, in the New, which have so exercised the ingenuity of learned men. We are always to remember, in a word, that the true Author of either Testament,—the real Author of every part of the Bible, is (not Man, but) God!
IV. Such then, (to conclude,) is the Divine method of
Interpretation. We are not concerned now to “Adoro Scripturæ plenitudinem.”—Tertullian adv. Hermog.,
c. 22. Comp. St. A few examples may prove suggestive to a thoughtful
reader:—ἔξοδος, in St. “Scriptores θεόπνευστοι, de typo disserentes, divinius quiddam ex inopinato pati solent, et ad antitypum vehementiore Spiritus
afflatu rapi et elevari. Assertionis hujusce veritas inde constat, quod verba quædam haud expectata
sæpius inferant, quæ Messiæ vel solum vel aptius quam
Illius typo congruant.”—Spencer De Legg. Hebr., vol. ii. p. 1035.
Consider such places as St.
“And let not Reason be alarmed. Her vocation is not gone.
Yea rather, I know not if Human Intellect ever had a loftier problem presented
to her than to follow out that deep Analogy which has been noticed above and to
learn, (if it may be called Reason’s learning,) how to deal with Holy Scripture
as Apostles and Evangelists deal with it. Let not Reason be alarmed. She is only
asked to listen, and to discern the nature and laws of Sacred Study. She is
asked but to discern the evidence which there is of her being in a world which
she imperfectly understands. . . . . The student of the Bible is advised so to
address himself to the study of that Book, so to deal with its language, as one
should deal with the Word “And their manner of treating this subject when laid before
them, shews what is in their heart, and is an exertion of it.” Bp. Butler’s
Analogy, P. II. ch. vi.—See Appendix (C). Eden’s Sermons, pp. 192-5.
V. Friends and brethren, it is not without reluctance that on
a Sunday in Lent, when penitential thoughts should rather occupy us,—and in this
place too, where the promotion of practical piety should rather be our aim,—I
have so addressed you. But indeed, I seem to have no choice. It is idle crying “peace, peace,” when there is no peace. If the Inspiration of Holy
Scripture be a deceit, and the Divine meaning of Holy Scripture a
superstition,—then, farewell to all our hopes in Life and in Death; farewell to
peace in days of despondency and gloom. Our faith is gone, and our teaching
becomes a hollow heartless thing. Since, under the name of freedom of
discussion, unbounded licentiousness of speculation is openly the fashion of the
age, we are constrained to give a reason for the hope which is in us; and
to defend, without compromise or hesitation, that Bible, which is the great
bulwark of the Faith. It shall not be said that we can condemn, but that we make
no answer. It must be seen that we put forth in reply “With the exception of the still-imperfect science of
Geology,” (says Dr. Pusey,) “the Essays and Reviews contain nothing with which
those acquainted with the writings of unbelievers in Germany have not been
familiar these thirty years.” Even the Apologist for the volume in question
assures us that one who “had looked ever so cursorily through the works of
Herder, Schleiermacher, Lücke, Neander, De Wette, Ewald, &c., would see that the
greater part of the passages which have given so much cause for exultation or
for offence in this volume, have their counterpart in those distinguished
Theologians.”—Edinb. Rev., Rev. B. Jowett in Essays and Reviews, pp. 374-5. Rev. B. Jowett in Essays and Reviews, pp. 372, (bottom,)
340, 374, &c.
Vain, utterly vain,—worthless, utterly worthless,—must any
superstructure of intellectual, moral, or religious training be, which is built
up on the doctrine that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other Book; in
other words, that the Bible is a common Book; in other words, that
Inspiration is a fable and a dream. We have no fear whatever that your
high instincts, (with all your faults!),—your English
manliness,—will, to any extent be led astray, by sophistry worthless as that
which we have been exposing. But we know you look to your appointed Teachers
from this place, (as well you may,) for advice, and support, and encouragement,
in your better aspirations;—and let me, at least, in plain language, warn
you that novelties in Religion never can be true. “Philosophia,” says the
great Bishop Pearson speaking of Physical Science; “Philosophia quotidie
progressu: Theologia nisi regressu non crescit Minor Works, vol. ii. pp. 9-10.—“In Christianity,
there can be no concerning truth which is not ancient; and whatsoever is truly new is certainly false.”—Epistle Dedicatory prefixed
to Pearson on the Creed, p. x.
UT verum fatear, semper existimavi, allusiones istas, (ad quas confugiunt quidam tanquam ad sacrum suæ ignorantiæ asylum,) plerumque nihil aliud esse, quam Sacræ Scripturæ abusiones manifestas.
Bishop Bull, Harmonia Apostolica, cap. xi. sect. 3.
THERE would be no need to scruple the term, if it were not meant to imply that this Accommodation was arbitrary on the part of the Evangelist; or that the mind of the Spirit that spoke by the Prophet does not most fully include this application.
Dr. W. H. Mill.
Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, April 27, 1851.
“But the Righteousness which is of Faith speaketh on this wise,—‘Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, ‘Who shall descend into the deep?’ (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? ‘The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth; and in thine heart:’ that is, the word of Faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
IT is quite marvellous in how many different ways different
classes of professing Christians have contrived to nullify the value of their
admission that the Bible is inspired. Some would distinguish the
inspiration of the Historical Book from that of those which we call Prophetical.
Others profess to lay their finger on what are the proper subjects of
Inspiration, and what are not. Some are for a general superintending guidance which yet did not effectually guide; while others
represent the sacred Writers as subject, in what they delivered, to the
conditions of knowledge in the ago where their lot was cast. The view of
Inspiration which Scripture itself gives us,—namely, that God
is therein See above, pp. 55-7. See above, pp.
53-4.
Second to none of the enemies of Holy Writ, practically, are
they who deny its depth and fulness. It is only another, and a more ingenious
way, of denying the Inspiration of the Bible, to evacuate its more mysterious
statements. Those who are for eluding the secondary intention of Prophecy, the
obviously mystical teaching of Types, the allegorical character of many a sacred
Narrative,—are no less dangerous enemies of God’s Word
than those who frame unworthy theories in order to dwarf Inspiration to the
standard of their own conceptions of its nature and office. I say, it is only
another way of denying the Inspiration of Scripture, to deny what is sometimes
called its mystical, sometimes its typical, sometimes its allegorical sense. . .
. . And
thus,—what with the arbitrary decrees of our own unsupported opinion, or the
self-sufficient exercise of our own supposed discernment;—what with our insolent
mistrust; or our shortsighted folly and presumption; or, lastly, our coldness
and deadness of heart,—our slender appetite for Divine things, which makes us
yearn back after Earth, at the very open gate of Heaven;—in one way or other, I
repeat, we contrive to evacuate our own
But the most subtle enemy of all remains yet to be noticed. It is he, who,—finding the plain Word of God against him: finding himself refuted in his endeavour to fix one intention only on the words of the Holy Ghost, and that intention, the most obvious and literal one; finding himself refuted even by the express revelation of the same Holy Ghost; elsewhere delivered;—bends himself straightway to resist, and explain away, that later revelation of what was the earlier meaning. It is a marvellous thing but so it is, that the very man who contended so stoutly a moment ago for the literal meaning of Scripture, now refuses, and denies it. Anything but that! If he allows that St. Matthew, or St. Paul,—yea, or even our Blessed Lord Himself,—are to be literally understood; are severally to be taken to mean what they say;—then, Moses and David,—narrative, law, and psalm,—besides their literal meaning, have, at least sometimes,—and they may have always,—a mystical meaning also. Under the evident, palpable signification of the words, there lies concealed something grander, and deeper, and broader; high as Heaven,—deep as Hell.
And this supposition is so monstrous an one; seems so
derogatory to their notions of the mind of God;—it is
deemed so improbable a thing, that the words of Him, whose ways are not like
Man’s ways, should span the present and the future, at a grasp;—that He whose
“thoughts are very deep,” should, with language thereto corresponding, be
setting forth Christ and His Redemption, while He tells of Patriarchs and See above, pp. 157-160.
Now, it is not to the term “Accommodation,” that we
entertain any dislike; but to the notion which it seems intended to
convey; and to the principle which we believe that it actually embodies.
That the Holy
Spirit in the New Testament sometimes accommodates to His purpose
a quotation in the Old,—is very often a mere matter of fact. In all those
places, for instance, where St. Paul inverts the clauses of a place cited,—there
is a manifest accommodation of Scripture, in the strictest sense of the word.
When two, three, or more texts, widely disconnected in the Old Testament, are
continuously exhibited in the New,—a species of accommodation has, of course,
been employed. The same may be said when a change of construction is
discoverable. Again, there is accommodation, of course, when narrative,—legal
enactment,—or prophecy, is so exhibited that the point of its hidden
teaching shall become apparent. Nay, in a certain sense of the word, there is
“accommodation,” as often as a prophecy, however plain, is applied to the
historical event which it purports to foretel. The prophecy may be said,—(with
no great propriety indeed, but still, intelligibly,)—to have been accommodated
to its fulfilment.—Occasionally, a general promise is made particular,—as in
But such ways of adducing Holy Scripture, we suspect, are not by any means what is meant by ‘Accommodation;’ and they do not certainly correspond with the notion which the term is calculated to convey. The place in the Old Covenant, seems, (from the term employed,) to have been forced, against its conscience, as it were, to bear witness in behalf of the New. It has been wrenched away from its natural bearing and intention; and made to accommodate itself,—and, on the part of the writer, quite arbitrarily,—to a purpose, with which it has, in reality, no manner of connexion. This, I say, is the notion which the term “Accommodation” seems to convey.
I am supposing, of course,—(as the opposite school is, of
course, supposing,)—not an illustration,—which obviously any
writer, whether ordinary or inspired, has a right to introduce at will; but a
case where the cogency of the argument depends entirely on the place cited. A
sudden and unforeseen requirement arose;—nothing entirely fit and applicable occurred to the memory:
but by an arbitrary handling of the ancient Oracles of God,—(altogether
illogical and inconclusive indeed, yet entitled to a certain measure of
respectful consideration at our hands, and certainly having a strong claim on
our indulgence,)—the later writer saw that he should be able to substantiate his
position, or to strengthen his argument, or to prove his point. And he did not
hesitate to do so. It is surprising that his hearers or his readers should have
accepted his statements, and admitted his reasoning;—very! But they did.
And it is for us, the heirs of the wisdom of all the ages, to detect the
time-honoured fallacy and
And the introduction of this principle, as already explained, I cannot but regard as the most insidious device of all. It admits fully all that we have elsewhere laboured to establish. It freely grants that Apostles and Evangelists were inspired. But then, it denies that much of what they deliver in the way of interpretation of Scripture, is to be regarded as real interpretation. By a taste for Allegory; by Rhetorical license; on any principle, it seems, but one, is the Divine method to be accounted for; and the plain facts of the case to be obscured, or explained away.
Now I altogether reject this principle of arbitrary “Accommodation.” I hold it to be a mere dream and delusion. And I reject it on the following grounds:—
1. It is evidently a mere excuse for Human ignorance,—a
transparent deceit. Men do not see how to explain, or account for, the apparent
license of the Divine method; and so they have invented this method of escape.
Most cordially do I subscribe to the opinion expressed by Bishop Bull, in his
discussion of the very text which we are now about to consider:—“Atque, ut verum
fatear, semper existimavi, allusiones istas, (ad quas confugiunt quidam tanquam
ad sacrum suæ ignorantim asylum,) plerumque aliud nihil esse, quam sacræ
Scripturæ abusiones manifestas Harm. Apost. Diss. Post., cap. xi. § 3.
2. The “theory of Accommodation,” (as it is called,) is attended with
this fatal inconvenience,—that, (like certain other expedients which have been
invented to get over difficulties in Religion,) it altogether fails of its
object. For even if we should grant, (for argument’s See above, pp. 152-7. Consider again the Divine exposition, (in
3. But, allowing the advocates of this theory all they can possibly require, the result of their endeavours is but to make the Sacred writers ridiculous after all. For it attributes to them a method, which, if it be a mere exhibition of human fancy, often seems to be but a species of ingenious trifling,—scarcely entitled to serious attention at our hands. There is no alternative, in short, between certain of the expositions which we meet with, being Divine,—and therefore worthy of all acceptation or Human,—and therefore entitled to no absolute deference whatever.
4. On the other hand, learned research has hitherto invariably
tended to shew that the meaning claimed See Dr. Mill’s Christian Advocate’s publication for
1814, The Historical Character of the circumstances of our
Lord’s Nativity vindicated against some recent mythical
interpreters,—especially p. 402 to p. 434.
St. Paul’s words, from the Cf. Consider St. On the words, Ἡ δὲ ἐκ πίστεως δικαιοσύνη οὕτω λέγει,—Theodoret
remarks:—Ἀντὶ τοῦ, περὶ δὲ τῆς ἐκ πίστεως δικαιοσύνης, οὕτως λέγει· οὐ
γὰρ ἡ δικαιοσύνη ταῦτα λέγει, ἀλλὰ διὰ Μωσέως, ὁ τῶν ὅλων Θεὸς, περὶ τοῦ
νόμου ταῦτα εἴρηκε· διδάσκων Ἰουδαίους ὡς δίχα πόνων τὴν τῶν πρακτέων
διδασκαλίαν ἐδέξαντο.—Theodoret, Cat., p. 374.
Here then is a quotation from the Our E. V., following the
translations since Cranmer’s, here inserts the word “again,”—which is certainly
not implied by the Greek.
Here, however, we shall be reminded that the great
Apostle,—though professing to quote,—confessedly argues in part from his own
language, which is not the language of Moses. Moses says,—“Who shall
go over the sea for us?”
(τίς διαπεράσει ἡμῖν εἰς τὸ πέραν
τῆς θαλάσσης;)
And since the version of the LXX is what the Author of the Epistle to the Romans
follows in this place, it is reasonable to expect that he would adhere to that
version, or at least to the sense of that version, in the exhibition of so
important a clause as the present. Whereas, instead of “Who shall go over the
sea,” we find St. Paul writing,—“Who shall go down into the deep?”
(Τίς καταβήσεται εἰς
τὴν ἄβυσσον;)—language
evidently highly suggestive of the mysterious transaction to which the same St.
Paul says it contains a reference The expression is, of course, wholly dissimilar from that
in
For our own parts, we are inclined to meet the present difficulty, and every similar one, in quite another spirit and dispose of the objection, somewhat in the following way. The same God who gave us the Scriptures of the Old Testament, gave us the New Testament also. The Bible is one. He who inspired the Law, inspired the Gospel. The Holy Ghost pleads with us in both alike.—Surely, therefore, He who spake of old time by the Prophets, may be allowed, when, in the last days, He speaks by the Apostles of Christ,—to explain His earlier meaning, if He will. Surely, He may tell the Israel of God,—if He pleases,—what He meant by the language He held of old time to Israel after the flesh! Yea, and if it seemeth good to Him to call in the wealth of His ancient treasury, in order to recoin it that He may the more enrich us thereby:—if it pleases Him to take His ancient speeches back again into His mouth, in order that He may syllable them anew,—making them sweeter than honey to our lips, yea, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb;—what is Man that he should reply against God? What should be our posture, at witnessing such a spectacle, but one of Adoration? What, our becoming language, but praise?
It is easy to anticipate the answer that will be made to
all this. We shall be told that we are, in
Butt, we reply, it is manifest that he who so argues,—with all
his apparent good sense, and fairness,—is entirely committed to a theory
concerning Inspiration; and that a very unworthy one. The Bible comes to
us as an Inspired Book; claiming to be the very Word of God.
The Holy Church throughout all the World, cloth acknowledge it to be so. Surely,
therefore, it is for us to study its contents by the light of this previous
fact.—But quite contrary is the method of our opponents. They treat the Bible as
if it were an ordinary Book. They submit its contents to the same irreverent
handling as they would the productions of a merely human intellect. They not
only reason about its claims from its contents,—but they would even
pronounce upon its claims, from the same evidence. They dare to sit in
judgment upon it. Hence their lax notions on the subject of Inspiration. They
first run riot among statements which are too hard for them; and when they have
perplexed themselves with these, till the field is strewed with doubts, and the
limits of unbelief and mistrust have become extended on every side,—Inspiration,
like an ill-defined boundary-line on a map, is suffered faintly to hem in,
Let this belief encircle us exactly, and entirely; and define,
at once, the area within which all our reasonings must be taught to marshal
themselves, and to find their full development. In brief, our opponents meet our
remonstrance by another; but, as we contend, an unreasonable one;—at least, as
proceeding from men who, no less than ourselves, allow freely the Inspiration of
Scripture. We say,—The Bible is the word of God. Fill
your heart with this conviction, and then humbly address yourself to the study
of its pages.—It is argued on the other side,—The pages of the Bible are full of
perplexing statements. They evolve strange phenomena, interminably. Convince
yourself of this; and then make up your mind, if you can, about the Inspiration
of the Bible I cannot forbear transcribing the following passage in an
elaborate apology which has recently appeared for Essays and Reviews:—“Among
the many proposals which are floating abort for Essays and Counter-essays to
vindicate the Doctrines supposed to be combated in this volume, let us be
allowed to suggest this one:—‘The Nature of Biblical Inspiration, as tested by a
careful examination of the Septuagint Version with special reference to the
sanction given to it by the Apostles, and to its variations, by way of addition
or omission, from the revised Text of the Canonical Scriptures.’ The conclusions
of such an investigation would be worth a hundred eager declarations on one side
or the other, and would be absolutely decisive of the chief questions at issue.”
(Edinburgh Review, April, 1861, p. 483.) . . . . Now I scruple not to affirm
that a well-informed, and faithful student of the Scriptures would covet no
better portion fur himself than liberty to accept, in the most public manner
possible, such a challenge as the foregoing.
Solemnly protesting, then, that the ground we have just occupied is the only true ground on which to take our stand; but withdrawing from it because we do not fear the appeal to unassisted Reason, even in matters of Faith,—so that the proper limits and conditions of inquiry be but observed;—we proceed to inquire whether,—apart from Revelation,—there be not good ground for believing that the words of the ancient Hebrew Lawgiver and Prophet contain and mean the very thing which the Christian Apostle says they do.—We change our language at this stage of the inquiry. We no longer assert, (as before we did,) that the Holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Moses, must have meant, what the same Holy Ghost, speaking by the mouth of St. Paul, declares that he did mean. We are willing to study the sacred text solely by the light which grave criticism and patient learning have thrown upon it.—Our inquiry now, is this;—Although the words in Deuteronomy, read over attentively by ourselves, suggest no such Christian meaning as we find affixed to them in the Epistle to the Romans,—is there no reason, traditional or otherwise, for supposing that they do envelope that meaning; yea, so teem and swell with it, that the germ of the flower may be actually detected in the yet un opened bud? . . . . I proceed to this inquiry.
1. And first, it is obvious, to any one reading the xxixth and
xx chapters of the last Book of Moses, See the valuable exposition of the text, by Bp. Bull, in the
Appendix (K),—to which I am very largely indebted. Opposed to Bp. Bull in his opinion, on this matter, seem
Ainsworth, Patrick, Parker (Biblioth. Bibl.), Cornelius à Lapide, the
Critici Sacri, &c. I cannot but think that the truth is with the first-named
Commentator.
2. We find that it contains not a few sayings in support of
such a presumption. The See προκεκυρωμένην . . . . εἰς Χριστόν.
3. And that it was indeed the Evangelical, (not the Legal
Covenant,) which is here spoken of, is abundantly confirmed by the subsequent
language of the passage: for Moses proceeds,—“
Yet more remarkably perhaps is this established by the language of the ensuing chapter: for God therein promises that Circumcision of the heart whereby men should be enabled to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul. Now this seems clearly to intimate not legal but Evangelical obedience,—the result of the free outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God; of which, in the Law, (properly so called,) we find no promise whatever. Here then we discover another anticipation of something which belongs to the times of the Gospel.
And this Evangelical complexion is to be recognized
In connexion with this, I may call your attention to a curious
coincidence,—if indeed it be not something more. On the sincere repentance of
the people, it is promised “that then the Lord thy
God will turn thy captivity;” which the Targum of
Jonathan paraphrases,—“His Word will receive with
delight thy repentance:” while the Septuagint even more remarkably renders the
words—“will heal thy sins;” that is,—“will be thy Jesus.” Moses proceeds,—“and
gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy
God hath called thee.” And what is this but one of the
very places, if it be not the very place, to which St. John alludes when
he declares that Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus should
die for that nation; and not for that nation only; but that He should gather
together in one, the children of Goy that were scattered abroad St.
4. Nor is it, finally, a little remarkable that, by the
general consent of the Hebrew Doctors, this “Diligenter observandum est, ex consensu Hebræorum, caput hoc ad regnum Christi pertinere. Uncle
etiam Bachai dicit, hoc loco promissionem esse quod sub Rege Messiah omnibus qui
de fodere aunt, circumcisio cordis contingat, citans Joelem, 28.”—Fagius, (in
the Critics Sacri,) on
So much, then, for the evidence, apart from Revelation,
which the general complexion of the place in Deuteronomy affords to the
reasonableness of the meaning affixed to it by the voice of the later
Scriptures. Before we proceed to examine a little in detail the words of the
text, we may be surely allowed to remind ourselves of the Testimony which St.
Paul bears to the Evangelical character of what is hero delivered. He asserts,
in the most direct and emphatic manner, that it is the Righteousness which is by
Faith which here speaks “Apostolus dicit hoc esse verbum fidei, quod ad Novum Testamentum
pertinet. Quæ ergo scripta sunt in libro legis hujus in figurâ dicta sunt, pertinentia ad Novum Testamentum.”—Augustinus, in Nic. Lyra,
ad loc.
Enough has been said, I trust, to render this proceeding on
the part of the Apostle no matter of surprise.
Now, that all this denotes something close at hand and
easy,—in place of something supposed to be remote and difficult,—is obvious. The
whole of the earlier part of it, St. Paul affirms to be tantamount to the
following injunction,—“Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven, to
bring
Christ down; or who descend into the abyss, to bring
Christ up from the dead.” Concerning which words of caution, we have to
remark that there seems to have been no intention whatever on the part of the
Apostle, to warn his readers against requiring a renewed Revelation of
Christ in the flesh, or a second Resurrection of the Eternal
Son from the
dead. He is illustrating the nature of Legal and Evangelical Righteousness, by
the language of the Jewish Law. He contrasts the two, in their respective
requirements; finding the voice of both in the writings of Moses: of the
former,—in connexion with the covenant of Sinai; of the latter,—in connexion
with the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make
with the children Art. vii.
Moses then here warns the ancient people of
God against an evil heart of unbelief. “Say not in thy heart, Who shall
ascend up into Heaven?” for such words on the part of Man would imply disbelief
in the doctrine that the Son of God
should hereafter take upon Him human flesh. (Since “no man hath ascended up to
Heaven, but He that came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in Heaven St.
We shall perhaps be asked, whether it is credible that Moses
can have had any conception that such a meaning as St. Paul here ascribes to his
words, did really underlie them? To which we answer, first, that it is by no
means incredible The reader is invited to consider See above, pp. 171-2. “Though I think it clear that the Prophets did not understand
the full meaning of their predictions; it is another question how far they
thought they did, and in what sense they understood them.”—Butler’s Analogy,
P. II. ch. vii. See
And next, if it be said that really this is only a proverbial
expression,—a Hebrew phrase to denote something passing difficult, and hard of
attainment: e. g. “Si quis dixerit mulieri, Si adscenderis in firmamentum,
aut descenderis in abyssum, eris mihi desponsata,—hæc conditio frustranea
est.”—Nasir ix. 2, apud Wetstein, (in
Nay, there is good ground for presuming, that the very place
last quoted, contains a reference to the Eternal Son: for Agur proceeds
to ask,—“What is His Name, and what is His Son’s Name, if thou canst
tell “The whole passage (
The uninspired evidence which completes the connexion of this
place of Deuteronomy with the second Person in the Blessed Trinity, is the
traditional interpretation assigned to it by the Hebrew Commentators. The Targum
of Jerusalem expounds the latter clause as follows:—“Neither is the Law beyond
the Great Sea, that thou shouldest say, O that we had one like Jonas the
prophet that might go down to the bottom of the Great Sea, and bring it to
us.” So that the very Jewish Doctors themselves here become our instructors; and
teach us that a greater than Jonas must be here,—even while they guide our eyes
to that especial type of our Saviour Christ in His Descent into Hell, and Rising again from the dead. I say, the
very Jewish Doctors themselves here contribute their testimony; and yield a most
unsuspicious witness to the inspired exegesis of the Apostle: for, “as Jonas was
three days and three nights in the whale’s belly,”—so, (they clearly mean to
say), so should it be with the man whom Moses here indicateth: and so,—(these
are the words of Christ Himself), St.
You will of course notice the facility with which the Jews themselves, interpreting their own Scriptures, have here exchanged the notions of going “over the sea,”—(“beyond the sea,” as it is in the Hebrew,)—and “going down to the bottom” of the sea. St. Paul seems, in this place, to have “accommodated” the words of Moses: but we cannot fail to perceive that the Hebrew text must cry aloud for such supposed “accommodation;” yea, cry aloud, even in the uncircumcised ears of the Jewish people; that their own Commentators, as if divinely guided by the good hand of God, should bear their own independent witness to the correctness of the Apostolic interpretation.
Nor may I fail to call your attention to the term employed by
St. Paul to denote the Sea:—a term, surely divinely chosen. He had just before,
(in the
I must also remind you, that there are many expressions used
by our Lord, or used concerning Him by His Apostles,
which help to shew, that, to have come down from heaven,—and to have been
brought up from the deep of the Earth again,—may be regarded as the mysterious
summary of the Saviour’s Mission Consider St.
But I am impatient to leave this low rationalistic ground, and
take my stand again, on the vantage ground of Faith. The position, I trust, has
been established, that even in the case of words which seem least
promising,—least likely to enfold the deeply mysterious meaning claimed for them
by an
Yes, it cannot be too emphatically insisted on, that the
success which may attend investigations of this nature, is not to be admitted
for a moment as the measure of the soundness of the principle on which they
proceed. The reasoning whereby Newton shewed that the diamond is a combustible
substance would have been no whit invalidated had the diamond resisted to this
hour every chemical attempt to reduce it to carbon. We do not,—(what need to
say?)—we do not discourage the endeavour to enucleate the deep Christian
significancy of passages for which Inspired writers claim such sublime meaning.
Rather do we See above, pp. 176-7.
There is no accommodation therefore, when an inspired
writer adduces Scripture. Human language will sometimes require to be
“accommodated:” Divine language, never! May not the Holy
Spirit lay His finger
on whatever parts of His ancient utterance He sees fit? may He not invert
clauses, and (in order to bring out His meaning better) even alter words? If He
tells thee that the prophetic allusion of Isaiah to “our griefs” and “our sorrows” comprehends “our infirmities”
and “our sicknesses “in its span St. St. St.
Scripture then, whether in its Historical or its more
obviously prophetic parts, has this depth of meaning for which I have been
contending. We must perforce believe it, for it is a matter of express
Revelation. We cannot pretend to deny the probability,—much less the possibility
of it; for we really can know nothing of the matter except from an
attentive study of Scripture itself. And the witness of Scripture, as we have
seen, is ample, emphatic, and express.—Our Lord, being
indignantly asked by the Jews if He heard what the children, crying in the
Temple, said of Him,—made answer by quoting the St. St.
Inspired Reasoning, wherever found, may fitly obtain a few
words of distinct notice here; but I shall perhaps speak more becomingly, as
well as prove more
The difficulty which has been occasionally felt in respect of the argumentative parts of St. Paul’s Epistles, is considerable, and may not be overlooked. 11is definitions, his inferences, his entire method of handling Scripture, gives offence to a certain class of minds. His reasoning seems inconsequential. There appears to be a want of logical order and consistency in much that he delivers. But,—can, it require to be stated?—the fault is entirely our own. “The radical fallacy of any attempt to analyze the reasoning of Scripture by the ordinary Laws of Logic” requires to be pointed out. And the root of it all is our assumption that an inspired Apostle must perforce argue like any other uninspired man.
But, in the first place, it is to be recollected that he did
not collect the meaning and bearing of the Old Testament Scriptures from
induction, and study only. He was,—by the hypothesis,—an inspired
Writer. The same Holy
Spirit who taught the authors of the Old Testament
what to deliver, taught him, in turn, how to explain their words. By
direct Revelation, he perceived the intention of a text, and at once bore
witness to it. Thus St. Paul says of our Lord,—“He is not ashamed to call them
brethren, saying,—‘I will declare Thy Name unto My brethren, in the midst of
Pseudo-Fell’s Paraphrase and Annotations on the
New Testament, (Jacobson’s ed.), in loc.
To quote the language of a thoughtful writer of more recent
date,—“Inspired teaching,—explain it how we may,—seems comparatively indifferent
to (what seems to us so peculiarly important) close logical connexion, and the
intellectual symmetry of doctrines. . . . The necessity of confuting gainsayers,
at times forced one of the greatest of Christ’s inspired
servants, St. Paul, to prosecute continuous argument; yet even with him, how
abrupt are the transitions, how intricate the connexion, how much is conveyed
by assumptions such as Inspiration alone can make, without any violation of
the canons of reasoning,—for with it alone assertion is
argument. . . . The same may be said of some passages of St. John, supposed to have
been similarly occasioned. Inspiration has ever left to human Reason the filling
up of its outlines, the Professor Archer Butler, quoted in Professor Lee’s
Discourses on Inspiration, pp. 415-6.
“In a train of inspired Reasoning,” (as the same writer
elsewhere remarks,) “each new premiss may have been supernaturally communicated;
and thus, in point of fact, the inspired reasoner but connects the different
threads of the Divine Counsels; exemplifies how deep answereth to deep’ in the
mysteries of Revelation; and presents, in one connected train of argument, those
words of God which had been uttered at sundry times and
in divers manners Ibid., p. 586.
To conclude.—There is no such thing as inconsequential
Reasoning to be met with in the writings of St. Paul See above, pp. 132-7. See the Appendix, (L).
I will not detain you any longer. No apology can be needed for
the subject which has been engaging our attention In the earlier part of the present Sermon many passages have
been re-written. What follows stands exactly as it was preached in 1851.
This must be the preacher’s apology for disputing where he
would rather adore; for discussing the Revelations of Scripture, instead of
feeding upon them; especially at this holy Season when the Apostle’s exhortation
God grant us grace,—at this and every other time,—so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve Him in pureness of living and truth: through the merits of the same His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord!
Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, Whit-Sunday, May 19th, 1861.
Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God.
ON a certain occasion, the Son of Man was asked what was
thought a hard question by those who, in His day, professed “the negative
Theology
Now, I venture to assume that whatever, from its extraordinary character, perplexes us in Scripture, is a difficulty only to ourselves; that moral Marvels and physical Miracles, alike, would cease to create any difficulty if we knew more about God. The Morality of the Life to come, I do believe will prove none other than the Morality of the life which now is; and so I presume that it may be their Divine Author’s will, that the physical Laws of the Universe shall be eternal likewise. And yet, as no thoughtful man will probably be found to say that he’ thinks he knows as much about the nature of these last now, as he expects to know hereafter,—so it is to be presumed that a sublimer, and therefore a juster view of the relation in which the Creature stands to the Creator, will disclose to us much which, at present, we should be little prepared to admit, if it were speculatively presented to us, (“as in a glass, darkly,”) respecting the Moral Government of God.
I. In the very fore-front, however, of what I have to say
concerning those phenomena which are generally cited as the Moral Marvels
of Holy Scripture, I must freely declare my opinion that nothing is wanted but
that the whole of the historical evidence should be before us, in every
case, in order that we might cease to look upon them as marvels at all. But so
it is, that Scripture is severely brief: takes no pains to conciliate our good
opinion: seems to care nothing See the Appendix (C).
1. Now, if you choose to consider Jael as one who lured a weary and unsuspecting soldier into her tent,—shewed him hospitality,—and when he was asleep, murdered him in cold blood,—you certainly cannot help recoiling from the inspired decision that, “Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be.” But I take the liberty of saying that this is quite the wrong way to read her story. You must begin it from the other end.
God pronounces this woman blessed, and
distinctly commends her for her deed. From this point you must start;
remembering that no action can be immoral which God
praises. The Divine sentence, instead of creating a difficulty, is, on the
contrary, exactly the thing which removes it Should one not as readily acknowledge a hint which was
gathered from the conversation of the thoughtful Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale,
as if it had been derived from some of his published writings?
I find that when the people of God
were on their way out of Egypt into Canaan, they were indebted to one family
(the Kenites) for kindness and help A hint has here been taken from one of Dr. W. H. Mill’s
admirable University Sermons, pp. 239-40.
The children of Israel, at the end of a hundred and fifty
years, find themselves cruelly oppressed by the most powerful of the Kings of
the conquered but not extirpated race. God promises
deliverance: and Deborah is raised up to organize the resistance against Jabin,
“the captain of whose host was Sisera.” Now, while Heber the Kenite is gone with
the rest to the battle,—(for he had pitched his tent, remember, by Kedesh; and
it was from Kedesh Comp.
To appreciate her constancy and courage, you may not overlook
how fearful were the odds against the cause she was espousing: on the
oppressor’s side, nine hundred chariots of iron; whereas, “was there a shield or
spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?” It had been so terrific a day, that
if the Lord had not been on their side,—if the stars in
their courses had not fought for Israel,—how could Sisera have possibly been
overcome? But the very river was employed to sweep the enemies of Israel
away,—“that ancient river, the river Kishon!” . . . Now I boldly ask you, if
the Angel of the Lord may curse bitterly the inhabitants
of Meroz, “because they came not to the help of the
It will assist us to understand this story, that we should
bear in mind how it fared with Ahab, King of Israel, in the matter of Ben-hadad,
King of Syria, as recorded in the
Be so good as to remember also, that forgiveness of enemies is
strictly a Christian duty. You have no right to expect to find the
brightest jewels of the kingdom of Heaven glittering on the swarthy brow of an
Arabian wife in the days of the Judges. “Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ St.
2. There is no time to consider, as I fain would, any other
story; that of Jacob for example. It is quite amazing to hear the presumptuous
speeches concerning that great Saint, in which good men sometimes permit
3. Of all the other (so called) difficulties which occur to my
memory,—as the extinction of the Canaanites, (who yet were not
extinguished,)—the Sacrifice of Isaac, (who yet was not sacrificed,)—the
life of David;—I have only to say that before you can pretend to have an opinion
upon the subject you must be sure that you “know the Scriptures:” else, I make
bold to say, you will inevitably err in your cogitations concerning them. Thus,
men are heard to insinuate astonishment that the King who so basely compassed
Uriah’s
II. Turn we now, briefly, to the physical Marvels which are described in the Bible; and chiefly those which occur in the Old Testament.
I am about to speak of Miracles in general; but it may be convenient to say a few words first about certain mighty transactions which eclipse, by their vastness or their strangeness, most isolated events. Thus, as the Nativity, Temptation, Transfiguration, Resurrection, Ascension, of our Lord, together with the Coming of the Holy Ghost, eclipse in a manner the other Miracles of the New Testament,—so the Temptation of our first Parents, the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and the fate of Lot’s wife, the burning bush, the Plagues which prepared the way for the Exode, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Manna, and the brazen Serpent; Balaam’s ass, and the fate of the walls of Jericho; the history of Jonah, and of Daniel among the lions:—events like these stand out from the Old Testament narrative and challenge astonishment.
Of all these latter events, viewed as difficulties,—(for it is
as difficulties in the way of Revelation that we are now expected to look
on Miracles,)—you are requested to observe that they enjoy, one and all, the
confirmation of express citation in the New Testament. I am
saying that either St. Paul, or St. Peter, or St. James, or (above all) our
Blessed Lord Himself,
I question whether all students of the inspired page are aware
of the extent to which what I have been saying holds true. Let me only invite
you to investigate the structure of the Bible under this aspect, and you will be
astonished at the result. For you will find that the system of tacit quotation
and allusive reference is so perpetual, that it is as if the design had been
that the fibres should be incapable of being disentangled any more. Balaam’s
story for example in the Book of Numbers, is found alluded to in Deuteronomy, in
Joshua, in Micah, in Nehemiah; by St. Peter, by St. Jude, and by St. John in the
Apocalypse “It is a very misleading notion of Prophecy,” says Dr.
Arnold,—(a writer to whom, more than to any other person, I conceive that we are
indebted for “Essays and Reviews;” that unhappy production being the
lawful development and inevitable result of the late Head-master of Rugby’s most
unsound and mischievous religious teaching:)—“It is a very misleading notion of
Prophecy, if we regard it as an anticipation of History.” (Sermons, p.
375.) “I think that, with the exception of those prophecies which relate to our
Lord, the object of Prophecy is rather to delineate
principles and states of opinion which shall come, than external events. I grant
that Daniel seems to furnish an exception.” (Life and Correspondence, p.
59.) This was written in 1825. In 1840, we are informed:—“The latter chapters of
Daniel, if genuine, would be a clear exception to my Canon of Interpretation.
. . . But I have long thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is
most certainly a very late work, of the time of the Maccabees; and the
pretended prophecy about the Kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the North
and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil and
elsewhere. . . . That there may be genuine fragments in it, is very likely?’
(Ibid., p. 505.)—In other words, Dr. Arnold, rather than suppose “my Canon of Interpretation” (!) worthless, is prepared to eject the Book of Daniel from the Inspired
Canon. Any thing is “very likely,” in short, except that God
could foretell future events, and Dr. Arnold be in error! . . . Ἆρ᾽ οὐχ ὕβρις τάδ᾽; Analogy, P. II. ch. vii.
1. The miracles, properly so called, whether of the Old or New
Testament, have lately been cavilled at with exceeding bitterness Throughout the volume entitled “Essays and Reviews;” while
the third Essay is simply an affirmation of their impossibility. And yet, Bp. Butler says,—“The facts, both miraculous and
natural, in Scripture, appear in all respects to stand upon the same foot of
historical evidence:” . . . . “and though testimony is no proof of enthusiastic
opinions, or of any opinions at all; yet, it is allowed, in all other cases, to
be a proof of facts.”—Analogy, P. II. ch. vii. (ed. 1833, pp. 285 and
293.)
You are requested to observe then, that this difficulty,—(such
as it is,)—is entirely occasioned by the terms in which it is stated. Who
ever asserted that Miracles are “violations of natural causes Essays and Reviews, p. 140. Ibid. p. 104.
But God is, I suppose, superior to his
own Laws! He is not the creature of circumstances,—even of His own
creating. Supreme is He in Creation,—albeit in a manner which baffles
thought. He does not even suspend His Laws, perhaps, so much as fulfil
them after a Diviner fashion,—somewhat as He was fulfilling the Mosaic
Economy even while He seemed to be violating one or other of its sanctions.
He does not reverse or disorder the fixed course of Nature, so much as
rise above it, and shew Himself superior to it. He does not disturb anything,
but our notions of His mode of acting. God coming
suddenly to view in Nature, (which is an essential part of the notion of a
miracle,) occasions perplexity, it is true; but only because we do not
understand fully either Nature or God. “We know Him not as He is, neither indeed
can know Him.” While of Nature, we know nothing but a few Laws which we have
discovered by a long and laborious induction of phenomena. In fact, this
whole manner of speaking concerning the Creator of the Universe, with
reference to the Laws which He is found to have prescribed to things natural,
has, I suspect, some great foolishness in it: for, even if we do not so
far dishonour God as to imagine that He is subject to
Law, yet we seem to imply that we think ourselves capable of understanding
the relation in which He stands to Law. Whereas, the very notion of Law
may be utterly inapplicable to God,—who is not only its first Author, (as He
is indeed the first Author of all things,) but the very source and
cause of it also. So that what are Laws to ourselves may be not so much
as Law at all to God; but, (if I may so speak,)
something which depends on “the counsel of His will,” and which, (considered
as a restraining There are some admirable observations on this subject in the
‘Preliminary Essay’ prefixed to Dean Trench’s Notes on the Miracles.—See
pp. 10, 12, 15, 60, &c.
Briefly then:—That He who, (surely I may say confessedly,) is above Law, when He manifests Himself in the midst of Creation, should act in a manner which defies conception; and yet should disturb nothing, reverse nothing, violate nothing;—(except to be sure, possibly, certain preconceived notions of his rational creatures;)—in this, I say, there is surely nothing either incredible or absurd.
2. So much, to say the truth, seems to be ad-milted, by all but professed Atheists. But then, certain formulæ have been invented to bridge over the difficulty, which Miracles are supposed to occasion, which I cannot but think are just as objectionable as unbelief itself.
By way of saving the credit of “the Laws of the Universe,” a kind of compromise has been discovered; to which I do not find that God has been made any party.
The idea of Law, which has been falsely declared to be only
now “emerging into supremacy in Science Dr. Temple. Mr. Babbage’s Bridgewater Treatise, (2nd. Ed. 1838,) p.
92. “Why we should pray for Fair Weather: being Remarks
on Professor Kingsley’s Sermon,”—by a Member of the University [of
Cambridge,]—12mo. Cambridge, 1860, p. 8. “The view taken of Miracles in chapter viii., is the same as
that contained in the work of Butler, on the Analogy,” &c.—Babbage (as
above), p. 191. Edinburgh Review, for April 1861, p. 486. How exactly, in this instance, has Dr. Whewell’s anticipation
received fulfilment!;—“We may, with the greatest propriety, deny to the
mechanical Philosophers and Mathematicians of recent times any authority with
regard to their views of the administration of the Universe; we have no reason
whatever to expect from their speculations any help, when we ascend to the first
Cause and supreme Ruler of the Universe. But we might perhaps go further, and
assert that they are in some respects less likely than men employed in other
pursuits, to make any clear advance towards such a subject of speculation.”—(Whewell’s
Bridgewater Treatise, p. 334.)—Scarcely less acute is the remark which
the late excellent Hugh James Rose has somewhere left on record, concerning the
chapter wherein the preceding remark occurs,—That the world would not easily
forgive Dr. Whewell for those two chapters on “Inductive” and “Deductive
Habits.” Babbage (as before), p. 92, (heading of ch. viii.)
I will not waste your time further with this view of the
subject, having exposed its fallacy. Station yourself, in thought, at the grave
of Lazarus; and see him that was dead and had been four days buried, See the Analogy, P. II. ch. iv. sect. iii.
3. Another favourite recipe there is for escaping from the bondage of Miracles, which is so childish, that it would seem scarcely to deserve notice: but that it has been largely resorted to by writers of whom the world thinks highly. These men, in a word, try to explain them away where they can: where they cannot, they pare them down as much as they are able, or rather as much as they dare. Demoniacal possession? Symptoms like those described are known to accompany epilepsy. Manna? Something like it falls in the wilderness of Sinai to this hour. The Red Sea parted? Well, but a strong East wind blew all night. Stilling the storm, and healing Peter’s wife’s mother? Every storm is stilled if let alone; and a fever will burn out, often without occasioning death. The miraculous draught ‘of fishes, and the stater in the fish’s mouth? . . . . but you can readily supply a suggestion for yourselves.
Now, two remarks present themselves on this kind of handling,
which may be worth stating. (1) Those who so speak forget that the Devils are
related to have conversed with Christ St. St. St.
4. There remains to notice one subtle and most treacherous
method of dealing with the marvels of Scripture,—(moral and physical alike,)—to
which I desire in conclusion to direct your special attention; and which I would
brand with burning words if I had them at command. I allude to what is called
“Ideology,”—the plain English for which term is, a denial of the historical
reality of Scripture. I will not waste time with inquiring whether this
method is old or new. It is certainly much in fashion; and it
You and I, then, have been taught to believe that “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” in the way St. Matthew and St. Luke describe: that our Lord was Baptized and Tempted of Satan; that He wrought Miracles,—casting out Devils, and even raising the Dead; that He was Transfigured on a mountain; that He was Crucified, died, and was buried; that He rose again the Third Day, ascended into Heaven, and at last, (as on this day,) sent down the Paraclete to dwell with His Church for ever. All this, I say, you and I,—with the whole Church Catholic for 1800 years,—have been taught to believe as plain historical truths, mere matters of fact; past telling wonderful indeed, but yet as historically true, as that I am standing here and you are sitting yonder,—neither more nor less.
But you are to understand that we, and all mankind with us, have been under a very curious delusion on this head. We are assured that every one of these things, or at least that some of them, are only ideologically true: that historically, they are false. In plain language, we are requested to believe that they never occurred at all. It is only a lively way of putting it,—no more!
You will inevitably suppose that I must be trifling with you:
I therefore proceed to give you a sample of this kind of teaching. A living
dignitary of our Church writes as follows concerning the Transfiguration of
Christ. “It may be asked, of what kind was the
“Whatever links may be deficient!” O that men would have the
courage or the honesty to say what they mean! Why not say
plainly, “however untrustworthy we may account the narrative to be?” And
this writer cannot mean any other thing; for missing “links,” assuredly, there
are none.—In truth this method of wrapping up a monstrous abortion in
“purple and fine linen,” in order to make it look like “a proper child,” is so
much in vogue, that plain men are obliged first to translate a fallacy in
order to understand it. Thus, a recent Apologist for the very writer I have been
quoting,—after surrendering the beginning of Genesis as “parabolic,” (that is,
not historically true,) is yet so obliging as to contend that “there
still remain events” in Scripture,—our Lord’s
Resurrection to wit,—“in which the garb of flesh,”—(pray mark the phraseology I
)—“in which the garb of flesh seems to be so indispensable a vehicle for
the spirit within, that we can hardly conceive how the one could have sustained
itself in the world, unless it had been from the beginning allied to the other Edinburgh Review, (art. on
‘Essays and Reviews,’) April
1861, p. 487.
I will not insult the understanding of those who hear me so grossly as to suppose that dreams like these,—(and really they are no more!)—require answer or refutation. Such desperate shifts to elude the meaning of plain words, as the whole theory of Ideology discloses, would be even ludicrous, if the subject-matter were not so very sacred and solemn. As in the case of certain acts of flagrant dishonesty which one sometimes reads of,—one cannot forbear exclaiming, The man must certainly have felt himself very sore pressed indeed to have been induced to resort to a step so utterly disgraceful to his character! . . . . Anyhow, since certain persons have adopted this course, I do but plead for consistency. Only let them be sure that they apply this precious method of Interpretation to the History of England, and to everything their friend tells them: and let them not feel surprised if the same kind of ideological handling is bestowed upon everything they tell their friend. Idealize away, and be sure you stick at nothing! Why be outdone in logical consistency by such an one as Strauss? Let men also make their election whether Scripture shall be a lie or not. And when they have made up their minds, let them, in the Name of God, instead of dealing in unmanly insinuations, and dark hints, and shuffling equivocations,—let them declare themselves plainly, that we may know at least with whom and with what we have to do. For while false Brethren are thus playing fast and loose with Revelation, they, are trifling with the faith of thousands,—and imperilling other immortal souls besides their own.
But I shall be reminded that the subject-matter of daily life,
and of the Everlasting Gospel, is very different: and that the marvellous
character of certain events recorded in the Bible constrains us to relegate
those events to a distinct region. A child’s plea, which was effectually
disposed of upwards of a century ago! What does it amount to but this,—that what
is supernatural, or even highly extraordinary, must be also untrue?
. . . When, however, the argument is shifted, and is made an appeal
ad
misericordiam:—when I am entreated to remember that though I believe in the
Resurrection of Christ from Death, the same event is a
“stumbling block” to many; and that I am “bound to treat with tenderness those
who prefer to lean on the other, and, as they think, more secure
foundation Edinburgh Review, (art. on ‘Essays and Reviews,’) April
1861, p. 487. I have softened the expression originally employed in this
place, out of deference to the opinions of some wise and good men, But I do not
think that St. John, (the Evangelist and Apostle of Dogma,) would have
thought my language too strong: nor St. Paul either. Εἴ τις οὐ φιλεῖ,— From a Sermon by the pious and learned chaplain to the
English congregation at Rome, the Rev. F. B. Woodward,—Christ risen the
Foundation of the Faith,—preached on Easter Day, 1861. (Rivingtons.)
You and I know very well “that nothing could more effectually
shake the whole fabric of Revealed Religion, than thus converting its
history into fable, and its realities into fiction. For if the narratives most
usually selected for the purpose may thus be explained away; what part of the
Sacred History will be secure against similar treatment? Nay, what doctrines,
even those the most essential to Christianity, might not thus be undermined? For
are not those doctrines Van Mildert’s Bampton Lectures for 1814, (“An
Inquiry into the general principles of Scripture-Interpretation,”)—pp. 242-3. The reader is particularly requested to read what Dr.
Moberly has said on this subject in Some Remarks on ‘Essays and Reviews,’
being the Revised Preface to the Second Edition of ‘Sermons on the
Beatitudes,’—p. xxii to p. xxv.—The constructive value of the ‘Remarks’ of that excellent Divine will long outlive the occasion which has
called them forth. I allude particularly to the considerations which occur from
p. xxxii to p. lxiii.
This is all there is time for, to-day. Let me, in
Friends and brethren,—(I am still addressing the younger men
present!)—Divinity is not debate; and Religion is not controversy; and
Life is not long enough for perpetual disputings. “He that cometh unto
God must believe that He is.” The heart dries up,
and the affections wither away, and the soul faints, amid an atmosphere of
cloudy doubts, and captious difficulties, and perverse disputations. You must
rise above it, if you would discern the colours on the everlasting hills, and
behold the beauty of the promised Land, and see objects as they really are. O
put away from yourselves, (if any of you are so unhappy as to have acquired it,)
a habit of mind which will effectually unfit you for profiting by what you read
in Holy Scripture: and you, who are free from such dreadful bondage, beware
lest, by the indulgence of some sin,—whether of the flesh or of the spirit,—you
darken that spiritual eye by which alone spiritual things are to be discerned.
It is like talking about colours to the blind, or about sounds to the deaf, to
discuss with a certain class of persons the Inspiration, or the Interpretation,
or the Marvels of Scripture. The Bible is, with them, a common book,” to
be interpreted like any other book.” Prophecy is denied, and Miracles are
rejected or explained away,—on the plea that they are alike incredible. These
men lay claim to intellectual gifts above their fellows; and know not that they
are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Rebels are they
against the Most High; and find their exact image in those citizens who “sent a
message after Him, saying, We will not have this Man to reign St.
But it is not so with yourselves, who have yet everything to learn in respect of Divine things. O beware lest it ever become your own dreadful case! Begin betimes to acquaint yourselves with the wealth of that celestial armoury which contains a weapon which must prove fatal to every foe; but which it depends on yourselves whether you shall have the skill to wield or not. Suffer not yourselves to be cheated of your birthright, the Bible, either by the novel fictions of unstable men, or by the exploded heresies of a bygone age, revived and recommended by living unbelievers. You, especially, who aspire to the Ministerial office, and are destined hereafter to undertake the cure of souls, O do you be doubly watchful! Give to the Bible the undivided homage of a childlike heart; and bow down before its revelations with a suppliant understanding also; and let no characteristic of its method by any means escape you. Notice how it is indeed all one long narrative, from end to end; and see therein God’s provision that nothing shall be idealized, nothing explained away. Learn too that Man is thus called upon to look outward, and to sustain himself by an external Law; not to depend on the promptings of his own conscience, and so to become a god unto himself. The Bible, I repeat, is all severest history, from the Alpha to the Omega of it. But then, underneath the surface there are meanings high as Heaven, deep as Hell: and why? because the true Author of it is not Man, but God!
Let it quicken you in your desire to understand that Book out
of which you will have hereafter to
Difficulties there are in Scripture, doubtless: but I should
be far more perplexed by the absence of them, than I shall ever be by their
presence. Nay, they are a chief source of joy to a rightly constituted mind; for
they exercise the moral nature and the intellectual powers, in the noblest
possible way. It is the office of the highest Intellect to know when to walk
by Faith, and when by sight: and when, to “ask for the old paths.” It
needs a mind of no common order fully to recognize the distinctive difference
between a system which comes from God; and one which has
been elaborated by human Reason: the latter progressive,—the former incapable of
progress; the one liable to change,—the other, unchangeable for ever. There are
certain indelible characteristics of
(p. 16.)
[Bishop Horsley on the double sense of Prophecy.]
“I SHALL not wonder, if, to those who have not sifted this
question to the bottom, (which few, I am persuaded, have done,) the evidence of
a Providence, arising from prophecies of this sort
“Thus I reasoned, till a patient investigation of the subject brought me, by God’s
blessing, to a better mind. I stand clearly and unanswerably confuted, by the
instance of Noah’s prophecy concerning the family of Japheth; which hath
actually received various accomplishments, in events of various kinds, in
various ages of the world,—in the settlements of European and Tartarian
conquerors in the Lower
Bp. Horsley’s Sermons, No. xvii. Vol. ii. pp. 73-4.
(p. 50.)
[Bishop Pearson on Theological Science.]
“AD publicam Theologiæ professionem electus et constitutus sum; cujus cum præstantiam dignitatemque considero, incredibili quadam dulcedine perfundit mirificeque delectat; cum amplitudinem difficultatemque contemplor, perstringit oculos, percellit animum, abigit longe atque deterret.
“Cum Artes omnes Scientiæque Athenis diu floruissent, cum
novam sedem Alexandriæ occuparent, cum ingenia Romana toto terrarum orbe
personarent, etiam tum dixit Christus ad Apostolos, Vos estis lux
mundi. Omnes
aliæ Scientiæ, etiam cum maxime clarescerent, tenebris sunt involutæ, et
quasi nocte quadam sepultæ. Tum sol oritur, tum primum lumine perfundimur,
cum Dei cognitione illustramur; radii lucis non nisi de cœlo feriunt oculos;
cætera, quæ artes aut scientiæ nominantur, non Athenæ sed noctuæ. Quid enim?
nonne animis immortalibus præditi sumus, et ad æternitatem natis? Quaæ autem
Philosophiæ pars perpetuitatem spirat? Quid Astronomicis observationibus fiet,
cum cœli ipsi colliquescent? Ubi se ostendet corporis humani peritus, et
medicaminum scientia præclarus, cum corruptio induct incorruptionem?
Quæ Musicæ, quæ Rhetoricæ vires, cum Angelorum choro et Archangelorum
cœtibus inseremur! Si nihil animus præsentiret in posterum, e coævis sibi
scientiis aliquid solatii carpere fas esset, secumque perituris delectari: sed
in hoc tam exiguo vitæ curriculo, et tam brevi, quid est, tam cito periturum,
quod impleret animum, in infinita sæculorum spatia duraturum? Sola Theologiæ
principia, æternæ felicitatis certissima expectatione
“Cætera Scientiæ exignum aliquid de mundi opifice delibant, norunt; hæc, aquilæ invecta pennis, cœli penetralia perrumpit, in ipsum Patrem luminum oculos intendit, et audaci veritate promittit, Deum nobis aliquando videndum sicut et nos videbimur.
“Quantum igitur moli corporis [anima materiæ expers,] quantum operosæ conjecturæ divina visio, quantum brevi temporis spatio æternitas, quantum Parnasso Paradisus, tantum reliquis disciplinis Theologia præferenda est.
“Sed hanc severam rebus humanis necessitatem imposuit Deus, ut quæ pulcherrima sunt, sint et difficillima. Si Sacrarum Literarum copiam, si studiorum theologicorum amplitudinem prospicias, crederes promissionem divinam, sicut Ecclesiæ, ita doctrinæ terminos nullos posuisse.
“Scriptura ipso, quam copiosa, quam intellectu difficilis! historiæ quam intricatæ! prophetiæ quam obscuræ! præcepta quam multa! promissiones quam variæ! mysteria quam involuta! interpretes quam infiniti! Linguæ, quibus exarata est, et nobis, et toti orbi terrarum peregrinæ. Tres in titulo crucis consecratæ sunt; satis illæ erant, cum Christus moreretur; sed pluribus nobis opus est ut intelligatur. Latina parum subsidii præbet, originibus exclusa. Græcæ magna est utilitas, nec tamen illa, si pura, multum valet; nam aliam priorem semper aut reddit, aut imitatur. Hebræa satis per se obscura, nec plene intelligenda, sine suis conterraneis, Chaldaica, Arabica, Syriaca. Non est theologus, nisi qui et Mithridates!
“Jam hæc ipsa oracula Ecclesiæ Dei sunt commendata, ad illam a Christo ipso amandamur; illa testis, illa columna veritatis. Nec est unius aut ævi, aut regionis, Ecclesia Dei: per totem terrarum orbem, quo disseminata, sequenda est; per Orientis vastissima spatia, per Occidentis regna diversissima: antiquissimorum Patrum sententiæ percipiendæ, quorum libri pene innumeri prodierunt, et nova tamen monumenta indies e tenebris eruuntur.
“Quid dicam Synodos, diversarum provinciarum fœtus? quid Concilia, e toto orbe coacta, et suprema auctoritate prædita? quid canonum decretorumque infinitam multitudinem? quorum sola notitia insignem scientiam professionemque constituit; et tamen Theologiæ nostræ quantula particula est?
“Quot hæreses in Ecclesia pullularunt, quarum nomina, natura, origines detegendæ: quæ schismata inconsutilem Christi tunicam lacerarunt; quo furore excitata, quibus modis suppressa, quibus machinis sublata!
“Jam vero, scholasticorum quæstiones, quam innumera! Ad hæc omnia subtiliter disscrenda, acute disputanda, graviter determinanda, quanta Philosophiæ, quanta Dialecticæ necessitas! quæ leges disputandi, quæ sophismatum strophæ detegendæ!
“Hæc sunt quæ me a professione deterrent, hæc quæ exclamare cogunt, τίς πρὸς ταῦτα ἱκανός;”
Bp. Pearson’s Oratio Inauguralis,
‘Minor Works,’ (ed.
Churton,) vol. i. pp. 402-5.
APPENDIX C.
(p. 71.)
[The Bible an instrument of Man’s probation.]
“MULTA enim propter exercendas rationales mentes figurata et obscure posita.”—Aug. De Unit. Eccl. c. v.—“Obscuritates Divinarum Scripturarum quas exercitationis nostræ causâ Deus esse voluit.”—Id. Ep. lix. ad Paulinum, tom. ii. p. 117.
“The evidence of Religion not appearing obvious, may constitute one particular part of some men’s trial, in the religious sense: as it gives scope, for a virtuous exercise, or vicious neglect of their understanding, in examining or not examining into that evidence. There seems no possible reason to be given, why we may not be in a state of moral probation, with regard to the exercise of our understanding upon the subject of Religion, as we are with regard to our behaviour in common affairs. The former is as much a thing within our power and choice as the latter.”
* * * *
“Nor does there appear any absurdity in supposing, that the
speculative difficulties, in which the evidence of Religion is involved, may
make even the principal part of some persons’ trial. For as the chief
temptations of the generality of the world are the ordinary motives to injustice
or unrestrained pleasure; or to live in the neglect of Religion from that frame
of mind, which renders many persons almost without feeling as to any thing
distant, or which is not the object of their senses: so there are other persons
without this shallowness of temper, persons of a deeper sense as to what is
invisible and future; who not only see, but have a general practical feeling,
that what is to come will be present, and that things are not less real for
their not being the objects of sense; and who, from their natural constitution
of body
Further on, (p. 277,) Butler has the following note:—
“
(p. 72.)
[St. Stephen’s Statement in
IN a work like the present which purports to deal solely with
the grander features of Inspiration and
Interpretation, it is clearly
impossible to enter systematically into As in the case of the healing of the two blind men at
Jericho, (p. 67.): ‘Jeremy the Prophet,’ (p. 70.): the type of Melchizedek, (pp.
152-6.): a passage in
“So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our Fathers; and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.”
For obvious reasons, it will be convenient to have under our eyes, at the same time, the original of the passage:—
Κατέβη δὲ Ἰακὼβ εἰς Αἴγυπτον, καὶ ἐτελεύτησεν αὐτὸς καὶ οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν· καὶ μετετέθησαν εἰς Σιχὲμ, καὶ ἐτέθησαν ἐν τῷ μνήματι ὅ ὠνήσατο Ἀβραὰμ τιμῆς ἀργυρίου, παρὰ τῶν υἱῶν Ἐμμὸρ τοῦ Σιχέμ.
On this, Dr. Alford, Dean of Canterbury, delivers himself as follows:—
“There is certainly, and that not dependent upon any
Rabbinical or Jewish views of the subject, an inaccuracy in Stephen’s statement:
for the burying-place was not at Sychem which Abraham bought, but at Hebron,
and it was bought of Ephron the Hittite, as you will find in the
A northern Professor, (Patrick Fairbairn, D.D., Principal
“Now, there can be no doubt, that viewing the matter
critically and historically, there are inaccuracies in this statement;
for we know from the records of Old Testament history, that Jacob’s body was not
laid in•a sepulchre at Sychem, but in the cave of Machpelah at Hebron;—we know
also that the field, which was bought of the sons of Emmor, or the children of
Hamor (as they are called in
Now when it is considered that the speaker here was St.
Stephen,—a man who is said to have been “full of the Holy Ghost,” so that “no
one could resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake,” (
First, we have to ascertain the meaning of the passage. And it is evident to every one having an ordinary acquaintance with Greek, that the words Ἐμμὸρ τοῦ Σιχέμ, cannot mean “Emmor the father of Sychem.” This is a mere mistranslation, as the invariable usage of the New Testament shews. The genitive denotes dependent relation. The Vulgate rightly supplies the word “filii;” and there can be no doubt whatever that what St. Stephen says, is, that Abraham bought the burial-place “of the sons of Emmor, the son of Sychem.”
Next, it is evident that “our Fathers,” (οἱ
πατέρες ἡμῶν,) exclusive of Jacob, form the nominative to the verb “were carried over”
(μετετέθησαν.) In English, the place ought to be exhibited as follows:—“he
and our Fathers; and they were carried.” But, in truth, the idiom of the
original is so easy, to one familiar with the manner of the sacred
writers The nominative has, in like manner, to be supplied in the following
places:—
Where then is the supposed difficulty? Moses relates (in
True enough it is that Jacob, when he came from Padan Aram,
“bought a parcel of a field” at “Shalem a city of Shechem,” “at the hand of the
children of Hamor, Shechem’s father.” But there is no pretence for saying that
these last two transactions are identical, and have been here confused together:
for the sellers, in the one case, were “the sons of Emmor, the son of
Sychem;” and in the other, “the children of Hamor,”—father of that Shechem
whose tragic end is related in
It is found that Jacob, in order to build an altar at Shechem
with security, judged it expedient to purchase the field whereon it should
stand. Who can doubt that the purchase was a measure of necessity also? lf, at
the present day, one desired to erect a church on some spot in India, where the
value of land was fully ascertained
(p. 74.)
[The simplest view of Inspiration the truest and the best.]
“I SUPPOSE all thoughtful persons will allow that intellectual licentiousness is the danger of this our intellectual age. For speculation indulges our pride. Faith is an inglorious thing; any one can believe, a cottager just as well as a philosopher: but not all can speculate. The privilege of an intellectually advanced person is that. And the more novel the view he offers, the more evident the proof it gives of an independent mind. Therefore the danger of a highly advanced state of society like our own, is Theory, as distinguished from Catholic Truth. And the most inviting field of theory, is that high subject, the intercourse which hath gone on between the Intellect above us, and our own; the communications which have been made from the Creator to His creatures. In a word, man is under a temptation to frame a theory of Inspiration; whether his attempts to frame one have been successful, is a matter of much interest to consider.
“I am going to offer a few plain remarks on what the Bible
professes to be. I say, professes to be, because those whom I speak to will
believe that what it professes to be, it is. I mean they will not suspect the
writers of any dishonesty or ambitious pretence. But there may be some readers
of the Bible, among persons whose profession is the exercise of the intellect,
who are impatient at being left behind in the intellectual race; who, when
continental critics are going on into theories of inspiration, do not like the
imputation (so freely cast upon us by foreign writers) of being unequal to such
things, of having no turn for philosophy. So they must have a theory, or go
along with one; they
“But in striking contrast with all such views and all such desires, stands the singular character of the sacred volume itself. It manifestly addresses itself to a mind in an attitude of much simplicity; to a mind coming to receive a theory, not to hold up one; corning to be shaped, not holding out a mould to shape a communication made. For it presents itself as a document containing a message from on high; as conveying the Word of God; nor can all that is ever said on the subject get beyond this plain account of its contents, the Word of Gm’ Nor need any one who desires to impress on his own mind and that of others the true character of the sacred page, try to do more than to remind himself that it professes to convey to him the Word of God.”—Sermons by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp. 148-150.
“What I desire to impress upon myself and those who hear me is this, that the words of God are always perfect, always complete; and that the feeling with which a poor cottager sits down to his Bible is the right one, and that the student hath the best hope of successful study who in attitude of mind is most likened to him.”—Ibid., p. 192.
“The conclusion, then, is this; that Faith hath not been wrong through these many years, in her simple acceptance of God’s Word. To come round to simplicity, is what we have always had to do in the great questions of Divinity. There have been great questions; they have agitated the Church; but, as I said, to come round to simplicity hath ever been her work first or last. When in the fourth century men refined upon the doctrine of the holy Trinity, and Arians and semi-Arians would be telling us how these things could be, the unity of God in three Persons; to come round to the simplicity of the Athanasian doctrine, and to disown the several explanatory statements which, offering to explain, explained away, was the Church’s work. I am not sure that since the days of the Arian dispute, a more important question has arisen than that which seems likely to be ere long forcing itself upon us, of the inspiration of Holy Writ. I freely permit myself to anticipate that the simplest possible view of the subject, that on which rich and poor may meet together, is the one to which we shall come round.”—Ibid., pp. 172-3.
(p. 107.)
[The written and the Incarnate Word.]
“I SUPPOSE we all have learned from the language
used by the Evangelist St. John, always to look on each of these two employments
of the expression, (the Word of God,) with reference to
the other; and to see in each, the other also. I shall not attempt to express
more definitely this connexion; I only need to suppose that we all apprehend it
as existing. But I shall claim from it thus much to my present purpose;—that as
He whom the Evangelist saw riding in the heavenly pomp on high, and who was
revealed to him as bearing this title, ‘Word of God
(p. 112.)
[The volume of the Old Testament Scriptures, indivisible.]
“IN regard of the Old Testament, it will be observed that the whole volume stands or falls altogether. In whatever sense we understand the falling or standing, the volume stands or falls together. Each page of it is committed to the credit of the rest., and the whole book or collection of books is committed to the credit of each page. For this plain reason, that the book as we have it, is the book which, being known in the Jewish Church as the volume of her authentic and sacred Scriptures, our blessed Saviour accepted and referred to as such. By whatever marks the canonicity of the several books was in the first instance attested,—marks which were sufficient for God’s purpose, and which did His work,—there is the volume. ‘It is written,’ said our Saviour; that is, in a book which all His nation knew of, and understood to be inspired. The scrupulous care which the Jews shelved in preserving their sacred writings intact, is one of the most remarkable facts in history; it is a fact of which the Christian student can give perhaps the right account, seeing it to have been so ordered in the good providence of God, that we might have firm ground in calling the book, as we have it, the Word of God. The volume stands or falls then together; which we may with advantage bear in mind, because it makes an argument which is available for any portion of the volume, available for the whole; and no one can now say, You do not surely hold the genealogies in the books of Chronicles, to be inspired: Isaiah and the Psalms may be inspired; but do you mean the same of the long extracts from mere annals?’ No man, I say, can take this freedom, until he can extract and remove those chapters from the book which our blessed Saviour unquestionably referred to as the canonical Scriptures of the Church. If a verse stands, the Old Testament stands.”—Sermons, by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp. 152-3.
(p. 115.)
(Some remarks had been partially prepared for insertion in
this place, on Theories of inspiration: but my volume has
(p. 117.)
[Remarks on Theories of Inspiration.—The ‘human Element.’]
“IT will be allowed by all persons accustomed to a calm
and charitable view of Theological differences, that in those differences there
is generally on each side some great truth wrongly held, because taken out of
its due place, and wrongly set. Applying this topic to the subject before us, we
are led to consider whether a mistake has not been made in bringing forward the
Human Element of Inspiration, instead of permitting the eye to rest upon that
which God presents to us,—the Divine. The Human Element no doubt is there; no
doubt our Maker acts through our faculties in every respect; no doubt He is
acting through laws when He seems to suspend laws; and even in Miracles, employs
the powers of Nature instead of thwarting them; but then this is His machinery,
which He has not explained to us. He presents Himself to us, acting sometimes
supernaturally; i.e. in a way above nature as we understand nature. He made the
Sun to stand still for Joshua; what refractive cloud came in and held the
daylight that it should not go down is not made known to us; God said that it
should stay, and it stayed; there was the miracle. To have set the Creation
going two thousand years before in such a way and train that in that hour a
cloud should rise to refract the sun’s rays for a time, because in that
hour the Lord’s armies would need the interference, the prolonging of the
daylight,—that was miracle enough. We say not that (Ion interrupts his own laws;
nay, rather we believe that He hath them always in smooth and orderly operation.
Similarly of Inspiration; we know not the way in which God acts on human minds,
the Spirit on the spirit; for He hath not told us. But, as I said in the
beginning, in an age like the present, where analysis of process is the work of
men’s minds, the way in which man is feeling his strength in every direction, it
is not very unnatural that the operations of this philosophy should have been
carried beyond their due line; into the subject, namely,
(p. 145.)
[How the Inspired authors of the New Testament handle the writings of the Inspired authors of the Old.]
“LET me repeat:—The question is, how we should address ourselves to the study of the sacred page? For example, how am I to regard, and how to deal with, the great diversities there are between the several sacred writers? For there is the greatest diversity of mind appearing between them. St. Paul is no more the same with St. John, than any two Food men now are perfectly alike in their constitution of mind. Nay, the diversity seems especially great in the car of the sacred writers: as if to forbid us to adopt any theory which should ignore or neglect that diversity. It is striking. How shall I deal with these and like circumstances? . . . Can it be suggested to me what a good and wise man would do in this matter?
“In answer; it can apparently be suggested; and through that
which is the best and safest of arguments, the argument from analogy. For there
has been a parallel case; the case of the inspired writers of the New Testament dealing with
the Scriptures of the Old. To this parallel I now invite your attention. If
we can observe how and. upon what great principles, piety and wisdom, guided by
Inspiration, dealt with the volume of the Holy Scriptures which were then its
whole volume, namely the Old Testament; we have so far
“And it is impossible for us to imagine—I say the thoughtful
reader of the Holy Scriptures will find it impossible to imagine,—an Evangelist
or Apostle, evoking out of its grave the Human Element of the ancient prophetic
communications; disinterring it once more as if to gaze upon it. I am sure the
impression left on the mind by the passages in the New Testament where the Old
is referred to, is in accordance with what I say. In other words,—(for it is but
in other words the same,)—these divinely instructed students,—these inspired
readers of the sacred page,—are aware of that which they read, being inspired;
God its author, awl not Alan. And they shew this consciousness, putting off
their shoes from their feet, as if on holy ground. A divinely instructed mind,
interprets a divinely indited Scripture; the Spirit His own interpreter; and we
are taught,—not by man but by the Author of Inspiration,—how Inspiration
is to be dealt with.—Let him who would deal aright with the sacred pages of the
New Covenant, observe in due seriousness what instruction he may gain from the
consideration now suggested to his thoughts. Let him learn from the sacred page,
how to deal with the sacred page. And if he has observed these things; if he has
seen how the writers of the New Testament, discern in lines and words of the Old
Testament, that which speaks to them,—(for it speaks to
Christ, and in Him to His Church, i.e. to
(p. 199.)
[Bishop Bull on
“JAM hic etiam quæstionem unam et alteram solvendam exhibebimus.—Quæritur, An nullum omnino extet in lege Mosis Spiritus Sancti promissum? Resp. Legem, si per eam intelligas pactum in monte Sinai factum, et mediatore Mose populo Israelitico datum, (quæ, ut modo diximus, est maxime propria ac genuina ipsius in Paulinis Epistolis notio atque acceptio,) nullum Spiritus Sancti premissum continere, manifestum est. Si, inquam, per eam intelligas pactum in Sinai factum; quia in hagiographis et Scriptis Propheticis, (quæ nomine legis et Veteris Test. laxius sumpto non raro veniunt,) de Spiritu Sancto, tum ex gratiâ Divinâ promisso, tum precibus hominum impetrato, passim legimus. Imo et in Mosaicis scriptis, licet non in ipso Mosaico fœdere, promissum (ni fallor) satis clarum de gratia Spiritus Sancti Israelitis a Deo danda reperire est.
“Ejusmodi certe est illud
“In his deo prolixins immorati sumus, tum, ut vel hinc
manifestum fieret, omnia, quæ in Mosaicis scriptis continentur, ad fœdus
Mosaicum, proprie sic dictum, nequaquam pertinere; adeoque quam vera ac prorsus
necessaria sit distinctio Augustini, (de qua aliquoties jam dictum est,) legem
veterem κυρίως sumptam ad solum pactum in monte Sinai factum restringentis; tum imprimis ut exinde etiam
clare eluceret optima ac
sapientissima Dei οἰκονομία, quam in dispensando gratiæ
suæ fœdere
usurpare visum ipsi fuerit. Pepigerat Deus cum Abrahamo fœdus illud gratiosum
multis ante latam legem annis; cui postea placuit ipsi superaddere
pactum aliud, multis, iisque operosis, ritibus ac ceremoniis conflatum, quibus
rudem et carnalem Abrahami posteritatem, recens ex Ægypto eductam, adeoque
paganicis ritibus ac superstitionibus nimis addictam, in officio contineret,
i.e. ab ethnicorum idololatrico cultu arceret. Quod optime expressit
Tertullianus (adversus Marcion. 2.) his verbis: ‘Sacrificiorum onera, et
operationum et oblationum negotiosas scrupulositates nemo reprehendat, quasi
Deus talia proprie sibi desideraverit, qui tam manifeste exclamat,
“Quo mihi multitudinem sacrificiorum vestrorum?” et, “Quis exquisivit ista de minibus
vestris?” sed illam Dei industriam sentiat, qua populum pronum in idololatriam
et transgressionem ejusmodi officiis religioni suæ voluit adstringere, quibus
superstitio sæculi agebutur, ut ab ea avocaret illos, sibi jubens fieri quasi
desideranti, ne simulacris faciendis delinqueret.’ (Conf.
(p. 218.)
[Opinions of Commentators concerning Accommodation.]
CORNELIUS à Lapide, on this place, writes as follows:—“Licet Cajetanus, Adamus, Pererius, Toletus, putent Mosem ad litteram loqui de Christo et Christi justitiâ, referent enim hæc ejus verba ad pœnitentiam, de qua eodem capite egerat Moses, ver. 1; (Pœnitentia enim et dilectio Dei, ac consequenter peccatorum venia, ipsaque justitia sine fide Christi haberi non potest;) tamen longe planius est, ut non litteraliter, sed allegorice tantum alludat Apostolus ad Mosem. Moses enim ad litteram, sive in sensu litterati loquitur, non de Christo ejusque Evangelio, sed de lege data Judæis, ut patet eum intuenti. Ita Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, Theophylactus, Œcumenius, Abulensis, Soto . . . . . . Hæc, inquam verba, Mosem ad suos Judæos literaliter loqui planè certum, evidens, et manifestum est; ita tamen at eadem hæc ejus verba allegorice Evangelia ejusque catechumenis et fidelibus optime conveniant. Æque enim, imo magis, ad manum est omnibus jam. Evangelium et fides Christi, quam olim fuerit lex Mosis: ita ut fidem hanc omnes facillime corde, id est mente, complecti: et ore proloqui, itaque justificari et salvari possint.”
Our own learned Hammond writes as follows:—“The two phrases
of ‘going up into Heaven,’ or ‘descending into the deep,’ are proverbial phrases
to signify the doing or attempting to do some hard, impossible thing . . . .
These phrases had been of old used by Moses in this sense,
Again:—“Hunc locum accommodavit ad causam suam B. Paulus,
Occasionally, however, we meet with a directly different gloss:—
“Locum hunc divinus Paulus divine de Evangelica prædicatione
ac sermone fidei est interpretatus, tametsi sensum magis, ut æquum est, quam
textum ad verbum expresserit; ut illius etiam alibi est mos. Satis enim fuit,
atque adeo magis consentaneum viris Spiritu Dei plenis significare quid idem
Spiritus in Scriptura intelligi vellet.”—Clavius, ad
Concerning the general principle of Accommodation, (as explained above, p. 188,) the following passages present themselves as valuable.
“Men have suggested that these things were accommodations of
the Sacred Writers; and that the New Testament Writers, in the interpretations
they gave of passages in the Old, meant to say, that the texts might be
applied in such way as they applied them. But the suggestors of this view can
hardly have considered carefully those conversations of our Blessed
Saviour
with His disciples going to Emmaus; and afterward in the evening of the same
day, in which He distinctly reprehends them for their dulness of heart in not
seeing in the pages of the Old Testament the predictions of His Death and of His
Resurrection; though, of His Resurrection the intimations are, in those ancient
Scriptures, to our view so scanty and obscure. he unfolds to them as they walk
the reference of the Old Testament Scriptures to Himself. Then in a later
interview He resumes the instruction and ‘opens their understanding,’ (it is
said,) to discover the same; the relation of the Old Testament Scriptures
(namely) to Himself.—He is a bold Commentator who having seen the Disciples
thus instructed,—having witnessed this scene,—then, when he meets with these
same Disciples’ interpretations of the ancient Scriptures in relation to
Christ, calls them ‘Accommodations,’ and gives them to a
human
“If we believe that the Apostles were inspired, then all idea of accommodation must be renounced . . . The theory of Accommodation, i.e. of erroneous interpretation of the Scripture, cannot be thought of without imputing error to the Spirit of Truth and Holiness; or to Him who sent the Spirit to recal to the minds of the Apostles all things which He had said to them, and to guide them into all Truth.”—From a Sermon by Dr. M‘Caul, The Hope of the Gospel the Hope of the Old Testament Saints, (1854,)—p. 8.
ΔΙΑ ΤΟΝ ΛΟΓΟΝ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ.
Genesis
1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1-31 1:2 1:3 1:3-5 1:4 1:5 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:8 1:9 1:11 1:11-12 1:14 1:20 1:20 1:24 1:26 1:26 1:26-27 1:26-28 1:27 1:27 1:28 2:2 2:7 2:9 2:18 2:22 2:23 2:24 2:24 2:24 4:1 5:1 5:1-32 6:1 6:6 7:4-8:14 7:11 8:9 9:25-7 10:1-31 10:1-32 11:5-8 12:1 13:7 13:7 14:1-24 14:18 17:1 18:1-33 18:17-21 22:1 23:1-20 23:7-20 23:10-12 23:14 23:15 23:18 24:2-8 24:12-14 24:37-41 24:42-44 26:17-22 27:1 28:11-12 28:12 28:16-22 30:13 31:1-55 32:1-3 33:19 34:1-31 36:1-43 37:15-17 37:15-17 39:1-23 39:20 42:10-13 42:14-16 42:31-32 42:33-34 42:36-38 44:27-29 47:12 47:17-18 48:1 48:10 49:5 49:5-7 49:18 49:29-32 50:1 50:5-13 50:25
Exodus
2:2-3 2:6 2:11 4:19 4:26 7:1 9:19 10:21-23 13:19 14:19-31 14:22 14:22 14:29 14:29 15:2 15:2 16:18-21 16:22-24 16:25 16:27 16:31 16:33-34 16:36 20:11 20:11 24:10 32:26-28 34:28 34:34 34:34 35 36:6-7
Leviticus
Numbers
3:9 3:45 10:29-32 10:35 14:18 22:1-41 23:1-30 24:1-25 25:1-18 31:8 31:16 32:39-40
Deuteronomy
3:25-26 4:2 5:15 6:4 12:32 23:3-4 25:4 25:4 25:4 29:1 29:1 29:1-29 29:1-30:20 29:4 29:10 29:12-13 29:14-15 30 30:1 30:1-4 30:1-20 30:1-20 30:1-20 30:6 30:6 30:10 30:11 30:11 30:11 30:11 30:11 30:11-14 30:12 30:14 30:16 30:20 31:23 33:1-29 33:9
Joshua
2:10 4:23 5:12 10:12 13:22 13:31 15:15-19 21:3-8 24:9-10 24:32
Judges
1:11-15 4:4-5 4:6 4:17 5:4-5 5:4-5 5:5 5:6 5:6-7 5:7 5:9 5:11 5:14 5:17
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
7:23 11:15 11:27 22:1-51 22:8 22:8 24:1 24:16
1 Kings
7:21 20:42 20:42 21:27-29 22:19
2 Kings
1:8 6:16 17:7 19:1-37 19:24-25 19:35 20:1-21
1 Chronicles
16:1-43 21:15-16 29:15 29:29-30
2 Chronicles
9:29 11:2 12:5 12:7 12:15 13:22
Nehemiah
Job
9:5-7 9:6 9:8 26:8 26:11 26:12 35:15 37:18 37:18 38:7 42:5
Psalms
2:1-12 2:6-7 8:2 8:2 8:6-8 8:6-8 8:7 16 17:16 18:1-50 18:7 18:30 19:8 19:8 21:23 22:16 22:17 22:18 26:6 31:5 31:5 33:6 33:9 39:12 41:1-13 41:9-10 42:5 45:4 45:10-11 48:1 48:8 50:13-14 51:16-17 61:6 66:6 68:1 68:7-8 72:5 72:7 72:11 72:16 72:17 74:13 75:3 78:12-31 78:23 80:2 82:6 82:6-7 87:3 87:14-20 89:29 92:4 92:5 94:9 95:1-11 96:1-13 98:2-3 102:25-27 103:17 104:2 105:1-45 106:7-11 107:23 109:1-31 110:1-7 110:1-7 110:1-7 110:4 111:10 114:1-8 116:15 118:14 119:100 119:100 119:108 119:148 135:7 139:7 141:3 146:5 148:5-6
Proverbs
3:20 5:9 6:26 9:10 30:2-5 30:4 30:4 30:5
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
1 1:4 1:6 1:15 2:2-4 2:2-4 6:9-10 7:14 7:14 8:17 11:1 11:9 11:9 12:2 13:2-3 13:6 15:16 23:1-18 24:18 24:18 29:13-14 34:11 37:1-38 38:1-22 39:1-8 40:12 40:22 43:16 45:1 45:12 50:6 51:6 51:9-10 51:15 52:1 52:7 52:7 52:10 53 53:1 53:1-12 53:4 53:4 53:4-11 53:7-8 53:9 53:12 60:14 61:1-3 63:11-13
Jeremiah
2:6 4:19 4:23 5:33 5:34 6:4 10:13 23:5 23:5 24:7 26:18 26:18 30:22 31:1 31:15 31:31 31:31-36 31:32 31:32 31:33 31:33-34 31:33-34 32:20-21 32:38 33:15 35:18-19 36:23 36:30 48:1-47 51:16
Ezekiel
3:2-3 11:20 14:11 16:47-52 36:28 37:27 48:1-35
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
2:10 5:8 7:10-17 7:10-17 9:2-3 9:6
Jonah
Micah
3:12 3:12 4:1-3 4:1-3 4:6 4:6 6:4-5 6:5
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Zechariah
3:8 6:11-12 6:12 6:13 8:8 9:11 9:11-12 11:12 11:12-13 13:9 13:13
Malachi
Matthew
1:5 2:1 2:15 2:15 2:17 2:18 2:18 2:20 2:22 2:23 2:23 3:4 4:4 5:5 5:8 5:32 6:23 8:16 8:17 8:17 8:17 8:26 9:13 9:37-38 10:9 10:13 10:20 11:10 11:23 11:25 12:4 12:7 12:20 12:22-23 12:39 12:39-40 12:42 13:11-12 13:29 16:4 16:11-12 17:2 17:11 19:4 19:4-5 19:4-6 19:5 19:5 19:5 19:6 19:6 19:9 21:16 21:16 22:31-32 22:41-46 22:43-45 23:33 24:29 24:35 26:26 26:38 26:68 27:9 27:9 27:9 27:45 27:52-53 28:2-3 28:19-20
Mark
1:24 2:26 2:26 4:39 5:26 6:3 6:25 8:19-20 8:38 9:3 10:6 10:7 10:9 10:11-12 10:42 12:24 12:24 12:36 12:36 13:11 15:25 15:28 15:46 16:15
Luke
1:13 1:17 1:37 1:48 1:50 1:68 1:70 1:72-75 2:2 2:41 2:48 3:1 3:36 3:36 4:5 4:21 4:25 4:25-27 4:34 7:5 7:16 7:20-22 7:21 7:22 8:18 8:28 8:30-32 8:43 8:55 9:31 10:5 11:22 11:30 12:42 16:17 16:18 17:9 17:27 17:32 18:8 18:8 18:34 19:14 20:37 20:37-38 22:37 22:43-45 22:64 23:43 23:46 23:46 24:8 24:8 24:25-27 24:27 24:27 24:27 24:44 24:45 24:45 24:47
John
1:1-3 1:17 1:39 1:40-43 1:45-46 1:46 1:52 1:52 2:17 2:17 2:22 2:22 2:23 3:2 3:2 3:5 3:5 3:8 3:13 3:13 3:19 4:1-6 4:6 4:41 4:45 4:52 5:36 5:39 5:44 5:44 5:46 5:46 5:46-47 6:1-71 6:31 6:32-33 6:32-58 6:33 6:38 6:46 6:51 6:62 6:68 7:17 7:31 7:37-38 7:37-39 8:9 8:12 8:17-18 8:27 8:32 8:44 8:47 8:47 8:58 9:1-41 9:5 9:16 10:6 10:21 10:25 10:30 10:31-36 10:34-35 10:35 10:37-38 10:38 11:13 11:40 11:44 11:44 11:45 11:49-52 11:49-52 11:50 12:16 12:16 12:16 12:17-19 12:31 12:38-40 12:43 13:4-5 13:7 14:1-17:26 14:1-17:26 14:2 14:10-11 14:11 14:26 14:30 15:24 15:24 16:11 16:28 17:17 18:14 19:5 19:14 19:14 19:14 19:34 20:9 21:1-25 21:15-17 61:38
Acts
1:16 1:20 2:4-21 2:14-31 2:17-21 2:30-31 2:39 3:18 3:18 3:18 3:21 3:21 3:25 4:24 4:24-25 6:3 6:5 6:8 6:10 7:15 7:15-16 7:16 7:16 7:17 7:20 7:23 7:30-41 8:30-31 8:32 10:12 11:6 11:16 13:29 16:33 17:28 23:8 26:22-23 26:22-23 28:23 28:23 28:25 38 39
Romans
1:1-3 1:2 1:16 2:29 3:21 4:19 5:12 8:21 9:25-26 10 10:4 10:6 10:6 10:6 10:6-7 10:6-9 10:6-9 10:7 10:8 10:16 11:33 12:6
1 Corinthians
2:6-8 2:13 2:14 4:9 4:16 6:16 7:6 7:10 7:40 9:8-10 9:9 9:9-11 10:1-4 10:1-6 10:1-11 11:1 11:4 11:7 11:9 12:1-31 12:1-31 12:10 13:1-13 14:1 14:1-40 14:1-40 14:3 14:4 14:5 15:3 15:14 15:20 15:22 15:22 15:25 15:25 15:33 15:45 15:47 15:47 15:56
2 Corinthians
3:6 3:12-16 4:4 4:6 4:6 6:16 11:3 13:3
Galatians
1:1 1:11-17 2:2 2:7-9 2:9 3:16-17 3:17 3:17 3:19 3:24-25 4:1-10 4:21-31 4:26 5:1
Ephesians
1:11 1:22 1:22 2:2 2:3 2:16 2:19-20 3:3 3:18 4:8 4:9-10 5:30 5:30-32 5:31 6:12 6:17
Philippians
Colossians
1:16 1:23 1:23 2:3 2:3 2:11-12 2:14 2:15 2:17 3:10
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
1:10 2:13 3:16 3:16 4:4 4:6 5:18 5:18 6:15-16 6:16 6:20
2 Timothy
1:13 1:13-14 1:13-14 2:2 2:2 3:8 3:8 3:13 3:16 4:2 4:3
Titus
Hebrews
2:5-9 2:5-9 2:6-8 2:12-13 3:7 4:1 4:4 4:9-10 4:10 4:12 5:10 5:10 5:11 5:11 5:11-12 5:12-14 7:1-10 7:1-10 8:1 8:6-13 8:8 8:8-12 9:2-5 9:4 9:6-9 9:8 9:8 9:19 10:15 10:16-17 10:20 11:3 11:3 11:10 11:19 11:29 12:21 12:22 13:6 13:7 13:11-12 13:14
James
1 Peter
1:11 1:11 1:11 1:11 1:11 1:15 2:10 2:21 2:24-25 3:31 4:19
2 Peter
1:21 1:21 1:21 2:14-16 2:16 2:21 3:5 3:16
1 John
2 John
Jude
Revelation
1:10 1:11 2:7 2:14 2:14 3:12 7:15 10 15:3 19:13 21:2 21:3 21:10 21:11 22:2 22:14 22:19 22:19 1861 1861 1861
Wisdom of Solomon
Baruch
Sirach
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVIII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI i ii iii iv v vi vii viii xix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii xxiii xxiv xxv xxvi xxvii xxviii xxix xxx xxxi xxxii xxxiii xxxiv xxxv xxxvi xxxvii xxxviii xxxix xl xli xlii xliii xliv xlv xlvi xlvii xlviii xlix l li lii liii liv lv lvi lvii lviii lix lx lxi lxii lxiii lxiv lxv lxvi lxvii lxviii lxix lxx lxxii lxxiii lxxiv lxxv lxxvi lxxvii lxxviii lxxix lxxx lxxxi lxxxii lxxxiii lxxxiv lxxxv lxxxvi lxxxvii lxxxviii lxxxix xc xci xcii xciii xciv xcv xcvi xcvii xcviii xcix c ci cii ciii civ cv cvi cvii cviii cix cx cxi cxii cxiii cxiv cxv cxvi cxvii cxviii cxix cxx cxxi cxxii cxxiii cxxiv cxxv cxxvi cxxvii cxxviii cxxix cxxx cxxxi cxxxii cxxxiii cxxxiv cxxxv cxxxvi cxxxvii cxxxviii cxxxix cxl cxli cxlii cxliii cxliv cxlv cxlvi cxlvii cxlviii cxlix cl cli clii cliii cliv clv clvi clvii clviii clix clx clxi clxii clxiii clxiv clxv clxvi clxvii clxviii clxix clxx clxxi clxxii clxxiii clxxiv clxxv clxxvi clxxvii clxxviii clxxix clxxx clxxxi clxxxii clxxxiii clxxxiv clxxxv clxxxvi clxxxvii clxxxviii clxxxix cxc cxci cxcii cxciii cxciv cxcv cxcvi cxcvii cxcviii cxcix cc cci ccii cciii cciv ccv ccvi ccvii ccviii ccix ccx ccxi ccxii ccxiii cciv ccxv ccxvi ccxvii ccxviii ccxix ccxx ccxxi ccxxii ccxxiii ccxxiv ccxxv ccxxvi ccxxvii ccxxviii ccxxix ccxxx ccxxxi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 61 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 230 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279