Insignificance and Significance

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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Mr. Newman speaks then in general of the Old Testament losing its authority. Nothing can exceed the narrow mindedness and want of enlarged scope of view in all these remarks. There is no perception of a whole;1 no idea of the unfolding of dispensation, of the ways of God, of various parts of His ways, each brought out in its place, by which He was known. If there is not something which is the expression of the petty mind of man, which may suit Mr. N., then it is "insignificant." Α star is insignificant to an ignorant person. It is part of an immense system to an enlightened astronomer, which, as a whole, confounds by its stupendous character. The significance of a thing sometimes depends on the intelligence of him who is occupied with it. The Arundel marbles made beautiful lime for the masons of the Earl's house. To them that was all they signified.
 
1. I must say that this is also true of such books as Stuart's on the Canon. I have read it since I wrote these sheets, and have been able to extract useful matter her and there: but though it once or twice alludes to the Bible as a whole, yet the ground of his answer (besides details as to particular objections) is present personal edification as it is. Now no man can get fully the real evidence for the Bible, unless he views it as a whole given of God. That is its value; and if God gives me His whole view of man from the creation to the eternal state, is that not instructive, the most instructive possible of all knowledge? And thus, like a dissected map, its completeness, the place of each part, the perfectness of each part in its place, is self-demonstrated for him who knows what the map is. Mr. Stuart might as well complain of the piece that contained Russia because it was not the map of Andover in Massachusetts, as reason as to the suitableness of Esther because it was not moral instruction for a Christian, or did not help a preacher to make a sermon.