I desire to present a few thoughts on the subject of the authority of Scripture, and the grounds on which it claims to be received by us as divine.
The infidelity which nearly on every hand presents itself either in books or in the common intercourse of life almost of necessity throws the minds of thoughtful Christians, at least, upon a review of the grounds of their faith, and upon asking themselves the question, " What is it that we do believe, or profess to believe, and on what grounds? and how is it that we are henceforward to maintain our position against the world?" The only true answer to this questioning I have no difficulty in conceiving, and it will be the main object of this paper to place it before the reader's mind. Meantime I observe that Romanism and ritualism on the one hand, and Pantheism or a philosophy which is essentially pantheistic on the other, are at the present moment making advances in a manner that is extraordinary, and, perhaps, unexampled. They are winning the favor of multitudes around us, and are advancing as well in the upper as the lower classes of the community. These facts seem to be indisputable, and may be said to obtrude themselves upon us every day, and are indeed generally admitted, in tones either of triumph or of uneasiness and alarm.
This aspect of things, it is admitted, is sufficiently fraught with anxiety for those who are looking only at its possible effect on the christian institutions of the country; and for those also who have nothing more stable on which to base their convictions than their educational habits of reverence for Christianity, which it may be are already beginning uneasily to be felt as totally inadequate to resist the strain -which any day may possibly be put upon them. But to the Christian who has consciously nothing to maintain but what the Scripture declares to be essential and of permanent and eternal bearing, and whose faith has heretofore rested on this testimony as absolutely divine, there is nothing as regards himself to give him one moment's serious concern. He may be awakened by a knowledge of these facts, as he ought to be, to do one of two things. He may either fairly examine this infidelity or atheism that is at present so clamorous for a hearing, and then he will learn that under all its varied guises it is simply " IMPIETY Christianized," as it has been rightly designated-and which he will feel at no loss how to dispose of. Or he may apply the fresh energy of an unsophisticated understanding to the pursuit of truth on its own ground the Scripture, and then he will soon be able to solve the problem before him, and will reach a ground that he will know to be immoveable. And thus with faith proven anew, he will only be driven in, by what we have referred to, upon the only position where a stand can by any means be made, the authority of Scripture thus being held as absolute, and not to be abated with any other pretended sources of belief.
Far happier is that state of mind where it exists, in which its possessor is carried on in the calm unquestioning enjoyment of what the inestimable word of God reveals, unvisited by the doubts and perplexities that agitate many bosoms around him, than it is to get the clearest answer (by going through them) to the unrestrained speculations of the human mind in a sphere that is altogether beyond its powers. I at least should feel indisposed to break in upon his calm. There is little profit in drawing attention to objections that men are bringing against God's revelation, though it were only to show how baseless is their character and how easily they could be overthrown. But there are times in which for a moment it may seem necessary to leave the quiet enjoyment of the house in which ordinarily we are in tranquil repose, to glance at the security of the foundation on which it rests. And wherever there is interest enough in the contents of the divine word to make it a matter of concern that it should be valid and true, there at least there will be felt an interest in the proofs by which it is authenticated. Not that for a moment I think anything can be added to the force of that proof without which all others are of slender value. I mean the proof which, if it be not satisfactory to the conviction of others, is to individual consciousness alone of real value, the proof resulting from having been brought into unquestionable living intercourse with God on the basis of what the divine record unfolds.
Skeptical thoughts are for the most part the result of viewing the Scriptures through what may be termed a human medium, that is, through the observations of men upon them, instead of in their own connected harmony and simplicity and power. At least I have found this to be the case in more than a single instance, especially amongst the young. Such an acquaintance with Scripture will never stand against the sophistries of disbelievers of the present or of any day. Nothing so tends to correct these thoughts [for I am writing for those to whom they are supposed to be unwelcome], as the quiet, diligent reading of the Scripture itself. It is thus that a thousand difficulties disappear, and proofs unquestionable of their divine origin arise upon the mind. To judge otherwise is like reasoning upon the existence and attributes of some object in nature, the real character of which has never been apprehended by the mind. At best, it is like attempting to judge of some natural scene that is extended around us, not as it is presented in the clear sun-light, but as it is seen in the dimness of twilight or enveloped in a mist. It is thus that an accomplished Christian writer speaks of an antichristian work, a pretended life of Jesus, written with great fascination: " Are there any among us-on the Christian side-who would wish to see a formal refutation of this illusory book? the best refutation of it is that which it receives when an ingenuous reader, in closing it, opens one of the gospels.... The feeling of revulsion and disgust is irresistible." The dreams and specters that haunted us in darkness and the night are driven off by light and morning.
It has long since been observed, that, " generally speaking, those who throw off all dependence upon revealed religion, with great inconsistency, attach their faith to someone leader as infallible, and embrace all his dogmas with the most slavish submission." Every fresh school of disbelief has its leader and apostle; and every phase of infidelity presents man to be believed In instead of God. Men avail themselves of the light of revelation as to the creation of the world, the being and attributes of God, an upholding and a controlling providence or power, &c., by which they escape, in their reasonings, the follies of the ancient philosophers, and then use the knowledge they have gained from Scripture to discredit its testimony. They readily appropriate the light that gives exaltation to man and his powers, and reject that which emphatically brings in God. They are content to use the clue which Scripture affords to guide themselves through an inextricable labyrinth, where all before them, who had not this clue, utterly lost their way, and then, from the eminence which Scripture has enabled them to gain, they seek to make themselves independent of its aid, and to discredit its testimony exactly at that point where man's moral condition is brought in, and where alone, in divine grace and love, its remedy has been disclosed.
No one ever so little acquainted with these reasonings can escape the conclusion, that the jester thoughts of the men, who possess a revelation, which they seek to overthrow, they owe to that very circumstance, and not to the superior powers of their mind. Just so far as the truth of Scripture remains abstract they are content to use it as a fulcrum to overthrow that part of it which marks out their present responsibility and insists on their future accountability to God. In this it will be seen that, so far, revelation or Scripture is its own witness, because it irradiates a sphere that never could be projected by the mind of man. Consequently all disbelievers, the material atheist excepted, are obliged to take its testimony (quoad hoc) on its own authority. I mean that they are obliged to take the account which Scripture gives of the existing state of things, because there is no light upon it from any other source. But what is there in reason or consistency, that should make me stop here?
There is a creation. There is an existing uncaused cause of all. There is the presence of moral evil in a world that owes its existence to a God of goodness, as these disbelievers in a revelation would assert. In this world there are the most frightful anomalies. There is man with his constitution, his aspirations, his forebodings, his capacities, -undertrodden and oppressed, crushed under the iron heel of despotism-or, in more favored circumstances, led by ten thousands to death and torture in sanguinary wars-and-ambition, luxury, avarice apart-the teeming millions of the population of the globe are as little accounted of as the sands of the desert. There is the accumulated mass of human misery around us, with its seething passions and brutalized ignorance, its dens of misery and crime, and its ten thousand oppressions. There is pain and suffering, and grinding poverty, and unmitigated sorrow, and there is death These are all to be accounted for. Scripture, it is true, makes all plain. But without it, how are men to dispose of these difficulties? It matters not-the Christian, the infidel, and the atheist are on common ground here. They must take the world as it is, and account for its condition as best they may. Philosophy may speculate, but the hard problem of " the world as it is," stands before it unsolved.
But there is something else to account for. Interwoven with the world's history of the last two thousand years there is a religion which had its obscure commencement in Palestine, that, in less than three centuries from the ignominious death of its founder, in spite of persecutions, by its own energy, pervaded the entire extent of the Roman Empire, and, in seine instances, traversed countries far beyond its limits. It is an unquestionable fact that, in spite of innumerable martyrdoms of its professors, this religion, within that period, changed the whole moral aspect and institutions of every country bordering on the shores of the Mediterranean. From the Euphrates to the Atlantic, and from the forests of Germany to North Africa and the Libyan desert, men of every condition of life, and of every species of moral and intellectual training, as well as communities, were to be found professing subjection to its sway. I do not dwell, as has been so often done, on its having ascended the throne of the Caesars.
By those who are conversant with the history of this period, I know it may be objected that there was boundless corruption amongst its professors, and motives the most sordid had drawn innumerable hypocrites to its standard. Be it so. Still, whatever may be set off on this account, there was the standard, which it was worth their while to join, when the amphitheater, and the gibbet, the rack, and the mines were no longer the penalty of their faith.
But there is still something beyond this to account for. There is the collection of the writings of the New Testament, which, from the earliest periods, has been the subject of attack by disbelievers of every character and of every qualification, and, it might be added, almost of every clime. But to this day it remains in its integrity, after all the fiery ordeal it has had to sustain, at constantly recurring periods, for near two thousand years. Still it remains amongst us, like the " two prophets" in the Apocalypse, " to torment them that dwell on the earth."
The great body of infidel objections, which have been reproduced from age to age, were answered by Origen within a little of a hundred and fifty years after the latest books of the New Testament were written. And the various attacks which have been made upon it since have not merely been repelled by christian writers, but have been set aside as futile by succeeding writers on the antichristian side. Every fresh attack, as it has varied its ground, has been the witness of the unsuccessfulness of every other. The work unaccomplished has had to be done over again. And now, at length, the question is so narrowed, by the mere process of exhaustions, as to be nearly reduced to the single issue of whether the New Testament shall be received, on its own showing, as a divine revelation, or material atheism be embraced as the only consistent alternative. Constituted as the human mind is, it demands consistency in the grounds of its beliefs, or its disbeliefs, and things have been driven to this point by anti-christian writers themselves, that it exists no longer midway between the one and the other of these positions.
The authentication of the records in question is complete as a mere historical question, unless every fragment of ancient history that has come down to us on the stream of time is to be rejected. And criticism adverse and favorable has so effectually done its work that it is not possible for their import to be evaded. There is but another alternative.
That there are difficulties in Scripture all must admit. There are difficulties in chronology-difficulties in harmonizing certain revelations of facts-difficulties arising from the range of matters treated of-difficulties inseparable from the briefness of the histories, or rather the memoirs of histories, that are given. Is it wonderful that there should be difficulties in a record which embraces the whole course of time from the creation and the introduction of man into the world, to the final close of all earthly history P Is it extraordinary that there should be difficulties connected with numbers and genealogies, in a book in which endless details are given P especially if we think for a moment of the difficulties in connection with almost every ancient author that has come down to us, from corruptions of the text, from ignorance of customs and events, and from chronology P Is it wonderful that there should be difficulties in a book that embraces such a boundless variety of subjects? that soars so high and descends so low P that interweaves itself with the histories of nations and dynasties, and at the same time condescends to the details of families and all the circumstantiality of domestic life? How wonderful is it that notwithstanding all this its thread should never be broken It is almost passing wonder that every subsequent revelation should so recognize all that was prior, should so adapt itself to what had been declared of man's condition, should so acknowledge the hopes that promises had raised, and so conform itself to what prophecy had declared, that its various writers in remote ages, and of dissimilar manners and without personal communication should be so found to harmonize, that if any book of Scripture were withdrawn the sense of incompleteness would be felt!
It may be asked, What should be done in reference to works in which these objections are urged, and which are occupied with the " free criticism" of the day, as it is called? This question may be answered by another. If I am convinced by a positive divine evidence of the truth of Scripture, is there any advantage in being occupied with the negative objections of unbelief? It may, perhaps, be the duty of some to read such books in order to refute them, or at least to see that they are refutable, but it seems to me that a person must hold the truth cheaply, and think but little of its author, who can, -without necessity, take up works whose whole aim is to undermine his faith, and make what comes from God appear to be a forgery and a lie. I do not know that I owe so much respect to these brain-spun theories of men as to give them for an hour a lodging in my mind. For I repeat, the positive proofs of the inspiration of Scripture are all in itself. [The history of the transmission of the books of Scripture is altogether a separate question.]
First of all it is to be remembered that the only due reception of a revelation from God is by faith. Then, whatever difficulties attach to its form may become the subject of patient inquiry or stand over till further light. Next, it should be borne in mind for what end distinctly this revelation is given, viz., that God may he known and His salvation personally received. Next in order of importance is the unfolding God's counsels and ways; but these, in order to be apprehended by us, demand a spiritual faculty. The harmony of Scripture, that is the coherency and congruity of its various parts, can only be appreciated as a result of understanding the meaning of Scripture, or in other words by the exercise of a spiritual understanding in Scripture itself. There is enough in Scripture that makes its appeal to man's conscience-enough in its declarations to leave him without excuse if rejected. Still without divine illumination God's revelations in His word will never be rightly received or understood. It was so with Christ's personal manifestation on earth with the Jews. He said, "If any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not.... The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day."
I have but cursorily touched my subject, but opportunity may be given by God to return to it again.