(From the Christian Witness, Vol. I., p. 47, not included in the “Collected Writings.”)
THERE is so much instruction in the scripture that I find it impossible, in giving a few hints on any portion of the text of it, to attempt to bring out the breadth and length of its various applications. Indeed, as flowing from God, and bearing continually the impress of the fullness of His character, I constantly find, in opening, under God’s mercy, any particular passage at different times and under different circumstances, that it presents itself in bearings so entirely different, that, although not in reality inconsistent, they could not be thought, by one untaught of God, to be drawn from the same passage.
It is this which so strongly marks and contrasts the word of God with any human writings. While these are the expressions of a judgment formed on results, or the imperfect discussion of unascertained thought, the writing of God is the expression of the full perfectness of the divine mind, bearing upon that which diversified it (while in itself intrinsically the same), according to the infinitely various reflection of that on which it expresses itself. This was true intrinsically in Christ, in whom dwelt all the fullness, and the scriptures are the divine expression of that fullness.