Page images
PDF
EPUB

apostle would give no quarter, not for an hour, because it trenched, by however so small a fraction, on the doctrine of justificacion by faith alone, The scripture abounds in specimens of this sort -announcing its principle with all the decision and distinctness of a category; and planting an impassable barrier, or describing a clear and uneffaceable line of demarcation, between that principle and its opposite. There is no shifting, no shuffling between the incompatible terms of an alternative. In the spirit of a prompt and steadfast and exalted consistency, it abhors all amalgamation of things by nature immiscible; and this we understand to have been the spirit, in which Paul affirmed, that salvation is either wholly of works or wholly of grace. It must be of the one altogether or of the other altogether, but not a composition of both. "If by grace it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works then it is no more of grace, otherwise work is no more work." And we hold that on the question of inspiration, there is the same kind of impregnable rampart, by which to guard from all commixture and commutation, a doctrine intact and inviolable. That venerable record which has come down through a long succession of prophets, and passed the ordeal of Christ and His apostles, and has been handed from one age to another in the unquestioned character all along of being the word of God-it is not a medley of things divine and things human; but is either throughout a fallible composition, or throughout and in all its parts the rescript of the only wise and

It

true God. All over it has the strength and faithfulness of the divinity, or all over the weakness and fallibility of man. It is the Bible or it is no Bible. We keep by the former term of the alternative. We hold all the ground to be holy, that is within the limits of this venerable record; and that the fence thrown around it admits of no inroad to that which is human, among that which is purely and sacredly and altogether divine. is guarded, strictly and severely guarded, by the menaces of a jealous God, against the daring footstep of any who shall intrude within its barriereither on purpose to add, or on purpose to take away. He hath done to scripture what he did to Sinai, when He set bounds about the mount, and did sanctify it so that should priests or people break through to bring up their words beside the words of the Lord, the Lord would break forth upon them.

29. We may have differed from the advocates of a rigid and universal inspiration, in their notions regarding the process of a universal suggestion; but, in asserting out and out the perfection and immaculate purity of the sacred volume, we have not receded behind them by a single hairbreadth. We know that on every great question, the contest between the right and the wrong lies at the place of separation between them-for if the slightest inroad beyond the limit be admitted, it is tantamount to a surrender of the cause. We know that the anti-apocryphalists of the day, have been accused of too fiercely resenting the encroachments that have been attempted, on the canon and in

spiration of scripture, and that, on the plea of the encroachments being slight ones. We shall say nothing of the resentment; but, however slight those encroachments may have been, they could not be too strenuously or too energetically resisted. The truth is that on every conflict of principle, it is at the line of demarcation that the battle must be fought, and that the battle is terminated. Should the charm and the sacredness be broken, by which the margin of an else inviolable territory is guarded, the whole length and breadth of the sanctuary lie open to spoliation; and unless the assault be repelled at the breach, all the goodliness within may at length be trodden under foot of the invaders. What is true of nations in the gladiatorship of arms, is true of principles in the gladiatorship of argument. Should a hostile army plant one footstep within the landmarks of a kingdom, this is enough to arouse a sensitive and high-minded people in vengeance on the aggressors; and that, though no part of the country is seized upon, but the boundary is passed. And so in the controversy before us. It is the part of Christians to rise like a wall of fire around the integrity and inspiration of scripture; and to hold them as intact and inviolable, as if a rampart were thrown around them, whose foundations are on earth and whose battlements are in heaven. It is this tampering with limits that destroys and defaces everything; and therefore it is precisely when the limit is broken, that the alarm should be sounded. If the battle-cry is to be lifted at all, it should be lifted at the outset; and so on the first mingling, by

however so slight an infusion, of things human with things divine, all the friends of the Bible should join heart and hand, against so foul and fearful a desecration.

CHAPTER III.

On the Internal Evidence as a Criterion for the Canon and Inspiration of Scripture.

1. In arguing for the inspiration of scripture, the right order of proof seems to be the following. There is a collection of sacred writings, acknowledged as such both by Jews and Christians, which, from the days of Christ and His apostles, has been designated by certain titles, appropriated to that collection, and to it exclusively-insomuch that these titles have in them all the force and distinction of a proper name. It is under one or other of its proper names, by which it is individualized and separated from all other writings, that this collection is so often referred to in the New Testament-where the properties of infallibility and inspiration are distinctly and repeatedly awarded to them. This forms the main proof of the inspiration of a certain aggregate or collection of writings after which, the question of the inspiration of any particular book or writing resolves into the question, whether or not it had a place in this collection, or whether or not at the commencement of the Christian era, it formed part

of the canon of the Old Testament. This last is a question which we might either be prepared with beforehand; or which we might determine afterwards, when our proofs for the inspiration of that general book, termed scripture or scriptures, have been completed. The inspiration of scripture in the gross, rests chiefly on the testimony of Christ and His apostles. The inspiration of particular books or portions now in scripture rests chiefly on the evidence that they belong to the canon, or in other words, that they were also then in scripture; for then they must have been inIcluded in the sanction given by the founders of the Christian religion to scripture, and to all scripture. When any particular book is thus sanctioned, and so admitted to speak for itself, there is often a mighty addition given to the evidence for its inspiration, in its own averments now made credible-when it tells, as is frequently done, in a variety of forms and expressions, not that thus saith the human author, but that "thus saith the Lord." Beside then the general question of inspiration, the question of the canon is indispensable, to ascertain what the particular books are, to which the credit of inspiration should be given. The question of inspiration determines the homage which is due to scripture in the general; and the question of the canon determines what the particular books are, to which this homage should be rendered. We must have recourse to the one question, when we want to establish the amount of deference or submission, that we owe to scripture at large. We must have

« PreviousContinue »