CHAPTER V.

SACRED CRITICISM MUST OCCUPY THE POSITION OF AN INQUIRER, NOT OF A JUDGE.

CRITICAL science no longer maintains its proper sphere, when it takes the place of judgment; when not content to gather from the oracles of God, it composes and separates, canonises and rejects, making itself the Oracle!

Devote your reason, your time, and all your intellectual resources, to assure yourself that the book which has been put into your hands under the title of the Bible, really contains those very oracles of God, of which under Divine Providence the Jews were made the first depositaries (Rom. iii. 1, 2), and which, under the same guarantee, were secondarily confided to the Universal Church, since the apostolic period. Assure yourself afterwards whether this book is authentic, or whether transcribers have not altered it. All this labour is legitimate, rational, and honourable. It has been extensively entered upon by those who have preceded us; and if the investigations of others have failed to satisfy you, renew them, pursue them, instruct us; all the churches of God will thankfully acknowledge your work.

But when this labour is accomplished; when you have established the fact that the Bible is an authentic book; that it bears the authoritative seal of the Most High, and shines with the glory of his own signature;

then hear what science and what reason cry; Sons of men, hear God! Then to your knees! and with eyes and hearts uplifted, bow with reverence and humility. Then science and reason have no longer to judge,

but to receive, no longer to pass sentence, but to understand.

But if, after having received the Bible as authentic, you presume to sit in judgment upon its contents; if from this Scripture, which bears the impress of inspiration, and which declares that it is destined to judge yourself at the last day, you dare to retrench aught; then science no longer clears away the mists which envelope truth, but itself obscures it. "Ifever, in reading Scripture," Origen remarks," thou encounterest an idea which becomes to thee a stone of stumbling or a rock of offence, accuse only thyself; doubt not that this stone of stumbling and rock of offence has an important meaning; and concerning it must the promise be accomplished, 'Whosoever believeth shall not be ashamed.' (Rom. ix. 33.) Begin then by believing, and thou shalt soon find under this imaginary offence an abundant and hallowed utility."

That a soul may receive life, it is necessary that it should receive faith; that it may have faith, it must believe God; to believe God, it must begin by renouncing the prepossessions of its own wisdom about sin, about futurity, about judgment, about grace, about self, about the world, about God, and all things else. Is it not written that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; that he cannot receive them, for they are foolishness unto him"? (1 Cor. ii. 14.) The gospel therefore must shock either his reason or his conscience; perhaps both. Nevertheless he is bound, on the testimony of God alone, to submit to it; and it is only in receiving it thus that it will be found to be "the wisdom of God, and the power of God unto salvation, to all them that believe." We perceive, then, that without seeing he is bound to believe; that is to say, before he has understood the gospel it must have confounded his own wisdom, repulsed his natural heart, have blown upon his pride, and condemned his self-righteousness. How could men who should un

happily imitate such, and wait until they have approved of all ere they received all, be ever induced to accept the gospel? Imbued with such principles, they would impute everything in Scripture which shocks their carnal sense to man. They would think they must exclude the prejudices of the apostles about the consequences of the sin of Adam, about the Trinity, the atonement; about eternal punishments, hell, the resurrection of the body; about the doctrine of evil spirits, election, the free justification of the sinner by faith, and perhaps also as to miracles. How could any one with such thoughts ever find life, peace, and joy through faith? How could he hope against hope? How could he believe in salvation for a wretch like himself? He would necessarily pass his days in brooding over vague imaginations and uncertain doctrines; and his life, his peace, his love, and obedience, would, until death, continue of a character with his doctrines! We conclude, therefore, with the first advice: "Make critical science an inquirer, and not a judge."

Let Criticism not be the Oracle.

There is connected with the inspiration of the Scriptures another caution not less important, which it behoves us to notice in the employment of science.

The part of sacred criticism is to collect facts connected with the Scriptures: let it not therefore lead us into vain hypotheses: it will in this case prove most injurious. Science ought to be an historian; do not make it a prophetess. When it assumes the latter character, hear it not; turn your back upon it; you will lose your time, and more than your time. The safeguard of a believer, here, is still in the doctrine of Inspiration; the inspiration not of the men, but of the book.

"All Scripture is divinely inspired " is what the authenticated book of the Scriptures declares to us.

But we

are asked, What was passing in the understanding and conscience of the sacred writer? This is what is scarcely ever revealed to us, and the knowledge of which is not required of us. Ignorance of this great principle has occasioned much loss of time and words. The writing is inspired, whether the author had previous knowledge of what God was causing him to write, or whether he had not. Let us study in each book of the Bible the peculiarities of the style, language, and reasoning, together with all the circumstances of its sacred writers; we shall find nothing but what is valuable in such researches; they are useful, legitimate, and consistent with due respect; and so far they come within the limits of science. Let us afterwards endeavour by these same characters to fix the date and occasion; we should still see nothing but what was instructive and expedient in such study. It may, for instance, be useful to know that it was under a Nero that St. Paul wrote this precept to the Jews-" Be subject to the powers that be (Rom. xiii. 1); it may be well to know that St. Peter was married upwards of twenty-three years, when Paul reminded the Corinthians (1 Cor. ix. 5) that this apostle (the first of the popes as he has been called) took his wife with him in all his apostolical journeyings; and that the other apostles, even St. James himself (who is ranked first among the pillars of the church, Gal. ii. 9), did likewise. This is still science. We highly prize on behalf of the Church of God every labour which renders any passage better understood by her members; yes, be it but one sentence, or even one word of holy Scripture. But that men should go on to visionary hypotheses, to indulge in a thousand conjectures respecting the sacred writers, to make their words depend upon the chance of their presumed circumstances, instead of considering their circumstances as prepared and designed of God for the ends of their ministry;-that men should subject the nature, quantity, or conciseness of their teachings to the concurrence, more or less for

tuitous, of their ignorances or recollections, this is to degrade inspiration, and to depreciate the character of the Word of God; it is to lay deeply the foundations of incredulity; it is to forget that these "men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, not in the words which man's wisdom taught, but in those taught by the Holy Ghost." (1 Cor. ii. 13; 2 Pet. i. 21.)

It has been asked, Did the evangelists read each other's writings? What matters this to me, if they were "moved by the Holy Ghost," and if, like the Thessalonians, I receive their book, "not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God"? (1 Thess. ii. 13.) This question put in passing may indeed be a very innocent one; but it is no longer harmless, on account of the manner in which it has been treated, and because of the importance assigned to it.

Would to God that we had here only to lament men's fantasies, and their enormous waste of time! But the consequences are worse: shipwreck has been made of faith; the eyes of the understanding have been dazzled; -and young students' feet have been turned aside from the first great Author of the Scriptures. It is manifest that these idle researches could only proceed from a want of faith in the Scriptures. Believe for a moment; admit that Jesus Christ has given his apostles the what and the how, of that which they were to record; admit that God has caused the life of Jesus Christ to be related, as he has caused them to record his sitting down at his own right hand; and you will immediately feel that all these hypotheses shrink into nothingness. Not only do they not teach you anything (for they cannot), but they give an unhappy bias to your mind respecting faith; they imperceptibly undermine the doctrine of Inspiration; they indirectly weaken the testimony of God, its certainty and perfection; they divert your pious thoughts from their true course; they cause youth to wander when seeking to draw living water from the