Part 2

For St. Peter’s testimony, I would refer to his language in 2 Pet. i. 19, in the context of which passage he is assuring his hearers that he had not followed cunningly devised fables. And now mark the threefold evidence which he produces. First, there is vision, ‘We were eye-witnesses of his majesty.’ Secondly, there is hearing, ‘The voice from heaven we heard.’ But lastly, there is an evidence more clear, more true, more trustworthy, than either the sight of his own eyes, or the hearing of his own ears. That evidence is Scripture. ‘We have also a more sure word of prophecy.’

For the testimony of our Lord Himself, refer to two passages, the one referring to a nice point in a quotation from the Psalms, John, x. 35; the other to the whole word in its sanctifying power, John, xvii. 17. Now what is His language? In the one, ‘The scripture cannot be broken.’ In the other, ‘Thy word is truth.’

With these statements of our blessed Lord, I am content to leave this portion of our subject. In these words of Scripture, I believe that God Himself has spoken to man, and therefore in the midst of all the world’s disappointments, and in all the failures of even the Church of God, we have here that on which the soul may calmly, peacefully, and fearlessly repose. And whether we look at history or prediction, at promises or judgments, at prophecies understood by those who uttered them, or language veiled in mystery until the divine purpose is developed in history, we receive the whole as inviolable truth, for all has the stamp of the Spirit Himself, and all is given by inspiration of God. We receive it, we honour it, we submit to it, we acknowledge its divine authority, and welcome with heartfelt thanksgiving its infallible promises. Yes, we receive it not merely with the deepest conviction of our most deliberate judgment: but we welcome it to our soul with all the deep feelings of a thankful heart, and say with the inspired Psalmist, ‘Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it.’

THE HUMAN ELEMENT.

BUT there is a human element in the book as well as a divine. ‘Holy men spake as they were moved.’ We shall take, therefore, a very partial view of the whole subject if we neglect to consider the action of the holy men as well as the moving of the Holy Ghost. What then are the plain, obvious facts of the case? Are they not that the books contain as much evidence of human mind, and human character as if they were uninspired books? The human authorship is as prominent and conspicuous as the divine, and any theory of inspiration which excludes it is, I cannot but think, opposed to the facts of Scripture.

1. There is distinctive _character_ in the different writers. Compare St. Paul and St. John, St. Peter and St. James, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and you see the most transparent variety, a variety which renders it impossible to suppose that they were merely pens, machines, or copyists.

2. There is the use of _natural powers or gifts_. St. Paul was a well-educated, intellectual man, with great reasoning powers, so he supported truth by argument. David was a poet, so he breathed out as the sweet psalmist of Israel the hallowed outpourings of a sanctified heart.

3. There is the use of _feeling_. All the emotions of the human heart may be found in Scripture. There is no deep feeling of which man is capable which is not expressed there. There is love, sorrow in some of its most tender and touching forms, depression of spirits, joy, hope, longing desire, deep contrition, calm faith, and perfect peace. All these you find, not merely described by the inspired authors, but forming part and parcel of the inspired word. They are the very word itself, and are expressed as naturally as if there were no such thing as inspiration.

4. There is the use of _memory_. Our Lord’s promise to His Apostles in John, xiv. 26, applies clearly to this point, and shows that the gift of the Holy Ghost, so far from superseding memory, would quicken it, and give it the power of recalling with accuracy the words intrusted to it. ‘He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.’

5. There was also the use of _personal experience_, as, _e.g._, when St. John said, ‘The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory’ (John, i. 14); and again, ‘That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.’ (1 John, i. 1, 3)

And lastly, and it is a very deeply interesting point, there was the diligent _use of collected information_. See Luke, i. 1–3, where Luke does not claim to write original matter, but to have received it from those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word. It was because he had a perfect understanding from them that he undertook to write out in order the events of the narrative.

It is clear, therefore, that in the composition of Scripture there was the free use of the human mind. The Pentateuch is the word of Moses as well as the word of God, for when our Lord quotes the fifth commandment in Mark, vii. 10, He introduces it by the words ‘Moses said;’ although when He condemns His hearers for the breach of it, he says, they were ‘making the Word of God of none effect by their tradition.’ (Mark, v. 13.) The human element is therefore as plain as the divine. We have not in our Bible a voice speaking from heaven in accents so strange to human ears that it could only serve to amaze and terrify; but we have God’s will presented to us through the medium of human language, human feeling, human thought, and human inquiry; human in all respects but one, and that is, as we have already found, that it is free from human error.

THE COMBINATION.

I TRUST, then, that I have shown clearly the existence of the divine and human elements in Scripture, but it still remains for us to consider the third point, namely, THE COMBINATION OF THE TWO.

How is the union between the divine and human to be explained?

1. Not by supposing that the writers were mere pens, or machines. This is sometimes termed the mechanical theory, but it is clearly inconsistent with facts. Pens never think, argue, remember, weep, or rejoice, and all these things were done by the writers of Scripture.

2. Not by supposing them to be mere copyists or amanuenses employed to write down the words of the Spirit, as Baruch took down the words of Jeremiah. This may have been the case when they received direct communication, as when Moses wrote out the ten commandments at the dictation of God: but it will not apply to inspiration, as it gives no scope for variety of character. The one dictating mind would be the only one to appear on such a theory.

3. We will not attempt to explain it by constructing any artificial theories as to the action of the Spirit on the mind of men. Some have endeavoured to classify the modes in which they consider the Spirit may have acted, as, _e.g._, supervision, elevation, direction, and suggestion. All this may be right, and it may be wrong; for we are taught (Heb. i. 1) not merely that God spake in divers times, but in _divers __manners_ unto the fathers by the prophets. But all such distinctions are unsupported by Scripture, and therefore we may leave them.

My own belief is, that the safest course for the believer is to take the word as he finds it, and to attempt no explanation at all. The fact is, that the question lies in the midst of a class of subjects which have always baffled man’s inquiry, I mean those relating to the points of contact between the mind of God and the mind of man. The real point is, how has the mind of God acted on the mind of man, and how can there be union in one book between his mind which is infinite and infallible, and the mind of man which is finite and fallible? That question I cannot solve. But I cannot there leave the inquiry; for it appears to me that we have an analogous case of the deepest possible importance, I mean the corresponding union in the person of our blessed Saviour.

Remember, then, that there are two channels through which God has manifested His will, viz., the incarnate word, and the written word; and surely we are justified in expecting that there will be something of the same character in the two manifestations.

Now, how is it with the incarnate word? In Him there is a perfect Godhead and a perfect manhood, so that He becomes the perfect daysman between God and the sinner. His Deity does not neutralise His humanity, for, though Himself the Creator, He was wearied, He wept, He prayed, He trusted, He died; and so He can be touched with the feelings of those who in this suffering world are called to weep, to suffer, to pray, and to die now. But neither, on the other hand, did His humanity neutralise His Deity, for in the midst of His weakness He could rise in His omnipotence, and bid the dead arise and the waves be still. If you ask how it is that the one did not neutralise the other, I cannot say. All I know is that God so ordered it, and that He so formed the union that the perfection of the Godhead did not destroy the manhood, nor the perfection of the manhood take one jot or one tittle from the attributes of the Godhead. And if men reply that they cannot understand it, I can only say that they have no right to expect to do so, for are we not assured in Scripture, ‘Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh?’

But now, passing from the first manifestation of God’s will to the second, _i.e._ from the incarnate Word to the written word, are we to be surprised if we meet with a similar union and a similar difficulty? If, in short, we find the self-same combination of the divine and human elements? Can I wonder if it is presented to us in a form so divine that it is infallibly true, and yet so human that it is full of the workings of the human intellect and human heart? No, I wonder not, and I speculate not. But, as I thank God for an incarnate Redeemer, who has all the omnipotent and infinite attributes of God, while at the same time He has so true a manhood that I may appeal to His sympathy on the ground of His experience of all the trials of the flesh, so I thank God also that He has given us a Bible so perfect, so divine, so authoritative, so infallible, that I may trust it without the shadow of a doubt as the unerring word of the living God, while at the same time it is so completely human, and thereby so exactly adapted to the human heart’s requirements, that I can welcome it as a word spoken for myself, and admire the love of our Heavenly Father who has been pleased to combine in one book a perfect divinity and a perfect humanity, the infallible truth of a perfect Godhead combined by God’s mysterious power with the heart-touching utterance of a true and perfect manhood.

DIFFICULTIES.

BUT, while we rejoice in the great doctrine of a complete, plenary, and infallible inspiration, we should be wanting in Christian candour if we were to ignore the existence of certain difficulties connected with the subject. There are difficulties we freely acknowledge, some of which have been felt, not merely by sceptical, but by devout and Christian minds; and these difficulties I now propose to consider.

1. The first of these has been already met. It arises from the variety of mind and character in the inspired writers. This is thought to be inconsistent with the divine inspiration of the whole book by one inspiring Spirit; and it would be a difficulty if we believed, according to the mechanical theory, that the writers were merely pens, machines, or copyists. But on the principle that there is a perfect manhood combined with a perfect Godhead, instead of remaining a difficulty, it becomes one of the chief beauties of the book, and is the very thing that renders it so pre-eminently suited to the wants of the human heart.

2. A second difficulty arises from the idea that the language of Scripture is opposed to modern science. The principle of this difficulty is contained in the words, ‘Any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to all well-ascertained facts of history or of science.’ {45}

Now, in the first place, we enter our solemn protest against the Scripture being regarded as a scientific treatise. Its object was no more to teach us science than to teach us medicine. It is therefore utterly unfair to bring its language to the test of scientific experiments. If the allusions of Scripture to surrounding nature were not altogether in harmony with the discoveries of modern science, it would not in the least affect my own idea of inspiration; for in making use of men to convey His own divine message, I could not expect anything but that our Heavenly Father should make use of such language as men understood at the time the book was written; and it seems utterly unreasonable to suppose that He should render His revelation unintelligible to those to whom it was given, by going out of His way to anticipate discoveries which were about to be made some thousands of years afterwards. But, though the Scriptures are not given to teach science, and no one has a right to doubt their inspiration because he does not find scientific accuracy in their language, we are still prepared to meet the scientific man on his own ground, and fearlessly to affirm that there is nothing in Scripture opposed to the well-ascertained discoveries of science.

For mark well. There is nothing in a miracle opposed to the laws of science. Science refers to those laws of nature which are within reach of our investigation; but if, at any time, the Creator should displace them, either by the action of higher laws unknown to us, or by the simple power of His will, science knows nothing of that displacement. It is the office of science to investigate existing laws; but science knows nothing of any interruptions of those laws by the sovereign will of Him who founded them. Such interruptions lie altogether beyond its province. All, for example, that science can say is, that we know of no law which could cause the sun to stand still on Gibeon. But does Scripture ever assert that it was done by any law within our knowledge? Is it not represented as the act of God’s omnipotence suspending known laws? And is not that suspending power altogether beyond the reach of scientific inquiry? The miracle therefore, lies beyond the reach of science, and cannot be opposed to it.

But as for the well-ascertained laws of nature and well-established scientific facts, we fearlessly assert that there is nothing in Scripture opposed to them.

Let us consider for a moment the two cases most commonly quoted as involving contradiction: the description of the sun standing still on Gibeon, and the Mosaic account of the creation.

With reference to the former there are two objections urged. The first is that of the infidel who denies the possibility of the miracle, but with that I have nothing to do, as I have already shown that miracles are not within the range of science. The second is founded on the language of the narrative, which is thought to imply an ignorance of the earth’s rotation on its axis. But really this is so childish that it is scarcely worth our notice. Is there any one in his senses who would have expected Joshua to say, ‘Earth, suspend your rotation round your axis;’ or to have framed his language in any other way so as to describe that rotation? And if Joshua ought to have so expressed himself, why do not astronomers and other learned men alter their own language now according to their own science? Or are we to suppose that after all they know nothing about astronomy, because they speak like ignorant men, and say, like the rest of us, ‘the sun rises and the sun sets?’

The other case, however, is more important, for it is the object of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis to give an account of creation, and it is perfectly reasonable therefore to expect to find it in harmony with geological facts. But mark. There is a great difference between being in harmony with geological _facts_, and in harmony with every geological _theory_ that is started. We must confine the argument to what is known, and we have nothing to do with what people think. True science is a rigid thing, and relates to facts, not opinions. When, _e.g._, people tell us that there could not be light before the sun, they are thoroughly unscientific in so saying, for they know nothing of the kind. There is a vast amount of light at this present time quite independent of the sun, and the idea that there could be none before it is nothing more than an unscientific conjecture. No! we must keep rigidly to facts, to facts really established by trustworthy evidence; and, keeping stedfastly to such facts, I have not the least shadow of anxiety respecting geological discovery. On the contrary, I believe that the first chapter of Genesis will furnish us, and is even already furnishing us, with one of the grandest arguments ever yet produced for the divine inspiration of the book of Scripture. I cannot but think that that first chapter is placed in the forefront of the book in order to present us, at the outset of the whole, with an unanswerable evidence of the divinity of its origin.

For what is the present position of geology? In the first place, it is a very young science, one of scarcely more than fifty years’ growth. The most profound geologists are most convinced how much there is still to be learned, and they are learning more every day. No really wise man therefore would give up the inspiration of Scripture in deference to these present conclusions, even if those conclusions should at first sight seem to be opposed to the inspired word.

But they are not opposed to it. There may be a difference of opinion among Christian men as to which is the right principle of harmony, but there is no difficulty in harmonizing all geological facts with the plain, literal, straightforward, honest interpretation of every sentence of the sacred record. Nay more! There is one remarkable point of harmony clearly established, viz., this, that in its great outlines the order of events recorded in the book of Scripture is the same as the order as exhibited in the record of the rocks. Moses describes a certain order in creation. Three thousand years after Moses, learned men began to investigate the earth’s crust, and in the rocks which form that crust, they have discovered the outlines of a certain order. They have come to the conclusion that certain great events must have succeeded each other in the creation of the world. Here therefore you have two records, one from the rocks, and one from Moses: one only just now discovered, and one given more than three thousand years ago. But place them side by side. Do not be afraid of comparing them, for truth is never afraid of investigation. But in comparing them what do we find? That the order in the rocks in all its broad features corresponds step by step with the order in the Mosaic record; and though there are still some minor difficulties, still in the great, grand, broad facts there is a magnificent harmony. But whence did Moses learn that order? The events must have taken place millions and millions of years before ever man trod this earth. There were no geologists in his day to teach him. How then could he have known the order of events which took place ages before man’s being? There is only one answer to be given, and that is, that he must have been taught it by God Himself. Thus we may thank our modern geologists, as many of them delight in believing, for having in these days of infidelity dug out from the bowels of the earth a fresh and noble proof, which had lain buried there for centuries, that the first chapter of the Book of Genesis was given to Moses by inspiration of God.

But we may go further still with reference to science, and remark that there are many expressions in Scripture remarkably in harmony with it, and which almost appear to indicate a mind far in advance of the knowledge of the day. Take, _e.g._, the distinction drawn by Moses between rain and dew in Deut. xxxii. 2, ‘My doctrine shall drop as the rain, and my speech shall distil as the dew.’ Or the language of Job respecting the weight of the atmosphere, a scientific truth unknown till the days of Galileo: ‘To make the weight for the winds.’ (Job, xxviii. 25.) Many similar passages might be quoted, but these are sufficient to show that, although it was not the purpose of the book to teach science, there lay hidden within the book the germs of the truest science, waiting there unobserved till scientific men should discover the facts, and so by their science bring to light a fresh evidence of the divine inspiration of the book.

3. It is alleged that the sacred writers differed in some instances from secular historians. The favourite instances adduced are the date of the governments of Cyrenius in Syria, and that of Lysanius at Abylene. The one is placed by Josephus about eleven years after the birth of our Lord, and the other about the same distance of time before the commencement of John the Baptist’s ministry. It is a real pleasure to find men fixing on such minute points, and to see them obliged to leave unassailed the vast amount of accumulated evidence to the accurate fidelity of the sacred records. I confess that the simple fact of their fastening on such points proves very clearly to my own mind that they have nothing very substantial on which to fasten. Suggestions have been thrown out, which, if true, may meet the difficulty; but with our limited information, after an interval of one thousand eight hundred years, it is impossible to be sure that they are correct. But suppose there is a difference. Suppose the chronology of Josephus is at variance with that of St. Luke. Suppose that one or the other is in error. Is it impossible, I ask, that Josephus may be wrong? Is he infallible? Are his writings guaranteed from error? And why should the Christian tamely surrender the point, and quietly submit to the conclusion that St. Luke is wrong and Josephus right? I protest against such a surrender, and, till there is clearer evidence than we have obtained at present, I shall venture to believe that Josephus is mistaken if in anything he really differs from the inspired word.

4. But I have left to the last that which to many minds is the greatest difficulty. I mean the variations, or as some would call them, the apparent discrepancies, between the sacred writers themselves.

Now I have no wish to deny the existence of such variations, though I dislike the term ‘discrepancies,’ for I do not believe there is discrepancy. And in dealing with this difficulty, there are, I conceive, three principles to be kept clearly in mind.

1. The narratives are very short and fragmentary in their character. They never attempt to record the whole. Hence one gives one fragment, and another a second, and these fragments are often like the fossil bones of a skeleton. Ignorant men, which we all are, cannot fit them together; but we must not on that account assert them to be contradictory; for when the structure of the whole is once discovered, they will all fit into their proper places, and all the scattered fragments be combined in perfect symmetry.