Part 19

Whenever the true and the false in matters of religion are brought into conflict, two things are necessary to secure the triumph of the better side, namely, in the first place, that the sound opinion should be set forth in a perspicuous and convincing manner; and then, that it should be borne forwards over the resistances of antiquated prejudice, and worldly interest, and secular power, by the momentum of public feeling. It is not the single preaching even of an archangel, that could effect the renovation of the church when it really needs to be brought back to purity and health. All the logic of heaven would die unheeded on the ear, unless it were re-echoed from the multitude. Now if it may for a moment be assumed that a general rectification of doctrine and practice, and a revival of primitive piety is actually about to take place, what is that preliminary measure which might be anticipated as the necessary means of giving irresistible force, and universal spread to such a reformation? What but the placing of the sacred canon, the arbiter of all dispute, and the fountain of all motives, previously in the hands of the people of every country? If, in the coming era, the teachers of religion are to insist upon its doctrines and duties with new force and clearness, their success must be expected to bear proportion to the existence of scriptural knowledge, or to the means of acquiring it, among those whom they address.

An extraordinary excitement of religious feeling, arising previously to the general circulation of the Scriptures, can hardly be imagined to take so prosperous and safe a course, as it would, if it followed that circulation. So far as a conjecture on the methods of divine procedure may be hazarded; it must be believed that the extensive dissemination of the Scriptures, which has of late been carrying on, and which is still in active progress, in all those parts of the world that are accessible to Christian zeal, is a precursive measure, soon to be followed by that happy revolution of which it gives so intelligible an augury.

Let it be said, and perhaps it may be said with some truth, that the actual religious impression hitherto produced by the copious issuing of Bibles among the common people in our own and other countries, is less remarkable than might have been anticipated; then, with so much the more confidence may the belief be entertained that this extraordinary publication of the will of God to man is, on the part of him who overrules all events for the furtherance of his gracious designs, altogether a prospective measure; and that the special intention of these many translations, and of these countless reprints of the Bible is yet to be developed.

Is there much of gratuitous assumption, or of unwarrantable speculation in picturing the present position of mankind in some such manner as the following?—During a long course of ages a controversy, managed with various success, has been carried on here and there in the world, on the great questions of immortality, and of the liability of man to future punishment, as the transgressor of the divine law; and concerning the terms of reconciliation. Hitherto, there has stood, on the affirmative, or religious side of this controversy, only a small and scattered party; while on the other side, there has remained, with more or less of active hostility, the great majority of mankind, who have chosen to pursue the interests of the present life, as if no doctrine of immortality had been credibly announced; and who have dared the future displeasure of the Most High; and have ventured the loss of endless happiness; and have spurned the conditions of pardon. But it is imagined that now, events of a new order are to bring this momentous controversy to a final crisis. Yet before the moment of awful decision comes on, and while all minds remain in the listlessness of the ancient apathy, and while the winds of high commotion lie hushed in the caverns of divine restraint—in this season of portentous tranquillity, those writings, upon the authority of which the issue is to turn, are put into every hand; and although the hands that receive them, seem now to hold the book with a careless grasp, ere long an alarm shall be sounded through all nations; and all shall be roused from their spiritual sleep, and shall awake to feel that the interests of an endless life are in suspense: then shall it appear for what purpose the Bible has first been delivered to every people!

These views, it is granted, are in part conjectural, and yet, who that entertains a belief of the providential guidance of the Christian church, can suppose that the most remarkable course of events that has hitherto ever marked the history of the Scriptures, is not charged with the accomplishment of some unusual revolution? and what revolution less than the installment of the inspired volume in the throne of universal authority, can be thought of, as the probable result of the work that is now carrying forwards? If the prejudices of the sceptical spirit, which, in some degree, blind even the most devout, were removed, every eye, accustomed to penetrate futurity, would see, in the recent diffusion of the Sacred Writings, an indubitable sign of their approaching triumph over all forms of impiety and false religion.

The friends of Bible Societies might, on this ground, find a motive for activity that would be proof against all discouragement. When missionary efforts meet disappointment, and when accomplished teachers are removed in quick succession by death, and when stations where much toil has been expended are abandoned, and when converts fall away from their profession, the whole fruit of zeal perishes: but it is otherwise in the work of translating and of multiplying the Scriptures; for although these endeavors should at first be rejected by those for whose benefit they are designed; still, what has been done is not lost; the seed sown may spring up, even after a century of winter. Even if the existing Bible Societies, at home and abroad, should do nothing more than accomplish the initiative labors of translation, and should spend their revenues in filling their warehouses with an undemanded stock of Bibles, they would almost insure the universal diffusion of true religion in the ensuing age. Immediate success is doubtless to be coveted; but though this should be withheld, the work of translation and of printing is pregnant with an infallible promise.

The restoration of the Sacred Text to a state of almost undisputed purity, the accumulation of the resources of biblical criticism, and the great advances that have been made in the business of ascertaining the grammatical sense of the inspired writers, are circumstances in a very high degree conducive to the expected prevalence of genuine religion. Both infidelity and heresy have, till of late, found harborage in the supposed, or pretended, corruption, or uncertainty of the canon. And the whole of those small successes, which have served, from time to time, to keep alive the flickering hopes of heterodoxy, have been drawn from the detection of petty faults in the received text. There was a season when some, even of the champions of orthodoxy, became infected with unwarrantable fears and suspicions on this ground. But the utmost depth of the ἕλκος has been probed. The most sanguine sceptic can henceforward hardly hope to derive any new or important advantages from this source. The text of the Scriptures is now in a state more satisfactory than that of any other ancient writings; and though ignorance may go on to prate as it is wont, no theologian, who would not forfeit his reputation as a scholar, dares to insist upon objections which some years ago were thought to be of the most formidable kind.

It is remarkable that this work of purgation and restoration, which, like that of the translation and diffusion of the Scriptures, is manifestly of a preliminary kind, should have been completed at this precise moment. Had these doubts and suspicions remained unexamined and unsettled, they might greatly have checked the progress of a future religious revival: they might have given birth to new heresies, vigorous from the enhanced tone of general feeling; they might have shaken the minds of the faithful, and have distracted the attention of the ministers of religion. But this preparatory work is done; and so fully have the holds of sceptical doctrine been searched into, and so thoroughly has the invalidity of its pleas been exposed, that nothing is now wanted but an energetic movement of the public mind to shake off forever all its withering sophisms.

It is not as if even the most faulty translation of the Scriptures; or one made from the most defective text, would not abundantly convey all necessary religious truth; or, as if Christian doctrine and practice were, to any great extent, dependent upon philological exactitude of any kind. But in removing occasions for the cavils and insinuations of captious or timid spirits, the literary restoration of the Bible, and the abundant means of ascertaining the grammatical sense of its phrases, is highly important. And in looking towards the future, it must be regarded as a circumstance of peculiar significance that the documents of our faith have just passed through the severest possible ordeal of hostile criticism at the very moment when they are in course of delivery to all nations.

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The recent progress made towards the adoption of an improved method of exposition demands to be named amongst the most auspicious indications of the present times. Insensibly, and undesignedly, and from the operation of various causes, all well-intentioned theologians have of late been fast advancing towards that simple and rational method of inferring the doctrine of Scripture which corresponds with the inductive method of inquiry, practiced in the pursuit of physical science. Just as, in the ancient schools of philosophy, each pretended expounder of the mysteries of nature, first framed his theory, and then imposed upon all phenomena such an interpretation as would best accord with his hypothesis; so have biblical expositors, in long succession, from the ancient Jewish doctors, to the Christian divines of the last century, with very few, if any exceptions, followed the method of interpreting each separate portion of Scripture by the aid of a previously formed theological hypothesis. And although these theories of divinity may have been, perhaps, fairly founded upon scriptural evidence, partially obtained, they have often exerted an influence scarcely less pernicious than as if they had been altogether erroneous. This system once admitted to constitute a synopsis of truth, has been suffered to exercise the most arrogant domination over every part of Scripture in detail. Certain dogmas, awfully clothed in the clouds of metaphysical phraseology, have bid defiance to the most explicit evidence of an opposite meaning; and no text has been permitted to utter its testimony, until it had been placed on the rack.

But the folly and impiety of this style of interpretation have become conspicuous; and though not yet quite abandoned, it is left to those whose minds have been too long habituated to trammels to move at all without them. The rule of the new mode of exposition is founded on a principle precisely analogous to that which forms the basis of the inductive method of inquiry in physical science. In these sciences it is now universally admitted, that, at the best, and after all possible diligence and sagacity have been employed, we can scarcely penetrate beyond the exterior movements of the material system; while the interior mechanism of nature still defies human scrutiny. Nothing then could be more preposterous than to commence the study of nature by laying down, theoretically, the plan of those hidden and central contrivances, as if they were open to observation; and then to work outwards from that centre, and to explain all facts that come under observation in conformity with principles so ignorantly assumed. This is indeed to take a lie in our right hand, as the key of knowledge: yet such was the philosophy which ruled the world for ages!

The method of hypothetical interpretation is, if possible, more absurd in theology than in natural science. Every mind not infatuated by intellectual vanity, must admit, that it is only some few necessary points of knowledge, relating to the constitution and movements of the infinite and spiritual world, that can be made the matter of revelation to mankind; and these must be offered in detached portions, apart from their symmetry. Meanwhile the vast interior, the immeasurable whole, is not merely concealed, but is in itself strictly incomprehensible by human faculties. Metaphysical projections of the moral system, how neat soever, and entire, and plausible they may seem, can have no place in what deserves to be called a rational theology. We not only do not know, but we could not learn, the very things which the framer of a "scientific divinity" professes to spread forth in all their due proportions on his chart of the upper world.

The mode in which the necessarily incomplete revelation of that upper world is conveyed in the Scriptures, is in harmony with that in which the phenomena of nature offer themselves to our notice. The sum or amount of divine knowledge really intended to be conveyed to us, has been broken up and scattered over a various surface: it has been half-hidden, and half-displayed; it has been couched beneath hasty and incidental allusions; it has been doled out in morsels and in atoms. There are no logical synopses in the Bible; there are no scientific presentations of the body of divinity; no comprehensive digests; for such would have been not only unsuited to popular taste and comprehension, but actually impracticable; since they must have contained that which neither the mind of man can receive, nor his language embody. Better far might a seraph attempt to convey the largeness of his celestial ideas to a child, than God impart a systematic revelation to man. On the contrary, it is almost as if the vessel of divine philosophy had been wrecked and broken in a distant storm; and as if the fragments only had come drifting upon our world, which, like an islet in the ocean of eternity, has drawn to itself what might be floating near its shores.

The abrupt and illogical style of oriental composition, and in some instances, the characteristic simplicity of untutored minds, are to be regarded as the appropriate means chosen for imparting to mankind such loose particles of religious truth as it was necessary for them to receive. This inartificial vehicle was, of all others, the one best adapted to the conveyance of a revelation, necessarily imperfect and partial.

Now it is manifest that the mode of exposition must be conformed to the style of the document; and this conformity demands that the inductive method, invariably, should be used for gleaning the sense of Scripture. While employing all the well-known means proper for ascertaining the grammatical sense of ancient writers, each single passage of the Inspired Volume, like a single phenomenon of nature, is to be interrogated for its evidence, without any solicitude for the fate of a preconceived theory, and without asking—How is this evidence to be reconciled with that derived from other quarters?—for it is remembered that the revelation we are studying is a partial discovery of facts, which could not be more than imperfectly made known. Whoever has not yet fully satisfied himself that the Scriptures, throughout, were "given by inspiration of God," should lose no time in determining that doubt: but if it be determined, then it is a flagrant inconsistency not to confide in the principle that the Bible is everywhere truly consistent with itself, whether or not we have the means of tracing its agreements. And while this principle is adhered to, no sentiment or fact plainly contained in the words, need be refused or contorted on account of its apparent incongruity with "systematic divinity."

In this manner only is it possible that the whole amount of religious knowledge intended to be imparted by the Scriptures can be gathered from them. It must be granted as not only probable, but certain, that whatever relates to infinity, to the Divine nature, to the ultimate purposes of the Divine government, to the unseen worlds, and to the future state, and even to the mechanism of motives, must offer itself to the human understanding in a form beset with difficulties. That this must actually be the case might be demonstrated with mathematical certainty. If therefore we resolve to receive from the Inspired Writers nothing but what we can reconcile, first to certain abstruse notions, and then to a particular interpretation of other passages, the consequence is inevitable—that we obtain a theology, needlessly limited, if not erroneous.

It may fairly be supposed that there are treasures of divine knowledge yet latent beneath the surface of the Scriptures, which the practice of scholastic exposition, so long adhered to, on all sides, has locked up from the use of the Church; and it may be hoped, that when that method has fallen completely into disuse, and when the simple and humble style of inductive interpretation is better understood, and is more constantly resorted to than at present, and when the necessary imperfection and incoherency of all human knowledge of divine things is fully recognized, and when the vain attempt to fashion a miniature model of the spiritual universe is for ever abandoned, and when whatever the Inspired Writers either explicitly affirm, or obscurely intimate, is embraced in simplicity of heart, that then the boundaries of our prospect of the hidden and the future world may be vastly enlarged. Nor is this all; for in the same manner the occasions of controversy will be almost entirely removed; and though small differences of opinion may remain, it will be seen by all to be flagrantly absurd to assume such inconsiderable diversities as the pretexts of dissention and separation.

No one cordially reverencing the Bible, and believing it to be given by inspiration of God, who is "not the author of confusion, but of order," can imagine it to have been so worded and constructed as to necessitate important diversities of interpretation among those who humbly and diligently labor to obtain its meaning. Nor will any but bigots deny that, with those who differ from themselves, there may be found diligence and sincerity quite equal to their own. What account then is to be given of those contrarieties of opinion which continue to sully the glory of the Christian Church, and to deprive it almost entirely of its expansive energy?

In endeavouring to give a satisfactory reply to this important question, we are, of course, entitled to dismiss from the discussion, first, those errors of doctrine which spring immediately from the prepossessions of proud and unholy minds, and which are not to be refuted until such evil dispositions are rectified. It is not a better exposition of Scripture, merely, that will afford an efficient remedy for such false opinions. In the next place it is proper to put out of the question all those politico-religious divisions which, as they originated in accident, so now rest for their maintenance much less upon reason, than upon the authority of habit, and the pertinacity of party feeling, or perhaps even upon motives of secular interest. All such causes of schism must be scattered to the winds whenever the authoritative force of the divine injunctions to peace and union, and mutual forbearance, is vividly felt.

There should moreover be dismissed from the question those differences that have arisen in the Church on some special points of antiquarian obscurity. These having been in a past age absurdly lifted into importance by an exaggerated notion of the right and duty of Christians to stickle upon their individual opinions, even at the cost of the great law of love, are now pretty generally felt by men of right feeling, to be heir-looms of shame and disadvantage to whoever holds them. A very probable return to good sense and piety is all that is needed to get rid for ever of such disputes. If the utmost endeavors of competent and honest men, on both sides, have not availed to put certain questions of ancient usage beyond doubt; then it is manifest that such points do not belong to the fundamentals of faith or practice; and therefore can never afford ground of justifiable separation; nor should the Christian commonalty be encouraged to suppose that the solemnities of conscience are implicated in the decision of questions which, even the most learned cannot in fact decide. What less than a grievous injury to right feelings can ensue from the popular belief that the manifold evils of religious dissension are mischiefs of small moment, compared with the breach of some niceties of ceremonial? Shall Christianity spread in the world, and show itself glorious, while practical absurdities like these are persisted in? assuredly not. But there is reason to believe, even in spite of the fixedness of some unsocial spirits, that the date of schism is nearly expired, and that a better understanding of the great law of Christ will ere long bring all his true followers into the same fold.

When the deductions named above have been made, the remaining differences that exist among the pious are such only as may fairly be attributed to the influence of the old theoretic system of interpretation; and they are such as must presently disappear when the rule of INDUCTIVE EXPOSITION shall be thoroughly understood and generally practised. The hope therefore of an approaching prosperous era in the Church depends, in great measure, upon the probability of a cordial return to the authority of Scripture—of Scripture unshackled by hypothesis. It is this return alone that can remove the misunderstandings which have parted the body of Christ; and it is the reunion of the faithful that must usher in better times.

That a torn church should be eminently prosperous, that it should be favored as the instrument of diffusing the Gospel with triumphant success, and on a large scale, among the nations, cannot be imagined; for doubtless the Head of the church holds the most emphatic of his admonitions in higher esteem than that he should easily brook the breach and contempt of it, and put extraordinary honor upon those who seem to love their particular opinions more than they do "his commandment."

Even without laying any great stress upon that softening of party prejudices which has of late actually taken place, the hope of a near termination of controversy, and of the healing of all permanent differences among true Christians, may still rest on solid ground. An intelligent faith in the divine origination of the Scriptures contains necessarily a belief in their power to bring the catholic church into a state of unity, so that division should no more be thought of. That, during so many ages this has not been the condition of the Christian body, is satisfactorily to be attributed to causes which are by no means of inevitable perpetuity; but, which on the contrary, seem now to be approaching their last stage of feeble existence. Meanwhile the Oracles of God are visibly ascending to the zenith of their rightful power. The necessary preparations for their instalment in the place of undisputed authority are completed; and nothing is waited for but a movement of general feeling, to give them such influence as shall bear down whatever now obstructs the universal communion of the faithful.