Revelation and Interpretation. 235 truth or historical contradictoriness of particular texts of Scripture to unhinge their minds, and especially before they allow themselves to be laughed out of a belief of Revelation through the wily methods by which infidelity often throws out its objections, to be first sure whether such objections are founded upon a legitimate interpretation of Scripture. For nothing is easier than to put a meaning of our own upon a passage, and then to attack it; nor is anything more popular than to read the words as they stand, without making inquiry into the qualifying circumstances of time, and place, and style, which so often affect our due consideration of their proper import. Let me remind them also, once more, that although the Bible is an infallible record of the mind of the Holy Spirit, yet we are not required to believe that every action or sentiment which it records was inspired by that Spirit. Its infallibility lies in the teaching of Revelation as a whole, not in the narration of all things said and done, which things it frequently chronicles for our warning, not for our imitation. Thus there is a sphere for reason and a sphere for faith; by which means it becomes, as St. Paul tells us, not only "profitable for doctrine," but for "reproof, and correction, and instruction in righteousness." 1 2 Tim. iii. 16. V. CONCLUSION. IN concluding this treatise, it may be well to offer some remarks upon a fact which those who reject Divine Revelation are bound to account for by natural causes. I refer to that marked unity of thought and purpose which runs, like a golden thread, throughout all the Sacred Books. We have been so long accustomed to look upon the Bible as a single volume, that we frequently forget the exact circumstances of its construction. It professes to be a series of sixty-six books, written by about forty different authors, during fifteen hundred years. Even if we allow, for argument's sake, that rationalism is right in refusing to credit any Jewish authorship before the times of the Hebrew monarchy, still there will be an allowed period of more than a thousand years during which a number of different writers were shaping the national mind upon questions of religious faith and hope. It matters not, for the moment, whether the Sacred Books were each written, as we believe them to have been, by the persons to whom the Bible refers them. The fact still remains that the tradi Unity of Scripture Teaching. 237 tions and opinions of one nation are embodied in a number of separate treatises (some historical and others ethical, some poetical and others prophetical); written under a variety of circumstances, and by authors of the most diverse character; yet all bearing witness, with progressive fulness and with marked unity and continuity, to the same great doctrines concerning God and a coming Redeemer. We need not do more than give a few examples of the truth of this fact; for, however many little discrepancies the sceptic may endeavour to detect in the Scriptures, the points of agreement in them, he must himself allow, are infinitely greater. Supposing, for argument's sake, we were to grant that the face of this great temple of truth is scarred in parts by a number of little cracks and fissuresyet is there not a unity of design, a beauty of proportion, and a continuity of idea, spread over the whole building, which is vastly more conspicuous than any of those fragmentary blemishes which may have been left upon its surface by the hand of time? Infidelity itself cannot question this. Let me only note this wondrous unity and continuity of design in a few particulars. 1. In relation to the Coming of a Promised Redeemer.—If there be one thing plainer in the books of the Old and New Testaments than another it is this that the Jews inherited a traditional belief, from the earliest times, of One who was to come into the world, and who, treading down the powers of evil, should purify and restore the world to God. The period of written revelations may occupy, say, 1500 years; but, from their contents, we gather that this great Hope of God's Church had been running on with increasing strength and vividness during a period of oral revelations for, at least, 2500 years previously. Let rationalists say what they like about the authorship or date of the book of Genesis, or of its separate parts; they cannot deny that it embodies this traditional Hope of the Hebrew people, derived from the most primitive ages. This Hope first appears in the belief that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head." Vague and undefined as this hope was, the Church of God is described as living upon it till the time of Abraham, when it broke out in a new revelation destined to be accomplished through the seed of Abraham, "in whom the families of the whole earth should be blessed." The same promise was confirmed again and again to Isaac and to Jacob. In that way the hope went on, supporting the hearts of the Hebrew people, until it broke out once more, with fresh lustre, in a new revelation which announced its fulfilment through the house and family of King David. From this period, again, it was not only never lost sight of, but received continued enlargement by a series of prophetic announcements which made it more and more intensely vivid. Even when David's house fell in the captivity of Judah at Babylon, the hope survived through fresh revelations by Ezekiel and Unity of Scripture Teaching. 239 Daniel. And, again, when the Church was restored to Palestine, it was still further expanded by the three last Prophets. During all this time there was no halting, or cessation of confidence. The Messiah was a living Person who should, doubtless, one day come. At last we reach the New Testament Revelation, when Scripture relates the fulfilment of this hope; not in the way which the great mass of the nation expected, it is true; yet in a manner which exactly harmonized with the predictions given to their fathers. See it, for example, in the following particulars : 2. He was to come as a King. This had been the continuous chronicle of both oral and written revelations. It had been the witness of Jacob,1 of Balaam,2 of David, and still more of the Prophets, in passages too numerous to quote. At last He came; and then this Kingship became the witness both of Evangelists and Apostles. Listen to the Angel who announced His birth,* and to the Magi who came to pay Him homage." Listen to His own declaration of the fact, and to that of St. Peter and St. Paul.' Thus there was but one sustained testimony throughout at least 3000 years. 3. This Kingdom was also to be set up over the whole world, for its final renovation and salvation. 1 Gen. xlix. 10. 4 Luke i. 32, 33. 2 Num. xxiv. 17. 3 Ps. ii. 6. 6 Luke xxiii. 2, 3. 7 Acts v. 31, and 1 Tim. vi. 14, 15. |