Inspiration and Interpretation Part 37

[648] As in the case of the healing of the two blind men at Jericho, (p. 67.): 'Jeremy the Prophet,' (p. 70.): the type of Melchizedek, (pp. 152-6.): a pa.s.sage in Deut. x.x.x. (pp. 191-5.): the conduct of Jael, (pp. 223-230.): &c., &c.

[649] The nominative has, in like manner, to be supplied in the following places:--Gen. xlviii. 10. Exod. iv. 26: x.x.xiv. 28. Deut. x.x.xi.

23. 2 Sam. xxiv. 1. 1 Kings xxii. 19. 2 Kings xix. 24, 25. Job x.x.xv. 15.

Jer. x.x.xvi. 23.--St. Matth. xix. 5. St. Mark xv. 46. St. John viii. 44: xix. 5: xxi. 15-17. Acts xiii. 29. Eph. iv. 8. Col. ii. 14, &c., &c.

[650] Gen. xlix. 29-32; l. 5-13.

[651] Ibid l. 25. Exod. xiii. 19. Josh. xxiv. 32.

[652] Gen. xxiii. 15.

[653] Ibid. xxiii. 10 to 12, 18.

[654] Ibid. xiii. 7.

[655] Ibid. xiii. 7.

APPENDIX E.

(p. 74.)

[_The simplest view of Inspiration the truest and the best._]

"I suppose all thoughtful persons will allow that intellectual licentiousness is the danger of this our intellectual age. For speculation indulges our pride. Faith is an inglorious thing; any one can believe, a cottager just as well as a philosopher: but not all can speculate. The privilege of an intellectually advanced person is that.

And the more novel the view he offers, the more evident the proof it gives of an independent mind. Therefore the danger of a highly advanced state of society like our own, is Theory, as distinguished from Catholic Truth. And the most inviting field of theory, is that high subject, the intercourse which hath gone on between the Intellect above us, and our own; the communications which have been made from the Creator to His creatures. In a word, man is under a temptation to frame a theory of Inspiration; whether his attempts to frame one have been successful, is a matter of much interest to consider.

"I am going to offer a few plain remarks on what the Bible professes to be. I say, professes to be, because those whom I speak to will believe that what it professes to be, it is. I mean they will not suspect the writers of any dishonesty or ambitious pretence. But there may be some readers of the Bible, among persons whose profession is the exercise of the intellect, who are impatient at being left behind in the intellectual race; who, when continental critics are going on into theories of inspiration, do not like the imputation (so freely cast upon us by foreign writers) of being unequal to such things, of having no turn for philosophy. So they must have a theory, or go along with one; they must receive the Bible,--for they do receive it,--in some intellectual way; through some lens which they hold up; with a consciousness of some intellectual action in receiving it, something which not every one could practise, something beyond the mere simple apprehension of terms, and simple faith in embracing propositions.

"But in striking contrast with all such views and all such desires, stands the singular character of the sacred volume itself. It manifestly addresses itself to a mind in an att.i.tude of much simplicity; to a mind coming to receive a theory, not to hold up one; coming to be shaped, not holding out a mould to shape a communication made. For it presents itself as a doc.u.ment containing a message from on high; as conveying the Word of G.o.d; nor can all that is ever said on the subject get beyond this plain account of its contents, 'the Word of G.o.d.' Nor need any one who desires to impress on his own mind and that of others the true character of the sacred page, try to do more than to remind himself that it professes to convey to him the Word of G.o.d."--_Sermons_ by the Rev.

C. P. Eden, pp. 148-150.

"What I desire to impress upon myself and those who hear me is this, that the words of G.o.d are always perfect, always complete; and that the feeling with which a poor cottager sits down to his Bible is the right one, and that the student hath the best hope of successful study who in att.i.tude of mind is most likened to him."--_Ibid._, p. 192.

"The conclusion, then, is this; that Faith hath not been wrong through these many years, in her simple acceptance of G.o.d'S Word. To come round to simplicity, is what we have always had to do in the great questions of Divinity. There have been great questions; they have agitated the Church; but, as I said, to come round to simplicity hath ever been her work first or last. When in the fourth century men refined upon the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and Arians and semi-Arians would be telling us _how_ these things could be, the unity of G.o.d in three Persons; to come round to the simplicity of the Athanasian doctrine, and to disown the several explanatory statements which, offering to explain, explained away, was the Church's work. I am not sure that since the clays of the Arian dispute, a more important question has arisen than that which seems likely to be ere long forcing itself upon us, of the Inspiration of Holy Writ. I freely permit myself to antic.i.p.ate that the simplest possible view of the subject, that on which rich and poor may meet together, is the one to which we shall come round."--_Ibid._, pp. 172-3.

APPENDIX F.

(p. 107.)

[_The written and the Incarnate Word._]

"I suppose we all have learned from the language used by the Evangelist St. John, always to look on each of these two employments of the expression, (the WORD OF G.o.d,) with reference to the other; and to see in each, the other also. I shall not attempt to express more definitely this connexion; I only need to suppose that we all apprehend it as existing. But I shall claim from it thus much to my present purpose;--that as He whom the Evangelist saw riding in the heavenly pomp on high, and who was revealed to him as bearing this t.i.tle, 'The WORD of G.o.d[656],' was the same who rode as at this time into Jerusalem; in humiliation here, in glory there; here veiled, there in brightness unveiled:--I would now a.s.sociate the two, and would regard that sacred volume which the poor cottager knows as the 'Word of G.o.d,' as placed under the same dispensation; as veiled here, reserved for Revelation hereafter. I say, as all the other circ.u.mstances of our condition are certainly to be regarded in this aspect, viz., as things waiting for development; so ordered by a Divine wisdom as that they shall sustain faith and instruct piety now, but shall shew themselves for what they are, (if ever to a created being, yet) only in a later stage than that to which they were given as its present religious provision: as other things, so the written page (I will a.s.sume) which speaks of G.o.d. I a.s.sume that in this world we are using sounds which mean more than we know. I a.s.sume that in our churches we are in the highest sense singing the songs of Sion, of the future and heavenly Sion. If Saints in Heaven shall sing (as we are told they shall) the song of Moses, then the song of Moses is already a song for Heaven; only _there_ we shall know its meaning, or more of it than now we do. And the use which I make of the reflection is, to suggest (as I said) the frame of mind in which we should approach the consideration of the sacred page; such a frame of mind as that no future revelations of the import of that page shall have power to reproach us as having dishonoured it by our interpretations here, and having betrayed an inadequate feeling of what Inspiration was."--_Sermons_, by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp. 180-2.

FOOTNOTES:

[656] Rev. xix. 13.

APPENDIX G.

(p. 112.)

[_The volume of the Old Testament Scriptures, indivisible._]

"In regard of the Old Testament, it will be observed that the whole volume stands or falls altogether. In whatever sense we understand the falling or standing, the volume stands or falls together. Each page of it is committed to the credit of the rest, and the whole book or collection of books is committed to the credit of each page. For this plain reason, that the book as we have it, is the book which, being known in the Jewish Church as the volume of her authentic and sacred Scriptures, our blessed SAVIOUR accepted and referred to as such. By whatever marks the canonicity of the several books was in the first instance attested,--marks which were sufficient for G.o.d'S purpose, and which did His work,--_there_ is the volume. 'It is written,' said our SAVIOUR; that is, in a book which all His nation knew of, and understood to be inspired. The scrupulous care which the Jews shewed in preserving their sacred writings intact, is one of the most remarkable facts in history; it is a fact of which the Christian student can give perhaps the right account, seeing it to have been so ordered in the good providence of G.o.d, that we might have firm ground in calling the book, as we have it, the Word of G.o.d. The volume stands or falls then together; which we may with advantage bear in mind, because it makes an argument which is available for any portion of the volume, available for the whole; and no one can now say, 'You do not surely hold the genealogies in the books of Chronicles, to be inspired: Isaiah and the Psalms may be inspired; but do you mean the same of the long extracts from mere annals?' No man, I say, can take this freedom, until he can extract and remove those chapters from the book which our blessed SAVIOUR unquestionably referred to as the canonical Scriptures of the Church. If a verse stands, the Old Testament stands."--_Sermons_, by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp. 152-3.

APPENDIX H.

(p. 115.)

(Some remarks had been partially prepared for insertion in this place, on Theories of Inspiration: but my volume has already been delayed too long, and has extended to a greater length than was originally contemplated. The paper in question is therefore reserved for the present.)

APPENDIX I.

(p. 117.)

[_Remarks on Theories of Inspiration.--The 'Human Element_.']

"It will be allowed by all persons accustomed to a calm and charitable view of Theological differences, that in those differences there is generally on each side some great truth wrongly held, because taken out of its due place, and wrongly set. Applying this topic to the subject before us, we are led to consider whether a mistake has not been made in bringing forward the Human Element of Inspiration, instead of permitting the eye to rest upon that which G.o.d presents to us,--the Divine. The Human Element no doubt is there; no doubt our Maker acts through our faculties in every respect; no doubt He is acting through laws when He seems to suspend laws; and even in Miracles, employs the powers of Nature instead of thwarting them; but then this is His machinery, which He has not explained to us. He presents Himself to us, acting sometimes supernaturally; i.e. in a way above nature as we understand nature. He made the Sun to stand still for Joshua; what refractive cloud came in and held the daylight that it should not go down is not made known to us; G.o.d said that it should stay, and it stayed; there was the miracle.

To have set the Creation going two thousand years before in such a way and train that in that hour a cloud should rise to refract the sun's rays for a time, because in that hour the LORD's armies would need the interference, the prolonging of the daylight,--that was miracle enough.

We say not that G.o.d interrupts His own laws; nay, rather we believe that He hath them always in smooth and orderly operation. Similarly of Inspiration; we know not the way in which G.o.d acts on human minds, the Spirit on the spirit; for He hath not told us. But, as I said in the beginning, in an age like the present, where a.n.a.lysis of process is the work of men's minds, the way in which man is feeling his strength in every direction, it is not very unnatural that the operations of this philosophy should have been carried beyond their due line; into the subject, namely, of the secret communication between the Divine Spirit, and the spirit and apprehensions of Men, i.e. the Work of Inspiration.

To accept the Bible as the word of G.o.d, just as a cottager or a child in a village school accepts it, is an inglorious thing. He whose intellect is his instrument, that which he is to work with, wishes to feel his intellect operating on any subject which he has to meet. He feels a desire, in apprehending a thing as done, to have as part of his apprehension, a view of how it is done, more or less. It is natural to him to take what he feels to be an intelligent view of a subject. In accepting the Bible therefore as the Word of G.o.d, he must have a view as to _how_ it is the Word of G.o.d; the nature of the illapse which the Spirit from on high makes on the spirit and faculties of the man. In a word, he would get between the Creator, and man to whom the Creator speaks; and _there_ would make his observations. But how little encouragement have we to do this in the Word of G.o.d! When G.o.d sent prophets to speak to men, to convey a message to them from their Maker, or when He tells Apostles to speak to us, doth He invite us to come within the veil with our philosophy, and examine? I shall offend the piety of those who hear me by pursuing the thought. But I cannot but think that something of this kind has been done by those who have presented us with theories of Inspiration, setting forth to us that which it cannot be shewn that G.o.d hath set forth to them, or to any one.

Yes, they are right; our Creator makes use of our faculties; and when He hath given to one man faculties different from those given to another, faculties of whatever kind, of intellectual power or of moral temperament, He employs them all. Hath He a message of Love? He employs a St. John to utter it, and to prolong the delightful note. Hath He a message of freedom, that liberty wherewith CHRIST hath made us free? He hath a Paul ready to accept and to fulfil the congenial errand. But G.o.d speaks, not man; and they who would have us be dwelling on the Human Element, when G.o.d invites us to be lost in the Divine, are doing not well. Yes, G.o.d employs all our faculties: He hath made us different, as He made the flowers of the field different, and Christianity shews us why He hath so made us; because He hath a work for each of us to do,--a work which none else could do so well. Doubtless He employs all our faculties, doing violence to none. This doubtless is His glory, that He can bring about His results by the means which He Himself hath made. Who has not felt, in reading some sacred narrative, the history, e.g. of Joseph, that the wonderful part of it was this, how naturally all came about,--all by natural operation of human motives and man's free will?

So in Inspiration. No doubt G.o.d's instruments which He hath made are enough for His work; no doubt He employs men as they are; not their tongues only, but their minds and spirits, acting on them and employing them as they are. Only in that great process, the point which I call attention to is this,--G.o.d speaks of it as divine, and fixes the thought of those who hear Him on the divine element: we, dropping our view on the human, are not wise. He shews us providence; He condescends to shew us His work: we do not well when we shew an interest rather in lower parts of the scheme, especially when in those we may so greatly err, having so little information."--_Sermons_, by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp.

164-170.

APPENDIX J.