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. "If ever, 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 re searches; 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, in stead 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 fortuitous, 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. i. 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. i. 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 wells of Scripture, and leave them among the burning sands far from the fountain of eternal life. What, after all, do these systems offer to us?——Broken cisterns, clouds without water; at the utmost, perhaps, those imaginary rivulets which the sun of vain—glory will picture to them for a season, like an illusive mirage over the sandy deserts of their natural thoughts.

What would be said of a philosopher who should pretend to seek from Joseph the carpenter, or in the schools of Nazareth, the interpretation of the sayings and doctrines of Jesus Christ? Idle and pernicious! you would exclaim. The same must be said of all those conjectural systems which seek humanly to account for the composition of the Scriptures. Idle and pernicious! say we. Admit inspiration, and all this labour becomes foolish. The Scriptures are the Word of God; they are dictated by Him; and we know that " no prophecy of Scripture came by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. i. 20, 21.)

The account of the nephew of St. Paul, warning his uncle in the Antonian prison of the conspiracy against him, is inspired of God, although Luke may possibly have heard it twenty times from the mouth of the apostle, before he had received it from the Holy Spirit: this account is as much inspired as what is recorded of the invisible messenger who smote Herod upon his throne in the town of Cæsarea. The history of Jacob's ring-straked and speckled sheep is as much dictated by God as the record of the creation of the heavens and the earth. The account of the doom of Ananias and Sapphira is as much inspired as that of the fall of Satan and his angels.

Yes, doubtless, there was a standard document, ac cording to which these holy men of God spake; but, as Bishop Gleig has so well observed, this document was none other than the ministry and life of our Divine Saviour. He was their Prototype.

When, therefore, we hear it asked, From what documents did Matthew derive his account of the birth of Jesus Christ; Luke, that of his early years; Paul, the Saviour's manifestation of himself to St. James, or the words of the Lord on the blessedness of giving; Hosea, the tears of Jacob; and Jude, the prophecy of Enoch, and Michael's contention about the body of Moses? Let us answer, They obtained them from the source where Moses learned the creation of the heavens and the earth. "The Holy Spirit," says the illustrious Claude, "has used the pen of the evangelists and apostles, of Moses and of the prophets; he instructed them when to write; and he gave them the desire and the strength for the work. The matter, the order, the method, and the expressions, are by his immediate inspiration and direction

We have just shown how a sound apprehension of the nature of the inspiration of the Scriptures will shield the young from two considerable errors of modern criticism, and at the same t me enable them to derive from Science all the benefit which she can bestow. The first of these aberrations we have said is to pretend to judge the Scriptures, after having received them collectively as authentic: the second is to give way to dangerous speculations upon the sacred books. the sacred books. But we have yet to consider one important relation existing between science and the great question before us.

Sacred Criticism is only the doorway of the Temple.

Science is a portico which leads to the temple of the Scriptures: never forget that she is not the deity within it, and that her residence is not within the edifice. In other terms, be careful when you study sacred criticism not to carry it beyond its proper boundary, even in its connection with science; dismiss it ere you enter the temple.

Here, then, is our argument. If, indeed, you enter the temple of the Scriptures, then not only will you find it written by the hand of God on all its walls that God fills it, and that he is everywhere; but you will moreover experience the proof of this: you will see him everywhere, you will feel him to be everywhere. That is, when you read attentively the oracles of God, you not only find the frequent declaration of their entire inspiration by God, but you receive through unexpected touches, and often by the power of a verse, or even of a word, a conviction of the Divinity which pervades the whole.

It must not be imagined that we depreciate the investigations of science. It happens, however, but too often that a prolonged study of the outworks of the sacred book of its history, manuscripts, versions, language, & c.—so absorbs the attention of those who devote themselves to it, that they become inattentive to its more intimate characteristics, its import, its aim, the moral power displayed, the beauties disclosed, and the life which flows from it; yet as there exists an essential relation between these characteristics and those which are external, there result to one so exercised two grievous evils. As a mortal, he stifles his spiritual life, and perils his eternal life (but it is not of this evil that we speak in these pages);—as a scholar, he compromises Science, and renders himself incapable of a sound appreciation of the very objects with which she is occupied. Alone, science remains incoherent and crippled, and thereby restricted and abased. Can such an one be acquainted with the temple? He has seen only its stones—he knows nothing of the Shekinah! Can he understand the types? He has no intelligence of the Antitype—he has seen nothing but the altars, the sheep, the knives, the vessels, the blood, the fire, the incense, the garments, and the ceremonies—he has never seen the redemption of the world, futurity, heaven, and the glory of Jesus Christ! In this condition he cannot even trace the relations which these external objects have with each other, because he has entirely failed to understand their harmony with the whole. A learned man devoid of faith, who in the days of Noah might have acquainted himself with the construction of the ark, would not only himself have perished, but would have remained in ignorance of a great many of the very objects which he pretended to appreciate.

Would you know the qualifications of a physician?—You will doubtless inform yourself of his country, of the universities in which he has studied, and examine the testimonials by which he is recommended: but when he shall come and speak of your most occult ailments, and define to you all the symptoms of your malady; when he shall tell you of feelings, of which, though vaguely felt, you had the conscious reality; and especially when he administers to your lips the only medicine which had ever given you relief; oh! then would not such experience bespeak his skill far better than his diplomas

Well; this is the advice which we venture to give to all those of our readers who have acquired any knowledge of sacred criticism:—Read the Bible; study the Bible in itself and for itself; inquire, if you will, where it has taken degrees, and in what schools its writers have studied; but come to its consultations like a sick man eager to be cured; take as much pains to understand its words as you would to understand its credentials, its history, and its language; and then not only will you be cured (which is not here the question), but you will be enlightened:—" He that healed me said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk. Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." (John v. 11; ix. 25.)

Read then the Bible: complete your science by adding this to it. It is the Bible which will convince you; it is that which will tell you whether it is from God: and when you have heard its voice, now more powerful than the noise of mighty waters, and anon sweet and winning like that which greeted the ear of Moses "The Lord merciful and gracious, pitiful and of tender mercy, abounding in grace, the God of consolation, the God who pardons abundantly:" oh! then, we take upon ourselves to affirm it, you will experience that the simple reading of a psalm, a narrative, a precept, a verse, and even one word of a verse, will more powerfully prove to you the Divine Inspiration of the entire Scripture than could the most eloquent and pro found among philosophers or books. You will then see, hear, and feel that God is everywhere in it; you will no longer inquire whether it is throughout inspired, for you will feel it to be powerful and efficacious, discerning the thoughts and affections of the heart, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; " causing tears to flow from deep and secret sources, overwhelming you with irresistible power, and restoring you with a tenderness and sympathy which can be found only in God.

What we have here said is only in the way of counsel; but we are about to show in what respect these considerations may be presented, if not as a proof, at least as a powerful presumption in favour of the inspiration even of the words of Scripture. We will, in deed, point out to our readers a three-fold experience in it, which has ever produced deep conviction in the hearts of Christians, whose testimony ought at least to appear worthy of the most serious consideration,

Undoubtedly one of the strongest proofs of the Divinity of the Scriptures is that inherent sublimity which fills us with amazement and reverence. It is the imposing unity of this book, composed during a period of fifteen hundred years by so many authors, some of whom wrote two centuries before the fabled times of Hercules, Jason, and the Argonauts; others in the heroic days of Priam, Achilles, and Agamemnon; others in the times of Thales and Pythagoras; others in those of Seneca, Tacitus, Plutarch, Tiberius, and Domitian; who all, nevertheless, pursue the same plan, and undeviatingly move forward, as if by common consent, to one single transcendent object—the history of the redemption of the world by the Son of God:—it is this vast harmony of the entire Scriptures,—this Old Testament filled with Jesus Christ, like the New, this universal history uninterruptedly pursuing its on ward course, which records the revolutions of empires to the end of time, and which, when the picture of present scenes is finished, carries our view over those of futurity, even until the period when the kingdoms of this world become the possession of Jesus Christ and his saints. On the first page we have the world created to receive the sinless man; in the following pages, the earth cursed to receive man sinning continually; and in the last page, a new earth to receive man who will sin no more. On the first page we have the forbidden tree of life, paradise forfeited, sin entering into the world by the first Adam, and death by sin;—in the last page, paradise regained, life re entering the world through the second Adam, death vanquished, sorrow and sighs no more seen, the image of God restored in man, and the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God. Surely in this majestic whole, which had its beginning ere man was formed, and which continues to the end of time, there is a powerful and altogether celestial unity, developing throughout ages a universal and mighty convergent operation, whose sublimity arrests the mind, surpasses all human conceptions, and proclaims the Divinity of its author as irresistibly as a view of the star—spangled heavens on a summer's night, and the contemplation of all the luminous orbs which circle day and night in the boundless expanse! Myriads of objects in one close band of perfect harmony," said one of the earliest fathers. But besides these beauties which the Scriptures present, we have further to contemplate some thing not less glorious, which also reveals to us the operation of God in their minutest details, and which attests to us their verbal inspiration.¹

There are three classes of persons, or rather three kinds of experience, which bear testimony to this:—

1. And, first, if you consult those whose entire lives have been occupied in meditating upon the Scriptures, in order to feed daily the flocks of the Lord, they will tell you that the more they have devoted themselves to this blessed study, and applied themselves to examine closely the oracles of God, the more their admiration of the letter of Scripture has increased. Surprised gradually by unexpected beauties, they have recognised, even in its least expressions, Divine foresight, profound relations, and spiritual grandeur, which are often brought to light by some slight corrections of the translation, or by a protracted consideration of the details of some single verse. He who has occupied his soul with the study of some text of Scripture will tell you that soon he has been constrained to use the language of the naturalist, while closely examining with the microscope the delicate and wondrous structure of a leaf of the forest. He who made the forest made the leaf, cries the one;—Yes, exclaims the other, and He who made the Bible made the verses also which compose it.

2. A second order of experience, whose testimony we would also invoke, is that of the interpreters of the prophecies. They will all tell you, as soon as they had devoted some time to the study of the Bible, how manifestly they recognised that in its miraculous pages every verse and word, without exception, even to a particle apparently the most indifferent, must have been given by God. The slightest alteration in a verb or adverb, or in the most simple conjunction, might betray the interpreter into very serious error. It has often been remarked, that wherever the prophecies which are now accomplished were misunderstood be fore the event, it mainly resulted from the details of the text not having been studied with sufficient attention. Of this we could here cite many instances.

3. But there is yet a class of persons who, if it be possible, attest still more triumphantly the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, even in their least details. These are Christians who have felt their power in the first place in the conversion of their souls, and after wards in the conflicts which have ensued. Go to the biography of those who were great in the kingdom of God, and see the moment when they passed from death unto life; and interrogate those around you who in their turn have felt this power of the Word of God, and they will all render unanimous testimony. When the holy Scriptures laid hold upon their consciences, bowed them at the foot of the cross, revealed to them the love of God, that which first arrested them was not the whole Bible, nor a chapter, but a verse; it was indeed almost always one word of this verse. Yes, we say, one word was to them as the slender point of the connecting wire of some vast battery, or as the keen edge of a sword wielded by the omnipotent hand of God. They felt it to be living and efficacious, searching the thoughts and affections of the heart, "piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow. 'It was a power from God, concentrated in a single word, which made it become to them "like as a fire, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces."² In the moment of their need they had read a psalm, or some words in the prophets, or some sentences in the epistles, or some narrative of sacred history; and as they read, lo! a voice sounded in the ear of their consciences with a hitherto unfelt, yet constraining and irresistible power. It was but a word, perhaps; but this word took pos session of the soul; spoke there, preached there, and reverberated there like the pealing of unnumbered bells, calling to fasting and to supplication ere the coming of Jesus Christ! It was only a word; but that word was from God. It was but one apparently of the most insignificant of the strings of that heaven descended harp, but it sounded in unison with the heart of man; it produced unexpected thrilling harmony, which excited their every emotion, and they felt that God himself had strung and tuned it; they recognised in it the call of Jesus.

Such is the voice of the church; such through all time has been the unanimous testimony of the saints. The inspiration which the Bible claims for itself (say they) we have acknowledged. We unquestionably believe it because of its own attestation thereto; but we also believe it because we have seen it, and are ourselves enabled to bear witness to it by blessed experience and an irresistible conviction of its truth.

A thousand similar examples might be adduced. Let us content ourselves by referring here to two of the most distinguished minds that ever served as guides to their fellow—men. Call to remembrance in what way light was given to the two greatest luminaries of ancient and modern times; and that it was a single word in the Scriptures which, at a moment appointed by God, introduced into their minds the enlightening power of the Holy Ghost. Luther, while yet a monk, was on his way to Rome.

He was on a sick—bed at Bologna, in a foreign land, overwhelmed with the burden of his sins, and thinking himself just about to appear before God. It was in this condition that the seventeenth verse of the first chapter of Romans, "The just shall live by faith," came to irradiate his whole being, as it were, with heavenly light. This single word was twice fastened upon his mind with irresistible power: in the first place at Bologna, where it imparted to him strength and unspeakable joy; and afterwards in Rome itself, to arrest and raise him up, while with an idolatrous multitude he was on his knees dragging his body up the fabled staircase of Pilate. This word was the commencement of the Reformation of the West. "Creative word, both for the Reformer and the Reformation! (emphatically observes D’Aubigné). It was by it that God then said, "Let there be light, and there was light.'"" In truth, says the Reformer himself, I felt myself entirely re—born; and this word was to me the true gate of paradise.

Shall we not here be reminded, further, of the greatest among the learned of Christian antiquity, Augustine, who, lying in his garden near Milan, dejected, without peace, feeling, like Luther, a tempest in his soul—prostrate under a fig—tree, groaning and weeping bitterly,—heard from a neighbouring house a youthful voice singing and rapidly repeating by way of chorus, "Tolle, lege! Tolle, lege!"—"Take and read! Take and read!" He went to Alypius to get the scroll of Paul's epistles which he had left there; he seized it, opened it, and read in silence the chapter which first met his eye; and when he came to the thirteenth verse of the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, all was decided by a word. Jesus had conquered, and the great career of the most holy of learned men then commenced. One word, but that a word from God, had kindled that brilliant luminary whose lustre was to extend over ten centuries of the Church's existence, and whose radiance cheers her even now. After thirty—one years of rebellion, conflicts, relapses, and wretchedness, faith, life, and peace had descended into this erring soul; a new day, an eternal day had arisen upon it. Having read these words, he desired no more; he closed the book; all doubt (he declares) was dispelled; for "with the close of this sentence a stream of light and security was poured upon his mind, and his long night of doubts and fears had passed away."

There is yet one other experience of the same character which we think too striking to pass over, although its testimony may be lightly esteemed, except among those who already believe. The further an individual advances in the Christian life, receiving a more abundant measure of the Spirit of God, the more remarkable will be the character of opposition which, on the one hand, the Scripture, and on the other the most esteemed writings of men, will assume in his mind. He will be observed to be increasingly independent of the works and words of men, because he has learnt that they can yield him no continuous instruction; after a few times' perusal, he has received all they have to give him. How blessedly otherwise is it with the Scriptures; how contrasted the attention he will pay to them; ever more and more convinced of the wisdom they reveal, and of their Divine power,—ever increasingly affected by their smallest word,—ever better able to feed upon and enjoy by day or by night their single passages and fragments! There is in this fact, for those who can appreciate it, much that is impressive and interesting.

Such is, then, the triple testimony which we would invoke, and by which the church attests to us that there is energy from God pervading the very least de tails of the holy word, and that the whole of Scripture is divinely inspired.

We are, however, anxious to be rightly understood. In making this appeal we do not pretend to impose the experience of some upon others.

Evidences which result from feelings are, we are aware, only evidences to those who have felt them. These have doubtless an irresistible power with those who, having experienced them, have thus seen the testimonies of the Word of God evidently confirmed; but nothing could be less logical than to present them as demonstrations to those who are as yet strangers to them. If you had enjoyed these experiences, you would already be more than convinced, and we should have nothing further to tell you. We have only therefore presented them to you as strong historical presumptions, thereby to dispose you to receive with a readier submission the scriptural proofs which we have already placed before you. A numerous multitude of instructed and pious people, we say, attest to you through past ages, by a varied experience, that in studying the Word of God they have been led to acknowledge the manifest inspiration of Scripture even in its least words; let this at least serve as a powerful recommendation to listen with respect and without prejudice to the testimonies to its own character which the Bible itself contains. We ask that at least this voice from the church may be to you the cry from a neighbouring house—Take and read! Take and read! Go and take your Bible; read it in solitude! and you will yourself feel how far its inspiration extends; you, too, will say, like Augustine, I doubt no more, for the day—star has arisen in my heart!

1) We may add to this the seasonable language of one of other days:—"Wouldst thou know that the matters contained in the word of Christ are real things? Then never read them for mere knowledge' sake. Look for some beams of Christ's glory and power in every verse. Account nothing knowledge, but as it is seasoned with some revelation of the glorious presence of Christ and his quickening Spirit. Use no conference about spiritual truths for conference sake, but still mind the promotion of edification."

2) Jer. xxiii. 29. And in contrast with all words that are not his, however venerable, the Lord asks in the verse preceding, "What is the chaff to the wheat? " We may then place the best writings and traditions beside the Scriptures and say, "What is the chaff to the wheat?"