Section VI. The Scriptures

In a preceding chapter I inquired into the meaning of certain indications of a spiritual and universal constitution which offered themselves to us while we were studying the actual phenomena of the world and its past history. We wanted some help to explain these to us, and to tell us how they should exist, and yet the acknowledgment of this constitution by men should seem to be the exception rather than the rule. We found this help in the documents which compose our Bible. These documents profess to reveal a constitution, which is declared to be the Divine constitution for man. It is revealed first to a particular family, then to a particular nation, then, through that family and nation, to mankind. But this revelation is a history. The acts of this family and this nation, and the acts by which their possession becomes a universal one, embody the discovery. The oppositions which arise without and within this family and nation to the principle upon which they are founded, explain to us the contradiction between the will of man and the order in which he is placed. They make us conscious of the existence of two societies, one formed in accordance with the order of God, the other based upon self-will.

Now, as the Bible declares that the constitution which it affirms to be the true one should last for ever, and as it speaks of a society grounded upon that constitution which is to last for ever, we wished to inquire what signs there are of such a society in the world at this present moment. We have discovered some, which seem to import the existence of it; we have inquired whether they correspond with the signs of it which we found set down in Scripture. Thus we have referred to the Bible, not only to clear up our difficulties respecting the meaning of God in His universe, but also to tell us how far that meaning is effectual for us at this day, not only to make known the nature of the order in which we are placed, but also the outward shape of the body in which that order is expressed.

It may seem, then, that the purpose and character of the Scriptures have been already investigated as much at large as the limits of a book like this can permit, especially as the subject has already come before us in another shape, while we were discussing the opinions of different religious bodies. But it can hardly escape the observation of any reader, that if there be such a book as the Bible has seemed to us to be, it must not only interpret to us the signs of a spiritual and universal kingdom, but must be itself one of the most remarkable of those signs. And if so, we may, perhaps, by considering its relation to the other signs of which we have spoken, obtain a solution of some difficulties which much embarrass the newer student.

I. 1. This view of the general intent of the Scriptures seems to shew: how particular books may have been ascertained to form a part of them, or to have no claims of admission to them. To conceive the possibility of a canon of Scripture is the same thing as to conceive the possibility of Scripture itself. If one be necessary, the other is necessary. If one be supposed to be formed by human agency, there is no difficulty in supposing that human agency should have been most proper for the other. Regard the Bible merely as an isolated thing, and it is no doubt hard to understand how such an authority as that of fixing what it is, should have been exercised by any persons who were not employed in the writing of it. Look upon it as the witness of a permanent kingdom, believe that it is a part of the plan of God for the establishment and building up of that kingdom, and there is surely no difficulty in supposing that wisdom adequate to the work of determining, with all necessary practical exactness, what books did and what did not contain the authentic history of this kingdom, should have been imparted to men, whose offices proclaimed that they could not fulfil their most ordinary tasks by any wisdom of their own.

2. By looking at the Scriptures as the sign of a spiritual and universal kingdom, we seem able to reconcile several methods or schemes for interpreting them, which often present themselves to us as contradictory and exclusive. For instance, it has been one well-known tendency of men to look for a mystical character in them, to suppose that beneath the letter some secret cabbala must be lurking. It has been the tendency of another class to maintain the strictness and sufficiency of the letter, and indignantly to repudiate every recondite meaning as inconsistent with the simplicity of a revelation. Now every sign of this kingdom which we have considered hitherto has partaken of this double character; it has pointed to a relation which is invisible, mystical, transcendent; it has been in itself plain, definite, visible. The relation which it expressed was real and permanent; here lay the necessity of a sign which had nothing in it of a fluctuating character, which did not derive its strength from the notions and apprehensions of men, which spoke to all. One would certainly expect to find the same principle holding good in the case of this other sign; one would think that the more simple, accurate, and historical the outward clothing was, the more it would be felt to embody some higher principle.

Again; it has been a great controversy whether each part of these records should be taken to have a distinct definite meaning, applicable to some particular event and crisis, or whether it may have a remote application to some other crisis, or even to a series of yet undeveloped events. Now supposing the Bible to be the history of the gradual development and manifestation of a kingdom fixed upon certain permanent principles, it seems the most natural supposition, that it would always exhibit these principles in reference to some present or approaching contingency, yet that it would explain similar contingencies and circumstances to the end of time. Refusing to acknowledge the first event, we lose the principle; determined to restrict it to some other event of our own selection, we compel ourselves to depart from the letter without gaining anything for the spirit. We may be right in our feeling that the particular event we have fixed upon does fall under the law which this part of Scripture makes known to us; we are almost sure to be wrong when we restrain the application of the law to that given event. These conclusions proceeded naturally from the belief that the Scriptures are not to be looked upon apart from the spiritual kingdom.

3. Hence also we seem to obtain the solution of another, and what strikes many as a more difficult problem, Where are the interpreters of this book to be found? How is it at once to be a lawgiver, and yet to be subject to the maxims and rules of interpretation of those who are its subjects? The difficulty is the same as in all previous cases. Take the Bible as a solitary fact, speak of it simply as the Word of God addressing itself to man, without inquiring what this Word of God affirms man to be, what kind of order it says that he is placed in; and there must be endless puzzles to ascertain in what position of simple acquiescence of earnest inquiry such utterances are to be received, whether each man is to grasp them for himself, or whether his fellows are in any wise helping him to grasp them.

But let it be supposed that the words speak as they seem to speak, of men being placed in a certain Divine order—of God, as addressing them in that order—it would seem plain enough that the words will be realised just so far as we avail ourselves of our position, missed just so far as we reject it. The difficulty of understanding how, through the help of Christ’s ministers, we may attain to a practical insight into the facts and principles which this book makes known, how, choosing to dispense with that help, we shall be most likely to go astray, is precisely the difficulty which is supposed in all education; or, would it not be more correct to say, that here we find the key to the puzzles of ordinary education, because we arrive at a point, where we find God proclaiming Himself as the Educator, and marking out those through whom He will educate? The difficulty which arises from the discovery that these ministers may forget their task, and instead of calling out the personal life and apprehension of their disciples, stifle them with mere words and notions, is still the same problem of daily life repeated, only that we perceive more clearly against whom the sin is committed, and what the responsibility for it is. The difficulty of comprehending how men should teach out of a book, which they acknowledge to overreach themselves, and to be above them, is but the difficulty of every magistrate and judge who is set for the purpose of bringing out into light and clearness the meaning of the Law which he both administers and obeys, who may, doubtless, put himself in the place of it, may read himself into it, may choose to keep it from men instead of guiding them into an intelligent submission to it, but who acts in this way at his peril, bringing himself under the sentence, if of no earthly superior, of One who yet, in this spiritual kingdom, holds His constant and acknowledged court of appeal.

II. These questions are debated between those who are agreed in acknowledging the Scriptures as possessing Divine authority. Let us now consider the objections of those who either reject the notion of a Bible altogether, or who see no special reason why the books which we hold sacred should usurp the name.

These objections may be stated in this way. ‘Ever since the critical spirit and knowledge of modern Europe have been brought to bear upon these documents, it has been found more and more difficult to maintain the claims which are put forth on their behalf by the elder Church as well as by the Reformers. Supposing the doctrine of their inspiration, of their paramount authority to all other books, of their fixed and peculiar character, to be true, the detection of any unauthentic record amongst them, of any report which will not bear sifting, even of any considerable error in the reading of a text which had been used to support some opinion, must be sufficient to shake the credit of the whole scheme. It was, therefore, unquestionably honest in those early critics who wished to assert the general authority of the book, that they ventured to commence these fatal inroads. But if they were not stopped at first, they certainly cannot be stopped now. The principle of criticism, which has been admitted as to a part, must be applied to the whole. Whatever maxim has been thought just, and has stood the test of inquiry in reference to other books, must be brought to bear upon these. And little help will be derived in our day from those evidences, which in the last century were thought so conclusive. The credit of the book was supposed to be sustained by the miracles which are recorded in it, by the consistency of the facts with the general testimony of antiquity, by the admirable character of the four narratives which form the centre of it, by its ideal truth and consistency. Now those miracles are the very stories which we require should be accounted for. The testimony of antiquity has been proved only to establish the existence of certain habits of thought and feeling in different nations, which will themselves account for what has been supposed to be peculiar in these records. The four narratives have been subjected to a severe analysis, and it has been found most difficult to understand either their internal history or their relation to outward events. Finally, the supposed ideal consistency has been examined of the whole record, and has been shewn, indeed, to be an explanation of the phenomena of Christianity, but in a way most unsatisfactory to those who regard it as embodied in a series of facts.’

This is a statement, I hope it is a fair statement, of the objections which are now current in all parts of society, and which, when they do not appear as a complete system of arguments, are only the more effectual, because they suggest the thought that much has been left unsaid which would be quite conclusive if it might safely be uttered.

I begin, then, with admitting that I do not see how it is possible for those who look upon the Scriptures merely as a set of documents contrived for the instruction of individual men, merely as a witness to them of what has been done for them, of what the plans and purposes of God respecting them are, to encounter some of these arguments. I do not mean that they may not encounter them practically, in what seems to me a most honest and effectual method. If they will resolutely hold fast that which they have felt and ascertained in their own lives to be true; if they will say, ‘This we have learnt and received; the Bible taught it us, and we cannot give it up for any arguments;’ I believe their position is a safe and impregnable one. It is not a position of prejudice, it is a reasonable and sound position; it is founded upon the first and wisest maxim of ethical philosophy, Keep what thou hast; add to it if thou canst; but if thou wishest to realise more, never let anything which thou hast realised be snatched away from thee. The difficulty is that few people in our day are likely to be content with this position. They will be going out of it with their arguments and their evidences, with their attempts to prove how and why a book having the character which they impute to the Bible, must be Divine and perfect. Here I think they will be discomfited. This logic is not a part of their realised truths, it is something altogether extraneous to them. And what is worse, they do not yet know what it is they are arguing about; for they may have derived these individual facts from the Bible; but the Bible itself evidently assumes to be something else; it assumes to be a collection of historical documents, and the question is, how this assumption is connected with that quality of it which they have discovered and recognized.

Are we, then, to hope that those who are willing to consider it principally as a collection of historical documents, and as such to defend it, will be able to maintain their position? I think writers of this class will bring forward much that is very valuable, much that their opponents cannot without great difficulty and without some dishonesty reply to; I think they will do more than this; they will be enabled to leave an impression upon thoughtful and sincere minds, that there are facts existing in the world now, and that there has been a series of such facts, of which these books may offer the explanation. But here again, the difficulty is to find how these facts cohere, how it is that they are related to the doctrines and principles which these books embody; why it is necessary to suppose any Divine oversight in the arrangement and preservation of them.

Are we then to say, as the objector affirms we must say, that criticism is wholly inapplicable to this particular set of records; that they must be taken for granted upon some authority or other, be it that of primitive antiquity, or of the Church in the present day; and that, being so taken for granted, all further inquiry respecting them is to be discarded? Every one will see that there is a plausibility in this opinion; nay, there is more than plausibility, there is a truth hidden in it which we must not deny. As long as we receive the Scriptures at all, as long as we do not determine absolutely to reject them, we must in the education of our own minds, in the education of our children’s minds, take them for granted. We cannot begin with being critics, or with making them critics. If we do, we and they will assuredly be most miserable critics, and as certainly we and they shall be nothing else. But do we not in this respect deal with the Scriptures as we deal with other books? We take them for granted too; we do not in merely reading or in teaching them, enter into a criticism of the sources whence they are derived or of the conditions of their authority. There comes a time, however, when other books are subjected to this trial; it has been the will of God that the book which we consider pre-eminently His should be subjected to the same. It is a solemn inquiry for us, whether we shall dare to pretend that we will take better care of His book than He has taken of it; whether we shall affirm that it cannot bear the application of tests, which we believe that ordinary literature will bear.

And this brings us to the main question which I wish to place before the reader, What has been the character of that criticism to which the Scriptures have been for the most part subjected during the last century and a half? I do not ask whether it has been sound criticism, learned criticism, devout criticism. It may have had any or all of these characters. But what has been its object? The safest answer with respect to the last century may be obtained from a consideration of what was the object of all criticism, whether it referred to the human body or the human soul, to the universe or to the creatures who lived in it. Nearly every philosopher of that day thought it was the business of his life to analyze; he was to analyze the operations of the mind, to analyze himself, to analyze his fellow-creatures, to analyze the being of his Maker. Do I say that all this labour was wasted, that nothing came out of the inquiries and dissections of that period? I say no such thing; I believe much was learnt from them; that many false notions and phantoms, which men had transferred from themselves to the objects of their study, were got rid of; many idols thrown down, broken in pieces, and trampled upon, which had beset the caves of thoughtful men or the market-places of busy men. But the great lesson of all which this method of study bequeathed to us, was the lesson of its own utter incapacity to lead into the apprehension of any truth, though it might avail for the discomfiture of some error. Hence every step that has been taken in our day towards real profitable inquiry, whether in physics or metaphysics, has been a step out of this method, a step towards the investigation of the powers and principles of things as they exist; not an attempt, except for certain subordinate purposes, to reduce them into their elements. Above all, this change has been effected in reference to literature. Here the analytical spirit of the last age displayed itself in its full power; every book was to be cut up into its elements, and whatever elements did not please the critic to be cast out as worthless; nothing whatever was done in the study of a book as a whole, nothing towards the discovery of the purpose which actuated and informed it. The Scriptures were treated in the same manner. The fact of their constituting a whole, which had been felt as a whole by innumerable minds for many centuries, was more and more overlooked as utterly unimportant to the critic and the philosopher. He could not deny that they had a common name, but his business was to shew what separate items went to the composition of this name, and then to pursue his inquiries with as little reference as possible to it. Of course it was part of the ordinary philosophy at the period, that everything in this book, which spoke of invisible powers, should be explained away. The object was to discover how many of its elements might be preserved, without infringing upon the ordinary maxims of the time in reference to physics, metaphysics, and ethics.

Now I would say, in reference to these inquiries, just as I said in reference to all others undertaken at the same period, that I do not believe they were useless, or will ultimately be mischievous. If the student of the physics of the seventeenth century perceives that there were a multitude of strange theories and superstitions then accumulated and accumulating, which had need by some whirlwind to be swept away; the student of theology must equally confess that a number of hard, dogmatical abstractions respecting spiritual objects, and, not least, respecting the books which treat of these objects, were darkening the face of the heavens, and making men’s path along their common earth less clear. That some fiery process would be necessary for the destruction of these, we might conjecture. Of what kind it should be, we could not be judges. God ordained that it should be this destructive analysis. We cannot doubt that what He appointed was best. Many obstructions to the perception of that which is real and substantial have been removed out of the path of the young theologian; it is his own fault if he seeks for them again. He may, if he will, be less entangled with the abstractions and conceits of the intellect than his forefathers were. And in this case, as in the others I have mentioned, the analysts have conferred this great blessing on us—they have proved the inadequacy and feebleness of their method to explain any one living fact, or to lead us onward to any one important discovery.

When, therefore, the objectors of whom we are speaking, say that the Bible ought to be tried by the same rules as other books, we can perhaps go a great way with them, provided we understand what they mean. It always, I believe, will be tried by the same standard as other books; that is to say, the habits of mind which we cultivate in regard to one, we shall cultivate in regard to the other. When all books are merely cut up into their elements, the Bible will be dealt with in like manner. When other books, and the whole series of books which constitute the literature of a nation, are contemplated in reference to their principle or idea, it is utterly impossible but that these should be studied upon the same principle. And the question arises, what is this principle or idea? We have had occasion to consider that view of it, so prevalent in our day, which tries to separate the idea from the event, to exhibit the one as common to all ages, the other as its mere accidental temporary clothing. I have endeavoured to shew how inadequate this doctrine is to account for the phenomena which present themselves to us in the history of the world; how it turns living ideas into mere notions and apprehensions of our minds, and so legalizes and stamps with authority the very superstitions from which it seeks to deliver us; how it confounds the permanent and the transitory in the very attempt to distinguish them; how it destroys human progress in the very attempt to assert it. If, indeed, it were possible entirely to separate this modern idealism from the old analytical method which it professes to supersede and to despise, we might easily prove the insufficiency of either. The chief strength of each lies in a vague notion of the one being the expansion and full development of the other; in a loose impression that the belief of inspiration, of miracles, of a Gospel history, which had been partially subverted by the one, has been completely subverted by the other.

The facts, in recent German history especially, which prove that the ideal system could not have been produced at all, if it had not been preceded by a vehement religious protest against the analysts, are not known or not heeded; and we are asked what hope there can be of maintaining our obsolete notions respecting a Divine order and a Divine book, when each age has furnished its own peculiar and appropriate refutation of them. Our answer is, ‘No hope at all, if what you call our notions be not something more than notions, if they be not founded on eternal principles and truths. But, on the other hand, the belief that they have this foundation is strengthened not weakened, by the history of these different attempts to confute them; strengthened not weakened by the fact, that no adequate answer has been offered to the particular charges against the Bible, except by those who are willing to speak of the Bible in the way it seems to speak of itself, as the revelation of a Divine kingdom.’

1. Looking at it in this light, I would inquire, first, what difficulties there are in the old notion that the writers of the book were inspired men? According to the principle of a spiritual kingdom, as we have considered it, inspiration is not a strange anomalous fact; it is the proper law and order of the world; no man ought to write, or speak, or think, except under the acknowledgment of an inspiration; no man can speak, or write, or think if he have not really an inspiration. Is, then, the constant habitual confession of Divine teaching, the reference of everything to God by the writers of this Bible, something which stamps them with the character of impostors? Would not this seem to be the characteristic of true men? But still you say ‘it is the characteristic of fanatics, of those who are not true men; where do you draw the line?’ I draw it in this way:—I say, according to the principle of a spiritual kingdom, every man who is doing the work he is set to do, may believe that he is inspired with a power to do that work; every man who is doing some other work which he is not set to do may, indeed, say that he is using powers which he has received from above; but he is violating the purposes for which those powers have been given him: his will is obeying an impulse contrary to the will of the Being who bestowed the power. Here is fanaticism, here is confusion. The question, therefore, is not really, Were these men who wrote the Scriptures inspired by God? but, Were they in a certain position and appointed to a certain work? So that we are driven by this argument, as we are driven by the book itself, from that which we read to that which we read of. Was there such a society as that which this book speaks of? was there such a nation as the Jews? had they a history? was there a meaning in that history? does this book explain to us their history and its meaning? The question of inspiration belongs to these questions—cannot be viewed apart from them. If there be no spiritual kingdom in the world, no kings, priests, prophets appointed by God, then assuredly I cannot make out that the Scriptures had a right to describe such kings, and priests, and prophets. If there were such men, I have as great difficulty in understanding how we can dispense with such a record, or how any Being, except Him who formed the society for the sake of His own glory and for the good of His creatures, can have caused that book to be written.

But it will be answered: ‘This is evading the difficulty. It is not merely the men, but the words, which, according to the common theory, are inspired. And though less extravagant theories may have been invented and received among Christians, yet none which denies a verbal inspiration or dictation is consistent with itself, is anything but a subterfuge.’ Two words are used here as synonymous, which seem to involve the most different significations. When you speak to me of verbal inspiration, though I do not like the phrase, though it seems to me to involve a violent—a scarcely grammatical—ellipsis, yet I subscribe most unequivocally to the meaning which I suppose is latent in it. I have no notion of inspired thoughts which do not find for themselves a suitable clothing of words. I can scarcely, even in my mind, separate the language of a writer from his meaning. And I certainly find this difficulty greater in studying a book of the Bible than in studying any other book. The peculiarities of its language seem to me strangely significant. And yet its greatest peculiarity of all, if I may be pardoned the solecism, is its universality, its capacity of translation into any dialect which has a living and human quality, which is not merely the echo of passing impressions and the utterance of animal necessities. But just because I see this link between the inbreathed thought and the spoken word, I must reject as monstrous and heretical the notion of a dictation. I call it monstrous and heretical, for I know none more directly at variance with the letter and spirit of Scripture. If the hint of it is to be found anywhere, it is certainly in the history of the giving of the divine Code. That was, of course, a formal literal document, and therefore is signified to proceed formally and literally from its Author. Yet mark how carefully we are warned against the notion, so natural to the sensual and idolatrous heart of man, that Moses was a mere mechanical utterer or transcriber. Why are we told that he went into the thick darkness? why do we hear of his awful communion for forty days? why have we the records of his deep sympathy with his people, of his prayers, his meditations, his murmurings, if not that we may be exalted to understand something of the human privilege of spiritual intercourse, and that we may consider this the great privilege of the most honoured seer? And this surely is the object of all Scripture, if it have any object at all, to withdraw us from outward sensual impressions of the Divine Majesty, to make us feel the reality of the relation between Him and His creatures, to make us understand that it is a spiritual relation, and that, therefore, it can manifest itself in outward words and acts. It is, then, no concession to the Rationalist, but a necessity of our own faith, that we should utterly reject and abhor this theory of dictation. And it remains for him to shew how the discovery of different readings in Mss., or the rejection of books as not genuine, which are now esteemed to be parts of the Canon, or even the detection of historical inconsistencies and mistakes in the inspired writers, would affect our belief. With regard to the new readings, just in proportion to our feeling of the importance and sacredness of the language, must be our desire to find what it really is. If there be no Bible, these investigations are idle and useless; if there be, they must be most interesting. The mental exercise in such inquiries must be most healthful, involving, if it be rightly conducted, the necessity of reflection upon the whole mind and scope of the text, a cautious and calm use of the judging faculty, a faith in the existence of truth, and in its willingness to reveal itself. Again; any person who really believes that there is a book, of which the distinct office is to explain the nature and conditions of a kingdom into which he has been actually brought, must enter upon the inquiry whether any one of the documents of which this book is supposed to consist be or be not genuine, in the same simple and honest spirit. The kingdom exists; he is not afraid of losing it or of losing his place in it, even if God thought fit to take away the book altogether. Yet he has no fear that He will do this, no doubt in the world that it is His good pleasure to tell us what He is and what we are. That this book has revealed these truths to himself and to thousands of others for generations, he is certain; whether he or they have been right in supposing that a particular portion of it was necessary to the rest, he is willing reverently and diligently to consider; nothing doubting that He who upholds the kingdom and has given the book, will not allow the ultimate continuance of any intruder into it, or permit any integral part of it to be taken away. And if it be asked, But does not this admission open a door to unlimited scepticism? has not nearly every book been the subject of some modern suspicion?—the answer, I think, has been given already. Let those talk to me about interpolations in Shakespeare who know what Shakespeare is, who have really studied his mind and writings. I do not care the least because Theobald or Pope may determine that such and such passages are not suitable to their taste; neither do I care in the least what may be the taste of the analysts or the modern idealists about passages or books of Scripture. Their taste is no law of criticism. I believe it to be a very low and bad taste indeed. Let them bring forward external evidence and we will weigh it—cautiously, because their taste is very apt to mingle with their words, because they continually assume a maxim from which we utterly dissent, as if it were part and parcel of a fact which we may acknowledge; but still earnestly and impartially. I am not the least afraid of touching a corner of the edifice because the rest is likely to fall down; on the contrary, I believe it will prove to be a much firmer edifice than we have been wont to suppose that it is. The books which were thrown aside, even by religious men, at the time of the Reformation, because they seemed to have no direct bearing upon individual life, will be found to contain their own evidence, when they are looked upon as meant to develop the order and life of the spiritual kingdom.

The same principle precisely applies to alleged mistakes or inconsistencies in the admitted parts of the records. Suppose these mistakes and inconsistencies to be such as prove dishonesty in the writers—suppose them to be connected with any part of the revelation of the character of God or of the development of His kingdom—they fall under the last head, they become (pro tanto) arguments against the genuineness of that document wherein they are found. Suppose them to be merely accidental to the narrative, such as do not affect the meaning of the facts or the integrity of the writer, or such as may be corrected by comparison with another narrative of the same transactions, then I do not know that I have any right, à priori, to affirm from the existence of a Bible that none such will exist. I see no promise to that effect; I see no reason why it may not have pleased God to teach men by this very means; I mean, to permit the ordinary differences of opinions and eyesight which manifest themselves in the testimony of different witnesses of a fact, to be helps to us in the study of the real character of that fact; the ordinary confusion respecting points of detail to be the means of leading us away from those points of detail to that which is real and substantial. I say I can see no reason, à priori, either in the nature of a Bible or in the meaning of inspiration why this may not be so. I even fancy that I can see reasons in the analogy of the Divine dealings, and in the tendency of man to dwell upon the minutiæ of a transaction, not as helps to discover its real meaning and essence, but for their own sakes, why such a discipline may be most suited to us. If it should be found that this is not the case, I shall acquiesce most readily, but I shall have no more faith in the Bible than I have at present. For the Bible will not allow me to have any faith in it apart from faith in God, and whatever I find to be His way of training me and my race that I hold to be the right way, and the way in which we may be trained to all goodness and all truth. I do not want to lay down a scheme or chart of the road in which it is fitting we should be led; that, I think, is presumption.

According to this shewing, then, the charge of departing from the ordinary rules which we apply to the study of other books, is far more applicable to those who urge it than it is to us. We claim that the Bible should be looked at as a fact, a most pregnant fact, in the history of mankind. It stands apart from other books; we wish to know why it so stands apart, what there is that differences it from other books, just as we wish to know what there is in the writings of Cicero that differences them from other writings, or what there is in the literature of Rome that differences it from other literature. And if we should discover that there is that in this book which entitles it to be called, as it has been commonly called, The Book, or The Book of Books, we do not surely by such a name signify any contempt of books, rather a high appreciation of them. We declare that there is a book which directly and formally connects letters with the life of man, with the order of God; a book, which, just so far as it fulfils its idea, becomes the key by which all books may be interpreted, that which translates them into significance and determines the value and position of each. We declare, moreover, what is the temper and spirit in which a book should be studied. Nothing seems to me more preposterous than the notion that we can change our habits of mind when we turn from one subject to another. It is a flagrant violation of every ethical principle, that is to say, a flagrant tampering with our moral being, to suppose that we can be reverential at one moment and irreverent at another; that we are to be humble in the presence of this person, and proud when we are brought into intercourse with another. I perfectly agree, therefore, with the Rationalist, that to talk as some do of our right to sit in judgment upon all other books, and of the duty of submitting our judgments to the Bible, is not practical or reasonable. If we think that in reading Cicero or Shakespeare our proper position is that of judges, I am quite certain that we shall not be able to think otherwise when we study the Scriptures. And I am equally certain that while we do fancy that we are judges of Cicero or Shakespeare we shall not understand them. The posture of children or learners is the true profitable posture in all cases. It is not safe to propose to ourselves the end of being judges in any case. It is not safe for our minds generally, it is most unsafe for the judging faculty itself. That is invariably turned awry at first, blunted and stupefied afterwards, if it be not sent to school, and if it do not carry through life the docility which school is meant to give it. But what is the schooling? We all know how difficult the acquisition of docility is, how difficult in all days, how difficult especially in our own. There are some books which naturally tempt us to exercise the proud condemning spirit; feebleness is stamped upon them; they themselves affect a right to judge others; we feel as if here we might safely indulge our propensity. Therefore we see the wisdom of the old notion, that only the best books, only those which carry a kind of authority with them, should be set before boys; when they have been drilled by them into habits of deference and humility, then they may venture, if their calling requires it, upon the study of the worst, for then they will have acquired the true discerning spirit, that spirit of which the judging spirit is the counterfeit; the one perceiving the real quality of the food which is offered, the other, merely setting up its own partial and immature tastes and aversions as the standard of what is good and evil. But even this is not sufficient, as experience has proved. Starting from the study of the meanest books, our modern critics have gone on to higher books, and have asked why they may not exercise their right of private judgment on one as much as the other; why they may not pronounce their sentence upon Herodotus or Livy as well as upon any modern compilation. The Rationalist goes a step further, and says, Why not pass our sentence upon those which you call your inspired books as well as upon Herodotus or Livy? It is good that such a question should be proposed, because it brings the question to an issue. It enables us to say, You have wanted to get rid of these inspired books, because you have said, they were an affront to other literature; learn by this that they are the needful protectors to other literature. If there be a book, of which we can say, Herein God is speaking to you; be silent and listen: we have the power of keeping down that saucy and insolent temper, which, so far as it is applied to anything, makes that thing unintelligible. We have the power of cultivating our judgment, because we have the power of making it not a private judgment. A private judgment means the judgment of a man who is cut off from his fellows, the judgment of a savage. A man certainly has a right to such a private judgment, if by right you mean the power to exercise it. For he has the power of being a savage; he has the power of saying, I will not be educated; I will not be led out of my own partial apprehensions, and the partial apprehensions of my age; I will not be a reasonable being, I will not be a man. He may do this; I say also he may do something else if he will. He may be taken under training and discipline, the training and discipline of God Himself, for the purpose of being led out of his private judgment, into a knowledge of the judgment and mind of Him who “weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance.” He may have a book set before him, which unfolds the scheme and purpose of this universe and its Creator; he may be led by slow degrees to understand his own connexion with this universe, with those who lived in it, and with Him who is the author of it. And if he will have this learning, if he will be taught out of this book, then every other book which he reads will also be a part of the same Divine institution. God will be training him by that too; to trace out the course of His government, to see how different men have, consciously or unconsciously, cheerfully or involuntarily, been accomplishing some part of His designs towards His creatures; till having descended through different gradations of thoughtful inquirers, who, each in his own department, are humbly desiring to discover the meaning of their Lord, when he comes, at last, to the lowest point in the scale, to the last new criticism, or the last tavern speech in defence of the inalienable right of men to think what they like, he will find even in that something which is true, something which could not have been spoken if there were not a Bible in the world.

2. This view of the relation between the Scriptures and other books, may perhaps assist us in considering the question of miracles. The analyst of the last century maintained that these miracles might be referred to natural causes. The idealist of the present day considers them as inventions attesting that belief of something supernatural which belongs to men because they have spiritual faculties. Both alike agree, that they are stumblingblocks and not helps to a belief of the doctrine and facts of Scripture. I cannot regret that either of these opinions has been propounded. Unphilosophical as I think them, they yet may clear our minds of a great confusion, and may help us in arriving at a great truth. We have been used to speak of miracles as the chief evidences for the truth of Christianity. Now if it is meant by this, that a miracle or prodigy, as such, proves the Divine commission of the person who enacts it, we have the strongest reason for rejecting such a notion, for the Bible commands us to reject it. We dare not believe anything, merely because something which strikes us as a departure from ordinary experiences or laws is done to confirm it: we are warned in Scripture, that we shall see such wonders, and that we are to beware of being deceived by them. Again, the Bible is remarkably a book of laws, a book explaining the Divine order of the universe; if it be not this it is nothing. Can we suppose that violations of laws, infringements of order, would be the great signs and witnesses in confirmation of it? Surely, then, the eagerness of the analyst to get these miracles resolved into natural causes, that is, according to his notion, to get them connected with the general order of the world, is not surprising. But, once more, it is quite true, as the other class of rationalists affirm, that there has been a feeling, not at one time and in one age, but at all times and in all ages, after some power which is not circumscribed by the rules of ordinary visible experience, but which is superior to these rules, and can transgress them. He is quite right, that the acknowledgment of such a power lies deep in the heart of man, and that we are continually demanding instances and proofs of its exercise. Both these assertions are true; the difficulty is to reconcile them and apply them.

Now, supposing the Bible were the revelation of a spiritual kingdom or constitution of man, such as we have described; supposing it were the history of a Divine power for the redemption of man out of a slavery into which he had brought himself, we may perceive, I think, at least a dawn of light upon this controversy. I do find, unquestionably, in the portents recorded by Livy, the signs of a feeling in men’s minds that there is something supernatural; that the powers of the world are not all with which men have to deal. But the feeling contradicts itself in the attempt to utter itself; it does homage to the powers of nature in the very act of seeming to rise above them. And, therefore, under such a system there could be no liberty for the human spirit, there could be no brave investigation into the mechanism or into the energies of the universe. Before these blessings could be attained, the sense of the supernatural in man must be justified and purified. He must know that when he is dreaming of something above himself, he is dreaming of a reality; he must know that nature is not that which he is dreaming of; that he is not to tremble before this, but to claim the dignity of a Spiritual creature, to understand it and to subdue it. He must know that he is not the victim of a set of blind natural agents; he must have something more than a vague conception of what that power is, of which he is the servant. Such an effect, I say, the miracles of the Bible may produce upon him. Every one of those which is recorded in the Old Testament is recorded expressly as a witness, that the Jehovah, the I am, the personal God, the Lord of the spirits of all flesh, is the King of the world, and that gods of sense are not its kings. Every miracle recorded in the New Testament is recorded expressly and professedly for the purpose of shewing that the Son of man is the Ruler of the winds and the waves; the sustainer and restorer of animal life; the healer and tamer of the human spirit; and that those who are the adopted children of God in Him, while they are doing His work, are not the servants of visible things, but their rulers. These miracles say to the poor man, “Fear not the mighty unfathomable ocean, for your King and Friend has calmly walked upon it; fear not the powers of disease and sickness, for He who took your flesh has mastered them; fear not the more terrible powers that get the mastery of the understanding and heart, for Christ also hath cast out devils; walk boldly and bravely over this earth, as freemen united to this triumphant Deliverer; dread only separation from Him; dread only that you should not trust Him and cleave to Him sufficiently, and so sink again under the bondage to nature and death, out of which He, by His life and death, has purchased you.” And do not they speak also to the better taught man according to his necessities and temptations? He does not so much want to be raised above the natural fear of outward things; a calculation of probabilities, or a habit of encountering difficulties may easily give him that victory. But the very means of his deliverance are occasions to him of fresh bondage. He acquires a drowsy, dull sense of an ever-moving system of chances; he does not become an idolater of the powers of nature; but he worships its evenness and persistency. Most wretched and degrading faith! far more to be loathed and dreaded than the living and half-human idolatry of the peasant. Yet unless there be some demonstration that spiritual power is superior to mechanical; that the world is subject to God, and not to chance or nature; that there is an order, far more beautiful and perfect than that of sun and stars, in which men are intended to abide, and in which everything that is great and noble within them receives its full development;—I see not how this materialist superstition can fail to become the creed of every nation, and to bring about the decay of all institutions and political life, all feeling, affection, hope. With the other faith it has been possible for men to pursue physical science. The world has presented itself to them as a solemn, awful subject of study, but not as a tyrant before which they must bow. They have learnt that the mere customary links which connect a fact with its highest principle, may be suspended for the purpose of making that principle manifest. They have, therefore, risen above the slavish notion, that sensible experience is the law to which things are subjected; they have been able to set it at naught and defy it; not merely the astronomer, but every chemist who has truly investigated the functions and powers of material things, has moved on in this line, humbly asking nature to tell him her secrets, and receiving answers, the most satisfactory indeed, but the most contrary to our sensible anticipations and conclusions.

If, then, we are asked why we reject the analyst’s doctrine about these miracles, our answer is, because by accepting it we should not be acknowledging the true order of the world, but we should be refusing to acknowledge it. We do not believe that the world is under the government of natural causes; we do not know what the phrase ‘natural causes’ means. We confess, and rejoice to confess, that there is an habitual appointed course of things; that each agent, voluntary or involuntary, has his proper place in the scheme; that no one link of this agency will be ever needlessly broken or dispensed with. But we say that no dishonour is put upon any of these agents, when He, who has assigned them their place, keeps them in their own relation to each other, imparts to them their powers, withdraws the veil which conceals Himself the prime worker, and so explains the meaning of His ordinances, the secret of their efficiency, the reason of their abuse. It is in this sense that we say the miracles are evidences of the truth of Christianity. If Christianity be the manifestation of a spiritual kingdom; if it be the satisfaction of the dreams of past ages; if it be that which was to exhibit through all the complications of after ages, what is the law which governs them, and who is the Giver of that law, then we cannot see how it could enter the world without miracles, or how those miracles should not be such as the Bible affirms that they were.¹

3. The records of these miracles form such an integral portion of the Gospel narratives, that in speaking of the one I have necessarily anticipated many of the remarks which I should have made upon the other.

The real difficulty which has presented itself to men’s minds in the study of them has been this: ‘How can we admit narratives which report such very strange stories to be true, without some higher evidence than belongs to almost any other writing?’ This suggestion being once offered, of course every difficulty which harmonists have experienced, in bringing the parts of the different narratives into connexion, every doubt which has been raised respecting the authorship of any one of them, every question about the existence of a common source from which they may have proceeded, has given new encouragement to scepticism. It has been said, ‘so far from there being more evidence, it would seem as if there were less evidence for these than for the other parts of the record.’

Now our last inquiry seems to lead us to these conclusions, Either the strange stories spoken of are in accordance with the scriptural idea of the Founder of a spiritual and universal kingdom, or they are not. If they are not, no evidence whatever could establish the authenticity of the document containing them; for they would be self-contradictory; we should be bound to reject them because we believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God. On the other hand, if they are, we should require evidence to account for their omission in any record professing to contain the history of such a person. We should have a right to ask, Why did He give no signs that He came to connect the visible with the invisible world; why did He do nothing to break the yoke of custom and experience; nothing to shew men that the constitution which He pretended to reveal and establish has a true foundation? Take away the miracles, and there is an inexplicable chasm and inconsistency in these records, which it would require a vast amount of wit and ingenuity to explain.²

Now when this difficulty is surmounted, when the reader of the Gospels is not haunted perpetually with the thought, ‘I wish that story were away; I wish I could have the morality of these discourses, and the morality of the life of Jesus, without being perpetually asked to acknowledge something marvellous,’ when he has seen that the marvel belongs essentially to the morality of the discourses and of the life, the other perplexities, I believe, will not be very serious. In the first place, he will see that all the failures of harmonists to bring the different facts of the different Gospels into connexion or chronological sequence, have nothing whatever to do with the books themselves. They exist, they are facts, they have exercised a wonderful influence on the world in their present forms, they have made known to men the same living Person. If they should be found to fit one into another, or to be contrived as supplements to each other, I do not see that they would accomplish their purpose better. I am quite willing to listen to those who say they have discovered such an agreement in them, and to believe them if they make their point good. But I certainly am not the least troubled when I see them at fault.

A revelation to men of their Lord and King, must be something altogether wonderful. I could not the least conjecture beforehand how the records of it would be composed. They might come in the form of annals, no doubt. That is not the form from which one in general derives most knowledge of a character; oftentimes the story of a few days or hours brings it into clearer light; still this method might have been appropriate for such an occasion. But if another has apparently been adopted; if I am in possession of a set of documents, seeming to present to me a life in a number of different circumstances, all human and intelligible circumstances, the wonder lying not in them but in Him who is acting through them, and in the meaning He shews to be latent in them, and if I have the opportunity of comparing these documents, so that I may learn more of the meaning of the life, from seeing how the transactions which exhibit it appeared to different men, I am certainly not careful to disturb this order, for the sake of inventing another which I think would be much less adapted to us. So again, secondly, it should be remembered that the existence of these documents is not affected by any theories about their authorship or their construction. Omit all the names which we are wont to associate with them, or say that these names do not indicate any known persons, or that these persons were no eye witnesses, or that they were merely reporters of a current tradition, or that they all drew from a common tradition, or that they had communications with one another, or that they had none—still the books are; and the secret of their influence, and the strange impression which men have, that they do exhibit a real being to man, and that Being the Lord of man, the image after which he is created; this must still be explained, either by means of some one of these hypotheses, or without it. They may be all worth considering; each, doubtless, means something, and may teach something; but if they should all prove to be untenable, still the marvel itself is not got rid of. To that the theological student must address himself; he must look it fairly in the face, he must confess that all processes of his criticism must be preceded by the acknowledgment that there is something to be criticised. And however much he may be disposed to turn away from the common-place remark, that there is a singular absence in these records of those contrivances by which men usually try to set forth a hero; that the divinity which the writer believes he is exhibiting, does not occasionally but habitually exhibit itself in the simplest and lowliest forms of human life; that there is actually no exception to this practice in any one of these narratives, not one instance in all these traditions handed down by affectionate, credulous, ignorant disciples, of an attempt to establish their Master’s celestial origin by connecting him with circumstances of outward greatness; however dull and dreary, I say, the repetition of such remarks may be, because they have been forced upon us all in books of evidence, because we have learnt them by rote, before they came out to us naturally and simply as characteristics of that which we were reading, yet they are true remarks, and can as little be passed over by any thoughtful reader, as any peculiarity in the style of an ancient classic. Therefore we find an evidently growing conviction in the minds of the more intelligent sceptics, that there must be a scheme for the purpose of explaining these difficulties. The whole history must be accounted for, not merely by finding fault with the details of the narrative, but by dividing the person of whom it speaks, according to his historical and his mythical attributes. This is the experiment which I have so often noticed. It may be applied to the Gospel narratives; but unless it will solve all the facts relating to a spiritual and universal kingdom which we have been considering it is worth nothing. Shew that there is no such constitution for mankind, and you have confuted the Gospels, for they are built upon the assumption that there is. But if there be such a kingdom, we must know who is the Head and Lord of it, and how He has established it. These Gospels have given that knowledge to men for many centuries; we believe that they have yet much more to communicate, which we have not been able to receive, but which the events of this time, and these very controversies, will make known to us. Feeling that they are given us, and that they have a deep reality in them, we cannot be unwilling that they should be submitted to any scrutiny. If there be anything in them which was not meant to be in them, we doubt not but it will be brought to light, and that He who brings it to light will make His own truth the clearer by the discovery. But that they contain that which no other books in the world contain, which no other parts of the Scripture contain, and which is a key to all that is written elsewhere; this, we believe, has been made and will be made only the more evident, by the questions which have been raised in these and in former days respecting them.

The Romish System

I have contended, then, that a Bible without a Church is inconceivable, that the appointed ministers of the Church are the appointed instruments for guiding men into a knowledge of the Bible, that the notion of private judgment is a false notion, that Inspiration belongs to the Church, and not merely to the writers of the Bible, that the miracles of the New Testament were the introduction of a new dispensation, and were not merely a set of strange acts belonging to a particular time; lastly, that the Gospel narratives must be received as parts of the necessary furniture of the Church. Now is there not a manifest tendency towards Romanism in these positions? Do they not one and all belong to the system which I have denounced?

Let us consider:

1st. I have supposed the Bible and the Church to be mutual interpreters of each other. The Church exists as a fact, the Bible shews what that fact means. The Bible is a fact, the Church shews what that fact means. Now, what I complain of in Romanism, is that it has entirely overlooked the relation of these two parts of God’s scheme to each other. It has concealed the Bible from men on purpose that the Church might be exalted. And it has proved that the Church could not be exalted while the Bible was hidden, that while there was no book to explain to the whole body of the Church its own position, that position of necessity became unintelligible. Men did not know what it was to be Churchmen, because they could not learn it from this book, and because no other was able to tell them.

2ndly. Hence we see, wherein my notion of the powers of ministers differs from that of the Romanist. He thinks that the minister has a power and commission to hide the Bible from the laity. I think he has a power and commission to lay it open to the laity. I think that everyone has an appointed work to do; that when we refuse our own appointed work, or do not acknowledge the different appointment of another, we necessarily miss some good which was intended for us. And therefore I do not think that the laity, rejecting the teachings of their appointed ministers, will understand the Bible. And I do not think, on the other hand, that the minister, putting himself in place of the Bible, and not encouraging the laity to read it, and digest it, can be a true teacher, can exercise the powers which God has committed to him.

3rdly. I believe, as I have said, that the Bible and the Church were intended to raise men out of their private judgments, and to guide each man who will be guided, into the truth which is meant for all. The Romanist claims an authority for the Church in opposition to private judgments. But it is not an authority to call forth the spirits of men—to draw them out of the little narrow circle of private experiences and conclusions; but an authority to crush the exercise of their spirits, to hinder them from obtaining freedom. And therefore this authority has itself become the tool of private judgments. Half the inventions of Romanism are the inventions of private judgment, the fruits of a condescension on the part of the priest to the narrow-minded feelings and judgments of his subjects, or else the creations of his own judgment, both alike manifesting the need of that universal law and standard by which both ought to have been tried.

4thly. The presence of that Spirit who is the source of all inspiration, in the whole body of the Church, and in each of its members that he may fulfil his own appointed position,—this is involved in the idea of our baptism; disbelieving this, we acknowledge no Church at all. In virtue of this gift, we are to believe that every member of the Church has a capacity for understanding the high privileges which have been obtained for him; in virtue of this gift, we believe that the ministers of the Church can educate their flocks into the apprehension of them. Our complaint against the Romish system is, that it does not allow us to act upon the faith of this inspiration. It supposes inspiration to be communicated to certain persons at certain periods, for the sake of certain startling effects. It supposes an inspiration to reside somewhere in the Church, for the purpose of determining what men are, and what they are not, to hold, for the purposes of keeping down questioning, and giving a sense to Scripture. But an abiding Spirit, one who will guide into all truth, and can tolerate no falsehood, one who can unfold the Scriptures to different ages according to their different wants, such a Spirit, such an inspiration, it will not allow us to recognize.

5thly. And, therefore, our difference on the subject of miracles is also very intelligible. If you recognize miracles, as connected with the idea of a spiritual kingdom, and not merely belonging to a certain book, why, the Romanist asks, will you not recognize the miracles in which we believe? why not suppose that they may occur in the nineteenth century as well as in the first? I answer, I neither affirm nor deny anything as to the question how often in the history of the Church or in what periods of it God may have been pleased to suspend the operations of intermediate agents, for the purpose of shewing that He is at all times the Author and Mover of them. This question must be determined by a careful study of historical evidence; upon the result of such a study I should be very sorry to dogmatize. Those who believe that miracles are for the assertion of order, and not for the violation of it, for the sake of proving the constant presence of a spiritual power, and not for the sake of shewing that it interferes occasionally with the affairs of the world, will be the least inclined to expect the frequent repetitions of such signs, for they hold, that being recorded as facts in the former ages of the world, they become laws in ours, that we are to own Him who healed the sick of the palsy in every cure which is wrought by the ordinary physician, Him who stilled the storm on the Lake of Gennesareth, in the guidance and preservation of every ship which crosses the ocean; and that this effect would be lost, if we were led to put any contempt upon that which is daily and habitual. Still, I should think it very presumptuous to say, that it has never been needful, in the modern history of the world, to break the idols of sense and experience by the same method which was sanctioned in the days of old. Far less should I be inclined to underrate the piety and criticise the wisdom or honesty of those men who, missing or overlooking intermediate powers, of which they knew little, at once referred the acts and events they witnessed to their primary source.

But these admissions only compel me the more solemnly to reject at least nineteen-twentieths of all the miracles recorded in Romanist books in later times. In reference to these, we are not bound to go into a careful collation of evidences. In general there is very little to collate, but where there is apparently the best and most respectable, there is a grand preliminary objection. I dare not believe such miracles as these, because I believe the miracles of the New Testament. I am expressly told in Scripture that there are miracles which I am not to believe, which are to produce no impression upon me whatever. I do not want to go into the question of the honesty or the dishonesty of persons who report them, that is a question between their own consciences and their Creator; they best know whether they are or are not lying for God. But it is the character of the miracle which determines my judgment of it. Is it to lead me into the worship of the Visible or the Invisible? Is it to deliver me from sensible things, or to make me a slave of sensible things?

Does the Romanist advocate say that I have no right to ask these questions? I know he says so and I will tell him why he says so. He says so because there is a secret root of unbelief in his mind, a secret doubt whether anything is true, which finds refuge in the thought that everything may be true. This is a very prevailing tendency in our day; it is the natural reaction against the scepticism of the last century. A number of men in France and Germany, and perhaps quite as many in England as in either, have passed or are passing, not through any gradual stages, but per saltum, from universal doubt to universal credence. And they are able to carry the same habits of mind into both professions; they are able to say to themselves with great complacency, and with no little truth, ‘we are not really changed, we do not acknowledge any standard now more than before; the only difference is, that we have substituted the new pourquoi non for the old pourquoi.’ It does not the least surprise us to hear such men, men who twenty years ago would have laughed us to scorn for believing in the resurrection of Lazarus, now indulging in fierce denunciations of all who doubt the miracles in the Tyrol. The logic, ‘where are you to stop short?’ was that which they used in their contemptuous manhood, and which still seems to them perfectly conclusive, in their not less contemptuous nor less really sceptical old age. We can only repeat, we stop short when we find ourselves arrived at the exact contradiction of that which we have believed. We have received our Lord as the Great Deliverer, who has led captive our captivity to sense; we stop short when we meet with persons who would bring us into that captivity again.

The Bible, we believe, is meant to cultivate in us a habit of distinguishing; faithfully and humbly used, it has that effect. If you, who have not used it or believed in it, shew that you have not acquired that habit, we have only another reason for giving thanks, that God has been pleased not to hide the blessing from us or from our children.

6thly. These last considerations apply very remarkably to the case of the Gospel narratives. It is said, “The Church has preserved to us these histories of our Lord’s life; you receive them upon the authority of the Church. You know very little about the persons who wrote them, you accept them because they are given to you as parts of the canon. Well, but the Church has put its sanction upon many histories of the saints; she deems them also profitable for her children. Granted that they refer to inferior persons, that they never can be as important as the Gospels, yet where do you draw the line? You have admitted Church authority in one case, the highest case of all, why not admit it also in a lower case?” I answer, By the care of God’s providence through His Church, these records of its Lord and Head have been preserved. They have been preserved, no doubt, for many great and solemn purposes, but for this especially, that there may be a standard in the world, by which all other acts and lives may be tried. Exclude the Gospels from our canon, let there be nothing there but epistles setting forth spiritual principles, and not only do those principles lose their meaning for want of a true personal object to which they may refer; but this end is wholly lost—there is no character set before men, which exhibits to them the image after which they were formed in connexion with the life of this earth. Now if the Church have preserved for me these books, and have told me the object for which they were preserved, I am not obeying her when I lose sight of this object; I am not obeying her when I am not bringing all other books and lives to this standard. I am not, indeed, to do this for the sake of condemning them, not for the sake of seeing what is wrong in them—I have no commission or powers for that purpose—but certainly for the sake of seeing how far I may safely follow them. If, then, I find records of different men, all professedly acknowledging this type or image as the one to which they should be conformed, I am bound thankfully to admire every feature of their lives which has been caught by reflection from it. I may very often go wrong in my judgment of these features; I may mistake a bad copy for a good one, or disown a true one because I have not sufficient spiritual cultivation to understand the circumstances of its form and colouring. Still, the more I study the original under such guidance as is given to me, the more I must believe and hope that the faculty will be cultivated in me, whereby I may discern the true from the counterfeit. And I must look to the Church to help me in this work, to be continually teaching me how to observe the traces of the Divine model in the human imitation, how to see what in it was produced merely by the accidents of the time, or by human self-will and frailness.

Such help I believe the Church, holding the Bible in her hand, is able to furnish to her faithful disciples; and my charge against the Romish system is, that it has hindered the Church from exercising this prerogative, and forced her to exercise a most different one. What I mean will be best understood by the use which has been made in this system of the word ‘Saint.’

The Gospels teach me, the Church in all ages teaches me, to acknowledge our Lord as one who perfectly identified himself with humanity, with all its sorrows and sufferings, yea, with its sins; because He was without sin, He was able to bear the sins of all men. This character of essential humanity, is so much the character which we feel to belong to our Lord, so much the character which did manifest, and which alone could manifest, His divinity, that it may be said to be the grand object of the Church, in her Advents, her Epiphanies, her Lents, her Passion Weeks, her Easter-Days, her Ascension-Days, to exhibit it. And it has been the feeling of every true saint in the world’s history, that this was the character which our Lord would especially seek to produce in His disciples. A largeness of heart, a sympathy with all our race, a fellowship in its sufferings, grief for the sins which hold it down, these assuredly are qualities which the most conspicuous saints of the Romish calendar acknowledge as most high and Divine. Along with these are associated humiliation, suffering, indifference to good or evil report. But now comes in the counterfeit system: ‘What a great and glorious thing it is to be a saint, to be above the rest of men, to be unlike them! What a fine thing it is to be humble, self-denying, submitting to persecution and shame! What glory do those get who can eclipse one another in this race! What an honour it is to be enrolled in this calendar; what fame we get here, what rewards in the life to come!’ Who does not feel instinctively that we have here introduced a new image, the very opposite to that we were just considering? It has come in one knows not how, under the very names and words which seemed so sacred and beautiful; but see how frightful and deformed it is! Yet will anyone dare to say that there has not been a system, that there is not a system now, which sanctions this image, puts honour upon it, holds it up to imitation and idolatry?

We are not bound to say of any particular person, He has given himself up to this system, he has caught this image. We may believe, and rejoice to believe, that there have been multitudes in every age of the Church, that there are numbers in every country in Europe at this day, who, be their outward professions and symbols what they may, do in their hearts confess the true image, do in their lives conform to it. Such persons belong to the Catholic Church, they are witnesses of her permanence, and that she will one day come out bright and beautiful from all her corruptions, as a bride adorned for her husband. But the existence of such persons only makes us see more clearly and hate more fervently the system which has assumed the name and affected the powers of the Church; only makes us believe more surely, that it will be destroyed by the brightness of His coming, who is the true and only Pope and Potentate, the real King of Saints.