Part 14 (2/2)

All these things, and a s, have to be taken into account, if ould form a correct and proper estimate of the Bible

All these, and quite a multitude of otherin what terms to speak of the Book, and in ay to qualify our commendations of its contents I do not believe it possible to praise the Bible too highly; but nothing is easier than to praise it unwisely, untruly You cannot love or prize the Bible too much; but you may err as to what constitutes its worth You cannot over-estimate its beneficent power; but you may make mistakes as to the parts or properties of the book in which its strength lies A child can hardly value gold or silver too highly, but he reat excellency to consist in the brightness of their colors And so with regard to the Bible Its best friends and its ablest eulogists can never think or speak of it beyond its real worth; but they may fancy its worth to consist in qualities of secondary importance, or in a kind or form of perfection which it does not possess

The enenorantly, from the mere force of bad example, as parrots curse: and the friends of the Bible often speak well of it ignorantly, as parrots pray They know, they feel, they are sure, that the Bible is good,--that it does theood,--that it purifies their souls,--that it improves their characters,--that it makes them cheerful, joyful, useful, happy Yet all the tiht, that the blessed volulorious power to some metaphysical nicety, or to some unreal or impossible kind of perfection

When Christians attribute the sanctifying, elevating, co power of the Bible to the fact that it is divinely inspired, they are right

But many do not stop there They suppose that divine inspiration has given the Book certain graical, historical, scientific and iven it, and they even attribute its superior worth and saving power to those iainst the mistakes and mis-statenorance, or their want of honesty and candor, that gave e over the things in their proper light, and putting them in their proper shape before their hearers and readers, that made their efforts to keep people fro They, in truth,in which it did not consist, and made people think they were infidels when they were no such thing If they had given up all that was erroneous with regard to the Bible, and undertaken the defence of nothing but as true, they thened the faith of Christians But they undertook to defend the false, and to assail the true, and the consequence was, they were beaten, and the cause which they sought to serve was injured

John Wesley says, that the way to drive the doctrine of Christian perfection, or 'true holiness,' out of the world, is to place it too high,--tothat is beyond man's power And the way to drive the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures out of the world, is to give the doctrine a fore it from a truth into an error,--to teach that divine inspiration produces effects which it does not produce,--that it imparts qualities which it does not impart, and which the Scriptures themselves do not exhibit

And this is what reat cause both of the increase of infidelity, and of the confidence of its disciples

It is impossible to prove the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Bible, as that doctrine is defined by ious writers It is not true And those who attempt to prove that the Bible is such a book, as these false theological theories of divine inspiration would require it to be, ht, with an able and well-informed infidel opponent The man who contends that the Bible is all that certain old theories of inspiration require it to be, fights against plain facts, and even his friends will often see and feel that he has not succeeded He reat things, a s about the Bible, and they s, a ainst infidelity, and they too may be true And his friends ht, and that the infidel is essentially wrong They ood, and true, and holy; and that on the infidel side is a world of darkness and depravity, of horror and despair Still, on the one definite point, 'Is the Bible divinely inspired according to the theory of divine inspiration laid down by certain theologians,' the Christian will be beaten out and out,--he will not only be confuted, but confounded, dishonored, and utterly routed

The Bible and Christianity will receive an undeserved wound, and infidelity will have an undeserved trius were towards the Bible, and ould have liked its advocate to triumph, will be disheartened, distressed, embarrassed, distracted, and perhaps undone

The true doctrine of Scripture inspiration, or of Scripture authority, is about as applicable to the coenerally, and to all the manuscripts, and to all the printed Greek and Hebrew Bibles, as it would be to the lost originals if they could be recovered There is divine inspiration enough in the poorest translation of the Scriptures, and in the most imperfect Greek and Hebrew transcript of them ever made, to place the Bible above all the books on earth, as amankind But in none of its forms is the Bible so inspired, as to make it what the unauthorized, fanciful, impossible theories of certain dreaians require it to be

I have seen twenty or thirty definitions of Scripture INSPIRATION all of which betray the Bible into the hands of its adversaries And it is no use expecting to convert skeptics, till those definitions are set aside, and better, truer ones put in their place We ourselves pay no regard to these definitions They are merely human fictions They have no warrant from Scripture, and we cannot allow ourselves to be hae in the New Testament which speaks of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testaives us no definition of divine inspiration It says, 'All Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, tending to ood works:' but it goes no further It does not say that all Scripture given by inspiration of God will be written in a superhue, or in a superhuman style Nor does it say that all its allusions to natural things will be perfectly correct; that all the stories which it tells will be told in a superhuman way Nor does it say that all the precepts, and all the institutions, and all the revelations, and all the examples of the Book will be up to the level of absolute perfection What the passage _does_ say of such Scriptures as are given by inspiration of God, is true of the Old Testas as a whole, and still truer of the New Testas: they _are_ profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness; and they are adapted to ood works All this you can prove But you cannot prove that they answer to the definitions of divine inspiration so often given in books of theology

There is another passage in the New Testas ritten aforetih patience and coht have hope' This too is true of the Old Testaives no countenance to the definitions of Scripture inspiration given by dreaians

Peter says that 'holy men of old spake as they werespoken or written by holy men, when moved by the Holy Spirit, would answer to some human dream of absolute perfection He does not say that the holy men, when moved to speak by the Holy Spirit, would cease to be men, or even be free froe and nation, and speak as if they had becoe of natural philosophy, or of coion They ht speak as moved by the Holy Spirit, and yet utter divine oracles in an ie, and in a defective human style, and even use illustrations based on erroneous conceptions of natural facts and historical events

A man moved to speak by the Holy Spirit would not exhort people to be idle or heedless; he would urge the his exhortation to those virtues by a reference to the ANT, he e of the ANT was not perfect,--that his ideas of its ere not in every little point correct

A man full of the Holy Spirit, and especially a man who had received of its influences without measure, would be sure to exhort ht use a forinated in the misconception that serpents iser than any other animals, and that doves were more harood in substance; and even the for in his times, would be unobjectionable; and both would be consistent with the fullest inspiration of the Holy Spirit

A great, goodhis son in the Gospel to resist false and iht say, 'Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; but their folly shall be made manifest unto all men, as theirs also was'

Whether the men ithstood Moses were really called Jannes and Jambres or not, I do not know The Old Testament does not say they were

The probability is, that Paul rested his illustration on a Jewish tradition But as the tradition was received as true by his people, his lesson was just as good as if it had rested on some unquestionable fact stated in authentic history

And so with regard to illustrations and incidental stateh they may rest on misconceptions, the moral lessons and spiritual revelations into the service of which they are pressed, may be God's own oracles, and the book in which they appear iven by divine inspiration, and be profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, and conducive to all the great and desirable ends so dear to God

There is no such thing as absolute perfection with regard to books

There is no authorized standard, no test, no measure of absolute perfection for books; and if there were, no man could apply it Of a thousand different books each may be perfect in its way, yet none of theood end in view, and be adapted to answer that end; and that is the only perfection of which a book adh

And this perfection the Bible has It has the best, the highest, the lorious objects in view, and it is adapted to accomplish those objects; and that is sufficient They that undertake to prove that it has any other perfection, will fail, and both bring discredit on therievously wronged by unwise praise, than by unjust censure

Absolutely perfect books and teachers are not necessary to our instruction and welfare We can learn all we need to know, and all we need to do, from books and teachers that are _not_ perfect We have no absolutely perfect books on Graic Yet h when they study theently We have no perfect systeraphy, Astronoy, or Cheraphy Yet on all those subjects e, make a ree of certainty

And so with arts and trades We have no absolutely perfect teachers or books in , or manufactures, or trade Yet onderful proficients uages: yet any man with a taste for the study of them, may learn twenty or thirty of them in a life-time Even indifferent books and teachers will enable a uage on earth