Inspiration and Interpretation Part 28

Believe either that the Evangelists, the Apostles, our SAVIOUR CHRIST Himself,--partaking of the ignorance of their age, and speaking according to the modes of thought then prevalent, were mistaken in their interpretations of Holy Scripture; or else, deny boldly that there are interpretations at all. a.s.sume that they are mere allegory and accommodation! Something must be allowed for the backwardness of the Past;--and 'the time has come when it is no longer possible to ignore the results of criticism[502].' A change of method 'is not so much a matter of expediency as of necessity. The original meaning of Scripture' is at last 'beginning to be understood[503].' Be persuaded, and make it thy business to persuade others, that the Bible _is but a common Book!_"

4. To all of which, we make summary answer:--Pa.s.sing by thy self-congratulation on the enlightenment of the age,--of which, except in certain departments of physical Science, _we_ see _no_ evidence;--the whole of thy argument concerning Holy Scripture amounts to this;--that it would be very distasteful _to thee_, to find that it contained any sense beyond that which lies on the surface. Types, intended by the Author of Scripture _to be_ types: Prophecy with sometimes more than a single application: historical events foreshadowing remote transactions:--all these _thou_ deniest, because _thou_ dislikest.

Observe, however, that while _thou_ art urging thine own private opinion, _we_ are dealing with a revealed fact. _Thou_ talkest about a probability, but _we_ are establishing a proof. "It is written" that Scripture _is_ thus significant, _is_ thus mysterious in its historical outlines. And thou canst not explain away one syllable, though thou shouldest deny "_every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d_."

5. Let us, however, examine the question merely by the light of unaided reason.--Consider then! If G.o.d made this world the particular kind of world which He is found to have made it, in order that it might in due time preach to mankind about Himself, and about His providence:--if He contrived beforehand the germination of seeds, the growth of plants, the a.n.a.logies of animal life; all, evidently, in order that they might furnish ill.u.s.trations of His teaching; and that so, great Nature's self might prove one vast Parable in His Hands:--_why_ may not the same G.o.d, by His Eternal Spirit, have so overruled the utterance of the human agents whom He employed to write the Bible, that their historical narratives, however little their authors meant or suspected it, should embody the outline of things heavenly; and, while they convey a true picture of actual events, should _also_ after a most mysterious fashion, yield, in the Hands of His own informing Spirit, celestial Doctrine also?

6. For let me remind you,--The very actions of men,--the complicated transactions of our common lives,--are thus overruled by G.o.d's Providence; and, without restraint, are so controlled that they shall subserve to the ulterior purposes of His will,--after a fashion which altogether defies a.n.a.lysis. Beyond this inner circle of comprehensible causation,--external to the immediate sphere of cause and effect which courts our daily scrutiny,--there is an outer circle, which rounds our lives; and (as I said) overrules all we do; fashioning, by virtue of a supreme fiat which is altogether beyond our comprehension, all our ends.

_Why_ then, I ask, may not the Bible be, what it purports to be,--the authentic record of transactions which the marvellous skill of Him who governeth all things in Heaven and Earth did so overrule, that they should become foreshadowings of chief transactions in the Kingdom of CHRIST? Shall prophecy, in the ordinary sense of the term, be admitted by all,--and yet a _prophetic transaction_ be deemed impossible with G.o.d? If Isaiah may prophesy of one "red in His apparel," after "treading the winepress alone[504];" may describe Him as "despised and rejected of men;" "a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief;" "wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities;" "brought as a lamb to the slaughter," and "making intercession for the transgressors;" and at last destined to find "His grave with the wicked, yet with the rich in His death[505]:"--if this may be _in words_ described minutely, and move no doubt; shall we close our eyes that we may not see,--or seeing shall we fail to recognize,--in the person of such an one as David, a divinely-intended type of MESSIAH? What! when he who was born in Bethlehem, overcomes the Philistine at the end of forty days, and takes from him the armour wherein he trusted;--when he,--a prophet, priest, and king,--is persecuted by his enemies, and betrayed by his own familiar friend; when _he_ at last pa.s.ses over the brook Kidron and ascends Olivet, sorrowing as he goes;--yea, when he utters words which our REDEEMER resyllables with _His_ dying breath[506];--wilt thou refuse to discern in the person of David, the lineaments of David's Son? and sneer at _us_, who herein have been better taught than thou; although thou hast no better reason to give for thy unbelief than that the view of Holy Scripture which the Church Catholic hath held in all ages, seems to thee a thing impossible?

7. Take once more, if thou wilt, the a.n.a.logy of Nature; and thence infer what is _probable_ concerning things Divine. Is it observed that _the works_ of G.o.d are thus single in their office; or are they, on the contrary, manifold in their virtues and uses? Than the metal Iron, what substance more serviceable for every ordinary mechanical purpose of daily life? Yet, ask the physician which of the metals _he_ could least afford to forego as an instrument of cure: and he will tell thee that _he_ finds Iron the fullest of healing virtues also. Shall then plants and animals, yea, and the whole of the Animal Kingdom, be admitted to subserve to manifold, and at first sight unsuspected uses,--so that the wisest are ready to confess that the function of most remains to this hour a secret:--and shall we be reluctant to allow that the _Word of G.o.d_--"the Tree of Life," whereof "the leaves are for the healing of the nations,"--may also be thus various in its purpose; fraught with other teaching besides that which on its very surface meets the careless eye?

8. To speak without a figure,--It is not of course to be supposed that the inspired writers knew all the wondrous qualities of the message they delivered, or of the narrative they were divinely guided to indite.

Altogether a distinct question _this_; although the two have been sometimes confused together[507]. Nay, Revelation itself comes in to help us here. St. Peter, in express words, declares that concerning the mystery of Redemption "the prophets _inquired and searched diligently_; ... searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of CHRIST which was in them did signify, when it,"--(not _they_, observe, but _It_)--"testified beforehand the sufferings of CHRIST, and the glory that should follow." That "not unto, themselves, but unto _us_ they did minister,"--thus much, indeed, _was_ revealed to them; but no more. The rest, to this hour, the very "Angels desire to look into!"

9. But between the words which a man delivers _being_ full of Divine significancy, and _himself knowing_ the full scope and purport of those words,--there is surely a mighty difference! When Caiaphas foretold the universal efficacy of CHRIST'S Death, _who_ less than Caiaphas suspected the far-reaching truth of the words which fell from his unholy lips?

_He_ knew nothing about the triumphs of the Cross; and yet he could prophesy very accurately concerning them. "This spake he not of himself," (says the Evangelist,) "but being high-priest that year, he prophesied that JESUS should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of G.o.d that were scattered abroad[508]." ... It may safely be a.s.sumed that the sacred writers no more knew the force and power of their own words, than those Priests who lived and moved amid the shadows of the Mosaic Ritual were able to discern therein, the substance of things eternal in the Heavens. And yet we believe concerning those ritual types that "they were a concealed prophetic evidence, the force of which was made apparent by the presence of the Gospel[509]." I am p.r.o.ne to suspect that the burning vehemence of their own language must many a time have moved the Prophets of old to deepest astonishment; and that when there broke from them words of more than mortal power,--or images of unearthly grandeur,--or the outlines of a grief more than human; when they spake of a betrayal for thirty pieces of silver[510], of blows and spitting[511], and of pierced hands and feet[512]; of parted garments and lots cast upon a vesture[513];--they must have felt, they must have felt the awfulness of the message they were commissioned to deliver; and longed, yea yearned unutterably to see and to hear the things which were reserved to be witnessed in the days of the Son of Man!

10. Enough, however, of all this. In reply to _a priori_ objections, I have been content to argue the question as if the Bible were a newly-discovered Book without a history; whereas the consentient writings of all the Fathers and Doctors of every age, in every portion of the Christian Church, is an overwhelming _fact_! Rather have I reasoned as if the Bible were a book altogether silent concerning itself. But the plain truth, as I have fully shewn, is the very reverse.

Scripture is _full_ of interpretations of Scripture;--and the constant method of Scripture in such interpretations, is spiritual or mystical;--and this witness of Scripture is the strongest proof possible that the principle involved is correct. Meanwhile, the great underlying truth which I now desire, more than any other to bring before you, is this:--that it is the HOLY GHOST who, in the New Testament, interprets what the same HOLY GHOST had delivered in the Old. This, believe me, is the true key, the only intelligible solution, to all those difficulties respecting places of the Old Testament, whether interpreted, or only quoted, in the New, which have so exercised the ingenuity of learned men. We are always to remember, in a word, that the _true_ Author of either Testament,--the _real_ Author of every part of the Bible, is (not Man, but) G.o.d!

IV. Such then, (to conclude,) is _the Divine method of Interpretation_.

We are not concerned now to cla.s.sify, and sort it out under different heads. _To apply_, even to a small extent, the principles we have been labouring to establish, would not only lead us much too far, but would constrain us to travel out of our proper subject and prescribed province. Our purpose has only been, to vindicate the profundity, or rather _the fulness_ of Holy Writ[514]; and to shew that under the obvious and literal meaning of the words, there lies concealed a more recondite, and a profounder sense: call that sense mystical, or spiritual, or Christian, or what you will. Unerringly to elicit that hidden sense is the sublime privilege of inspired Writers; and they do it by allusion, by quotation, by the importation of a short phrase[515], by the adoption of a single word[516],--to an extent which no one would suspect who had not carefully studied the subject. How that method of theirs is to be _applied by ourselves_, it is impossible, I repeat, for me even to hint at in a single discourse. But _this_, I will say; and with _this_ I dismiss the subject;--that Interpretation would be a hopeless task, but for the solemn circ.u.mstance that the whole of the Bible is inspired by one and the self-same Spirit; so that one part may always be safely compared with any other part of it, you please. Nay, by no other method can you hope to understand the Bible, than by such a laborious comparison of its several parts. "Non nisi ex Scriptura Scripturam potes interpretari." The more you study the Book, the more you will feel convinced that its many authors all resorted to one and the same Fountain of Inspiration. They all use the same imagery; they all speak the same language; they all mean the same thing. St. John the Divine, in the Book of Revelation, shuts up the Canon by reproducing the combined imagery of all the ancient prophets,--by declaring that the Song of Moses and of the LAMB is sung by the redeemed in Heaven,--by marvellous words about "the Tree of Life," which is "in the midst of the Paradise of G.o.d." The Inspired writers of either Testament all draw from the same Treasury, and therefore all say the same things. The Heavenly Jerusalem, (with her gates of pearl and streets of gold,) is the home of the spirit of each one of them[517]; JESUS CHRIST, and He Crucified, is the abiding theme of them all. And O, how their words do sometimes teem, and their phrases swell, almost to bursting, with their blessed argument[518]! You shall be troubled with only one example of what I mean.--Moses having described the interview between Melchizedek and Abraham, the mighty secret of MESSIAH'S priesthood which therein lay enshrined was curtained all so close, that neither Angels nor Men could possibly discern it. Must it then remain a mystery for 2000 years? Not so! Midway between the day of Abraham and the day of CHRIST,--just midway,--David, speaking by the HOLY GHOST,--(of _that_, our LORD Himself a.s.sures us[519],)--David, I say, when a thousand years had rolled by, utters the cxth Psalm; and in the fulness of his prophetic fervour, the great secret bursts unexpectedly into light! A thousand years had pa.s.sed since Abraham returned from 'the slaughter of the Kings.' It wanted yet a thousand years to the date of our SAVIOUR'S Birth. And lo, midway, a voice is heard, shouting to Him across the gulf of Ages,--"_Thou_ art a Priest for ever _after the order of Melchizedek_!"

"And let not Reason be alarmed. Her vocation is not gone. Yea rather, I know not if Human Intellect ever had a loftier problem presented to her than to follow out that deep a.n.a.logy which has been noticed above; and to learn, (if it may be called Reason's learning,) how to deal with Holy Scripture as Apostles and Evangelists deal with it. Let not Reason be alarmed. She is only asked to listen, and to discern the nature and laws of Sacred Study. She is asked but to discern the evidence which there is of her being in a world which she imperfectly understands.... The student of the Bible is advised so to address himself to the study of that Book, so to deal with its language, as one should deal with THE WORD OF G.o.d,--the measure of whose import is in the infinite, not in the finite World.--Surely, by these things the LORD tries the spirits of us all; tries other men by other means, but tries the intellectual man by the Word of G.o.d[520], and watches him as he reads it; hardens the obdurate; blinds the self-blinded; but pours into the humble mind the riches of His divine Wisdom like showers into a valley; making it soft with the drops of rain and blessing the increase of it[521]."

V. Friends and brethren, it is not without reluctance that on a Sunday in Lent, when penitential thoughts should rather occupy us,--and in this place too, where the promotion of practical piety should rather be our aim,--I have so addressed you. But indeed, I seem to have no choice. It is idle crying "peace, peace," when there is _no_ peace. If the Inspiration of Holy Scripture be a deceit, and the Divine meaning of Holy Scripture a superst.i.tion,--then, farewell to all our hopes in Life and in Death; farewell to peace in days of despondency and gloom. Our faith is gone, and our teaching becomes a hollow heartless thing. Since, under the name of freedom of discussion, unbounded licentiousness of speculation is openly the fashion of the age, we are constrained to give a reason for the hope which is in us; and to defend, without compromise or hesitation, that Bible, which is the great bulwark of the Faith. It shall not be said that we can condemn, but that we make no answer. It must be seen that we put forth in reply the ancient Truths; and it will be felt that before the majesty of those ancient Truths, the arts of the enemy will prove weak and unavailing,--rather, will stand revealed in all their native deformity. If English Clergymen, coming abroad in the cast-off clothes of German unbelief[522], and decked out with the exploded sophisms of the last century, are to declare openly that the faith of our Fathers is already looked upon among ourselves as 'a kind of fossil of the Past,'--then is it high time that voices should be heard vindicating _that_ ancient method of our Fathers; and boldly proclaiming that this imputation against the Clergy of England is a disreputable untruth. The Church of England, (G.o.d be praised!) hath _not_ left her first love; hath _not_ given up her ancient method; Christianity is _not_ 'a difficulty to the highest minds.' The Christian Religion embraces, as much as ever it did, "the thought of men upon the Earth." "All the tendencies of Knowledge" are _not_ "opposed to it." The Gospel is still immeasurably before the age. Intellect has not gone,--the loftiest order of well-trained intellects will never go,--the other way[523]. It is, on the contrary, none but a very shallow wit which errs. Had it confined its speculations to the cloister, or come abroad with sorrow and shame, we should have pitied in silence, and in silence also have lamented. But when it comes insultingly abroad, and sets up a claim to intellectual superiority even while it denies the most sacred truths;--_then_ pity gives way before indignation and disgust. Crown the whole with the iniquity of imputing these views generally to the more thoughtful of the English Clergy[524],--and we are constrained openly to resent the grievous wrong. We declare it to be an unfounded calumny; a calumny which, in the name of the whole Church, I solemnly repel before G.o.d,--and His Holy Angels,--and _you_!

Vain, utterly vain,--worthless, utterly worthless,--must any superstructure of intellectual, moral, or religious training be, which is built up on the doctrine that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other Book; in other words, that the Bible _is_ a common Book; in other words, that _Inspiration is a fable and a dream_. We have no fear whatever that _your_ high instincts, (with all your faults!),--_your_ English manliness,--will, to any extent be led astray, by sophistry worthless as that which we have been exposing. But we know you look to your appointed Teachers from this place, (as well you may,) for advice, and support, and encouragement, in your better aspirations;--and let _me_, at least, in plain language, warn you that novelties in Religion never _can_ be true. "Philosophia," says the great Bishop Pearson speaking of Physical Science; "Philosophia quotidie progressu: Theologia nisi _regressu_ non crescit[525]." "Ask for the old paths!" ... The faith, remember, was ?pa?,--_once for all_,--delivered to the Saints.

There will be no new deposit. There can be no new doctrines. There has been no fresh Revelation,--no new principle of guidance vouchsafed to man. A new method of interpreting Scripture is _quite_ impossible. And the true method,--the only _true_ method--_must_ be that which was adopted by our SAVIOUR, by His Evangelists, and by His Apostles: a method which _they_ taught to their first disciples, and which those early Bishops and Doctors handed on in turn to the generation which came after them. That method, by G.o.d'S great goodness, has descended in an unbroken stream, even to ourselves; who have described it this morning, feebly indeed and unworthily,--yet, in the main, as it would have been described at _any_ time, by _any_ of the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the n.o.ble army of Martyrs,--by any of the Doctors and Fathers of the Holy Church throughout the world! O let it be our great concern,--yours and mine,--to preserve with undiminished l.u.s.tre the whole deposit of Heaven-descended teaching which is the Church's treasure!... Like runners in a certain ancient race of which we all have read, let it be _our_ pride and joy,--yours and mine,--to grasp the torch of Truth with a strong unwavering hand; to run joyously with it so long as the days of this earthly race shall last; and dying, to hand it on to another, who, with strength renewed like the eagle's, may again,--swiftly, steadily, exultingly,--run with it, till he fails!... _So_, when the Judge of quick and dead appeareth,--_so_ let Him find _you_ occupied,--O young men, (many of you, my friends,) who are already the hope of half the English Church! So faithfully may _we_, Brethren and Fathers, one and all, be found employed, when He cometh,--whose answer to the Tempter is emphatically _the_ text of the present solemn season, as well as a mighty voucher for the Divine origin, and sustaining efficacy of that Book concerning which I have been detaining you so long,--"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d!"

Ut verum fatear, semper existimavi, allusiones istas, (ad quas confugiunt quidam tanquam ad sacrum suae ignorantiae asylum,) plerumque nihil aliud esse, quam Sacrae Scripturae abusiones manifestas.

BISHOP BULL, _Harmonia Apostolica_, cap. xi. sect. 3.

There would be no need to scruple the term, if it were not meant to imply that this Accommodation was arbitrary on the part of the Evangelist; or that the mind of THE SPIRIT that spoke by the Prophet does not most fully include this application.

DR. W. H. MILL.

FOOTNOTES:

[436] Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 3rd, 1861.

[437] "It cannot be said that this, [viz. that _the Bible is the Word of G.o.d_,] is always remembered. It cannot be said that they who write respecting the Bible, even Christian writers who are looked up to, always appear to have been in that frame of mind while contemplating the statements of the Sacred Volume, which they, the same men, would have been in if they had been listening _for a voice out of a cloud_; a word reaching them which was simply, and in that sense, the Word of G.o.d. Yet the Sacred Volume comes to us with no less claims than as conveying such a message; and on every feature of it, it carries that claim. It professes to be this,--an account of what went on in the secret council-chamber of the MOST HIGH."--Eden's _Sermons_, pp. 150-1.

[438] _Exposition of the Creed_, Art. II. ("Our LORD,")--vol. i. p. 183.

[439] 1 St. Peter i. 11.

[440] _Eccl. Pol._, B. v. c. lix. -- 3.

[441] Bp. Bull, _Defensio Fid. Nic._ I. i. 9, (_Works_, vol. v. i. p.

22.)

[442] Disc. v. _The state of Man before the Fall._ Bull's Works, vol.

ii. p. 99.

[443] "DEUS novit cordis mei secreta: in dogmatis theologicis a novaturiendi prurigine (quam etiam supremi Judicis tribunal insiliens fidenter mihi tribuit theologiae professor) adeo alienus sum, ut quaecunque catholicorum Patrum et veterum episcoporum consensu comprobata sunt, etiamsi meum ingeniolum ea non a.s.sequatur, tamen omni reverentia amplexurus sim. Nimirum non paucis experimentis monitus didiceram, c.u.m adhuc juvenis Harmoniam scriberem, (quod mihi jam confirmata aetate persuasissimum est,) _neminem catholico consensui repugnare posse, quin is_ (utcunque ipsi aliquantisper adblandiri videantur sacrae Scripturae loca nonnulla perperam intellecta, et levicularum ratiuncularum phantasmata) _tandem et Divinis Oraculis et sanae rationi repugna.s.se deprehendatur_."--Bp. Bull's _Works_, vol. iv. p. 313.

[444] In days of unbelief, one is tempted to add a note even on a Theological truism like that in the text,--"Esto igitur, inquies; fuerit Deus, qui in Veteri Testamento, sive per Angelum, sive sub angelica repraesentatione sanctis viris apparuit et locutus est; at qua demum ratione adducti crediderunt doctores, fuisse DEI FILIUM? Respondeo: _Ratione, ni fallor, optima, quam ex traditione Apostolica edidicerant_."--_Def. Fid. Nicaen._ I. i. 12. Bp. Bull's Works, vol. v.

i. p. 27.

[445] ???' ? ?????s?a, ? ????tate ??s??e, ?t???? t? pe?? t??t??

????e? ?a? ??? ?? s?. t?? ?? ??? ?? t? ?t? fa???ta t? ???s?

?e????e?? t?? d? ?? ?e???? t? et' a?t?? ?f???ta, t?? t?? ??a???

?p?stas?a? ?a???ta, ??a??a? ?spas????, ?a? t? ??s?? ??sa? p??st?tt??ta t? ?p?d?a, t??t?? d? ?e t?? ??????e??? ?pe???fe ???a??, ?. t. ?.--The entire pa.s.sage may be seen in the best annotated editions of Eusebius, (lib. I. c. ii. -- 17.) since that of Valesius, who first introduced it to notice. But to read it in a truly valuable context, reference should be made to Dr. Mill's _Christian Advocate's_ publication for 1841, p. 92. The note alluded to has been reprinted in Dr. Lee's Discourses _On Inspiration_, p. 535.

[446] _Essays and Reviews_, p. 31.

[447] See Appendix (J).

[448] St. John i. 1-3.

[449] So Bp. Butler, in a pa.s.sage which will be found below, at p. 165-6.--Very different is the judgment of Professor Jowett, who is of opinion that "it will be a further a.s.sistance in the consideration of this subject, to observe that _the Interpretation of Scripture has nothing to do with any opinion respecting its origin_."--_Essays and Reviews_, p. 350.

[450] See above, pp. 55-57.

[451] Professor Jowett in _Essays and Reviews_, pp. 393-402. He adds,--"Discussions respecting the use of the Greek article, have gone far beyond the line of utility. There seem to be reasons for doubting whether any considerable light can be thrown on the New Testament from inquiry into the language.... Minute corrections of tenses or particles are no good." (p. 393.) And this, from a Regius Professor of Greek!

[452] See below, pp. 164-5.

[453] _Essays and Reviews_, p. 372.

[454] St. Matth. ii. 15:17, 18:23.

[455] Hos. xi. 1.

[456] Jer. x.x.xi. 15.

[457] e.g. Is. xi. 1. Also Zech. iii. 8: vi. 12. Jer. xxiii. 5 and x.x.xiii. 15.

[458] St. Matth. viii. 17.

[459] Is. liii. 4.

[460] For consider Exod. ix. 19, Jonah iv. 11, &c.

[461] 1 Cor. ix. 8-10, quoting Dent. xxv. 4. See also 1 Tim. v. 18.--"It seems providentially appointed that texts of the Old Testament should be called out into Christian meaning which are the very texts we might have dismissed into a transitory interest. 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' 'Humane provision!', modern observation might say. 'Is it for oxen G.o.d careth? is an Apostle's interpretation of the same text; 'or saith He it altogether _for our sakes?_'.... It is a law, we find, prospectively set down for the Christian Church."--Eden's _Sermons_, p. 189.

[462] Ps. viii. 7.