Inspiration and Interpretation Part 34

Now, two remarks present themselves on this kind of handling, which may be worth stating. (1) Those who so speak forget that the Devils are related to have _conversed with CHRIST_[628]:--that the manna, (of which so many miraculous properties are related[629],) fed 600,000 men for forty years, _and then suddenly ceased_[630]:--that the waters of the Red Sea were _a wall to the children of Israel, on their right hand and on their left_[631]:--that when CHRIST said to the waves of the sea of Galilee "Peace, be still," "there was _a great calm_[632]:"--that Peter's wife's mother, cured of her fever, "rose and _ministered unto_,"

(that is "waited upon,") her Benefactor[633].... It is worse than absurd to explain away _part_ of a miracle, with a view to getting rid of the whole of it: as if the essence of the miracle were not sure to reside in the residuum,--in the very part which is left unaccounted for! (2) But above all, what place have such explanations in the recorded cases of feeding the mult.i.tudes, opening the eyes of one born blind, and raising the dead? While you leave the chiefest miracles of the Gospel untouched, you may not flatter yourself that you have got at the kernel of the matter; or indeed that the real question at issue has been touched by you, at all.

4. There remains to notice one subtle and most treacherous method of dealing with the marvels of Scripture,--(moral and physical alike,)--to which I desire in conclusion to direct your special attention; and which I would brand with burning words if I had them at command. I allude to what is called "IDEOLOGY,"--the plain English for which term is, _a denial of the historical reality of Scripture_. I will not waste time with inquiring whether this method is old or new. It is certainly much in fashion; and it is certainly finding advocates in high quarters. I therefore make no apology for introducing the monstrous thing to your notice. It requires, I should hope, only to be understood, to be rejected with unqualified indignation.

You and I, then, have been taught to believe that "the WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us," in the way St. Matthew and St. Luke describe: that our LORD was Baptized and Tempted of Satan; that He wrought Miracles,--casting out Devils, and even raising the Dead; that He was Transfigured on a mountain; that He was Crucified, died, and was buried; that He rose again the Third Day, ascended into Heaven, and at last, (as on this day,) sent down the PARACLETE to dwell with His Church for ever.

All this, I say, you and I,--with the whole Church Catholic for 1800 years,--have been taught to believe as plain historical truths, mere matters of fact; past telling wonderful indeed, but yet as _historically true_, as that I am standing here and you are sitting yonder,--neither more nor less.

But you are to understand that we, and all mankind with us, have been under a very curious delusion on this head. We are a.s.sured that every one of these things, or at least that some of them, are only _ideologically_ true: that _Historically_, they are false. In plain language, we are requested to believe that they never occurred at all.

It is only a lively way of putting it,--no more!

You will inevitably suppose that I must be trifling with you: I therefore proceed to give you a sample of this kind of teaching. A living dignitary of our Church writes as follows concerning the Transfiguration of CHRIST. "It may be asked, of what kind was the vision which we here call the Transfiguration? Was it an effect produced within on the minds of the Apostles; or was it that an actual external change came for the time over the person of our LORD? We cannot say." I give you this as the mildest form of the poison. Quite evident is it that the same suggestion is just as applicable to our LORD'S Birth, or to His Death; to His Temptation, or to His Resurrection. But to see whither all this _tends_, and what it really _means_, you must have recourse to the pages of a more advanced proficient in the Science of Ideology. He admits that its "application to the interpretation of Scripture, to the doctrines of Christianity, to the formularies of the Church, may undoubtedly be pushed so far as to leave in the sacred records _no historical residue whatever_. An example of the critical ideology carried to excess," (he says,) "_resolves into an ideal_" the whole of our LORD'S Life and Doctrine; and "_subst.i.tutes a mere shadow_ for the JESUS of the Evangelists." But for all that, (says the writer I am quoting,) "there are traits in the Scriptural person of JESUS, which are better explained by referring them to an ideal than an historical origin: parts of Scripture are more usefully interpreted ideologically than in any other manner,--as for instance, the history of the Temptation by Satan, and accounts of Demoniacal possession." This writer, (who is a clergyman of the Church of England, and a Graduate in Divinity,) goes on to idealize the descent of Mankind from Adam and Eve, together with the chiefest marvels of the Old Testament: insisting that "the force, grandeur, and reality of these ideas are not a whit impaired," although we discredit and reject the history, _as_ history.

So, our SAVIOUR, (he says,) "is none the less the Son of David, in idea and spiritually, even if it be unproved whether He were so in historic fact." "The spiritual significance is still the same," (he says,) "of the Transfiguration, of opening blind eyes, of causing the tongue of the stammerer to speak plainly, of feeding mult.i.tudes with bread in the wilderness, of cleansing leprosy,--whatever links may be deficient in the traditional record of particular events."

"Whatever links may be deficient!" O that men would have the courage or the honesty to _say_ what they _mean_! Why not say plainly, "_however untrustworthy we may account the narrative to be_?" And this writer cannot mean any other thing; for missing "links," a.s.suredly, there are _none_.--In truth this method of wrapping up a monstrous abortion in "purple and fine linen," in order to make it look like "a proper child,"

is so much in vogue, that plain men are obliged first to _translate_ a fallacy in order to understand it. Thus, a recent Apologist for the very writer I have been quoting,--after surrendering the beginning of Genesis as "parabolic," (that is, _not historically true_,) is yet so obliging as to contend that "there still remain events" in Scripture,--our LORD'S Resurrection to wit,--"in which the garb of flesh,"--(pray mark the phraseology!)--"in which _the garb of flesh_ seems to be so indispensable a vehicle for the spirit within, that we can hardly conceive how the one could have sustained itself in the world, unless it had been from the beginning allied to the other[634]." In plain English, the writer is so candid as to admit that if the Resurrection of our LORD JESUS CHRIST from death be a mere fabrication,--in plain terms, a hoax practised upon the credulity of an unscientific age,--it is hard to understand how it can have _imposed_ upon mankind so completely for the last eighteen hundred years.

I will not insult the understanding of those who hear me so grossly as to suppose that dreams like these,--(and really they are no more!)--require answer or refutation. Such desperate shifts to elude the meaning of plain words, as the whole theory of Ideology discloses, would be even ludicrous, if the subject-matter were not so very sacred and solemn. As in the case of certain acts of flagrant dishonesty which one sometimes reads of,--one cannot forbear exclaiming, The man must certainly have felt himself _very sore pressed indeed_ to have been induced to resort to a step so utterly disgraceful to his character!...

Anyhow, since certain persons have adopted this course, I do but plead for consistency. Only let them be sure that they apply this precious method of Interpretation to the History of England, and to everything their friend tells them: and let them not feel surprised if the same kind of ideological handling is bestowed upon everything they tell their friend. Idealize away, and be sure you stick at nothing! _Why_ be outdone in logical consistency by such an one as Strauss? Let men also make their election whether Scripture shall be a lie or not. And when they have made up their minds, let them, in the Name of G.o.d, instead of dealing in unmanly insinuations, and dark hints, and shuffling equivocations,--let them declare themselves plainly, that we may know at least _with whom_ and _with what_ we have to do. For while false Brethren are thus playing fast and loose with Revelation, they are trifling with the faith of thousands,--and imperilling other immortal souls besides their own.

But I shall be reminded that the subject-matter of daily life, and of the Everlasting Gospel, is very different: and that the marvellous character of certain events recorded in the Bible constrains us to relegate those events to a distinct region. A child's plea, which was effectually disposed of upwards of a century ago! What does it amount to but this,--that what is _supernatural_, or even highly extraordinary, must be also untrue?... When, however, the argument is shifted, and is made an appeal _ad misericordiam_:--when I am entreated to remember that though _I_ believe in the Resurrection of CHRIST from Death, the same event is a "stumbling block" to many; and that I am "bound to treat with tenderness those who prefer to lean on the other, and, as _they_ think, _more secure foundation_[635];" (viz. on the hypothesis that the Resurrection of the Son of Man is all a fable;)--I say, when I am so addressed, really, friends and Brethren, I am constrained to cry out that there is a limit beyond which Nature cannot endure; and that _that_ limit has now been overstepped. Will men try to persuade us that _the idea_ of our LORD'S Resurrection is a more secure basis for the Church's faith than _the fact_ of our LORD'S Resurrection? Why, they might as well try to convince the world that a broken reed is a better support than an oaken staff;--or that a handful of waste paper is of more value than the t.i.tle-deeds of an estate. How _can_ a shadow,--how _can_ what is confessedly an imagination,--be, in any sense, or for any body, a "secure foundation;" or indeed, _any foundation at all_? how, above all, can a fancy be a "_more_ secure foundation" than _a fact_?... Not only will I _not_ treat men with tenderness who put forth such blasphemous folly,--(men who, in their rashness, their recklessness, their arrogance, shew no manner of tenderness or consideration for others!)--but I will hold them up to ridicule, to the very utmost of my power. Nay, I would make them objects of unqualified reprobation to all, if I could, as they deserve to be reprobated; for they are the worst enemies of the Gospel of CHRIST[636]. "If CHRIST be not risen, then is our preaching vain, _and your faith is vain also_[637]!" "The Apostle _rests the truth of the Christian Religion_ on the fact that CHRIST was risen.... The whole system turns upon this central point; the several doctrines gather round it, they depend upon it, they grow out of it; so that without it, Christianity would have no coherence or meaning[638]."

You and I know very well "that nothing could more effectually shake the whole fabric of Revealed Religion, than thus converting its history into fable, and its realities into fiction. For if the narratives most usually selected for the purpose may thus be explained away; what part of the Sacred History will be secure against similar treatment? Nay, what doctrines, even those the most essential to Christianity, might not thus be undermined? For are not those doctrines dependent upon the _facts_ recorded in Scripture for the evidence of their truth? Does not, for instance, the whole system of our Redemption presuppose the reality of the Fall as an historical fact? And do not the proofs of the Divine authority of the whole, rest upon the verification of its Prophecies and Miracles, as events which have actually taken place? Allegory thus misapplied is therefore worse than frivolous or useless; it strikes a deadly blow at the very vitals of the Christian Faith[639]." Away then with that very questionable form of liberality, which makes most free with _what belongs to G.o.d_! The truths of Revelation are yours and mine, I grant you: but only _so_ yours and mine that, to our eternal blessedness, we embrace,--to our eternal loss, we let them slip! We add to them, or we take away from them, under peril of G.o.d'S curse.... Away too with that mawkish sentimentality which can find no better object for its sympathy than the hardened blasphemer, and the confirmed sceptic!

_My_ sympathy shall be reserved for those who have never so offended, but are, on the contrary, full of precious promise;--for the young and as yet inexperienced;--for _you_, who will have the battle of CHRIST and His Church to fight, when _we_ shall be mouldering in the grave. Let those who do not know me, deem me uncharitable if they will. I care not.

The uncharitable man,--mark me, Brethren!--the truly uncharitable man, is he, who shews no consideration for weak and unstable souls; who does not regard the trials and perils of the young; who beguiles unsteady feet to the edge of the precipice, and there forsakes them; whose destructive method, (for constructiveness is no part of that man's philosophy!)--whose destructive method leaves the young without chart and compa.s.s,--aye, without moon or stars to sail by; who labours hard to communicate the taint of his own foul leprosy to those who were before unpolluted; who dims the eye, and deadens the ear, and defiles the thoughts, and darkens the hope of as many as have the misfortune to come in his way, and feels no pity!--Yes, yes! The man who sows his own vile doubts broadcast over two continents,--doing his very best to destroy the faith of those for whom CHRIST died,--he, _he_ is the uncharitable man[640]! Not he who, forsaking the flowery fields of the Gospel, (whither he would far, far rather lead you!) and foregoing the free mountain air of imperishable Truth, for your sakes only keeps treading these dreary stifling paths of speculation;--a friend of yours, I mean, who with stammering eloquence, (the more's the pity!) clings thus to you, Sunday after Sunday,--imploring you, with all a brother's earnestness, not to venture where to venture is to die; and warning you against the men who have conspired against your _life_;--even while he labours hard to shew you what he _knows_ to be "a more excellent way;"

and implores you to come where CHRIST Himself hath promised that "ye shall find rest to your souls!"

This is all there is time for, to-day. Let me, in the fewest possible words, gather up what has been spoken into a practical shape.

Friends and brethren,--(I am still addressing the younger men present!)--Divinity is not debate; and Religion is not controversy; and Life is not long enough for perpetual disputings. "He that cometh unto G.o.d must believe that _He is_." The heart dries up, and the affections wither away, and the soul faints, amid an atmosphere of cloudy doubts, and captious difficulties, and perverse disputations. You must rise above it, if you would discern the colours on the everlasting hills, and behold the beauty of the promised Land, and see objects as they really are. O put away from yourselves, (if any of you are so unhappy as to have acquired it,) a habit of mind which will effectually unfit you for profiting by what you read in Holy Scripture: and you, who are free from such dreadful bondage, beware lest, by the indulgence of some sin,--whether of the flesh or of the spirit,--you darken that spiritual eye by which alone spiritual things are to be discerned. It is like talking about colours to the blind, or about sounds to the deaf, to discuss with a certain cla.s.s of persons the Inspiration, or the Interpretation, or the Marvels of Scripture. The Bible is, with them, _a common book_,--"to be _interpreted like any other book_." Prophecy is denied, and Miracles are rejected or explained away,--on the plea that they are alike incredible. These men lay claim to intellectual gifts above their fellows; and know not that they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rebels are they against the Most High; and find their exact image in those citizens who "sent a message after Him, saying, We will not have this Man to reign over us[641]." The gist of all they deliver, is _rebellion against G.o.d_.

But it is not so with yourselves, who have yet everything to learn in respect of Divine things. O beware lest it ever become your own dreadful case! Begin betimes to acquaint yourselves with the wealth of that celestial armoury which contains a weapon which must prove fatal to every foe; but which it depends _on yourselves_ whether you shall have the skill to wield or not. Suffer not yourselves to be cheated of your birthright, the Bible, either by the novel fictions of unstable men, or by the exploded heresies of a bygone age, revived and recommended by living unbelievers. You, especially, who aspire to the Ministerial office, and are destined hereafter to undertake the cure of souls, O do you be doubly watchful! Give to the Bible the undivided homage of a childlike heart; and bow down before its revelations with a suppliant understanding also; and let no characteristic of its method by any means escape you. Notice how it is indeed all one long narrative, from end to end; and see therein G.o.d'S provision that nothing shall be idealized, nothing explained away. Learn too that Man is thus called upon to look outward, and to sustain himself by an external Law; _not_ to depend on the promptings of his own conscience, and so to become a G.o.d unto himself. The Bible, I repeat, is all severest history, from the Alpha to the Omega of it. But then, underneath the surface there are meanings high as Heaven, deep as h.e.l.l: and why? because _the true Author of it is not Man, but G.o.d_!

Let it quicken you in your desire to understand that Book out of which you will have hereafter to preach, reprove, rebuke, exhort[642],--sometimes to bethink yourselves of the flocks which already are expecting you; and among which G.o.d already sees your future going out and coming in; your faithful teaching, or (G.o.d forbid!) your betrayal of a most sacred trust. Acquaint yourselves in due time, by all means, with the scientific grounds on which the Bible is to be received as the Word of G.o.d: but of a truth, hereafter, you will forget to require that external testimony; for you will be convinced of its Divine origin, when you have become the adoring witnesses of its Divine power.

Truly _that_ must be from G.o.d which can so change the life and affect the heart; which can sustain the spirit under bereavement, and become the soul's satisfying portion under every form of adversity! It has already altered the aspect of the World; and it has still a mighty work to do in India, and in China, and in Africa, and in the Islands of the Sea.

Difficulties there are in Scripture, doubtless: but I should be far more perplexed by the absence of them, than I shall ever be by their presence. Nay, they are a chief source of joy to a rightly const.i.tuted mind; for they exercise the moral nature and the intellectual powers, in the n.o.blest possible way. It is the office of the highest Intellect to know when to walk _by Faith_, and when _by sight_: and when, to "ask for the old paths." It needs a mind of no common order fully to recognize the distinctive difference between a system which comes from G.o.d; and one which has been elaborated by human Reason: the latter progressive,--the former incapable of progress; the one liable to change,--the other, unchangeable for ever. There are certain indelible characteristics of a Divine Revelation, I say, which it is the office of the keenest wit to detect and hold fast,--which it is a prime note of imbecility in a thoughtful man to overlook and let go.... The Bible in truth, as one grows older,--(to me at least it seems so,)--becomes almost the only thing in the world really deserving of a man's attention. _Above_ Reason, many things in it confessedly are: but _against_ Reason, I do not know of _one_. Meantime, is it not a glorious antic.i.p.ation for you and for me, that to understand those hard things fully may be hereafter a part of our chiefest bliss? There is but a step between us and death[643]; and a.s.suredly when we wake up after His likeness, we shall be satisfied with it[644]!... Already "the shadows of the evening are stretched out[645]." Be patient, O my soul, "until the day break, and the shadows flee away[646]!"

THY STATUTES HAVE BEEN MY SONGS IN THE HOUSE OF MY PILGRIMAGE.

FOOTNOTES:

[589] Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, Whit-Sunday, May 19th, 1861.

[590] Acts xxiii. 8. For the phrase in the text, see _Essays and Reviews_, p. 151. Also p. 174.

[591] See the Appendix (C).

[592] Should one not as readily acknowledge a hint which was gathered from the conversation of the thoughtful Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale, as if it had been derived from some of his published writings?

[593] 1 Sam. xv. 6.

[594] Numb. x. 29-32.

[595] A hint has here been taken from one of Dr. W. H. Mill's admirable _University Sermons_, pp. 239-40.

[596] Judges iv. 6.

[597] Ibid. iv. 17.

[598] Ibid. v. 6.

[599] Judges v. 6, 7, 11.

[600] Ibid. iv. 4, 5.

[601] Ibid. v. 7.

[602] Ibid. v. 5 and 9.

[603] 1 Sam. xii.

[604] Gen. xlix. 5.

[605] Comp. Judges v. 14, 17, with Numb, x.x.xii. 39, 40, and Josh. xiii.

31.--Consider Ps. lx.x.x. 2.

[606] 2 Kings vi. 16.

[607] 1 Kings xx. 42.

[608] St. John i. 17.

[609] 2 St. Peter ii. 16.

[610] Numb. xxii., xxiii., xxiv., xxv., x.x.xi. 8 and 16. Joshua xxiv. 9, 10: xiii. 22. Micah vi. 5. Nehem. xiii. 1, 2 (quoting Deut. xxiii. 3, 4.) 2 St. Peter ii. 14-16. St. Jude ver. 11. Rev. ii. 14.

[611] Exod. xiv. 19-31, &c. is thus referred to in Josh. ii. 10: iv. 23.

Judges v. 4, 5. Job xxvi. 12. Ps. lxxiv. 13: cvi. 7-11: cxiv. 1-8: lxxvii. 14-20: lxvi. 6: lxxviii. 12-31. Amos ii. 10. Hos. xii. 13. Is.

lxiii. 11-13: xliii. 16: li. 9, 10, 15. Micah vi. 4-5. Jer. ii. 6: x.x.xii. 20-1. Dan. ix. 15. 2 Sam. vii. 23. 2 Kings xvii. 7. Neh. ix.

9-21. Acts vii. 30-41. 1 Cor. x. 1-11. 2 Tim. iii. 8. Hebr. xi. 29. Rev.

xv. 3.

[612] Gen. i. 1, (Heb. xi. 3:) 3, (2 Cor. iv. 6:) 5, (1 Thess, v. 5:) 6, 9, (2 St. Pet. iii. 5:) 11, 12, (1 St. John iii. 9:) 14, (Phil. ii. 15: Rev. xxi. 11:) 24, (Acts x. 12: xi. 6:) 26, (St. James iii. 9:) 26, 27, (Col. iii. 10:) 27, (1 Cor. xi. 7: St. Matth. xix. 4: St. Mark x. 6:) 28, (Ps. viii. 6-8, commented on in Heb. ii. 5-9: 1 Cor. xv. 25: Eph. i.

22.)--Gen. ii. 2, (Heb. iv. 4, 10:) 7, (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47:) 9, (Rev. ii.

7: xxii. 2, 14, 19:) 18, (1 Cor. xi. 9:) 22, (1 Tim. ii. 13:) 23, (Eph.

v. 30:) 24, (Eph. v. 31: St. Matth. xix. 5: St. Mark x. 7: 1 Cor. vi.