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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 82

IV. The Bible

IV. The Bible.

Coming to the question of the inspiration of the Bible, our author insists that the reader should examine the Bible "precisely in the way and with the same feeling as that with which he would approach the consideration and examination of any other book." To this I have not the least objection, only I would draw attention to a difference between the Bible and all other books, which is too often overlooked. page 18 Who ever heard of a book except the Bible which it took fifteen hundred years to write? Who ever heard of any one book, the oldest passage in which was at least fifteen hundred years older than the latest? If any volume could be produced showing such a unity of design and structure that it might still be regarded as one book, and that a continuous thread of narrative or teaching, or both, might be found running through it from beginning to end, would not such a book deserve to be regarded as a kind of miracle in itself? But such a book is the Bible, and such another book is not to be found in the literature of the whole world. Let the reader pause for a moment and compare the subjects of the beginning of Genesis with the subjects of the close of Revelation. In order to show their striking unison we will here present them in a tabular form :—
In Genesis we Have In Revelation we Have—
The creation of the heavens and the earth,
Paradise and the tree of life,
The fall, the curse and death,
The serpent as a tempter and destroyer,
The institution of marriage.
New heavens and a new earth,
Restoration of the tree of life,
"No more death," "No more curse,"
The destruction of that old serpent, the devil,
The marriage of the lamb and the bride.

The Israelite Seer John, sitting down to write the Revelation, returns to the subjects described by the Israelite Prophet Moses fifteen hundred years before, and closes the majestic volume which Moses had begun. That volume, like some grand anthem, returns after many variations, many minor chords of lamentation, to the same solemn harmonies with which it had commenced, only now there are no minor chords, no plaintive notes of sorrow, but a sublime chorus of heavenly praise.*

But we are to pass over the fact and the significance of this extraordinary and altogether unexampled character of the volume which we call the Bible, and examine it as we would "any other book." But how does our author examine it? On the one hand, he seems to have a profound respect for the "scholars and critics" who have discovered points of "difference, contradiction, and variance between one portion of Scripture and another," as well as for the "men of letters and

* Note.—It has been pointed out to me that I have here unconsciously borrowed an idea from De Quincey "On Protestantism." I would commend his eloquent remarks on the Bible to the notice of the reader.

page 19 science," who have laid bare its "many glaring anachronisms and violations of natural law;"* and, on the other hand, he shows an equally profound contempt for what he calls "the ecclesiastical school of metaphysicians," who have treated it in a different way. Who these metaphysicians may be, is not very clear. Evidently they are great sinners, in a literary sense, but the head and front of their offending appears to be that they are too "metaphysical." Now, in what sense can our author be using the terms "metaphysician" and "metaphysical," which he repeats so often in this connection? In the Imperial Dictionary several uses of these terms are given, but none of them helps me to understand the meaning attached to them by our author. As far as I can determine by his references, he classes together as "metaphysicians" a considerable variety of commentators whom we should put in different classes, inasmuch as some of them show great ability and others show very little. The only conclusion I can come to is, that he must have adopted the Scotchman's definition : "When ae man explains till anither what he disna understand himsel', that's metapheesics !"

It is not the only instance in this book of a peculiar use of some of the words in the English language. In the preface (page vii.) "dogmatize" is apparently used as an active verb in the sense of "denounce;" but I am forgetting that, in our author's view, the preface is not an integral part of the book; and perhaps we ought to conclude that this preface, like the preface to St. Luke's Gospel, is "possibly or probably by a later hand."

But if he is original in his use of language, our author shows little or no originality in the charges brought against the Bible. The views put forward by negative critics are repeated as if they had never been answered, and the defenders of inspiration go into the ignominious class of the "ecclesiastical metaphysicians." A few of his objections, indeed, are such as I do not remember to have met with before. The three-fold repetition of the Prayer of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane, which, I think, to most readers will seem a natural and most pathetic indication of the anguish of His soul at the time, is pointed at as a violation of the rule which He gave His disciples—"Use not vain repetitions." The language of St. John, where he says, "I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the

* Page 45.

Page 46.

Page 51.

page 20 books that should be written" concerning the things which Jesus did, is called "a palpably absurd exaggeration," not to be "softened into a hyperbolic statement."* Where St. Mark tells us that Jesus walked on the water, and "would have passed by" the ship in which His disciples were—our author explains him to mean that Jesus would have "missed the ship had they not called out to Him." He finds an absurd inconsistency in Christ having power to walk on the water, and yet not sufficient eyesight to see the ship, but the absurdity is nowhere but in his own brain. I think our author may claim the sole glory of having discovered these three objections, but it is otherwise when he repeats the assertions of those critics who have discovered two or more Isaiahs and two Daniels. To the student who knows that this cutting-up of the prophets originated merely in the fact that their writings contained prophecy, and that prophecy, being a supernatural thing, must at any cost be got rid of by the negative critics; and that, therefore, their ingenuity discovered different authors of different dates for the books, it is exasperating to see these charges repeated as if their falseness had never been exposed. But when our author comes to deal with the Canon of the New Testament, when he gives his version of how the New Testament came into shape, he displays his glaring ignorance—or the glaring ignorance of someone else, for the words are partly quoted—of this very important subject. Apparently, he thinks that the New Testament, as we have it, did not exist in its present form till the Council of Carthage in 397. The whole question of the Canon of the New Testament—that is, of the authenticity and genuineness of each of the twenty-seven independent writings which form the volume of the New Testament, can be discussed fully without reference to the work of this council at all, as anyone knows who has read, for example, Westcott on the Canon of the New Testament, or a more elementary and popular work by the same author, "The Bible in the Church." The evidence that is really important all comes from the first three centuries of Christianity, not from the fourth, and even our three principal manuscripts are all older than this council. And yet our author tells us that the New Testament was "compiled 400 years after Jesus !"
Moral objections against the Old Testament are next brought up in this learned work, special objection being made

* Page 50.

Page 66.

Page 55.

page 21 to what is called "the filth that is to be found passim throughout the Old Testament." It is thought a most serious charge that "there are pages upon pages, and chapter upon chapter, that no father or mother, worthy of the name, would ever dream of reading to, or willingly allowing a son or daughter to read."* And are there not, I would ask, a multitude of facts in human life, which grown men and women must face, and yet which no father or mother would tell to their children? And is the Word of God only to touch upon those facts in human life which may safely and wisely be told to little children? If so, it cannot possibly deal with some of the most crying evils which afflict society.

If it could be shown that there is in the Bible one word of pruriency, a glossing-over of vice with false names, or even one-tenth part of the real filth that is to be found in Shakespeare, then it would be a real charge. But the worst fault of the Bible on this side is that it tells plain truths in unvarnished language, and does not try to make that which is actually hideous appear specious.

I am reminded here of some observations made by Voltaire on the Hebrew Idyll, called the "Song of Solomon." He praises it for its simple and innocent outspokenness, and says that it belongs to an age of the world when men were less refined in their language, but more pure in their hearts, than the men of his own day. He contrasts it with the Parisian drama, in which vice, dressed in specious forms, was exhibited before a public, which yet would be inexpressibly shocked at the undisguised naturalness of this Hebrew poem; and he concludes with these words : "Purity has fled from our hearts to take refuge on our lips!"

Having denounced the immorality of the Old Testament our author proceeds to assault the miracles of both the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament, by the way, he finds one miracle which I never remember to have heard of before. On pages 62 and 63, reference is twice made to "the miraculous conception of Manoah." Now, I was taught in the Sunday-school that Manoah was the name of the father—not the mother—of Samson, so that our author's words make the miracle rather more extraordinary than the Bible makes it. I would not be so cruel as to draw attention to this unfortunate slip, but I am dealing with one who poses as a critic of the Bible.

* Page 56.

page 22

To answer the numerous charges made by our author against the miraculous stories of the Bible, would be a task much beyond our present limits. I shall content myself with quoting a remark which I read many years ago in one of our leading reviews—"As long as the great crowning miracle of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead stands upon so firm a rock of historical evidence as it does, it is simply idle to dispute about minor miracles." I did not then understand what was meant by this "rock of historical evidence," but I have come to understand something of it since, and would that time and space would allow me to put it before every doubting reader ! The reality of Christ's resurrection is the only possible way of accounting for the very existence of Christianity at the present day, when all the circumstances are fairly considered. It is as essential to account for the victory of Christianity, first over Judaism, and then over the Roman world, as the rains of Abyssinia are necessary to account for the overflow of the Nile. Without it Christianity is an effect without a cause. Some of the keenest and ablest of sceptical critics of the present century—from Baur down to Renan—have exhausted themselves in trying to account for the origin of Christianity without this extraordinary fact behind it, and they have failed by the admission of the men of their own school of thought. There is no rational way of accounting for it but this, no way that does not involve such contradictions that to reconcile them would be more difficult than to believe in any number of miracles.

Besides, a religion without miracles is not worthy of the name of religion. We must have miracles. We must have a resurrection. "I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." And, if I am to give up this part of my belief, I care not who takes the rest of it from me. But it all rests on the word of Him who has said, "I am the resurrection and the life." "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish." And if I want a bodily resurrection hereafter, no less do I need a moral resurrection now. I want the living Jesus Christ to work moral healing in my nature by His spirit, like those physical healings which He wrought when He put forth His hand and gave strength to the paralyzed limb and cleansing to the leprous form.

Our author does not seem to think that we want anything of this kind. He seems to have no doubt that it is within his power to "attain to the life of, and follow the example of, page 23 Christ." Happy man! Said I not well that he must have been living in a paradise far away from evil around and evil within? But it is not so with me. Only let him do as he says, and I will come and sit at his feet, and avail myself of his help in doing that which is the Christian's calling—"To follow the example of our Saviour Christ and to be made like unto Him."—(Baptismal service.)