Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

without the Bible; right in depending on the Scriptures for much of our best knowledge upon all moral and spiritual subjects, and for all we may be said to know upon some of the greatest subjects of thought and dearest interests of man. Faith has its proper sphere beyond the province of reason, and supplies a class of truths to which unaided reason could never have attained. But faith is not, therefore, a substitute for reason. We are not obliged to renounce reason in order to avoid rationalism; this would be the opposite extreme. There is a point of union. The two principles are not antagonistic; they blend and harmonize in the same mind; the one is the proper complement of the other. Isolated and in excess they lead, the one to impiety, the other to superstition. Indulged to extremes, they destroy one another. A faith not justified by reason is an illusion; a reason not implying faith is impossible. How can a faith which does not commend itself to the judgment, command respect or be binding? On what does it rest its claims? Whereon does its authority repose? What gives it power to bind the conscience? To what does it appeal? And a reason which does not receive the testimonies of the senses, of the memory, of the conscience, of the taste, of the cognitive power in all its manifestations, what can it do? What does it know? Absolutely nothing. There is therefore a kind of faith, faith in God, my Maker, lying at the basis of all my primary judgments, a confidence in the divine voice speaking through my physical and moral organization. And there is a reasonableness in the faith which carries me beyond the reach of my natural powers, and helps me, reposing on God's revealed word, to see things invisible to the mere natural man. The attempt, therefore, to dissever faith from reason, is an attempt to put asunder what God hath joined together; if it could be done, and just so far as it could be done, it would make a false man; would annihilate man on the one hand, or cut him off from God on the other. The theory is, that nothing can be known but what is taught us in the Bible; that the Bible is an authoritative revelation from heaven, and precludes all reliance on human

reasona degraded, uncertain, fallacious guide, amusing and bewildering us with vain philosophies, but utterly unworthy to be trusted, and forbidden to presume on seeing or knowing anything.

Now if it be so, it is certainly natural to ask where the Bible itself gets its authority? Are we to assume that it is the word of God, and receive it without examination or inquiry? Why receive it, and not the Talmuds, or the Apocryphies, or the Koran, or the Vedas? Are all of equal authority? If not, what reason of preference? How do we know that miracles were ever wrought; that Moses or John ever witnessed a miracle; that the eyes of Moses or John did not delude them; that the real books of Moses and John have come down to us; that we rightly interpret their words? How know we, in a word, that we have any revelation from God? What is a miracle, if there be no God? If all the events of nature may come to pass without God, why not those we call miracles? How can the Bible be God's word, unless there be a God? And how can the Bible, of itself, prove God's existence? The authority of the Bible is derived from its being God's book. It cannot, therefore, be assumed to prove a God. If all nature fails to prove it, can it be proved by a book? The argument for the Bible and the argument for miracles take the being of God for granted; and are both incapable of proof unless his being is assumed; for, unless this be assumed, there is no God to interrupt the course of nature for a moral purpose, and that is the idea of a miracle; no God to be set forth in Scripture. We have, therefore, neither an internal credibility arising from the correspondence of the Bible with the known character of God, nor the evidence of miracles in support of our faith in the Scriptures.

Is it replied, that we have reason, each of us, to expect a special inspiration to assure us of the authority of the Word, and to guide us to the understanding of it? How know we this? By inspiration? Then how know we that we are thus inspired? The first act of inspiration cannot be known by a previous one. And if not, we must at last come to a point where we can judge of the question of our inspiration by our reason only. And thus even this faith in

inspiration is found ultimately to rest on the intuitions of reason. If, therefore, inspiration supersedes the use of reason, and refuses to recognize its judgments, what becomes of our faith in inspiration itself? How can we possibly know that we are ourselves inspired, any more than we can know the written word to be inspired, unless the faculties of knowledge within us may be relied upon?

To present the subject in another form: the doctrine of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost superseding human reason in discovering the authority and meaning of Scripture, claims to be itself a doctrine of revelation. How is that to be ascertained? By interpretation of Scripture, doubtless. But are we to assume, that we are inspired to explain the meaning of Scripture on the very question of our inspiration? If not, then this fundamental truth is to be deduced from Scripture by the application of our reason to the study of it, according to the principles of interpretation that belong to the languages of Scripture.

On the supposition that each individual Christian is to regard himself as privileged to expect the Holy Ghost, independently of all commentators, lexicons, and other critical aids, to open to him, without danger of mistake, the treasures of divine truth contained in the sacred writings, how is it possible that good men should come to such diverse and conflicting opinions in important matters of religious faith?

Besides, what Bible is a man to study? If the Spirit and the simple Word alone are to be our guides, it must doubtless be the truly inspired word; for a translation is a commentary, a human aid, an unauthoritative representation of the Original Record.

The question is, whether the Word of God is to be interpreted by the exercise of our own reason, with the ordinary aid of God's Spirit, or by special divine inspiration, refusing the aids of reason. And it is argued with earnestness by some divines that it is to be interpreted by special divine inspiration, because the fallen and erring mind of man cannot be safely trusted with this responsibility. Now it is either true that the human reason, with such divine assistance as we are encouraged to hope for in all our duties,

may be so trusted, or that it may not. If it may, why then the question is settled; if it may not, who convinces me of this? What intellectual guide, what conclusive reasoner, demands my assent to this humiliating truth? Is it not the very Reason, whose authority cannot be trusted, whose judgments are to be always suspected? It is clear enough, that an argument based upon the incapacity of man to argue, ought not to weigh much, at least, with those who urge it.

Are we, then, without a standard of religious truth? Certainly not the Bible is a standard. Who is to decide what the Bible teaches? Every man to whom it comes, carefully using such helps as he can command; seeking, by continual prayer, the promised influences of God's Spirit to enlighten and direct him, and cheerfully according to every other man the same sacred privilege.

And what if we should not all agree? What if none, not even the keenest sighted and the best disposed, should succeed, with all pains, in coming to a full and perfect understanding of the marvellous Book of God? The most erring and the least successful of God's children may discover enough of His truth to save them; and the gifted and favored ones not be tempted to doubt, that if the earthly things of our religious faith so puzzle and confound them, there will be occupation for all their noblest powers, when the heavenly things are told us.

It is to be remembered, also, that truth, even divine truth, enriches those who attain it, not less in the acquisition than the possession: the mental and moral habits which its slow and toilsome pursuit engenders, are not the least valuable part of the divine treasure itself. Were it all of inspiration, it would hardly possess either the charm or the utility which our trials in its acquisition and our conscious sacrifices for its sake, impart to it. Reason, though a sublunary thing, is yet a divine endowment; and its dim conceptions in this earthly state, may be real glimpses of eternal truth, and one day constitute a part, however humble and inconsiderable, yet a part, of the light of Heaven. The ethereal glories, which over-canopy the earth and festoon the upper skies, are of such stuff as dew-drops and tears are made of.

ARTICLE VI.

WISDOM AS A PERSON IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.

[blocks in formation]

IN several passages of the book of Proverbs, Wisdom is introduced in a personal form, solemnly calling upon the children of men to listen to her words, promising life to those who obey her voice, and threatening those who despise her with death. Not to mention other minor passages, we refer the reader to Chap. i. 20-33 and Chap. viii. 1-ix. 12; particularly the very remarkable description of Wisdom as the eldest child of God, and dwelling in His presence before the creation of the world, Chap. viii. 22-31. Notwithstanding Bertheau's objections, these two passages must be considered as proceeding from the same author; and the reader who would enter fully into the spirit of the writer, should study them both in connection with each other. Respecting the meaning of the word Wisdom in these passages, very different ideas have been entertained. To introduce the subject, we will take two opinions representing opposite extremes.

The first view, which is also the lowest, is that which takes the term here simply as a poetic personification of the lessons which are perpetually inculcated on man as well by the order of nature as by the course of divine Providence; as much as to say: The whole constitution of the world continually admonishes men to walk in the ways of virtue. We cannot deviate from the path of rectitude without being in various ways reminded of our folly. We have continual experience in our own case, of the evils of sin; and continual opportunity to learn, from observing its effects in others, that it always leads to misery and ruin. We have but to open our eyes that we may see how gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery

Die Sprüche Salomo's: Einleitung. Professor Stuart also follows his judgBut Ewald rightly decides that the first nine chapters constitute one

ment.

whole.

« AnteriorContinuar »