Conclusion

The grand purpose and aim we have had in view in this little book, has been to exalt the stipremacy of scripture. Various attempts are making, in these days, to impair confidence in the claim of the Bible to be the Inspired and Infallible Word of God, and the supreme guide in faith and duty. We are in the midst of the war of the ages, and the enemy is assaulting the center and stronghold of the Christian religion; for with its Sacred Book is inseparably bound up its Sacred Person,

Some of the friends of the Bible seek to accommodate themselves to the positions of its foes, by giving up the infallibility and inerrancy of the scripture, and conceding that there are *’ mistakes “and even *’ immoralities “in the Bible; but such defenders of the Word of God claim that its inspiration is to be found not in the” words “but the “concept.”

We regard this position as wholly untenable, and as a virtual surrender of the Bible as

I’ROM THE WORD OF GOD. yj

a Divine Book. And we lift up a warning against such views, by whomsoever promulgated.

The contents of this Book of Books are especially made emphatic in its very title, “The Word of God.” Repeatedly does the expression occur, ‘* Words which I command thee,” etc. Paul echoes the Old Testament sentiment in the New: “which things also we speak, 7iot in words ivhicJi mans wisdom teachethy but which the Holy Ghost tcachcth.’’ And he adds, “comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” which, by not a few, is regarded as a simple expansion of the meaning i. e., “expressing spiritual truths in spiritual forms.”

Wordsworth says, “Language is the incarnation of thought.” Burke regarded every word in a sentence as one of the feet on which the sentence walks; and said that, to alter a word, change it for a longer or shorter one, or give it a different position, might change the whole course of the sentence. There are in the Bible thousands of cases in which the accuracy of the “concept” depends on the exactness of the ‘’ word,” and even of the shade of meaning which it conveys and by which it is separated from others of its class. When God sought to convey to man an adequate “concept” of spiritual truth, the task was the more difficult from the fact that heavenly things were to be conveyed to earthly minds and through earthly channels. How could even God impart a knowledge of such matters without leaving the door open to serious, if not fatal, error, unless he guided, at least by supervision and control, the very words in which divine conceptions were clothed?

No reader of the New Testament Greek needs to be told that the whole Epistle to the Romans turns on a single word {(hucuoavvri); and so important is it that the reader shall not misunderstand that word, and the exact sense in which it is employed, that in Rom. iii. 25 -26, the meaning is exactly and repeatedly defined, •’ To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” That is righteousness, in the sense of this epistle. Are we to be told that the concept is the inspired thing, not the word? How are we to get the true concept apart from the right word? To form a wrong conception of justification, as here used, is to misconceive that doctrinal truth which lies at the very basis of our salvation. There are over five thousand instances in Old and New Testaments where the most important distinctions hang on the choice of a particular word, and no other, however like it, will suffice.

It is unsafe to make the Bible and the

Church, and the human Reason joint, or co-ordinate, sources of divine authority. Both the Church and Reason are authoritative only as they are conformed to, and are confirmed by, the Word of God. The voice of our rational powers, and even the conuininis consensus Christianoriivi, like the fallible standards of weights and measures, need correction by the infallible, as the watch is regulated by the chronometer, and even the chronometer by God’s clock, the stars. The mariner dares not follow even his compass as an absolute guide, lest he lose his course, if not his vessel. The needle may have intensity of directive force and susceptibility, but it has its variations; the magnetic pole must be corrected by the celestial pole. Reason and conscience, and even the verdict of the Church, all belong to the human and fallible, and we must steer by the constellations.

The supremacy of the Word of God is the last great truth which is the Palladium of Church and the believer. When that falls, all else falls with it No disaster is too great to follow the destruction of that safeguard of Protestantism. And we should look well before we admit any teaching which actually surrenders this inmost citadel of our faith, or even by implication weakens or lessens the absolute supremacy of the word of God.

We therefore earnestly ask all who wish to know the truth and find the hidden treasures of the Word, not to be kept from a thorough exploration of its hidden beauties by any apparent and superficial discordancies and disagreements. These are but the iron gates that seem forbidding but that yield to the touch of a reverent and obedient spirit and admit us to the “House Beautiful.”

And a Beautiful Palace it is, “built upon the fotmdation of the apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.” ln formation composed of the most precious materials faintly typified in the cedar and shittim woods, and the gold, silver and precious stones. In coiistructioUy it follows the law of a divine unity and archetypal beauty. In completeness, it is divinely perfect. The believer finds all his wants and cravings met. In its refectory it has milk for babes, and the manna, the meat, the honey, for strong men; in its lavatory are the fountains of the water and the blood, that cleanse and sanctify; In Its pharmacy, the balm of Gilead and the panacea for all ills of sin; In its armory, the whole panoply of God; In Its gallery, the portraits of the prophets, patriarchs, apostles and saints; in Its oratory, the altars of sacrifice and incense, prayer and praise; in its conservatory, the celestial plants that bloom in the paradise of God; and in Its observatory, the outlook into the very heavens, where we may behold the face of God.

Blessed is he who enters into all the wonders of God’s “House Beautiful” whose vestibule is so low and whose doors are so narrow that only the humble and obedient soul, who bows as he goes in, can enter at all; and whose Inmost wonders are to be seen only in the clear light of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, who with celestial lamps Illumines the secrets of God to him who, In dependence on the great Interpreter, searches the scriptures.

With the prayer that each reader may learn to find in what, to the profane and godless, are a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, the stepping stones to higher knowledge and faith, the author bids his reader