The Unity of the Scriptures
The argument to which the reader’s attention is now directed, is the agreement or concord of Scripture with itself, or the consent of all its parts.
It may at the outset be questioned, whether the fact that a book is consistent with itself, be a proof of its divine original? The question is not out of place; it is a fair question. While it is true that writers whose works are voluminous, who have written largely on various subjects, or on different departments of the same subject, and more especially if their works have employed a long series of years, and been published at long intervals, are very apt to slide into some incoherencies, if not some downright and palpable contradictions; yet must it be conceded, that there are human authors who are uniformly and always consistent with themselves. The mere circumstance, therefore, that the Bible is consistent J with itself, is a slender basis on which to found an I argument for its divine original, if we at the same i time take not into consideration the nature of this consistency, and the circumstances which render it, I not to say improbable, but impossible, unless the writers of it were directed by more than human wis- 1 dom. Our design is to show that there exists this agreement of the Scripture with itself; that there is something in the nature of this agreement, which makes it such a moral phenomenon, that it never could have taken place in the history of uninspired men; that the circumstances of it are such as to justify and demand the conclusion, that it is an expression of His mind and will, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
We will direct our thoughts to the Reality AND Nature or this Agreement, as it appears in the facts that are narrated in the Bible; in the representations there made of religious truth; in the harmony which exists between the principles which it reveals, the emotions it inculcates, and the outward conduct which flows from them; and in the unity between the Old and New Testaments.
1. As the basis of our argument we affirm, in the first place, that there is a remarkable agreement in the facts that are narrated in the Scriptures. The arguments of infidels against the Bible as a divine revelation, almost, if not always, relate to matters of fact stated in the sacred volume. The reasons for this probably are, that the facts therein stated are so numerous, that it would require the life of the most diligent student to investigate them minutely; and that apparent discrepancies in little matters, which time and patient research easily reconcile, embolden the infidel in a temporary triumph.
It were impossible, in a single chapter, to do more than make it appear that the Scriptures are consistent with themselves in the great facts which lie at the basis of the religion which they reveal; which have an inseparable connection with all its peculiar doctrines, an influence upon all its precepts, and which give Christianity its distinguishing character and importance. There are such facts. They are, the creation of the world — the descent of the human family from one common pair — the universal deluge — the division of the earth among the sons of Noah — the confusion of tongues — the calling of Abraham and the origin of the Hebrew state — the destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain — the severance of the race of Ishmael from their common progenitor — the bondage and deliverance of the children of Israel in Egypt — the giving of the moral and ceremonial law on Sinai — the pilgrimage through the wilderness — the possession of the promised land — the character of the Jews under the dynasty of the judges and the reign of the kings — the service of the temple — the revolt of the ten tribes — the exile and the return from Babylon — the nation and the family from which the Messiah descended — his miraculous birth, his peculiar character, his preaching, his propitiatory suff*erings and death, his burial and his resurrection — his commission to his apostles to preach the Gospel — his ascension into heaven — the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the organization of the Christian church.
If there is a perfect agreement in the sacred writers in their statement of these great facts, then, so far as this statement goes, there is no discrepancy in the great system of which these facts form the basis. In things of minor moment, there may be seeming discrepancy in the different narrators; but it is discrepancy which disappears on a more minute examination; and even though it does not at once disappear, ought, upon all principles of fair reasoning, to be attributed to other causes than the mistake of the original narrator.
Of these great facts the sacred writers furni&h a perfectly harmonious account. The earliest of them wrote subsequently to some of these events; some of them wrote subsequently to them all; while most of those who wrote subsequently to all, or a part of them, make frequent and explicit reference to the whole. Whether their statements be more or less full, or their references more or less incidental, there is no positive discrepancy in any of them. It would require a volume to illustrate these remarks: we must rely on the reader’s acquamtance with the Scriptures for their illustration. Any man familiar with the Sacred Writings, will see the force of this argument.
The statement of David, for example, is in harmony with that of Moses; the narrative of Peter, and Stephen, and the allusions of Paul, do not contradict the narrative of any of the narrators who preceded them. David celebrates in poetry, what Moses records as a historian; while Stephen, and Peter, and Paul, urge in argument the same facts that are recorded by the historian’s pen and sung by the prophet’s lyre. The historical parts of the New
Testament, as well as the Old, are in perfect coincidence with the more didactic and doctrinal parts. The epistles of Paul, so full of minute specifica- ‘tions, so replete with allusions to times, places, persons, and events; and written with all the freedom of epistolary correspondence, and without any regard to the order of events; are found to discover a minute coincidence with the more extended and exact history given by Luke in the book of the “Acts of the Apostles.”
The statements of the four evangelists, though at a great remove from studied uniformity, are, in regard to the great facts on which Christianity is founded, perfectly harmonious statements. The apparent inconsistencies vanish on close inspection, and the harmony becomes more obvious and striking from the very apparent discrepancies, because they show the entire absence of all collusion. There is a difference in their narratives, but they differ without being contradictory. One gives a more full statement than another; one writes in chronological order, another inweaves facts as they suit his purpose, and without regard to date; one writes to a different people, and with a different object from another, and therefore presents the facts with a different phase and complexion; one traces the genealogy of the Saviour through the line of Mary, and another through the line of Joseph; one specifies a distant ancestor by one name, and another by another; and on inquiry, it is ascertained that he was identified with both.
In some of the genealogical tables there is an apparent discrepancyj arising from the fact, that one writer records the genealogy according to the He- brew usage, reckoning the descendants by the males * only; while another, not regarding this genealogical precision, includes both the male and the female descendants. The most serious discrepancies relate to numbers; in regard to which, it would be marvellous if none, of all the transcribers, had fallen into any error. The alleged contradictions, on which infidelity so triumphantly relies, are almost all of this character. But critical investigation, and faithful research, have again and again refuted them.
The original manuscripts in which the sacred Books were written, have all long since crumbled away, or been destroyed; and for a long series of years, and until the invention of the art of printing, were handed down from generation to generation, by the tedious process of transcribing with the pen. Even the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament now in existence, were made many centuries after the loss of the originals. Amid the ten thousand copies, from the days of Moses to the present day, it is matter for grateful admiration, that we now possess, in the original languages in which they were written, the substantial Scriptures, as they were dictated by Infinite wisdom. Proof readers, and those who are in the habit of correcting the press, cannot fail to feel the relevancy and importance of these observations.
God has provided for the preservation of the unadulterated Scriptures, by having thus preserved them in the original languages in which they were written. Living language is continually fluctuating: dead languages are unchangeable. We cannot sufficiently adore the superintending and vigilant care of Divine Providence, in that these writings have been preserved in these languages, and preserved pure. Some transcribers may have given a different spelling to some words from that which is given by others; some may have misplaced a stop, or inverted a letter, or even misplaced a sentence; yet is it still the same unadulterated history.
Some things may remain obscure; but the obscure, so far as they are understood, never contradict those that are plain; while those that are plain shed light upon those that are obscure. Infidels have not, so far as my knowledge extends, ever undertaken to vitiate the great facts contained in the Scripture narrative. They are too firmly established by impartial and credible witnesses, and too abundantly confirmed by profane history, to be assailed. The most which they have attempted to do, is to charge upon the narrators some minor inconsistencies, which in no way affect the essential harmony of their narrative; and which, if even unexplained, leave the great fabric of God’s truth firm and unimpaired. We have nothing to fear, when they have done their worst; and when/^ after the assault, we count those of its towers that have stood the siege, we shall find that not a tower has fallen.”
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2. There is also, in the Scriptures, the most perfect unity in all their representations of religious truth.
It is allowed by infidels, that there is a stronger apparent harmony between the doctrines of Scripture than the facts. If they do not allow this, we prove it upon them by repeating a remark already made; which is, that their own objections relate, rather to the matters of fact that are stated in the Bible, than to the doctrines it reveals. But this is perfectly the reverse in regard to all human systems. In human systems, the diversity of opinion is much greater than the diversity of facts; the moral disagreement is much greater than the physical, or the historical.
On the subject of religious truth men differ, and ever have differed. No two men in the world, even with the Bible in their hands, could probably now be found, who would write a book on religious subjects as large as the Bible, without expressing differ-, ent views. Much less could thirty or forty men be found who would perfectly harmonize. Suppose the Bible to be blotted out of existence, and some thirty or forty individuals, scattered through different ages of the world, had written on religious subjects, and their works were comprised in a volume. Who does not see, that such a work would have been the merest theological jargon! Let the wild and incoherent speculations of heathen philosophy, and the thousand varieties of pagan religion, give the answer to this demand.
But while these difFerences are in fact almost endless, yet it is the great and undeniable characteristic of the Scriptures, that all their instructions are in perfect harmony. Their great object is to impart the knowledge of truth. Truth is the great and only instrumentality they make use of in order to transform, purify, and elevate the human character. No matter how they teach — whether by history, biography, song, allegory, parable,, argument, or dogmatic testimony and affirmation — religious truth is so deeply and thoroughly inwoven in all they utter, that it forms the great and essential element in all their instructions. Yet in all their views, from beginning to end, there is the most perfect oneness. No matter what the subject of which they treat, all the writers speak the same thing. They uniformly present the same views. We might specify a chapter of doctrines, even to a minute and detailed confession of faith, and we should find the sama unbroken harmony.
The most difficult of all subjects, the one most inaccessible to the minds of men, and the one on which, of all others, the pagan world held notions the most obscure and contradictory, relates to the Divine Being and character. ^’ What,’’ said the King of Syracuse to Simonides — “what is God?” The poet desired a day to consider the question; on the morrow, he requested two days; and as often as he was called upon for an answer, he doubled the time. And when the king demanded the reason of his conduct, ^’ It is,” replied Simonides, ‘’ because the more I consider the question, the more obscure it appears.” Yet this is human — it is enlightened humanity.
The Scriptures never hesitate, never vary when they speak of the infinite and eternal Deity. They utter no dark enigmas; they veil nothing which to creatures can be unveiled; they discourage by no unmingled severities, and flatter by no unmingled mercy; they always and everywhere speak with the same explicitness — they change never. So too of the character of man, and the discovery they make of the way of man’s salvation. They everywhere speak of man as fallen by his iniquity; of one Saviour; one way of going to him, one way only in which this salvation becomes ours. Ten thousand are the fancies of other religions, and all as contradictory to one another and themselves, as they are conjectural and false. The sacred writers all point to the one God-man Mediator — the one Root and Ofi*spring of David — the same Fountain of mercy — the same Tree of Life. They uniformly speak the same thing: let their theme be what it will, the teaching of one is the teaching of all.
And not only do they all speak the same doctrine, but the various doctrines they inculcate all agree with each other. They have a mutual dependence and connection; they give one another a reciprocal support and influence; they grow out of each other, and all hang together, alike deriving their ripeness, and freshness, and flavor, from the same parent stock. Let a diligent student take up a copy of the Scriptures with copious marginal references, and undertake to collate their instructions upon anyone doctrine or moral duty, and he will be surprised at the uniformity of their teaching. They never speak for, and against, the same doctrine; they never bear witness on both sides of any question: nor is there an instance in which they af&rm and deny the same thing. That which in reality “has any Scripture in its favor, has all Scripture in its favor;” nor is there anything in the Bible against it.
Now we maintain that this is a remarkable fact. It is not an easy matter for a false witness, especially if he has a long story to tell, to agree with himself; much less will a number of false witnesses, testifying at great length on so many subjects, agree with one another. This were, if possible, a greater miracle than that of divine inspiration. Is this harmony then the result of mere human wisdom, honestly directed? Is it the effect of fiction or falsehood? This is more than any sober man can be persuaded to believe. It is contrary to all experience and observation. The human mind is too weak, thus to have settled down upon such a vast amount of unchanging truth; it is itself too restless and changing: nor is the instance to be found in the history of our race, in which its views of religious truth possessed such comprehensiveness, consistency, and permanence. We cannot account for this harmony of truth which the sacred Books express, upon any other principle, than that its authors were under the guidance of heavenly wisdom. The thing is impossible: the supposed cause, that uninspired men were its authors, is not adequate to the effect produced.
3. Turn, now, to the harmony which exists between the principles which the Bible reveals and the inward emotions it inculcates and the harmony hetiDeen these inward emotions and the outward conduct which flows from them. True religion consists of doctrine, experience and practice; while in all these respects, it exhibits the most perfect symmetry. There is no inconsistency between its practice and its affections, nor between its affections and its principles. They are all conformed and fitted the one to the other, and form a religion in which the understanding, the heart, and the outward deportment agree. Its religion is like an edifice made up of different parts, but all so perfectly congruous and joined together, that it possesses unequalled strength and beauty. The tendency of its truths is not to destroy, or neutralize, but to excite and sustain that internal state of mind, and those glowing, heavenly affections which it requires; and the tendency of this internal state of mind, so far from being at war with the external character and conduct which it requires, is the only thing that effectually secures it. The love of Christian truth is never found in minds that are not imbued with Christian truth itself j while the practice of it is never found where it is not believed and loved. The truths of the Bible, the love of it, and its controlling power over the life — these three things, constitute the Christian character. Where these three things exist, there is the root, the branches, the fruit — the tree in full bearing. An honest belief in the great truths of Christianity lies at the basis of all holy affections; and holy affections, just in the measure in which they exist in the soul, produce holy obedience.
A man’s affections may be inconsistent with the truths which he believes, because it is the cold and reluctant assent which he accords to mere speculative propositions. So may his life be inconsistent with the principles which he professes to love; but it cannot be inconsistent with the principles which for the time being he truly loves: it may be at war with the principles that are on his lips, but it cannot be at war with the principles that are in his heart. The religion of the Bible, therefore, is throughout consistent with itself It is like sweet music, made up of harmonious parts — like the music of heaven, where, though there are ten thousand voices, each voice is not only perfectly melodious in itself, but all the voices are blended in perfect and delightful harmony, without a jarring note, or the faintest discord.
It is not necessary to our argument, that we should prove that this religion is ever perfectly exemplified among men. It is enough if we can show that this is the religion of the Bible, and that it is exemplified among men, just in the degree in which men are imbued with the spirit which the Bible inculcates. It has never been perfectly exemplified among men, save in a single instance; and in that instance, the thoughts of holiness, the love of holiness, and the life of holiness, were expressive of a harmony of character that indicated its divine origin. Believing the truth, loving the truth, and walking in the truth, constitute one religion. Every truth begets its peculiar grace, and every grace its peculiar virtue. With all the teachings of the Bible on the importance of just conceptions of the truth, it does not sever them from their appropriate affections; and with all its teachings on the importance of godliness within, it never severs them from the godliness that is without. From the views it reveals of God, it deduces the affections we owe to him; from the affections we owe to him, it deduces the duties we owe. Prayer and praise, the study of the Scriptures, the worship of the sanctuary, the sanctification of the Lord’s day, and the profession of his name before men, and the consecration of time, property and influence to his service, are but the fruits of a true and honest loyalty to him as our sovereign Lord and gracious Redeemer. Prom the views it reveals of man and the relations men sustain to one another, it deduces the affections we owe to our fellow men; and from the affections we owe to them, it deduces the correlative duties. Truth, integrity, kindness, purity; respect to our superiors, and submission to those who rule over us; condescension to our inferiors, and doing good to all men as we have opportunity — these, and other relative duties, it ingrafts on the parent stock of the same faith and charity. In this respect, everything in the Bible is perfectly harmonious. And is not this harmony among the indices of its divine origin? Do false religions ever teach thus? Have they ever thus taught? Did ever such a religion originate with weakj fallible, sinful men?
4. In the last place, let us advert to the harmony which exists between the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaiyients. Four hundred years elapsed between the last prophet of the Old, and the first prophet of the New dispensation. The Old Testament was published to the world long before the New; and in this, as well as some other particulars, they form two distinct volumes, while they profess to be only two distinct series of revelations from the same Divine Author. Infidels have not been wanting in strenuous effort to prove that they are contradictory revelations; that the one condemns what the other justifies; that the former is abrogated by the latter, and that therefore both cannot be from God. There is great ignorance, or great disingenuousness in these assertions, and there may be both. A little reflection will show, that the Jewish revelation is confirmed by the Christian, and the Christian by the Jewish; and that there is the most perfect concord between them both.
It is no objection to the divine origin of the Scriptures, that God did not reveal them to men all at once. It is not pretended that the Old Testament contains a complete and perfect revelation. The expansion or amplification of a principle is not to be brought as an objection to the principle itself
All the books in the world are but little more than illustrations; and the most that we can say of them is, that they furnish us with greater advantages for applying what was at first written. The work of God’s revelation was a progressive work; nor is there any more objection to it, on that account, than to the progressive works of creation and providence. God’s revelation had its infancy, its youth, its manhood; and where is the objection to its being born not in all the maturity of its perfected manhood?
Nor is it an objection to the harmony of which we speak, that parts of the Old are abrogated by the New. It would be an objection, if the abrogated parts of the Old Testament had been originally revealed a§ a permanent rule of faith and duty. But they disclaim this high prerogative; they themselves profess to be only a temporary rule, a local rule, that was designed to be superseded by a more perfect and permanent economy. The ceremonial and civil code of the Jewish nation was of such a kind that it could be abrogated, without contravening any one of the great principles of truth and rectitude of which the Bible, as an entire revelation, is the only infallible standard. It was made up, not of moral laws, but of positive institutions which partook not of a moral nature, nor had they any other binding force except that they were commanded. They carried within themselves the seeds of their own dissolution — seeds planted by the hand of God. They were instituted for a particular nation, for a limited time, and for a specified purpose; and the prediction that they should cease was uttered by God’s own voice.
It is one of the proofs of their divine origin, and of their harmony with the other parts of Divine Revelation, that when that time had expired, and that purpose was attained, and that nation passed from under the sceptre of their theocracy, all that was peculiar in the Jewish dispensation was merged in the common Christianity. It is one thing for Christianity to supersede Judaism, another for Judaism to contradict Christianity; one thing for the New Testament to be inconsistent with the Old, and another for the Old, through a long succession of ages, to prepare the way for the New. And this is precisely the relation which the two Testaments sustain to one another. In all its arrangements the Old is ever looking towards the New economy, and these arrangements are completed only by that which is to come. The Old is preliminary to the New, and the New the accomplishment of the Old. And is not this evidence of harmony, rather than the want of it?
Still further: There are several features of the Old Testament which are carried into the New, and which show that they constitute but different parts of one system. The moral code of the Old Testament is the moral code of Christianity; the truth of the Old Testament is the truth of the New. The infidel may be challenged to specify a single moral law, or one principle of truth contained in the writings of Moses and the prophets, which is not recognized and honored by having a place in the teachings of Christ and the apostles.
Every attentive reader of the Bible cannot but have remarked, that to a very great extent, the New Testament does but little more than inculcate with greater explicitness, and amplify the instructions of Moses and the prophets. Nor are they these great moral features of the Old Testament simply, that appear in all their prominence and brightness in the New; but not a few of the features even of its ceremonial institutions, stand out in their true import only in the Christian revelation. The thought is too familiar to almost every mind to need dwelling upon, that the most emphatic institutions of that economy relate to the distinguished Personage who is the grand subject of the Christian revelation, and centre in his person and work. Not only were the sacrifices and oblations prefigurative of the great oblation offered on Calvary, and not only did they derive all their importance from this their typical import; but all the prophecies of the Old Testament are of the same character, and have the person and work of Christ for their common object. They form a system of prophecies with this one object in view. The harmony and unity of their design are not only peculiar, and different from all the pretended predictions of pagan oracles, but are in this respect strongly marked, and truly wonderful. ‘^ It shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel:” here this wonderful system of predictions began. It ran on in one ridge of time, and in one line of the generations of
Adam, till it reached the Jewish nation; and never swerved from its object, nor ran out of the line of that people, until the last of the seers uttered his memorable predictions, about four hundred years before the coming of Christ; and John, his more proximate harbinger, exclaimed, ‘^ Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” It began with Christ; and with Christ it terminated. Every intermediate prophecy, for almost four thousand years, whether made to Noah, or to Abraham; to Isaiah, or Malachi; whether it concerned the antediluvian world, or the nations of Canaan; or the Jews, or the Egyptians, or Nineveh, or Babylon, or Persia, Greece or Rome; concentrated in the gradual and prospective developement of the Divine purpose in regard to one great event and object — the coming of Jesus in the flesh, and the establishment of his kingdom in the earth. Whatever other ends may have been incidentally subserved by this series of prophecies, this is the great end for which the Scriptures of the New Testament inform us this long-continued intercourse between Heaven and earth was maintained.
Now we say that in all these respects, and if in all these, in all others, there is wonderful harmony between the Old and New Testaments. The Old predicts the New, and the New appeals to the Old. Here is a system of instructions, of sacrifices, of predictions, all of prodigious extent, commencing with the fall of man and reaching to the death of Christ, all telling the same story, fraught with the same thoughts, disclosing the same marvellous purpose — a system made up of thousands of parts, and pervading forty centuries; yet everything about it is of a piece, and astonishingly great as it is, all perfectly harmonious. Whence is it? Whence was it? Who was it that bound these two dispensations together, and made them one system? Who bound the prediction in Eden concerning ^’ The Seed of the woman,” with Malachi’s prediction of “The Desire of all nations?” Who associated the blood of AbePs sacrifice with the great oblation that ^’ speaketh better things than the blood of Abel?” Who made the faith of Abraham under the Old dispensation, the example and pattern of later saints under the New? Who made these two dispensations thus speak the same thing? Who thus impregnated the Old with the New, and made the New the expansion and developement of the Old? Is it not strange blindness, that can overlook the mind and hand of God in this accordancy? Impostors might here and there have lighted on a single prefiguration, an isolated service, a lone and solitary prediction; but never on such a long-continued, complete, and harmonious system — for the obvious reasons, that no impostor would have thought of it, and that if he had thought of it, the coincidences are beyond his power.
We look upon this wonderful system, now that it is revealed to us, as one of the simplest things in the world; just as we do upon the laws of nature, to which no being could give birth but the God of nature. The more the one part is studied, and understood, the more light does it throw upon the other. If one is false, both are false; and both are true, if one is true. They lap on to one another, and show the style of the wise Master Builder. There is no collision between them. They are ‘’ the two witnesses of heaven;’’ and instead of ^’emitting such cross lights as are fitted to bewilder the eye of the observer, they are the two candlesticks which man hath not planted, but which stand before the God of the whole earth.” Nothing is more preposterous than to suppose that this harmony, involving as it does so many things, extending as it does over so many ages, embracing as it does such a vast variety off means all tending to the same end and so many causes all producing the same result, is the creature of human wisdom. Pre-concert in such an arrangement was impossible. Nor is it any accidental, or fabulous coincidence. The hand of God is in it: there is no accounting for it, unless ^’ holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Such is the reality and nature of the agreement or concord of the Scriptures with themselves. In all their accession of parts, and in all the progress of their augmented revelations, they may have been perpetually acquiring new excellencies; but they never depart from their uniform character. They disclose new truths, but there is no change of truths once disclosed; new views, but they are not altered views. They consist of more than threescore distinct treatises, composed by more than thirty different writers, most of whom were unknown to each otheij separated by their places of residence, living m different periods and ages of the world, and were all scattered through a period of not less than sixteen hundred years. They were men greatly differing in natural endowments; in age, education, and learning; in their passions and prejudices, and in the stations they held in society. Some of them were rich, and some of them were poor; some of them were legislators and kings, and some of them were shepherds, fishermen, and taxgatherers. They wrote also upon the most interesting of all subjects, the great subject of religion and morals: the subject on which the human mind is acutely sensitive — the subject, in relation to which the stormy passions of men hold them in perpetual agitation, and their ungoverned fancy keeps them in wide and wild extremes — the subject on which human tradition, and human laws, and the maxims and habits of men, and the state of society, and caste and classification, are almost endlessly diversified; and on which, for centuries, nothing was written save what is written in the Bible; and for other centuries, though much was written, little was accessible to the mass of mankind, or that had the confidence of those to whom it was accessible.
The inviolable uniformity, therefore, pervading the Scriptures, is a fact of no doubtful authority in demonstrating their divine origin. No one impostor could have written thus; and no body of impostors, scattered through so many centuries, could have thus agreed with one another. Had such been the origin of these books, they would have varied with the wisdom, or the folly, or the caprice of their authors; they would have changed with every passing age and every revolution of laws and manners, and received their peculiar coloring from the class of society from which their respective authors were taken. So that it is utterly impossible they could have been written without the superintendence of a Divine power.
Such is the argument for the divine origin of the Scriptures from their perfect harmony and agreement.
There is but one objection to it which we feel called upon to answer. The infidel demands, ‘^ If the Bible is thus harmonious, whence is it that there is so much discordancy among those who profess to make it the only standard of their faith and practice? If the Bible is one, if there is an honest faith in it, whence this discrepancy?” We acknowledge the force of the objection, so far as it regards men; but we do not perceive its stringency as it regards the Bible. We say, let God be true, though every man be a liar. As to the discordances among men, we cannot open our mouth. It is as true in moral, as in mathematical science, “that two things which are equal to another and the same thing, are themselves equal.” Human systems which agree with the Bible, agree with each other. The Bible is right, but men are wrong; they are sincerely wrongs because they are sincere in their differences. In requiring men to adopt the Bible as their standard, its Author requires them not to disagree among
Biblenot of Man. 9 themselves. Men alone are chargeable with the sin of putting this objection into the mouth of infidelity, and of bringing this reproach upon the word of God. It is a mournful, but undeniable truth, that the church of God has apostatized from her primeval unity. Time was when ‘’ the multitude of believers were of one heart and one soul.” But these days have passed away; and infidelity has for ages triumphed in a divided church. There is great sin in these discordancies; nor is it the less because they I may, peradventure, have become venerable for their age; nor because the guilt of them has been so long in contracting, and they have become so closely inwoven, and so deeply imbedded in the habits of human thought. We may not depart from the great and obvious principle, that what the Bible teaches, no man, and no set of men, has a right to disbelieve; nor can we resist the irrefragable conclusion, that where this beautifully harmonious system of truth is received, men themselves will be as harmonious as the Bible. But while we give utterance to thoughts like these, we would not have infidels unmindful of the fact, that there is much more extended, substantial agreement in all true Christians than their objection implies. There is such a thing as the “communion of saints,” and essential harmony, with unessential difi*erences. Already are there significant movements in the church of God pointing towai’ds greatei harmony of views and affection. It will be indeed a new era, when such a day is fully ushered in — a dawning, such as has not brightened our spiritual horizon since the early dawn of the Sun of righteousness, when he rose with “healing in his beams.” It will be a waxing, and not a Avaning light. “The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” His church will put on her garments of strength and salvation; her adornment will be the simplicity of truth and the beauty of holiness: and she will look forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as a bannered army. It will be eminently the Lord’s work, and marvellous in the eyes of them who behold it. It will require so much free and unembarrassed interchange of thought; so much candor and fairness; so much that is amiable and conciliating; so much humility and prayer; such a strong and practical acknowledgment of God’s word as the only infallible standard; such oblivion of men, and such a remembrance of the great God; that his own condescending goodness and mercy will be most visibly honored in effecting it. This was the prophet’s hope when he said, “Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice, with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.” This was the Saviour’s prayer, in view of the wants and woes of a ruined world and a scoffing age: “I pray that they all may be one; as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me!”