Adaptation of the Scriptures to the Character and Wants of Man

Not a little has been written on the subject of Natural Theology, to prove the being of God from the adaptation of external nature to the intellectual and moral constitution of man. In a short digression from his main object, in one of the Bridge water Treatises upon this topic, the Reverend Dr. Chalmers makes the following observations. If in the system of external nature, we can recognize the evidence of God being its Author in the adaptation, wherewith it teems, to the moral and intellectual constitution of man, there is room and opportunity for this very evidence in the book of an external revelation. What appears in the construction of a world might be made to appear as manifestly in the construction of a volume, whose objective truth may present as obvious and skilful an accommodation to our mental economy as do the objective things of a created universe. And it is not less favorable for au indication of its divine original, that whereas nature, as being the original system, abounds with those fitnesses which harmonize with the mental constitution in a state of health: Christianity, as being a restorative system, abounds in fitnesses to the same constitution in a state of disease. Certain it is that the same wisdom, and goodness, and even power of a moral architect, may be as strikingly evinced in the reparation, as in the primeval establishment of a moral nature.”

It is to this class of credentials with which the Bible comes to us, that I propose to devote the present chapter. Man, in his primeval integrity, was a world of wonders. Endowed with exalted intellectual faculties, from the first moment of his existence he was obedient to the law of his being, and his Creator; his moral excellence was unblotted, and his character sinless. As a consequence of this, he was happy. Above, without, within, there was nothing to interrupt his fellowship with his Maker, nothing to poison the fountains of his joy. To us this picture seems almost like fable, because in all the subsequent history of our race, there is not another such example of innocence and loveliness; not one bright and refreshing spot on which the eye can rest. In his fallen state, he is a complication of wonders; a complication of intellectual and moral ailments, that are at war with one another and with God. Originally the elements of his being all vitally united, and all, with their separate functions, were in due subordination and subserviency. Melancholy as the fact is, sin has disturbed and confounded this harmony; it has to such an extent deranged man’s intellectual and moral system, that he has lost sight of the great end of his existence; and remaining as he is, is unhappy, lives to no good purpose, and dies in despair.

A system of philosophy, or religion, that can successfully address itself to his entire being in all its states of moral degradation and reform, in all their varieties, in all the unnumbered individuals of the race, in every age and clime, must be a nicely adjusted system. Its parts must be wonderfully arranged and put together so as to meet one another, and so that its many movements and influences may all tend to one and the most desirable result. We affirm, that just such a system is revealed in the Bible; and we proceed to trace this adaptation.

1. We look at man, in the first place, as an m dividual existence. One of his noblest powers is his intelligence. He is the creature of thought; and this thinking existence within him must have a religion that satisfies it. If the understanding does not go along with it, or if it keep his mind in the bandages of infancy and impose manacles upon thought, it is no religion for a creature of intelligence. Or if it be a religion that makes heavy exactions upon his credulity, and does not enforce its claims by solid argument, it is no religion for a creature of intelligence. The Bible reveals no such dubious theories; but on the other hand, just the truths in which the human mind, in all the stages of its progress and advancement, feels the deepest interest; and which, from their simplicity, their greatness and their certainty, are not only fitted to relieve from intellectual depression and disquietude.

bul impart intense delight to every honest inquiry after truth. Here are those great objects of knowledge, those truths, which the mind so eagerly seeks after, and which men most need to know.

It is not easy for us who have the Bible in our hands, to have any conception of the doubt, the absolute scepticism, and the consequent solicitude and distress on almost every subject of religious and moral inquiry, which would prevail but for the clear and authoritative decisions of this one Book. Everything would be thrown into the region of conjecture; the human mind would be in a state of fermentation, and everywhere tossed upon the ocean of its own unsettled thoughts. If the inquiry were put to the mxOst intelligent and established Christian in the world. What would be his faith without the Bible? he would feel constrained to reply, “I do not know what it would be.” It would be like dark chaos, or the ocean in a storm, where neither faith nor hope would have any anchorage ground to rest upon. This truthful record meets the wants of man as the creature of intelligence. It is the religion of light, of truth and certainty. It satisfies the mind when nothing else satisfies. No matter how depressed, or degraded the intelligence, the Bible elevates it; no matter how elevated it is, the Bible is its guide and counsellor; no matter how faint and weary, here it is led to the head and fountain of living waters.

Man, too, is a moral being: he possesses a sense of moral obligation, and while he approves what is right, he condemns what is wrong in moral conduct.

Conscience has not a little to do with his religion although in defiance of himself she is a severe arbiter. Men who do not obey her dictates, know that they ought to obey them. She may not govern them, but she claims the right of governing them; and though her supremacy may be disputed, resisted, and dethroned, yet she ^’ever holds the legitimate authority.” She approves of rectitude; but, unhappily, she sees very little to approve; and the consequence is, she feels the outrage and the wrong. In default of the rectitude she demands, she has nothing left her but to utter her remonstrances, and inflict those terrible apprehensions, those fearful forebodings of the coming wrath, which agitate and torment the soul. Sometimes she exerts this, her only remaining prerogative, with amazing power; and so lashes the offender with her scorpion sting, that he feels within him the incipient gnawings of the worm that never dies. A religion that is adapted to man, must meet these demands of conscience. They cannot be resisted, nor set aside, nor connived at: it is not in man’s nature thus to trifle with her claims.

If we look to the history of the past, or if we look over the face of the world at the present hour, we see that the various religions of human devising fail to suggest the method by which these demands shall be obviated. Thousands and millions have tried them; but, with one single exception, there is no religion that has ever been able to extract the fangs of this deadly serpent. No experiment ha« ever been tried more extensively, or more fully, or more fairly. Costly offerings have been laid on the shrine of idol gods, voluntary sufferings have been inflicted without number upon the defaulter, and living men have been immolated upon the altars of Moloch. Yet none of these religions ever gave, nor can they give the conscience peace.

Yet may this deadly wound be healed. ^’ There is balm in Gilead; there is a physician there.” As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so has the Son of Man been lifted up. Altogether remote from the ordinary apprehensions of mankind, and the most extraordinary of the Divine proceedings with regard to man, the cross of Christ effectu ally meets these demands, and imparts “peace which passe th all understanding.” This is what the religion of the Bible professes to accomplish; and there is “a great cloud of witnesses” that bear testimony to the redemption of this wondrous pledge. These are matters of fact and no reasoning in the world can disprove them. This one religion there is, which in theory and practice, by observation and experience, proves itself a fitting and full relief for these terrible apprehensions. It is a remarkable fact in the history of our race, that no man ever believed in the Christian Atonement without a pacified conscience. The remedy is adapted to the disease. Duly appreciated, that great sacrifice for sin acts as a charm upon the conscience, and assuages its agonies. It brings relief The aching head reposes upon it. It stanches the wounds of the lacerated and bleeding spirit, and

DiHe not of Man. Q# relieves from apprehensions which make existence a burden, and immortality a curse.

Men also have something more than intellect and consciencCj to which the Bible is adapted. Their mortal character is polluted and vile; it is defiled and loathsome; far from God and the rectitude which he approves. It is unfruitful in righteousness, and fruitful only in sin — like a land bearing thorns and briers, whose end is to be burned. We need no revelation from Heaven to teach this affecting and melancholy lesson: it is not so much a lesson to be taught and learned, as a disgraceful and woeful picture to be surveyed, and one over which we might well shed a flood of tears. Yet is there no relief from the havoc sin has made, and no deliverance from the power of sin, except from the Bible. The fact is one which, if it had not been so often repeated, might well strike us with surprise, that however the mind of man may be improved by culture, refined by science, restrained by discipline, controlled by law, or elevated by those moralizing influences which false religions and human agency may supply, there is not an age, nor territory throughout this wide world, where these influences alone have made it better and holier. There is not an instance of exemption from this sweeping remark. Yet is this moral transformation the great want, the crying exigency of man. Other interests and claims are worthless and insignificant compared with this. If he must live and die the sinning, sinful, defiled and loathsome being that he is, better for him never to have had a being. The Bible is adapted to this pressing exigency. It reveals truths which are powerful to conviction and conversion; it possesses influences which quicken those who are dead in trespasses and sins; it sends forth a spirit which breathes upon the dry bones, and flesh and sinews come upon them, and life enters into them, and they stand up upon their feet. What polluted man wants is to be washed from his uncleanness; and here is the fountain where he may wash and be clean: what he wants is to be delivered from sin; and here is the deliverer. He would have his mind no longer like the dry, barren, unyielding rock where no heavenly grace flourishes; but like the garden of God, where every grace strikes its roots deep, and unfolds its blossoms, and diff’uses its fragrance, and bears its fruit. And here is the influence that changes the heart of stone, and transforms its “‘cold and rocky soil into a land of fertility and gladness.

There is no need of illustrating the fact, that man too is the child of sorrow, A rational being must have consolation in trials. All the world over, the refuge of men in seasons of affliction is their religion: they may have other refuges, but their religion is their last resort. Many have been the professors of wisdom, and many the wise men that have lived where the Bible is not known, but there were no comforters. Philosophy tells us, when sickness invades our pillow, when pain agonizes, when friends die, when property is gone, and when, instead of influence and honor, we suffer only dishonor and contempt; that there is no help for it, that these are evils all men must bear, and that it becomes us to bear them like men! False religions, almost without exception, endeavor to alleviate one trial only by adding another; and for the obvious reason that they have no consolation to give: they are not the religion man needs.

The Bible does not indeed profess to reveal a religion that exempts from adversity; it rather lays its account with afflictions: it tells men that they must expect to suffer. Nor is there anything, in any of its truths, that is designed to blunt the acuteness of natural feeling. Yet has it consolations for the hour of trial, and such as bear the test of the hottest furnace. Of the Author of our trials, it declares, that he “doth not willingly afflict, nor grieve the children of men;” that as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.’’ It tells of a “Great High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities;” who “knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust;” and who “stayeth his rough wind, in the day of his east wind.” It teaches the children of sorrow to say, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” while their own response to its teachings is, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation!” And while it teaches men these things, it tells them too, that however severe and heavy their trials may be, they are “but for a season,” for “a little moment,” and shall ‘Work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” It tells them of the “trial of faith,” that is ‘much more precious than that of gold tried in the fire;” that it redounds to “praise, honor, and glory;” so that in the retrospect of their severest trials, they can say, ^’ Happy is the man that God correcteth!” As with the serenity of an angePs countenance, it tells them, that although they have fiery trials to pass through, yet have they an “inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” That terrible state of mind, suspense under apprehended and foreboding evils, finds its antidote only in the Bible. Where, in all the records of earth, is there a sentence like this: ‘^ Casting all your care upon the Lord, for he careth for you;” or like this: “Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” O, trials are freed from their bitterness, darkness of its horrors, and fear of its apprehensions, by the whispers of this gentle voice! The influence which a sensitive creature like man requires, is that also which shall give his emotions a right and happy direction. The Academic philosophers erred with the Stoics; the one in trying to eradicate the emotions and affections of men, the other in making human happiness consist in unrestrained indulgence. If his Creator be wise and good, his government over him is such, as to give that direction to his ardent affections that shall be most accordant with his intellectual, moral, and immortal existence. His affections wisely directed and indulged, constitute the loveliness, the glory of his nature. More than anything else, they constitute the man himself, and make him what he is. If misdirected, they make him a degraded, vicious, miserable being; if they are directed wisely, they ennoble, purify, and make him happy. That keenly sensitive nature, which renders him capable of love and hatred, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, must be controlled: it must have something to love; something which may be loved safely and without remorse; something which may be loved without injury to its ever growing desires; something which is worthy of its love; something which responds to the sincerity and fervor of its affections, and which may be pursued with all the ardor and intensity which are inseparable from a sensitive existence.

The Bible, and the Bible only, meets these inward longings of the heart, be they ever so intense and exalted. Every human affection finds its place in the religion it reveals. The love of self finds its proper place there; and so does the love of kindred, and the love of country, and the love of the world, and the love of God and man, yea, the love of everything that is in any measure worthy of love. It does not annihilate one of these affections; it does not forbid them; nor does it degrade them, as faJse religions do: nor does it disappoint them, as they ai*e

ITS ADAPTATION TO xMAN. 207

always disappointed when they receive a wrong direction and impulse.

Nor in giving them a right direction, does it ever unsettle, unhinge, or derange them. While it gives them ardor and zeal, it also gives them strength and firmness; and while its impulses are sometimes so intensely vivid and strong, that, but for their pure and heavenly nature, they would well nigh drive the soul to those excesses of emotion which border on madness; they are the very impulses which, when indulged in their purity, impart to it loveliness and meekness, tenderness and humility, and not unfrequently an almost unearthly splendor, as they do well nigh unearthly joys. Religious zeal may sometimes degenerate into blind enthusiasm; but when it does so, it is no longer Christian. Other impulses than those which the essential charity of the Gospel inspires, render its movements wild and incoherent; while the true spirit of the Bible is the spirit of love, of meekness, and of a sound mind. Men may be excited in their contemplation of its truth; they may be transported and transformed; while in their most enrapturing contemplations they never lose the due equilibrium of thought. The eye of reason is still unclouded and clear; their conceptions are strong and brilliant; nor is there an^thing they acknowledge more absolutely than the authority of truth. Paul was never more rational than when he was “caught up into the third heaven,” and “whether in the body he could not tell, or whether out of the body he could not tell.” It is a remarkable fact, that every other class of affections of which the heart is susceptiblCj may be indulged too far and too eagerly; and when pursued beyond a given point, they sound the note of alarm, and tell us that reason already begins to totter on her throne; while the affections, and emotions, and sacred passions which are excited and gratified by the truths of the Bible, to whatever degree they are stimulated, and to whatever extent they are indulged, do but give strength and consistency to character, and promote holy enjoyment. The religion it reveals is just fitted for man’s sensitive and ardent nature. It imparts to him his true dignity; brings him into new alliances with his Maker; enstamps upon him his image; makes him his friend, adopts him as his son, and in its progressive power makes him like unto the angels.

It is Y/ith weakness and fear, and much trembling, that every man contemplates the truth that he must die. We carry forth, and commit to the grave, the sleeping dust of those we love; and the inquiry forces itself upon us. Will the much and long-cherished flower shoot upward again, and bloom to immortality? From the bed of languishing, we ourselves look down into the dark and hollow sepulchre, and inquire, “If a man die, shall he live again?” Reason, nature, conscience, analogy, do indeed suggest the thought — the strong probability of an hereafter; but they warrant no conviction that satisfies, no certain conclusions where the mind pants for certainty. With only such lights as these, man is wrapped in obscurity; his very existence is”

involved in impenetrable darkness and mystery; he sees no object of his being, no end to be attained by it, but to live a little while amid the alternate joys and sorrows of this low world, and perpetuate his dying race through the same vicissitudes of toil, and care, and sorrow, through which he himself has trodden — sometimes his rapid, and sometimes his more tardy way, to the gloomy mansions of the grave. The thought of annihilation is a dreadful thought; yet it sometimes stares him in the face, presses on him on all sides, hangs about him like a leaden curtain; and as one long exposed on the verge of a precipice, leaps into the abyss to escape the terrors of suspense, so he often longs to seek a refuge in annihilation, from the weight of depression and gloom which it inspires. Here the Bible is a light shining in a dark place; it brings life and immortality to light: to every virtuous mind it announces the glad tidings of a glorious hereafter, and through the narrow and dark inlet of the grave, points him to an unseen world — a world of which he himself is to form a part, where he is to be allied to cherubim and seraphim, and elevated to a celestial throne. The thought of immortality is a great and stupendous thought. Even viewed at a distance, and as a doubtful fact, it must overwhelm with its magnitude and grandeur. When contemplated as certain, the mind is filled with wonder at it; and the more it contemplates it, the more does the contemplation add perpetual interest to the wonder. To this greatest of all the wants of man, this Book is

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adapted, giving the coming world a reality, an importance, a nearness, that gratify his strong and restless desires for immortality which it is impossible to eradicate, and which are gratified only here.

Such is the adaptation of the Bible to man as an individual. While contemplating this part of our subject, I have more than once endeavored to rouse my imagination to the eifort of picturing all the possible conditions of men, with the view of ascertaining* if this remarkable Book has not ^’ a word in season’’ to every individual of the human race, in every condition, in every state of mind, and in every associated community. Nor is it in my power to think of any man, in any condition or state of mind, or any society, whether high or low, learned or ignorant, in prosperity or adversity, in sickness or health, in freedom or in bondage, at home or abroad, in the church or out of it, happy or miserable, to whom the Scriptures do not address the most fitting counsels, and for whom they have not some admonition, or consolation, peculiar to the Sacred Writings, and furnished by no other book. Its shades of thought, in this respect, are almost endless. It were a delightful employment to mark and specify this wonderful variety of moral pencilling, so marvellously fitted to the almost endlessly diversified character and condition of men. Were a religious teacher, familiar with the Bible and deeply imbued with its spirit, intimately acquainted with the character and state of mind of his entire charge, he would be at no loss to select the best adapted ini ITS ADAPTATlOx TO MAN. 211

struction for every one of them, in the language and words of the sacred volume itself. Even though he speak at random, he would not fail to utter truths applicable to the unobserved and unknown condition of those who hear him; and in drawing his bow at a venture, his arrow would find its mark, even through ‘^ the joints of the harness.’’

2. From this view of the adaptation of the Bible to man as an individual, let us, in the second place, advert to the consideration, that it is equally adapted to his social relations, Man is a social being: he cannot live for himself; nor can he live alone. The principles of his social nature must be cared for. There are his relations to civil government; there “are his domestic relations; there are his relations to his fellow men in the ordinary transactions of human life, which need to be watched over, and controlled, and so influenced, as neither to pervert the principles of benevolent association, nor lose sight of its object. These various relations are nowhere consulted with the same benevolent spirit and practical wisdom with which they are consulted in the Scriptures: so far from it, that in communities where the Bible is not known, every one of them presents little else than frightful spectacles of crime and misery.

In a most remarkable manner does the history of the world show that the Bible is the great charter of human freedom. If the correlative rights and obligations of rulers and subjects were under the eff’ective control of the Bible, those who bear authority and those who are subjected to it, would be helpers of one another’s joy; the yoke of the oppressor would melt away; kings would be foster fathers, and queens foster mothers, to a tranquil and regenerated world. Among the most important state papers of modern timeSj are the Preamble and the Articles of Confederation issued by Francis of Germany, Frederic William of Prussia, and Alexander of Russia, signed and published at Paris in the year 1815, and solemnly recognizing, before Europe and the world, the religion of Jesus Christ as the only true basis of all political relations, and the only directory for the nations of the earth. Whatever may have been the motives of these distinguished kings and emperors in issuing it, it is a noble testimony to the power of Christian principles upon states and governments. Considering the sources from which it came, a stronger and more emphatic tribute to the principles of Christianity as the only true principles of government, and the only foundation of national prosperity, cannot be expected, or demanded. It is an interesting fact, that these three great monarchs, ruling over more than seventy millions of people, then amid the clashing and din of war, should assemble in secret conclave, and pay such a tribute to the Bible.

Nowhere, save in the Scriptures, is there a description of the domestic virtues that commends itself to a refined and delicate mind; and nowhere else is there to be found such prescriptions for the domestic evils which infest and degrade all unchristian and anti-christian lands. Nowhere is the domestic character and constitution of man so magnified, as in lands where the influence of the Bible is submitted to. Nowhere else are those mutual dependencies, and those bonds of endearing attachment on which the well-being of society depends, protected by such solemn sanctions. Nowhere else are the spirit and deportment, from which all social enjoyment and virtue and usefulness flow, so constantly inculcated and so beautifully exemplified. Nowhere else are ‘whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,” so much thought of and enjoined.

The Old Testament Scriptures took up the social state where they found it; nor was it to be perfected in a moment. If some of the judicial laws of the Jews, themselves but just escaped from the degradation of paganism, were behind the purer code of Christianity, it is not less certain that they were also far in advance of the contemporaneous pagan nations. The judicial and political economy of the Jews was for them alone; it suffered many things “for the hardness of their hearts,” which form no part of a perfect moral code; and it is to God’s finished revelation alone that we must look for those perfect principles which enter into and form the perfection of the social state.

If from these sanctions of the domestic relations we go abroad into the world, and inspect the relations which man sustains to his fellow men in the ordinary affairs of human life, we find these relations nowhere protected as in the Bible. Let but the injunctions of the Bible regulate the intercourse and usages of society, and not a few of those subtil and perplexing questions of casuistry which now agitate every part of the business community, would be cut short by an arbiter, which even those who think themselves honest and honorable men would deem an overstrained and an over-sensitive exactness.

There is a peculiarity in the Bible in regard to its influence on the social relations. Men in their social capacity are not only exposed to everything that is wicked, but to everything that is ultra and extravagant. Even the minds of the better sort of men need something which human wisdom fails to give them; else are their most honest and best intended eff’orts disorganizing, and disastrous to the social state. Human society without the Bible, is like a ship on the ocean without ballast; she can scarcely live in smooth water: the first storm ingulfs her in the waves. The thought is not always present to our minds, that the world is under great obligations to the Bible, if for nothing but its coiiservative principles and influence. It is uniformly healthful in its influence, and alike opposed to all the indiscretions of a misdirected zeal on the one hand, and a rabid radicalism on the other. Ultra men and ultra measures, be the objects they aim at ever so good, always find the Bible against them. “Wisdom is justified of her children;” and time and experience show, that those who would be better than the Bible are always wrong. There is wonderful wisdom in the Bible, not only in what it teaches, but in what it does not teach. There are agitating and exciting questions which it leaves just where they ought to be left: its silence on many subjects speaks volumes. And this is the more remarkable, when we consider the great amount of its instructions. An impostor, who had written so much, would have written more. The Bible lets many things alone which no impostor would have had discretion enough to let alone. It does not commit itself, where an impostor would have been imperative. While its great principles are applicable to every evil in the organization of human society, and while its invariable tendency is to eradicate these evils, it is careful how it creates a needless ferment, and breaks up the foundations of the community which it would preserve and bless. So far as its decisions go, they are safe. It holds an even balance between the extremes of a guilty and pusillanimous indifferentism, and a blind, overheated exclusiveness. Even with this immutable standard in their hands, honest men may err; but it is a delightful thought, and a safe retreat from their unjust awards, that the decisions of the Bible are paramount to the verdict of fallible men. I have never been more impressed with this characteristic of the Scriptures, than from the incidental remarks of some modern infidels, in their public speeches, called forth by some of the exciting topics of the age in which we live. More than once have I known them appeal to the Bible, as the acknowledged standard of common sense and common discretion. And when they do so, it is perfectly obvious that they themselves feel that they have solid rock to stand upon. There is a sort of intuitive impression on the rdinds of all men, whether they believe the Scriptures or not, that it is in vain for them to improve upon the arrangements of its unequalled wisdom.

What is man in his social relations without the Bible? Pride boasts of him, but he is a worm. Science boasts of him, but he is like the brutes that perish. Pleasure, wealth, honor, friends boast of him; but they have not even a gossamer veil to cover his shame. Philanthropy boasts of him; but it is a wild, eccentric, meteor-like philanthropy, and not like “the clear shining of the sun after rain.” What the Scriptures reveal, is wondrously adapted to the social character and condition of man; there is nothing wanting in them, and nothing superfluous. Take away any of its instructions in this department, and it would be found that there is something in the social relations to which it has no counterpart; add to them, and the counterpart is wanting in the social relations; alter them, and these relations themselves will need to be altered.

3. This thought, as well as those submitted in the preceding paragraphs, receives additional force from the consideration, that this adaptation is as large and extensive, as it is minute and particula? The views of the Bible are comprehensive; its aspects are wide; the bearing of the entire range of its revelations is upon beings and interests that are widely spread over all the nations of the earth, however related, or classified, and however multiplied and involved their dependencies. The adaptation of which we speak extends to the mass, as well as to the individual ] to the whole, as well as a part; to “all men, everywhere.” In this respect, Christianity differs essentially from all other religions. The stamp of locality is to be found on them all. They necessarily accommodate themselves to times, and places, and men; and therefore they are mutable. But the religion of Christ is for the world. Man is the same over the whole earth; but his habits in Lapland are different from his habits in the West Indies. Yet the Bible is adapted to him wherever he is. Different portions of the world have strong peculiarities, arising from moral, as well as natural causes; they are influenced by their philosophy, by their laws, by arts and sciences, and not a little by the fine arts. But Christianity bears one universal and uniform character and adaptation to all. Though itself immutable, and though never abandoning and never relaxing any one of its principles it is equally accommodated to every class of human society, every parallel of latitude, and every son and daughter of Adam.

It has not, indeed, always maintained its purity: in Christianizing the heathen, it has itself been partially heathenized; in purifying others, it has itself imbibed taints of impurity. ^’Jewish observances, Grecian, Roman, Celtic, and Gothic superstitions are found in various parts of the nominally Christian church, according to the stock from which her population have sprung.” But these impurities are not her own; they are the additions of men; made,

Bible not of Man. JQ

218 ‘i’J^^^ BIBLE NOT OF MAN.

indeed, under the pretence of heightening her beauties while they add defects and blemishes to her original and heavenly form. In her native lineaments she is equally fitted to be the resident of every clime, under every form of government, as well as amidst all those previous habits of thinking and acting which would at first view seem to be insuperably hostile to her influence,

Judaism, with its burdensome and expensive ritual, its gorgeous priesthood, and its now abolished ceremonies, never was intended, because it was never fitted to be, and never could be, the universal religion, any more than the temple at Jerusalem could be the temple of the world. All that is moral in the Old Testament, in distinction from its positive and ceremonial institutions, as we have before remarked, is as truly Christian as it is Jewish, and is transferred and perpetuated in the Christian system; while whatever is exclusively Jewish, is necessarily local and temporary.

It is equally obvious, that Mahometanism has no ’ intrinsic adaptation to become the universal religion. It has indeed long subsisted, and is at this day the established religion of no small portion of the world.. But though it admits the divine mission of Moses and Jesus, and recognizes many of the fundamental articles of the Jewish and Christian faith, it is mixed up with so many childish traditions and fables, and with the toleration of so many idolatrous rites, and with such an indulgence of licentiousness, and depends, moreover, so exclusively upon the power of the sword, that nothing can be more revolting to reason and conscience.

Christianity on the other hand, while it commends itself to reason and conscience, without which no religion can ever become universal, is in every view fitted to become the religion of the human race. The elements which give it this superiority are, its unblemished rectitude — the fact that it is a religion of principle — the simplicity of its essential truths, and their entire independence of all systems of human philosophy — the all-sufficiency and freeness of its salvation, held forth and pressed on the acceptance of every man — the plainness, yet the dignity and decency of its outward dress and observances- — the economy of its expenditure — the liberality of its external organization — its divine impartiality, and its indwelling and all-conquering Spirit. These are fitted to carry it everywhere: to the polished and to the degraded states of human society, to every order of the human intellect, to every form of government, and every conceivable condition of man’s history and being. It is the same thing everywhere — everywhere it carries the same light, the same obligations, the same convictions, the same holiness, the same mercy, the same hopes, the same consolations. Wherever its blessings are enjoyed, they are equally needed, equally precious; wherever it comes, they are equally near. I say they are equally near. Men need not go for them to the Pope of Rome; nor traverse plains and mountains to throw themselves under the car of Juggernautj or bathe in the Ganges; nor need they make pilgrimages to Mecca, to Jerusalem, or Gerizim. The pilgrim on the rock finds them there; the savage in the desert finds them there; the mariner on the ocean finds them there; and the humble worshipper, in his log-cabin, finds them more near and more precious than the less humble worshipper in the towering and gorgeous cathedral. “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart.”

4. To give still greater weight to these thoughts, we remark, that this revelation is equally adapted to all periods of time and all ages of the world. It is fitted to be the perpetual religion and to cover the whole series of ages, till this world shall pass away. No matter how advanced in science, in morals, in government, the world may be, it cannot have a better religion than this. When the Saviour stood before that magnificent edifice, the temple of Jerusalem, he said to his disciples,” Verily, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass aoay,^’^ Wonderful declaration! and not at all wonderful that there were those who disbelieved it. When, with merely eleven men, he sat down at the Passover, he instituted a Supper, of which he said, ^’ As oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he confie?^ We have lived to see these predictions fulfilled, so far as the progress of time has allowed us to be witnesses; and now, after the expiration of eighteen centuries, to learn that the system of truth and grace of which he was the Founder, is but in the freshness of its youth. The circumstances under which it was introduced, were in the highest degree inauspicious to its continuance a single century. Its Founder was slain: save two, all its first disciples came to a violent death: it was persecuted by the wrath of man and the rage of fiends. But it carried within it the indestructible elements of perpetuity. It survived all its enemies, and it survives still, because its great principles are imperishable and eternal, are inwoven with realities that never pass away, and have an adaptation to the wants and woes of every successive generation of men.

Human laws change, human governments put on different forms, systems of philosophy rise and fall with every passing century, and the various theories of social life expire almost with the same facility with which they come into existence, because they have no inherent adaptation to the unanticipated and perpetually varying condition of mankind. On the other hand, the religion of the Bible, because it anticipates the wants of man, because it meets these wants wherever he is, whatever his condition, and at whatever period in the progress of time he may dwell on the earth; instead of carrying with it the elements of its own destruction, gathers strength as it holds on its way, and in its onward progress combines the vigor of youth with the rich and ripening maturity of age. The secret of this perpetuity is its inherent and wonderful adaptation to the human character in every successive period of time. It is built, not upon experience, but upon anticipation. This system of government and redemption needs no change, because the character of its subjects is a fixed and uniform character: the remedy is the same, because the disease never alters.

Such is the adaptation of the Bible to the character and wants of men. Review these thoughts one by one, review them in the aggregate, and say if they furnish no evidence of the divine origin of the Scriptures. Contrast this Book with the different religious systems which are confessedly of human origin, and can you fail to see that these latter are radically defective in adaptation to the wants of men, and on this account fail of their object? Men find no relief from them. After all the abstinence, pilgrimages, ablutions, penance, and blood they enjoin, there is not one among them all that satisfies the understanding, the conscience, the heart, the immortality, or that in any view furnishes a basis for hope. The restive heart finds nothing in them to tranquillize its unhallowed excitement; nothing to feed upon save that which augments its misery, because it is the aliment of its wickedness. They open no medium of communication between creatures and the God who is invisible; between the world that is seen, and the world that is not seen; nor do they accomplish anything towards healing the breach between God and man, or bringing heaven any nearer to earth, or earth any nearer to heaven. There is nothing in them by which the nature of man becomes purifiedj or elevated, or which discloses anything that possesses even the slightest pretension to a radical cure for the great moral malady that pervades our race. Go where you will throughout the pagan world, and it will be found that these are wants which the religions of paganism, in all their varieties, fail to supply. The chasm is Avide and deep, and there is nothing to fill it. Instead of consulting the condition, and meeting the exigencies of man, they actually debase that condition, and augment those exigencies, and perpetuate them. Instead of being the friend of man, they are his enemy; and instead of lighting up his prospects, they overshadow them by the clouds of dark ignorance and wretched superstition. Men of thought in pagan lands, themselves saw, and said, that they were systems of delusion and lies, and acquiesced in them only because they could be imposed on the more ignorant and unthinking. Can any man of sober thought speak thus, or think thus of the Bible? No, never. He may try to do it, but the thing is impossible.

Whether the Book that thus minutely and extensively consults the character and condition of our fallen race, is human or Divine, we may leave to every ingenuous mind to decide. Does not this wondrous adaptation itself bear testimony for it, that it is from God? Is not the Bible so fitted to the wants of man, that He who made one must have actually fashioned both? Does it not speak for itself, as the matchless expedient which his wisdom and love have devised for creatures who are apostates from his family? Not until some other system can be specified that thus meets the necessities of our racCj may we relinquish our confidence in the Bible, or give up the argument for its divine origin derived from this adaptation. Whether it utter the voice of man or of God, of some foul impostor or the God of love, cannot long be a matter of doubt. A religion that so wisely and fully consults the varied and richest elements of man’s nature, carries the evidence with it that it is from the Author of that nature. It will be difiicult to reason a man out of his belief in divine revelation, or to laugh him out of it, who has clear conceptions of its fitness to his wants. It were no easy matter for an impostor to devise a religion, which, while it suited with so much precision to the individual, should at the same time be equally adapted to the entire race; and while it should consult the peculiarities of one age of time, should not be less relevant to all successive ages. Men have never found themselves so wise. A parent who has but one child to instruct and govern, is justified in pursuing a very different course with that one, from the course he would pursue as the head of a numerous family. The monarch of a single province can more easily prescribe a code of laws for that single province, than arrange a system of government that is alike adapted to a thousand distinct and distant provinces. A system of instruction and government that is equally adapted to the whole family of man, and to every isolated individual of that family, must not only comprise many things, but be very nicely adjusted, and maintain an invariable tendency to one and the same benevolent end. Every part of it must be wisely selected, and all the parts, taken together, must be wisely suited to one another. It must view every individual in connection with the whole, and the whole in its relations to every individual. The Bible is such a system; it consults all these relations — relations which no finite mind in the universe could have anticipated or discovered, much less a collection of minds, of varied character, and so separated by time and circumstance as to be precluded from all possibility of collusion. In all its great principles, and in all the filling up of these great outlines; in all its laws and organization; in all its worship and rites; in all its sanctions, motives and influences, here is a system of truth and grace every way adapted to man’s condition and character. The material world does not present more, or more admirable instances of adaptation, or those which are more expressive of the wisdom of its Author, than are here presented in the immaterial and spiritual. It is not an attempt at the restoration of man; but to the full extent in which it is faithfully applied, it effects it. It is not an attempt at religion; it is a religion, and the only religion adapted to man. It is not an attack upon the enemy, or a mere prescription for the disease; it is a victory over him, and a sovereign cure. Just as light is adapted to the eye and sound to the ear; just as the solid earth is adapted to one class of animated

Biblfi not of Man. 10* existencies, the sea to another, and the air to a third — just J in one word, as there is a suitableness in all the parts of nature, in themselves, in the succession and order in which they act, and with a view to the effect finally produced, which indicates the wisdom of the Great Contriver, is the revelation made in the Bible adapted to the nature and recovery of fallen man, and equally indicative of the same uncreated wisdom.

This is one of the arguments on which the Bible itself rests its own claims to a superhuman origin. In full view of the deadly nature and alarming extent of the spiritual miseries which are the inheritance of our race, its gracious Author proclaims him self the Sovereign Healer. To men whom sin has made poor, and naked, and blind, and miserable, he says, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.” To men who despise their own mercies, and weary themselves in the pursuit of that they will never find, he says, ^’ Wherefore spend ye your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” To men who are bewildered, without a clue to guide them in the dreary labyrinth, he says, ‘’ I am the light of the world: he that followeth after me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” To men who thirst for happiness, and find nothing to allay their febrile desires, or cool their parched tongues, his language is, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink!” While to the ten thousand wants that lift up their voices and send their cry to the heavens, this Book responds, ‘’ Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a wU of water springing up into everlasting life.” Time and experience have fully justified these high claims. The experiment has been made with every other religion; they have all been ‘’ weighed in the balances, and found wanting.” It is too late to invent another and a new religion; men are shut up to the Gospel of Christ; as the light of the world and the life of men.

Different views of the excellence of the Bible, make different impressions upon different minds; but if we mistake not, the argument from its adaptation to the character and wants of men, holds a high place with minds of every class.

That martyr to the missionary cause, the Rev. John Williams, of the London Missionary Society, relates a circumstance which took place among the natives of the South Sea islands, which those who have read the biography of this remarkable man will remember. The officers of the British ship Seringapatam, after intercourse with a number of the natives who had been converted to Christianity, expressed their doubts whether the views which these ignorant people had uttered on the subject of religion, were their own views; and even asserted, that both the missionary and these professed converts were practising deception upon their visitors. In order to decide this question, Mr. Williams invited Captain Waldgrave, the Rev. Mr. Watson, the ship’s chaplain, and other gentlemen, to an interview with fifteen of the natives, for the purpose of free conversation on religious subjects.

On their being assembled. Captain Waldgrave proposed the question to them, ^’ Do you believe the Bible is the word of God and that Christianity is of divine origin?” The natives were rather startled at the question, having never entertained a doubt upon that point. At length one replied, ‘’Most certainly we do.^^ ‘^ And why do you believe it?” After some reflection, one of them said, We look at the power with which it has been attended in effecting the entire overthrow of idolatry among us; and which, we believe, no human means could have induced us to abandon.^^

The same question being proposed to a second, he replied, I believe the Scriptures to be of divine origin, on account of the system of salvation they reveal. We had a religion before, transmitted to us by our ancestors, whom we considered the wisest of men; but how dark and black a system, that was, compared with the bright scheme of salvation presented in the Bible! Here we learn that we are sinners; that God gave his Son Jesus Christ to die for us; and that through believing, the salvation procured becomes ours. Now, what but the

I wisdom of God could have devised such a system as this?”

The question being repeated to an old and shrewd pagan priest, then a devoted Christian, “instead of replying to it at once, he held up his hands, and rapidly moved the joints of his wrists and fingers; he then opened and shut his mouth; and closed these singular actions by raising his leg, and moving it in various directions. Having done this, he said, See I have hinges all over me; if the thought grows in my heart that I wish to handle anything the hinges in my hands enable me to do so. If I want to utter anything, the hinges of my jaws enable me to say it; and if I desire to go anywhere, here are hinges to my legs, to enable me to walk. Now I perceive great wisdom in the adaptation of my body to the various wants of my Qnind; and when I look into the Bible, and see there the proofs of wisdom which correspond exactly with these which appear in my frame, I conclude that the Maker of my body is the Author of that book.^”

This is the sum and substance of the argument from the idea of adaptation. Verily, ‘’ out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger /” Strange that so many wise men after the flesh cannot discern what was so obvious to the mind of this poor heathen! Well is it written of the Saviour, that “he rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. Even so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!” This wonderful moral mechanism, these numberless articulations in the religion of the Bible, so exactly fitted to the numberless cavities of the human mind, playing in them as a ball in a socket, certainly deserve to be considered among the specimens of ineffable wisdom, and are not to be overlooked among the internal proofs that this Book is not the work of creatures.

When Sir Walter Scott returned, a tremblmg invalid, from Italy to die in his native land, the sight of home so invigorated his spirits that some hope was cherished that he might recover. But he found that he must die. Addressing his son4n4aw, he said, “Bring me a book,^^ ^’What book?” replied Lockhart. “Can you ask,” replied the man whose works have charmed the world — ^’ can you ask what book? — there is but one.’” Precious Bible! There is nothing it does not offer, nothing it does not give to the man who feels his wants and seks its bounty. Truth that never grows old, riches that never decay, pleasures that never cloy, a crown that is never tarnished, griefs assuaged and fears tranquillized, bright hopes, and incorruptible immortality, are the gift of God to all the lovers of the Bible.