The Literary Attractions of the Bible

God made the present earth as the Home of Man; but had He meant it as a mere lodging-, a world less beautiful would have served the purpose. There was no need for the carpet of verdure, or the ceiling of blue; no need for the mountains, and cataracts, and forests; no need for the rainbow, no need for the flowers. A big round island, half of it arable, and half of it pasture, with a clump of trees in one corner, and a magazine of fuel in another, might have held and fed ten millions of people; and a hundred islands, all made on the same pattern, big and round, might have held and fed the population of the globe. But man is something more than the animal which wants lodging and food. He has a spiritual nature, full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful, and his kind Creator has provided man’s abode with affluent materials for these nobler tastes. He has built Mont Blanc, and molten the lake in which its image sleeps. He has intoned Niagara’s thunder, and has breathed the zephyr which sweeps its spray. He has shagged the steep with its cedars, and besprent the meadow with its king-cups and daisies. He has made it a world of fragrance and music, — a world of brightness and symmetry, — a world where the grand and the graceful, the awful and lovely; rejoice together. In fashioning the Home of Man, the Creator had an eye to something more than convenience, and built, not a barrack, but a palace, — not a Union-workhouse, but an Alhambra; something which should not only be very comfortable, but very splendid and very fair; something which should inspire the soul of its inhabitant, and even draw forth the “very good” of complacent Deity.

God also made the Bible as the Guide and Oracle of Man; but had He meant it as a mere lesson-book of duty, a volume less various and less attractive would have answered every end. A few plain paragraphs, announcing God’s own character and His disposition towards us sinners here on earth, mentioning the provision which He has made for our future happiness, and indicating the different duties which He would have us perform, — a few simple sentences would have sufficed to tell what God is, and what He would ioo The Literary Attractio?is of the Bible,

have us to do. There was no need of the picturesque narrative and the majestic poem, — no need of the proverb, the story, and the psalm. A chapter of theology, and another of morals; a short account of the Incarnation and the great Atonement, and a few pages of rules and directions for the Christian life, might have contained the vital essence of Scripture, and have supplied us with a Bible of simplest meaning and smallest size. And in that case the Bible would have been consulted only by those rare and wistful spirits to whom the great Hereafter is a subject of anxiety, who are really anxious to know what God is, and how they themselves may please Him. But in giving that Bible, its Divine Author had regard to the mind of man. He knew that man has more curiosity than piety, more taste than sanctity; and that more persons are anxious to hear some new, or read some beauteous thing, than to read or hear about God and the Great Salvation. He knew that few would ever ask, What must I do to be saved? till they came in contact with the Bible itself; and, therefore, He made the Bible not only an instructive book, but an attractive one, — not only true, but enticing. He filled it with marvellous incident and engaging history; with sunny pictures from Old-World scenery, and affecting anecdotes from the patriarch times. He replenished it with stately argument and thrilling verse, and

The Literary Attractions of the Bible, toi

sprinkled it over with sententious wisdom and proverbial pungency. He made it a book of lofty thoughts and noble images, — a book of heavenly doctrine, but withal of earthly adaptation. In preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite Wisdcm gave not a dictionary, nor a grammar, but a Bible — a book which, in trying to reach the heart of man, should captivate his taste; and which, in transforming his affections, should also expand his intellect. The pearl is of great price; but even the casket is of exquisite beauty. The sword is of ethereal temper, and nothing cuts so keen as its double edge; but there are jewels on the hilt, an exquisite inlaying on the scabbard. The shekels are of the purest ore; but even the scrip which contains them is of a texture more curious than any which the artists of earth can fashion. The apples are gold; but even the basket is silver.

In speaking of the literary excellence of the Holy Scriptures, we are aware of a twofold disadvantage. Some have never looked on the Bible as a readable book. They remember how they got long tasks from it at school, and spelled their arduous way through polysyllabic chapters and joyless genealogies. And in later life they have only heard it sounded forth monotonously from the drowsy desk, or freezing in the atmosphere of some sparse and wintry sanctuary. So irksome and insipid has every association made

102 The Literary Attractions of the Bitre.

it, that were they shut up in a parlour with an old directory, and an old almanack, and an old Bible, they would spend the first hour on the almanack, and the next on the directory, and would die of ennui before they opened the Bible. They have got at home a set of their favourite classics, and on a quiet evening they will take down a volume of Chaucer or Spenser, or even Thomas Fuller or Jeremy Taylor, or an Elzevir Virgil, or a Grenville Homer, and read at it till long beyond their time of rest; but to them the Bible is no classic. They do not care to keep it in some taking or tasteful edition, and they would never dream of sitting down to read it as a recreation or an intellectual treat. And then there are others in a happier case to whom that Bible is so sacred — who have found it so full of solemn import, and to whom its every sentence is so fraught with divine significance, that they feel it wrong or revolting to read it with the critic’s eye. They would rather peruse it on their bended knees, praying God to show them the wonders in His Word, than, with the scholar’s pencil in their hand, ready to seize on each happy phrase and exquisite figure. They would rather peruse it in the company of Luther or Leighton, than along with Erasmus or Grotius. We can understand the feelings of each. But we trust that both will bear with us a little whilst we endeavour to show that if no book be

The Litei’cuy Attractions of the Bible. 103

so important as the Bible, so none is more interesting, and that the book which contains most of the beautiful is the one which must ever remain the standard of the good and the true.

And here we would only add one remark which it is important to bear in memory. The rhetorical and poetical beauties of Scripture are merely incidental. Its authors wrote, not for glory or display — not to astonish or amuse their brethren, but to instruct them and make them better. They wrote for God’s glory, not their own; they wrote for the world’s advantage, not to aggrandise themselves. Demosthenes composed his most splendid oration in order to win the crown of eloquence; and the most elaborate effort of ancient oratory — the “Panegyric” to which Isocrates devoted fifteen years — was just an essay written for a prize, How different the circumstances in which the speech on Mars Hill was spoken; and the farewell sermon in the upper chamber at Troas! Herodotus and Thucydides composed their histories with a view to popular applause; and Pindar’s fiery pulse beat faster in prospect of the great Olympic gathering and the praises of assembled Greece. How opposite the circumstances in wnich the Seer of Horeb penned his faithful story, and Isaiah and Jeremiah poured forth their fearless denunciations of popular sins!

104 The Litei-ary Attractions of the Bible.

The most superb of modern historians confesses the flutter which he felt when the last line of his task was written, and he thought that perhaps his fame was established. A more important history concludes: “These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.” And some of you will remember the proud finale in which the Roman lyrist predicts for himself immortal celebrity.* Alongside of his eloquent but egotistic vaticination, you cannot do better than read the last words of Israel’s sweet singer, — “His name shall endure for ever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be his glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen. The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.”

Remembering then that the Bible contains no ornamental passages, nothing written for mere display, that its steadfast purpose is, “Glory to God in the highest,” and the truest

* “Exegi monimentum sere pereimius.
.... Usque ego postera
Crescam laude recens,” &c.

—Hor. lib. iii. Od. 30.

blessedness of man, — we repeat that that Bible abounds in passages of the purest beauty and stateliest grandeur, all the grander and all the more beautiful because they are casual and unsought. The fire which flashes from the iron hoof of the Tartar steed as he scours the midnight path is grander than the artificial firework; for it is the casual effect of speed and power. The clang of ocean as he booms his billows on the rock, and the echoing caves give chorus, is more soul-filling and sublime than all the music of the orchestra; for it is the music of that main so mighty that there is a grandeur in all it does, — in its sleep a melody, and in its march a stately psalm. And in the bow which paints the melting cloud there is a beauty which the stained glass or gorgeous drapery emulates in vain; for it is the glory which gilds beneficence, the brightness which bespeaks a double boon, the flush which cannot but come forth when both the sun and shower are there. The style of Scripture has all this glory. It has the gracefulness of a high utility; it has the majesty of intrinsic power; it has the charm of its own sanctity; it never labours, never strives, but, instinct with great realities and bent on blessed ends, it has all the translucent beauty and unstudied power which you might expect from its lofty object and all-wise Author.

There is no phenomenon in nature so awful lo6 The Literary Attractions of the Bible.

as a thunder-storm; and almost every poet from Homer and Virgil down to Dante and Milton, or rather down to Grahame or Pollok, has described it. In the Bible, too, we have a thunder-storm, the 29th Psalm — the description of a tempest, which, rising from the Mediterranean, and travelling by Lebanon, and along the inland mountains, reaches Jerusalem, and sends the people into the temple-porticoes for refuge. And, besides those touches of terror in which the geographical progress of the tornado is described, it derives a sacred vitality and power from the presence of Jehovah in each successive peal. “The voice of the Lord is on the sea: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is on the mighty sea. The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovered! the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory. The Lord sitteth upon the water torrent: yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever. The Lord will give strength unto his people:” (and now the sun shines out again;) “the Lord will bless his people with peace.” *

Amongst those who have expressly written on the Sublime, it is agreed that the most thrilling spectacle is one whose obscure outline or vague presence at once suggests the supernatural. Of this sublime in terror, the fourth of Job supplies an acknowledged instance: —

“A thing, too, was imparted to me secretly, Mine ear received a whisper with it. In tumults of night-visions, When deep sleep falls on men, Panic came on me, and horror, And the multitude of my bones did shake, A spirit passed before my face, The hair of my flesh stood up: It stood — but I could not discern its form: A figure before mine eyes: — Silence — and I heard a voice, 1 Shall a mortal be righteous before God? Shall a man be pure before his Maker?’”

But perhaps the poetic beauty in which the Bible most excels all other books is description of the world around us. A better idea of the poetic susceptibility was never given, than when John Foster called it physiopathy,” the faculty of

* Over many of the psalms it sheds a flood of new significance when the reader understands their mechanism, as in the case of many it has been disclosed by the labours of Lowth, Horsley, Hengstenberg, and others. It was one morning in his house at Dundee, that a friend dear and ever memorable, Robert M’Cheyne, showed us the geographical structure of this 29’.h Psalm. And certainly it enhances the meaning of this io8 The Literary Attractions of the Bible,

pervading all Nature with, one’s own being, so as to have a perception, a life, an agency, in all things.” “If you observe a man of this order, though his body be a small thing, completely invested with a little cloth, he expands his being in a grand circle all around him. He feels as if he grew in the grass and flowers and groves; as if he stood on yonder distant mountaintop, conversing with clouds, or sublimely sporting among their imaged precipices, caverns, and ruins. He flows in that river, chafes in its cascades, smiles in the water-lilies, frisks in the fishes. He is sympathetic with every bird, and seems to feel the sentiment that prompts the song of each; and from this ability to transfuse himself into every object around him, in a certain sense he inherits all things.” To which we would only add, that besides this poetic sympathy with Nature the sacred writers seem to have possessed a still purer perception of what Nature is. They not only could transfuse their own life into the landscape, but they could discern how much of the living God is there. And instead of that material semblance which a Claude

majestic ode when we conceive the spectator-psalmist as standing with the awe-struck multitude in the temple-porch, watching the march of the thunder-storm as it advances from the Mediterranean or “mighty” sea, and imagining its progress from Lebanon, adown the range of Hermon, and the course of the Jordan, till it darkens over the wilderness and reaches Jerusalem and bursts in a water-flood around themselves.

or a Rembrandt might project on his canvas, or Virgil or Shenstone might embody in his verse, they inhaled Jehovah’s breath and hearkened to Jehovah’s voice, and received into their adoring bosoms as much of Jehovah’s life as lingers in our defaced and fallen world. Hence it comes to pass, that the Book which contains by far the brightest and most vivacious landscape — the holiest and happiest view of the things around us, is the Word of God. Seen in His own light, and delineated by His own pencil, the mountains “skip,” the seas “clap hands,” the little hills “rejoice,” and the valleys “sing.” The Bible landscape has a limpid freshness, as viewed by an eye which carnality has never dimmed, or rather that loving and observant eye which grace has made young again. It needs no Dryads to people its woodlands, no Oreads to flit over its mountains, no Naiads to give mirth to its waters or music to its streams; for a higher animation fills them, and every chiming brook and fluttering spray, every zephyr and every blessed sound, is a note in God’s own anthem, — “Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps: fire and hail: snow and vapours: stormy wind fulfilling his word: mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars: beasts and all cattle: creeping things and flying fowl: kings of the earth and all people: princes and all judges of the earth: both young men and maidens:

I io The Literary Attractions of the Bible.

old men and children: let them praise the name of the Lord; for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.”

But instead of collecting illustrative passages from what may be called the pastoral and descriptive poetry of Scripture, we shall quote one which, whilst a graphic description, like most kindred portions of Holy Writ, owes its sublimity to its moral power; and we quote it the rather, because our own translation does not bring out its entire significance. It is the twenty-eighth chapter of Job, and the question is, Where is Wisdom to be found? and, What is the abode or hiding-place of Understanding? Is it a deposit hidden in the bowels of the earth? — a treasure for which we must ransack the caverns underneath, or rummage in the rifted rock? Is it a secret for which we must bribe the grave? or which death alone can whisper in the ear? And so it commences with a magnificent account of the miner’s doings underground: —

“Truly there is a mine for the silver, And a place for the gold so fine: Iron is dug up from the earth, And the earth pours forth its copper. Man digs into darkness, And explores to the utmost bound The stones of dimness and death shade; He breaks up the veins from the matrice, Which, unthought of, and underfoot, Are drawn forth to gleam among mankind. The surface pours forth bread,

But the subterranean winds a fiery region.

Its stones are the sapphires’ bed,

And it hides the dust of gold.

It is a path which the eagle knows not,

Nor has the eye of the vulture scanned it.

The lion’s whelp has not tracked it,

Nor the ravening lion pounced on it.

The miner thrusts his hand on the sparry ore,

And overturns the mountains by their roots.

He cuts a channel through the rock,

And espies each precious gem.

He binds up the oozing waters,

And darts a radiance through the gloom,

Eut, oh, where shall Wisdom be found?

And where is the place of Understanding?

Man knows not its source,

For it is not to be found in the land of the living.

The sea says, ‘It is not in me;’

And 1 Not in me,’ echoes the abyss.

Solid go’d cannot be given for it,

Nor silver be weighed for its purchase.

It cannot be bought for the ingot of Ophir,

For the precious onyx or the sapphire.

The burnished gold and crystal cannot equal it,

Nor golden trinkets match it.

Talk not of corals or pearls,

For the attraction of wisdom is beyond rubies.

The topaz of Ethiopia cannot rival it,

Nor the purest bullion barter it.

Whence, then, cometh Wisdom?
And where is the place of Understanding?
Hid from the eyes of all living,
And unseen by the fowls of the air,
Destruction and death say,
‘We have heard its fame with our ears.’
God understands its track;
He knows its dwelling-place;
For to the ends of the earth He sees
And under all heaven surveys.

When He weighed out the air
And meted out the water;
When He fixed the course of the rain
And the path of the hurricane;
Then did He eye it and proclaim it:
He prepared it and searched it out,
And unto man He said,

* Behold! the fear of the Lord, that is Wisdom, And to depart from evil is Understanding.’”*

It would consume all our space were we transcribing from the Prophets and the Psalms those passages of grandeur which make the sacred text so awful and august; and of that class we shall give no more. But perhaps the sublime, though the highest order of literary effort, is not, after all, the most popular. Were it put to the world at large, we should, probably, find that the books most men like best are those which are less exalted above the every-day level, and whose simple incidents, and cheerful glimpses, and human pathos, bring them home to every one’s comprehension and feeling. In this sort of narrative that world’s book, the Bible, abounds. Do you ask for tenderness?” And Ruth said to her mother-in-law, Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my

* Some lines of the above may be slightly paraphrased; but the version is essentially the same as that of Dr Mason Good, with modifications from Dr Lee and others.

people, and thy God my God: where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” Do you ask for pathos? “And Cushi said, Tidings, my lord the king; for the Lord hath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee. And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man, Absalom, safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord, the king, and all that rise up against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is. And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he wept thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.” Or do you ask for natural, simple, and affecting narrative? “A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks which the swine did eat; and no 1 14 The Lite?-ary Attractions of the Bible.

man gave unto him. And when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father’s house have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said unto his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’’

We could very willingly have extended these remarks to other species of composition, and would have liked to show particularly how many models of eloquent argument and engaging discourse are contained in the New Testament. But on the wide field of Revelation, with its intellectual opulence, we forbear to enter. We can easily understand how the Bible was one of the four volumes which always lay on Byron’s table; and it would be easy to fill a volume with the testimonies, witting or unwitting, which painters, sculptors, orators, and poets, have rendered to the most thought-suggesting book in all the universe. It never aims at fine writing. It never steps aside for a moment for the sake of a felicitous expression or a good idea. It has only one end — to tell the world about God and the great salvation; and yet the wonder is, that it has incidentally done more to supply rhetoric with powerful and happy diction, and literature with noble thoughts and images, and the fine arts with memorable subjects, than perhaps all other books that have been written. The world’s Maker is the Bible’s Author, and the same profusion which furnished so lavishly the abode of man, has filled so richly and adorned so brilliantly the Book of man.

Just as that Bible is the great storehouse and repertory of intellectual wealth, so we must add that its vital truth is the grand source of intellectual ftozver. When Sir Samuel Romilly visited Paris immediately after the first French Revolution, he remarked, “Everything I saw convinced me that, independently of our future happiness and our sublimest enjoyments in this life, religion is necessary to the comforts, the conveniences, and even the elegances and lesser pleasures of life. Not only have I never met with a writer truly eloquent who did not at least affect to believe in religion, but I never met with one in whom religion was not the richest source of his eloquence.” And we are persuaded that in things intellectual the rule will hold, that piety is power. We are persuaded that no productions of genius will survive to the end of all things in which there is not something of God; and we are farther persuaded, that no book can exercise a lasting ascendancy over mankind on which His blessing has not been implored, and in which His Spirit does not speak. Of all the powers and faculties of the human mind, the noblest is the one which God has created for Himself; and if that reverential or adoring faculty do not exist, or if it be by suicidal hands extirpated, the world will soon cease to feel any force in the man who has lost his faith in God. The stateliest compartment in this human soul is the one which, in creating it, Jehovah reserved for His own throne-room and presence-chamber; and however curiously decorated or gorgeously furnished the other compartments be, if this be empty and void, it will soon diffuse a blank and beggarly sensation over all the rest. And thus, whilst the Voltaires and Rousseaus, of Atheist memory, are waxing old and vanishing from the firmament of letters, names of less renown, but more religion, brighten to a greater lustre. So true is it that no man can long keep a hold of his fellow-men, unless he himself first has hold of God.

But if a sincere and strenuous Theism be thus important — such natural faith in God as upbore the wing of Plato in his long and ethereal flights, or bulged the Saxon thews of Shakspeare in his mightiest efforts, incomparably more prevalent is that intellectual prowess which a scriptural faith produces. He is no Unknown God whom the believer in Jesus worships, and it is no ordinary inspiration which that God of light and love supplies to His servants. It wouM be easy to enumerate one genius after another which the gospel kindled, if it did not create. That gospel, beyond all controversy, was our own Milton’s poetic might. It was the struggling energy which, after years of deep musing and wrapt devotion, after years of mysterious muttering and anxious omen, sent its pyramid of flame into old England’s dingy hemisphere, and poured its molten wealth — its lava of gold and gems, fetched deep from classic and patriarchal times, adown the russet steep of Puritan theology. It was the fabled foot which struck from the sward of Cowper’s mild and silent life a joyous Castalia — a fountain deep as Milton’s fire, and like it tinctured with each learned and sacred thing it touched in rising, but soft and full as Siloah’s fount, which “flowed fast by the oracle of God.” And that gospel was the torch which, on the hills of Renfrewshire, fired a young spirit,* — himself both sacrifice and altar-pile,- — till Britain spied the light, and wondered at the brief but brilliant beacon. But uhy name the individual instances? What is modern learning, and the march of intellect, and the reading million, but one great monument of the gospel’s quickening power? Three or four hundred years ago the classics were revived; at the same time the gospel was restored. Digging in the Pompeii of the middle age, Lorenzo and Leo found the lamps in which the old classic fires had burned; but there was no oil in the lamps, and they had long since gone out. For models of candelabra and burners there could not be better than Livy, and Horace, and Plato, and Pindar; but the faith which once filled them — the old Pagan fervor — was long since extinct, and the lamps were only fit for the shelf of the antiquary. But it was then that, in the crypt of the convent? Luther, and Zuingle, and Melancthon, observed a line of supernatural light, and with lever and mattock lifted the gravestone, and found the gospel which the Papist had buried. There it had flamed, “a light shining in a dark place,” through unsuspected ages — unquenchable in its own immortality — the long-lost lamp in the sepulchre. Jupiter was dead, and Minerva had melted into ether, and Apollo was gray with eld, * Poliok.

and the most elegant idols of antiquity had gone to the moles and the bats. But there is One who cannot die and does not change — and the Fountain of Scriptural Learning is He who is also the Fountain of Life — the Alpha and the Omega — Jesus the Son of God. From His gospel it was that the old classic lamps, when filled with fresh oil, were kindled again; and at that gospel it was that Bacon, and Locke, and Milton, and Newton, and all the mighty spirits of modern Europe, caught the fire which made them blaze, the meteors of our firmament, the marvels of our favoured time.

Should any one read these lines who is ambitious to be the lasting teacher or the extensive light of society — to paint, or think, or sing, for the students of a future age, let him remember that nothing can immortalise the works of genius if there be no gospel in them. The facts of that gospel are the world’s main stock of truth — the fire of that gospel is the only Promethean spark which can ignite our dead truths into quenchless and world-quickening powers.

For practical and devotional purposes, we could desire no better version of the Bible than our own truthful and time-hallowed translation. But for those purposes to which we have now been adverting, — for the sake of its intelligent literary perusal, we have .sometimes wished that either in the originals or in English, some judicious editor would give us, each in a separate fasciculus, the several contributions of each sacred penman. As it is, with the sixty-six volumes of the Bible all compressed into a single tome, we are apt to regard them, not only as alike the Holy Scriptures, which they are, but as contemporary compositions, which they are not. We forget that, in point of time, there is the same interval between Moses and Matthew, as there is betwixt the close of the canon and the compilation of the Augsburg Confession. And, with each portion comminuted into those little paragraphs called verses, we are apt to lose sight of the characteristic style of the various compositions. An epistle looks like a poem, and a history reads like a collection of adages and apophthegms. But allowing one book to contain the Minor Prophets, and another the General Epistles, there would still remain upwards of twenty inspired penmen whose writings might, much to their mutual illustration, be bound up in separate volumes, and preserved in their individual identity. We should thus have in one volume all that Moses wrote, and in another, chronologically arranged, all the writings of Paul. One volume might contain all the psalms of David: another, those psalms (nearly as numerous) which were indited by Moses, and Asaph, and others. In one cover might be bound up the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse of John; and in another, that divine Song, those Confessions of a converted philosopher, and that ancient “Wealth of Nations,” which are the inspired bequest of the Imperial Solomon. And under such an arrangement might we not hope that books, usually read in chapters or smaller morsels, might sometimes be read continuously, — taken down from the shelf, as any attractive book would be taken, on a leisure evening, and read through at a single sitting? Might we not hope, in such a case, that whilst those who now read the Old and New Testaments would read them still, some who at present do not read the Bible might be tempted to read Paul, Moses, and Isaiah? And is it too sanguine to expect that, as the searching of the Scriptures and sacred knowledge thus increased, some who first resorted to the book for literary entertainment might learn from it the lessons which make wise to life everlasting? * At all events, theology has not yet turned to sufficient account the Bible’s marvellous diversity. We know how opposite are the turns, and how various the temperaments of different people, and how unequal their capacities. One has

* The idea thus thrown out has since been realised. Each book of the Bible can now be obtained separately in the issues of the British and Foreign Bible Society, or in those of Messrs Bagster.

a logician’s intellect, and delights in a dialectic subtilty. Another has a prompt intuition, and deprecates as so much bamboozlement every ingenious or protracted argument. Some have the ideal faculty so strong, that they never understand a proposition rightly till it sparkles as a sentiment; poet-wise, their eyes are in the apex; they cannot descry matters of fact and homely truths, which creep along the ground or travel on all-fours; but in order to arrest a vision so sublime as theirs, thoughts must spread the wings of metaphor, and soar into the zenith; whilst others are so prosaic, that they are offended at all imagery, and grudge the time it takes to translate a trope or figure. Some minds are concrete, and cannot understand a general statement till they see a particular example. Others are so abstract, that an illustration is an interruption, and an example a waste of time. Most men love history, and nearly all men live much in the future. Some minds are pensive, some are cheerful; some are ardent, some are singularly phlegmatic. And had an angel penned the Bible, even though he could have condescended to the capacity of the lowliest reader, he could not have foreseen the turn and fitted the taste of every child of Adam. And had a mortal penman been employed, however versatile his talent, however many-faced his mind, he could not have made himself all things to his brethren, nor produced styles enow to mirror the mental features of all mankind. In His wisdom and goodness the Most High has judged far better for our world; and using the agency of forty authors — transfusing through the peculiar tastes and temperaments of so many individuals (and these “men of like passions with ourselves,”) the self-same truths, the Spirit of God has secured for the Bible universal adaptation. For the pensive, there is the dirge of Jeremiah and the cloud-shadowed drama of Job. For the sanguine and hopeful, there sounds the blithe voice and there beats the warm pulse of old Galilean Peter. And for the calm, and contemplative, the peacefully-loving, there spreads like a molten melody, or an abysmal joy, the page — sunny, ecstatic, boundless — of John the Divine. The most homely may find the matter of fact, the unvarnished wisdom and plain sense, which is the chosen aliment of their sturdy understandings, in James’s blunt reasonings; and the most heroic can ask no higher standard, no loftier feats, no consecration more intense, no spirituality more ethereal, than they will find in the Pauline Epistles. Those who love the sparkling aphorism and the sagacious paradox are provided with food convenient in the Proverbs; and for those whose poetic fancy craves a banquet more sublime, there are the dew of Hermon and Bozrah’s red wine, — the tender freshness of pastoral hymns, and the purple tumult of triumphal psalms. And whilst the historian is borne back to ages so remote that gray tradition cannot recollect them, and athwart oblivious centuries, in nooks of brightness and in oases of light sees the patriarch groups, clear, vivid, and familiar as the household scenes of yesterday, — there is also a picture sketched for the explorers of the future. For whilst the Apocalyptic curtain slowly rises, — whilst the seven thunders shake its darkness palpable, and streaks of glory issue through its fringe of fire, the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven; and gazing on the pearly gates, and peaceful streets, and bowers of sanctity, our planet can scarce* believe that she is gazing on herself, — that this is old Mother Earth grown young again, — that this vision of holiness and bliss is nothing more than Paradise restored — that “new” but ancient “earth in which dwelleth righteousness*” But in order rightly to appreciate this literary diversity of

the Bible’s several books, it is essential to remember the plenary inspiration of the Bible collective. Imagine the case of an accomplished evangelist. Suppose there were a missionary endowed with the gift of tongues, and called to ply his labours in different places at successive periods. He goes to France, and, addressing its vivacious inhabitants, he abandons the direct and sober style of his fatherland; every utteranee is antithesis; every gem of thought is cut brilliant-wise; and the whole oration jigs on gay, elastic springs. He passes thence to Holland, and in order to conciliate its grave burghers his steady thoughts move on in sober procession, trim, concinnate, old-fashioned, orderly. Anon he finds himself amidst a tribe of Red Indians; and instantly his imagination spreads pinions of flame, and, familiar with thunder-water and burning mountains, his talk is to the tune of the tempest. And ending his progress in Arabia or Persia, through the fantastic sermon skip shadowy antelopes or dream-like gazelles; whilst each interstice of thought is filled by a voluptuous mystery, like the voice of the darkling nightingale as it floats through air laden with jasmine or roses. And thus, “all things to all men,” this gifted evangelist wins them all; whereas, had he spoken like an Oriental to the Red Indian, or like a Persian to the Hollander, he would have offended each, and would have been a barbarian to all. The Teacher is one — the same Evangelist everywhere. The truth, the theme is one — over and over again the same glorious gospel. Nay, the substance of each sermon is essentially one; for it is a new forth-pouring from the same fountain — another yearning from the same full heart. But to suit successive hearers the rhythm alters, the tune is changed.

Such is the principle on which the Great Evangelist has acted. When inditing sermons for the world, such is the principle on which the Divine Spirit has proceeded. Speaking to men, He has used the words of men. When on the two tables God wrote the Ten Commandments, He did not write them in the speech unutterable of the third heavens — He wrote them in Hebrew letters, Hebrew words, and Hebrew idiom; and had it so pleased Him, He might have given all the Sriptures in the self-same way. Employing no mortal pen whatever, from the top of Sinai he might have handed down the one Testament, and from the top of Olivet the other — the whole, from Genesis to Revelation, completed without human intervention, and on amaranthine leaves engraven in Heaven’s own holograph. And in such a case there would have been no dispute as to the extent of inspiration; there would have been no need that, like the electrometers of the meteorologist, theologians should invent tests of its intensity, nicely graduated from the zero of Superintendence up to the fulness of Suggestion. But Infinite Wisdom preferred another way. Inspiration He made the counterpart of the Incarnation; and as in the Incarnate Mystery we have, without mutual encroachment and without confusion, very God and very man, so in theopneustic Scripture we have a book, every sentence of which is truly human, and yet the whole of which is truly divine. Holy men spake it, but holy men spake and wrote it as they mere moved by the Holy Ghost.. And just as when God sent His Son into the world, He sent Him not in the fashion of an angel, nor even in the fashion of a glorified and celestial man, but in all points like His brethren; so when He sent into the world His written word, it came not ready written with an angel’s plume, but with reeds from the Jordan it was consigned to paper from the Nile, every word of it Hellenistic or Hebrew, and yet every word none the less heavenly. And though the unlettered disciple, who in the identity of the ultimate Author forgets the diversity of the intermediate scribes — though he loses less than the dry critic, who only recognises the mortal penman — that student alone will get the full good of His Bible who recognises the parallel facts — its perfect and all-pervasive divinity, its perfect and all-investing humanity. Or, to sum it up in the vivid words of Gaussen: “As a skilful musician, called to execute alone some masterpiece, puts his lips by turns to the mournful flute, the shepherd’s reed, the mirthful pipe, and the war-trumpet, so the Almighty God, to sound in our ears His eternal word, has selected from of old the instruments best suited to receive successively the breath of His Spirit. Thus we have in God’s great anthem of revelation the sublime simplicity of John; the argumentative, elliptical, soul-stirring energy of Paul; the fervour and solemnity of Peter; the poetic grandeur of Isaiah; the lyric moods of David; the ingenuous and majestic narratives of Moses; the sententious and royal wisdom of Solomon. Yes, it was all this — it was Peter, Isaiah, Matthew, John, or Moses; but it was God.” “And such ought to be the word of Jehovah — like Emmanuel, full of grace and truth — at once in the bosom of God and in the heart of man — powerful and sympathising — celestial and human — exalted, yet humble — imposing and familiar — God and man.”

But here a compunctious thought comes over us. In the previous survey it seems as if we had gone, so many of us, to view a famous palace, and we have stood on the lawn in front, or looked up from the quadrangle, and told its towers and marked its bulwarks, and sketched some of its ornaments; but however commanding the elevation, however graceful the details, and however interesting the various styles, after all the glory is within. No doubt, there is a loveliness even in the letter of Scripture; but there is life for our souls in its divine significance. Reader, do not rest till you are introduced to the interior. That Book which God has made the monument of the great redemption, and where Pie has put His own perpetual Shekinah, do you choose it as the gymnasium where you may “nourish a youth “truly” sublime the castle where, in a world of impiety and an age of peril, you may find entrenchment for your faith and protection for your principles; the sanctuary at whose oracle you may find answers to your doubts and light upon your path; the spirit’s home, whither your affections shall every day return, and where your character shall progressively ennoble into a conformity with such a royal residence?

Allow us, therefore, as a supplement to these remarks, to entreat you to peruse the Bible itself. With prayer, with expectation, with eyes alert and open, read it; in your most tranquil retirement read it; and when a few of you, who are friends like-minded, come together, read it; search it, sift it, talk about it, talk with it. And as he thus grows mighty in it, we promise each earnest Bible-student two rewards — it will make him both a wiser and holier man.

Wiser: for the sayings of God’s Word are solid. There is a substance, which you must have noticed, cast on the sea-shore, the medusa, or sea-nettle, as some sorts of it are called; an object rather beautiful as its dome of amber quivers in the sun. And a goodly size it often is, — so large at times that you could scarcely lift it: but it is all a watery pulp, and if you were carrying it home or trying to preserve it, the whole mass would quickly trickle out of sight and leave you nothing but a few threads of substance. Now, most books are like the marine medusa; fresh stranded, newly published, (as the expression is,) they make a goodly show; but when a few suns have Sfrbne on them, the crystal jelly melts, the glittering cupola has vanished, and a few meagre fibres in your memory are all the residue of the once popular authorship. If you ever tried it, you must have been struck with the few solid thoughts, the few suggestive ideas, which survive from the perusal of the most brilliant of human books. Few of them can stand three readings; and of the memorabilia which you had marked in your first perusal, on reverting to them you find that many of them are not so striking, or weighty, or original as at first you fancied. But the Word of God is solid; it will stand a thousand readings; and the man who has gone over it the most frequently and the most carefully, is the surest of finding new wonders there. And just as the pearls of Scripture retain their intrinsic worth; as notwithstanding the frowsy head-gear they have garnished, the dull discourses they have adorned, they beam brighter than ever when the hand of a Vinet, or Chalmers, or Hall has arranged them anew into a coronet of sanctified taste and genius: so he among sages is the wealthiest man who has detected, and appropriated, and thoroughly possessed himself of the largest number of Bible sayings, — the merchantman who, seeking goodly pearls, has searched for them on this exhaustless strand.

And holier: for though we have hitherto spoken of the Bible very much as if it were a human book, you cannot be long versant with it till you find that it is something more. Like Tabor, it is a “mountain apart.” Among the books of this world it is isolated, unique, peculiar; and the farther up you get, the more acquainted you become with human books, and the more alongside of them you study the Book of God, the more amazed you will be at its outstanding elevation, its world-commanding pre-eminence. And just as in scaling a high mountain it needs no chemistry to analyse the air and inform the pilgrim that it is free from impurities; as every breath which paints a purer crimson on his cheek, and sends a tonic tide through all his suppling frame, woufd tell him its salubrity: so it needs no argument, no analysis, to persuade a spiritual mind that the air of heaven, the breath of God, is here. In his holier feelings as he reads, in the godly zeal and joyful strenuousness which requite each mounting footstep, with instinct sure his regenerate nature hails the congenial inspiration. And just as on Tabor’s summit, when from heaven saints in snowy garments came down, and from Christ His own glory came through, it needed no refracting prism or condensing lens to assure 132 The Literary Attractions of the Bible

them that it was a body of more than earthly brightness which they were gazing upon: so, dear reader, when a text is transfigured, when the Holy Spirit in the Word lets out its grace and glory, it will need no Paley nor Butler to prove that the Wisdom and the Power of God are there, but, radiant with emitted splendour, and dazzling your admiring eyes, in God’s own light you will see it to be God’s own Word. Nor can we wish for you a better wish than that thus you may be often surprised and overwhelmed. Yes, though your lot should be cast in the very midst of a noisy capital, and in the meridian of this man-wasting, money-making age, may you often find your Sabbath, and your place of prayer, and your Bible, “a mountain apart.” In blissful bewilderment may you forget the fascinations of earth and the pleasures of sin, and only wake up to find yourself alone with the Master. And none shall less grieve than he whom you have kindly accompanied thus far, if the literary attractions of the Book be in this manner merged and superseded in charms more spiritual — in attractions which, if they draw you to the Bible, will also draw you to the Saviour, and at last to heaven.