The Literary Merit of the Scriptures

We do not claim for the Scriptures simply the honour of having given the world its letters. This they might have done, and have left the field of literature barren, and with all the difficulties of cultivating it to be overcome by the tedious toil of successive generations. But they open before you a “goodly land,” everywhere fruitful and luxuriant, and ripened already to a full harvest. Mountain, and meadow, and pure streams diversify and adorn its surface 5 and at each step a mine is disclosed, yielding as it is explored, new and exhaustless treasures. Who would not be a wayfarer amid such scenes?

If the Bible is of human origin, it must certainly be regarded as the most wonderful effort of created intelligence. That there should be so perfect a book in so early a state of the world; that no volume, either ancient, or modern, and written in the most advanced and cultivated condition of human society, should compare with this ancient record, originating in a comparatively rude age j is to my own mind, a fact not easily accounted for on the principles of infidelity. The world is filled with books that are the product of the mightiest sons of genius 5 but they are sterile and jejune, deformed and ungainly, in comparison with the riches of thought, the extent of research, the accuracy, the grace and beauty, which distinguish the Bible.

Without the Scriptures, the world would be profoundly ignorant of some of the most important and interesting points of historical inquiry. Within the narrow compass of the first few chapters in the book of Genesis, we are furnished with a distinct and connected history of more that two thousand of the earliest years of time. The narrative of Moses completely covers that period of history, which with other nations is called fabulous and which is merged in the regions of fabrication and conjecture. There are no ages of uncertainty here — no regions of fable — no chasm. From the first dawn of the creation down to the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, the entire period is filled up with events, the effects of which are widely extended over the earth and are visible to the present hour.

There are multitudes of facts and phenomena, both in the natural and moral world that never could be accounted for, but for the Mosaic history 5 while a slight acquaintance with that history shows us how exactly it is accordant with the existing state of things both in the physical and moral creation. The creation of the material universe, about which so much has been written by wise men, and than which nothing is more indicative of folly, is here given so succinctly, and so philosophically, that all the quibbles of infidehty, and all the researches of natural science, instead of invalidating, have only served to strengthen and confirm our confidence that the narrator was supernaturally taught of God.

The ancient account of the creation of the world among the Chaldeans was, that there was a time when all was water and darkness, and in these were contained the original elements of all future existence 5 that a woman was the great presiding mind j that Belus clove her asunder, and formed earth of the one part, and heaven of the other 5 that he divided the darkness, separated earth from heaven, and arranged the order of the universe; that he then ordered one of the gods to cut off his head, to mix the blood which flowed from the wound with earth, and of this mixed mass to form men and animals 5 and that after this, he framed the stars and planets, and thus finished the production of all things. This account is indeed sufficiently ridiculous, and yet is it the sober narrative of Berosus, who was a priest in the temple of Belus at Babylon, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and was the author of the history of Chaldea. The Phoenician Theogony of Sanconiathan is still more ludicrous, and too absurd to be narrated in an intelligent assembly 5 but may be found in Eusebius, and Winder’s History of Knowledge. The Egyptian account as given by Diodorus Siculus, was that all beings originally existed in a chaotic state; that the sun and stars were formed by the continual agitation of the air ascending upwards j that the gross and earthy matter sunk below, and was gradually made hard by the heat of the sun j that animals were created from the heat and moisture, and eventually perpetuated, each, its own species. And what was the Theogony of the Greeks — the learned Greeks? I may not utter it for its debasing impurities. Compared with these, and others such as these, how simple, how rational the narrative of Moses. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth!” Here is a cause equal to the wonderful effect, while every view of the effect leads to adoring admiration of the power, wisdom and goodness of the mighty author.

The formation of man too with all his full grown powers of body and of mind — his primoeval rectitude, federal character and fall — the promised Saviour and his predicted victories — the patriarchial age — the deluge — the foundation of the new world — the settlement of the mother country — the division of the earth — the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion — the early settlement of Egypt — the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire, even to the names of all its successive Princes from the first to the last — the origin, peculiarities and overthrow of the Hebrew State — the progress and dechne of Canaan, Persia, and Media, are all familiar topics of biblical history. Ancient cities too — Thebes, — the No-Ammi of Nahum — Nineveh, Jerusalem, Babylon, with all that rendered them the wonders of the world, would be traced to the remote darkness of the fabulous age, but for the Old Testament. The only authentic history of these remote events and kingdoms, is in the Pentateuch and in the Prophets. Before the days of Moses, there were no historical records either in Assyria, Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldea, or Greece. No other historian has lived at so remote a period as the exodus from Egypt. Dr. Winder shows at considerable length, that Moses is the only man who had any considerable materials for Egyptian History 5 as the ancient learning of Egypt must have been chiefly lost by the excision of the first born and the disasters of the Red Sea. Since the priests, the more common depositories of learning, usually attended in their wars, the people who were left behind must have been chiefly the common people 5 so that for a long time after this disaster, Egypt was involved in ignorance and darkness 5 nor is this nation subsequently mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, until the reign of Solomon. “Moses was the father of history.” Infidels have affirmed, there were astronomical calculations in Babylon that reached back to a period much farther than the Mosaic history j which therefore, if true, invalidate the entire account given by Moses. This assertion has received a very conclusive refutation from the astronomical calculations of Bedford. But there is a fact stated by Gillies, in his history of Greece, that confirms the calculations of Bedford. This historian states, that after the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, he “eagerly demanded the astronomical calculations that had been carefully preserved in that ancient capitol about nineteen centuries. By the order of Alexander they were faithfully transcribed and transmitted to Aristotle,” who was the preceptor of this Prince. And “they re-mounted to twenty-two hundred and thirty-four years beyond the Christian era,” a period not even so remote as the deluge. There is no history that can be so safely relied on, or that is so ancient, as the Mosaic history. Every other attempt at history until the reigns of David and Solomon, is but a mass of shapeless re-arranged tradition, as corrupt as it is fabulous. Long after this time indeed, the pages of writers esteemed the most authentic, are disfigured by absurd and disgusting fictions. This defect in the annals of earlier times must be everywhere and deeply felt, if we exclude the information obtained from the Bible. There only is the deficiency supplied. Sanconiathan, Berosus, Ctesias and Manetho are the oldest human historians 5 but “Moses was five hundred years before the first, and more than a thousand before the last.”

It deserves also to be remembered that the chronology of the Bible is definite. The most authentic ancient historians abound with chronological inconsistencies. Sir Isaac Newton has clearly detected great errors in the system of pagan chronology by bringing his powerful mind to the study of the Bible,* The authors of profane history are greatly indebted in this particular to the chronology of the Scriptures. By a careful comparison of its history with its prophecies, a standard is formed by which the chronological errors of pagan historians have been rectified, and the order of a great multitude of dates and events satisfactorily determined. Nor is the facility of doing this at all diminished by the discrepancy between the chronology of the Hebrew and Samaritan text and the Septuagint. Geography and chronology have been well called the “two eyes of history.” Nor can our notions of history be otherwise than exceedingly confused, where the series of events does not lie before us in the due and proper order of time.

What adds pecuHar interest to the historical notices of the scriptures, is that they are so replete with instruction on the great and important subject of efficient and final causes, as well as moral causes generally. They bring forward in bold relief the superintendant and all-governing providence of the most High: — as in the his-

* For information on this subject, see the different Encyclope. dias, Bedford’s chronology, and Winder. tory of Joseph, the revolt of the ten tribes, and the books of Esther and Daniel. They exhibit a luminous picture of the human character in every age and country with which they are conversant; — as in the history of the antediluvian world, and the entire history of the Jewish nation. They present a history of the divine purposes and the divine government, and every where illustrate the great truth, that “there is a God that judgeth in the earth,” and that he “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” They furnish a history of the church for more than four thousand years. They present as their great subject the all-absorbing work of Redemption. They have an object which they never loose sight of 5 a cause to which they are always subservient j principles which are developed with some new accession of strength and beauty on every page 5 a Hero, not of mortal nature, whom they every where honour 5 a deity, not of the poet’s creation, whom they worship with a pure ritual, and to whom they ascribe eternal praise.

Nor need we hesitate in saying, that no work possesses such literary merit generally and that has equal claims to be considered as the standard of a polished and useful literature. The characteristic style of the Bible is, that it is always adapted to the subjects of which it speaks. A chaste, terse, nervous diction distinguishes all its compositions. It is strongly marked by its simplicity, its strength, and often its unrivalled sublimity and beauty. Its words and figures, though not a few of the latter are altogether new, and probably never would have been thought of except by the inspired mind who conceived them, and are even symbolical and hieroglyphic, when once presented, are seen and felt to accord with the familiar conceptions of men. Its manner of writing with regard to the choice and arrangement of words, is at all times dignified and serious, and at a great remove from the pomp and parade of artificial ornament. Everywhere we see that its great object is to inculcate truth and that it uses words only to clothe and render impressive the thoughts it would convey. There is both rhetoric and inspiration in the Bible 5 but amid all the boldness and felicity of its inventions, there is no overdoing — no making the most of every thing — no needless comment — but every thing is plain, concise, and unaffectedly simple.

In the historical compositions of the Scriptures, we have the most simple, natural, affecting, and well told narratives in the world. Witness the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his family — the recapitulations in Deuteronomy — the narratives of Ezra and Nehemiah — the story of the Saviour’s trial and crucifixion, and the life of the Apostle Paul. For fidelity and impartiality, for unvarnished truth, for the choice of its matter, its unity, its concise and graphic descriptions of character, and above all its usefulness the historical parts of the Bible are without a parallel.

No critic can say of them. “They are too mono tonous — too wordy — or too uniformly stately, tragical and emphatic.” The characters walk and breathe. They are nature, and nothing but nature. By a single stroke of the pencil you often have their portrait. You see them. You hear them. Every scene in which you behold them is a fit subject for the painter. And does it not deserve remark, that the finest subjects for historic painting within the entire circle of the Fine Arts have been selected from the Scriptures? Such are Lot and his two daughters hastened by the angels out of Sodom and the Finding of Moses on the Nile, by Rembrant — Moses striking the Rock, by Poussin — The Deluge, by Trumbull — Belshazzars Feast, by Martin — The Transfiguration and the Madonna by Raphael — Moses receiving the Law — Abraham and Isaac, at the foot of the mountain — PauVs Shipwreck — Christ Rejected — and Death on the Pale Horse, by West, — the Last Supper, by Davinci — Christ in the Garden, by Guido — the Fall of the damned — and the Resurrection of the Just by Rubens. Raphael, the first painter in the world, and who was employed so extensively, by Leo X. painted chiefly scriptural subjects. His famous Cartoons, are all scriptural themes. Nor may it be denied, that these and other similar subjects have been selected with inimitable judgement and taste. None knew better how to make or prize the selection, than these illustrious artists 5 for none brought to the selection minds better furnished, or more intensely devoted to the object. I look upon it as no unmeaning compliment to the Bible, that the best Artists have awarded to it this distinguished honour; and one reason why they have done so, obviously is, that profane history furnishes no such themes.

Nor do I know any thing to equal the didactic and argumentative parts of the Scriptures, especially as they are presented in some of the Prophets; in the discourses of our Saviour, and the epistles of Paul. Read the instructions of the greatest of all teachers to Nicodemus: advert to his conversation with the woman of Samaria: study his argument to the complaining Jews in the Temple, and to the deceived multitude that followed him across the sea to Capernaum: turn to his discourse to the people at Nazareth: and then read his farewell address to his disciples. Where will you find so rich a vein of thought, argument, and alternate rebuke and tenderness? There is nothing in the compositions of Addison, the most neat and nervous of all the English classics, to be compared with these, or with the Sermon on the Mount. Nor is there anything in the finest orations and treatises of the most celebrated masters of antiquity, so eloquent as the glowing prediction of the great Apostle of the restoration of his countrymen, or his triumphant argument for the resurrection, or his bold and exquisitely wrought

description of the privileges of the people of God.

5# You recollect how he closes the first. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory forever!” I cannot do justice to his illustration and argument relative to the second, without rehearsing a part of it. “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption j it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory •, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power 5 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy 5 and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God 5 neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold I shew you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law 5 but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” When this author first presented these epistles to the world, I have no doubt they produced impressions of the deepest interest, if not of high astonishment. Some of you can recollect the emotions with which you read them more than twenty years ago 5 and they excite the same emotions still, except that they are more enlightened and vigorous. You well recollect also the close of his description of the privileges of the children of God:” And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified 5 and whom he justified them he also glorified. What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who shall be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these

things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created existence shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There is a noble specimen of lofty argument and expostulation also in one of the early books of the Old Testament which I may not pass over in silence. “Gird up thy loins now like a man. I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Will thou also disannul my judgments? Will thou condemn me that thou mayst be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him. Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency. and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath, and behold every one that is proud and abase him. Look on every one that is proud and bring him low, and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together, bind their faces in secret. Then will I also confess unto thee, that thine own right hand hath saved thee!” There are several fine points in this passage, but none more exquisitely fine than this, —” Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath, and behold every one that is proud, and abase Jiim I hook on every one that is proud, and bring him low V It is a lofty challenge from God to the arrogance and power of man. O how impotent compared with the Almighty One! There needs but a look from God to level the proudest worm. I know not where to find passages of equal force, sublimity, and simphcity out of the Bible. And they are but specimens from almost innumerable passages equally brilliant. There is no vapidness in such passages as these, which palls on the taste. Their flowers do not fade, nor does their fruit loose its freshness. The sacred writers differ in this respect from all others. These dissertations have long been published to the world j but they have lost none of their power, none of their grandeur and beauty. They are always new, and more and more deeply interest a classical mindythe oftener they are read and the better they are known. No matter how often you read them, the last perusal leaves the highest relish behind it.

One of the most eminent critics has said, that “devotional poetry cannot please.” If it be so, then has the Bible “carried the dominion of poetry into regions that are inaccessible to worldly ambition.” It has “crossed the enchanted circle,” and by the beauty, boldness, and originality of its conceptions, has given to devotional poetry a glow, a richness, a tenderness, in vain sought for in Shakespeare or Cowper, in Scott or Byron. Where is there poetry that can be compared with the song of Moses at his victory over Pharaoh; with the Psalms of David; with the Song of Solomon, and with the prophecies of Isaiah? Where is there an elegiac ode to be compared with the song of David upon the death of Saul and Jonathan, or the Lamentations of Jeremiah? Where, in ancient, or modern poetry is there a passage like this? “In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me and trembhng, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face: the hair of my flesh stood up. — It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof An image was before mine eyes. There was silence. And I heard a voice saying, shall mortal man be more just than God; shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold he putteth no trust in his servants, and his angels he chargeth with folly. How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust and who are crushed before the moth!” Men who have felt the power of poetry, when they have marked the “deep working passion of Dante,” and observed the elevation of Milton as he “combined image with image in lofty gradation,” have thought that they discovered the indebtedness of these writers to the poetry of the Old Testament. But how much more sublime is Isaiah, than Milton! How much more enkindling than Dante, is David! How much more picturesque than Homer is Solomon, or Job! Like the rapid, glowing argumentations of Paul, the poetic parts of the Bible may be read a thousand times, and they have all the freshness and glow of the first perusal. Where, in the compass of human language, is there a paragraph, which, for boldness and variety of metaphor, dehcacy and majesty of thought, strength and invention, elegance and refinement, equals the passage in which “God answers Job out of the whirlwind?” What merely human imagination, in the natural progress of a single discourse, and apparently without effort, ever thus went down to “the foundations of the earth” — stood at “the doors of the ocean” — visited “the place where the day-spring from on high takes hold of the uttermost parts of the earth” — entered into “the treasures of the snow and the haiP’-^traced the path of the thunder-bolt — and, penetrating the retired chambers of nature, demanded,” Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of the dew?” And how bold its flights, how inexpressibly striking and beautiful its antitheses, when from the warm and sweet Pleiades, it wanders to the sterner Orion, and in its rapid course, hears the “young lions crying unto God for lack of meat” — sees the war horse pawing in the valley — descries the eagle on the crag of the rock — and in all that is vast and minute, dreadful and beautiful, discovers and proclaims the glory of him who is “excellent in counsel and wonderful in working?” The style of Hebrew poetry is everywhere forcible and figurative beyond example. The book of Job stands not alone in this sententious, spirited and energetic form and manner. It prevails throughout the poetic part of the Scriptures 5 and they stand confessedly the most eminent examples to be found of the truly sublime and beautiful. I confess I have not much of the feeling of poetry. It is a fire that is enkindled at” the living

lamp of nature,” and glows only on a few favoured altars. And yet I cannot but love the poetic associations of the Bible. Now, they are sublime and beautiful, like the mountain torrent, swollen and impetuous by the sudden bursting of the cloud. Now they are grand and awful as the stormy Galilee, when the tempest beat upon the fearful disciples. And again, they are placid as that calm lake when the Saviour’s feet have pressed upon its waters and stilled them into peace.

There is also a sublimity, an invention in the imagery of the Bible that is found in no other book. Here you see “a land shadowing with wings” — a “star coming out of Jacob, and a sceptre arising out of Israel” — the “lion of the tribe of Judah” — and the “tongue of the Egyptian Sea.” — You read of “New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven” — of a “rain-bow round about the throne” — of a ‘’ sea of glass” — and of a “woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet.” Here you have allegory, apologue, parable and enigma, all clearly understood and enforcing truth with a strong and indelible impression. Here you have significant actions uttering volumes of instruction 5 as when “Jesus called a little child and set him in the midst of his disciples and said, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” — as when he cursed the barren fig-tree — as when he “washed his disciples feet.” And where is there a comparison like this, — “And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.” Where is there a description like this, — “And I saw an angel standing in the Sun — and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the Great God.” Or where is there a sentence like the following, — “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.” English literature is no common debtor to the Bible. In what department of English literature may not the difference be discovered between the spirit and sentiments of Christian writers and those who have drawn all their materials of thought and of ornament from Pagan writers? In the language of an anonymous writer, “Not to say that antiquity furnishes no example of a philosopher who could think like Newton 5 or a moralist who could illustrate human obligation like Edwards or Johnson 5 we find a proof of the superiority of Christian principles even in those works of imagination which are deemed scarcely susceptible of influence from religion. The common romance and the novel, with all their fooleries and ravings, would be more contemptible than they are, did they not sometimes undesignedly, catch a conception, or adorn a character from the rich treasury of revelation. And the more splendid fictions of the poet derive their highest charm from the evangelical philanthopy, tenderness, and sublimity that invest them. But for the Bible, Homer and Milton might have stood upon the same shelf, equals in morality, as they are competitors for renown. Young had been ranked with Juvenal 5 and Cowper had united with Horace and with Ovid to swell the tide of voluptuousness.”

There is not a finer character, nor a finer description in all the works of Walter Scott, than that of Rebekah in Ivanhoe. And who does not see that it owes its excellence to the Bible? Shakespeare, Byron and Southey are not a little indebted for some of their best scenes and inspirations to the same source. At the suggestion of a valued friend, I have turned my thoughts to the parallel between Macbeth and Ahab — between Lady Macbeth and Jezebel — between the announcment to Macduff of the murder of his family, and that to David of the death of Absalom by Joab — to the parallel between the opening of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and Byron’s apostrophe to Rome as the Niobe of nations — to the parallel between his ode to Napoleon and Isaiah’s ode on the fall of Sennacherib — and also to the resemblance between Southey’s chariot of Car mala in the Curse of Kehama, and Ezekiel’s vision of the wheels; and have been forcibly impressed with the obligations of this class of writers to the sacred Scriptures.

May it not be doubted whether scholars have been sufficiently sensible of their obligations to our common English Bible. It is the purest specimen of English, or Anglo-Saxon to be found in the world. It was made by the order of James the I. in 1607, by forty-seven of the most able and learned men of Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge. It has stood the test of two hundred and thirty years experience and is a noble monument of the integrity, fidelity, and learning of its venerable translators. Addison remarks “There is a certain coldness in the phrases of European languages, compared with the oriental forms of speech. The English tongue has received innumerable improvements from an infusion of Hebraisms, derived out of the practical passsages in holy writ. They warm and animate our language, give it force and energy, and convey our thoughts in ardent and intense phrases. There is something in this kind of diction, that often sets the mind in a flame and makes our hearts burn within us.” Nor has it been at all improved by American Philologists. Was it too much for a learned Commentator to say, “Our translators have not only made a standard translation J but they have made their translation the standard of our language. The English tongue in their day was not equal to such a work. But God enabled them to stand as upon Mount Sinai, and crane up their country’s language to the dignity of the originals j so that after the lapse of two hundred years, the English Bible, with very few exceptions, is the standard of the purity and excellence of the English tongue.”

The Bible has also been the instrument of preserving and diffusing classical learning among the most polished and literary nations. On the subversion of her fairest temples, ofttimes has literature taken refuge in the asylums of Christianity. Since the Ark that once contained and preserved this sacred book was destroyed, this hallowed volume has been itself the ark in which were contained and preserved for the long night of a thousand years, and amid the rude assaults of barbarous nations, ‘’ the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” More than once, when ignorance has enslaved the human mind, has the Bible stricken off its fetters.

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The scriptures constrain men to be learned. So that while on the one hand, literature has nothing to lose, but much to gain from the Bible, the Bible has much to gain, and nothing to loose from a solid literature. “A little learning,” says Lord Bacon, “tendeth to atheism 5 but more bringeth us back to religion.” It is for the interests of religion to encourage the pursuit of science and literature in every form and department. The more the Bible is brought to the test of intellectual research, the more abundant will be the evidence of its superiority. From the comparative study of languages, from the natural history of the human race, from the whole circle of natural sciences, from early history, from oriental literature, from the most rigid scrutiny of its most acute and learned enemies, it has nothing to fear. The ignorance of its friends may give its enemies a short lived triumph 5 but it shall be as ignoble, as it is momentary 5 and the weapons by which it has been accomplished shall be broken and thrown back, recoiling on the heads of those who wield them. Should some future Julian arise, who should debar the friends of the Bible the lights of science, the unbelieving wprld, and the powers of darkness, might be emboldened to assail it with new confidence. But I trust in God that time is past. And were it possible that the world could again be subjected to the caprice of a single man, and receive its laws from a despot, Jesus Christ is, as he ever has been, “head over all things to the church,” and will make all things subservient to her interests. The power of despots shall be extended or diminished, as it shall ultimately extend or diminish the power of the gospel. Wise men of the East shall again offer incense to the child of Mary. The Scribe and the Rabbi shall yet wreathe garlands for the ark of the covenant. The science of France and the learning of Germany shall become as truly tributary to the cause of truth and holiness, as was the gold of Ophir. And the most illustrious classics of antiquity shall gather their freshest bays to adorn the temples once crowned with thorns.

If it were for nothing but their literary merit therefore, these Scriptures claim the earnest attention of the young. I know of no standard by which the character of literary and scientific men may be so safely and successfully formed. The more he reads, the more, I am confident an accomplished scholar will study the Bible. There are no finer English scholars than the men educated north of the Tweed. And there are none who, from their childhood are so well acquainted with the Bible. I have heard it said that the characteristic wit of Scotchmen is attributable to their early familiarity with the Proverbs of Solomon. No well informed man, no well educated family is ignorant of the Bible. We can better afford to part with every other book from our family libraries, our schools, and colleges, than this finished production of the Infinite mind.