The
Holy Scriptures -
Canon and Inspiration
From
lectures by A.
A. Hodge
Contents
Part I
I. Let us now consider the Bible, its
genesis and its inspiration.
The word "Bible" means book; the word "Scripture" means writing; and it
is by the common consent of men that these words are applied to this
one subject, because it is a book of books, and because, beyond all
comparison, it is the Writing of writings. It is the most important of
all books, because, as a matter of historical fact, this book, more
than any other force, has molded the character of the great nations of
the world and given birth to what we call the modern or Western
civilization; because all historic Churches, with one accord, declare
it to be the foundation of their creeds - declare that this book is the
Word of God; because, in spite of all our divisions, the whole Church
really accepts this book as the only infallible and divinely
authoritative rule of our faith and practice; and because it is,
between all Christians, the standard of appeal on all subjects of
debate, the only common ground upon which we stand, the only court of
last resort.
II. On what presuppositions does our doctrine
rest?
In every problem there are two elements - the a priori element of
principle and the a posteriori element of fact. To this there is no
exception in any of the problems of philosophy or of science or of
theology. The a priori question of principle must be taken first, and
will condition the whole argument. We must, before we take up the
subject of the Bible, first take up the questions: Is there a God? Does
he exist? What relation does he sustain to the universe? Can he reveal
himself to man? Has he made a revelation of himself to man? Are men
capable of receiving a divine revelation through the means of a book?
Now, it is held, on the basis of all the presuppositions of atheism, of
materialism, of agnosticism, and even of the old deism, that it is
absolutely absurd to talk of any supernatural revelation of God, or of
any Bible as either containing or being the Word of God. I want,
however, to assure the laymen who have not investigated these
questions, that nine-tenths of all the objections which men are making
now to the Scriptures, in which they claim that the progress of
knowledge, the progress of civilization, the progress of science, the
progress of critical investigation, the vast aggregate of historical
knowledge, all are sweeping away the foundations of our ancient faith
in the Bible - I wish to assure them that these objections are totally
untrue. Those that are made are not founded upon facts, but simply upon
a priori philosophical principles. Neither science nor history nor
criticism bears any testimony against the divine origin of the Bible. I
appeal with confidence to the a priori principles of a contrary
philosophy. We must meet them on their own ground, and appeal from the
postulates of a false philosophy to the postulates of a true. We have
as much right to believe our philosophy as they have to believe theirs.
Renan, for instance, begins his discussion upon the Epistles with this
assumption: "The supernatural is impossible;" therefore the
supernatural is unhistorical, and therefore any piece of literature
that claims to convey to us supernatural information must so far forth
be incorrect and be the subject of correction by critical hands.
You see that this is a mere assumption, and the whole principle on
which it rests is that which underlies the philosophy, atheistic,
materialistic, agnostic, or deistic, of these errorists; and if this be
swept away, not only all the foundations for such a claim, but all
color of presumption on which it rests, is swept away at once.
Doubtless there are very many men of great ability who are perfectly
honest who hold to this belief. They are thoroughly convinced of the
principles of their a priori philosophy, and these principles are
evidently inconsistent with the truths of Christianity.
But if we discard the unproved assumptions, we invalidate their
conclusions. There are others who ought to be treated kindly: they are
thoroughly convinced, but they are half-educated, timid souls who are
confused in this babel of tongues, and who do not know the
deceitfulness of materialistic belief - who are inclined to believe in
the ancient faith, but are also under pressure from the arrogant claims
of philosophy. For such we must have great consideration, and instead
of repelling them by words, draw them to us by the spirit of Christ,
and by showing that we not only believe intellectually, but that we
have a ground of assurance in our inward experience, in the testimony
of the Holy Ghost, which must excite respect and confidence in them.
Now, in beginning this argument, I wish to claim, first, the truth of
all I have said in the three preceding lectures. You see, therefore,
the logical reason for the order I adopted. I claim, as preliminary to
the discussion of the doctrine of Holy Scripture, the truths of the
principles already established: to wit, there is a God; this God
possesses the attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, infinitude,
etc.; he is everywhere present; immanent in all things at all times;
working continuously and universally through all things from within. He
is also transcendent and extramundane, acting upon the world from
without on such points and at such times as he wills. The whole order
of providence and of moral government, whether natural, supernatural,
or gracious, is presupposed in this argument.
If a man does not believe in God as omnipresent and as active in all
his creatures, if he does not believe that man is a free moral agent
under the moral government of God, who is a holy, just, and benevolent
Ruler, then this lecture is not intended for him. But if a man does so
believe, we challenge him to present objections to the catholic
doctrine of the Word of God which will be at the same time rational and
consistent with Christian Theism.
III. How do we ascertain the Constituent,
Parts of Scripture?
that is, how do we (1) ascertain the several books which make up the
canon? and (2) how do we ascertain the words which make up the correct
text of those books? I can of course attempt only a very bare sketch of
what should be the full and critically-learned answer to these
questions. You all fully understand that they fall outside of the
particular department of study to which my life has been devoted. The
amount of the highest talent and learning consecrated within the
Christian Church to the defense and elucidation of the sacred
Scriptures would infinitely surprise the shallow critics who are
vociferously claiming that its pretensions have been disproved. They
should remember that a few frogs in a swamp make incomparably more
noise than all the herds of cattle browsing upon a hundred hills. Yet
none are deceived, except the frogs themselves. In Princeton
Theological Seminary the study of the subjects embraced within this
single lecture consumes the larger part of three years of study, and
the entire attention of four learned and able professors.
(A) 1. How do we ascertain what Books constitute the Canon of the
Old Testament? The New Testament came into existence in an age in
which a contemporaneous literature existed, thoroughly illuminated by
the light of history. But the Old Testament contains the very oldest
extant literature of the world. It inaugurates human history, and
therefore cannot, in its earliest contents, be verified by
contemporaneous testimonies. It is only in its later periods that it
receives confirmation unquestionable from the monuments of Egypt and
the cylinders of Assyria.
Nevertheless, we are certain that we have the very same canon which
Christ recognized when he said to his disciples and through them to us,
"Search the Scriptures: ......they are they which testify of me." The
very books which we have now are the very books to which Christ
appealed. He cited them (1) by their classes, as "the Law," "the Law
and the Prophets;" and (2) he quoted the writings severally, and
attributed them to their respective authors - as to Moses, to David,
and to Esaias. The same was done by the inspired writers of the New
Testament. That the canon endorsed by Christ is the very canon we now
possess we know to an absolute certainty - by the Septuagint
translation, made nearly three hundred years before Christ; by the
Hebrew Bible, jealously guarded by the Jews from the earliest ages to
the present time; from the testimony of Philo and of Josephus, the
great Jewish writers of the first Christian century; and from the
earliest Latin and Syriac translations.
As to this point, indeed, there is no controversy. The simple question
remains, which to real Christians is no question, whether the testimony
of Christ our Lord is sufficient to establish the fact.
2. How do we ascertain the True Text of the Several Books which
constitute this Canon? Our reliance here also is upon the guarantee of
Christ. We are sure that we possess the Masoretic text which was
collected and recorded by the Masorets from the fifth century onward.
These were great Jewish scholars, who searched all manuscripts open to
them, not to form a new text, but to ascertain the true text in the
material that had descended to them. The Targums and the Talmud also
make it certain that the text we now have is essentially the identical
text which Christ had, and which he virtually guarantees to us. The
same fact is proved to us by the Septuagint Greek Version before
referred to, and by the Peshito, the old Syriac Version, made at the
end of the second century. The Septuagint, the Hebrew Bible, the Syriac
Version, the Vulgate, the Masoretic notes must embody the text as it
existed in the time of Christ. The agreement of all the various sources
of information is so close that the greatest differences they suggest
would not change a single doctrine nor cast doubt upon a single
historic fact of any importance. I am justified, therefore, in
affirming that we stand possessed today of the very same Old Testament
Scriptures to which Christ appealed, and to which his authority binds
our obedience and our faith.
In these days you hear much of the ravages which a learned criticism
has made in the integrity of our traditional Scriptures, and thus in
the historical foundations of our faith. Ordinary historical criticism
is a perfectly legitimate and necessary process by which all the light,
external and internal, afforded by history, literature, and the
intrinsic characteristics of the books or texts in question is
collected, and we judge by means of all the best evidence we have what
conclusions we have to draw in reference to their genuineness and their
integrity, or the reverse. But there is an arrogant phase of the
"higher criticism" that is far more ambitious, and attempts to correct,
or even to reconstruct, the existing text by wide inductions from the
history of the times, from the other writings, and from the known or
supposed character, knowledge, style, situation, or subject of the
writer. The whole historical situation is vividly conceived by the
critic of this school, and he proceeds to infer therefrom what the
writer must have said or could not have said. It is admitted that in
some cases and within narrow limits such a process may be legitimate.
When there is conflict or indefiniteness in the evidence afforded by
direct explicit historical data of manuscript or version, it may be
well to go further afield for collateral or for inferential evidence.
But it is very plain that this process of "higher criticism" is liable
to be colored, and even wholly controlled, by the subjective conditions
of the critic - by his sympathies, by his historical and philosophical
and religious theories, and by his a priori judgments as to what the
sacred writer ought to say. It is also very plain that the conclusions
of this Criticism are of no value whatever when opposed to clearly
ascertained historical facts or documentary evidence.
In the case of "criticism" applied to the Old or New Testament
Scriptures in a spirit hostile to the long-received faith of the
Christian Church, it is notorious that it is the outgrowth of a false
philosophy, of naturalistic views of God's relation to the world, and
of a priori theories of evolution applied to history. When we remember,
therefore, what can be clearly proved by historic fact and document,
that Christ endorsed as the Word of God the very Old Testament
Scriptures, book and text, which we now possess, when we remember that
all the evidence attainable from Egyptian monuments and Assyrian
cylinders corroborates the claims of this Hebrew Bible in all its
parts, it is very evident that the claims of this "criticism" are
groundless.
(B) 1. How do we ascertain what Books of right belong
to the New Testament Canon?
Here the case is different. Christ did not present us the collected
books of the New Testament and guarantee their integrity. On the other
hand, these books were written in the full light of an historically
illuminated age, and come to us supported by a contemporaneous
literature and followed by a copious consequent literature of their own
creating.
The rule by which the canonicity of any New Testament book is
determined is: any book written by an apostle, or received generally as
canonical by the Church during the age in which it was presided over
and instructed by the apostles, is to be regarded as canonical. Take,
for instance, the Epistle to the Hebrews. If written by Paul, then it
would have a right to a place in the canon for that reason. But if not
written by Paul, if it was received generally as canonical by the
Church during the lives of Paul and John, then its right must be
admitted on that ground.
Of course, the facts in question must be determined by an examination
of two classes of evidence - (1) the internal character of the writing;
(2) the external historical evidence of its genuineness and of its
recognition as canonical by the Church of the first century. No
external evidence can prove a book to have come from God if its
contents are morally bad or intellectually contemptible. Nevertheless,
no matter what the contents of a book may be, we cannot admit that it
belongs to the New Testament canon except on the ground of explicit and
sufficient historical proof.
The kind of evidence by which we establish the canonicity of each of
the books of the New Testament is precisely the same as that by which
we prove the authenticity and genuineness of any ancient classic. The
only difference is that in behalf of the books of the New Testament the
evidence is incomparably more abundant. This evidence may be
distributed under the following heads, each head representing copious
literatures critically sifted and logically arranged
(1) quotations and references to these
books found in the writings of early Christians;
(2.) early catalogues of the sacred books;
(3) early translations;
(4) general verdict of the Church;
(5) internal characteristics.
You hear a great deal today about the "Christian consciousness." The
new critics, having destroyed the ancient historical foundations of our
Scriptures and of our faith, wish now to build them up again upon a
basis of Christian consciousness. Every book and every specific reading
is to be received which is approved by the subjective tests, literary,
scientific, aesthetic, religious, and fantastic, of self-appointed
Scripture-tasters in the nineteenth century. We also believe in a
Christian consciousness - that is, in a human consciousness modified by
religious experience and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. But the
mouthpiece of that consciousness is no self-appointed, self-conscious
group of cultured moderns. It is voiced only by the consensus of all
Christians of all nations, all ecclesiastical folds and ages. These
very critics deny the growth of the whole Church since St. Augustine,
because its uniform testimonies rebuke them. We, on the contrary,
appeal from the self-elected representatives of "Christian
consciousness" to the thing itself - to the consensus of the whole
Church, ancient, mediaeval, and modern, Greek, Roman, Lutheran, and
Reformed. We appeal to the historic and abiding creeds, confessions,
hymns, and liturgies of all Christians. We appeal to the testimony of
the Holy Ghost, to the witness of all saints and martyrs, to all
reformations, revivals, and missions since Pentecost.
The progress of this controversy has been one unbroken march of triumph
for the integrity of our traditional canon. The first destructive
"critics" denied the authenticity and historic validity of the fourth
Gospel, and the originality and accuracy of the synoptic Gospels; and
they admitted the genuineness of only four books - Romans, First and
Second Corinthians, and Galatians. These are admitted to have been the
genuine writings of the apostle Paul by the general consent of the most
destructive critics, and of all branches and ages of the Christian
Church. This admission alone defeats the enemy, and establishes upon
this rock of unquestionable historic fact the whole gospel system. The
entire body of Christian doctrine can be shown to be taught in these
four admitted original Christian documents - the entire person, office,
and work of Christ; the entire salvation, temporal and eternal, of his
believing followers. Since that time the originality and validity of
the synoptical Gospels have been fully vindicated, and the genuineness
of the fourth Gospel has been established beyond reasonable question,
as is nobly admitted and maintained by the late Dr. Ezra Abbot, one of
the most learned Unitarians America has ever produced.
2. How do we ascertain the True text of the Several Books of
the New Testament?
You can easily understand that through the process of multiplying
manuscripts by hand, which is laborious and involves an infinitude of
independent details, an untold number of variations would creep into
the text.
The textus receptus was formed in the age of the Reformation by a hasty
and uncritical gathering and comparison of the manuscripts which were
found lying ready to hand, without respect to their various age or
authority. Cardinal Ximenes, in Complutum, Spain, printed the first
edition, A.D. 1514, which, however, was not published till 1520 or
1521. The next edition was issued by Erasmus from Bale, 1516, with
succeeding editions of 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535; then that of Stephanus
from Paris, 1546; then that of Beza from Geneva, 1565. Finally, the
second Elzevir edition of 1633, Leyden, which claimed to give the
textus receptus, was generally so received, and gave currency to that
title. The text thus formed was the basis of the English version of
King James and of all the New Testaments of all languages in modern
times.
But during the present century the text of the New Testament has been
carefully studied, a far wider collection of manuscripts has been
gathered, the more ancient and valuable manuscripts have been made the
basis of a corrected text, and a text nearly approximating to the
original autographs of the sacred writers has been arrived at by a
process of critical comparison and judgment of the immense material
collected.
This is gathered
(1.) From ancient manuscripts: for
example, the Codex Alexandrinus in the British Museum, dating from the
beginning of the fifth century from 400 to 450, after the birth of
Christ; the Cortex Vaticanus, dating from some time in the fourth
century; the Codex Sinaiticus, believed by Tischendorf to be one of the
fifty copies prepared by the order of Constantine by Eusebius, A.D.
381.
(2.) From the numerous quotations from the New Testament writings found
in the works of the early Fathers.
(3.) From the early translations, such as the Peshito, or early Syriac,
latter part of the second century; the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, A.D.
385; the Coptic, from the third century. From all these sources the new
critical-editions of the New Testament Greek text have been derived.
The best of these in their order have been those of Griesbach, who died
1812; Lachuiann, who died 1851; Tischendorf, who died 1874; andl of
Westcott and Hort, which was made the basis of the New Revision in 1880.
This much has been settled upon definite and sufficient historical
evidence critically sifted. The testimony establishes the fact that
these New Testament books constitute the second division of God's Word,
and that the text in our possession is incomparably more accurate and
more certain than that which is possessed of any other ancient book in
the world. God has taken such care of his own Word that the differences
which you may observe between the Revised Version and the Old Version
of the Scriptures are such as do not involve the stability of a single
important historic fact, or of a single article of faith. We are
brought by this process not only to the substance, but to the form and
shading, of the truth as it came from the original organs of
revelation. We can almost recognize the tone and inflection of the
voice of Christ himself.
Part II
IV. Our fourth question is, How was the
Bible, this Book of books, produced?
What was the true genesis of these Scriptures? Written evidently
by men, how did they become the Word of God?
There are three distinct ways in which we can conceive that God might
produce a book to be read by man - (1.) He could have produced it by
his own immediate energy, acting directly and alone, as he did when he
wrote the Ten Commandments with his own finger on tables of stone. (2.)
He might have used men as his amanuenses, not as conscious and free
penmen, but mechanically as his instruments of writing in simple
obedience to his verbal dictation. (3.) The third way is the infinitely
better one which God has chosen. It is the God-like way, which is in
analogy with all his methods. He first created man, and endowed him
constitutionally with all his rational, emotional, aesthetic, moral,
and volitional powers. He then brought certain individual men into
existence with the specific qualifications necessary for writing
certain parts of Scripture, and placed them under their specific
historical conditions, and in their specific positions in the
succession of sacred writers, and gave them the precise degree and
quality of religious experience, of natural providential guidance, of
supernatural revelation and inspiration, necessary to stimulate their
free activity and to determine the result as he would have it.
l. In the first place, the Bible is as intensely and thoroughly a human
book as ever existed. As Christ was a true man, tempted in all points
as we are, yet without sin, because also divine, so the Bible is
thoroughly human, yet without error, because also divine. God is
infinite; yet his word, the Bible, is finite - that is, God's thought
is expressed under all the limits of human thought and language, so
that man may receive and profit by it. God is omniscient; but his word,
the Bible, is not omniscient. It is narrowly limited in its range as a
human book, produced by the instrumentality of human minds, and
addressed to human minds of all classes; but within that range it is
infallible, without any error. It has its limitations, as every human
work has. It is based on human intuitions; it proceeds through the
lines of human logic; it implies human feelings, tastes, and
experiences. Every separate book is a spontaneous work of human genius,
and bears the marks of all the personal idiosyncrasies and of the
historic situation of its author. The individuality of Peter, Paul,
John, David, Isaiah, and Moses is as fully expressed in their writings
as that of Shakespeare or of Milton in theirs. Each biblical writer
wrote as freely and as spontaneously as any other. Each of these books
was also a book of its time - bore the marks of its age, and was
specifically adapted to accomplish its immediate end among its
contemporaries. The provincialisms of thought and idiom proper to the
situation of their writers are found in these books. They make no claim
to eminent purity of language, or to high literary merit either in
substance or form. Yet all these writings, severally and collectively,
are books of all times, adapted perfectly to the edification and
instruction of the Church of every age - of Moses, of David, of the
prophets, of the time of Christ, of the ancient, medieval, Reformation,
and modern Church. Of all books, it is the most comprehensively human.
Of all God's works, it is the most characteristically divine. It is, in
one view, an entire national literature; in another view, it is two
distinct volumes; in another view, it is one single work, with one
Author, subject, method, and end.
2. In the second place, the Bible is a divine book, bearing the
attributes of its Author, God. All along the line of human authorship
through which this wonderful book grew to be, during at least sixteen
hundred years, God provided each specifically endowed and conditioned
prophet for his appointed place in the succession, a place prepared for
him by all who had preceded; and on this foundation, already provided,
he proceeds to build up in organic continuity, and in symmetrical
proportion, the system already inaugurated. To each prophet God has
communicated his specific item of revelation and his specific impulse
and direction through inspiration.
3. The result is that the whole is an organism, a whole consisting of
many parts exquisitely correlated and vitally independent.
In this respect you may compare the Koran of Mohammed with the
Christian Bible. In the great debate between the missionary Henry
Martyn and the Persian moulvies, the latter showed a great superiority
of logical and rhetorical power. They proved that the Koran was written
by a great genius; that it was an epoch-making book, giving law to a
language pre-eminent for elegance, inexhaustible fullness, and
precision, revolutionizing kingdoms, forming empires, and molding
civilization. Nevertheless, it was a single work, within the grasp of
one great man. But Henry Martyn proved that the Bible is one single
book, one single, intricate, organic whole, produced by more than forty
different writers of every variety of culture and condition through
sixteen centuries of time - that is, through about fifty successive
generations of mankind. As a great cathedral, erected by many hands
through many years, is born of one conceiving mind, and has had but one
author, so only God can be the one Author of the whole Bible, for only
he has been contemporaneous with all stages of its genesis; he only has
been able to control and co-ordinate all the agents concerned in its
production, so as to conceive and realize the incomparable result.
4. This book, whatever we may think of the propriety of it,
unquestionably claims to be the Word of God. At the opening of the book
it demands the implicit credence and obedience of every reader. Its
instant order to every reader is, "Believe, on peril of your soul's
life!" It does not point to evidence, nor plead before the bar of human
reason. But it utters the voice of God and speaks by authority. What
other book does this? And this claim has been abundantly vindicated
through the ages in the opinion of the wisest and best of mankind
(1) by its demonstrations of
supernatural knowledge,
(2) of supernatural works,
(3) of supernatural power over the hearts and consciences of men;
(4) by the accompanying witness of the Holy Ghost;
(5) by its omnipresent beneficent influence through all Christian lands
and ages.
What would you think if today at high noon the existence and the light
and heat and life-giving radiance of the sun were brought into
question? How would you answer the skeptical denial of that
self-evident fact by a blind man! To all the living the sun is its own
witness. So all who question the divinity of the Bible only condemn
themselves. What a sorry appearance the grotesque herd make even now!
V. What is God's part in bringing this Book
of books into existence?
This falls under several heads - namely, providence; the gracious work
of his Spirit on the heart; revelation; inspiration.
1. Providence. In a previous lecture I showed that God is to
be conceived of as an infinite Spirit, presiding over all creatures and
acting upon them from without at his will, but also as omnipresent, at
every moment immanent in every ultimate element of every creature, and
acting in and through all things from within. Thus God's activities are
everywhere confluent with our own spontaneities. All creatures live and
move and have their being in him. He works in us to will as well as to
do - that is, as free agents, though willing to do according to his
good pleasure. A great musician elicits his most perfect music out of
instruments and under conditions made for him beforehand by other men.
How much more completely would the artist be the sole creator of his
work if he could at will first create his material with the very
qualities he needs, then build and attune his instruments for his own
purposes, and then bring out from them, thus prepared and adjusted, the
very music in its fullness which his soul has designed from the first.
So God from the first designed and adapted every human writer employed
in the genesis of Scripture. Paul, John, Peter, David, Isaiah, have
been made precisely what they were, and placed and conditioned
precisely as they were, and then moved to write, and directed in
writing precisely what they wrote. The revelation was in a large
measure through an historical series of events, led along by a
providential guidance largely natural, but surcharged, as a cloud with
electricity, with supernatural elements all along its line. Thus, under
God's providence, the Scriptures grew to be, all the conspiring forces
which contributed to their formation acting under the providential
control of the ever-present, ever-acting, immanent God.
2. Spiritual Illumination. This includes the whole sum of
God's gracious dealing with the soul of his prophet, qualifying him to
be the fit organ for the communication of religious truth. In order to
exhibit truth in its comprehensive logical relations, God employed the
logical and scholastically trained mind of Paul. In all his writing
this natural and acquired faculty of Paul acted under God's guidance as
spontaneously and naturally as the same faculty ever wrought in the
case of any other writer. But in relation to spiritual truth the
natural mind of man is blind and without feeling. Spiritual
illumination by the Holy Ghost, a personal religious experience, was as
necessary in the case of such writers as David, John, and Paul as
esthetic taste and genius are in the case of a poet or an artist. The
spiritual intuition of John, the spiritualized understanding of Paul,
the personal religious experience of David, have, by the superadded
gift of inspiration, been rendered permanently typical and normal to
the Church in all ages.
3. Revelation. Spiritual illumination opens the organ of
spiritual vision, and clarifies it. Revelation, on the other hand,
gives the additional light which nature does not supply. In every
instance where supernatural knowledge of God, his attributes, his
purposes, of the secrets of his grace or of the future of the Church in
this world, of the life of body or of soul after death, came to be
needed by a sacred writer, God immediately gave it to him by
revelation. This was done in various ways, as by visions, dreams,
direct mental suggestion, verbal dictation, and the like; but whatever
the method of communication, it was perfectly adequate to the occasion
and congruous to the nature of the person to whom it was made. This, of
course, was never furnished except on the occasions when it was needed:
it appears more frequently in some portions of Scripture than in
others; but however frequent, it was an occasional and not a constant
element of the Bible.
4. Inspiration. This was the absolutely constant attribute
of every portion and of every element of the Scriptures, and that
attribute which renders them infallible in every utterance, and which
thus constitutes their grand distinguishing trait, separating them by
the whole heavens from all other books. Revelation supernaturally
communicated to the sacred writer the truth which he needed, and which
he did not possess, and could not attain by any natural means.
Inspiration, on the other hand, is that influence of the immanent Holy
Ghost which accompanied every thought, and feeling, and impulse, and
action of the sacred writer involved in the function of writing the
word, and which guided him in the selection and utterance of truth -
that is, in its conception and in its verbal expression - so that the
very mind of God in the premises was expressed with infallible
accuracy. This influence was exerted frown within the writer, not upon
him from without. It in no degree constrains or forces; it directs
through the writer's own spontaneity. It modifies action only so far as
action would be otherwise divergent from the purpose of God or
inadequate. It is like the directive agency of the plastic soul of the
tree, which so directs the physical forces engaged in its erection that
they spontaneously combine to form its intricate and voluminous
organism. Or it is like the touch of the charioteer upon the reins
which guide the courses of the racing steeds. Or it is like the touch
of the hand of the steerer upon the rudder of the boat carried gently
down the meandering stream by the currents of the air and water. These
currents symbolize the natural powers and knowledge of the sacred
writer, reinforced by revelation and by grace. The hand on the rudder
symbolizes inspiration. It secures the fact that all things go right
according to the will of the steersman. But it interferes only by
gentle and alternate pressure, and thus only when otherwise the
currents, if left to themselves, would not fulfill his will.
VI. What is the doctrine of the Christian
Church as to the extent to which the Scriptures are inspired ?
The two opinions which individual Christian men have severally
maintained on this subject are represented respectively by the two
alternative phrases, "The Scriptures contain the word of God," "The
Scriptures are the Word of God."
The first is the loose formula of those who hold a low doctrine of
inspiration. A river in India, "rolling down its golden sands," may be
truly said to contain gold. But in that case we are left in doubt as to
the relative proportion between the sand and the gold, and to our own
resources to discriminate and separate the two. If the Bible only
"contains the Word of God," it evidently can be no infallible rule of
faith and practice, because we are confessedly left to the two very
human and fallible instruments (1) of "higher criticism," and (2) of
the "Christian consciousness," to determine what elements of the
Scriptures are the very "word of God," and what elements are only the
word of man. A law can have no infallibility beyond that of the court
which interprets it. So in this view of the case the Bible has no
infallibility beyond that of the criticism and consciousness of our
self-appointed, self-complacent guides.
But the Church has always held that "the Scriptures we the Word of
God." This means that, however these books may have been produced
through human agency, God has (1) so controlled the process of their
genesis, and (2) he so absolutely endorses the result, that the Bible
in every book and every word, both in matter and in form, is the very
Word of God uttered to us.
The phrase "verbal inspiration" applied to the Scriptures does not mean
that the sacred writers were inspired or directed in their work by
words dictated or suggested. But it means that the divine influence
which we call inspiration, and which accompanied them throughout their
entire work, extended to the verbal expression of every thought as well
as to the thoughts themselves. This inspiration has extended equally to
every part of Scripture, matter and form, thought and words, and
renders the whole and every part inerrant.
Calvin, in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of his Institutes,
continually uses the phrases "Scripture," "the Scriptures," "the sacred
volume," and "the Word of God" as synonymous. The first Reformed
Confession of national authority, the First Helvetic, says, Art. i.:
"Canonical Scripture is the Word of God." The Second Helvetic
Confession was the most widely recognized of all the Reformed
Confessions in Switzerland, France, Hungary, Poland, Scotland, and
highly honoured in England and Holland. It says: "We believe and
confess that the canonical Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles
of both Testaments are the Word of God, and have plenary authority of
themselves and not from men." Every Presbyterian minister and elder in
England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, North and
South, believes this, or he has forsworn himself. Each one has at his
ordination solemnly declared, before God and man, that he believes
these Scriptures "to be the Word of God " (Confession of Faith,
Presbyterian Board of Publication, pp. 429, 434, 441). Thomas
Cartwright, the father of English Presbyterianism, in his Treatise of
the Christian Religione; or, The Whole Body and Substance of Divinity
(London, A.D. 1616), has written his twelfth chapter "On the Word of
God." This he identifies with the collection of canonical books, and
accounts for their authority by saying, "for God is the Author of them."
This is the doctrine of the whole historical Church of God. The Roman
Catholic Church declares it de fide to believe that God is the Author
of every part of both Testaments (Can. Council of Trent, sec. 4; Dog.
Decrees of Vatican,Council, 1870, sec. 3, chap. 2). Also every branch
of the Reformed Church - for example, Belgic Confession, Art. 3; Second
Helvetic Confession, chap. 1; Westminster
Confession, chap. l. In this respect the late Professor Henry B. Smith,
the noble representative of the theology of the New School Branch of
the Presbyterian Church in the United States, precisely agrees with the
late Professor Charles Hodge, who equally represented the theology of
the Old School branch. In his sermon on The Inspiration of the Holy
Scriptures, delivered be fore the Synod of New York and New Jersey,
October 17, 1855, Dr. Smith said: -"All the divine revelations which
are here recorded are also inspired, but all that is the subject of
inspiration need not be conceived of as distinctly revealed.
Inspiration designates that divine influence under which prophets or
apostles spake or wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Christ is
the great Revealer, the Holy Spirit inspires. "Its function is to
convey unto the world, through divinely commissioned prophets and
apostles, either orally or by writing, under the specific influence of
the Holy Spirit, whatever has been thus revealed. Its object is the
communication of truth in an infallible manner, so that when rightfully
interpreted no error is conveyed. "It comprises both the matter and the
form of the Bible - the matter in the form in which it is conveyed and
set forth. It extends even to the language - not in the mechanical
sense that each word is dictated by the Holy Spirit, but in the sense
that under divine guidance each writer spake in his own language
according to the measure of his knowledge, acquired by personal
experience, the testimony of others, or by immediate divine revelation.
"So wonderfully do the divine and human elements commingle in the
Scriptures, as do the first and second causes also in the realm of
providence, that it is vain to limit. inspiration to doctrine and
truth, excluding history frown its sphere. The attempt is as
unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. No analysis can detect such a
line of separation. It is both invisible and not to be spiritually
discerned.
"The theory of plenary inspiration, as we have already given it,
comprises whatever is true in all these views, subordinate to the prime
position that the Bible not only contains, but is, the Word of God."
Dr. H. B. Smith's Introduction to Christian Theology: "Inspiration
gives us a book, properly called the Word of God, inspired in all its
parts. The inspiration is plenary in the sense of extending to all the
parts and of extending also to the words."
VII. What is to be said as to alleged
discrepancies?
The above statement unquestionably truly represents the ancient and
catholic faith of the historic Church of Christ. The hostile critics
and theorists object that the Scriptures are full of inaccuracies and
discrepancies of statement
(1) as between the statements of
Scripture and modern science or undoubted history;
(2) as between one statement or quotation of Scripture and another.
In answer to this we have space to say only -
1st. We freely admit that many errors have crept into the sacred text
as it exists at present; although none of these errors, nor all of them
together, obscure one Christian doctrine or important fact. In order to
make good the objection of the critics, it is necessary that they show
that the discrepancy exists when the clearly ascertained original text
of Scripture is in question.
2nd. The Scriptures were not written from the scientific point of view,
nor intended to anticipate science. A distinction should be clearly
drawn and strongly held between the speculations of science and its
ascertained facts.
The speculations of science are like the changing currents of the sea,
while the Scriptures have breasted them like the rocks for two thousand
years. The Scriptures speak of nature as it presents itself
phenomenally. When this is remembered, the Bible contradicts no fact of
science. On the contrary, the entire view of the genesis and order of
the physical world presented by the Bible, in contrast with all the
other ancient books whatsoever, is in correspondence with that
presented by modern science to a degree perfectly miraculous. The men
who press this objection are ignorant either of science or of the
Bible, or, more probably, of both.
3rd. As to the alleged discrepancies with history, it must be
remembered (a) that the most modern discoveries (from Egypt and
Assyria) most wonderfully confirm the historical accuracy of Scripture;
(b) that when only a part of an ancient situation is historically
illuminated, different accounts may appear inconsistent which are
really complementary to each other and mutually supporting.
4th. As to the discrepancies alleged to exist in certain passages
between the Scriptures themselves, it is evident that the question is
one of fact, which can be settled only by a thorough, learned,
intelligent, and impartial investigation. Very few men are qualified to
give an opinion. There is no possibility of commencing even an
investigation in a popular lecture. It is sufficient for me that men
like my learned colleagues in Princeton Seminary, who spend their lives
in the special study of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, assure me that
one single instance of such discrepancy has ever been proved.