Different lines of investigation may be profitably followed, but we may suggest the following as exhaustive, or nearly exhaustive, of the most prominent questions which modern research has raised.
As the Bible is confessedly related to the natural sciences, archæology, history, and modern civilization, let it be placed successively in the midst of their facts, and let us see to what extent its statements can bear their light.
There are many questions which none of us can honestly avoid; and while some may remain unsettled, the unbiased review of those solutions which have been already offered, and which have been generally accepted, will be found to confirm scripture instead of confuting it.
1. As to science. Have astronomy and geology given evidence for or against the eternity of the visible universe? Has biology determined the origin of life? Whence it is? Have comparative anatomy and physiology, psychology and ethics, established more than one origin for the human race? Are the incidental allusions in scripture contradicted or confirmed in natural science?
2. As to archæology. Can the Bible confront prehistoric revelations? Antiquity is pouring over the oldest records, increasing light. Ruins, monuments, inscriptions, parchments, have been emitting their wondrous testimonies, parallel with scripture histories. Assyria, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Rome, in their histories, revolutions, and domestic episodes, have all been interwoven with the statements of scripture as with those of no other book. To what purpose has historic criticism dealt with the sacred page? Is the Bible yielding or is it growing brighter in the crucible of archæology?
3. As to modern history and civilization. By its claim to uplift and bless the human race, the Bible is separated from all other books. It proposes to revolutionize man’s moral history here, and to prepare him for a future whose course it in part delineates. Has it failed, or is it failing? Has it been enfeebled by the lapse of ages? Has it become effete amid changes which have given intellect new instruments and reason new spheres? Has it lost its former hold of the human mind, and is it sinking amid the tumult of bitterly conflicting opinions? Has ever tribe been found which it could not raise and enlighten? Or has ever civilization outshone, in any land, its intellectual and moral splendor?
4. As to the supernatural. If the Bible is the book which it professes to be, and which we hold it is, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the natural and the supernatural, must be associated in its character and history. What is the warrant which men of science adduce for repudiating the supernatural while they accept the natural? And by what reason does the Christian apologist attempt to preserve their connection? Is there no evidence around us in the contrasts of barbarism and civilization, as well as in the histories of nations, in their relation to prophecy? And are there no facts in the strangely revolutionized lives of thousands in the Christian church, which proclaim the singular moral force of the word of God?
[October 14.]
Assuming that you are willing to follow such a course of study as we have sketched, either to remove doubts which may be lingering in your own mind, or to aid some brother in his struggle to win the repose which you have gained, we shall, at the outset, offer some suggestions as to the spirit and the method by which your work should be characterized. It is of much importance to know, what is, and what is not, within our reach.