SERMON IV.[390]
THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF EVERY PART OF THE BIBLE, VINDICATED AND EXPLAINED.—NATURE OF INSPIRATION.—THE TEXT OF SCRIPTURE.
St. John xvii. 17.
Thy Word is Truth.
I thankfully avail myself of the opportunity which, unexpected and unsolicited, so soon presents itself, to proceed with the subject which was engaging our attention when I last occupied this place.
Let me remind you of the nature of the present inquiry, and of the progress which we have already made.
Taking Holy Scripture for our subject, and urging, as best we knew how, its paramount claims on the daily attention of the younger men,—who at present are our hope and ornament; to be hereafter, as we confidently believe, our very crown and joy;—even while we held in our hands that volume which our Fathers were content to call the volume of Inspiration, we were constrained to recollect that its claim to be inspired has of late years been repeatedly called in question. It has even become the fashion to cavil at almost everything which the Bible contains. We are grown so exceedingly wise, have made so many strange discoveries, and have become so clear-sighted, that the more advanced among us are kindly bent on disabusing the minds of their less gifted brethren of that most venerable delusion of all,—(for it is coeval with Christianity,)—that the Bible is in any special sense the Word of God. I do not say that Theologians talk thus. But pretenders to Natural Science, knowing nothing whatever of Divinity, and therefore intruding into a realm of which they do not understand so much as the language;—together with, (sad to relate!) men bearing a commission in the Church of Christ, (and who ought therefore to be building up, where they are seeking to destroy,)—are employing the powers which God has given them, in this direction. It becomes indispensable, in consequence, that we should say somewhat on behalf of those Oracles which have been so vigorously impugned; and it should not seem strange if we oppose to such destructive dogmatism, the most uncompromising severity of counter statement.