3. Consider how the case stands with a merely human author. An historian has occasion to introduce into his narrative the descent of a House, or the preamble of an Act, or any other lifeless thing. Does his responsibility cease when he comes to it, and recommence immediately afterwards? Is he not responsible just to the same extent for that, as for every other part of his story?
That he did not compose it himself, is certain: but neither did he compose the sayings which he has recorded of great men.—True also is it that the edification to be derived from the pedigree is not so great,—certainly, not so obvious,—as from certain of the events which he describes. But it is nevertheless henceforth an integral part of his history. He sought for it,—and he found it: he weighed it,—and he approved of it: he transcribed it,—and he interwove it into his narrative. In a word, he adopted; and by adopting, he made it his own. Henceforth, it will be quoted as authentic, because it is found to have satisfied him.
The utmost praise which can be accorded to any creature is, that it thoroughly fulfils the office whereunto God sends it. A genealogy is not intended to make men wise unto Salvation: the threats and promises of God's Law are not intended to acquaint men with the descent of David's Son. But because their offices are different, it does not follow that their origin shall not he the same! Is a shoe-latchet in any sense less an article manufactured by Man, than a watch? Is the Archangel Michael, burning with glory, and intent on some celestial enterprise, with twelve legions of glittering seraphs in his train;—is such a host as that, one atom more a creation of the Almighty than the handful of yellow leaves which flutter unheeded on the blast?
None of these figures present a strict parallel; and yet, successively, they seem to set forth different aspects of the same case, with sufficient vividness and truth.... So bent am I on conveying to your minds the strong sense of certainty, the clear definite view, which I cherish for myself on this subject, that I take leave to add yet another illustration.
4. If I commission a Servant to deliver a message,—is not the message which he delivers mine? If I give him words to deliver,—are not the words which he delivers mine? So obvious a proposition is no matter of opinion. You cannot deny it. Nor,—(to apply the illustration to the matter in hand,)—nor do you deny it, probably, so far as Prophecy, (in the popular sense of the term,) is concerned: but you begin to doubt, it seems, when any other function of the prophetic office is in question. "Any other function," I say; for, (as all men ought to be aware,) a prophet,—(navē in Hebrew, προφήτης in Greek,)—does not, by any means, of necessity imply one who describes future events. Πρό does not denote futurity of time, but vicariousness of office. The προ-φήτης is one who speaketh πρό, "on behalf of," "in the person of," God; whether declaring things past,—(as when Moses describes the Creation of the World, the Fall of Man, the Patriarchal Age): things present,—(as when St. Luke, "having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first," writes of them "in order"): things future,—(as when David, and Isaiah, and the rest of the goodly fellowship, "testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow[396].") This is no arbitrary statement, but a well-known fact, which modern unbelievers and ancient heathen writers have declared with sufficient plainness[397]. So long then as the message which the Servant delivers is prophetic, you do not object to the notion that it is God's message; nay, that the words spoken are God's words. You begin to doubt, it seems, when a collection of genealogies, (as the two Books of Chronicles;) or when a story like that contained in the Book of Esther is concerned.
But what is this but very trifling, and mere childishness? The message may be mine, it seems, if it be of a lofty character: it may not be mine if it be of a homely, ordinary kind!—I send a message by my Servant, and he delivers it faithfully: but whether it is to be called my message, or is not to be called my message, is to depend entirely on the subject-matter!... Thus, if a King, refusing to appear in person, should issue a reprieve to prisoners under sentence of Death, a proclamation of Peace or of War, an address to the representatives of the constitution, (Clergy, Lords, and Commons,) in parliament assembled,—the message would be his. But if, on the contrary, he were only to send a few homely words, the expression of some wish or intention which has nothing that seems particularly royal in it,—then, the message would cease to be his!... I protest that as I am unable to see the reasonableness of such a method of regarding things human, so am I at a loss to understand why men should so regard things Divine.
5. This entire matter may be usefully illustrated by having recourse to an analogy which was established on a former occasion: namely, the analogy between the Written and the Incarnate Word[398]. That our Lord Jesus Christ is at once very God and very Man, we all fully admit; although the manner of the union of Godhead and Manhood in His one Person we confess ourselves quite unable to comprehend. Even so, that there is a human as well as a Divine element in Holy Scripture,—who so blind as to overlook? who so weak as to deny? And yet, to dissect out that human element,—who (but a fool) so rash as to attempt?... To apply this to the matter before us. Certain parts of Holy Scripture you think, (for reasons to yourself best known,) are not to be looked upon as inspired in the same sense as the rest of the volume. Just as reasonably might you try to persuade me that our Saviour was not in the same sense our Saviour when He ate and drank at the Pharisees' board, as when He cast out devils and raised the dead. Was He not equally the Incarnate Word at every stage of His earthly career; from the time that He was laid in the manger, until the instant when He expired upon the Cross? The degradation which He endured in Pilate's judgment-hall did not affect the reality of the great truth that the Godhead was indissolubly joined to the Manhood in His Person. He was not less very God as well as very Man when some one spat upon Him, than at His Transfiguration and at His Ascension into Heaven!... Why then should the mean aspect and lowly office of certain parts of Scripture,—(genealogical details and the narrative of what we think ordinary occurrences,)—be supposed to disentitle those parts to the praise of being as fully inspired as any thing in the whole compass of the Bible?
I may remind you, in passing, that the narrative of Scripture, even in its humblest, and (to all appearance) most human parts, has a perpetual note of Divinity set upon it. The historical portions are throughout interspersed with indications that the writer is beholding the transactions which he records, from a Divine, (not a human,) point of view. God is invariably, (sooner or later,) mentioned as the Agent; or there is some reference made to God; or to God's Word. As Butler expresses it,—"The general design of Scripture ... may be said to be, to give us an account of the world, in this one single view,—as God's world: by which it appears essentially distinguished from all other books, so far as I have found, except such as are copied from it[399]."
I entreat you therefore to disabuse your minds of the very weak,—aye and very fatal,—notion that the catalogue of the Dukes of Edom is less, or in any different sense, inspired, from the rest of the narrative in which it stands. We may not multiply miracles needlessly, it is true; but neither may we deny the miraculous character of certain transactions, (as the two Draughts of Fishes,) which, apart from the recorded attendant circumstances, would not have been deemed miraculous.—In truth, however, Holy Scripture, in one sense, is a miracle from end to end; and if we may not multiply miracles needlessly, certainly we are not at liberty to dismiss the recorded details of a single miracle, as of no account.—Consider also, I entreat you, whether it is credible that Inspiration should be a thing of such a nature, that it comes and goes,—is here and is gone,—once and again in the course of a single page. What? does it vanish, like lightning, when the Evangelist's pen has to record the title on the Cross,—to re-appear the instant afterwards?
This allusion to the title on the Cross of our Blessed Lord, variously given by each of the four Evangelists, reminds me of the singular perversity of mankind when this subject of Inspiration is being treated of; and to this, I now particularly desire to invite your attention.—When a document is simply transcribed by the Evangelist, or may be supposed to have been merely transferred to his pages, men assert that so purely mechanical an act precludes the notion that Inspiration has had any share in the transaction. Be it so!—Behold now, four inspired writers exhibiting the brief title on our Lord's Cross with considerable verbal diversity; and you will hear the same critics open-mouthed against the Evangelists' claim to Inspiration, for exactly the opposite reason!—It is just so of places quoted from the Old Testament in the New. Faithful transcription, (we are told,) is in the power of all. What note of an inspired author have we here? But the places are not faithfully transcribed. On the contrary. They exhibit every possible degree of deflection from the original standard. And lo, the Apostles of Christ are thought not to have quite understood Greek,—to have mistaken the sense of the Hebrew,—and to have been the victims of a most capricious memory.—For the last time. Certain narrative portions of Holy Scripture, (it is assumed,) could have been written without the aid of Inspiration; and therefore it is unphilosophical, (we are told,) to assign to them a divine original. But the marvellous parts of Holy Scripture, which seem to claim a loftier original than man's unaided wit,—these you view with suspicion, or you deny!... "Whereunto shall I liken the men of this generation?"