V. Friends and brethren, it is not without reluctance that on a Sunday in Lent, when penitential thoughts should rather occupy us,—and in this place too, where the promotion of practical piety should rather be our aim,—I have so addressed you. But indeed, I seem to have no choice. It is idle crying "peace, peace," when there is no peace. If the Inspiration of Holy Scripture be a deceit, and the Divine meaning of Holy Scripture a superstition,—then, farewell to all our hopes in Life and in Death; farewell to peace in days of despondency and gloom. Our faith is gone, and our teaching becomes a hollow heartless thing. Since, under the name of freedom of discussion, unbounded licentiousness of speculation is openly the fashion of the age, we are constrained to give a reason for the hope which is in us; and to defend, without compromise or hesitation, that Bible, which is the great bulwark of the Faith. It shall not be said that we can condemn, but that we make no answer. It must be seen that we put forth in reply the ancient Truths; and it will be felt that before the majesty of those ancient Truths, the arts of the enemy will prove weak and unavailing,—rather, will stand revealed in all their native deformity. If English Clergymen, coming abroad in the cast-off clothes of German unbelief[522], and decked out with the exploded sophisms of the last century, are to declare openly that the faith of our Fathers is already looked upon among ourselves as 'a kind of fossil of the Past,'—then is it high time that voices should be heard vindicating that ancient method of our Fathers; and boldly proclaiming that this imputation against the Clergy of England is a disreputable untruth. The Church of England, (God be praised!) hath not left her first love; hath not given up her ancient method; Christianity is not 'a difficulty to the highest minds.' The Christian Religion embraces, as much as ever it did, "the thought of men upon the Earth." "All the tendencies of Knowledge" are not "opposed to it." The Gospel is still immeasurably before the age. Intellect has not gone,—the loftiest order of well-trained intellects will never go,—the other way[523]. It is, on the contrary, none but a very shallow wit which errs. Had it confined its speculations to the cloister, or come abroad with sorrow and shame, we should have pitied in silence, and in silence also have lamented. But when it comes insultingly abroad, and sets up a claim to intellectual superiority even while it denies the most sacred truths;—then pity gives way before indignation and disgust. Crown the whole with the iniquity of imputing these views generally to the more thoughtful of the English Clergy[524],—and we are constrained openly to resent the grievous wrong. We declare it to be an unfounded calumny; a calumny which, in the name of the whole Church, I solemnly repel before God,—and His Holy Angels,—and you!
Vain, utterly vain,—worthless, utterly worthless,—must any superstructure of intellectual, moral, or religious training be, which is built up on the doctrine that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other Book; in other words, that the Bible is a common Book; in other words, that Inspiration is a fable and a dream. We have no fear whatever that your high instincts, (with all your faults!),—your English manliness,—will, to any extent be led astray, by sophistry worthless as that which we have been exposing. But we know you look to your appointed Teachers from this place, (as well you may,) for advice, and support, and encouragement, in your better aspirations;—and let me, at least, in plain language, warn you that novelties in Religion never can be true. "Philosophia," says the great Bishop Pearson speaking of Physical Science; "Philosophia quotidie progressu: Theologia nisi regressu non crescit[525]." "Ask for the old paths!" ... The faith, remember, was ἅπαξ,—once for all,—delivered to the Saints. There will be no new deposit. There can be no new doctrines. There has been no fresh Revelation,—no new principle of guidance vouchsafed to man. A new method of interpreting Scripture is quite impossible. And the true method,—the only true method—must be that which was adopted by our Saviour, by His Evangelists, and by His Apostles: a method which they taught to their first disciples, and which those early Bishops and Doctors handed on in turn to the generation which came after them. That method, by God's great goodness, has descended in an unbroken stream, even to ourselves; who have described it this morning, feebly indeed and unworthily,—yet, in the main, as it would have been described at any time, by any of the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of Martyrs,—by any of the Doctors and Fathers of the Holy Church throughout the world! O let it be our great concern,—yours and mine,—to preserve with undiminished lustre the whole deposit of Heaven-descended teaching which is the Church's treasure!... Like runners in a certain ancient race of which we all have read, let it be our pride and joy,—yours and mine,—to grasp the torch of Truth with a strong unwavering hand; to run joyously with it so long as the days of this earthly race shall last; and dying, to hand it on to another, who, with strength renewed like the eagle's, may again,—swiftly, steadily, exultingly,—run with it, till he fails!... So, when the Judge of quick and dead appeareth,—so let Him find you occupied,—O young men, (many of you, my friends,) who are already the hope of half the English Church! So faithfully may we, Brethren and Fathers, one and all, be found employed, when He cometh,—whose answer to the Tempter is emphatically the text of the present solemn season, as well as a mighty voucher for the Divine origin, and sustaining efficacy of that Book concerning which I have been detaining you so long,—"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God!"
Ut verum fatear, semper existimavi, allusiones istas, (ad quas confugiunt quidam tanquam ad sacrum suæ ignorantiæ asylum,) plerumque nihil aliud esse, quam Sacræ Scripturæ abusiones manifestas.
Bishop Bull, Harmonia Apostolica, cap. xi. sect. 3.
There would be no need to scruple the term, if it were not meant to imply that this Accommodation was arbitrary on the part of the Evangelist; or that the mind of the Spirit that spoke by the Prophet does not most fully include this application.
Dr. W. H. Mill.
FOOTNOTES:
[436] Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 3rd, 1861.