SERMON VI.[526]
THE DOCTRINE OF ARBITRARY SCRIPTURAL ACCOMMODATION CONSIDERED.
Romans x. 6-9.
"But the Righteousness which is of Faith speaketh on this wise,—'Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, 'Who shall descend into the deep?' (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? 'The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thine heart:' that is, the word of Faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
It is quite marvellous in how many different ways different classes of professing Christians have contrived to nullify the value of their admission that the Bible is inspired. Some would distinguish the inspiration of the Historical Book from that of those which we call Prophetical. Others profess to lay their finger on what are the proper subjects of Inspiration, and what are not. Some are for a general superintending guidance which yet did not effectually guide; while others represent the sacred Writers as subject, in what they delivered, to the conditions of knowledge in the age where their lot was cast. The view of Inspiration which Scripture itself gives us,—namely, that God is therein speaking by human lips[527]; so that 'holy men of God' delivered themselves as they were 'impelled,' 'borne along,' or 'lifted up,' (φερόμενοι) by the Holy Ghost[528];—this plain account of the matter, I say, which converts 'all Scripture' into something 'breathed into by God,' (θεόπνευστος,)[529]—men are singularly slow to acknowledge. The methods which they have devised in order to escape from so plain a revealed Truth, are 'Legion.'
Second to none of the enemies of Holy Writ, practically, are they who deny its depth and fulness. It is only another, and a more ingenious way, of denying the Inspiration of the Bible, to evacuate its more mysterious statements. Those who are for eluding the secondary intention of Prophecy, the obviously mystical teaching of Types, the allegorical character of many a sacred Narrative,—are no less dangerous enemies of God's Word than those who frame unworthy theories in order to dwarf Inspiration to the standard of their own conceptions of its nature and office. I say, it is only another way of denying the Inspiration of Scripture, to deny what is sometimes called its mystical, sometimes its typical, sometimes its allegorical sense.... And thus,—what with the arbitrary decrees of our own unsupported opinion, or the self-sufficient exercise of our own supposed discernment;—what with our insolent mistrust; or our shortsighted folly and presumption; or, lastly, our coldness and deadness of heart,—our slender appetite for Divine things, which makes us yearn back after Earth, at the very open gate of Heaven;—in one way or other, I repeat, we contrive to evacuate our own admission that the Bible is an inspired Book: we fasten discredit on its every page: we become profane men, like Esau: we despise our birthright.
But the most subtle enemy of all remains yet to be noticed. It is he, who,—finding the plain Word of God against him: finding himself refuted in his endeavour to fix one intention only on the words of the Holy Ghost, and that intention, the most obvious and literal one; finding himself refuted even by the express revelation of the same Holy Ghost, elsewhere delivered;—bends himself straightway to resist, and explain away, that later revelation of what was the earlier meaning. It is a marvellous thing but so it is, that the very man who contended so stoutly a moment ago for the literal meaning of Scripture, now refuses, and denies it. Anything but that! If he allows that St. Matthew, or St. Paul,—yea, or even our Blessed Lord Himself,—are to be literally understood; are severally to be taken to mean what they say;—then, Moses and David,—narrative, law, and psalm,—besides their literal meaning, have, at least sometimes,—and they may have always,—a mystical meaning also. Under the evident, palpable signification of the words, there lies concealed something grander, and deeper, and broader; high as Heaven,—deep as Hell.
And this supposition is so monstrous an one; seems so derogatory to their notions of the mind of God;—it is deemed so improbable a thing, that the words of Him, whose ways are not like Man's ways, should span the present and the future, at a grasp;—that He whose "thoughts are very deep," should, with language thereto corresponding, be setting forth Christ and His Redemption, while He tells of Patriarchs and Lawgivers,—Judges and Kings,—priests and prophets of the Lord:—I say, it is deemed so incredible a thing that Moses should have written concerning Christ, (though our Saviour Christ Himself declares that Moses did write concerning Him)[530]; or that the occasional expressions of the Prophets should really contain the far-reaching allusions which in the New Testament are assigned to them; that the men I speak of,—men of learning (sometimes), and of piety too,—will condescend to every imaginable artifice in order to escape the cogency of the Divine statement. St. Paul—was infected with the Hebrew method of interpretation. (It is of course assumed that this method was essentially erroneous! It is overlooked that our Lord had recourse to it, as well as St. Paul! It is either forgotten, or denied, that the Holy Ghost, speaking by the mouth of St. Paul, acquiesced in every instance of such interpretation on the part of His chosen vessel!) ... As for St. Matthew, he addressed his Gospel to the Jews, and therefore reasoned as a Jew would. (St. Matthew's Gospel was not of course intended for the Christian Church! The blessed Evangelist was also deeply learned,—it is of course reasonable to suppose,—in the sacred hermeneutics of the Hebrew Schools!) ... The other Sacred Writers, it is pretended, all wrote according to the prejudices of the age in which they lived.—In all these cases, it is contended that merely in the way of Accommodation, is the language of the Old Testament cited in the New. What was said of one thing is transferred to quite another,—to suit the purpose of the later writer; to illustrate his reasoning, to adorn or to enforce his statements.... And this brings me to a question of so much importance, that I pause to make a few remarks upon it. In the present discourse, it shall suffice to remark on the doctrine of Scriptural Accommodation; for which it is presumed that the text, (selected not without reference to the present Sacred Season,) affords ample scope, as well as supplies a fair occasion.