But I shall be reminded that the subject-matter of daily life, and of the Everlasting Gospel, is very different: and that the marvellous character of certain events recorded in the Bible constrains us to relegate those events to a distinct region. A child's plea, which was effectually disposed of upwards of a century ago! What does it amount to but this,—that what is supernatural, or even highly extraordinary, must be also untrue?... When, however, the argument is shifted, and is made an appeal ad misericordiam:—when I am entreated to remember that though I believe in the Resurrection of Christ from Death, the same event is a "stumbling block" to many; and that I am "bound to treat with tenderness those who prefer to lean on the other, and, as they think, more secure foundation[635];" (viz. on the hypothesis that the Resurrection of the Son of Man is all a fable;)—I say, when I am so addressed, really, friends and Brethren, I am constrained to cry out that there is a limit beyond which Nature cannot endure; and that that limit has now been overstepped. Will men try to persuade us that the idea of our Lord's Resurrection is a more secure basis for the Church's faith than the fact of our Lord's Resurrection? Why, they might as well try to convince the world that a broken reed is a better support than an oaken staff;—or that a handful of waste paper is of more value than the title-deeds of an estate. How can a shadow,—how can what is confessedly an imagination,—be, in any sense, or for any body, a "secure foundation;" or indeed, any foundation at all? how, above all, can a fancy be a "more secure foundation" than a fact?... Not only will I not treat men with tenderness who put forth such blasphemous folly,—(men who, in their rashness, their recklessness, their arrogance, shew no manner of tenderness or consideration for others!)—but I will hold them up to ridicule, to the very utmost of my power. Nay, I would make them objects of unqualified reprobation to all, if I could, as they deserve to be reprobated; for they are the worst enemies of the Gospel of Christ[636]. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain also[637]!" "The Apostle rests the truth of the Christian Religion on the fact that Christ was risen.... The whole system turns upon this central point; the several doctrines gather round it, they depend upon it, they grow out of it; so that without it, Christianity would have no coherence or meaning[638]."
You and I know very well "that nothing could more effectually shake the whole fabric of Revealed Religion, than thus converting its history into fable, and its realities into fiction. For if the narratives most usually selected for the purpose may thus be explained away; what part of the Sacred History will be secure against similar treatment? Nay, what doctrines, even those the most essential to Christianity, might not thus be undermined? For are not those doctrines dependent upon the facts recorded in Scripture for the evidence of their truth? Does not, for instance, the whole system of our Redemption presuppose the reality of the Fall as an historical fact? And do not the proofs of the Divine authority of the whole, rest upon the verification of its Prophecies and Miracles, as events which have actually taken place? Allegory thus misapplied is therefore worse than frivolous or useless; it strikes a deadly blow at the very vitals of the Christian Faith[639]." Away then with that very questionable form of liberality, which makes most free with what belongs to God! The truths of Revelation are yours and mine, I grant you: but only so yours and mine that, to our eternal blessedness, we embrace,—to our eternal loss, we let them slip! We add to them, or we take away from them, under peril of God's curse.... Away too with that mawkish sentimentality which can find no better object for its sympathy than the hardened blasphemer, and the confirmed sceptic! My sympathy shall be reserved for those who have never so offended, but are, on the contrary, full of precious promise;—for the young and as yet inexperienced;—for you, who will have the battle of Christ and His Church to fight, when we shall be mouldering in the grave. Let those who do not know me, deem me uncharitable if they will. I care not. The uncharitable man,—mark me, Brethren!—the truly uncharitable man, is he, who shews no consideration for weak and unstable souls; who does not regard the trials and perils of the young; who beguiles unsteady feet to the edge of the precipice, and there forsakes them; whose destructive method, (for constructiveness is no part of that man's philosophy!)—whose destructive method leaves the young without chart and compass,—aye, without moon or stars to sail by; who labours hard to communicate the taint of his own foul leprosy to those who were before unpolluted; who dims the eye, and deadens the ear, and defiles the thoughts, and darkens the hope of as many as have the misfortune to come in his way, and feels no pity!—Yes, yes! The man who sows his own vile doubts broadcast over two continents,—doing his very best to destroy the faith of those for whom Christ died,—he, he is the uncharitable man[640]! Not he who, forsaking the flowery fields of the Gospel, (whither he would far, far rather lead you!) and foregoing the free mountain air of imperishable Truth, for your sakes only keeps treading these dreary stifling paths of speculation;—a friend of yours, I mean, who with stammering eloquence, (the more's the pity!) clings thus to you, Sunday after Sunday,—imploring you, with all a brother's earnestness, not to venture where to venture is to die; and warning you against the men who have conspired against your life;—even while he labours hard to shew you what he knows to be "a more excellent way;" and implores you to come where Christ Himself hath promised that "ye shall find rest to your souls!"
This is all there is time for, to-day. Let me, in the fewest possible words, gather up what has been spoken into a practical shape.
Friends and brethren,—(I am still addressing the younger men present!)—Divinity is not debate; and Religion is not controversy; and Life is not long enough for perpetual disputings. "He that cometh unto God must believe that He is." The heart dries up, and the affections wither away, and the soul faints, amid an atmosphere of cloudy doubts, and captious difficulties, and perverse disputations. You must rise above it, if you would discern the colours on the everlasting hills, and behold the beauty of the promised Land, and see objects as they really are. O put away from yourselves, (if any of you are so unhappy as to have acquired it,) a habit of mind which will effectually unfit you for profiting by what you read in Holy Scripture: and you, who are free from such dreadful bondage, beware lest, by the indulgence of some sin,—whether of the flesh or of the spirit,—you darken that spiritual eye by which alone spiritual things are to be discerned. It is like talking about colours to the blind, or about sounds to the deaf, to discuss with a certain class of persons the Inspiration, or the Interpretation, or the Marvels of Scripture. The Bible is, with them, a common book,—"to be interpreted like any other book." Prophecy is denied, and Miracles are rejected or explained away,—on the plea that they are alike incredible. These men lay claim to intellectual gifts above their fellows; and know not that they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rebels are they against the Most High; and find their exact image in those citizens who "sent a message after Him, saying, We will not have this Man to reign over us[641]." The gist of all they deliver, is rebellion against God.
But it is not so with yourselves, who have yet everything to learn in respect of Divine things. O beware lest it ever become your own dreadful case! Begin betimes to acquaint yourselves with the wealth of that celestial armoury which contains a weapon which must prove fatal to every foe; but which it depends on yourselves whether you shall have the skill to wield or not. Suffer not yourselves to be cheated of your birthright, the Bible, either by the novel fictions of unstable men, or by the exploded heresies of a bygone age, revived and recommended by living unbelievers. You, especially, who aspire to the Ministerial office, and are destined hereafter to undertake the cure of souls, O do you be doubly watchful! Give to the Bible the undivided homage of a childlike heart; and bow down before its revelations with a suppliant understanding also; and let no characteristic of its method by any means escape you. Notice how it is indeed all one long narrative, from end to end; and see therein God's provision that nothing shall be idealized, nothing explained away. Learn too that Man is thus called upon to look outward, and to sustain himself by an external Law; not to depend on the promptings of his own conscience, and so to become a god unto himself. The Bible, I repeat, is all severest history, from the Alpha to the Omega of it. But then, underneath the surface there are meanings high as Heaven, deep as Hell: and why? because the true Author of it is not Man, but God!
Let it quicken you in your desire to understand that Book out of which you will have hereafter to preach, reprove, rebuke, exhort[642],—sometimes to bethink yourselves of the flocks which already are expecting you; and among which God already sees your future going out and coming in; your faithful teaching, or (God forbid!) your betrayal of a most sacred trust. Acquaint yourselves in due time, by all means, with the scientific grounds on which the Bible is to be received as the Word of God: but of a truth, hereafter, you will forget to require that external testimony; for you will be convinced of its Divine origin, when you have become the adoring witnesses of its Divine power. Truly that must be from God which can so change the life and affect the heart; which can sustain the spirit under bereavement, and become the soul's satisfying portion under every form of adversity! It has already altered the aspect of the World; and it has still a mighty work to do in India, and in China, and in Africa, and in the Islands of the Sea.
Difficulties there are in Scripture, doubtless: but I should be far more perplexed by the absence of them, than I shall ever be by their presence. Nay, they are a chief source of joy to a rightly constituted mind; for they exercise the moral nature and the intellectual powers, in the noblest possible way. It is the office of the highest Intellect to know when to walk by Faith, and when by sight: and when, to "ask for the old paths." It needs a mind of no common order fully to recognize the distinctive difference between a system which comes from God; and one which has been elaborated by human Reason: the latter progressive,—the former incapable of progress; the one liable to change,—the other, unchangeable for ever. There are certain indelible characteristics of a Divine Revelation, I say, which it is the office of the keenest wit to detect and hold fast,—which it is a prime note of imbecility in a thoughtful man to overlook and let go.... The Bible in truth, as one grows older,—(to me at least it seems so,)—becomes almost the only thing in the world really deserving of a man's attention. Above Reason, many things in it confessedly are: but against Reason, I do not know of one. Meantime, is it not a glorious anticipation for you and for me, that to understand those hard things fully may be hereafter a part of our chiefest bliss? There is but a step between us and death[643]; and assuredly when we wake up after His likeness, we shall be satisfied with it[644]!... Already "the shadows of the evening are stretched out[645]." Be patient, O my soul, "until the day break, and the shadows flee away[646]!"
Thy Statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.