"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God."[71] "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."[72] "Filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."[73]
On the assumption that man is not a spiritual being, the investigation of what the Bible teaches is not likely to be successful. The most prominent statements will be foolishness. The primary fact that God is a Spirit will not be apprehended, and all analogous doctrines deemed the outgrowth of superstition. It is the vainest of all inquiries from such a foregone conclusion. Man is not placed at such a point of observation in the universe as to be competent to conduct a theological investigation, based on a negative hypothesis, regarding the essential proposition of all religious truth. Among the indispensable requisites in the pursuit of such knowledge, are, the receptive disposition, the listening attitude, the becoming humility, the consciousness of a tendency to go wrong, and of dependence on the Divine illumination of the Holy Spirit. "Blind unbelief is sure to err." The inquirer who does not lay aside pride and self-sufficiency is not in a condition to take the first step. If intellectual power, acuteness of perception, and the logical faculty, could ensure the successful pursuit of spiritual truth, we may suppose that Satan's knowledge would convince him of the folly of his opposition to the Divine authority. That which intervenes betwixt the Almighty Creator and the fallen angel intercepts the vision of the depraved human soul. Only "the pure in heart can see God." The blindness is not removable until, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, those conditions are complied with which are implied in the statement, "Behold he prayeth." His soul is humbled, his eyes are opened, and he gets nearer to the truth. "The Lord is nigh unto them who call upon him."[74]
The summary of what I have endeavoured to make plain to you respecting the book is briefly this:—
1. That it chiefly consists of German scepticism made plain to English readers; of a recast of the exploded fallacies of Hume; and an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate the miraculous from the Gospels.
2. That the assumption that there are in the Bible Satanic miracles, thus putting Jewish superstition on a level with revealed truth, is reasoning on false premises.
3. That the miracles of the Bible do not admit of their being accommodated to the laws of nature, to satisfy the scientific and philosophical theologians.
4. That the objection to the testimony of the first disciples, on the ground of their not being learned, scientific, and critical, has no weight, especially as applied to Paul, whose education would enable him to weigh the evidence of the eye-witnesses, which he would compare with the revelation to himself; and thus he was in a position to know the exact truth.
5. That the abstract argument against miracles not having sufficient force to merit Mr. Arnold's endorsement, its further discussion was not necessary, the first part of the book being sufficiently neutralised.
6. That the argument from the silence of early Church writers is not conclusive, because we have only fragments of their writings, and that there was not the same need to refer to written records while tradition was fresh.
7. That the objection to a quotation because it is not verbatim is frivolous.