Upon the unphilosophical basis for Christian faith which we have noted above our author proceeds to establish the sufficient authenticity and inspiration of the Bible. We say, sufficient, because, as far as we are able to gather, he rates the entire credibility and value of the Scriptures as the revealed word of God to man according to the intellectual and spiritual assent of the individual, assuming, as he does, that every man possesses a "verifying faculty" and a "spiritual insight," through which his own belief and the Scriptures confirm one another and make him wise unto salvation.
He holds that the Bible is inspired only in what concerns doctrine and morals, but is forced to make his reader the judge of what is doctrine and the censor of morality, for his highest evidence either of inspiration or of the canonicity of the sacred books is, as he tells us on p. 136, "the interior witness of the Spirit to the truths embodied in the accepted books." And as he says on p. 85, "It is 'the wise' only who 'understand.' The peasant is, in this respect, often far above the philosopher. Everything depends on the moral condition of the recipient." We think it sufficient to add his own damaging conclusion: "That this way of looking at the matter makes the evidence for the truth of the Bible mainly subjective cannot be disputed; but nothing else in the present day appears to have much hold on men. It may, indeed, be seriously doubted whether it is now possible to bring forward any evidence, in favor of miracles, for instance, which could reasonably be expected to satisfy an unconcerned spectator, and still less an opponent." (P. 86.)
For himself, therefore, the author rejects all miracles which he thinks were needless and unworthy of the apparent end for which they were performed, and advises his reluctant sceptic to follow his example. Moreover, as he does not find that his interior witness convicts him of the truth of the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus Christ, or, as we suppose, from the tenor of his language, anything else that is a mystery, of course the Scripture does not teach these doctrines either. No man can be blind to the inevitable consequence of such a principle. The Bible could not have the slightest extrinsic authority in either doctrine or morals, and is a proof that, without the divine authority, which both authenticates and interprets it, it is practically worthless in teaching the one or enforcing the other.
The following passage contains a most admirable refutation of the writer's own principle, which, however, he does not appear to see: "Looked at in this way"—as discerned by spiritual insight—"it is of no moment that either the uninstructed or the instructed man should be able to say regarding each separate passage of Scripture, this is inspired, this is not. How can he indeed? The revelation is not a thing apart from daily life, but through its various relations: how, then, can any man undertake to separate in each particular the supernatural element from the natural which it irradiates and explains? To regard anything of the kind as necessary either to confidence or edification is absurd; as absurd, in fact, as it is to maintain that we 'require an exercise of judgment upon the written document before we can allow men to believe in their King and Saviour.' Every one knows that this is not the fact; that in all time the multitude never have nor ever can enter upon any such inquiries; that the masses must either believe in Christ directly as an actual person related to them, and recognized by them in their inmost souls, or they will not believe at all. They listen to the announcement that Christ is their Redeemer, and they believe the good news just in so far as it finds a response in their own spiritual necessities and consciousness. Into evidences about documents they cannot enter." (Pp. 81, 82.)
This is the most delightful instance of begging the question we have ever met with. Pray, who announces to the multitude, who cannot enter into evidence about documents nor even read them, that Christ is their Redeemer? and who has any right to announce that fact? Truly, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved;" but, "how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?" That it is the end of preaching, and that saving faith is the belief of the "good news just in so far as it finds a response in one's own spiritual necessities and self-consciousness," is mere twaddle, since our spiritual needs however keenly appreciated, or self-consciousness, however exalted, can never supply the objective truths of faith or rise above their own capacity to the ability of verifying, without the aid of extrinsic authority, the truths when proposed. Christianity, in so far as it is anything more than mere natural religion, is not of us, but to us. For if it were of us, what need is there of a revelation? That the good news that Christ is my Redeemer can be in any manner affirmed to me by my own self-consciousness is impossible. It is an historical fact, it is true, that such a person as Christ lived, but it is not an historical fact, by any means, that he is my Redeemer. That is a divine fact, which the most minute history of humanity never could demonstrate, for it is altogether out of the natural order, and wholly supernatural, and hence requiring a divine teaching authority both to promulgate it and enforce my belief. What this author, with many other modern writers of the same class, needs is a good course of philosophy as taught in our Catholic schools. It would save us a good deal of time and paper in exposing their illogical reasonings.
We do not deny that the holy writings find a response in the heart and mind of the Christian which no other book that was ever penned could awaken. We know that it is full of strength and consolation, of instruction and righteousness, and of help in the perfecting of his character; but this is the case precisely because he is a Christian by virtue of the same authority which declares the inspiration of its contents. That authority for every one who can rationally call himself a Christian is the authority of the Catholic Church. From this there is no escape. All Protestants inasmuch as they are Christian are so in obedience to the voice of whatever Catholic tradition is yet left to influence them. It announces that Christianity is true and that the Bible is inspired. This tradition of theirs finds its sanction in the Catholic Church, and would be utterly worthless if she had no existence.
Again, it is impossible to controvert the fact that the Bible, as a Christian revelation, depends for its authenticity and canonicity upon the sanction of the church. To say that it does not is to claim inspiration for every individual in order to decide upon what is and what is not inspired. If I reject the authority of the church, how shall I be content with the Bible as it is, as she has compiled it? Perhaps I might differ with her as to her decision about the non-inspiration of the rejected gospels and epistles; and if to my thinking some of the books which it now contains are not inspired, nay more, if I reject the whole of them as such, what power on earth is there to call me to account? No wonder Luther had the presumption to call the epistle of St. James an "epistle of straw," or that Dr. Colenso has no respect for the Pentateuch. We are constrained to believe that the principles assumed by this writer are far more pernicious, and would do more to undermine the traditional authority which the Bible has among Protestants and reluctant sceptics, than the weak and flippant arguments of the notorious apostle of the Zulus.
We read the chapter on the Interpretation of Scripture with no little curiosity, knowing that this would present a test question to the author's system of inspiration. Suppose that two men, two Christians if you will, not only differed about the inspiration of a certain passage, but also about the interpretation of it. Can the conclusion of both, contradictory as they are, be the "witness of the Spirit"? As we expected, this chapter is the weakest in the book. Let us give the author's argument: "But while divine revelation can have but one true meaning, nothing can be more certain than that, being a message from the Heavenly Father to his erring and sinful creatures, it must have a power of adaptation to each and all of them in particular which, from the very nature of the case, forbids any exhaustive or authoritative interpretation of its contents." We confess we are not able to put this in plain English. Let us analyze it, however, and see what propositions it contains: 1st. Any given inspired revelation can have but one true meaning. 2d. This inspired revelation is given as a message of truth to the human race by the God of truth. 3d. This inspired revelation is necessarily of such a character that it can be made to mean anything according to the power of discernment in the individual; and hence, 4th. No one can even be sure which interpretation is the true one. If these absurd propositions are not contained in the quotation we have given, we humbly acknowledge that we have learned the English language in vain. We knew that the author must break down on this subject, and he has most thoroughly. How one can escape the necessity of an authoritative power of interpretation of the Scripture it is impossible for us to divine. How can two contradictory interpretations be true? How can any man in his senses believe that the Spirit of God witnesses to two propositions, one of which gives the lie to the other? But, deny an authoritative power of interpretation to which all men must bow, how can I ever know that my interpretation is true and that my brother's is false? To attempt a compromise, such as the author suggests, that each interpretation is true for each man, is too absurd to demand a moment's consideration. Truth is truth not because I see it, but as it is, whether I see it or not, and the man who rejects it when it is presented to his intelligence is either a knave or a fool. Two and two are four whether I agree to it or not, and no possible interpretation of the process of addition can change its truth; nor is there any loophole except that of insanity which would ever allow me to be excused for asserting that the product of twice two was five and not four.
It is certainly amusing to see this author refuting himself, as he frequently does. To confide the right interpretation of Scripture to an organized authority is to vest the final decision as to what the book says in man. So he argues. Yet he tells us in the same breath that each individual man is his own lawful interpreter. Does the author think that we are simple enough to believe, with all the jarring, clashing sects which have sprung out of this individual interpretation of the Bible before our eyes a principle, too, which furnishes the sceptic with the means of wresting its words to his own destruction—that, if each man interpret it for himself, the final decision in each particular case is any less human than the unanimous decision which a body, such as the Catholic Church is, gives without variation for nineteen centuries? This gratuitous assumption about the "interior witness of the Spirit" is cant, not argument; for where does the individual find any assurance that each and every man will be so assisted? Experience proves directly the contrary. But, says our author, all these quarrels about the truths taught by the Bible are not due to the Bible itself, but to the sectarian divisions of Christianity, who each and all impose their own interpretation on their members. This will not do. As long as the principle of authoritative interpretation was upheld, as it is alone in the Catholic Church, there was no quarrelling about the doctrines or morals inculcated by the Holy Scriptures. The interpretation was but one. It was only when the author's pet principle came into vogue, which was the apple of discord borne by the tree of the Reformation, that men began to quarrel and dispute about what the Bible taught. The wily sceptic with the Bible placed in his hands, accompanied by a pious assurance that he will be guided in its interpretation by the interior witness of the Spirit, will only laugh in his sleeve at your simplicity. He will find in it just what pleases him, and who has the right to accuse him of not following the witness of the Spirit? Who finds insuperable difficulties in the sacred record? Who has discovered, as they imagine, contradictory passages in it? Who come to the conclusion that there is one God of the patriarchs, another God of the Jews, and a third of the Christian? Not the Catholic Church or her doctors, but the Protestant sects with their Colensos, their Essayists and Reviewers, and flippant commentators. The Catholic Church finds no difficulties or contradictions in the text of Scripture in any portion that relates to doctrine or morals. Her interpretation is uniform and harmonious from the first page of Genesis to the last words of the Apocalypse. Difficulties there are, but they are only historical and of minor moment, which affect in no way the unity of the sacred writings as the revealed word of God. All attempts which have been made of late by Protestants to discredit the inspiration of the Bible on the ground that these historical difficulties are of such a nature as to render the record untrustworthy, have signally failed. The most that has been proved, even by the most captious critics, is, that in the recital of certain events the text is obscure, and leaves many things untold and unexplained.
The tone of the writer when speaking of the Catholic Church is, on the whole, pretty fair, but it seems impossible for a Protestant to write on religious subjects without either committing some egregious blunder when we are concerned, or inserting some piece of calumny or of wilful misrepresentation. We note an instance of this in the letter which forms an introduction to the body of the work. Referring to the hope expressed by the reluctant sceptic that "one day we shall have forms of public devotion sufficiently aesthetic to gratify the religious sentiment, without involving dogmas that lead only to dispute," he adds: "You will perhaps be surprised if I tell you that I think this very possible. But, believe me, it will only be when Christendom, so long apostate, has, in retribution for her abominations, became absolutely atheistic. That a tendency of this kind manifests itself, from time to time, in Rome, especially among the Jesuits, has been noticed by devout Catholics, and is regarded by them with grief and anxiety." (P. 45.)