THE INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE: A SERIES OF DISCOURSES SHOWING HOW TO READ THE BIBLE WISELY AND PROFITABLY ; WITH A PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON THE SOURCES AND GUARANTEES OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. BY JOHN R. BEARD, D.D., AUTHOR OF "THE PEOPLE'S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE," &c., &c. "Inchoatio facta quaedam sub paedagogo, ut magistro perfectio servaretur." "Each part of the Scripture is to be read with the same Spirit wherewith it LONDON: WHITFIELD, GREEN, AND SON, 178, STRAND. 100. γ. 33 THE то CHURCH OF CHRIST ASSEMBLING FOR THE WORSHIP OF THE FATHER, FORMERLY IN GREENGATE, SALFORD; NOW IN NEW BRIDGE STREET, STRANGEWAYS, MANCHESTER, THIS VOLUME, The contents of which are among the latest fruits of a Ministry extending over nine and thirty years, CONTENTS. 1. Man's Religious Sense a Verifiying Faculty 2. The Inner Light-its Functions and Supremacy 3. Inspiration Scripturally Expounded - 4. What Inspired Scripture is; what its Office, and what its 6. The Word of God-what it is and what it does 7. What is not the Word of God 24. Christ's Revision of the Law 25. Jesus Expounding the Scripture relating to Himself - PREFACE. THE religious controversies of the present day are more and more settling around the Bible as their centre. The reason is that in an historical religion, such as Christianity, the written archives necessarily contain the principal data of sound and reliable judgments. Hence, while all agree to appeal to the Scripture, it is seen to be of prime importance to determine what are its essential and permanent features. Among the activities which have manifested themselves on the subject there are two extremes which the lover of truth will do well to avoid -the extreme of traditionalism, and the extreme of rationalism. The former makes the Bible coincident with God's everlasting truth. Here is the word of God-the one and only word. Accept the Bible as alike true and obligatory in each and every part, or be an outcast from God's grace now and for ever. It is enough here to reply that inasmuch as the position thus taken up is simply a' verdict pronounced by a human tribunal as to the character of the Bible, it can have no authority higher than what is human. A judgment pronounced by a fallible jury cannot be infallible. In consequence, traditionalism must improve its logic, or abandon its position. The necessity is illustrated by the fact that' traditionalism is unfaithful to its own method. No sooner has it obtained its infallibility than it deserts the same in favour of its creeds. The Bible alone, though God's word, is not sufficient unto salvation unless when supplemented by such articles of belief as traditionalism approves. Thus there arise two infallibilities. If these are identical, they are one too many; if these are different, they contradict and supersede each other. With so false a logical position, traditionalism is daily losing its dominion. The loss is the more rapid because the stronghold is vigorously and pertinaciously assailed by rationalism. The assailant, alike daring, heady and indiscriminate, having seized certain outposts, reports himself as conqueror. What! could the vast numbers of men and cattle said to be conducted by Moses out of Egypt, have found subsistence for forty years in the wilderness of Sinai? This is not history; and the Bible, being unhistorical, is untrue. As if history were a mere almanac. In truth, history is a reconstruction and revival of the past, and the truest and best history is compatible with errors of detail. The canon assumed by rationalism would take the bays from the brows of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and even Macaulay, thus striking out the word history from the list of the liberal sciences. Moreover, rationalism in its hasty conclusions, overlooks the real character of the Bible. In truth, the Bible is "The whole duty of man" in a fuller sense than the words imply in Bishop Taylor's title page. Having for its principal aim to show men the way to God and to induce them to walk therein, it employs for its sublime purpose (which it pursues from first to last) whatever is conducive thereunto; history, if history is best suited for the purpose, but also products of the imagination, such |