The Bible is a most intelligible book. It is the plainest of all books that were ever written. There are parts of it not so plain as others, because there are parts having different purposes from others; but yet if the humblest artisan, the poorest peasant, fail to find the way to heaven in his Bible, the fault is not in the book, but in his heart, his conscience, or his intellect, which the Author of the book should be appealed to instantly to remove. It is argued, if this be so, why do not all denominations of Christians agree? My answer is, they do agree in the most important things, and it is matter of fact that they differ only in what are called non-essentials, or subordinate things. There cannot be unity in the visible church until there be perfect hearts to read the perfect book: the reason therefore why we come to different conclusions upon matters of detail is, not that the perfect book has ceased to be perfect, but that the once holy heart has lost its polarity, and come to be corrupt and defiled. We have often heard this argument, "Is it not a fact that our laws require lawyers and judges, in order to expound them? and so, by parity of reasoning, the Bible should have a body of men, called priests or presbyters, councils or pope, or whatever you like, who should have the monopoly of the explanation of the book." If this be so, it is a very odd thing that this order of men is not laid down as invested with infallible functions. In the next place, there is one order of men, the Romish priesthood, the very order that makes this objection, that are the least competent of all to do it; and for the plain reason, that they are not free to interpret honestly. If I submit a law of our most gracious queen to our judges, how do they interpret it? According to its plain and obvious meaning. But if I submit a verse to a Roman Catholic priest, he does not interpret it according to its plain and obvious meaning, because he is bound by a previous law ; he is solemnly sworn that he will not interpret it otherwise than in that sense which the Church holds, and by the unanimous consent of the Fathers. If the judges were to say, "We undertake to interpret the laws, but we do so only according to the sense of the President of the French Republic, or according to the authorities published in Berlin or Vienna," I would beg to be excused from their interpretation altogether, and would rather interpret the law myself, according to its plain, grammatical, and obvious sense. The priest of Rome, or any one who takes his place, in using such a parallel as this for argument, should remember that he is bound to interpret Scripture by a previous interpretation, an analogy which I could show you, if time permitted, is not actually available. There is no order of men appointed in the Bible for this purpose, and therefore we need not expect to succeed in such a mode of understanding the Bible. But, I have said, the fault is in the imperfect heart, not in the perfect book; and it is a wicked thing to lay the blame upon God, when man fails to understand the Bible. To show how completely this is the case, let me take what might be thought the most intelligible of all documents, an act of parliament. Take, for instance, the last act on the papal aggression. It was first laid before the law-officers of the crown; they scrutinized it, and weighed every word and syllable according to the limit of their instructions, and drew up the bill. It was afterwards submitted to the House of Commons. After it had been cut and pared, altered and improved, it was pronounced, by the vast majority of six hundred men in the House of Commons, a complete document, as complete as human skill could make it. It was carried to the House of Lords; they touched it up a little, improved it here, deducted there, added elsewhere; and then they said it was complete. The document was submitted to her Majesty; she appended her royal signature, and the act is the law of the land. Archbishop Wiseman will say of one clause, it means this; and Dr. Pusey, it means that; and the Bishop of Exeter, it means something else; and Dr. McNeile will assert that it means something different from all three, and Mr. Bennet will differ from all four. In this case, we have a document which, if any document can be pronounced to be so, should be perfect; yet it is not twelve months in existence before the Cardinal drives a coach and four through its clauses. And why? Not that the clause was bad or imperfect, but that some of its interpreters want to gratify their own prepossessions, interests, or convictions, and so set to work to screw and twist and interpret the queen's English, justly or otherwise, into that meaning which chimes in best with their preferences. This is the case with the Bible. You read the Bible, and you take with you your prejudices; and instead of making it pass like a ploughshare through those prejudices, you sift and search and turn it over to get something that will sustain and back you in holding them. It has been argued against the Bible, that it contains great mysteries. It does contain many mysteries; but there is a distinction between that which is above our comprehension, and that which is against our comprehension. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine above our comprehension; the dogma of transubstantiation is a dogma against our senses and our understanding. We reject the latter, and we accept upon authority the former. But if the Bible had no mysteries in it, it would be without one of the strongest proofs of its Divine origin; for if it be a picture of the infinite, we must expect in it touches that the finite will not be able to grasp; if it be a declaration of the incomprehensible, we must expect passages in it that finite being will not be able to comprehend. Objector to the mysteries in - the Bible, are there no mysteries about you? Here is one of the greatest mysteries, how, by a thing called volition in my mind, I can move my hand up and down to the right or to the left? How is it that my volition, that transcendental, airy, undefinable, inappreciable thing, can act upon the muscles of the body? If you object to mysteries in the Bible, and admit the existence of a God, and admit that he is eternal, will you explain to me what eternity is? Can any man explain to me what this means, - millions, and millions, and millions of years elapsing, and yet I am no nearer to the end and no further from the beginning than after one single year had elapsed? Do you comprehend that? Do you comprehend what omnipresence is, a being here, there, everywhere; whose "centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere?" If mysteries in the Bible make you reject the Bible, equal mysteries in natural theology will make you reject the existence of a God, and you will be driven in self-defence to plunge into that vacuum in which man can neither swim, nor stand, nor fly, that freezing vacuum called Atheism: so that, in my judgment, between accepting the evangelical Christianity of the Bible, and plunging into the vacuum of the Atheist, there is no resting spot for the sole of the foot of man. Mysteries are in the blades of grass; mysteries are in grains of sand; there is a mystery in every pulsation of the heart. Can you tell me why your heart beats? You can give me no answer. I can answer you, but I must go to that book which you are rejecting because of its mystery. It is the rebound to the touch of the finger of God. It is a most wretched notion that some entertain, that God wound up all these machines, called men, like watches, set them going, and left them to make the best of their way through the long and dusty road of life. I do not believe this. I believe that God is at every step of my movement, that he meets me at every corner, that he speaks to me in every difficulty, and that he will never leave me nor forsake me; that his providence is over me, as it is over the mightiest and noblest of his creatures. Mysteries! We cannot know any thing without coming in contact with mysteries. I believe all heaven will be spent in traversing the known and plunging into the unknown. Eternity will be the unknown, evermore becoming the known as it passes by. I rise in knowledge as I ascend a mountain, the higher I climb the more unseen pinnacles and crags appear. Every truth that comes within the horizon of man's knowledge, brings twenty mysteries in its train, till the more we know, the more we see remains to be known, and the highest scholar, like the highest Christian, becomes the very humblest and lowliest of mankind. Leslie has written a most admirable book, called “A Short and Easy Method with Deists;" in which he lays down three or four useful general principles. With regard to miracles, the basis of evidence, he says: 1. That a miracle must be a matter of fact that the senses can judge of. 2. That a miracle must be done publicly in the face of the world. 3. There must be public monuments in remembrance of it. 4. Such monuments must appear at the time of the events. No false miracle can stand these tests; the miracles of the Bible can. Do you think that Moses could have persuaded half a million of people that they were fed by a powder from the clouds, and that they got water from the rending of a rock, if it had never been true? Or could he have made them accept a book as a Divine record, which stated these things, when in their actual and personal experience they had met with no such things whatever? The credulity required to disbelieve the Pentateuch is ten times greater than all the supposed credulity required to accept it; and it may be proved that the most credulous of all men is |