I admit the justice--I have long felt the full
force--of the remark--"We have all that the occasion allowed." And
if the same awful authority does not apply so directly to the
Evangelical and Apostolical writings as to the Hebrew Canon, yet the
analogy of faith justifies the transfer. If the doctrine be less
decisively Scriptural in its application to the New Testament or the
Christian Canon, the temptation to doubt it is likewise less. So at
least we are led to infer; since in point of fact it is the apparent
or imagined contrast, the diversity of spirit which sundry
individuals have believed themselves to find in the Old Testament and
in the Gospel, that has given occasion to the doubt;--and, in the
heart of thousands who yield a faith of acquiescence to the contrary,
and find rest in their humility--supplies fuel to a fearful wish that
it were permitted to make a distinction.
But, lastly, you object that--even granting that no coercive,
positive reasons for the belief--no direct and not inferred
assertions--of the plenary inspiration of the Old and New Testament,
in the generally received import of the term, could be adduced, yet--
in behalf of a doctrine so catholic, and during so long a succession
of ages affirmed and acted on by Jew and Christian, Greek, Romish,
and Protestant, you need no other answer than:- "Tell me, first, why
it should not be received! Why should I not believe the Scriptures
throughout dictated, in word and thought, by an infallible
Intelligence?" I admit the fairness of the retort; and eagerly and
earnestly do I answer: For every reason that makes me prize and
revere these Scriptures;--prize them, love them, revere them, beyond
all other books! WHY should I not? Because the doctrine in question
petrifies at once the whole body of Holy Writ with all its harmonies
and symmetrical gradations--the flexile and the rigid--the supporting
hard and the clothing soft--the blood WHICH IS THE LIFE--the
intelligencing nerves, and the rudely woven, but soft and springy,
cellular substance, in which all are imbedded and lightly bound
together.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55