Our Fathers Book ■ 
 
 OR THE DIVINE ORIGIN AND 
 
 AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Israel P. Warren, D.D. 
 
 ■ 
 
"J MAR 84 T 1 
 
 Section *.yy.feO 
 No,.„ 
 
OUR FATHER'S BOOK: 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 DIVINE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 ISRAEL p/ WARREN, D.D. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 (Congregational S&im&agsScIjaol antr lluftltsfjtng &octetg. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE. 
 
Copyright, by 
 Congregational S. S. and Publishing Society, 
 
 1885. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY 
 
 C. J. Peters and Son, Boston. 
 
MAR 24 
 \i~* ■ 
 
 PEEFACB. 
 
 The purpose of this book is to help common 
 readers, especially among the young, to perceive 
 and to feel the Divine character of the Bible. It 
 is not addressed to scholars, though what are 
 supposed to be the conclusions of the best schol- 
 arship have been carefully consulted in its pre- 
 paration. Disputed topics, such as the authorship 
 of the Pentateuch, and the like, have been mostly 
 avoided, or but briefly alluded to, as have also 
 technical forms of statement, which are not gen- 
 erally well apprehended. 
 
 Particular care has been taken with the subject 
 embraced in Chapter V., viz., how the Divine 
 thought and will are to be discerned in the words 
 of the human authors, many of them entirely 
 unknown. It is believed that here is one of the 
 greatest difficulties in securing respect and obe- 
 dience for the Bible as the Word of God. The 
 
 3 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 writer has more than once been asked how Psalm 
 cxxxvii. 8, 9, can be inspired; or Ecclesiastes iii. 
 17-22 ; or the Song of Solomon ; or in what way 
 these and many like passages communicate God's 
 will to us. It is well known that they are the 
 abiding stock in trade of infidels and mockers of 
 the Scriptures, and it was thought that no better 
 service could be rendered to the Book than to 
 show the principles upon which they are to be 
 interpreted consistently with the claim for them 
 of a Divine authority. For this purpose, one of 
 those portions, the Song of Solomon, usually 
 acknowledged to be hardest of all to explain, has 
 been exhibited at greater length than was at first 
 intended. Our readers will judge with what 
 success. 
 
 May the Divine Spirit graciously accept every 
 endeavor, however unpretending, to facilitate the 
 devout acceptance of His own truth. 
 
 Portland, Me., 
 New Year's Day, 1885. 
 
MAR2<I 
 ^g/calSefl 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Extent of the subject 9 
 
 Nature of the reasoning employed 10 
 
 A supposed case 10 
 
 External evidence 11 
 
 Internal evidence 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FORM OF THE BOOK. 
 
 Three noticeable peculiarities in it 13 
 
 Section 1. Variety of compositions 13 
 
 That variety described 14 
 
 Estimate of this peculiarity 14 
 
 1. The pure didactic method not always the best . . 14 
 
 2. Truth most acceptable in the concrete 15 
 
 3. Is most effective in diversified forms 16 
 
 4. It presents the greatest variety and abundance . . 1G 
 
 5. It disciplines both the judgment and the heart . . 17 
 
 6. It never becomes obsolete 18 
 
 Section 2. Variety of writers 20 
 
 Many persons employed in its composition 20 
 
 1. Amanuenses 21 
 
 2. Historiographers 21 
 
 3. Interpreters 22 
 
 4. Compilers 22 
 
 Advantages of this method of composition 24 
 
 1. It brings God near to us 24 
 
 2. Imparts to the work a human interest 25 
 
 3. Is most easily understood 27 
 
 4. Is invested with greatest moral power 28 
 
 Section 3. Variety in its grades of instruction 29 
 
 The various ages of human life 29 
 
 5 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Analogous ages of the world 31 
 
 The Bible adapts its instructions to each 34 
 
 This method explains many difficulties 34 
 
 1. The earliest teachings about nature and man ... 34 
 
 Of God the Creator 34 
 
 Of the fact and the origin of sin 36 
 
 2. The silence of the Old Testament about gospel truths, 38 
 
 3. Earliest imperfection in moral instructions ... 40 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ITS HISTORY. 
 
 Significance in the mode of a gift 42 
 
 Section 1. Our English Bible 42 
 
 The translators 42 
 
 Previous translations 43 
 
 The Hebrew and Greek manuscripts 44 
 
 The Revision of 1881 44 
 
 Section 2. The Old Testament 46 
 
 1. The formation of the Canon 46 
 
 The Septuagint Version 46 
 
 Th 3 work of Ezra and his associates 48 
 
 The Apocrypha 48 
 
 2. The Sacred Writers 49 
 
 The Pentateuch 49 
 
 Joshua 53 
 
 Judges and Ruth 53 
 
 Samuel 54 
 
 Kings 54 
 
 Chronicles 55 
 
 Ezra and Nehemiah 55 
 
 Esther 55 
 
 Job 55 
 
 The Psalms 55 
 
 The Proverbs 56 
 
 Ecclesiastes 56 
 
 The Song of Solomon 56 
 
 The Prophets 56 
 
 3. The Bible in the time of Christ 57 
 
 Section 3. The New Testament 60 
 
 Special difficulty of the subject 60 
 
 The first Christian teachings oral 61 
 
 Beginning of written documents 62 
 
 The Epistle of James 62 
 
 The Gospel of Matthew 63 
 
 The Epistles of Paul 64 
 
 The Gospel of Luke 64 
 
 The Gospel of Mark 64 
 
 Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude 65 
 
 The Revelation 66 
 
 The Gospel and Epistles of John 66 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Apocryphal writings 66 
 
 The formation of the Canon 67 
 
 Spontaneous action of the churches 67 
 
 The accepted books before a. d. 70 68 
 
 The accepted books a. d. 70 and 100 68 
 
 Testimonies between a. d. 100 and 150 69 
 
 Testimonies between a. p. 150 and 200 70 
 
 Testimonies after a. d. 200 72 
 
 Fifty copies ordered by Constantine 72 
 
 The weight of these testimonies 72 
 
 1. Competency of the churches to decide .... 73 
 
 Extent of the personal labors of the Apostles . . 73 
 
 Their writings designed to be encyclical .... 74 
 
 Travels performed for inquiry 74 
 
 2. Were under the greatest motives to truthfulness . 76 
 
 Their own highest hopes involved 76 
 
 They incurred social separation from friends . . 76 
 They were exposed to martyrdom 77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 
 
 Difficulty of the ordinary views of Inspiration 79 
 
 Section 1. Nature of Inspiration 80 
 
 The supposed gift of a library 80 
 
 Would involve care for the authorship 82 
 
 Would involve oversight of the selection 83 
 
 Would require its safe transmission 83 
 
 All these combined in the Bible 84 
 
 1. It is, therefore, an Inspired Book 85 
 
 2. It is wholly Inspired 85 
 
 3. It is verbally Inspired 86 
 
 4. Its Inspiration is complete 86 
 
 Section 2. Proofs of its Inspiration 87 
 
 The testimony of Christ 87 
 
 Views of the Jews at that day 88 
 
 Christ educated in those views 88 
 
 Specimens of his teachings 91 
 
 The testimony of the Apostles 95 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ITS DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 
 
 How we may see God's Word in the human words .... 102 
 
 Illustration from the " Giant-Killer " 102 
 
 1. In portions of known Divine origin 103 
 
 1. In God's own spoken words 103 
 
 2. The words of Christ 104 
 
 3. The words of the Apostles 105 
 
 4. The words of the Prophets 106 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2. In the anonymous portions 107 
 
 Illustration from Matthew's genealogical record .... 107 
 
 Illustration from the Book of Ruth Ill 
 
 The principle applied 115 
 
 The Historical Books 115 
 
 The Book of Job 117 
 
 The Psalms 118 
 
 • The Proverbs 121 
 
 Ecclesiastes 121 
 
 The Song of Solomon 122 
 
 Special application of the principle to this book . 122 
 
 The usual allegorical theory 122 
 
 The more literal theory 123 
 
 The plan according to Prof. Ginsberg 124 
 
 A metrical translation 125 
 
 The divine teaching on the literal theory . . . 144 
 
 The divine teaching as an allegory 148 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EE CAPITULATION. 
 The Bible is "Our Father's Book" 151 
 
OUR FATHER'S BOOK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The general subject intended by the Inspiration 
 of the Scriptures is one of vast extent. It includes 
 the origin, composition, structure, authenticity, 
 genuineness, preservation, and authority of the 
 Book, or rather of that collection of books, which we 
 call the Bible. An exhaustive consideration of 
 these would require another volume as large as 
 itself. As usually presented, it involves discussions 
 and technicalities scarcely appreciable by ordinary 
 readers, and which do not seem necessary for the 
 purposes now in view. We propose to approach 
 it in the simplest manner possible, in such a line 
 of argument and illustration as shall be obvious 
 to the plain common sense of every reader. 
 
 This venerated volume, the Bible, comes to us 
 purporting to be a communication from heaven. 
 It is Our Father's Book. Such is its claim, and 
 such the character and authority conceded to it by 
 all Christians. What we wish to inquire about 
 now is the rightfulness of that claim. And in so 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 OUR FATHERS BOOK. 
 
 doing, let us remind our readers that it is not a 
 case where mathematical demonstration is appli- 
 cable. We cannot reason upon it as we do upon a 
 problem in geometry or a question of arithmetic. 
 It is rather like the cases which are brought before 
 our courts of law, where facts are submitted to the 
 intelligence and sound judgment of a jury. The 
 verdict they are expected to render is not that of 
 absolute knowledge or infallible certainty, but 
 of what is true according to their best conviction 
 and belief. And this is enough for all practical 
 purposes. Property, reputation, liberty, and even 
 life itself are among all civilized nations made 
 dependent on such verdicts. 
 
 Is this Bible our Father's Book? Suppose we 
 had to decide a similar question respecting the 
 alleged writings of an earthly father. Here is a 
 volume containing sixty-six letters and other 
 documents, long the cherished possession of the 
 family, which purports to be a collection of the 
 papers of their absent father, sent from time to 
 time for the instruction and training of his chil- 
 dren. It is an old book ; it has been long in use. 
 The children to whom it was first addressed are 
 all dead. The paper is stained by age, and the 
 style is quaint and old-fashioned. And now, in 
 the lapse of time, as bearing on some question of 
 legacy or transmitted obligation, the question 
 arises as to the genuineness of that old book. 
 How should we proceed in answering it? 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 Two ways would be possible. Leaving the book 
 itself, we might go outside of it, and seek for evi- 
 dence there. We might ask if there were those 
 who personally knew of the father's writing, who 
 saw him doing it, or saw the communications in 
 passing, or knew of their actual delivery to the 
 family. We might seek for any who remembered 
 the children speaking of the letters they had re- 
 ceived, and what they did in obedience to them, 
 and what was said or done by the neighbors in 
 consequence. All the external history, not only 
 of the communications, but of the family, their 
 friends, the times in which they lived, the state of 
 the country and the world, would have some 
 bearing on the subject, and, so far as relevant, 
 might well be used in helping to judge of the 
 credibility of the claim made in behalf of the 
 book. 
 
 Or we might look into the book itself, and see 
 whether its contents corresponded to the claim. 
 Here, if genuine, a thousand things would be 
 found so corresponding. If not genuine, as many 
 would soon be discovered inconsistent with it. 
 In fact, this would be one of the very best tests. 
 The outside evidence, from the lapse of time or 
 other circumstances, might be meager. Witnesses 
 might be dead, or their memory at fault. Corrob- 
 orative facts might be forgotten. But the inward 
 evidence would by its very nature be unchange- 
 able. And so it is with what is called the internal 
 
12 our father's book. 
 
 evidence of the Bible. It is many hundred years 
 since its several portions were written, and a 
 great part of the evidence which history could 
 once have afforded has been lost or is inaccessible. 
 But the inward evidence remains. Therefore it 
 is that the Bible itself is its own best witness, and 
 our most direct and conclusive method is to begin 
 by opening its sacred pages. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ITS FORM. 
 
 One of the first things which we notice when 
 we open this volume is the peculiar form of its 
 contents. A book of human instruction would be 
 apt to be a single treatise, didactic in its method, 
 from one author, and in one general style of state- 
 ment and illustration. The Bible is very differ- 
 ent ; and its peculiarities in this respect are worthy 
 of some distinct consideration. We mention three : 
 variety of its compositions, variety of its authors, 
 and variety in its grades of instruction. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 Variety of Compositions. 
 
 Nothing can be more miscellaneous than these 
 writings. They are in fact a library rather than 
 a volume, as indeed its name imports, " Biblia 
 Sacra" the holy books. Here, for example, is an 
 extended treatise of history, containing a great deal 
 that apparently does not and cannot concern man- 
 kind generally, and describing persons, events, sen- 
 timents, manners, wholly unlike those of our time, 
 and often repugnant even to our moral sense. 
 There we find a drama or dialogue, in which per- 
 
 13 
 
14 our father's book. 
 
 sons dispute about questions in which none of 
 them seem to be right or very well informed. 
 Next is an old law-book, containing a curious 
 code of statutes, — civil, military, religious, — all 
 now obsolete, except so far as the substance of 
 them may be incorporated in other legislation of 
 later times and nearer home. Interspersed through- 
 out are poems and songs, — here a pastoral, relat- 
 ing how a fair young widow won the love of a 
 wealthy and noble stranger, or a beautiful queen 
 saved the lives of a whole nation ; there songs 
 martial, devotional, and even love songs. Other 
 pages disclose collections of proverbs and pithy 
 sayings ; others still, impassioned declamations in 
 loftiest poetry against prevalent wickedness or 
 foreign oppressions, coupled with predictions of 
 coming reforms, and purer and happier times. A 
 second and later part of the volume contains sev- 
 eral chapters of interesting biography, sketches of 
 the origin of new institutions, and a collection 
 of letters which discuss a great variety of ques- 
 tions, both of belief and conduct, in relation to 
 practical affairs. 
 
 What must we say to all this ? Is this the way 
 in which a parent would be likely to instruct his 
 children ? Were another book of this sort found, 
 pretending to be a volume of such instructions, 
 could we readily accept it, made up in this miscel- 
 laneous way, as being what it claimed to be ? 
 
 1. Let us remember, first, that the pure didactic 
 
ITS FORM. 15 
 
 method is not always the best for the purpose in 
 view. To tell a child incessantly, this is so, and 
 that is so, and you must do this, and you must do 
 that, becomes irksome at last. Conscience itself 
 becomes blunted under perpetual blows. Many 
 an impatient boy has been driven into outbreaking 
 misconduct under the constant nagging of an in- 
 judicious parent. Somebody has said that " Don't 
 twit " and " Don't tease " ought to have been put 
 among the commandments. 
 
 2. Moral truth is never so acceptable as when 
 presented in the concrete, embodied in the forms 
 of actual life. " Tell me a 'tory, mamma," is one 
 of the very earliest demands of the little one, and 
 in this form it literally drinks in instruction with 
 its mother's milk. Nor is the story any the less 
 palatable, — often it is even more so, — that it 
 suddenly discloses at the end the little moral les- 
 son, the admonition, the counsel, or even the re- 
 proof, skilfully concealed till the right moment, 
 and then opening with its full demand upon the 
 conscience and the heart. And so it is that nar- 
 rative, parable, fable, biography, and history be- 
 come the most important vehicles for the instruc- 
 tion of mankind. In a similar way with the more 
 ideal classes of writing, poetry, oratory, the drama, 
 and even works of fiction. What discriminating 
 parent is there who, in providing a library for his 
 library, does not aim to place all these in it ? Who 
 would ever think of filling it up with bare didac- 
 
16 our father's book. 
 
 tics, — sermons and moral essays and rules for 
 holy living and dying, or would expect, if he did, 
 that his boys could be driven to its use by any 
 other means than the rod ? 
 
 3. Moral instruction is infinitely more effective 
 when conveyed through these diversified forms 
 than it could be in any other. "As in water face 
 answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." 
 It is human life, in all its outgoings and self-reveal- 
 ings laid alongside of human life, that is the most 
 effective of teachers to the latter. It is the charm 
 and the power of all history and all biography, 
 of fable and speech and song. This is what gives 
 such force to the story of the Pilgrims in the 
 Mayflower, of the battle of Bunker Hill and the 
 signing of the Declaration of Independence, of the 
 firing on Fort Sumter and the fields of Vicksburg 
 and Gettysburg. It is this which thrills us as we 
 read the immortal speeches of Adams upon the 
 Declaration, of Webster in reply to Hayne, of 
 Lincoln at the Gettysburg Cemetery, or hear the 
 noble strains of the Star Spangled Banner and the 
 Hymn to America. 
 
 4. In like manner, we gain instruction in the 
 greatest variety and abundance. The Apostle John 
 says that if all the things which Jesus did should 
 be written every one, the world itself could not 
 contain the books. So if all the directions neces- 
 sary to teach men how to live should be written 
 out singly and separately, so as to meet the infinite 
 
ITS FORM. 17 
 
 variety of conditions attending upon all human 
 lives, the books would be without number or end. 
 It is like the English common law ; no statute 
 book could hold direct legislation made for every 
 actual case that occurs in the innumerable trans- 
 actions of every day business. If law is wanted 
 in a particular instance, it is found, in the absence 
 of positive statute, in the long record of prece- 
 dents of the past; that is, in the principles embod- 
 ied in other cases, more or less similar, occurring 
 throughout the existence of the nation. So always, 
 history, biography, fiction, poetry, and letters, 
 are repositories of principles, which he who is 
 honest in the search of truth can discern and apply 
 for his own practical guidance, and often with far 
 greater nicety of adaptation to his exact wants 
 than he could find in any professed treatise of 
 morals whatsoever. 
 
 5. Moral instruction so conveyed is a discipline 
 not for the conscience only, but for the judgment 
 and the heart, indeed, for the whole intellectual 
 and moral nature. Every wise father knows that 
 his child's mind is not a mere receptacle into which 
 wisdom and virtue are to be poured, as water into 
 a cistern. Education is e-ducing i. e., drawing out 
 the mind, not stuffing it. The moral faculty needs 
 to be taught how to discern for itself what is truth 
 and what is error, what is right and what is wrong. 
 It ouodit to know how to learn from men's mis- 
 takes and follies, and even sins, as it certainly 
 
18 OUr, FATHER S BOOK. 
 
 should from its own. The foolish virgins have a 
 lesson for us as well as the wise. So the whole 
 diversified forms of composition we have supposed 
 are so many diversified forms of instruction. 
 They constitute in the aggregate a transcript of 
 human life as it is ; of the great world in which 
 we and all men, in their successive generations, 
 are to live and work out their moral history and 
 destiny. Can anything be better than these for 
 that training? Instead of being a mark of un- 
 genuineness in a book purporting to be a summary 
 of a father's instructions to his children, would 
 they not be, when duly and rightly considered, 
 strong confirmation, not only of its claims, but of 
 the profound wisdom which so shaped and com- 
 posed it ? 
 
 6. Once more, an instruction book of this kind 
 would never become obsolete. It would last as long 
 as the family life lasted ; nay, it would serve with 
 slight adaptations for all families and all time. 
 And this, because princijiles are immortal. Laws 
 change from age to age ; an essential part of the 
 business of every legislature is repealing. Ethical 
 sayings vary among different people and in different 
 times. But the lessons of history never grow old; 
 the story of Joseph is as fresh to-day, and as full of 
 counsel and pathos, as it was thirty-five hundred 
 years ago. The Roman poet boasted that he had in 
 his graceful odes "reared a monument more lasting 
 than brass." So while the world stands, the fifty- 
 
ITS FORM. 19 
 
 first Psalm will be the vernacular of every penitent 
 soul iii tears before God, as the twenty-third will 
 be the calm thanksgiving of him who dwells as a 
 happy and contented member of a flock within the 
 care of his heavenly Shepherd. 
 
 It will scarcely be necessary for us to apply our 
 illustration in detail to the composite character of 
 the Bible. Let the reader do it for himself, and 
 we are sure he will soon see why this wonderful 
 Book has acquired and retains such a place as it 
 has in the estimation of mankind. It is as if our 
 heavenly Father took each of us by the hand and 
 led us through the long gallery of human life and 
 action for four thousand years. He shoivs us here 
 what man has been and done, his good deeds and 
 his evil ones, his wisdom and his folly, his joys 
 and his sorrows, while in the mirror of the past 
 he holds up to us the foreshadowed vista of the 
 future. All along this gallery he talks to us with 
 a Father's ineffable tenderness, explaining mistakes, 
 inculcating lessons, and sometimes pointing, even, 
 without an added word, in sad and significant 
 silence, to the false and wicked and shameful 
 things the world has seen. And then, at last, he 
 opens another room of ampler space and clearer 
 light, and recounts to us the lives and sayings of 
 apostles and martyrs ; and, chief among all, pauses 
 before One figure, the Man of all men, his own 
 Son, and tells us what He said and did, and what 
 lessons of more than human wisdom He left for 
 
20 our father's book. 
 
 all men and for all time. And shall we now doubt, 
 as we look back through the long corridor we have 
 traversed, even though it have many figures and 
 many scenes, and though the lessons have been 
 infinitely varied in number and form and signifi- 
 cance, that it is a Divine Wisdom which planned 
 it, and a Divine Hand that has been throughout 
 our Guide? 
 
 Section II. 
 Variety of Writers. 
 
 A second peculiarity in the form and method of 
 this book is that so many different persons were 
 employed as its ivriters. It may be easy to com- 
 prehend why so many styles of composition were 
 used, but they should have been written, one 
 might affirm, by the Divine Hand directly. In- 
 stead of that, when we open the sacred volume, 
 we find almost as many authors as books. And 
 what adds to the difficulty, a large portion of 
 these are anonymous. So that we have a double 
 task set before our faith, to accept as the Word of 
 God what, certainly as they come to us, are the 
 words of men — to a large extent of unknown 
 men — and to distinguish between the human and 
 divine, so as to find the Word of God in the words 
 of men. Let us look at these difficulties in the 
 light of the illustration we have already used. 
 
 Here, then, is a volume — or rather a library of 
 many volumes — showing the handwriting and 
 
ITS FORM. 21 
 
 being confessedly the work of many writers. We 
 find among these : 
 
 1. A number who profess to have been aman- 
 uenses, persons who say that they were employed 
 by the Author to take down the words spoken by 
 his lips, the commands, the promises, the reproofs, 
 the counsels designed for the instruction of the 
 absent family. They expressly disclaim any per- 
 sonal share in the authorship. Some of the sayings 
 they recorded they did not themselves understand ; 
 some were unwelcome utterances, as painful to 
 write as to read. In all cases they affirm that they 
 wrote just what was commanded them. No dis- 
 cretion was allowed them in omitting anything, in 
 modifying any idea, or softening any word. We 
 write, they say, just what was given us to write ; 
 no more, no less. 
 
 2. Another class wrote historically. They were 
 annalists, recorders, biographers. Sometimes the 
 matters of which they wrote were within their 
 personal knowledge or recollection ; sometimes 
 they were derived from the Author himself in his 
 earlier writings or sayings ; sometimes they were 
 transcripts, more or less extensive, from public 
 archives ; sometimes compilations from other 
 writers, revised and edited for the present purpose. 
 From whatever source derived, or into whatever 
 form cast, they were intended and prepared for the 
 use now designated, viz., to be a volume of in- 
 structions, to teach in the way of history, chronol- 
 
22 our father's book. 
 
 ogy, memoirs, and the like, the family for whom 
 this loving and thoughtful Father is ever mindful, 
 and for whose welfare he is assiduously laboring. 
 
 3. A third class of writers employed in the pre- 
 paration of this library were interpreters. From 
 intimate personal acquaintance with the Father 
 and long experience in his service, they have come 
 to be very familiar with his opinions on all 
 common topics and with his wishes respecting the 
 family. They are employed, therefore, to write 
 down those opinions and wishes in a detailed way, 
 on a variety of practical subjects. The larger 
 portion of these are in the form of letters addressed 
 in the father's name to some of the eldest children. 
 The language and style of these are various, bear- 
 ing, indeed, the mental peculiarities of the 
 writers themselves, yet all agreeing in substance 
 with each other, and with what is otherwise 
 known of him of whose sentiments and will they 
 profess to be interpreters. 
 
 4. Lastly, we find a class of writers, if not so 
 conspicuous, yet no less important and responsible 
 than the others, who were employed as compilers. 
 For it being, as we saw in the preceding section, 
 advisable that the volume which should suffice for 
 the instruction of a large and diversified family 
 for all time should contain a large and diversified 
 body of compositions, it became a work requiring 
 great discretion to select these. Especially when, 
 out of the abounding materials existing, there were 
 
ITS FORM. Z6 
 
 ever very many unsuitable ones offering them- 
 selves for the purpose ; works of false sentiment, 
 erroneous history, or in some of many ways un- 
 worthy of the place they were intended to fill. All 
 who have to prepare reading matter for the public 
 know that it is much easier to rind a good writer 
 than a thoroughly judicious editor. The former, 
 indeed, are those who win the honors, whose 
 names are emblazoned in public and enjoy the 
 popular applause, but no less deserving are they 
 who have the gift of discerning true merit, of de- 
 tecting the unworthy, and are wise and courage- 
 ous enough to brand with disapproval what has no 
 claim for acceptance. 
 
 Thus, then, the Book of which we have been 
 conceiving was prepared. Confessedly the Father 
 did not write it with his own hands. He em- 
 ployed amanuenses, narrators, interpreters, com- 
 pilers. Sometimes he dictated ; sometimes referred 
 them to things formerly said or done by him ; 
 sometimes sent them to public records or the 
 works of other authentic writers ; sometimes gave 
 them commission to explore existing literature 
 and gather from it materials suitable for the pur- 
 pose, to diversify, to enrich, to give roundness and 
 completeness to his plan, in a word, to make up 
 the Book as it is. All the while he kept the over- 
 sight of the work ; he appointed the writers, 
 directed them what to do, approved each particu- 
 lar part done, and at the last, when all was 
 
24 our father's book. 
 
 completed, formally adopted and confirmed it as 
 his own, declaring it to be his book. 
 
 Thus there has come to us this divine Book, — 
 not so much a volume as an encyclopaedia, a li- 
 brary. Is its high claim to be questioned because 
 of the way it was made up ? Is He whose name 
 and credentials it bears any the less its Author 
 because it was not written, like the tablets of 
 stone given to Moses, with his own fingers? Was 
 the Code Napoleon, that masterpiece of jurispru- 
 dence which has become the foundation of legis- 
 lation in almost all Europe, though composed and 
 compiled through a period of years by a large body 
 of skillful jurists, statesmen, and scholars, any the 
 less the enactment of the great emperor whose 
 name it bears ? 
 
 Reserving now, for the present, the evidence of 
 the fact of such a Divine adoption of this work, 
 and the methods by which we are to distinguish 
 between what is of the Divine Author and what 
 of the human writer, let us glance at some of the 
 advantages resulting from this manner of prepar- 
 ing the Book. 
 
 1. Comprehensively, it brings God near to us. 
 Like the revelation of the Infinite in the person 
 of Christ, it is a second incarnation of the Divine 
 in the words and thoughts of men. " No man 
 hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
 Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath 
 declared him." So, except once or twice when 
 
ITS FORM. 25 
 
 the heavenly voice addressed Jesus, no man, since 
 the days of Sinai, when God uttered the ten words 
 of the Law, hath heard God at any time, and even 
 then it was such a voice of awe that the people 
 begged not to hear it any more. " Speak thou 
 with us," they said to Moses, "but let not God 
 speak to us lest we die." So, accordingly, he has 
 spoken with men through Moses and the prophets, 
 and in later days through his Son and the apos- 
 tles, using human language, and fitting divine 
 thoughts to human words, framed after our own 
 finite conceptions, and uttered in our own familiar 
 ways by speech or pen. 
 
 2. With all this, we have also the attractions 
 of a human interest thrown over the divine com- 
 munication. The heavenly thought comes to us 
 borne upon the sweet sounds of our mother 
 tongue. We go into the tent life of the patri- 
 archs, and hear mothers singing to their children ; 
 we follow the poor slave boy from the sheep pas- 
 tures of Dothan to the palace of the Pharaohs ; 
 we bend with the princess and her train over the 
 little papyrus cradle on the brink of the Nile, and 
 trace thence the career of the noble youth, the 
 liberator, law-giver, prophet, and historian, till he 
 attains that angel-guarded grave on Mount Nebo. 
 We hear Deborah's song of victory. We see the 
 pious Hannah giving thanks for her son, and" 
 making yearly the little coats in which he shall 
 appear before the Lord in Shiloh. We are with 
 
26 our father's book. 
 
 David in the sheep pastures; in his battle with 
 the boastful giant ; in his minstrelsy in the palace 
 of Saul ; in his own accession to the kingdom ; in 
 his honored old age, and his peaceful death. We 
 listen to the hymns he sung as the shepherd-boy, 
 the warrior, the king, the penitent sinner. We 
 visit with u the queen of the south " the court of 
 Solomon, and see all his glory, and listen to his 
 wise sayings and his impassioned songs. We are 
 thrilled with the lofty utterances of the prophets, 
 the grand oratorio of Isaiah, the sublime hymn of 
 Habakkuk. Then we come down to Bethlehem 
 and Nazareth, and read of that wonderful child 
 and his beautiful virgin mother, and their home 
 life, when he wrought with his father as a car- 
 penter. We follow him to the Jordan to be bap- 
 tized, and to the wilderness to be tempted, and 
 thenceforward through all the weary way of toil 
 and teaching, of beneficence and suffering, till it 
 culminates at Pilate's hall and Calvary. Then 
 the story of the works, the writings and the 
 deaths of apostles and martyrs, and the glorious 
 apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem, in which 
 the long, sad drama of earth and time shall end. 
 How human it all is ! How interesting for its own 
 sake ! How do children hang delighted over its 
 stories, and poets and artists vie with each other 
 in reproducing their ideals in numbers and paint- 
 ing ! What myriads, attracted first by this human 
 element, have been led at last to discern and to 
 
ITS FORM. 27 
 
 yield to the divine which gave inspiration and 
 power to the whole. 
 
 3. A revelation so given is most easily understood. 
 Paid was once taken up to Paradise, and heard 
 things in the proper language of heaven ; but he 
 says they were unspeakable, and such as none 
 might utter. But the things which he wrote in 
 his earthly letters to the churches he had planted 
 and suffered for could both be spoken and under- 
 stood. If they wanted commentaries upon them, 
 he bade them take Mm. Be followers of me ; walk 
 as ye have us for an ensample. It was the divine 
 brought to men in the human, and this the human 
 could understand. So throughout the Bible. If you 
 want to know what faith is, go and spend a night 
 with Abraham when he is on that lonely wandering 
 journey, not knowing whither he went. If you 
 would see a real Greatheart escorting his pilgrims, 
 follow the career of Moses. If you want an ideal 
 of a pure home affection, go and see the parting 
 between Ruth and her mother-in-law. If you ask 
 what is true repentance, go into David's bed-cham- 
 ber, and listen to the broken voice which utters 
 the fifty-first Psalm. So there is not a duty, a 
 virtue, a grace of character, or lofty ideal of at- 
 tainment, that you cannot find described and set 
 before you in living example here. There is not 
 a fault, a weakness, a folly, a sin, of which you 
 cannot find both specimen and warning in this 
 Book of books. There is not so knotty a question 
 
28 our father's book. 
 
 of morality, so difficult a problem of duty, that 
 you cannot find a thread of right and safety 
 through it. It is adapted to every age and every 
 station, the child and the sage, the prince and the 
 peasant ; it is a light that never goes out, a foun- 
 tain that never runs dry. 
 
 4. And hence it is, finally, that it is invested 
 with a poiver over mankind which surpasses every 
 other. There is no other book that lays hold of 
 human hearts as this does. Coleridge expressed 
 it in a word, " It finds me." The man does not 
 live who can go into his private chamber, and, 
 with a serious mind, open and read an hour in 
 this book, and not feel as if God had spoken to 
 him. Of course, he may read to disbelieve and to 
 scoff, and he will hear only the echo of his own 
 blasphemous thoughts ; but let him read to hear 
 its true utterance, and the still, small voice of the 
 Spirit will breathe in every page. The world 
 over, to-day, this is the book for the closet, for 
 the midnight hour, for solitude. And not less is 
 it the book of life and action. Its principles 
 underlie every code of morals ; its teachings affect 
 legislation and all the intercourse of peoples and 
 nations. There is not another book so much read. 
 There is none the copies of which are so multi- 
 plied. There is none which is receiving so much 
 study and elucidation from all the sources of 
 human knowledge. There is none which is so 
 fast being translated into every language, and 
 
ITS FORM. 29 
 
 becoming the universal book of mankind. It is 
 the most human book in the world, touching more 
 human beings, and touching them in more ways, 
 than any other. It is the most divine book in the 
 world, speaking and revealing things transcending 
 all finite thought. It is the most divine book be- 
 cause it is the most human. 
 
 Section III. 
 
 Variety in its Grades of Instruction. 
 
 In providing a book of instruction for a family, 
 which is to supply the wants of all, there must 
 evidently be an adaptation to the wants of all. 
 Indeed, in any such supposed case we should 
 expect to find indications that, before the first 
 written instruction, there had been a period of 
 oral teaching. Before the little ones had learned to 
 read, or had knowledge enough of themselves and 
 things around them «to make that method avail- 
 able, they had received many an important lesson. 
 Home training begins in the cradle. Smiles and 
 frowns are a significant alphabet there. Baby 
 talk, that seems silly to others, is often a mother's 
 wisdom to those who cannot understand any other. 
 So, during all the days of the nursery, the reign of 
 the dolls and the rocking-horses, of dissected alpha- 
 bets and picture primers, the first slate and pencil 
 and the multiplication table, there has been, if the 
 parents were wise, a continued course of instruc- 
 
30 our father's book. 
 
 tion and government of utmost importance in its 
 bearing upon the character of the after-life. 
 
 After this come the schooldays, protracted often 
 through the entire minority, till twenty-one or 
 more. All this period is one peculiarly adapted 
 to the sort of instruction we are contemplating. 
 A father's or mother's correspondence with a child 
 away from home, at school or in college, is often 
 the golden chain of love and wisdom that does 
 more to save from harm and shape the whole 
 course of future life than all other influences com- 
 bined. In such a repository of a father's letters 
 as we have supposed, we should expect to find a 
 large space filled with what was addressed to the 
 sons and daughters in the forming periods of their 
 school life. 
 
 At length youth passes into manhood, and the 
 grave responsibilities of mature age are to be 
 assumed. None so well knows as a father what 
 need of wisest counsels then. New homes are to 
 be formed, new social ties created. Occupations 
 are to be chosen, and principles and habits adopted 
 which are to rule in business, in politics, in society, 
 and in religion. The letters of parental advice 
 and suggestion show how warm the sympathy 
 between the old home and the new, and in these 
 we find the gravest lessons, the deepest discus- 
 sions, the wisdom gathered from widest experience 
 and observation, fondly bestowed to form the 
 model of a noble and happy life. 
 
ITS FOBM. 31 
 
 Of course, we should find the letters addressed 
 to different ages corresponding in their contents 
 to the capacities and circumstances of those for 
 whom they were intended. A letter for the school- 
 boy of ten would be very unlike that meant for 
 the young man of twenty-one. Its subjects would 
 be different, its style of composition different, its 
 directions as to conduct and behavior different. 
 The evidences of the father's authorship would be 
 as apparent in the adaptations of his instructions 
 to the varying ages, characters, and necessities of 
 Ins children, as in their intrinsic wisdom. 
 
 The circumstances thus supposed are paralleled 
 throughout in the Bible, and are, when duly con- 
 sidered, among the most striking evidences that it 
 is our Father's Book. From the time of Moses, 
 the date of its first writings, till the death of the 
 apostle John, is a period of at least sixteen hun- 
 dred years, probably more. Sixteen centuries of a 
 family life imply great variety as well as long con- 
 tinuance. Indeed, we have here, as in the other 
 case, numerous glimpses of a period of the world 
 preceding the age of written instruction. When 
 writing was invented nobody knows ; what the 
 dates of the earliest sculptures and papyri of 
 Egypt is yet undetermined. There was, however, 
 for mankind as a whole, a long period before and 
 immediately after the deluge, when instruction was 
 solely in oral forms. It was the period of univrit- 
 ten revelation, the intellectual childhood of the 
 
32 our father's book. 
 
 race. What precisely the contents of that revela- 
 tion were it is impossible now to say. The few 
 hints we have of the antediluvians show it to have 
 been exceedingly rudimentary, though sufficient 
 to give a knowledge of right and wrong and 
 create moral responsibility. After the flood those 
 glimpses multiply, and we have traces of the 
 knowledge of the one true God, and the simplest 
 forms of worship by sacrifice and prayer, in the 
 ancestry of Abram. Thence, through the patri- 
 archal period and the servitude in Egypt, we hear 
 of occasional direct communications from God, 
 appointing special acts of duty, and pointing 
 forward to better things to come. All this long 
 duration was the Avorld's infancy, and it is in per- 
 fect analogy with what we always find in family 
 history, that there was then no written and per- 
 manent revelation. 
 
 From the time of Moses to Christ was, so to 
 speak, the school age of the world. This is the 
 very designation given to it by the apostles. "The 
 heir, before he comes of age, is under tutors and 
 governors appointed by the father." 1 "The law 
 is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." 2 
 Here, now, we find a very different state of things 
 from before. God reveals himself in his infinite 
 personality as one God, Jehovah, the self-existent 
 and eternal. He appoints modes of worship, and 
 enacts a complex system of laws to regulate the 
 
 iGal. 4:1, 2. 2 Gal. 3:24. 
 
ITS FORM. 33 
 
 whole religious and social life. He says little of 
 doctrine, he goes into no discussions of principles 
 or abstract truths. He commands, " Do this and 
 live ; disobey and die." It is, throughout, a peda- 
 gogic system, of lessons and stints, of exercises 
 and tasks, of calisthenics and gymnastics, enforced 
 by rewards and punishments in keeping with the 
 purposes of a proper school discipline. And the 
 Old Testament is the record of it, telling us how it 
 went with them, how they obeyed and how they 
 sinned, how they sung and how they wept, how 
 they were taught by the wisdom of sages, and 
 how reproved and warned and cheered by the 
 messages of the prophets, until the time came for 
 this imperfect stage to close, and the manhood of 
 the world to be entered on. 
 
 And now a new revelation adapted to this new 
 age. Rites and ceremonies pass away, and prin- 
 ciples succeed. Love takes the place of Law ; Je- 
 hovah is made known as the Father, and instead of 
 priest and prophet his Son comes to be the Teacher 
 of men. It is true that the new lessons are hard 
 to learn. Dull ears and sluggish hearts at first 
 fail to comprehend them. And yet there is pro- 
 gress. Three and a half years the Master teaches 
 in person. Then he appoints apostles, and endues 
 them with power to speak in his name, and so the 
 New Testament is filled up and is given as 
 the finished and complete instruction book for the 
 world and for all time. 
 
34 our father's book. 
 
 Id all this, how perfect the adaptation of the 
 means to the end in view. We see revelation 
 progressive, plastic, snited to every age and condi- 
 tion of those for whom it is intended. We see a 
 wise Father sending his instructions to all as they 
 are able to comprehend and profit by them. It is 
 one of the lesser and perhaps not often noticed 
 marks of the divine wisdom which shines in this 
 venerable volume, and which accredits it to our 
 judgments and hearts as the Book of our Father. 
 
 But there are some special facts of great im- 
 portance growing out of this adaptation of the Bible 
 to the different ages of the world, which need 
 special consideration. 
 
 1. It accounts very perfectly for the forms in 
 which the earliest teachings respecting the universe 
 and man are cast. 
 
 One of the first things that men needed to know 
 was that there is one God who made the world and 
 all it contains. The tendencies of all untaught 
 people have been to see supernatural powers in 
 the great forces at work around them, in the sun 
 and moon and stars, the winds and storms and 
 seasons, in health and disease, in all wonderful 
 things that happen, and all remarkable sights that 
 are seen. Hence the origin of idolatry, the wor- 
 ship of Baal and Ashtoreth, of Zeus and Jupiter, 
 Apollo and Diana, and the innumerable deities of 
 the heathen pantheon. And as these supposed 
 powers were ever acting upon man, doing him 
 
ITS FORM. 35 
 
 good or evil, gratifying or defeating his desires, so 
 it became worship to the gods to do that over 
 which they presided, to please Mars by righting, 
 and Bacchus by getting drunk, and Venus by 
 debauchery, etc. Hence practical idolatry was 
 everywhere unrestrained vice, and the orgies of 
 heathen worship were too foul even for mention. 
 It was then a first requisite for all true religion to 
 know that there was one only God, the creator of 
 all things, and the author of all those forces and 
 appearances which mankind in their ignorance put 
 in his place. So the Bible begins, just as it ought 
 to, by first teaching this great foundation fact. 
 
 But hoiv does it teach it? Just as a parent 
 would teach the same thing to a little child. It 
 says, first, generally, " In the beginning God 
 created the heavens and the earth/' And then, 
 holding up the great Builder vividly before the 
 child's mind, it tells how he "spoke" and was 
 obeyed. He said, " Let there be light." He spoke 
 to the great sky above and said, " Let there be a 
 division there, so that the upper waters (clouds) 
 shall be separated from the lower waters " (the 
 ocean). He spoke to these lower waters, and 
 gathered them into seas. He spoke to the ground, 
 and made the grass grow; and to the sun and 
 moon, and made day and night ; and to the sea, 
 and made the fishes ; and to the earth again, and 
 made the beasts. Read Mrs. Barbauld's Prose 
 Hymns for children, and see a perfectly corre- 
 
36 our father's book. 
 
 sponding way of teaching. And so the one great 
 truth which man so much needed to know was 
 taught. It was in a way which those of that age, 
 and of all ages, have comprehended, and will so 
 long as the world stands. 
 
 Now we say it is one of the marks of inspiration 
 that this prime fact of the creation was taught in 
 this way. Suppose the scientific way had been 
 adopted instead. Moses begins with the primeval 
 " fire-mist" and the "nebular theory." He goes 
 on to tell of revolutions and condensations, and 
 internal heat and external coolings, of the succes- 
 sive throwings off of planets and satellites and 
 meteoric rings. He writes of crystallizations and 
 stratifications, of granite and gneiss and plumbago 
 and oolite, of azoic and protozoic and csenozoic 
 ages, of evolution and development, of palseontologj' 
 and anthropology, etc. Can anybody suppose 
 that would have been a better way? As well 
 talk to a child of the solar parallax and the differ- 
 ential calculus. Nobody in primitive times could 
 have understood a word of it. If we had had a 
 book pretending to be from God which exhibited 
 its first lessons for mankind after that sort, that 
 fact itself would be sufficient to brand it as an 
 imposture. 
 
 So with another great first truth, the fact and 
 the origin of sin. When mere scientists attempt to 
 grapple with these subjects, they find them among 
 the most difficult presented to human thought. 
 
ITS FORM. 37 
 
 All men are sinners, as everybody knows; but 
 how did they become so ? What is the nature, 
 and what are the limits, of that law of heredity 
 which perpetuates in a child the character of his 
 parents ? Then, how did the first of the race be- 
 come sinners? How can a holy being be tempted 
 to sin, and how does the mind act when it sins ? 
 The most profound treatises that President Ed- 
 wards, our greatest American philosopher, wrote, 
 were on "Original Sin," and the "Freedom of 
 the Will." Supposing the Bible had attempted to 
 explain these abstruse matters in the childhood age 
 of the world, and had given profound disquisitions 
 on psychology and metaphysics. What futility 
 and folly had it been, utterly unlike the wise 
 methods of our Father in heaven ! 
 
 Instead of this, he adopts, as before, a way which 
 even the child can understand. He tells the story 
 of the first innocent pair ; of their home in a 
 beautiful garden where God used to come to con- 
 verse with them ; of the command he gave to test 
 them ; of the serpent that came and talked with 
 them, and told lies, and promised nice things if they 
 would disobey ; and how they listened to him and 
 ate ; and how God was angry, and told them they 
 should not live in the garden any longer, and 
 how their tempter should crawl on his belly and 
 eat dust, etc. Now here we have the great truths 
 which man needs to know, the fact of sin in the 
 individual and the race, and that sin as the fruit 
 
38 our father's book. 
 
 of temptation and the voluntary act of responsible 
 moral agents, and that sinners as such cannot en- 
 joy the favor of God, the very foundation truths 
 of the entire system of salvation. Whole volumes 
 of metaphysics are here contained in a simple 
 story that appeals to every heart, and is found 
 among the primitive traditions of every race of 
 mankind. 
 
 2. In the same way is accounted for the appar- 
 ent silence of the Old Testament respecting some 
 of the most important gospel truths. We instance 
 three which may serve as specimens of many, — 
 the Trinity, the Atonement, and a Future State. 
 These and similar doctrines are the " strong meat 
 fitted for full-grown men, who, by reason of use, 
 have their senses exercised." They have been 
 the battle-ground of controversy during all the 
 Christian ages. The last two, at least, are such a 
 field of conflict to-day. Could we have expected 
 that such subjects would be thrust upon the un- 
 trained and ignorant people who had come out 
 of the house of bondage in Egypt ? And yet 
 glimpses of all these topics were given from the 
 very earliest periods. Suppose a mother, in her 
 first religious lessons in the nursery, had always 
 used the name of God in the plural, teaching her 
 child to pray to " the Gods," to love " the Gods," 
 that " the Gods " would be pleased, etc. ; and yet 
 should always speak of " the Gods " as " He " or 
 " Him," and moreover should expressly say that 
 
ITS FORM. 39 
 
 there was but one God. Would not the child in- 
 evitably get at least the rudiments of the two 
 essential ideas of the Trinity, a plurality and a 
 unity. Yet precisely such is the Hebrew name 
 of God — Elohim. So with the atonement ; its cen- 
 tral conception is that of sacrifice, which was in- 
 stituted as early as the fall itself. And as to a 
 future state ; what could a Jew have understood 
 by the phrases, " he died and was gathered unto 
 his fathers," "the righteous hath hope in his 
 death," the disobedient " shall be cut off from his 
 people ? " Remember that the eminent boast of 
 the Israelite was that he, as one of the seed of 
 Abraham, was in covenant with Jehovah. To be 
 cut off from his people was to be shut out of that 
 covenant, and be without hope and without God. 
 Thus, it argues nothing against the divine origin 
 of the Bible that it does not at first reveal in full 
 the profound mysteries of doctrine disclosed in the 
 New Testament. On the contrary, it is precisely 
 in harmony with the natural method of parental 
 instruction that it does not do that, while at the 
 same time it gives hints and outlines of them to 
 be the basis of the fuller instruction of the future. 
 And this is precisely the mission which our Saviour 
 claimed for himself as the great Teacher, " I came 
 not to destroy the law, but to fulfill" — i.e., to 
 fill up the outlines, to disclose their principles, 
 and teach mankind how to apply them to the 
 practical conduct of life. 
 
40 our father's book. 
 
 3. In like manner we account for the apparent 
 imperfection of the earliest moral instruction. We 
 can barely allude to this. Look at the first re- 
 vealed law of God, the code which contained the 
 entire system of ethics. It is called " The Ten 
 Words " (Decalogue) and consists of ten simple 
 commands, of which all but one are prohibitions. 
 This is precisely the way the mother begins to 
 legislate for her child. " Don't." Don't strike ; 
 don't quarrel ; don't touch the fire ; don't use bad 
 words; don't do this or that. Reasons why are 
 not given, or but sparingly ; they could not be 
 understood if they were. So, among untaught 
 people the standards of morals are always low. 
 It requires an advanced stage of cultivation to 
 comprehend the force of such a rule as Jesus 
 gave, — the " Golden Rule" of all virtue, — or 
 to carry it out into all its delicate and far-reach- 
 ing applications. When skeptics sneer at the 
 barbarity and coarseness and vices of the early 
 Jewish people, even occasionally outcropping in 
 such men as Moses, and Samson, and David and 
 Solomon and Hezekiah, they ignore entirely the 
 principle we are contending for. The best men 
 and women that now live were not always para- 
 gons of virtue in their childhood. 
 
 Our subject grows upon us beyond our room ; 
 but its leading idea can easily be followed out in 
 numerous directions. We say then, generally, 
 that all the rudimentary and apparently defect- 
 
ITS FORM. 41 
 
 ive teachings of the Old Testament find here a 
 sufficient solution. Nay, not sufficient only, but 
 natural and wise. Assuming that the Bible is a 
 Father's Book of instruction to his children, they 
 are just such imperfections as we should look for 
 in the earliest lessons ; and are therefore in them- 
 selves evidence that were given by One who knew 
 men, and what was in them, and what was best 
 for them, that they might be lifted up gradually, 
 in the only successful way possible, to the ulti- 
 mate highest plane of knowledge and virtue. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ITS HISTORY. 
 
 There is much significance in the mode of a 
 gift. If it be one from a father to his children, 
 that mode will surely be worthy of it and of him. 
 An imposture will be likely to have something 
 doubtful and suspicious in its history. If God has 
 given us his book, we may be confident that there 
 are marks of his own wisdom and superintendence 
 in the very channels through which it came. 
 How, then, did we get our Bible ? 
 
 We begin with our English Bible, and trace it 
 back through the translations to the Hebrew and 
 Greek manuscripts, and thence through the for- 
 mation of the Canon to the original writers. 
 
 Section I. 
 Our English Bible. 
 
 Two hundred and eighty years ago, a company 
 of fifty four learned men were appointed by the 
 King of England to prepare a translation of the 
 Scriptures into English. They were supposed 
 to be the fittest men in the kingdom for that pur- 
 pose ; University professors, divines and scholars ; 
 men of venerable character and exalted piety. 
 
 42 
 
ITS HISTORY. 43 
 
 Never was a book honored with such a corps of 
 translators before. Never were men entrusted 
 with a nobler charge, — to put what they believed 
 to be God's word into the words of the foremost 
 Christian nation, and a language that was to be 
 spoken by uncounted millions of people through 
 all coming time. The work was completed and 
 published in 1611, and through innumerable edi- 
 tions, in every variety of form, has come down to 
 us. 
 
 But whence did the translators obtain it? 
 They had, first, a succession of previous transla- 
 tions, which had from time to time been made by 
 eminent scholars, and long hallowed by sacred 
 use. Two hundred and thirty years before, when 
 the English language was forming by fusion of 
 the Saxon and Norman tongues, John Wiclif, a 
 learned professor at Oxford, with the help of the 
 best scholars of that day, first gave to it a transla- 
 tion of the Scriptures, which more than any one 
 thing served to impart to that forming tongue fixed- 
 ness and perpetuity, and was the basis of all subse- 
 quent translations. About one hundred and forty 
 years later, William Tyndale, another Oxford 
 scholar, issued a new and improved version of the 
 New Testament, sealing his work a few years later 
 with his blood, being burned at the stake by Henry 
 VIII. in 1536. From that date till the time of 
 James I. no less than five versions were issued, 
 commonly known as Coverdale's, Taverner's, Cran- 
 
44 our father's book. 
 
 mer's, the Genevan, and the Bishop's Bibles, all 
 prepared by men of eminent ability, all having 
 their own special merits, but no one fitted in all 
 respects to become the English Bible for the nation 
 and the race. Hence the last undertaking by 
 order of King James I., which, by the verdict of 
 all scholars, has given us what, though not with- 
 out some blemishes, is the masterpiece of English 
 literature. 
 
 Second, they had the Hebrew and Greek origi- 
 nals, which, by the labors of such scholars as 
 Erasmus and others, had been compiled from 
 ancient manuscripts and recently published on 
 the Continent. In Wiclif's day these were little 
 known, and his translation was made from the 
 Latin Vulgate, which came down from St. Jerome 
 about A.D. 390. The revival of learning in the 
 fiftenth century brought to light many of these 
 manuscripts, and led to the preparation of revised 
 texts of both Hebrew and Greek. The whole 
 number of Hebrew manuscripts now known, of 
 various ages, including fragments, is somewhat 
 less than seven hundred ; of Greek, over seventeen 
 hundred. King James's translators, according to 
 their statement on the title page, made their ver- 
 sion from the original languages, diligently com- 
 paring and correcting it by the former English 
 versions. 
 
 We add a few words here respecting the new 
 Revision of 1881. The lapse of nearly three hun- 
 
ITS HISTORY. 45 
 
 dred years has made some changes in our lan- 
 guage, and a wider range of manuscripts has 
 disclosed some errors in the texts formerly used. 
 It had long been felt, therefore, that a revision of 
 King James's version was desirable, to amend it in 
 these and other respects. At length, in 1870, 
 the two Houses of Convocation of the English 
 Church appointed a committee to take the matter 
 into consideration. Their report was favorable to 
 the undertaking, and led ultimately to the selec- 
 tion of one hundred scholars, of whom sixty-six 
 were British and thirty-four Americans. Their 
 labors on the New Testament were completed, and 
 the book was published in 1881. The Old Testa- 
 ment, it is expected, will appear in 1885. 
 
 Such has been the vast outlay of time, toil, 
 learning, and expense to give us our English 
 Bible. It has extended over a period of five hun- 
 dred years, and has employed the highest talents, 
 the profoundest learning, and the most saintly 
 piety of the nation in that time. It has been 
 sealed by the blood of martyrs, and favored with 
 the patronage of kings. Upon it has been lavished 
 more research and more learning than upon any 
 other book the world ever saw, and it has been 
 multiplied and circulated in numbers that no 
 other has paralleled. . If it be Our Father's Book, 
 the Word of God, it is worthy of it all ; that it 
 has commanded all this is most satisfactory evi- 
 dence that its claim to be such is just. 
 
46 our father's book. 
 
 Section II. 
 
 The Hebrew Old Testament. 
 
 By the help of the manuscripts employed by 
 our translators, we ascend the past to the time of 
 Christ ; or more exactly, for the Old Testament, 
 to a little less than three hundred years before 
 Christ, and for the New Testament, to a hundred 
 years after. We fix upon these dates because we 
 have undoubted evidence that those books were 
 then in existence in substantially their present 
 form. And we now repeat the question already 
 asked of our English version, whence did they 
 come ? 
 
 1. Formation of the Canon. 
 
 The earliest collection of the Old Testament 
 books, of which we have certain knowledge, is 
 what is called the "Septuagint Version." It is 
 true that this does not give them in the Hebrew, 
 but in a Greek translation; but that translation 
 being made from the Hebrew, because that lan- 
 guage had then ceased to be generally spoken, it 
 tells us equally well what the Hebrew original was. 
 There are, indeed, some discrepancies between 
 it and our Hebrew Bibles, which scholars account 
 for in different ways, but which are not important 
 to our present discussion. 
 
 After Alexander the Great overran Western 
 Asia, the Greek language and literature rapidly 
 
ITS Hr STORY. 47 
 
 spread throughout the East. The Hebrew had 
 been much corrupted during the captivity, and, 
 like other native languages, had been quite gen- 
 erally superseded as a spoken tongue by the 
 Greek. About B. C. 280, the learned Jews of 
 Alexandria in Egypt, which early became a chief 
 center of Jewish learning, in order to have their 
 Scriptures in a tongue that could be generally un- 
 derstood, translated the Pentateuch into Greek. 
 This was followed from time to time with other 
 portions, so that probably the whole Old Testa- 
 ment was extant in that language as early as about 
 B. C. 280. Tradition has reported that the num- 
 ber of those translators was seventy or seventy- 
 two, hence the name, the "Version of the Sep- 
 tuaginta," or Seventy. That version we have; 
 and it tells us what was the Bible of that date. 
 Other evidence to the same effect is given us in 
 the enumeration of the sacred books by Josephus; 
 also in the Fourth Book of Esdras, and elsewhere. 
 This takes us about half way back from Christ's 
 time to that of Ezra and Nehemiah. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that at this last- 
 mentioned date — the return from the Captivity 
 — there was any definitely established canon of 
 the Scripture as a whole. The law, comprising 
 the five Books of Moses, was in their possession, 
 and was formally imposed upon the people with 
 great solemnity by Ezra and Nehemiah as the 
 constitution of the new settlement. Others of 
 
48 our eather's book. 
 
 the sacred books were also extant, whose authority- 
 was acknowledged, and a few were at that time 
 written. It was in that interval, therefore, of 
 about one hundred and seventy-five years from the 
 return to the translation of the Septuagint, — say 
 from B. C. 455 to 280, — that the collection and 
 arrangement of these into one volume were made. 
 
 The unanimous voice of antiquity assigns this 
 work to Ezra himself and his learned associates 
 who had returned with him from Babylon. Sev- 
 eral of these were themselves prophets, as Zecha- 
 riah, Haggai, and Malachi, and perhaps others. It 
 is possible that two or three of the very latest 
 books had not been composed at that time, — 
 such as Daniel, Esther, and perhaps Ecclesiastes. 
 The opinions of scholars differ on that point. If 
 not, they may have been added by the successors 
 of Ezra iu the sacred office, and been recognized 
 by the synagogues as proper portions of the sacred 
 oracles. 
 
 Besides these, there was a considerable body 
 of other writings of a religious character which 
 claimed acceptance. They are what is known to 
 us as " The Apocrypha." They were written in 
 Greek, at different dates, and were admitted into 
 the Septuagint Version. The Jews, however, did 
 not recognize them as authoritative, and they 
 formed no part of the sacred canon as described 
 by Josephus. 
 
 We are brought, therefore, to the origin of the 
 
ITS HISTORY. 49 
 
 volume of the Old Testament, as a whole. It 
 was at the period when the Jews, returning in 
 small and straggling companies from their seventy 
 years' servitude in the East, sought, under the 
 direction of Ezra and Nehemiah, to lay anew the 
 foundations of their city and nation. As their ter- 
 rible chastisement from Jehovah had been in con- 
 sequence of their neglect of his requirements, they 
 would naturally wish to learn anew what they were, 
 and make them henceforth their fundamental laws. 
 We cannot doubt that these men, a saintly priest 
 and a pious magistrate, with their prophetic as- 
 sociates, performed their great duties under the 
 divine guidance, and the work which they did in 
 collecting, supplementing, and arranging the ven- 
 erable writings of the past was one of the highest 
 dignity and importance. 
 
 2. The Writers. 
 
 There is a further question lying back of all 
 we have said, and that is respecting the original 
 writers of the sacred books. It is a question of 
 no little difficulty, owing to their remote anti- 
 quity, and the fact that it was not customary, as 
 in modern times, for authors to attach their names 
 to their productions. The most we shall be able 
 to do is to indicate what seem to be the conclu- 
 sions of our ablest scholars and commentators. 
 
 The Pentateuch. — Until quite recent times 
 the tradition of the Jews has been accepted, with 
 
50 ottb, father's book. 
 
 but little doubt, that these books were written b}^ 
 Moses, and they accordingly bear his name in our 
 Bibles. But a theory quite adverse to this has 
 been started by certain rationalists of Europe, and 
 warmly advocated by Prof. W. Robertson Smith 
 of Scotland, through whose lectures chiefly it has 
 been introduced into this country. 
 
 It is based mostly on this alleged fact, that the 
 great body of the rites and institutions inculcated 
 by the Levitical law do not appear to have been 
 actually in use during the whole historic period 
 from Moses down to the time of King Josiah. 
 Instead of a worship celebrated in the tabernacle 
 or temple alone, under the ministry of the high 
 priest, and with the elaborate ritual required, we 
 find altars and high places set up all over the 
 land where convenient, and served often by others 
 than the priests. The three great festivals of the 
 Passover, the Pentecost, and of Tabernacles were 
 not observed. The actual religion in exercise in 
 both kingdoms was a simpler and freer one than 
 that prescribed in the ritual. In a word, the in- 
 ference is that the latter was unknown ; i. e., the 
 Pentateuch, except those chapters which contain 
 the ten commandments and the simple code in 
 Exodus 21, 22, and 23, was not written. These 
 exceptions, it is conceded, containing, so to speak, 
 the kernel of the Hebrew national law, were very 
 ancient, and were indisputably from the hand of 
 Moses. 
 
ITS HISTORY. 51 
 
 But the nation ever tended to run into idolatry, 
 and bring upon it the divine chastisements for its 
 sins. A few years after the captivity of Israel (2 
 Kings 17 : 6), the young king Josiah, under the in- 
 fluence of the prophets, undertook a reform of his 
 kingdom of Judah. During the making of certain 
 repairs upon the temple, a book was found and 
 brought by the high priest Hilkiah to the king, 
 which purported to be the ancient law, long lost, and 
 by the neglect of which the judgments of God were 
 impending over the nation. That book, it is said, 
 was what we now know as the Book of Deuteron- 
 omy, from chapter 12 to 26 inclusive, which, as 
 the name imports, was in fact the " Second Law." 
 It was probably the work of the prophets, who, 
 inasmuch as it embodied the spirit of the first code 
 given by Moses, represented him as the author of 
 this also ; and thus a power was gained which ren- 
 dered it efficacious in securing a practical reform 
 of the nation. 
 
 But even this was superficial and transient. 
 Judah was given up to the fate of her sister 
 kingdom, and carried into captivity. During that 
 period the prophet Ezekiel was favored with the 
 vision of a new temple, and a new, elaborate, and 
 complete temple service, as described in the last 
 eight chapters of his book, which was to be estab- 
 lished for the ritual of the restoration, the new 
 state founded by the returned captives under the 
 lead of Ezra and Nehemiah. This new, inflex- 
 
52 our father's book. 
 
 ible, minutely-prescribed establishment, called the 
 "priest code," was designed to be a wall of de- 
 fense around the people ever after, to make sure 
 that they should never again relapse into idolatry, 
 and proved in fact successful for that purpose. It 
 was reduced into a working form by Ezekiel and 
 his associates, and constitutes the ceremonial law 
 as contained in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. 
 Finally, the three codes thus described were 
 " edited " by Ezra, or some of the learned scribes 
 associated with him, supplied with an historical 
 framework derived from ancient documents, tra- 
 ditions, etc., and thus brought into the complete 
 and orderly form known to us as the " Penta- 
 teuch," or Five Books of Moses. 
 
 We have described this theory so fully because 
 it has occupied so large a space in what is called 
 the "higher criticism," and has been accepted by 
 many as probably true. But the great body of 
 scholars have failed to find sufficient evidence to 
 support it, and the more it is discussed the more 
 disinclined are they to receive it. We cannot go 
 at length into the argument; it is sufficient to say 
 that the evidence for the Mosaic authorship seems 
 ample and decisive. 
 
 It is not doubted, however, that Moses made 
 use of more ancient authorities existing in his day, 
 especially in composing the Book of Genesis. 
 Having been himself educated in the highest 
 schools of Egypt, and learned in all the wisdom of 
 
ITS HISTORY. 53 
 
 the Egyptians, which had come down from a far 
 antiquity, he had extensive sources of knowledge 
 apart from any supernatural revelation, as to the 
 beginning of the world and the origin of nations. 
 Neither is it questioned that a few additions, and 
 what we may call "editorial notes," were supplied 
 by a later hand, as the account of Moses' death, 
 the mention of his character for meekness (Num. 
 12 : 3), of the Canaanite and the Perizzite (Gen. 
 13 : 7), of the king of Eclom before there was a 
 king in Israel (Gen. 36 : 31), etc. But these do 
 not affect the body of the work or constitute any 
 substantial reason for doubting that in all essential 
 respects these five books should still bear, as they 
 have in all ages past, the name of the great He- 
 brew lawgiver. 1 
 
 Joshua. — The same things, nearly, are to be' 
 said of this book, Joshua himself being recognized 
 as its author. It is properly a continuation of the 
 Pentateuch, as Joshua's work was but the comple- 
 tion of that which had been wrought by Moses. 
 The last chapter may have been appended by some 
 of "the elders that outlived Joshua," to give com- 
 pleteness to the narrative. 
 
 Judges and Ruth. — The authorship of these 
 books is unknown. The former is, doubtless, a 
 
 1 See able refutations of this theory in " Sources of History in 
 the Pentateuch," by President Bartlett; also in "A "Vindica- 
 tion of the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch," by Prof. 
 Charles Elliott. 
 
54 our father's book. 
 
 compilation of various records covering the cha- 
 otic period of Hebrew history from Joshua to 
 Samuel inclusive, about 410 years. The most that 
 can be said is that the compiler seems to have 
 lived in the days of Saul. He may have been 
 Samuel, but it is not probable. 
 
 Ruth is thought to have been written near the 
 time of David's highest prosperity. It has been 
 suggested that the evidence it affords that David 
 was descended in part from a Gentile source, was 
 intended to render his sovereignty less forbidding 
 to the mixed races whom he had subjected to his 
 authority. If so, it must have been prepared by 
 David's consent, perhaps by some one of the cul- 
 tivated men that dwelt at court under the patron- 
 age of the king. 
 
 Samuel. — The two books of Samuel, so named 
 not because Samuel was the author, but their 
 subject, are also anonymous. They bear in- 
 ternal evidence of being compilations from 
 various sources, documentary and traditional. 
 Their date is probably not far from the time 
 of Rehoboam, shortly after the division of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Kings. — The general opinion is that the two 
 books of Kings, which in the Hebrew are one, 
 were composed by the prophet Jeremiah, or more 
 probably, Ezra, during the captivity or shortly 
 after. They are professedly derived from older 
 writings now lost, as the " Book of the Acts of 
 
ITS HISTORY. 55 
 
 Solomon" (1 Kings 11:41), the "Book of the 
 Chronicles (Heb. the days) of the kings of Ju- 
 dah," (1 Kings 14 : 29) and the " Books of the 
 Chronicles (days) of the kings of Israel." 1 Kings 
 14:19. 
 
 Chronicles. — These two books are supposed 
 to be the latest in the canon, with possibly one or 
 two exceptions, composed by some learned scribe 
 from official sources mostly, about B. C. 330. 
 
 Ezra and Nehemiah are believed to have been 
 written by the persons whose names they bear. 
 They were anciently appended to 2 Chronicles, 
 probably by the compiler of the latter, who 
 may have given them some slight touches in 
 addition. 
 
 Esther. — The authorship of this book is 
 purely conjectural, as is the date. Rawlinson 
 assigns it to B. C. 425 ; others a hundred years 
 later. 
 
 Job. — Total darkness envelops the author and 
 date of this book. It is useless to cite conjectures. 
 Possibly a middle period may be deemed most 
 probable, say about the time of Solomon. 
 
 The Psalms. — These are collections of re- 
 ligious poems by many authors and of different 
 dates, from Moses till after the Exile. Moses, 
 David, Asaph, Heman, and Solomon are the only 
 names mentioned as authors, and some of these are 
 uncertain. Forty-nine of the Psalms are anony- 
 mous. They were originally comprised in five 
 
56 our father's book. 
 
 books collected at different times, principally, it is 
 believed, with reference to use in the public service 
 in the temple. 
 
 The Proverbs. — These also are collections of 
 the pithy sayings and maxims of the Hebrew 
 sages, chiefly of Solomon. Like the Psalms, they 
 were gathered at different times, some, perhaps, in 
 the days of Solomon, some by " the men of Heze- 
 kiah" (chap. 25:1), three hundred years after, 
 and a few at a later date. 
 
 Ecclesiastes. — The traditional conjecture that 
 Solomon was the author of this book is now al- 
 most universally abandoned. It is attributed to 
 some philosophizing writer after the Exile, who 
 discussed the perplexing aspects of the present life, 
 and reached the conclusion that to fear God and 
 keep his commandments was the highest duty and 
 good of man. 
 
 The Song of Solomon is now regarded mostly 
 in a similar light, as a work not written by Solo- 
 mon himself, but about him ; its special purpose 
 being to contrast the happiness of a pure and vir- 
 tuous love between a single pair with the splendid 
 but guilty pleasures of a harem. 
 
 The Prophets. — It is generally conceded that 
 the prophetic books were written by those whose 
 names they bear. Doubts have been thrown by 
 some upon the authorship of Jonah, and indeed 
 upon the historical character of the book, but they 
 have not been allowed much weight. The dates 
 
ITS HISTORY. 
 
 57 
 
 of the several books are usually given as follows, 
 arranging them in the order of priority : — 
 
 Obadiah 
 
 Joel 
 
 Jonah 
 
 Amos 
 
 Hosea 
 
 Isaiah 
 
 Micah 
 
 Nahum 
 
 Zephaniah 
 
 Jeremiah 
 
 Habakkuk 
 
 Ezekiel . 
 
 Daniel 
 
 Haggai . 
 
 Zechariah 
 
 Malachi . 
 
 B. C. 
 
 890-880 
 850 
 825-790 
 810-783 
 790-725 
 760-690 
 753-710 
 680 
 639-609 
 628-583 
 608-590 
 594-535 
 605-536 
 520-515 
 520-510 
 443-^24 
 
 It will serve to indicate more fully the times 
 above specified to note that the destruction of the 
 kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians was in B. C. 
 722 ; of Judah by the Chaldeans, in B. C. 588 ; 
 and of the restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 B. C. 536-446. 
 
 3. The Bible in the Time of Christ. 
 The collection of the inspired books thus made 
 by Ezra and his associates came down to the time 
 of Christ, and though the Hebrew in its ancient 
 form had ceased to be commonly spoken, it was 
 still preserved in the sacred rolls, and read in the 
 synagogue worship of the Sabbath days. In com- 
 
58 oun father's book. 
 
 mon use among the people, the Septuagint, or 
 Greek Version, was more frequent. Of these facts 
 there is the most abundant and satisfactory testi- 
 mony from writers of those times. Our space will 
 admit of only that furnished b}^ Josephus, who 
 lived about forty years after the crucifixion of 
 Christ. 
 
 " We have not a countless number of books, discordant and 
 arrayed against each other, but only two and twenty books con- 
 taining the history of every age, which are justly accredited as 
 divine; and of these Jive belong to Moses, which contain both 
 the laws and the history of the generations of men until his 
 death. This period lacks but little of 3,000 years. From the 
 death of Moses, moreover, until the reign of Artaxerxes, king 
 of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets who followed Moses 
 have described the things which were done during the age of 
 each, one respectively in thirteen books. The remaining four 
 contain hymns to God and rules of life for men. From the 
 time of Artaxerxes, moreover, until our present period, all 
 occurrences have been written down ; but they are not regarded 
 as entitled to the like credit with those which precede them, 
 because there was no certain succession of prophets. Fact has 
 shown what confidence we place in our own writings. For, 
 although so many ages have passed away, no one has dared to 
 add to them, nor to take anything from them, nor to make 
 alterations. In all Jews it is implanted, even from their birth, 
 to regard them as being the instructions of God, and to abide; 
 steadfastly by them, and, if it be necessary, to die gladly for 
 them." * 
 
 These twenty-two books of Josephus are under- 
 stood to be as follows : — 1, Genesis ; 2, Exodus ; 
 3, Leviticus ; 4, Numbers ; 5, Deuteronomy ; 6, 
 Joshua ; 7, Judges and Ruth ; 8, Samuel (1st and 
 * Against Apion, § 8. 
 
ITS HISTORY. 59 
 
 2d) ; 9, Kings (1st and 2d) ; 10, Chronicles (1st 
 and 2d) ; 11, Ezra and Nehemiah ; 12, Esther ; 13, 
 Isaiah ; 14, Jeremiah and Lamentations ; 15, 
 Ezekiel ; 16, Daniel ; 17, Twelve Minor Prophets 
 (viz., Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 
 Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, 
 Malachi) ; 18, Job; 19, Psalms; 20, Proverbs; 
 21, Ecclesiastes ; 22, Canticles. It is supposed 
 that Josephus counted them in this way in order 
 to make the entire number 22, corresponding to 
 the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Other writers 
 of the same period, or later, numbered them some- 
 what differently, but the list as a whole com- 
 prehended the same books. 
 
 Thus much is sufficient for our present purpose, 
 viz., to show what the sacred volume was in the 
 days of Christ and the apostles. Further, it not 
 only contained the same books, but, as can be 
 shown from quotations in the New Testament, 
 in the Talmud, in the writings of Josephus and 
 Philo, the Jewish Rabbis, and the earliest Chris- 
 tian Fathers, it was in all its contents almost 
 exactly identical with the volume of the Old Tes- 
 tament as we now have it. Not another book of 
 antiquity can be named which has come down to 
 us in such perfect preservation as this. We are 
 not so sure that we have the words which Cicero 
 and Virgil and Sallust and Plato and Xenophon 
 and Homer actually wrote as those which were 
 edited by Ezra, and were actually read on the 
 
60 our father's book. 
 
 Sabbath in the synagogues of the Jews in all the 
 then known world. 
 
 This Book was our Saviour's Bible. We shall 
 presently see what he says of its divine authority. 
 
 Section III. 
 
 The JVew Testament. 
 
 It will doubtless seem surprising to many to be 
 told that the formation of the canon of the New 
 Testament, — its make-up, to use a familiar word, 
 — is one of the most obscure topics of theology. 
 The period within which most of its books were 
 written, say from A.D. 50 to 70, and the subse- 
 quent one in which they Avere gathered, arranged, 
 and at last formed into an accepted collection, cov- 
 ering nearly two centuries, are as a whole the least 
 known of all in the history of the Church. Apart 
 from the New Testament books themselves, there 
 are literally no Christian writings surviving of the 
 first century, and comparatively few of the second, 
 and these mostly fragmentary. Not that there 
 were no Christian writers of that first age, but 
 that their genuine productions have mostly per- 
 ished, probably because of the persecutions which 
 raged at that time. The enemies of Christianity 
 sought to destroy all vestiges of it, and often, 
 doubtless, Christians themselves would conceal or 
 put out of the way any writings in their possession 
 which, if found, would endanger their safety. 
 
ITS HISTORY. 61 
 
 Hence our knowledge of that period is mostly 
 derived from tradition, or from the authors of a 
 subsequent date, the third century or later, who 
 often are silent on points of interest, or confess 
 themselves ignorant of them. 
 
 The first form of Christian teaching was oral. 
 It was the testimony of the apostles and others 
 who had been eye-witnesses of the ministry and 
 death of our Lord, and who told the story that 
 was subsequently written out in the Gospels. 
 Among the Jews this was accompanied with cita- 
 tions and arguments drawn from the Old Testa- 
 ment to prove that Jesus was the Messiah predicted 
 by the prophets. Samples of this preaching are 
 seen in Peter's speech on the day of Pentecost, 
 Stephen's before his martyrdom, Paul's at Antioch 
 of Pisidia, etc. Among the Gentiles a somewhat 
 wider scope of topics was employed, as in Paul's ad- 
 dress on Mars' Hill. But in all these cases the per- 
 sonal testimony was the largest and most impres- 
 sive part. " We cannot but speak the things which 
 we have seen and heard," was a declaration which 
 made its way to the heart of both Jew and Greek. 
 
 Thus for twenty years or more after the begin- 
 ning of the church on the day of Pentecost, the 
 oral instruction of the apostles and their associ- 
 ation — men like Philip, Barnabas, Silas, Luke, 
 Mark, Timothy, Titus, Apollos, and others — was 
 all that was had or was needed. But as time went 
 on the condition of things was changed. Chris- 
 
62 our father's book. 
 
 tianity had spread far and wide. The early 
 preachers had grown old, and many of them 
 had died. Troubles were thickening against the 
 Jews, which ultimately led to the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. Persecution broke out against the 
 Christians at Rome. Personal teaching became 
 insufficient in these circumstances for the wants 
 of the churches. Hence letters began to be ad- 
 dressed by the apostles to those whom they could 
 not visit in person. The story of the life, teach- 
 ings, and miracles of Christ, which had been orally 
 related, was written down for preservation after 
 the "eye-witnesses" were dead. So, in the course 
 of fifty years, — the last half of the first century, 
 — a large number of writings came into existence 
 bearing the names of Gospels, Epistles, and Acts, 
 some still extant, and others now lost, out of which 
 ultimately were selected and received as inspired 
 that collection which we now have in the New 
 Testament. 
 
 The earliest, and therefore the oldest, of these 
 is, probably, the Epistle of James. He was not 
 an apostle, but one of the four brothers, James, 
 Joseph, Judas, and Simon, who, in Mark 6 : 3, are 
 called the "brothers " of our Lord. At the time of 
 the crucifixion he was not a believer, but became 
 such in consequence of a special appearance of the 
 Lord to him. 1 Cor. 15 : 7. He was the first 
 bishop, or pastor, of the church at Jerusalem, in 
 which capacity he presided at the first council 
 
ITS HISTORY. 68 
 
 held there, to settle the question whether circum- 
 cision and the Mosaic law should be enforced 
 upon the Gentile converts. Acts 15 : 18-21. The 
 church at Jerusalem was the mother church, the 
 first, and, till the destruction of that city, doubt- 
 less the most numerous of all. Its members, in 
 consequence of persecution or in the pursuit of 
 business, were scattered abroad through all the 
 empire. Here they were subject to hostility and 
 oppression both by Jews and heathen ; many were 
 poor, and all in great danger of being seduced 
 back into Judaism. Hence their pastor, it is sup- 
 posed, about the year 50, addressed these absentee 
 members of his flock this circular letter, exhorting 
 them to steadfastness of faith, to purity of life, to 
 patience under poverty and trial, and an unshaken 
 trust in the promised Parousia, or coming of the 
 Lord, which he assured them was near at hand, 
 the Judge and Rewarder even then standing be- 
 fore the doors. James 5 : 8, 9. 
 
 At about the same time, and for nearly the 
 same purpose, it is believed, the first gospel was 
 written, and, as Schaff suggests, may have been 
 sent out as a companion for said pastoral epistle. 
 Almost nothing is known with certainty of the 
 apostolic labors of Matthew. Some of the early 
 fathers say that his gospel was written first in 
 Hebrew, — i. e., the mixed dialect often called 
 Aramaean — which was then commonly spoken in 
 Palestine. If so, he also wrote it in Greek, in 
 
64 our father's book. 
 
 which language we now have it, and the Hebrew 
 original has been lost. 
 
 The next earliest portions of the New Testa- 
 ment are believed to be the two epistles of Paul 
 to the Thessalonians, the dates of which are well 
 ascertained to be A. D. 53 and 54. His martyr- 
 dom at Rome is commonly supposed to have been 
 in A. D. 67 or 68; hence his other epistles must 
 date within the fourteen years intervening. Their 
 chronological order is as follows : Galatians, Cor- 
 inthians (1st and 2d), and Romans, between 56 and 
 58 ; the Epistles of the Captivity, so-called, — t. e., 
 written while their author was in prison at Rome, 
 — Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, and Philip- 
 pians, between 61 and 62 ; Timothy and Titus un- 
 certain, except that 2 Timothy is the latest of all, 
 written on the very eve of his execution. 
 
 The Gospel of Luke is supposed to have been 
 written at Rome during Paul's imprisonment 
 (A. D. 61, 62), in which Luke was Paul's com- 
 panion, and was followed almost immediately by 
 the Acts of the Apostles, by the same writer. 
 The latter ends with that imprisonment. They 
 were addressed to a distinguished person named 
 Theophilus, conjectured to have been a Greek by 
 birth, and a resident of Antioch, in Syria. Luke's 
 gospel differs from that of Matthew in having 
 been intended for Gentile Christians, especially 
 Greeks, as the latter was for Jews. 
 
 The Gospel by Mark is traditionally connected 
 
ITS HISTORY. 65 
 
 with the preaching of Peter at Rome. The early 
 writers agree that he was Peter's " interpreter," 
 by which some suppose that he translated the 
 apostle's discourses into Latin for the understand- 
 ing of the Roman people ; others, that he merely 
 committed to writing what was delivered by Peter 
 orally. In this, however, is involved another 
 difficult question, viz., whether in fact Peter 
 ever visited Rome; and if so, Avhen. We cannot 
 go into this much-disputed topic. Our impres- 
 sion is, from all we can gather, that Peter did 
 visit Rome near the close of his life, accompanied 
 by Mark as his helper (compare Acts 13 : 5) and 
 interpreter; that the latter wrote down for the 
 use of the Roman church the story of Christ's 
 life as Peter had related it, and that this was the 
 Gospel by Mark as we now have it. There is a 
 tradition that he wrote first in Latin, but it is 
 without weight. Latin was indeed the common 
 speech of the people, but Greek was more fre- 
 quently employed in writing books, especially 
 those that were to be circulated through the 
 empire. 
 
 Of the remaining books of the New Testament, 
 five are believed to have been written in the years 
 immediately preceding the overthrow of Jeru- 
 salem (A. D. 70), and while the shadows of that 
 great tragedy were beginning to darken the hori- 
 zon of the world. The 1st and 2d Epistles of 
 Peter seem to have been written at Rome, and 
 
66 our father's book. 
 
 both speak of that event as just at hand. 
 1 Pet. 4 : 7, 12, 17 ; 2 Pet. 3 : 10-13. The latter 
 implies also that it was immediately before the 
 writer's death. Ch. 1: 14, 15. Jude was a brother 
 of James, and, of course, one of the four sons of 
 Joseph, reputed to be the brothers of our Lord. 
 The Revelation by John is now acknowledged by 
 the best writers to have been composed in A. D. 
 68 or 69, and to be mainly occupied with matters 
 pertaining to the same catastrophe. The Epistle 
 to the Hebrews shows in Chap. 10 : 25, 36, 37, that 
 it belongs to the same period. 
 
 The Gospel of John and his three Epistles 
 come latest in the sacred catalogue. They were 
 written in the serene old age of the apostle, prob- 
 ably at Ephesus, which had been the principal seat 
 of his ministry, and of whose church tradition re- 
 ports that he was bishop or pastor. They all date 
 from after the destruction of Jerusalem, and prob- 
 ably as late as A. D. 98. 
 
 Besides the above twenty-seven books, which 
 long since gained a permanent place in the canon 
 of the New Testament, there are numerous others 
 which have claimed that place, but are classed as 
 apocryphal. Some of them are undoubtedly gen- 
 uine writings of the early fathers, as some are 
 spurious, but they have all been pronounced as 
 lacking those credentials which entitle them to be 
 received as inspired. Among them are the so- 
 called Gospels of James, of the Infancy, of Joseph, 
 
ITS HISTORY. 67 
 
 of Nicodemus, of Peter, of Thomas, and to the 
 Hebrews ; the Acts of Peter and Paul, of Thomas, 
 of Thaddeus, and many others ; the Epistles of 
 Paul and Seneca, the third Epistle of Paul to the 
 Corinthians, the Epistle of Mary, the Apocalypse 
 of Peter, of Paul, of Thomas, of Stephen, of Mary, 
 of Moses, of Ezra, etc. 
 
 Such, as well as can be now ascertained, were 
 the origin and dates of the books of the New Tes- 
 tament. There is one more question, then, to be 
 considered, — In what way was the selection 
 made, out of all these writings, of those that were 
 to be accepted as inspired, and by what criterion 
 was this done ? In other words, how was the 
 New Testament canon made up ? 
 
 In reply, we may say of it as of the origin and 
 growth of Christianity itself, it came not with ob- 
 servation. That selection was made privately and 
 spontaneously by the churches, one by one, and 
 each for itself, in the exercise of their own intelli- 
 gence and judgment. The canon was not made 
 up and imposed upon them by anybody. There 
 was never any decree of bishop, magistrate, or 
 council designating particular books or any par- 
 ticular collection of books, to be received as divine. 
 There is no recorded vote of any single church 
 adopting any one. Such votes there may have 
 been ; something equivalent there doubtless was ; 
 but no report of it has come down to us. Conse- 
 quently, there is no history of the formation of 
 
68 our father's book. 
 
 the canon. When history began to speak on the 
 subject, it was already formed. The earliest 
 writers only state what the canon was, — what 
 books in fact were received by all or a part of the 
 churches, but say very little or nothing of the 
 mode in which they became so. 
 
 The first gleams of information we have on this 
 subject are found in some of the later books of 
 the New Testament itself. In 2 Pet. 3 : 16, the 
 Epistles of Paul are mentioned, and are classified 
 with " the other Scriptures." So Jude 17 exhorts 
 his readers to "remember the words which were 
 spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ," who said there should be scoffers in the 
 last time. Now just these words are found in 
 2 Pet. 3 : 2. Both these references imply that 
 the Epistles of Paul and Peter were already extant 
 in the churches, at least in some of them, and 
 were regarded as of inspired authority. This was 
 before the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. 
 
 The last quarter of the first century, A. D. 
 75-100, was the period of the " Apostolical 
 Fathers," i. e., of those who had been, in part at 
 least, contemporary with the apostles, and had 
 been taught by them. The three most eminent 
 of these were Clement of Rome, Ignatius of An- 
 tioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna, the first two of 
 whom died as early as A. D. 107. Some eight or 
 ten epistles of these venerable men to the churches 
 they had served still remain and are acknowledged 
 
ITS HISTORY. 69 
 
 as genuine. All of them are profuse in their 
 quotations from the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, 
 as we now have them, with the exception of two 
 or three of the smaller books. These quotations 
 are not, indeed, usually in the form of express re- 
 ference, citing chapter and verse, but they are no 
 less unmistakable. A great many of the peculiar 
 phrases, to be found nowhere else, are repeated, 
 with allusions to "the Gospel," "the Apostle," 
 "the glorious and blessed Paul, who, when he was 
 among you, taught face to face, and when absent 
 sent you some letters," "the holy Epistles," etc. 
 No one can read these writings without feeling 
 how deeply imbued their authors were with the 
 phraseology of the New Testament books. 
 
 During the next fifty years — A. D. 100-150 — 
 these references and quotations were greatly mul- 
 tiplied. One of the most illustrious fathers was 
 Justin Martyr, born in 103, martyred in 167. In 
 his apology for the Christians, addressed to the 
 Emperor Antonine in 149, he says, speaking of 
 them generally : " They read the memoirs of the 
 apostles or the Gospels ; they read them each 
 Sunday in the cities and in the rural districts; 
 they read them with the books of the prophets ; 
 and in every assembly where they had been read, 
 the president took the subject of his exhortations 
 from them." He makes a distinction between the 
 two Gospels that were written by apostles and the 
 two which were written by their companions 
 
TO our father's book. 
 
 (Mark and Luke). He says, "There is among us 
 a man named John, one of the apostles of Christ, 
 who, in a Revelation (apocalypse) which was 
 made to him, prophesied that believers in Christ 
 shall pass a thousand years in Jerusalem." More 
 than seventy similar references and quotations are 
 counted in the fragments of his writings now re- 
 maining. 
 
 Even Celsus, the famous pagan enemy of Chris- 
 tianity, and several of the so-called heretics of that 
 age, bear incidental testimony to the existence and 
 repute of these sacred writings. They quote 
 them, indeed, to oppose and often to revile them, 
 but their evidence for that very reason is more 
 weighty in proof of the fact that they existed 
 and were regarded as inspired. 
 
 The next half century — A. D. 150-200 — pre- 
 sents us the names of those eminent fathers, 
 Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, 
 who attest the existence and authority of our New 
 Testament books in a multitude of quotations. 
 We have no space for even a tithe of them. Iren- 
 a3us wrote a long chapter expressly to prove that 
 there were four and only four Gospels. He cites 
 the Acts sixt} r -four times, and shows its corre- 
 spondences with the Epistles of Paul. He quotes 
 all these Epistles by name except Philemon, and 
 several hundred times in the aggregate. Clement, 
 in a single work, quotes sentences from all the 
 Gospels, the Acts, all Paul's Epistles, except 
 
ITS HISTOIIY. 71 
 
 Philemon, 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, Jude, Hebrews, 
 and Revelation. Tertullian was a voluminous 
 writer, and in all his works constantly refers to 
 these writings as the " Scriptures," the " New Tes- 
 tament," and "the word of the Creator." He 
 quotes all the books as we have them, except per- 
 haps the Epistle of James. Lardner remarks : 
 "The citations from the New Testament by this 
 father alone are more extensive and more abun- 
 dant than those from the books of Cicero by all 
 the writers of every class and age." 
 
 We have room to mention only one more, the 
 illustrious Origen, who was born in A. D. 185 and 
 died A. D. 254. He was the most learned man of 
 his age, an historian, a public catechiser, a com- 
 mentator. He edited the famous Hexapla, or 
 Bible in six languages, and wrote a commentary 
 on the entire Scriptures. According to Eusebius, 
 his Notes and Homilies on Matthew filled twenty- 
 five books ; on Luke five, besides homilies in 
 Latin ; on John, thirty-two ; on Acts, one ; on 
 Romans, twenty ; on Corinthians, Ephesians, and 
 Colossians, many ; on Galatians, five ; on 1 Thes- 
 salonians and Titus, several ; on Hebrews, several ; 
 on Revelation, one. Besides these immense la- 
 bors, he has left two formal catalogues of the New 
 Testament books, both of them including the same 
 we now have, though one of them says that doubts 
 were entertained of some smaller books, of which 
 we will speak hereafter. 
 
72 our father's book. 
 
 It is not necessary to adduce testimony of later 
 date, which might be done to any extent. After 
 A.D. 200 they were multiplied greatly. The his- 
 torians of the church gave numerous catalogues of 
 the books received in the East, of those received 
 in the West, and of those received by the whole 
 church. There are eleven such catalogues of the 
 fourth century, of which two were from councils, 
 besides several from authors which are probably 
 unauthentic. 
 
 Finally, the Emperor Constautine, about A.D. 
 381, by imperial command caused fifty copies of 
 the New Testament to be made with the greatest 
 care upon parchment at his own expense, for the 
 public use of the churches of his empire. This 
 command was executed by Eusebius, bishop of 
 Csesarea and the biographer of the Emperor, and 
 of course with all the care required by a commis- 
 sion so important. At that time the canon had 
 become as well settled as it is now, and identical 
 with it. It is the conjecture of Prof. Tischendorf, 
 the distinguished discoverer of the precious manu- 
 script in the convent of St. Catharine at Mount 
 Sinai, that it is one of those identical copies, pre- 
 sented to the convent by its founder, the Emperor 
 Justinian. 
 
 The New Testament, then, comes to us upon the 
 unanimous testimony of the churches as early as 
 the very first century. Consider the significance 
 of this fact. 
 
ITS HISTORY 73 
 
 1. It cannot be questioned that the churches 
 were competent to decide upon the character and 
 claims of those writings. 
 
 It is not alwaj^s remembered how extensive 
 were the personal labors of the apostles and their 
 companions in preaching the gospel. Our Lord 
 had declared that this should be done among all 
 nations before the fall of Jerusalem (Mark 13 : 
 10) ; and Paul expressly affirms that it had been 
 done (Rom. 16: 26; Col. 1: 23). Bearing this 
 in mind, we see how well qualified the churches 
 were which originated in such labors to determine 
 the genuineness of the writings that appeared 
 under the names of their first instructors. Take 
 one of Paul's epistles, for instance, — say the ear- 
 liest of all, the Epistle to the Thessalonians. Notice 
 the many allusions in it to his ministry among 
 them, its time and circumstances, what he said to 
 them, his message to Timothy and the reply that 
 came back, their own experiences and faults, and 
 all his mingled reproofs and commendations, and 
 we perceive how impossible it is that they should 
 be mistaken as to its coming from him, or as to his 
 apostolic right and authority to send them such 
 a letter. The same thing applies for substance to 
 all the epistles. False epistles and false gospels 
 could no more have been successfully imposed 
 upon the churches before A.D. 100 than a false 
 constitution could have been imposed in 1789 
 upon the several States of our Union. 
 
74 our father's book. 
 
 It is to be remembered, also, that these writings 
 were, with possibly some exceptions, designed to 
 be encyclical, i. e. to be passed around for the 
 common instruction of all the churches. Paul 
 charged the Thessalonian church by the Lord that 
 his communication should be read by all the holy 
 brethren (1 Thess. 5: 27). He directed the Colos- 
 sians to exchange their epistle with that of their 
 neighbors, the Laodiceans (Col. 4: 1G), which 
 latter, however, is now lost, unless, as has been 
 suggested, it was the same as our present epistle 
 to the Ephesians. Peter's allusion to " all Paul's 
 epistles " (2 Pet. 3:16) shows how extensively 
 they were known among the churches of the Dis- 
 persion at that early date. The Apocalypse was 
 ordered to be sent to the seven churches in Asia, 
 but to those evidently as representatives of all 
 others. 
 
 Still another fact of importance is that at a very 
 early date distinguished writers and historians 
 traveled extensively from country to country for 
 the very purpose of ascertaining what sacred books 
 were in use among the several churches of each. 
 Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement 
 of Alexandria, all traveled through Asia Minor, 
 Egypt, and Greece ; of course, communicating as 
 well as gaining a knowledge of the subject. 
 Thus the churches learned what had been ac- 
 cepted by their sister churches, and speedily the 
 whole body of them in all countries came into 
 
ITS HISTORY. 75 
 
 near agreement in this matter. The common code 
 of the New Testament became as well fixed as 
 that of the Old, and as generally recognized. 
 
 In this fact, then, of the universal acceptance 
 of our New Testament books by the churches, we 
 have testimony which was contemporary with their 
 production, and in every way most competent to 
 decide in respect to their character. Writings 
 which came from the apostles were, of course, 
 accepted at once. All Christians knew that these 
 were inspired men, and specially commissioned 
 to teach " whatsoever the Lord commanded 
 them." If there were any which did not come 
 from the apostles, they were scrutinized very 
 closely. Mark was accepted because he was the 
 well-known companion and " interpreter" of Peter, 
 and his Gospel was therefore substantially Peter's 
 Gospel. Luke held a similar relation to Paul, 
 so that his Gospel and the Acts were virtually 
 Paul's. The Epistle to the Hebrews, not bear- 
 ing an apostle's name, was held in doubt for a 
 little while by some, but full inquiry and inter- 
 change of views finally led to its acceptance, though 
 we do not know exactly on what ground other 
 than that, if not from an apostle, it was in full 
 accord with the apostolic writings, and had apos- 
 tolic approval. James and Jude were our Lord's 
 brothers, the former the pastor of the mother- 
 church at Jerusalem, and both the intimate com- 
 panions of the apostles, and partakers of the inspi- 
 
76 our father's book. 
 
 ration bestowed on the day of Pentecost. Thus 
 the early churches knew both the authors of these 
 books and their genuineness, and their testimony 
 comes to us with a degree of force which admits 
 no ground for any reasonable doubt. 
 
 2. Not only was this competent testimony, but 
 it was given under the influence of motives which 
 insured the highest truthfulness. 
 
 For, let us remember, that these early churches 
 based their own spiritual hopes on the truth of 
 these writings. The converts from Judaism 
 turned their backs on the venerable institutions of 
 Moses, which they had been taught to believe, as 
 all their countrymen did believe, were the only 
 means of salvation. Gentile converts forsook the 
 wisdom of sages for the foolishness of the cross. 
 Neither could have done this if they had not been 
 sure of the premises on which their new faith was 
 founded. No man in his senses ever rested his 
 soul's everlasting interests on grounds which he 
 knew had no foundation in truth. 
 
 This acceptance of Christianity, moreover, was 
 social separation from all that they held dear. Jews 
 anathematized them as heretics ; Gentiles branded 
 them as fools. They were held and treated as the 
 ofTscouring of all things. It was literally true 
 that to become a Christian, a man must " hate his 
 father and mother, and wife and children, and 
 brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also." 
 We are very certain that they who had to accept 
 
ITS HISTORY. 77 
 
 the new faith upon such a penalty would scrutinize 
 its foundations with all possible care. Documents 
 of doubtful authenticity or genuineness or author- 
 ity could not stand against the intense yearnings 
 of human hearts over separations like these. 
 
 Nay, more ; to accept the words of Peter and Paul 
 and John, and obey them, was, in vast multitudes 
 of instances, to doom the believer to martyrdom. 
 It was to be stoned at Jerusalem, to be scourged 
 at Damascus, to be thrown to wild beasts in the 
 Coliseum, or be crucified in the gardens of Nero 
 at Rome. Now, men and women do not do such 
 things in a cause which they know is a doubtful 
 one. They do not die the most horrible deaths in 
 obedience to authority which they know may be 
 questioned. Let them have rejected the Christian 
 writings ; let them have said the Evangelists wrote 
 myths, and Paul was mistaken, and the like (and 
 remember they had the best possible opportunities 
 for knowing if it was so), then they would have 
 had no trouble. Life would have been secure ; 
 friends would have smiled upon them ; priests 
 and governors would have loaded them with 
 honors. Instead of this they believed, and died. 
 And every drop of their blood, every pang suffered 
 in the flames and on the cross, attested that they 
 knew the teachings they had received were true. 
 The sacred writings they had believed were gen- 
 uine, were inspired, were divine. 
 
 Such, then, is the testimony which has come to 
 
78 our father's book. 
 
 us from the early churches in behalf of these New 
 Testament books. It is competent testimony, and 
 it is honest. From the very early period in which 
 it comes ; from the opportunities they had of know- 
 ing the facts ; from the infinite motives they were 
 under to inquire carefully and make a correct 
 judgment, a conclusion which we know they 
 made, in the clear consciousness that it would 
 take them to the martyr's stake ; from the absolute 
 unanimity of their testimony, there being not a 
 church in all Christendom in any age that ever 
 dissented from it, however much they may have 
 differed in everything else, — from all these facts 
 combined, the result comes to us with irresistible 
 force of conviction that these writings are what 
 they purport to be. They were from the pens of 
 men who were plenarily authorized to teach in 
 the name of Christ, and who spake and wrote as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Their 
 words are the word of God. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 
 
 We have thus sketched in outline the history 
 of the Bible, both as a whole and in its several 
 parts, beginning at our own day, and going back 
 through the several stages of translation, the for- 
 mation of the canon, and the original authorship. 
 It devolves on us now to show how this is a Divine 
 gift, brought to us through all this human history 
 by God, and constituting what we have called 
 « Our Father's Book." 
 
 The claim thus made for it involves what is 
 technicallv known as the doctrine of Inspiration. 
 As usually treated, it is one of no little difficulty, 
 giving rise to considerable differences of opinion, 
 both as to the fact itself and its nature. That 
 difficulty, as it seems to us, results largely from a 
 too-restricted view of the word " inspiration," as 
 implying always a direct divine influence upon 
 the minds of the writers, dictating the words they 
 should record, or the thoughts, or both. Such an 
 influence does not seem to be asserted, at least in 
 all cases, by the book itself, and it is doubtful if it 
 be susceptible of proof. Inasmuch, then, as our 
 
 79 
 
80 our father's book. 
 
 greatest difficulty lies precisely here, let us, before 
 we attempt the proof of the doctrine, endeavor to 
 get a clear idea of what the term means. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 Nature of Inspiration. 
 
 We can best give our view of this subject by 
 the help of the illustration before used. Suppose 
 an intelligent boy of fifteen should receive a birth- 
 day gift of books from his father. They are of 
 various kinds and from many authors, and they are 
 accompanied by a note expressive of his father's 
 affection, and saying that they are given in the 
 hope of affording him valuable instruction as to 
 his course in life. And suppose that a friend, 
 examining these books and learning of their con- 
 tents, should express grave doubts whether they 
 actually came from his father. 
 
 " Your father certainly did not write these." 
 
 " No, but they came to me from him just the 
 same." 
 
 " But they are not all books of instruction ; here 
 are history and poetry and letters and old records, 
 etc. You can 't call these your father's counsels 
 to you, can you?" 
 
 "Certainly, that is the form he chose to put 
 them in ; that is the way he wants to convey his 
 will. He gave them to me for that purpose. Here 
 is his own declaration to that effect." 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 81 
 
 u But there is a small book in the midst of the 
 set of which nobody knows the origin. There is 
 no name nor date to it ; you don't suppose that 
 came from your father, do you ? " 
 
 " Why not ? If I don't know who wrote it or 
 when, perhaps he does. At any rate, he judged 
 it suitable for his purpose, and so he selected and 
 put it into the collection. It came with the other 
 books, and is from him, just as much as they are." 
 
 " Well, but here is one which contains false and 
 pernicious things. It says the world was made in 
 six days, and your father knows it was not. He 
 understands the science of geology, and would 
 not give you to read the crude ideas and guesses 
 of former days about such things. There is an- 
 other that tells of dreadful wars and bloodshed ; 
 of fearful cruelties practiced upon conquered peo- 
 ples, and of the false and barbarous sentiments 
 which prevailed in those ignorant ages, even 
 among the best people of those times. Such a 
 book as that could not have come from your 
 father?" 
 
 " But it did. I do not know about there being 
 anything untrue in form, or false in sentiment 
 and practice ; but even if there is, can I not learn 
 from these as well as from the opposite ? I sup- 
 pose my father thought I had common sense, and 
 could distinguish between what was good and bad 
 in itself. I certainly am not silly enough to imag- 
 ine that, because such and such things are inserted 
 
82 our father's book. 
 
 iii these books, he approves of them, or would 
 want to have me do or be like them. My father 
 has given them to me for my instruction, and 
 they are infinitely better than they would be if 
 they were all sermons and moral essays and com- 
 mands, of which I should be heartily sick in a 
 single week." 
 
 It is needless to pursue this imaginary conversa- 
 tion further ; indeed, we owe an apology to our 
 readers for having supposed it necessary to intro- 
 duce it at all. And yet upon this simple point 
 has turned one of the chief difficulties in admit- 
 ting the inspiration of the Bible. If God did not 
 with his own fingers write it, or if he did not dic- 
 tate it word by word to those that did, how can it 
 have come from him ? And our answer is, it came 
 because what he did not write or dictate he selected 
 for the purpose. If a man may make up a library 
 in that way, so may God. And a library so made 
 up and so given becomes just as much his gift, 
 expressive of his will, and clothed with his author- 
 ity, as if it had been graven with his divine fingers 
 on the tablets of stone. 
 
 Consider how many things are involved in it. 
 
 1. It might include the composition of the 
 books, or a part of them, by personal writing or 
 through an amanuensis. This mode, of course, is 
 not excluded; we only insist that it is not the 
 only one, or indispensable. So there are parts of 
 the Bible which were God's own words, taken 
 
*** DO 
 
 ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 83 
 
 down from his lips or given by dictation through 
 prophets and apostles. 
 
 2. It would involve the selection and instruc- 
 tion of those who were to make up the library ; 
 persons of experience and discretion, to whom he 
 might communicate his wishes, and who would 
 know best what would subserve the end in view. 
 Such men were selected and employed in making 
 up the Bible ; prophets and learned scribes in the 
 ancient church, and holy fathers who had known 
 the apostles or their disciples in the new. These 
 men were imbued with the Spirit of God, and 
 were the representatives of the collective body of 
 God's people in whom the Spirit has dwelt from 
 age to age, and which is affirmed to be " the pillar 
 and ground of the truth." Even, therefore, though 
 we knew nothing of the original authors, yet any 
 body of writing which the whole church accepted 
 spontaneously to meet its spiritual wants and to 
 be the vehicle of its communion with God may 
 safely be regarded as more certainly given by him 
 than if it only bore the prestige of a single great 
 name, — as Ezra, or Isaiah, or David, or Samuel, 
 or Moses. It would, indeed, include the combined 
 inspiration of all, inasmuch as the inspiration of 
 the whole church must be greater than that of a 
 part of it. 
 
 3. It would involve the transmission of the li- 
 brary to the son, and, to accomplish this, its careful 
 protection against being lost, or stolen, or damaged 
 
oa ^* 
 
 84 OUR FATHERS BOOK. 
 
 in any way. Wonderful has been the evidence of 
 God's ownership of the Bible. No other book of 
 the age of Moses, or David, or Isaiah, unless in 
 the cerements of some forgotten mummy, has ever 
 come down to our day. Of none of the age of 
 the New Testament has one been preserved in 
 such integrity. It has ever had innumerable 
 enemies, the malice of persecutors, the casualties 
 of war and fire, the unwearied assaults of unbe- 
 lievers in numberless forms, nevertheless the book 
 has survived through all. Nay, it is as young and 
 fresh as if it came yesterday from the press, and is 
 diffusing itself with a rapidity surpassing that of 
 any other period, making its existence, its ubi- 
 quity, and moral power over men and nations, the 
 most wonderful phenomenon of the age. 
 
 Now, all these things go together to make up 
 that grand result, — the gift of God's word to 
 men. We include them all in that much misap- 
 prehended word, "inspiration." It comprehends 
 whatever Our Father has done to provide for us 
 this precious and venerated volume. It has oper- 
 ated through a long series of years, and in a vari- 
 ety of ways. It caused some to write, some to 
 compile, some to copy, some to adopt unchanged. 
 The result is this Book. The waters of a hundred 
 fountains have been gathered to supply its ample 
 stream. Those fountains may be remote, obscure, 
 unknown to men. Whether they were natural or 
 artificial, living springs evoked from the recesses 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 85 
 
 of the hills by the Creator's own hand, or rising 
 from deep wells dug by patriarch or prophet, they 
 alike flow along channels prepared for them by a 
 Divine hand, till they meet and mingle in this 
 " river of the water of life." 
 
 Bearing in mind, then, these distinctions, and 
 definitions of the term " inspiration," we claim for 
 this Book the following things : — 
 
 1. The Bible is an inspired Booh. It is the 
 work of the Spirit of God acting through the ages 
 to this result, the production of works which, each 
 in its day, served for the divine guidance of those 
 to whom they were sent, and at length, when col- 
 lected and completed in one volume, were given 
 to the world to be to them through all time " the 
 oracles of God." 
 
 2. The Bible is ivholly inspired. No matter as 
 to the remote origin or composition of some por- 
 tions of it, the Divine Spirit by adoption, if not by 
 dictation, made them his own, and placed them in 
 this book for mankind. The proof that he did so 
 we will consider at another time ; we now simply 
 assume it. And this divine action — which we 
 call Inspiration — extended to all and every part 
 of it. If a father's Christmas present included 
 sixty-seven volumes, they were all selected and 
 put there by him alike, the first, the fifth, the 
 twentieth ; the large ones and the small ones ; the 
 history as well as the prophecy ; the songs as well 
 as the essays; the anonymous as well as those 
 
86 our father's book. 
 
 whose authors appended their names. To attempt 
 to single out a portion as the father's gift and 
 exclude the rest is a simple impertinence, insulting 
 to him as implying that he did not know what was 
 best for the purpose in view. 
 
 3. The Bible is verbally inspired. That is, the 
 words were given to men just as truly as the 
 thoughts. Indeed, it is the words which make up 
 the Book, and you could not have the Book with- 
 out the words. In selecting a volume to put into 
 the library, the father selects the words which are 
 in the volume. If it is in rhyme, he selects the 
 rhymes ; if an acrostic, like several of the Psalms, 
 he selects the acrostic ; if a quotation in another 
 language, as in Mark 5 : 41, or 1 Cor. 16 : 22, he 
 selects the quotation ; if in the singular number, 
 as in Gal. 3 : 16, he adopts that number. So in 
 all cases. Whatever the Book is, that is his gift 
 to us. Of course, we have reference to the origi- 
 nals, not our English translation; and the originals 
 in their purity, not to any errors which have crept 
 in by transcribing or accident of any sort. 
 
 4. Once more, the Bible, as an inspired book, is 
 complete. That is, in legal phrase, as a written 
 revelation, it contains " the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth." There is no reason to 
 suppose that any thing which was ever intended 
 to be a part of it has been lost out, nor that any 
 thing now in it was not intended to be there. The 
 volume of a father's letters contains all that he 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 87 
 
 wrote for it, and contains nothing else. The birth- 
 day gift is complete, just as the loving Giver de- 
 signed it. 
 
 Section II. 
 
 Proofs of Inspiration, 
 
 The way is now prepared for us to consider the 
 evidence of the fact of inspiration, which has here- 
 tofore been assumed while we exhibited its char- 
 acteristics and history. 
 
 The subject in its entire range is very wide ; its 
 details innumerable. A few considerations from 
 the form and method of the book and its uninter- 
 rupted transmission to us through so many ages 
 have been already presented. Very much more 
 might be shown of the exalted character of the 
 system of truth which it contains, the wisdom and 
 beneficence of its laws, the purity of its morals, 
 and the grace displayed in the plan of salvation 
 it reveals for mankind. We cannot enter into 
 these matters here, but must confine ourselves 
 to a single topic which by all Christians is wont 
 to be considered the most direct and conclusive 
 so far as relates to the Old Testament, viz., the 
 testimony of Christ and the apostles. It is not, of 
 course, the evidence that is to be urged against 
 atheists and infidels, who reject the authority of 
 Christ himself, but it will be admitted as sufficient 
 by all who pretend to be Christians. 
 
 We have before shown that the volume of what 
 
88 our father's book. 
 
 we call the Old Testament Scriptures, both in the 
 original Hebrew and in the venerable Greek ver- 
 sion of the Septuagint, was in common use among 
 the Jews in the time of our Saviour. Everybody 
 knows that it was regarded by them as the word 
 of God. Josephus says, " We have twenty-two 
 books which are justly credited as divine." Philo 
 calls them the " sacred Books," the " most holy 
 Writing," the " Oracle of God." The New Tes- 
 tament everywhere shows us in what estimation it 
 was held by all classes. The Talmud s and Rab- 
 binical writings are simply commentaries and 
 explanations designed to show its meaning and 
 authority. Even the superstitions that were in- 
 dulged in respecting it only the more strikingly 
 demonstrate their veneration for what was to them 
 God's word, which might not be added to or 
 diminished by so much as a single letter. Thus 
 the Talmuds say that when God changed the 
 name of Abraham's wife from Sarai to Sarah, he 
 took care to save the letter * (Heb. yod*), from 
 being lost because it had been written in, and 
 was, therefore, a part of the law. He prefixed it 
 to the name of Hoshea, the aid and successor of 
 Moses, making it Iehoshuah (Joshua). It had 
 been at the end of a woman's name, but was now 
 honored in being put in front of the man's. 
 
 It was amid such views of the sacred volume, 
 and into such beliefs of its origin and authority, 
 that our Lord Jesus Christ was educated. Of 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 89 
 
 course, he rejected the superstitions and false 
 interpretations that prevailed, but that he accepted 
 its divine character is evident from all his words 
 and conduct. Says Canon Geikie, " Mary and 
 Joseph, we can scarcely doubt, were themselves 
 the earliest teachers of Jesus. At their knees he 
 must first have learned to read the Scriptures. 
 Pious Jewish parents took especial care to have a 
 manuscript of the Law in the old Hebrew charac- 
 ters, as their especial domestic treasure. Even so 
 early as the Asmonean kings, B. C. 163, such rolls 
 were so common in private houses that the fury 
 of the Syrian king, who wished to introduce the 
 Greek customs in religion, was especial ly directed 
 against them. In Joseph's day the supreme in- 
 fluence of the Rabbis and Pharisees must have 
 deepened into a passion the desire to possess such 
 a symbol of loyalty to the faith of Israel. Richer 
 families would have a complete copy of the Old 
 Testament on parchment, or on Egyptian papyrus. 
 Humble homes would boast a copy of the Law or 
 a Psalter, and all alike gloried in the verses on 
 their door-posts and in their phylacteries. Chil- 
 dren had small rolls containing the S'chema, or 
 the Hallel, or the history of creation to the flood, 
 or the first eight chapters of Leviticus. 
 
 " His deep knowledge of the Scriptures shows 
 itself throughout the Gospels. He has a quotation 
 ready to meet every hostile question. It was so 
 profound that it forced even his enemies to recog- 
 
90 our father's book. 
 
 nize him as a Rabbi. His frequent retort on the 
 Rabbis themselves, — ' Have ye not read? ' — and 
 the deep insight into the spirit of Scripture which 
 opposes to rubrics and forms the quickening power 
 of a higher life, prove how intensely he must have 
 studied the sacred books, and that the zeal that 
 drew him in his boyhood to the temple school at 
 Jerusalem to hear them explained was the sacred 
 passion of his life. In the Gospels we find two 
 quotations from Genesis, two from Exodus, one 
 from Numbers, two from Deuteronomy, seven from 
 the Psalms, five from Isaiah, one from Hosea, one 
 from Jonah, two from Malachi, two from Daniel, 
 one from Micah, and one from Zechariah, respec- 
 tively. The whole of the Old Testament was as 
 familiar to him as the ' Magnificat ' shows it to 
 have been to his mother Mary. It was from the 
 clear fountain of the ancient oracles his childhood 
 drank in the wisdom that cometh from above. 
 They had been his only school-book, and they 
 were the unwearying joy of his own life. From 
 them he taught the higher spiritual worship which 
 contrasted so strongly with the worship of the 
 letter. It was to them he appealed when he 
 rejected what was worthless and trifling in the re- 
 ligious teaching of his day." 1 
 
 To require a distinct formal declaration from 
 one who habitually employed it thus, that the 
 Old Testament is inspired, would be absurd. As 
 1 Vol. I. chap. xvi. pp. 238, 239. 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 91 
 
 well demand a formal declaration in all our courts 
 that the Constitution is the supreme law. It was 
 the one thing that was assumed as a matter of 
 course ; the thing that nobody disputed ; the first 
 principle of all authority and all belief. And yet 
 many utterances of his may be cited which are 
 equivalent. We will give a few specimens. 
 
 1. He declared that his mission was not to 
 abrogate or weaken its authority. " Think not 
 that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I 
 came not to destroy but to fulfill." Matt. 5 : IT. 
 "The Law and the Prophets" was a common desig- 
 nation of the Scriptures, as sometimes the Law 
 was alone, and sometimes the fuller title " The 
 Law, the Prophets and the Psalms." Of course, 
 his hearers would understand him as referring to 
 that collection of writings which had then been 
 embraced in the sacred canon, and which we have 
 in a single volume. It was important to him in the 
 outset of his ministry thus to declare that he did 
 not propose to teach a new religion, but the old 
 one in a purer and higher form ; to develop out 
 of that sacred source of all wisdom its inner spirit 
 and life, and so to fulfill, i. e., to fill out and com- 
 plete, what had hitherto been apprehended in the 
 letter. Then he adds, in a formula of the most 
 emphatic confirmation, " For verily I say unto 
 you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or 
 one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law 
 till all things be accomplished." It is not possible 
 
92 our father's book. 
 
 to conceive of any higher sanction being given to 
 a book than this. 
 
 2. He severely reproved the Jews, notwith- 
 standing their professed reverence for the divine 
 commands, for making it void through their tradi- 
 tions. " Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, 
 hypocrites. Ye leave the commandment of God 
 and hold fast the tradition of men. For Moses 
 said, Honor thy father and mother, and he that 
 speaketh evil of father or mother let him die the 
 death, thus making void the word of God through 
 your tradition." Mark 7: 6-13. Observe, here, how 
 Jesus throws the sanctity of God's word over the 
 Pentateuch, the very five books of Moses as we 
 have them, without any hint of a question as to 
 the authorship of those books. So we may say, 
 whatever the criticism of our day may conclude as 
 to that question, if the Pentateuch was the word 
 of God to Christ, it is his word doubly confirmed 
 to us. 
 
 3. He commanded the Jews to search the 
 Scriptures for proof of the validity of his claims, 
 and declared that they were his Father's testi- 
 mony, and their teachings throughout centered 
 upon him. " The Father which sent me, he hath 
 borne witness of me. Search the Scriptures — 
 these are they which bear witness of me. I receive 
 not glory from men." John 5: 37-41. " All things 
 must needs be fulfilled which are written in the 
 Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 93 
 
 concerning me. Then opened he their minds that 
 they might understand the Scriptures. And he 
 said unto them, Thus it is written — that the 
 Christ should sutler," etc. Luke 24 : 44. All this 
 is without meaning but upon the fundamental 
 assumption that those Scriptures were divine ; that 
 they revealed the mind of God, and were to be 
 received as decisive of any fact to which they 
 might testify. 
 
 4. So, in defending himself against the accusa- 
 tions of his enemies, Christ habitually referred to 
 the Scriptures as authoritative and final. In 
 calling God his Father, they said he blasphemed, 
 making out that he was a son of God. " Well," he 
 replied, " your law calls civil magistrates gods. 
 Have I said anything worse than that? Now that 
 was the word of God, — and the Scripture cannot 
 be broken," — i. e., treated as void, or using 
 terms improperly. The particular portion of 
 Scripture alluded to in this case w T as Ps. 82:6. 
 How clearly does he thus attribute to the entire 
 volume the title of "the Law," and make it the 
 divine word, and the standard of all right and 
 propriety. 
 
 But, as we have remarked, it is needless to cite 
 specific formal declarations of our Lord on the 
 point before us. His entire course of teaching 
 was an unfolding and amplification of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures as the divine charter of his 
 mission, the foundation of the new kingdom of 
 
94 our father's book. 
 
 heaven, which was to be built on the everlasting 
 covenant of God, as given to Abraham and Moses 
 and the prophets. 
 
 And let it be noted, too, that this recognition 
 of its authority extended over the entire volume. 
 Never does he single out one part of it at the 
 expense of another part. Never does he distin- 
 guish between known and unknown authors. 
 Never does he speak of those who were more and 
 those who were less inspired. Never does he 
 concede divine guidance to those that recorded 
 revelations beyond that granted to those that 
 wrote history, or compiled genealogy, or edited 
 fragments of antediluvian tradition and song, or 
 told unscientifically the story of creation and the 
 fall of man, or tuned the sweet pastoral " Song of 
 songs, which is Solomon's." If he did not quote 
 from every one of them for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness, it 
 was not because he did not recognize their place 
 in the sacred canon, but simply because they did 
 not contain what was relevant to the matter in 
 hand. He made no difference between the primary 
 and secondary writer; between the Elohist and 
 Jehovist ; the author and the redactor ; the Psalms 
 which celebrate the names and titles of Jehovah, 
 and the book of the beautiful Jewish queen, in 
 which the divine name does not once occur. To 
 him the entire volume was a unit, and it was the 
 Word of God. The temple itself was made up 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 95 
 
 of parts. It had its courts, outer and inner ; its 
 gates, some more and some less beautiful ; its apart- 
 ments of ever-varying use and dignity, from the 
 closets which stored wood and ashes and salt, up 
 to the awful, unapproachable Holy of Holies ; but 
 it was one sacred, august edifice throughout. It 
 was the house of God. So the volume of the 
 Scriptures, amid all its diversity in age, style, 
 contents, authorship, diction, is one book, God's 
 gift to man, that he may be made wise unto salva- 
 tion. This book was our Saviour's Bible, doubly 
 sanctioned to us in his acceptance and love, and 
 doubly confirmed to us by his own divine author- 
 ity as the Word of God. 
 
 Not less positive and abundant were the similar 
 testimonies of the apostles, whom our Lord ap- 
 pointed to be the official instructors of his church, 
 and to whom he gave those supernatural gifts 
 which clothed their words with his own supreme 
 authority. 
 
 These apostles were Jews, and as such shared 
 in those opinions respecting the Scriptures which 
 were common to all their countrymen. Nor is 
 there any evidence that, in accepting the Christian 
 faith, their views in this respect were altered in 
 any degree, except to become stronger and more 
 reverent. In very many matters of their Jewish 
 training their opinions underwent great change. 
 The whole system of Mosaic institutions they be- 
 lieved to be superseded by the gospel. Rites and 
 
96 our father's book. 
 
 forms which they had been taught to consider as 
 of the highest sanctity had become obsolete. The 
 way of salvation and the divine requirements 
 of men were, as they thought, new. But the 
 Scriptures were still the Word of G-od. No jot of 
 sanctity or authority had vanished from them. 
 No less deference was to be paid to their lightest 
 utterance. Nay, when St. Paul, after showing that 
 Jews as well as Gentiles were alike sinners before 
 God notwithstanding all their distinguishing his- 
 tory and spiritual privileges, and needed the same 
 salvation as they, put into the mouth of an objec- 
 tor the astonished inquiry, " What advantage then 
 hath the Jew, and what is the profit of circum- 
 cision ? " he answered unhesitatingly and trium- 
 phantly, " Much every way ; first of all that they 
 were entrusted with the oracles of God ! " This was 
 the highest of all distinctions, because these were 
 the most holy and precious of all gifts. 
 
 The testimony of the apostles to the point be- 
 fore us is so abundant and varied that we can only 
 give specimens. 
 
 1. They declare that these writings are holy. 
 Rom. 1:2. " The gospel which God promised 
 afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures." 
 2 Tim. 3: 15. "From a child thou hast known 
 the holy Scriptures." Observe that this term is 
 applied to the sacred volume collectively, contain- 
 ing the very same books which we have, with all 
 their diversity of authorship, subjects, style, and 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 97 
 
 character. In this respect they all stand on the 
 same footing ; they are all " the holy writings." 
 
 2. They affirm that these Scriptures are inspired 
 of God. 2 Tim. 3 : 16. " Every Scripture inspired 
 of God is profitable," etc. Here the assertion is 
 made of them not only collectively but singly. 
 They are taken one by one, and " every one " de- 
 clared to proceed from the divine inbreathing. 
 2 Pet. 1 : 21. " Men spake from God, being moved 
 by the Holy Spirit." Heb. 1:1. " God, having of 
 old time spoken unto the fathers in the Prophets." 
 Heb. 3:7. " The Holy Spirit saith." Rom. 16 : 26. 
 " By the Scriptures of the prophets according to 
 the commandment of the eternal God." Acts 1 : 16. 
 " The Scriptures which the Holy Spirit spake be- 
 fore by the mouth of David." 
 
 3. They represent the utterances of the Scrip- 
 tures as clothed with plenary authority. Whatever 
 they say is decisive. Instances without number 
 may be cited. Acts 17 : 2. " For three Sabbath 
 days Paul reasoned with them from the Scrip- 
 tures." Acts 17:10. "They searched the Scrip- 
 tures daily whether these things were so." Rom. 
 4:3. " What saith the Scriptures ? " 1 Cor. 15 : 3. 
 "Christ died for our sins according to the 
 Scriptures," etc. Everywhere in the Epistles, the 
 Scriptures are made the umpire to decide doubt- 
 ful points and confirm the statements that are 
 put forth. 
 
 4. They attach a divine authority to the very 
 
98 our father's book. 
 
 words, and even the grammatical forms of words, 
 in the sacred writings. In Rom. 4 : 3, the doctrine 
 of justification is built upon the word " counted " 
 (R. V. " reckoned "). In Rom. 6 : 2, the duty of 
 Christian holiness on the word " died." In Rom. 
 12 : 27, the steadfastness of the gospel on the 
 single Greek word translated " once more." In 
 Gal. 3 : 16, the unity of the church of God on the 
 singular number of the word " seed," not " seeds." 
 Can we doubt what was the habitual way of re- 
 garding this volume by those to whom its very 
 words and grammatical forms were thus sufficient 
 to determine the gravest truths of doctrine ? 
 
 5. They assign it as a special mark of high 
 qualifications as a teacher that one is " mighty in 
 the Scriptures." Acts 18 : 24. And this, which 
 was asserted of Apollos, is one of the reasons why 
 the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is 
 now by many ascribed to him. That Epistle 
 shows a familiarity with all the details of the 
 Mosaic institutions, and a skill in developing their 
 spiritual import, which well entitle its writer to 
 such a designation. 
 
 6. They constantly represent the gospel itself 
 as but the outcome of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 Christ himself was the object to which all prophecy 
 converged. Acts 17 : 2. " Paul, as his custom was, 
 for three Sabbath days reasoned from the Scrip- 
 tures, opening and alleging that it behoved the 
 Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead." 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 99 
 
 John 5 : 39. " These are they which bear witness 
 of me." 1 Cor. 15 : 3, 4. " Christ died for our sins 
 according to the Scriptures." He " was buried 
 and rose again according to the Scriptures." The 
 Epistle to the Hebrews devotes itself in particular 
 to the one purpose of showing that all the Chris- 
 tian doctrines are but the development and fruit- 
 age of the earlier system revealed in the rites and 
 record of the Old Testament. Rom. 1:2. " The 
 gospel was promised afore by the prophets in the 
 holy Scriptures." The evangelists, in recording 
 the works and sayings of Christ, habitually add, 
 that in them was " fulfilled what was spoken of 
 the Lord by the prophets." Thus the ancient 
 writings are everywhere made the fountain from 
 which the entire new dispensation proceeds, its 
 divine Head, its institutions, its teachings. Even 
 the church itself is built " upon the foundation of 
 the aj)ostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself 
 being the chief corner-stone." Eph. 3 : 20. 
 
 7. They represent the Scriptures to be a safe 
 and sure ground on which to build our faith and 
 hope. 2 Pet. 1 : 19. " We have the more sure 
 word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take 
 heed." 2 Tim. 3 : 16. " Every Scripture is profit- 
 able for doctrine, for instruction in righteousness, 
 that the man of God may be complete, furnished 
 completely unto every good work." " The holy 
 Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto 
 salvation." 
 
100 our father's book. 
 
 8. They declare that to pervert the Scriptures 
 is to endanger the soul. 2 Peter 3 : 16. " The 
 ignorant and unsteadfast wrest Paul's Epistles, 
 as they do the other Scriptures, unto their own 
 destruction." 
 
 But these explicit testimonies of the apostles in 
 so many ways, striking as they are, come far short 
 of exhibiting the whole truth. No one can read 
 their writings carefully without perceiving that 
 they were perfectly imbued in thought and feel- 
 ing with the letter and spirit of the Scriptures in 
 which they had been taught ; and if we may so say, 
 were in their spiritual natures as much the product 
 of those Scriptures as the vegetation is the product 
 of the sunlight in which it has its life. Professor 
 Stuart, on the Canon, gives over six hundred in- 
 stances of quotations from the Old Testament by 
 the writers of the New. He says : " No one who 
 has an intimate acquaintance with both Testa- 
 ments in their original languages can possibly fail 
 to recognize the numberless transfers of the spirit 
 and modes of expression from the Old to the New. 
 It is a thing to be felt, and not to be adequately 
 described. It occurs so often everywhere, and in 
 respect to everything, that one would not know 
 where to begin or where to end such a description. 
 No one must imagine that the list of quotations or 
 cases of allusion above cited conveys to him any 
 really adequate view of the subject. The truth is 
 that it is no more than the mere beginning of 
 
ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY. 101 
 
 such a view. But it presents to every reader, 
 whether learned or unlearned, what is palpable 
 and undeniable, and what must serve to convince 
 a candid mind that the New Testament writers 
 everywhere lean upon, or stand closely connected 
 with, the writers of the Old Testament." 
 
 The evidence now advanced, in this section and 
 the last, must, we are sure, be sufficient for every 
 one who accepts the declarations of our Lord himself 
 and his apostles that the Old Testament Scriptures 
 are the Word of God. Their origin and authority 
 were derived from him. Whatever difficulties 
 we may find in the external history, and in the 
 form, structure, and diction of these ancient books, 
 are covered by these clear testimonies of those who 
 are our recognized supreme teachers in divine 
 things. Our argument is not with the atheist or 
 infidel, who reject Christ himself, and deny that 
 there is or can be any revelation, or any God to 
 give one. We write for Christians, who believe in 
 God our Father, and who desire to see his name 
 and word in " Our Father's Book." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 
 
 The testimony of Christ and his apostles to the 
 divine authority of the Bible, while conceded to 
 be sufficient to establish the fact, leaves still 
 something wanting to its full effect. We accept, 
 of course, a truth of which Ave are assured on 
 competent authority, while at the same time it 
 adds to the strength of our convictions if we can 
 also see the truth. By what rule, then, can we 
 discern what is divine in the Bible ? How, in a 
 book that is confessedly written by man, and is so 
 varied in its contents, can we discover the word 
 of God? The inquiry is needful, not only to 
 complete our study of its inspiration, but also to 
 enable us to ascertain the divine thought and will 
 for our own spiritual instruction. 
 
 Some years ago we presented to a lad of four- 
 teen, as a birthday gift, one of A. L. O. E.'s 
 excellent books for boys, entitled, " The Giant- 
 Killer." As we remember it, it was an allegorical 
 narrative illustrating the mode in which the 
 faults that beset that period of life may be over- 
 come under the guise of a warfare against the 
 102 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 103 
 
 " giants." The purpose of the gift, of course, was 
 to be an incentive to a pure and manly character. 
 Suppose, now, it had been asked of him, what did 
 your pastor intend to teach you by this book ? 
 The words were the author's, but he has chosen 
 them to convey to you his instruction. What, 
 then, is that instruction ? The answer, evidently, 
 must be, " It is that of the book itself. Whatso- 
 ever the book, fairly interpreted, says, that he 
 says." 
 
 It is thus that we answer the question, how we 
 shall discern God's Word in this Book, written by 
 man, so various in its contents, and of so wide a 
 range in form, date, authorship, etc. Every book 
 composed for a purpose has a meaning. Personi- 
 fied, we may say it intends to teach us something. 
 Apart from and beyond what is said by the 
 individuals mentioned in it, or what is cited from 
 another, it has an utterance of its own, which by 
 careful consideration can be distinguished from all 
 others, and which constitutes the proper meaning 
 of the book. And that meaning, in the case of 
 the Bible, is God's meaning. What the book, in 
 its own personality, says, He says. 
 
 We shall be obliged to illustrate this proposition 
 at some length. 
 
 1. The first and simplest case is that where it 
 reports GrooVs own words spoken directly to men, 
 as were the Ten Commandments, Ex. 20 : 1 ; Deut. 
 4: 33. Of course, there can be no difficulty here. 
 
104 our father's book. 
 
 But in order to determine what is the divine 
 message to us, it is necessary to distinguish words 
 which in their nature and circumstances were 
 addressed to a single people only, as the Jews or 
 some ancient nation, and what were designed for 
 mankind at large. Thus even the Decalogue was 
 spoken to the Jews. It is prefaced by the decla- 
 ration, "I am the Lord thy God, which have 
 brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the 
 house of bondage." It commands, "Honor thy 
 father and thy mother, that thy days may be long 
 in the land (Palestine) which the Lord tlxy God 
 giveth thee." And yet, such is the nature of these 
 requirements that their substantial meaning has 
 ever been regarded as intended for all men. They 
 were the Word of God directly to the Jews ; they 
 are his Word indirectly to us. 
 
 2. The same remarks apply to the words of Christ 
 in the New Testament. He is himself the Divine 
 Logos, or Word, and his teachings are the very 
 highest form of divine instruction to men. We 
 are to distinguish here, as before, between what he 
 intended specially for the Jews and what he 
 designed for the world. . His command to Peter to 
 go and catch a fish and pay the temple tax with it 
 was specific, and in form obligatory on Peter 
 alone, but its moral import that the payment of 
 lawful taxes is a duty is general, and as such is 
 binding on all men. 
 
 3. We may next instance the teachings of the 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 105 
 
 apostles. The Book represents these to have been 
 specially appointed by Christ to communicate his 
 will; to establish institutions, and to instruct the 
 churches in the principles and duties of Christian- 
 ity. They were furnished with credentials to 
 authenticate their instructions, in the miraculous 
 and prophetic powers with which they were 
 endowed. Such, at least, is the claim which the 
 Book makes for them, and which for the present 
 we take for granted. What they say, then, offi- 
 cially, in the discharge of this duty, is clothed with 
 the authority of their appointment, and is properly 
 the word of God. " He that receive th you," said 
 Christ, "receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, 
 receiveth Him that sent me." The same distinc- 
 tion, again, is to be made here as before, between 
 what was local and personal in form, and what is 
 universal. Paul's direction to the Corinthians to 
 take a collection for the poor disciples in Judsea on 
 the first day of the week, was of the former class ; 
 but the duty of Christians to assist their poor 
 brethren generally in a regular and systematic 
 manner is of the latter. His declaration that he 
 would eat no meat while the world stands, if it 
 should be the occasion of a brother's fall, expressed 
 his personal duty while living among idolaters; 
 but the spirit of it expresses our duty in respect 
 to drinking wine, in these days when thousands 
 around us are ruined by habits of intoxication. 
 The same word which said to him, " Eat not," says 
 
106 our father's book. 
 
 to us, " Drink not," and it is the same Divine 
 Word in both cases. 
 
 4. There is still one more example, that of the 
 prophets. These were a class of men who claim to 
 have been expressly appointed and accredited to 
 speak in God's name under the former dispensation, 
 as the apostles were under the latter. In the 
 earliest times they were chosen by a direct call 
 from God, and were taken from various ranks and 
 conditions of men as pleased him. In later times, 
 under the ministry of Samuel and his successors, 
 a class of young men were specially educated with 
 a view to this sacred office. They were the 
 teachers of the Hebrew people, sometimes receiving 
 new and original communications from heaven, 
 and sometimes only expounding and applying 
 those already given, like the preachers of our own 
 day. These duly authenticated messages of the 
 prophets, therefore, were to the people of their 
 time the word of God. To a larger extent than 
 those of the apostles they were local and specific, 
 as in their denunciations of idolatiy, and of 
 violations of the laws of their land and their 
 religion; yet under all these there was ever the 
 assertion of great moral principles and truths 
 which are immortal. They were in the letter the 
 word of God to their contemporaries ; they are in 
 spirit the word of God to us and to all men. 
 
 Thus far the answer to our inquiry is easy. 
 Whenever the sacred volume brings to us God's 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 107 
 
 own words, or the words of Christ who came to 
 reveal God to mankind, or the writings of apostles 
 and prophets who spoke and wrote in his name by 
 virtue of the special commission they had received 
 for that purpose, there we have the divine utter- 
 ances. In the supposed volume or library pre- 
 sented by a father to his family, whatever portion 
 was written by himself or at his dictation by 
 persons in his employment, is manifestly his. But 
 suppose a portion which was neither. It does not 
 bear his name, it was not of his composition, its 
 authorship is unknown. And yet it is a part of 
 the collection. It was chosen and placed there by 
 him for the purpose of carrying out his design, and 
 equally with the rest bears the stamp of his 
 authority. How can the family discern Mb 
 thought and Jus will in this? 
 
 We answer, the father intended ivhatever this 
 book or anonymous portion properly means. Let 
 us endeavor to explain and verify this assertion. 
 
 We take, as an easy illustration, the genealogy 
 of our Lord as given in the first chapter of 
 Matthew. It is true that the Gospel of Matthew, 
 as written by an apostle, comes under the first 
 class of writings mentioned. But as probably 
 this genealogy was not originally composed by 
 Matthew, but was copied from the public registry 
 of the Jewish families kept by the priests in the 
 temple, it may well enough serve our purpose as a 
 specimen. Who composed it we do not know, but 
 
108 our father's book. 
 
 it was placed here to express the Divine Word to 
 men. And we say that Divine Word is what the 
 record means. It means evidently to inform us 
 that Jesus was in family descent of the line of 
 David. The prophets had all predicted this of the 
 coming Messiah. Matthew, a Jew, writing accord- 
 ing to tradition for Christians of Jewish lineage 
 and training, feels it necessary, in order to es- 
 tablish the Messiahship of Jesus, to show from the 
 public authorities, which nobody could question, 
 that this first of all credentials belonged to him. 
 He goes, we may presume, to the registry office, as 
 a man would now go to the land registry to prove 
 his title to a piece of land, and copies it off for the 
 introduction of his narrative. And this record, 
 so adopted, and by adoption approved, becomes 
 of the same authority as if proceeding from his 
 own inspired pen, and for this purpose is the 
 Word of God. It is as if the Holy Spirit had 
 dictated explicitly, " Jesus was a descendant from 
 David." 
 
 And this holds true, notwithstanding any verbal 
 errors which may be discovered in the record 
 itself. For instance, Matthew goes on immediately 
 to show that Jesus, in absolute strictness, was not 
 descended from David. Perhaps Mary was, and 
 Jesus through her, but that is not what this record 
 says. Taking all things together, then, we correct 
 our first reading. It does not mean that Jesus 
 was a descendant of David by natural generation, 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 109 
 
 but in the well-known Jewish legal sense. He 
 was legally the son of Joseph, who was in the line 
 of legal descent from David. This is what the 
 record, properly understood, means, and this, then, 
 is what the Holy Spirit says. 
 
 So with other criticisms that may be made of 
 this record. Comparing it with the history in the 
 Old Testament, we discover that three generations 
 are left out between Joram and Ozias, viz., Aha- 
 ziah, Joash, and Amaziah. (2 Kings 8 : 25 ; 14 : 21 ; 
 15 : 32. Ozias is the Hebrew Uzziah or Azariah.) 
 Why this omission was made, either on the record 
 or by Matthew in the copy, we do not know. 
 So, too, probably, the name Jehoiakim has been 
 dropped out between Josias and Jechonias (1 
 Chron. 3: 15, 16), and Pedaiah between Salathiel 
 and Zorobabel (1 Chron. 3 : 19). And further, 
 the word " begat " evidently cannot be used in its 
 natural sense. Jechoniah (or Coniah), according 
 to Jer. 22 : 30, had no children, and in Luke 3 : 27, 
 Salathiel is said to have been the son of Neri. 
 The word, then, must be used in what we have 
 called the legal sense. If a man died without 
 children, his next kinsman became his heir and 
 was legally reckoned his son (Numb. 27: 8, 11). 
 In the public documents the language would be 
 made to conform to this rule. All these criticisms 
 of the words, however, do not alter the meaning 
 intended to be conveyed by them. That meaning 
 still is, Jesus, according to the law and the pro- 
 
110 our father's book. 
 
 phets, was a descendant of David. That, there- 
 fore, is the Word of God, and is inspired. 
 
 We must not, however, make the mistake of 
 inferring that the words themselves, unless in- 
 volving errors in copying and transmission, are 
 not also inspired. They are just the words which 
 the Holy Spirit chose when he sent Matthew to 
 copy them. Standing on the register itself, their 
 value as an authority would be such that they had 
 better be copied as they were than try to amend 
 them, which might expose the evangelist among 
 the captious Jews to the charge of tampering with 
 the records for a purpose. For the record as it 
 stood would mislead no one. It teaches just as 
 well and as truly the fact intended, — viz, " Jesus 
 was the son of David," — as if it had no omissions, 
 and were as verbally accurate as a formula in al- 
 gebra. If the purpose had been to show the 
 strictly natural lineage, in the succession of actual 
 parentage, the table, we have reason to believe, 
 would have been differently constructed. 
 
 In other words, — and we deem the remark so 
 important as to deserve a separate paragraph, — 
 the Holy Spirit, in superintending the authorship 
 of the sacred volume, was as free in the use of 
 words, and in the form and structure of sentences 
 and narratives, as any human author might be. 
 The one thing to be done was to see that what 
 was meant by his utterances, looking behind all 
 verbal peculiarities, should be the truth. Indeed, 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. Ill 
 
 there is often a sublime indifference displayed by 
 this Book as to nicer technicalities of language, a 
 freedom that is almost startling. It uses popular 
 speech, of the sun rising, the stars falling, the 
 moon being turned into blood. It says God did 
 tempt Abraham, and that he tempts no man. It 
 gives three different copies of the tablet put up 
 by Pilate's order over the head of Jesus on the 
 cross. It says if all that Jesus said and did should 
 be written, the world could not contain the books. 
 So there is eveiywhere a noble liberty as multi- 
 form and as vast as the operations of Nature, yet 
 never misleading to him who seeks to know the 
 truth. 
 
 We next take an example from the Old Testa- 
 ment, the Book of Ruth. In very early times it 
 appeared as an appendage to Judges ; but there 
 are indications in its language that its composi- 
 tion was of a comparatively late date. Who its 
 author was is wholly unknown. It is a story of 
 simple domestic life wrought with no small liter- 
 ary skill, yet apparently not one which would 
 require any special supernatural aid for its pro- 
 duction. This story has been given a place in 
 the sacred volume, and as such claims to be a part 
 of the Word of God. How do we discern that 
 word in it ? 
 
 We apply the rule already announced. God's 
 word in this book is that which the book teaches. 
 
 First, there is an important lesson of genealogy. 
 
112 our father's book. 
 
 It records the ancestry of David, the illustrious 
 sovereign and psalmist of Israel, and through him 
 of our Lord himself, and shows how the latter 
 came to be a citizen of Bethlehem, thus confirm- 
 ing and illustrating the narrative of his birth in 
 the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. There is 
 also, perhaps, a moral design, to abate the pride 
 and bigotry of the Jews as the exclusive people 
 of God by recording the fact that even David 
 was descended from a Moabite, and the Messiah 
 was a brother to Gentile as well as Hebrew. 
 These facts, considering the sentiments and pre- 
 judices of that people, and the relations which 
 Christ was to sustain to mankind, were of suffi- 
 cient importance to be embodied in a brief but 
 distinct narrative, as a constituent part of their 
 sacred oracles. 
 
 Next, there are moral lessons of great force and 
 beauty. These are so well sketched in the Pre- 
 face of the book in the Speaker's Commentary, 
 that we cannot do better than to quote them. 
 " The book gives us a charming view of the do- 
 mestic life of pious Israelites even during the most 
 troublous times. Had we only drawn our impres- 
 sions from the records of violence and crime con- 
 tained in the Book of Judges, we should have 
 been ready to conclude that all the gentler virtues 
 had fled from the land, while the children of Israel 
 were alternate^ struggling for their lives and 
 liberties with the tribes of Canaan, or yielding 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 113 
 
 themselves to the seductions of Canaanite idol- 
 atry. But the Book of Ruth, lifting up the cur- 
 tain which veiled the privacy of domestic life, 
 discloses to us most beautiful views of piety, 
 integrity, self-sacrificing affection, chastity, gen- 
 tleness, and charity, growing up amidst the rude 
 scenes of war, discord, and strife. In Boaz we 
 have a model, not of the prowess of a warrior or 
 the abilities of a statesman, but of the character 
 of a rich man in private life. We see one whose 
 deep faith in God breaks out in every word of his 
 lips and every action of his life ; one attentive to 
 his own business and diligent in the care of his 
 own property; kind and friendly to his depen- 
 dents, and beloved by them ; liberal, generous, 
 and courteous to the poor and friendless stranger, 
 observing and appreciating virtue in others, and 
 practicing it himself under trying circumstances ; 
 respecting the rights of others, even when they 
 interfered with his own wishes ; observant of the 
 laws of his country, though living in lawless 
 times ; mindful of his obligations to the living 
 and the dead, alive to the ties of kindred, of coun- 
 try, and of religion, and uniformly humble, quiet, 
 and prudent in his conduct. In Ruth we have a 
 touching example of devoted affection to her hus- 
 band's memory, of love and duty to an adopted 
 parent, and of industry, modesty, and patience, 
 grafted on to a resolute choice of the true God 
 and his blessed service in one who was by birth a 
 
114 our father's book. 
 
 heathen ; while in Naomi we have a more com- 
 monplace specimen of a good woman whose reli- 
 gion shows itself in fidelity to her earthly duties, 
 which she fulfills with quiet pertinacity, and female 
 tact and contrivance, but not without constant 
 dependence upon God both in prosperity and ad- 
 versity. 
 
 " The moral of the history is also very encourag- 
 ing to unselfish virtue. For while Orpah, whose 
 love was satisfied with tears and kisses to her hus- 
 band's mother, forfeited the place she had half 
 gained in Israel, and returned unto her people and 
 unto her gods ; and while the kinsman, who in his 
 selfish care of his own interests, withheld what 
 was due to the living and the dead, has had his 
 name blotted out from the record of God's worth- 
 ies, Ruth, on the contrary, who sacrificed every- 
 thing that could fascinate a young woman to the 
 claims of affection and duty, and Boaz, who un- 
 hesitatingly did the kinsman's part, have their 
 names crowned with blessings, and handed down 
 to the church wherever God's Word is known, as 
 worthy of all praise, and as the progenitors of that 
 illustrious line which gave kings to Israel through 
 near five hundred years, and from which was born 
 at last, in the city of David, the Saviour, which is 
 Christ the Lord." 
 
 These, then, are the things which this anony- 
 mous book teaches, and these, therefore, are the 
 Word of God. They are surely worthy of that 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 115 
 
 designation, and of a place in the Book which is 
 to instruct men in all ages. The Holy Spirit has 
 taken this delightful human story, and through it 
 has told us most divine things. Who is there of 
 the commonest sensibility of feeling and percep- 
 tion that cannot discern what they are ? 
 
 We proceed now to illustrate this principle gen- 
 erally in reference to the remaining anonymous 
 books. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL. 
 
 The larger portion of the Old Testament is 
 history, from Genesis to Esther inclusive. The 
 writers of it in no instance affixed their names 
 to their productions, and the real authors are as- 
 signed only by tradition, which, in most cases, is 
 also conjectural. 
 
 The instruction conveyed by history is com- 
 paratively obvious. It is, first, the knowledge of 
 the events related ; and, secondly, the lessons de- 
 rived from them on the great subjects of truth and 
 duty. Of the Old Testament history, the first ten 
 chapters are designed to teach us the origin of the 
 world, of the human family, of its subdivision into 
 nations, and the primary organization of society. 
 Leaving, then, these general topics, the narrative 
 takes up a single family and follows down its his- 
 tory from its cradle in Mesopotamia through its 
 migration, and its patriarchal and servile states, 
 until it emerges from Egypt and becomes in Pales- 
 
116 our father's book. 
 
 tine a populous nation, which, receiving from God 
 a peculiar and distinctive system of institutions, 
 and coming under a special providential training, 
 is made the medium through which, in the full- 
 ness of time, a Saviour and a universal religion 
 are given to the world. It is not too much to say 
 that a knowledge of this history is necessary to a 
 knowledge of Christianity, which is its ultimate 
 outgrowth. The later system has all its roots in 
 the earlier, — nay, is itself but the consummate 
 flower of that which had been growing and matur- 
 ing within it during a period of not less than two 
 thousand years. The instruction thus imparted is 
 God's word to men. 
 
 Besides this specific knowledge, the narrative 
 imparts those practical lessons of wisdom and duty 
 which are incidental to all history, and as much 
 more in this as God's design with the Hebrew 
 people was loftier and wider than with other na- 
 tions. The laws of the Mosaic code have been 
 the fountain and model of legislation for the 
 greatest nations of the world. Its spirit has been 
 operative to soften barbarism, to diffuse the prin- 
 ciples of liberty and personal rights, to elevate the 
 condition of women, to teach equity and virtue, 
 and the refining and uplifting influence of a civ- 
 ilization based upon a pure monotheistic religion. 
 So, from the lives of patriarchs and sages, the 
 heroic achievements of warriors, the counsels of 
 statesmen, the conquests, the alliances, and the 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 117 
 
 public works of kings, and the innumerable exam- 
 ples of wisdom and goodness and piety in private 
 life, have emanated through all the centuries those 
 lessons, — the most effective of all because embod- 
 ied in actual life, — which have tended to make 
 the world better and happier. In them mankind 
 have heard the voice of God speaking to the con- 
 science and heart. 
 
 Between the historical and prophetical portions 
 of the Old Testament is placed a series of books 
 having special characteristics, — Job, the Psalms, 
 the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solo- 
 mon. Some of these, especially the Psalms, are 
 esteemed by all Christians as among the most 
 precious portions of the sacred volume ; but if we 
 attempt formally to establish their inspiration, 
 and clearly to distinguish what in them is divine 
 from what is confessedly human, we shall find the 
 task by no means easy. We begin with 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 Who wrote this book, and when, is unknown. 
 The Jewish tradition which attributed it to Moses 
 is not accepted by modern scholars. Its subject 
 very much resembles that of some of the Psalms, 
 viz., a discussion of the question why, under the 
 government of a wise and beneficent God, good 
 men suffer affliction, and bad men are often pros- 
 perous. Job and his three friends, with Elihu as 
 a self-appointed umpire, deliver alternate speeches 
 
118 our father's book. 
 
 on the question, all of them saying true and ex- 
 cellent things, jet all in some respects wrong. At 
 length God himself interposes with a sublime re- 
 joinder to the whole, reproving their presumption 
 and self-confidence in attempting to settle by 
 reason the profound mysteries of Providence, 
 and teaching, as the true wisdom, humility and a 
 trustful submission to Him who is wonderful in 
 working, and his ways past rinding out. Of 
 course, the bare statement shows that none of 
 these contestants were inspired men, nor their 
 utterances to be taken as infallible truth. And 
 yet the discussion is in the highest degree in- 
 structive. It voices the anxious inquiries of good 
 men in all ages respecting this grand problem of 
 human experience, and, followed as it is by the 
 reproving words of God himself, is well adapted 
 to teach the lessons of patience, confidence in the 
 divine wisdom, and a reverent and humble spirit 
 in all the discipline of life. Those lessons consti- 
 tute the divine element of the book, and make it 
 worthy of a place in the sacred oracles. 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 Scholars reckon up five collections of these sa- 
 cred lyrics, of many different authors and of dif- 
 ferent dates, from David, or possibly Moses, if he 
 was the author of the 90th, to a period subsequent 
 to the return from Babylon. These collections 
 end respectively with the 41st, 72d, 89th, 106th, 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 119 
 
 and 150th. They are as varied in their contents 
 as in their authorship and dates. Dr. Robinson 
 suggests the following classes : 1. Hymns in 
 praise of Jehovah ; teliillim in the proper sense. 
 2. Temple hymns sung at the consecration of 
 the temple, in the public temple worship, and 
 the hymns of the " going up " or " Degrees," 
 sung by the travelers on their way to Jerusa- 
 lem at the times of the feasts. 3. Religious and 
 moral songs of a general character. 4. Elegiac 
 hymns, of lamentation, grief, penitence, etc. 5. 
 Messianic songs. 6. Historical hymns. They are, 
 as a whole, the utterances of devout men in the 
 ancient church on a great variety of occasions, 
 and expressive of a wide range of sentiment and 
 feeling. There is adoration, thanksgiving, prayer 
 for pardon and comfort and spiritual strength, for 
 the welfare of Zion, for the overthrow of oppres- 
 sors, for all things which could enter into the de- 
 sires and aspirations of pious men in the ages 
 when they lived. Yet these were all imperfect 
 men, and their best devotions were often mingled 
 with imperfections. We cannot say that their 
 precise words were always the product of divine 
 suggestion, or accorded with the divine will, any 
 more than the similar productions of the best 
 hymn- writers of to-day. But as the church of 
 God itself, though full of imperfection, is divinely 
 called and organized, and set before the world to 
 be representatives and servants of the divine will, 
 
120 our father's book. 
 
 so these utterances of his people, springing from 
 hearts renewed by the Holy Spirit, are gathered 
 and set forth in this sacred collection to be ve- 
 hicles of the devotions of others, and inspirers of 
 like faith and penitence and holy desire in all 
 time to come. 
 
 And thus we undertake to answer the question, 
 which is often proposed as a test of inspiration, 
 "How is Psalm 137 the word of God?" It ap- 
 pears to have been written by one among the 
 exiles in Babylon, and describes the pangs in- 
 flicted on their hearts at being subjected to the 
 taunts of their heathen masters, the depth and 
 constancy of their attachment to their native 
 Zion, and the expression of a fervent desire, very 
 vindictive, yet very human, that some heartless 
 conqueror might retaliate upon their oppressors 
 in kind : " Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee 
 as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be that 
 taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the 
 stones ! " Of course, neither these words, nor the 
 feeling they express, though altogether accordant 
 with the low plane of sentiment and even piety 
 in that barbarous age, could have sprung from the 
 divine suggestion. And yet the Spirit of inspira- 
 tion, in making up a book for the instruction of 
 the church, saw fit to place that song in it for the 
 lessons it does teach, — of constancy in faith and 
 attachment to one's native land and religion, and 
 even as preparing the way to show by contrast 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 121 
 
 the infinitely purer and grander spirit of the com- 
 ing dispensation of the gospel, which bids men to 
 love their enemies. 
 
 THE PROVERBS. 
 
 These, too, are collections of the wise sayings 
 of wise men, — Solomon and others, — mostly 
 about secular affairs or ordinary morality. The 
 principles we have stated and illustrated apply 
 to these. It is not needful to ask whether every 
 saying here recorded was directly communicated 
 to the writer by the Spirit of God. No one will 
 dispute that they are very instructive utterances. 
 They have been incentives to virtue, prudence, 
 good morals, and wise living for hundreds of years, 
 and to some extent all the more effective because 
 they are so manifestly the suggestions of human 
 experience. For this reason, and it was a suffi- 
 cient one, it was deemed suitable by the Divine 
 Spirit to give them a place in this book, and being 
 so adopted, all its valuable lessons became the 
 teachings of that Spirit himself. 
 
 ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 Yet further removed from our preformed ideal 
 of a divine work is this book ; one of the very 
 latest, probably, in composition, yet put forth by 
 its unknown author, after a permitted custom of 
 its age, in the name of Solomon. Few scholars of 
 the present day view it as having been written by 
 
122 our father's book. 
 
 that monarch. Taken as a whole, it may be re- 
 garded somewhat as the confessions of a converted 
 unbeliever and sensualist, who, having run the 
 round of worldly pleasure, records the result of 
 his experience, and his conviction that such a life 
 is vanity and vexation of spirit ; that to fear God 
 and keep his commandments is alike the whole 
 duty and the highest wisdom of man. In this 
 view, its ethical teachings are of great value, just 
 as the recollections of Mr. Gough and others re- 
 claimed from an evil life are powerful incentives 
 to temperance and virtue. No wise parent would 
 hesitate to place a volume of such confessions in 
 the library of his family for the lessons that would 
 be conveyed to them by it ; and by the same rea- 
 son we may assume that the Spirit of God, who 
 directed the prophets in the preparation of the 
 sacred volume for the instruction of mankind, 
 caused them to give Ecclesiastes a place therein, 
 and thereby made it, with the rest, the Word of 
 God. 
 
 And now, last of all, what shall we say of 
 
 THE SONG OF SOLOMON? 
 
 From very early times this " Song " has gener- 
 erally been regarded as an allegory, designed to 
 express the reciprocal affection existing between 
 God and his people. The Jewish Rabbis, who 
 were specially fond of this method of interpreta- 
 tion, held that it was Jehovah and the Jews. The 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 123 
 
 early Christian Fathers, especially Origen, modi- 
 fied the idea, and made it represent Christ and 
 the church. There have always been the great- 
 est difficulties, however, in developing the plan on 
 either assumption. Nothing of the sort is appa- 
 rent on its face, and only the greatest ingenuity 
 and the most far-fetched and violent assumptions 
 were sufficient to carry it out. Even so, almost 
 no two commentators have agreed in the details ; 
 and thus it has turned out that of all ordinary 
 readers of the Bible in our day, not one in a hun- 
 dred, we suspect, pretends to have any idea what 
 the real meaning and intent of the book, as a part 
 of Holy Scripture, is. 
 
 The tendency of modern scholarship, as already 
 intimated, is in a quite different direction. There 
 is an inclination to adopt simpler and more nat- 
 ural modes of interpretation for all parts of the 
 Bible. The question is even entertained, Why 
 may not a composition whose theme really is, as 
 this seems to be, the human passion of love, be 
 made the vehicle of important instruction for 
 men ? No other passion, certainly, has more to 
 do with human happiness and character than this. 
 Why may not He who instituted marriage as the 
 first and most sacred of all earthly relations, who 
 enacted for its protection the most stringent laws, 
 who made it the theme of repeated and explicit 
 directions, both from Christ himself and his apos- 
 tles, and who finally appointed it as the symbol 
 
124 our father's book. 
 
 of the ineffable union subsisting between the Re- 
 deemer and the saints in heaven, place in the 
 volume that declares his will one short poem of 
 love, in form and language and style corresponding 
 to its theme, which shall teach to him who reads 
 it aright His own divine thoughts and will ? 
 
 Whichever view is taken of its design, the first 
 thing requisite to an understanding of it is to dis- 
 cover its plan. Even if it be an allegory, it must 
 have some outline narrative as its basis. The 
 parables of the New Testament and the Pilgrim's 
 Progress have each a stoiy, involving personages 
 and actions, which serves as a thread on which the 
 moral lesson is hung. It is confessedly very 
 difficult to discern such a thread running through 
 the Canticles. There is no formal narrative, ex- 
 plaining place, time, or circumstances. The poem 
 is made up of speeches or soliloquies, but the 
 speakers are not named, and where each begins 
 and ends is not always easy to discover. And 
 yet clews are not wholly wanting, especially in 
 the original, from a careful study of which, with 
 the aid of some historical facts recorded elsewhere, 
 scholars have developed the following plan. We 
 quote from Professor Ginsberg, in Kitto's Cyclo- 
 paedia : — 
 
 " A village girl, the daughter of a widowed mother of Shu- 
 lam, is betrothed to a young shepherd whom she met whilst 
 tending the flock. Fearing lest the frequent meetings of these 
 lovers should be the occasion of scandal, the brothers of the 
 Shulamite employ her in the vineyard on their farm. Whilst 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 125 
 
 on the way to this vineyard she one day falls in with the cor- 
 tege of king Solomon, who is on a spring visit to the country. 
 Struck with her great beauty, the king captures her, conveys 
 her to his royal pavilion, then conducts her to Jerusalem in 
 great pomp, in the hope of dazzling and overcoming her with 
 his splendor, and eventually lodges her in his harem. But all is 
 in vain. True to her virtuous love, she resists all the allure- 
 ments of the exalted sovereign, spurns all his promises to 
 elevate her to the highest rank, and in the midst of the gay 
 scenes assures her humble shepherd, who followed her to the 
 capital, that her affections are sacredly and inviolably pledged 
 to him. Solomon, convinced at last that all his addresses are 
 in vain, allows her to quit the royal residence. Hand in hand 
 the two faithful lovers return to her native place, and on their 
 way home visit the tree under which their love-spark was first 
 kindled, and there renew their vows of constancy and fidelity. 
 On their arrival, they are welcomed by their companion shep- 
 herds, and she is rewarded by her brothers for her exemplary 
 virtue." 
 
 Inasmuch as this view of the poem will be un- 
 familiar to many of our readers, and in order also 
 to further illustrate the important method we 
 desire to exhibit of seeing the divine in the hu- 
 man, we will venture to give the following transla- 
 tion, with a few explanatory notes : — 
 
 TITLE. 
 
 The Song of Songs, which is to Solomon. 1 
 
 [The opening scene is laid in the country, as is apparent from 
 the fact that in Chap. 3 : 6, Solomon and his attendants appear 
 
 1 The phrase undoubtedly attributes the authorship to Solomon him- 
 self, but it is generally conceded that the titles to the ancient Hebrew 
 poems are without authority. The author of Ecclesiastes represents 
 his work as having been written by the same monarch ; but the claim is 
 now almost universally rejected. For the evidence against the Solomonic 
 authorship of this song, see the article in Kitto's Cyclopaedia. 
 
126 our father's book. 
 
 coming from the country to Jerusalem. Shulam or Shunem is 
 a village on the southwest flank of Little Hermon, three miles 
 from Jezreel, and about sixty north from Jerusalem. Its 
 present name is Solam. 
 
 We first see the Shulamite in the women's tent of the king, 
 with the other ladies of the harem, by whom she is attended 
 and guarded. She sits pensively thinking of her betrothed 
 lover, from whom she has been separated.] 
 
 Shulamith (soliloquizing). 
 
 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, 
 For thy caresses are sweeter than wine. 
 Thy perfumes are rich in fragrance ; 
 Fragrance poured forth 1 is thy name ; 
 Therefore the maidens admire thee. 
 Take me away — 
 
 The Ladies (interrupting). 
 We will run after thee. 2 
 
 Shulamith. 
 The king hath forced me into the harem. 
 
 The Ladies. 
 We will rejoice and be glad in thee. 
 We will praise thy charms above wine ; 
 Fittingly do they love thee. 
 
 Shulamith. 
 I am swarthy — 
 
 The Ladies. 
 
 and lovely, — 
 
 Shulamith. 
 
 O daughters of Jerusalem, 
 As the tents 3 of Kedar — 
 
 1 Poured forth; therefore pervading the air and more apparent than 
 what is shut within its vase. 
 
 2 That is, to prevent her escape. 3 Made of the hair of black goats. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 127 
 
 The Ladies. 
 
 as the lent-cloths of Solomon. 
 
 Shulamith. 
 Do not disdain me that I am dark. 
 Because the sun hath browned me. 
 The sons of my mother were angry with me, 
 They set me as a watcher of the vineyards — 
 My own vineyard I did not watch. 1 
 Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, 
 Where thou pasturest thy flocks, 2 
 Where thou rcposest at noon-day ; 
 For why shall I seem like one straying 
 Unto the flocks of thy companions ? 3 
 
 The Ladies. 
 If thou knowest not, fairest among women, 
 Go forth in the tracks of the flocks, 
 And tend thy kids 
 By the tents of the shepherds. 4 
 
 SCENE II. 
 [The king enters, and, seeing the young stranger, throws her 
 a compliment.] 
 To my mare 5 in the chariots of Pharaoh 
 I liken thee, my dear; 
 Lovely are thy cheeks with beads, 
 
 i That is, herself. She was so intent in guarding the fruit of the 
 vineyards that she did not perceive the approach of the king's cavalcade 
 by which she was captured. 
 
 2 This is the description of a shepherd lover, and cannot possibly, so 
 far as we can see, have been addressed to the king. 
 
 3 Her lover, not knowing what had befallen her, might fancy from her 
 absence that she had been untrue to him, and had gone away with some 
 rival among the shepherds. 
 
 4 Spoken ironically, as if to say that if she was so insensible to the 
 advantages now offered her of being a favorite in the harem, she had 
 better go back and be a rustic. 
 
 s See 1 Kings 10: 26. The Septuagint says Solomon had forty thousand 
 mares for his chariots. The comparison would not seem so strange to 
 orientals, who have such a passion for beautiful horses. 
 
128 our father's book. 
 
 Thy neck with necklaces ; 1 
 
 Chains of gold we will make for thee, 
 
 With studs of silver. 
 
 Shulamith (aside). 
 While the king was with his courtiers, 
 My frankincense gave forth its fragrance. 
 A packet of myrrh is my beloved to me; 
 It shall repose all night in my bosom. 
 A bunch of cypress-blossoms is my beloved to me 
 In the gardens of En-gedi. 2 
 
 Solomon (repeating his compliments). 
 Ah! thou art lovely, my dear, 8 
 Ah ! thou art lovely ; 
 Thine eyes are doves. 
 
 Shulamith (apostrophizing her lover). 
 Ah! thou art lovely, my beloved, 
 Yea, charming; our couch is the green (grass); 
 The beams of our house are the cedars, 
 The ceilings are the cypresses ; 4 
 I am a wild rose 5 of Sharon, 
 A lily of the valleys. 
 
 1 Resembling the highly ornamented bridle and head-gear of his steed. 
 
 2 This, soliloquy is to be understood — "As long as the king was en- 
 gaged in his business and did not toouble me with his addresses, I was 
 happy in the thoughts of my betrothed." The figures she uses are but 
 the carrying out of the conception with which she began, that he and 
 his name were sweet perfumes to her. Such perfumes, of which so fre- 
 quent mention is made in the poem, were profusely used by oriental 
 ladies. 
 
 3 There is much significance in the various terms of endearment used 
 by the different persons. The one employed here is rather one of com- 
 pliment than of affection. Very different are those used by the shepherd 
 lover, and even by the king himself in the scene where he so ardently 
 urges his passion. Chap. 7:6, 9. 
 
 4 All this in contrast with the splendors about her. How is it pos- 
 sible to make this an address to Solomon himself? 
 
 6 That is, a simple uncultivated flower of the plain, suitable for her 
 shepherd lover, but not fit for a palace. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 129 
 
 Solomon. 
 As a lily among the brambles, 
 So is my friend among the daughters. 
 
 Shulamith. 
 As the apple among the trees of the forest, 
 So is my beloved * among the sons. 
 In his shade delighted I sit, 
 And his fruit is sweet to my taste. 
 He brings me into the house of wine, 
 And his banner over me is love. 
 Eefresh me with pressed grapes, 
 Eestore me with apples, 
 For I am overcome with love. 2 
 His left hand is under my head, 
 And his right hand embraces me. 
 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, 
 By the gazelles and the hinds of the field, 
 That ye wake not, that ye incite not love, 
 Until it wills. 3 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 [Shulamith and the Ladies. She recites the history of her 
 
 love. ] 4 
 The voice of my beloved ! Lo, he cometh 
 Bounding over the mountains, 
 Leaping over the hills ! 
 Like a gazelle or a young hart is my beloved. 
 
 1 Referring to her betrothed. It is the term constantly used by her, 
 and would be appropriate for a lady only as referring to her husband, 
 actual or intended. 
 
 2 All figures carrying out the comparison of her lover to the apple- 
 tree. His endearments she fancifully calls the apples. It is probable 
 that the so-called " apple " in this book is really the citron, a species of 
 orange. 
 
 3 That is, true love must be spontaneous ; it cannot be forced. Let 
 the ladies desist from the attempt to enlist her affections for the king by 
 constraint. The repetition of this language several times marks it as 
 expressing the proper theme of the poem in which all the other parts 
 center. 
 
 4 For the purpose of showing how entirely her heart belongs to 
 another, and cannot be the king's. 
 
130 our father's book. 
 
 Lo ! he stood behind our wall, 
 
 Looking through the windows, 
 
 Glancing through the lattices. 
 
 My beloved answered and said to me, 
 
 " Rise, my dear one, my beautiful, and come forth. 
 
 For, lo, the winter is past, 
 
 The rain is over and gone ; 
 
 The flowers appear on the earth, 
 
 The time of the bird-singing has come, 
 
 And the note of the turtle-dove 
 
 Is heard in our land. 
 
 The fig-tree spiceth its fruit, 
 
 And the blossoming vines give fragrance. 
 
 Arise, my dear one, my beautiful, and come forth. 
 
 O my dove, in the clefts of the rocks, 1 
 
 In the recesses of the cliffs, 
 
 Let me behold thy form, 
 
 Let me hear thy voice, 
 
 For thy voice is sweet, 
 
 And thy form is lovely." — 
 
 Shulamith' s Brothers {interposing). 
 
 " Capture the foxes, the little foxes, 
 That despoil the vineyards, 
 Even our vineyards in blossom." 
 
 Shulamith. 
 My beloved is mine and I am his, 
 Who feeds among the lilies. 
 Till the day cools and the shadows fall, 
 Turn away, my beloved, 
 And be like a gazelle or a young hart, 
 On the mountains of Separation. 2 
 
 1 Supposed to allude to the situation of Shulamith's home on the 
 rocky mountain side. 
 
 2 The brothers of Shulamith, not approving of the shepherd's suit, in- 
 dignantly interrupt his address, and roughly bid her, instead of staying 
 to listen to compliments, go to her charge in the fields for the protection 
 of the blossoming vines from the depredating foxes or jackals. Compelled 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DTSCEKNED. 131 
 
 Shulamith relates her Dream. 
 Upon my bed in the night hours 
 I sought him whom my soul loveth, 
 I sought him, but found him not. 
 " I will rise now, and go about the city, 
 In the market-places and the streets ; 
 I will seek him whom my soul loveth." 
 I sought him, but found him not. 
 Found me the watchmen, 
 Who go about in the city. 
 " Whom my soul loveth have ye seen ? " 
 Scarcely had I passed by them, 
 When whom my soul loveth I found ! 
 I clasped him, and did not let him go, 
 Till I brought him to the house of my mother, 
 And into the room of her that bore me. 
 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, 
 By the gazelles and the hinds of the field, 
 That ye wake not, that ye incite not love, 
 Until it wills. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 [The road to Jerusalem. The king returning in royal proces- 
 sion.] 
 
 Ladies of Jerusalem. 
 Who is this coming up from the wilderness 
 Amid columns of smoke, 
 Exhaling myrrh and frankincense, 
 With every perfume of the merchant ? 
 
 Men of Jerusalem. 
 Lo, the palanquin of Solomon ! 
 Sixty heroes around it 
 
 thus to leave, she reluctantly dismisses her lover, and says he must go 
 and wander like a lonely deer over the wild wastes of " Separation." It 
 is to be remembered that all this is what she relates to the ladies of the 
 harem. She then continues with a tale of the dream she had the follow- 
 ing night, concluding, as before, with an appeal to them not to try to 
 make her love any one else. 
 
132 our father's book. 
 
 Of the heroes of Israel, 
 
 All skilled with the sword, trained to war, 
 
 Each with his sword by his side, 
 
 Against alarm in the nights. 
 
 A palanquin for himself King Solomon made 
 
 Of the woods of Lebanon. 
 
 Its standards he made of silver, 
 
 Its canopy of gold, 1 its seat of purple, 
 
 Its linings embroidered by love 
 
 By the daughters of Jerusalem. 
 
 Come forth, ye daughters of Jerusalem, 
 
 And gaze upon King Solomon 
 
 In the tiara in which his mother crowned him 
 
 In the day of his espousals, 2 
 
 And in the day of the gladness of his heart. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 [In the palace in Jerusalem.] 
 
 Solomon. 
 Ah ! thou art beautiful, my dear, 
 Ah! thou art beautiful; 
 Thine eyes, under thy locks, are doves; 3 
 Thy tresses are like a flock of goats 
 Reposing upon Mount Gilead. 
 Thy teeth like a flock of shorn ones 
 Coming up from the washing, 
 All of them twinning themselves, 
 And none without her mate. 4 
 Like a scarlet thread are thy lips, 
 And thy speech is charming. 
 Like a slice of a pomegranate 
 
 1 Perhaps silken tissues of golden hue. 
 
 2 Probably at bis marriage with the daugbter of Pharaoh (1 Kings 
 3:1.) It was " a peculiar marriage custom, according to which the mother, 
 in token of her approval of tbe alliance contracted by her son, with her 
 own hand adorned him with a festive crown." — Zockler. 
 
 3 Peeping forth like doves from their windows. 
 
 4 In even pairs, upper and under. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 133 
 
 Thy temples under thy locks. 
 
 Like the tower of David thy neck, 
 
 Built for weapons of war; 
 
 A thousand bucklers are hung upon it, 1 
 
 All shields of the mighty ones. 
 
 Thy bosom like young twin fawns, 
 
 Feeding among lilies. 
 
 Shulamtth. 
 
 Until the evening breeze blows, 
 And the shadows steal on, 
 I will retire to the Mount of Myrrh, 2 
 And to the Hill of Frankincense. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 [Shulamith and her lover. The Palace gardens in Jerusalem.] 
 
 The Shepherd. 
 
 Ah! thou art all beautiful, my dear one, 3 
 
 And there is no blemish in thee ! 
 
 With me from Lebanon, my betrothed, 
 
 With me from Lebanon come ; 
 
 Look off from the top of Amana, 
 
 From the summit of Shenir 4 and Hermon, 
 
 From the dens of lions, 
 
 From the mountains of leopards. 
 
 1 The pendents hanging from her ears and hair. 
 
 2 Disliking this style of compliment, she signifies her wish to retire for 
 the rest of the day. The "mount" and "hill" here named are thought 
 to he secluded places in the gardens of the palace. 
 
 3 Learning of her capture, her lover, with a company of friends, has fol- 
 lowed her to the city, and has contrived to gain an interview with her, 
 possibly in the gardens. He is first delighted at her new beauty in the 
 splendid dress and ornaments given her in the palace. He then bids her 
 flee with him to the remote summits of Lebanon, whence they can look 
 off on the plains of Damascus. The sight of her in her beauty, he says, 
 has strengthened his courage to do and dare anything to rescue her. 
 How, we beg to ask, is all this conceivable if put in the mouth of Solo- 
 mon himself ? 
 
 * The native name of Hermon. See Deut. 3: 9. 
 
134 our father's book. 
 
 Thou hast made my heart strong, 
 My sister, my plighted one, — 
 Thou hast made my heart strong, 
 With one (glance) of thine eyes, 
 With one chain of thy neck. 
 How lovely art thou, my love, 
 My sister, my plighted one. 
 How much sweeter thy love than wine, 
 And the sweetness of thy perfumes 
 Than all fragrance ! 
 
 Shulamith. 
 Thy lips drop honey, my espoused; 
 Honey and milk are under thy tongue, 
 And the smell of thy garments 
 Is like the odor of Lebanon. 
 
 The Shephekd. 
 
 A garden locked is my sister-spouse, 
 
 A spring inclosed, a fountain sealed. 1 
 
 Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates, 
 
 With fruits of excellence, 
 
 Henna and spikenard, 
 
 Nard and saffron, 
 
 Sweet calamus and cinnamon, 
 
 With all shrubs yielding frankincense, 
 
 Myrrh and aloes, 
 
 And all chief spices ; 
 
 A fountain of gardens, 
 
 A well of living waters, 
 
 And streams from Lebanon. 
 
 Shulamith. 
 Wake, thou North wind, 
 And come, thou South ; 
 
 1 A delicate way of saying she is still pure and chaste, true to him 
 alone. The epithets following are expressions of his admiration, in keep- 
 ing with the fancy that she is a safely inclosed "garden." It is a garden 
 which yields to him ahundant sweets. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 135 
 
 Breathe upon my garden, 
 
 And let the spices exhale. 
 
 Let my beloved come into his garden 
 
 And eat his fruits of excellence. 1 
 
 The Shepherd. 
 I come to my garden, my sister-spouse, 
 I breathe my myrrh with my perfume, 
 I eat my honeycomb with my honey, 
 I drink my wine with my milk. 2 
 
 The Shepherd's Companions. 3 
 Eat ye, O friends, drink and be satisfied, 
 
 ye loving ones. 
 
 SCENE VII. 
 [The Harem. Shulamith and the Ladies.] 
 
 Shueamith's Dream. 4 
 
 1 slept, but my heart was awake ; 
 The voice of my beloved knocked : — 
 " Open to me, my sister, my dear, 
 My dove, my perfect one, 
 
 For my head is filled with dew, 
 
 My locks with the drops of the night." 
 
 " I have put off my robe," I said, 
 
 " How can I dress me ?• 
 
 I have washed my feet, 
 
 How can I soil them ? " 
 
 1 She responds in the same strain, and gives him permission to enjoy 
 them. 
 
 2 He accepts her gifts. 
 
 3 These are supposed to have accompanied him for protection and 
 companionship on his dangerous errand, and to have remained a little in 
 the background while he advanced to find Shulamith. They overhear the 
 tender conversation of the lovers, and, charmed with their innocence and 
 beauty, involuntarily bid tbem Godspeed. 
 
 4 The scene just described repeated itself in her dreams the following 
 night, which she here relates to the ladies, except that the details of it 
 are changed. Her lover, she thought, came to her in the night to per- 
 suade her to flee with him, etc. 
 
136 our father's book. 
 
 My beloved put his hand through the lattice, 
 
 And my pity was moved for him. 
 
 I rose to open to my beloved, 
 
 And my hands dropped myrrh, 
 
 And my fingers flowing myrrh upon the handle. 1 
 
 I opened to my beloved, 
 
 But my love was departed, was gone! 
 
 My soul went from me at his word ! 
 
 I sought him, but I found him not; 
 
 I called him, but he answered not. 
 
 The watchmen who go about the city found me ; 
 
 They struck me ; they wounded me ; 
 
 They lifted my veil off me, — 
 
 The watchmen of the walls. 
 
 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, 
 
 If ye find my beloved, tell him 
 
 That I am languishing with love. 
 
 The Ladies. 
 
 What is thy beloved (more) than another beloved, 
 Thou fairest among women? 
 What is thy beloved (more) than another beloved, 
 That thou dost so adjure us ? 
 
 Shulamith. 
 My beloved is fair and ruddy, 
 A bannered one among a myriad. 
 His head (crown) is of virgin gold, 2 
 His locks flowing and dark as a raven. 
 His eyes like doves by the brooks, 
 Bathing in the white foam 
 And sitting by the full waters. 
 His cheeks are as beds of sweet flowers, 
 Like trellises of perfumes ; 
 His lips are lilies dropping liquid sweets ; 
 His hands circlets of gold, 
 
 1 Her lover had taken hold of the door on the outside with profusely 
 anointed hands." — Zoclier. 
 
 2 A brilliant yellow turban or cap. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 137 
 
 Set with Tarshish stones; 1 
 
 His body shining ivory, 2 
 
 Overlaid with sapphires ; 
 
 His legs are columns of marble, 
 
 Set in golden sockets (sandals) ; 
 
 His countenance is like Lebanon. 
 
 Majestic as the cedars ; 
 
 His lips are the sweetest, 
 
 And he is altogether lovely. 
 
 This is my beloved and this is my friend, 
 
 daughters of Jerusalem. 
 
 The Ladies. 
 Whither has thy beloved gone, 3 
 Thou fairest among women ; 
 Whither has thy beloved turned aside, 
 And we will seek him with thee ? 
 
 Shtjlamith. 
 My beloved has gone down to his garden, 4 
 To the beds of balm, 
 To feed in the gardens, 
 And to gather lilies. 
 
 1 am my beloved's and my beloved is mine, 
 Feeding among the lilies. 
 
 SCENE VIII. 
 [The same apartments.] 
 Solomon. 
 Thou art lovely, my dear, as Tirzah, 5 
 Beautiful as Jerusalem — 
 
 1 Topazes; perhaps referring to his polislied finger-nails. 
 
 2 His close-fitting white tunic or vest. 
 
 3 Probably spoken ironically ; taking literally what she had said of 
 their " finding" him. 
 
 4 That is, repelling their irony, he simply has entered her heart; he 
 enjoys her affections. 
 
 6 A city about nine miles east of Samaria, in a very beautiful position, 
 the capital of the kingdom of Jeroboam and Israel (1 Kings 16 : 8). 
 
138 our father's book. 
 
 Formidable as bannered hosts ! x 
 
 Turn away thine eyes from my face, 
 
 For they agitate me. 
 
 Thy hair is like a flock of goats 
 
 Reposing upon Gilead ; 
 
 Thy teeth like a flock of shorn ones 
 
 Which come up from the washing, 
 
 All of them twinning themselves, 
 
 And none without her mate. 
 
 Like a slice of pomegranate thy cheek 
 
 From behind thy veil. 
 
 There are sixty queens, 
 
 And eighty concubines, 
 
 And maidens without number. 
 
 One only is my dove, my perfect one, 
 
 The only one of her mother, 
 
 The choice one of her that bore her. 
 
 Daughters saw her and congratulated her, 
 
 Queens and concubines, and they praised her. 
 
 The Ladies. 
 Who is this that looks forth like the morning, 2 
 Fair as the white one (the moon), 
 Bright as the hot one (the sun), 
 And formidable as bannered hosts ? 
 
 Shulamith. 
 I was walking to the garden of nuts 
 To look at the fruits of the valley, 
 To see the blossoming of the vines, 
 The budding of the pomegranates ; 
 Ere I knew it my soul had put me 
 Among the chariots of nobles. 3 
 
 1 Referring to her frowns at being addressed with new compliments by 
 the king. 
 
 2 Echoing the words of the monarch, as if with astonishment at her 
 presumption. 
 
 3 She had been so engrossed in thought that she did not perceive the 
 approach of the royal guards. This is her answer to the accusation of 
 being cold and frowning ; she is a captive. Here she apparently turns to 
 leave the room. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 139 
 
 The Ladies. 
 Come back, come back, O Shulamith, 
 Come back, come back, 
 That we may see thee. 
 
 Shulamith. 
 What would you see in Shulamith ? 
 
 The Ladies. 
 One of the dances of Mahanaim. 1 
 
 Solomon. 
 How beautiful are thy sandaled feet, 
 Thou princely daughter ! 
 The girdles of thy hips are like necklaces, 
 The work of a skilled hand ; 
 Thy girdle clasp a round bowl filled with wine; 2 
 Thy bodice a wheat-sheaf bound with lilies ; 
 Thy bosom like young twin fawns ; 
 Thy neck a tower of ivory; 
 Thine eyes pools in Heshbon, 3 
 By the gate leading to Bath-rabbim; 
 Thy nose like the tower of Lebanon 
 Looking towards Damascus. 
 Thy head upon thee is like Carmel ; 
 The locks of thy head like royal purple, 
 The king is held captive in its ringlets. 
 
 1 An evident allusion to Gen. 32:2. Mahanaim, in the dual number, 
 signifies the two hosts or camps ; hence, the rendering given by our Eng- 
 lish version. The " dance of Mahanaim " is therefore supposed to be a 
 dance of two companies of ladies responding to each other with singing 
 and music, like that of Miriam and her companions at the Red Sea (Ex. 
 15: 20). As Shulamith claims to be only a simple country maiden, the 
 court ladies bid her perform a dance of that sort for the amusement of 
 the king. She is obliged to obey, and while so employed he addresses her 
 the voluptuous song that follows. 
 
 2 That is, a round brooch or clasp consisting of a ruby set in a golden 
 circlet. 
 
 3 Heshbon, the ancient capital of Moab (Deut. 2: 24). A pool of water 
 mirroring the blue sky is a beautiful simile for the liquid blue eye of a 
 lady. Probably reference was made to known features of the city. 
 
140 otjk father's book. 
 
 How fair and how charming, love, 
 
 Art thou in pleasures ! 
 
 This thy stature is like a palm-tree, 
 
 And thy hosom like its clusters. 
 
 I said, I will climb the palm-tree, 
 
 I will grasp its branches, 
 
 And thy bosom shall be to me 
 
 As clusters of the vine, 
 
 And the breath of thy mouth like apples, 
 
 And thy palate like good wine 
 
 Going down for my beloved smoothly, 
 
 Awaking the lips of the sleeping. 1 
 
 Shulamith. 
 I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. 
 Come, my beloved, let us go into the country; 2 
 Let us lodge ( on the way) in the villages. 
 Let us rise early to reach the vineyards ; 
 Let us see whether the vine nourishes, 
 The grape blossoms are opening, 
 The pomegranates are budding. 
 There will I give my loves to thee. 
 The mandrakes breathe fragrance, 
 And at our gates, all precious things, 
 Both new and old, my love, 
 I have garnered for thee. 
 Would thou wert as a brother to me, 3 
 That nursed the bosom of my mother ; 
 
 i The lascivious meaning of this address is unmistakable. How is it 
 possible to see in it any expression of the love of Christ for his church ? 
 The very suggestion seems to us shocking. Viewed as an address of a 
 royal voluptuary to a new recruit for his harem, it is entirely in keeping. 
 Shulamith' s only reply to it, worthy of her insulted dignity and purity, is 
 that she belongs to her lover only. 
 
 2 An apostrophe to her lover, urging him to come and take her to her 
 home. 
 
 3 Spoken apparently in sudden remembrance of the harsh treatment 
 her brothers had before shown to her. Would that her lover was like a 
 brother rather than a lover, for then she might receive him to her home 
 without being repelled. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 141 
 
 I would find thee in the street ; 
 
 I would kiss thee, yet they would not despise me. 
 
 I would lead thee, I would bring thee 
 
 Into the house of my mother. 
 
 Thou wouldst instruct me. 
 
 I would give thee to drink spiced wine 
 
 Of the juice of my pomegranate. 
 
 Thy left hand should be under my head, 
 
 And thy right hand should embrace me. 
 
 I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, 
 
 That ye wake not, and that ye incite not love, 
 
 Until it wills. 
 
 SCENE IX. 
 [Ilome again.] 1 
 
 Villagers of Shunem. 
 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness 2 
 Leaning upon her beloved ? 
 
 The Shepherd (arm in arm with Shulamith). 
 Under this apple-tree I waked thee (to love), 3 
 There thy mother travailed with thee, 
 There travailed she that bore thee. 
 
 Shulamith. 
 Oh, set me as a seal upon thy heart, 4 
 As a signet upon thine arm; 
 For strong as death is love, 
 Unrelenting as Sheol is jealousy; 
 Its shafts are brands of fire, 
 A lightning flash from Jehovah. 
 
 1 Her repulse of the king seems to have convinced him of the hope- 
 lessness of his suit ; and we next see her with her lover on the way to her 
 native village. The inference is that the monarch yielded to her pas- 
 sionate entreaties, and permitted her to leave the harem. 
 
 2 The open country ; leading up to the village on the mountain side. 
 
 3 Some spreading tree in the garden or field where the lovers first 
 pledged their affections. 
 
 4 A passionate appeal from Shulamith that he will be true to her, as 
 she has been to him. 
 
142 our father's book. 
 
 Many waters cannot extinguish love, 
 
 Nor rivers overwhelm it. 
 
 If one give all the wealth of his house for love 
 
 With scorn shall he be scorned. 1 
 
 Shulamith' s Brothers, 
 We had a sister, a little one, 
 And she was yet a child, — 
 " What shall we do for our sister, 
 In the day when she shall be spoken for ? 
 If she shall be a wall, 
 We will build upon her a silver tower; 
 If she shall be a door, 
 We will close her with a plank of cedar." 2 
 
 Shulamith. 
 I am a wall, and my bosom like towers ; 
 Then was I in his eyes 3 
 As one that findeth peace. 
 Solomon has a garden in Baal-Hamon; 
 He committed the garden to keepers, 
 Each brings, according to his fruit, 
 A thousand (pieces) of silver. 
 My vineyard, which is my own, is before me. 
 
 i Probably an allusion to the attempt whicb Solomon had made to 
 win her by his riches and grandeur. Herein is the great moral lesson of 
 the poem. Love must be spontaneous; it cannot be bought. 
 Golden words, worthy to be made the motto, the guiding truth, in every 
 home of the world. 
 
 2 This seems to be a recital by the brothers, who, after the death of 
 their father, had had the guardianship of Shulamith, of what their plans 
 had been for her when she was young. They had resolved that if she 
 grew up virtuous and firm in honor like a wall, they would make her rich, 
 but if slie debased herself, like an open door free to all that came, they 
 would keep her in ignoble confinement, like a door stopped up by a rude 
 plank. The thought and the expression are highly figurative, after the 
 sometimes grotesque conceptions of oriental fancy. 
 
 3 That is, Solomon's. Shulamith declares that she was firm under 
 her trial, and her very charms, which exposed her to temptations, she 
 made as towers of strength for her defense ; in consequence of which she 
 won the favor of Solomon himself. 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 143 
 
 The thousand (pieces) are for thee, O Solomon, 
 And two hundred for them that keep the fruits. 1 
 
 The Shepherd. 
 
 O thou that dwellest in the gardens, 
 Our friends are listening to thy voice. 
 Let me hear it. 
 
 Shtjlamith. 
 
 Haste thee, beloved ! 
 And be like a gazelle or a young hart 
 Upon the mountains of sweet Spices ! 2 
 
 Our readers will compare this translation, made 
 in accordance with the plan of Professor Ginsberg, 
 with the more usual hypothesis of an allegory, 
 and judge for themselves of its reasonableness. 
 Whichever view is preferred, or even both if 
 there be warrant for both in the recognized 
 
 3 The meaning is obscure, but may be reasonably inferred from tbe 
 usage of the poem in making a vineyard or garden and its fruits represen- 
 tatives of a person and his pleasures. Compare chap. 1:6; 4: 12-16 ; 6: 2. 
 Solomon's garden is therefore his royal state and equipage as it came to 
 Baal-hamon, near Shunem. His officers and ladies are its keepers, minis- 
 tering to his pleasures, each their share, viz., luxuries of all sorts, money, 
 Avines, rich garments, perfumes, and women. These are his thousand 
 silver shekels. In contrast with his splendor, she had only one little 
 vineyard, but it was her own, and its fruits could not be bought. Let 
 Solomon have his luxuries ; let his courtiers and women share in them, 
 each according to their deserts ; enough for her that she was free and at 
 liberty to give her affections as she pleased. 
 
 2 These words of the lovers are apparently a playful allusion to those 
 spoken by them when last together here, at the time of their separation 
 (Ch. 2: 14-17). He addressed her then as dwelling in the mountain cliffs ; 
 now she is in the gardens of freedom. Then the "companions," her 
 brothers, overheard them, and frowned upon her ; now they hear her, 
 and approve. He asks then anew, as before, "Let me hear thy voice," 
 and her reply is the same, with one significant variation. She then bade 
 him wander as a lonely hart on the mountains of Separation; she now 
 bids him speed exultingly to the mountains of sweet Spices ! Does there 
 need to be an interpreter of her meaning ? 
 
144 our father's book. 
 
 laws of interpretation, is sufficient to make this 
 book worthy of a place in the volume of God's 
 Word. If for ourselves we give our preference 
 to the former, it is solely because it seems to 
 us best to accord with the rules which should 
 govern us in the exposition of all parts of the 
 sacred volume. At the same time, neither view 
 necessarily excludes the other. We may suggest 
 upon either hypothesis some of the divine lessons 
 taught us herein. 
 
 1. Take the primary sense of a love poem. We 
 have here, first, a delineation of a simple, natural, 
 mutual affection, such as God, our Father, and the 
 author of our being, inspires. It has sprung up in 
 appropriate circumstances between two young 
 hearts of like age, outward condition, occupations, 
 and tastes. It is pure in its origin and in its 
 desires. Not a taint of mercenariness, unholy ambi- 
 tion, or sensuality denies it. It inspires, refines, 
 and elevates their whole characters. It idealizes 
 life and the world, and throws over all the work 
 and care and monotony of this earthly existence 
 a halo of poetry. In the words of its own beau- 
 tiful eulogy : — 
 
 " Strong as death is love, 
 Unrelenting as Sheol is jealousy ; 
 Its brands are brands of fire, 
 A lightning flash from Jehovah. 
 Waters many cannot extinguish love, 
 Nor rivers overwhelm it. 
 If a man would give all his riches for love, 
 With scorn should he be scorned." 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 145 
 
 Side by side with this pure affection, and in 
 direct hostility to it, is pictured another of a 
 different sort. A king, rich, powerful, voluptuous, 
 has captured one of these young lovers, and seeks 
 to add her a willing inmate to his harem. He 
 offers her jewels and silks and perfumes. He causes 
 her to ride in splendor in his royal processions. 
 He employs the bedizened ladies of his court, poor 
 victims of his sensuality, to sing to her his praises, 
 and, if possible, seduce her to be one like them- 
 selves. He loads her with flatteries and caresses. 
 He will set her above princesses and queens. But 
 all is in vain. The simple village girl, strong in 
 her constancy and fidelity, repels all his endeavors. 
 Standing before him in the dignity of injured 
 innocence, her sweet, severe countenance, he con- 
 fesses, tef rifies him, — 
 
 " Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, 
 And formidable as bannered hosts." 
 
 At length, just when our hearts begin to ache 
 for her, both in sympathy for her trial, and through 
 fear lest she will not prove strong enough to hold 
 out, she reaps the reward of her constancy. The 
 good-natured monarch relents ; she is "in his eyes 
 as one that found favor." She is dismissed from 
 the palace, and, rejoining her lover, crowns his 
 fidelity as well as her own with a union upon 
 which we instinctively feel the blessing of the 
 Lord will rest. 
 
146 our father's book. 
 
 Now we submit that the two lessons thus taught 
 are worthy of God to teach, and most needful for 
 mankind to learn. Marriage, as he appointed it, 
 is the first of all institutions, and the most funda- 
 mental to the happiness and purity of mankind. 
 Marriage perverted, debased by worldliness, sen- 
 suality, and oppression, has been in all ages a most 
 fruitful source of sin and woe. One of the first 
 evidences that man had fallen from his primeval 
 state was that he began to oppress woman, and 
 from the days of Lamech, the first polygamist, to 
 Sultan Aziz and Brigham Young, the annals of 
 that foul wrong have continued to defile human 
 history. Can any divine word of command or 
 counsel intended to repress this awful wrong, and 
 teach mankind the true idea of God's primal insti- 
 tution, and of that sacred affection which gives it 
 its strength and purity, be unneeded or out of 
 place in his holy Book ? 
 
 Let this divine poem, cleared of its obscurity, 
 and made to utter distinctly its true instruction, 
 be read alongside of that shameful record of the 
 debauchery of Solomon in the eleventh chapter of 
 1 Kings. May we not see a reason why such a 
 book should have been then written and given to 
 the Hebrew people? The splendor of the great 
 king had been the wonder of the world. He was 
 the visible earthly head of the kingdom of Jeho- 
 vah. And such a head ! On that marble-crowned 
 summit of Moriah Was the temple which Solomon 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 147 
 
 had built and dedicated to Jehovah, most Holy. 
 And there beside it was Solomon's own house, 
 the lawful mistress of which was Solomon's 
 queen, the daughter of Pharaoh. Somewhere, 
 too, near by was that other establishment filled 
 with " women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edom- 
 ites, Zidonians, and Hittites," " seven hundred 
 wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines." 
 Now, one reason why many think it impossible 
 for Solomon to have written this Song is found 
 in just these facts. Would he have suffered the 
 virtuous young Shulamite to escape in the way 
 here intimated? And if he did, would he be 
 likely to have written out the story of his defeat 
 and shame, to be quoted against him in all time 
 to come? Much more probably was the poem 
 written a little later, by some prophet in the spirit 
 of Nathan, who reproved David for his sins, in 
 order to teach the church, and especially the 
 young, that Solomon's establishment was not an 
 ideal one for domestic happiness, — that better a 
 simple cottage under the apple-tree in the coun- 
 try, with one true, faithful, loving heart to share 
 it, than all the glory and guilt of the most exalted 
 monarch. 
 
 And even in our own day, what more salutary 
 or needful instructions can be taught, especially to 
 the young, than those which we have ventured to 
 suggest as included in the primary intent of this 
 sacred book ? What mother could ask for her son, 
 
148 our father's book. 
 
 about leaving home to encounter the temptations 
 of a city, wiser counsels than those here imparted ? 
 Monastic habits are not practicable nor desirable. 
 The young of both sexes are made for society. It 
 is in this that the inspired maxim becomes emi- 
 nently wise and true, " Keep thy heart with all 
 diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." 
 Amid the allurements which gayet}> r and fashion 
 and pleasure hold out, let them never forget the 
 charms of simplicity and purity, guided by the 
 fear and love of God. There are no sweeter 
 songs than those which were sung three thousand 
 years ago between two young, pure, constant 
 hearts on the hills of Palestine, " My beloved is 
 mine, and I am his." 
 
 2. If now we revert to the other theory named 
 as to the interpretation of this book, we shall find 
 our way not a little facilitated by the view ahead} 7 
 presented. A theory so ancient, and consecrated 
 by the faith and devotion of the church for so 
 many ages, even though it be not in strict accord 
 with our latest exegetical science, is certainly to 
 be regarded with profound respect. 
 
 This theory supposes that the personages which 
 are mentioned in the song typify the Lord and 
 his people. One of the chief difficulties, however, 
 in carrying through the allegory consistently has 
 commonly arisen from assuming that there is but 
 one who claims the affections of the Shulamite, — 
 or in other words, that the king and the shepherd- 
 
THE DIVINE MEANING DISCERNED. 149 
 
 lover are the same person, representing Jehovah 
 under the old dispensation, and Christ under the 
 new. Says Kitto's Cyclopaedia: "What is most 
 subversive of the allegorical theory is the fact 
 that three principal persons appear in this Song, 
 — viz., a shepherd, a shepherdess, and a king, and 
 that it is the shepherd and not the king who 
 is the object of the maiden's affection. This has 
 been recognized by some of the most learned Jew- 
 ish commentators of the middle ages, — viz., Ibn 
 Ezra, Immanuel, etc., — and must be evident to 
 every unbiased reader of the Song of songs." 
 
 To remove this difficulty, then, we need to in- 
 troduce three correspondent persons into the alle- 
 gory. If the shepherd and shepherdess represent 
 Christ and his church, we need only suppose that 
 the king who would seduce her from her allegiance 
 represents the prince of this world employing his 
 temptations to detach her from her constancy to 
 her betrothed. Thus viewed, the allegory becomes 
 simple and effective. The church, though solemnly 
 espoused to her Lord, is nevertheless in the terri- 
 tories of his rival, the world. She longs for the 
 society and the affections of Christ, but she must 
 remain here, subject not only to the power of the 
 world, but to the blandishments which the people 
 of the world exert to draw her with them. 
 Worldly glory assails her, — the lust of the flesh, 
 the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. She is 
 flattered and caressed ; she is promised riches and 
 
150 OUR father's book. 
 
 glory. But all is in vain. Invincible in her love 
 for her Lord, she resists all these inducements, 
 with her triumphant song, " My Beloved is mine, 
 and I am his." At last the Tempter retires baf- 
 fled, and the Saviour, in reward of her constancy, 
 receives her into a more intimate union here, which 
 is consummated and perfected on the resplendent 
 hills of rejoicing in heaven. 
 
 It will not be difficult, for those who know what 
 the love and fellowship of Christ is to a soul which 
 has betrothed itself to him, to carry out the analo- 
 gies suggested in this Song. We might cite the 
 testimonies of many who, in the overflow of their 
 hearts, have poured forth the utterances of their 
 love. Thomas a Kempis, Fenelon, Madame Guion, 
 Jeremy Taylor, Baxter, Edwards, Payson, and a 
 thousand more, have left us songs as sweet, and 
 set to the same tune as this ancient Song of songs. 
 To such as they no word of ours will be needed to 
 show us the divine in this book. Said Rabbi 
 Akaba: "No man in Israel ever doubted the 
 canonicity of the Song of songs, for the course of 
 ages cannot vie with the day on which this Song 
 was given to Israel. All the Kethubim (sacred 
 writings) are, indeed, a holy thing, but the Song 
 of songs is a Holy of Holies." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 We subjoin at the close of this discussion a 
 brief review of the argument, in a somewhat dif- 
 ferent order from that which was followed in the 
 preceding pages. 
 
 Taking, first, the Old Testament, we showed 
 that it existed nearly in the form in which we 
 now have it, in the time of our Saviour, and that 
 it was used by him, and declared in many ways 
 and times to be the Word of God. Indeed, he 
 founded his own mission and claims as the Messiah 
 upon its predictions, and commanded his disciples 
 to search it as a witness that testified of him. All, 
 therefore, that accept his authority must receive 
 the inspiration of the ancient Scriptures as among 
 the first Christian truths. 
 
 The same fact was asserted with like directness 
 and frequency by the apostles. Everywhere, 
 when they went forth to proclaim the gospel of 
 salvation, they based it upon the teachings of the 
 Scriptures, " opening and alleging that the Christ 
 must needs have suffered, and that this Jesus 
 whom they preached was the Christ." 
 
 151 
 
152 OUR father's book. 
 
 Starting, then, from this well-attested fact, we 
 look into the Book itself to observe its history and 
 origin. The growth of the various writings which 
 composed it into a definite collection, called the 
 Canon of the Old Testament, was gradual, and was 
 not fully completed until at or very near the 
 Christian era. The precise stages of this process 
 we cannot assign, it having been gradual and 
 spontaneous, like all living growths, and therefore 
 leaving no formal record of itself in history. The 
 fact of such process we have assured to us by the 
 result, the book as it is ; and the divine superin- 
 tendence which made it the Book of God, by the 
 testimony already adduced of Jesus and the apos- 
 tles declaring it to be such. 
 
 The Book so made up and so authenticated to 
 us, — the Book which was Christ's own Bible, we 
 have designated as Our Father's Book. And this 
 authentication extends, by its very nature, to all 
 the constituent parts. The father who presents 
 to his son a birthday volume or library for his in- 
 struction gives him all that it contains. That son 
 does not need to trouble himself about the sources 
 from which it was obtained. He need not inquire 
 who were its authors, what sort of men they were, 
 when or where they lived, or any other fact per- 
 taining to their personality. Some of them may 
 be wholly unknown. They may have written 
 originally for some purpose of their own without 
 any forethought of the use which would afterward 
 
RECAPITULATION. 153 
 
 be made of their writings. They may have de- 
 rived their materials from original sources, or they 
 may have used what had first been employed by 
 others. We do not mean that all these points are 
 without interest or importance, and worthy of being 
 inquired into, but simply a full knowledge of 
 them is not essential to the authority of the book. 
 That authority is derived from the father's own 
 acts in selecting and presenting the work. He 
 knew their origin and characteristics, and his gift 
 of them is all the imprimatur they need. 
 
 This view of the case shows how little occasion 
 for alarm or anxiety there is in consequence of 
 recent critical discussions as to the authorship of 
 the Pentateuch and other Old Testament books. 
 They who claim that Moses did not personally 
 write the five that bear his name, but that they 
 were compiled and edited at a much later date, out 
 of fragmentary materials coming down from him 
 in the way of tradition, etc., do not therefore im- 
 peach their truth or their divine authority. The 
 learned and pious men of the Jewish church, 
 priests and prophets, scribes and magistrates, who 
 lived in the centuries following Moses, had oppor- 
 tunities for knowing the facts, and their action in 
 accepting these books is sufficient evidence of their 
 genuineness. Suppose five hundred years hence a 
 question could arise as to the origin and authority 
 of the Constitution of the United States ; would 
 not an historian of that day point to the fact of its 
 
154 our father's book. 
 
 actual adoption by the several states within a 
 brief period following as conclusive, even though 
 the records of the Convention that framed it were 
 lost? So with all critical discussions of like char- 
 acter. They no more affect the divine authority 
 of the Book, than a question as to the authorship 
 of the Imitation of Christ, or whether it was bought 
 in New York or London, would affect the question 
 of its genuineness or value as a portion of the 
 father's gift. 
 
 We dwelt at much length upon the characteris- 
 tics of the Sacred Writings, upon their variety of 
 composition and of style, and their adaptations to 
 persons of all ages and capacities, and in all peri- 
 ods of the world. We showed how these qualities 
 increased their intelligibleness, their interest for 
 all classes, and their power to move the heart. 
 They are in all these things precisely in the manner 
 of a wise father's instructions for his children, and 
 are themselves among the most clearly marked 
 evidences that they came from the source of all 
 wisdom and goodness. 
 
 We referred also to the principles which should 
 aid us in distinguishing between what is divine 
 and human in this Book, or, in other words, in 
 discerning the divine in the human. The one 
 test which is to be employed, and which is suffi- 
 cient to guide us safely, is to ask what the Booh 
 means. Thus in Job, the divine thought is not to 
 be found in what Eliphaz, or Zophar, or Bildad, 
 
RECAPITULATION. 155 
 
 or Elihu, or even Job himself says, — for they 
 were all wrong on the main question in dispute, 
 and were reproved by the Lord for darkening 
 counsel by words without knowledge — but in 
 what the work as a whole is designed to teach, 
 viz. : the inscrutable sovereignty of God's Provi- 
 dence over mankind, and the duty of men to be 
 humble, submissive, and obedient, and to wait for 
 a full understanding of it till it can be read in the 
 light of a better world. 
 
 In respect to the New Testament, our remarks 
 scarcely need a recapitulation. The result of the 
 whole discussion we earnestly hope will be to 
 confirm all who have read it in a clear and stead- 
 fast faith in this Book as the Word of God, which 
 worketh effectually in all them that believe. We 
 hope the young, especially, will see that the de- 
 mand made upon their faith is not without war- 
 rant. There is much aggressive skepticism abroad 
 in our day. There are daily assaults upon the 
 Bible by those who are hostile to it, from the 
 learned agnosticism, which makes it a merit to 
 "know nothing," to the coarse blasphemy of Inger- 
 sollism, but they have done no more to shake the 
 foundations of God's Word than the storms and 
 the waves of the Atlantic to disturb the eternal 
 calm of the profound ocean depths. Despite all 
 the pretensions of its foes, it remains true still, and 
 never more so than to-day, that the world 9 8 intel- 
 lect bows to the authority of the Bible. 
 
BOOKS ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 I. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE FIRST ELEVEN 
 CHAPTERS OF GENESIS; 
 
 WITH SOME DISCUSSION OF THE NEW CRITICISM. 
 
 By Rev. D. N. BEACH. 
 
 WITH AjY INTRODUCTION 
 
 By EDWIN B. WEBB, D.D. 
 
 Pages xx, 66 Price, 75 cents. 
 
 II. 
 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 By Prof. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. 
 
 Pages 241 > . Price, ^1.25. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE BIBLE VIEWED PRACTICALLY. 
 
 OUR FATHER'S BOOK. 
 
 Bv I. P. WARREN. D.D. 
 
 *#* These books are independent each of the others, but, in virtue of 
 their subject-matter, constitute a natural series. 
 
 JUST PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, Boston. 
 
SABBATH ESSAYS. 
 
 WORK OF PERMANENT VALUE ON A THEME 
 OF VITAL IMPORTANCE. 
 
 Price, $1.50. 
 
 As a treatise on the Sabbath, designed to meet all ordinary 
 inquiries on the subject, it will be invaluable to Pastors, Sabbath- 
 School Teachers, Public and Private Libraries. It is the most 
 valuable contribution recently made to the literature on the Sabbath 
 question. 
 
 The book contains thirty-eight essays and addresses, discussing 
 the Sabbath in thirty-eight different aspects and relations. The 
 essays are divided into sections, as follows: "The Sabbath in 
 Nature," " The Sabbath in the Word of God," " The Sabbath in 
 History," "The Sabbath in the State and in Society." The 
 addresses follow, twelve in number, most of them on practical 
 questions of Sabbath observance. A Historical Sketch on Sabbath 
 Conventions closes the volume. The views of some of the foremost 
 men of all the evangelical denominations are here brought together, 
 presenting this great subject on all sides, furnishing a discussion 
 that seems complete, and making the volume an invaluable text- 
 book on the Sabbath question. 
 
 For Sale by all Booksellers, or sent, post-paid, on 
 receipt of price, by 
 
 Congregational Publishing Society, Boston. 
 
 GEO. P. SMITH, Agent. 
 
THE 
 
 DIVIDE AUTHORITY OF ip BIBLE. 
 
 By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, 
 
 TROFESSOR IN OBERLIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 Pp.241. 5J£X3>4 inches. Boston: Congregational Sunday-School 
 and Publishing Society. 1884. $1.25. 
 
 Professor Wright has done a timely and helpful work in this 
 compact volume. The title sufficiently indicates the purpose, 
 namely, to set forth the authority, and that the Divine authority, of 
 the Bible, that is, of our canonical Scriptures as a whole. This 
 involves the brief presentation of the subsidiary topics of Inspira- 
 tion, the Canon, the true method of Interpretation, the Difficulties 
 and Objections; and some considerations of textual criticism, of 
 alleged discrepancies, of Old Testament quotations, of the harmony 
 of the Bible with science, and of the less directly spiritual portions 
 of the book — all properly subordinate to the main discussion. 
 
 The argument is inductive, proceeding by an appeal to facts, 
 and not from preconceived theories. It is also clear and concise, 
 establishing its positions, and illustrating them by specimen instan- 
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 ation. The main postulate from which the writer proceeds is " the 
 acknowledged supernatural character of Christianity," in which 
 "the stupendous miracle of the resurrection of Christ" is "the 
 corner-stone " of our historic faith, easily supporting whatever 
 other supernatural claims and utterances can be shown to have 
 been put forth by that wonderful personage. ... It is a very 
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 on all matters on which they profess authoritatively to speak. . 
 . . . The volume is brief enough and clear enough to be readily 
 followed, and will at the present time, we are persuaded, prove 
 highly useful and helpful. — Bib. Sac, Oct., 1884. 
 
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1 
 
BS538 .W28 
 
 Our Father's book, or, The Divine origin 
 
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