1875 267-272

THE BIBLE TRUE
OR
ARGUMENTS, ARTICLES, PAPERS, EXTRACTS AND MISCELLANEOUS MATTER, FROM VARIOUS SOURCES TO PROVE THAT
THE SCRIPTURES ARE THE AUTHENTIC AND GENUINE RECORDS OF DIVINE REVELATION
AND THE ONLY SOURCE AT PRESENT AVAILABLE TO MAN OF TRUE KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE, AND THE WAY BY WHICH IT IS TO BE SECURED
“Concerning Thy testimonies, I have known of old that Thou hast founded them for ever. Thy word is true from the beginning.”—(Psalm 119:152, 160.)
“Come hither, and hear the word of the Lord your God.”—(Jos. 3:9.)
“He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully: what is the chaff (dreams) to the wheat?”—(Jer. 23:28.)
“When ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.”—(1 Thess. 2:13).
“The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”—(2 Peter 1:21.)
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in times unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son.”—(Heb. 1:1).
“The sword of the Spirit is the word of God.”—(Eph. 6:17).
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”—(2 Tim. 3:16).
“Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed.”—(Prov. 13:13).
“Their root shall be as rottenness and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”—(Isaiah 5:24).
Paul’s Case of Itself a Conclusive Proof That the Bible is True
(Continued from page 205.)
SINCE, then, it is manifest from the foregoing examination, that in Paul’s disposition and character those qualities do not occur which seem to be necessary to form an enthusiast, it must be reasonable to conclude he was none. But allowing, for argument’s sake, that all those qualities were to be found in him, or that the heat of his temper alone could be a sufficient foundation to support such a suspicion, I shall endeavour to prove that he could not have imposed on himself by any power of enthusiasm. The power of imagination in enthusiastical minds is no doubt very strong; but it always acts in conformity to the opinions imprinted upon it at the time of its working, and can no more act against them than a rapid river can carry a boat against the current of its own stream. Now, nothing can be more certain than that, when Saul set out for Damascus, with an authority from the chief priest “to bring the Christians which were there, bound to Jerusalem,” (Acts 9:2), an authority solicited by himself, and granted to him at his own earnest desire, his mind was strongly possessed with opinions against Christ and his followers. To give those opinions a more active force, his passions at that time concurred, being influenced in the highest degree by the irritating consciousness of his past conduct towards them, the pride of supporting a part he had voluntarily engaged in, and the credit he found it procured him among the chief priests and rulers, whose commission he bore. If in such a state and temper of mind, an enthusiastical man had imagined he saw a vision from heaven, denouncing the anger of God against the Christians, and commanding him to persecute them without any mercy—it might be accounted for by the natural power of enthusiasm. But that, in the very instant of his being engaged in the fiercest and hottest persecution against them, no circumstances having happened to change his opinions, or alter the bent of his disposition, he should at once imagine himself called by a heavenly vision to be the apostle of Christ, whom but a moment before he deemed an impostor and a blasphemer, that had been justly put to death on the cross—is in itself wholly incredible, and so far from being a probable effect of enthusiasm, that just the contrary effect must have been naturally produced by that cause. The warmth of his temper carried him violently another way; and whatever delusions his imagination could raise to impose upon his reason, must have been raised at that time, agreeable to notions imprinted upon it, and by which it was heated to a degree of enthusiasm not in direct contradiction to all those notions, while they remained in their full force.
This is so clear a proposition, that I might rest the whole argument entirely upon it; but still further to show that this vision could not be a phantom of Paul’s own creating, I beg leave to observe that he was not alone when he saw it; there were many others in company, whose minds were no better disposed than his to the Christian faith.
Could it be possible that the imaginations of all these men should at the same time be so strongly affected as to make them believe that they saw a great light shining about them, above the brightness of the sun of noonday, and heard the sound of a voice from heaven, though not the words which it spoke (Acts 9:3; 22:9), when in reality they neither saw nor heard any such thing? Could they be so infatuated with this conceit of their fancy as to fall down together with Saul, and be speechless through fear (Acts 26:14; 9:7), when nothing had happened extraordinary either to them or to him? Especially considering that this apparition did not happen in the night, when the senses are more easily imposed upon, but at mid-day. If a sudden frenzy had seized upon Saul, from any distemper of body or mind, can we suppose his whole company, men of different constitutions and understandings, to have been at once affected in the same manner with him, so that not the distemper alone, but the effects of it should exactly agree? If all had gone mad together, would not the frenzy of some have taken a different turn and presented to them different objects? This supposition is so contrary to nature and all possibility, that unbelief must find some other solution or give up the point. I shall suppose, then, in order to try to account for this vision without a miracle, that as Saul and his company were journeying along their way to Damascus, an extraordinary meteor did really happen, which cast a great light, as some meteors will do, at which they, being affrighted, fell to the ground in the manner related. This might be possible; and fear, grounded on ignorance of such phenomena, might make them imagine it to be a vision of God. Nay, even the voice or sound they heard in the air, might be an explosion attending this meteor; or, at least, there are those who would rather recur to such a supposition as this, however incredible, than acknowledge the miracle. But how will this account for the distinct words heard by Paul, to which he made answer? How will it account for what followed upon it when he came to Damascus, agreeably to the sense of those words which he heard? How came Ananias to go to him there, and say he was “chosen by God to know His will, and see that Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth?”—(Acts 22:14; 26:16.) Or why did he propose to him to be baptised? What connection was there between the meteor which Saul had seen, and these words of Ananias? Will it be said that Ananias was skilled enough to take advantage of a fright he was in at that appearance in order to make him a Christian? But could Ananias inspire him with the vision in which he saw him before he came? If that vision was the effect of imagination, how was it verified so exactly in fact?—(Acts 9.) But allowing that he dreamt by chance of Ananias’ coming, and that Ananias came by chance too; or, if you please, that having heard of his dream, he came to take advantage of that as well as of the meteor which Saul had seen; will this get over the difficulty? No; there was more to be done. Saul was struck blind, and had been so for three days. Now, had this blindness been natural from the effects of a meteor or lightning upon him, it would not have been possible for Ananias to heal it, as we find that he did, merely by putting his hands on him and speaking a few words.—(Acts 9:17, 18; 22:13.)
This, undoubtedly, surpassed the power of nature; and if this was a miracle, it proves the other to have been a miracle too, and a miracle done by the same Jesus Christ. For Ananias, when he healed Saul, spoke to him thus: “Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”—(Acts 9:17.) And that he saw Christ both now and after this time, appears not only by what he relates (Acts 22:17, 18), but by other passages in his epistles.—(1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8.) From him, as he asserts in many places of his epistles, he learned the gospel by immediate revelation, and by him he was sent to the Gentiles.—(Acts 22:10, 21.) Among those Gentiles “from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum, he preached the gospel of Christ, with mighty signs and wonders, wrought by the Spirit of God,” to make them obedient to his preaching, as he himself testifies in his epistle to the Romans (Rom. 15:19), and of which a particular account is given to us in the Acts of the Apostles. Signs and wonders, indeed, above any power of nature to work, or of imposture, to counterfeit or of enthusiasm to imagine. Now, does not such a series of miraculous acts, all consequential and dependent upon the first revelation, put the truth of that revelation beyond all possibility of doubt or deceit? And if he could have so imposed on himself as to think that he worked them when he did not—which supposition cannot be admitted, if he was not at that time quite out of his senses—how could so distempered an enthusiast make such a progress, as we know that he did, in converting the Gentile world? If the difficulties which have been shown to have obstructed that work were such as the ablest impostor could not have overcome, how much more insurmountable were they to a madman? It is a much harder task for unbelievers to account for the success of Paul, in preaching the gospel, upon the supposition of his having been an impostor. Neither of these suppositions can ever account for it; but the impossibility is more glaringly strong in this case than in the other. I could enter into a particular examination of all the miracles recorded in the Acts to have been done by Paul, and show that they were not of a nature in which enthusiasm, either in him or the persons he worked them upon, or the spectators, could have any part. I will mention only a few. When he told Elymas, the sorcerer, at Paphos, before the Roman deputy, that “the hand of God was upon him, and he should be blind, not seeing the sun for a season; and immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking someone to lead him by the hand.”—(Acts 13.) Had enthusiasm in the doer or sufferer any share in this act? If Paul, as an enthusiast, had thrown out this menace, and the effect had not followed, instead of converting the deputy, as we are told that he did, he would have drawn on himself his rage and contempt. But the effect upon Elymas could not be caused by enthusiasm in Paul, much less can it be imputed to an enthusiastic belief in that person himself, of his being struck blind when he was not, by these words of a man whose preaching he strenuously and bitterly opposed. Nor can we ascribe the conversion of Sergius, which happened upon it, to any enthusiasm. A Roman proconsul was not very likely to be an enthusiast; but had he been one, he must have been bigoted to his own gods, and so much the less inclined to believe any miraculous power in Paul. When at Troas, a young man named Eutychus fell down from a high window, while Paul was preaching, and was taken up dead (Acts 20:9): could any enthusiasm in Paul or the congregation there present make them believe that by the apostle’s falling upon him and embracing him he was restored to life? Or could he who was so restored contribute anything to himself by any power of his own imagination? When in the isle of Melita, where Paul was shipwrecked, there came a viper and fastened on his hand, which he shook off and felt no harm (Acts 28.), was that an effect of enthusiasm? An enthusiast might perhaps have been mad enough to hope for safety against the bite of a viper without remedy being applied to it; but would that hope have prevented his death? Or, were the barbarous islanders, to whom this apostle was an absolute stranger, prepared by enthusiasm to expect and believe that any miracle would be worked to preserve him? On the contrary, when they saw the viper hang to his hand, they said among themselves, “No doubt, this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.”
I will add no more instances: these are sufficient to show that the miracles told of Paul can no more be ascribed to enthusiasm than to imposture. But moreover, the power of working miracles was not confined to Paul—it was also communicated to the churches he planted in different parts of the world. In many parts of his first epistle he tells the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:4, 5) that they had among them many miraculous graces and gifts, and gives them directions for the more orderly use of them in their assemblies. Now, I ask whether all that he said upon that head is to be ascribed to enthusiasm? If the Corinthians knew that they had among them no such miraculous powers, they must have regarded the author of that epistle as a man out of his senses, instead of revering him as an apostle of God. If for instance a Quaker should in a meeting of his own sect tell all the people assembled there that to some among them was given the gift of healing by the Spirit of God, to others the working of other miracles, to others divers kinds of tongues, they would undoubtedly account him a madman, because they pretend to no such gifts. If, indeed, they were only told by him that they were inspired by the Spirit of God in a certain ineffable manner, which they alone could understand, but which did not discover itself by any outward distinct operations or signs, they might mistake the impulse of enthusiasm for the inspirations of the Holy Ghost; but they could not believe, against the conviction of their own minds, that they spoke tongues they did not speak, or healed distempers they did not heal, or worked their miracles when they worked none. If it be said the Corinthians might pretend to these powers, though the Quakers do not, I ask whether, in that pretension, they were impostors or only enthusiasts? If they were impostors and Paul was also such, how ridiculous was it for him to advise them, in an epistle writ only to them and for their own use, not to value themselves too highly upon those gifts, to pray for one rather than another, and prefer charity to them all! Do associates in fraud talk such language to one another? But if we suppose their pretensions to all those gifts was an effect of enthusiasm, let us consider how it was possible that he and they could be so cheated by that enthusiasm as to imagine they had such powers when they had not. Suppose that enthusiasm could make a man think that he was able, by a word or a touch, to give sight to the blind, motion to the lame, or life to the dead; would that conceit of his make the blind to see, the lame walk, or the dead rise? And if it did not, how could he persist in such an opinion, or upon his persisting, escape being shut up for a madman? But such a madness could not infect so many at once, as Paul supposed at Corinth to have been endowed with the gift of healing or any other miraculous powers. One of the miracles which they pretended to was the speaking of languages they never had learned, and Paul says he possessed this gift more than they all.—(1 Cor. 14:18.) If this had been a delusion of fancy, if they had spoke only gibberish or unmeaning sounds, it would soon have appeared when they came to make use of it where it was not necessary, namely, in the converting of those who understood not any language they naturally spoke.
Paul particularly, who touched so far upon that design, and had such occasion to use it, must soon have discovered that this imaginary gift of the Spirit was no gift at all, but a ridiculous instance of frenzy, which had possessed both him and them. But if those he spoke to in divers tongues understood what he said, and were converted to Christ by that means, how could it be a delusion? Of all the miracles recorded in Scripture, none are more clear from any possible imputation of being the effect of an enthusiastic imagination than this; for how could any man think that he had it who had it not; or if he did think so, not be undeceived when he came to put his gift to the proof?
If, then, Paul and the Church of Corinth were not deceived in ascribing to themselves this miraculous power, but really had it, there is the strongest reason to think that neither were they deceived in the other powers to which they pretended, as the same Spirit which gave them that equally, could, and probably would give them the others to serve the same holy ends for which that was given. And, by consequence, Paul was no enthusiast in what he wrote upon that head to the Corinthians, nor in other similar instances where he ascribes to himself, or to the churches he founded, any supernatural graces and gifts. Indeed, they who would impute to imagination effects such as those Paul imputes to the power of God attending his mission, must ascribe to imagination the same omnipotence which he ascribes to God.
III.—Paul Not Deceived By the Fraud of Others
Having thus, I flatter myself, satisfactorily shown that Paul could not be an enthusiast, who, by the force of an overheated imagination, imposed on himself, I am next to inquire whether he was deceived by the fraud of others, and whether all that he said of himself can be imputed to the power of that deceit. But I need say little to show the absurdity of this supposition. It was morally impossible for the disciples of Christ to conceive such a thought as that of turning his persecutor into his apostle, and to do this by a fraud, in the very instant of his greatest fury against them and their Lord.
But could they have been so extravagant as to conceive such a thought, it was physically impossible for them to execute it in the manner we find his conversion to have been effected. Could they produce a light in the air, which at mid-day was brighter than the sun? Could they make Saul hear words from out of that light (Acts 22:9) which were not heard by the rest of the company? Could they make him blind for three days after that vision, and then make scales fall from off his eyes, and restore him to sight by a word? Beyond dispute, no fraud could do these things; but much less still could the fraud of others produce those miracles subsequent to his conversion, in which he was not passive but active; which he did himself, and appeals to in his epistles as proofs of his divine mission.
Conclusion
I shall then take it for granted that he was not deceived by the fraud of others, and that what he said of himself can no more be imputed to the power of that deceit than to wilful imposture or to enthusiasm; and then it follows, that what he related to have been the cause of his conversion, and to have happened in consequence of it, did all really happen; and, therefore, the Christian religion is a divine revelation. That this conclusion is fairly and undeniably drawn from the premisses, I think, must be owned, unless some probable cause can be assigned to account for those facts so authentically related in the Acts of the Apostles, and attested in his epistles by Paul himself, other than any of those which I have considered; and this I am confident cannot be done. It must, therefore, be accounted for by the power of God. That God should work miracles for the establishment of a most holy religion, which, from the insuperable difficulties that stood in the way of it, could not have established itself without such assistance, is in no way repugnant to human reason; but that without any such miracles, such things should have happened, as no adequate natural causes can be assigned for, is what human reason cannot believe.
To impute, then, to magic or the power of demons—which was the resource of the heathens and Jews against the notoriety of the miracles performed by Christ and his disciples—is by no means agreeable to the notions of those who in this age disbelieve Christianity. It will, therefore, be needless to show the weakness of that supposition; but that supposition itself is no inconsiderable argument of the truth of the facts. Next to the apostles and evangelists, the strongest witnesses of the undeniable force of that truth are Celsus and Julian, and other ancient opponents of the Christian religion, who were obliged to solve what they could not contradict by such an irrational and absurd imagination. The dispute was not then between faith and reason, but between religion and superstition. Superstition ascribed to cabalistical names, or magical secrets, such operations as carried along with them evident marks of the divine power; religion ascribed them to God, and reason declared itself on that side of the question.
Upon what grounds can we now overturn that decision? Upon what grounds can we reject the unquestionable testimony given by Paul, that he was called by God to be a disciple and apostle of Christ? It has been shown that we cannot impute it either to enthusiasm or fraud; how can we, then, resist the conviction of such a proof?