445-450 1876 the c

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).
PROFESSOR BRUGSET, while accompanying the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on an expedition to Siani, has discovered in a library of the monastery nine hither-to unknown portions of the Codex Siniaticus, the oldest extant MS. of the New Testament.—(Scotsman.)
Historical Veracity of the Old Testament
The following is an extract from a work recently published, Studies, Biblical and Oriental; by W. Turner:—“Of the two divisions of the sacred volume, the Old Testament is that which has drawn forth, in largest measure, unfavourable criticism, and of which we are farthest from the full comprehension. Its history, remarkable even if denuded of the miraculous element, is at the same time so interwoven with prodigy, that it ought to be recognised as the most reasonable procedure either to receive the whole with unquestioning faith, or to reject the whole as a tissue of uncertainties and fables. Not a few who receive the New Testament as a revelation from God, find nothing in the Old but uncertified Jewish traditions. Large scope has been allowed to such sceptical views by the almost entire absence, till lately, of independent and authentic records wherewith to test the veracity of Old Testament Scripture. The work of Herodotus, the oldest extant of the historians of Greece, dates about the probable age of Malachi, and his allusions to matters bearing upon Jewish history are scanty. Berosus, the native historian of Babylon, and Manetho, of Egypt, are known by a few fragments, invaluable, indeed, but lamentably scanty. The native records of the Phœnician States have mostly perished. What remains of these ancient historical writings, and of a few others that might be named, may be shown to coincide, when fairly interpreted, with the statements of the Old Testament. But even when all had been received as true which was thus confirmed, there remained a wide field for the play of unbelief. Nor has it been content with this. It has sometimes ventured to call in question what rested upon a general coincidence of testimony. It has said—Perhaps these old historians, including the Jewish, only embody in their common statements some vague Eastern traditions. Perhaps Assyria, with its long duration of empire and its mighty metropolis, and Babylon, with its wonderful edifices and ancient renown, were but the current myths of the Orient when these writings were composed, resting, it may be, on some meagre basis of indiscernible fact, but swollen out into proportions ridiculously beyond reality. By the discoveries which are above described and indicated, this style of speculation is conclusively quenched, and the margin left for unbelief immensely contracted. We can now refer to records that run parallel for many centuries with the writings of Jewish historians and prophets—records of unquestionable authority, pertaining to nations with whom the Israelitish people were more vitally related than with any other. And, from the ordeal of comparison with these new sources of historic proof from the severe test of the public monuments and royal records of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, the Bible comes forth not only unscathed, but with the lustre of its veracity greatly brightened.”
Miracles not Inconsistent with Divine Wisdom and Immutability
The following are further remarks from the publication Miracles and Prophecy:—“It is said that the idea of miracle is inconsistent with the idea of the Divine wisdom. While the possibility of it is not challenged, its propriety, its conformity to any good purpose, its compatibility with a system of things emanating from a Being of perfect prescience and perfect might, is called in question. The laws of nature, if not absolutely immutable, it is urged, must be morally immutable, as being the expression of the will of Him who is without variableness or the shadow of turning.
“This criticism may be most effectually dealt with by being counter-criticised. In the first place, then, there is a fallacy involved in the statement that the laws of nature are the expression of the will of God. The laws of nature, as we employ the phrase, are not the expression of the will of God; they are only our own account of the way in which the will of God expresses itself. They are, in the last resort, but human generalisations. They are the ex cathedrä utterances of a mind that at its best is not infallible. They are the ultimate deliverance of a never-exhaustive analysis of natural phenomena. There is a chasm, which can never be crossed from the human side, between the counsel of the Creator and the works and workings of His hands.
“In the next place, it is illegitimate to argue from the unchangeableness of the Divine mind to the unchangeableness of the attitude and action of that mind. Unchangeableness of mind is one thing; unchangeableness of attitude and action is altogether another thing. It may be the very unchangeableness of a man’s mind which is the cause of the incessant variation of the modes in which he gives expression to his mind. A general enters the field of battle with the unchangeable purpose of gaining the victory. Yet on that very ground he changes his tactics with every new vicissitude in the events of the day; and it is by the promptitude, variety, and soundness of his successive evolutions that he drives back the enemy, and bears away the palm of triumph. A shipmaster puts to sea with the unchangeable purpose of weathering the storm and gaining the haven. Yet on the very ground of the fixity of his purpose he flings forth orders, hot and frequent, to the mariners with every fresh change in the relations of ship and atmosphere and ocean; and it is by the variety and promptitude and timeliness of these particular forthflashings of his will that he snatches his craft out of the white teeth of the tumbling billows, and carves for himself an avenue through the tangled wilderness of wind and wave, and reaches the port in peace.
“Now what holds good of man holds good of God, if we superadd the considerations that God foresees and pre-arranges from the beginning every change of attitude and action to which He may see good to resort in the course of the world’s history; and that, whenever the power of God is put forth afresh among the forces of nature, it is not to supplement the imperfection, but to secure the perfection of His work.
“And the combined force of these considerations is amply sufficient to establish the probability of the miracle as an engine in the moral government of the world. For consider the motive of the miracle. The miracle is for man, and for man alone. There must be a man to behold, as well as a God to do, in order that there may be a miracle. Now it is obvious that moral impressions could be produced upon the mind of man by direct interventions of Divine power, which could not be produced by an everlastingly unbroken routine of natural laws and processes. These interventions, for one thing, would tend to withdraw man from the danger of offering that homage to nature which is due to God. A world so constructed that the example and expectation of supernatural power were totally excluded, could scarcely escape becoming hopelessly godless and immoral. The miracle, rightly interpreted, is like the tender tone of the voice and touch of the finger by which friend endears himself to friend. It tells us God is near. It teaches us, by rare and transient glimpses of His glory, that His glory is always hovering around. It is the flash of His eye bent full upon us for one brief moment to bespeak the perpetual remembrance of His presence and His sympathy.
“We conclude, therefore, that the moral government of the world by God, establishes the antecedent likelihood of the miracle. Granted that God retains any connection with and superintendence over the world He has created—granted that God has left Himself as free to deal with the forces of nature as He has left man free to deal with these—granted that God is disposed in any measure to control and educate the intellectual and moral nature of the crowning work of His hands—granted that He is in anywise sympathetic with the need and responsive to the faith of His creatures, and the probability of miraculous intervention is established.”
Authenticity of the New Testament
(Continued from page 352.)
“We have, however, direct evidence also: for Tatian composed a kind of harmony to the gospels, which was known by the name of Dia Tessaron, i.e., “of the four,” from its being an interwoven narrative from the four gospels. We learn from Irenæus himself that this Tatian was a disciple of Justin Martyr, and that he fell into doctrinal errors, such as the condemnation of marriage, after his teacher’s death. Tatian’s gospels were then evidently identical with those of Justin. We may also notice that the writer of the canon in Muratori speaks of the gospels of Luke and John by name, as the third and fourth; those of Matthew and Mark must undoubtedly be described in the lost part of this fragment.
If, then, we see that the churches everywhere used our four gospels immediately after the apostolic age, and in the lifetime of the tens of thousands of Christians who had been contemporaries of the apostles, it follows that this was nothing newly or suddenly adopted, but that it sprung even from the time when the apostolic guidance still continued. And what could have caused all Christians everywhere to read in public these four narratives as the work of the apostles Matthew and John, and of Mark and Luke, two companions of apostles, except that they knew, as a fact, that these were their real authors.
I have dwelt long on a very plain case, simply because, in the present day this is the very point of Christian evidence which is specially opposed. It is said that our four gospels are not historical narratives, but that they came into existence at a later period than the times of the apostles: that the accounts of Christ were first myths, and that they were gradually embodied in a definite form. By a myth they seem to mean the personification of an idea: a mythic person would be the supposed character of a fable; and to this they would bring down all that we know of the life and actions of our Lord. They say that if we hold the Christ of our apprehension aright, it matters little whether we retain the belief in an historical Christ.*
It is difficult to analyse such vague thoughts. This, however, I know, that if the New Testament possesses one particle of authenticity, then the historical Christ is the person to whom it points. I can apprehend no Christ, no deliverer of guilty men, except that historical person—the Son of God, who became man, to redeem us men by the shedding of his blood, and who has risen again, and now sitteth at the right hand of God, from whence he shall come to be the judge of living and dead. Our warrant for believing in this Christ is the record which we possess in the New Testament.
It is, indeed, marvellous how any imagination can have run so wild as to think that a supposed Christ can have become embodied in four narratives so simple and definite, and that a real fact of Christianity can have sprung out of such fancied dreams.
But it is said that, at this distance of time, the greatest uncertainty must, of course, spread over the scene. Nay, but lapse of time makes no difference with regard to proved facts: that which is proved to have been known truth eighteen hundred years ago, is known truth still. It is as certain now that Julius Cæsar invaded Britain, as it was at the Christian era. But we have no occasion to look at these things from a long distance. We can take our stand in the latter part of the second century, and look back from that era to the apostolic age.
The opponents admit that our Four Gospels were in general use A.D. 175. They suggest, however that they came into existence, at least in their present form, between the year 150 and that year; that is to say, by some unknown and unrecorded cause, the Christians were induced everywhere, in twenty-five years, to adopt our gospels, and also to believe that they had possessed them from the apostolic age. This is mythic and unhistorical with a vengeance.
It presents difficulties enough to be explained. The number of the copies of the gospels which were in use at the admitted date, A.D. 175, would be, at a very moderate computation, sixty thousand, amongst the Christian communities throughout the Roman Empire; and all these copies must have been received and used without any opposing voice being raised.
Standing at the year 175, we might find enough individuals living who still remembered the apostolic age: they had only to look back seventy-five years—as long as we have to the American war;—it was not six month’s ago1 that Dr. Routh, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, was speaking to me, with clear memory, of events which occurred then and before, when he was a student at that University. It is thus of importance to trace our gospels, step by step, backward through the second century, for thus we show the baselessness of the mythic, unhistoric theory. And now, as to single gospels, we can go yet farther in our notices than we can of the collected volumes.
At the close of the first century, there were living at Ephesus, besides the apostle John, two others of the immediate disciples of our Lord when on earth,—John the presbyter and Aristion.1 Now, we know from Papias, bishop of Hirapolis, what John the Presbyter stated concerning the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Of Mark he says, that he was the interpreter of Peter, and though not a hearer or follower of our Lord himself, he wrote down very carefully what Peter had narrated, so that (he adds) “he erred in nothing.” This testimony of an immediate disciple of Christ is deeply interesting. He speaks as clearly of Matthew’s gospel, mentioning that it was written in Hebrew.
The endeavour to evade the force of this evidence is made to rest on the singular theory that John the Presbyter, and Papias who records his words, did not mean our gospels of Matthew and Mark, but some other books of which we have no account whatever, which bore the same names.
Suppose we were to suggest that the history of Thucydides, which we possess, is not that which the ancients cite as such, but another book bearing the same name. What would be said of this idea?
I have already shown how Polycarp interweaves in his epistle words and sentences from the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. We find a similar introduction of words which exist in our Gospels. He writes thus:—“The Lord said, Judge not that ye be not judged; forgive and ye shall be forgiven; be merciful that ye may obtain mercy. With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. And, Blessed are the poor, and they that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”—(cap. 2.) In another place, “The Lord said, the spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.”—(cap. 7.)
Clement of Rome, also, in his epistle has this statement:—“The Lord said, Be merciful that ye may obtain mercy; forgive that ye may be forgiven; as ye do so shall it be done to you; as ye give so shall it be given to you; as ye judge so shall ye be judged; . . . with what measure ye mete, therewith shall it be measured to to you.”—(cap. 13.)
These sentences, especially those of Polycarp, appear like references, more or less exact, to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: the only reason for doubting is that these writers might have some oral knowledge of this teaching of our Lord—they refer, however, to what he said, as if those to whom they wrote knew of these things likewise.
Paul, in this first Epistle to Timothy, speaks thus:—“The Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn;” and, “The labourer is worthy of his reward.” This latter sentence is found only in Luke 10:7; it appears to be linked by the apostle with the citation from the law under the common term of Scripture. There is, I believe, in the New Testament, no instance of two sentences, joined by the copulative, being introduced with such a phrase as “the Scripture saith,” when the latter is merely an addition. I have no doubt myself that Paul gives us the earliest testimony, and that of authoritative kind, to the Gospel of Luke his companion.
Besides the evidence of writers who belonged to the Church, we may (as Irenæus himself did) appeal to the Gnostic sects, who made more or less use of our gospels. Thus Marcion’s gospel was a truncated copy of Luke’s, from which he extruded what struck him as inconsistent with his notion that our Lord possessed no real humanity; he left, however, unamputated quite enough to refute his strange ideas. Indeed, while the different bodies separated from the church showed they were acquainted, in the second century, with all our Four Gospels, it is pointed out by Irenæus that each gospel, separately, was upheld by some one particular party—a plain proof of their existence before these bodies quitted the communion of the church.
Celsus, the heathen philosopher, who wrote at some length against the Christians and their religion, is an important witness to the early existence and use of our gospels.
Thus, then, we have distinct historic grounds for holding fast the epistles which bear Paul’s name as being his genuine works, and for ascribing the Four Gospels to the authors whose names they bear, that is, to use the words of Justin Martyr to the “apostles and their companions.”
I have not rested on other evidence, such as that of undesigned coincidence by which Paley demonstrates so satisfactorily that the epistle of Paul and the book of Acts are able, genuine works—that they could not, in fact, be forgeries; this evidence is of a kind extremely cogent.
(To be continued.)