LECTURE V – William Elbert Munsey
THE BIBLE.
“Thy word is truth.” — John xvii. 17.
LET us have a plain practical talk about the Holy Scriptures this morning.
I. A Divine revelation is a necessity. Man’s nature demands a religion. Progress and development are impossible in the absence of certain motives which a religion can only give. Man wants to know if there is a God ; if there is one God or many ; what His nature is ; how He is disposed to- ward us. Man wants to know the origin of the world and himself; the reasons of the various types of his race, and the reason of their diversity in language ; he wants to know the reason of his present condition, and why he is subject to suffering and death ; he wants to know if there is any possible way of retrieving his moral condition ; and if he is im- mortal, and if so what is to be his destiny, and upon what conditions that destiny is founded. These things he cannot find out himself, and if not revealed to him he must stumble in the dark forever.
Man has mind, but mind is only a receiver of light, not a source of light. He may find out some ideas of a god or gods, from nature, but he never can learn the reason of his own moral condition, and the remedy for it. He cannot find out the law of God, the nature of obligations, the rewards and punishments of the future. No branch of human learning, or art, can teach these things. They are not in the language, philosophy, metaphysics, mathematics, jurisprudence, and poetry of the ancient and heathen world. The people of Athens loved sculpture and painting, and the city was full of the works of art, yet the people were sunk in the depths of crime and moral ignorance. Civilization without religion has always debased the race, not improved it.
Facts are worth more than arguments. Take such phil- osophers as Thales, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Democritus, Euclid, Hippocrates, Epicurus, Zeno ; and such orators as Cicero and Demosthenes ; and such poets as Homer, Virgil, and Ovid ; and with all their greatness they had no proper conceptions of God. Some of them said there was no God, others that there were many gods, and the many gods were but the personification of places and things. Socrates had greater knowledge of God than any of the others. He said that God “was one, immutable, and the creator of all things ; ” yet he admitted that he knew not what God was, and he advised his followers to worship the many gods of Athens. And when he died he recognized the deities of the popular theogony, when he said, ” Tonight I shall sup with the gods,” and when he told his friend to offer a cock as a sacrifice to Esculapius. Some of them gave God the vile passions of man ; others taught that God was capricious, arbitrary, and despotic. The whole thing was confusion and contradiction. None of them knew of God’s holiness.
They had false ideas of God’s government. Seneca says, ” Fortune scatters her gifts over the world, and rules without order the affairs of men.” The Epicureans, and most of the philosophers, taught that the gods, as well as men, were subject to inexorable fate. The Stoics believed that the gods only interposed upon great occasions. They knew not the will of God. Some taught that pleasure was the end of life. They advocated and practised many of the grossest crimes. They were ignorant of everything like true worship. Many of their services were sensual, revolting, and inhuman. They knew nothing about becoming reconciled to God, and their knowledge of immortality, &c., were but miserable guesses. For five thousand years man has tried to find out God, to learn His will, and without revelation they have not advanced one inch over their fathers toward a discovery. “The world by wisdom knew not God.” (i Cor. i. 21.) We need a revelation : have we got it ? Yes.
II. The Bible is a revelation from God. It proves itself by its prophecies with reference to Christ, Babylon, Tyre, Nineveh, Egypt, Judea, the Jews, and the church. Even in its miracles, not one of them were wrought but in connection with some great moral lesson to be taught men : not one of them was wrought to gratify mere curiosity. Many of them in their connection are supported by the philosophy of the case, as in the miracles of Egypt. And though these miracles were recorded, and known among the generation which witnessed them, not a word comes down to us of objection to their credibility.
The character of the men who wrote shows its Divine origin. The worst or best men of the world wrote it. If they were bad men, could they write such a book of incom- parable purity ? going even into the motives and springs of virtue. No mere moralist ever went so far. They could but produce a transcript of their own hearts ; the book shows it as much as the Pilgrim’s Progress shows the character of John Bunyan. If they were good, they could not lie ; and when they said their message was from God, it was so. If the whole thing is a forgery, who did it, and is it not strange that no historian has ever suspicioned it ? A man’s signature to any document is considered authentic till disproved. The burden of proof is with the opponents. Strange the Jews never thought of questioning it. And their estimate of the Divine character of their manuscripts, and their extraordinary care of them, show that an imposture in this respect is im- possible.
The preservation of all the parts of the Bible has no parallel in history. Libraries and books have perished, but here is a large number of manuscripts written during a period of fifteen hundred years, by ab6ut forty men, of various occupations, living in different parts of the world, and preserved through sieges, wars, captivities, and in later times all brought together in one volume ; and now translated into nearly two hundred languages, and thrown broadcast over the habitable globe. There is not a miracle on its pages greater than this. Yet there is one greater — that when all these men’s manuscripts were collected, one great plan ran through the whole in gradual development to the end. No two heathen philosophers had the same idea of God-; yet here are men, retaining their individuality upon their books, and agreeing about every doctrinal feature about God. They had no standard of orthodoxy to govern them upon fundamental doctrines ; and yet each writer explains the other, and the Old Testament writers unfold a plan they did not understand. Astounding miracle ! Its influence upon the world is greater than any human production could possibly have been.
Take the character of its revelations — leaving out the history of the people with which is woven the developing plan, that the plan might develop in humanity, for whose benefit the plan was intended, and whom it must touch, or it would be an abstraction — and take its doctrines. What do we know’ about God, His nature, attributes, works, government, love, and glory ? All we know is what the Bible teaches us, and its teachings are explicit. It only teaches what is man’s origin, his powers, his des- tination. It only teaches a system of Pneumatology and Psychology. It only gives the reason of man’s life here. It only teaches human depravity, its cause, its effects. It teaches neither more nor less than what we all know to be true. It only relieves God, in connection with our sorrows, of a reflection upon His wisdom, goodness, or power — and while throwing the responsibility upon us, yet is the only book which gives us hope at last. It only teaches upon reasonable grounds o.ir accountability, and instructs us how to act in relation thereto, how to prepare for the future.
It only teaches us our duties to God and man, and reveals such reasons for their performance as our minds will endorse. It only teaches us the exalted dignity of ourselves in connection with such service. It only teaches mair’s immortality, the doctrine of a judgment, eternity, heaven, hell, eternal life, and death. It only teaches the plan of redemption — the love of God — and salvation through a god- man.
Its teachings are so pure in their tendency. The highest moral purity is everywhere enforced. This is carried beyond the conduct into the very thoughts. Purity of intention is everywhere insisted upon. No class of men is excepted, no apology or accommodation for any vice. Even the writers spare not themselves. Moses tells us that he was reluctant to obey God in going to Egypt ; he tells us that he killed an Egyptian and had to run away ; he tells us of his vainglory at the rock of Meribah, and that he was forbidden to enter the promised land on account of it. Its best men are not spared. Yet no other book has so correctly delineated the human heart, and given man so much consolation. ■
The book is inspired. There are different degrees of inspiration; and there are different modes by which it was given, but of this I cannot speak now. It is so unlike the fables of the sacred books of other religions. These lack evidence, most of them are absurd, many of them impure, and they did not inform man of salvation and a future state. It is sufficient in the knowledge it gives, in the duties it lays down, in the motives it presents, in the admonitions with which it abounds, and the threatenings and promises all over its pages. It is fulness itself. No man need say that it is not sufficient to him for any matter appertaining to his salvation and good.
The Bible is adapted to every man. Brother, are you a traveller ? This book is a map of the country through which you journey, and it gives you an outline, the skirtings of the country to which you are journeying — that part of the country which touches this. You can see the trees, and through the interstices of the foliage, glimpses of a city. Brother, is life a sea, and you a mariner ? The Bible is your chart —consult it. Are you a stranger here ? You must be a stranger here, or you are no Christian. If a stranger, you are a pilgrim. The Bible is your staff. Are you a warrior ? The Bible is your book of tactics. It describes your armor, tells you how many pieces, where to get them, and how to use them. It tells you also all about the enemy. Do you acknowledge yourself a subject of God’s kingdom? The Bible is the code of the kingdom. Are you a student of the mysteries of God ? The Bible is your text-book.
It is adapted to every condition. Are you poor and needy? “The needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectations of the poor shall not perish forever.” Are you a stranger? ” The Lord preserveth the strangers.” Are you fatherless, a widow ? The Lord ” relieveth the father- less and widow.” Are you bowed down ? ” The Lord raise th them that are bowed down.” Are you in trouble ? “God is …. a very present help in trouble.” Have you many afflictions ? ” Many are the afflictions of the right- eous : but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Are you heart-broken ? ” The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” Are you tempted ? ” God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Are you in tribulation ? ” Blessed be God …. who comforteth us in all our tribulations.” Are you slandered and persecuted ? ” Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad : for great is your reward in heaven.” I might follow this strain of talking all day — in all conditions, rich or poor, sick or well, young or old, the Bible is full of instructions and promises. With its broad wing it covers the world. It only cheers the dying, kindles a light in the grave, and opens the doors of a blessed immortality. It is all we have got. Doubly cursed the man who would rob humanity of the treasure. Come, sir, give us a better. It is a book which defies all improvement — it is perfect.
No book has been so fiercely attacked in every age as the Bible. And after its teachings had conquered the civilization of the world, and that civilization became professedly Christian, that civilization went over to the Devil, and the church itself tried to burn up all the Bibles in the world ; but Church and State, infidel and pagan, criminal and philosopher, have all failed to destroy it. The Bible is no feeble child begging in the streets of our Vanity Fair, but it is a lofty giant, his mother Love, his father God, and his strides over toppling thrones and down the ages have awakened the dead. He shakes thunders from his flowing hair, and his armor shines like the sun. The breath of God was the furnace blast, and Horeb’s top the anvil, when Jehovah forged him helmet, breastplate, and buckler ; and the infant Jesus gave him a sword out of heaven’s armory; and while John fell worship- ping, the stars danced the sky to the song of the angels, when he was commissioned to take the world. Kill him ? Kill an archangel ? Kill the Lord of glory again ? Kill God ? Priest and infidel, get out of the way ! God’s eter- nal truth owns the eternal years, and the Bible yet will be the code of all nations, the arbiter of all questions, the referee in all disputes, the grand court of appeal for the world, and the Bible and Jesus will be King of the world. Go on, blessed old Book ! — Let wicked men scoff. Go on, and teach the rich man how to use his wealth, the poor man how to be happy in his cabin — teach all men the way of salvation ; and when we die give us a promise and hope of ira mortality, and kindle a light in our graves which all hell can- not blow out — and you have done for us what all the world’s philosophy never dreamed of.