Paul, and we shall find in his religious experience our inspiration and the data for our own theology. And, secondly, it must be explicitly stated-though the point of view adopted throughout should already have made it plain-that it is not suggested that all the Biblical writers were equally inspired, or that inspiration is limited to them. Precisely the opposite is meant. The view that all the canonical books have the same religious value-though it seems to underlie the Anglican Lectionary-is as untenable as the old mechanical theory of verbal inspiration, and one really holds it. "How is it," a modern writer asks, "that the Bible of the simplest saint will be well worn and thumbed, perhaps actually torn, at the Psalms and in the Gospels, and the page quite clean in Leviticus and Esther? . . . They might not acknowledge in words that there are degrees of inspiration in the Bible: but their markings in the Bible make it perfectly plain that in effect they do."1 And, further, on the principle we have maintained, it is equally clear that some books not included in the Canon, such, for example, as the Book of Wisdom or the Imitatio Christi, show a higher degree of inspiration than some of the canonical books. To some extent this is partially recognised by the Church of England, which directs the public reading of parts of the Apocrypha. But it is of the essence of the position we have adopted that we should believe that God is ever revealing Himself, and that all knowledge of Him is from Him. God sends His teachers unto every age, It is because we believe this that we pray that God will inspire continually His Holy Church and bestow 1 Munro Gibson, quoted Absente Reo, p. 54. upon us the gift of the Spirit, which will enable us to have a right judgment in all things and lead us into all truth. "" Yet it remains true that all men have not the same capacity for apprehending God's self-revelation or for communicating it to others. There are men of religious genius, men, like Moses, who speak with God "face to face." These men become the founders of great religious movements and are the religious teachers of mankind. We know them by their fruits and we speak of them as inspired in a unique degree. That we, too, may speak with God "face to face,' that we may have that knowledge of Him which they possessed, we seek the help of those to whom He spoke in the past. If first and most we go to the Bible, it is because, as has been shown, the facts of history and of our own experience lead us to it. The authority which the Bible possesses is that of its own spiritual supremacy and its unique spiritual power. "On the great deep of Holy Scriptures we float away from our prejudices and preconceptions, and afar from the creeping mists and rocky barriers of the narrowing coast, and alone with God, can see in open vision the vastness of all His loving purposes. They who haunt these mighty tides 'see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep.'. . . Our own souls must be continually bathed in those living streams if we would keep them apt and ready for heavenly visitations." 1 What is claimed for the Bible is just that which the facts demand. If less is claimed our religious life will be infinitely poorer and weaker than that of our fathers and we shall be disloyal not only to the past but also to the future. For in disinheriting ourselves we shall be disinheriting the generations that are to come. What the Bible has done for others it can do for us. "As if on some dark night 1 Wilberforce: Ordination Addresses, IX. a pilgrim suddenly beholding a bright star moving before him should stop in fear and perplexity. But lo! traveller after traveller passes by him, and each, being questioned whither he is going, makes answer, 'I am following yon guiding star!' The pilgrim quickens his steps and presses onward in confidence. More confident will he be if, by the wayside, he should find here and there ancient monuments, each with its votive lamp, and on each the name of some former pilgrim and a record that there he had first seen, or begun to follow, the benignant star."1 And so I go to the Bible, as others have gone before me, to learn from those who have heard God speak, seeking by their help to see the vision they saw, and finding in their words inspiration and power. As I read, the spark of faith is kindled in me, and, in part, I see God as they see Him. But if I cannot see the visions they see and hear the voices they hear, I do not conclude that they were deceived and that there were no visions and no voices, but that the fault lies with me, because I have not the eyes with which to see or the ears with which to hear. And so I go back to the Bible with the conviction that as my own experience widens and deepens it will become the same as theirs, that I shall know God as they know Him, because they know Him as He is. The day will come when I shall believe the words that one by one The touch of Life has turned to truth, not "because of their saying," but because I have seen for myself and know. 1 Coleridge, quot. Tyrrell, Scylla and Charybdis, p. 66. |