ARTICLE IV.

THE BIBLE EVERYTHING OR NOTHING.

BY PROF. TAYLER LEWIS, LL.D., University of New York.

OUR world and race will doubtless make progress if God wills it; and just as fast and as far, and in the exact proportion as the purposes of His moral government may require. It is only when the ground of this is regarded as something purely physical, or as existing in the nature of things, or in an universal development, and in connexion with a view of God that regards Him either as a part, or as the inseparable pervading energy, or vis efficiens of the whole, that the doctrine becomes absurd and atheistical. It is then progress in an endless line, having reference to nothing out of itself regarded as absolute and immovable. In it there could be no points of rest, nothing finished, no absolute perfection for the whole, no relative perfection that could ever be hoped to be reached, for any of the parts. Neither could there be strictly any ends; all things are only media; singly and collectively they are means to something beyond, and still beyond ad infinitum, for ever and for evermore. We do not use the terms higher and higher, for these imply, at least, fixedness in one direction, and an immovable standard from which this direction, as onward or backward, upward or downward, may be rightly determined. According to another and far more satisfactory view, the universal movement may be contemplated under the idea of a sphere, having an everlasting radiation of every part to and from a fixed centre. Here everything intended for an end may be supposed to attain some final position; and, in some unchanging relation to such centre, and to the whole, to reach, at last, its own relative perfection. All true progress, then, would be towards such a centre, or rather to some fixed points in relation to it.

If this be a true view of the actual progress of the things or entities of which the universe is composed, much more may it be maintained in respect to the mind's advance in truth and knowledge. There must be some central truth or truths for the rational soul, according to our nearness to which, all other truths falling within our visible horizon may be seen without parallax, in their true positions, and in their relative importance; thus also furnishing a fixed standard by reference to which the true station of all physical, moral, or intellectual development may be rightly estimated as belonging to the really advancing or retrograding scale.

We may say then, that our world and race will make, and do make, actual progress towards this relative perfection of being, just so far as is consistent with those never-moving purposes which lie far beyond the mere natural system, and which finally terminate in that great and necessary end of all existence, the moral glory of God. Unless, however, we suppose some truth and some knowledge to be fixed, without progression, as an immutable standard for us, the question must ever recur-What progress, and towards what? These are points which the most zealous advocates of the unmeaning popular doctrine do not care to settle, and in fact, on their favorite hypotheses, never can settle. But unless this is fixed, nothing else is, or can be determined. A physical advance may be a moral regression; intellectual or merely scientific progress may be a religious deterioration. A race exceedingly rude in respect to science and philosophy may be far nearer to God, and the central truths on which His throne eternally rests, than one in possession of the highest natural knowledge, and the most refined natural enjoyments.

Without, therefore, at all denying that there are certain aspects in which the doctrine may be most true and important, still we say that its highest meaning is only to be ascertained by a continual reference to certain positions which must, for us at least, be regarded as immovably settled. We must stand somewhere, and measure from some fixed meridian. Otherwise our progress would be like that of a ship in the trackless ocean, without compass or quadrant, sun or star, or any means of estimating her present position, or her point of departure, or her true line of present direction. In such a sense, everlasting progress is everlasting imperfection, an everlasting unsettling of all past positions, without security for the permanency of any others to which this unregulated advance may at any time arrive. Everything is reached only in order to be immediately left as belonging to the useless, imperfect, and shadowy past. Such a doctrine denies the glorious and comforting truth that there is for man a relative perfection, in which, as his fixed and final state, he may at last attain to his eternal blessedness. "They who believe have entered into rest." We deny not that there is a progress for us, even in those departments of theology which have long been regarded as settled; but if it possesses any comfort for the soul, it must be only in the hope of its own termination in the surer conviction of some truths which shall, at length, be regarded as immovable and unchangeable, not only in their essence but also in their aspect; and by reference to which the relative rank and value of all other truths may be finally and satisfactorily determined.

The question, however, still recurs-Is there such progress, as an actual fact, in respect to the great truths of God's existence, his moral attributes, and our moral obligations? With all the aid

of colleges, and elaborate systems of moral philosophy, and the teachings of theological seminaries, and with all the polemical metaphysics of religious controversy, does the man, on these points, ever get much, if any, beyond the vivid first impressions of the religiously taught child; especially when through the blessing and grace of God, they have been powerfully stamped upon his young serious spirit? When we truly believe that "God is, that He is the rewarder of such as seek Him," that he is the punisher of those who break His holy laws, that He loves the obedient and is angry with the wicked-are we clearly conscious of any real additions in after years, to this department of our theology? Do we ever, on these points, get much in advance of our catechisms; or is there not suggested the religious experience of some of the best and wisest of Christians, when it is asserted, that growth in grace, and in true religious knowledge, is marked by a return to the truthfulness, and simplicity, and awful vividness of their first moral impressions, before discussions about the extent of the universe and moral evil considered in reference to it, and the irrationality of sin had merged the heart in the head, and the warmth and light of the conscience in the coldness of the intellect.

What is God?-is a question, which, in better and more truly religious days, was so often asked in the catechetical circle of the parish, the family, and the school. It was answered-God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Let us suppose that this has been once vividly impressed, as we have every reason to believe it often has been impressed, on the young and intelligent spirit-what essential addition is then really made to it by subsequent reading and study on the Divine attributes, the Divine personality, the Divine love, the Divine justice, the Divine benevolence? They may serve to deepen the impression; or they may, -and this, alas! we have great reason to fear, is too often the case-tend to weaken and obscure it; but what additional element, or what new aspect even, do they impart to the truth itself? What clearer light ever dawns upon the mind from the anxious study of Kant, or Cousin, or Coleridge, or Howe, or Chalmers, or Dwight, than comes to us vividly and distinctly from this simple and scriptural answer of the catechism? So likewise, in respect to the nature and consequences of moral obligation; the church and the world abound in books on these subjects,-on the social evil of sin as measured by the extent of the universe, and the obstacles to the common enjoyment that would be the consequence of its toleration. How much, too, has been written on the doctrine of physical consequences and consequential punishment? And yet, what is there in it all, which so awes the soul, and so evidences itself to the conscience as the very truth of God in all the simplicity of thought and language, as the answer to

the question, What doth every sin deserve? Every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and in that which is to

come.

The same train of remark is applicable to most of the leading doctrines set forth in that admirable form of sound words, so solemn to the young soul when received from the lips of an earnest and solemn teacher. We may talk as we please of what are styled new views, and high views, and deep views, and broad views, and progress in theology-and we will not deny the possibility of such progress even on points deemed fundamental;-yet it may well be doubted whether, as matter of fact, we ever make much advance beyond the clear definitions of the Westminster catechism in respect to the Divine tri-unity, the Divine sovereignty, the atonement, the justification from guilt, the sanctification from sin, and the adoption of the sinner, through union to Christ, among the elect or people of God for whom He died. It may well be a question whether we ever arrive at any higher point, either in philosophy or theology, than that which is presented in its first answer-Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever; or whether, in this life at least, we may hope to obtain any more trustworthy guide to such a course than is furnished in the second -The word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him."

There are some truths of such a nature that they reject all compromising partnership, and sternly refuse all modifications that might seem in the least to detract from their absolute conclusiveness. They are wholly true, or wholly false. They are supreme, controlling all related truths, or they are the most baseless of all delusions. In short, in their own department, they are everything or nothing. The doctrine of justification through faith in the blood of Christ is one of these. If Christ was truly God, and He died for sinners, the very statement at once excludes every other ground of justification, every idea of partnership between it and any hope of salvation derived from any other source. Nothing could be more blasphemous than any pretence of association, in the least degree, with human merit, original or inwrought. If Christ truly died for us, then all merit originally on the part of man must, in fact, be denied. As well claim alliance between a grain of sand and the universe. It is the veriest trifling even to speak of baptism and penance, in connexion with it, except as symbols of its infinite efficacy. Precious, too, as are the tears of penitence; healing as they are to the justified soul, and even should it be granted that they might possess some kind of merit in themselves, yet are they utterly lost when placed in the balance, and reckoned in the great account, with the priceless item of the Divine agony endured for our salvation. Whatever value

any moral act or state may possess under other circumstances, here, and in this comparative estimate, it becomes utterly worthless. Ages of good wooks, all as holy as the holiest deeds of angels and archangels, and of all glorified spirits to all eternity, must disappear in any proposed partnership with one drop of that most precious blood. The doctrine is true in the highest sense, in a sense far beyond any conceptions we have ever formed, or it is wholly false. There can be no middle ground here. There is no space on which we can stand between the Socinian who wholly rejects, and the rigid view of Augustine and the Reformers, the doctrine of justification by faith only in the blood of Christ, as the sole ground of our acceptance by God, to the utter exclusion of all works, and with the necessary implication of hopeless ruin for the whole race, had such a sacrifice never been offered.

And so we may say respecting the medium through which there is revealed to us this great salvation. The Bible must be everything or nothing. If it is indeed a voice to us from God, it can suffer no compromising partnership with anything merely human, or with anything below itself. Tradition, philosophy, science, may all be employed as instruments or media subservient to its clearer manifestation; yet ever under its control, and never, in the slightest degree, sharing its authority, or making any approach to equality with it as a convenient means for human instruction in the things pertaining to salvation and the kingdom of God. In other words, the Bible is nothing to us except as a remarkable relic of antiquity, or it is our conclusive authority in theology, in morals, in social, and even political questions, as far as connected with our spiritual relations; in short, in all questions, even should they be matters of science, on which it professes to speak and to declare the truth. If God does, indeed, specially reveal Himself to us in it, or through it, then every other voice that claims to be heard, be it reason, be it science, be it nature, be it conscience even, which is higher and greater than them all, must be hushed at the utterance of its oracles.

We live in an age in which there is but little avowed opposition to the Scriptures. Infidelity no longer directly denies its inspiration; for, with a marvellous exuberance of faith, it ascribes the same high character to all works of genius, to art, to nature, and to humanity. Science bows to it blandly and respectfully, even while taking for granted unproved positions which contemptuously nullify its authority, and that, too, in matters connected with some of the highest moral and spiritual truths. Almost all parties in religion and philosophy praise the Bible. It is sometimes magnified with a reverence which might almost seem idolatrous. It is almost worshipped by some as the very religion of Protestants. And yet can we say that this is an age distin