Questions on Chapter 18.
fully carried out between nature and revelation, giving strong reason for believing that the two systems have emanated from the same divine Source. IV. We conclude this chapter by noticing the analogy between revelation and some remarkable dispensations of Divine Providence. It has been argued that the Bible cannot be a revelation from God, because it represents God as authorizing the extermination of the Canaanites, which would have been a cruelty, inconsistent with the divine character. In reply to this, it is enough to state that the destruction of the Canaanites, as commanded in Scripture, is perfectly consistent with those dispensations of Providence by which many thousands are sometimes destroyed by an earthquake or volcano. In both cases, the responsibility of the destruction is with God. If the God of providence, consistently with his attributes, could destroy by the agency of a volcano the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the God of the Bible, with equal consistency, may destroy the Canaanites by the agency of the Israelites. The agency or instrumentality by which the work is performed cannot change its moral character. The infidel admits that God, by his providence, destroys multitudes by earthquakes and volcanoes, but, inconsistently with himself, denies that he may do the same thing through the agency of a nation. The Canaanites were judicially cut off for their sins, because “the cup of their iniquity was full.” The Judge of all had the right thus to execute upon them the sentence, which, by their long-continued wickedness, they deserved. And if God may punish them thus severely for their sins, he may select the agency for the execution of the sentence. In this case, we see the harmony between revelation and providence, tending to evince that the God of providence is also the God of the Bible. We see farther that Christianity is perfectly consistent with nature and with providence, while infidelity is inconsistent with both the one and the other, and equally so with herself. Let her first go and be reconciled with nature and with providence, and then her quarrel with revelation will be ended. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 18.
QUESTION 1. What is included under the head of internal evidence?
2. Do our standard authors agree as to the relative importance of external and internal evidence?
3. What is the position of Dr. Chalmers on the subject?
4. What relation do these classes of evidence sustain to each other?
5. Which is the more convincing of the two to the Christians?
6. Is the range of internal evidence limited, or extended?
7. What is the first evidence of this kind noticed?
8. What testimony did the Saviour give to the truth of the Old Testament?
9. What was the testimony of the apostles on the subject?
10. How may it be shown that the Old Testament sanctions the New, and receives therein its fulfillment?
11. How is an argument founded on the consistency of the different parts of the Bible with each other?
12. Does the Bible contain any real contradictions?
13. How is it shown that the God of the Bible is consistent with the God of nature?
14. To what points, of analogy is the appeal made?
15. What departments in both nature and revelation are mysterious, and what are plain?
16. What objections have been urged, founded upon the dispensations of Divine Providence, and how have they been answered?