Chapter 19. — Origin of the Bible — Life Of Christ — Style of the Sacred Writers — Adaptation of Doctrine to the Character And

CHAPTER 19. — ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE — LIFE OF

CHRIST — STYLE OF THE SACRED WRITERS —

ADAPTATION OF DOCTRINE TO THE CHARACTER AND

CONDITION OF MAN.

I. AS those skilled and practiced in such things can judge of the qualifications of a mechanist or of an artist by examining his production, whether it be a machine that he has constructed or a piece of statuary or of painting that he has executed, so we form a judgment of the character of an author from the perusal of a book he has written; and although this judgment is not in strictness the result of mathematical demonstration, yet it often conveys quite as satisfactory conviction to the mind. For example, who can read the Iliad of Homer, the Principia of Newton, or the Orations of Demosthenes, and not be convinced that the first was a poet, the second a philosopher, and the third an orator? It is on a precisely similar principle that we conduct the internal argument for Christianity. The book called the Bible has found its way into our world. Men have differed in their judgment as to its origin, character, and importance; and one mode of determining this question is, by examining the volume itself. The evidence derived from this source is called internal, and, to the candid and unsophisticated mind, is often of the most convincing character; though skeptics are seldom disposed to give it an impartial hearing. There are but three different classes of men from whom the Bible could have emanated: it was either written by good, inspired men, by good, uninspired men, or by bad men.

The examination of the volume itself may easily satisfy the impartial as to which of these classes of men were its authors. Bad men could not if they would, and would not if they could, have written such a book. As well might “the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots,” as for wicked, unholy, bad men, to write such a volume as the Bible! It is a moral impossibility. A bitter fountain cannot send forth sweet water, nor can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Had a set of bad men, in any given age, combined for the express purpose, their groveling, polluted intellects never could have conceived the pure and lofty sentiments which everywhere breathe through the Scriptures, much less could they have maintained the same unearthly and holy characteristics throughout so extended and diversified a production. How, then, can we conceive it possible that thirty or forty base and atrociously wicked men, living in different ages and parts of the world, extending through a period of sixteen hundred years, and having no knowledge of each other, or possible chance of collusion, could have thus combined for such a deception, and maintained throughout so marvelous a consistency? He who can believe this, exhibits a larger capacity, of belief than if he were to subscribe to every miracle of the Bible at which infidelity has ever scoffed! When a set of deceitful hypocrites and perjured wretches — as the authors of the Bible must have been, if they were bad men at all — can produce such a volume under the circumstances, then a mere child or idiot may have written the Elements of Euclid, or the Principia of Newton! If bad men wrote the Bible, then it is a tissue of profanity and lies from beginning to end; for they profess everywhere to be God-fearing men, speaking with authority from Heaven. And, moreover, they record in deepest colors their own shame, and utter the severest denunciations against themselves! Can this be reconciled with the principles of human nature? Infidelity can point to nothing like it in all the history of our race. From what source soever the Bible originated, it is morally certain that it never was conceived or brought forth by bad men. But could it have been the production of a set of good but uninspired men? This hypothesis is equally absurd and impossible. The writers of the Bible do not profess to speak on their own authority, or in their own name, but claimed to have received their commission from God; and, in confirmation of that claim, they performed many notable and public miracles. Now, we demand, can good men go before the world with a lie in their mouths? Can they preface their communication with “Thus saith the Lord,” when the Lord has not spoken? Can they profess to be “moved by the Holy Ghost,” when they are only moved by themselves? And would God sanction the impious falsehood and deception by empowering them to work miracles in its confirmation? That the Bible was produced by good but uninspired men is an absurdity — an utter impossibility! Hence, as neither bad men nor good uninspired men could have produced it, there is but one other source for its origin left — it must have been produced — if ever produced at all — by good inspired men. If infidelity admits this conclusion, she yields the whole question, and subscribes to divine revelation; if she denies it, she may with equal reason deny that the Bible exists, and set her sophistry at work to show that the millions of mankind, through all these long centuries, while they imagined they were reading the book called the Bible, were all the while in a dream! Infidelity may sneer at the conclusion presented, but she cannot escape from it, except by proving that the Bible was either the production of bad men, or of good but uninspired men; and when she shall have accomplished this, to prove that there never was a Bible in the world, or that light and darkness are the same, will be but all easy task for her masterly logic!

II. A very powerful internal evidence of the truth of Christianity may be derived from the character of Christ, as portrayed in the evangelical history. We do not here include his miracles and predictions — which have been considered under the head of external evidence — but refer merely to the personal history of the man Christ Jesus. In this there is abundant testimony to satisfy every candid mind that he was no impostor, but, as he claimed to be, “a Teacher come from God.”

1. First, look at the purity of his life. What impostor ever exhibited a deportment so blameless — a life so free from pride, ostentation, vanity, selfishness, or worldly-mindedness? Throughout his whole life goodness marks his intercourse with mankind. He engages in nothing to afflict or distress — nothing to produce discord in social circles, or insurrections in civil communities; he appears among men as the “Prince of Peace.” It was the business of his life to go about doing good. Were any blind, he gave them sight; were any deaf, he restored their hearing; were any dumb, he loosed their tongues; were any lame, he said, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk;” were any sick, he said, “Wilt thou be made whole?” were any possessed of devils, he “rebuked the foul spirit,” and relieved the possessed; and “to the poor he preached the gospel.” So abundant were his acts of benevolence, that multitudes of the afflicted followed him up in his travels, or cried after him as he passed, thronged him as he entered the house of a friend, pressing through the crowd to “touch the hem of his garment;” and, of all that ever came to him in distress, not one did he turn empty away. And though he was poor, not having “where to lay his head,” he never received a reward for any of his acts of mercy; but, a homeless wanderer, he went about doing good to others. Can it be that a life so blameless, so devoted to doing good, so self-sacrificing, was that of an impostor?

2. But look at his patience, amid all his persecutions, and his kindness toward his enemies. He bears insult and injury, mockery and derision, with calm composure and meek submission. His character was aspersed, and all manner of evil spoken of him falsely. His best acts were attributed to the worst of motives, and his virtues were converted into crimes. He was pursued from city to city with the tongue of slander, and with the venom of demons his enemies clamored for his blood; but he bore it all, without recrimination or the slightest effort to take revenge. He wept in sympathy over the devoted city of Jerusalem, and, with his dying lips, prayed for his murderers: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Are these the characteristics of an impostor? Could he who thus lived and thus died be a cunning deceiver, practicing a fraud upon the world? The very supposition is monstrous!

3. Next we view the character of Christ as a Teacher. And, first, we notice his Sermon on the Mount. Here, within the limits of three chapters, is comprised the most luminous presentation of moral and religious truth contained in any language. As he opened his mouth and taught, a shower of rich beatitudes came down upon his waiting hearers like clusters of ripe fruit from the tree of life! We cannot pause to analyze this inimitable sermon, but it contains every conceivable excellence — it is simple and comprehensive, majestic and sublime, tender and impressive, earnest and pathetic — it teaches the purest morality and the loftiest devotion, in the clearest and most forcible style. No unprejudiced mind can peruse it and fail to coincide with the multitudes who “were astonished at his doctrine,” and testified that “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

Again, we look at the instructions of Christ in his parables. Here the divinity of his character as a teacher conspicuously shines forth. Never before nor since did this method of teaching appear with so much beauty and force. With the profoundest skill, by the use of the parable, he riveted attention, removed difficulties, disarmed prejudice, shed light upon the understanding, convinced the conscience, and, transforming the bigot into an impartial judge, led him by gentle and imperceptible degrees to pronounce upon himself the sentence of condemnation. Do we wish to see the richness and fullness of gospel grace, the earnest importunity of the gospel call, and the fallacious pleas and senseless excuses by which sinners evade this call — do we wish to see all these things forcibly set forth? — we should read the parable of the Great Supper. Would we have a view of the sincere and benevolent intention with which the gospel should be proclaimed to all classes, and of the various kinds of hearers who listen to the word, and the reasons why so small a portion of them profit thereby? — we may read it in all its transcendent beauty and force in the parable of the Sower. Would we behold in more than nature’s deepest colors, the folly and drudgery of sin, the all-surpassing yearnings of the bowels of Infinite Love for the salvation of the wandering rebel, and the thrill of joy and gladness with which all heaven will celebrate the return to God of every penitent — would we witness a description of all this, wrought up to the loftiest degree of pathos and power that language can reach? — we have it in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

4. But we look also at the circumstances connected with the condemnation and death of Jesus, and witness there the evidence that he was more than man. Behold him before Pilate! Did ever a criminal display such serene composure under such circumstances? Did ever a judge pronounce such a eulogy upon him whom, with the next breath, he ordered to execution? “I find no fault in him,” said Pilate; and added: “Take ye him and crucify him!” Can this be a wicked deceiver? But look upon the scene of his death — upon the robe of derision and the crown of thorns — upon the cross, the nails, and the hammer — upon the rending of the vail and the going out of the sun — upon his pierced side, and hands, and feet, and upon his streaming blood — listen to his dying groans, and to his last prayer for his enemies, and say, Was not “this the Son of God”? Could an impostor have lived such a life of purity and self-sacrifice? Could he have exhibited such calm serenity of soul amid such “contradiction of sinners,” labored so perseveringly for the world that hated him, and died such a death of God-like composure, exhibiting to the last such compassion for his murderers? Sober reason affirms that Jesus was a good man, and not an impostor; and if so, then he was the Son of God, and his religion is true.

5. Even some of the bitter opponents of Christianity, in an hour of more sober reflection than usual, have uttered some noble and eloquent sentiments concerning Christ and his teaching. Rousseau says: “I will confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage whose history it contains should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manners; what an affecting gracefulness in his delivery; what sublimity in his maxims; what profound wisdom in his discourses; what presence of mind in his replies; how great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die without weakness and without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man, with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ; the resemblance was so striking, that all the Christian Fathers perceived it. What prepossession, what blindness, must it be to compare the son of Sophroniscus (Socrates) to the Son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion is there between them! Socrates, dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their example to precept. But where could Jesus learn, among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality of which he only has given us both precept and example? The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God! Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty, without obviating it; it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality, contained in the gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing man than the hero.”

In the apostolic writings we find also very conclusive marks of truthfulness and candor. These disciples never pause to eulogize the transcendent virtues of their Master, or to express their admiration of his wonderful doings; they everywhere simply narrate facts as they transpired, in the plainest and most natural style, yet preserving a tone of solemn dignity suitable to the important events they record. Hannah More well says, “These sober recorders of events the most astonishing, are never carried away by the circumstances they relate into any pomp of diction, into any use of superlatives. There is not, perhaps, in the whole Gospels a single interjection, not an exclamation, nor any artifice to call the reader’s attention to the marvels of which the relaters were the witnesses. Absorbed in their holy task, no alien idea presents itself to their mind; the object before them fills it. They never digress — are never called away by the solicitations of vanity, or the suggestions of curiosity. No image starts up to divert their attention. There is, indeed, in the Gospels much imagery, much allusion, much allegory; but they proceed from their Lord, and are recorded as his. The writers never fill up the intervals between events. They leave circumstances to make their own impression, instead of helping out the reader by any reflections of their own. They always feel the holy ground on which they stand. They preserve the gravity of history and the severity of truth, without enlarging the outline or swelling the expression.” III. An argument, also, from internal evidence may be founded upon the style of the sacred writers. How marked is the diversity in the style of Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, and of all the Old Testament writers! And no one can read the New Testament and not be struck with the peculiar characteristics of style in the several authors. In the writings of Paul, what massive strength and force of logic; what ardor of devotion; what firmness of purpose; what dauntless courage! In the writings of John, what sympathetic tenderness; what sweetness and amiability! And in Peter, and James, and all the rest, there is apparent in each a style of his own. It cannot but be observed how fully the peculiar style of each author is sustained throughout all his writings. Could such consistency have been preserved by an impostor?

IV. The next source of internal evidence to which we call attention is the doctrines of revelation. If these be such as are worthy of God, and adapted to the character, the condition, the necessities, and the hopes of man, and such as could not have been discovered by human reason, then it will follow that they have been revealed from heaven.

We need not pause to show how vastly superior are the writings of the Scriptures, both on moral and religious subjects, to all the wisdom of the schools of pagan philosophy. The ancient Jews were less learned than the Greeks and the Romans. How, then, could the former so excel the latter, unless they were divinely assisted? Infidelity may boast of the system of natural religion; but, we demand, to what does it all amount without revelation? But for what modern infidels have purloined from the New Testament, they would have been as ignorant of the unity of God and of the divine attributes, of the duty of man and of the doctrine of immortality, as were the pagan philosophers. Were the philosophers of Greece and Rome, in the Augustan age, inferior in learning to the infidels of the present day? If not, then why were their notions on these subjects so vague and indefinite, and blended with so much uncertainty, so inferior to those of the infidels of our day? Simply because our modern infidels have borrowed from the gospel. From the divine philosophy of Jesus and the sublime ethics of his apostles they have stolen their wisdom, but refuse to acknowledge the source to which they are so much indebted. “After grazing,” as one expresses it, “in the pastures of revelation, they boast of growing fat by nature.” Those glorious presentations of the divine attributes, the inimitable golden rule of the Saviour, and the confident announcements of immortality, which so enrich the pages of revelation, never could have been discovered by human reason; but they are every way worthy of God, from whom they have been derived, and, when revealed, reason can attest their truth and excellence.

Were it necessary, it could easily be shown that an internal evidence of the truth of revelation might be deduced from every single doctrine and precept of the Bible. But we can only present a few of the prominent doctrines, and exhibit the argument founded on them as a sample of the rest.

1. The doctrine of human depravity, or the moral corruption of man’s nature, is very clearly revealed in Scripture. It runs through both Testaments with a prominence which cannot be overlooked. It is seen in the law and in the gospel — in the writings of Moses and the prophets, and of Christ and his apostles. It need not be insisted how perfectly accordant is this doctrine With the internal consciousness and experience of every accountable man; nor how abundantly it is confirmed by the universal history of the world. In our present argument we take these matters for granted, referring for their proof to the appropriate place in the systems of divinity. But, we inquire, how can we account for the appearance of so clear and satisfactory a presentation of this doctrine in the Bible, and nowhere else? While the pagan nations, although they could not be ignorant of the fact of the general corruption of man, had very vague and indefinite notions as to the nature of this moral disease, and knew nothing of its origin and remedy, the Bible sheds abundant illumination upon the whole subject. While philosophy had been essaying in vain to determine whence this moral malady arose, and setting forth numerous fallacious and fruitless schemes for its control or eradication, revelation conducts us to the origin of our race, records the history of the fall of man, and proclaims and satisfactorily accounts for the moral corruption of the entire species. Now, we demand, does not the fact that this great doctrine, whose truth is recorded upon the tablet of every conscience, and upon every page of the world’s history, is thus fully revealed, both as to its nature and origin, in the Bible, and nowhere else, demonstrate that revelation is not of men, but from God?

2. But the Bible not only thus describes, in its true character, the moral state of man, but it sets forth the only true remedy. The doctrine of the atonement, running through all the law and the gospel, presents the only rational ground of pardon and salvation for the sinner of which the world has ever heard. Philosophy, falsely so called, and pseudo-theology, have prated much and long about the mere mercy of God, his prerogative, repentance alone, etc., as being rational and practicable grounds of pardon and salvation; but all these schemes have been clearly shown to be futile and inadequate. Besides, without revelation, what do we know of the abstract mercy and prerogative of God? If his mercy admits the sinner to suffer for his sins here, for a limited period, what assurance can we have, without revelation, that the same mercy will not consign him to endless sufferings hereafter? Indeed, without revelation we may realize that we are guilty, polluted, and miserable, but we can find no remedy. We are left to the uncertainty of conjecture, or the darkness of despair. Atonement, as exhibited in the Bible and nowhere else, furnishes the only remedy in the case. It alone shows how “God can be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

3. Again, man is not only guilty, and needs pardon, but he is polluted, and needs cleansing. The gospel also furnishes the divine influence upon the soul, to “cleanse it from all unrighteousness.” “As the atonement of Christ stoops to the judicial destitution of man, the promise of the Holy Spirit meets the case of his moral destitution. One finds him without any means of satisfying the claims of justice, so as to exempt him from punishment; the other without the inclination or the strength to avail himself even of proclaimed clemency and offered pardon, and becomes the means of awakening his judgment, and exciting, and assisting, and crowning his efforts to obtain that boon and its consequent blessings. The one relieves him from the penalty, the other from the disease of sin; the former restores to man the favor of God, the other renews him in his image.” (Watson’s Institutes.)

Can that system be the contrivance of wicked impostors which alone furnishes information the most desirable, the most important, the most beneficial to man, which could possibly be conceived — which unfolds his true character, portrays his helpless condition, and points to his only remedy? Can that revelation be an imposture which finds man in darkness and gives him light, in weakness and gives him strength, in guilt and gives him pardon, and in pollution and gives him sanctification? Can a system of doctrines so pregnant with truth, so adapted to our nature and necessities, and which so “commends itself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God,” be of earthly origin and device? Reason testifies, No; it cannot be! This great and sublime system which teaches the depravity and guilt of man through the fall, and his redemption and salvation through the atonement of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit, is no plant of earthly production. It grew not in nature’s soil. It is a seed which could only have originated and been warmed into life in the bosom of infinite Wisdom and Goodness.

4. Once more, the Scriptures alone bring fully to light the doctrine of immortality.

On this question pagan philosophy, in its most enlightened and virtuous phase, has ever trembled between hope and despair; but Christianity has exultantly “brought life and immortality to light.” We need not say how necessary is a belief in this doctrine to our welfare and happiness in this life. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ,” said an apostle, “we are of all men most miserable.” Bereft of that hope of a future state of being and enjoyment, how cheerless and dreary would be the present! What of earth could be found worthy the attention and concern of our exalted powers? But to the Bible, and especially to the revealments of the New Testament, we are indebted for all the assurance we can gain of future reward for the privations, toils, and sufferings of the present state.

Upon this subject how driveling and unsatisfying are the dreamy conjectures of pagan philosophy! How infinitely superior to all these, the solid and glowing hopes with which revelation inspires her votaries! David