The Inspiration of the Bible
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seems too trifling to notice, but let that line be broken where it should be continuous, and “Thou shalt not profan,? the Name of thy God” in Leviticus 18:21, becomes “Thou shalt not praise the Name of thy God.” Through that aperture, how ever small, the entire thought of the Divine mind oozes out, so to speak, and becomes quite antagonistic to what was designed. This shows how truly the thought and the word express ing it are bound together, and that whatever affects the one imperils the other. As another says, “The bottles are not the wine, but if the bottles perish, the wine is sure to be spilled.” It may seem like narrow-mindedness to contend for this, and an evidence of enlightenment or liberal scholarship to treat it with indifference, but we should be prepared to take our stand with Jesus Christ in the premises, and if necessary, go out side the camp bearing our reproach. IV.. D IFFICULTIES AND OBJECTIONS That there are difficulties in the way of accepting a view of inspiration like this goes without saying. But to the finite mind there must always be difficulties connected with a revela tion from the Infinite, and it can not be otherwise. This has been mentioned before. Men of faith, and it is such we are addressing, and not men of the world, do not wait to under stand or resolve all the difficulties associated with other mys teries of the Bible before accepting them as divine, and why should they do so in this case ? Moreover, Archbishop Whately’s dictum is generally ac cepted, that we are not obliged to clear away every difficulty about a doctrine in order to believe it, always provided that the facts on which it rests are true. And particularly is this the case where the rejection of such a doctrine involves greater difficulties than its belief, as it does here. For if this view of inspiration be rejected, what have its opponents to give in its place? Do they realize that any objections to it are slight in comparison with those to any
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