The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.2

The Fundamentals Moses to Malachi; and when we look into these productions, there is even in them great unlikeness, both in matter and manner of statement; and yet they all constitute one volume. All are entirely at agreement. There is diversity in unity, and unity in diversity. It is “e pluribus unum.” The more we study it, the more do its unity and harmony appear. Even the Law and the Gospel are not in conflict. They stand, like the cherubim, facing different ways, but their faces are toward each other. And the four Gospels, like the cherubic creatures in Ezekiel’s vision, facing in four different directions, move in one. All the criticism of more than three thousand years has failed to point out one important or irreconcilable contradic­ tion in the testimony and teachings of those who are farthest separated—there is no collision, yet there could be no col­ lusion ! How can this be accounted for? There is no answer which can be given unless you admit the supernatural element. If God actually superintended the production of this Book, then its unity is the unity of a Divine plan and its harmony the harmony of a Supreme Intelligence. As the baton rises and falls in the hand of the conductor of some grand orchestra, from violin and bass-viol, cornet and flute, trombone and trumpet, flageolet and clarinet, bugle and French horn, cymbals and drum, there comes one grand har­ mony! There is no doubt, though the conductor were screened from view, that one master mind controls all the instrumental performers. But God makes His oratorio to play for more than a thousand years; the key is never lost and never changes except by those exquisite modulations that show the master composer; and when the last strain dies away it is seen that all these glorious movements and melodies have beep variations on one grand theme! Did each musician compose as, he played, or was there one composer back of all the playp ers?—“one supreme and regulating mind” in this Oratorio of the Ages? If God was the master musician planning the

98

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker