STRONGHOLD OF TRUTH
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which stands the test of time. (b) Catholicity. There is a universal element in a written form which appeals and applies to the whole world. The Bible, by way of illustration, is the easiest book to translate into universal language today. I wonder what China or Uganda would make of one of Shakespeare's plays? Every one knows how impossible it is to translate Heine's ballads into Eng lish. There are French poems of exquisite thought and expression that cannot possibly be put into our language. But the Bible is a Book of universal-shall I use the word ?-interpretability. And it is this catholicity of the ·written ·word that makes the Bible so valuable. (c) Fixity. There is a permanence about the Written Word that makes it essentially valuable and important for human life. (d) Purity. We can have purity in con nection with writing, in a way that we cannot possibly have by any other method. . We cannot be sure of these four qualities in reason, because that is unsafe and variable. We cannot be sure of them in any institution, for it is always uncertain. This written form of revelation is therefore the best available form. It is guaranteed to us by the fact that the New Testament has come from uniquely qualified men. I remember once when in conversation with a friend, asking him this question : "What is the ultimate reason why you accept the New Testament? Deep down below everything else, what is it that causes you to accept it, and reject other books?" My friend said he did not know that he had ever really faced it in that way. So I went on : "Do you accept it because it is old? There are older books. Do you accept it because it contains truth? Well, there are other books that contain truth. No; beneath its age,· beneath its helpfulness, beneath its truthfulness is the bedrock-this book came from men who were uni quely qualified to convey God's will to men; and the bed rock of our acceptance of the New Testament is what is called in technical language Apostolicity; because the books came, either from Apostolic authors or through Apostolic sanction."
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