## A Fourth Dialogue on the Essays and Reviews, section a.

Inspiration and Interpretation.

J. N. Darby.

<09004E> 223 file section a.

W. Well, what do you say to Jowett? It has a different character from the other Essays. I cannot get so fast hold of it. The others rest on alleged facts or discoveries, which may alarm you if they can be maintained, and the deductions are just; but here there is nothing to lay hold of, and yet it leaves a painful impression on the mind that, if this be so, one has lost the word of God. It makes me not doubt of this or that, but doubtful of everything. I think it does me more harm than the others, if I am to have faith in God's word. I may say to myself, in reading the others, Well, this is all very well, but it rests on science or chronology, and people differ about that, and perhaps their statements will not stand examination; and there one leaves it. But here there are some sensible rules for interpretation; and yet, in interpreting, I have at the end lost the thing to be interpreted.

H. I quite agree with you. There is greater sobriety of manner, a more moderate tone: Christ seems at least to be treated with more reverence. There are many principles which I should not deny, provided other principles which are not here were associated with them. He circles round the outside of the word, may make some just and more plausible remarks to remove traditional apprehensions. These approve themselves to the mind; but when he touches the core, the substance of the word, it is simply that God is not there for him. It is infidelity as to any possessed revelation of God, and the same taking for granted that all rationalist objections are gospel, if the evangelists were not, and the same entire ignorance really of the heart and substance of scripture. You must always remember that with this class of persons the love of truth does not mean that there is any truth they love, or any to be loved, but simple pyrrhonism — the keeping the mind always open to receive anything, and therefore always sure of nothing. Now this is not the love of truth. It is the love of making people doubt, and think there is no truth. Can you tell me one truth they have brought forward in their writings? Isaiah is not Isaiah, David is not David, the inspired word is not inspired. What is it? Mere expressions of men's feelings and minds. Why, if that is all, I may get Dr. Temple's renewal of inspiration, and have or give just as good now; perhaps, as the world is got so much wiser now, better still.

224 But we shall see that, as regards the word of God, Mr. Jowett is just as distinctly infidel as the rest. The others are as a stone rolled upon the mountain path I have to walk on, which bars my way. I look under, see it has no foundation at all, give it a tilt, and it is down in the valley, and the path clear. Mr. Jowett is like a green morass all across. It does not look such a hindrance, but there is no safe footing anywhere. If you had been in the bogs of Ireland, you would know that a green grassy spot is sure to be unsafe. It has no bottom, and if you tread on it, you are plunged in black mud: there are springs. There are springs of infidelity in Mr. Jowett. We must lay them bare, and the danger is over; they run in their own channel as infidelity, but the ground is dry.

I have looked at Mr. Jowett's commentaries too. I confess I was surprised at their emptiness, and, I must say, their perverseness: notes to take away the apostles' meaning, as received by faith in the word — not merely false interpretations, or wrong construction of Greek, or traditional notions, but all divine points and truth gone, and that is all.

They suggest to you probable or possible human circumstances which may have occasioned what is said, but deny, or, more truly, ignore all springs of eternal divine truth as the true source of the writings. It is — though the comparison is weak — as if one should point out circumstances in the life of a man of uncommon nobility and energy and truth and generosity of character — circumstances in which his character had been developed, some of them possibly having as occasions done so, and attribute all to these circumstances, as if the character were caused by them. In such a case I should say of one who did so, That man does not know what the springs of truth and nobility and generosity are. Circumstances may develop: he may think he is wise; but the spring is wanting in him which would enable him to understand the other, even supposing he was owned to be superior. The similarity of moral sentiment is wanting. So, when scripture is interpreted by these men, some of their remarks as to occasions, or the effect of circumstances, may be just; but, in thinking they have explained the matter, they shew they have nothing of the contents at all. As if a man should eat the hard skin of a pomegranate, and think he had tasted one, telling me that it was through that the pomegranate was ripened. Well, so it was in a sense; but he has not tasted the pomegranate for all that, nor does he know what the sun is either.

225 Such is the effect produced in me by Mr. Jowett's writings, though in some respects far less offensive than others of the Essays, and containing expressions as to Christ which would give hope that the love of His excellency was not wholly wanting. But there is in all who follow this method, in point of fact, a profound ignorance of scripture, of the text, and of its bearing and connection, and of the mind of God as stated in it. You will ever find that what is evidently divine and experimental is difficult or unintelligible for them. They will satiate you with external motives and circumstances, but never study divine truth. They turn Semitism into Japetism with Baron Bunsen: that is not believing the scripture to have a divine source; they do not study it to know what God says and thinks, but merge it into the vague notions of their own mind, and get nothing beyond what they have without it. They reduce scripture to their minds, decently calling it their conscience, and, of course, have nothing beyond their minds, save by the irresistible and inescapable power of the word. And the plainest statements of scripture are neglected by them, so that they cannot be trusted as to its views in a single statement they make. In virtue of their system the knowledge of the mind of God — I do not say as a whole, for no man knows that ("we know in part"), but in the connection of its parts — is wholly and necessarily absent; for they do not believe there is one. To one knowing simply the statements of scripture there is an ignorance of them, and consequent mis-statements as to particular passages, which is almost inconceivable.

And further, with much even seemliness of manner, Mr. Jowett has the same pretensions. All have been ignorant till now the wise age of the world is come. The rationalists possess the wisdom of it. Now there is a freedom from many of these prejudices which cause glosses on scripture; and hence — and it is the case with Mr. Jowett himself — the circumstances of scripture become more real to them. They are looked in the face. And many who would think they must defend Christianity carry the glosses with them to defend. These glosses are but prejudices. Over such defenders of truth, as far as reasoning goes, the rationalists have an easy victory. This, however, for myself, and I suppose for you, has lost its power. Traditions and glosses have never had much influence over me since I thought of scripture, because it came to me as the word of God. All the rest was man — might profit me surely — but was man as to authority. I saw that tradition in all its shapes was man; I can give it all up, and think it gain to have done so — have, in purpose and principle, these thirty years and more, and am delighted when any remaining influence of it is shewn to me, that I may get rid of it. But I gave up traditions and glosses by and because of the power of the word of God, and this only, and have a profound and ever-deepening conviction that it is the word of God. I have given up glosses for that, trusting to learn humbly from that. They have given up the word because they have found the glosses are glosses; or rather, having only the glosses, and having detected them to be such, having nothing but some old books. But the word of God is quick and powerful, and, as they have confidence in themselves, and talk a great deal about it, they come athwart that power; and their ignorance of it, the folly of their views, becomes evident for every intelligent believer, yea, for every intelligent mind where there is not a will to disbelieve. The one difficulty is, that the full unclouded truth and glory of the word, as revealing God's mind, is known to so few (because they do live on glosses and prejudices of education), that it is difficult to make it apparent — to say nothing of one's own weakness.

226 I must recall to your mind, my dear W., another thing, not to be misled by words. These men use traditional words when they deny the things meant by them. I cannot say I think it an honourable system; but it is sufficient here to say we must keep it in mind. An upright mind suspects no guile, trusts the green grass, being used to see the green grass on solid ground, and finds itself, by its confidence, in the black mud.

To give an instance of what I mean, we have a treatise on the interpretation of scripture: it begins, "All Christians receive the Old and New Testament as sacred writings." Of course the unsuspecting reader supposes Mr. Jowett to present himself as a Christian with the rest, and consequently to esteem the Old and New Testament as sacred writings. We all suppose sacred writings to be such because they are inspired — the teaching of prophets, of Christ, and inspired apostles, or prophets, with no defined view of inspiration perhaps, but so as to receive them as having the authority of God, as God's word.

W. Of course. Mr. Jowett's paper is on interpretation; and I do not know what sacred writings mean for a Christian, except inspired ones.

H. My poor friend, as I told you once already, you are in the childhood of the world. Here is Mr. Jowett's dictum: "Nor for any of the higher or supernatural views of inspiration is there any foundation in the gospels or epistles."

227 W. But surely that is not true, though each book may not come and say, I am inspired. I see that infidelity is their common object.

H. We will come to the question itself. Of course I only notice it now, that you may never, with these rationalists, take common words to mean what is commonly meant by them. They deny nothing hardly. They shew that men have had all sorts of opinions; that the commonest subjects on which Christians are agreed have been spoken of under the influence of views prevalent at the time they lived; that men were under the influence of their times (all except themselves, of course); and hence, all is uncertain, everything that has been said doubtful. The Fathers were under the impressions of their age, the Reformers of theirs, Romanists of their system. Hence the truth itself is uncertain, because men are. Hence, doubting of every form of truth, truth itself is lost, because, everything being different, each is an opinion, a view of man. Now men do feel the influence of their age; they are poor weak creatures. But the argument from this to the uncertainty of truth is only a proof that they who use it have opinions, but no truth; the argument supposes God has never revealed any truth: otherwise we should say, there is a fund of absolute and sure truth. Men have varied, even those who have held it fundamentally; but, thank God, the truth remains the same. There would be an appeal from man's uncertainty to God's certainty; but they having only opinions — only man's mind — nothing from God: the effect is, that apostles and prophets, all the inspired writers, fall into the same class as these various interpreters: they underwent the influence of their day, and there is no truth at all. The only difference is, that they were at the childhood, Mr. Jowett and his friends are at the mature age of the world and human race, and the representatives of it, so that they, in the freedom it gives, judge it all. The whole matter is this, they see only the circumstances and opinions, never the truth. They have no revelation from God at all, for, if we have a revelation from God, it must be truth, the truth; and, when the revelation is fully made, must express His mind, though this may be partially revealed or fully, a light shining in a dark place, or the dawn of eternal day.

W. I see plainly the working of their reasonings. If there is nothing supernatural in inspiration, of course I have no truth. I may come to conclusions, but never get truth — get nothing that is a revelation of it from God, nothing that is beyond the scope of the human mind. Hence, if various opinions are shewn to exist, all are doubted; all are the fruits of influence of one kind or another. I judge them all coldly, but have no opinion except the denial of inspired truth.

228 H. The whole system is simply this. There is the coolness which can judge what has exercised influence on others, so as to cast all they have said into doubt, all the shapes in which even real truth has been received into doubt, but no truth held at all. It is quite true that in a human mind truth is modified by circumstances in its form, for we are feeble and hold the truth partially and mixed with error. The Christian says, Yes; and what a comfort, therefore, to have the truth itself, which, though taking a human form that it may apply to the human heart, and have a witness of originating where it professes to have originated, by leaving the stamp of the time and circumstances as to its form, is yet the truth of God Himself; and the channels of its communications so guarded, that I should have it pure and exactly as God meant me to have it! What a rest for my soul to have truth from God! I can rely upon it. It is pure light in the confusion of this world. It is love too which has given it to our souls, wandering in the wilderness. Then comes in Mr. Jowett, and, seeing nothing of this in it at all, proves that Fathers and Reformers, and theologians, with systematic and conventional doctrine, are all under the influence of their age and its manner of judging, but declares that he and his friends are exempt from it; at any rate, so far exempt, that they can shew in each case the influences which acted on the doctors of the various ages, and gave a form to their views. You may be allowed to doubt whether they have got the truth themselves, provided you doubt of all the rest. And when I ask, Well, but about the apostles and writers of scripture to whom these different prejudiced persons refer their doctrine? Oh! says Mr. Jowett, you must throw them all in in the lump. They are, like all the rest, formed by their age, and you must judge them like any other book. This is Mr. Jowett's Essay. He will tell you how Fathers erred by prejudice, how Reformers took the colour of their time, how modern interpreters are yet inferior, how the New Testament was formed from the influences of its day.

Natural conscience will judge of all this; but of truth, divine truth, inside of all this, revealed truth which is thus clothed or departed from, not an atom save what nature has. He, Mr. Jowett, and his friends, have made all this clear. But, I ask, where then is the truth? You are, he tells me, to walk in the love of it. I ask, where is it, to love? Oh, that is not what I mean, says Mr. Jowett. Love of truth is not truth being loved. It is not love of the truth: the truth has disappeared in the process. Love of truth merely means a readiness to reject what is not honestly what it pretends to be. It is really a pretension to be able to judge by my own competency of everything, submit everything to this test, and never to be convinced, but always ready to doubt, consequently never know that anything is truth; so that I cannot love it because it is truth. The moment I am assured anything is the truth, I can receive nothing contrary to it; if I do, I do not love the truth. But with them the love of truth means, never to do this, but readiness to doubt, because we never have the truth. This doubting God had taken away by His word. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," John 8:31, 32, says Christ, "if ye continue in my word." "He that is of God heareth us," says John. 1 John 4:6. To the total absence of this truth we are brought back again by the rationalists. That was all the childhood of the world; we are now in the manhood of the world — at least sufficiently to cast off all this, and trust ourselves.

229 W. And believe what?

H. Well, I do not know — ourselves, and, if we please, Mr. Jowett.

W. But do you seriously mean that Mr. Jowett's Essay throws scripture thus into the lump, as you say, with other prejudiced writers, so that we have no divine revelation, and so no standard of truth; and that they have the singular pretension that they only are enlightened to judge of it?

H. You shall judge of this yourself; we will go through his Essay. The only modification is, that perhaps they are only enlightened enough to learn that all before themselves have been wrong.

W. But what motive can they have?

H. I am satisfied it is a direct work of Satan, as I said; but it works thus: — They are enlightened intelligent persons — at least, think themselves so; they believe nothing, and have given up all that is divine and supernatural in Christianity, but, as yet like to retain the credit of being Christians; they think that every other intelligent person must give up the faith as they have, and they seek to lower Christianity to a point in which nothing properly divine remains, so that their intelligent friends may thus accept it. Men's eyes do not like the light, and they want to dim or destroy its character, that men may look at and receive it: only, unfortunately, it is not the light they have received, and they remain content with the state that hinders their receiving it. When any truth is in question which requires divine faith, do not be so foolish as to peril religion on that, says Mr. Jowett; intelligent people soon will not receive it. Another truth comes up: Do not lead people to reject Christianity by defending that, he tells us.

230 W. But that is the love of intelligent people more than of the truth — the love of respectability. How dares he to speak of love of truth, and use such an argument?

H. It is a threat to induce people to degrade Christianity to his level of it; the poorest simplest saint fears no such threats; one word of Christ's is more to him than a bookful of such reasoning. It proves that the writer has not or does not love the truth — does not know its value — has not the moral courage that belongs, through grace, to a divine acquaintance with it. The humblest believers pity such intelligent people, and with true charity. But what is divine is just what is precious to such souls. They know God hides these things from the wise and prudent, and reveals them unto babes; they can therefore well understand that those who call themselves intelligent and think highly of themselves will stumble — those who say, We see, "we are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing." Rev. 3:17. Some intelligent ones (not many), the apostle tells us, may, by grace, be poor enough in spirit to receive the kingdom of God as little children. They have been warned by their Master of such pretensions to wisdom; but God's words have been found by them, and they have eaten them, and they have been to them the joy and rejoicing of their hearts. They know they are divine; they have received them, as they are in truth, as the word of God, which works effectually in them that believe; they have not the most distant thought of being frightened out of their known treasure by the questionings of those who use human intellect to judge of divine things. They do not think this very intelligent, because they know God.

No, my dear W., threats of the intelligent not receiving divine truth may make us mourn, but not doubt. It was always so. They must become fools that they may be wise. It was Celsus' reproach in his day; it is practically Mr. Jowett's in this. But we will verify what we have spoken of. That men have sought to pull scripture their own way, as Mr. Jowett alleges, is most true; that we need not discuss. After describing how this is supposed or expected — i.e., by the cool observer — which is also true, we soon find who this observer is. "Philosophical differences are in the background, into which the difficulties about scripture resolve themselves. They seem to run up, at last, into a difference of opinion respecting revelation itself — whether given beside the human faculties or through them; whether an interruption of the laws of nature, or their perfection and fulfilment."

231 Now this is rather early in the Essay (the first paragraph) for infidelity to ooze out; but "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The Essay is on the interpretation of scripture, but it turns at last (at first, he should say) into a difference as to revelation — i.e., whether there is any. The question here is, though garbled in, "philosophical differences in the background." "Is there inspiration, and are there miracles?" He could not keep it in. There is no truth in the statement whatever.

With the "Ultramontane and Anglican, the Protestant and Roman Catholic, the Bible-alone men of the Reformation school, or the Bible-and-Prayerbook advocates," there is no question as to the scriptures being truly inspired, or miracles being true. They disagree on many points — on important points; but the points they do not disagree on are, the inspiration and authority of the word, and the truth of miracles. On this they all agree; their differences do not ever run up into them.

The only meaning of the sentence is, that Mr. Jowett's paper is not an interpretation, but infidelity as to the thing to be interpreted; and, as I said, he makes the doubts and differences as to interpretation fall on the truth of scripture itself. It is poorly and dishonestly done. Others differ — he does too — from them. It is all one thing. Now this is false. All the others, unless "the Germans," own God's word and its divine character; Mr. Jowett does not. Their differences do not run up at last into this; it is not in "the background" nor in the foreground for them. They own the authority of scripture, whatever use they make of it. It is the whole ground for Mr. Jowett; his heart was too full of it to keep it in. An honest man, unless blinded by prejudice, could not say that differences as to doctrine to be drawn from scripture, because all held it to be divine, run up into the denial of its authority, its inspiration, and miracles. If all is opinion, and there is no faith, then Mr. Jowett's opinion is as good, it may be, as another. But the fact is exactly the contrary of what he says. They contended fiercely, because they declared they had divine authority for what they professed to be from scripture, and therefore insisted that that was from God. Had it run up into doubting the word, their conflicts would instantly have ceased. Mr. Jowett doubts of all, and hence of scripture.

232 W. It is clear he must have been in a great hurry to get out his infidelity; but what he says is evidently without the smallest ground of truth in it. It is, as you said, doubting of all forms of truth, to make it doubtful whether there is anything but form. But his doubt is not a consequence of, it is exactly the opposite in principle from, the discussions of the others. They did not doubt at all. All is avowedly a "difference of opinion," even to whether there is a revelation. Truth, and the certainty of it, are gone — do not appear as a possibility.

H. The third paragraph contains the pretension to be the sole possessors of wisdom — at least, wisdom enough to doubt. "It has not been readily, or at once, that mankind have learned to realize the character of sacred writings . . . . It is the old age of the world only that has at length understood its childhood (or rather, perhaps, is beginning to understand it, and make allowance for its own deficiency of knowledge)." I told you he would let you doubt even of his world's old-age wisdom, provided you doubt of all the rest.

W. Well, it is tolerable self-sufficiency; and how opposite to the assertions of scripture! I do not see, after all, that there is less open infidelity here than in the other papers we have examined. He seems in a hurry to get at it. Scripture speaks of perilous days at the end; it pretends everywhere to miracles, and gives itself everywhere for inspired. I cannot see the consistency of pretending to be anxious to interpret rightly a book which, if their way of setting about it be true, is a universal lie.

H. The truth of that is, that the word, and Christianity which is revealed in it, have a power men must undergo while they seek to deny it. It has changed the world — has made the proudest hearts bow to its truth. Their pride may comment on it, but they are forced to own its power.

W. However, I see plainly that, under cover of speaking of principles of interpretation, Jowett, by looking at all interpretation of scripture as opinions formed by the day, brings in his own denial of Christianity, viewed as a miraculous revelation of God, as one of the opinions. It is not, in my opinion, brilliant in its honesty; but, perhaps, having only opinions, and no truth, he does not see any farther. But then that shews that the idea of truth is lost; all is "opinionum commenta" which "delet dies."

233 H. I apprehend that is what is likely.

W. But there is excessive pretension in it. It reminds me of the bitter sarcasm you quoted from Job in a former conversation: "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you." Job 12:2.

H. Many principles of interpretation — such as not taking scholastic divinity or the definitions of creeds to interpret scripture by — I entirely agree with. God may providentially have preserved the truth more or less in the visible church by them, when spirituality was gone. But scripture does not make creeds, but livingly reveals the truth of God: all this you and I have long recognized; though, where error and Alexandrianism, or Neoplatonism, and its kindred Gnosticism, invaded the Church, creeds. may have had their use. All conventional interpretations we can let go without a regret; we will take up the principles of interpretation which touch on the "philosophical differences in the background." The difference of opinion we come to at last — that is, whether there is divinely given truth. A great deal that is said on confounding application and interpretation, and using scripture to make out sermons, is very just, and no doubt, with the preachers Mr. Jowett has to say to, necessary; but it is common-place, and needs no remark. There is an abuse of scripture, in this respect, among ministers, in and out of the Establishment, which is a proof of a low state of mind as to scripture and apprehension of divine truth, which God, in His goodness, bears with, but is both painful to a mind which has studied scripture and injurious to all. But, at least, the authority of scripture — that is, God's word — is owned; it is better than Mr. Jowett's "interpretation." Imagination works too.

Let all these remarks have their effect in the proper quarters; no sensible person will regret it. Let those who have these habits see the effect in Mr. Jowett's treatise — that is, the charging the New Testament writers with doing the same, still being good men and apostles; so that all the authority of scripture is gone. Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. "What preachers do," urges Mr. Jowett, "the apostles and inspired writers did — accommodated scripture to their own ideas." But we may come to principles of interpretation which affect scripture itself directly, as denying inspiration, or as evidently leading to the same conclusion. It is better to take up the statements in the essay than follow any order of our own on the subject. I will only, to break fairly into the subject, draw your attention to Mr. Jowett's statement, which I have already quoted, that we may know what we are about.

234 Mr. Jowett says, "Nor for any of the higher or supernatural views of inspiration is there any foundation in the Gospels or Epistles;" that is the "background." His other principle to which I have alluded I may quote only to set it aside. It is a base one. If inspiration be true, it is true; if not, let us give it up. If it be, let Christianity and philosophy take care of themselves: the day of judgment will settle who is right in principle. I do not expect — it would prove a book not inspired — a treatise on chemistry or geology, or an inspired instructor to speak any but the common language of men on this subject. An inspired man would say the sun rises, like another. It is the grossest and flattest stupidity to object to it — to think that the Holy Ghost, speaking to immortal souls, would stop to explain astronomy, or not use current expressions: the whole effect of what He said would be destroyed. It is, morally speaking, impossible. He would not sanction popular errors, though He might appeal to men's belief of them as an argument of the unreasonableness of their unbelief, because then He only accepts the state of their minds, which is the truth as to their state; but He would not use the phoenix, as Clement does, as a proof of the resurrection. That men should insist on the language of scripture as scientific is absurd, and that is what the clergy did with Galileo, with his "E pur si muove."

But Mr. Jowett's principle is a hollow and base one. Speaking of chemistry and physiology, he says, "It is a false policy to set up inspiration or revelation in opposition to them — a principle which can have no influence on them, and should be rather kept out of their way." I say, if God has spoken, let God be true, and every man a Liar. I make no objection to chemical and physiological enquiry; but I do not trust man's certainty, and I do God's. And see how far Mr. Jowett's principles go: "The sciences of geology and comparative philology are steadily gaining ground; many of the guesses of twenty years ago have become certainties, and the guesses of to-day may hereafter become so. Shall we peril religion on the possibility of their untruth? On such a cast to stake the life of man implies not only a recklessness of facts, but a misunderstanding of the nature of the Gospel. It is fortunate for science, it is perhaps more fortunate for Christian truth, that the admission of Galileo's discovery has for ever settled the principle of the relations between them." Now the cool yet stupid audacity of this is somewhat singular. It amounts simply to this: the bigoted persecution of popish priests, and the judgment of the Inquisition, have exactly the same authority as the word of God; and if the movements of Jupiter's satellites have proved the folly of popish persecution and applying their dogmas to science, the Bible must retire and hide itself before the guesses of geology, and get out of its way, as they may prove true. What think you of such a principle — of such love of truth? Is there a trace of the noble bearing of truth in it?

235 W. Not one.

H. There is not. I may be mistaken of course; I may misinterpret scripture: humility as to one's own thoughts is always right. But I have what I believe to be the truth; I shall hold and own it as such, till I am convinced of the contrary; if I find it is not the truth, I shall give it up. If what professed to be inspired, or men supposed such (for I do not think a true revelation would occupy itself with such a subject), said Jupiter's planets do not move, and it was proved they did, I might see if I had not misinterpreted, if it was not a traditional view supposed to be based on this writing; if definitively it said, as a revelation, they do not, and I found they did, or had when the writing spoke of them, I would say, I have been deceived: this, at any rate, is not inspired; it is not from God. Yet, even in this case, if the direct proofs of inspiration were absolute for other parts, it would only prove this spurious. If all the writing was identified with it on the same ground, I would say, I give up holding that I have an inspired book. A book with good things in it, I may have, perhaps, from spiritual people, but no book from God with a revelation of His. I would not call them sacred writings. No man that talks of false policy in this way has a right to speak of love of truth again. I repeat, I look for no science in scripture; I should at once be disposed to reject it as scripture if I found it; but this I avow boldly, I have no need to use policy about it. I may avoid bringing those weak in the faith to the deciding of doubtful questions. But I am not afraid of the question of inspiration, nor afraid of science. I do not apply scripture to the latter, but I am not going to deny inspiration — that is, the direct communications of my God in grace — for the untruthful and dishonest warnings of policy from those who want to keep their religious positions and give up their religion. However, so frightened is Mr. Jowett that his recommendation is to give up the inspiration of scripture before a guess even of science. This guess may be true; that scripture is, or may be, no mortal knows — certainly not Mr. Jowett, or he, from "love of truth," would keep fast hold and stand up for it. But scripture, yea, even "Christian truth" itself, is all the same as the tenets of the Inquisition! Such is the man, such the doctrine, which is pretending to interpret scripture. But, as an argument, the reasoning has no ground whatever, because it assumes these Jesuitical tenets to be the absolute equivalent of what Mr. Jowett himself calls Christian truth.

236 We may set aside all that part of the reasoning which refers to the fears of meddling with the text. The thought lasted for perhaps a century at the utmost after the so-called textus receptus. Since Mills' or even Bengel's time, the question has really ceased to exist. Save a rare timid spirit every one seeks a text critically exact. All this is throwing dust in people's eyes. Persons who have the profoundest conviction of the divine origin of scripture seek, for that very reason, to have it as pure as possible. The shewing that people have had to give way in prejudices as to the effect of changes has nothing to do with a denial of inspiration. In the supernatural sense Mr. Jowett denies inspiration. It is not the way of securing our having the thing, but whether there is anything to be had which is now in question. He uses fallen prejudices to produce universal uncertainty. Having got rid of all these artifices, for such they are, I meet Mr. Jowett's statements in face on the point really in question, the inspiration of scripture.

No one denies that the structure of a sentence is to be sought, though it be not classical Greek, in the principles of the language, modified by its then state of decay, and the changes which entirely new ideas and subjects introduce necessarily into every language. But, I affirm, that the principle of Mr. Jowett, that it must be interpreted, when we come to the matter contained in it, by the plain use of words as other books, is a false and absurd notion. I interpret men's words so, because men's ideas have formed them, and therefore they can express those ideas which gave them birth. But if there be a revelation, however much God may condescend to men and speak through men amongst them, and even in His Son as a man, the ideas of men not having given rise to the words and thoughts, but God, it is impossible that language formed by man's ideas can be an adequate expression of God's, if we take that language, as Mr. Jowett would, in its simple use according to men's ideas. Upon the shewing of the case, by the strictest scientific principles, the whole statement is wrong.

237 W. I see it plainly. Every one who has the least enquired into the subject, or even thought of it, knows that language is formed by, and expresses, the thoughts, habits, and mental objects of a people. It is their picture. It forms itself on their habits. But if this be so, a revelation from God cannot find its adequate expression in the language taken according to its human force, because, according to its human force, it expresses human ideas, not divine. But then this difficulty arises: we must have an inadequate revelation.

H. Inadequate, if we seek what is infinite in its completeness all at once. "We know in part and prophesy in part," says the apostle. Intuitive knowledge of all at once is not come. But there are analogies of relationship, and the Lord Himself lays down expressly that the thought (the λόγος) must be known before the speech (the ῥῆμα) is. This is not the way with man's language. I explain the terms, and use them then to learn all relating to them, and unfold the relationships in which the things stand to one another. In divine things we must know the thing to understand the word. To take a familiar example, "We must be born again:" if I take this in the "simple universal meaning" of being born, I shall stumble with Nicodemus on nonsense. Take the word Son applied to Godhead: has it the simple universal sense it has elsewhere? "The Word was with God, and was God." John 1:1. What does Word, or λόγος mean? I affirm that in everything important referring to God, or even spiritual subjects, the words must have a meaning only to be known by those who have the divine key to it, whatever that is; because as human words they only express human ideas, and they are now used to express what is not the fruit of human thought but of divine. If I say, "Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin" — "ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God," Col. 3:3, can I take the simple meaning of the words as they apply to the human order of thought by which they have been formed? It is absurd, and contradicts itself.

W. This seems to me perfectly clear.

H. It is not that the language is not ordinary human language; it is because it is ordinary human language (though modified, as is ever the case with new ideas), and to be construed so, that interpreting it when used for divine things, as if the ordinary human meaning were the limit of the thought (and this is what Mr. Jowett wants), is unintelligent, yea, the grossest absurdity. And indeed Mr. Jowett cannot and does not deny it. He says, 'There are difficulties of another kind in many parts of scripture, the depth and inwardness of which require a measure of the same qualities in the interpreter himself" — that is, everything that is of chief value does. And consequently he contradicts himself within a page or two expressly. "First," he says, "it may be laid down that scripture has one meaning — the meaning which it had to the mind of the prophet or evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it." (p. 378.) Exactly two pages farther on he says, "All that the prophet meant may not have been consciously present to his mind: there were depths which to himself also were but half revealed." (p. 380.) Yet I am told (p. 378), "scripture has one meaning, the meaning which it had to the mind of the prophet."

238 W. It is impossible, where a man is not a hardened infidel, who will not see any force in the word of God, to escape the conviction of special depth and power in it.

H. Another passage in which Mr. Jowett most happily contradicts himself in this respect, shews the truth of what you say. "There are germs of truth which after thousands of years have never yet taken root in the world." That is, really, that the ideas being not from a human source, but from a divine one, human language cannot express it as a human idea, to be received according to a human measure. "There are lessons in the prophets which, however simple, mankind have not yet learned even in theory, and which the complexion of society rather tends to hide; aspects of human life in Job and Ecclesiastes, which have a truth of desolation about them which we faintly realize in ordinary circumstances." All this is saying (and makes one think Mr. Jowett above the heartless system he is propagating) that the forms into which the human mind is moulded, the state in which it naturally is, cannot seize the bearing and truth of aspect of the divine mind, however simply it is expressed. And what follows expresses it yet more distinctly: "It is perhaps the greatest difficulty of all to enter into the meaning of the words of Christ, so gentle, so human, so divine, neither adding to them nor marring their simplicity." Now I rejoice in such phrases. I repeat, it gives one a bright hope that Mr. Jowett is above his system, that, in emancipating himself from traditional nullities, he has stumbled into the mud of the system next him, and that he will get out, confessing and knowing by experience that it is dirty mud and nothing else, and that the depth of the divine mind and grace will be his abiding portion.

W. One would trust so indeed from these words, and they are quite the truth; but it does most entirely contradict his statement that the scripture "has one meaning, the meaning which it had . . . to the hearers or readers who first received it."

239 H. Yes; but we will rejoice in so happy an inconsistency — rejoice because the good side seems to be more truly Mr. Jowett himself. We must however, having gladly admitted this, follow the system to which his name is attached in this paper. Now with this depth in the mind of Christ or even the prophets, what may be called (though unjustly) many meanings becomes perfectly intelligible, and the necessary result. I do not take up Cocceius' notion, though I understand it, I think, that the scripture had all the meanings it could have. It was merely awkwardly expressing in human feeling this — that the divine mind was so large that human expressions of it partially had no end. If I draw water from the well, I do not say at each bucket, This is different water. I say, No, there is a continually springing well. It is all water of the well, but my bucket can only bring a small part of it at a time. It is, as Mr. Jowett says, hard in doing this, "not to add or mar the simplicity. The interpreter needs nothing short of fashioning in himself the image of the mind of Christ: he has to be born again into a new spiritual or intellectual world, from which the thoughts of this world are shut out." Now this is excellent, but the proof (not that the words of scripture are not simple, but) that, from the natural mind being formed in another train of thought, it cannot enter into what is divine. It says what scripture says: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit." 1 Cor. 2:14. But it denies at once the theory that scripture can be interpreted as having the meaning it had to the hearers or readers who first received it. Scripture, divine truth, never is really received but in the measure in which the mind is formed into the spiritual state capable of apprehending it. Not that the words are not simple, or that the statements are not — they are; but that the mind is not morally open to them: they are foolishness to it. So of the use of a passage of scripture. As my water from the well, I may use it to drink and quench my thirst, to wash, to quench the fire, to make the plants of my garden grow. It is not changing anything in the water: God so formed it as to be properly applicable to all these things.

And so His divine word. Man's limited nature makes limited things (we spoil the instrument in applying it to something else) and limited words. God's infinite and creative nature has, in His revelation, given what is according to His nature, though suited to man's. The source is infinite; the application is to what is finite. Hence what is simple in itself is various in application. Hence, even in the language which expresses it, we have a finite instrument used to express an infinite mind. This must be different from a finite instrument used to express a finite mind. Even in the last case it is imperfect, as the comparison of the different languages shews; but, in respect of God's thoughts, though He who uses it is God (and hence it is perfectly used for thoughts not learned but only to be expressed), that which is used must have a fulness and elasticity and power, which it had not with man. He who would reduce the force of language used for inspired communications — as the rationalists, and alas! inconsistent Mr. Jowett — to the measure of the mind of the speaker or hearer, denies the inspired communication altogether. Hence, too, the language of scripture is eminently figurative. It uses physical facts and terms to express moral ideas; but the consequence is, we must have the moral ideas themselves to understand the words, as Jowett admits. But then the force of the words is measured by the ideas I have, not by the simple theory expressed by the words at all. All language is figurative when any moral subject is spoken of. I talk of a lovely picture of virtue, and so on. Our life is spent in such figures the moment I leave materialism. But man cannot speak of divine things truly, because he does not know them; his language cannot in itself be formed directly on them, save in falsehood. When God speaks of them (and this is revelation), He does for our sakes condescend to use human language, but fills it with that which is divine. And the intelligence of the language is in the measure of the intelligence of the truth conveyed. He who would reduce the meaning to the human meaning of the words denies the thing altogether, makes nonsense of it besides, by making divine things human in their conception. He is simply an infidel in fact that denies the communication of the divine mind. That God should communicate His thoughts to man, to sinful, corrupt, narrow-minded man, and all be understood according to the human limit of human expressions, is an absurdity upon the face of it. It denies what it professes to admit, and this is Mr. Jowett.

240 W. But does not this leave room for very wild imaginations?

H. To be sure it does. But this is a moral question under God's hand and government, like all others. Man's mind runs wild without scripture, and it runs wild with scripture if it trusts itself. And the mightier the instrument, the more the wildness appears. If I run about with a perambulator, I may perpetrate some mischievous folly; but if with a steam-engine, I may jeopard a multitude of lives. But that is the fault of the person who does so. That this danger should not exist, we must give up materially and morally all that has power. And it is God's will that man should be thus tested.

241 The humble mind learns according to the power of God's truth. The self-conceited wields a weapon to his own, perhaps to others' hurt; but he has not, morally speaking, scripture as God's word, but as so many thoughts, and, when wielded by man's mind, always false, because man cannot wield God. He is subject to Him, and the power He gives is subject to the moral guidance of the Spirit working in man. This is what the apostle means by "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." God may use man as an instrument, but he must first be emptied of self. Hence the humble soul prospers, has God's own word, feeds in these green pastures, and, as the expression of what is become himself, may become a blessing to others. The self-confident mind has never approached God in His word at all; for, had he, he would have ceased to be self-confident. Whenever I see a man confident in himself (and we are all of course liable to it, at any rate in detail), I have no confidence in him. The truth is, all divine things are a riddle, because (man having departed from God) the introduction of God again is necessarily the destruction, the setting aside, of man, viewed in his present state, but thereupon it is the filling the man who receives it with grace, and so with divine confidence, and a delight in holiness that he would never have had otherwise. And he is strong in virtue of being nothing, and in the measure in which he is; as Paul says, "When I am weak, then am I strong." 2 Cor. 12:10. But this is in principle the total putting down of man as he is, and this man will not bear, and will meddle to his hurt with what is given to the new man. And God will deal morally; He will not give His power (unless as some particular exceptional exhibition to shew it is Himself) otherwise than morally, certainly not at all the knowledge of Himself, and it is of this we are speaking now.

And it is right it should be so: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Matt. 5:8, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself." John 7:17. And is it not right that God should thus deal morally with man? Is He to give intelligence of His mind to mere human will and self-sufficiency? He presents it in the word as adapted to man, to every one. But the understanding of its contents does depend on moral condition of soul; and ought, though it may work by grace, to produce that condition. But this the rationalist denies as well as the other.

242 I affirm then that, as Mr. Jowett is perfectly right, his system is intellectually a contradiction and an absurdity; because it supposes a revelation of divine thoughts of which language confessedly formed on other thoughts is the expression, and says it is to be understood according to the simple apprehension of the hearers. It is immoral, because it supposes the moral condition of men to exercise no influence in the intelligence of divine things.

W. But yet the Lord surely made things plain, or rather presented things plainly to men

H. Undoubtedly. If He had not, it would not have tested man; being plain, it condemns him, by shewing that his will and moral condition are in question — are the real hindrance. Light was surely in the world: nothing so simple as light. But men loved darkness rather than light. The Lord therefore came not to judge, but in judgment — not only is light, but gives eyes to one born blind; that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind. And so it is now. "How can ye believe who receive honour one of another?" He sowed the seed in the heart. Often it was by the wayside, hard as the nether millstone — the highway of this world's folly and self-will; part was choked by cares, riches, and lusts; part lost by self-deception.

Hence, too, we have what stupid, most stupid, rationalists would call contradiction. He spoke to them in parables as they were able to bear it. Yet He spoke to them in parables, that hearing they might hear and not perceive. It was perfectly suited to them in grace, but to a nation which would not the truth so communicated, that, where the prejudice of will was, all should be dark. Those who had judged themselves, who had repented, believed and glorified Him. The Pharisees rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of John.

I will now cite the positive testimony of the Lord to this principle of having the divine thought in order to understand the divine words. "Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word." John 8:43. So in Proverbs: "It is all simple to them that understand, and plain to them that keep knowledge." How the Lord shows in John 4 that conscience is the inlet to intelligence in divine things! and thus the heart becomes engaged. Rejected and driven out from Judaea, He sat weary on the well of Sychar. A woman, lonely (it was not the hour when women go forth to draw water) and weary with sin, evidently a strong and ardent nature that had sought happiness with eager pursuit, and sank through it into sin, and not found rest to her spirit (how many such are there in the world!) dragged on a life of toil, and, in the midst of it, thought sometimes on Gerizim and Jerusalem, and knew there was a Messiah to come. There might be happiness and rest somewhere; she had none. Toil and weariness she had, and the last evidently in spirit as well as body. Jesus had toil and weariness too, but through love, not through sin, save the sin of others, and this could not weary love, and He knew where rest was — He was it. The Son of God, the Judge of all, had, humanly speaking, put Himself in a position where He was debtor to this woman for a drink of cold water. But He soon draws her out; He speaks of the gift of God, of a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. All was dark in the Samaritan woman's mind. She moved in the circle of her own weariness; this she felt, the fruit of her sin and toil after happiness. And (with all the movings within that predominated and filled her mind, for, in fact, what had she else?) what does the Lord do? "Go, call thy husband, and come hither." "I have no husband." "Thou hast well said," replied the Lord, "I have no husband: thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that speakest thou truly."

243 Now a ray of light breaks in. "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." The word of God by the Lord has divine authority in her heart, because it has reached her conscience. She has found a man who has told her all that ever she did. Who knew that? The prophet's word has divine authority. Yet she does not yet get to wells of water. The divine communications made to her were quite unintelligible; but much was done. He who knew all her life, all her sin, had been sitting in grace by her, willing to be helped by her. Grace was there as well as truth. She had found the Christ, and leaves her water-pot and her care with it, and becomes a messenger of that which is good news for all. Gerizim and Jerusalem are all alike, and alike nothing. The Father is seeking worshippers in spirit and in truth.

Now here we find a picture of the opening of a soul to understanding and the reception of divine things. The presenting of divine things of the highest character in grace does not do it. The natural heart remains closed. Even when there are moral wants and cravings, divine things are not understood at all. God makes His way through the conscience. Then the word is received. At the moment the heart does not get farther than its present capacity. Still what has been spoken of has been spoken of for it; and grace makes all its own. Jesus in grace has been with it. Oh, what a difference — man's speculations, and God seeing the field white for harvest! The Lord refreshing His spirit when rejected by the pride of man, not with the water of the well, but with love finding its bliss in hearts filled with wretchedness, drinking of the one refreshing well-spring that has visited this world! He had meat to eat His disciples knew not of. What a place for this poor Samaritan, what a place for us; to refresh, stupid creatures that we are — the heart of Jesus, because He is love! Nothing brighter, nothing more genuine, than the effect of her new-found joy, which makes this poor woman the messenger of God's visiting this world to the self-satisfied inhabitants of Sychar. She was just the one that suited the Lord.

244 W. It is a lovely picture, and I think the moral elements you have touched justly given; but on this men may differ. Thereby we see evidently how the estimate of the force of passages depends on the individual spiritual state.

H. Of course, and there is nothing like the picture itself here. What Mr. Jowett says is true. All explanations mar. They are only the expression of our feelings and moral perceptions of that which in itself is complete and perfect.

But remark another thing here, shewing how absurd it is to speak of just the simple meaning to the hearer — that is, man's measure according to the words used: we have here the full power of eternal life as in one who drinks of the water Christ gives; the whole of His person in humiliation; "who it is that saith to thee Give me to drink;" His relationship to sinners; how the divine word reaches the conscience; the passing of grace out of ceremonial Judaism, where it was according to promise, to bring mercy to the vilest; the place Jesus takes thus as rejected; His human estate as weary with us, not having where to lay His head, yet giving as God; the substitution of worship in spirit and truth for Jerusalem and Gerizim, yet salvation of the Jews; the revelation of the Father acting in grace, seeking to have such worshippers; the total change in the soul, when once it is taken possession of by Christ, however ignorant. These, which I recall only from memory, are all directly before the soul in this short but touching interview. How much more, who can say?

The mere literal facts, read as any other history, cannot bring the mind at all into the apprehension of what is here spoken of. If I take the commonest words — as Son, the Son of God, the Son of the Father — a mere literal apprehension affords me nothing, or error; or the Word made flesh. I shall be told, these are mysteries; but the language is simple, and what I am showing is that, with the simplest language, there must be divine apprehensions in the soul to understand scripture; and that understanding it as Thucydides or Sophocles is just simple nonsense. They have human ideas, and are understood humanly. If there are divine ideas, they must be understood divinely. Yet I have only human language, and hence my way of understanding it must be different; and, I must add, the way of writing it, because the way of thinking it must be different. Whether it be by inspiration is the question we have to come to: only I say here that to give divine ideas with certainty, or to be the truth, they must have a divine source, a divine author. Man's ideas about God were utterly false and degraded without it. His power of thought, as such, cannot be adequate to form the idea, or clothe it in language so as to be a communication of truth, an authentic revelation of God's mind.

245 I conclude that, as to the general principle of interpretation proposed by Mr. Jowett, he contradicts himself in the first place, and happily so; next, the system is intellectually an absurdity; thirdly, it is contradictory to the facts of the case; and fourthly, the Lord Himself assures us, as do His apostles, that it is not true. The ideas and subjects of scripture being divine, and language human, formed by human ideas, to understand it simply as it is expressed by a human interpretation of the words, is a manifest contradiction and absurdity. Let us get the best text to have what is to be interpreted, and be relieved from traditional glosses; let us have the most accurate knowledge of Hebrew and Greek at our command: all this is every way to be desired. But, when you have all, in the nature of things the text cannot be interpreted as the words would strike the hearer who stood as a natural man with human thoughts, I may boldly say, in any case whatever. For what is wrong in principle is wrong always. When God is in the world, His ways and actions have, and must have, a meaning which a mere man's cannot have, because He is God. If a Jew had ridden into Jerusalem on an ass, what would it have been? Nothing. If the Lord did, in one sense the history of the world turned on it as a last public-testimony. It was a moment which made the Lord weep, and God perfect praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings to still the enemy and the avenger. Had these held their peace, the stones would have immediately cried out.

246 I cannot conceive anything more absurd than the thought that the works or the words of the Lord in the earth are to be taken just as another's words, and so understood. They cannot, for He says things none else could say, and does what none else could do; but were they the same, the bearing would be quite different. Does Mr. Jowett believe that the Lord was in the world, or that the word of God is a revelation at all? or, if he does, have they no more weight or bearing than another's, supposing he has the text and grammar all clear? He has told us he does, and told us he does not. If his heart is cleft in twain, may he throw away the worst part of it!

W. I do feel what a solemn question it all is. Your reference to John 4, though so brief, again led the heart back to these fresh springs which make one taste that one is in a region that nothing else is like. It is a folly, a horror, a senselessness no term can reach, to compare the movings and speakings of a God walking in love in this world with the writings and actings of other men. If they were such, He was not that at all; and I thoroughly agree with you, that no human language, taken in its ordinary terms as expressing ordinary things, can express that. The statement contradicts itself. It is still a question, Is there a revelation? Has God revealed Himself or not? Let the language be made grammatically clear, of course: it is the vehicle God has been pleased to use, and as a vehicle I employ it. But when you come to the meaning, the interpretation, we enter on a divine order of thought, and must be in it ourselves to understand. Here we are dependent on God, as in everything else.

H. Surely; and hence it is that — though they may be bad commentators, of course, as to the text — the poor and unlearned, who are really exercised in conscience and in divine truth, understand the truth better, as to the substance of it, than the learned man "who leans to his own understanding;" because they have personally learnt where the connection between an exercised soul and God is formed — they have learnt it by their spiritual wants; and Christ is that connection, and the mind of Christ is in the scripture, and thus they have the key to it. If they pretend to interpret texts, they may very likely go astray; but as to the doctrine of scripture, their faith is clear and sure. No exercise of human understanding can give this; no chemist, even if his analysis be right, knows what water is, like to a man who is ready to die of thirst.

247 I conclude therefore, as to the general principle of Mr. Jowett (and especially as to the first part), that he is fundamentally wrong. "The true glory and note of divinity in these latter," he says [Jewish and Christian scriptures], "being, not that they have hidden, mysterious, or double meanings, but a simple and universal one." Now I look for neither mysticism nor logic; I reject them, as such, both. When Mr. Jowett speaks of double meanings, if he means that two distinct meanings of the words are to be taken — "good meanings," as theologians used to say — it is at once to be rejected; but if he confines the meaning of the scriptures to the narrowness of human wording and thought, his principle is false. In the communication of divine thoughts in human language, the bearing of the sentences, from the richness of the truths in them, is various. If I say "God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him," I may justly take up the contrast with Jerusalem and Gerizim, and the whole question of God's dispensations; or I may justly take up God's being a Spirit, which in the nature of things requires a spiritual worship — it must be such. I may also press the difference between God in His nature requiring such, and the Father (as a name of grace and relationship) seeking such; and how now, in this double name, He gave His character to all approach to Him; as the Lord said "I go to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God;" and in the Ephesians, "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Eph. 1:3.

I add, as Mr. Jowett complains of connecting passages by some hidden connection, that when I find, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty," 2 Cor. 6:17, 18. I may insist on the need of separation from an ungodly world and evil, in order to be in relationship with God; or I may note that there are three scriptural relationships with God (two expressly noted and distinguished in the Old Testament — Almighty, and Lord or Jehovah; the first to Abraham, the second to Israel and Moses), and that He who bore them both takes here that of the Father. Now all these are not double senses, but divine truths coming from an everlasting source, and being the expression of it, and of Him who, in infinite richness of being and character, must be in relationship with all things — above all, through all, and in all believers — the statement of these truths must carry all that God is as spoken of in the statement, or displayed in the acts contained in the passage. Of course, all passages are not alike full. It is not logical conclusions which are not in the passage, which I find or seek; nor mystic inventions which are not there either; but the mind of God found in it, that I look for.

248 To say that this is not mysterious is, as to many passages, begging Mr. Jowett's pardon, absurd. A religion which depends on the Word being made flesh, and the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God, and sending down the Holy Ghost to make our bodies temples; which tells us that we are members of Christ's body, of His flesh and of His bones; which shews God become a man, and obedient as such, and dying as such, and other truths I need not enlarge upon, must be mysterious in the true sense of the word, and, indeed, in every sense. I do not know if Mr. Jowett denies all these things. What angels desire to look into can well be supposed to be so. Christ made sin; our dwelling in God and God in us; our being, in this world, as Christ is, so as to have boldness in the day of judgment; the miraculous birth of Christ; — all speak with one voice. He who excludes mysteries from the word excludes sense from it, instead of making it intelligible. I do not mean by mysterious that it cannot be understood. The scripture meaning of mystery is that known only by revelation, not by human knowledge. The initiated know mysteries, the uninitiated not — that is the meaning of the word; but the true initiated are those taught of God. If God reveals, there must be mysteries; and, from the nature of what He reveals, true initiation must exist to understand it. Its expression cannot be at the level of human ideas.

All the deepest expressions of good and evil are brought together. God and sin meet in the cross. Christ is God, and is forsaken of God. Christ is the power and Prince of Life, and He dies, but through this destroys the power of death. You cannot have such things brought together in the same act without mysterious truth. When all that is perfectly good in God and evil in man meet, and are centred indeed in one person, or the condition he takes, the human mind must be taught of God to know it; and God alone, who knows all things perfectly, can reveal it simply, because He does know perfectly; but He reveals all in man, all in Himself, and all in Christ in it. I know, as one may see in Mr. Jowett's Commentary, a person may rest on the surface, and seek to destroy all depth in them, and bend them to the standard of the human mind and scope of human thought. But I do not see any great sense in this that such a fact as God becoming a man should not suppose immense depths of thought, purpose, and moral truth, and reveal them. If Mr. Jowett denies all this, then I get simple infidelity. I know what I have to deal with. If not, I have a Christianity in which the depth of my moral nature, old and new, and in the exercises and conflicts of both, meet God where He and sin have met, and Christ in the consummation of ages is come to put it away. And perfect love and divine righteousness find their manifestations and ground.

249 The simplest expressions of scripture awake profound depths in our moral nature. What does putting away sin mean? What Christ the Son of God appearing to do it? What does the Lamb of God mean? It is easy for philosophers to avoid all these expressions, and make a Christianiy of their own. Only it is in no part the Christianiy that is revealed or known in the word. But interpreting the Christianiy that was revealed in scripture, and has possessed men's minds for ages, by saying that the true divine in it is not having mysteries, is false in fact, and absurd in idea. Mr. Jowett gives pages on conversion and change of character to excuse and suppose it possible, at least in uneducated persons! And — what I trust shews that he may have tasted it, but shews how ashamed he is of owning it before educated persons — excuses it thus: "It was the quiet fancy of a sentimentalist to ask whether any one who remembers the first sight of a beloved person could doubt the existence of magic." We may ask another question: "Can any one who has ever known the love of Christ doubt the existence of a spiritual power?" I hope from this it is true in the writer's case; but it is very low ground to take in speaking of the dying and living love of the Son of God. It may suit an Oxford theologian seeking to emancipate himself from the trammels of conventional doctrines and creeds. A serious Christian hopes for the writer, and passes over an expression of the truth so unworthy of one who has felt it.

I would add a few words on the contrast between double meanings of prophecy in general, and the application of the simple meaning of the words as a hearer would understand them with one meaning. The idea is entirely false. Mr. Jowett admits, "They must speak as from one with whom a thousand years is as one day, and one day as a thousand years; but," he says, "not so as to connect distinct and distant objects." Now I think this also unphilosophical, contradicted by the facts and statements of scripture, and untrue. If the prophecies are to be interpreted as the words of One with whom "a thousand years are as one day," as Mr. Jowett says, it is impossible not to see that the bearing of these words must be something of larger wider import than the circumstances of the moment, and must reach on to epochs where the thoughts and words of such a one will be fulfilled. In this day of a thousand years, all in man's hand changes, shifts, is subverted; new things are set up, new interests created. If the word of one divine day can reach over to the end of it, it must be occupied with a plan that runs through it all, through all these human changes, which are but the risings and fallings of a tumultuous sea, where the equal tide below the surface pursues its constant course. There is a divine plan above and beyond all the local circumstances.

250 As Peter says, "No prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation" 2 Peter 1:20 — does not solve itself in the individual circumstances which occasion it, but enters into the great plan of God. Yet, in the love of God, we may say they must connect themselves with those to whom they are addressed. I doubt not, therefore, that the prophecies were often occasioned by present circumstances, and comfort given to saints at the time by them; but to say they did not look out to a future of blessing to Israel, of the final setting aside of the power of evil, of the coming in of a great promised deliverer, is to fail in recognizing the most obvious fact in all prophecy. Jews, and rationalist infidels who think that the prophets were national poets, apply it, no doubt, to Israel; and if we are to listen to the dull rhapsodies of Drs. Bunsen and Williams, Jeremiah is the sufferer; but Mr. Jowett is not yet there. He owns God has something to do with scripture, and we will not return to these foolish and stupid imaginations.

Take Joel. There it is not to be doubted that a famine through locusts and insect ravages is the occasion referred to. But do you or I believe, or any reasonable person, to say no more, that He whose words are to be interpreted as the words of One with whom a thousand years are as one day has written a book for all ages to determine the result at that time of an inroad of caterpillars, the effect of whose ravages, however trying, would disappear in a few years? Could any one read the book and not see that God's present judgments and mercies are made the occasion of drawing the attention of Israel to their state, and lead the awakened conscience to God's judgment of evil, and full deliverance for those who repented and called upon the name of the Lord, when the people should never be ashamed, the Spirit poured out on all flesh, and Judah dwell for ever, and every temporal blessing be theirs; and, finally, the harvest and vintage of the whole earth be reaped and trodden — God dwelling there in Zion? The famine connected the present circumstances with this promise of plenty and blessing, but no one can but see that the prophet is rapt into future times. Now if this is meant by a double meaning, it is true. That is, that the Lord does give what is a present comfort, yet clothes it in language which leads on to His ultimate plans, so as to keep the godly hope of His people up, and often passes entirely into that with which the present is not linked at all. The point of transition may be sometimes obscure. But the general principle is undeniable, and such a character of prophecy worthy of God, and indeed alone worthy of Him. In Jeremiah and in Isaiah it is in vain to deny that, with encouragement suited to the occasion, the prophet refers to the coming of Messiah, and a time of unparalleled and continued blessing. It is incredible to suppose that God had not His own plans in view, and the great result of His government of the world when man had been fully tried on the ground of responsibility.

251 W. I must say I think principle and fact concur to prove this. I mean that God held out the hope of a great coming deliverance and blessing, whatever momentary encouragement He might give; and that this time in which His plans would be accomplished must be mainly in view, though present circumstances would draw the prophet's attention, and give rise to exhortation and warning. And we must not forget that in fact Israel was waiting for this time, and that in all the East, as Tacitus tells us, the expectation prevailed.

H. Nor is this all. Almost the earliest prophecy (Balaam's, which reaches to the Star of Jacob, was earlier) declares that the order of the world was all arranged in respect of Israel. (Deut. 32:8.) And, further, that Israel would be given up into the hands of their enemies, and afterwards restored, and the Gentiles associated with them, through overwhelming judgments, when "God shall arise to judgment, and to help all the meek of the earth."

Isaiah (6) shews us Israel given up too, and for a long period, and yet preserved in a remnant; and the rejection of Him (chap. 1) who found none to answer when He came and called, as the cause of their being laid aside, yet this followed by the fullest promise of restoration and glory. So Hosea declares they shall remain many days desolate, without true God or false, but seek Jehovah their God and David their king at the end. So Micah declares they will insult and reject the Judge of Israel born at Bethlehem, and therefore be given up; but that this same man will be their peace. And again, the largest and fullest blessing is promised to a remnant through Him, while judgment will be executed on the nations, who yet will be blessed as by the dew from heaven which tarries not for men.

252 Now my object is not, of course, to explain here all prophecy, but to note that there was a reference to a great scheme or plan, such as must be in God's mind, though He may encourage and comfort at the time; and not only so, but that there was something more specific — a giving up Israel, the beloved people, for a time (during which God would be found of them that sought Him not); that that, whatever other sins they had, was caused by their rejection of Jehovah coming as a man in mercy; that this caused their divorce from Him; and that then a long undefined interval would elapse, and blessing afterward arrive, but introduced by judgments — the Lord pleading with all flesh. This gives a uniform plan, declared in statements verified before our eyes in the state of the Jews consequent on Christ's coming. This necessarily threw on the application of scripture prophecy to the end, when alone the plans of God would have their decided and full result, evil be set aside, and the earth blessed under Messiah. This principle the New Testament confirms (Matt. 23:39; Rom. 11:25, 26; and other passages).

We find the Old testifying, in one entire passage, of One coming in grace and gentleness, and then judgment. The New quotes what relates to the grace, and stops short of the judgment. Thus, Luke 4:19, from Isaiah 61:1. So Matthew 21:5, from Zechariah 9:9. The New Testament leads us itself to the same point. Thus, Matthew 10: "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come." Now, He was there; but there was a presenting of Him to human responsibility, and bringing Him in in power. So the Lord personally tells them they should not see Him till they said, Blessed be He that cometh. Till then their house should be desolate. I refer to these to shew that scripture constantly refers to a divine accomplishment of a plan to be fulfilled, which seemed at first to fail — a failure which was the occasion of bringing in the Church on quite different principles, the mystery hidden from ages and generations, Israel being set aside. Even the Epistles follow the same order. The quotation of Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4 goes only so far as it does not apply distinctly to Israel.

253 Finally, I take up Daniel, and I find a declaration of a period appointed to Jerusalem for God to bring in righteousness and blessing — the famous period of seventy weeks; but when this is entered on in detail, we have seven weeks of trial to build the city, then sixty-two weeks to Messiah the Prince, who is cut off and takes nothing (for that is the true sense of the words; not, "and not for Himself"). Then comes a long undated period of war and desolation. And when is the promise of the preceding verses supposed by the prophecy to be fulfilled? It must come after the end of the war: till then there are desolations — the city and sanctuary being destroyed already. It is put off for an unknown length of time, and the unfinished period of seventy weeks gets its conclusion at the end. This is the unequivocal structure of the prophecy. (Daniel never goes on to the blessing beyond the times of the Gentiles.) That is, the prophets suppose a rejection of Israel for a long period, the cutting off of Messiah, and afterwards the bringing in of full blessing through Him. I am not now saying they are real prophecies to be fulfilled; nor, as to this point, does it alter the case, absurd as the theory is, if Daniel wrote in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.

My assertion is, that the prophets have a scheme of this kind — an appearing of grace, as Christianity expresses it, teaching us to wait for the appearing of the glory — a putting off to a remote period of earthly blessing, introduced by Messiah and judgments, the accomplishment of these prophecies, and of the blessing of Israel; Messiah being rejected meanwhile by Israel, and Israel therefore given up. But, whatever particular warnings and consolations there may have been, this shews that, while addressed to these generations, and often occasioned by their circumstances, prophecy always looked out farther in its true scope. I am speaking of its plan, not of its accomplishment. He who would interpret it with that kind of simplicity which would leave this out, leaves all the clearly demonstrable intention of its author out, and this is a bad way of interpreting.

W. I seize clearly the purport of what you say, and it binds the whole together, from the Pentateuch to Revelation, and brings in the New Testament into its place in the organisation of the whole. I feel that if God gives a revelation, and that, as entering into the wants of His people as scripture professes to do, He must enter into local circumstances, and present events so as to meet these wants; and yet God must have a plan and a purpose. And scripture clearly points out that He has. But the Church seems to stand on peculiar ground.

254 H. Doubtless it does. The testimony of Paul takes up man as wholly ruined in nature, and reveals a heavenly man and a new creation; and associates those called, during the rejection of the true heavenly man, with Him in heaven, so that they are heavenly. He was the Lord from heaven. They, as new created, have a part with Him, and, having the Spirit, are united to Him, and become His bride and His body, are joint-heirs with Him the first-born among many brethren. But the current of promise runs on too in connection with the original promise to Abraham. The Jewish branches were broken off, and we grafted in; but the chain of promise was unbroken, though there are blessings above promise in the mystery of union with Christ. Thus the Church is associated with Him for ever.

W. And when the blessing comes in?

H. She will joy and minister in it as thus united to Him and joint-heir with Him, and blessedly so, though her highest joy be Himself.

W. Where is this at all drawn out of scripture?

H. The bringing as children into the inheritance, and the tree of promise, in Romans 8, 11; the relationship with our God and Father, and all His counsels in Christ, in Ephesians, specially Ephesians 1. Our having personally all with Christ is still more brought out in the last chapters of John's gospel. It is this testimony of a second Adam, a last man, which alone gives its true divinely moral character to the New Testament, and gives the just sense of the real bearing of Christianity for us, animating with a heavenly energy, and imprinting a heavenly character on our whole position.

W. Then comes in the gospel, in its full character, in a suspension of the regular course of prophetic promise?

H. Exactly. And the Jews are obliged to come in as a Gentile, in mere mercy; yet all promise will be fulfilled to them. This it is that makes the apostle adore the depths of the riches of God's wisdom. The promises meanwhile run on; yet a heavenly people is formed. All in heaven and earth is to be gathered up into one head in Christ. Besides individual salvation and blessing, there are two great topics in scripture — God's government of the world, and the Church. In Christ both find their Head. He will rule over all, Israel being the earthly centre, while the Church is united to Him. Meanwhile, as He has perfectly revealed God and the Father, we are brought into full personal relationship with what God is in Himself, and as children, or sons with a Father, a relationship of which He Himself is the pattern as man, His redemption work being the basis of all, in the power of which He fills all things.

255 W. It does give a divine completeness to the revelation of the mind of God, which is full of interest though we see but corners of it, yet corners of a whole worthy of God. The time will come when we shall know as we are known, and, better still, enjoy God Himself fully.

H. This is indeed our one chief joy, though we shall admire Him in all His plans and ways. The place of Christ is lovely too in this. The glory of God enlightens the heavenly city. But such a bright blaze of glory, though needed to know Him, has nothing personal in it; it dazzles more than it concentrates the affections: but the Lamb is the light thereof. Here the heart finds its home and centre: One known, One who has loved us, One who is divinely at home there, and the very light of that glory, but has never lost the character in which He has served us in the depths of love. For where love is active, it serves.

But I turn to another point of the prophetic revelation of God before we leave this part of our enquiry. We have accepted interpreting prophecy as the words of One with whom a thousand years are as one day. But, if this be so, then there is one Author really of the whole, though divers instruments; and, though surely adapting His words in grace by those instruments to various circumstances that arise (as grace would do), yet, I must find one mind as to the substance and purpose of the whole. And, though interpreting each part simply and just as I find it as to the direct meaning of the passages (which I think very important myself), taking what a prophecy says as it says it, yet the one mind from which all flows and which runs through all I shall surely find and do find; and consequently (not a similarity or a copying, but) a fitting of each part into the whole, and into its own place in the whole, each part being suited for that very reason to its own object and part in that whole; and thus secondly a connection, not immediate but through the whole, of each with every other part; as the members of the body different entirely in service, yet serve the whole, and serve each other.

256 I get Jews, Gentiles, Israel, Messiah, their history developed in multifarious ways; but all treated by one mind to whom all belong, history bringing out the thoughts of that one mind by each one in the sphere they belong to, and by a revealed bearing one upon another — law, the opening up of wider thoughts by prophets, obedient royalty, punishment of evil, absolute Gentile dominion, Messiah, sacrifice, endless principles brought out in germ, death, resurrection, promises, and all running into one another in one great scheme. For it is a remarkable fact that Judaism has given rise (whatever people think of it) to a more enlarged unfolding of every question as to good and evil, and man's relationship with God — has more touched all the springs of human nature, than anything that ever claimed the attention of the heart of man. A being separate from good, that is, from God, yet capable (by grace) of it; one who had a will of his own, but was responsible; who had acquired the knowledge of good and evil, conscience — yet was under the power of evil: who had been made in the likeness of God, but had set up to be independent and do without Him — such a being must be exercised in this way to know himself and be restored to God.

W. When you say Judaism, do you not think Christianity does so?

H. Every restored soul must in principle be so exercised; but I look at Christianity itself rather as the answer — the divine and blessed answer to all the questions that have been raised. Thus far then, W., of the general principles raised by Mr. Jowett, as far as a conversation of the kind can meet them. I conclude with him that we must interpret prophecy, the Old Testament, as the words of One with whom a thousand years are as one day. But I do not think he has wisely weighed what the import of such a statement is. We may next follow him into details as far as they affect the principle.

W. But, before you go on to these, I should like to ask you a question.

H. Well?

W. You do not, I am sure, receive all the spiritualisation, as it is called, and endless applications of scripture made by men's minds. I thought you took prophetic scriptures in their direct and plain meaning.

H. Surely I do. I reject entirely this mystifying of the Old Testament. There are great spiritual principles and truths which are found, and must be found, in all that divinely unfolds God's relationships with men: God's faithfulness, His mercy, His patient goodness; man's trust and integrity of heart, his humbleness, the fear of God. But when I seek the meaning of a passage, I seek simply what God meant, where it is His testimony; or in what light He seeks to put man's conduct, if it is a history of this, or what is His purpose, as a whole, in the narration. I have already spoken of the difference of encouragement or warning afforded at the time, and its passing on to give the subject its place in the general purpose of God to be accomplished in a future day. What I object to is the unintelligent and, if you please, unphilosophical irrational way of looking for the plain meaning. "The office of the interpreter is not to add another (interpretation), but to recover the original one." Now here we are entirely agreed, but then, it is added, "The meaning, that is, of the words as they struck on the ears, or flashed before the eyes of those who first heard and read them." I affirm this to be in every case false, if the fine language means any thing. I have already referred to the soberer expression, "the meaning which it had to the mind of the prophets . . . or to the hearer or reader." Now, if I am reading or hearing a statement, I do not in any way look to the effect on the hearers. This may be a casual help, but no more. If I seek the meaning, I must seek, not the effect on others, but the intention of the speaker or writer — this as simply as you please, and nothing else. I have nothing to do with the impressions produced on hearers. There may have been none, or a false one, according to previous prejudices, or an imperfect impression; or even a right one as regards themselves, yet not taking in the full scope of what was said. If I am to believe scripture, the prophets themselves, so far from receiving a first impression and abiding by it, enquired into the sense of their own prophecies, and were taught of God that they referred, in the great topics connected with the purpose of God and deliverance, to after times. See 1 Peter 1:11, 12

257 But it is surely useless to reason to prove that if I am interpreting a writing or words, I must seek simply the purpose and meaning of the speaker and nothing else. Now, this only one right thing Mr. Jowett leaves wholly out; it never occurs to him to think of it. I say, therefore, that his whole system is irrational and false. He is so full of the borrowed idea that they were temporary themes, referring in oriental language simply to the national hearers of the day, that he takes this as the measure of the meaning, and thus lays down a Principle which is as false as can be. But that is all borrowed. This is German Mr. Jowett; but the other Mr. Jowett, I trust the true one, tells us we are to listen to them as the words of One with whom a thousand years are as one day; One of abiding unfailing counsels, which everything tends to bring about, who is not slack concerning His promise.

258 The effect of the great fact that it is God who speaks, I have already spoken of. Let me add another example from Ezekiel. He refers to the last days in the most explicit manner, and with developed details. Yet, in the final scene he declares that the mighty one Gog who comes up, had been often spoken of. Ezek. 38:17. Hence, if I take the prophets as they present themselves, and as Ezekiel speaking in God's name declares, they were certainly (under the name of a then existing power) speaking of a mighty one at the end of the world's course when Jehovah would make Himself known in His government.

It is remarkable, that, when the prophecy goes out of the geographical name by which it is identified, it uses language intelligible at the time, as far as shewing it was beyond the limits of their geographical designation (Isaiah 18), a land beyond the rivers of Cush (that is, the Euphrates and Nile). The prophet connects it with Israelitish ideas, but goes far away beyond, as he must, to fill up the picture of the last days. But I should go too much into detail if I pursued this farther.

Only remark that the prophets (we shall come to the New Testament) were simple impostors if they were not inspired, for they give their burdens as oracles, as directly the words of God: "thus saith Jehovah;" or, "the word of Jehovah came to me," or a vision was given. If then Mr. Jowett rejects the prophets as inspired, he must hold them for impostors. If not, then there is direct inspiration, a communication of the mind of God through a man, as he was, moved by the Holy Ghost, in words which entitled the prophet to say, Thus saith the Lord; and the apostles certainly did not hold them for impostors, but refer to them as true prophets who had prophesied about Jesus. I suppose Mr. Jowett would hardly hold that to be the direct and only meaning as received by the first readers or hearers. But if this be so, the question takes a new form. Is the New Testament entirely deprived of those divine communications which abounded before, and form the Old Testament? And is that which is given us by apostles and evangelists to reveal the perfect religion of God less from Himself than the communications which were given to Israel in their imperfect and preparatory state? This is hard to believe.

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