p. 56Ladies and Gentlemen,—
I implore your consideration of the commonsense reflections I am submitting to you. They are powerful and they are much needed. A great deal is taken for granted against the Bible that has no true foundation. A few bold clever men of cultured diction have ventured hostile arguments under the more or less honest idea that modern discoveries having discredited theology, have discredited the Bible, which they supposed to be the source of the theology. Their arguments have been telling, in a certain way, with men of general intelligence who have not themselves mastered the elements of the subject; and from these, in various forms of literature, the arguments have passed into currency almost with the power of indisputable traditions; so that the atmosphere of public opinion is everywhere infected with a virus of scepticism that is difficult to dispel, and p. 57 yet which is inconsistent with the most elementary facts of the case. Those facts pressed home upon the average unbeliever find him incapable of dealing with them, but he finds refuge in the plea of his own ignorance of the subject, and the confidence he feels in the so-called “authorities” in the various walks of literature. Ladies and Gentlemen, with all respect I would urge you to be not content in so stupendous a matter with second-hand conclusions; but to look at the facts for yourselves and see whether they do not warrant the comfort of faith where the blight of unbelief prevails.
I have dwelt on some features of the Mosaic record that can only be accounted for on the hypothesis of their truth. Such features are numerous throughout the whole Bible, as we may have occasion to see should the opportunity for these meetings continue. At present, it is the case of Moses that is still before us.
Last month, it was the relapse of the congregation into idolatry at the very foot of Sinai, and the severe measures that resulted. By and bye, the congregation became submissive under the hand of Moses, and provided the materials for the construction of the tabernacle and its furniture and its court. When this was finished, there came the ceremony of dedication which lasted seven days. The particulars will be found in the eighth chapter of Leviticus. At the close of that ceremony, an incident occurred which is of the character of those already passed in review; that is, the recording of it is unintelligible if it did not happen (and if it did happen the Divinity of the whole matter is proved).
The incident was this: That two of Aaron’s sons deviated from the instructions given for the ceremonial, p. 58 and were struck dead on the spot. The instructions directed that they should kindle their censers at the altar, on which fire was already burning. Instead of this, Nadab and Abihu “took either of them his censer, and put fire thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. x. 1, 2). This is not the reckless flourish of a romance, as the added details shew. These affect Aaron and his two remaining sons who were engaged about the tabernacle at the time. Moses, having directed the removal of the dead bodies of Nadab and Abihu, implores their father and two surviving brothers not to shew grief at the calamity. “Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes, lest ye die and lest wrath come upon all the people.” They were inclined, under the circumstances, to leave the tabernacle. Moses forbad: “Ye shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die; for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you; and they did according to the word of Moses” (verse 7). So the dedication ceremony went on. Then comes in a confirmatory “touch of nature.” It was the duty of Aaron and his sons, in the course of the service, to have eaten in the holy place the flesh of the goat that had been offered for a sin-offering; but with lumps in their throats at the death of their two brothers, they could not do it; so instead of eating the flesh, they burnt it. When Moses discovered this, he was angry. He “diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and behold it was burnt, and he was angry with Eleazer and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left alive, saying, Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin-offering in the p. 59 holy place?. . . . Ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded. And Aaron said unto Moses, Behold this day. . . . such things have befallen me, if I had eaten the sin-offering to-day, should it have been accepted in the sight of the Lord? And when Moses heard that, he was content” (x. 16-20).
Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, here is a problem for you that will yield considerable results if properly worked out. Here is a story that has been on record for nigh 4,000 years—written, not in a private document, but in a nation’s official documents—written by Moses on the testimony of Christ (Jno. v. 47), and by the consent of a hundred generations of Jews, public and private. Is it a true story, or an untrue one? If you say it is an untrue one, would you kindly suggest why it was written? Did Moses write it for his own honour? It exhibits him in a state of anger at a circumstance that natural feeling might have excused. Did he write it for the honour of Aaron, as the first of the high priests? How could a story honour Aaron which shews him remiss in his duty through the power of feeling? Did he write it for the honour of Aaron’s sons in exhibiting two of them as destroyed rebels, and the other two as uncertain servants? Could such a man as Moses be conceived as writing for any time-serving purpose whatsoever? Would a time-serving man have told the whole congregation, “From the day that thou didst depart out of Egypt until ye came unto this place (the frontiers of Moab), ye have been rebellious against the Lord. . . . Ye have been rebellious against the Lord since the day that I knew you” (Deut. ix. 7, 24). Would such a man have said to them: “I know thy rebellion p. 60 and thy stiff neck: behold while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death?” (xxxi. 27).
Romancing? Ladies and Gentlemen, the romancing is all on one side. The man who can attribute a lying record, or even a coloured, or an accommodated record to a man such as everything shews Moses to have been, is either an ignorant man, or a reckless and unprincipled man. That such a preposterous suggestion should, without any proof, be launched and sent round and accepted in the face of a thousand facts in the Bible that contradict it, is one of many symptoms of the unhappy age of un-reason which now prevails upon the earth.
Ladies and Gentlemen, will you lend yourselves to such an outrage? or will you lend yourselves to the scarcely less reprehensible manœuvre of calling in question the Mosaic authorship of the story? Oh, perpetrate not so extreme a folly; for then you array yourselves against Christ who declared both in explicit terms and by the whole attitude of his life that these were the writings of Moses; and you array yourselves against the spirit of God in the apostles, who declared their faith in the Scriptures of Moses (Acts xxvi. 22; xv. 21; xxviii. 23). And all for what? With what warrant, or on what ground, or by what authority, or by what sound reason does unbelief offer such an opposition? When men with eyes open try to formulate an answer to this question, they discover the hollowness of the antagonism to the Bible that has become so fashionable.
No, Ladies and Gentlemen; if you choose to indulge in a little intellectual romancing, there is no one to interfere with your liberty till the day of Christ; but p. 61 the facts remain. The story is there, confronting us on the Mosaic page; and defying the utmost ingenuity of hostility to account for its existence on any principle short of its truth. And now, suppose the story is true—the story of Nadab and Abihu’s destruction in the tabernacle for offering strange fire,—what is there that does not follow from it? It not only follows that the Divine presence was in the tabernacle, but it follows that the whole work of Moses was divine; therefore, that the promises to the fathers, out of which it grew, are from God; therefore, that the prophets that afterwards appeared in Israel were His messengers: therefore, that Christ, who appeared in fulfilment of their foreshadowings, was truly the Son of God; therefore, that the apostolic work was “the ministration of the Holy Spirit” in “signs and wonders and mighty deeds;” therefore, that the whole Scriptures are the work of inspiration; therefore, that the revealed purpose of God will be accomplished; resurrection will take place; the kingdom of God will come; immortality chase evil from the face of the earth, and establish endless ages of blessing.