p. 83You said last month that God’s answer to the question why things are as they are was necessarily the only answer. To this, I could not demur if the answer has been given. To what do you refer when you speak of God’s answer?—I spoke in the abstract when I spoke of God’s answer. I did not refer specifically to a particular form of that answer. If I were to do so, it would be to the communication God made to Israel by the prophets and apostles.
To the Bible?—Yes, I firmly believe Paul’s statement in the first chapter of the Hebrews, that “God at sundry times and divers manners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, and in the last days of Judah’s Commonwealth, by His Son.”
I do not see how we can be affected by what may have been said in ages past.—There is no difficulty there. What was said was written, and we have the writing.
p. 84 Are you sure of that?—I cannot be otherwise than sure in the presence of the evidence.
Where is the evidence?—It is both of a very palpable and of a very multiform character.
My question was, where?—Well, it is before our eyes and in the world around.
I would like to see it.—The difficulty is not to see it; it consists of facts so visible upon the earth at the present moment—not concealed or difficult to find, but as palpably before our eyes as the hills.
Be particular.—Well, there is, first, the Bible itself; secondly, the Jews; thirdly, the existence of Christianity; fourthly, the land from which they all sprang, corresponding topographically and monumentally with the history of all three, and with the requirements of the prophecy contained in the Bible.
I do not see how that class of facts contains proof of what you said.—The proof will become apparent if you treat the facts in detail. Take the Bible first. It is not a curiosity in the possession of a few: it is in the hands of all nations. It is not of recent origin: it has been the most conspicuous object in public literature during all the centuries that have run since the Roman emperors ruled the world. It is not a book of private origin: it is made up of public documents. It is not a frivolous book: it is the gravest and most serious book under the sun. It is not a speculative book: it is pre-eminently a record of facts. From the five books of Moses to the book of Revelation, it is a recital of matters of personal and practical experience; and if it is true in the simplest sense, the fact of revelation is proved without another effort. It records numerous incidents and transactions in which God is alleged to have taken part, and it claims for the bulk of its messages p. 85 that they are directly from the Lord, saying, “Thus saith the Lord.” If the Bible is true in the ordinary sense, then the fact of revelation is proved.
What do you mean by the ordinary sense?—The narrative sense—the historic sense—the sense in which you ask if a witness is speaking the truth when he is alleging certain things to have occurred in his presence. Grant the Bible the most ordinary veracity and revelation is proved.
I do not quite see it.—It must be so when you consider the character of its testimony. The five books of Moses, for example, record transactions in which the writer, Moses, took a personal part throughout. Now the record is that God appeared to him by the angel in the bush: that afterwards he visited Egypt by God’s command, and demanded Israel’s release; that on Pharaoh’s refusal, a succession of miraculous plagues were inflicted on Egypt, continued or removed at the prayer of Moses; that finally, Israelites, marching out of Egypt, were pursued by Pharaoh, and escaped through the opened Red Sea, in which Pharaoh and his army found their grave: that after this, the Israelitish congregation were led to Sinai, where God visibly manifested Himself in an impressive manner before the whole congregation; and through Moses (called up to the mount) gave them a law which has been unchanged in their hands for more than 3,000 years. My contention is that if this narrative is true in the most ordinary sense, the fact of God having revealed Himself is proved.
That is really the whole question. Of course, if revelation has taken place, it has taken place, but I do not see that anything is proved by that way of putting it.—I think p. 86 all is proved if you take it step by step; because, mind you, the case of Moses is only the beginning. If you take those that came after Moses, it is all of the same character—Joshua, for instance; or Samuel, or David, or Elijah, or any or all of the prophets, they all write or speak of things seen or heard by themselves. It is not an affair of belief on their part, but of knowledge. It is not a case of argument or opinion. The Gospel narrative is a narrative of things done, and witnessed by the writers; extending over a length of time, embracing many incidents of very differing complexions, but all alike in this that they were the works of God, especially the resurrection of Christ, of which the Apostles publicly proclaimed themselves witnesses.
Of course, if the Bible is true, it is true.
Do you say it is a lying book?.—I would not like to say that.
If it is not a lying book, it must be a true book, because it is the testimony of the original witnesses. It is not written at second hand. The sincere record of those who merely believed on the testimony of others might be a mistaken affair, though sincere; but it cannot be so with the sincere testimony of eye-witnesses.—You have a faculty of summing up the thing in a very comfortable way.
It is a simple problem of reason, not calling for any forensic faculty in particular, or requiring a love of comfort. Do you deny any of the premises in the argument?—I do not know.
The existence to the Bible you are bound to admit?—Yes.
And that it has existed during all the Christian era?—Well, yes.
p. 87 And that it was written by its professed authors?—I am not so sure about that.
How can you doubt it? The epistles of Paul, for example, as documents addressed to churches, would have been peculiarly liable to detection, would they not, if they had not been written by him? Those churches would know that no such epistles had been addressed to them. In that case, both Paul and the churches would have disclaimed them, and this repudiation would soon have become known; whereas, you are aware, they have been accepted as the letters of Paul from their first day of publication till now. Is not this proof of their authenticity?—Some people say they might have been written by some one wishing to pass them off as Paul’s.
My friend, you do not go by what people idly say. You judge a matter by evidence. The epistles themselves are evidence, even if we did not know that they had been received as Paul’s from the beginning. It is not in the range of possible moral achievement that a frivolous or designing character could write such letters. They are not ordinary performances.—I admit that they are out of the ordinary line.
The same argument applies to all parts of the Bible. There was always a multitude so related to the question of the authorship as to have secured contradiction if it was not as professed. There is unbroken acceptance of authorship from the beginning, and there is in every part of it inherent evidence of truthfulness. Truth and candour are its most manifest qualitie. No one with open eye can read it without being impressed with a sense of purity, and authority and majesty, which no other book can p. 88 impart. You instinctively feel that the spirit of truth breathes in it.—That is a question of individual impression.
No habitual readers of the Bible, so far as I know, are of any other opinion. Its enemies, of course, express a different view, but its enemies are not its readers. But, however, its authenticity cannot be upset by any of the principles applicable in the determination of such a point; and therefore you are in this position, that you must either hold that these recorders of professed historical facts were liars, or else that their narratives being true, revelation has occurred.