Chapter XVII: Appendix: A Bishop Horsley on the double sense of Prophecy 257 (13)

6. Let me also advert to a dilemma which seems hardly ever to obtain from a certain class of critics the attention it deserves. If a writing be not inspired, _it is of no absolute authority_. If a part of a writing be not inspired, that part is of no absolute authority. If a single word in the text of Holy Scripture be even uncertain,--(as, for example, whether we are to read =OS= or =THEOS= in 1 Tim. iii. 16,)--_that word becomes without absolute authority_. We cannot venture to adduce it _in proof_ of anything. Without therefore, in the remotest degree, desiring to discourage the application of a _true_ theory of Inspiration to the phenomena of Holy Scripture, through fear of the necessary consequences,--may we not call attention to the manifest awkwardness of a theory which no one knows how to apply, and about the application of which no two men will ever be agreed?--the issue of the discussion being, in every case, neither more nor less than this,--whether the portion of Scripture under consideration is Human, and therefore _of no absolute authority_; or Divine, and therefore _infallible_!

7. A far more important consideration remains to be offered, and with this I shall conclude. Although, when St. Paul appears to reason inconclusively, some of us do not hesitate to refer the Apostle's (supposed) imperfect logic to his personal infirmity,--yet, common piety revolts against the proposal to apply the same solution to the same phenomenon when it is observed to occur in the Discourses of our Blessed LORD Himself. It seems to have been providentially ordained, however, that the discourses of CHRIST Himself should supply examples of every one of those difficulties which it is thought lawful to account for,--when an Apostle or an Evangelist is the speaker,--on the hypothesis of partial, imperfect, or suspended Inspiration. Now, since _I_, at least, shall not be permitted to be either vague or general, I proceed to subjoin the proof of what has been thus advanced:--

=1=. The well-known difficulty about "the days of Abiathar," _is found in one of our LORD'S discourses_[428]. Here then is a case of what, if an Evangelist or an Apostle had been the author of the statement, would have been called an historical inaccuracy.

=2=. However unworthy of scientific attention the Mosaic account of the descent of Mankind from a single pair may be deemed,--the universality of 'the Noachian Deluge,'--the destruction of the Cities of the plain,--the fate of Lot's wife,--Jonah in the fish's belly,--and so forth;--to all these (supposed) unscientific statements our Blessed LORD commits Himself unequivocally[429].

=3=. When the Holy One inferred the Resurrection of the Dead from the words spoken to Moses "in the bush[430];"--when He proved that CHRIST is not the son of David, because "David in spirit calls Him 'LORD[431];'"--and when He shewed from a clause in the 6th verse of the lxxxiind Psalm, ("I said ye are gods,") that it was not unlawful for Himself to claim the title of SON of GOD[432];--I humbly think that the argumentation is of such a nature as would not produce conviction in captious minds cast in a modern mould[433]. I desire not to dwell longer upon this subject; and only hope in what I have ventured to say concerning some of the recorded sayings of Him to whose creative Power and Goodness I am indebted for the exercise of my own reason,--I have not written amiss. But the point of what I am urging is, that I defy any one to bring a charge of faulty logic against passages in St. Paul's Epistles which might not, _with the same show of reason_, be brought against certain of our LORD's recorded sayings.

=4=. When the Chief Priests and Scribes remonstrated with our LORD because of the children crying in the Temple; and asked Him,--"Hearest Thou what these say?" He replied,--"Yea, have ye never read, 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise[434]?'" ... Now, this quotation from the viiith Psalm is what an 'Essayist or Reviewer' would have pronounced irrelevant.

=5=. It seems clear from Gen. ii. 24, that _Adam_ was the author of the words, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother," &c. And yet, our LORD (in St. Matth. xix. 4, 5,) as unmistakeably seems to make GOD the Speaker. An Evangelist or an Apostle would be thought here to have made a slip of memory.

=6=. In St. John viii. 47, the following words occur. "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." This passage (as already pointed out[435],) has been adduced by one who now occupies an Archiepiscopal throne, as containing a logical fallacy.

Many more examples might be adduced: but these will suffice. It is plain that when the like phenomena are observed in the writings of Apostles and Evangelists, we need not, in order to account for them, have recourse to any theory of partial or imperfect Inspiration; since nothing of the kind is supposed necessary when they occur in the Discourses of our LORD.--As much as I care to offer on the subject of _Inspired Reasoning_ will be found in the course of the Sixth of these Sermons, where the Doctrine of 'Accommodation' is considered.

To say that the Scriptures, and the things contained in them, can
have no other or farther meaning than those persons thought or had,
who first recited or wrote them; is evidently saying, that those
persons were the original, proper, and sole Authors of those Books,
i.e. _that they are not inspired_: which is absurd, whilst the
authority of those Books is under examination; i.e. till you have
determined they are of no Divine authority at all. Till this be
determined, it must in all reason be supposed, (not indeed that
they have, for this is taking for granted that they are inspired;
but) that they may have, some farther meaning than what the
compilers saw or understood.

BISHOP BUTLER, _Analogy_, P. II. ch. vii.

As the Literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so
the Moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the Allegorical or Typical,
are they whereof the Church hath most use: not that I wish men to
be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions; but that
I do much condemn that Interpretation of the Scripture _which is
only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book_.

LORD BACON, _Advancement of Learning_.

The Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to open and
look into. That little thereof which we darkly apprehend, we
admire; the rest, with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly
adore.

HOOKER, _Eccl. Pol._ B. I. c. ii. § 5.

OPEN THOU MINE EYES THAT I MAY SEE THE WONDROUS THINGS OF THY LAW!

=OY LOGOS ANTHRÔPÔN, ALLA KATHÔS ESTIN ALÊTHÔS LOGOS THEOY.=

FOOTNOTES:

[390] Preached in Christ-Church Cathedral, Dec. 9th, 1860.

[391] See Sermon VII.

[392] Ibid.

[393] Gen. xxxvi.

[394] See the Hulsean Lectures for 1833, (_The Law of Moses viewed in connexion with the History and character of the Jews, with a defence of the Book of Joshua_, &c.) by Henry John Rose, B.D.

[395] 2 St. Peter i. 21.

[396] 1 St. Peter i. 11.

[397] "With the idea of a Prophet," (says Gesenius in his Hebrew Lexicon, on the noun,) "there was this necessarily attached; that he spoke not his own words, but those which he had divinely received; (see Philo, t. iv. p. 116, ed. Pfeifferi,--=prophêtês gar idion men ouden apophthengetai, allotria de panta hypêchountos heterou=); and that he was the messenger of GOD, and the declarer of His will. This is clear from a passage of peculiar authority in this matter, (Ex. vii. 1,)--where GOD says to Moses,--'I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother _shall be thy prophet_.'" ... Elsewhere, (speaking of the Hebrew verb, 'to prophesy,') Gesenius has the following remarkable statement:--"The _passive forms_, Niphal and Hithpael, are used in this verb; from the Divine Prophets having been _supposed to be moved rather by another's powers than their own_." (Just as if the Oracles of GOD were not express on the subject! viz. "No prophecy ever came by the will of Man; but, [because they were] borne along (=pheromenoi=) by the HOLY GHOST, spake those holy men of GOD."--2 St. Pet. i. 21.)

=Prophêtês=, in fact, means 'an interpreter' rather than 'a prophet,' (for which, in our popular sense, the Greek is rather =mantis=:) hence the use of the words =prophêtês, prophêteuô, prophêteia= in the New Testament, e.g. 1 Thess. v. 20. 1 Cor. xi. 4: xii. 10. Rom. xii. 6, (where see Wordsworth.) See also 1 Cor. xiv. 1, 3, 4, 5, &c.: in all which places, the =prophêtês= was what we should rather now call _a preacher_. But then, the expounding of GOD'S Word is the special function of the preacher's office from which he takes this name.--The reader is referred to Blomfield's Glossary, _Agam._ v. 399, and to Liddell and Scott's _Lexicon_; (in both of which, some important references are given:) also to Trench's _Synonyms of the New Testament_, pp. 22-26.

[398] See above, pp. 2-5.--The reader will find an interesting passage based on this analogy, in the Appendix (F).

[399] _Analogy_, P. II. c. vii.--The same thing has been more fully expressed in a volume of Sermons which deserves to be far better known than it is:--"I suppose that if there is one portion of the Old Testament which a discriminator would set aside as less needing to be reckoned inspired than other parts, it is the Historical; the books which are strictly narrative. Now it may seem to have been providentially ordered, in the purpose of meeting this view, that these books are made to bear on them most peculiarly the stamp and the claim of Inspiration. For they do not profess to be so much the account of what Man did, as what GOD did in ruling men, and guiding human events. They are a history of a providential course of events, and, (which is the point,) as seen from the providential point of view. They are a history written not on Earth, but above the skies. Events are spoken of therefore in this view. A man's obduracy is recorded thus,--'GOD hardened his heart.' A king numbers his people; it is recorded as a thing suggested in the spiritual world. In fact, the historic volume of the Old Testament is a history of the secret springs of things; it is a narrative of things which none but GOD ALMIGHTY could know; not Man's Word therefore at all, but GOD'S."--_Sermons_, by the Rev. C. P. Eden, pp. 153-155. Several other extracts from the same suggestive volume of a very excellent Divine, will be found in the Appendix.

[400] Eccl. iii. 14. So Deut. iv. 2: xii. 32. Rev. xxii. 19.

[401] See the Appendix (G).

[402] Hooker's _Eccl. Pol._, B. 1. c. ii. § 2

[403] See above, p. 77.

[404] _The Inspiration of the Bible, five Lectures_, by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D. 1861,--p. 5.

[405] For some remarks on Theories of Inspiration, see the Appendix (H.)

[406] "Quicquid Ille de Suis factis et dictis nos legere voluit, hoc scribendum illis tanquam Suis manibus imperavit."

[407] St. Matth. x. 9.

[408] E.g. =kentyriôn: spekoulatôr: xestês=.

[409] Comp. St. Luke viii. 43, with St. Mark v. 26.

[410] The reader will be grateful for a beautiful and highly suggestive passage from Eden's _Sermons_, in the Appendix (I.)

[411] Alluding to a sermon preached by the Provost of Queen's.

[412] Ecclus. iii. 19.

[413] Ps. cxi. 10. Prov. ix. 10.

[414] Ps. cxix. 100.

[415] Ps. xix. 8.

[416] St. Mark xii. 24.

[417] Job xlii. 5.

[418] See above, p. 95-99.

[419] St. Luke iii. 1.

[420] Ibid. iii. 36.

[421] Ibid. ii. 2.

[422] St. Mark ii. 26.

[423] St. Matth. xxvii. 9.

[424] St. John xix. 14.

[425] St. Matth. xiii. 29.

[426] Heb. ix. 8.

[427] 1 Cor. ix. 9 and 1 Tim. v. 18.

[428] St. Mark ii. 26.

[429] All will be found more fully insisted upon at the beginning of the VIIth Sermon.

[430] St. Luke xx. 37-8.

[431] St. Matth. xxii. 41-6.

[432] St. John x. 34-6.

[433] 'Essayists and Reviewers' would reply, that in the first instance, the supposed inference has no connexion with the premisses:--that in the second, (1) it has to be proved that the person intended in Psalm cx. is CHRIST; and (2) it does not follow, because David calls him "lord," that the person so spoken of is not his "son:"--that in the third instance, 'gods' is used in Psalm lxxxii. of _earthly_ rulers; whereas, when our SAVIOUR called Himself "the SON of GOD," He claimed to be "_of one substance with the FATHER,--GOD of GOD_."

[434] St. Matth. xxi. 16.

[435] See above, p. 4.

SERMON V.[436]

* * * * *

INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.--INSPIRED INTERPRETATION.--THE BIBLE IS NOT TO BE INTERPRETED LIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.--GOD, (NOT MAN,) THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE.

* * * * *

ST. MATTHEW iv. 4.

_It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God._

It is impossible to preserve exact method in Sermons like these, uncertain in number, and delivered at irregular intervals. It shall only be stated that, having already spoken at considerable length, of the INSPIRATION of Holy Scripture;--not, one part more, one part less, but every part equally inspired throughout; not general, (whatever the exact notion may be of a book _generally_ inspired,) but particular, by which I mean that _every word_ is none other than the utterance of the Holy Ghost[437]: having, moreover, explained the reasonableness,--(the logical necessity, as it seems,)--of giving such an account of the Bible;--I propose to-day to proceed to the subject of INTERPRETATION. Really, it has become the fashion of a School of unbelief which has lately emerged into infamous notoriety, to deal with both these questions in so insolent a style of dogmatism, that the preacher is compelled to halt _in limine_; and to explain that he begs that no offence may be taken at the account which he has just given of the Bible; for that really he means no more than Bp. Pearson meant when he said that "_the Scripture phrase_" is "_the Language of the HOLY GHOST_[438]:"--that he desires to say no other thing than what _He_ said, by whose Spirit, (as St. Peter declares[439],) the prophets prophesied;--the preacher, I say, wishes to explain that he desires to mean no other thing than our LORD JESUS CHRIST Himself meant, when He spoke of "_every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of GOD_."