Lecture I

THE BIBLE THE ONLY STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND DUTY.
By ALVAH HOVEY, DD

Professor of Christian Theology
in the Newton Theological Institution.

“HOWBEIT, WHEN HE, THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, SHALL COME, HE WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH”—JOHN 17:13.

It is my hope that you will consent to go back with me to one of the first principles of our belief, and that we shall be able, within the limits of an hour, to verify anew its soundness and worth. The principle to which I refer was dear to our fathers, was asserted by them with intelligent zeal, was felt to be the source of whatever distinguished them from other Christians, and was reverenced as an Ithuriel’s spear by which error could be detected, and its real nature made manifest, “for no falsehood can endure

‘Touch of celestial temper, but returns
Of force to its own likeness.’”

This cardinal principle is the truth, not yet unfamiliar to our ears, that the Bible is the only standard of Christian Doctrine and Duty; a principle which is repudiated by some, because they deny the divine authority of the Bible, and by others, because they deny the sufficiency of its teaching. Moreover, at different points between these extremes and the central position held by us, many are moving to and fro in doubt, either assigning to the Bible a merely indefinite superiority to other books, or charging it with more or less incompleteness in the exhibition of needed truth.

You will therefore, I am sure, regard as timely an argument for the soundness and sacredness of the principle, that the Bible is the only proper standard of Christian faith and practice;—a principle which may be easily drawn from the language of my text: “Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth shall come, he will guide you into all the truth.” Not—as the authorized version, which omits the article, may suggest—into all truth of whatever domain, scientific, historic, philosophic; but into all the truth which pertains to the religion of Christ as adapted to men in their present state, and which, by its office in making known the moral perfections of God and the way of eternal life for man, outshines all other truth, even as the sun at noonday outshines all other light.

Into this truth, the highest and the best, was the Holy Spirit to guide the eleven disciples addressed by our Saviour; and it will be my aim to show that the promise recorded in my text involves the divine authority and completeness of the Bible, as a source of Christian truth.

I. It involves the divine authority of the Bible. This will be evident, if it can be made to appear that Christ was an infallible teacher; that he uttered this great promise, and that the apostles were upright men. For if this promise was made by an infallible being, it was surely fulfilled, and the apostles were in due time guided into all the truth; and if the apostles were honest men, they taught by pen and tongue what they knew, namely, the truth; and if they taught the truth, it will be easy to establish by their words the divine authority of the Bible. So that what we need to show, without assuming for this purpose the inspiration of the Scriptures, is—

1. That Jesus Christ was infallible. 2. That he uttered the promise of my text, and 3. That his apostles were upright men.

To establish the infallibility of Christ, I will first appeal to four great letters of Paul, namely, those to the Romans, to the Corinthians, and to the Galatians. These letters are instinct with reality. They are at the furthest possible remove from the realm of fancy. They are full of the pith and substance, the bone and muscle, the spring and force, the ardor and glow of actual life. They deal with specific evils. They refute particular errors. They check definite disorders. They repel given slanders. They prescribe for distinct offences. They assert special rights. Sharp logic, open rebuke, fervid appeal, follow one another in swift succession. What rapidity, variety, freedom, and fire do we perceive! Yea, what zeal, yea, what carefulness, yea, what clearing of himself, yea, what indignation, yea, what vehement desire. How intensely personal are these letters! How sensitive was their writer to the opinions and practices of those addressed! What love to them glows in his language! What readiness to be spent in their service! What downright honesty, fidelity, and greatness of soul breathe from every page! These sentences were called for by the wants of living men, or we may close up the volume of history. Whoever can deem them a work of fiction or of falsehood has lost the sense of reality, the power of discriminating between the actual and the ideal, and may well despair of finding any thing true in all the records of the past. Even the remorseless unbelief of Baur spared these four letters.

Let us, then, open these writings of Paul and study their language; for they take us back within the quarter of a century which followed the death of Christ, and give us the words of a self-denying, keen-sighted, trustworthy man.

Hence their testimony may be expected to shed no little light upon the character of Christ and his apostles. It sheds much. For they affirm that in his human nature Christ was made of a woman; made under the law, made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that he was the promised seed of Abraham and a descendant of David. They teach that in virtue of his higher nature he was the Son of God, who though rich, for our sakes became poor. They assert that he knew no sin, yet died for men as a propitiatory sacrifice, to exhibit the righteousness of God. They declare that believers are justified by his blood and saved from wrath through him, and that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. They assure us of his resurrection, and infer from it the resurrection of all his saints. They say that he “died for our sins according to the Scriptures; that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve; after that, he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared to me also, as the one born out of due time.”

According to these letters, Paul himself had seen the Lord, had received from him the great truths of the gospel with a charge to bear them to the Gentiles, and had preached them with marked success. He had been recognized by the other apostles as their peer, and had gone forth to his work in their fellowship. He knew Peter, James, and John, and his view of Christ was approved by them. Hence their estimate of the Lord’s character may be learned from his. If Paul gloried in being a servant of Christ, so did the other apostles.

And I do not quite see how any intelligent man can make these letters of Paul a study without being at length assured that, in his judgment, Christ was not only an infallible teacher, holy and true, the source of light and peace to men, but also in his higher nature, “God over all blessed forever.”

And when we look again into these letters to ascertain what sort of a man the apostle was made by Christian faith; when we note his love and zeal, his purity and wisdom; when we read his powerful words, and compare his spirit, gushing out in streams of generous emotion, with that of Cicero as revealed by his familiar letters—we have reason enough to say that by faith in Christ he came to be a new creature, old things passed away, and all things became new.

And when we learn from his words the influence of Christianity over those who had been converted under his preaching, there will be no less reason to believe that the glad news respecting Christ had indeed proved itself to be the power of God, and the wisdom of God unto salvation. In a word, these four letters of Paul establish the chief events of our Lord’s earthly mission and the general truth of his teaching; they do more than this, they establish the great fact of his resurrection from the dead, and thereby the absolute authority and truth of his word. A patient study of these letters will carry the mind from point to point, until it is seen that the whole Bible is true. The remaining letters of Paul, and all the writings of the New Testament, will be found in vital unity with these; and especially will the life and character of Christ, as set before us in the gospels, be seen to underlie all the teaching of Paul. If this be true, these four letters go far toward proving that Christ was a teacher of truth, without any mixture of error.

Again, to establish the infallibility of Christ I will appeal to the four gospels. For so unique and original, so pure and perfect, so truly human and yet manifestly divine, is the character of Christ as portrayed by the evangelists, that we cannot suppose it to be an ideal creation. The story of this deep and marvelous life, moving on, calm, clear, free, intense, earnest, full of light and love, of strength and beauty, can be traced to no earthly imagination. It was a real life; the most real and genuine in all the ages. To feel this, it may be necessary to look more closely at the gospels; for our familiarity with them often prevents us from doing justice to their superlative excellence. Here, then, are four distinct records, diverse yet harmonious. So marked are the differences, even in relating the same events, that some have rashly inferred contradiction; yet so deep and pervading is the harmony, that others have inferred transcription.

Let it now be supposed that the gospel of Mark, which is the shortest of the four, beginning with the public ministry of Jesus, was the first written. This record gives us action chiefly and not discourse. It represents Christ as going from place to place, over the hills and through the villages of Palestine, and doing mighty works. It is objective, minute, graphic, picturesque. It abounds in notices of such particulars as would fix themselves in the memory of a keen observer. In several instances it mentions the bearing of Christ, the dialect which he used, and the expression of his countenance. It makes brief record of parables, discourses, and pregnant sayings. And every where, from first to last, this rapid narrative sets before us a being of transcendent power, love and grace—a being divine as well as human, walking upon the earth but having commerce with the skies. But the picture, though faultless in execution, so far as it goes, is unfinished; for to say nothing of other defects, there is no reference in it to the birth or lineage or early days of Jesus. It is an incomplete picture, but the work of a master; reminding us of the great painting of Washington Allston, which still waits for an artist to finish it. If this gospel were a product of imagination and art, ages might be expected to pass before a man of genius and daring, equal to the task of completing it, would appear.

But no; it has scarcely seen the light, before the gospel of Matthew is written; a record of discourse as well as of action, giving a far ampler rehearsal of parables, sermons, predictions; pointing out the fulfillment of prophecy in the person of Christ, showing him to be the promised Messiah of Israel, thus binding together the old dispensation and the new, and supplying a brief account of his birth and early history. Here are large additions and considerable omissions; yet the character is not changed, the total impression is the same. The birth of Christ is in harmony with his life; the quiet of his boyhood with the simple dignity and speech of his manhood. If, then, the life of Jesus as delineated by Mark is grand and holy beyond the power of any writer to originate by an effort of imagination, so that we are sure it was taken from nature, how much surer may we be, that no second writer of that age could give us another and a fuller delineation of the same life, without changing its character or marring its beauty, unless he too were sketching from nature and were familiar with the original.

But the difficulty grows. Not only have we a second gospel, but also a third, quite unlike the first and second—a gospel which recounts with greater minuteness the events attending Christ’s birth and childhood; which adds parables of thrilling interest and beauty; which describes the incidents of an extended journey, scarcely noticed by the others; which shows that Jesus looked beyond the people of Israel and took pity on the gentiles; which traces his lineage back to Adam, and represents him as Saviour of the world. But the character is still the same. The stream of life has become a little fuller, and it seems to flow into regions not mentioned before; but it is just as pure and deep, powerful and refreshing as ever. To pronounce it an imaginary life is to charge the record with falsehood, and yet believe it a miracle of skill: it is to charge the author of a marvelous work with repudiating the same, and proving himself to be at once a liar and a fool.

This, however, is not the end: there is a fourth gospel, diverse exceedingly from all the rest. It illustrates the life of Christ by new scenes, miracles, discourses. It omits all the parables and a large part of the events recorded by the first three. It dwells on the ministry of Christ in Jerusalem, and passes lightly over his labors in Galilee. It takes back our thoughts into eternity, and reminds us of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. It repeats the clearest words of the great Teacher respecting his own mysterious nature. It leads us up by a spiral ascent higher and higher, bringing us round to the same view again and again, but always from a loftier position, until we seem almost in heaven itself. Yet, I need but remind you, the character delineated is still the same. We hear no discordant word; we detect no incompatible element; we see no unfamiliar feature. The halo round his brow may be more intense; but that is all; the veil which covers his face may be raised a little higher, but nothing more.

I will not pursue this examination. “It has been often and truly said that the character of our Lord as drawn by the evangelists, is in itself the one sufficient proof of their veracity. No character could have been further removed from the popular ideal of the time; none more entirely beyond the conception of men reared amidst dreams of national hope, and checked at every step by the signs of foreign power.” The harmony in diversity which pervades the gospels is so remarkable as in itself to prove their veracity. The fourfold portrait of this “greater man,” must have been taken from life; and if so, the limners of it were simply faithful, while the subject of it was the true Word of God manifested in flesh. The life which they describe was real. The person whom they place before our minds once walked in Galilee and suffered death at Jerusalem. The story is so simple and sublime, so artless and consistent, so human and withal so divine, that no man could have invented it; much less could four men, each in his own way, have delineated so peerless an ideal. And more; I must even deny that four men, though personally witnesses of what they relate, could, if left to themselves, have given us these wondrous pictures of that wondrous life. They would have been sure at some point to mar their work. They would have been tempted here and there, to explain, apologize, speculate, or eulogize. But no, all is direct, simple, open, fair. The historians do not speculate. “In its grand, childlike, and holy simplicity, the narrative passes by questions of the mere intellect, just as a child moves among the riddles of nature and of life, as if they existed not.” And if the gospels are truthful records, the being whose ministry they describe was infallible. I say infallible; for consider his claims, how high they were:—to know heavenly things directly: “I speak that which I have seen with my Father;”—to know the Father exclusively: “Neither knoweth any one the Father, save the Son;” to speak the Father’s words only: “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s;” to teach immutable truth: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;” and to utter sayings the rejection of which is fatal: “Every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not; shall be likened to a man which built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell;” “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day.” With what certainty and authority did Jesus speak! not groping darkly after truth, and uttering it doubtfully with reason; but seeing it with perfect vision and declaring it positively, as a king. “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.” Plato taught like a man, with subtle reason and sore toil, worming his way through darkness up to partial light, watching the shadows of the cave, and conjecturing what might be the life above; but Jesus taught like a God, standing in the face of the sun, and holding in his eye all the infinite verities of being, forever! He was king of the realm of truth.

Hence, too, the impression which he made on his disciples. They believed him to be cognizant of their very thoughts. One of them testifies that he could not be taken at unawares; that he needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. He read the secrets of the heart as easily as we read the pages of a book. His eye pierced the veil which hides the future, and he foretold such events as the betrayal, the desertion, the denial, the crucifixion, the resurrection. He was full of grace and truth. He was the light of men. His teaching was not merely true, it was by way of eminence the truth; as such his disciples preached it to the Roman world in the first century, and such, I may add, it has proved itself to be by its influence on the souls of men from that day until now. This is the first point in my argument.

But was the promise of my text uttered by Christ to his disciples? May not the gospels be true for the most part, with here and there an error? This is certainly conceivable, and indeed probable, unless the evangelists were divinely assisted in their work. But we have already seen that the perfection of this work, the harmony in diversity which distinguishes the four-fold gospel, is a reason for believing them to have been thus assisted. Apart, however, from this presumption, it is scarcely possible to doubt the accuracy of John’s record in the present case. For when we think of the nature of the promise before us; of the hour when it is said to have fallen from the lips of Christ; of the profound interest which an assurance of this kind would kindle in the hearts of the disciples; and of the effort which they would surely make to recall the last words of their now glorified Master; it seems very improbable that a mistake would occur in this matter. And when, still further, we bear in mind that this passage does not stand alone, but is buttressed on every side by kindred promises; when we read the words: “It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you;” and a little further on: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” Or, going back a little in the same discourse: “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me;” and again: “But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” When we read these various promises, all referring to the same Divine Helper, and describing the different aspects of his work for the disciples, there is no longer any room for doubt. The assurance of my text was given to the Eleven by their Lord in the evening before he was betrayed. But long ere this, he had uttered words of encouragement to them, not very unlike those contained in his last discourse. For by the triple testimony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we are certified of his saying: “When they bring you unto the synagogues and magistrates and powers, take no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say; for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.” There is, then, every reason to believe that the promise of my text was addressed by Christ to his disciples.

And there is no less reason to believe that this language was a promise of inspiration, properly so called. For observe once more that the coming Helper is described as the Spirit of truth; that he was to take the place of Christ, and teach them many things which they were not now able to bear; that he was to bring to their remembrance all that Christ had said; to testify of Christ; to take the things of Christ and show to them; to reveal to them things to come and teach them all things. In a word, Jesus promised to continue and complete the revelation of his truth to his disciples by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

But wherefore? Because they were to bear witness of him, making known his will, even as he had made known his Father’s will: “As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

And if the Spirit of truth was pledged to the Eleven for the purpose of qualifying them to teach with divine authority the things of Christ, he was virtually pledged to every one intrusted by Christ with the same office and mission. Hence Paul, when called to be an apostle, was entitled to expect the presence of the Spirit to guide him into all the truth. And that he was put in trust with the apostleship must be certain to every man who admits his veracity or understands his character; for he distinctly avers that he was recognized by the other apostles as their equal, that the signs of an apostle were wrought by him; and that he had received immediately from Christ his gospel and commission. Moreover, Peter ranks his letters with the other Scriptures, while the narrative of Luke, in the Acts, proves him to have been not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles in knowledge and zeal.

My second point has, therefore, been established, and its bearing upon the divine authority of the New Testament is obvious.

But were the apostles upright men? Though furnished themselves with the whole truth, may they not have been unfaithful to their trust, withholding a part of their message or adding to it cunningly devised fables? How to answer this question I know not. God forbid, that we should distrust the integrity of men chosen by Christ to make known his will! God forbid, that we should imagine the truth-revealing Spirit unable to move such men to utter their message, or to restrain them from adding to it earthborn fancies! God forbid, that we should read the pages of the New Testament and doubt the transparent integrity of their writers! The very soul of manliness and truth animates their language. In life, they were still imperfect; but when they spoke for Christ, the Spirit gave them utterance. As men, they were sometimes weak; but in doing the work of their apostleship, the Comforter made them strong and wise. I cannot persuade myself that any one of you needs to be convinced that the apostles were, through and through, upright, delivering to men with all fidelity the glad news which had been revealed to them by Christ and his Spirit. They could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard. We are, therefore, in possession of three facts; namely, that Jesus Christ was infallible, that he uttered the promise of my text to his disciples, and that they were upright men, teaching the truth which they knew.

These facts, if there were no others equally in point, (as there are many,) evince the divine authority of the New Testament. For, with a few exceptions, the New Testament Scriptures were written by apostles, that is, by men whom the Holy Spirit was to guide into all Christian truth. And the exceptional books were written by associates of apostles, long before the death of John, and, according to the testimony of the early church, were received as apostolic teaching. The penmen were probably inspired, and their writings were certainly welcomed as sacred. Indeed, these three facts are firm granitic pillars, on which the whole doctrine of inspiration rests unshaken, and will rest to the end of time. For if the writings of the New Covenant are clothed with divine authority, so likewise are those of the Old. The later Scriptures have set their seal to the earlier. By their testimony, we know that in the progress of revelation, “coming events cast their shadows before.” The reality is preceded by the type, the spiritual by the natural, the fulfillment by the promise; just as the most holy place of the tabernacle was entered through the holy [sentence incomplete in original text]. Our Saviour taught that not one jot or tittle of the law should pass till all be fulfilled; he declared that the Scripture (meaning the Old Testament) cannot be broken; and on a certain occasion, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Peter pronounces the wonders of Pentecost to be that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and the suffering of Christ to be that which God had showed before by the mouth of all his prophets, asserting also that holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And Paul identifies the promise to Abraham with the gospel, represents the law as a schoolmaster bringing us to Christ, and teaches that every Scripture (that is, of the Old Testament) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Besides, the pages of the New Testament are studded with passages from the Old. Sentences are quoted with reverence from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Malachi, few books of the earlier record failing to contribute somewhat to the later; and nothing can well be more evident than the fact that Christ and his apostles admitted the divine authority of the Old Testament. The whole Bible is, therefore, to be accepted as emanating from God. It was delivered to men by messengers accredited by him, and is to be honored with the same respect which it would challenge if written by the finger of Jehovah. It is the word of God addressed to mankind.

This language, I know, has been charged with extravagance. The Bible, it has been said, is not the word of God, but it contains the word of God. The contents of it must, therefore, be sifted, winnowed, weighed: the dross separated from the fine gold, the human from the divine; the letter from the spirit. Reason and moral sense must be the ultimate standard. By a proper use of these faculties we may be able to find in the Scriptures the word of God.

If this language were meant simply to affirm that we ought, when interpreting the words of Scripture, to distinguish between those which profess to make known to us directly the will of God, as uttered by Christ, by apostles, or by prophets, and those which make known to us the sayings and doings of evil spirits, of wicked or uninspired men, it would be quite true, but also quite irrelevant. For much of the Bible professes to report the speech and action of uninspired men, and no thoughtful Christian imagines the words of such men to be truthful simply because they are preserved in a true record. All admit that a sentiment may be wrong when the report of it is correct, and an act evil when the account of it is useful.

But this is not the whole meaning of those who insist that the Bible merely contains the word of God. They suppose it possible for human reason to winnow chaff from the wheat, even where the volume purports to have nothing but wheat. In this opinion they are utterly mistaken, as the light of another day will help them to see.

Having shown that the promise of the Saviour, in my text, involves the divine authority of the Bible as a source of Christian truth, I now proceed to say—

II. It involves the completeness of the Bible, as a source of Christian truth. This is evident—

1. From the words of the promise itself: “he will guide you into all the truth.” According to the obvious sense of this promise, the apostles were to be guided into all the truth which belongs to the religion of Christ as adapted to men in their present state. The language cannot fairly be made to signify less than this. For when Christ and his apostles speak of the truth by way of distinction, they mean the doctrine of salvation through Christ, the great facts and principles which underlie, determine, and pervade all right forms of Christian life. It need not be supposed that they were to become familiar with all the applications of Christian truth to the ever changing conditions of human society, but they were to be made acquainted with all the principles of this truth; not, however, at once, as may be concluded from the verb chosen by our Lord—“He will guide you into all the truth,”—and as may be learned from the history of the apostles; but gradually, though rapidly, as events called for the use of those principles. The Holy Spirit was to teach them what to say when standing before kings and governors, and not in anticipation of such an hour; and so, likewise, he was to teach them the way of God more perfectly as they had occasion to make it known. Peter did not have his vision of the sheet let down from heaven until Cornelius was ready for the gospel, and the fullness of the time had come for giving it to the Gentiles. It is not, therefore, possible for us to fix precisely the date prior to which the apostles had been guided into all the truth of the Christian system; nor can we certainly know from our text that every apostle was furnished by inspiration with the same amount of truth. This principle may have been communicated to one, and that to another, until as a body they were in possession of the whole truth. We only know that Paul had his gospel in its completeness directly from Christ: The remaining apostles may have learned particular truths from one another, some of them receiving the light earlier than their associates; but all received it as rapidly as the calls of duty required them to use it.

And this circumstance, that their knowledge came so often at the beck of Providence, not being a regular growth from within, but a gift from without when most needed, justifies us in believing that it was fully declared to others, and committed to writing for ages to come. While, then, the promise of my text proves the apostles to have been made acquainted with all the truth of the Christian system adapted to men in their present life, the manner in which this promise was fulfilled, by enlarging and clearing their views from time to time, as the exigencies of their mission demanded—bringing to their remembrance the words of Christ, unfolding the true import of those words, lifting the vail which hides the future and permitting some of its scenes to pass before them, or directing them in the application of principles to the shifting affairs of church, of state, of family—all this tends to prove that they had knowledge given them, not to hoard but to use, the Spirit ever whispering in their ears, “freely ye have received, freely give.”

A confirmation of this view, viz., that my text involves the completeness of the Bible as a source of Christian truth, may be drawn—

2. From the position and work given to the apostles in the church. In his response to the noble confession of Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus said: “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say unto thee also, Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Here, as you will be careful to observe, Christ first traces the knowledge of Peter to a divine source, first recognizes him as speaking with the voice of inspiration: “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven;” and then, in view of his clear confession of the fundamental truth, thus revealed to him, pronounces him a rock on which the church was to be built. It was not Peter as a man distinguished for firmness and faith, but Peter as an inspired confessor and teacher of truth, who was to be the rock on which the spiritual body of Christ should rest securely. In just this character, is he addressed by our Saviour; and in just the opposite character, viz., as a denier of his Master’s word, is he shortly after denominated Satan. Whether he speaks in our passage for the twelve, to all of whom the same great truth had been revealed, or simply for himself, cannot be certainly known; but we do know from other parts of the New Testament that his relation to the church was not peculiar. For Paul writes to the Ephesians: “Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone;” and John declares in the Revelation, that “the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the name of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” Hence the church was built upon the rock Peter, in the same sense as it was built upon the rock Paul, or the rock John. As inspired teachers, all the apostles spoke with the authority of their Master; and there is not a particle of evidence for the opinion that, after Christ’s ascension, Peter was in any special sense his vicar, exercising authority over the other apostles and the church universal; nor is there a particle of evidence for the opinion, that he either did or could transfer his supposed authority to other hands. The scriptural argument for the papacy is a rope of sand.

Returning to the words of Jesus in his response to Peter, we observe that he exchanges one figure of speech for another, proceeding thus: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” With this language, it is natural to compare the words which Christ addressed to all the apostles, after prescribing the method of discipline for private offences: “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Hence the apostles were to be the foundation stones of the Lord’s house, and yet stewards over the same; they were to settle with divine authority the fundamental principles of our religion, and were also to carry into effect proper rules of admission to the church, and exclusion from it; in a word, to look after order and discipline; and their action in this respect was to be ratified on high. Of similar import, were the Saviour’s words when he first met the collected disciples in a closed room after his resurrection: “Peace be unto you. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever you retain, they are retained.” Thus apostolic teaching, whether of Christian doctrine or duty, was to be sanctioned by the Master as his own. In their official action they were representatives of Christ. Tarrying in Jerusalem, and continuing with one accord in prayer until they were endued with power from on high, they then entered at once upon their great work of bearing witness for Christ, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth; and no fact in the past is more certain than this, that their teaching was delivered, and was accepted as ultimate authority on all matters of Christian faith and practice. Their testimony was the truth. Their doctrine was the word of God. Their directions, even as to order and decorum in social worship, were the commandments of the Lord, and those who could speak with tongues and prophecy were to obey them. They testified of Christ, expounded the meaning of his work, promulgated the laws of his kingdom, and completed the revelation which he began. Their office and relation to the church were peculiar, based upon supernatural endowments. They were witnesses to the fact of Christ’s resurrection; and the Holy Spirit ratified their testimony, with signs following. They were inspired teachers, having a plenitude of spiritual gifts. They could recall the past, speak with tongues, prophecy, interpret. They were related to all future believers, as foundation-stones to the structure which is built upon them, or as stewards of a house, charged with deciding who may enter and who must leave it, to the household itself, to its order, discipline, life, and character. By the laying on of their hands, other Christians obtained special gifts. They had no peers. Their knowledge of all the truth makes it very probable, and their relation to all the church makes it almost certain, that they put this truth on record for the benefit of Christians to the end of time.

Having inferred, from the knowledge and office promised to the apostles, that the record of Christian truth as left by them was complete, I may likewise infer the same:—

3. From the actual contents of the Bible. Let us look at these by way of contrast. The most self-reliant philosophy of today has only the following to offer as religious truth, viz.: That God is simply an idea, or that he is the universe, or that he is the unknown antecedent of an original fire-mist, out of which all things have been evolved; that man, emerging from darkness and sinking again into darkness, is the crowning effort of nature hitherto; and that the future is big with possibilities of higher life for other orders of being. This is the sum. Of sin, of providence, of pardon, of eternal life for you and me, it has nothing to say. Nor should it have; for an attempt to evoke the verities of religion from an irreligious mind by process of logic, is like “sinking broken buckets into empty wells, and growing old in drawing nothing up.” Yet a philosopher of this school is commonly satisfied with himself, thinking that he possesses at least “the rudiments of omniscience.” Alas! in the realm of spiritual, supernatural truth, he is, indeed, blind and ignorant, knowing nothing; as the poet has said,

“One to whose smooth-rubbed Soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small,
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual all-in-all.”

But the Scriptures, written by men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, have enough to teach. They are filled with religious truth, drawn from the wells of salvation. They speak to us of God, affirming that he is a spirit, self-existent, eternal, omnipresent; that he is living, active, personal; that he is all-wise, all-holy, all-good. They testify of his creative power and exact providence, of his fatherly care and spontaneous grace. They set before us Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God, to the end that by contemplating his character—his power, purity, love, and purpose—we may know the character of God. What more can be done? How can the Most High be brought nearer to human thought and feeling?

They speak to us of man, affirming that he was made in the image of God and under law to right; that he fell into sin, and drew upon his soul the wrath of Jehovah, with floods of darkness and woe; that he communicated to his offspring a depraved nature, so that they go astray from birth; and that, left to itself, the whole race would rush with stubborn will away from the Father of lights into the outer darkness. Is not this enough? Does it not explain the history of mankind and evince the need of divine grace?

They speak to us of redemption, affirming that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself; for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. They testify that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; and that no man cometh unto the Father but by him. Their language is clear, direct, positive. It exhausts the subject; declaring, on the one hand, that Christ is able and willing to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, and on the other hand, that there is salvation in no other, for by one offering he has perfected forever all them that are sanctified.

They speak to us of the new birth; of repentance, faith, and love; of their nature, origin, fruits, and value. They tell us what we may be and do, what we may suffer and enjoy, in fellowship with Christ. They describe to us the work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope, by which the grace of God makes us meet for an inheritance with the saints in light. The ethics of the Bible are perfect. “What we call the moral progress of the ages is simply their retrogression toward the evangelic standard.” And so it will be to the end. The stream will never reach a higher point than its source; the last generation of believers on earth will gladly sit at the feet of Paul and John, receiving by the aid of divine grace perennial supplies from the fullness of truth which was revealed to them.

They speak to us of the church, prescribing qualifications for membership, deaconship, and eldership, with rules of discipline for offenses, both public and private. They set before us the rites and worship, the lofty aims and sad mistakes, of churches under apostolic guidance. They cast a jet of light upon every important question; and what they have left in darkness may well remain so, until we see as we are seen and know as we are known.

They speak to us of the future, sketching in bold outline the onward flow of events until time shall be no longer—the conflict between good and evil, truth and error, light and darkness, waxing fiercer and fiercer, until the Son of man shall come in his glory and separate the wicked from the just.

And more, they give us glimpses of the “undiscovered country;” they permit us to hear faint echoes of the eternal song; they take us up, on ladders of imagery, to the gate of heaven and suffer us to look upon its outer glory.

This is enough for the present life; and the voice of Jesus declares: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city.”

Meagre, indeed, and most unsatisfactory is the sketch which I have given of what the Scriptures teach. But time will not permit me to dwell upon the inexhaustible theme. The Sacred Record is a vast temple, which cannot be explored in a life, with places holy and most holy, with pillars and arches, with, galleries and domes, reaching further and rising higher than human thought has yet been able to follow; while every stone and pillar, every wall and ceiling, every door and arch, every altar and window, every statue and fresco, is conceived by infinite wisdom and executed with matchless skill. Every part of it is precious and significant to him who has entered its holy courts. “Standing without, you may see no glory, but standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.” I envy not the man who dares to remove one stone, or add one fresco to this grand cathedral. I honor not the church which enlarges it by wooden courts and painted statues. Let it stand as the inspired workmen built it! Mar not its proportions, murmur not at its height, despise not its age; but enter and worship—not the temple, but the God of the temple—and you will find it radiant with spiritual light and vocal with the music of Paradise.

Again, the completeness of the Bible as a source of Christian truth may be inferred—

4. From the failure, thus far, of all attempts to make any worthy additions to its teaching. There has been no lack of enterprise in this direction. Many of the Jews imagined the written law to be incomplete, and desired to supplement it with further rites and ceremonies: hence the Mishna, or Second Law, handed down by tradition, and placed by them on a level with the Pentateuch. Hence, too, the Scribes and Pharisees took it upon themselves to reprove Jesus for doing miracles on the Sabbath, and for permitting his disciples to eat with unwashen hands. “It is not lawful for thee to heal on the Sabbath.” “Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” But Christ replied: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” “Full well do ye frustrate the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition.” “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites: This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Such was the view which our Saviour took of the oral law as compared with the written, of tradition as compared with Scripture. The one was human, the other was divine.

But the additions made to the written law by Jewish teachers, on the basis of alleged tradition, were not very unlike those which have been made, by ecclesiastical authority, on the basis of alleged tradition, to the doctrines and duties taught by the New Testament. In neither case, do their tendency and spirit agree with the word of God. They lack its simplicity and spirituality. They exalt the efficacy of rites and forms, of priestly mediation and sanctimonious endeavor. They interpose many things besides the blood of Christ between the soul and God. The church, the sacraments, the Virgin Mary, the saints, are too much extolled, while Christ and his word are too much neglected.

Passing through an open way in the city of Rome, I read this inscription under a picture of the mother of Jesus: “Lodata sempre sia col divin figlio, la Virgine Maria del buon consiglio:” “Ever lauded with her divine Son be the Virgin Mary of good counsel!” And this motto feebly expresses a sentiment which has become almost universal in the papal communion. During a residence of three months in Italy, I was in the habit of visiting the churches on the Lord’s day, at the hours of public worship. There were masses and genuflexions and crossings and chantings enough; but only once, in all that time, did I hear a Roman Catholic attempt to preach; and in that instance, the sermon was devoted to the Virgin Mary, affirming that she was born as free from the stains of moral evil as Christ himself, and urging the people to pay her devout homage. The Roman Catechism teaches that “we should resort to the most holy Virgin with pious supplication, that by her intercession she may secure to us sinners the favor of God and the blessings necessary for this, and for eternal, life. Hence we exiled sons of Eve ought to invoke assiduously the mother of mercy and advocate of believing people, and it is impious, execrable for any one to doubt that she has pre-eminent merits with God and the highest desire to assist mankind.” This doctrine of the immaculate conception and this duty of praying to the so-called mother of God, are specimens of what man can do by way of completing the standard of Christian truth.

With them, may be naturally associated the invocation of saints and of angels; a practice which betokens distrust of the infinite compassion of Christ, which overlooks the finite nature of created beings, and which rests upon extra-biblical authority alone. With them, may also be associated the reverence paid to images, relics, and sacred places; a reverence which the Scriptures nowhere enjoin, and which the voice of history pronounces superstitious or productive of superstition.

Time would fail me to speak of the celibacy of the clergy, of the monastic orders and life, of auricular confession and penance and purgatory, and of the many sacraments and ceremonies which have been added by church authority to the simple worship described in the New Testament. “A Catechism of the Christian Religion, published with the approbation of the Right Rev. John B. Fitzpatrick, Bishop of Boston,” does not go far enough when it says that “the church, to facilitate the conversion of Jews and Gentiles, retained some of the ceremonies of the Jews, and others that had been copied by the Gentiles from the Jews.” It would have been more correct to say, that the Papal Church has dedicated not only temples and statues, but also ceremonies of heathen origin to her use.

I should not do justice to my own sense of truth and propriety, were I to close this part of my discourse without saying, that the doctrine of official grace derived by Episcopal succession from the apostles, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration as taught by the Liturgy, the use of sprinkling or pouring for baptism, and the application of this rite to infants, are further examples of what man can do by way of completing the standard of Christian truth and duty. None of them owe their existence to the plain sense of Scripture, and some of them lie at the root of the worst papal errors. And so, I hesitate not to say, that all attempts to make worthy additions to biblical teaching have to this hour been failures.

Such, then, in brief, are our reasons for believing the Bible to be a complete as well as a divine standard of faith and practice. As Baptists, we claim no monopoly in this doctrine, but rejoice that many who walk not with us accept it heartily. Many there are who have maintained this principle with unrivaled eloquence and noblest reason, assigning to the Bible a position solitary and supreme above all other writings, be it creed or liturgy, whether for establishing doctrine or impressing it on the hearts of men. By an unconscious reception of extra-scriptural views, have they deviated, if at all, from the straight line of duty to the Master. We give them honor. Yet in the application of the truth before us, in the uniform consistency with which we have rejected every opinion and practice not founded on the plain sense of Scripture, in the persistent care with which we have separated the human from the divine, and striven to build our churches after the apostolic model, we do, and must, claim a special relation to the principle set forth tonight; we do, and must, believe our position to be in advance of that held by any other body of Christians; we do, and must, think that God is on our side, and that the views which distinguish us will surely in the end commend themselves to the whole family of God on earth. Is this too much to expect? Not if our principles are drawn from the living word. Assured of their divine origin, it would be culpable unbelief not to anticipate their final success. Truth will be laurel-crowned at last. We may have reason to charge ourselves with inertness, we may illustrate the saying of Christ, that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light; but the cause will not fail, the principles we teach will go forth conquering and to conquer, and gladly, after our best efforts, will we take up for ourselves the sacred words, “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.”

We have no fear for the cause. The word of God will stand; and those who are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief-corner, as they are fitly framed together in him, will grow unto an holy temple in the Lord. Of this number, my brethren, we all hope to be found, lively stones, meet for the Master’s use!

Originally published in 1867 by The American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia.

[ Madison Avenue Lectures ]