The Romans, from whom we have borrowed much of our language, called the witness the testis. The declaration of this testis is still called testimony. In reference to the material system around us, to all objects and matters of sense, the eye, the ear, the smell, the taste, [443] the feeling, are the five witnesses. What we call the evidence of sense, is, therefore, the testimony of these witnesses, which constitute the five avenues to the human mind from the kingdom of nature. They are figuratively called witnesses, and their evidence, testimony. But the report or declaration of intelligent beings, such as God, angels, and men, constitute what is properly and literally called testimony.

      As light reflected from any material object upon the eye brings that object into contact with the eye, or enables the object to make its image on the eye, so testimony concerning any fact, brings that fact into contact with the mind, and enables it to impress itself, or to form its image upon the intellect, or mind of man. Now, be it observed, that as by our five external senses we acquire all information of the objects of sense around us, so by testimony, human or divine, we receive all our information upon all facts which are not the objects of the immediate exercise of our five senses upon the things around us.

      To appreciate the full value of testimony in the divine work of regeneration, we have only to reflect, that all the moral facts which can form moral character, after the divine standard, or which can effect a moral or religious change in man, are found in the testimony of God; and that no fact can operate at all where it is not present, or where it is not known. The love of God in the death of the Messiah never drew a tear of gratitude or joy from any eye, or excited a grateful emotion in any heart among the nations of our race to whom the testimony never came. No fact in the history of six thousand years, no work of God in creation, providence, or redemption, has ever influenced the heart of man or woman to whom it has not been testified. Testimony is, then, in regeneration, as necessary as the fact of which it speaks.

      The real value of anything, is the labor which it cost, and its utility when acquired. If reason and justice arbitrated all questions upon the value of property, the decision would be, that every article is worth the amount of human labor which is necessary to obtain it; and when obtained, it is again to be tried in the scales of utility. Now as all the facts, and all the truth, which can renovate human nature, are in the testimony of God; and as that testimony cost the labor and the lives of the wisest and best that ever lived, that testimony to us, is just as valuable as the facts which it records, and the labors and the lives which it cost, and just as indispensable in the process of regeneration, as were the labors and the lives of Prophets, Apostles, and the Son of God.

      History, or narrative, whether oral or written, is only another name for testimony. When, then, we reflect how large a proportion of both [444] Testaments is occupied in history, we may judge of how much importance it is in the judgment of God. Prophecy also, being the history of future facts, or a record of things to be done, belongs to the same chapter of facts and record. Now if all past facts, and all future facts, or all the history or testimony concerning them, was erased from the volumes of God's inspiration, how small would the remainder be! These considerations, added together, only in part exhibit the value and utility of testimony in the regeneration of mankind. But its value will be still more evident when the proper import of the term faith is fully set before us.

[A. C.]      

Source:

Alexander Campbell. "Testimony." The Millennial Harbinger Extra 4 (August 1833): 341-342.

[MHA1 443-445]