IN submitting to the Christian public a New Method of Biblical Interpretation, it seems proper to begin with such preliminary considerations as may serve to justify the course proposed, and to prepare the way for its adoption. And foremost among these, is the attitude of the masses to the Book whose communications are to be investigated; because it is for them the Christian lives, and not for himself. However well, therefore, he may be satisfied of the truth of conclusions to which he himself has been brought. in following the existing methods of exegesis, he cannot have discharged his whole duty while he remains indifferent to the condition in which those methods have left his fellow citizens.

      What, then, is the relation sustained by the great body of the people to the Holy Bible? How do they regard it? To what extent is its authority recognized and respected? [17] Is its influence such as should satisfy the reasonable desires and expectations of enlightened philanthropy? If not, what is the cause of the failure, and how can it be removed? Such are the questions which we are to attempt to answer in this preliminary part.

      And here, in the outset, we feel constrained to pronounce the great masses of men and women in Christendom reared and educated though they have been under the direct and indirect influences of the Bible—Skeptics.By this we do not mean that they hate the Scriptures, or that they would be willing to put forth any positive effort to destroy them, for this is true of the fewest number. The skepticism of our age is not so coarse and dogmatic. It is more subtle and refined; more timid and retiring; but at the same time more insinuating and dangerous. Ours is actual, not positive skepticism.

      The nineteenth century has produced neither a Voltaire, a Gibbon, nor a Hume. True, it has witnessed the promulgation of the Positive Philosophy of VI. Auguste Comte,--a philosophy whose direct object is to prove that religious belief is the transient state of human nature; but even this profound work furnishes indirectly the strongest proof of the immovable stability of revelation, in the fact that the only means which appeared to so great a thinker and so earnest an opponent, of arresting its influence and disproving its claims, was to annihilate the Being who is claimed as the Author of it. And, when it is proved that there is no God, we shall admit that ours is not a revelation from God. But we are not prepared to give up our conviction of the existence of a Great First Cause, in order to [18] perceive the positive dependence of effects upon proximate causes. Nor is it necessary. We can believe that the universe is controlled by laws; but it only strengthens our faith in the being and the wisdom of a Law-maker. And we are persuaded, whatever influence the writings of M. Comte may have had upon a few mortified metaphysicians, that his postulates concerning God and his religion have not been, nor can they ever be, widely embraced.¹

      In addition to the above monstrous attempt, which would sacrifice the living Creator as an offering to His own laws, a few smaller stars have made feeble efforts to cover the face of the sun; but their transit was only known to philosophers, and they have passed on into merited oblivion.

      We may therefore conclude, almost without qualification, that the skepticism of the nineteenth century has not developed itself in that absolute and positive form which distinguished it in the eighteenth. And we may further remark, that the violence and force of the attacks made upon the truth in the preceding age resulted, in the providence of God, in ultimate good. Men were raised up to meet the emergency, who were enabled not only to sustain triumphantly the claims of the Bible against the most powerful opposition that can, perhaps, ever be brought against it, but also to disarm their adversaries of all their weapons of offensive warfare. Thus the Scriptures have been transmitted to our age, securely intrenched, as it were, behind bulwarks of impregnable strength, and free from all danger of successful assault from any possible quarter. [19]

      Hence it were ridiculous for us to stand behind our parapets and hurl shafts against a foe that has retired from the contest. We have a different work to perform. It is the enemy that now acts on the defensive; and he will never be routed while the friends of the Bible continue merely to walk over the old battle-fields, recounting the deeds of glory and triumphs of skill which were there achieved by our fathers. In other words, we do not deem it necessary or wise to be perpetually repeating the masterly arguments of our ancestors against a species of infidelity that no longer exists--or, if it exist, is no longer formidable; while a living enemy, as destructive and deadly, is permitted to lurk unrebuked in our families, and to sit unassailed in our churches. When the old enemy ventures forth in hostile attitude, it will then be time enough to draw out from our armory those weapons which repelled him before; but certain are we that this is not now the daily and appropriate work of the church.

      What I have denominated actual skepticism, is not a determined opposition to the faith, but rather a simple want of it. It is ignorant of the truth, and distrustful of its ability to find it. It is a skepticism which terminates upon the Church rather than the Bible. It admits that the Bible contains the truth, but thinks that the Church is not able to determine what is that truth. It says: "We concede that the argument for the Divine inspiration of the Bible is unanswerable; hence we do not oppose it--we say not a word against it: but what does it mean? What is it that it would have us believe, and what does it require [20] us to do?" These questions it asks the Church, and the Church returns all manner of conflicting and contradictory answers. Christ has made his people the light of the world; they have invited and urged the world to come to them for light--to look to them as the exponents of Scripture truth; but when the direction is heeded, the very answer that one Christian returns is stoutly contradicted by another, while both are opposed by a third, and all pronounced false by a fourth; until, discouraged and hopeless, men have settled down in actual skepticism to wait for some other manifestation. They are hence ready (for men will seek to satisfy their religious cravings) to embrace any new thing that promises satisfaction. Thus Mormonism, with all its absurdities, is greedily swallowed; Spirit-Rapping finds its thousands and tens of thousands of deluded votaries; and all manner of frauds and impositions gain credence and support, in consequence of the absence of a fixed and positive faith in Christianity.

      But that this want of faith, this actual skepticism, differs from positive infidelity, is evident from the fact that nearly all these deluded people seek to exhibit an agreement between their schemes and the Bible. They are not prepared wholly to give up that book. They are not willing to abandon altogether its doctrine and its hopes; but they must have satisfaction as to its meaning. This they have tried to find in the existing churches, and have failed; and now, as a last resort, they have taken hold of "Spiritualism," or some other ism, which, though it cannot and does not fill the vacuum in their hearts, can at least [21] withdraw attention from it for a time, while it gives promise that when the system, now in its infancy, shall be perfected, their highest hopes shall be realized.

      This, however, is but a single development of the skepticism of our age; and its magnitude will be very imperfectly estimated if we suppose it to be confined to the comparatively few who are drawn off into these absurd schemes. It pervades the great mass of society. Its baneful influence is insinuated into the hearts of the high and the low, the wise and the unwise alike. It fills our chapels every first day of the week with crowds of its respectful and respected votaries. In all sections of the country, among all classes, conditions, professions, and occupations, there is exhibited this quiet, unobtrusive, inactive want of faith; a skepticism of the most hopeless kind, which places men in that state in which "it is impossible to please God," but which is likely to be altogether pleasing to the flesh. The dangers of skepticism, and the arguments against it, are not appreciated by our actual skeptic, for he is not conscious of being such. He feels that he is not averse to the truth; he even takes pleasure, it may be, in witnessing its success. His difficulty is, that he is waiting for something. He is not yet fully satisfied. In the conflict of opposing creeds and contradictory doctrines, he has not been able to make up his mind. He is in doubt as to which of a number of proposed systems is. true, not as to whether there be truth; and hence he lives, not opposed to faith, but destitute of it.

      The great voice which rises up from this mass of doubting, [22] hesitating, unbelieving mind is, "Point out the truth, and we will receive it; tell us what the Scriptures mean, and we will follow them; but amid the thousand discords and clamorous strifes, the antagonistic doctrines and discrepant interpretations, we cannot determine what to believe or what to do." And thus infidelity--routed from the ground it once so proudly and defiantly occupied, and compelled to relinquish into the hands of the Church its hold upon science, criticism, and history, with which at one time it threatened the overthrow of the truth--has taken refuge in a fortress built by the Church. Our divisions, contentions, and differences have given birth to, and builded the stronghold of, a skepticism the most pernicious and insinuating, which prevails as widely as Christendom; which is giving life and support to all manner of false religions; a skepticism which often sits at the communion table of the Lord; which grows up with our religious education, and is confirmed by the weekly preaching from our pulpits; and which the Church can never reach till she becomes able to destroy her own work.

      For it must be evident that the evil cannot be eradicated by the arguments used by the opponents of a different skepticism. No reasoning against the result can avail so long as the cause which produces it is present and active. Former skepticism was based upon imaginary facts, and was routed when they were shown to be imaginary. But the skepticism of our age is based upon actual facts, and can only be overcome when those facts are destroyed. The infidelity which founded its opposition to the Bible [23] upon the contradictions it was supposed to contain, or upon the opposition of its communications to the truths of established science, or upon the unreasonableness and insufficiency of its evidences, was disarmed and silenced when it was shown that no such contradiction or opposition existed, and that the evidences upon which it commanded our faith were accordant with the demands of right reason and common sense, and were stronger, clearer, and more numerous than those which were held to establish any analogous proposition. And so the skepticism which is based upon the uncertainty of biblical interpretation, as manifested in the contrariety of faith and practice exhibited in the Church, admits of but one conclusive answer, and demands but one argument,--the removal of the foundation upon which it rests.

      This brings us to the consideration of the present state of hermeneutical science; for we attribute our disagreements not to the Bible, nor yet to the depravity or incompetency of those who have studied it, but to the imperfections and perverting influences of the methods which have been followed. [24]

[TOOS 17-24]