English
You have heard the preparation for it in Hebrew history, and of the change from letter to spirit, and from a nation into humanity, and from law into a message of grace and truth. You have also heard how the Son of God was the Author and Finisher of this blessed change, and how His principal Apostles taught after His death. There are many things, such as the great day of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, and the later growth of the Church, which require yet to be treated. But I trust you see that we have a wonderftil history, ending in a perfect religion, and a very wholesome literature recording both. These things should make you search for yourselves our sacred books, with prayer for that Holy Spirit, the teaching of which we declare our faith to be; and I hope, if you compare these things fairly with the M. p. 26 386 SEARCH WITH PRAYER. entangled system of Hinddism, and with the better voices of your own conscience and experience, you will find the highest of teachers, the Father of our spirits, from whom every good gift comes, leading you into all truth. But remember, that, as water takes colour from its vessel, so you must come with pure heart and life, or at least with earnest crying to God for them, to drink of these foimtains of immortality." HARMONY IN DIVERSITY. 387 CHAPTER XI. Scripture Criticism^ Mirades, Church History, ** I deli?ered unto you first of all that which I abo reoeived, how that ChriBt died for our Bins according to the Bcriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures : and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve : after that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fiJlen asleep. After that, He was seen of James ; then of all the apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one bom out of due time." — i Cob. zv. 3 — 8. "The fearful strains of the Law are repeated, the grace of the Prophets recog- nised, the faith of the Gospels established, the tradition of the Apostles kept, and the grace of the Church triumphant." — Letter to JHognetua [by an early ecclesiastical writer ; not impossibly, as Bunsen thinks, Marcion (?)] Whether Blancombe had intended stopping liere I hardly know, but Saddnanda interposed some remarks. "Your ex- position," he said, " has been very interesting, and the practical part at least of your religion agrees so well with what we con- sider most reasonable and holy, that I see no objection to it. You have also shewn that Christianity is a legitimate growth from some germs in Judaism ; so that any one, admitting the Divine authority of the older dispensation, might in spiritual freedom be led on to accept the newer. The question to me is, whether I might not be equally led into a right path by Indian history, as containing also an exemplification of Divine truths within a human theatre, or whether the Hebrew history contains so much clearer marks of Divine government, that I must change my native point of view, and adopt that of a foreign nation. For you know that men may be educated under dif- ferent music masters into one essential law of harmony ; and so men may find in different countries difierent instances of one governing law of justice and truth. Nor is love, I suppose, a different feeling, because it is expressed in a variety of lan- guages. Why should not devotion then be one and the same 25—2 388 8ANKHTA 8H0BTC0MING. thing, thongh connected with different words, and exemplified as to its blessings in a variety of persons and countries ? Hence I could wish you would do fairiy for the literature of the Hebrews what you have done for that of the Hindus, applying the same tests to each." "What do you mean?" asked Blan- combe. "Why," replied the other, "you have shewn that critical men can apply certain tests to decide the age in which books, claiming a high antiquity, may really have been written; and thus light has been thrown upon the claims of various books to an immutable authority. I find no fault with such a process, for the Sdnkhya philosophy admits that sacred books may con- tain errors, or at least only a temporary kind of knowledge, which will admit of improvement from reasoning. But I should like to hear what the most critical inquirers, and not merely religious teachers, say of all the Hebrew literature." " In the first place," remarked Blancombe, " I could wish that you had been led by your own sacred books, or in any way, to acknowledge a supreme Iswara^ who governs nature, instead of certain subordinate divinities issuing from it. For then wc should have more ground in common, and you would have a great truth, upon which you are now weak. Perhaps it is just in this point that your Indian history has failed to lead you aright. In that case the difference is so essential, that it is alone a reason for your endeavouring to start from the Hebrew point of view; which I have tried to represent as the most reasonable h priori, and which has borne the positive fruit of Christianity; while your native views have not issued in the general adoption by your countrymen of any faith so wholesome. Our better fruit is a proof that our tree was better. " But, in the second place, the mere criticism of the Hebrew literature is by no means so essential to Christianity, as that of the Vedas and Purdnas is to the religion of the Hindiis. For the othodox view of these latter, as represented by our venerable friend here, is that they came from the mouth of Brahm&, and partake of his substance. They ought therefore to be infallible ; CHRISTIANITY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM, 389 and even unimportant errors in science become fatal to such a claim for them. Again, the Hindd system is represented as immutably sacred, and as having been fixed from the beginning. Every change, therefore, in Hindd thought or society, as repre- sented in the many stages of your S&stras, becomes fatal to the first idea of the whole system ; and the great number of such changes cuts the whole ground of authority firom under your feet. Whereas the faith of Hebrews and of Christians is emi- nently in the living God. The distinctive characteristic of Christianity is to assert an immense change, which has been in the direction of progress, and that chiefly by one great step, though also by smaller ones, in the Revelation of the same Eternal Being. Any discrepancy therefore between our earlier books and our later ones, so long as one great idea has gone on unfolding itself, is not at all a detriment to our faith, but an illustration of its very substance. As to changes of manners, and widening of the intellectual horizon from time to time, and all kinds of personal peculiarities which appear, these are, and ought to be, in such books as we profess to hand down. We say the earliest part was written by Moses, another part by David, and others by prophets in various ages. These works of many authors ought to wear every variety of feature, in manner, temper, and knowledge. To shew that they are so varied, is to confirm the account which we give of them, and they of themselves. For we have never said that our Bible sprung to light in a single hour, or dropt from heaven, as by magic. We think it rather a collection of the sacred records of a religious society, and an embodiment of that society's expe- riences, regarding as well the body as the soul. Nor do the accidents of human shortcoming, in any of our books, and least of all in the earlier, tell against our religion. For we do not worship relics of any kind, the authenticity of which would need to be guaranteed. Our worship is one of the mind, and is directed to the Father of our spirits. We heartily thank Him for having exemplified His grace and truth in many instances 390 CHRISTIANITY ACCEPTS CRITICAL RESULTS. of men who have gone before us ; but, while we cherish sacred records of such instances, our essential trust is in the Lord God Omnipotent, who doeth wondrous things, rather than in the human writings in which His works are recorded. We do indeed believe, that the same Holy Spirit, by which Christians are moved now, moved holy men of old ; and the experience of the past is an instrument which helps to awaken the conscious- ness of the present, as well as to give us the confirmation of many witnesses.