message or messages, which in their collective form may be called (by way of figure, as John Damascene says) 'oracles of God,' because they contain such oracles.1 In the New Testament the facts and oral preaching of the Gospel are called 'the word,'2 'the word of hearing,' 'of truth,'4' of salvation,' 5 of reconciliation,'' of grace,''of the kingdom,'8 and are therefore rightly regarded as a word or message of God, and about God; but in all these instances the reference is not to written books at all, still less to the entire contents of sixty-six written books, out of which some twelve or more were only with hesitation admitted as Deutero-canonical. Even as applied to the Gospel message the phrase is used in a secondary sense. In its true and supreme sense the title 'the Word of God' is applicable to Christ and to Christ alone. Luther pointed out long ago that 'God does not reveal grammatical vocables, but essential things. Thus sun and moon, Peter and Paul, thou and I, are nothing but words of God.' And we may, with Hartley Coleridge, Believe that every bird that sings, And every flower that stars the elastic sod, But Christ alone is 'the Word of God.' ii. And with this teaching of Scripture agrees the teaching of the Universal Church. The formal identification of the Bible in its whole contents with the very Word of God DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 147 is neither ancient nor catholic. It may sometimes seem to be implied in the looser rhetoric of the Fathers, but is contrary to their deliberate method of handling Scripture, and is in fact an error of yesterday. Perhaps the first writer who rigorously identified Scripture throughout its whole extent with the Word of God was George Major in his book, 'De origine et auctoritate verbi Dei,' 1550; but, as Diestel says, 'Luther never fell into the error. He gives to "the word of God” a narrower and a wider sense than the Scriptures. It is to him the expression of the Divine Will, especially on its religious side.' As far back as the eighth century the eminently orthodox Father, John of Damascus, had laid down the rule that 'We apply not to the written word of Scripture the title due to the Incarnate Son of God.' The doctrine of the Church in general is, and always has been, the doctrine of the Church of England, that 'Scripture contains the word of God.' It was only to men like Calov that the testimony of the Holy Spirit became mainly an inward assurance that their own private opinions are irrefragably right! The work of the Holy Spirit was degraded into a recalling to memory of proof-texts; and Scripture was declared to be a sort of oracular teraph, a self-efficacious organism endowed with the inherent power of radiating infallible theology! The repeated comments of Luther and Calvin, in spite of their occasional laxity of popular declamation, show that they would have repudiated such views. 'It was,' it has been said, 'an afterthought of less original and courageous minds to make no distinction between different parts of the Bible, to regard it all with the same dull and superstitious reverence, and to force the most reluctant facts into the mould of their belief. Nor were these extravagant assertions of Calov and others allowed to pass without protest. The external word,' said Schwenkenfeld, 'is the human voice, in which there is included no divine virtue.' 'If thou sayest among the inexperienced,' says Weigel, 'that the letter is God's word, thou art . . . a deceiver.' 'The Scripture is not called divine because everything contained in it should be imputed to a special revelation,' said the learned Georg Calixt (1656); and this view was also maintained by divines of such eminent learning and holiness both within and without the English Church as Baxter, South, and Doddridge. To assert that the phrase 'Scripture containeth' (complectitur) instead of 'is' (est) the Word of God is only an accident in the formularies of the English Church, is the reverse of fact; for we find it three times over. In the Sixth Article we have: 'Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.' In the Homilies: 'Unto a Christian man there can be nothing more necessary or profitable than the knowledge of Holy Scripture, forasmuch as in it is contained God's true word.' And in the services for the ordering of priests and bishops we have the question: 'Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?'1 1 The older confessions of the Reformed Churches deliberately used the same word, Conf. Gal. art. 5, 'Complectens . . . quicquid requiratur;' Conf. Belg. art. 7, "Credimus Scripturas . omnem Dei voluntatem complecti.' The 'Formula Consensus Helvetici' (drawn up by F. Turretin in 1675) did indeed say 'Scriptura est DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 149 And so in the Shorter Catechism we read 'the word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, is the only rule to direct us how we may enjoy and glorify Him.' Whether then by providential superintendency or by reasonable knowledge, the Church of England has never pledged her children to maintain that every word of Scripture is infallible and inerrant, as though it came immediately from God Himself. verbum Dei,' but by 1729 it was already rejected and forgotten. The words of the Helvetic Confession were 'Hebraicus Vet. Test. codex, tum quoad consonas tum quoad vocalia sive puncta ipsa, seu punctorum saltem potestatem, et tum quoad res, tum quoad verba, θεόπνευστος. CHAPTER XI BIBLICAL INFALLIBILITY. 'Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum.'-Wisd. i. 7. 'Lumen supernum nunquam descendit sine indumento.'-Kabbalah. THE Bible is amply sufficient for our instruction in all those truths which are necessary to salvation. Its final teaching is our surest guide to all holiness. We hear the voice of God breathing through it; we see the hand of God at work in its preservation for the human race. The Bible contains the historic revelation of the Eternal Christ. And in the Old as well as in the New Testament we may and do find the promise of a Redeemer, and of His good will towards us. In everything which is requisite for man's salvation, the lessons contained in Scripture-with the co-ordinate help of that Spirit by whom its writers were moved to aid us in our discrimination-are an infallible guide to us in things necessary. This we hold with all our hearts, and for this we thank God continually. But this is wholly different from the assertion that the Bible is throughout and in all respects infallible or inerrant. Man is always demanding an infallible authority on all subjects; and he cannot have it. God has granted to him a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path, bright enough to guide him to eternal blessedness. He has caused a pillar of fire to shed its gleam through the mid 150 |
