ILLINOIS
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
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Project Unica
Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign 2015«
THE BIBLE.
How precious is the Book Divine,
By inspiration given!
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine To guide our souls to Heaven.
It sweetly cheers our drooping hearts,
In this dark vale of tears;
Life, light, and joy, it still imparts,
And quells our rising fears.
This lamp, through all the tedious night Of life, shall guide our way;
Till we behold the clearer light Of an eternal day.
THE BIBLE.
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. Within this awful Volume, lies The mystery of mysteries;
Happiest they of human race,
To whom their God hath given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, to force the way; And better had they ne’er been born, That read to doubt, or read to scorn.
PRAYER.
From all false doctrine, heresy and schism ; from hardness of heart, and contempt of Thy Word and Commandment ;
Good Lord, deliver us.
That it may please Thee to give to all Thy people increase of grace to hear meekly Thy Word, and to receive it with pure affection, and to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit ; We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That it may please Thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of Thy Word; and that both by their preaching and living they may set it forth and show it accordingly ;
We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning ; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of Thy Holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which Thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.THE LITERARY BEAUTIES
OF
THE BIBLE:
& ^jertttrf
DELIVERED TO THE WATERFORD YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE,
IN THE
PROTESTANT HALL, WATERFORD, JAN. 30th, 1862.
BY T1IE
REV. EDWARD DALTON,
HECTOR OF TRAMORE,
AUTHOR OF “LECTURES ON THE LIFE OF JOSEPH,” “WATCHFUL PROVIDENCE OF GOD,” ETC. ETC.
PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE.
“ I use the Scriptures, not as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and weapons, . . . but as a matchless temple, where I delight to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure ; and to increase my awe and excite zny devotion to the Deity there preached and adored.’*—Boyle on the Style of Scripture.
LONDON:
W. IL DALTON, EOOKSELLER TO THE QUEEN,
28, COCKSPUE STREET, CHARING CROSS; AND
MESSRS. HODGES, SMITH, & CO., RUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY, DUBLIN.
1862,THE BIBLE.
Hast thou ever heard
Of such a book ? the Author, God Himself ;
The subject, God and man, salvation, life And death—eternal life, eternal death—
Dread words! whose meaning has no end, no bounds. Most wondrous Book ! bright candle of the Lord ! Star of eternity ! the only star By which the bark of man could navigate The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss Securely ; only star which rose on Time,
And, on its dark and troubled billows, still,
As generation, drifting swiftly by,
Succeeded generation, threw a ray Of Heaven’s own light, and to the hills of God,
The eternal hills, pointed the sinner’s eye ;
By prophets, seers, and priests, and sacred bards, Evangelists, apostles, men inspired,
And by the Holy Ghost anointed, set Apart, and consecrated to declare To Earth the counsels of the Eternal One—
This Book, this holiest, this sublimest Book,
Was sent. *****
This Book, this holy Book, on every line Marked with the seal of high divinity,
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love Divine, and with the eternal heraldry And signature of God Almighty stamped From first to last—this ray of sacred light,
This lamp, from off the everlasting throne,
Mercy took down, and in the night of Time Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow ;
And evermore beseeching men with tears And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live.
And many to her voice gave ear, and read,
Believed, obeyed ; and now, as the Amen,
True, Faithful Witness swore, with snowy ro bes And branchy palms surround the fount of life,
And drink the streams of immortality,
For ever happy, and for ever young.
Pollok’s “ Course of Time,” Book II.2_ 2_0- b ^
VnU
A LECTURE,
ETC.
My dear young friends, I have to speak to you to-night of the literary beauties of the Bible,—the imperishable loveliness of one of the Great God’s imperishable works. There is surpassing loveliness and exquisite beauty in all His wonderful works—the golden crocus, the emerald grass, the plumage of birds, the graceful form of the bounding deer, mountain scenery, the spreading magnificence of Heaven,—there is matchless beauty in them all. But, the grass withers, the flower fades, the most beautifully moulded forms crumble to dust, and even the mountains shall depart and the Heavens be no more ; but the Word of our God shall endure for ever. Its beauties are as fresh now as they were thousands of years ago. An undying blaze of glory lights up every leaf, and flashes from every page.
And if it be thus more permanently glorious than the other works of its great Creator, still more strikingly does its enduring glory contrast with the grandest works of man. The monuments of human greatness yield, one after another, to the influence of time. Whatever is magnificent, or beautiful, or excellent in the brightest and fairest of them all, possesses only a temporary influence, and commands only a transient admiration. In a few years its graces are departed, its glory extinguished, its loveliness gone. From the projectors of Babel down to our own day, every
A 24
A LECTURE ON'
attempt to found a great name, and rear a tower whose top may reach to Heaven, has signally failed ; time has invariably sooner or later written “ confusion ” upon the project, or swept it from the earth. Men, combining together their collective strength and wisdom, have, no doubt, produced astonishing results, and achieved stupendous triumphs over nature. Man, in his boundless ambition, and holding sway over millions of his fellow-men as his willing workmen, has grasped at almost universal sovereignty, stretched his sceptre over countless provinces, and planted the line of his dominion from sea to sea ; and then he has inscribed his victories, and the multitude of his conquests, and the glories of his kingly character, on colossal works of art, which have exhibited all that was sublime in conception and graceful in execution. And he has intended these to be imperishable pillars of his deathless fame,—to give immortality to his name and deeds. And if he could have made these durable, his triumph would have been complete. But he has never been able to secure and screen his works, any more than his own person, from the sure and steady inroads of time. That great leveller has respected nothing man has reared ; it has sapped his strongest monuments, covered with rust and moss his brightest trophies, and tumbled into chaos and decay his loftiest pillars. That irresistible power has overthrown all the structures man has raised. At its touch, the strongly-rooted thrones of the earth have crumbled into dust, and the triumphant arches of the warrior been consigned to oblivion. And as it has paid no respect to the thrones and monumental structures of individual kings and heroes, so has it shown equal contempt for the metropolitan cities or marvellous works for which a whole people have been renowned. It has destroyed and defaced the cities and the monuments of which mighty nations prided themselves,THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
5
converted Nineveh and Babylon into mounds of dust, filled Rome with the melancholy fragments of ruined grandeur, extinguished for ever the light of the Pharos, prostrated the Colossus of Rhodes, unravelled and swept away the Labyrinth, and even passed, like a ploughshare, through the world-famed temple of Jerusalem itself. All man’s Babel towers totter and fall; his hundred-gated cities become the wild beasts’ lair, or the sea-waves moan over their dismantled bulwarks. And even if the Pyramids of Egypt and the Round Towers of Ireland remain, they are yet scarred with the wounds of time, and have been spared only to mock the folly of human ambition, seeing that they have long outlived the names of their projectors and builders. No; there is no monument in the wide world which has been permitted by time to exalt the name or fame of man into immortality.
But you are literary young men, and you will tell me that you know something more powerful to perpetuate the greatness of man’s deeds, and the lustre of his name, than the structure of the architect, the brass of the engraver, or the marble of the sculptor. You will say, though time is the ruthless destroyer of man’s mightiest works, yet literature restores them. On the page of History the fallen empires exist again; buried heroes live crowned with unfading laurels ; the pen of the writer bids ruined temples, and tottering pillars, and broken battlements and towers rise again in the fresh glory of their primeval splendour. And it is quite true that literature seems to promise that immortality to man’s works which neither arms could command or art secure. The blaze of war is quickly extinguished, but the inspiration of the poet is a lambent flame, playing round the imagination from age to age, and shedding its mild and brilliant light upon distant lands and times when the fire of discord is forgotten. The magic pen of the historian raises from their marble tombs departed6
A LECTURE ON
princes and warriors, and makes them act again their parts upon the stage of time. And poets and historians have felt their proud superiority over the architect and the sculptor ; they have gloried in the greater durability of the products of the mind than the products of the baud ; they have exulted in the greater promise of permanence contained in -trophies forged in the workshop of the brain than in the handiwork of artificers in brass, and marble, and iron; they have promised to themselves and to the subjects of their eulogy, immortality—but all in vain. In vain have they flattered themselves that they had erected a monument more durable than brass, and loftier than the Pyramids, which the flight of seasons should not be able to demolish, but which could defy the ravages of storms and the corroding tooth of time. Many such a fond enthusiast has floated down the stream of time without leaving so much as the echo of his name behind. And of those who have not been engulfed or wrecked in the quicksands of time, but have reached our day buoyant still upon its broad current with fragments of their precious freight, it has been only after losing much from the storms that have passed over them, and leaving probably the bulk or wealtli of their cargo beneath the waves of time’s ruthless sea. Those who have climbed highest in the giddy ascent of literary fame have not been able to carry all their treasures with them to the top ; they have been dropped upon the road, and rolled down into oblivion. Even of those wlip stand highest on the records of renown, a part of their works has perished. Time has not spared them. The precious fragments of ancient writings have been loft, in God’s Providence, to show us how immeasurably inferior the best are to God’s great book ;* and they resemble the ruins of some great
'* “Some appear to disparage the style of Scripture as barbarous; some apologize for it, as the work of illiterate and unlearned men;THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
7
empire—enough remains to delight, impress, instruct, but to make us lament more bitterly what is lost.
And now, my dear young friends, standing amid a world crowded with monumental and literary ruins, I call you to gaze on the wonder of all wonders,—a monument with its base on earth, but rearing its lofty head to the skies ; a monument worthy of the great God who planned and executed it as an imperishable memorial of Himself in all ages and in all climes; a monument remaining most permanent where all is changing, most beautiful where all is marred ; never eclipsed, never surpassed, never equalled ; a monument stamped with the impress of the infinite mind, reflecting the glory of God Himself, and like Him, if gifted with speech, might say, “ I am the same, I change not.” I invite you to behold the noble Book of books which has survived all the storms of time, and floating serenely through the stranded wrecks of human production, towers sublimely above them all,—the Bible.
■rarely these notions are false and dangerous. The diction of Scripture, it is true, is not the language of any other composition in the world. The Greek of the New Testament is not the Greek of Xenophon, Plato, or Demosthenes. It is a language of its own; and we need not scruple to affirm, that in precision of expression, in pure and native simplicity, in delicacy of handling, in the grouping of words and phrases, in dignified and majestic sublimity, it has no rival in the world. The more carefully it is studied, the more clearly will this appear, ‘Nihil otio-sum in Sacra Scriptura’ (Origen). Every sentence—we might almost say, every phrase—is fraught with meaning. As it is in the Book of Nature, so it is in the pages of Holy Writ. Both are from the same Divine Hand. And if we apply to the language of Holy Scripture the same microscopic process which we use in scrutinizing the beauties of the natural world, and which reveals to us exquisite colours and the most graceful texture in the pet als of a flower, the fibres of a plant, the plumage of a bird, or the wings of an insect, we shall discover new sources of delight and admiration in the least portion of Holy Writ." —Rev. Canon Wordsworth.8
A LECTURE OK
In speaking of the literary excellencies of the Bible, I may observe, that it has all the elements of greatness -without one of the defects which mar the productions of man. “The Law of the Lord is perfect.” It is a literary sun, with no spot or blot upon its disc. An inexhaustible storehouse of wisdom and knowledge, its ample wealth of instruction exceeds the combined wisdom of all wise men, as the universe outweighs a sand-grain. It is, what no human history is, a faithful history of facts, without bias, without partiality, with no extenuation or exaggeration, no over-colouring or suppression. It tells us what no human history can tell us,—the secret springs of action, the causes of events, the motives of the actors. It brings to light the plans of warriors, politicians, and monarchs ; not only telling us what they actually accomplished, but also what they designed; where they failed, and how far they came short of their schemes. Its pages tell us the cause of the decay of empires, and the unaccountable defeat of strong armies ; why a panic seized the breasts of myriads of valiant warriors, and what dissolved the foundation of some mighty throne and scattered it to the winds. With infinite condescension, we are permitted to enter behind the scenes, and allowed to read the secrets of the Almighty Governor of Heaven and earth. It tells us the origin of man, his birth-place, his fall; the origin of all the sorrows we see around us and feel within us ; the origin of the diversities of tongue ; the origin of that dead lake where once the lofty towers and splendid palaces of Sodom stood. And over the whole narrative every charm is shed that can interest or delight. While truth guided the pen, infinite wisdom illuminated the page. Whatever of sublimity of conception, grace in composition, superiority in intellect, delicacy in feeling, majesty in execution, attracts us in the best writings of gifted men, is to be found in greater purity,THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
9
in more abundant fulness, in higher perfection, in the Bible. And Time respects it; Time, which has respected nothing else, has bowed before the onward march of the Bible ; Time has respected the Sacred Volume. Age after age has done homage to its truth ; years have dimmed nothing of its glory, falsified none of its facts, diminished nothing of its information, abated nothing of its force, deteriorated nothing of its excellence. Persecution has been unable to injure it; the most vigorous attacks of its enemies have served but to prove its invulnerability. It has suffered nothing from hostility; it has borrowed nothing from friendship. Many centuries have rolled their storms around it, a thousand weapons have been launched against it, the malice of man and the malignity of fiends have alike essayed their worst to harm it, and yet it stands unaltered, uninjured, like its Author—the same yesterday, to-day, AND FOR EVER.
Its fads are wonderful, its 'predictions are wonderful, its miracles are wonderful ; but its style, its manner of instruction, is equally wonderful. The outward garb, the shell of this exquisite treasure, is itself exquisitely beautiful. Its method of communicating and enforcing its sublime and eternal truths is marvellously striking. In regard to its style, its imagery, its accuracy, its sublimity, it will not yield to any of the most admired productions of antiquity. Let us fix upon any quality for which these have been most esteemed, and it is easy to prove that the Scriptures possess that quality in a pre-eminent degree. Or, if the subject of our admiration be the combination of many excellencies, a greater and more magnificent assemblage of these very excellencies may be produced, without effort, from the Divine Book. Even if it had no other claim upon their attention than its transcendent merit as a literary composition, the neglect of the Bible by men of taste and10
A LECTURE ON
literature can only be accounted for by the fallen state of man, the alienation of his soul, the enmity of his heart, the distance of his affections from God.*
* “ The Bible is a most wonderful volume; there is nothing like it in the wide world; no such source of intellectual wealth; itself never exhausted, yet exhausting the brightest, strongest, and most potent minds. A candid mind that has been prepossessed against it, needs but to read it, in order to confess with shame that it has disappointed its prejudices, and that it is enriched with thoughts altogether beyond any other volume. There are thoughts in this Sacred Book which, though perfectly obvious when seen, are not seen on the first or the second inspection, even though that inspection be ever so full. Instances of this kind so frequently occur, that they are continually sources of surprise and admiration even to the most reflecting minds. It is wonderful to observe what new trains of thought of prodigious interest are often suggested by a single sentence, a single fact, recorded in the Bible,'—a word, a date, not before observed, or not understood, or viewed in some new aspect. The Bible seems, in this respect, almost like enchanted ground, or rather like the embowered precincts of some unearthly world. As we passover its luxuriant plains, and tread its wide and accustomed avenues, we unexpectedly discover a thousand less frequented paths that open views—views of indescribable richness and beauty, that are new and immeasurable. It is difficult, if not impossible, to resist the impression, that the light which shines upon us is from no earthly source, but beams from the Infinite Intelligence above us. The mind is never weary in tracing out these opening vistas of truth, except from its own infirmity; and even when thus wearied may always recover and refresh itself at unwasting fountains scattered by the wayside, and everywhere overhung by the dense shadow of the Tree of Life. We do not find it so with any other book. This is one of the great peculiarities of the Bible, it is an exhaustless volume. Viewed as a whole it is like the full-orbed sun, which . . . dazzles by its splendour; and the more we gaze upon it, and the more its light emanates and is . diffused, the more do its resources appear unwasting. Portions of this Book seem deep and unfathomable; but even its deepest recesses are neither empty nor dark. It is a vast profound, which lies open to the day; where, though reason’s lamp alone were darkness, yet the deeper it descends it not only encounters no noxious vapours, but, as in a mine of jewels, in every discovered gem it receives back the reflected light of heaven. There is no other book which a few carefulTHE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
11
Iii speaking of the literary excellencies of the Bible, it is right to premise that each writer has his own peculiar cast of mind. Though all are inspired by One and the same Holy Spirit, and every word they have penned is to he received, not as the word of man, hut as the very word of God, yet each writer has his own peculiar and distinct and separate style and excellency. As one star differeth from another star in glory, and yet the varied glories of sun, moon, and stars are the production of the same glorious Creator; and as the varied colours of the rainbow all differ in their distinctive glory, hut yet form one pure and perfect light, so do the varied and differing glories of the inspired penmen, and the varying graces of their composition, emanate from that one blessed God who is Light, and form together one perfect and harmonious whole.
The character of the mind of Isaiah was sublimity ; he is
readings of a sound and retentive mind will not exhaust. Yet men there are who have made this volume the object of their study for half a century, who have examined every paragraph it contains with repeated and closest scrutiny, and with every fresh perusal have discovered new thoughts, and new causes for wonder and joy. The more deeply they have become absorbed in its pages, the more deep and thorough has been their conviction of its illimitable’ resources ; a conviction uniformly strengthened by their growing acquaintance with its instructions, and by all the effort and honesty, the humility and prayer, they have been enabled to bring to their researches.
“ There was an humble fisherman on the lakes of Palestine, who wrote a short treatise, so replete with heavenly truth, that Archbishop Leighton, whom Dr. Doddridge calls ‘ that wonderful man,’ employed years of intense and delighted labour in illustrating the rich and heart-affecting lessons it contains; lessons which furnished even the splendid mind of Coleridge with many of those ‘ aphorisms ’ which form the bases of his far-famed ‘ Aids to Reflection.’ Nor do the Epistles of Peter stand alone as exhibitions of intellectual vigour and richness, to which minds, unaided by the Holy Spirit, never aspired. There is no book in any age, in any country, which can in this respect be compared with the Bible.”—Dr. Spring's Bible not of Man.12
A LECTURE ON
always an eagle in his flight, never losing sight of the sunr never stooping in his majestic career. Stripped of his poetic garb, and translated into plain prose, he still retains his-grandeur of style; still moves through every page with a princely step, like a monarch whose kingly tread every one can recognise though in a peasant’s dress. The mind of Jeremiah was cast in the mould of tenderness; far less sublime than Isaiah, he was much more pathetic. He goes weeping through the world tears of sympathising sorrow; and it is impossible to read the language in which he deplores the ruin of his country without feeling one’s heart melted, and mingling our tears with those of the patriot. Ezekiel possesses neither of these qualities so largely; he is not so sublime as Isaiah, not so tenderly pathetic as Jeremiah, but he is distinguished for the force and fire of his appeals.
But the descriptive parts, and the figurative language of Scripture, its beautiful similes, its striking metaphors, its exquisitely touching, thrilling, melting bursts of pathos, and its inimitable parables, are perhaps the parts which strike the general reader as its greatest literary beauties. Let me then allude to a few.
And first let me say, that many of the figures used in Scripture lose much of their beauty by our forgetting that the Bible was written in the East. It is well therefore to possess an accurate acquaintance with the topography, the physical geography, the atmospheric changes, and the manners and customs of the East; for any one conversant with these, or still better, any sojourner in Eastern parts, will see a force, a propriety, a meaning, a beauty in these metaphors and figures which the ignorant reader will lose. The few showers they enjoy during the summer, and their nearness to a desert country, gave peculiar force to the constantly occurring description of adversity as a thirsty land, and ofTHE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.	13
prosperity as a spring rising unexpectedly in the wilderness. To the reader who knows “ how beautiful for situation., the joy of the ivhole earth, is Mount Zion, the City of the Great King,” what a beautiful image of security does the Psalmist present to the mind in his comforting assurance that, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people, from henceforth even for ever!” The same fact gives additional force to the promise,
“ For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed ; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy upon thee.” As the melting of the snow often produced sudden and fearful torrents from the mountains, which swept away peasants with their huts and flocks, so to be overwhelmed with trouble was often represented as being suddenly plunged into deep waters. There appears to be a reference to this in our Lord’s striking parable of the two builders, where the man who had chosen some apparently sheltered and sunny nook at the base of the mountain, and built his house upon the sand, was awakened from his dream of security by one of these sudden torrents—the stream heat vehemently against his house, and its fall was great.
Let me illustrate the peculiar sublimity of the descriptive language of Scripture by a specimen from one of the Minor Prophets. And let me strongly recommend you to read the poetical parts of the Sacred Volume in what is called the Paragraph Bible, published by the Religious Tract Society; it will greatly facilitate your understanding of the meaning, and throw much light upon the imageiy and structure of the sentences, giving increased force and beauty to its figures and contrasts. Each line of the poetry is given as a distinct and separate line, corresponding with the poetical line of the original. It will also enable you to discern and14
A LECTURE ON
appreciate tlie marvellous beauties and graces of these poetical portions, to hear in mind that they were sung by responsive choirs, answering one another alternately, accompanied by the solemn strains of instrumental music. We can easily imagine the sublime and terrible sentences, accompanied by the rough bass and clash of the loud-sounding cymbals; while the more tender and gentle portions might be accompanied by the soothing strains of softer music. How grand and awful, how sublime and fearful, is this description of Jehovah !—
“ God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth ;—
The Lord revengeth, and is furious ;
The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries,—
And He reserveth wrath for His enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power,—
And will not at all acquit the wicked :
The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm,
And the clouds are the dust of His feet ;
He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry,
And drieth up all the rivers :
Bashan languishetli and Carmel,
And the flower of Lebanon languisheth.
The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt,
And the earth is burned at His presence,—
Yea, the world and all that dwell therein.
Who can stand before His indignation ?
And who can abide in the fierceness of His anger ?
His fury is poured out like fire,
And the rocks are thrown down by Him.
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble ;
And He knoweth them that trust in Him.”*
With what sublimity and grandeur does this most striking description of the Omnipotent open ! How startling the abrupt announcement, “God is jealous!” How terrific the repeated declaration, “ The Lord revengeth ! ” With what surpassing grandeur are we told that He has “Jlis way
* Nahum i. 2—7.THE LIT EE ART BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
IS
in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet /” What a magnificent hut awe-inspiring thought, that the vast sea and the broad rivers are dried up by one fiery glance of His indignant eye! And then— why, we consider the barren fig-tree withered by the curse of the Lord Jesus a striking proof of the power of His Godhead, and so it is. But here we have Bashan, and Carmel, and Lebanon languishing; the magnificent cedars and oaks, and forests of these most remarkable mountains of the Holy Land, fading and withering at once under the frown of an angry God. And to complete the awful picture, solid mountains quaking, the everlasting hills dissolving, the whole world, with its millions of inhabitants throughout all its vast continents, burned up in the fierceness of His anger, and His fury poured out like fire!
And then, amazing and delightful contrast! All this indignation passes suddenly away, every frown disappears from His Godlike countenance, a smile full of Heaven’s own unutterable sweetness takes the place of the angry glance, as He turns from His enemies to His beloved children. “ The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him !” The same arm which is so powerful to overthrow His foes, is equally powerful to protect His friends. The hand that scatters fire among those that hate Him, and shakes down mountains, and hurls confusion upon a world of rebels, is thrown as a shield around His people, and shelters, comforts, nourishes, and defends those that trust in Him.
Another exquisitely beautiful instance of the combination of the sweetest gentleness with sublime majesty and power, is the following :—
“ He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
“Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted16
A LECTURE ON
out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him ? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding ? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
“To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him ? ... It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.”*
The allegorical language of Scripture is equally beautiful. Let me refer you to the Eightieth Psalm, in which Israel is described, under the figure of a vine. God is pictured as the careful husbandman, preparing a suitable place beforehand, and then transplanting this favoured vine from the uncongenial atmosphere and rough soil of Egypt to the more salubrious air and richer soil of the promised land, flowing with milk and honey. There it thrives under the tender culture of its wise Proprietor—covers the mountains with its luxuriant offshoots, and spreads its fruitful branches far and wide like the goodly cedars—stretches its roots for nourishment to the distant sea and the far-off rivers. Then comes a sudden and melancholy contrast—the frown of its incensed owner blights it, its hedge is broken down, and the wild boar out of the wood lays it waste. Its condition is most pitiable, and deplorable in the extreme; and the allegory closes with this beautiful prayer,—
“ Return, we beseech Thee, O God of hosts!
Look down from Heaven, and behold, and visit this vine.”
Another most exquisite specimen of beautiful allegory is * Isaiah xl. 11—18, and 22.THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.	17
(0 be found in Ezekiel xxvii. It is perhaps matchless, and would have immortalised any uninspired writer who could have produced it. It delineates Tyre, the great commercial emporium of the world, under the figure of a stately vessel; her keel, and planks, and timber, the most costly and durable of wood—the oak, the fir, and the cedar; her benches of ivory, her sails of fine linen and broidered lace, and purple and blue; her pilots the wisest, her rowers the strongest of men, and her cargo the riches of all climes, the wealth of every land ; her strength unequalled, her shields impervious, her helmets impenetrable, her beauty perfect. Then ruin suddenly falls with crushing might upon this glorious creature. She is brought into great waters ; God launches the East wind of His fury against her, and bids the huge waves of His indignation crash through her bulwarks ; the skill of her pilots, the prowess of her strong men, her tough ribs of oak, avail nothing; she becomes a perfect ruin, and the wide world is strewn with the scattered fragments of her wreck, and the drifting bales of her costly merchandise.
The poetical parts of Scripture abound in imagery. The most perfect and beautiful example perhaps is the Song of Solomon. The richness and variety of its figurative language is wonderful; though, to understand it, we ought to know thoroughly the customs of the East and the marriage ceremonies among the Jews. The Book of Job abounds with sublime imagery. Let me speak of the pathetic portions of God’s Book. The lamentation of David over Jonathan is tender and beautiful beyond description; it is full of the most touching images.
“ The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa,
B18
A LECTURE-ON
let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though lie had not been anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle' O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! ”
Need I remind you of the same David’s heart-rending sorrow and bitter lamentation over his unhappy Absalom. 2 Sam. xviii. 33. Or of the pathetic lamentation of David’s Lord and King over Jerusalem. Matthew xxiii. 37.
Personification is another part of figurative language in which Scripture excels. As it is the boldest and most difficult to maintain of all the figures of speech, so is it carried to the greatest extent in the Bible. The most perfect example of this style is to be found in Isaiah’s description of the death of the King of Babylon. Isaiah xiv. The whole earth is represented as breaking forth into a song of joy at the rest and quietness it enjoys after the turmoil and din of his fierce exploits and tumultuous reign; the fir trees also rejoice, and the cedars of Lebanon, to think that the axe of the great leveller Death has laid him low whose axe thinned their ranks for his ambitious projects. Then we are introduced into the lower regions, and an awful but sublime description is given of the reception of his departed spirit there. All hell is in commotion at his entrance ; the former kings of the earth rise up from their mock thrones and taunt him thus : “ Art thou also become weak as we ? Art thou become like unto us ? Thy pomp is broughtTHE LITERARY BEAUTIES OE THE BIBLE.
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down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols : the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations ! ” Then when they have thus contrasted his towering ambition aiming to exalt his throne above the stars of God, and to ascend above the highest clouds, and be like the Most High, with his being thrust down to hell and brought to the sides of the pit, they narrowly gaze at him, and stretch their necks to see if it be indeed the man at whose nod they formerly trembled. And they then break forth in scalding mockery and derision, and with bitter irony exclaim,—“ Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the house of his prisoners ? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house; hut thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones of the pit, as a carcase trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land and slain thy people : the seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned.”*
* “ The agitation of the invisible world at his approach ; the solemn yet shadowy state of departed monarchs, still retaining the semblance of majesty amidst utter weakness, and exhibiting a gratification in the humiliation of him to whom they were once tributary, raises sensations of unspeakable awe. The contrast between what he was and what he is—the loss of empire, wealth, flattery, pleasure—the nakedness of the dispossessed and disembodied spirit—are very striking. This contrast is heightened by the repetition of bis vain-boastings and visionary ambition—the threatening that even death shall not terminate his degradation—that his body shall be denied the rites of sepulture—that liis children shall never inherit the empire—that with him the dynasty shall cease—terminates the majesty and terror of the prediction.”— Collyer.	b 220
A LECTURE ON
Condensation, comprehensiveness, is another marvellous excellency of the Sacred Book. This is a feature which can be appreciated as peculiarly valuable in the present day, when we all cry out for compact instruction, clear but concise statements of facts—and have neither time nor patience to waste on diffuse or attenuated compositions. The Scriptures, in a few short sentences, give us volumes of information,—like a skilful artist, who with a few strokes of his pencil delights us with a picture of infinite significance.* For instance, what volumes have been penned on the Omnipresence of God ! How interminably has the glorious subject been elaborated ! And no marvel, for it is exhaustless, endless. Finite minds can never express the Infinite, and the limited language of mortals can never exhaust the illimitable. You all know how poets have revelled in the theme, and preachers have delighted to make it the subject of their pulpit eloquence; how they have rejoiced to remind us that God is everywhere, in all places and at all times ; that if you visit the profoundest solitudes, dive into the recesses of some forest glade where foot of man never before pressed the virgin moss, that there, in God’s own majestic cathedral, with the fretted roof of intertwisted boughs, and the pillared shafts upreared without sound of axe, or hammer, or chisel, you will find the warbling bird, the humming bee, and the glossy •beetle, the choristers of that sublime Temple, all fed by the hand of their ever-present God. Or if you go to the haunts ■of men, to the most crowded city, where the tread of
* “ The painter by the most delicate strokes of his brush, the musician by the swiftest touch of fleeting notes, exercises the highest skill of his art; and in the perfection of anything whatever, those minute particulars which escape the ears and eyes of the ignorant and unrefined, bestow the most exquisite delight on those who are capable of appreciating them,—a delight springing from the very root and essence of the thing itself ; such is the case with Holy Scripture.”—Bengd’s Gnomon, Yol. I., p. 49.THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
21
millions is wearing down the granite pavement, and forests of masts crowd the quays, and the wharves groan with the merchandise of all climes, even within that busy hive of industry, and amongst those worshippers of Mammon, God is present. Or let the white sail waft you across the deep ; stand on the deck of some vessel as she heats white with foam the dark waters of far-off seas, or ploughs triumphantly the foaming billows, and there, with nothing but the wide expanse of sky above you, and the wide waste of waters around you, you will feel that God is there. And when the storm comes on, and the thunder rolls like the march of the God of armies through the sky, and the lightnings shine forth like the flashing of His glittering spear, and your bark reels and rocks, and is tossed like a sea-bird on the angry billows, even then, you will feel with solemn awe, “ He maketh the clouds His chariots, and walketh upon the wings of the storm.” And equally when the profound calm succeeds the noisy hurricane, and you reach your port in peace, and step on shore with the flowers smiling brightly all around, as though the ground was gemmed with stars, and light fleecy clouds sailing slowly over you, and the blue sky shedding serenity into your soul, you will feel that God is in all these balmy influences as the God of peace, as well as in the tumultuous rage of elemental strife. Visit the most magnificent of God’s works—the loftiest mountains, the widest seas, the deepest mines—God is in them all. And so in the most minute. Take your microscope and peer into the recesses of some drop of water, or scrutinize with care the throbbing heart, or circulating fluid, or piercing eye of the tiny insect, whose whole globe is a rosebud or a drop of dew,—God is with them all. Or point your telescope towards the spreading heavens, and let your imagination wing its flight to some flaming comet, or to the most distant of all distant stars, and still God is there. In the near and the far-off, in the minute and the magnificent, in22
A LECTURE ON
the beautiful and in the terrible, in the perishing and in the lasting, God is present.
But after all the volumes penned and orations uttered, what language ever spoke so powerfully, so gloriously, so poetically, so sublimely, or with such majesty of diction, and yet in so few terse and pregnant sentences of the Omnipresence of God as the 139th Psalm?
“ Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ?
Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ?
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall Thy hand lead me,
And Thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;
Even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee ;
But the night shineth as the day:
The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.”
The repetitions of Scripture are remarkable. We are all aware of the beauty and force of a line being repeated at the end of each stanza, or a sentiment reiterated at the close of every paragraph, when it is intended to fasten that sentiment or truth deeply and permanently in the mind. How tremendous are those words which occur so often in the ninth and tenth of Isaiah like repeated claps of thunder, when, as judgment after judgment is denounced of the most awful nature possible, it is proclaimed like a rolling peal of heaven’s artillery, “ For all this, His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still! ”
Another instance of repetition of an opposite character, not rough and startling, but coming like the repeated soft note of an iEolian harp, occurs in the 107th Psalm. Men are described in various afflictive and distressing circum-THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
23
stances obtaining deliverance from the Lord. First, travellers in a desert land, hungry and thirsty, and finding no habitation of man to furnish them with food or shelter, their soul faints within them ; they call upon the Lord, and are heard. He satisfies the longir.g soul, and satiates the hungry soul with goodness. Then, men imprisoned for their crimes, sitting in hopeless darkness and the shadow of death ; they call upon the Lord, and He breaks the gates of brass and cuts the bars of iron in sunder, and the captives are free. Then, men in sickness, through the folly of their own excesses, loathing all food, and drawing near the very gates of death ; they turn to the Lord, and He renews their youth like the eagles, and health returns to their frame. Lastly, sailors in a storm ; they mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths, their brave souls melted because of the extremity of their danger, all hope abandoned, they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end ; they call upon the Lord, and He makes the storm a calm, and brings them through quiet waters to the haven where they would be. And after each of these deliverances, these answers to prayer, there comes the beautiful sentence, soft and gentle as the persuasive eloquence of a mother’s love,—“ Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful ivorks to the children of men!”
But there are beauties in the Bible for the lambs. Children’s hearts can be touched, and children’s imaginations delighted, by the absorbingly interesting stories of Joseph, of Moses, of David, of Samuel, of Sampson, of Daniel, of the children mocking Elisha, of the children welcoming Christ with hosannahs, of the infants slaughtered at Bethlehem, of the infants reposing in the arms of Jesus ; and their tender minds can be fascinated and improved by the inimitable but simple parables of the Lost Sheep, the24
A LECTURE ON
Prodigal Son, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Good Samaritan, or the Rich King’s Marriage-feast. Much of God’s blessed book appears to have been written on purpose to win and woo the hearts of children to the arms of the Good Shepherd, and teach them to nestle trustfully near the warm heart that bled for them on Calvary.
Who amongst us, again, has not been enchanted with the charming simplicity of the pastoral story of Ruth? traced with thrilling interest the marvellous history of Esther, so full of romantic incident ? wept with emotion over Judah’s affecting pleading for his brother Benjamin ? admired the legal accuracy and clear conciseness of Jephthah’s answer to the King of Ammon ? or listened with rapt attention, spell-bound, to those ever-delightful portions, “ Remember now thy Creator,” “ Intreat me not to leave thee,” “ Consider the lilies,” &c. Whose spirit has not been moved to devotion and constrained to prayer by the sublime strains of adoration and supplication poured forth by the wisest of men at the dedication of the Temple ? who has not joined in exultation and praise while listening to the triumphant song of Deborah and Barak ? whose heart has not felt a joyous sympathy with the freemen of the Lord in their victory over the drowned hosts of Pharaoh, while Miriam “sounds the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea?” Who has not watched with delighted interest the good Hezekiah spreading the threatening letter before the Lord, and upon his knees discomfiting his foes, when
“ The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
His cohorts all gleaming with purple and gold ” ?
Who has not admired the noble warrior Joshua, when, discomfiting the host of the Canaanites, he stretches forth his spear to heaven, and cries—his brow radiant with the flashing diadem of victory—“Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon” ? or again,THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
25
in his old age, the venerable hero of a thousand fights, he stands publicly forward and declares, with the courage of a true soldier, “ As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord ”?
This leads me to observe that the striking scenes of the Bible are presented to us in the most graphic manner, with pictorial conciseness and richness. We see the actors ; we hear them speak ; the whole is like a reality. What can be more graphic and striking than the scene on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal ? The transaction is depicted so vividly, it seems all to pass before our very eyes ; we can almost fancy that we see the teachers of idolatry leaping on their altars, and cutting themselves frantically with knives. We can hear their hoarse cry, louder and louder, “ O Baal, hear us ! O Baal, hear us ! ! ” and there is no answer. And then we see the Prophet of the Lord, calm and confiding, kneel with outstretched arms and uplifted hands, and speak to God as a child speaks to his father. We seethe quick answer of fire flash from heaven, and then, like the sound of many waters rolling round the Mount, hear the shout from ten thousand lips, “ The Lord, He is the God; the J^ord, He is the God!”
Again, what a striking scene occurs immediately afterwards, when the Prophet bows his head reverently between his knees and intercedes with God for rain—sends his servant seven times to look upon the broad Mediterranean for the cloud like a man’s hand ; and when the longed-for symptom comes, girds up his loins and runs before the chariot of Ahab to the walls of Jezreel.
Again, at Mount Horeb, when, amid the crash of falling rocks and uprooted trees, the quaking of the earth and the fury of the tempest, the Prophet comes forth to the mouth of the cave, wraps his mantle around his face, you seem almost to catch the still small voice, “ What doest thou here,26
A LECTDKE ON
Elijah?” And when the same prophet leaves this earth in the whirlwind of flame, you almost catch a glimpse of the brilliant and dazzling equipage, the fiery coursers and the falling mantle.
In the New Testament the scenes are equally striking, and told with equally graphic power. At the tomb of Lazarus, when, after one look upward, and one word to His Father, there comes from the Saviour’s lips the command of majesty, “ Lazarus, come forth,” what a scene ensues! how it would tax the skill of painters to portray ! the awe-struck and amazed multitude, the astonished sisters, the pale, wondering Lazarus, the calm, inwardly exulting Jesus !
Again, in the storm upon the lake ; when rudely roused from His well-earned repose, with what serene unruffled majesty does the Saviour stand forth, and say, “ Peace, be still,” and there is a great calm !
How touching the sweet scene, when gently chiding His disciples He tenderly transfers babes from their mothers’ arms to His own, presses them to His heart, and says, “ Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven ”!
How astonishing the scene, when, after supper, the Lord of Glory girds Himself with a towel, and proceeds to wash the soiled feet of His disciples! How wonderful that blood-bestrewed, toilsome march to the Hill of Calvary, when, disregarding the ponderous cross which pressed to the earth His enfeebled frame, He turns to the weeping women, “ Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children”!
How marvellously striking are the word-pictures depicting the death of Ananias and Sappliira, the deliverance of Peter from prison and the strange conduct of Ithoda, the interview between Philip and the Eunuch, the shipwreck of St. Paul, the conversion of the Philippian jailer, and the nobleTHE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
27
bearing of the Apostle when, in the presence of crowned heads and surrounded by men thirsting for his blood, he lifts up his chained arms, and says, “ I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds”!
Whatever the Spirit of God has touched, He has imparted grandeur and simplicity to. Though making use of mean and unlettered men, men taken from their nets, from their herds, from their flocks, there is nothing mean in their productions,—all is refined, elevated, etherealized.*
* “ The greater part of the Sacred writings which are subsequent to the five books of Moses, were written during those periods of the world when men of gigantic intellect and high literary fame appeared in Pagan lands. They were men who claim the admiration of succeeding ages, and whose works have come down to our own times. Homer flourished in the days of Solomon ; Hesiod, not far from the time of Joel, Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah ; Sappho, during the time of Habakkuk and Daniel ; Solon and Anacreon, during the life of Ezekiel ; Pindar, in the days of Haggai and Zechariah ; Æschylus, Socrates, Zeno, and Herodotus, in the age of Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra. The splendid writers of the Periclean age of Greece, and the Augustan age of Rome, all flourished between the period of the later Minor Prophets and the close of the first century of the Christian era. There are high embellishments of taste, and unwonted inventions of a creative imagination, in the writings of some of the Pagan poets ; there are indeed bewitching fascinations, but they are not the fascinations of thought, of truth. Compared with the riches of truth, the luxury of thought, which are to be found in the Sacred Volume, or with the descriptive powers that are there developed, the Greek and Roman classics are but highly-wrought fables.”—Dr. Spring’s Bible not of Man.
“ They are not human thoughts . . . that are revealed in the Bible. It is not the light of any created intellect which thus develops and brings out the works and ways of God from the dawn of time down to the setting sun of this earthly sphere. Books multiply, and libraries accumulate, through his capacity and toil ; yet is there this one Book, which transcends the highest efforts of his giant intellect. His severest toil has never penetrated so deep, his loftiest powers have28
A LECTURE OK
Sublimity of thought, and simple majesty of expression, characterise the whole volume. When God speaks to man, by whomsoever He speaks, in whatever land, in whatever age, He speaks like Himself,—in majesty of thought, in grandeur of expression. And His Book, soaring above all human genius, extending itself over all nations, and from age to age, stands surrounded by the wrecks of empires and of science, a fitting monument, an imperishable memorial of the Eternal Mind of God ; a Book, declaring to all ages and to all lands the glory of God with more than the brightness of the Sun, and proclaiming to all His intelligent creatures the infinite heights, the unfathomable depths, the unsearchable riches of Jehovah’s wisdom and knowledge.
Oh ! what a debt of gratitude do we owe to God for this unspeakably precious gift! and, under God, what a debt of gratitude to those noble Reformers whose toils and blood have handed down to us this priceless treasure ! With what love should we reverence the memory of those illustrious men who brought it forth from the tomb of a dead language, and made it a living English Bible ! Let us prove ourselves worthy children of the Martyrs, no degenerate descendants of the British Reformers, by emulating their love for the Bible, and imitating their noble efforts to spread its hallowed influence wider amongst our fellow-men.
“ Shall we whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high,
Shall we to men benighted rl'he lamp of life deny ? ”
never soared so high, as these illimitable boundaries of uncreated thought. The works of men bear no more comparison to this great work of Infinite intelligence, than a particle of vapour does to the ocean, or the flight of a moment to eternity.”—Dr. Spring’s Bible not of Man.THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OE THE BIBLE.
29
My dear young friends, prize your Bibles more highly, make use of them more prayerfully, more diligently ; let their sublime and eternal lessons of truth sink deeply into your hearts, abide influentially upon your minds, and pervade your entire conversation and walk. The company you keep will show itself in your whole deportment and discourse. You are in the company of the holiest and greatest and best of beings when you make the Bible the man of your counsel, your familiar friend, your guide, your mental food.
I know nothing more lovely than a youthful mind richly stored with Bible truths, and no voice so sweetly eloquent as a youthful lip speaking of those truths joyously to others. I would witness that sight rather than see the flashing hosts of the cherubim ; I would rather hear that sound than the hymns of seraphs ! I want you all to be young men of the Bible; into whatever company you go, into whatever scenes you enter, to bear with you the noble stamp of God’s students, and sustain unsullied the glorious character of young men of the Bible. Never be ashamed of the Book. Show that you are embued with its lessons, that you have drank into its spirit, that you are influenced by its principles, sustained and animated by its hopes. When a Christian comes forth from his private study of that volume, his mind richly stored with its sublime truths, and his spirit ethe-realized by contact with its glorious revelations—what a rich blessing does he become to the society in which he moves ! How edifying is his conversation ! how clearly every one perceives that the word of Christ dwells in him richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding ! how he reflects, like Moses, the glory caught unconsciously from his Divine Teacher ! how his lips pour forth the sweetness of the honeycomb, and minister grace and comfort to the favoured listener ! how he realizes the beautiful description penned by the Christian poet—30
A LECTURE ON
“ When one that holds communion with the skies Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
’Tis e’en as if an angel shook his wings;
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide,
That tells us whence his treasures are supplied.
So when a ship, well freighted with the stores The sun matures on India’s spicy shores,
Has dropped her anchor, and her canvas furl’d,
In some safe haven of our western world,
’Twere vain inquiry to what port she went,
The gale informs us, laden with the scent.”
Cowper.
Young men, prize your Bibles ; use your Bibles ! Some of you have a Bible which you cherish as your fondest and dearest souvenir—it was the last gift of a dying mother’s tender love, or the latest pledge of a fond father’s yearning affection. Or perhaps, young man, when you left the parental roof to combat with the storms and encounter the temptations of a rough and sinful world, your parents put that Bible into your hand—ivliy ? not that you might admire its outward garb, or feast your mind upon its literary beauties—these are but the external frame and gilding of the lantern, and never helped any one to shun a danger or avoid a fall ; they meant you to benefit by the brilliancy of its steady flame, to take it and to use it as a light to your feet, and a lamp to your path, to walk clearly by its aid through scenes of pollution, and keep your garments unspotted and undefiled in the midst of a polluted world.
Your Bible is like a diamond-hilted sword ; but the value of it is not in the rich jewels that flash upon its scabbard and sparkle beneath your hand, but in the keenness and temper of the blade, the sharpness of its edge and point, to be used as the Sword of the Spirit in your conflicts with the Evil One, the Tempter of your soul.
Your Bible resembles a casket, exquisitely fashioned,THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
31
elaborately wrought, adorned with gems of rarest lustre and surpassing beauty ; but it contains within something infinitely more precious still. Rest not content with the external richness; put in the hand of faith and you will find there a title to a CROWN of glory, title-deeds for yourself, signed, and ratified, and sealed by a God who cannot lie, to a mansion in His home above, to an “ inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.”
Your Bible is not unlike the field in our Lord’s parable in which a costly treasure lay hid. Its surface is carpeted and covered with sweetest flowers and emerald verdure, but these are there only to entice and attract your feet to the spot where the treasure lies concealed. Be not content with gathering the flowers into a brilliant nosegay, inhaling their perfume and admiring their rainbow tints, their grace of form, their pencilling of divinest skill ; but dig deep for the treasure—search the Scriptures for that which is more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold—and you will find it, for “they that seek ME early shall find ME.” You will find a Saviour ; you will enrich yourselves for time and eternity with a treasure which no moth or rust can corrupt, and no thief pilfer from your breast : you will find Eternal Life, the great Salvation, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Can I urge the claims of this Book too strongly upon you ? can I speak too highly of its worth, too glowingly of its imperishable beauty, or eulogise too warmly its transcendent merits ? There it is, more than eighteen hundred years old, with no mark of decay, no sign of decrepitude or weakness ; not a wrinkle on its brow, not a scar upon its form, after lighting millions to glory, and passing through centuries of battle with its foes. Yes ; this Blessed Volume remains the same in all its freshness and vigour, its power to speak of God and convert the soul of man, as when it came from the hand of its Maker. It32	THE LITERARY BEAUTIES OF THE BIBLE.
possesses the verdure of immortality, undecaying strength, undying youth, equally with the unfallen seraphs of the skies. It is still the Book of books, the Oracle of oracles, the Beacon of beacons, the poor man’s treasury, the child’s companion, the instructor of the ignorant, the comforter of the afflicted, the sick man’s health, the dying man’s life ; there are shallows in it for infant minds to walk in, there are profound depths for giant intellects to explore and adore. Philosophers have been indebted to it for their wisest maxims ; poets have gathered from it their loftiest themes, their richest imagery, their sweetest bursts of poetry; painters have drawn from it their noblest inspirations ; musicians have ransacked its golden stores for the grandest of their strains ; above all, and better than all, the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of Martyrs, the holy Church throughout all the world, have been guided by its sacred light to Jesus, to God, and to Heaven !
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CHRIST DIED FOR SINNERS. A Sei •moil on
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