THE CHAPTER IV. HE previous three chapters are in some measure introductory only. Let us proceed now to the more detailed study of our sacred subject, by the method, at once the simplest and the surest, of taking up some of the great passages of Scriptural revelation and discourse upon it and listening anew to their message in reverent, believing meditation. And as we do so we will remember that the blessed Spirit is not only the true Author of the written Word but also its supreme and true Expositor. Not all my readers know the noble hymn,' found in few modern collections, strange to say, in which Cowper has set this forth; and I quote it accordingly in full: 1 Olney Hymns, bk ii., No. 62. "The Spirit breathes upon the word, "A glory gilds the sacred page It gives a light to every age; "The hand that gave it still supplies "Let everlasting thanks be Thine, As makes a world of darkness shine "My soul rejoices to pursue The steps of Him I love, Till glory breaks upon my view It is true; we need the Author to be also, in the inmost secret of the matter, the Expositor, the Interpreter. Then will the Written Word shine, like the Living Word, with the light as of a transfiguration, its countenance and its garments also. Then shall we trace all through the holy pages "the steps of Him we love," of HOW DOES THE SPIRIT INTERPRET? 65 Him who has Himself assured us Luke xxiv. 25, that they are to be found there. 27, 44, 45. John v. 39. It may be well here, however, to say one word of caution as to the use made by the Christian of this truth of the Spirit's expository work. How may we expect Him normally to exercise for us this merciful function? Is it by direct illumination, such that this text or that passage shall be seen by the soul, in the way of supernatural intuition, to mean this or that? If I am not mistaken, this impression is widely spread among Christians; and I would not lightly or without sympathy speak in correction of it. Nevertheless it must be obvious, on reflection, that to expect the Holy One to act upon us in such a manner as this is to expect the gift, just so far as such action goes, of prophetic infallibility. It makes my interpretation, arrived at under such illumination, as truly a divine revelation as the text itself, and it precludes any criticism of my interpretation, because it thus is, at least in essentials, the interpretation of God. When I hear or read, as I sometimes do, that a Christian believer speaks of this or of that as having been "shown to him in such and such a text, I am well aware that the meaning of the phrase, as the speaker intends it, may be most true, healthful, and trustworthy. But it is also possible that it may involve a claim, a dangerous claim, to hold and teach the interpretation in question as one above examination, because inspired, because divinely intuitive. What then are we to think of the matter? Are we, after all, to apply ourselves to Scripture study without special prayer and special expectation? Are we to assume practically that "the natural man doth receive See 1 Cor. ii. 14. the things of the Spirit of God;" that they are not "foolishness unto him;" that they are not, necessarily and only, "spiritually discerned"? Shall we, after all, in face of all that we recollected in the previous chapter, think that to look on the Bible as on "another book " is to look upon it "wisely"? No; the mistake of doing so is not only great but fatal in our Scripture study, and we will not make it. We clergy at least, in the words of our Second Ordination Service, "will continually pray to God the Father, through the mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly HOW DOES THE SPIRIT INTERPRET? 67 1 Cor. xiii. 8. assistance of the Holy Ghost, that by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures we may wax riper and stronger in our ministry." And what the clergyman thus does in view of his special function, the private Christian will do in view of his, in view of his sacred "ministry," his "work of ministry,"1 his whole Eph. iv. 12. life as laid at the Lord's feet for His use. But the point is this. We shall ask, not for mental infallibility, which is asking in effect for a gift that has been "annulled," but for spiritual submission, receptivity, and harmony with the Spirit of God, such that our reverent inquiry into the meaning of the Spirit's words may be carried on 1 Cor. ii. 13. in spiritually "dry light." We shall pray for such presence and power of the Holy One within us, at the "springs of thought and will,” that we may be morally ready for the least hint, the tenderest suggestion, given in the blessed Book, about the will and mind of the author of the Book. Such a prayer will on the one hand recognize at every step our helplessness where 1 Alakovia: see the construction of the Greek sentence. |