“Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.”--Psalm 69:89.
This sublime assertion of the eternal stability of the Word of God is “Luther's text.” He had it written in charcoal on the walls of his chamber, and wrought in embroidery on the dress of his servants. Earthly changes reach not the heavenly sphere; and there the Word of God is settled, far beyond the reach of disturbing causes. Even progressive Modern Science, which has unsettled the notions of centuries, is unable to prove the testimony of God's Word to be false.
The Bible is a very remarkable book, from whatever source it has come. One of the princes of men, the light of the fourth century, whose oratory gave him the name of Chrysostom, “the golden mouth,” and whose virtues made him the admiration and terror of the corrupt court of Eudoxia--such a man, himself on eof the foremost scholars of his day, has given to the Bible its very name, 'O Biblos--the Book!
In every work we see the workman--his skill in handling tools, his inventive genius in planning, his taste in arranging and adorning. The artist breathes in his canvas and speaks in the marble. If there be a work of God, we expect it to express and exhibit him. You go to St. Peter's Cathedral; you stand beneath that vast dome, prepared to feel a sense of awe at the grand proportions and exquisite docorations--for Michael Angelo designed and adorned it. And when, in the hush of midnight, you look up onto the dome of heaven and see thousands of lamps that burn for whole milleniums unconsumed, and shine at a distance beyond calculation--when you remember that that streaming banner of light, the “Milky Way,” is myriads of stars, in close ranks, like countless warriors, so that you see only the lines of light flashing from their silver helmets, you are prepared to believe that God planned that concave, and wrote his own name on it in letters of light. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.”
So, if this book be the Word of God, we shall find in it proof and mark of a divine mind and hand. There will be a grandeur in the sweep and span of its teachings which reminds of the arch of the firmament--a glory about its facts and truths which suggests the radiance of suns and stars; there will be that which is too high for our attainment, and too broad for our measurement. God will compel us to say, “Hath not my hand made all these things!” The Bible asks you to try it by this test: Does it bear marks of a more than human mind? If there be nothing in it inconsistent with a merely human origin, it is idolatry to call it the Word of God--to treat it as of divine origin, and yield it divine honors. But if there be here such a gigantic structure of truth as that not even a race of Titans could have built it; if its basis is laid deeper than man ever dug, and its pinnacles rise higher than man ever reached, how are we to escape the conclusion and conviction that its author and maker is God?
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