should not adopt it. To many, I doubt not, it is the most simple, genuine expression of their inmost thoughts. But, at all events, I am bound so to speak. Believing the Bible to be true, I cannot suppose that any discovery can be made to a man except by God. I must suppose that when at last it bursts upon him it is a gift from God. I must suppose that all the previous processes of inquiry which have led to it; the circumstances which have assisted it or appeared to hinder it; the blunders, the disappointments which have been the instruments of humbling the intellect of the inquirer, and delivering him from rash conclusions; the hopes, and the fears that nourish hope; have all been foreseen and overseen. I repeat it, with the Bible in my hands, I cannot interpret the struggles of the scientific man in any other way than this. Whilst, therefore, a "word once given" seems to me a very inaccurate description of a divine Revelation, in so far as it denies that to be a gradual unveiling and unfolding of Truth, I can imagine a sense of that phrase which a student of physical science would not consider inapplicable to his experience. He too asks, and receives; he seeks, and finds; he knocks, and it is opened to him. The "word" which he speaks to his fellow-men has first been "given" to him. Ever yours affectionately, F. D. MAURICE. 25 LETTER III. SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE BIBLE; HOW MY DEAR FRIEND, You go on, after defining Revelation to be God's word once given, "Our knowledge of "that word may possibly be progressive, but it is necessarily imperfect, generally because all hu"man knowledge is imperfect, specially because "the subject-matter is different from that of ordinary knowledge, and because we are told we "must fulfil certain conditions, and use certain means, to attain to a knowledge of God." You will observe that I do not identify the progressiveness of Revelation with the progressiveness of our knowledge. Following the lessons of all great theologians, those lessons which we must heed if we speak of the Bible as a history, or distinguish between the Old and New Testa ment, I have spoken of God's unveiling of Himself as gradual. I have accepted the doctrine that God spoke in sundry times and diverse manners, in preference to the notion of "a word once given." How this language of the Epistle to the Hebrews is compatible with St. Jude's respecting a "faith once delivered to the saints;" nay, how impossible it is to accept that faith in its fulness whilst we borrow our notion of the Bible from the Koran, I shall endeavour to show hereafter. I ask no more now than that you should not assume your definition of Revelation to be the Bible definition of it. But if the Revelation has been progressive, the knowledge which has answered to the Revelation must not may-have been progressive. The eye can receive no more light than is vouchsafed to it. The eye may be closed against that, but just so far as it is opened, it takes in just what is presented to it. Is not this true in the physical world as well as in the moral world? Can you establish any distinction between them on this ground? But there is a distinction, you suppose, from the imperfection of the knowledge in the one You do not mean this. You confess that case. the imperfection applies in both cases. Our knowledge of God is very imperfect. Our knowledge of the world, you will be the first to admit, is very imperfect. You complain of divines for wishing to hinder the removal of some of the imperfections under which it labours. But while you allow a general imperfection in all human knowledge, you maintain there is a special imperfection, arising from two causes, in the case of that knowledge about which the Bible is conversant. It arises from the subject-matter of that knowledge. It arises from the conditions which are demanded for arriving at that knowledge. Each of these points deserves a careful consideration. What is the subject-matter of that knowledge with which the Bible is conversant? You would say, perhaps, that it is the supernatural, the transcendent. But see! There is no book which speaks so much of shepherds and their flocks, of the most ordinary doings of families, of nations and laws, and wars; of all that we are wont to call vulgar and secular things. You might call the subject-matter of the greater part of the Book of Genesis, the disputes between brothers, and the famines which afflicted Pales |