Читать книгу Chapters of Bible Study - Herman J. Heuser - Страница 14

In the preceding chapter it was said that the Sacred Scripture of the New Testament contains Christ's statements according to which He founded an ever-living tribunal of doctrine which decided the question of what books are, and what books are not inspired, whenever there is any doubt about such books. Perhaps you will say: "But is this not arguing in a circle—a vicious circle, as philosophers say? You prove the existence of the Church as the tribunal to determine what books belong to the Sacred Scriptures from the words of the Bible; and then you turn about and prove the inspiration of the Bible from the authority of the Church." Now mark the difference. When in my first argument I refer to the Bible as containing Christ's statement and the commission given to His Apostles, I am taking the testimony of the Bible, not as an inspired or divine book, but simply as a trustworthy historical record which tells us the fact, repeated by several eye-witnesses and sincere men, such as the evangelists and apostolical writers, that Christ, of whose divinity they were convinced, had said and emphasized the fact that He meant to found a Church. And as that Church was to have the divine spirit abiding in it, guiding its decisions, it came naturally within the province of that Church to define whether certain books were to be regarded as really inspired by that Holy Spirit. Thus the Church placed upon these books the mark and sign-manual of that commission which she had unquestionably received.

But I am constrained, for the sake of completing our present aspect of the subject, to say something on the character and extent of that divine element which Jews and Christians recognize when they accept the Sacred Scriptures as the word of God.