Now, while there are very many who recoil with horror from the impiety and audacity of infidelity, they do not see that superstition just as completely deprives them of the Scriptures. For wherein, let us ask, lies the difference between denying that God has spoken and denying that we can understand what He says? In either case, are we not deprived of the Word of God? Unquestionably. If God cannot make me understand what He says—if He cannot give me the assurance that it is He Himself who speaks, I am in no wise better off than if He had not spoken at all. If God’s Word is not sufficient without human interpretation, then it cannot be God’s Word at all. That which is insufficient is not God’s Word. We must admit either of two things, namely, that God has not spoken at all, or if He has spoken, His Word is perfect. There is no neutral ground in reference to this question. Has God given us a revelation? Infidelity says, “No.” Superstition says, “Yes, but you cannot understand it without human authority.” Thus are we, in the one case as well as in the other, deprived of the priceless treasure of God’s own precious Word; and thus, too, infidelity and superstition, though apparently so unlike, meet in the one point of depriving us of a divine revelation.
But, blessed be God, He has given us a revelation—He has spoken, and His Word is able to reach the heart and the understanding also. God is able to give the certainty that it is He who speaks, and we do not want any human authority to intervene. We do not want a poor rush-light to enable us to see that the sun is shining. The beams of that glorious luminary are quite enough without any such miserable addition. All we want is to stand in the sunshine, and we shall be convinced that the sun shines. If we retire into a vault, or into a tunnel, we shall not feel his influence; and just so is it with regard to Scripture—if we place ourselves beneath the chilling and darkening influences of superstition or infidelity, we shall not experience the genial and enlightening power of that divine revelation.
Having said thus much as to the divine volume as a whole, we shall now proceed to consider the contents of the section which lies open before us. In chapter i, we have the declaration of the “_pedigree_;” and in chapter ii, the recognition of the “_standard_.” “And Moses and Aaron took these men which are expressed by their names: and they assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month, and _they declared their pedigrees_ after their families, by the house of their fathers; according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, by their polls. As the Lord commanded Moses, so he numbered them in the wilderness of Sinai.” (Chap. i. 17-19.)
Has this any voice for us? does it convey any great spiritual lesson to our understanding? Assuredly it does. In the first place, it suggests this important question to the reader: Can I declare my pedigree? It is greatly to be feared there are hundreds, if not thousands, of professing Christians who are wholly incompetent to do so. They cannot say, with clearness and decision, “_Now are_ we the sons of God.” (1 John iii. 2.)—“Ye _are_ all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.... And if ye are Christ’s, then _are_ ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. iii. 26, 29.)—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they _are_ the sons of God.... The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we _are_ the sons of God.” (Rom. viii. 14, 16.)