The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 4

mankind of the hroRd, mRin truth11 of hie revelation, has yet inflicted a twofold ITIJury. Thie injury coneM.11 partly in thci perpetuaticn of the virulent projmHce1 and hnNI errol'I! of a loveless religioniem, p11rtly in the niduction of large portions of the Bible, to the condition of a eeven-eealed book, to be opened and misinterpreted at random by the most incompetent of mankind. Now, by bea1ing in mind the rich rlit'("l"tity of Scripture we not only gl\in element!! of the deepest interest, but we are proceC'ding on the right path for ite due comprehension, We are in a better position for under,:,hmding the truth of God when we have etudied the peculiarities of the language in which it is embodied, and know something of the individuality with which the expression of it is tinged. To the variety of sources from which the rovel• ~tion comes is due both the inexhaustible interest of the Bible and its Divine uni- '\"ersality. In this it is wholly unlike the sacred books of other religions. It has something for all nations. In reading the Kornn we can think only of Arnbia; in rrading Confucius only of China; in reading the Zend Avesta only of Persin; in rending the Yedas only of Hindostnn. But in fho Bible we meet with all races, from Arabian troglodytes to Greek poets, from Galilean fishermen to Roman consuls. From Nineveh 1o Babylon, from Babylon to Damascus, from Damascus to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Tyre. and the isles of the Gentiles, and Athens, and Corinth, and Rome, we see the light of revelation ever streaming westwards through the pages of the Bible, and "The giant forms of empires on their way To ruin" fling their colossal shadows across its pages. The Bible is at once a sacred Iliad and n sacred Odyssey. Now ite pages ring with the battles of the warrior, with their con-- fused noise and garments rolled in blood ; now the sea is dashing in our faceB as we 1raYerse it in the ship of Jonah, or toss a night and day among its breakers with St. raul. It has indeed deep speculations for the philosophic mind, but for the most part it is intensely concrete. There is in it no stifling system, no chilling gloom, no self- centred absorption, no frozen sea of abstractions. The sanctimonious and heresy- hunting formalism of the Pharisee, the selfish asceticism of the Buddhist, the chill uncertainty of the Confucian, find no sanction here; nor are we placed at the mercy of the systematising refinements of the Schoolman, and the arbitrary tyranny of the Priest. The Bible shows us that religion may be as exquisite as music, as glowing ae art, as rich as a gifted nature, as broad as a noble life. It is as universal as onr race, as individual as ourselves. fJ. Hence, to the Homilist and the Preacher, dulness is an inexcusable fault, and one which should be most eameetly avoided. If the preacher is dull-dull to all his hearers-he cannot possibly roUBe their consciences or touch their hearts. Dulness might be pardonable if we had no better text-book than the Koran or the Tripitaka, but it is hardly pardonable when onr sacred Book is so intensely and widely humani- tarian. Where the human, the concrete, and the individual element is introduced, there hearers m:,ut find something to interest and instruct them ; for the experi- ence of one heart is more or lees the experience of all hearts, and there is no one who does not sympathise with the multitude in the Roman theatre who rose to shout their delighted applaUBe on bearing the line of the dramatis~ " Homo sum ; h11ID8Di nihil a me alienum pnto. To the Buddhist the incidents, whether real or legendary, in the life of the Buddha Sakya Mouni furnish a theme of endless interest ; the Chinese is never tired of even the dry and uneventful records of the biography of Kung foo tze ; but the Bible furnishes us with thousand11 of thrilling incideuts, and with human experiences under tlie moqt vnriecl conclition:J. Not only so, but it compriAes the writings oE nt lca,l fifty dilferont writers who lived in the most widely separated spheres. The vQice which spMks to us is now thnt of n Gentile sorcerer, now that of n suffering prisoner, now thnt of a conrJltering king. Lawgivers like Moses, autocrats like Solomon, wnrriors like Joshua, historians like Samuel, prophets like Isninh, priests like Ezm and Jeremiah nnd Ezekiel, poets like David, governors like Nehemiah, exiles like Dnniol, pensnnte like Amos, 1ishermen like Peter and John, tax-gatherers liko Matthew, rnbbie liko Paul, have nil contributed their quota to the sncred page. We mny truly eny thnt it is like the great tre11 of northern fable, whose leaves ,vere the lives of men. It is for this very reason that nations, like birds of the air, shelter themselves under the shadow of it. It is a vine of God's planting, which " Reacheth to every corner under heaven Deep-rooted in the living soil or truth; So that men's ho;pes and fean take refuge i11 'fho fragrance of its complicated glooms, And cool impleached twilights." y. St. Paul, in the expression to which we have referred, is not the only sacred writer who bide us notice this diversity and progressiveness of Scripture. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls most marked attention to it in the elabor- ately beautiful introduction to his Epistle. "God," he says, "who at sundry times and in divers manners epake in time past unto the fathers by the prophe~, hath in these last days spoken unto us by hie Son." Here we have a striking allusion to the :iifference between the Old Testament and the New. In the Ne,v Testament also there is diversity; but whereas there are only nine authors for the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, and the great bulk of it is the work of three, on the other hand, for. the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament there are at the very least twenty-seven chief authors, and a very much larger number of minor contributor3. The t,vo words rendered "at sundry times and in divers manners" are 1ro'Jf.11,.,pw,: r:ai 11"0X11rp61r1,1,:, .which might perhaps be rendered "fra,gmentarily and multifariously." As regards the latter adverb, we have already seen that it is illustrated by the singular differences of station and circumstances among those to whom God sent his message of inspiration ; but it is yet furth~r illustrated by the different ways in which that message came to them; and in which it is delivered to us. It came sometimes in the facts of history, sometimes in isolated promises, sometimes by Urim, sometimes by dreams and voices and similitudes, sometimes by types and sacrifices, sometimes by prophets specially commissioned. It takes the form now of annals, now of phi- losophic meditation, now of a sermon, now of an idyl, now of a. lyric song. Some- times it expands, through chapter nfter chapter, the details of a single day in an individual life; sometimes it crushes into one single clanse the sweeping summary of the records of twenty generations. At one time it will give the minutest incidents of one event in a single reign; e.t another it will heap the dust of oblivion over dynusties of a hundred kings. We mny compare its course to that of a stream which sometimes dwindles into a tiny rivulet, and sometimes broadens into an almost shore- less sea. But it is a stream whose fountains lie deep in the everlasting hills. Its sources are hidden in the depths of 11 past Eternity, and its issues in the depths of a future Eternity. It begins with the chaos of Genesis, "vast and void;•• it ends with n book which has been called "the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." 1 I J'ililtllD  ,.; GJ,:x1mA1. lNTRODUCTION TO TITE OJ,D TJ;;SrAMtNT.