Inspiration and Interpretation: Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of OxfordBurgon, John William
Religion
Inspiration and Interpretation: Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
Burgon, John William
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Bible -- Inspiration; Sermons, English
Taking Holy Scripture for our subject, and urging, as best we knew how,
its paramount claims on the daily attention of the younger men,--who at
present are our hope and ornament; to be hereafter, as we confidently
believe, our very crown and joy;--even while we held in our hands that
volume which our Fathers were content to call the volume of Inspiration,
we were constrained to recollect that its claim to be inspired has of
late years been repeatedly called in question. It has even become the
fashion to cavil at almost everything which the Bible contains. We are
grown so exceedingly wise, have made so many strange discoveries, and
have become so clear-sighted, that the more advanced among us are kindly
bent on disabusing the minds of their less gifted brethren of that most
venerable delusion of all,--(for it is coeval with Christianity,)--that
the Bible is in any special sense the Word of GOD. I do not say that
Theologians talk thus. But pretenders to Natural Science, knowing
nothing whatever of Divinity, and therefore intruding into a realm of
which they do not understand so much as the language;--together with,
(sad to relate!) men bearing a commission in the Church of CHRIST, (and
who ought therefore to be building up, where they are seeking to
destroy,)--are employing the powers which GOD has given them, in this
direction. It becomes indispensable, in consequence, that we should say
somewhat on behalf of those Oracles which have been so vigorously
impugned; and it should not seem strange if we oppose to such
destructive dogmatism, the most uncompromising severity of counter
statement.
The objections which have been raised against the Bible, although they
have been industriously gleaned from various quarters, will all be most
effectually met, I am persuaded, by getting men to acquaint themselves
with the contents of the deposit itself. And yet, inasmuch as it is the
nature of doubts, when once injected into the mind, to fester and to
spread; inasmuch also as the bold confidence of plausible assertion,
especially when recommended by men of reputation, and set off with some
ability and skill, is apt to impose on youth and inexperience;--we seem
reduced to a kind of necessity, to examine; and, as far as the limits of
a sermon will allow, to refute; the charges which have been so
industriously brought forward against the Bible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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