New Witnesses for God (Volume 2 of 3)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
New Witnesses for God (Volume 2 of 3)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Book of Mormon; Smith, Joseph, Jr., 1805-1844
how the higher mind is distinct from the lower, as well as how the
one is related to the other. We see how the prophet arrived at a
certainty about the divine will and purpose through the very doubts
and contradictions in himself. [15]
Also the Reverend Joseph Armitage Robinson, D. D., dean of Westminster
and chaplain of King Edward VII of England, respecting the manner in
which the message of the Old Testament was received and communicated to
man, as late as 1905, said:
The message of the Old Testament was not written by the divine
hand, nor dictated by an outward compulsion; it was planted in the
hearts of men, and made to grow in a fruitful soil. And then they
were required to express it _in their own language, after their
natural methods, and in accordance with the stage of knowledge
which their time had reached_. Their human faculties were purified
and quickened by the divine Spirit; but they spoke to their time
in the language of their time, they spoke a spiritual message,
accommodated to the experience of their age, a message of faith in
God, and of righteousness as demanded by a righteous God. [16]
I take occasion at this point to observe that because a writer or
speaker claims to be under the inspiration of God it does not follow
that in giving expression to what the Lord puts into his heart he will
always do so in grammatical terms, any more than the orthography of an
inspired writer will always be accurate. We have many illustrations
of this fact among the inspired men that we have known in the Church
of Jesus Christ in these last days. Those of us who have listened
to the utterances of prophets and apostles cannot doubt of their
inspiration, and at the same time some of those who have been most
inspired have been inaccurate in the use of our English language.
The same seems true of the ancient apostles, also. The writer of the
Acts, at the conclusion of a synopsis of a discourse which he ascribes
to Peter, says, "Now, when they [the Jews] saw the boldness of Peter
and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men,
they marvelled." [17] The commentators upon this passage say that the
listening Jews perceived that Peter and John were uninstructed in the
learning of the Jewish schools, and were of the common sort of men,
untrained in teaching. [18] And again, "Their language and arguments
prove that they were untaught in the Rabbinical learning of the Jewish
schools." [19] But in what way could the Jews have discerned the
ignorance and absence of learning in Peter and John except through
the imperfections of their language? And yet those imperfections in
language may not be urged in evidence of the absence of inspiration
in the two apostles. Surely with God it must be that the matter is of
more consequence than the form in which it is expressed; the thought of
more moment than the word; it is the Spirit that giveth life, not the
letter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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