The All-Sufficiency of Christ. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. IMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
The All-Sufficiency of Christ. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. I
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Theology
But, let it not be supposed that we prefer ignorance to learning. Let
none imagine that we despise the discoveries of science, or treat with
contempt the achievements of sound philosophy. Far from it. We honor
them highly in their proper sphere. We could not say how much we prize
the labors of those learned men who have consecrated their energies to
the work of clearing the sacred text of the various errors and
corruptions which, from age to age, had crept into it, through the
carelessness or infirmity of copyists, taken advantage of by a crafty
and malignant foe. Every effort put forth to preserve, to unfold, to
illustrate, and to enforce the precious truth of Scripture, we most
highly esteem; but, on the other hand, when we find men making use of
their learning, their science, and their philosophy, for the purpose
of undermining the sacred edifice of divine revelation, we deem it our
duty, to raise our voice, in the clearest and strongest way, against
them, and to warn the reader, most solemnly, against their baneful
influence.
We believe that the Bible, as written in the original Hebrew and Greek
languages, is the very word of the only wise and the only true God,
with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day, who saw the end from the beginning, and not only the end, but
every stage of the way. We therefore hold it to be nothing short of
positive blasphemy to assert that we have arrived at a stage of our
career in which the Bible is not sufficient, or that we are compelled
to travel outside its covers to find ample guidance and instruction
for the present moment, and for every moment of our earthly
pilgrimage. The Bible is a perfect chart, in which every exigency of
the Christian mariner has been anticipated. Every rock, every
sand-bank, every shoal, every strand, every island, has been carefully
noted down. All the need of the Church of God, its members, and its
ministers, has been most fully provided for. How could it be
otherwise, if we admit the Bible to be the word of God? Could the mind
of God have devised, or His finger sketched an imperfect chart?
Impossible. We must either deny the divinity or admit the sufficiency
of THE BOOK. We are absolutely shut up to this alternative. There is
not so much as a single point between these two positions. If the book
is incomplete, it cannot be of God; if it be of God it must be
perfect. But if we are compelled to betake ourselves to other sources
for guidance and instruction, as to the path of the Church of God, its
members or its ministers, then is the Bible incomplete, and being
such, it cannot be of God at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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