It is a great thing to read a book with expectation instead of distrust. Expectation opens the mind to light, and makes it easy to see. Distrust closes it. If I have read Shakespeare till I feel sure of his poetic inspiration, then I read with expectation all he writes; I am looking for truth and beauty, and so I find it. If I had never read Shakespeare, nor heard of him, and Hamlet were put into my hand, I should probably be displeased with something or other, and throw it aside, and so lose the deepness and loveliness of that wonderful creation. How much we find in the words of Jesus and Paul, because we read them with expectation and hope! because we read them always looking for what is deep and high!

Nevertheless many persons recommend a contrary course. They say that we ought to forget all that has been told us about the Book, and read it as if we had never seen it before. But this method is neither practicable nor desirable. It is impossible to look at the Bible as though it were an unknown [pg 123] book; impossible to forget that it is the text book of Christianity; regarded as sacred by millions of our fellow-men; the source of spiritual and moral life to the world for the last fifteen hundred years; that our parents and friends have found in it strength for duty, comfort in trial, hope in the hour of death. You might as well tell the child who begins to study geography to forget that he lives in America, or when he studies the history of the United States, to forget that it is the history of his own land. Nor would it be desirable to study the New Testament thus. For it is this grand belief concerning it which makes us desire to study it at all. Were it not for this belief it might be occasionally read by a student in the interest of science, but never by the mass of the community. Faith in its divine origin and divine purpose, causes it to be read in families, schools, churches, to be used as a manual of prayer in the closet, and to grow familiar in every home. The Book is surrounded by a traditional halo of wonder, reverence, and hope, and this gives us motive and power with which to read it. If a cold criticism, a sceptical spirit, shall ever succeed in causing the New Testament to be regarded as a common book, on the natural plane of human thought, full of errors and imperfections, inspired only as Plato is inspired, then it will be read as Plato is read, that is, by one man in a million. It is not desirable to lose the reverence which causes us to expect extraordinary truth and good in certain books, men, and institutions; for so we lose the best motive power of the soul; so life becomes tame, the day empty, and events unmeaning.

It is, therefore, perfectly right for the Church to surround Christ and Christianity with this divine aureola of reverence and wonder, not exaggerating it, but neither understating it. For this wonder and reverence, when legitimate, is a great treasure of spiritual life, animating and elevating, which the Church possesses in order that it may communicate it. It [pg 124] is continually proclaiming its good news; constantly asserting that through Christ God has given it a divine peace; that in Christ there is a marvellous truth and beauty; and that the Gospels and Epistles, which contain his life and truth, have a strange power of raising us above ourselves, and bringing us into communion with an eternal world. When this is said, not by rote, or as a mere form, but from sincere conviction, the spirit of faith creates faith, and faith is the great motive which leads to action.

As it is the duty of the Church to excite our interest in the New Testament, by declaring its own love and respect for it, so it is right for the student of the New Testament to give a certain preliminary weight to this testimony of the Church in commencing his study. This is what we call the Christian prepossession. And it regards the New Testament exactly as when a friend whose judgment we respect earnestly recommends to us some book which he has read, and which has done him good. He recommends it to us as a good book, and he recommends it with enthusiasm. His enthusiasm produces in us a desire to become acquainted with the book, and a certain hope that we shall find in it what our friend has found. This hope leads on towards fruition, and is one of its conditions. It ought not, therefore, to be relinquished; but neither should it lead us to accept blindly everything which we are told. We must look with our own eyes, think with our own mind, feel with our own heart.

To wish to come to the study of the Bible without prepossession in its favor is, therefore, a foolish wish; for, without prepossession in its favor, we should have little motive for studying it at all. It is our faith in the Bible that leads us to read it; and faith here, as everywhere, is the motive power which reason has only to guide and restrain. Faith is the brave steed which carries us forward, full of fire and full of pride. Reason is the bridle by which [pg 125] he is guided, supported, and restrained. There is a story of a thief so skilful that he could steal a man's horse from under him without his knowing it, and so leave him holding the bridle in his hand, and supposing himself to be still on horseback. So are those deceived who think to live by reason without faith. The motive power of their life has been taken away from them, and they do not know it; they suppose that they can ride with a bridle and saddle, without a horse.

To read the New Testament to any purpose, we must, therefore, read with the faith that there is some great good to be got from it. But what is the true foundation of this faith? Is it legitimate, or is it an illusion? The basis of this faith is to be found in the fact that the Bible has done so much, and is doing so much, for the world—a fact which cannot be stated better than in these words of one who is not commonly supposed to have too high a reverence for the Bible:—

A book which exercises this great influence over our fellow-men ought to be approached with reverence. It is for the same reason that we approach with faith and expectation the writings of Shakespeare and Milton. We read them expecting to find in them great truths, and this expectation enables us to find them. “Seek and ye shall find” is the law. How often we should have been disappointed and dissatisfied with such books, and have thrown them aside impatiently, had we not remembered the great universal testimony to their surpassing excellence!

This Christian prepossession is, however, only a general confidence that there is something exceedingly good in the [pg 127] New Testament; that it is a book containing in some way a divine revelation, in some way or other inspired, in some way likely to be a great help and comfort to our spiritual nature, and the best guide we can have for this life and towards the next. It is an expectation of all this, an expectation based on the testimony of mankind. So far it is a reasonable expectation. So far it is right and just to entertain it. It is the natural inheritance to which we were born, by being born Christians. To throw it away, or to try to throw it away, would be as though one should try to throw away the habits of civilization which he inherits by being born in a civilized community, and try to go back and start as a savage. It is neither more futile nor more foolish in the one case than in the other.

But, though this Christian prepossession is a perfectly legitimate one with which to begin, it is not a legitimate one in which to remain. It is our business, by the free action of our intellect, to change this general and vague expectation into a distinct opinion of one kind or another. Protestantism allows us to take our faith in the Bible from the Church, but not to take from the Church our opinions about the Bible. Faith may, and ought to be, received, but opinions are to be formed. An opinion or belief received from another man is his opinion, and not ours.

With regard to any other book this would be self-evident. For example, suppose that I have never read the play of Hamlet. I hear it universally spoken of as one of the greatest works of the human intellect. That naturally and properly creates in my mind the expectation of finding it so. It produces the general belief that it is a great work of genius. But suppose that, besides this general expectation, I should also accept from my neighbors their particular opinions concerning the play. I hear them say that it is more philosophical, but less dramatic, than Macbeth; that the character of Hamlet is overcharged with intellect, and [pg 128] the like. If, now, I adopt and repeat these opinions, without having read the play, it is evident that I am only a parrot or an echo. It is evident that they are not my opinions at all, and that they indeed interfere with my having any opinions. Fifty thousand echoes of a voice leave us only one voice and fifty thousand echoes.

This distinction between faith and opinion, which we have already spoken of, is of the utmost practical importance. We may add here that, for want of it, intellectual people try to go to the study of the Bible without faith in the Bible, and religious people think they must accept all their opinions from others, and take them in ready made. It is not absolutely essential to have opinions; but if we do have them, they ought to be our own. Faith must be received, opinions must be formed.

All persons, therefore, ought to form opinions for themselves about the New Testament. They may bring to the work a faith in the New Testament, as being in some sense or other a revelation, as being written in some way or other by inspired men, as being somehow or other a holy book, the legitimate source of spiritual life, moral goodness, and inward peace.