At the very first sight of this book and its title, two equally unfounded prejudices may arise in certain minds. I desire to remove them.

The Greek word Theopneusty, although employed by St. Paul, and for a long time used by the Germans, is yet unknown in our tongue. Many a reader may hetefore say, that the subject here treated, is too scientific to be popular, and too little popular to be useful. And yet I unhesitatingly declare, that if any thing has inspired me with both the desire and the courage to undertake this work, it is the two-fold conviction of its vital importance and its simplicity.

I do not think, that after the admission of the divinity of Christianity, a question can be stated, which is more essential to the life of our faith, than this; Is the Bible from God? is it entirely from God? or is it true, (as some assert,) that it contains sentences which are purely human, inaccurate narratives, vulgar errors, illogical reasonings; in a word, that it contains books, or portions of books, in which our faith has no interest, being marred by error and the natural indiscretions of the writers? A question decisive, fundamental; yea vital! It is the first that meets you on opening the Scriptures, and with it your religion ought to commence.

If it be true, as you say, that some things in the Bible are unimportant, have nothing to do with your faith, and no relation to Jesus Christ; and if it be true, again, that nothing in this book is inspired, but that which you may happen to think possessed of importance, related to faith and to Jesus Christ, then your Bible is a totally different book from that of the Fathers, of the Reformers, and of the saints in every age. Your Bible is fallible: theirs was infallible. Yours has chapters, or portions of chapters, sentences or phrases, which must be totally distinguished from those that are of God; theirs was “all given by inspiration of God, and all of it profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect.” The very same passage may then be, in your estimation, as far from that which it was in theirs, as earth is from heaven.

You have opened, for instance, at the forty-fifth Psalm, or at the Song of Solomon. Whilst you see nothing there, but that which is the most thoroughly human, a long marriage-song, or the amorous conversations between a young maid of Sharon and her young husband; they were there accustomed to see the glories of the Church, the bonds of Jehovah’s love, the depths of grace in Christ; in a word, that which is most divine in heavenly things; and if they could not read them there, they knew that they are there, and there they searched for them. '

Or, we take an epistle of St. Paul. Whilst one of us attributes a sentence which he does not understand, or which shocks his carnal sense, to the Jewish prejudices of the writer, to intentions entirely vulgar, to circumstances altogether human; the other there searches with profoundest respect, the meaning of the Spirit; he believes it to be perfect, before discovering what it is; and he attributes its apparent insignificance or obscurity only to his own unskilfulness and ignorance.

Thus, while in the Bible of the one, everything has its design, its place, its beauty, its use; just as, in a tree, the branches and the leaves, the vessels and the fibres, the epidermis, and even the bark, all have their uses; the Bible of the other is a tree, having, indeed many leaves and branches and fibres which God did not create, and which, therefore, do not accomplish his designs.

But this is not all. Not only shall you and we have two different bibles, but we shall be at an utter loss to tell what yours is. It is only, to a certain degree, human and fallible, you say; but who shall define this degree 2 If it be true that man, by putting his hand to this work, has left upon it the impression of his own imperfection; who shall determine the extent of that imperfection, and the places which it mars? It has its human parts, you say; but what are the limits of this part; who shall fix them for me? No one. Every one must do it for himself, according to the dictates of his own judgment; that is, this fallible part of the Bible will be magnified to us, just in proportion as we are less enlightened by God’s light; so that a man must be deprived of the word of God, just in proportion as he has need of it; as we see idolaters making idols impure in exact proportion to their own distance from the living and holy God! Thus, then, every one will reduce the inspired Scriptures within different limits; and making to himself of this Bible, expurgated by himself, an infallible rule, will say to it—Henceforth guide me, for thou art my rule! as that image-maker of whom Isaiah speaks, “‘ who maketh a God, and saith, deliver me, for thou art my God.”

But this is not all; consequences still more serious are here involved. According to your answer, it is not the Bible alone which is changed; it is you!

Yes, even in the presence of passages which you may have admired most, you shall have neither the attitude nor the heart of a believer! How can it be otherwise after that you have arraigned these very passages with all the rest of the Bible, at the tribunal of your judgment, that they may there be pronounced by you, divine, not divine, or partially divine? What can be the authority of a passage over you, which is infallible only so far as you please to consider it so? Has it not once stood on trial at your bar, on the same footing with passages, convicted of being merely human in whole or in part? And can your spirit then assume sincerely, the humble and submissive attitude of a learner, before the very passage which you have just examined in the character of a judge? Impossible; you may perhaps render it the obedience of acquiescence, but never that of faith; of approbation, never that of adoration! You believe in the divinity of a passage, you say; but it is not in God that you believe, it is in yourself! This passage pleases you, it does not govern you; it excites your admiration, but does not reign over you; it is before you as a lamp, it is not in you as an unction from on high, a principle of light, a fountain of life. I cannot persuade myself that any pope, however conscious of his sacerdotal authority, ever prayed with great confidence to a saint whom by his own plenary authority, he had raised to the rank of a demi-god by canonizing it. How then, can any reader of the Bible, (however conscious of his own superior wisdom,) act the part of a genuine believer toward a passage which he has just canonized? ‘Will his spirit come down from the pontifical chair, to: prostrate itself before this passage, which but for his decision, had remained human, or at least, doubtful? How can he study any longer a passage which he must already have examined thoroughly in order to have assigned it its true position; how can he fully submit to an authority which he might have denied, and which he has already made dubious?. We can but imperfectly adore that which we have degraded.

Moreover, let it be remarked, that as the entire divinity of such or such a passage of the Scriptures is dependent in your estimation, not on the fact of its being found in the book of the oracles of God; but on the fact that it presents to your wisdom and your spirituality certain signs of spirituality and wisdom; the sentence which you pronounce, can never be so exempt from hesitation, as that you can totally separate from it every doubt which at first attended it. Your faith must then partake of your doubts, and must itself be imperfect, undecided, conditional! And as the decision, so will be the faith; as the faith, such the life! But that is not the faith, that is not the life of God’s elect!

The consideration, however, which manifests most strongly the importance of the subject we are about to discuss, is, that if the system we oppose have its roots steeped in incredulity, it must inevitably bear the fruit of yet a new incredulity. How happens it, that so many thousands can open their Bible, day and night, without ever discovering the doctrines which it teaches with the utmost explicitness? Whence comes it that they walk in darkness so many years, with the sun shining before them? Do they not regard these books as a revelation from God? Yes;—but, prejudiced by false notions of inspiration, and believing that there still exists in the Scriptures a mixture of error; and at the same time desirous of finding those parts which are sufficiently reasonable to be esteemed divine, they study, unconsciously I admit, to give them a sense acceptable to their own wisdom; and thus they not only make it impossible to discover what God would teach, but also make the Scriptures contemptible in their own eyes.-They take up, for instance, the writings of St. Paul, in order to find in them justification by the law, man’s native innocence, his tendency toward the good, the-moral omnipotence of his will, the merit of his works. And what is the consequence? It is alas! that after having forced such doctrines upon the sacred writer, they find the language so wretchedly adapted to its supposed end, terms so badly chosen to express the meaning they have determined to find there, reasonings so badly conducted; they at last come to lose, in spite of themselves, what little respect they had for the Scriptures, and then they plunge into rationalism. Thus it is, that having commenced in incredulity, the fruit of their labor is a more advanced incredulity; they have darkness as the consequence of darkness, and so fulfil that dreadful word of Christ; ‘ from him that hath not, shall be taken away that which he seemeth to have.”

Such then, is manifestly the fundamental importance of the great question we are about to examine. By your answer, the arm of the word of God is enervated for you, the sword of the Spirit is blunted, it has lost its temper and its penetrating power. How can it thenceforward “pierce even to the dividing asunder of the joints and the marrow, and separate the soul and the spirit?’ How can it be mightier than your lusts, than your doubts, than the world, than Satan? How can it give you light, force, victory, peace t No! it might be by an operation of the mere grace of God, that in spite of this deplorable state of the soul, a divine word should come and seize it suddenly; then Zaccheus would come down from his sycamore, Matthew quit his receipt of custom, the paralytic take up his bed and walk, and the dead revive. All that is, doubtless, possible. But it still remains true, that this disposition which judges the Scriptures, and which doubts in advance, their universal inspiration, is one of the greatest obstacles we can oppose to their legitimate action. “The word preached,” says St. Paul, “did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it;” while the most abundant benedictions of the same Scriptures were ever the portion of those who received it, “not as the word of men, but, (as it is in truth,) the word of God, which effectually worketh in them that believe.” (1 Thess. xi. 13.)

This question is, then, evidently vital to our faith; and we have the right to say, that between the two answers made to it, there exists the same gulf that formerly separated two Jews who might have seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, and who might equally have recognized him as a prophet; but of whom, the one, in view of his carpenter’s dress, his homely fare, his hands hardened by work, and his rustic attendants, believed him fallible and peccable, like any other prophet; whilst the other recognized in him Emanuel, the Lamb of God, the Lord our Righteousness, the Holy One of Israel, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.

The reader may not yet have admitted each of these considerations; but it must certainly be conceded, that enough has been said to justify the conclusion, that the study of this question is vastly important, and that, in weighing it, you hold in your hands the dearest interests of the people of God. Iask no more in the preface. This was my first object, to show the importance of our subject; my next is, to show that it is adapted to the capacities of all.

If this doctrine ought to be studied by all, we assert, that it is likewise within the reach of all; and the author distinctly avows, that, in writing this book, it has been his cherished ambition to make it intelligible to all classes of readers.

And yet, methinks, I hear the objection urged by many voices, ‘‘ you are writing for men of science, your book is not for us; we were looking for religion, and behold theology!”

Theology, certainly! But what kind of theology? That which must be studied by all the heirs of life, and in respect to which every child ought to be a theologian.

Religion and theology! Let us explain ourselves; for, in setting these terms in opposition to each other, an injurious abuse is often made of both. Is not Theology defined, in all the dictionaries, as “the science which has God and his revelation for its object?’ But, when I was a schoolboy, my catechisms gave virtually the same definition of Religion. ‘It is the science,” they said, “which teaches us to know God and his word, God and his counsels, God in Christ.” They do not differ, then, in their object, their means, nor their end. Their object, truth; their means, the word of God; their end, holiness. “Sanctify them, O Father! by thy truth; thy word is truth.” This is the wish of both, as it was that of their dying Master. What distinction is there, then, between them? This alone; that Theology is Religion studied with more method, and by the help of more perfect instruments. You can, indeed, bring together an odd compound of philosophy or human tradition with the word of God, and dignify it with the title of Theology; but that is scholasticism, not Theology.

It is true, indeed, that the term Religion is not always employed in its objective sense, as signifying the science of the truths we believe; but sometimes, also, in a subjective sense, to designate rather the sentiments which these truths produce in the hearts of believers. These two significations are different, and ought to be distinguished; but to place them in opposition, and call the one Theology and the other Religion, is an utter misapprehension of the natures of both; it is indeed an absurdity, as it presumes that there may be religious sentiments without the truths which originate them; it pretends to be a morality without doctrines, piety without belief, Christianity without Christ, to have an effect without its cause, life without a soul! Fatal delusion! “Holy Father, is not this life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent?”.

But if it were rather in the objective sense, that Religion and Theology are placed in opposition to each other; that is, the religion which a Christian learns, who reads the Bible in his native tongue, to that which the profoundest scholar would learn in the same Bible, by the aid of history and the learned languages; even then, I say, distinguish them, but do not place them in opposition to each other. Should not every real Christian become a theologian, just so far as he can? Is he not commanded to bee come wise in the Scriptures, nourished in sound doctrine, rooted and grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ? And was it not to the crowd around him, in the open street, that Jesus said, “‘Search the Scriptures?” Religion, then, in its objective sense, is to Theology just what the globe is to astronomy. ‘They are distinct. but united; and Religion renders to Theology the same service as the astronomy of geometricians offers to navigators.

A shipmaster may doubtless dispense with La Place’s Mécanique Céleste, in order to reach the Chinese sea, or return from the antipodes; but even then, it is to this science that, in traversing the ocean with his elementary notions, he owes the excellence of his formulas, the exactitude of his tables, and the precision of the method which give him his longitudes, and make his course certain. Thus the Christian traveller, in order to traverse the ocean of this world, and to reach the haven to which God is calling him, may dispense with the ancient languages and profound speculations of Theology; but, after all, the very notions of religion which are necessary to him, shall receive, to a great extent, their precision and their certitude from theological science. And whilst he steers towards eternal life, with his eyes upon this compass which God has given him, it is still to Theology that he is indebted for the assurance that this celestial magnet is the same now as when the apostles used it; that the instrument of salvation has been handed down to him uninjured, that its indications are true, and that the needle does not vary.

There was a time when all the sciences were mysterious, teaching with closed doors; having their initiated, their holy language, and their free-masonry. Physics, geometry, medicine, grammar, history, all were taught in Latin. They sailed in the clouds, far above the vulgar; and they let fall, at the utmost, from their sublime bark, a few detached leaves, which men were to take up with great respect, but which they were not permitted to judge. Now, every thing is changed. Genius glories in making itself understood by the many; and after having soared to the ethereal regions of science, in order there to seize the truth in her highest retreats, it employs its power in ascertaining the way back to earth, and in approaching closely to us, that it may show us the route it has traveled, and the secrets it has discovered. But, if such is now the almost universal tendency of the human sciences, it was ever the distinctive characteristic of true Theology. She owes herself to all. The other sciences can dispense with the people, as the people dispense with them; true Theology, on the contrary, has need of the people, as the people have of her. She guards their Religion; and their Religion, in its turn, guards her. Wo to them when Theology languishes, and does not speak to them! Wo to her, when the religion of the churches neglects her, and ceases to esteem her! We must then see to it, both on her account and on theirs, that she speaks to them, hears them, studies in reference to them, and keeps their schools open, as our temples are.

Whilst theology continues to teach in the midst of the churches; by having constantly before her the realities of the Christian life; she is also constantly reminded of the realities of science; the miseries of man, the counsels of the Father, the cross of the Redeemer, the consolations of the Spirit, holiness, eternity. Then, also, the conscience of the Church, restraining her wanderings, intimidates her boldness, obliges her to be serious, and corrects the effects of that almost profane familiarity, with which the science of the schools lays her hand on holy things. In speaking to her, every day, of that life which the preaching of the Cross preserves in the Church, (that life, without the knowledge of which all her science would be as incomplete, as would be the natural history of man, derived only from the study of carcasses,) the religion of the people takes away from theology her too prompt admiration of the sciences which do not sanctify. Religion often proposes to theology this question, originally put by St. Paul to the false science of the Galatians; ‘‘ Have you received the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the preaching of the righteousness of faith?” She takes away the enchantment of human wisdom, she inspires theology with a pro_ found reverence for the word of God, and (in this holy word) for those doctrines of justification by faith, which are the power of God our Saviour, and which ought to penetrate the very soul of her science. It is thus that religion guides theology by teaching her to associate in her researches, the labors of the conscience and affections, with those of the understanding, and never to pursue the truth of God, but by the united illuminations of study and prayer.

And, on the other side, theology renders in her turn, to the Christian Churches, services which are to them equally indispensable. It is she who watches over the religion of a people, that the “lips of the priest may preserve knowledge, and that they may be able to seek the law at his mouth.” It is she who preserves in the holy ministry of the gospel, the purity of its doctrines; and in the preaching, the exact balance of all the truths. It is she who confirms the unlearned against the hostile assertions of a science which they do not understand; it is she who gathers her answers from the very region where the objections are gathered; who puts her finger upon the sophisms of the adversaries; who keeps them respectful in her presence, and who obliges them to observe before the Church, a style more guarded and less presumptuous. It is she, in fine, who signalizes the first moment, often so decisive, when the language of Religion among a people, begins to be erroneous; and when error, like a germinating tare, first shoots above the ground. She gives the timely warning, and they haste to weed it up.

Always, when the Churches have been pious, Theology has flourished; she has become enlightened; she has made study honorable; and, in order to qualify herself for studying the Scriptures profoundly, not only has she been willing to make herself mistress of all the sciences which could throw light on the Bible, but she has quickened all the others into new life; whether directly, by the example of her own labors, or in bringing elevated spirits around her, or in diffusing through the academic institutions that generous sentiment of high ‘morality, so favorable to the development of science.

Thus in elevating the character of study, she has often ennobled that of an entire people.

But on the other hand, when theology and the people have become indifferent to each other, and the slumbering Churches were living only for this world, then theology herself has become indolent, frivolous, ignorant, or, perhaps, a lover of novelties; seeking, at any cost, a profane popularity; teaching for the few; pretending to discoveries which are said only to the ear, which are taught only in the academies, and suppressed in the temples; holding her gates closed in the midst of the people, and at the same time, throwing among them from the windows, doubts and impieties, to evidence the existing measure of her indifference; until, finally, she sinks into scandalous conduct, either in attacking doctrines, in denying the integrity or the inspiration of certain books, or in audaciously giving the lie to the facts they ‘announce.

And let no one imagine that the entire people do not quickly feel so great an evil. They suffer from it, even in their temporal interests; and their very national existence is endangered by it. In degrading the religion of a people, you debase their morals, you take away their moral life. Every thing in a nation may be measured by one standard; the height of their heaven. If their heaven is low, every thing here on earth feels its debasing influences; everything at once becomes more limited and more grovelling; the future becomes more circumscribed; patriotism is materialized; generous traditions are engulfed; the moral sense becomes effeminated; the worship of self is alone exalted, and all conservative principles depart, one after another.

We then conclude, on the one hand, that there exists the most intimate union, not only between the happiness of a people and their religion, but between their religion and true theology; and, on the other hand, that if it was always highly proper that this science should teach for all and before all, never was this character more necessary to it than in treating of the doctrine which is now to engage our attention. It is the doctrine of doctrines—the doctrine which teaches us all the others, and by virtue of which alone they are doctrines; the doctrine which is to the soul of the believer what the air is to his lungs—necessary for his birth, growth and perseverance in the Christian life.

Under the inspiration, then, of this twofold thought, this book has been written.

Every thing in it, I trust, will show my serious desire to render it useful to Christians of every class.

To this end, I have cast off all the forms of the schools. Without renouncing entirely quotations from ancient languages, I have yet used them sparingly. In exhibiting the admirable unanimity of Christian antiquity on this question, I have confined myself to general facts. In disposing the order of the chapters, I have neglected the ordinary rules of the didactic, to follow those of the popular logic; which commences by presenting the objections, and closes with the proofs. In a word, when it has been found necessary to treat the different questions which relate to the subject, and which ought to be found here, for the full. presentation of the doctrine, I have referred them all to a special chapter. And there, too, I have gone against the advice of some friends, in employing a mode which seems to them out of harmony with the general tone of the book; but to me, seems to make the clear and rapid. comprehension of the subject more easy.

It is then under this simple and practical form, that in presenting this book to the Church of God, I am happy in being able to recommend it to the blessing of Him who preached in the streets, and who thus characterized his own ministry,—“the gospel is preached to the poor!”

Happy, if these pages confirm, in the simplicity and blessedness of their faith, those Christians who, though unlettered, have already believed, through the Scriptures, in the full inspiration of the Scriptures! Happy, if some burdened and weary souls are led to hear more attentively that God who speaks to them in every line of the holy Book! Happy, if by our words, some travelers, (like the pilgrim Jacob, by the stone of Bethel,) after having reposed their wearied spirits with too much indifference on this book of God, should at last come to recognize this mysterious ladder which rises thence to heaven, and by which alone the messages of grace can descend upon their souls, and their prayers go up to God!. May I urge them, in their turn, to pour out upon this sacred object the oil of their gratitude and joy, and learn to exclaim, “Surely the Lord is here—it is the house of God—it is the gate of heaven!”

For myself, I say it fearlessly, in prosecuting this work I have often been constrained to give thanks to God for having called me to it; for I have there seen more than once, the divine majesty fill with its splendor, the entire temple of the Scriptures; I have seen all the threads of that coarse garment, with which the Son of Man was clothed, become suddenly such as no fuller on earth could make them; I have often seen this book illuminated by the glory of God, and every word appear radiant. In fine, I have felt what we always experience in sustaining _ a cause which is holy and true; it is, that it grows the more in truth and majesty, the more you contemplate it.

My God, grant that I may love this word, and possess it as fully as thou hast taught me to admire it!

“All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth; but the word of our God endureth for ever, and it is this word which is preached unto us.”