The Numerical Structure Of Scripture

A SEAL UPON ITS PERFECT INSPIRATION, AND A DIVINELY GIVEN HELP TO ITS RIGHT INTERPRETATION.

I think, beloved friends, the best way in which I can introduce the subject which is to be before us, will be by stating how the Lord has led me into the apprehension of it. The first thing for us, however, is to realize, what I trust we do, that the Word of God is absolutely that from beginning to end of it,—every line, I may say, and letter of it. Of course I do not mean by that at all that translations do not fail. I do not mean that there are not errors of transcription in copies which have been transmitted to us from old time. But I do mean that when we get fairly and fully what was written at first, we have there, absolutely and fully, the word of God; although He has spoken through man, and the diverse character of His instruments be apparent on every page, yet we have none the less on this account God's word in unclouded majesty—pure truth, without any mixture of defect whatever. And, beloved, while it is a little volume—this Bible of ours, and thank God it is, so that we can hold it in our hands and carry it in our pockets, yet how large, how immense a book it nevertheless is! Always yielding new fruit to the patient and diligent explorer; age after age does not exhaust it, but continually beckons into fields which lie beyond. If I should say to you that here, in the nineteenth century of the complete revelation, after so many centuries of learned, continuous, believing investigation, there was yet a character of it written upon every page, and of a most important kind, which had wholly escaped research, would it not seem impossible? And yet that is what I do say, and hope to prove to your complete satisfaction before these lectures close,—a character which is itself a most convincing proof of its inspiration in every part, and which offers itself as a key, divinely given to its intelligent apprehension.