Note 10 — Chapter IV

It may be that the reader feels a little jealous of any interference with our excellent English Bible. He may, like many others, feel disposed to say, "How is an uneducated man to know what is Scripture and what is not? Must he depend upon scholars and critics to give him certainty on so grave and important a question? If so, is it not the same old story of looking to human authority to confirm the Word of God?" By no means. It is a totally different thing. We all know that all copies and translations must be, in some points, imperfect, as being human; but we believe that the same grace which gave the Word in the original Hebrew and Greek languages, has most marvelously watched over our English translation, so that a poor man, at the back of a mountain, may rest assured that he possesses in his common English Bible the revelation of the mind of God. It is wonderful, after all the labors of scholars and critics, how few passages, comparatively, have had to be touched; and not one affecting any foundation-doctrine of Christianity. God, who graciously gave us the holy Scriptures at the first, has watched over them and preserved them to His Church in a most wonderful manner. Moreover, He has seen fit to make use of the labors of scholars and critics, from age to age, to clear the sacred text of errors which, through the infirmity attaching to all human agency, had crept into it. Should these corrections shake our confidence in the integrity of Scripture as a whole? or lead us to doubt that we possess, in very deed, the Word of God? Nay, rather should they lead us to bless God for His goodness in watching over His Word in order to preserve it in its integrity for His Church.