The Bible manual

Appendix

CONSISTING OF A COPIOUS CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE TEXT, PRESENTING

A SYSTEMATIC VIEW OF THE DOCTRINES AND DUTIES

OF REVELATION.

PASTOR OF LAIGHT STREET CHURCH, NEW YORK.

LEWIS COLBY & CO.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,

By lewis COLBY, & CO.

in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Uuited States, for the

Southern District of New York.

^ i

Introduction

1 . The Scriptures are adapted to the diversified character of man. If we contemplate him as a speculative being, pursuing knowledge through its various paths to the extreme boundaries of human science, we find him reaching after discoveries which he can never attain without the light of revelation. Contemplating his own being, and looking abroad over nature, with irrepressible interest he enquires, " Whence, and what, am I ? Who created the stupendous works around me ? How did man lose his native innocency, and how can he regain the favour of God, and rest to his soul .'* If a man die shall he live again ? "

Pressed by these momentous inquiries, wherever he turns, he meets only with the wary evasion, or ominous silence of philosophy, or the absurd and contradictory theories of false religion. He stoops over the precipice of the future, and glances his eye far and near through its sombre shades, to obtain some glympse of Elysian fields, and bends his ear to catch some report from blissful abodes. With awful suspense, and foreboding fear, he lifts up his voice, and with imploring earnestness repeats the inquiry, '' If a man die, shall he live again ? " and only echo replies, " Shall he live again ? "

The Scriptures, exhibiting the early history of the race, proclaiming the Creator of all things, revealing the origin of sin, and unfolding a plan of recovery from its ruin, also bring life and immortality to light, and illustrate their availableness to man by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. These revelations, solving the most difficult problems of man's condition, and answering his gravest inquiries, are as important as if ascertained by the profound investigations of philosophy at intervals of ages, electrifying the world by their announcement, and immortalizing the names associated with their respective demonstrations.

The Scriptures are suited in their authority, as well as in the fulness and variety of their teachings, to the speculative nature of man. Connected by untraced relations with nature, with the Creator, and with the future, as a finite being, he needs some standard of appeal, without, and above him, to guide

IV INTRODUCTION.

his inquiries, restrain the salient fancy, check presumption, and correct or corroborate all his conclusions. Divine Revelation, meeting this deeply felt necessity, furnishes the axioms and settled principles of religious science. As the known order of the heavens, and relations of the fixed stars, constitute the true basis of astronomical calculations, modify or determine their results, and expose the errors of fanciful theories, so the Scriptures lying at the base of moral science, direct all its legitimate and sublime inquiries, furnish an available test of its opinions and theories, and expose the bold innovations and insidious errors of false teachers. Or, as known coasts and promontories of the main land, and islands of the ocean, at once constitute the starting points and way-marks for the exploring mariner ; and, when at length wearied by long voyages, and driven by storms, welcome him to their safe and peaceful harbours ; so the Bible, presenting a chart of known religious truth, guides all the investigations of the adventurous inquirer ; and when wearied and perplexed by fruitless speculations, and a painful consciousness of the uncertainty of all human knowledge, and assailed by storms of scepticism and temptation, invites him to pursue more humble and useful inquiries along safer roads, or to repose in the peaceful haven of its clearly defined and certain revelations.

As thus fitted to man's speculative nature, the Bible is incomparably the most important book commended to his study. It should be received as a universal classic ; associated authoritatively with the instructions of primary schools, and higher seminaries of learning, and with all the issues of the press.

2. The Scriptures are no less strikingly adapted to the character of man as an amenable being. If we contemplate him under the authority of natural, parental, and civil government, they unfold the true theory of these relations, and embody in a few precepts of unparalleled simplicity and comprehensiveness, a perfect and available rule of life. To the restraining and directive tendency of specific enactments, they superadd a far more powerful and subordinating influence, as appealing with authority to the sentiment of accountability, that distinguishes manafi a proper subject of law.

A system of preceptive truth, predicated upon complicated

INTRODUCTION.

and uncertain processes of reasoning, would not be applicable to the various circumstances of man, nor would it furnish sanctions adequate to enforce obedience.

Divine Revelation, appealing to authority, reaching every condition of cultivation and intelligence ; swaying the conscience as the steel does the magnet ; imparting intensity and wider scope to its agency ; following it through all its tortuous windings ; rebuking transgression in its most subtle forms ; frowning upon insubordinate desire, and fastening a sense of guilt upon a sinful thought ; erects way-marks of obedience along the whole pathway of human hfe ; and preventing the evasion of requirements or an escape from obligations through delay or uncertainty in the demonstration of its claims, greatly facilitates the dominion and enforces the restraints of law.

Mere domestic rules and penalties, civil statutes and punishments, judicial and police magistracies, can never repress the universal lawlessness of human nature, resist the amazing force of human depravity, or impose due restraint upon the ponderous and sweeping motion of its social manifestation. We might as well attempt to direct or resist the motions of a steam engine by applying force to its swift wheels or ponderous shaft ; or to coerce the motions of the planets, and confine them to their orbits, by extraneous agencies.

But the Scriptures, as the statute book of the conscience, assuming direction of the earliest period of accountable existence, and gradually gaining dominion over the exercise of reason, imagination^ affection, and passion, operate like the noiseless application of the almost unobserved lever, that instantly reverses, stops, or modifies the motions of the most complicated and ponderous machinery ; or like the silent force of gravity, winning upon the insubordination, and resisting the lawlessness of man, and reducing society to universal order, harmony, and peace. Their association with the laws and sanctions of government has distinguished the social and civil institutions of Christendom from those of ancient or modern pagan nations, and originated those beneficent reforms, that are doing so much to ameliorate and elevate the condition of man. And the more widely they are circulated, and commended to the perusal and faith of society, the more impartial will be the administration of justice, and the more profound

VI INTRODUCTION.

a regard for the rights of others, and the more imphcit bhedience to law. If civil governments were subverted, their statute books and the history of jurisprudence scattered to the winds ; the Scriptures, cordially embraced, would become a law to the race, and soon give rise to wiser and more beneficent institutions over the world.

3. With more devout admiration, we trace the adaptation of the Scriptures to man as a religious being. In his estrangement from God have arisen the most deeply felt necessities of his nature. By costly sacrifices, and various ceremonial observances, he has sought in vain to expiate sin, and commend himself to the divine favour. Systems of philosophy, and religion, arrogating to themselves a commission to minister to his salvation, have passed by, and left him lying by the wayside, wounded by sin, helpless, and ready to perish. When there was no eye to pity, and no arm to bring salvation, the divine word looked with tenderness, uttered promises of peace, and revealed the arm of an almighty Saviour. It probed the festering wound of sin, and commended its sovereign remedy. The Bible discovers to man his guilt, coerces his raging passions, regenerates his principles, and subjugates his soul to God, through him who is able to subdue all things to himself.

It is specifically adapted to the various instincts, and wants of the soul As light poured abroad over the face of nature, searches out, and identifies in man, and other animals, its subjective organ, and by its presence causes the varied and beneficent phenomena of vision ; as vibrations of the air, passing through the sky, and along the earth, penetrate the ear, and by a mysterious adaptation to its structure, produce all the varieties of sound and harmony ; or as the atmosphere, enveloping mountains and pervading the valleys and recesses of the earth, presses upon the lungs, and by sustaining their functions supports the various forms of animal life and activity, so the sacred Scriptures in their ready access to the heart, reducing to harmony its passions, quickening the pulsations of renewed life, and calling into exercise all its faculties, evince a specific and wonderful adaptation to the spiritual nature of m.an.

As the breath of morning, wafting the resplendent rays of the orb of day over Memnon's broken statue, calls forth mysterious and responsive melodies : so the influences of the

INTRODUCTION.

divine word rising in the beams of the sun of righteousness upon the marred and broken form of humanity, ever awaken mysteriously the harmony of its passions, in transports of love, adoration, and praise. Its doctrines fall on the believer's ear like melodious sounds rolling from the chords of the harp, or the lyre, or the lips of a master of the Orphean art, awakening feelings in unison with their sentiments. They meet him in every possible condition, with suitable instruction, and reproof, or needed encouragement, and consolation, and satisfy every craving of his nature. They furnish the most sublime conceptions of the universe, of higher orders of intelligences, and of the eternal God ; as well as the most impressive views of the relationships, duties, and happiness of human life. They express with incomparable simplicity, and tenderness, every natural state of feeling ; and suited to all its varying moods, they ascend with man to the highest elevation of joy, and accompany him to the lowest abasement of sorrow. They chasten, and elevate the joys of prosperity ; and compensate the bereavements and mitigate the woes of adversity. Blessing and adorning the temporal condition of man, they direct his approach to the great Eternal, and teach the nature, and mode, of spiritual worship. They furnish types, and forms of expression for pious emotion, humble confession, adoring praise, spiritual sorrow, and rapturous joy. Having provided for the present, they disclose the future ; and conducting man to the summit of everlasting hills, whence open before him scenes in endless variety of beauty, and loveliness, they give him pledge of an inheritance unmarred by sin, and that fadeth not away.

4. Other books may be adapted to certain classes, and conditions of life, accompany man in health, and amuse his hours of prosperity ; but the Bible is suited to all ; cleaves to man with a more partial friendship, and more abounding consolation, when other books can no longer interest him, and is the only fitting companion for adversity, suffering, and death. As some aromatic plants emit their richest fragrance from the flames, so the Scriptures appear redolent of more varied and rich consolation when their gracious efficacy is developed by affliction. They minister comfort in the sick room, the garret of poverty, the lonely prison, and at the burning stake. Their promises flash with

VIU INTRODUCTION.

more resplendent light athwart the gloom of the dying chamber, and the darkness of the tomb.

5. Thus adapted to the necessities of the human condition, and addressed to the race without limitations, the Scriptures are the inalienable inheritance of man, and should be allowed free access to all. They may travel beyond diocesan boundaries, where churches and ordinances are not established, and the voice of prelate or missionary has never been heard, speaking in all languages to the ear and conscience of man without an interpreter. Their authority, sanctions, and salvation cannot be restricted to the office and ministrations of any order of men. To enforce restrictions upon its circulation, would be as absurd as to attempt to invest one class of men with power to dispense or interdict to the rest of the race nature's provisions for the support of life ; as Eutopean and criminal as the attempt to seal up the fountains of the earth, divert from our globe the healthful currents of atmosphere, or intercept the rays of the sun, and weave them into a mantle of darkness.

The right of man to approach the Scriptures and avail himself of their instructions and salvation without the mediation of priestly orders, is as indisputable as his right to the light that illumines his path ; the atmosphere that heaves his lungs ; or the water that bubbles from the hill side to slake his thirst. He may receive their light without the refracting media of creeds and confessions ; breathe their vital atmosphere uncontaminated by transmission through human organs ; and drink the waters of life before the discoloration and distaste of error have been imbibed from human channels.

The judicious selection and arrangement of passages must facilitate the teaching of the Word of God, make its doctrines, set forth in its own impressive language, more familiar to all, accommodate its rich instructions to the different relations and duties of man, and render them, collectively, available to the various circumstances of religious worship.

Every pastor has found great care and pains necessary to secure Scripture readings appropriate to the order and occasions of worship now established in the churches. And if this be attained by marking passages, the impressiveness of reading is greatly interrupted by the turning of leaves. The pre-

INTRODUCTION.

paration of this volume was undertaken to meet this generally felt necessity. The distinctive feature of these selections at once appears. They are all arranged for consecutive reading ; a large portion of them for occasions of worship, rather than as proof texts, thus often embracing in one selection passages that, upon the principle of merely topical arrangement, would be classed under numerous heads. The selections on the eighth page, commencing " Man's Days," &c., and on the thirty-third page, commencing " Whosoever Therefore," &c., were furnished by a distinguished clergyman of this city, to whom, with others, I have been indebted for valuable suggestions in the prosecution of my agreeable task.

The Scripture Expressions of Prayer, by Matthew Henry, have been somewhat abridged from the author's work on prayer. Some passages inappropriately used, and some of the antiquated phraseology have been omitted. The body and richness of the work are retained. Embracing as it does the most impressive and devotional language of the Bible, its use must tend much to enrich the devotions of the family, and house of God, and encourage the more general observance of prayer. The classification of Scripture texts, constituting the appendix originally published, at great expense, by the Irish Religious Tract Society, was received with such favour throughout the United Kingdom, that more than twentyfive thousand copies have already been circulated ; and of the last edition, from which this is printed, three thousand were sold in one month. The Manual, so comprehensive in its plan, and so full and entirely scriptural in its matter, it is believed will minister greatly to the usefulness of the word of God ; will be found a most profitable resource for the sick, and for those cut off from the means of grace on the land or on the sea; and be found universally a suitable companion for the Bible and hymn book, in the family and in the house of God ; a useful guide for the domestic minister, and a convenient directory for the pulpit.

W. W. EVERTS.

New- York, April, 1846.