divine from the human, the permanent from the temporary, is no longer a divine, certain, infallible book,—it is degraded to the rank of profane books; for every profane book has the same quality, that together with or in the human it contains the divine, that is, together with or in the individual it contains the universal and eternal. But that only is a truly divine book in which there is not merely something good and something bad, something permanent and something temporary, but in which all comes as it were from one crucible, all is eternal, true and good. What sort of a revelation is that in which I must first listen to the apostle Paul, then to Peter, then to James, then to John, then to Matthew, then to Mark, then to Luke, until at last I come to a passage where my soul, athirst for God, can cry out: Eureka! here speaks the Holy Spirit himself! here is something for me, something for all times and all men. How true, on the contrary, was the conception of the old faith, when it extended inspiration to the very words, to the very letters of Scripture! The word is not a matter of indifference in relation to the thought; a definite thought can only be rendered by a definite word. Another word, another letter—another sense. It is true that such faith is superstition; but this superstition is alone the true, undisguised, open faith, which is not ashamed of its consequences. If God numbers the hairs on the head of a man, if no sparrow falls to the ground without his will, how could he leave to the stupidity and caprice of scribes his Word—that word on which depends the everlasting salvation of man? Why should he not dictate his thoughts to their pen in order to guard them from the possibility of disfiguration?—“But if man were a mere organ of the Holy Spirit, human freedom would be abolished!”[1] Oh what a pitiable argument! Is human freedom, then, of more value than divine truth? Or does human freedom consist only in the distortion of divine truth?
And just as necessarily as the belief in a determinate historical revelation is associated with superstition, so necessarily is it
- ↑ It was very justly remarked by the Jansenists against the Jesuits: “Vouloir reconnoitre dans l’Ecriture quelque chose de la foiblesse et de l’esprit naturel de l’homme, c’est donner la liberté à chacun d’en faire le discernement et de rejetter ce qui lui plaira de l’Ecriture, comme venant plûtot de la foiblesse de l’homme que de l’esprit de Dieu.”—Bayle (Diet. art. Adam (Jean) Rem. E.)
