Grandeur of the Bible

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 5, 1877

Grandeur of the Bible.

SAD error this, to take The light of nature, rather than the light Of Revelation for a guide. As well Prefer the borrowed light of earth's pale moon To the effulgence of the noonday sun. —Bates.

If we have ever tried it, we must have been struck with the few solid thoughts and the few suggestive ideas which survive the perusal of the most brilliant of human books. Few of them can stand three readings, and of the memorabilia which you had marked in your first reading, on reverting to them you find that many of these were not so striking, or weighty, or original as you thought. But the Word of God is solid, it will stand a thousand readings, and the man who has gone over it the most frequently and carefully is the surest of finding new wonders there.—Rev. James Hamilton.

When I commenced my duties as professor of theology, I feared that the frequency with which I should have to pass over the same portions of Scripture would abate the interest in my own mind in reading them. But after more than fifty years of study it is my experience that with every class my interest increases.—Professor Leonard Woods.

I have always found in my scientific studies, that when I could get the Bible to say anything upon the subject, it afforded me a firm platform to stand upon, and another round in the ladder by which I could safely ascend.—Lieut. Maury.

I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once a year. My custom is to read four or five chapters every morning after rising from my bed. It employs about an hour of my time, and seems to be the most suitable manner of beginning the day. In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.—John Quincy Adams.

I can easily conceive why the Bible was one of the four volumes which always lay on Byron's table; and it would be easy to fill a lecture with the testimonies, written or unwritten, which painters, sculptors, orators and poets have rendered to the most thought-suggesting book in the world.—Hamilton.

From the time that at my mother's feet, or on my father's knee, I first learned to lisp verses from the Sacred Writings, they have been my daily study and vigilant contemplation. If there is anything in my style or thoughts to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures.—Daniel Webster.

I am of the opinion that the Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been written.—Sir William Jones.

I will hazard the assertion that no man ever did, or ever will, become truly eloquent without becoming a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.—Fisher Ames.

Well, I rest in the Bible as the only book in which is to be found true eloquence and wisdom.—Picus Mirandula.

There is no book like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom and use.—Sir Matthew Hale.

No writers from the invention of letters to the present time, are equal to the penmen of the books of the Old and New Testaments in true excellence, utility and dignity.—Dr. David Hartley.

The Bible is a matchless volume; it is impossible we can study it too much or esteem it too highly.—Boyle.

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.—Sir Isaac Newton.

There are no songs comparable with the songs of Sion, no orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach.—Milton.

I must confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me; the holiness of the evangelists speaks to my heart, and has such strong and striking characters of truth, and is moreover, so perfectly inimitable, that if it had been the invention of men, the inventors would have been the greatest of heroes.—Rousseau.

The Bible is itself a standing and an astonishing miracle. Written fragment by fragment, throughout the course of fifteen centuries, under different states of society, and in different languages, by persons of the most opposite tempers, talents and conditions, learned and unlearned, prince and peasant, lord and peer; cast into every form of instructive composition and good writing, history, prophecy, poetry, allegory, emblematic representations, judicious interpretation, literal statement, precept, example, proverbs, disquisition, epistle, sermon, prayer; in short, all rational shapes of human discourse, and treating, moreover, on subjects not obvious, but most difficult; its authors are not to be found, like other writers, contradicting one another upon the most ordinary matters of fact and opinion, but are at harmony upon the whole of their sublime and momentous scheme.—Prof. Maclagyan.

The rhetorical and poetical beauties of Scripture are merely incidental. Its authors wrote not for glory nor display, not to astonish nor amaze their brethren, but to instruct them, and to make them better. They wrote for God's glory not their own; they wrote for the world's advantage not to aggrandize themselves. Demosthenes composed his splendid oration in order to win the crown of eloquence; and the most elaborate efforts of ancient oratory—the panegyric to which Socrates devoted fifteen years—was just an essay-written prize. How different the circumstances in which the speech on Mars's Hill was spoken, and the farewell sermon in the upper chamber at Troas. Herodotus and Thucydides composed their histories with a view to popular applause; and Pindar's fiery pulse beat faster in view of the great Olympic gathering and the praises of assembled Greece. How opposite the circumstances in which the seer of Horeb penned his faithful story, and Isaiah and Jeremiah poured forth the fearless denunciations of popular sins. The most superb of modern historians confesses the flutter which he felt when the last line of his task was written, and he thought that perhaps his fame was established. A more important history concludes: “These things were written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord! Star of eternity! the only star By which the bark of man could navigate The sea of life and gain the coast of bliss Securely; only star which rose on time, And on its dark and troubled billows still, As generation, drifting swiftly by, Succeeded generation, threw a ray Of Heaven's own light, and to the hills of God, The everlasting hills, pointed the sinner's eye. —Pollock.

O come! let us walk in the light of the Lord, As it beams from the page of his life-giving word! 'Tis a lamp to our feet, and we go not astray, While we follow the path that's illumined by its ray, The path by the prophets and patriarchs trod, Still bright with the steps of the chosen of God. —Wm. H. Burleigh.