p. 21 | The Tried Word

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1886

The Tried Word.

THAT is a noble word of the psalmist, a grand resting place for faith,—"The word of the Lord is tried." Dean Stanley, in one of his sermons, shows how it is tried to the uttermost: "Tried by the honest investigations of science, tried by the undue claims upon it, tried by the misunderstanding and exaggeration of its friends, and yet in spite of all, 'thy servant loveth it' (Ps. 119 : 140), because he knows that there is nothing else like it in the world, nothing else which will so well repay all the trouble, anxiety, and misapprehension which its study involves. Its value has increased, not diminished, with the lapse of ages. . . . It is still the Book of books, not to one nation only, but to all mankind.

"It contains treasures of wisdom, of justice, of tenderness, of toleration, and of freedom, which have never yet been exhausted. It stands on a height above all the human speculations which have gathered round it. Ancient creeds and modern confessions of theology . . . are not to be named for a moment in comparison with the loving voice of God, as it speaks to us through the loving acts and utterances of patriarch and king, lawgiver and judge, priest and soldier, psalmist and prophet, through all the manifold 'sundry times,' through all the infinitely 'divers manners' in which he inspired the teachers of his chosen people, until in these last days he has spoken to us once for all in the person of Jesus Christ his Son."—Sel.