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.
—Pollok.
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.
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' 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."
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 representation, 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.—Professor Macleyan.
I have for many years made it a practise 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, to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.—John Quincy Adams.
From the time that at my mother's feet, or at 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.
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.—Prof. Leonard Woods.
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.
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.
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.
No writers from the invention of letters to the present time, are equal to the penmen of the Old and New Testaments in true excellence, utility, and dignity.—Dr. David Hartley.
There are no songs comparable with the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach.—Milton.
There is no book like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom, and use.—Sir Matthew Hale.
We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.—Sir Isaac Newton.