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of an undertaking consummated only after unspeakable strain and under enabling overshadowing of sanction, are especially warned to beware of the spirit in which they indulge, of the light to which they wilfully blind themselves, of the beauty of The Human unveiled before their spirits, of the opportunity for investigating rationally the truth of The Gospel thus afforded, and of the solemn account we must all soon render for increased knowledge of The Word of God Written right in front of The Great White Throne of The Word of God Incarnate.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE METHOD.

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istics of

scholarship

applied to

'ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God,' and holy prophets and Character-
evangelists could only speak as they were moved by the Omniscient scientific
Mind of God, the August Author of the Canon of Revealed Truth. For when
the self-same reason the translator of God-breathed truths from the original an Inspired
matrix of the gold of Inspiration must be, though not (as they) the text.
amanuensis, yet (as much as they) the child of the Holy Spirit. Conse-
quently the method by which the New Testament Scriptures can alone
be philosophically translated is just the opposite of the method by which
(say) the Greek Classics-the authors of which are mere men—must be
translated in the latter case the sentence is studied by the translator in
the Greek—its logical sense is grasped-and then the idea is rehabilitated
in English; but it is self-evident that this method cannot be followed in
translating a Work which is sui generis, being the Inspired Revelation of
an Infinite Being to creatures both finite and sinful-how can the finite
mind grasp the Infinite Mind, how can the sinner washed whitest in the
Blood of Christ comprehend so as of himself to select the terms in which
to describe the Holiness of the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty,
and what can the ripest Christian who is likest unto the disciple whom
Jesus loved know of that Infinite Love in its length and breadth and
depth and height which passeth knowledge? It is evident, therefore,
that a translator of the language of an Inspired Canon needs Divine

Translators 'pens of a ready writer.'

guidance for his own office and ministry as much as did a St. John for his duty of moulding into Greek the original Revelation from God. This, the true philosophical method of translation, is not satisfied by piously offering a prayer for a blessing before each exercise of the functions of a translator, and then proceeding to translate in detail by the gnostic rationalistic method above referred to; but by conscientiously carrying out the contrasted process of articulating, as it were, the River of the Water of Life, in systematic Divine guidance, to the root of every word, and the rendering of every idea, by making even the smallest detail a subject of prayer for light, in a manner analogous to the system of irrigation in the East, where a river is tapped and broken into tiny rills at last, which supply every individual plant with moisture. So far from such a practice being arrogant, it is the trust of a little child; or such a doctrine an assumption of infallibility, it is, ipso facto, its formal evangelical repudiation. How dare any man undertake such a translation and work as the present without some ground for believing both that God had called him to the awful responsibility and toil, and that the God Who called him would condescend to guide him with covenant guidance whilst sitting at His Feet, and looking up-crushed under a sense of his own ignorance and unworthiness-with filial receptiveness, for light from Him Who gives no account to man for the agencies which He sees good to employ. As God's 'pens,'* obeying cheerfully the laws of our agency, we are

* Psalm xlv. 1. Thus, God-guided painters might be symbolised as God's 'pencils,' engineers as His 'compasses,' soldiers His 'sword,' orators His 'tongue,' and (if poetry could keep pace with science) so on throughout the multiplying and dividing, and subdividing, arts and studies, of this age of millennial civilisation. Whereas, upon the surface of society it seems as though man has grown more ignorantly omniscient and positive, below into the souls of the mind-movers of the transition epoch there is stealing a reverent awe, the result of growing conviction, from phenomena deeper studied and more honestly interpreted, that, so far from man's being able, 'by searching, to find out God,' the more he searches, the more he finds of GOD; and that that is by no means synonymous with finding Him 'out,' how much less 'unto perfection!' For all purposes of man's mission to 'replenish the earth and subdue it,' the laws of the outward and of the inward are being more practically understood. But, beyond the utilitarian area, searching into phenomena is gradually bringing about a revolution in 'religion' and 'science '-that is to say, the congeries of traditions hitherto docketed under these two words. Scientific men bid fair to be the religious hierophants of the future, being the depositaries of the most substantial 'evidences' of Christianity. Even now cosmos-interpreters find themselves, in surprise, upon the margin of an ocean of all that makes up God as a living, present, personal power, and their difficulty is to keep from personal acknowledgments of the fact, since such testimony seems to harmonise too closely with religious traditions hitherto blindly believed and empirically taught, but by them discredited, not a little from the antinomianism and hypocrisy of emphasised ecclesiasticism. However this may be, if there is a God, and He the Creator, and we 'the glory' of His creation, those science and art sear hers who (to speak at a minimum) acknowledge respectfully, by acknowledging practically, the fact, will, in the proportion of their gifts and industry, be the cleverest and best 'pens,' 'pencils,' and apparatus in the Hand of His Omnipotent providence, who most systematically draw upon the Omniscient covenant guidance of the Creator; and one who is thus both a toiler and a pupil of the Maker of the great chronometer must be taught best the secrets of its construc

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