Transcribed from the 1870 Strahan & Co. edition by DavidPrice.
BIBLICAL REVISION
Its Duties and Conditions
A SERMONPREACHED IN ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL AT THE SPECIAL
EVENING SERVICE, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 13,1870
By HENRYALFORD, D.D.
DEAN OF CANTERBURY.
STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS
56, LUDGATE HILL
1870
“Every scribe that is instructed unto thekingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder,which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new andold.”—Matt. xiii. 52.
The Scribes were the guardians ofthe law, and its readers and expounders to the people. Itis related of Ezra, that he was “a ready scribe in the lawof Moses which the Lord God of Israel had given: he had preparedhis heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teachin Israel statutes and judgments.” But in exercisingthis guardianship the Scribes were only representing the Churchof which they were members. They were a class of personstold off for especial attention to this duty, which in factbelonged to the whole community. To the Jews as a people,the Apostle tells us, were committed the oracles of God: and theChurch in all p.4times is the witness and keeper of Holy Writ, as of asacred deposit committed to her. The character assigned inthe text to the Scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven,belongs, in all its particulars, to her, who both is the sum, andconstitutes the ideal, of all such guardians and expounders.
With these few preliminary remarks, we may apply ourLord’s words immediately to ourselves. The ChristianChurch throughout the world is now the guardian of the HolyScriptures. All that the Jews had, we have, with theinestimably precious addition of the New Testament of our LordJesus Christ. These Scriptures all Christians regard as therevelation of God to man. Other works rise and are built upfrom below: this alone we receive as let down upon us fromabove. All art, all science, all theology, which is but asystem built up by inferences from Scripture, these are of man,and constructed on earth. They may rise higher, and becometruer, as one race is advanced in skill or in knowledge; but theybegan below, and will ever carry with them the infirmity of allthat is born on earth. Wherea