"Their rock is
not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves beingjudges."
— Deuteronomy
32:31.
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN
"Young
man, my advice to you is that you cultivate anacquaintance with and
firm belief in the Holy Scriptures, for this isyour certain interest.
I think Christ’s system of morals and
religion,as
He left them with us, the best the world ever saw or is likely tosee."
THOMAS
JEFFERSON
"I
have said and always will say that the studious perusal of thesacred
volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and betterhusbands."
DANIEL
WEBSTER
"If
we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country willgo
on prospering and to prosper; but, if we and our posterityneglect
its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden acatastrophe
may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profoundobscurity.
The Bible is the book of all others for lawyers as well asdivines,
and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply ofthought
and rule of conduct. I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son ofGod.
The miracles which He wrought establish in my mind Hispersonal
authority and render it proper for me to believe what Heasserts."
RALPH
WALDO EMERSON
"Jesus
is the most perfect of all men that have yet appeared."
NAPOLEON
BONAPARTE
"I
know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficialminds
see a resemblance between Christ and the founders ofempires
and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does notexist.
There is between Christianity and other religions the distanceof
infinity. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself foundedempires.
But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Uponsheer
force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; andat
this hour millions of men will die for Him. In every otherexistence
but that of Christ how many imperfections! From the firstday
to the last He is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firmand
infinitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of mysteriesand
commands with authority that we should believe them, givingno
other reason than those tremendous words, ‘I
am God.’
"The
Bible contains a complete series of acts and of historical mento
explain time and eternity, such as no other religion has to offer.If
it is not the true religion, one is very excusable in being deceived;for
everything in it is grand and worthy of God. The more Iconsider
the Gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothingthere
which is not beyond the march of events and above the humanmind.
Even the impious themselves have never dared to deny thesublimity
of the Gospel, which inspires them with a sort ofcompulsory veneration.
What happiness that Book procures forthose who believe it!"
GOETHE
"It
is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the guide of mymoral
and literary life. No criticism will be able to perplex theconfidence
which we have entertained of a writing whose contentshave
stirred up and given life to our vital energy by its own. Thefarther
the ages advance in civilization the more will the Bible beused."
THOMAS
CARLYLE
"Jesus
is our divinest symbol. Higher has the human thought not yetreached.
A symbol of quite perennial, infinite character: whosesignificance
will ever demand to be anew inquired into and anewmade
manifest."
JAMES
ANTHONY FROUDE
"The
most perfect being who has ever trod the soil of this planetwas
called the Man of Sorrows."
CHARLES
DICKENS
"I
commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord andSaviour
Jesus Christ, and exhort my dear children humbly to try toguide
themselves by the teachings of the New Testament." (in hislast
will and testament)
SHAKESPEARE
"I
commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hopingand
assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ mySaviour,
to be made partaker of life everlasting."(in his last will and
testament)
LORD
BYRON
"If
ever man was God, or God man, Jesus Christ was both."
MATTHEW
ARNOLD
"To
the Bible men will return because they cannot do without it.The
true God is and must be pre-eminently the God of the Bible,the
eternal who makes for righteousness, from whom Jesus cameforth,
and whose spirit governs the course of humanity."
DIDEROT
"No
better lessons can I teach my child than those of the Bible."
PROFESSOR
HUXLEY
"I
have always been strongly in favor of secular education withouttheology,
but I must confess that I have been no less seriouslyperplexed
to know by what practical measures the religious feeling,which
is the essential basis of moral conduct, is to be kept up in thepresent
utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters without theuse
of the Bible."
JOHN
STUART MILL
"Who
among His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capableof
inventing the sayings of Jesus, or imagining the life and characterascribed
to Him? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee; as certainlynot
Saint Paul,
whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totallydifferent
sort; and still less the early Christian writers. When thispre-eminent
genius is combined with the qualities of probably thegreatest
moral reformer and martyr to His mission who ever existedupon
earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice inpitching
on this man as the ideal representative and guide ofhumanity;
nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, tofind
a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract intothe
concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approvehis
life."
ROUSSEAU
"Can
it be possible that the sacred personage whose history theScriptures
contain should be a mere man? Where is the man, wherethe
philosopher, who could so live and so die without weaknessand
without ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginaryrighteous
man, loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yetmeriting
the highest rewards of virtue, he exactly describes thecharacter
of Jesus Christ. What an infinite disproportion betweenthe
son of Sophroniscus and the Son of Mary. Socrates dies withhonor,
surrounded by his disciples listening to the most tenderwords
— the easiest death that one could whisk
to die. Jesus dies inpain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal
cursing — themost
horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup ofpoison,
Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him withouttears;
Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for His mostbitter
enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesuslived
and died like a god.
"Peruse
the books of philosophers with all their pomp of diction.How
meager, how contemptible are they when compared with theScriptures!...
The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me withadmiration."
PECAUT
"Christ’s
moral character rose beyond comparison above that ofany
other great man of antiquity. No one was ever so gentle, sohumble,
so kind as He. In His spirit He lived in the house of Hisheavenly
Father. His moral life is wholly penetrated by God. Hewas
the master of all, because He was really their brother."
ERNEST
RENAN
"All
history is incomprehensible without Him. He created the objectand
fixed the starting point of the future faith of humanity. He is theincomparable
man to whom the universal conscience has decreedthe title of Son of
God, and that with justice. In the first rank of thisgrand
family of the true sons of God we must place Jesus. Thehighest
consciousness of God which ever existed in the breast ofhumanity
was that of Jesus. Repose now in Thy glory, noblefounder! Thy work is
finished, Thy divinity established. Thou shaltbecome the
corner-stone of humanity so entirely that to tear Thyname
from this world would rend it to its foundations. BetweenThee
and God there will no longer be any distinction. CompleteConqueror
of death, take possession of Thy kingdom, whither shallfollow
Thee, by the royal road which Thou hast traced, ages ofadoring
worshipers. Whatever may be the surprises of the future,Jesus
will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young withoutceasing;
His legend will call forth tears without end; His sufferingswill
melt the noblest hearts; and all ages will proclaim that amongthe
sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus. Even Paul isnot
Jesus. How far removed are we all from Thee, dear Master!Where
is Thy mildness, Thy poetry? Thou to whom a flower didstbring
pleasure and ecstasy, dost Thou recognize as Thy disciplesthese
wranglers, these men furious over their prerogatives, anddesiring
that everything should be given to them? They are men;Thou
art a god."
BENJAMIN
DISRAELI
"The
wildest dreams of their rabbis have been far exceeded. Hasnot
Jesus conquered Europe and changed its name to
Christendom?All
countries that refuse the cross wither, and the time will come,when
the vast communities and countless myriads of America andAustralia,
looking upon Europe as Europe now looks upon Greece,and
wondering how so small a space could have achieved suchgreat
deeds, will find music in the songs of Zion and solace in theparables
of Galilee."
PROFESSOR
HEGARD OF THE UNIVERSITY
OFCOPENHAGEN
"The
experiences of life, its sufferings and grief, have shaken mysoul
and have broken the foundation upon which I formerly thoughtI
could build. Full of faith in the sufficiency of science, I thought tohave
found in it a sure refuge from all the contingencies of life. Thisillusion
is vanished; when the tempest came, which plunged me insorrow,
the moorings, the cable of science, broke like thread. ThenI
seized upon that help which many before me have laid hold of. Isought
and found peace in God. Since then I have certainly notabandoned
science, but I have assigned to it another place in mylife."
When
a man of brains speaks well of the Bible and Christ he consciously orunconsciously
bears tribute to the inspiration of the one and the deity of theother.The
Bible claims to be a revelation from God, and its character sustains itsclaim.
"The Word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel." Ezekiel1:13.
"The Lord said unto me," exclaimed Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1:7."Hear
the Word of the Lord," says Isaiah. Isaiah 1:10. "Thus saith theLord,"
rings through the Old Testament. And the New Testament puts theseal
of inspiration upon the Old. "The Holy Ghost spake by the mouth ofDavid."
Acts 1:16. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God."2
Timothy 3:16. "The prophecy came not in old time by the will ofman,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."2
Peter 1:21.
If
the men who wrote this Book were not inspired, they were liars, and wehave
to explain how the Book which contains the highest morality evergiven
to earth could be written by a set of liars. And these bad men at thesame
time wrote their own doom, for there is no vice more severelycondemned
in the Bible than deception. To claim that good men wrote theBible,
and deny its inspiration, is on a par with the claim that Christ was agood
man, while He pretended to be what He was not.