228 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



And now how does all this tell on the point from which 

 we started, the bearing, namely, of the Reformation on 

 the right understanding of Scripture ? 



That Scripture was God s Word all were agreed. The 

 mediaeval Church, understanding by God s Word an 

 intellectual revelation, looked in Scripture for that alone, 

 and where no intellectual mysteries appeared, saw only, 

 as Luther complains, bare dead histories, &quot; which had 

 simply taken place, and concerned men no more.&quot; Not 

 so the Reformers. If God s Word is the opening up of 

 what is in God s heart, the declaration of the eternal love 

 in which alone man can rest, the story of God s dealings 

 with the believers of bygone days can never become a 

 dead history. &quot; Let no pious Christian,&quot; says Luther 

 in the Preface to his German Bible, &quot; stumble at the 

 simple Word and Story that meet him so often in Scrip 

 ture. Nay, let him not doubt that, plain as they may 

 seem, they are the very Words, Works, Judgments, and 

 History of God s high Majesty, Might, and Wisdom.&quot; 

 Or again, in his exposition of Genesis, he shows that the 

 Bible history is a sacred history, because God s Word 

 gleams forth in it. All history shows the great works 

 of God ; but the great pre-eminence of the Bible history 

 is that in it God speaks. Israel s history is precious to us, 

 because it tells of the relations in which the people 

 stood to God : but above all stands Abraham s history, 

 &quot; because it is filled so full of God s Word, with which 

 all that befell him is adorned and made fair, and because 

 God everywhere goes before him with His Word, promising, 

 commanding, comforting, warning, that we may verily 

 see that Abraham was God s special trusty friend. Let 

 us mirror ourselves, then, on this holy father Abraham, 

 who walks not in gold and velvet, but girded, crowned, 

 and clothed with Divine light, that is, with God s Word.&quot; 

 We shall hardly be wrong, in the face of these and 

 similar utterances, in saying that Scripture is precious 

 to Luther, because it shows to us the actual realization 



