II.
(Continued from page 229.)
WHAT do our young friends suppose is the meaning of the verse, in the story of David and Goliath, which tells how “David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage, and ran into the army and saluted his brethren?” (I. Sam. xvii. 22). Most boys when they first become acquainted with the story, picture to themselves David stepping down from a chariot, or some such vehicle, and handing the reins in princely style to an attendant. One is sorry to destroy the fine picture; but the truth is, that the term Carriage is constantly employed in the Bible in a sense that is now quite obsolete. In modern English it denotes sometimes the act of carrying, sometimes the vehicle by which the carrying is effected, never the articles that are carried. Unfortunately, it is in this last rare, and now almost forgotten, sense, and in it alone, that the word is employed by our Translators, in all the seven passages in which it occurs. What David left in the hand of the servant was his baggage; the parched corn, the loaves, the cheese, which his careful father had given him in charge to take down to the fighting men. It is in the same sense that we are to understand Isaiah xlii. 1, “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages (that is your burdens) were heavy laden; they are a burden to the weary beast.” The carriages consisted of the Babylonian idols, which the Medes and Persians, those fiery iconoclasts, were to send packing from their ancient seats.
To a thoughtful person there is something very interesting and even touching in the last of the seven passages in which “carriages” are mentioned. It is in the story of Paul’s travels, Acts xxi. 15, “After those days we took up our carriages and went up to Jerusalem.” The Apostle of the Gentiles was no common traveller. Saul of Tarsus was a gentleman by birth, by education, and in every fibre of his being. And there was a time when he travelled like the great men of the earth. It is believed that when he went down to Damascus he performed the journey on horseback, not without honourable retinue. But what things were gain to him, those he counted loss for Christ. He was now the Ambassador of the Great King, the Minister of the Prince of all the kings; but the honours of his new embassy were such as only faith could perceive. It had no outward pomp. His missionary travels, when the sea did not afford him the means of a less laborious progress, were prosecuted on foot; and this passage in the Acts would seem to intimate that when he went up for the last time to Jerusalem, he not only climbed the long ascent on foot, but carried on his shoulders the knapsack which contained his parchments, his letters, and the indispensable articles of dress. De Wette’s German translation of the passage is terse: “After those days we packed up (packten wir auf) and ascended to Jerusalem.” It was after this humble manner that Paul and his companions “took up their carriages.”
What a pity it is that the fine classical word Honesty should have had the bloom of its original signification so mercilessly rubbed off by its later usage!
It has now come to denote integrity or rectitude, especially in pecuniary transactions or other business matters. Thus we say, “Don’t tell me Mr. So-and-So is an honourable man; why he is barely honest.” There is a proverb which describes certain people as “Honest, with good looking to.” This low sense of the word, in which honesty is distinguished from, and even contrasted with scrupulous honour, is certainly not that in which it is employed by our Translators. In the Bible it always retains the high and noble signification which attached to it in its native Latin. It denotes not only substantial rectitude, but high honour and moral comeliness. When the Apostle Peter expressed his anxious desire that the Christians scattered up and down among the pagan communities of Asia Minor should have their “conversation honest among the Gentiles,” he did not mean merely that he would have them to shun all falsehood and rogery, but that he would like to see them adorned with a character of spotless honour. This is evident from the reason with which he enforces his counsel, “That whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation” (I. Peter ii. 12). As in this instance, so in most others, the context helps the unlearned reader to perceive that the honesty intended is something far more excellent than the virtue now denoted by the name. There are, however, a few instances to which this remark scarcely applies—passages the true intention of which has been obscured to the general reader by the change which has passed upon the signification of the word. We may refer, for two examples, to Romans xii. 17, and II. Cor. viii. 21, in both of which the Apostle uses the phrase, “Providing things honest in the sight of men.” The perplexity in this case is considerably aggravated by the circumstance that both of the principal words in the phrase have ceased to be current in the signification in which they are here employed. The former of the two texts in question runs thus, “Providing things honest in the sight of all men.” This charge, as we have reason to know, is constantly misunderstood. By many it is taken to mean, in effect, no more than this, that Christ’s people, while endeavouring to live in a style befitting their several stations, are to be careful not to exceed their means; that they should owe no man anything; that (as the saying is) they should “pay their way honestly.” It must be admitted that the words as they stand in our Version (which in this instance is almost a transcription of the Latin Vulgate), are fitted to suggest to the modern reader some such conception of the Apostle’s design. But the Translators undoubtedly meant them to suggest something much more comprehensive. The duty which the text enjoins, is that of taking heed to act with scrupulous honour before all men; and anyone who reflects on the derivation of the words provide and honest, will readily believe that our Translators intended that the text, as it stands in our Version, should suggest that duty and no other.
We do not suppose that any Greek scholar will controvert the interpretation we have put on providing things honest, as that phrase is employed in the 12th of the Romans. With respect to its import in the other passage, the context is fortunately such as will enable every one to judge for himself. If the reader will have the kindness to turn to the place (II. Cor. viii. 21), he will see that it occurs in the chapter in which the Apostle gives directions to the Corinthians respecting the collection he desired them, in company with the other Greek churches, to make on behalf of their poor brethren, the Hebrew Christians of Judea with their bountiful gift. There were some in Corinth who might have ventured to whisper, behind his back, a suspicion of the Apostle’s disinterested integrity; and he was resolved to stop their mouths by taking care to have in readiness such proof of his integrity as no man could challenge. This is what he calls “providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” It is difficult to express the precise sense in few words. . . . Luther was not so scrupulously literal as most translators, and in this instance his greater freedom enabled him to do better justice to the spirit of the text. His version is to this effect: “We take heed that the business be managed honourably, not only before the Lord, but also before men.” The same view of the Apostle’s mind is well brought out in the beautiful French Version by De Sacy, the friend of Pascal. De Sacy’s greatest fault (next to the Roman Catholic bias occasionally perceptible) is his tendency to paraphrase. Abhorring obscurity, like a true Frenchman, he often makes the sacred writers speak more explicitly than the original will warrant. His translation of the verse before us may be thus reproduced in an English garb: “For we endeavour to do good with such circumspection as will secure the approval not only of God, but also of men.” Perhaps the best illustration of the text is furnished by a modern analogue. The sagacious brother who acts as Treasurer to some scheme of Christian enterprise, when he presents the annual statement of his accounts, is careful to say to his constituents: “Now, gentlemen, this sheet exhibits my receipts and disbursements for the past year. You have kindly expressed confidence in me, and I trust your confidence is not misplaced. I believe every item will be found correct. Nevertheless, I beg you will appoint a person, competently skilled, to audit the accounts. I am anxious not only to have the testimony of a good conscience before God, but to be in a condition to demonstrate to men also that I have honourably discharged my trust.” This is precisely what the Apostle meant, and what our Translators understood him to mean, when he wrote the words which they render in English, Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.”
The next word on our list may be more shortly dispatched. When the evangelist relates that the Jews “were instant with loud voices requiring that Jesus might be crucified” (Luke xxiii. 23); and when we are commanded to “continue instant in prayer” everyone perceives that there is an archaism, for the adjective instant is not now so used; but there is no difficulty in apprehending the meaning. We rather think the case is different with the account given, in Luke vii. 4, of the affectionate intercession made by the elders of Capernaum in behalf of their bountiful neighbour, the Centurion. “When they came to Jesus,” it is said, “they besought him instantly.” Here the modern sense of immediately or without delay, is apt to suggest itself, rather than that of urgently. To be sure, the two ideas are very near of kin. When my friend is in extreme distress and asks my prayers, it is a sign that I am not very urgent in his behalf, if I make no haste to spread his case before God.
It is unfortunate that there should be two words in the English Bible which, being identical both in spelling and pronunciation, are undistinguishable either by the eye or the ear, and, nevertheless, are not only quite distinct the one from the other, but are exactly opposite in signification. There is Let in the sense of hinder and Let in the sense of permit. The former let seems to have been giving signs of old age and approaching desuetude before the final revision of the Authorised Version took place, for, although the idea expressed by it is of perpetual occurrence, this particular word is introduced only four times. It would have been better had the venerable Translators omitted it altogether, and uniformly employed an unambiguous word such as hinder or withhold. The intention of the obsolete monosyllable is perplexing. Thus in Exod. v. 4, “Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works?” it is only the context that prevents even well-informed readers from attaching to the proud king’s demand the very opposite signification to the one intended. What increases the perplexity is the circumstance that the other let is used, again and again, in the next verses: “Let my people go;” “I will not let Israel go.” Still more unfortunate, because occurring in a passage of greater doctrinal importance, is the use of this obsolete let in the prophetical intimation given in II. Thess. ii. 7, respecting the Influence which would retard for a season the manifestation of the great Apostacy, the Man of Sin: “The mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way.” In the preceding verse the same Greek verb is translated withholdeth. It is a pity that the same, or a similarly unambiguous word, was not employed all through the passage. Many an unlettered student of this prophecy would have more easily apprehended its drift if it had run thus: “He who now hindereth will hinder until he be taken out of the way.”
When the High Priest called on the Sanhedrim to deliver their verdict on our blessed Lord, the Evangelist relates that “they answered and said, He is guilty of death” (Matt. xxvi. 66). Shall we say that this is an obsolete use of the word Guilty? It is one that occurs in two if not three places in the Scriptures. The reader may turn to Numb. xxxv. 27, 31, where he will find two cases in point. The term Guilt is often employed in ordinary parlance to denote moral turpitude—a wrong state of mind and heart. In this sense it is synonymous with wickedness. But sometimes, and, as it seems to us, with a more strict propriety, it is employed to denote, not the moral turpitude which results from a criminal act, but the liability to punishment which is another and equally important result. Both senses seem to be comprehended in the definition of guilt given by Dr. Webster, “that state of a moral agent which results from his actual commission of a crime or offence, knowing it to be a crime or violation of law.” It is in the latter sense that the term is employed in the three texts above referred to. When the members of the Sanhedrim answered, “He is guilty of death,” their meaning was, and could only be this, “He is, by our law, liable to capital punishment; his life is forfeited to the law.” We observe that Mr. Aldis Wright is of opinion that this passage in Matthew is the only one in which the word is employed in the strictly forensic sense—that in which it is equivalent to the reus mortis of Roman jurisprudence. He thinks that in the two instances in which the term occurs in the 35th of Numbers, it is employed in the now more usual sense of “being guilty of murder or blood-shedding.” Perhaps there is room for a difference of opinion in regard to the 27th verse, but the 31st seems to us sufficiently unambiguous. Both the scope of the passage, and the terms employed in the Hebrew clearly favour the forensic interpretation. “Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall surely be put to death.” A glance at any good Polyglott will show that the best versions, ancient and modern, embody the interpretation for which we contend. Thus the Latin Vulgate makes use of the legal phrase reus et sanguinis, and follows in this the example of the Septuagint. Taking these facts into account, it seems to us quite plain that our Translators employ the phrase guilty of death in only one signification—that which it undeniably carries in the verdict of the Sanhedrim. The English phrase was framed in imitation of the Latin one, and is of the same sharply defined forensic import.
We are not prepared to admit that guilty, in the sense now explained is obsolete. Indeed the loss of it would be well-nigh irreparable. The question, we may add, is not one of those that are of interest merely for the lexicographers. Several doctrines of great importance in the theological system embodied in the Confessions of the Reformed Churches which is substantially that of Augustine and the ancient Church, are affected by it. We may be excused, therefore, if we dwell upon it a little longer. Let it be noted, then, that the commission of crime is immediately and infallibly followed by two effects on the criminal—the one ethical, the other legal: his character is deteriorated, and his relation to the law is changed. The former effect we have terms in plenty to describe. We call it sinfulness, criminality, defilement, wickedness. For the latter effect we have only one appropriate term—we call it guilt. Guilt, then, properly denotes a legal state, a subject’s relation to violated law, liability to punishment. It is in this sense, and in this only, that orthodox divines have been accustomed to teach that “the guilt of Adam’s first sin is imputed to his posterity.” If the term guilt in this well-known statement be taken in any other than the legal or forensic import, the intention of those who framed it, and of the Churches which continue to teach it in their catechisms and confessions of faith, is entirely misapprehended. The doctrine which it expresses is simply this—that in consequence of the transgression in which Adam apostatized from God, the position of the race in relation to the divine law was fatally altered—the law ceased to smile upon it and began to frown; men came to be “by nature the children of wrath.” It is scarcely necessary to add, that the corresponding statement, which affirms that “the guilt of our sins was imputed to Christ,” is to be interpreted according to the same rule. It was only the legal consequences of our sins that the Holy and Just One could assume. The moral turpitude of them could not affect Him. The sentiment of self-loathing and remorse could find no place in His soul. It is an inexcusable misrepresentation of the orthodox doctrine to attribute to it the revolting notion that guilt, in the moral sense, was imputed to our Lord. This note has extended to a greater length than we designed. But in these days, when the forensic aspect of the divine administration is so strangely thrown into the shade; when so many seem resolved to think of God only as a Father, never as a Ruler and Judge of men; of sin only as a disease, never as a crime; and of salvation only as a work of healing, never as an expiation—when it is so often forgotten that there are such things as divine Justice, and inviolable Law, guilt and condemnation, satisfaction and justification, it seemed to us worth while to bring out, with some care, the truth which underlies the Bible phrase, guilty of death.
Zeal without knowledge is like haste to a man in the dark.
—John Newton.