1 Thessalonians 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Let me caution you against putting off making up your mind about this Book. Ever since 1772 there has been great discussion as to who was the author of Junius's Letters, those letters so full of sarcasm, and vituperation, and power. The whole English nation was stirred up with them. More than a hundred volumes have been written to discuss that question, who was Junius? who wrote Junius's Letters? Well, it is an interesting question to discuss; but still, after all, it makes but little practical difference to you and to me who Junius was, whether Sir Philip Francis, or Lord Chatham, or Home Tooke, or Horace Walpole, or Henry Grattan, or any one of the forty-four men who were seriously charged with the authorship. But it is an absorbing question, it is a practical question, it is an overwhelming question to you and to me, the authorship of this Holy Bible, whether the Lord God of heaven and earth, or a pack of dupes, scoundrels, and impostors. We cannot afford to adjourn that question a week, or a day, or an hour, any more than a sea captain can afford to say, "Well, this is a very dark night; I have really lost my bearings; there's a light out there, I don't know whether it's a lighthouse or a false light on the shore. I don't know what it is; but I'll just go to sleep, and in the morning I'll find out." In the morning the vessel might be on the rocks and the beach strewn with the white faces of the dead crew. The time for that sea captain to find out about the lighthouse is before he goes to sleep. Oh, my friends! I want you to understand that in our deliberations about this Bible we are not at calm anchorage, but we are rapidly coming towards the coast, coming with all the furnaces ablaze, coming at the rate of seventy heart throbs a minute, and I must know whether it is going to be harbour or shipwreck. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. |
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