thy light
shall we see light."

As Christ is the central object of knowledge in Christian experience, it
follows that Christians recognize him as the primary author of
Scripture. They find him speaking to them in the Bible, as in no other
book. It becomes to them the word of God, given by divine inspiration,
and able to make them wise unto salvation. From the deity and supremacy
of Christ they proceed to faith in the unity, the sufficiency, and the
authority of Scripture, and this determines their method of
investigation. From the person of Christ to the word of Christ is a
process often unconscious, but one better than any process of formal
logic. Knowing their divine Saviour, they know the divinity of his word.
His presence in human history and in the hearts of the righteous has
given _unity_ to his continuous revelation. The Scripture "cannot be
broken," or interpreted as a promiscuous congeries of separate bits; for
a divine intelligence and life throb through the whole collection. Like
railway coupons, its texts are "not good if detached." We must interpret
each text by its context, each part by the whole, the preparation of
salvation by the fulfilment, and all the diverse contents by him who
weaves all together, even Christ, the end of the law, to whom all the
preliminaries point. This method gives room for the most thorough
investigation of the times and ways of revelation, for recognizing the
imperfection of beginnings and the variety of the product. The Bible is
a gradually accumulated literature, Hebraic in form, but universal in
spirit. The preexistent Christ has made all this literature one, by the
influence in the sacred writers of his omnipresent Spirit. If the
"historical method" would begin with this postulate of a unifying
Christ, its method would be more safe and its results more sure.

Faith in an eternal and omnipresent Christ guarantees also the
_sufficiency_ of Scripture. Here, however, there is an obvious
limitation. Scripture is not sufficient for all the kinds and purposes
of human science. It will not tell us the configuration of the hinder
side of the moon, nor reveal the future uses of electricity. It is not
with such things that Scripture deals. But in religious matters, such as
our relation to God and salvation, it is sufficient as a rule of faith
and practice. We may find in it all needful models and helps in the
divine life, as well as all needful directions about the way to begin
it. T