Handley C. G. Moule (1841-1920), Bishop of Durham, from To My Younger Brethren (1902)[1]

Is it too much to say that the alternative has come to be this: Was our Lord Himself right or very gravely wrong about the nature of Scripture? Did the Spirit of Pentecost guide the Apostles into all truth, or leave them under a vast illusion in this central matter of their witness? “Do not follow this Book, young men; follow Christ”: so said a speaker of high Christian reputation, holding up a Bible, before a great gathering in America, not long ago.

But, what does this mean? Christ carries the Book in His hand; if you follow Him you must follow it. If you decline to follow the Book, your following Him is a following—so far as at present you agree with Him, and not further. . . . He, in the days of His flesh, was the supreme Believer in the Bible, the supreme Lover, Student, Expositor, and Employer of the Bible. With the letter of the Bible He sustained Himself and quelled the Enemy in the Temptation, and the quotations He then selected suggest the minuteness of His study. . . . He found around Him in those earthly days a mass of religious popular opinions, and He spoke His holy mind freely against the false among them. But there was one opinion which He noticed only to sanction, to sanctify, to glorify. It was the opinion that the Scriptures were divine, were changed with the authority of God.

[1] To My Younger Brethren may be downloaded in e-book formats from www.manybooks.net.

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