^'vnL, \f - BISHOP COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH R E y I E W E D REV. J. L. IpOKTEB, M.A., PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE, ASSESIBLT's COLLEGE, BELFAST; AUTHOR OF *'riVE YEARS IN DAMASCUS;" "HANDBOOK FOR STRIA & PALESTINE," &C. BELFAST: C. AITCHISON, 9, HTGR STREET. 1863. % BISHOP COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH REVIEWED BT THE REV. J. L. TORTEK, M.A., PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE, ASSEMBLY'S COLLEGE, BELFAST; AUTHOR OF "five years in DAMASCUS;" "HANDBOOK FOR SYRIA & PALESTINE," &C. BELFAST: C. AITCHISOX, 9, HIGH STREET. 18G3. BELFAST : PnrxTED AT THE " NE WS • L E T T E U " OB'FICK, DONEGALL STREET. CONTENTS. PREFACE, ^^^4 CHAP. I.— The General Design of Bishop Colenso's Book stated. Necessity for a Thorough Examination of his Arguments. The Ethics of the Book False and Pernicious. How Conscience is to be Stifled and Ordination Vows set aside. The Bishop's Plea niogical and Inconsistent, 5 CHAP. II.— Bishop Colenso's Summary Rejection of the Facts of Bible History shown to be Unjustifiable. His Dogma that " The Bible only contains the Word of God " proved to be Derogatory to God's Character, and Contrary to Scripture. Our Lord's View of the Authorship and Divine Authority of the Pentateuch contrasted with Bishop Colenso's. Charges of Ignorance against our Lord met and Refuted, 10 CHAP, m.— The Morality and Humanity of the Mosaic Institutions Vindicated. How a Jew became a Slave or "Bondman." Why the Master was permitted to inflict Punishment on the Slave. True Character of the Laws regulating "Bondage," 17 CHAP. IV.— The Object of Bishop Colenso's Book Stated, How his Arguments must be met. 1st Objection — Alleged Impossibilities in the History of Judah and his Family shown to be without foundation. 2nd Objection— Assemblies of the People. 3rd Objection— Moses addressing all Israel. 4th Objection — Extent of the Camp and Duties of the Priests. 5th Objection — Numbers of the People, &c. 6th Objection— The Tents of the Israelites: Where they Got them, and how they Carried them. Bishop Colenso's Ignorance of Eastern Life, ... 20 CHAP. V. — 7th Objection— The Israelites Armed. Meaning of "Hamushim." 8th Objection — Institution of the Passover. Dr. Colenso's Ignorance of Hebrew. Number of Lambs required. 9th Objection — The March out of EgyjDt: How it was Conducted. 10th Objection— The Sheep and Cattle of the Israelites: How they were Fed. 11th Objection — The Number of the Israelites, and the extent of Canaan. Remarkable Blunder of the Bishop. Wild Beasts in Palestine, ... 27 CHAP. VL— 12th Objection— Number of the First-born. 13th Objection— Time of Sojourning in Egypt. 14th Objection — The Exodus in the Fourth Generation. Meaning of the word "Dor." The Numbers of the Israelites estimated. 15th and 16th Objections — Number of the Danites and Levites. 17th Objection — The Priests and their Duties. 18th Objection — The Second Passover. 19th Objection — The War in Midian, 33 CHAP. VII. — Concluding Remarks. Bishop Colenso's proposed Substitute for the Bible, His New Views regarding Christian (?) Missions, 38 PREFACE The following Eeview of Colenso on the Pentateuch appeared in the form of letters, addressed to the Editor of the Belfast News-Letter, during the months of November and December last. The substance of a portion of it was also pub- lished in the Athenceum of January 3. Urgent requests having been made to me by many influential persons, both in this country and in England, that I should issue the letters in a more permanent form, and instances having been communicated of good already done by them, I now give them to the public. In revising them for the press, I have made a number of changes and additions, with the view of rendering reference to particular points more easy, and the replies to Bishop Colenso's arguments more complete. My earnest prayer is, that the great Head of the Church may be graciously pleased to bless this humble effort to defend the integrity of His Holy Word, and to promote the cause of Divine Truth. Brandon Towers, Belfast, January 24, 1863. COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH REVIEWED. CHAPTER I. THE GEiTERAL DESIGN OF BISHOP COLENSO'S BOOK STATED. — NECESSITY FOR A THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF HIS ARGUMENTS. THE ETHICS OF THE BOOK FALSE AND PERNICIOUS. HOW CONSCIENCE IS TO BE STIFLED AND ORDINATION VOWS SET ASIDE. — THE BISHOP's PLEA ILLOGICAL AND INCONSISTENT. These are strange and eventful times in which we Kve. Nations professing the Christian faith are presenting to the world the most melancholy examples of hatred and bloodshed the world ever witnessed; and Chnrches professing un- feigned belief in the Holy Scrij)tures are making, from their centres of learning and centres of influence, the most determined assaults ever made upon the Divine authority of the Scriptures. This is surely an age of startling paradoxes. The excitement caused by "Essays and Reviews" has not yet passed away. The shock given by that book to the religious feelings and moral principles of the whole Christian community still thrills through the heart of every conscientious man in Britain. Here were seven members of the Church of England — six of them ministers, and all of them holding, offices of high trust — openly and deli- berately denouncing the doctrines to which they had given a willing "assent and consent," and which they had sworn to maintain. But now we have to bear a ruder shock. One of the most plausible works ever written against the Bible has just proceeded from the pen of an English Protestant Bishop! Hitherto we have been wont to look to his Church as one of the great cham- pions of revealed truth. We would even have been inclined to inscribe as a noble motto on her escutcheon the proud title borne by our beloved Sovereign — Fidei Defensor. Now, alas I we see rising from the very heart of that Church the most skilful and the most dangerous enemies Christianity has ever encountered. "Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch" has been everywhere received with un- mingled sorrow by true Christians, andwithunmingled joy by professed infidels. Judging from the reviews which have appeared in the public prints, and from the sentiments too often expressed in private conversation, it would seem to have left an aching void in many a pious soul. It is a most dangerous book to certain classes of readers ; — to worldly philosophers who have never received any theological training, and to gay young men who were eagerly looking for some- thing that might aiford a fair excuse for their practical scepticism. The "Preface" and the " Introductory Remarks" would seem to have been framed with the special design of attracting such persons, and of entrapping the un- wary of every class. They contain a series of charges against the truthfulness of Bible history and the morality of some of its laws, which, if sustained, must completely overthrow its Divine authority. These charges are advanced in such an ingenious way that the ordinary reader would suppose them to be beyond doubt or question ; and, unless carefully Avarned or fully informed upon the subject, he would be liable to be deceived, and to have his faith in the Sacred Records overthrown at the very outset. Another most dangerous element in the book is what may be termed its Ethics — the principles which the author lays down for the guidance of the consciences and the acts of all who adopt his B views, or who may hold any other views at variance with the Word of God and the standards of the Church with which they claim connection. The whole subject of Avhich the book treats is of the gravest import. It con- cerns, not the Church of England merely, but Christianity and Christendom. The book has obtained a large amount of notoriety. It has been reviewed in all the leading journals; and it forms, at the present moment, a fruitful topic of conversation and controversy in all the literary circles of the land. The po- sition of its author, as a bishop of the English Church, has gained for it a wide celebrity. The boldness — not to say hardihood — with which he assails the standards of his Church, and the credibility of the Bible, has arrested the atten- tion of the whole Christian public. Bishop Colenso's language is free from the haziness of the Oxford Essayists. There can be no doubt as to his meaning. He does not leave his readers to infer his infidelity ; he states it in words as plain as they are bold. He gives the results of his inquiries, too — all the sweeping conclusions to which his investigations have led him — in the opening paragraphs of his work. He tells the reader that he does not wish " to take him by sur- prise, or to entrap him by guile." He wishes him "to go forward with his eyes open, to watch carefully every step of the argument, with a full consciousness of the momentous results to which it leads, and with a determination to test severely j with all the poiver and shill he can hring to the worJc, the truth of every infer- ence and every conclusion," but "to test honestly and fairly." The reader can scarcely fail to be deeply impressed with such language ; it is so earnest, so can- did, and so free from that flippancy of style and tone which characterised the Essayists. Then, again, there is a deep pathos in some of his personal allusions, which serves to invest both author and subject with a romantic interest. Thus he writes: — "For myself, I have become engaged in this inquiry from no wish or purpose of my own, but from the plain necessities of my position as a mis- sionary bishop. I feel, however, that I am only drawn in with the stream, which, in this our age, is setting steadily in this direction, and swelling visibly from day to day. What the end may be, God only— the God of Trath— can foresee. Meanwhile, believing and trusting in His guidance, I have launched my barque upon the flood, and am carried along by the waters" — (p. 5). Again — "It Avould be no light thing for me, at my time of life, to be cast adrift upon the world, and have to begin life again under heavy pressure and all unfavorable circumstances — to be separated from many old friends — to have my name cast out as an evil, even by some of them, and to have it trodden underfoot, as an unclean thing, by others who do not know me," &c. — (p. xiii.) All this is very touching, and largely tends to render his arguments attractive, and to smooth the way for his somewhat startling conclusions. It is, therefore, the more ne- cessary that all his arguments should be thoroughly tested, that their fallacies should be fully exposed, and that the baneful influences of the whole book should be, as far as possible, counteracted. The author is perfectly conscious of the momentous results to which his charges and reasonings would lead. So am I. So must every thoughtful man be. He challenges examination. Pie wishes every step of his argument to he " carefully watched," and to be tested ''severely." He shall have his wish; and, if he should smart during the operation, he has himself to blame. Before proceeding to review the statements and so-called arguments of Bishop Colenso, I think it my duty to expose the /a?se ethics of his book — to hold up to the well-merited scorn of every honest man that moral code which he has laid down for his own guidance, imder difficulties confessedly great, and which he presses so strongly upon the acceptance of the clergy of his Church. In doing so, I am obliged to glance at the origin and history of his sceptical opinions, as related by himself. Doubts regarding the truthfulness of many of the narratives and statements of Scripture existed in Mr. Colenso's mind 7rom an early period. While en- gaged in parish work in England he had no time to solve them ; and so he says, '^ I contented myself with silencing, by means of the specious explanations wMcli are given in most commentaries, the ordinary objections against the histo- rical character of the early portions of the Old Testament, and setthng down with a willing acquiescence in the general truth of the narrative, whatever diffi- culties might still hang about particular parts of it."— (p. vi.) It seems, how- ever, that his attempt at " silencing" objections was not very successful. They were " avoided," and " set aside," but never silenced. When elected bishop, and sent to his diocese at Natal, circumstances occurred which brought up his latent scepticism with redoubled force. He began to translate the Bible into the Zulu tongue, and was assisted by " a simple-minded, but inteUigent, native— one with the'docility of a child, but the reasoning powers of mature age." When trans- lating the story of the Deluge, his assistant asked, "Is all that true? Do you really believe that all the beasts, and birds, and creeping things upon the earth, large and small, from hot countries and cold, came thus in pairs, and entered into the' ark with Noah? And did Noah gather food for them all, for the beasts and birds of prey, as well as the rest?" The bishop was completely taken aback by the question. The simple fact is, he did not beheve one word of the narrative himself; and he was now ashamed to utter a direct falsehood. But hear his own words — "My heart answered in the words of the prophet, 'Shall a man gpeak lies in the name of the Lord? ' I dared not do so. My own knowledge of some branches of science, of geology in particular, had been much increased since I left England ; and I now knew for certain . . , that a universal de- luge, such as the Bible manifestly speaks of, could not possibly have taken place in the way described in the Book of Genesis. . . . Knowing this, I felt that I dared not, as a servant of the God of Truth, urge my brother-man to believe that which I did not myself he\k-.Y e—u-Jdch Ilnew to he untrue,'" &c. Now, whatever opinion we may form here of the bishop as a theologian, as a philosopher, and especially as a critic — however we may deplore his utter inca- pacity for explaining Scripture, and, consequently, for discharging the duties of the holy office he has undertaken, we must give him credit for honesty towards the poor Zuhi who was unfortunately x^laced under his spiritual instruction. He would not attempt to lead him to believe what he did not believe himself. All this is well, and was so far creditable to his moral principles. But we must not forget in what relationship the bishop stood to other parties ; what engagements he had undertaken ; what duties he had bound himself faithfully to discharge for the Church which had given him his office, his commission, and his support. Did he act with equal conscientiousness in regard to it as he did in regard to the Zulu? Had he not given full " assent and consent" to the Thirty -nine Articles ; and in Article VI. all the Books of the Old and New Testament are declared to be canonical.? When ordained a deacon, was he not asked — '^Do you unfeignedly helieve all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and Neiu Testament P' and did he not answer — '■'■ I do helieve themV When consecrated bishop^ was not this question put to him — '■''Are you read.y, with all faithful diligence, to hanish and drive aiuay all erroneous and. strange doctrines contrary to the Word of God, and hoth privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do the samef" and did he not answer — "lam ready, trk Lord being my helper?"' Were not these solemn vows upon him when he conversed with the poor Zulu? Were they not upon him still when he wrote and published this work, in which he labours to overthrow the canonicity of five books of Scripture? Are they not upon him yet, when he is planning and preparing new attacks upon the Woixl of God? Where now is the conscientiousness — the moral honesty displayed toward the Zulu? Why will he not practise it toward his Church? Why d^oes his heart not whisper to him the words of the prophet, " Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord?" Had Bishop Colenso resigned his office when he felt he could no longer conscientiously discharge its duties — had he deliberately re- leased himself from his solemn ordination vows before he ventured so daringly to violate them — then, however much the Church might have deplored his errors and his fall, it must have admired his integrity. It is with pain and sorrow I feel myself compelled, by the bishop's own acts and statements, to conclude thci Lis conscientiousness and his honesty reach onlv as far as may serve the purposes of his scepticism. I impute no motives to the "man— God forbid I should on a subject of such solemn import ! I only deduce, what every impartial mind must admit to be a legitimate conclusion, from his acts and his words. He holds his office still. ^ It gives him a position in society, and an influence over the minds of men which he never could otherwise have attained; and these he is now- employing, with determmed energy, to destroy those very standards which, on taking office, he had sworn to defend. He even goes so far as to attempt to justify the course he is adopting. Speaking of the authors of ''Essays and Keviews," he says, *'For my own part, however much I may dissent, as I do, from some of their views, I am very far, indeed, from judging them for remaining within her (the Church's) pale — knowing too well by my own feelings how dreadful ivould he the wrench to be torn from all one has loved and revered by going out of the Church. Perhaps they may feel it to he their duty to the Church itself, and to that which they hold to be the Truth, to abide in their stations, unless they are formally and legally excluded from them, and to claim for all her members — clerical as well as lay — that free- dom of thought and utterance Avhich is the very essence of the Protestant reli- gion, and without which, indeed, in this age of advancing science, the Church of England would soon become a mere dark prison-house, in which the mind both of the teacher and the taught would be fettered still with the chains of past ignorance," &c. — (pp. xi.-xii.) This reasoning, were it not ao self-contradictory, would be worthy of the most distinguished disciple of Ignatius Loyola. Surely it only requires to be repeated to draw down upon its author the indignation of every honest man. According to Bishop Colenso, then, a man may break his engagements in order to save his feehngs from too rude a shock ! He may violate the most solemn oath in order to act the part of a traitor in the Church he has sworn to defend ! According to him, conscience is to be sacrificed to feehng, and vow^s to expediency ! That the bishop has felt, to some degree at least, the force of this is evident from what follows. "For myself," he says, '' if I cannot find the means of doing ciiuay luith my present difficulties, I see not how I can retain my Episcopal office, in the discharge of which I must require from others a solemn declaration that they ' unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and N'ew Testament,'" &c.— (p. xii.) It is difficult to understand by what process of casuistry he can relieve his own conscience from a burden which he could not honestly place upon others. He has himself solemnly professed his " unfeigned belief in all the canonical Scriptures." He continues to hold an office which binds him to that confession by a sacred vow, and which pledges him, moreover, to ''banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's "Word, and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do the same." Yet he tells us plainly he does not believe the Scriptures. In his published work he not only labours to overthrow their canonicity, but he strives also to induce others to join him in his eiforts. He appears to indicate that the only difficulty he feels is regarding the part he is obliged to take in nuposing a vow similar to his own upon others. The painful question is here reluctantly forced upon one — " What about his oiun conscience?" If the young man entering the ministry— enlightened, of course, as the bishop is enlightened — could not honestly profess to believe implicitly in the Scriptures — (p. xxiv.)^ then I ask, how can the bishop honestly continue in a Church which required, mid still requires, from himself a yet stronger profession? He says, as if to meet some such question, " For myself, if I cannot find the means of doing away luith my present difiiculties, I see" not how I can retain," &c. The difficulties he alludes to are, of course, his ordination vows. And what are the means by which he is endeavouring to do away with them? They are three. First — By the decisions of the Court of Arches, Avliere it has been ruled "that the words in the Ordination Service for Deacons, ' I do unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures,' must be understood to mean simply the expression 9 ot a bona fide belief that ' tlie Holy Scriptures contain everything necessary to salvation/ and *to that extent they have the direct sanction of the Almighty.' " Thus he attempts to free himself from the obligation of his ordination vows by the quibble of a law court I Roman Catholics are said to hand over their con- sciences to the keeping of the priest. Bishop Colenso appears to have handed over his to the keeping of the Court of Arches — (pp. xii. and xiii.) Second — He next attempts to release himself from his difficulties by mystifying and per- verting the plain and honest meaning of the sixth Article, and of the question in the Ordination Service — (pp. xxiv., note, and xxxiii.) In this respect he appears to coincide with the opinions expressed by Mr. Wilson in " Essays and Reviews" — " Subscription may be thought even to be inoperative upon the conscience by reason of its vagueness. For the act of subscription is enjoined, but its effect or meaning nowhere plainly laid down ; and it does not seem to amount to more than an acceptance of the Articles of the Church as the formal law to which the subscriber is in some sense subject." — (" Essays and Reviews," p. 181.) Arguing thus, Bishop Colenso says — " As a bishop of that Church, I dissent entirely from the principle laid down by some — that such a question as that which is here discussed {i.e., in his book) is not even an open question for an English clergyman — that we are bound by solemn obligations to maintain certain views on the points here involved to our lives' end, or, at least, to resign our sacred office in the Church On the contrary, I hold that the foundations of our national Church are laid upon truth itself, and not upon mere human pre- scri]jtions.''^ Kow, I maintain that no rational man can consistently or conscien- tiously base such arguments on the Articles or the Ordination Service. His subscription was appended, not to abstract truth, but to the Thirty -nine Articles; his reply at ordination was given, not to the question, " Do you believe in truth? " but to the question, " Do you unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament?" His argument, therefore, is neither more nor less than an attempt to mystify and pervert plain language. Third — He seems not to be quite satisfied that even the liberality of the Court of Arches, or the elasticity of his own canons of interpretation, applied to the language of the Prayer Book and the Articles, could altogether free him from his difficulties ; and so he makes a strong appeal to the clergy and laity of the Church, to rise up, and sweep away, at once and for ever, all creeds and confessions. It seems to me that his several arguments, strange as they are when taken separately, are stranger still when compared. They do not hang well together. It is impossible to reconcile their discordant statements. They do not look like the products of one mind. Thus, at one place he professes to have grave doubts whether he can remain a bishop of the Church, which requires of its ministers ''unfeignedly to believe all the canonical Scriptures;" at another, he affirms that these words are not binding upon the conscience at all ! — (cf. pp. xii. and xxxii.) On one page we tind him saying that he is not aware of any breach of the law of the Church of England involved in writing against the truthfulness of Scripture history, and the Divine authority of whole books of the Bible: while in another he thus appeals to the laity of the Church-—" AVould they have the clergy bound, under pains and penalties, to profess belief in that which they do not themselves believe in? Are they willing that their own sons, who may feel the Divine call to devote themselves to the ministry of souls, should be en- tano-led in these trammels, so galling to the conscience, so injurious to their sense of truth and honesty?" And then he adds, " AVe, indeed, who are under the yoke may have for a time to bear it, however painful it may be, while we struggle and hope for deliverance" — (cf. pp. xxxiii. and xxxiv). AVould it not seeml'rom such statements and counter-statements as if the logical faculty of the -bishop had been as seriously deranged by his scepticism as the moral? Or can it be so that reason itself is tottering under the rude shocks of afalsephilo- sophv and a destructive rationalism? I have thought it necessary to dwell at some length on the ethics of Bishop Colenso's book, because they show us the prinfiple.^ and the character of the 10 author. They go far to explain and account for the free handling he gives to the plain language, not merely of human creeds, but of God's Word. They pre- pare us, in a great measure, for the serious accusations he brings against Moses, and for his almost blasphemous insinuations against our blessed Lord. They enable us to understand why he can see difficulties in the Sacred Kecords, and yet can neither frame satisfactory replies himself, nor comprehend them when framed by others. They fit us thus for forming a correct estimate both of his specious arguments and his bold assertions. CHAPTER II. BISHOP COLENSO'S SUMMARY REJECTION OF THE FACTS OF BIBLE HISTORY SHOWN TO BE UNJUSTIFIABLE. — HIS DOGMA THAT ''THE BIBLE ONLY CONTAINS THE WORD OF god" PROVED TO BE DEROGATORY TO GOD's CHARACTER, AND CON- TRARY TO SCRIPTURE. OUR LORD's VIEW OF THE AUTHORSHIP AND DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE PENTATEUCH CONTRASTED WITH BISHOP COLENSO'S. CHARGES OF IGNORANCE AGAINST OUR LORD MET AND REFUTED. I WOULD beg to call attention, at the outset, to the manner in which Bishop Colenso disposes of a vast number of what Christians have hitherto been accus- tomed to call the faci& of Bible history. He either sets them aside as myths, or pronounces them to be positively untrue; and that, too, in most cases, without even an attempt at proof. The way in which he speaks of the Bible in his in- troduction is as offensive as it is unwarranted. Thus, at page 8 — " Let it be ob- served I am not here speaking of a number of j9e% variations im^ contradictions, such as, on closer examination, are found to exist throughout the books, which may be in many cases sufficiently exj^lained .... by supposing . . . some loss or corruption of the original manuscript, or by suggesting that a later writer has inserted his oivn gloss . . . however perplexing such contradic- tions are," &c. (p. 8.) Again, he notices what he is pleased to call "the trivial nature of a vast number of the conversations and commands ascribed directly to Jehovah" (p. 9.) In regard to the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge, he says — "Many who feel these difficulties very strongly are able to get over them, by supposing the first Uyo to embody some hind of allegorical teaching, and the last to be a report of some dread catastrophe, handed down in the form of a legend, from hoar antiquity" (p. xxi.) In another place he writes: "I am acting in no light spirit, but with the serious earnestness of one who believes that he owes it as a duty to the Church itself to do his part to secure for the Bible its due honor and authority, and save its devout readers from ascribing to it attributes of perfection and infallibility .... tchiclifhe Bible never claims for itself (p. xxxiv.) One would think he had never read such passages as the follow- ing;— 2 Tim. iii. 1(3; 2 Pet. i. 21; Heb. i. 1; Mic. iii. 8; Luke xxiv. 25—27 ; Mark vii. 13. I need only cite one other statement: — " I now know for certain, on geological grounds .... that a universal deluge, such as the Bible manifestly speaks of, could not possiUg have taken place iu the way described in the Book of Genesis." — (p. vii.) A very little reading, indeed, will serve to convince any unprejudiced man that these bold and sweeping assertions have been met and refuted long ago. It is, consequently, unfair to assume them thus, as if they had been proved, or even generally admitted by scientific theologians. It is unfair to make such unjusti- fiable assertions the introduction to what he professes to call his real arguments. It is on a par, however, with what I have shown to be the false ethics of this whole book. Under the guise of candour and honesty, the author endeavours, 11 at the very outset, to sap the foundations of the Christian's faith, that it may tumble to ruin the moment his direct assault is made. I warn the reader not to receive anything upon his dictum — not to assume anything as proved, or gene- rally admitted, because he asserts it. Prove all things. The bishop would have given far more palpable and satisfactory evidence of his vaunted honesty and candour (see p. xix.), had he entered at once on what he calls his direct and main arguments, and not occupied one-third of his book with these insidious prelimi- naries. One of Bishop Colenso's chief aims in the "Preface" and "Introductory Re- marks" is to estabhsh the proposition, with which recent publications have made the literary world only too familiar, that "the Bible is not the Word of God, but it contains it," There is a distinction of vital importance here. When we say that " the Bible is the Word of God," we mean that the Word of God is co-extensive with the Bible; or, in other words, that the whole Bible is a Di- vine Revelation. When, on the other hand, it is said that "the Bible contains the Word of God," the meaning is, that a part of it only is of Divine origin, and that the rest is human, and therefore fallible. Bishop Colenso affirms that a great jMrt of it is positively and palpably untrue! Christians arc usually taught to regard the Bible as the Word of God — pure, perfect, and infallible. Chris- tianity, in fact, is founded upon that doctrine. Destroy the infallibility of the Bible, and you destroy at once the foundation of Christianity, and of the whole fabric of the Christian Church, with its ministry and its ordinances. Lest it should be thought I misrepresent the bishop in this matter, I give his own words: — "The result of my inquiry is this: that I have arrived at the conviction . . . that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by Moses . . . and, further, that the (so-called) Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imjmrting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine will and character, cannot be regarded as historically true." (p. 8.) Again: — " I wish to repeat here most distinctly that my reason for no longer receiving the Pentateuch as historically true is not that I find insuperable difficulties with regard to the miracles or sujH^rnatural revelations of Almighty <Jo(^ recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, consent any loucrer to shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable self-contradictions of the narra- tive!" (p. 10.) His statements become still more daring as he proceeds. Thus at p. 12 he writes: — "The heart that is unclean and impure will not fail to find excuse for indulging its lusts, from the notion that somehow the very principle of a living faith in God is shaken because belief in the Pentateuch is shaken. But it is not so. Our belief in the living God remains as sure as ever, though not the Pentateuch only, hut the whole Bible, were removed." And then he adds : <'It is perhaps God's will that we shall be taught in this our day, among other precious lessons, not to build up our faith upon a hook, though it be the Bible itself' Still more clearly his views are brought out at p. 13. He feels himself compelled to state the truth:— "And that truth is this— that the Penta- teuch as a whole, was not written by Moses; and that, with respect to some, at least 'of the chief portions of the story, it cannot be regarded as historically true' It does not, therefore, cease to contain the true Word of God, with all thin'cTs necessary for salvation. ... It still remains an integral portion of that^book which, whatever intermixture it may shoiv of human elements— of error infirmity, passion, and ignorance— has yet, through God's providence, and the special luorking of Eis Spirit on the minds of its writers, been the means of revealing to us His true name," &c. The bishop's meaning in plain language is iust this"-— That a God of truth has mixed up a system of heavenly doctrines with a tissue of Iving fables. The sublime history of Creation and the Fall he calls an alleo-ory (p. xxi.) ; the account of the Deluge he declares to be physi- callv imposSble (p. vii.) ; the whole story of the Exodus he affirms to be a series of extravagant absurdities (pp. 11, seq.); portions of the law he represents as positivelv Immoral and revoltingly inhuman (p. 9) ; of the whole Bible, he affirms that it is intermixed with error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance, let 12 he professes to believe, and lie would have rational, thoughtful men to believe with him, that in this conglomerate of myths, impossibilities, absurdities, error, passion, ignorance, immoralities, and revolting inhumanities, a God infinite in wisdom, holiness, justice, love and truth, has incorporated a revelation of heavenly doctrine! Would man, short-sighted and fallible as he is, do so? "We cannot — we dare not — admit a dogma so derogatory to the Divine character. But what saith the Scripture? What information do the sacred writers them- selves give upon this subject? Do they put forward claims to infallibility and Divine inspiration ? or do they anywhere, directly or indirectly, plead ignorance or admit error? The testimony of Scripture is full and explicit. Thus, the Lord said to Moses, " I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do." — (Exod. iv. 15.) Agam, " The Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever." — (xix. 9.) Again, ''And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark and covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel." — (Deut. xxxi. 9.) David says, " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." — (2 Samuel xxiii. 2.) Jeremiah says, " The Lord said unto me. What- soever I command thee thou shalt speak. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me. Behold, I have put my words into thy mouth." — (i. 7 — 9.) Ezekiel thus writes : — " And he said unto me. Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them." — (iii. 4.) The New Testament writers declare the whole of the Old Tes- tament Scriptures to be divinely inspired. Paul says, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," &c. (2 Tim. iii. 16) ; and the word " Scripture" as used by him was as definite as the word "Bible" is now. Peter says, "Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but men spake from God by the Holy Ghost." — (2 Pet. i. 21.) The term " Prophecy " is shown by the context to mean the Old Testament Scriptures, These are but a few out of multitudes of passages that might be produced to prove that all the sacred writers claim for themselves Divine inspiration. Our Lord, too, by numerous incidental references, sanctioned the same view. We are thus bound, in common honesty, to reject the dogma of Bishop Colenso, and to accept the Bible cis a luhole, or, as a whole, to reject it. We must not attempt to divide it into sections, to classify it into Divine and human, to arrange its narra- tives under the headings of "True" and "False," Our blessed Lord made no such distinctions when he told the Jews to " search the Scriptures" (John v. 39), and when he said to the Scribes and Pharisees, " Howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men." — (Mark vii. 7, 8.) And, further, he accuses them of " Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition" (ver. 13,); and in the parable He puts these words into the mouth of Abraham, as a message from heaven to earth, " They have Moses and the Pro^Dhets; let them hear them," — (Luke xvi. 29,) And the Ai)Ostle Paul, in his own striking and vigorous style, nobly protests against any such humiliating doctrine, when he thus exclaims, as if indignant at the very thought — " What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" — (2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.) I maintain, with a writer in "Aids to Faith" (p, 146), that "a narrative purporting to be one of positive facts, which is wholly, or in any essential or considerable portion, untrue, can have no connection with the Divine, and cannot have any beneficial influence on mankind," To suppose otherwise is derogatory to the God of truth and holiness, and opposed to the eternal principles of moral consistency. In his preface. Bishop Colenso attempts to overthrow the argument in favour of the Divine authority of the Pentateuch, which is derived from the testimony of our Lord. Any unprejudiced man would admit at once, on reading the Gospels, that our Lord believed both in the Mosaic authorship and Divine authority of the 13 Pentateuch. That belief would surely be hievitable after examining such pas- sages as the following: — "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he lurote of me" — (John v. 46) ; " Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush," &c. — (Luke xx. 37) ; " They have J/oses and the Prophets ; let them hear them. ... If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither vv^ill they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke xvi. 31) : "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets : I am not come to de- stroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from theLaw, till all be fulfilled." — (Matt. v. 17, 18.) If, after such fidl and explicit testimony, we still affirm that Moses did not write these books, we virtually contradict the statements of Christ, and impugu His veracity. Bishop Colenso thinks otherwise. He says there is no force in the argument; and he gives a threefold reply to it. T shall now review his so-called reply; and I hope to be able to show to every unprejudiced mind that from first to last it is illogical. 1. "First," he says, "siich words as the above, if understood in their most literal sense, can only be supposed, at all events, to apply to certain imrtsoi the Pentateuch; since most devout Christians will admit that the last chcipter of Deuteronomy, which records the death of Moses, could not have been written by his hand, and the most orthodox commentators are obliged also to concede the probability of some other interpolations having been made in the original story." — (p. XXX.) A weaker or more futile argument was probably iiever advanced by a rational man. The question concerns the Pentateuch as it existed at the time of Christ. Would any man venture to deny the genuineness of Macaulay's "History of England" because a brief memoir of the author was appended to the last volume? And w^ould any man venture to deny the genuineness of the Pentateuch because Joshua had added, in a postscript of twelve verses, an account of the death of its author? To bring this into the argument is the merest quibble ; and it is irrelevant besides. Then, again, with the opinions of com- mentators we have nothing to do. Their concessions or denials do not affect the argument in the least degree. It might have been well however if Bishop Colenso had just given the names of those ^^ most orthodox" commentators who feel themselves "obhged" to "concede interpolations." But, leaving such trifling, let us test the argument. Every critical scholar must know that in the time of our Lord the Jews had the Pentateuch in its entirety as we have it this day; that the technical names by which they distin- .); guished it were, "The Law," "The Law of Moses," and sometimes "Moses and that each of these names was as definite, and as fully understood by the people as the name " Pentateuch" is now in England. This is ah important point, and I beg to ask my reader's attention to the proof. In the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, written about two centuries B.C., Moses is spoken of as the author of the whole Pentateuch (chaps, xliv — xlvi). In the prologue to that book, written not later than B.C. 130, a threefold division of the Old Testament Scriptures into "The Law, the Prophets, and the rest of the hooJcs," is men- tioned. The first of these divisions, the " Law," contained the five books, then, as now, ascribed to Moses. Our next witness is Philo Judasus, a Jewish philo- sopher who flourished at Alexandria in the early part of the first century. He also mentions the same threefold division of the Old Testament. He wrote a life of Moses, and gives a full account of his works and their contents. He goes through the principal events recorded in Genesis, he gives a summary of the history of the Exodus, and the wilderness journey, and he specifies nearly every law and enactment contained in the Pentateuch, and he everywhere repre- sents Moses as the author of that whole division of the Bible. Philo may be regarded as the representative of the great Jewish community of Egypt, and our next witness, Josephus, is the representative of the Jews in Palestine. Josephus' testimony is most satisfactory. In his work Against Ajnon, after mentioning the number of books contained in the Bible, and stating that they are all "Justly accredited as Divine,''' he says, " Of these, five hehng to Mcses, which contaiii C 14 both the laws, and the history of the generations of men until ids death.'' In another treatise he gives a summary of the history, and proves that these five hooks were identical with our Pentateuch. On examining carefully the testimony of these two writers, every man can see for himself that they give, not their own opinion, hut that of the whole Jewish nation. Let us now turn to the New Testament, and examine the testimony of our Lord and His apostles. Bishop Colenso affirms that the words of Christ apply only to certain parts of the Pentateuch ; we are now prepared to prove to de- monstration that they onrnf have applied to the tvhole Pentateuch. Our Lord mentions the threefold division of the Bible, referred to by Philo and Josephus, and which was universally known in that age. Thus, in Luke xxiv. 44, He says : "These are the words which I spake unto yon, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Laiu of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psahns, concerning me." Here Moses is recognised as the author of the first great division of the Old Testament canon. At verse 27 of the same chapter, we read: ''And beginning at Hoses, and all the Propjhets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Here He classifies all the Scriptures under two heads; and by ^' Moses'' He mani- festly means the "Lcnv," or "Pentateuch," of which Moses was the author. Again, when speaking of the Scriptures as sufficient guides on all matters of faith and morals, he represents Abraham as saying, "They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them. . . If they hear not Moses and the Prophets^ neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Our Lord also repeatedly alludes to facts and statements in the several parts of the Pentateuch as written by Moses: thus, in Matt. xix. 4, 9, John vii. 19, Luke xx. 37. But the most important passage is that in John v. 45, 47, where He closes an elaborate argument in favour of His Divine mission, and a sweeping condemna- tion of the infidelity of the Jews, with these words: — "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father • there is one that accuseth you, Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if ye beheve not his luritings, how shall ye believe My words?" Further, our Lord frequently mentions facts recorded in the Pentateuch in such a way as to show that He not only admitted their truth, but that He agreed with the Jews in admitting the Divine authoritjr of the whole books which contaift them. In John viii. 56, He says: "Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see My day ; and he saw it, and was glad," In Matt. xxiv. 37-39, He alludes to the Deluge, and gives His Divine sanction to the story as told in Genesis. In Luke xyii. 28, and Matt. x. 15, He indorses the narrative of the destruction of the Cities of the Plain. And as if to sum up in one emphatic sentenee, the strongest and fullest possible testimony to the Divine authority of the whole Pentateuch, He said, in Luke xvi. 17: "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the Law to faiV We can now understand the precise meaning of the phrases *' The Law," "The Law of Moses," and "Moses," as used in such passages as the above. When our Lord said, " They have Moses and the Prophets," every one to whom the words were addressed knew that He meant " the Pentateuch and the Pro- phets;" and when, in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Till beaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law," &c., all must have undei-stood him to mean the Pentateuch. If our Lord did not use these tei-ms in their common, and, indeed, their only understood acceptation, then He must have been a -wilful deceiver ; if He did use them in their common accepta- tion, then His testimony to the Mosaic authorship and Divine authority of the Pentateuch is conclusive. The views of our Lord are fully developed by His apostles. All the New Testament writers are witnesses of the Divine Authority of the Pentateuch. Luke, at the very commencement of liis Gospel, admits the truth of the account of the creation of Adam, and of the annals of his posterity. (Luke iii. 38.) Zacharias, in his noble hymn of praise, savs: "Blessed be the Lord God of 15 Israel ; for he hath visited and redeemed His people ; and hath raised iqj an horn of salvation for us, . . . As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began. ... To perform the mercy pro- mised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He sware to our father Abraham." (Luke i. 68.) The prophetic truth of Gen. xxii. 16, 1 8, is here assumed as the basis of the Gospel narrative. Stephen, in his address to the Jews, grounds his faith on the call of Abraham, and the fulfilment of the Divine promises recorded in Genesis to him and his posterity. (Acts vii. 2.) Paul, in Rom. v., unites the fall of Adam with the redemption of Christ (see also 1 Cor, XV. 22,) In Eom, iv, 1, he connects the Abraliamic covenant with the whole Christian scheme of Redemption. Even the historical narratives of the Pentateuch are, in the Epistles, linked to the doctrines of the Gospel. The -creation has its parallel and compliment in the new creation. (Eph. ii. 10.) In Genesis (i. 27) we read that Adam was creat-ed in the image of God ; in Ephe- sians (iv. 24) it is said of the new man that, ** After God he is created in righteousness and true holiness." The story of Melchisedec is shown to have been typical of Christ's priesthood. (Heb. vii.) In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the story of Cain and Abel, the history of Noah and the Deluge, the miraculous translation of Enoch, the birth of Isaac, the sacrifice on Moriah, the prophetic blessings given by Jacob to the patriarchs, are all ivoven into the grand scheme of Christianity. There is thus, whether viewed historically or doctrinally, a close and indissoluble connection between the Pentateuch and the New Testa- ment — a connection Avhich no amount of sceptical sophistry can shake, and which no force of dogmatism can sever. True, Bishop Colenso calls many of these 'narratives of the Pentateuch myths and legends; but our Lord calls them facts. I need scarcely say that in this, as in every other thing, I prefer to follow God rather than man. 2. Bishop Colenso is manifestly distrustful of his ovm. argument, and so he proceeds thus: — "But more generally it may be said that, in making use of such expressions, our Lord did but accommodate His words to the current popular language of the day, as when he speaks of God * making his sun to rise,' or of the ' stars falling from heaven' . . , or of the woman ' with a spirit of infirmity' whom ' Satan had bound eighteen years,' without- our being at all authorised in drawing from them scientific or psychological conclusions" (p. xxxi.) The bishop here gives us a good example of a fallacy well known to logicians — a non vera pro vera. He takes it for granted that our Lord, in speak- ing of natural and mental phenomena, made use of such unscientific terms and phrases as showed that he fell in with current popular errors upon those subjects. I deny it. Even in scientific treatises to this day the phrase *' rising of the sun" is the only one employed to define that natural phenomenon ; and it is likely to remain so until Bishop Colenso, or some Zulu, furnish us with a better one. As regards the expression *' spirit of infirmity," it is clear the bishop does not be- lieve in demoniacal possessions. He again taJces it for granted that this was a popular delusion. How, then, can he explain the story of the " herd of swine ? " ^Matt. viii. 30.) His opinion is directly opposed to that of our Lord and the Evangelists. The third expression he cites every one must see to be meta- phorical. But, in any point of view, whether we grant his premises or not, his argument is inconclusive. It is a clear case of what logicians call a no7i tali pro icdi. There is no real parallel between the two classes of expressions. The bishop says, our Lord *' accommodated his words to the current j^opular lan- guage of t\\e day." I agree with him so far. Our Lord used ^oj9?.<7c/r language^ but He never countenanced popidar errors. Moses, in popular language, was the name given to the Pentat-euch; and so Christ says, " They have Moses {i.e., the Pentateuch] and the Prophets." The Laiu, in popular language, was another name for the Pentateuch; and so our Lord says, " Think not I am come to de- stroy the Law {i.e., tlie Pentateuch) or the Prophets." 3. The bishop's final argument is, that the Son of God, in taking our nature, <' fully and voluntarily entered into all the conditions of humanity, and, among 16 Cithers, into tliat wliicli makes our growth in all ordinary knowledge gradual ixnd limited. We are told that 'Jesus increased in tvisdom.' It is not supposed that, in His human nature, He was acquainted, more than any other Jew of the age, with the mysteries of all modern sciences ; nor that, as an infant or young child, He possessed a knowledge surpassing that of the most pious and learned adults of His nation upon the subject of the authorship and age of the different portions of the Pentateuch, At what period, then, of His life upon earth is it to be supposed that He had granted to Him, as the Son of Man, supernaturally , full and accurate information on these points, so that He should be expected to speak about the Pentateuch in other terms than any other devout Jew of that day would have employed?" (p. xxxi.) The meaning of all this, in plain terms, is, that when our Lord spoke of the Pentateuch in such a way as to show that He fully believed in its Mosaic authorship and Divine authorit}^. He spoke in iguGrance, and His testimony can have no more weight or authority than that of any learned Jew of that age. Surely such a monstrous doctrine must carry with it to every devout mind its own refutation. Nevertheless, let us review the so-called process of proof. Luke states that "Jesus increased in ivisdom.''^ (ii, 52.) Now, whatever this may mean, it is evident we cannot conclude from it, with Colenso, that as a child. He did not possess a knowledge surpassing that of the learned adults of His nation on the subject of the authorship and authority of the Pentateuch, or on other topics, because the statement made in verse 40 would then be untrue; " and the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, fiUed with wisdom; and the grace of God was fij)on Him.'''' This last clause alone might have been enough to deter the bishop from his daring insinuations against the Divine Child. And this is not all. The bishop has overlooked, it is to be hoped inadvertantly, that remarkable scene with the Doctors in the Temple, when, at the age of twelve, Jesus was found sitting in the midst of a, learned and venerable circle, not the hearer only, but the teacher by the Divine depth of His mysterious questions, — " And all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and ansiuers'' (ver. 47.) The Boy's reply to the half-reproachful address of His mother contains in itself a sufficient refutation of Colenso's argument — "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Here is a declaration of a full consciousness alike of His Divine mission, and His Divine qualifications. But, again — whatever view may be entertained of the early life of Jesus, can there possibly be any doubt as to the time Avhen He became perfectly fitted — infinite in wisdom, and infinite in power— for His oflice as the revealer of a new dispen- sation, and the worker out of a great salvation, as the Prophet and the Priest of His people? When he was baptised, " the Spirit of God descended tqyonHim;'' and Luke adds — "Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan," (Luke iv. 1.) In reference to the same event, the Baptist testifies, "He whom God hath sent speaketh the ivords of God; foe God giveth not the Spirit by ^measure to him."" (John iii. 34,) John also, in the, opening words of his Gospel, thus writes: — "And the Word was made flesh, and dvv^elt among us, and we saw His glory \ the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.''' (i. 14-) When Jesus battled with Satan in the wilderness, at the com- mencement of His public life, did He not display infinite wisdom? When He delivered that noble Sermon on the Mount, in which He embodies His testimony to the Pentateuch, did He not display infinite wisdom? AVhen He made the statement, " All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" — (Matthew xi. 27) ; when He made that statement, was he not conscious of possessing infinite wisdom? It is as clear as language can make it that our Lord, from the time of His bap- tism, was full of the Holy Spnrit, and, consequently, full of wisdom. For any man in the position of Bishop Colenso to ask, in the face of such declarations, " At what period our Lord had granted to Him .... full and accurate information" regarding the Old Testament Scriptures, seems perfectly inexpli- IT cable. It shows either a woeful ignorance of the meaning of Scripture, or a re- markable dulness of the logical faculty. I have no personal knowledge of Bishop Colenso ; but I will presume to make this mournful comment upon him, judging of him from his book, as I have a right to do — that, had he studied the Bible with as much care and fulness as he appears to have studied the writings of some German and Enghsh Eationalists, he never could have been guilty of propagating such shallo vv scej)ticism as is set forth in these objections. In the author of such objections and such a book "we may, indeed, shudderingly recognise what is meant by the 'evil heart of unbelief — what it is to have that mind that will excogitate doubts where the very instinctive feelings repudiate them, and will disbelieve where disbelief itself becomes plainly monstrous and revolting." CPI AFTER III. THE MOEALITY AND HUMANITY OF THE MOSAIC INSTITUTIONS VINDICATED.— HOW A JEW BECAME A SLAVE OR " BONDMAN." WHY THE MASTER WAS PER- MITTED TO INFLICT PUNISHMENT ON THE SLAVE. TRUE CHARACTER OF THE LAWS REGULATING " BONDAGE." Bishop Colenso has planned his attack on the Pentateuch Avith singular skill. As a controversial tactician he has rarely been surpassed. Had his arguments been at all equal to his strategy, he would have gained an easy victory. His rhetorical skill is nowhere better evidenced than in his assault on the morality of some of the enactments of the Mosaic Law. He attempts to prove that they were immoral, and even inhuman. If so, they could not possibly be Divine. I shall now review this argument, which, though put forward apparently inci- dentally, is manifestly intended to be one of the strongest, as it is one of the most striking, points in the whole book. It has been quoted with approbation by some reviewers, who seem to think it unanswerable. It is as follows : — " Xor are the difficulties to which I am now referring .... such even as are raised when we regard the trivial nature of a vast number of the conver- sations and commands ascribed directly to Jehovah, especially the multiplied ceremonial minutise, laid down in the Levitical Law. They are not such, even, as must be started at once in most pious minds, when such words as these are read, professedly coming from the Holy and Blessed One, the Father and 'Faithful Creator' of all mankind : — 'If the master (of a Hebrew servant) have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, tlie wife and her children shall he her master'' s, and he shall go out free by himself ' (Exod. 5xi.4) ; the wife and children in such a case being placed under the protection of such other words as these, — 'If a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Not ivithstav ding, if he con- tinue a day or two, he shall not be punished ; for he is his money.' (Exod. xxi. 20, 21.) " I shall never forget the revulsion of feeling with which a very intelligent Christian native, with whose help I was translating these ^vords into the Zulu tongue, first heard them as words said to be uttered by the same great and gracious Being whom I was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole soul revolted against the notion, that the great and blessed God, the merciful Father of all mankind, would speak of a servant or maid as mere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the brutal usage had sur- vived a few hours. My own heart and conscience at the time fully symi)athised vrith his. But I then clung to the notion that the main substance of the narra- tive was historically true. And I relieved his difliculty and my own for the present by telling him that I supposed that such words as these were written 18 down by Moses, and believed by him to have been divinely given to him, be- cause the thought of them arose in his heart, as he conceived, by the inspira- tion of God, and that hence to all such laws be prefixed the formula, 'Jehovah said unto Moses,' without it being on that account necessary for us to suppose that they were actually spoken by the Almighty. This was, however, a very great strain upon the cord which bound me to the ordinary belief in the histo- rical veracity of the Pentateuch ; and since then that cord has snapped in twain altogether." (pp. 9, 10.) This is most admirably put. It is one of the most telling passages in the whole book. It is detailed with rare dramatic power. The burning indignation of the African on hearing such a law, professedly emanating from Heaven ; the bishop's own reluctant but uncontrollable sympathy with him ; the ingenious attempt to explain it away; and the final triumph of conscience and truth over prejudice and credulity — all these are so vividly portrayed that the reader can scarcely control his own feelings. It is only by a determined effort he can suc- ceed in bringing reason into exercise to examine and test. As a reviewer, I must suppress all sentimentalism, I must summon the author's rhetoric and logic alike before the tribunal of reason ; and I greatly mistake if I do not succeed in creating in the mind of my reader a feeling very different from that which Bishop Colenso anticipates — a feehng of profound astonishment at his ignorance of the nature of the Mosaic institutions, and of the signification of simple Hebrew words. The first objection is here made to the statute which enacts that, should a Hebrew "bondman" claim his liberty at the end of six years, he could not take his wife with him, supposing she had been given him by his master during ser- vitude. He might go free, but ''the ivife and her children shall he her master' s.'' A knowledge of the whole circumstances shoAvs that this statute, instead of being cruel, was eminently humane. The Israelitish Constitution was a pure Theo- cracy. Grod was King, and His laws formxcd the national code. The mode of government was extremely simple. There was no expensive and complicated machinery of police, and there were no convict depots or prisons for the puni- tive incarceration either of malefactors or debtors. The execution of the sen- tences was left, to a great extent, in the hands of the parties immediately con- cerned. In case of murder, the nearest of kin to the murdered man became the legal executioner. (Num. xxxv. 25-27.) In case of theft, the thief was com- pelled to restore double, or four-fold, or five-fold, according to the nature of the crime. If he had not the means of making /?f?? reslitution, then he ivas sold for his theft (Exod. xxii. 3, 4) ; that is, he became the property of the man whom he had robbed until by his labour he could make legal compensation. So, also, when a man got into debt, and was imable to pay his creditor, he tvas sold, or, in other words, he became the property of the creditor for a period not exceed- ing six years, so that by his labour he might, as far as possible, satisfy the just demands of the man he had vv^ronged. (Lev, xxv. 39, 40; Exod. xxi. 2 seq.) These were the only two ways in which a Hebrew could become a bondman, and this explains what is meant by "buying a Hebrew servant." And this system, in my opinion, both ns regards thieves and debtors, but especially the latter, was at once more equitable and humane than our present English system of enslaving them in prison, taxing the public heavily for their support, and leaving the man who had been plundered of his goods or his money without any compensation. The law provided that such bondmen could claim their freedom at the end of six years. If it happened, however, that an indulgent master gave a Avife to his bondman — that is, evidently, his daughter or one of his de- pendants, for he had no power to give any other — then, if the bondman claimed his liberty according to the letter of the law, he had no right to take his wife or his children with him. He might go forth himself to poverty or to a new career of crime, but he had no right to drag his wife and infant family with him: the master was still their legitimate guardian. Just as English law^ Avill release an injured wife and starving children from the cruelties and neglect of a profli- gate husband, and afford them shelter and support, so the Mosaic law exercised a similar power, though in a different way — a way, however, more humane than ours. But if the bondman loved his wife, his children, and his master, and if, acting as an honorable and conscientious man, willing to fulfil all his duties and engagements, social and domestic, he remained with his master and family till the year of jubilee, then they could all go free together; and then his hereditary property which he had squandered or lost would revert to him, and he would have the means of providing for the wants of a household. (Exod. xxi. 2-6 ; Lev. XXV. 38, 39, 41.) But the statute to which the chief objection is made, and which caused the whole soul of the African to revolt is this: — " If a man smite his servant with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. '^ This ajypears unnatural, and even revolting, but only to those who do not under- stand it. The master was a public officer, recognised and appointed by Govern- ment, as the governors of our prisons and reformatories are. He had thus a legal right to administer punishment when necessary, but under certain wise re- strictions, which are elsewhere laid down (Lev. xxv. 39 seq. ; Deut. xxv. 3). He had no right to punish to excess. *' If he die under his hand, he shall he surely punished.'" The meaning of the lattel' clause Bishop Colenso seems to be totally ignorant of. The Hebrew phrase is most expressive. Its full signification is, *' Vengeance shall assuredly he taken upon him;" that is, he shall pay the penalty of his crime with his life. If, however, the bondman should linger " a day or two," then "vengeance shall not be executed upon him;" that is, his life shall not he forfeited. It is not now deliberate murder. The fact of his not killing him on the spot proves that he did not intend to kill him. But this did not imply by any means that he should go altogether unpunished. Nothing is said about that here ; it is treated of elsewhere. The reason assigned why, under* such circumstances, he should not be punished with death, is " he is his money .'' The Hebrew expression is proverbial, and is still in use in the East. It means, "He is his property;" he has a legal claim upon him, and a legal right over him.. He might inflict punishment like the governors of our own prisons, but within certain limits prescribed by law. "When he exceeded these limits, he punished himself, for he lost the valuable services of the bondman. The words^ " He is his money," do not mean, as Bishop Colenso would have us believe, and as the Zulu seemed to suppose, that the mere fact of one man buying another, gave him any right in the sight of God to call him his property, to retain him in bondage, or to inflict punishment. The bondman in this case was a prisoner, and the master was his legal jailer. The bondman had broken the law, and the master Avas commissioned to execute a just sentence. But the master himself was held accountable for his acts. The laws by which he was bound were strin- gent as they were humane. (Lev. xxv. 43; Deut. xxv. 3.) They protected the bondman against cruelty, by obliging the master to give him freedom in case of wanton injury even of a slight character; "And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish ; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his servant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." (Exod. xxi. 26, 27.) Thus was the master to be "punished " for cruelty ; and thus was the "bondman" placed under the protection of laws as merciful as they were stringent. In addition to all this, there Was a solemn injunction laid upon the master : — " Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour, but shalt fear thy God." (,Lev. xxv. 43.) Had Bishop Colenso been more conversant with Jewish insti- tutions, and had he been more familiar with the nature of the Hebrew language and idioms, he could not have fallen into such grevious blunders ; and he would not have so fatally misled his poor African converts regarding the meaning of God's Holy Word, and the character of His wise Laws. I have now done with the Introduction. The remainder of the book contains a series of charges against the truthfulness of the narrative recorded in the Pen-- tateuch and Book of Joshua. Most of them are founded upon alleged discre-- 2(3 pancies in the numbers given. Some of tlie charges are trivial in the extreme; others arise from the preconceived opinions of the author, who insists on treat- ing the history of the Exodus as a case of ordinary migration ; others, again, present real difficulties — difficulties, however, which can be explained to the gatisfactiou of every enlightened and unprejudiced man, and which can never shake that firm foundation on which the Divine authority of the Pentateuch has now rested for three-and- thirty centurie:^. CHAPTER IV. THE OBJECT OF BISHOP COLEXSO's BOOK STATED. — HOW HIS ARGUMENTS MUST BE MET. 1st OBJECTION, — ALLEGED IMPOSSIBILITIES IN THE HISTORY OF JUDAH AND HIS FAMILY SHOWN TO BE WITHOUT FOUNDATION. 2nD OBJECTION, ASSEMBLIES OF THE PEOPLE, uRI) OBJECTION, MOSES ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL. 4tH OBJECTION, EXTENT OF THE CAMP AND DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS, 5th OBJECTION, — NUMBERS OF THE PEOPLE, &C. 6tII OBJECTION, THE TENTS OF THE ISRAELITES : WHERE THEY GOT THEM, AND HOW THEY CARRIED THEM. BISHOP COLENSO'S IGNORANCE OF EASTERN LIFE. The great object of Bishop Colenso iii Avriting this book was to prove that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and, consequently, that it cannot be, though it may contain, the Word of God. Hear his own words, — " T shall nowprCceed to show, by means of a number of prominent instances, that the Books of the Pentateuch contain, in their own account of the story which they profess to relate, such remarkable contradictions, and involve such plain impossibilities, that they cannot be regarded as true narratives of actual, historical, matters of fact." (p. 17.) This is a serious charge. It unquestionably involves the Divine authority of that part of the Bible. I have no wish to deny or cloak this. And the charge cannot be met by any proofs, however clear, of the general authenti- city of the history. These are most important in their own jilace ; but they are not sufficient to meet specific charges of "contradictions" and "impossibilities." Each one of such charges must be examined separately, honestly, and thoroughly. There must be no shirking of the question at issue — no setting it aside by aii epithet hurled against its author, or by any description, however eloquent, of the fatal consequences to which it would lead. It must be subjected to the test of a calm, yet searching criticism. But, then, it will not do to isolate any passage of Scripture, and judge its statements or figures altogether apart from the con- text. Sound canons of interpretation forbid such a procedure in regard to the Bible or any other book. The connection of the context, the scope of the his- tory, the design of the author, and the peculiarities of style and idiom must all be fully considered in illustrating, explaining, and defending each statement or story. It is in this way I purpose to meet "the bishop's charges ; and it is by these means I hope, God being my helper, to show that the so-called " contra- dictions" and "impossibilities" have no existence, except in a mind darkened by error, and distorted by a Piationalistic philosophy. (1.) The bishop's first instance is substantially as follows : — The number of Israelites who " came with Jacob into Egyyt, which came out of his loins," is said to have been threescore and six. (Gen. xlvi. 26.) The names arc given, and include Eezron and Hamul, sons of Pliarez, the son of Tamar by her father-in- law Judah. (ver, 12.) *' Now Judah was /or^^Z-iJ'WO years old, according to the etory, when he went down with Jacob into Egypt. But, if we turn to Gen. xxxviii. we shall find that, in the course of these forty -two years of Judah's life, the following events are recorded to have happened, (i.) Judah grows up, mar- ries a wife — ' at that time,' v. 1, that is, after Joseph's being sold into Egypt, when he was ' seventeen years old ' (Gen. xxxvii. 2) ; and Avhen Judah, conse- 21 quently, was at least twenty years old — and has, separately, three sons by her? (ii.) The eldest of these three sons grows up, is married, and dies. The second grows to maturity (suppose in another year), marries his brother's widow, and dies. The third grows to maturity (suppose in another year still), but declines to take his brother's widow to wife. She then deceives Judah himself, conceives by him, and in due time bears him twins, Pharaz and Zarah. (iii.) One of these twins also grows to maturity, and has two sons, Hezron and Hamul, born of him, before Jacob goes down into Egypt. The above being certainly incredible, we are obliged to conclude that one of the two accounts must be untrue. Yet the statement, that Hezron and Hamul were born in the land of Canaan, is vouched so positively, that to give up this point, is to give up an essential part of the whole story." (pp. 17-19.) Now the whole of this argument is based upon two assumptions, neither of which will stand the test of fair criticism. First, Dr. Colenso assumes that Judah's marriage took place "after Joseph's being sold into Egypt," and conse- quently at the age of twenty; because it is said in Gen. xxxviii. 1, "And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down," &c. If Dr. Colenso understood his Hebrew Bible he would know that the phrase translated ''at that time" does not fix the date of the incident recorded at the precise period in which the narrative in the preceding context broke off. The expression is indefinite, and may refer to a time many years previous. The whole argument is thus unsound. Second, it is assumed that the phrases "crt'/ne into Egypt'' "came ivith Jacob into Egypt,'' and ''went clown into Egypt" (Gren xlvi. 8, 2G; Exod. i. 1; Dent. X. 22), must be interpreted with strict mathematical hterahty. Now every mail will surely admit that the sacred historian is his own best interpreter, and that he understands the language he uses quite as well as Bishop Colenso. We hayei only to study closely the historian's method of relating events, and his object in giving this list in Genesis, in order to see how the w^hole difficulty may be removed, even although we should admit that Judah married at the age of twenty. From a comparison of the passage in Gen. xlvi. with Num. xxvi. 5-50, and Exod. vi, 14-20, we find that one main design of the writer was to furnish a list of the great heads of families from whom the whole nation sprung. So, when enumerating Judah's sons, he mentions the death of Er and Onan. They ought to have been among the '"heads," but they died in Canaan. Then the historian mentions Hezron and Hamul, "heads of families" in that tribe, and evidently looked upon as the legal representatives of Er and Onan. The latter died in Canaan ; but, being represented subsequently by the two former, it was in accordance with the scope of the history and the method of the author to speak of them as going down. This explanation is suggested by the narrative : — " Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan; and the sons of Pharez Avere Hezron aud Hamul." Bishop Colenso insists on attaching their full literal signification to the words "came with Jacob into Egj^pt." The sacred historian is against him, however, and indicates in other passages that the phrase is to be understood with a certain latitude of meaning. Thus, in verse 27, he writes — " All the souls of the house of Jacob, ivhich came into Egpyt, were threescore and ten." Yet, we are informed that Joseph's two sons were included in the number, aud they had not come into Egypt — they were born there. Again, in Exod. i. 1-5 : "These are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt: every man and his household came tvith Jacob. . . . And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls; for Joseph teas in Egypt already." The last clause explains the meaning the author attaches to the phrase came into Egypt; it is not to be understood hterally. Nor is the statement that "seventy soids came out of the loins of Jacob" to be interpreted literally, because Jctcob himself was included in that number. The meaning of the historian is clear. No man who will read it as a tvhole can misunderstand it. Explanations- are given of statements made which indicate what meaning is to be attached to each clause and sentence; and Bishop Colenso's alleged "manifest contradiction" D 22 is based iii3on a misapprehension of the design of the author and scope of tW narrative. (2.) The Bishop founds his second objection upon ''The size of the court of the Tabernacle compared with the number of the congregation." He quotes the following passage : — "And the Lord spake unto Moses, sayijig, gather thou the congregation, and Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and the assemble/ tvas gathered unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation.'" (Lev. viii. 1-4.) The occasion was the consecration of Aaron and his sons. The bishop assumes that the phrases "all the congregation" and "the assembly" must mean the "whole body of the people — at all events, the adult males in the prime of life;'' and these he estimates at 603,550. He says, however, "We need not press the word all so as to include every individual man of this number ;..... but the mass of these . . ought to have obeyed such a command." (pp. 31-33.) He next assumes that, as the assembly were summoned "unto the door of the Tabernacle," they must have come loithin the court in which the Tabernacle stood, and they must have arranged themselves with mathematical precision exactly at or before the door. He then proceeds to measure the "court," and " the door of the Tabernacle," and the breadth of the end of the Tabernacle in which the door was, and to calculate the space required for each man, &c., &c. ; and he finally demonstrates that, supposing all the congregation of adult males had assembled and taken their stand as closely as possible in front, not merely of the door, but of the whole end of the Tabernacle in which the door was, they could only have stood nine deep, and would thus have formed a column nearly twenty miles long. Further — the "court" into which, he affirms, the people must have come, if they obeyed the command, would only hold 5,000 packed closely together, whereas the able-bodied men alone exceeded 600,000. His con- clusions are, first — That it is utterly inconceivable that Almighty God could have given such a command, seeing it was impossible to obey it ; and, second, that the statement that the assembly was gathered together at "the door of the Taber- nacle" is untrue. This is most remarkable reasoning. The bishop's mind appears to be filled with figures, to the exclusion of all the rules of Aristotle and Bacon, and even of common sense. Here is a whole process of reasoning, followed by sweeping conclusions, based upon two assumptions! He himself admits that the expres- sions, "All the congregation" and "the assembly," are indefinite. Why, then, does he attempt to define or limit them ? If they may not include all the people, old and young, male and female — if they may not even include all the al3le-bodied men, as the bishop grants — then what right has he to affirm that they ^nui'^nclude the main body or the mass? We have no data whatever whereby to fix the precise meaning of the phrases, and, consequently, no argu- ment can be based upon them. Again, what ground has he for the assumption that "unto the door of the Tabernacle" must mean unthin the court? Such expressions as these are well known, and well understood to be general, and their meaning can only be ascertained by a consideration of the whole circum- stances of each individ\ial case in which they are used. Let us see how these and similar expressions are used by accurate and logical writers, and even in official documents, in our own day. Is it not so that at the close of each session of Parliament the " House of Commons" is summoned to ihefoot of the Throne to hear the Queen's speech, while there is not sp)ace there for one-twentieth part of the members? And is it not so that it is always officially recorded that " the House of Commons having been ushered in by the Black Hod," &c., while often not more than a dozen members appear? Take another case. A meeting of the inhabitants of County Down was recently summoned by the High-Sheriff to assemble in the Grand Jury-room of the County Court- house. I have now before me the qficial report of that meeting, commencing as follows : — " At a public meeting of the nobility, gentry, clergy, and inha- bitants of the County Doiun generally, held in ^/^e Grand Jury-room oi the County Court-housC;" &:q. The population of the County of Down is just about 300,000 ; 23 the Grand Jury-room in wliicli they tuere summoned to meet, and in which the official report says they did actually meet — " nobility, gentry, clergj^, and inha- bitants generally" — might possibly contain, if closely packed, one hundred peo- ple! Now, according to the logic by which Bishop Colenso would seek to over- throw the historical veracity of the Pentateuch, these official records of the closing of the British Parliament, and of the County Down meeting, must be pronounced, not merely historically false, but, under the circumstances, utterly inconceivable ! The bishop would enter the House of Lords, he would measure the breadth of the " foot of the Throne," and the total length of the passage opposite to it. He would then reason as follows: — The House of Commonr: contains uf)wards of 650 members. The mass of these 650 men ought, we must believe, to have obeyed such a command, and hastened to present themselves at the foot of the Throne. Now, allowing t^vo feet for the width of each full-grown man, three men could just have stood in front of it. Suj)i30sing, then, that "all the House" had given due heed to the Royal summons, and had hastened to take their stand side-by-side, they would have reached (allowing eighteen inches between each rank of three men) for a distance of more than 350 feet — in fact, about five times the length of the w^hole chamber! It is inconceivable how, under such circumstances, the House of Commons could have been sum- moned to the foot of the Throne by the express command of the Sovereign. This is the bishop.'s argument; and surely it is not too much to say that such reasoning show's a weak cause and a weak-minded advocate. (3.) The third charge of Bishop Colenso against the historical veracity of the Pentateuch is precisely similar in character to the preceding. It is as follows: — ''Moses sjmke unto all Israel" (Deut. i. 1); and " Joshua'read all the words of the law . . . before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers," &c. (Josh. viii. 34, 35.) The people numbered at least two millions. No human voice could have reached the ears of such an assembly. He adds, by way of making his argument unanswerable, " The very crying of the little ones must have sufficed to drown the sounds at a few yards dis- tant." (pp. 35, seq.) This may justly be termed a childish argument. We read that "Moses spake unto all Israel;" but would any sensible man interpret this as necesscirily mean- ing that his words reached the ears of every man, woman, and child? Is lan- guage ever used with such mathematical precision in ordinary waiting, or in ordinary conversation? Again, it is said that Joshua read the law " before all the congregation." The bishop has either strangely overlooked, or else he does not understand the meaning of the Hebrew word neghed, "before." It means " in the presence of," not necessarily " in the hearing of;" it comes from a root which signifies to be in front, or to be in sight. The same word is used in Num. XXV. 4 — " The Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people and hang them up . . . against [neghed) the sun;" that is, "in front of the sun — in Xhefull sunlight.'''' But, again, do we not often read in history of generals addressing their vast armies, and of popular orators addressing immense mass-meetings? And noAv, if we adopt Bishop Colenso's canons of interpretation, unless we suppose, wdiich is physically impossible, that the voice of the speaker reached the ear of every individual, the historic narrative must be pronounced untrue. Indeed, the cry- ing of a few babies might thus convert history into fable. Further, the statement of Joshua that " all the congregation, w^th the women and little ones," &c., assembled, must be interpreted in accordance with the scope of the whole narrative. Joshua himself tells us that the vast body of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh never crossed the Jordan at alf (Num. xxxii. 16, 17; Joshua iv. 12, 13; xxii. 9. seq.); and he therefore knew perfectlv that they could not have been present at the great national assembly. These facts prove that the phrases, "ah Israel," and " all the congregation," w^ereused by the sacred historians just as similar phrases are used by historians now: con^ sequently, the bishop's arithmetic is entirely out of place, and his difficulties spring from a simple misapprehension of the meaning of common lan2:uage. 24 (4.) Dr. Colenso's fourth alleged impossibility arises from " tlie extent of the camp, compared with the priest's duties and the daily necessities of the people." Tt mainly rests on Lev. iv. 11, ]2: "And the skin of the buUocJc, and all his flenh, with his head, and tvith his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole hidlock shall he carry forth without the camp into a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and hum him on the vjood with fire; where the ashes are poured out shall lie he hurned." The number of the people the bishop estimates at two millions. By measurements and calculations he shows that a camp con- taining this number must have covered, at the very least, a square of a mile and a-half J' The refuse of the sacrifices would thus have to be carried by the priest himself (Aaron, Eleazer, or Ithamar — there were no others) a distance of three quarters of a mile." Wood and water would have to be brought from without for all purposes, if they could have been found at all in the wilderness. The ashes, rubbish, ^and filth of every kind would have to be carried without the camp. The difliculty becomes far greater, also, if we take the more reason- able estimate that the camp was twelve miles square — that is, about the size of London, In that case, we have to imagine the priest having himself to carry, on his hach, on foot, a distance of six miles, " the skin, head,"flesh, legs, inwards, dimg, even the whole bullock," and the people having to carry out all their rub- bish, and to bring in wood and water. Further, we have to imagine half-a-mil- lion of men going such a distance for the common necessities of "nature. Such, in substance, is the bishop's reasoning ; and he concludes that the bare supposi- tion involves an absurdity, and that, therefore, the whole narrative is untrue, (pp. 38-40.) This argument, like his others, is based upon groundless assumptions. He assumes, first, that the whole two millions of people were grouped close together in a camp. Such a view is opposed to the general scope of the narrative and to common sense. Any one w^ho has had an opportunity of visiting the great Arab tribes of the Syrian desert can easily understand the whole matter, and can see that the bishop's difficulties are purely imaginary. The Israelites had immense flocks and herds — "very much cattle'." (Exod. xii. 38.) These, from the necessity of the case, and like the flocks of the modern Bedawin, were scat- tered far and wide over the peninsula, and probably over the plain northwards. On one occasion I rode for two successive clays in a straight course through the flocks and herds of a section of the Anezeh tribe. The encampment w^as then at a noted fountain some thirty miles distant, at right angles to the line of my route ; yet the country was swarming with men and women, boys and girls, tending the flocks. In like manner, the great mass of the Israelites would be required to tend their flocks. The camp would thus be a mere nucleus — large, no doubt, but not approaching the exaggerated estimate of Bishop Colenso. Yet, as it was, the head-quarters of the nation, containing the Tabernacle, the priests, and the chiefs, and forming the rallying point for the w\arriors, it was the only place with which the sacred historian was concerned. The sacred his- tory was only intended to sketch the events which took place there. The bishop also assumes that the priest had to carry the bullock on his hack to the outside of the camp. There is no ground for any such assumption. The word translated "he shall carry forth" [hotsi) is in the Hiphil, or "causative" form of the verb, and its literal meaning is, as every Hebrew scholar must know, "He shall cause to go out,'' or, " to be carried forth." The mode of con- veyance is not indicated. The same form is used in Exod. iii. 12 — " When thou (Moses) hast brought forth the people out of Egypt;" and in Exod. xiv. ] 1 — " Wherefore has thou dealt thus Avith us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?" And would Bishop Colenso insist that the historian intended to reprcsent^Moses as carrying the whole people out of Egypt on his back? (For other examples of the use of this word the student may turn to Gen. viii. 17; xix. 5; Num. XX. 10 ; xix. 3; Lev. xxiv. 13, 14, 23.) The mode in which the priest was to convey the offal of the bullock is not stated in this place ; but on turning to Kum. vii. 3, we may leain it:~" They (the princes) brought their offering be- 25 fore the Lord, six covered waggons, and twelve oxen ; . . . and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take it of them, that they may he to do the service of the Tahernade.^' The bishop inshiuates that wood sufficient for the wants of the people could not be found in the wilderness, and he compares their requirements in this re- spect with those of London! He can know nothing of Eastern desert hfe. A single house in London, even at midsummer, would consume more fuel than a whole Arab encampment. Besides, it is possible that wood may have been abundant in the peninsula of Sinai in those days. The nomads of Arabia use very little water. When going to Palmyra, in the year 1854, I passed a night at an Arab camp, and I was informed that there had not been a drop of water in it for three days ! This is no unusual circumstance. The people drink milk, and use it in cooking. The flocks are driven to wells and fountains often more than a day's journey distant. The remarks as to the impossibility of observing the directions regarding cleanUness, the calls of nature, &c., cannot, of course, be minutely examined. Delicacy forbids it. But anyone acquainted with the habits of the Bedawin— male and female, old and young — and with the features of the country through which the Israelites passed — its rocks and glens— can easily dispose of such difficulties. (5). The fifth objection arises from "the number of people at the first mus- ter compared Avith the poll-tax raised six months previously." (p. 41.) " It is surprising," he says, " that the number of adult males should have been identi- cally the same on the first occasion (Exod. xxx.) as it was half-a-year afterwards." (Num. i.) Well, suppose it be surprising, what then? Is the historical veracity of the Pentateuch to be set aside because Bishop Colenso is surprised at some of its statements? He does not attempt to make out a contradiction here; he does not even advance a charge of discrepancy. He thinks the numbers ought to have been different from whaf they are ; and though he does not know, and has no means of knowing the whole circumstances of the case— whether there were two numberings or only one— he concludes that the narrative is not historically true ! Such argument, if argument it can be called, needs no answer. W^ith his long critique upon Kurtz and Hiivernick we have nothing to do ; the Word of God is not affected by it. (6). The sixth alleged impossibility is entitled " The Israelites dweUing in tents." — " Take ye every man for them which are in his tents." (Exod. xvi. 16.) A number of charges are based upon this passage, which I shall review seriatim. First. The Israelites are here represented as dwelling in tents, and this, it is affirmed, "conflicts strangely with Lev. xxiii. 42, 43, where it is assigned, as a reason for their ' dwelHng in booths ' at the feast of tabernacles, • that your gene- rations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in hooths when I brouo-ht them out of the land of Egypt.' " (p. 45.) There is no contradiction here. The Hebrew word swccof/^ translated "booths," is apphed in the Bible to a shelter made wholly of branches (as in Leviticus xxiii. 42; Nehemiah viii. 14, 15), or to tents (as in 2 Samuel xi. 11, succoth in the Hebrew is rendered in our version "tents;" 1 Kings xx. 12, 16). Is it not natural to suppose that great numbers of the Israelites, in passing through the Avflderness, acted as the Bedawin so often do now? Those who have tents use them, but they are few in number. Those who have only a small patch of cloth set it up as a kind of roof, and weave round the sides branches of trees or shrubs, and sometimes reeds. Others who have nothing construct rude arbours against the side of a rock or cliff, or in some natural cavity in the ground, or between piles of stones. I have seen hundreds of such habitations in the valley of the Jordan, and in other parts of Syria. They led me to see how wonderfully ac- curate the Mosaic narrative is in the minutest details. The Israelites dwelt partly in tents and partly in booths. And, besides, the command to dwelHn booths seven days at the feast of tabernacles was not intended to define with mathematical precision the way in which the Israelites had lived in the wilder- 26 ness, but rather to remind tliem in all future ages how their fathers had spent forty years in the open desert, without the protection of city or house, and that God himself had been alike their provider and protector. Second. It is affirmed that, allowing ten persons for each tent, two millions of people would need 200,000 tents ; and it is asked, " How did they acquire these?" The bishop plainly hints that the thing is incredible. But how does he know that there must have been a tent for every ten persons ? He says decency demands it, and a Zulu hut at Natal contains, on an average, only three and a-half. Now, Bishop Colenso will surely admit that the modern Beda- win of Sinai and the neighbouring desert, and the inhabitants of Syria, aiford a far more natural and trustworthy parallel than the people of Natal. It is a fact that among the Bedawins of the Sinai peninsula, who live there and are not mere pilgrims, there is not one tent for every fifty persons. When they make a journey they never carry tents with them, and even when humane European travellers provide tents for their escort, they will not take the trouble of pitch- ing them. The climate of the peninsula is such that no shelter is absolutely necessary at any season for those accustomed to nomad life, and who prefer living and sleeyjmg in the open air. It is a fact that three-fourths of the in- habitants of Syria, even the dwellers in large cities, sleep in the open air, on the roofs of their liouses. during more than half the year. It is a fact that a large number of the peasantry leave their houses and villages altogether, and bivouac in their fields and vineyards dm-ing a great part of the Summer. I have seen on such occasions a rude Ijootli of branches, about the size of an umbrella, formed over the cot of a young infant, as a shelter from the sun's rays. In the Spring of 1858, I encamped several nights near the Christian pilgrim caravan, which goes yearly from Damascus to Jerusalem at Easter. Though it was the month of March, and though the journey occupies some twelve days, yet there were only about half-a-dozen small tents among more than a thousand people — men, women, and children. That the Israelites had some tents I admit, but we know not how many; and, judging from the foregoing facts, they perhaps did not amount to one-fiftieth part of the number suggested by Bishop Colenso. Third. The difficulty is still pressed — " How did they acquire these?" Now, everyone must admit that the historical veracity of the narrative cannot be affected in the slightest degree by our ability or inability to answer this question. Yet it can be answered. The patriarchs dwelt in tents. (Gren. xviii. 1 ; xxv. 27 : xxxi. 33.) When they went down to Egypt they retained their pastoral and semi-nomad habits. (Gen. xlvii. 1 seq.) We have every reason to believe that those settled in Goshen lived mostly in tents up to the period of the Exodus. The bishop affirms the Israelites must have all dwelt in houses at the time of the first passover, because the blood was to be sprinkled " on the side-post and upper door-post of the houses^ (Exodus xii. 7.) I reply that this command was not designed to indicate with mathematical precision the nature of the habitation occupied by every indvidual Israelite on that night. The spirit of the order Avas, that the mark of blood should be visible at the entrance of every dwelling. Again, the Hebrew word haith does not necessarily signify " a hotise." In Genesis xxvii. 15, Exod. xxiii, 19, 2 Kings xxiii. 7, and other places, it means " a tent." And, at the present day, the Bedawy uniformly calls his "tent" heit, i.e., "a house," though the proper Arabic word for "tent" is kheimeh; and he sjieaksof the door of his house, &c. Admitting, then, that some of the Israelites pos- sessed tents ; they took them with them. We are farther told that they obtained so many things from the Egyptians on going out that they " spoiled them." Were there no tents among the spoil? Fourth. The last difficulty is, " How did they carry the tents?" The bishop says in a recent letter (addressed to the " Morning Post "), " I have not dwelt so much upon the fact of the Israelites having acquired tents as on the impossibility of their carrying them." The patriarchs possessed great numbers of asses and camels (Gen. xii. 16, xxx. 43, xxxii. 15) ; and we learn from Exod. ix. 3, 4, that the Israelites at the time of the Exodus still possessed these useful animals, in ad- 27 dition to oxen, and apparently also horses. Having these animals, they could hare experienced no difficulty whatever in conveying all requisite suppHes of camp furniture. I would here take the liberty of most earnestly pressmg upon Bishop Oolenso the absolute necessity of a far more acurate study of the Bible, not in the English version merely, but in the original Hebrew ; and also of the language, manners, and customs of Bible lands, before he i^ublishes his second volume. His blunders have already not only exposed him to the ridicule of Oriental scholars, but they have entailed upon him a fearful load of responsibility. He owes it to himself, to the pubhc, to the Church with which he is still connected, and, above all,_ to his God, to investigate deeply and thorovghh/, before he agam ventures to brmg such sweeping accusations against the truthfulness of Scripture. CHAPTER V. TtH objection, THE ISRAELITES ARMED. MEANING OF "HAMUSHIM." 8tH OBJECTION, INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER. DR. COLENSO's IGNORANCE OF HEBREW. NUMBER OF LAMBS REQUIRED. 9tH OBJECTION, THE MARCH OUT OF EGYPT: HOW IT WAS CONDUCTED. IOtH OBJECTION, THE SHEEP AND CATTLE OF THE ISRAELITES: HOW THEY WERE FED. IItH OBJECTION, THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES, AND THE EXTENT OF CANAAN. REMARKABLE BLUNDER OF THE BISHOP. WILD BEASTS IN PALESTINE. (7). Bishop Colenso's seventh alleged impossibility in the Pentateuch narrative is entitled "The Israelites armed ;"'and it is mainly founded on Exod. xiii. 18 : — " The children of Israel ivent up harnessed out of EgupV He says the word hamushim, v:liich. is rendered "harnessed," appears to mean " armed," or " in battle array," in all the other passages where it occurs, (p. 48.) He quotes and comments on those passages, and concludes that " it is inconceivable that these down-trodden oppressed people should have been allowed by Pharaoh to possess arms, so as to turn out at a moment's notice 600,000 armed men. If such a mighty host had had arms in their hands, would they not have risen long ago for 'their liberty?" (p. 48.) It is not easy to reconcile these and many similar statements with the bishop's explanation of them in a recent letter to the "Mormng Post," in which he affirms, "I have laid no stress whatever upon a a certain Hebrew word being translated armed.'' If this be so, then he has been most unfortunate in the choice of language. I venture to say that there is not a scholar in Britain who, after reading chap ix., would not conclude that he did lay very special stress upon the word translated " armed." The chapter is entitled, "The Israelites Armed." The text m which the word occurs stands at the head of the chapter in itcdics. The whole argument, extending over six pages, is either based upon that word, or it has no basis at all. It would have been far more creditable to the bishop, and would have impressed the observing public far more deeply with a sense of his candour, had he simply acknowledged his error, instead of vainly trying to excuse himself by such an unworthy shift. He now affirms that he laid no stress ivhatever on the word hamushim; yet, as his book ap)pears to favor an opposite view, I think it right to make a few com- ments upon it. Hamushim only occurs four times in the Bible. (Exodus xiii. 18 ; Joshua i. 14, iv. 12; Judges vii. 11.) From none of these passages can we infer with certainty its precise meaning. Its root is a matter of question. It might come from the word hamesh, " five;" hence the rendering in the margin of the Author- ised Version, " by five in a rank." It is remarkable, and it shows how obscure the meaning is, that in the Septuagint a ditferent translation is given of it in each 28 passage: — Thus in Exodus xiii. 18, ** in the fifth generation ; " Josh. i. l4, "weli girt (for travel) ;" Josh. iv. 12, "in order;" Judges vii. 11, "of the fifty." I be- lieve the most probable derivation is from the Arabic root hamasha, which signifies "to marshal," or " to range in order." This meaning would suit all the passages. The Israelites went out " ranged in order." There is no reference to arms or armour. Bishop Colenso insists, however, "on the fact that the Israelites are said to have discomfited Amalek with ' the edge of the sword,' about a month after they came out of Egypt ; and, therefore, at that time they must liave been armedJ'^ Where did they get these arms? Now, supposing we had no means of even conjecturing how or where they got them, would that justify us in pronouncing the whole narrative incredible? But we can conjecture where they got them. Before leaving Egypt, they were commanded to ask of the Egyptians certain articles; and " God gave them favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and tliey gave them; and they spoiled the Egyptians." (Exod. xi. 2,3; xii. 35, 36.) I have often been struck, when residing in Syria, with the intense eagerness of every man, when about to set out on a journey, to obtain a good supply of arms. If he has none himself, he will beg, borrow, or steal them. I have no doubt that, on such an occasion as the Exodus, arms would be among the very first things asked for. Then, again, Josephus tells us the Israelites obtained many weapons from the Egyptian army destroyed in the Ked Sea. And, further, could they not have made for themselves, when on the march, spears, and clubs, and slings, and other rude weapons, such as were used in ancient warfare ? We have no means of knowing how many of the people had arras, or how many were engaged with Amalek. The phrase, " discomfited with the edge of the sword," merely means " discomfited in battle." We are not warranted in concluding from it that every man engaged in the fight had a sword ; one may have had a spear, another a club, another a sling, another stones. It is with such Aveapons the Bedawin chiefly fight now ; and, when they gain a battle, they say they " dis- comfited the enemy with the mouth of the siuord." The bishop farther affirms — " We must suppose that the ivhole body of 600,000 warriors were armed when they were numbered (Num. i. 3) under Sinai." In reply, it is only necessary to quote the passage: — " Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel. . . . from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war." Does this affirm or imply that they were all armed, or even that any of them were armed? Bishop Colenso thinks it incredible that the Israelites should bravely fight with Amalek, and yet only " weakly wail" and murmur against Moses when pursued by the Egyptians (p. 51). The cases are widely different. In the latter case they were hemmed in — men, women, and children together; and the fear of their cruel oppressors was still upon them. In the former, the warriors were led out in battle array, at the command of the Lord. The bishop, of course, overlooks, and would probably ignore, the main reason — the Lord gave them courage and strength to war with Amalek. (Exod. xvii. 12, 15, 16.) (8.) The eighth impossibility is "The institution of the Passover." The bishop quotes Exod. xii. 21-28, and brings forward several objections to its his- torical truth. His first objection is, that it was impossible to communicate all necessary instructions to two miUions of people in the time specified. He says that time was only one single day, because the first notice of the feast is given in. Exod. xii.; and in that chapter it is said, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born." He affirms that the pronoun "^/ris" (hazzeh) requires such an interpretation; and besides, in chap. xi. 4, Moses is represented as saying to Pharaoh, " Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out," &c., where there can be no doubt that the " midnight" then next at hand is intended (pp. 54, 55). Such in substance is Dr. Colenso's critical objec- tion to the Mosaic narrative. It is truly painfid to find a man so manifestly ignorant of the structure and idioms of Oriental languages, venturing to ground his sceptical theories upon 29 points of verbal criticism. One could pardon it in a profound German philologist ; but it is altogether unpardonable in a mere tyro such as Bishop Colenso shows himself to be. The Hebrew pronoun zeh, (or hazzeh, with the article,) is de- monstrative, and points to the person or thing forming tJie immediate subject of the discourse, without regard to the time of the discourse itself. It may refer to the past : thus, in Gen. vii. 11, speaking of the breaking out of the Flood, the historian says, "In the sixth hundreth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same {hazzeh) day," &c. Or it may refer to the future : thus, in Psalm vii. 4, " Lord, if I have done this {zoth),'' namely, what follows. In Exod. xii. 6, the Lord instructs the people to kill the paschal lamb on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, and tells them how they are to eat it ; and'then adds, " For I will pass through the land of Egypt this^ night ;" that is, as every Hebrew scholar knows, the night of which he is speaking— the night of the fourteenth. The i^ronoun "this" [hazzeh) does not fix the time when the instructions were given. It has nothing to do with that. The bishop in looking at other parts of the story, and trying in vain to reconcile them with his theory, says, it is perplexing and contradictory as it now stands. So it must be to one who does not understand the language. In regard to the words in Exod. xi. 4, where Moses says to Pharaoh — " Thus saith the Lord, about midnight will I go out," &c.— even an English reader must see that the reference is to a specific future midnight when the Lord would smite the first-born, and not to the midnight then next at hand. I have thus swept away the basis on which the whole of Bishop Colenso's aro-ument rests ; and I shall now show the true state of the case. It appears from Exodus xi. 1-3, that the Israehtes had notice of the final plague a consider- able period before it was inflicted, and that they were fully instructed how to act. It would seem from chap. xii. 2, that the instructions regarding the Passover were given to Moses in the very beginning of the month. It is evident from verse 3 that they must have been communicated to the whole people before the tenth day. There was thus ample time to make all necessary preparations for the Passover on the fourteenth, and for the journey which followed. It Avould seem from Exodus iv. 29, and v. 4, 5, that the chiefs and the great body of the people of Israel were concentrated in and around the royal city soon after Moses' arrival. They fully expected their release, and they vcere prepared to go at a moment's notice. *Their flocks were, doubtless, at a distance for pasture, perhaps under the care of slaves. Even independent of all supernatural agency, Moses could have had no difiiculty in communicating with the whole body of the people. Their concentration around the royal city brought them closer to the wealthy Egyptians, and gave them opportunities of obtaining from them all requisites. "the bishop brings out a second difiiculty. He says tiuo millions of people would require, allowing ten for each family, 200,000 lambs ; or, allowing ffteen for each family, vrhich he considers a fair average, they would need 150,000 lambs. These" must be males of the first year. By calculations and corres- pondence with sheep-farmers in Natal and Australia, he learns that such a num- ber of males " of the first year implies a flock of two millions, old and young." Then he consults again with experienced sheep-masters in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and England, and shows that this flock would require 400,000 acres of grazing-land, or about twenty-five miles square. His conclusion is, that the Israehtes must have been scattered over a very wide district, and that communi- cation with them all in twelve hours was impossible. In reading this whole chapter, one is painfully reminded of Matt, xxiii. 15. I have proved that, instead of twelve hours to communicate inteUigence, make preparations, &c., the Israelites inudhaxe had four clear days to jorepare, after the instructions were received ; and that it is probable they had as much as four- teen. So far, then, all his calculations, even if correct, are useless. But, are the calculations correct ? He allows, on an average, fifteen to a house- hold, and refers, in proof, to Josephus, who states that ten was the minimum allowed for each lamb, but that many of the companies numbered twenty, K 30 Josepliiis speaks of another time altogether, Avhen the whole ceremonial had be- come greatly changed. The command in Exodus xii. 3 is, " In the tenth of this month they shall take to them each man a Iamb, according to f callers' houses a lamb for the house." In the enumerations of the Hebrews, the "tribes" were divided into "families" [mislipaliotli] , and the families into " fathers' houses " (Beth-avoth.) Thus, in Exod. vi. 14 — " These are the heads of their fathers' houses,'" &c. See also Num. i. 2, 18, &c. The phrase, /c/Y/^ers' /iowses, therefore, designated sub-divisions of the tribes, and not single families, or undefined groups of families. The cognate Arabic vvord, Beit, is still very commonly used in the same sense ; and the Oriental " house " is made up of a group of relatives living together — often as many as ten, twelve, and fifteen distinct families. The *• house " of Jacob when he went into Egypt comprised upwards of sixty persons (Gen. xlvi. 27.) Taking into account the number of infants and young children, we may safely say that a lamb for every fifty persons would be much nearer the truth than Bishop Colenso's estimate, and would probably still be much too low. This would require only some 40,000 lambs, which could easily be supplied if the flocks only amounted to 400,000. Bishop Colenso evidently wishes to leave the impression on the minds of his readers that the Israelites could not have possessed such numerous flocks as would be needed for such a supph^. We are expressly told, however, that they had " very much cattle " (Exod. xii. 38) ; and we know that they occupied the best pasture land in Egypt. (Gen. xlvii. 6.) (9.) Dr. Colenso founds his ninth alleged impossibility on "The march out of Egypt." He quotes Exod. xii. 37, 38, and argues against its truthfulness substan- tially as follows : — The people amounted to tivo millions. These were required to start at a moment's notice. The order was conveyed to them all ; the Passover was observed ; property to an immense amount was borrowed of the Egyptians ; the flocks and herds were collected ; the sick and infirm, women in childbirth and young infants, brought in from the various parts of a tract of country as large as Hertfordshire, and congregated at Rameses. All this, he afSrms, was done, according to the story, within twenty-foiu- hours. And then, having done all this, they started again from Eameses that same night, and marched to Succoth. He concludes — " I do not hesitate to declare this statement to be utterly incredible and impossible." (pp. 61-65.) The first thing that strikes one in this chapter is, that the author utterly ignores any Divine element in the Exodus. He judges of it as a simple act of inigration, in direct opposition to what is affirmed by tlie sacred historian empha- tically and repeatedly. The power of the Lord was directly exercised in every stage of the Exodus. (Exodus xii. 29, 36, 42, 51 ; xiii. 14, 15, 17, 18, &c.) We know not how far the direct exercise of Divine poAver extended — how it strengthened the weak, healed the sick, or directed the movements of the whole multitude ; but we do know that it was exercised. Without it the Exodus Avould have been impossible. But, again, is it not so that Bishop Colenso invents, doubtless unintentionally^ or rather in ignorance, a number of improbabilities, and charges them on the sacred historian? He says ihe people were summoned at a moment's warning. I have proved that they had, at the very least, four whole days to prepare. He says they all first congregated at Rameses, with their flocks and baggage ; the narrative does not warrant any such conclusion. (Exodus xii. 37, 38.) It would seem, from a careful study of the Avhole story, that the flocks, herds, and mixed multitude did not follow the same line of route as the main body. They are not mentioned at the passage of the Red Sea, nor at Marah, nor at Elim. It is highly probable they took a more northerly course, passing round the head of the gulf and through the best pastures. This is the plan always followed by tribes of Bedawin on the march. The chiefs and main body, with some of the women and camp furniture, keep together, while the flocks and their attendants extend for miles on each side. I have seen the flocks of a large tribe as much as twent}'' miles distant from the chief. Yet, when an Arab historian gives a history of the 31 migrations of his tribe, he confines the narrative wholly to the central group of warriors. This supposition, which accords with the universal custom of Oriental nomads, removes at once all the difficulties conjured up about a column twenty- two miles long, cattle following each other in vast strings, and trampling down the pasture, etc, (10.) The tenth objection of our author is entitled, "The sheep and cattle of the Israelites in the desert." His argument is : — They were so numerous that they must have required a miraculous supply of food. We have no statement that such a supply was provided ; consequently, the narrative is untrue, because pasture and water could not have been found in the desert for such vast flocks, (pp. 65, 81.) He estimates them attiuo millions ; but it has already been proved that his data are incorrect. He seems to affirm that they were composed of sheep and oxen only. There vrere also goats, apparently in as large numbers as sheep (Exod. xii. 2,"^ 5), and camels. (Exod. ix. o, 4.) Their flocks were composed in all respects like those of the modern Bedawin. He affirms that the flocks must have marched in a dense column, (p. 68.) I reply that tliere is not a single pas- sage in the Pentateuch which proves this, and it is in direct opposition to the universal practice of Oriental nomads. He affirms that if scattered over a wide country they must have been constantly guarded by armed men. I answer, No. One Arab tribe will never venture to take a single camel from another tribe which it has been taught to fear, and within the reach of whose vengeance it is, I make this assertion from my own personal knowledge. We are told that the fear of the Israelites had gone before them, and spread over all Western Asia. The Lord's promises, and the sacred historian's assertions, to this effect are most emphatic: — "I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come ; and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." (Exod. xxiii. 27.) In further proof of this fact, I ask the reader's special attention to the following passages : — Exod. xv. 14 ; Num. xxii. 2-4 ; Deut. ii. 24, 25 ; xi. 13, 25 ; Josh. ii. 9, 11. Under such circumstances, their flocks might pasture in perfect security from the borders of Egypt to Palestine, over a region containing 15,000 square miles. He affirms that the country has not changed since the Israelites passed through it ; but facts are against him. There are ruins of towns and villages, and traces of pretty extensive cultivation in various parts of the peninsula and the plateau northward; and there are evidences that wood was once much more abundant. But Bishop Colenso triumphantly ap- peals to Num. XX. 4. where it is called '" a ivilderness ;'" and to Deut. viii. 15, where it is called "a great and terrible wilderness;'''' and to Deut. xxxii. 10, where it is called '• a desert land.'" He appears to be ignorant of the meaning of the Hebrew word ?n{cZZ)ar, which is used in all tlie three places : it signifies " pasture land" as opposed to "cultivated land." What made it so "terrible" and so " evil " to the Israelites was, that it was " no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates." (Num. xx. 4, 5.) It is a singular fact, which Bishop Colenso has overlooked, that nowhere in the sacred narrative is there a complaint about want of pasture. There was scarcity of water, and that is still felt. Some travellers, in passing through this region, think, because they do not see the verdure of Western Eurojoe, that cattle could find no food. This is a great mistake. I have often been astonished on observing what an amount of food sheep, and especially goats and camels, can crop otf ground which to most j^eople would appear completely barren. The herbage has a brownish hue, and is in a great measure hidden by rocks and stones. Bishop Colenso concludes a long and rambling chapter by affirming that it seems idle to expend more time in discussing the question, whether the flocks of the Israelites could have been suj^ported in the wilderness. I maintain, however, that, even now, though the country is very difi"erent from what it was in ancient times, there is sufficient pasture for flocks as numerous as it can be shown, with any degree of probability, the Israelites possessed. (11.) " The number ot' the Israelites compared with the extent of the land of Canaan" forms the subject of our author's eleventh objection, (p. 82). He 32 quotes Exod. xxiii. 27-30: — ^^ I loill send my fear he/ore thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come. And I ivill send hornets before thee, luhich shall drive out the Ilivite, the Canaanite, and the Eittite from hefore thee. 1 luill not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become deso- late, and the beast of the field midfijily against thee. By little and little I tvill drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land.''^ His argument is in substance as follows : — The Israelites numbered two mil- lions. Canaan contained only 11,000 square miles. To suppose that with such a population the land could become desolate, or the beast of the field multiply, is absurd. It is farther stated, by way of illustration and jjroof, that Natal con- tains 18,000 square miles, and only 150,000 souls, yet most of the wild beasts have been exterminated. Here is at once the greatest and the most inexcusable blunder in the whole book. Bishop Colenso takes his estimate of the size of the land from Dr. Kitto, and it is accurate so far as concerns that portion divided among the tribes by Joshua; but that is not the land referred to in Exodus xxiii., out of which the Lord said He would not drive the inhabitants at once, lest it should become desolate. Had he looked at verse 31, he would have been saved from a blunder of which he may well feci asliamed. The boundaries of the land alluded to are there given: — " From the Bed Sea unto the sea of the Bhilistines, and from the desert unto tlie river.''' They were defined before in the promise to Abraham, Gen. XV. 18 : — " From the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.''' That land is 500 miles long, by 100 broad, and contains about 50,000 square miles; or nearly j/ire times Bishop Colenso's estimate! Further, the population of that country at the present time is about two mil- lions, or about equal to the number of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus ; and I can testify that more than threefourths of the richest and best of the coun- try lies completely desolcde. The vast plain of Moab, the plain of Esdraelon, and the whole valley of the Jordan, are without an inhabitant. In the plains of Philistia, Sharon, Bashan, Coelesyria, and Hamath, not one-tenth of the soil is under cultivation. In one section of Bashan, I saw upwards of seventy deserted towns and villages. Bishop Colenso says that, though the population of Natal is so small, most of the wild beasts have long ago disajipeared, and. the inhabitants are perfectly well able to maintain their ground against the rest. He forgets, however, to thank gunpowder and the rifle for this. Had the people of Natal contended against the wild beasts, as the ancient Jews did, with spears, and arrows, and slings; had the chiefs of the colony been forced to fight African lions as David fought the bon that attacked his sheep, when he "caught him by the beard, and smote him, and slew him" (1 Sam. xvii. 34, 35) ; the bishop would have had a very different tale to tell this day. Many of the wild beasts have disappeared from Syria, but many still infest the country. In tlie plain of Damascus, which is as densely peopled as any rural district in England, wild swine commit great ravages on the grain. This is the case also along the banks of the Jordan, and in man}^ other places. On the sides of Ante-Lebanon, I have known the bears to destroy whole vineyards in a single night, though every precaution is taken to shut them out, and though armed watches are kept constantly patrolling during the vintage season. Wlien travelling through some districts of the country, my tent was surrounded every night by troops of jackals and hyenas; and more than once they have left me without a breakfast. With my own eyes I have seen jackals dragging fragments of corpses from the graves beneath the very walls of Jeru- salem. Were it not that the peasants are pretty generally armed with rifles, the grain crops and vineyards in many parts of the country would be completely destroyed by wild beasts. My reader can now see how very little Dr. Colenso knows of Bible lands, and how wise and good was the Divine promise — " I will not drive them (the inha- bitants) out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolcde, and the least of the field multiply against thee.'' 33 CHAPTER VI. 1-!tH objection, — number of the first-born. 13th objection, — TIME OF SOJOURNING in EGYPT. 14tH OBJECTION, — THE EXODUS IN THE FOURTH GENERATION ; — MEANING OF THE WORD " DOR ;" THE NUMBERS OF THE ISRAELITES ESTIMATED. loTH AND 16tH OBJECTIONS. — NUMBER OF THE DANITES AND LEVITES. 17TH OBJECTION, — THE PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES. 18TH OBJECTION, — THE SECOND PASSOVER. 19tH OBJECTION, — THE WAR IN MIDIAN. (12.) Our author founds his twelfth impossibility on " The number of first- borns compared with the number of male adults." (p. 84.) 'M/Z the Jirst-horn males, from a month old and iqmards, of those that uere numbered, iccre ticenty and tivo thousand two hundred and threescore and thirteen.'' (Num. iii. 43.) His argument is as follows : — There were 600,000 males of twenty years old and upv»'ards ; the whole number of males may therefore be reckoned at 900,000. It is expressly stated that the 22,273 first-borns were on the mothers' side. (Numbers iii. 12.) Dividing the number of males by the number of first-borns, we find that, according to the story in the Pentateuch, every mother of Israel must have had on the average f or!iy-two sons ! Or, allowing for deaths among the first-born, and for some who may have been killed, suppose that instead of 44,546 first-borns, male and female, there were 60,000 ; even this would imply an average of thirty children to each mother. Be- sides which, the number of mothers must have been the same as that of the first-borns, male and female. Hence, there would have been only 60,000 child-bearing women to 600,000 men ; so that only one man in ten had a wife or children. The conclusion is, the narrative is untrue. Now, surely such an accomplished arithmetician as Dr. Colenso ought to be aware that no problem can be solved where the data are insufiicient. The fallacy in this argument lies here, — sufficient data are not given ; the whole facts are not before us. He -sdrtually admits this himself, when he says, at p. 87, " In some families the first-born may have died ; some, too, who were born about the time of the birth of Moses may have been killed." Then, again, we cannot tell whether the phrase, " All the first-born males " is to be taken absolutely, or as merely including those under a certain age, or those who had the birth-right. The bishop assumes without any warrant that all the first-born of every age and station are included, and that nothing had occurred to alter the ordinary proportion between their number and that of the whole population. In fact, sufiicient data are not given ; and we are not warranted to attempt to work out a statistical problem, much less are we warranted in pronouncing the narrative untrue. (13.) The thirteenth objection is entitled " The sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt." The author has here a laborious argument extending over some six pages, designed to prove what most people will admit without it, — that the period of 430 years, mentioned in Exod. xii. 40, extended from the call of Abraham to the Exodus, (pp. 91-95.) No comment is needed ; for though the tone of the argument is decidedly hostile to Scripture, aU eflbrts of the author to conjure up any real difficulty are vain. (14.) The fourteenth impossibility is entitled " The Exodus in the fourth generation ;" and it is chiefly based on Gen. xv. 16, ''But in the fourth gene- ration they shall come hither again.'' (pp. 96-101.) The author affirms that the "fourth generation" must mean the "fourth in natural descent." This forms the foundation of his arguments and conclusions. If we can prove his interpretation to be erroneous, his argument falls to the ground, and his long array of figures, quotations, and critiques is worthless. From the argument founded upon the above passage he draws two conclusions— first, that the 34 Exodus took place 215 years after the descent into Egypt. This we may admit, though it has no logical connection with his argument on the above passage. — Second, that the Israelites came out of Egypt in the fourth genera- tion from the adults in the prime of life who went down with Jacob. This, I admit, may have been true in a few cases ; but that it was true universally, or that any such truth is deducible from the statement in Gen. xv. 16, I utterly deny. Let us examine the passage critically. The Hebrew word dor, translated " generation," signifies, like the cognate Arabic dour, " a circuit," or "period ;" hence it conies to mean an " age " or " generation." Several meanings are attached to it in Scripture, which can only be accurately determined by the con- text. Thus, in Ps. cxii. 2, Deut. xxxii. 5, Gen. vii, 1, it means " a class of men " living at a given time; in Num. ix. 10, "posterity;" in Is. Iviii, 12, "past ages;" in Is. Ix. 15, " future ages ;" in Jobxlii. IG, "descendants." Bishop Colenso overlooks the context in Gen. xv. Had he examined it, even he could scarcely have failed to see the meaning which the sacred writer there attaches to the word dor. It forms part of the promise to Abraham ; and that promise was, " know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them : and they shal afflict them four hundred years. . . . . But in the fourth generation they shall come up higher again ; for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full." Every scholar must see that the four hundred years and the fourth generation are correlative expressions. To date the commencement of the former from Abraham, and the commencement of the latter from the descent of Jacob into Egypt, is against all rules of interpretation. It is clear that the word dor here means " a century." The Arabic word jil is used with the very same latitude of meaning ; so, also, the Latin word seculum. Thus Bishop Colenso's " indisputable fact " is shown to be a mere blunder in interpretation, and his whole argument based upon it is consequently invalid. But he further attempts to build up his argument upon a few passages in which it is stated that the fourth in descent from the sons or adult grandsons of Jacob did go out in the Exodus. I grant that there were a few such cases in which the fourth in direct descent, from those who went down with Jacob, went out in the Exodus, because the period of life was then long. But this does not prove thai all who went out were of the fourth generation, nor that the mass of them were so, nor even that any except those mentioned were so. It is a singular fact that the bishop's own examples militate against his theory ; but he has suppressed part of the truth. His object is to prove that, as a general rule, those who went out at the Exodus were the fourth in descent from those who went with Jacob to Egypt. He gives a table containing eleven examples; but the whole table is a plausible fallacy. He commences his enumeration from Jacob, or from his sons, or from his grandsons, accord- ing as it suits his purpose; and he terminates each genealogy according to a similar accommodating sliding scale. Thus Moses was the^'fourth in descent from Jacob; but Bishop Colenso forgets to tell us that Moses' sons went out with him, and they were tae fifth generation. Aaron was the fourth from Jacob; but Aaron's grandson, Phinehas, is reckoned among the "heads of fathers of the Levites" who went out in the Exodus; and he was of the sixth generation. (Exod. vi. 25.) I shall give tv/o more of his examples, just to show the unworthy shifts to which he is driven in attempting to make out a difficulty. (1.) " Zarah, Zabdi, Carmi, Achan." The preceding ones he com- menced with sons of Jacob ; this he begins with a grandson. Nov/, Achan was the fifth in descent from Jacob ; and Achans sons who went out with him were the^ sixth. (2.) " Pharez, Hezron, Caleb, Hur, Uri, Bezaleel." This is so manifestly opposed to the bishop's theory that he says : — " In the last instance, Bezaleel is in the ffth generation from Pharez. Perhaps he was a young man, and was reckoned in the generation next to that of Joshua." Bezaleel was the sixth from Judah, and the serenth from Jacob ! We thus see how the bishop's own witnesses break down under a searching examination. '6d And it is by sncli reasoning as this he would overthrow the historical veracity of the Pentateuch ! Let us now see what the sacred writers themselves say upon this point. In Gen. 1. 23, we read that "Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the tJiird gene- ration ; the children also of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees." Joseph was about thirty-four years old when his sons were born (Gen. xH. 46-50) ; he died, aged 110. (1. 26.) Hence it follows that in this instance the fourth generation wasborn, and/o?n- r/eiierations ivere alive together, only seventy-five years after the descent into Egypt. Again, in 1 Ciiron. vii. 22-27, we see that Joshua was the tenth in descent from Josei)h ; that is, there were ten generations within the 215 years' residence in Egypt. Again, Nahshon, who commanded the tribe of Judah at the Exodus, was the sixth in descent from Judah, and not through the line of eldest sons. (1 Chron. ii. 3-10.) We have many incidental proofs that the Israeutes married young, and that three and four generations were often alive together. Joshua and his grandfather were both commanders in the army of Israel at the same period. (Nuo. ii. 18; Exod. xvii. 8-16.) Bishop Colenso affirms that this is hardly credible. A man who makes such a statement can know httle of the East. Sheikh Kasem, of Hauran, was one of the leaders of the Druses in the war against the Turks in 1853. His grandson was also a leader ; and his great-grandson, a fine boy of twelve, was armed and in the field at the same time! I have seen in Damascus a venerable gTandmother aged thirty, with a child of her own and her grandchild on her knee at the same time. We know, moreover, that a blessing of great increase of his seed was repeatedly promised to Abraham: — "I will make of thee a great nation" (Gen xii. 2); "I will make thee exceeding fruitfuV (xvii. 6); "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And He said unto him. So shall thy seed he" (xv. 5) ; " In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I uill midtiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore.'' (xxii. 17.) The same promise was re- newed to Isaac (xxv. 23) ; and to Jacob the Lord said, " Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth ; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south." (xxviii. 14.) On the point of his departure for Egypt, the promise was renewed with a specific clause as to the time of its fulfilment — "And He said, I am God, the God of thy father; fear not to go down into Egypt; for I uill there maheofthce a great nation" (xlvi. 3.) We are told also that this blessing was wondrously fulfilled to the Israelites in Egypt : — "And the children of Israel were fruitful, and in- creased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them." (Exod. i. 7.) The King of Egypt said too: "Be- hold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we." (ver. 9.) When they afflicted them, " the more they afflicted them the more they multipled and grew." (ver. 12.) These plain facts prepare the way for a true estimate of the numbers of the Israelites at the Exodus. We are not to form our estimate according to what is probable or usual under ordinary circumstances, but according to what is possible under such extraordinary circumstances as are detailed in the history. Now suppose the Israehtes remained in Egypt only 215 years. This will give seven generations of nearly thirty-one years each. Suppose that each man had, on an average, four sons (with of course an equal number of daughters) at the age of thirty. Suppose further, the number of males who went down with Jacob, and afterwards became fathers, to be sixty-seven. Calculating upon these data the number of souls at the Exodus would have amounted to 2,195,456. And this does not include the descendants of Jacob's servants, who were doubtless numerous ; nor does it take into account addi- tional children bom after the father attained the age of thirty, nor the more rapid increase of those born before that age. In many cases, besides that of Joshua, there may have been ten generations instead of seven in the 215 years. Bishop Colenso cannot deny that this is possible, nor can he deny that the 36 nature of the Divine promises, and the whole tenor of the sacred narrative warrant us in supposing an enormous, and even unparalleled increase. (15 & 16.) The fifteenth and sixteenth objections are founded on the alleged impossibility involved in the numbers of "the Danites and Levites at the time of the Exodus." (pp. 107 seq.) The argument is substantially as follows: — Dan had only one Son. Hence we may reckon that in the fourth generation he would have had 27 warriors decended from him, instead of 62,700, as given in Num. ii. 26. Levi had only three sons. Thej increased in the second generation to 8. (Exod. vi. 17-19.) The four sons of Kohath increased in the third generation to 8. He goes on with his calculations, taking it for ganted that all the children of each man in each generation are mentioned by the historian ; and he thus shows that the Levites at the census could only have numbered 44, instead of 8,580, as stated in Num iv. 48. The fallacy in the whole argument is two-fold — First, he calculates only four generations from the descent into Egypt to the Exodus. I have shown this to be a mere delusion. Second, he supposes that when the sacred historian gives the names of raii/ of a man's descendants, he necessarily gives them all : this is a groundless assumption. The data are erroneous, and Dr. Colenso's figures are all useless. The replies to Kiirtz, Hengstenberg, Rawlinson, and others, in chap, xix., are based on the same erroneous data, and require no notice. (17.) The seventeenth alleged impossibility of our author is involved in " the number of the priests at the Exodus compared with their duties, and with the provision made for them." (p. 122.) The various duties of the priests are summed up under ten heads, and they certainly look very formidable. They are made to include ail connected with sacrifices and ofi'erings, offerings of thanksgiving from women after child- birth, cases of leprosy, ceremonial pollutions, vows of Nazarites, festival sac- rifices, &:c. " Andnow let us ask," says the bishop, " for all these multifarious duties during the forty years sojourn in the wilderness . . . how many priests were there? There were only three." Here again the data on which all the arguments, calculations, and decla- mations are founded are mere assumptions. First, the author assumes that the multifarious duties which he enumerates could only have been performed by Aaron and his two sons, and that they had no assistants. Now had he turned to Num. iv. 3-45; vii. 3-9; viii. 6-26; xviii., he would have seen that the acts which were to be performed by the priests alone were very few — such as would require neither much time nor much labour ; while for all the rest of the duties they had a very large body of legally appointed and well organized assistants. Second, he assumes that the whole ceremonial ritual was intended to be observed, and was observed in the desert. But it appears plainly that while a few of the leading ordinances were to be observed there, the vast majoritj'- of them were intended for a state of rest in Canaan. On carefully examining the details of the several institutions we see that reference is generally made, in one way or another, to the Promised Land. In proof I direct my reader's attention to the following passages: — Exod. xii. 25 ; Lev. xix. 23.; xxiii. 10; xxv. 2; Num. xv. 2,18 seq. The Israelites did not even observe the rite of circumcision during their wanderings in the wilderness, though it was enjoined on the whole seed of Abraham uiKkr the 2^(^n(i^ty of death. (Gen. xvii. 14.) God, in his mercy, relaxed the law during a period when observance would have been attended with hardship and suftering. The very perquisites of the priests mentioned in connexion with most of the ceremonies are such as to show that reference was necessarily made to Canaan. Oil, and wine, and wheat, and first-fruits they were to get; and these did not exist in the wilderness. (Num. xviii. 9-11, 25-32, t&c.) Third, he assumes that there were only three priests, Aaron and his tvro sous. Three are named ; bat can he prove there were no more? Aaron may have had many sons and grandsons; and the very fact that "thirteen cities with their suburbs" were 37 allotted to the priests od the division of the land — a fact which Dr. Colenso sneers at as incredible — is incidental evidence that Aaron's descendants had become very numerous at the close of the wilderness journey. (Josh. xxi. 19.) (18.) The eighteenth difficulty is entitled, " The priests and their duties at the celebration of the Passover." (p. 131.) Here again the author's difficulties and alleged impossibilites are of his own creation. (1.) He estimates the number of lambs skin at the second Passover at Sinai to have been 150,000. I have already shown that this is a gross exaggeration. (2.) He affirms that the lambs were killed hy the j^riests, trithin the court of the Tahernacle, and their blood siDrinlded hy the priests; but there is not a shadow of proof for this in the whole Pentateuch. The author brings his proof from the history of the celebration of a Passover /;? Jerusalem ^ eight centuries after the time of Moses ! To assume that the regulations ob- served in Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah at the Passover, were in force in the time of Moses, is not only unwarranted, but it is opposed to Jewish history and tradition. Special instructions were given just before the Israelites entered Palestine for the observance of the feast under the new circumstances in which they should there be placed. (Deut. xvi. 5-7.) (3.) He affirms that there were only three priests, and that they had to kill all the lambs with theii' own hands. He cannot prove either statement. There may have been more than three priests, and they had besides a large staff of assistants, as has been proved. (19.) Bishop Colenso's last objection, or alleged impossibility, is entitled, " The war in Midian." (p. 139.) He commences the chapter with a statement of what he thinks he has done in the preceding part of the book: — " we have surely exhibited enough to relieve the mind from any superstitious dread, in pursuing fiu'ther the consideration of this question." He believes, in fact, that he has completely overthrown the historical veracity of the Pentateuch ; and he looks back on his work of destruction with no little pride and com- placency. He plumes himself, too, on being an original investigator in the realms of scepticism — "I believe that to the great majority of my readers many of the above facts will be new, as I freely admit, they were to myself till within a comparatively recent period. It seems strange that it should be so. . . . But the case is really as I have stated it, viz. : — that the Clergy and Laity of England generally have not had these facts before their eyes at all," &c. The bishop's readingmust surely have been very limited on Biblical literature and criticism ; and even in infidel literature. His claim to originality, so far as his leading objections are concerned, cannot fail to be a source of considerable amusement to the theologians of this country and Germany. Some of his objections are certainly original — the blundering criticisms upon Hebrew words and phrases, for example ; but these wiU not add much to his fame as a scholar. The remaining part of this chapter is planned after the model, and written in the style of the Introduction to the book. The author collects from various parts of Scripture a series of isolated and fragmentary statements as to numbers and events ; and by the help of exclamations and comparisons, and notes of admiration, or rather wonder, he contrives to place them in the worst possible hght before the reader. He does his best thus to hold the Bible up, piecemeal as it were, to scorn and ridicule. This is not only imfair in argu- ment, but it is positively dishonest in principle. The careful reader wiU not fail to note that Bishop Colenso does not make out one solitary instance of contradiction— that he does not even attemj^t argument. He thinks that the numbers given and the events narrated could not be true ; and he therefore concludes that they are myths and legends. Now, I would earnestly ask "and entreat readers to pause and to reason before they rashly admit as facts the f nicies of Bishop Colenso. I ask them to peruse the chapter, and then just answer the questions— Is this logic ? Is it common sense ? When a man advances arguments, we can review them ; when he makes statements, we can test them; when he brings forward evidences, we can examine them; when 38 lie frames sophisms, we can expose tliem ; but when he attempts to over- throw the Divine authority of the Bible by sneers, and exclamations, and notes of wonder, such a course is so startling, so abhorrent in its very aspect and character, that the only proper reply to it is a prompt and energetic ex- pression of righteous indignation. " But how thankful ought we to be," he says, *' that we are no longer obliged to believe . . . the story related in Num. xxxi." — the story, namely, of the capture, plunder, and slaiTghter of the Midianites. " The tragedy of Cawnpore, where 300 were butchered, would sink into nothing compared with such a massacre, if, indeed, we were required to believe it." Such is the cool manner in which this profound philosopher, and most scrupulous moralist, sets aside the great facts of the Bible. He compares the destruction of the Midianits //// the express commcnid of the Lord, with the wanton and frightful massacre of the English by the Indian rebels at Cawnpore ! Does Bishop Colenso believe that God is the governor of the world? Does he believe that all maniknd are subject to His laws? Does he believe that God can and does inflict punishment on such as are guilty, not merely of open acts of rebellion, but of the most hideous crimes? Does he not admit that earthquakes, pestilence, lightning, tempest are all occasionally employed as the executioners of God's righteous sentences on a guilty world? And when God is pleased, by express enactment, or direct command— as in the case under consideration (Num. xxxi. 1, 2) — to make a man or a nation His execu- tioner, are we to accuse that man, or that nation, of cruelty for obeying? Or is the moral character of the judgment changed because the sirord, and not the pestilence or the earthquake, has been made the instrument of punish- ment? The bishop's theology seems to be as defective as his critical scholarship. CHAPTEPw VII. CONCLUDING REJIARKS. — BISHOP COLENSO's PROPOSED SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE. HIS NEW VIEWS REGARDING CHRISTIAN (?) MISSIONS. The concluding remarks of Bishop Colenso are very sad and very startling. He expresses his belief that he has overthrown that notion of Scripture inspiration which Christians have hitherto been taught to regard as the foundation of their faith and their hope. In plain terms — for it really amounts to this — he believes he has proved that the Bible is not and cannot be the Word of God. He supposes that, having done so, a demand will be made upon him for something to supply the loss — "for something to fill up the aching void." He informs us that he is not 5^et able ftdly to answer this demand; we must wait patiently until his pre- sent Avork is brought to a close ! Meantime, however, he bids us turn for the comfort and support of our -troubled souls to — his Commentary on the Epistle to the Roraans I So, then, instead of an inspired Bible, he would give us as the sole ground of our faith and hope, in the meantime, his Commentary ! ! And he farther encourages us to look forward to a time when a second part of this Avork on the Pentateuch shall appear — characterised, doubtless, by the same ])rofound scholarship, by the same critical acumen, and by the same high-toned morality to which I have called my readers' attention in the first i)art — and shall serve as a firm and satisfactory basis for our faith! Surely, in the whole Avorld of Christian and anti-Christian literature there was never aught penned to equal this ! And even this is not all. Bishop Colenso coolly tells us that he expects, as a missionary, to be able "before long to meet the Mahommedan, and Brahmin, mid Buddhist, as well as the untutored savage of South Afi'ica, on other and bulter terms than we do now." And what arc these terms? The Bible is to be 39 no more offered to them as the Word oi God. The great fimdament.il doctrmes of the fall hnman depravity, the atonement, sanctification by the Holy fepirit, are to be lio lono-er preached ; but, in their stead, men are to be taught to trust implicitly in God's love, and on Bishop Colenso's Commentary on the Romans. That hi4 and heavenly standard of morality laid down in the Bible is no longer to be enforced ; but in its room will be set up a more cathohc morahty of Bishop Colenso's own invention, according to which polygamy will be tolerated. 1 o bring about this salutary change in the management of Christian missions is coniessedly one of the objects for wMch the present treatise has been pubhshed. I trust,_how- ever ere that day come, that the voice of the whole Christian public will be raised in defence of that Bible which is at once the foundation of our country s liberties and the source of all her glory. I hope, too, if Bishop Colenso should continue to be so far lost to all feelings of honor, to all principles of honesty, as not to abdicate wilhngly his office when he has publicly abjured histaith— i hope that the Church with which he is connected will rise m her might and drive him forth as a traitor from within her pale. I have now done with " Bishop Colenso and the Pentateuch. 1 hav3 en- deavoured in my remarks to gratify to the utmost the wish expressed by the author in his preface :— " I wish the reader to watch carefully every step ot t he aro-ument, with a determination to test severely, with all the power and skill he caS bring to the work, the truth of every inference I have drawn, and every conclusion at which I have arrived." I have done so ; and I believe I have done so both Jionesfly and fairhj. I have tested the author's ethical principles, and L have shown them to be false and pernicious. I have tested his critical scholar- ship and I have shown it to be superficial. I have tested his theology, and I have shown it to be shallow and unscriptural. T have tested his arguments and i have shown them to be inconclusive, and, in some cases, even sophistical. If Bishop Colenso or any of his friends should feel aggrieved by the apparent severity of some of mv remarks, I would beg of them to bear in mmd the posi- tion he has assumed, the charges he has preferred against the Bible, and the momentous results to which his book would lead. He occupies a place of high trust and influence in an evangelical Church ; and yet he is employing all his talent and influence to overthrow evangelical truth. He has pub icly affirmed that he unfeignedly beheves all the canonical Scriptures, and he has solemnly vowed, both privately and publicly, to uphold and defend them, and to encou- rage others to do the same ; yet now he publicly affirms that the Scriptures are no't the Word of God, and he boldly charges them with falsehood, absuMity, and immorality. Xeed he, or any man, be surprised, therefore, when, m language strong and indignant, I endeavour to expose such conduct, and to sweep away the fltmsy fallacies on which he grounds his charges?