BS480 .B75 1891 
 
 Briggs, Charles Augustus, 1841-1913. 
 
 Inspiration and inerrancy; inaugural addres 
 
INSPIRATION AND 
 INEERANCY. 
 
INSPIEATION AND 
 INEEEANCY. 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS Bt^<J:^d\j\M 'oC^'^^'t 
 
 C. A. BRIGGS, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Biblical Theology in Union Theological Seminary, 
 New York. 
 
 TOGETHER WITH PAPERS UPON BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 AND INSPIRATION, 
 
 LLEWELLYN J.EVANS, D.D., 
 
 Professor of New Testament Exegesis in Lane Theological Seminary, 
 Cincinnati, 
 
 HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Hebrew in Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, 
 AND AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Apologetics and New Testament Exegesis in the Free 
 Church College, Glasgow. 
 
 ilonlfon : 
 JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET, E.C. 
 
 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. — Introduction. 
 
 By Prof. A. B. Bruce, D.D 1 
 
 II. — The Authority of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Inaugural Address hy Prof. C. A. Briggs, D.D. 37 
 
 III. — Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration. 
 
 Bssay hy Prof. L. J. Evans, D.D 101 
 
 Essay hy Prof. H. P. Smith, D.D 195 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 By a. B. BEUCE, D.D., 
 
 Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the Free Church 
 College, Glasgow. 
 
' INTBODUCTION. 
 
 There is no subject on which the religious 
 pubhc will at the present time more eagerly- 
 welcome a competent statement than, "What 
 to think about the Bible ? In all the churches 
 it is a question, if not the question, of the 
 hour. It is not a question merely, or even 
 chiefly, as between behevers and infidels, but 
 among believers themselves; between men 
 holding substantially the same creed regarding 
 matters pertaining to religion ; a question in- 
 ternal to faith, and dividing the household of 
 faith. It is a question on which much dis- 
 cussion will be needed to bring about a good 
 understanding between those who at present 
 are divided in opinion and tempted to think 
 evil of each other. And inasmuch as those 
 who now stand opposed are really at one in 
 their fundamental behefs and aims, it is evi- 
 dently very desirable that the debate should 
 be carried on in a spirit of mutual respect and 
 trust, and with the gravity and reverence that 
 befit the theme. 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 One has only to pay a little attention to con- 
 temporary utterances of a representative cha- 
 racter to be satisfied that discussion of the Bible 
 question, as we may briefly call it, however un- 
 desirable in some respects, is unavoidable. In 
 the late General Assembly of the Free Church 
 of Scotland, one of the ablest, most scholarly, 
 and most devout of the younger ministers of 
 that church, in a debate on " Kevision of the 
 Confession of Faith," said : " The infalhbihty 
 of the Scriptures is not a mere verbal in- 
 errancy or historical accuracy, but an in- 
 falhbility of power to save. The Word of 
 God infallibly carries God's power to save 
 men's souls. If a man submit his heart and 
 mind to the Spirit of God speaking in it, he 
 will infallibly become a new creature in Christ 
 Jesus. That is the only kind of infallibihty I 
 beheve in. For a mere verbal inerrancy I 
 care not one straw. It is worth nothing to 
 me ; it would be worth nothing if it were 
 there, and it is not." 
 
 In the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church of America, held about the same time, 
 the report submitted on " Bevision of the Con- 
 fession," contained a proposal to add to the 
 Confessional statement on the evidences that 
 the Bible is the Word of God, a clause, in- 
 cluding among these evidences " the truthful- 
 ness of the history and the faithful witness of 
 prophecy and miracle." That is to say, the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 American Committee of Ee vision appear to 
 hold the historical accuracy— on which Mr. 
 Denney, in the Free Church Assembly, set 
 so little value — to be one of the marks of the 
 Bible being a Divine Book, the absence of 
 which would be fatal to its claims to be the 
 Word of God. Here, surely, is a great cleavage 
 in opinion — a chasm between two theological 
 schools on a subject of vital importance 
 which it were very desirable to have bridged 
 over ! It will serve no purpose to deny the 
 cleavage, or to invent ambiguous formulae 
 to conceal it. The one thing needful is 
 that each side in the controversy state its 
 position as distinctly as possible, and do 
 its very best to make good its case, and let 
 the conscience of the Church, enlightened 
 by discussion, decide on which side truth 
 lies. 
 
 The two essays, by Professors Evans and 
 Smith, of Lane Theological Seminary, now 
 republished in England, are a valuable con- 
 tribution to the literature of the controversy. 
 They owed their origin to the " Briggs Case," 
 of which we have already heard something, 
 and shall ere long hear more. The American 
 Presbyterian Church was set on fire, like the 
 prairie, by the utterances of Professor Briggs, 
 of Union Theological Seminary, New York, 
 in his Inaugural Address, on the occasion of 
 his transference to the new Chair of Biblical 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Theology, founded by the munificence of the 
 venerable Charles Butler, President of the 
 Board of Directors connected with the Semi- 
 nary. From one side of the continent to the 
 other the Presbyteries were agitated by the 
 question. Ought not the forthcoming Assembly 
 to use its power of veto on the appointment of 
 professors, and interdict the obnoxious pro- 
 fessor from venting such opinions in the new 
 Chair ? The Presbytery of Cincinnati had to 
 face the question hke the rest, and Professors 
 Evans and Smith were among the men of 
 light and leading to whom the brethren looked 
 for guidance in the crisis. The two papers 
 now given to the British pubHc were read 
 before the Presbyterial Ministerial Associa- 
 tion of Cincinnati, and thereafter published 
 for general circulation. They have been re- 
 ceived by American readers in many cases 
 with cordial approval, and in all cases with 
 respect, as statements emanating from men 
 well entitled, both by their general standing 
 and by their special studies, to address the 
 public on the question at issue. It is believed 
 that they vnll receive a not less cordial wel- 
 come on this side the Atlantic. Though 
 they bear — in notes and in the form of ex- 
 pression — occasional marks of their origin, 
 they are, in their main substance, of universal 
 concern, and as well fitted to interest and 
 instruct us here as the community for whose 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 benefit they were primarily designed. The 
 local element allowed to remain will rather 
 add to, than detract from, the interest, as 
 serving to give us some insight into the present 
 phases of opinion in America on the subjects 
 treated of. 
 
 Though the essays of the Lane professors 
 may be regarded as independent contributions 
 to current controversies concerning the Scrip- 
 tures, they gain in importance when read in 
 the light of the Inaugural Address of Professor 
 Briggs, which was the innocent cause of all 
 the turmoil that now disturbs the American 
 Presbyterian Church. It has therefore been 
 deemed advisable to include that Address in 
 the present volume. The British pubhc will, 
 we are sure, be glad to have it in their power 
 to make themselves acquainted with the utter- 
 ances of a man who, formerly well and favour- 
 ably known to theologians, has recently be- 
 come famous as the object of ecclesiastical 
 prosecution. The Address, which has for its 
 formal theme The Authority of Holy Scripture, 
 touches on several questions on which pubhc 
 opinion in America is very sensitive, such as 
 the inerrancy of Scripture and the progressive 
 sanctification of men after death. The larger 
 portion of it, as w^as to be expected, is devoted 
 to the important topic The Theology of the 
 Bible, in connection with which the lecturer 
 has much to say on the difference in spirit 
 
8 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 between that theology and the theology of 
 dogmatic systems. Without going into detail, 
 it may be said that the tone of the discussion 
 is evangelic throughout, and that whatever of 
 a questionable character may be discovered in 
 the Professor's utterances, is really due to zeal 
 for the good cause of evangelic piety against 
 dogmatic legaHsm. 
 
 The two sides of the controversy are well 
 represented with Dr. Briggs, of Union Semi- 
 nary, and Drs. Evans and Smith, of Lane, 
 as the advocates of modern views, and the 
 theologians of Princeton, with their well-known 
 conservative tendencies, acting as the accepted 
 and powerful champions of old orthodoxy. 
 The battle is indeed a very unequal one, so 
 far as numbers are concerned. The American 
 Presbyterian Church is still, as compared vdth 
 most of the British churches, in a state of 
 dogmatic slumber. The state of opinion there 
 to-day is something similar to that which pre- 
 vailed here some thirty years ago. In the 
 Northern States theological conservatism is 
 in the ascendant, though not quite so strong 
 as the recent overwhelming vote against Dr. 
 Briggs might indicate ; in the Southern States 
 it may be said to be in exclusive possession of 
 the field. The combatants on either side speak 
 and write with full knowledge of the situation. 
 On the one side there is the confidence inspired 
 by big battalions ; on the other, the conscious- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 ness that the advocate of new views takes his 
 life in his hand. Happily, the sense of heing in 
 the minority does not seem to be very depress- 
 ing in its effect on the American temperament. 
 Our friends utter their thoughts with a due 
 sense of responsibility, but without fear, and 
 with the tone of men who have made up their 
 minds for all possible consequences. The 
 heroic temper of the War of Independence 
 seems to be awaking, and we may expect to 
 see some plucky fighting. 
 
 In the following pages frequent references 
 occur to a joint article on Inspiration, by 
 Professors A. H. Hodge and Warfield, which 
 appeared in the pages of T)i& Freshyterian 
 Beview, some ten years ago. It was a sort 
 of manifesto of the Conservative Party, and 
 it has the merit of bringing the question at 
 stake to a definite point, and raising a clear 
 issue. Specially noteworthy is the defini- 
 tion of Inspiration therein given. It is so 
 important in its bearing on the controversy 
 about the Bible that we deem it right here to 
 quote the passage in which it occurs. It is as 
 follows : " During the entire history of Chris- 
 tian theology the word ' Inspiration ' has been 
 used to express either some or all of the 
 activities of God co-operating with its human 
 authors in the genesis of Holy Scripture. We 
 prefer to use it in the single sense of God's 
 continued work of superintendence, by which 
 
lo INTRODUCTION. 
 
 — His providential, gracious, and supernatural 
 contributions having been presupposed — He 
 presided over the sacred vn-iters in their entire 
 work of writing, with the design and effect of 
 rendering that writing an errorless record of 
 the matters He designed them to communicate, 
 and hence constituting the entire volume in all 
 its parts the Word of God to us." Briefly, In- 
 spiration is a contrivance for securing absolute 
 inerrancy in the original autograph of Scrip- 
 ture. This is a fighting definition, and as such 
 it will become more and more the idea of In- 
 spiration prevalent in the Conservative camp. 
 Whatever else Inspiration may be, or effect, 
 the one thing certain and all-important, in the 
 view of the advocates of unqualified inerrancy 
 will be, that Inspiration insured that the Bible 
 should possess that characteristic. What it is, 
 in its own nature, how it operates on the 
 human authors of the sacred books, they do 
 not claim fully to know or feel bound to state ; 
 the one thing they profess to know about it is, 
 that it has for its fruit an absolutely infallible 
 book. 
 
 The definition is a very handy one for con- 
 troversial purposes. It settles the question in 
 dispute by begging it. The question is, Is 
 absolute inerrancy a characteristic of the 
 Scriptures, and those who maintain the 
 affirmative start by defining Inspiration as a 
 Divine superintendence which has for its 
 
INTRODUCTION. ii 
 
 design and effect to secure an errorless re- 
 cord. By this definition those who maintain 
 the negative are put in the awkward position 
 of being obhged either to give up their con- 
 tention or to lie under the imputation of deny- 
 ing Inspiration. This method of settling a 
 controversy at a stroke by a definition is not 
 altogether new in the history of human 
 thought. It was the method by which Spinoza 
 established his system of Pantheism. The 
 whole superstructure of pantheistic thought 
 in the Etliica ordine geometrico demojistrata 
 rests on the definition of substance. ^' By 
 substance, I understand,' says Spinoza, quietly* 
 *' that which exists by itself, and is conceived 
 by itself." Of course, if this definition be 
 accepted, it follows that there is only one 
 substance — viz., God. In like manner the 
 authors of the tractate on Inspiration quietly 
 intimate that they ** prefer" to use the term 
 Inspiration as denoting a superintendence 
 which insures an errorless record. If their 
 preference be allowed there is an end to the 
 question whether the record be errorless. The 
 method pursued in common by Spinoza and y 
 the Princeton theologians, for very opposite 
 purposes, reminds us of a subject given out by 
 the professor of mathematics in the Univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh to his class as a theme for 
 voluntary essays by the more adventurous 
 spirits. ''Assume that the three angles of a 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 triangle are not equal to two right angles, 
 and deduce the consequences." From the 
 assumption certain members of the class, by 
 irrefragable logic, deduced a considerable 
 number of most preposterous propositions — 
 a little system, in fact, of most absurd geo- 
 metry. You can do anything in the way of 
 reasoning, given the requisite assumptions and 
 definitions. 
 
 An errorless Bible, "inspired" in the sense 
 of being Divinely endowed with inerrancy, 
 such is the watchword of one school ; a Bible 
 inspired in a much larger and more Divine 
 sense than that of mere superintendence, but 
 not necessarily inerrant, such is the position 
 taken up by the rival school. It is a question 
 of fact to be decided ultimately by an appeal 
 to the Bible itself, and a careful inspection 
 of all the relative phenomena. But it is not 
 a mere question of fact for the advocates of 
 inerrancy, but also of faith ; for their pos-i-tion 
 iaJjiat^ -single-Biror, ^o waver minute, would'-. 
 be_ fatal to the claim of the Bible to be the 
 Word of God. "A proved error," say Drs. 
 Hodge and Warfield, '' a proved error in Scrip- 
 ture contradicts not only our doctrine, but the 
 Scripture claims, and therefore its inspiration 
 in making those claims. It is, therefore, of 
 vital importance to ask. Can phenomena of 
 error and untruth be pointed out ? " Vital, 
 indeed ; and just because it is a matter of life 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 and death for them to make out that there 
 are no errors or mistakes in the Scriptures, 
 it becomes a matter of not less grave import- 
 ance for their opponents to resist their con- 
 tention to the uttermost. It is the dogmatic 
 significance assigned to the presence or 
 absence of errors that makes the question at 
 issue one of the first order of importance. 
 In themselves the alleged errors in the Bible 
 may be very insignificant — mere spots on the 
 sun. But the smallest error in a date or a 
 number becomes a gigantic affair, if on it 
 depend the claim of the Bible to be the 
 Word of God, and its value as a guide in 
 faith and conduct. The solitary mistake then 
 becomes the symbol of a great principle, the 
 flag around which the army of the faithful 
 rally to fight to the death for the sacred Book 
 against its assailants, who would fain pass for 
 its devoted friends. For the real foes of the 
 Bible are those who stake everything on the 
 question of inerrancy. And its real friends are 
 those who strenuously assert that we are not 
 bound, under pain of losing our Bible, to hold 
 and prove against all comers that " all the 
 affirmations of Scripture of all kinds, whether 
 of spiritual doctrine or duty, or of physical 
 or historical fact, or of psychological or philo- 
 sophical principle, are without any error when 
 the ipsissi77ia verba of the original autographs 
 are ascertained and interpreted in their natural 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and intended sense." And be it carefully 
 noted, that it is only in refusing to come 
 under such a tremendous obligation that the 
 party represented by Professors Evans and 
 Smith feel any zeal. They are nowise anxious 
 to convict the Scriptures of errors — few or 
 many, great or small. If all parties were 
 willing to let inerrancy remain a mere ques- 
 tion of fact, they would be glad to be relieved 
 of the unwelcome task of discovering mistakes 
 in the sacred page, and to devote themselves 
 nndistractedly to the more congenial occupa- 
 tion of searching into the treasures of spiritual 
 wisdom hidden therein. Even the loudest 
 assertion that there are no errors in the Bible 
 would not provoke them to contradiction. 
 They would be content that those who sin- 
 cerely believe this should enjoy the comfort of 
 their faith. But when believers in inerrancy, 
 not content with enjoying their own faith, 
 seek to impose it on others who cannot see 
 with their eyes ; when, besides maintaining 
 that there are no errors in the Bible, they 
 moreover maintain that there cannot be com- 
 patibly with its continuing to be the Word of 
 God, and insist that this dogma shall be made 
 a binding article of faith, and that the con- 
 trary opinion shall be treated as a heresy, 
 then tame acquiescence is disloyalty to the 
 cause, not only of Christian liberty, but of true 
 reverence for the Bible. 
 
IN TROD UCTION. 1 5 
 
 In all controversies it is common for an- 
 tagonists to try to show that the presumption 
 is on their side, and that the onus probandi 
 lies on their opponents. In this respect the 
 advocates of inerrancy claim to have the 
 advantage, alleging that the claims of Scrip- 
 ture itself, and the faith of the universal 
 Church till recent times, and especially of 
 those who have done most signal service to 
 Christianity, are decidedly on their side. The 
 question as to the onus probandi is seldom 
 a vital one. The burden of proof always lies, 
 or is righteously or unrighteously thrown, on 
 those who are in the minority, or who repre- 
 sent new and unfamiliar opinions. It settles 
 nothing as to the merits of the case. If those 
 who refuse to swear by inerrancy are put 
 upon their defence by an arrogant majority, 
 confident of their orthodoxy, they need not 
 break their hearts. As apologists, as bearers 
 of that formidable burden, called 07iiis pro- 
 bandij they are in good company. Christ was 
 put upon His defence by Pharisaism for the 
 heinous crime of loving the sinful. Paul, as the 
 Apostle of Gentile Christianity, and a Gospel of 
 salvation on equal terms for all mankind, was 
 put on his defence by Judaists, who insisted 
 on the perpetual obligation of circumcision ; 
 and even by the eleven Apostles, who, though 
 not Judaists, were far from sharing Paul's un- 
 compromising zeal and generous enthusiasm 
 
i6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for the liberties and privileges of Gentile 
 believers. Both accepted their position v^ith 
 the meekness of wisdom, and offered apologies 
 vrhich made them, single-handed, stronger 
 than a thousand supporters of use and wont, 
 and converted views, which at first appeared 
 heresies, into the universal creed of Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 On a larger view of the situation, it is not 
 so certain, as the advocates of inerrancy 
 imagine, that the presumption is on their 
 side. The analogy of God's ways in other 
 departments of His providential action, sug- 
 gests the intrinsic likelihood of His giving to 
 men a religious guidance which, while amply 
 sufficient, should not possess those ideal attri- 
 butes which theorists might regard as indis- 
 pensable. On this point Mr. Gladstone has 
 written some wise words in his recently-pub- 
 lished work on Tlie Impregnable Bock of Holy 
 Scripture — words all the more deserving of 
 serious attention on the part of conservative 
 theologians that in the main the writer is with 
 them in his bias. *' No doubt," he remarks 
 " there will be those who will resent any asso- 
 ciation between the idea of a Divine revelation 
 and the possibility of even the smallest intru- 
 sion of error into its vehicle. This idea, how- 
 ever, is by no means altogether a novelty. It is 
 manifestly included as a likehhood, if not a cer- 
 tainty, in the fact of continuous transmission 
 
INTRCDUCTION. 17 
 
 by human means without continuous miracle 
 to guarantee it. But, further, ought they not to 
 bear in mind that we are bound by the rule of 
 reason to look for the same method of pro- 
 cedure in this great matter of a written pro- 
 vision of Divine knowledge for our needs, as 
 in the other parts of the manifold dispensation 
 under which Providence has placed us ? Now, 
 that method or principle is one of sufficiency, 
 not of perfection ; of sufficiency for the attain- 
 ment of practical ends, not of conformity to 
 ideal standards ; and the question what con- 
 stitutes that sufficiency is a matter no more to 
 be judged of by us, in relation to the Scriptures, 
 than in relation to any other part of the 
 Divine dispensations, on all of which the 
 Almighty appears to have reserved His judg- 
 ment to Himself." In taking up this wise 
 ground Mr. Gladstone is confessedly the dis- 
 ciple of Bishop Butler. The lesson which the 
 great author of The Analogy sought to teach 
 his contemporaries has not yet been fully 
 mastered by religious people, especially in its 
 bearing on the Scriptures. There is nothing 
 to which devout minds are more prone than to 
 taking charge of God's honour and reputation 
 as an Author. Any Book having Him for its 
 " Author " must, they think, possess all con- 
 ceivable perfections— literary, moral, religious. 
 Faults of any description in such a Book are 
 not to be thought of — the mere imagination of 
 
 2 
 
i8 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 them were an impiety. If, in absence of any 
 actual Bible, men were to set themselves to 
 conceive what a Divine Book should be, 
 taking for their guidance the principle of 
 perfection in all possible respects, they would 
 almost certainly form an idea very remote 
 from the character of the Bible in actual 
 existence. Professor Smith, in the beginning 
 of his paper, illustrates what he calls " the 
 natural theory concerning an inspired book" 
 by the case of the Koran. The Moham- 
 medans beheve that the Koran was written 
 in a perfect Arabic style, that every syllable 
 is of directly Divine origin, that its text is 
 incorruptible, and that it is the absolute 
 authority, not only in religion and ethics, 
 but also in law, science, and history. Having 
 stated these and other facts relative to the 
 Koran, Professor Smith goes on to remark : 
 " The point I make is, This is the kind of 
 Bible we should like to have God give us, and 
 when we construct for ourselves a theory of 
 revelation we do it along these lines." The 
 value of his Essay largely lies in the illustra- 
 tions it supplies from the history of theological 
 opinion concerning the Old Testament, of the 
 follies perpetrated by men who sought to settle 
 on a priori principles, what a Bible should be. 
 The story he tells about the vowel points of 
 the Hebrew Bible is full of instruction and 
 warning. Those who maintained that the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 vowel points of the Masoretic text belonged 
 to the original autograph were acting in the 
 same spirit as the men in om- own day, who 
 are the champions of Biblical inerrancy. They 
 were acting as the self-elected guardians of 
 God's reputation as an "Author." This habit 
 of "patronising God " is a very inveterate one. 
 It is as old as Job's friends, who constituted 
 themselves the champions of Divine righteous- 
 ness, and in their zeal maintained that no 
 disaster ever overtook a really good man ; only 
 to be called fools for their pains. When one 
 thinks of those prosing friends of the afflicted 
 saint he begins to see that the presumption 
 probably lies in a different direction from what 
 is commonly supposed. The likelihood is that 
 the zealots for inerrancy are wrong. The self- 
 elected champions of the Divine honour, the 
 patronisers of God, have almost always been 
 wrong. For, though men will persist in 
 thinking the contrary, God's ways are not ' 
 as our ways. 
 
 The case of the Hebrew vowels is, as is 
 well known to Biblical scholars, not the only 
 instance in which a misguided zeal for the 
 honour of God, as an Author, has led theo- 
 logians to take up untenable and demon- 
 strably false positions. The controversy as 
 to the characteristics of the Greek of the New 
 Testament is another very instructive historical 
 illustration of the folly of a priori reasonings 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the interest of a foregone conclusion. The 
 theorists said : The Greek of the New Testa- 
 ment must be pure, free of the vulgarisms of 
 the spoken Greek of the time, and of Hebraisms 
 in construction, otherwise God's credit as an 
 Author would be compromised. The scholars, 
 more concerned about facts than dogmatic 
 theories, said, Both forms of corruption are 
 X^ traceable in the language of the Greek New 
 Testament. There is no dispute about the 
 matter now, and some, perhaps, would be glad 
 to forget that there ever had been a dispute. 
 But it is good to be reminded that there once 
 was a time when it could not be said, as Drs. 
 Hodge and Warfield say, with reference to 
 their own time, that "no one claims that 
 inspiration secured the use of good Greek in 
 Attic severity of taste, free from the exaggera- 
 tion and looseness of current speech, but only 
 that it secured the accurate^expression of truth, 
 even (if you will) through the medium of the 
 ^ worst Greek a fisherman of Gahlee could 
 write, and the most startling figures of speech 
 a peasant could invent." Every experience of 
 this sort helps to strengthen the warning against 
 a-priorism, and to suggest the thought that 
 probably the dogma of inerrancy belongs to 
 the same category of theological follies, as the 
 dogmas of a vocalised Hebrew text, and a 
 New Testament written in faultless Greek, and 
 that it is simply the last enemy with which 
 
INTRO D UCTION. 2 1 
 
 the spirit of inductive inquiry, in re the Bible, 
 has to fight. 
 
 There does not appear to be any good 
 reasons why this last enemy should not be 
 combated with as little compunction as the 
 other figments conjured up hy the theological 
 imagination. For one may well ask, Gui bonOy y 
 the errorless original autograph, which no 
 one has ever seen ? This is a point which our 
 readers will find very powerfully put by Pro- 
 fessor Evans, in a passage too long to quote, 
 but of which the opening sentences may here 
 be given. "Everybody," he remarks, " v^ll 
 admit that in the process of transcription and 
 transmission, at least, some error has crept 
 into the book, some contradiction, some in- 
 accuracy, which, as the matter stands, cannot 
 be accepted as the exact statement of that 
 particular matter. But is not that virtually 
 to give up the whole position ? What is 
 Inspiration for ? Surely to advantage the 
 reader. But what is the value of an infallible 
 editorship which does not secure a perma- 
 nently infallible text ? " These are questions, 
 the force of which it is not easy to evade. 
 
 But the advocates of inerrancy may plead, 
 If there was not once an errorless autograph 
 then we have in the Scriptures no reliable 
 guide, no infallible rule of faith and practice. 
 Given an absolutely accurate autograph, no 
 longer existing, indeed, but once existent, at 
 
^ 
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 least in successive parts of the sacred Book, 
 then the problem is ;to work up to it, and get 
 as near to it in our actual Bible as we can. 
 We can, then, be sure that all in the actual 
 Bible that cannot be suspected of having 
 deviated from the autograph may be implicitly 
 trusted as the very Word of God ; and the 
 residuum in which deviation has taken place — 
 an insignificant portion of the whole, at the 
 most — is always being reduced in amount by 
 the labours of experts. But admit a single 
 mistake, however minute, in the autograph, 
 and uncertainty is introduced into the whole 
 book. If, for example, the parts of Israel's 
 history before, during, and after the sojourn in 
 Egypt, were not correctly reported in the auto- 
 graph copy of the Pentateuch, how can we be 
 sure that the Prophets give us the true signi- 
 ficance of that history, as the story of a people 
 chosen by the God of the whole earth to give 
 to the world the true religion ? In short, the 
 Bible cannot be trusted in anything unless it 
 can be trusted in everything. It cannot be 
 an infallible guide even in the most vital 
 matters of religion, unless it be an infalhble 
 guide in matters of fact, date, or number. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of reasoning Hke 
 this proceeding from honest perplexity, and 
 not from sheer VTilfulness. The notion that 
 the Bible can be no guide at all unless it be 
 an absolutely infallible guide, is so entirely 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 contrary to our experience in other depart- 
 ments of human Hfe. Can a father give no 
 useful guidance to a child, or a teacher to a 
 pupil, because he does not know everything, ^ 
 and occasionally makes mistakes in his state- 
 ments ? Nay, is not the notion in question 
 contrary to experience, even within the sphere 
 of religion, and in connection with the use of 
 the Scripture as a guide ? Is it not notorious 
 that men do get effective, practically infallible 
 guidance in faith and conduct from the Bible, 
 who do not conceive of it either in its actual 
 or in its ideal state as an infallible book? 
 Through use of the Scriptures many have 
 become men of God, thoroughly furnished for 
 all good work, for whom they have been 
 nothing more than a reliable source of in- 
 formation on the whole regarding the main 
 facts in the history of revelation, and a gene- 
 rally trustworthy guide in the interpretation"/ 
 of the religious significance of the facts. Do 
 you with Thomas, wilfully say. Unless I put 
 my finger into the print of the nails I will 
 not believe ; unless the original autograph was 
 absolutely free from error, I will have nothing 
 to do with the Bible ? Because you have 
 seen, at least, with the eye of imagination, 
 the errorless autograph have you believed? 
 Blessed are they that have not seen and yet 
 have believed. Thank God the blessedness is 
 not rare. There are men who have believed 
 
/ 
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the Bible to be a Divine Book, and have got 
 from it all needful guidance, who have doubted 
 the canonicity of certain books, and so had 
 the use of only a mutilated Bible ; who have 
 felt the full force of critical arguments against 
 the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch, and the 
 exactitude of its historical narrations; who 
 have seen in the discrepancies between the 
 narratives in the books of Kings and Chronicles, 
 or in the Gospels, not mere difficulties taxing 
 the skill of the harmonist, but irreconcilable 
 contradictions ; and who have found even in 
 the religious sentiments of the writers of the 
 Old Testament books, not a little with which 
 they were unable to sympathise — nay, from 
 which the perfect teaching of Christ seemed to 
 require them to dissent. And even of those 
 who now believe in an errorless autograph, 
 how many can honestly pretend that they 
 began to get good from the Bible only after 
 they had made up their minds as to its abso- 
 lute infallibility, and had attained to intel- 
 ligent and decided convictions on all questions 
 belonging to the departments of Biblical criti- 
 cism and introduction? The errorless auto- 
 graph was in most cases the end, not the 
 beginning, of their faith. Speaking generally, 
 the question of Inspiration, and all that it 
 involves, is a question internal to faith. Most 
 men are a good way on the road to heaven by 
 the grace of God, and the guidance of Jesus 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 Christ, who, more than even the Bible, is the 
 true Leader of faithful souls, and Guide of those 
 that travel to the skies, before they know well 
 what to think on the thousand and one pro- 
 blems of Bibhcal science, or have any right to 
 entertain a personal opinion on the subjects to 
 which these relate. Perhaps they start on 
 their heavenward journey with a provisional 
 theory as to inerrancy ; but it is not in con- 
 sequence of holding that theory that they 
 derive benefit from the sacred Book. It may 
 be doubted, indeed, whether holding it does 
 not do them quite as much harm as good, 
 causing them to use the Bible mechanically 
 as a Wind guide of the blind, as if all parts 
 of the volume were alike valuable, all state- ^ 
 ments alike words of God, and everything to 
 be beheved and done for which chapter and 
 verse could be quoted. 
 
 The Bible is not such a mechanical rule of 
 faith and practice as the devout, but ignorant, 
 use just described, assumes. It is not a high- 
 way wherein wayfaring men, though fools, may 
 walk and not err. Many wayfarers have erred 
 grievously, not to say fatally. Think how the 
 Eabbis and their disciples erred ! They searched 
 the Scriptures with commendable, almost 
 pathetic, dihgence, and they missed Christ. 
 The Bible was an errorless Book for them as 
 for many now. They, in fact, were the \ 
 originators of the theory of inerrancy ; yet it 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 did not keep them from error — nay, as con- 
 ceived and used by them, it was the very cause 
 of their error. It was a bhnd guide to bUnd 
 men, with the inevitable consequence. It is 
 never anything else to those who are spiritually 
 blind. To be a useful guide in reHgion, the 
 Bible must be spiritually used by men whose 
 eyes God hath opened. To be a guide to the 
 full extent of possible usefulness, it must be 
 used with great discrimination ; for of all "rules " 
 the Bible is the least mechanical, insomuch 
 that it were better to discard the term 
 altogether and adopt some more apt expres- 
 sion, seeing that it is so suggestive of the idea 
 of mechanical use. The Bible, if a rule, is one 
 
 ^ of a very unusual sort. It is a rule that im- 
 proves on itself, and advances from less to 
 greater degrees of perfection. Revelation was 
 progressive, and that implies much. It implies 
 that in the earliest stages of revelation there 
 were, not immoralities, indeed, but certainly 
 crude moralities. The distinction just taken 
 is important, and ought to be carefully made 
 for the honour of Scripture and the guidance 
 of its readers. Immorality is the breach of a 
 recognised moral standard. Crude morality is 
 conformity with a low moral standard. Of 
 
 y. such crude morality there are numerous in- 
 
 • stances in the Old Testament, and no one can 
 
 wisely or profitably use the Old Testament as a 
 
 guide who does not understand this and con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 stantly keep it in mind. The progressive 
 character of revelation implies further that 
 there are defective reHgious sentiments to he 
 found in the utterances of Old Testament 
 saints corresponding to the rudimentary stage 
 of revelation under which they lived. Hence, 
 for example, the Psalms cannot, without quali- 
 fication, he regarded, as Drs. Hodge and 
 Warfield would have us regard them, as 
 "divinely-inspired records of religious expe- 
 rience authoritatively set forth as typical and 
 exemplary for all men for ever." Even so 
 orthodox a writer as Dr. Owen admitted that 
 in respect of the vindictive element they are 
 not exemplary for Christians, since " all our 
 obedience, both in matter and manner, is to 
 be suited to the discoveries and revelations of 
 God to us." And if it be inquired what is to 
 guide us in respect to what is typical and 
 exemplary in Old Testament piety, and what 
 not, the answer must be the teaching of Christ 
 and His example as illustrative of that teaching, 
 and the teaching of the Apostles as filled with 
 Christ's Spirit. The New Testament must be 
 our guide in a critical discriminating use of the 
 Old Christ and the New Testament have not 
 done their work in us if they have not enabled 
 us to read and use with due discrimination the 
 utterances of Old Testament Psalmists and 
 Prophets, so that we shall not take them as 
 examples in their vindictiveness, their queru- 
 
28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 loTisness, their way of judging God's favour by 
 outward events, and other defects incidental to 
 the dispensation under which they Hved. 
 J, The question, How to think of the Bible ? 
 
 now agitating the Churches, is not a mere 
 question of the school. It has most important 
 practical bearings on the interests of religion. 
 This is a fact which it behoves both sides duly 
 to lay to heart, and it may be admitted that 
 the rehgious interest does not lie all on one side 
 in this controversy. There are risks connected 
 with the freer critical view of the Bible as well 
 as with that to which it is opposed, the main 
 -^ risk being that in the prosecution of our studies 
 of the Sacred Book, on modern methods, we 
 may be tempted to forget that it is an excep- 
 tional book, not to be merged among the mass 
 of sacred books, which have come down to us 
 from ancient times. The best antidote to this 
 evil is to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted 
 with the religious books of other peoples ; for the 
 effect of a careful comparison is certainly to 
 enhance our sense of the superlative, unique 
 value of the Bible. But it belongs to the 
 present connection of thought, and the aim we 
 have in view in writing this introductory state- 
 ment, that we should emphasize a truth less 
 likely to receive credence — viz., that the strict 
 traditional way of regarding the Bible has its 
 own peculiar and serious dangers. "Without 
 attempting an exhaustive statement, we may 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 specify two directions in which we are exposed 
 to peril. 
 
 The anxious maintenance of the dogma of 
 inerrancy tends to foster a legal attitude of 
 mind in our whole way of thinking concerning 
 God as the " Author" of the Bible, and con- 
 cerning inspiration and the inspired writers, 
 and the inspired products of their pens. We 
 are apt to think of God as concerned for His 
 dignity and reputation as an Author, of Inspi- 
 ration as a matter of mere '' supervision " with 
 a view to secure minute accuracy, of the 
 inspired writers as '' scribes " rather than 
 Prophets, and of the inspired writings as 
 Eabbinical treatises rather than as the very 
 antipodes of all that we are accustomed to 
 associate with the name of Eabbinism.. It 
 surely does not need to be proved that all these 
 conceptions are false and unwholesome ! If any 
 one needs to be taught the first principles con- 
 cerning the oracles of God we refer him with 
 confidence to Professor Evans, who, in his 
 Essay, makes some admirable statements on 
 the topics above mentioned. God, as the 
 Author of Scripture, he represents not as a 
 Being very much concerned about His dignity 
 and reputation, but as revealing rather in the 
 whole character of the Sacred Book His grace 
 and condescension, coming so low down " that 
 He is not ashamed to use bad grammar, is not 
 afraid of a barbarism or a solecism, does not 
 
30. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ^ 
 
 shrink from an archaism or an anachronism." 
 "With a just feeling that there is an of&cious 
 way of heing jealous for God's honour which 
 really amounts to a profanation, he appeals to 
 his opponents not to " charge upon God the 
 priggish precision which makes as much of a 
 mole-hill as of a mountain," and assures them 
 that *' God does not care to he honoured in 
 that way," and that He is not to he mistaken 
 for " an intolerant, if not intolerable, pedant 
 who insists on his p.'s and q.'s with no less 
 vigour and pertinacity than on His godlike 
 Shema, * Hear, Israel ! ' or on His ever- 
 lasting Amen, * Verily, verily, I say unto you.* " 
 To certain ears this language may sound irre- 
 verent or almost blasphemous ; but there is no 
 case in which use of strong language is better 
 justified than in exposing and denouncing 
 conventional, false, idolatrous reverences. 
 
 Nothing could be more fitted to mislead us 
 as to the nature of Inspiration than to lay the 
 emphasis on the supervision necessary to in- 
 sure perfect accuracy. To an unsophisticated 
 view this seems to be about the last thing 
 to be thought of in connection with that 
 mysterious subject. Whatever Inspiration is, 
 it is not, one would say, principally, if at all, 
 a supernatural device for insuring accuracy. 
 Judging from analogous phenomena coming 
 within the range of observation, the inspired 
 condition would seem rather to be one which 
 
INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 produces a generous indifference to pedantic 
 accuracy in matters of fact, and a supreme 
 absorbing concern about the moral and religious 
 significance of facts. The inspired man may 
 be careful about his facts — it may ultimately 
 turn out that the historical accuracy of Biblical 
 statements is much greater than many critics 
 at present are prepared to allow — but such 
 exactitude is not the raison d'etre of his in- 
 spiration. The inspired man is not a mere 
 chronicler or historian, but one who, with 
 true prophetic insight, can read the moral of >^ 
 history, and for that purpose a very moderate 
 measure of historical accuracy will suffice. If 
 the main outline of Israel's history be true, 
 even though some of the details be legendary — 
 the prophetic interpretation of it, as the story 
 of an elect people, will stand. 
 
 The other evil springing out of the erection 
 of the inerrancy dogma into an article of faith, 
 is the baleful influence it exercises on the in- 
 terpretation of Scripture. There are three -V 
 types of interpretation, all alike bad, and to 
 be shunned by all who value common sense 
 and common candour. There is the allegorical 
 interpretation of the Alexandrian Jews, which 
 had for its aim to educe from the Hebrew 
 Scriptures Greek Philosophy. There is the 
 Eabbinical interpretation of the scribes which 
 had for its aim to make out a connection 
 between the oral and the written law, and 
 
i 
 
 32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 attained its end by processes of reasoning, by 
 means of which anything whatever could be 
 shown to be taught in the Scriptures. Lastly, 
 there is the interpretations of the Harmonists, 
 which had for its aim to show that all 
 passages of Scripture which seem to con- 
 tradict each other are capable of reconcilia- 
 tion. The attempt to harmonise discrepant 
 texts is in itself legitimate and useful, but to 
 feel under an obligation in all cases to bring 
 out harmony, and to make the reconciliation 
 of discrepancies a canon of interpretation, is 
 another matter. It means frequent Jesuitry 
 and occasional absurdity, in exegesis, and it 
 diverts attention from the essential truth un- 
 derlying discrepant narrations. As an instance 
 of the grotesque absurdities into which a rigid 
 harmonistic may lead. Professor Evans cites 
 the case of Osiander finding it necessary to 
 make Peter's wife's mother have fever, and be 
 cured of it three times over. How much 
 more satisfactory that she should be properly 
 cured once for all ! 
 
 The Gospels are the main theatre of harmo- 
 nistic operations, and we cannot think without 
 sadness of so much effort being wasted on the 
 endeavour to bring the Evangelists into perfect 
 accord in details, which might be more pro- 
 fitably expended in elucidating their grand 
 common theme, the ministry of Love and 
 the doctrine of the Kingdom. To the harmo- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 nists busy at their petty task we are inclined 
 to say, Sirs, we would see Jesus. It may, 
 indeed, be thought that the minor work of 
 harmonising may be combined with the major 
 work of exhibiting the mind and spirit of 
 Christ. But it is not easy ; the moods that go 
 ■along with the two kinds of work are so 
 different. Theoretically, it may seem quite 
 practicable to combine scrupulous payment of 
 tithes, even on garden herbs, with due atten- 
 tion to the great matters of the law, justice, 
 mercy and faith. But a wide experience has 
 -shown that zeal for minutiae tends to under- 
 mine conscience, so that men who carefully 
 strain out gnats are too often equal to the feat 
 of swallowing camels. In like manner it may 
 be affirmed that it is not from the harmonists 
 that we have got, or are ever likely to get, good 
 " Lives of Jesus." To paint the image of the 
 Great Master successfully, one must be set free 
 from slavish solicitude about harmonistic pro- 
 blems, and feel at liberty to handle the materials 
 with a fearless breadth of treatment. 
 
 The Old Testament history also contains "^ 
 phenomena of discrepancy which cannot be 
 profitably dealt with on harmonistic principles. 
 The question in reference to the Books of 
 Chronicles is not, How can their narratives be 
 reconciled with those of the Books of Kings ? 
 It is rather, What were the religious circum- 
 stances of the age in which the Chronicles 
 
34 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 were written which account for these variations 
 and help us to understand their moral lesson ? 
 This, however, cannot be gone into here, and 
 it is the less needful to do so that the topic is 
 handled by Professor Smith at considerable 
 length and with sound judgment. 
 
 In conclusion, let us say that men create for 
 themselves a great many difficulties in connec- 
 tion with Scripture by thinking of God too 
 literally as an Author. Viewing the matter 
 abstractly, it is difficult to understand how, if 
 God be really the Author of the Bible in the 
 same sense in which Milton was the author of 
 Paradise Lost, He should not write in perfect 
 style, and with perfect accuracy in all state- 
 ments of fact, and in perfect accordance with 
 the ideal standard in morals and religion. He 
 is surely the most consummate Artist ; He 
 knows everything ; He is absolutely holy. 
 How can He possibly embody His thought in 
 inferior Greek ? How can He possibly make a 
 mistake? How can He have anything to do 
 with crude morality or a defective religious 
 tone ? To questions of this sort more might be 
 added, such as that one asked by the free- 
 thinker Beimarus, How could God, the Holy 
 One, employ as His agents in revelation men 
 with glaring moral infirmities ? There are 
 several ways of dealing with these questions. 
 One is to deny the facts on which they are 
 based : to allege boldly that the Greek is fault- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 less ; tliat there are no mistakes in point of fact, 
 no crude moralities, no religious shortcomings ; 
 that all the men of revelation were faultless, 
 saintly, perfectly exemplary persons. Another 
 way is to admit the facts and draw from them 
 the sweeping conclusion, There was no revela- 
 tion, the Bible is in no sense an exceptional 
 Book. The best way is to admit the facts and 
 try to discover a way of reconciling them with 
 the reality of revelation and inspiration. This 
 can be done partly by conceiving of God's 
 relation to the Bible as less immediate than 
 was formerly supposed, and partly, and very 
 specially, by giving large prominence to the 
 gracious condescension of God in the whole 
 matter of revelation. Think of God's author- 
 ship as spiritual, not literary; and remember 
 that in giving to the world a Bible, through the 
 agency of the best minds in Israel, He was 
 greatly more concerned about showing His 
 grace, than about keeping aloof from every form 
 of human imperfection. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY 
 SCRIPTURE. 
 
 By C. a. BKIGGS, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Biblical Theology in Union Theological Seminary ^ 
 New Yorlc. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY 
 SCBIPTUBE. ^ 
 
 The theme for my discourse to-night has 
 sprung out of the necessities of the situation. 
 It seems to be my duty to set forth my views 
 fully and frankly with reference to those funda- 
 mental questions of our times that underlie the 
 discipline of Biblical Theology. Accordingly, 
 I have chosen that upon which everything 
 depends — the Authority of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Human nature is so constituted that, when 
 self- consciousness and reflection rise into 
 activity, there is an irresistible impulse to 
 seek authority for the relations in which we 
 find ourselves, the knowledge that is taught 
 us, and the conduct prescribed for us in life. 
 We may be content as children with the 
 authority of our parents, as young men and 
 maidens with the authority of masters and 
 teachers, but, sooner or later, the respon- 
 -sibility is thrown upon ourselves, and we 
 alone must bear the strain of life, incur its 
 
 * Delivered as an Inaugural Address in Union Theological 
 Seminary, New York, on the evening of Tuesday, the 20th 
 -January, 1891. 
 
40 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 obligations, and earn its rewards and penalties 
 for time and for eternity. What authority 
 shall be our guide and comfort in life is a 
 fundamental question for man at all times ^ 
 but never has it been so urged upon our 
 race as in the closing years of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 If we undertake to search the forms of 
 authority that exist about us, they all alike 
 disclose themselves as human and imperfect, 
 and we feel at times as if we were upon an 
 unknown sea, with pilots and officers in whom 
 we have no confidence. The earnest spirit 
 presses back of all these human authorities in 
 quest of an infallible guide and of an eternal 
 and immutable certainty. Probability might 
 be the guide of life in the superficial eighteenth 
 / century, and for those who have inherited its 
 ! traditions, but the men of the present times, 
 are in quest of certainty. Divine authority' 
 is the only authority to which man can yield 
 I implicit obedience, on which he can rest in 
 I loving certainty and build with joyous con- 
 fidence. 
 
 The progress of criticism in our day has so 
 undermined and destroyed the pillars of autho- 
 rity upon which former generations were wont 
 to rest, that agnosticism seems to many minds. 
 the inevitable result of scientific investigation. 
 We cannot know God, we cannot be certain 
 with regard to ultimate realities. Man cannot 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 41 
 
 rise to the throne of the Deity. He cannot 
 see the Invisible or know the transcendent. 
 Unless God in some way enter within the 
 re^on of human knowledge, we cannot know 
 Him. But if God be God, if He be the Creator 
 and Sovereign of the universe, if He has made 
 it and governs it with a holy purpose, He may 
 not only transcend universal nature by reign- 
 ing over it, but He may enter into it, inhabit 
 it, and pervade it with His immanence. He 
 may disclose His presence in forms that men 
 may be able to discern. 
 
 I. — THE SOURCES OF DIVINE AUTHORITY. 
 
 It is the testimony of human experience in 
 all ages that God manifests Himself to men, and 
 gives certainty of His presence and authority. 
 There are historically three great fountains of 
 Divine authority— the Bible, the Church, and 
 the Eeason. 
 
 (1.) Tlie Authority of the Church. — The 
 majority of Christians from the apostolic age 
 have found God through the Church. Martyrs 
 and saints, fathers and schoolmen, the pro- 
 foundest intellects, the sainthest lives, have 
 had this experience. Institutional Christianity 
 has been to them the presence-chamber of 
 God. They have therein and thereby entered 
 into communion with all saints. It is difficult 
 for many Protestants to regard this experience 
 as any other than pious illusion and delusion. 
 
 'V 
 
42 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 But what shall we say of a modern like Newman 
 who could not reach certainty, striving never 
 so hard, through the Bible or the Keason, but 
 who did find Divine authority in the institu- 
 tions of the Church?^ Shall we deny it 
 because it may be beyond our experience? 
 If we have not seen God in institutional 
 Christianity, it is because the Church and its 
 institutions have so enveloped themselves to 
 us with human conceits and follies. Divine 
 authority has been so encased in the authority 
 of popes and councils, prelates and priests, 
 ecclesiastics and theologians, that multitudes 
 have been unable to discern it ; and these 
 mediators of redemption have so obtruded 
 themselves in the way of devout seekers after 
 God that they could not find God. Plain, 
 common people have not been offended so 
 
 * " From the time that I became a Catholic, of course, I 
 have no further history of my religious opinions to nar- 
 rate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind 
 has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theolo- 
 gical subjects ; but that I have had no changes to record, 
 and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been 
 in perfect peace and contentment. I never have had one 
 doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, 
 of any difference of thought or of temper from what I had 
 before. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the funda- 
 mental truths of revelation or of more self-command; I 
 had not more fervour ; but it was like coming into 
 port after a rough sea ; and my happiness on that score 
 remains to this day without interruption." — Newman's 
 Jpologia Pro Vita Sua, p. 26-1. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 43 
 
 much by this state of things, because they are 
 accustomed in all denominations to identify 
 the authority of God with the authority of 
 priest and pastor, as a child identifies the 
 authority of the parent with the authority of 
 God ; and men of deep spiritual insight may be 
 able to force their way through these obstruc- 
 tions, and find God in spite of them. But 
 to men of the temperament and environment 
 of the average educated Protestant such an 
 experience is difficult, if not impossible. 
 Nevertheless, the Church is a seat of Divine 
 authority, and the multitudes of pious souls 
 in the present and the past have not been 
 mistaken in their experience when they have 
 found God in the Church. 
 
 (2.) The Authority of the Beason. — Another 
 means used by God to make Himself known 
 is the forms of the Eeason, using Eeason in 
 a broad sense to embrace the metaphysical 
 categories, the conscience and the religious 
 feehng. Here, in the Holy of HoHes of 
 human nature, God presents Himself to those 
 who seek Him. The vast multitude of men 
 are guided by God through the forms of the 
 Reason, without their having any conscious- 
 ness of His presence or guidance. There are 
 few who are able to rise by reflection into the 
 higher consciousness of God. These few are 
 of the mystic type of religion ; the men who 
 have been the prophets of mankind, the 
 
44 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 founders of religions, the leaders of Kevivals 
 and Keformations, who, conscious of the 
 Divine Presence within them, and certain of 
 His guidance, lead on confidently in the 
 paths of Divine Providence. Such men have 
 appeared in all ages of the world. Some of 
 them have been the leaders of thought in 
 modern times in Great Britain, Germany, and 
 America. We ought not to be surprised that 
 they should depreciate the Bible and the 
 Church as merely external modes of finding 
 God, for even the prophets of the Bible attach 
 little importance to the institutions of Israel, 
 and seldom mention them, except to warn 
 against their misuse.* 
 
 It may be that these modern thinkers have 
 a Divine calling to withdraw men from mere 
 priestcraft, ceremonialism, dead orthodoxy and 
 ecclesiasticism, and concentrate their attention 
 on the essentials of the Christian religion. 
 
 Martineau could not find Divine authority in 
 the Church or the Bible, but he did find God 
 enthroned in his own souLf There are those 
 
 * 1 Sam. XV. 22—23 ; Is. i. 10—17 ; Jer. vii. 22—26 -, 
 Mic. vi. 6—8. 
 
 f "Divine guidance has never and nowhere failed to 
 men ; nor has it ever, in the most essential things, largely 
 differed amongst them; but it has not always been re- 
 cognised as divine, much less as the living contact of 
 Spirit with spirit — the communion of affection between 
 God and man. While conscience remained an impersonal 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 45 
 
 who would refuse these Eationahsts a place in 
 the company of the faithful. But they forget 
 that the essential thing is to find God and 
 Divine certainty, and if these men have found 
 God without the mediation of Church and 
 Bible, Church and Bible are means and not 
 ends ; they are avenues to God, bat are not 
 God. We regret that these Eationahsts 
 depreciate the means of grace so essential to 
 most of us, but we are warned lest we commit 
 a similar error, and depreciate the Eeason and 
 the Christian consciousness. 
 
 (3.) Tlie Autliority of Holy Scripture. — We 
 have examined the Church and the Eeason as 
 seats of Divine authority in an introduction to 
 our theme, the Autliority of the Scriptures^ 
 because they open our eyes to see mistakes 
 
 law, stem and silent, with only a jealous Nemesis behind, 
 man had to stand up alone, and work out for himself 
 his independent magnanimity ; and he could only be the 
 pagan hero. When conscience was found to be in- 
 separably blended with the Holy Spirit, and to speak in 
 tones immediately divine, it became the very shrine of 
 worship — its strife, its repentance, its aspirations, passed 
 into the incidents of a living drama, with its crises of 
 alienation and reconcilement ; and the cold obedience to 
 a mysterious necessity was exchanged for the allegiance 
 of personal affection. And this is the true emergence from 
 the darkness of ethical law to the tender light of the life 
 Divine. The veil falls from the shadowed face of moral 
 authority, and the directing love of the all-holy God 
 shines forth." — Martineau^s Seat of Authority in Beligion, 
 p. 75. 
 
46 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 that are common to the three departments. 
 Protestant Christianity builds its faith and 
 life on the Divine authority contained in the 
 Scriptures, and too often depreciates the 
 Church and the Eeason. Spurgeon is an 
 example of the average modern Evangelical, 
 V7ho holds the Protestant position, and assails 
 the Church and Reason in the interest of the 
 ^authority of Scripture. But the average 
 opinion of the Christian world would not 
 assign him a higher place in the Kingdom 
 of God than Martineau or Newman. May 
 we not conclude, on the whole, that these 
 three representative Christians of our time, 
 living in or near the world's metropolis, have, 
 each in his way, found God and rested on 
 Divine authority ? May we not learn from 
 them not to depreciate any of the means 
 whereby God makes Himself known to 
 men? Men are influenced by their tem- 
 peraments and environments which of the 
 three ways of access to God they may pursue. 
 There are obstructions thrown up by the folly 
 of men in each one of these avenues, and it is 
 our duty as servants of the living God, to 
 remove the stumbling-block out of the way 
 of all earnest seekers after God, in the avenues 
 most familiar to us. 
 
 No one of these ways has been so obstructed 
 as the Holy Bible. The ancient Jews made a 
 fence about the law, and enclosed it with circle 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. . 47 
 
 Tipon circle of traditional interpretation, so that 
 the law itself was hidden out of sight, the 
 external circle of interpretation having taken 
 its place, and the authority of God was obscured 
 by the authority of man. The Christian Church 
 pursued the same method, and concealed the 
 Word of God behind the authority of popes 
 and councils, fathers and schoolmen. The 
 Keformers brought the Bible from its obscurity 
 for a season, but their successors — the scho- 
 lastics and ecclesiastics of Protestantism — pur- 
 sued the old error and enveloped the Bible 
 with creeds and ecclesiastical decisions, and 
 dogmatic systems, and substituted for the 
 authority of God the authority of a Pro- 
 testant rule of faith. The Bible has been 
 treated as if it were a baby, to be wrapped , 
 in swaddling-clothes, nursed, and carefully V 
 guarded, lest it should be injured by heretics 
 and sceptics. It has been shut up in a fortress, 
 and surrounded by breastworks and fortifica- / 
 tions as extensive as those that envelop 
 Cologne and Strasburg. No one can get at 
 the Bible unless he force his way through 
 these breastworks of traditional dogmatism, 
 and storm the barriers of ecclesiasticism. 
 
 II. — THE BAEEIEES OF DIVINE AUTHOEITY IN 
 HOLY SCEIPTUEE. 
 
 The Bible is the book of God— the greatest 
 treasure of the Church. Its ministry are 
 
v/ 
 
 48 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 messengers to preach the Word of God, and 
 to invite men to His presence and government. 
 It is Pharisaic to obstruct their way by any 
 fences or stumbhng-blocks whatever. It is a 
 sin against the Divine majesty to prop up 
 Divine authority by human authority, how- 
 ever great or extensive. The sun is shining 
 in noontide splendour. Lest men, by looking 
 at it, should quench the light of the great 
 luminary, let us build walls so high that they 
 cannot see the sun, and let us guard its light 
 by reflecting mirrors. The grace of God is 
 the true elixir of life to all mankind. Lest in- 
 discriminate use of it should vitiate its powers, 
 let us dilute it in several degrees, so that it 
 may not come to men directly, but only 
 through a succession of safe hands. How 
 absurd, you say. And yet this is the way 
 men have been dealing with the Bible, shut- 
 ting out the light of God, obstructing the 
 life of God, and fencing in the authority of 
 God. 
 
 (1.) Superstitio7i. — The first barrier that 
 obstructs the way to the Bible is superstition. 
 We are accustomed to attach superstition to 
 the Koman Catholic Marioiatry, Hagiolatry, 
 and the use of images and pictures and other 
 external things in worship. But superstition 
 is no less superstition if it take the form of 
 Bibliolatry. It may be all the worse if it 
 concentrate itself on this one thing. But the 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 49 
 
 Bible has no magical virtue in it, and there 
 is no halo enclosing it. It will not stop a 
 bullet any better than a mass-book. It will 
 not keep off evil spirits any better than a cross. 
 It will not guard a home from fire half so well 
 as holy water. If you desire to know when 
 and how you should take a journey, you will 
 find a safer guide in an almanac or a daily 
 newspaper. The Bible is no better than hydro- 
 mancy or witchcrafts,^ we seek for Divine 
 guidance by the chance opening of the Book.* 
 The Bible, as a book, is paper, print, and 
 binding — nothing more. It is entitled to re- 
 verent handling for the sake of its holy con- 
 tents, because it contains the Divine word of 
 
 * I am far from any disposition to treat witli disrespect 
 the religious convictions of pious Roman Catholics or 
 Protestants. Eoman Catholic divines recognise that there 
 are superstitions uses of the mass-book, the cross, and 
 holy water, that are not justified by Eoman Catholic 
 doctrine and usage. My argument is against those Pro- 
 testants who exhibit the same superstition toward the 
 Bible as some Eoman Catholics show in the ceremonies 
 of their religion. Superstition is just as bad in the one 
 as in the other. The only difference is in the forms of its 
 manifestation. In my experience, those who make the 
 loudest outcry against Eoman Catholic superstition are 
 the very ones who are most guilty of the superstition I 
 am condemning in Protestantism. The criticisms that 
 have been made upon this address, especially in religious 
 journals noted for their hostility to Eoman Catholicism, 
 show that Bibliolatry is more prevalent in Protestantism 
 than I had supposed. 
 
 4 
 
so THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 redemption for raan, and not for any other 
 reason whatever. 
 
 (2.) Verbal Inspiration. — The second barrier, 
 y keeping men from the Bible, is the dogma of 
 verbal inspiration. The Bible in use in our 
 churches and homes is an English Bible. Upon 
 the English Bible our religious life is founded. 
 But the EngHsh Bible is a translation from 
 Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek originals. It is 
 claimed for these originals by modern dogma- 
 ticians that they are verbally inspired. No^ 
 such claim is found in the Bible itself, or in . 
 any of the creeds of Christendom. And yet it; 
 has been urged by the common opinion of 
 modern evangelicalism that there can be no 
 inspiration without verbal inspiration.^ But a 
 study of the original languages of the Bible 
 finds that they are languages admirably fitted 
 by Divine Providence for their purpose,! but 
 still, languages developing in the same way 
 essentially as other human languages. The 
 text of the Bible, in which these languages 
 have been handed down, has shared the for- 
 tunes of other texts of other literature. 
 
 We find there are errors of transmission. 
 There is nothing Divine in the text — in its 
 letters, words, or clauses. t There are those 
 
 * Briggs, Whither, pp. 64 seq. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 t Briggs, Biblical Study, pp. 42 seq. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons. 
 
 X Biblical Study, pp. 156 seq. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 5^ 
 
 who hold that thought -and language are as ^ ^^ -^ 
 inse;£arable as body and soul. But language is '<^^ ^-^ \^p^ 
 rather the dress of thought. A master of v^ -^ ]trMo»^ 
 many languages readily clothes the same y^^^ ^^^5e/»t-t^ 
 thought in half-a-dozen different languages. 
 The same thought in the Bible itself is dressed 
 in different literary styles, and the thought of 
 the one is as authoritative as the other. The 
 Divine authority is not in the style or in the . i ^^^,^^,^H^v 
 vsrords, but in the concept, and so the Divine *,ri:.t<^ p^':)^"'"'^ 
 power of the Bible may be transferred into any ■ ^ ' ^''j^ ^^^^^ 
 human language.* The Divine authority con- ^..^JXa "^ 
 tained in the Scriptures speaks as powerfully in 
 Enghsh as in Greek, in Choctaw as in Aramaic, . 
 
 in Chinese as in Hebrew. We farae_our way -^^^^s ^ 
 
 through the language and the letter, the ^^/^^^''^i^^^^^''^ 
 grammar and the style, to the inner substance o.Jr»*" ^^.vol^"^ 
 of the thought, for there, if at all, we shall '4>^es K^v^;°^ 
 
 find God. '^'^iVt^W^'' ^'*" 
 
 (3.) Authenticity.— The third barrier is the c^^- 
 authenticity of the Scriptures. The only 
 authenticity we are concerned about in seeking 
 for the Divine authority of the Scriptures is 
 Divine authenticity ,'\- and yet many theologians 
 have insisted that we must prove that the 
 Scriptures were written by or under the 
 superintendence of prophets and apostles. I 
 Refusing to build on the authority of the hving 
 
 * Whither, p. 66. f Biblical Study, pp. 220 seq. 
 X Whither, pp 81 seq. 
 
52 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 Church, they have sought an authority in the 
 dead Church; abandoning the authority of 
 institutional Christianity, they have sought a 
 prop in floating traditions. These traditions 
 assign authors to all the books of the Bible, 
 and on the authority of these human authors, 
 it is claimed that the Bible is Divine. These 
 theologians seem altogether unconscious of the 
 circle of reasoning they are making. They ^^, 
 proye_the authority of the Bible from the \ 
 authority^ of its authors. But what do we 
 know of the authors apart from the Bible 
 itself? Apart from the sacred writings, Moses 
 and David, Paul and Peter, would be no more 
 to us than Confucius or Sakya Muni. They 
 were leaders of men, but how do we know that 
 they were called of God to speak Divine words 
 to us ? The only way in which we can prove 
 their authority is from their writings, and jet -^ 
 we. are asked to accept the authority of the '■ 
 writings on the authority of these authors. 
 When such fallacies are thrust in the faces of 
 men seeking Divine authority in the Bible, is it 
 strange that so many turn away in disgust ? It 
 is just here that the Higher Criticism has 
 proved such a terror in our times. Traditional- 
 ists are crying out that it is destroying the 
 ible, because it is exposing their fallacies and 
 follies. It may be regarded as the certain^ 
 result of the science of the Higher Criticism ^ 
 that Moses did not write the Pentateuch or 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 53 
 
 Job ; Ezra did not write the Chronicles, Ezra, 
 or Nehemiah ; Jeremiah did not write the 
 Kings or Lamentations ; David did not write 
 the Psalter, but only a few of the Psalms; 
 Solomon did not write the Song of Songs or 
 Ecclesiastes, and only a portion of the Pro- 
 verbs ; Isaiah did not write half of the book 
 that bears his name. The great mass of th^A 
 Old Testament was written by authors whose ) 
 names or connection with their writings are 
 lost in oblivion.* If this is destroying the 
 Bible, the Bible is destroyed already. But ^\ 
 who tells us that these traditional names were 
 the authors of the Bible? The Bible itself? 
 The creeds of the Church ? Any reliable histo- 
 rical testimony ? None of these ! Pure, conjec- 
 tural tradition ! Nothing more ! We are not ' 
 prepared to build our faith for time and eternity ; 
 upon such uncertainties as these. We desire 
 to know whether the Bible came from God, 
 and it is not of any great importance that we 
 should know the names of those worthies 
 chosen by God to mediate His revelation. It 
 is possible that there is a providential purpose 
 in the withholding of these names, in order I 
 that men might have no excuse for building on 1 
 human authority, and so should be forced to 
 resort to Divine authority. It will ere long 
 become clear to the Christian people that the 
 
 * Biblical Study, pp. 222 seq. 
 
54 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 Higher Criticism has rendered an inestimable 
 service to this generation and to the genera- 
 tions to come. What has been destroyed 
 has been the fallacies and conceits of theolo- 
 gians ; the obstructions that have barred the 
 way of literary men from the Bible. Higher 
 Criticism has forced its v^ay into the Bible 
 itself and brought us face to face with the holy 
 P_ contents, so that we may see and know whether 
 ' they are Divine or not. Higher Criticism has 
 
 not contravened any decision of any Christian 
 council, or any creed of any Church, or any 
 statement of Scripture itself. It has rather 
 brought the long-neglected statement of the 
 Westminster Confession into prominence : 
 ^ " The authority of the Holy Scripture, for 
 
 which it ought to be believed and obeyed, 
 dependeth not upon the testimony of any man 
 or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth 
 itself), the author thereof; and therefore it is 
 to be received, because it is the Word of 
 God."* 
 
 Luther, with keen spiritual insight, once 
 said : 
 
 ''What does not teach Christ, that is not 
 apostolic, even if St. Peter or St. Paul taught 
 it : again, what preaches Christ, that would be 
 apostolic, even if Judas, Annas, Pilate, and 
 ^erod did it."t 
 
 * Confess, of Faith, I. 4. 
 
 t Kostlin, Luther s Theologie, II. 256 ; Walch. xiv., p. 149- 
 
 L 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 55 
 
 It used to be the fashion to apologise for this 
 word of Luther; but here, as elsewhere, 
 Luther was truer to the Gospel than modern 
 theologians. 
 
 (4.) Inerranctj.—The fourth barrier set up by 
 theologians to keep men away from the Bible 
 is the dogma of the inerrancy of Scripture. 
 This barrier confronts Historical Criticism. It 
 is not a pleasant task to point out errors in the 
 sacred Scriptures. Nevertheless, Historical 
 Criticism finds them, and we must meet the 
 issue whether they destroy the authority of the 
 Bible or not. It has been taught in recent 
 years, and is still taught by some theologians, 
 that one proved error destroys the authority 
 of Scripture.* I shall venture to affirm that, 
 so far as I can see, there are errors in the 
 Scriptures that no one has been able to 
 explain away ; and the theory that they were 
 not in the original text is sheer assumption. 
 
 ..\\ -^^" 
 
 not in the original text is sheer assumption, ^^ o^^\^^^ ^ 
 upon which no mind can rest with certjantj.f '^^^^^x^l'^'^ 
 If such errors destroy the authority of the ^^r ^^s^^J^ 
 Bible, it is already destroyed for historians. ^4^'^^j, ^^S^J^ 
 Men cannot shut their eyes to truthj^ndiact. <>^^ Jr>^ 
 But on what authority do these theologians ^^i 
 drive men from the Bible by this theory of U 
 inerrancy ? Illegible itselljipwhere makes^^ xX 
 
 this claim. The creeds of the Church nowhere'' A 
 
 ^]/ '"' -. ' 
 
 •Biblical Study, pp. 240 seq.; Whither, pp. 68 seq, 
 t Whither, p. 72. 
 
56 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 sanction it. It is a ghost of modern evangeli- 
 calism to frighten children. The Bible has 
 maintained its authority with the best scholars 
 of our time, who with open minds have been 
 wilHng to recognize any error that might be 
 pointed out by Historical Criticism ; ^ for these 
 errors^ are all in the circumstantials and not 
 iiL-ihe ^essentials ; they are in the human 
 setting, not in the precious jewel itself ; they 
 are found in that section of the Bible that 
 theologians commonly account for from the 
 providential superintendence of thajniad_xif- 
 the^uthor, as distinguished from divine reve- 
 Jation itself. It may be that this providential 
 superintendence gives infallible guidance in 
 every particular ; and it may be that it differs 
 but little, if at all, from the providential 
 superintendence of the fathers and schoolmen 
 and theologians of the Christian Church. It 
 is not important for our purpose that we should 
 decide this question. If we should abandon 
 the whole field of providential superintendence 
 so far as inspiration and divine authority are 
 concerned and hmit divine inspiration and 
 authority to the essential contents of the 
 Bible, to its religion, faith, and morals, we 
 would still have ample room to seek divine 
 authority where alone it is essential, or even 
 
 * G. P. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, p. 206 
 seq. ; Charles Gore, in Lux Mundi, pp. 354 seq. ; W. Sanday, 
 Oracles of God, pp. 15 seq. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 57 
 
 important, in the teaching that guides our ' 
 devotions, our thinking, and our conduct. wA 
 Whether divine authority extends to the cir- 
 cumstantials of this divine teaching or not, 
 it is unwise and it is unchristian to force men 
 to accept the divine authority of the Bible or 
 reject it, on the question of its inerrancy in 
 the circumstantials and the details of every 
 passage.* 
 
 (5) Violation of the Laivs of Nature. — The 
 fifth obstruction to the Bible has been thrown 
 up in front of modern science. It is the claim 
 that the miracles disturb, or violate, the laws 
 of nature and the harmony of the universe ; 
 and so the miracles of the Bible have become 
 to men of science sufficient evidence that the 
 Bible is no more than other sacred books of 
 other religions.! But the theories of miracles 
 that have been taught in the Christian Church 
 are human inventions for which the Scriptures 
 and the Church have no responsibility what- 
 ever. 
 
 The miracles of the Bible are confined to 
 the life of Christ and His apostles and to the 
 ministry of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, with 
 very few exceptions. The Biblical writers do 
 not lay so much stress upon them as modern 
 apologists. Moses and Jesus both warn 
 their disciples against miracles that would 
 
 • * Whither, p. 73. f Whither, pp. 279 seq. 
 
58 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 be wrought in^the interest of false prophets 
 and false messiahs.* The tests that they gave 
 t.o- discriminate the true from the falsajwere 
 not their marvellous character, their violation 
 of the laws of nature, their suspension of the 
 uniformity of law or the comprehension of 
 extraordinary laws with ordinary laws in 
 higher laws — nothing of the kind ; .but the 
 siiQple-iiest_ whe ther th ex set forth Jihejboly. 
 character and the gracious teaching of God 
 and His Messiah. The miracles of the Bible 
 are miracles of redemption. They exhibit 
 the love of God and the compassion of the 
 Messiah for the needy, the suffering, and the 
 lost, t These divine features of Biblical 
 miracles have been obscured by the apologists, 
 who have ^nduly eniphasized their material 
 forms. The miracles of the Bible were the 
 work of God either by direct divine energy, or 
 mediately through holy men, energized to per- 
 form them; but there is no reason why we 
 should claim that they in any v/ay violate the 
 laws of nature or disturb its harmonies. We 
 ought not to be disturbed by the efforts of 
 scholars to explain them under the forms of 
 divine law, in accordance with the order of 
 nature. If it were possible to resolve all the 
 
 * Dent. xiii. 1-5 ; Matth. xxiv. 24-28 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8-12. 
 t A. B. Bruce, T^e 'M.%raculou& 'Element in the Gospels, pp. 
 258 seq. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 59 
 
 miracles of the Old Testament into extraii" 
 ordinary acts of Divine Providence, using the! 
 forces and forms of nature in accordance with \ 
 the laws of nature ; and if we could explain | 
 all the miracles of Jesus, His unique authority 
 over man and over nature, from His use of / 
 mind cure, or hypnotism, or any other occult J 
 power, — still I claim that nothing essential 
 would be Tostlrom the miracles'of the Bible ; y 
 they would still remain the most wonderful 
 exhibition of loving purpose and redemptive 
 acts of God and of the tenderness and grace j 
 of the Messiah's heart. Christian men may 
 construct their theories about the miracles of 
 the Bible with entire freedom so long as they 
 do not deny the reality of the events them- 
 selves as recorded in Holy Scripture. The 
 study of the miracles of the Bible has con- 
 vinced me that they may be explained from 
 the presence of God in Nature, in various forms 
 of Theophany and Christophany, for where 
 God is present we may expect manifestations 
 of divine authority and power. As my friend. 
 Dr. Bruce, recently said : 
 
 " Miracles are not the effects of partially or wholly 
 unknown physical causes ; they are produced by imme- 
 diate divine causality. But they are not on that 
 account lawless or unnatural. They are wrought for 
 a worthy end, and in accordance with a wise plan. 
 They are natural in the sense that they are congruous 
 to the nature of God, falling within the compass of 
 
6o THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 His power and subject to the direction of His wise, 
 holy, loving will. They are natural further, I may add, 
 in the sense that they do not wantonly interrupt or 
 upset the order of nature, but rather put it to higher 
 uses, which from the first it has been fitted and 
 destined to subserve." — Bruce's Tln,e Miraculous Ele- 
 ment in the Gospels, p. 66. 
 
 (6) Minute Prediction. — Another barrier to 
 the Bible has been the interpretation put upon 
 Predictive Prophecy, making it a sort of history 
 before the time, and looking anxiously for the 
 fulfilment of the details of Biblical prediction. 
 Kuenen has shown that if we insist upon 
 the fulfilment of the details of the predictive 
 prophecy of the Old Testament, many of these 
 predictions have been reversed by history ; 
 and the great body of the Messianic prediction 
 has not only never been fulfilled, but cannot 
 now be fulfilled, for the reason that its own 
 time has passed for ever.^ 
 / The Book of Jonah gives valuable sugges- 
 tion here. See Jonah going to Nineveh with 
 a prediction that in forty days Nineveh will 
 be destroyed, and then going to a safe place 
 outside the city, waiting with impatience for 
 the grand sight, the destruction of the metro- 
 polis of the world. But Nineveh repents, and 
 God recalls His decree, and the city is spared. 
 The prophet is so distressed and humiliated at 
 
 * Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 43 seq. Charles Scrib- 
 ner's bons. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 6i 
 
 the failure of his prediction that he longs for 
 death.* Doubtless, God has not fulfilled His 
 prediction. He has recalled it. The mes- 
 senger has been discredited as a predictor, but 
 he has been accredited as the channel of the 
 redemption from God. It may be that 
 Nineveh will presume upon the weakness of 
 God, His fickleness and changeableness. But 
 at all events, God Himself takes the risk. 
 This is not the only unfulfilled prediction in 
 the Old Testament. God has recalled more 
 than one of His messages of woe-f He post- 
 pones the dies irce until men count Him slack 
 in the fulfilment of His promises, and mock 
 and jeer at His justice.! 
 
 They know not that their salvation is 
 involved in these recalls and postponement. 
 God is not willing that any should perish. He 
 rules over the world to redeem as many as 
 possible. This makes it difficult for a hard 
 and fast system of dogma. It troubles the 
 apologist and disarranges his lines of defence, 
 but it presents God Himself as the God of 
 man, the very God that humanity craves. 
 Jonah represents only too well the general 
 attitude of Jew and Christian alike to the 
 heathen world. Embedded in Jonah, un- 
 . noticed save by Zwingli and a few Anabaptists 
 
 * Jonah iii., iv. 
 
 f Is. xxxviii. ; Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 58 seq. 
 
 X 2 Peter iii. 3--9. 
 
62 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 and heretics, is the gospel of infant salvation 
 and of heathen salvation. 
 
 " Should not I have pity on Nineveh, that 
 great city, v^herein are more than six-score 
 thousand persons that cannot discern between 
 their right hand and their left hand, and also 
 much cattle?"* 
 
 We need no evidence that this is a Divine 
 
 * Jonah iv. 11. I recently came upon a passage in one 
 of tlie early Baptists, using this verse of Jonah in a way 
 that was unknown to orthodox circles : 
 
 " And our Saviour Christ Luke XVIII : 16. in commenda- 
 tion of the condition and qualitie of Babes, saith, Suffer 
 the Babes to come unto Me : for of such is the Jcingdome of 
 Heaven. And Matth. XVIII : 3. Except ye he converted and 
 become as little children ye shal not enter into the Tcingdome of 
 heaven. ^ Ver. 4 whosoever therefore shal humble himself as 
 this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdome of 
 heaven. In all this shewing, that the children of Christ's 
 Kingdome must be off such humble qualities and conditions 
 as infants, & I hope none will deny, but al infants are off 
 one quality & condition, even the infants of the Turks, our 
 Saviour speakes off al infants generally : & evil men yet 
 judge some infants condemned. 
 
 " And of such infants the Lord sheweth his great com- 
 pasion, when he saith to the Prophet Jonah — Jonah IV. 11 
 . . . . whereby the Lord sheweth that they had not 
 sinned, neither were giltie off their Fathers sinnes. And 
 wil you yet charge the Lord to condemne so manie infants 
 and al for Adams sinne ? are not your waies unequall thus 
 to say and teach me to hold & think off God ? " — Tho. 
 Helwys. A Short and Plaine Proof by the Word, and worJces 
 off God that Gods decree is not the cause of anne Mans sinne or 
 condemnation. And that all men are redeemed by Christ. As 
 also that no Infants are condemned. 1611, sine loco. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 63 
 
 utterance; it speaks for itself. It is clearer 
 than a thousand detailed predictions and their 
 fulfilment. 
 
 We have passed through these barriers that 
 men have thrown up in front of the "Word of 
 God, the breastworks against Philosophy, His- 
 tory, and Science. It is not surprising that 
 multitudes of the best men of our age have 
 rejected a Bible thus guarded and defended, as 
 if it could not sustain the light of day. Doubt- 
 less there are many who are thinking that the 
 critics are destroying the Bible. They have 
 so identified these outworks with the Bible 
 itself that their Bible vanishes with these 
 barriers. I feel deeply for them. But we 
 have a right to assume that if these apologists 
 are within the camp of God, they ought to 
 have such confidence in Divine authority that 
 nothing from without could shake them. If 
 they have been relying on the defences and too 
 httle upon the Bible itself, it is high time that 
 they were forced back to the Bible. But I 
 feel more deeply for those many men, honest 
 and true, whom they have been keeping away 
 from the Bible.* I would say to all such : We 
 
 * Dr. A. B. Bruce, one of the keenest observers of the 
 religions life of onr times, says : " I certainly believe that 
 there are many more unpolished diamonds hidden in the 
 chnrchless mass of humanity than the respectable church- 
 going part of the community has any idea of. I am even 
 disposed to think that a great and steadily-increasing por- 
 
64 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 have undermined the breastworks of tradition- 
 aHsm ; let us blow them to atoms. We have 
 forced our way through the obstructions ; let 
 us remove them from the face of the earth, 
 that no man hereafter may be kept from the 
 Bible, but that all may freely enter in, search 
 it through and through, and find God en- 
 throned in its very centre. 
 
 Here in the citadel of the Bible two hosts 
 confront the most sacred things of our religion 
 — the one the defenders of traditionalism, 
 trembling for the ark of God ; the other the 
 critics, a victorious army, determined to capture 
 all its sacred treasures and to enjoy all its 
 heavenly glories. 
 
 /^ The self-constituted defenders can no longer 
 retain a monopoly of the Word of God and 
 exact conditions of all who would use it. It 
 has already been taken from them by Biblical 
 criticism, and it is open to all mankind, with- 
 out conditions. Is it not their heritage? Did 
 not Jesus and His apostles offer it to them as 
 glad tidings of redemption to the world ? Are 
 there not treasures of grace in Holy Scripture 
 amply sufficient for all mankind ? It is the 
 teaching of God that men are anxious to know ; 
 the theology of the Bible itself is what they 
 
 tion of the moral worth of society lies outside the Church, 
 separated from it not by godlessness, but rather by excep- 
 tionally moral earnestness. Many, in fact, have left the 
 Church in order to be Christians/' — Kingdom of God, p. 144. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 65 
 
 are craving. The teaching of men and the 
 theology of creeds and theologians no longer 
 content them. These all have their place and 
 iDiportance, but they cannot take the place of 
 the theology of the Bible and the authority of 
 God. 
 
 ^ 
 
 III. — THE THEOLOaY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 We are now face to face with Biblical 
 Theology. Here, if anywhere, the Divine 
 authority will be found. It is my habit to 
 divide Biblical Theology into three sections — , 
 Keligion, Doctrines of Faith, and Morals. Let \ 
 us look at the God of the Bible as He discloses | 
 Himself in some of these forms. 
 
 A. — The Beligion of the Bible. 
 
 (1.) Theophaiiies. — The most prominent fea- 
 ture of the religion of the Bible is Theophany. 
 Theophanies are the bases of every advance, 
 the fountain of prophecy, the source of 
 miracle. They guide the heroic leaders and 
 reformers of the Old Testament religion. A 
 permanent Theophany guides Israel from 
 Egypt to the Holy Land, and takes possession 
 of the Holy Tabernacle and Temple as its 
 permanent abode.* 
 
 * Briggs, Biblical History, pp. 16 seq. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons. 
 
66 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 Theophanies cluster about the Messiah at 
 His advent, until these give place to the Chris- 
 tophanies, which are the great feature of the 
 New Testament religion. 
 
 It is conceded that these Theophanies have 
 features in common with the mythological con- 
 ceptions of the ancient religions of the world, 
 which have been rejected as mythical by histo- 
 rical criticism. But so soon as we compa.re 
 the Theophanies of the Bible with heathen 
 mythology, we observe striking differences. 
 
 (a) There is nothing of a polytheistic cha- 
 racter about the Theophanies of the Bible. 
 The one God manifests Himself to chosen men 
 and a chosen people. 
 
 (6) The Theophanies of the Bible are not 
 confined to ancient times, the legendary basis 
 of the history ; they pervade and control the 
 entire history of the Bible. 
 
 (c) The mythological conceptions of the 
 Divine presence are connected with gross 
 conceptions, in which the gods are of like 
 passion with ourselves ; but the Theophanies 
 of the Bible are pure and holy, and ever have 
 in view the redemption of men. God assumes 
 the forms of Hght or fire, or of angel or 
 man, in order that He may be manifest to the 
 human senses, and assure mankind of His 
 presence and favour."^ 
 
 * Briggs, Biblical Hisiory, p. 21. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 67 
 
 (d) When the doctrine of the Divine trans- 
 cendence was unduly emphasized, the Theo- 
 phanies remained in obscurity behind the 
 miracle and the prediction which might be 
 wrought by the power of God from a distance, 
 outside His universe. But now that the Im- 
 manence of God is rising into prominence, 
 the Theophany casts the miracle and the pre- 
 diction into its shadow. We now know that 
 God is not only over all, but through all and 
 in all. He is not far from any one of us. If 
 we feel after Him we may find Him. We 
 cannot escape from His presence. If God 
 is really present in the world, pervading it, 
 inhabiting it, was it not a part of the Divine 
 instruction that men should be taught by 
 visible signs to see it and know it? When 
 He appeared to the ancients in human form 
 they were assured by their senses of His 
 ability to be with them in every hour of 
 need, and they were prepared for the con- 
 ception of the great prophet of the exile: '*! 
 dwell in the high and holy place, with him 
 also that is of a contrite and humble spirit."* 
 When God guided Israel by a pillar of cloud 
 and fire. He taught them in sensible signs the 
 sublime truth of His governance of mankind. 
 When He took up His abode in the Temple, 
 He was training them for the conception of the 
 
 *' Is. Irii. 6. 
 
68 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 universal religion, that He inhabits the whole 
 earth. If God is really present in His world, 
 and has an interest in the bearers of redemp- 
 tion to a chosen people, the kingdom of priests 
 for mankind, is it not reasonable that He 
 should show His form in the midst of the 
 elements of nature, and ' His countenance in 
 the faces of intelhgent beings ? 
 
 The Theophanies of the Old Testament lead 
 on to the Christophanies of the New Testa- 
 ment — the incarnation, ascension, and advent 
 in glory, whereby the Messiah taught man- 
 kind the great lessons of redemption. And 
 the Theophany of the Divine Spirit at Pente- 
 cost was a visible and audible pledge of His 
 permanent residence in the Church during the 
 era of grace. If mankind needed additional 
 theophanies, doubtless they would be given 
 by the God of all grace ; but those recorded 
 in the Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, 
 make a royal highway of light and glory 
 throughout Bibhcal history, and give suffi- 
 cient assurance of the presence of the Triune 
 God with the people of God until the end of 
 the age, and the accomplishment of the des- 
 tinies of the world and man. 
 
 (2.) The Institutions of the Old Testament. — 
 The institutions of the Old Testament religion 
 are of a most elaborate character. Whatever 
 theory we may hold as to their origin and 
 development, whether given by Moses at the 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 69 
 
 basis of the history, or from a long series of 
 prophets and priests during the history, they 
 present a majestic system. About the throne- 
 room of God, where the theophanic presence 
 dwelt, were gathered sacred places, sacred 
 furniture, sacred times, sacred orders of priest- 
 hoods, rites of sacrifice and purification, and 
 holy rules for life and conduct. These doubt- 
 less belong to the region of external religion, 
 and to a lower stage in the religious training 
 of man. The Old Testament prophets knew 
 as well as we that they were mere forms, 
 invalid without holy contents of grace, that 
 God dwells not in temples made by hands, 
 the heavens cannot contain Him in all their 
 wondrous heights and breadths ; * obedience 
 was ever more sacred than sacrifice,! and all 
 the beasts of the forests were God's ; the cattle 
 gathered in thousands upon the hills, how 
 could men satisfy Him with one of the flock 
 or herd ? % Pure hearts were vastly more 
 important than clean hands. § The universal 
 priesthood of Israel || was older and more 
 important than the Levitical and Aaronic 
 orders. 
 
 This magnificent religious system is pure 
 and holy throughout. A holy God can be 
 
 * 1 Kings viii. 27. f 1 Sam. xv. 22, 23. 
 
 + Ps. 1. 8—14. 
 § Is. i. 10—17 ; Ps. xxvi. 6. || Ex. xix. 5—6. 
 
70 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 worshipped only by a holy people, and in 
 ceremonies of holiness. Hence, there was not, 
 and could not be, any of the cruelty, licentious- 
 ness, intemperance, and manifold vices that 
 were inseparably entwined in the institutions 
 of the other great religions of the world. 
 Divine institutions are forms of grace, dignity, 
 and beauty, to set forth the wonders of re- 
 demption. They point forward, as by myriad 
 flames of light, to the Messiah, who absorbs 
 them in the sunshine of His presence. They 
 then pass away as the shades of the night, 
 when first they see the eyelids of the dawn.* 
 They become, for all ages and all men, the 
 appropriate symbols of the universal religion. 
 They evince by their history and their realisa- 
 tion that God had for a season clothed Him- 
 self with these forms and ceremonies for the 
 enlightenment and guidance of mankind. 
 
 B.—The Faith of the Bible. 
 
 The Faith of the Bible embraces the three 
 topics : God, Man, and Eedemption. 
 
 (1.) The Boctrine of God— The God of the 
 
 Bible is one God, not merely the God of a 
 
 family, a tribe, a land, a nation, but the God 
 
 of all the earth. It is true, Israel learned this 
 
 \ only by degrees — but nowhere in the Bible do 
 
 * Col. ii. 17. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. ■ 71 
 
 we find any recognition of other gods as having 
 a place in a pantheon. God is sovereign of 
 angels, seraphim and cherubim, of the hosts 
 of heaven, as well as of Israel and mankind. 
 The God of the Bible is sjnrit—He transcends 
 the universe that He created, governs and 
 directs it to its appointed end, but He is im- 
 manent in His universe, inhabiting it and by 
 His energy shaping all its forces. The God of 
 the Bible is a person, bearing proper names, 
 the most significant of which, Jahveh, indi- 
 cates his personal interest in, and guidance of, 
 His people, a person who may be approached 
 in prayer and praise, and who recognises His 
 worshippers, bestowing upon them blessings 
 of every kind. The God of the Bible is a 
 livmg God, the fountain of every life and 
 activity, living in all Hfe, moving in all motion. 
 TheJBein^ of God in_theJBible is still high 
 above^the best attainments of philosophical 
 theism, and the_most skilful constructions of 
 the systematic theologian. When we turn from 
 the best of them to the God of the Bible, it 
 is like rising from earth to heaven. A new 
 doctrine of God is one of the greatest needs of 
 our time.* The Bible gives it to us if we will 
 only look at it and embrace it. 
 
 How was it possible for any ancient writer 
 to have conceived or imagined such a God, 
 
 * Briggs, Whither, pp. 93, seq. 
 
72 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 unless God had presented Himself to him in 
 the forms of the Eeason, and he had seen and 
 known Him as the only living and true God ? 
 The attributes of God as set forth in the 
 evolutions of Biblical Theology have none of 
 those faults that appear more or less in !the 
 best system of Theology.* That God is just, 
 righteous, a God of equity and judgment, is as 
 clear as the day. The great sovereign of the 
 earth must do justice ; we need no Bible to 
 tell us that. But the favourite attribute of the 
 Old Testament and the New is the attribute 
 of mercy, because this attribute man needs 
 most to know, and it is not so evident in the 
 light of nature. The mercy of God is the 
 theme upon which the histories and the 
 prophets, the singers and the sages alike 
 delight to dwell. The greatest of the theo- 
 phanies granted to Moses was in order to 
 reveal God as the gracious, compassionate, 
 the long-suffering, abounding in mercy and 
 faithfulness.! The love of God rises to its 
 heights in the fatherly love of Deuteronomy, | 
 and the earlier Isaiah § and Jeremiah ; \\ in 
 the marital love of Hosea,1[ Zephaniah, and 
 the second Isaiah ** — a love to an unfaithful 
 
 * Briggs, Whither, pp. 95 seg. f Ex. xxxiv. 6-7. 
 
 X Deut. iv. 37; vii. 13; x. 15; xxxii. 6 seq. 
 
 § Is. i. 2. seq. II Chap, xxx.-xxxi. 
 
 IT Chap, i.-iii. ** Is. Uv. 1-17 Ixii. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 73 
 
 wife, who has disgraced her husband and her- 
 self by many adulteries ; * and a child who 
 rewards the faithful father with such persistent 
 disobedience, that he must be beaten to death 
 and raised from the dead in order to be saved.! 
 The love of God as taught in the Old Testa- 
 ment is hard for the Jew or the Christian to 
 understand. It transcends human experience. 
 It seems so impossible even for God, that men 
 must be explaining it away. These wonderful 
 chapters of the Old Testament are neglected 
 in all of our creeds and systems of divinity— 
 because these all exaggerate the Divine justice 
 and veracity, and fear lest God should be too 
 merciful. Like Jonah, they have not been 
 able to conceive how it is possible for God to 
 redeem the great cities of heathendom. They 
 have not seen that He could have any com- 
 passion on the Samaritans and the Moabites, 
 who do not belong to the Israel of God, but 
 are the enemies of the historic faith.! They 
 have seen the throne of God and its piUars of 
 righteousness and justice, and have supposed 
 that sovereignty was enthroned there. They 
 have not seen the love that was seated on 
 the throne, and its messengers of mercy and 
 
 * Hos. i.-ii. 
 
 t Jer. xxxi. 18-20 ; Hos. xi. 8, 9 ; xiii. 14. 
 X How shall we revise the Westminster Confession of Faith ? 
 pp. 98 seq. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
\l 
 
 74 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 faithfulness going forth with salvation to the 
 children of men.* 
 
 The love of God as taught in the Old Testa- 
 ment transcends human x^owers of conception. 
 None could have taught such love who had 
 not seen the loving countenance of God, and 
 experienced the pulsation of that love in their 
 own hearts. The love of God in the Bible is 
 an invincible, a triumphant authority that 
 invokes the loving obedience of men. 
 
 It is not necessary to depreciate the love 
 of God in the Old Testament in order to exalt 
 the love of the Messiah. The love of God 
 in the Old Testament is tlie preparation to 
 understand the love of God in the New Testa- 
 ment, who so loved the world, as to give His 
 only begotten Son for its salvation.! 0, when 
 will men learn that the Bible means exactly 
 what it says ! It may destroy our logic and 
 j our syllogism, our systems and our methods, 
 r These we have too long regarded as authori- 
 ; ties. Logic aud syllogism, system and method, 
 jneed constant criticism, verification and re- 
 vision ; for too often they omit the essential 
 thing. Their inductions are too narrow, their 
 comprehension is too limited ; they beg their 
 premises and jump to their conclusions. The 
 love of God to the world is more important 
 than all the systems devised by men. It will 
 
 * Ps. Ixxxix. 14. f John iii. 16. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 75 
 
 shine for ever as the central sun of the uni- 
 verse, when all the creeds and theologies have 
 been buried in the oblivion of the eternities. 
 It will go on through the centuries of the 
 world, darting its rays of heavenly light, its 
 beams of Divine fire, and its regenerating and 
 transforming movements, until the world 
 knows that God loves the world, and the world 
 adores Him with loving worship. 
 
 (2) Doctrine of Man. — The doctrine of Man 
 in the Bible is Divine doctrine. A twin mirror ^ 
 shows man what he is in sin and misery, and 
 what he is to be in holiness and happiness. 
 
 The Word of God is a revelation of the sin 
 of man. Sin is exposed in the interests of 
 redemption, that it may be brought to the 
 consciousness of every reader of the Bible. 
 The conscience approves the voice of the Spirit 
 saying, " Thou art the man,"^' when our sins 
 disclose themselves in the picture gallery of 
 the Bible, and we are convicted before the 
 internal tribunal by a Divine voice s]3eaking 
 with an authority that cannot be questioned, 
 bringing us to temporal judgment, that we 
 may escape the ultimate doom. 
 
 The Bible presents sinful man in the midst 
 of an original innocency and an ultimate per- 
 fection. Sin is only a temporary condition. 
 Jew and Christian alike exaggerate the original 
 
 * 2 Sam. xii. 7. 
 
^6 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 innocency and depreciate the ultimate per- 
 fection.* The exaggeration of the original 
 innocency is in the interest of an original 
 righteousness, which, hke a dress, might he 
 removed as a punishment of sin and then put 
 on again by grace. 
 
 Protestant theologians have exaggerated the 
 original righteousness in order to magnify the 
 guilt of our first parents. They thus come in 
 conflict with ethical and religious philosophy. 
 The Bible is not responsible for these exag- 
 gerations. The original man w^as innocent and 
 sinless, but not possessed of that righteous and 
 moral excellence that comes only by discipline 
 and heavenly training. The temptation was 
 a necessary means of grace. Man did not 
 make his religious progress in the straight line 
 of faith and obedience, but in the curved line 
 of sin and redemption. 
 
 But the most important thing in Biblical 
 Anthropology is the ideal of mankind. Man 
 was created to be the lord of nature, the cul- 
 mination of its evolutions. Man was made to 
 be God-hke ; and though he sought it in the 
 paths of disobedience, he is sure to gain it on 
 the highway of redemption. Man was one 
 in origin, and cannot be any other than one 
 in the plan of God.f The processes of re- 
 
 * Briggs, Whither, pp. 107 seq. 
 t Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 69 seq., 476 seq. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 77 
 
 demption ever keep the race in mind. The 
 Bible tells us of a race origin, a race sin, a race 
 ideal, a race redeemer, and a race redemption.* 
 
 These ideals of the Bible are high above 
 reality. They are so grand and glorious that 
 they have been persistently misunderstood and 
 perverted by men. None of us rise to their 
 transcendent glories. 
 
 God holds these twin mirrors before us to 
 drive us from sin and to compel us to hohness. 
 Divine authority in the Bible calls to every one 
 of us : Forsake sin and live a perfect life ; come 
 unto Me and be My sou. My holy one, the 
 child of My good pleasure. 
 
 * No one can understand the doctrine of the Incarnation 
 who does not conceive of a relation of the Messiah to the 
 race. My revered teacher, Henry B. Smith, says : " The 
 destiny of man in Christ is to come to the measure of the 
 stature of his fulness. Christ is the very ideal of humanity 
 realized. Even in a human point of view. He is the 
 consiimmate flower of the human race, a character unique 
 in wisdom, love, and holiness. Not only in the individual 
 life and individual perfection does the relation subsist 
 between man and Christ, but it also holds of man as a 
 whole of the collective race, of man in history. We are all 
 to come into the unity of the faith and knowledge of the 
 Son of Grod .... He who gives the law to history is 
 the law-giver of the race. In Him, and in Him alone, the 
 secrets of humanity are hid, its enigmas resolved, its sal- 
 •vation insured. He who redeems the race must be the 
 Head and Lord of the race. The whole human family finds 
 its centre, its crown, its peace, in Him.''— Sysiem of Chris- 
 tian Theology, pp. 383-4. 
 
7S THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 (3.) 'Redemption. — Kedemption is born of 
 the love of God ; it aims at the transformation 
 of the sinful and suffering race of man into the 
 image of God. It comprehends the whole 
 natm-e of man, his whole life, and the entire 
 race. The history of the world is the Divine 
 discipline of mankind. 
 
 (a) The Old Testament doctrine of Eedemp- 
 tion is chiefly concerned in the material 
 interests of man. In the vast majority of 
 cases it has to do with salvation from enemies, 
 from afflictions and sorrows, from poverty and 
 from death. Our Saviour's ministry was 
 chiefly to the poor and the outcasts in Israel, 
 the publicans and the harlots ; and the redemp- 
 tion that He gave them was not merely the 
 forgiveness of sins, but redemption from 
 physical sufferings. The Christianity of Christ 
 is to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to give 
 drink to the thirsty, to comfort all that mourn. 
 Such are the tests that the Messiah applies in 
 His royal judgment, whether His servants have 
 followed His example in doing just these 
 things in their ministry. =^ 
 
 The Redemption taught in the Bible aims to 
 remove all the ills that flesh is heir to. There 
 can be no Darkest Africa or Darkest London 
 which the light of Redemption may not illu- 
 minate with heavenly influences. Poverty, 
 
 * Matt. XXV. 31-46. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 79 
 
 vice and crime are inconsistent with Chris- 
 tianity. Christianity has undertaken to remove 
 them from the world. The Bible gives us the 
 principles, the examples, and the Divine 
 authority for their extirpation. Christianitv 
 is inconsistent with the present social condition 
 of New York, and the other great cities of the 
 world. We have no right to the name of 
 Christians ; we bring reproach on the name of 
 Jesus Christ ; we . dishonour the God of the 
 Bible, and are stumbling-blocks in the way of 
 the suffering multitudes, obstructing their way 
 to God, and their entrance into the kingdom of 
 heaven, ifjSEe-do not, with all our souls, strive ^ 
 to relieve their misery and want. The Bible, 
 through and through, insists upon the redemp- 
 tion of the bodies of men, aiS well as their souls, 
 and of the whole framework of human society. 
 This heavenly teaching is so against the preju- 
 dices and the attainments of mankind that 
 it is an unmistakeable evidence of the Divine 
 authority of the Scriptures that so strongly 
 urge it upon us. 
 
 (&) The Kedemption of the Bible compre- 
 hends the whole process of grace. Modern 
 Eratestants have unduly emphasized the begin- 
 ning of redemption, justification by faith alone.* 
 The slight put upon Christian love prevented 
 many a devout soul, like Staupitz, from joining 
 
 * Briggs, Whither, pp. 142 seq. 
 
8o 772^^ AUTHORITY OF 
 
 in the Eeformation. One of the disciples of 
 Luther taught that good works were hurtful to 
 salvation ; and a practical, if not a theoretical, 
 Antinomianism has too often been one of the 
 Adam's apples of Protestantism. 
 
 James has a word for the men of this 
 generation — Faith without works is dead.* A 
 justification that does not lead on to sanctifi- 
 cation gives no credentials of genuineness. A 
 faith that does not result in a life of repentance 
 discredits itself. 
 
 The movement called Methodism laid too 
 much stress upon the experience of regenera- 
 tion at the beginning of the Christian life.f But 
 a regeneration that does not exhibit a real, 
 earnest Christian life, fruitful in good works, is 
 not a regeneration into the kingdom of God, 
 whatever else it may be. 
 
 The Bible rises high above the faults of 
 modern theology, and comprehends in its 
 redemption of man his justification, sanctifica- 
 tion, and glorification ; his regeneration, his 
 renovation, and his transformation ; his faith, 
 his repentance, and his holy love. No one who 
 is not entirely saved can sustain the judgment 
 of the day of doom.j If this Biblical doctrine 
 could be impressed upon the men of our day, 
 
 * James ii. 26. f Briggs, Whither, pp. 118 seq. 
 X 1 Thess. iii. 13; 1 Cor. i. 8 ; Eom. viii 29, 30 ; Epli. iv. 
 13-26. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 8i 
 
 the autliority of God would disclose itself in a 
 transformation of the world, and the introduc- 
 tion of an era in which holiness would be the 
 aim of mankind. 
 
 (c) Another fault of Protestant theology is in 
 its limitation of the process of redemption to 
 this world,^ and its neglect of those vast periods 
 of time which have elapsed for most men in the 
 Middle State between death and the resurrec- 
 tion. The Eoman Cathohc Church is firmer 
 here, though it smears the Biblical doctrine 
 with not a few hurtful errors. The reaction 
 against this limitation, as seen in the theory of 
 second probation, is not surprising. I do not 
 find this doctrine in the Bible,! but I do find 
 in the Bible the doctrine of a Middle State of 
 conscious higher life in the communion with 
 Christ and the multitude of the departed of all 
 ages ; I and of the necessity of entire sanctifi- 
 cation, in order that the work of redemption 
 may be completed. § There is no authority in 
 the Scriptures, or in the creeds of Christendom, 
 for the doctrine of immediate sanctification at 
 death. The only sanctification known to 
 experience, to Christian orthodoxy, and to the 
 
 * Briggs, article Redemption after Death, in Mag, of Chris- 
 tian Literature, Dec, 1889. See also Whither, pp. 206 seq. 
 
 f Whither, pp. 217 seq. 
 
 X 2 Cor. V. 1-9; Heb. xii. 22-24, &c. 
 
 § Matt. V. 48 ; John xvii. 17 j Eom. viii. 29, 30 ; 1 Jolin 
 iii. 2. 
 
 6 
 
82 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 Bible, is progressive sanctification.* Progres- 
 sive sanctification after death is the doctrine of 
 the Bible and the Church ; and it is of vast 
 importance in our times that we should under- 
 stand it, and Kve in accordance with it. The 
 bugbear of a judgment immediately after death 
 and the illusion of a magical transformation in 
 the dying hourf should be banished from the 
 world. They are conceits derived from the 
 Ethnic religions, and without basis in the 
 Bible or Christian experience as expressed in 
 the symbols of the Church. The former 
 makes death a terror to the best of men, the 
 latter makes human life and experience of no 
 effect; and both cut the nerves of Christian 
 activity and striving after sanctification. Re- 
 nouncing them as hurtful, unchristian errors, 
 we look with hope and joy for the continuation 
 of the processes of grace and the wonders of 
 redemption in the company of the blessed, to 
 which the faithful are all hastening ; and 
 through these blessed hopes we enter into 
 the communion of all saints, and have a 
 happy consciousness of the one holy Catholic 
 Church, whose centre and majestic frame are 
 chiefly in the skies, the one body of the one 
 Christ. 
 
 {d) The Biblical redemption is a redemption 
 of our race and of universal nature. The Bible 
 
 * TFest. Confession, chap. xiii. f Whither, p. 195. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 83 5 
 
 teaches that the material universe shares in 
 the destiny of man, and is in throes of birth 
 for this blessed hope."^' As the ancient Jews 
 limited redemption to Israel and overlooked 
 the nations, so the Church limited redemption 
 to those who were baptized, and excluded the 
 heathen and the unbaptized ; and Presby-\ 
 teri ans have too often limited redemption by ) 
 their doctrine of Election. The Bible knows, \ 
 
 no such limitations. The Bible teaches elec-l i 
 
 tion, but an election of love.t Loving only 
 the elect is earthly, human teaching. Electing 
 men to salvation by the touch of Divine love — 
 that,is heavenly doctrine. The one drives men : 
 
 away in despair, the other unites men with joy , 
 
 to the love of God.t The Bible does not teach\/K[. | 
 universal salvation, but it does teach the salva- ' ' 
 
 tion of the world, of the race of man, and that \ o J)> 
 cannot be accomplished by the selection of a a v 
 limited number of individuals from the mass. ^ 
 The holy arm that worketh salvation does not 
 contract its hand in grasping only a few ; it 
 stretches its loving fingers so as to compre- 
 hend as many as possible — a definite number, 
 
 * Eom. viii. 18—25. f Whither, pp. 95 seq. 
 
 X "Election is the expression of God's infinite love 
 towards the human race, redeeming man from sin through 
 Christ, and by the Holy Spirit bringing him into this state 
 of redemption, so far as it is consistent with the interest 
 of God's great and final kingdom." — H. B, Smith, System 
 of Christiatn TJieology, p. 505. 
 
84 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 but multitudes that no one can number. The 
 salvation of the world can only mean the 
 world as a whole, compared with which the 
 unredeemed will be so few and insignificant, 
 and evidently beyond the reach of redemption 
 by their own act of rejecting it and hardening 
 themselves against it, and by descending into 
 such depths of demoniacal depravity in the 
 Middle State, that they will vanish from the 
 sight of the redeemed as altogether and irre- 
 deemably evil, and never more disturb the 
 harmonies of the saints. 
 
 G. — Biblical Ethics. 
 
 We are now prepared for the Ethics of the 
 Bible, the fruitage of Theology, the test of 
 all the rest. Biblical Ethics present us an 
 advancing system of morals — God showing 
 His holy face and character and the sublime 
 precepts of morality as men were able to bear 
 them. 
 
 In the field of Biblical Ethics there is con- 
 siderable criticism at the present time. Biblical 
 Ethics have not been so carefully studied as 
 Biblical Keligion and Biblical Faith; there- 
 fore the principles that determine their deve- 
 lopment are not so clearly understood. There 
 is ample room for criticism in the ethical 
 precepts and in the conduct of the holy men 
 of the Bible. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 85 
 
 The ancient worthies, Noah and Abraham, 
 Jacob and Judah, David and Solomon, were 
 in a low stage of moral advancement. Doubt- 
 less it is true, that we would not receive such 
 men into our families, if they lived among us 
 and did such things now as they did then. 
 We might be obHged to send them to prison, 
 lest they should defile the community with 
 their example. But they do not live now ; 
 they lived in an early age of the world, when 
 the Divine exposition of sin was not so search- 
 ing, and the Divine law of righteousness was 
 not so evident. They were not great sinners 
 to their age ; they were the saints of God. 
 
 Abraham was the father of the faithful,^ the 
 great hero of faith for all time, and it is an 
 honour for a Christian to count him as father. 
 When he went into the abode of the dead, 
 he held his pre-eminence among the departed. 
 He made up for his defects in this life by 
 advancing in the school of sanctification there 
 open to him. Let us not suppose that we 
 have passed beyond him in sinlessness or 
 ethical elevation. Our blessed Lord sees 
 the poor Lazarus in Abrah^^m's bosom, the 
 synonym of Paradise itself.! 
 
 Jacob was crafty and treacherous, but he 
 was a pilgrim to the Holy Land, one whose 
 whole ambition was set upon the holy places, 
 
 * Eom. iv. 16—17. t Luke xvi. 23. 
 
S6 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 one who is the father of all pilgrims, one who, 
 therefore, gave his name to the Holy Land and 
 to the entire Israel of God. 
 
 We should look more at their saintly- 
 characters that have given them their place 
 among the heroes of the faithful. Thus we 
 would trace the moral development of Israel, 
 and see it advancing through the centuries 
 until it reaches its height in the holy Messiah. 
 
 It has heen too much the custom to use 
 the ancient heroes of the faith as examples 
 to rebuke modern sinners. They ought to 
 be held up as examples to make modern 
 heroes. And so it has been thought that 
 Israel was a nation chiefly remarkable for its 
 stiff neck and stubborn heart, for its un- 
 faithfulness and its apostasy. Not so do we 
 read in the Old Testament. Israel was the 
 people of God, dearly beloved, and faithful 
 in the main, ever advancing, never attaining 
 the ideal. I fear that the Christian Church 
 does not present so good a history as the 
 people of Israel in the olden time. If Israel 
 did not live up to the ethical principles of 
 Moses and the Prophets, have we lived up 
 to the ethics of Jesus and His Apostles ? 
 It is just this feature of Biblical Ethics that 
 assures us that Divine authority is in it. It 
 presents an ideal ever far above historical 
 reality. 
 
 The Ten Words rise before us in majesty 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 87 
 
 as the guide of morality for the Christian 
 Church, and are as authoritative as when first 
 uttered by a Divine voice from Sinai. 
 
 . Most of the ethical provisions of the Penta- 
 teuchal codes were local and temporal vahdity, 
 but there are many principles in them that are 
 invaluable hints for the solution of the social 
 problems of our day. There are ethical pre- 
 cepts in the Psalter and the Prophets, and, 
 above all, in the Wisdom Literature of the Old 
 Testament, that we need to study and to know. 
 It is a very significant fact that this Wisdom 
 Literature of the Old Testament which is 
 essentially ethical, has been so neglected by 
 theologians. The Book of Proverbs, the Book 
 of Job, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes are 
 the masterpieces of Old Testament ethics. No 
 portion of the Old Testament is likely to prove 
 more useful in the ethical age upon which we 
 are now entering. The holy Qod calls holy men 
 into His service : 
 
 Who of us can abide with devouring fire ? 
 Who of us can abide with everlasting burnings ? 
 One walking in perfect righteousness, and speaking 
 
 uprightly, 
 Refusing the spoil of oppression, 
 Shaking his palms from holding a bribe, 
 Shutting his ears from hearing of bloodshed. 
 And closing his eyes from seeing evil.* 
 
 If the ethical parts of the Old Testament 
 
 * Is. xxxiii. 15 seg. 
 
88 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 have been neglected, this is still more the case 
 with the ethical parts of the New Testament. 
 It has been said that Calvinists come to a 
 halt in a certain chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Komans, but it may also be said that 
 the Arminians come to a halt but a short 
 distance further on. Neither Calvinist nor 
 Arminian has risen to the ethical heights of 
 the closing chapters of the epistles to the 
 Eomans and the Ephesians. The Epistle of 
 James is ethical throughout ; it has not been 
 a favourite epistle for Protestants. The Epistles 
 of John have been too high in their mystic 
 elevation for the modern world. 
 
 But the greatest sin against the Bible has 
 been the neglect of the ethics of Jesus. If 
 one studies the theology of Jesus he is im- 
 pressed by the fact that it is profoundly ethical, 
 not only in the Sermon on the Mount, but also 
 throughout His discourses. The holy man, 
 hving such a holy life, how could it be other- 
 wise than that holy words were ever on His 
 lips? Those who question the historicity of 
 the life of Jesus, and regard many of His 
 teachings as misunderstood by the Evangelists 
 who report them, stand in awe and bow in 
 adoration when they consider His ethical pre- 
 cepts and recognize their divinity. 
 
 Tolstoi says Christians think that Jesus did 
 not mean what He said. Tolstoi's criticism is 
 severe, but is it not just? If we really 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 89 
 
 believed that Jesus meant what He said, how 
 could we live such selfish lives ? The words of 
 Jesus are so high above us that it seems 
 impossible to reaHze them in actual life, and 
 so we strive to get a meaning out of them that 
 will be useful to us, and we bury the sublime 
 ideal in a fictitious and temporary explana- 
 tion.* It is my opinion that if the grace of 
 God should so impel a man that he could be 
 transformed into the image of the holy Jesus, 
 and, Hke Jesus, rebuke sin in high places and 
 trouble the people with his unapproachable 
 holiness, he would earn the reward of Jesus 
 even in this generation — at the hands of Chris- 
 
 * " The ecclesiastical Chi-ist is to a large extent not the \ 
 Christ of the Gospels, bnt a creation of scholastic theology. \ 
 Notwithstanding all our preaching, Jesus Christ is not 
 well known. That He is not well known is partly the fault 
 of our preaching. Men are not permitted to see Jesus 
 with open face, but only through the thick veil of a dog- 
 matic system. The religious spirit of Jesus, His attitude 
 towards the religion in vogue in Judsea in His time, and 
 its grounds. His humane sympathies. His thoughts of G-od, 
 His ethical ideal, have been allowed to fall into the back- 
 groimd. Hence types of piety have sprung up within the 
 Church, which, whatever virtues they may possess, are not 
 characteristically Christian. It has become possible to be 
 very religious and yet be very unchristian, not only 
 largely ignorant of Christ, but antagonistic to Him in 
 spirit; to be, in short, a modern reproduction of the 
 Pharisee, imagining one's self to be one of the most faithful 
 friends of Jesus, while hostile to all the true Christian 
 interests of the time."— A. B. Bruce, Kingdom of God, 
 p. 348. 4th Ed. / 
 
90 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 tian theologians and ecclesiastics. The cry 
 would resound through the streets of New 
 V York, " Crucify him ! crucify him ! " 
 ^ The words of Jesus, like the life of Jesus, 
 are the ideals of perfection, that men thus far 
 have been unable to understand and realize ; 
 but they will be realized when the world has 
 been so trained and disciplined in the progress 
 of sanctification that it shall become like 
 Him. 
 
 D. — T)ie Messiah. 
 
 Thus far we have spoken of the Messiah 
 only indirectly; but every line of religion, 
 doctrine, and morals has brought us unto 
 Him. The Messiah is the culmination of the 
 Old Testament. He is the pivot of History. 
 All through these nineteen centuries Chris- 
 tians have been learning from their Lord, 
 and yet how little do we know of Him. 
 Each period in the history of the Church 
 has been so deeply impressed with some small 
 portion of what the Scriptures have revealed 
 about Him, that it has devoted itself exclu- 
 sively to that, has exaggerated that, and left 
 other equally important phases of the doc- 
 trine unexplored. 
 
 Sometimes the deity of Christ has been so 
 exalted that men have forgotten His humanity. 
 Then others have been so absorbed in the 
 wonders of His humanity that they have not 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 91 
 
 seen His divinity. Then the complex nature, 
 the union of the human and divine in the 
 Theanthropos, — the profoundest minds of the 
 Christian centuries have thought upon it and 
 unfolded some of its glories, but it is still like 
 the very heavens for heio^hts of mystery and 
 glory. The Messiah's state of humiliation has 
 so absorbed men that they have neglected His 
 state of exaltation and glory. In His state of 
 humiliation modern Protestants have absorbed 
 themselves in the crucifixion and death, and the 
 doctrine of the Atonement involved therein. 
 The v^^ondrous doctrine of the Incarnation has 
 been neglected until recent times.* It V7as 
 the merit of my beloved teacher, Henry 
 B. Smith, that he made Incarnation in order 
 to Redemption f the structural principle of his_ 
 theology. The holy life of Jesus, long neg- 
 lected, has in recent years been studied as 
 never before. But the Messiah's descent into 
 the abode of the dead — a doctrine of great 
 importance to the ancient Church + — His 
 resurrection — His enthronement — His reign of 
 grace — His second advent — 0, how these have 
 been neglected ! 
 
 The Messianic idea of the Old Testament 
 and the Christology of the New Testament are 
 vastly fuller and richer, and grander than any 
 
 * Whither, pp. 112 seq. 
 
 t Henry B. Smithy System of Christian Theology. 
 
 X See Redeniption after Death. Mag. Christ. Lit., Dec. 1889. 
 
92 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 one has imagined. The Christ of the Bible 
 will exert a much greater power* upon the 
 coming generations when they grasp the full 
 Biblical doctrine and cease expending their 
 strength and exhausting their energies in the 
 speculative elaboration of some few of its 
 phases.* 
 
 In all departments of Biblical Theology there 
 are new life and new doctrine and new morals 
 for the Church of God. More light is about 
 to break forth from the Holy Scriptures upon 
 the Christian world, — light for all the churches, 
 for all men, for all nations. The old methods 
 of building on selected texts and isolated 
 passages, which you will find in all the creeds 
 and in all the dogmatic systems,•^ is about to 
 pass away. The inductive study of the Bible 
 forces us to study every word, sentence, and 
 clause, and rise in the inductive process, until 
 the whole organism of the Bible is presented 
 to us. Such study of the Bible, so far as I 
 have been able to pursue it, has made it to me 
 the fr-eshest, the newest, the most wonderful 
 of Books ; has brought about in my mind a 
 different conception in every department of 
 Theology. And many of those things that 
 once seemed to be probabilities on the basis of 
 speculative theology and confessional theology 
 
 * B.OV0 shall we Revise ? pp. 20 seq, 
 t How shall ive Revise ? pp. 137 seq. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 93 
 
 have, in the hght of God's Word and in the 
 conviction of Divine authority, come to be 
 certainties — the verities of God. 
 
 I have not departed in any respect from the 
 orthodox teaching of the Christian Church, as 
 set forth in its official creeds. I have had the 
 inestimable privilege of learning, as a student 
 and a friend, from two of the greatest Sys- 
 tematic Theologians of our century — Henry 
 B. Smith and Isaac A. Dorner. These built 
 upon the Bible and the Creeds, the History of 
 Doctrine and the highest attainments of the 
 Human Eeason. Such Systematic Theologians 
 the Church greatly needs at the present time, 
 and no one can value them and their work 
 more than I do. These never set up their 
 systems as tests of orthodoxy. They renounce 
 scholasticism and dogmatism. For the dogma- 
 tism of mere traditional opinion and of the 
 dogmaticians, I have no respect. Their specu- 
 lations are worthy of no more consideration 
 than the speculation of other scholars. But 
 for the Creeds of Christ's Church I have the 
 greatest respect, for I am one of those who 
 believes that God inhabits His Church and 
 guides it in its official decisions, not inerrantly 
 in every utterance, but in the essential doctrines 
 in which the universal Church is in concord. 
 But the theology of the Creeds marks only the 
 consensus of attainment of the Church in 
 the several stages of advance in the History of 
 
94 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 Doctrine. They are far below the Biblical 
 ideal, and, therefore, the best of them seems to 
 give us such a small theology when set in the 
 length and breadth, the heights and depths of 
 the theology of the Bible. 
 
 As I have recently said, '* Christian churches 
 should go right on in the lines drawn by their 
 own history and their own symbols ; this will 
 in the end lead to greater heights, in which there 
 will be concord. Imperfect statements will be 
 corrected by progress. All forms of error will 
 disappear before the breath of truth. We are 
 not to tear down what has cost our fathers so 
 much. We are rather to strengthen the founda- 
 tions and buttresses of the buildings as we build 
 higher. Let the light shine higher and higher, 
 the clear, bright light of day. Truth fears no 
 light. Light chases error away. True ortho- 
 doxy seeks the full blaze of the noontide sun. 
 In the light of such a day the unity of Chris- 
 tendom will be gained."^ 
 
 IV.— THE HAEMONY OF THE SOUECES OF 
 DIVINE AUTHOEITY. 
 
 I have endeavoured to lead you through the 
 obstructions that confront the student of the 
 Bible into the Holy Word itself, that you might 
 recognise the authority of God in the Keligion, 
 
 * Whither, pp. 297-8. 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 95 
 
 Faith, and Morals of the Bible. I must now 
 ask you to go back with me, and use the advan- 
 tages we have gained for a brief review of those 
 other seats of Divine aiithority— the Church 
 and the Eeason. 
 
 If God really speaks to men in these three 
 centres, there ought to be no contradiction 
 between them. They ought to be complemen- \ 
 tary, and they should combine in a higher * 
 unity for the guidance and the comfort of men. 
 It is my profound conviction that we are on the 
 threshold of just such a happy reconciHation. 
 The discrepancies that men have found have 
 not been in the authority of God Himself, or 
 in the essential principles that have enveloped 
 it, but in those formal and circumstantial 
 things upon which human nature in its weak- 
 ness and its depravity ever lays so much stress. 
 Eemoving these human conceits and follies 
 and these obstructions erected by well-meaning 
 but misguided men from the Bible, the Church, 
 and the Eeason, it will be manifest that they 
 are, they alioaijs have been, and they always 
 will he harmonious. 
 
 It is human folly to set the Bible against the 
 Church, or either or both of them against the 
 Eeason. Whenever this is done, the opposition 
 is only in the human forms and settings. It is 
 clear to me that the Bible needs the Church 
 and the Eeason ere it can exert its full power 
 upon the life of men. 
 
96 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 Institutional Christianity was established by- 
 Christ and His Apostles, and no one can safely 
 ignore it. It is the need of our time in that 
 advance toward Church Unity that we are 
 about to make, and to make with so much 
 energy and decision. It is necessary that we 
 should know what Institutional Christianity 
 really is, that we should be members of the 
 visible Church and share in the sacrifices and 
 triumphs of the Kingdom of God. The Bible, 
 from the very nature of the case, leads us 
 through its forms into the presence-chamber 
 of God, but our minds are filled at the same time 
 with the historic forms of the ancient world. 
 It is the office of the Church, in the use of its 
 institutions, to bring us into communion with 
 the Triune God in the forms of the modern 
 world, and give us the assurance of His pre- 
 sence with the Church through its history, and 
 with us in the hour and moment of our use of 
 its institutions. The Church unites with the 
 Bible in giving us the assurance of God's 
 presence and authority throughout History, 
 Christian as well as Hebrew, and of His 
 gracious help in the present. It gives us the 
 blessed experience of the communion of saints. 
 It opens the eyes to see that we are in the 
 outer ranks of innumerable lines of the host of 
 the living God, ever on the march through the 
 life in this world into the gates of Paradise and 
 onward on the highway of holiness to the 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE, 97 
 
 throne of God and the Lamb which ever 
 bounds the horizon of the beatific vision. The 
 neglect of the Church as a means of grace 
 retards the use of the Bible itself as a means 
 •of grace and dulls our sensitiveness to the 
 presence of God. 
 
 The Keason also has its rights, its place and 
 importance in the economy of Redemption. I 
 rejoice at the age of Rationalism, with all its 
 wonderful achievements in philosophy. I look 
 upon it as preparing men to use their reasons 
 in the last great age of the world. Criticism 
 will go on with its destruction of errors and 
 its verification of truth and fact. The human 
 mind will learn to know its powers and to use 
 them. The forms of the reason, the conscience, 
 the religious feeling, the aesthetic taste — all the 
 highest energies of our nature, will exert them- 
 selves as never before. God will appear in 
 these forms, and give an inward assurance and 
 -certainty greater than that given in former 
 ages. These increased powers of the human 
 soul will enable men to search those higher 
 mysteries of Biblical Theology that no theolo- 
 gian has yet mastered, and those mysteries that 
 are wrapped up in the institutions of the 
 Church, to all who really know them. It is 
 impossible that the Bible and the Church 
 should ever exert their full power until the 
 human Reason, trained and strained to the 
 uttermost, rise to the heights of its energies, and 
 
98 THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 reach forth after God and His Christ with abso» 
 lute devotion and self-renouncing love. Then 
 v^e may expect on the heights of theological 
 speculation, and from the peaks of Christian 
 experience, that those profound doctrines that 
 now divide Christendom by their antinomies 
 will appear as the two sides of the same law, 
 or the foci of a Divine ellipse, which is itself 
 but one of the curves in that conic section of 
 God's dominion, in which, in loving wisdom, 
 He has appointed the lines of our destiny. 
 
 Go out into the country in the late winter 
 or early spring, and you will see, everywhere, 
 great activity. The farmers are at work with 
 axe, and saw, and knives, the instruments of 
 destruction, cutting off the limbs of trees, 
 and pruning vines and bushes, and rooting out 
 weeds ; fires are running over the fields and 
 meadows, the air is filled with smoke, and it 
 seems as if everything were going to destruc- 
 tion. But they are destroying the dead wood, 
 dry and brittle stubble, and noxious weeds. 
 They are removing them out of the way of the 
 life that is beating beneath the surface of the 
 ground and throbbing in tree and bush. In a 
 few days the fields will be mantled in Hving 
 green, the trees and bushes will wave their 
 leaves joyously, and deck themselves with 
 blossoms of every variety of beauteous form and 
 colour, and the world will rejoice in a new 
 springtime. Thus is it at the present time 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 99 
 
 in the higher world of rehgion and morals. 
 Criticism is at work with knife and fire. Let 
 us cut down everything that is dead and 
 harmful, every kind of dead orthodoxy, every 
 species of effete ecclesiasticism, all merely 
 formal morality, all those dry and brittle 
 fences that constitute denominationalism, and 
 are the barriers of Church Unity. Let us 
 burn up every form of false doctrine, false 
 religion, and false practice. Let us remove 
 every incumbrance out of the way for a new 
 life ; the life of God is moving throughout 
 Christendom, and the springtime of a new age 
 is about to come upon us : — 
 
 Let the wilderness and the solitary places be glad, 
 And let the desert rejoice, and let it blossom as the 
 
 rose ; 
 Let it blossom abundantly, and let it rejoice, 
 Even with joy and singing ; 
 The glory of Lebanon has been given unto it. 
 The excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; 
 They see the glory of Jahveh, 
 The excellency of onr God. 
 Strengthen ye the weak hands, 
 And confirm the feeble knees. 
 Say to the fearful of heart, Be strong, 
 Fear not : behold your God, 
 
 He cometh with vengeance, with a Divine recompense 
 He cometh to save you.— (Isai. xxxv. 1-4.) 
 
BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 AND INSPIRATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 By LLEWELLYN J. EVANS, D.D., 
 
 Professor of New Testament Exegesis in Lane Theological 
 Seminary Cincinnati. 
 
BIBLICAL SGHOLABSHIP AND 
 INSPIBATION. 
 
 It is the purpose of this discussion to present 
 some of the accepted conclusions of the best 
 Christian scholarship of the day respecting 
 <3ertain features of our sacred Scriptures, as 
 these conclusions bear on the question of the 
 inspiration, infallibihty, and authority of these 
 Scriptures, and on the rights and obligations 
 of those who are appointed to direct the study 
 of them in our theological schools. It is a 
 question which, whatever we may think of the 
 occasion or the methods whicli have preci- 
 pitated it upon us, has been pushed to the 
 front by tendencies and conditions the opera- 
 tion of which it was not within the power 
 of man to stem or to control. Now that 
 the issue is upon us we must meet it, in no 
 temper of suspicion, prejudice, or partisanship, 
 but in a frank, manly, straightforward way, 
 and in a spirit of loyalty to the truth, to 
 our Church, and to God. As to the personal 
 form which the issue has taken, as a move- 
 ment to challenge and to invoke the formal 
 
I04 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 and authoritative condemnation, by the Pres- 
 byterian Church of the United States of 
 America, of certain utterances respecting the 
 Scriptures, and Scripture truths, recently made 
 by a prominent theological professor in our 
 Church, I shall have very little directly to say. 
 I am not concerned to justify the utterances 
 of my brother professor in detail. In that 
 particular, my friend is abundantly able to 
 take care of himself. If, as I confidently hope, 
 the views v^hich are here urged shall obtain 
 from the Church, in its ultimate decision, the 
 recognition which is claimed for them as 
 scriptural, evangelical, confessional, scientific, 
 reverent, and indispensable to the satisfactory 
 and permanent solution of the great problems 
 of our age, and to the harmony of religious 
 faith vnth scientific and critical processes and 
 results, I have no fear that any one will be 
 wronged. The principles which are at stake 
 are to my mind more vital than any personal 
 issue. The movement of which I have spoken^ 
 and the utterances in the press and elsewhere 
 which have accompanied and interpreted its 
 inception and purpose, convince me that the 
 time has come for a definite understanding 
 respecting the rights of Christian Scholarship 
 in the Biblical departments of our Theological 
 Seminaries. That is a question in which I 
 may be pardoned for feeling an intense per- 
 sonal interest. It is a question which affects. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. los 
 
 my calling, my work, my very life. If there 
 is anything in which my whole being is 
 wrapped up, it is the study and teaching of 
 the Word of God. If there is anything that 
 I love with every fibre of every heart-string, 
 it is that blessed old Book. If there is any- 
 thing for which, so far as I know myself, I 
 would gladly lay down my life, it is that 
 this Book may be known and read through- 
 out the length and breadth of the world as- 
 the guide of lost souls to heaven. It is 
 because I believe in this Book with a con- 
 viction and love which grow with every year's, 
 study of it, that I take my present position. 
 And it is because I believe that, in order 
 the sooner and the better to accomplish its 
 mission in the world, it must be rescued out 
 of a false position, and be put before the world 
 where it puts itself, that I would fain help in 
 clearing off the stumbling-blocks which mis- 
 taken zeal has put in the way of inquiring 
 souls, and dig down through the quicksands 
 of false definitions and untenable theories to 
 what Mr. Gladstone so truly and forcibly calls,. 
 " The impregnahle Bock of Holy Scripture." 
 
 As I have already said, the time has come 
 for a definite understanding in regard to what. 
 I may briefly call the Biblical situation. What 
 have we the right to teach about the Bible ? 
 We must come to a clear and cordial under- 
 standing in respect to that question. I trust 
 
io6 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 it is not vanity that prompts me to hope I 
 may say something that will help to bring 
 about such an understanding. I would fain 
 believe that I am in a position to understand 
 both sides of the question at issue. There is 
 much in the position of the brethren whose 
 course on the particular issue before us I feel 
 ■constrained to oppose that commands my 
 hearty assent. I honour, I hope I share in 
 their zeal for the supreme authority of the 
 Word of God. In their opposition to every 
 movement of thought which tends to under- 
 mine that authority, I am with them. If I 
 believed that the apprehensions which inspire 
 their present action were well grounded, I 
 would earnestly support it. 
 
 I furthermore believe that it is all-important 
 that there should be the most thorough accord 
 between the work that is done and the in- 
 struction that is given in our seminaries, and 
 the work done and the instruction given in 
 our pulpits and parishes. There should be 
 the most hearty unity of thought, feeling, 
 and action, between theological professors and 
 pastors, in our common work for the Master. 
 I believe it is incumbent on both sides to 
 maintain this entente cordiale. It is in- 
 ■cumbent on us as professors so to carry on 
 our work that the hands of our brethren in 
 the field shall be strengthened. We are under 
 obligation to do nothing that we can con- 
 
AND INSPIRATION, io7 
 
 sistently avoid doing that will discourage, dis- 
 turb, embarrass them in their great and holy 
 mission, and so to train the young men under 
 our care that they shall go forth equipped 
 to reinforce them at every point. On the 
 other hand, I claim from my brethren reci- 
 procity in this matter. I ask that they accord 
 to us their confidence, that they beware of 
 unjust suspicions, that they try to understand 
 us in our position and work. 
 
 Good old Dr. Johnson used to say, " Clear 
 your mind of cant." Let us try to clear our 
 minds of cant, of mist, of prejudice in respect 
 to the issue we are trying. I cannot help 
 the conviction that the trouble of the present 
 situation, the ferment, the unsettlement, the 
 alarm which prevails, is due very largely— I 
 will not say altogether, but largely— and I 
 must say mainly, to a vague and inadequate 
 conception of the situation, leading to a con- 
 fusion of terms and ideas, and resulting in mis- 
 taking friends for foes. In Matthew Arnold's 
 words : 
 
 And we are liere as on a darkling plain, 
 Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fligM, 
 Where ignorant armies clash by night. 
 
 There is a good deal of unprofitable mental 
 gymnastics going on, such as Paul was so 
 careful to avoid. Some of our good brethren, 
 I fear, are ''beating the air," and quite a 
 
io3 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 number, I am sure, are beating tbe wrong 
 man. 
 
 There is an uncomfortable lack of definite- 
 ness and precision in certain charges which 
 are made. We are hearing much about 
 " errors," " dangerous errors," " erroneous 
 tendencies," matters which are "calculated to 
 unsettle faith." What are these "errors"? 
 I suspect, if our brethren who complain of 
 these things should undertake to frame a 
 declaration, after the model of the Auburn 
 Declaration, setting forth in black and white^ 
 first in the light of Scripture, and then in 
 the light of the Confession, on this side the 
 Error, and over against it the True Doctrine, 
 the case would begin to look very differently 
 from what it does. At all events we should 
 then know precisely where we are, and exactly 
 what we are talking about. Differences often 
 arise from ambiguities. We use the same 
 word in different senses, or we convey the 
 same thought by different phrases, and then 
 appeal to the General Assembly, forsooth, to 
 decide between as ! Then again the world is 
 moving on, and it is getting more and more 
 hard to keep up with it. We are living in 
 an age of specialties, and of specialists. Even 
 among experts, the ninety and nine know not 
 what the hundredth man is up to. They know 
 that they are liable any fine morning to wake 
 up and to find the Babylon of their fine old- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 109 
 
 fashioned theories hlown up with the dynamite 
 of some experiment, and Number One Hundred 
 dancing on the ruins. 
 
 Now it so happens that, in the Providence 
 of God, for better or worse, my lot has been 
 cast in a Theological Seminary. It has been 
 a necessity of my position to give some atten- 
 tion to the leading Biblical questions of the 
 day. For a quarter of a century this has been 
 my business. I trust, therefore, it will not be 
 regarded as presumption on my part if I 
 indulge the hope that by something I may 
 say, I may succeed in bringing some of my 
 brethren into closer touch with the best Chris- 
 tian Scholarship of the day touching some of 
 the questions which are involved in the present 
 issue. All I claim for myself is that I think I 
 understand both sides : and sympathising as 
 I do with both sides in some things, I would 
 fain bring them nearer together. And if I 
 make a more liberal use of the first personal 
 pronoun than is generally deemed commend- 
 able, you will understand my motive. 
 
 Allow me, then, to premise that in the 
 study of Biblical questions, which my vocation 
 has made necessary, I have both striven to 
 keep an open mind, and earnestly soaght the 
 guidance of a wisdom higher than my own. 
 My study of the history of the interpretation 
 and criticism of God's Word has shown me, 
 as clearly as it has taught me anything, that 
 
no BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 God does lead His people onward in their 
 inquiries of His holy Oracle. I know, as well 
 as I know anything, that progress, wonderful 
 progress, has been made in my own day in the 
 knowledge of the Word. I do not claim that 
 all movement has been progress, or that every 
 "find" has been a gain. I am well aware 
 that in Biblical science, as in every science, 
 there are rash speculations, unproved hypo- 
 theses, wild and dangerous vagaries. Some 
 corners of the field are full of will-o'-the- 
 wisps, illusive, unsubstantial, unsafe, gleaming, 
 I fear, with a light that is not from heaven. 
 
 But, on the other hand, there are conclusions 
 in this field which all, whose judgment is 
 worth anything, are agreed in regarding as 
 substantially established. There are other con- 
 clusions which must fairly be conceded to have 
 a strong balance of probabihty in their favour. 
 These conclusions must be reckoned with. 
 "Whether we accept them, or reject them, the 
 data on which they are based must be satis- 
 factorily explained. There are certain ascer- 
 tained facts — so far as any historical data can 
 be called facts — bearing on the structure of the 
 Bible, bearing on the historical accuracy of 
 particular statements in the Book, bearing on 
 the inspiration of Scripture — facts bearing, 
 that is, on the mode in which the accuracy, 
 the infallibility, the inspiration, the authority 
 of Scripture must be conceived and defined — 
 
AND INSPIRATION. up 
 
 which can not be set aside by sneers at the 
 Higher Criticism, which can not be offset by 
 vague denunciations of Kationalism, which 
 can not be disposed of at all without satisfying 
 the demands of the most enlightened reason, 
 the requirements of the most thorough scholar- 
 ship, as well as the claims of the devoutest 
 faith. We must reckon with these facts. We 
 must take them into account. We must 
 assign them their trae value. We must make 
 them the basis of our judgments and our 
 deliverances. If the theories of other days 
 will not bear the pressure of these facts they 
 must go to the wall. There is no help for it. 
 If your definition of inspiration, your definition 
 of the infallibility of the Bible — mark what I 
 say ! not the doctrine, but your definition of 
 the doctrine — if that definition will not stand 
 the test of the established results of criticism, 
 if it will not harmonize with ascertained facts, 
 then so much the worse for the definition. 
 
 Two years ago it was my privilege to attend 
 the sessions of the Free Church Assembly in 
 Edinburgh, when Dr. Dods was elected to the 
 ChairofExegetical Theology in the New College. 
 The candidature of Dr. Dods was strenuously 
 resisted on the ground of his utterances respect- 
 ing the Scriptures and their inspiration. The 
 attempt was made to prove the unsoundness 
 of his views. How? From Scripture? No! 
 From the Confession of Faith ? Not at all ; 
 
V 
 
 112 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 but from Dr. Hodge on the Confession. At 
 once, from all parts of the house, the cry was 
 heard : " Dr. Hodge is not the Confession." 
 That summed up the situation in Scotland. 
 That sums up the situation here to-day. The 
 Commentary is not the Confession ; the Con- 
 fession, let me add, is not Scripture. But 
 Dr. Hodge is neither Confession nor Scripture. 
 Or to state the case more broadly : the Scho- 
 lastic Theology, which Dr. Hodge represents, 
 is neither the Confession nor the Word of God. 
 But there are dearly beloved brethren, through- 
 out the Presbyterian Church, who are labouring 
 under the delusion that, if Dr. Hodge is not the 
 Confession, at least it means, or ought to mean, 
 what Dr. Hodge says. I hope to show, before 
 I get through, that it does mean nothing of the 
 sort. 
 
 But what does Dr. Hodge say is the teach-- 
 ine: of the Confession? In brief this : The 
 books of Scripture " are one and all, in thought 
 and verbal expression, in substance and form, 
 wholly the Word of God, conveying with 
 absolute accuracy and Divine authority, all that 
 God meant them to convey, v^ithout human 
 additions or admixtures." " All written under 
 it [the Divine influence called inspiration] is 
 the very Word of God, of infallible truth and 
 of Divine authority ; and this infallibility and 
 authority attach as well to the verbal expres- 
 sion in which the revelation is conveyed as to 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 113 
 
 the matter of the revelation itself." '^ Or still 
 more compreheDsively and explicitly, in a joint 
 article written by Drs. A. A. Hodge and B. B. 
 Warfield, we are told : " The historical faith 
 of the Church has always been that all the 
 affirmations of Scripture of all kinds, whether 
 of spiritual doctrine, or duty, or of physical or 
 historical fact, or of psychological or philo- 
 sophical principle, are without any error when 
 the ipsissima verba of the original autographs 
 are ascertained and interpreted in their natural 
 and intended sense, f 
 
 That statement, I take it, gives us the key 
 to the situation. It is the premise from which 
 have proceeded all the movements in our 
 Church which have been directed, during the 
 past ten years, against the affirmations of 
 modern Biblical Criticism. The critics have 
 found that statement of inspiration impossible. 
 Therefore their conclusions are denounced as 
 dangerous, rationalistic, or worse. This, how- 
 ever, as I hope to demonstrate, is not the 
 position of our Standards. On this point our 
 Doctors of Divinity are not the Confession. 
 But before coming to that point, I wish to say 
 one or two other things about that statement. 
 
 And first I charge upon it that it is unscien- 
 
 * Commentary on the Confession of Faith, by Dr. A. A. 
 Hodge, p. 55. 
 
 t The Preshyterian Review, Vol. II. p. 238. 
 
 8 
 
114 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 tific. It is an abstract, a priori affirmation,, 
 not resting on objective facts, but evolved out 
 of the depths of the dogmatic consciousness. 
 The inductive study of the Word of God was 
 / practically unknown at the time when that 
 ^ definition was framed, three hundred years 
 ago. It proceeds from certain postulates re- 
 specting what God must do in the matter of 
 inspiration, which are assumed at the outset, 
 without proof, with no adequate basis in the 
 facts of the case, with no support from any 
 positive declaration by God Himself. These 
 postulates are the product of the Scholasticism 
 of the Post-Eeformation age, which had 
 V inherited the methods, and followed largely 
 in the lines of the Eomish Scholasticism of the 
 Middle Ages. Undoubtedly there was incom- 
 parably more of the material of Bible truth in 
 the Protestant than in the Eomish Scholasticism 
 — for our Schoolmen did read their Bibles, and 
 study their Bibles, and got their theology out 
 of their Bibles — and for the time it was in 
 many ways a grand and mighty theology. But 
 their method — and it is of that I am now 
 speaking — was seriously defective. Such defi- 
 nitions as I have just presented could legiti- 
 mately rest only on the most exhaustive 
 induction of all the facts and phenomena 
 relating to the revelation of God in His Word ; 
 first collecting and collating these facts, then 
 estimating, analysing, classifying them, and. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 115 
 
 lastly, generalising from them according to the 
 most rigorous laws of the inductive process, 
 omitting nothing, inventing nothing, assuming 
 nothinof, distorting: nothing. Is that the case? 
 Surely it would be a rash and unhistoric claim. 
 The older scholastic theory, which formulated 
 that theory, which has dominated our dogmatic 
 definitions down to the present day, under the 
 influence of which most of us have been 
 trained, knew nothing of this inductive 
 process, did nothing of it. 
 
 And now, let me ask, is that safe ground to 
 take? Is it safe, in this inductive age, to base a 
 scientific definition on unscientific premises, to 
 reach a scientific result by unscientific pro- 
 cesses, to expose the citadel of your position at 
 a thousand points to the strategic attacks of 
 the scientific method ? Eemember that weak- 
 ness at any one of those points lets in the 
 enemy. Is it safe to stake the authority of the 
 Scriptures on the absolute infallibihty of every 
 one of a thousand particulars, every one of 
 which is subject to the remorseless probings of 
 a science which cares nothing for your theories, 
 cares very Httle, possibly, for your behefs, 
 refuses to know any thing but facts ? Is that 
 safe when, according to your theory, the loss of 
 one particular means the loss of all."* Even 
 
 * " A proved error in Scripture contradicts not only our 
 doctrine, but the Scripture claims, and therefore its inspi- 
 
Ii6 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Drs. Hodge and Warfield make this admission : 
 *' There will undoubtedly be found upon the 
 surface [of Scripture] many apparent affirma- 
 tions 'presumably inconsistent with the present 
 teachings of science, with facts of history, or 
 with other statements of the sacred books 
 themselves." Surely it is not inconceivable 
 that in a number of particulars, or say only in 
 one particular, that presumption of unscientific, 
 unhistoric, contradictory teaching may turn 
 out to be more than a presumption. Then 
 what becomes of your theory? What, on your 
 theory, becomes of the authority of Scripture ? 
 But I have a still more serious charge to 
 bring against this a priori method in theology 
 'when applied to inspiration. For inspiration 
 is a Divine Process. What this process is in 
 its interior nature we can never know. It is 
 God that inspires, as it is God that creates, and 
 we can no more say how God inspires than how 
 God creates. What are the necessary, interior, 
 Divine conditions of inspiration ? What do we 
 know about that? What can we know about 
 that ? All we can know about it must be 
 derived from the terms which describe it, the 
 characteristics which it exhibits, the concrete 
 result which it produces, the effects which 
 follow it. And so I charge further upon this 
 
 ration, in making those claims." Drs. Hodge and Warfield, 
 Preshytenan Review, Vol. II. p. 245. 
 
 * The Presbyterian Review, Vol. IL, p. 237. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. n/ 
 
 a priori definition of inspiration, that it is not 
 only unscientific, but irreverent, presumptuous, 
 lacking in the humihty with which we should 
 approach a Divine Supernatural Fact. Of 
 course, I do not mean to charge conscious 
 irreverence or presumption on those who frame 
 or hold this theory, but remembering that un- 
 conscious faults attach to the best of men, I 
 beheve that Charles Kingsley never said a truer 
 or a finer thing than that " there is an mtnnate 
 connection between the health of the moral 
 faculties and that of the inductive ones ; " and 
 that *' God does in science as well as m ethics 
 hide things from the wise and prudent, from 
 the proud, complete, self-contained systematiser 
 hke Aristotle. ... and reveals them to 
 babes, to gentle, affectionate, simple-hearted 
 men, such as we know Archimedes to have been, 
 who' do not try to give an explanation for a 
 fact, but feel how awful and Divine it is, and 
 wrestle reverently and steadfastly with it, as. 
 Jacob with the Angel, and will not let it go 
 until it bless them."* 
 
 Now, I claim that to say beforehand that 
 inspiration, or any such Divine process, must 
 be this or that, that it must have certain 
 characteristics, is to venture beyond our liniits, 
 to step in where angels fear to tread. You 
 may ask, Is not all that God does perfect? 
 
 * Alexandria and Her Schools, Lecture I. 
 
ii8 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Most assuredly. But who are we, to define 
 that perfection, to formulate its constituents, 
 to legislate its conditions, to decide beforehand 
 that it must be thus, that it cannot be so, that 
 this is indispensable, that impossible ? We are 
 told that at the end of each creative Day God 
 looked on what He had done, ** and saw that it 
 was good." And what does God mean by 
 "good"? Absolute, abstract perfection in 
 every particular, flawless regularity in every 
 line and curve, faultless fitness in every limb 
 and joint, infallible inerrancy, no wandering 
 stars, no jostling bodies, music of the spheres, 
 without a jarring note? That is, no doubt, 
 what a priori speculation would have affirmed. 
 If our friend, the Dogmatist, had stepped upon 
 the scene in time, before telescope, or micro- 
 scope, or spectroscope was known, that is 
 precisely what he would have laid down for us 
 as the only orthodox view. He would have 
 had his definition of perfection, turned out of 
 his machine, square, rigid, all the sides exactly 
 parallel, every angle ninety degrees down to the 
 infinitesimal, every line as straight as the 
 shortest possible distance between two points 
 could make it — an exquisite specimen of logical 
 carpentering. "Nothing else" — he would 
 have assured us, with that superb confidence 
 which would be so imposing if it had not so 
 often imposed on us — " nothing else is con- 
 ceivable or possible in the premises ; nothing 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 119 
 
 -else would be worthy of God. What God 
 calls good must be a perfect result, complete, 
 flawless, faultless, infallible in every detail." 
 3ut look at the record ; what do you find ? 
 Irregularities, breaks, misfits, broken joints, 
 deformities, mutilations, abortions, collisions, 
 discords, imperfections all the way along ; and 
 God back of it all, God over it all, God through 
 it all, God in it all, pushing on His way, 
 working out His will, and accomplishing — 
 yes, a Perfect Kesult ! Ah ! brethren, God's 
 thoughts are not as our thoughts. His ways 
 are not as our ways. The designs by which 
 He works are not patterns for Patent Office 
 purposes, not pieces of dilettante china-decora- 
 tion, not aesthetic models in waxwork, "faultily 
 faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." No, 
 sirs ! The Patterns of Deity are commensu- 
 rate with Himself, they spread over His 
 eternity, they lose themselves in His infinitude, 
 they are awful with the glories and glooms of 
 His unsearchable wisdom, they are rugged and 
 ragged and riven with the thunders and 
 lightnings of omnipotence ; they sweep on — 
 a Flood of measureless, resistless might — from 
 the Beginning which has no beginning to the 
 End which has no end ; and what seem to us 
 to be flaws or fractures, miscarriages and mis- 
 chances, are swallowed up and borne along in 
 the Infinite Tide of His Purpose, the flow of 
 which they no more arrest, or disturb, or 
 
I20 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 weaken, than the shattered foam-bells, or 
 wavering reflows of the Eapids above the 
 Horseshoe Falls affect the plunge of Niagara. 
 Flaws ? Yes ; but look at the Plan, massive 
 with the lines and the curves of the Infinite 
 and the Eternal, stamped with the symmetries, 
 and the sublimities of a Divine Art, charged 
 with the perfect purposes of the Will which 
 never fails. Frictions ? Yes ; but look at the 
 matchless correlations of energy, the actions 
 and interactions of endlessly articulated forces, 
 that determine the balancings of the dew-drops, 
 and swing Jupiters and suns and systems along 
 their vast and mighty courses. Discords ? Yes ; 
 but listen to the Eternal Anthem, the Jubilate 
 Beo, that rings from star to star, and ravishes 
 the eternities. 
 
 If, now, in creation God can work out a 
 perfect result through imperfection, why not in 
 inspiration? But here — in inspiration — there 
 is another factor to be taken into the account, 
 to wit, the human factor. In the production of 
 Scripture we are concerned with two co-effi- 
 cients. It is not God working alone, but God 
 working with human instrumentalities, and 
 using these instrumentalities, not as dead, 
 passive things, but as free, integral, inde- 
 pendent personalities ; not as a mechanic uses 
 his tools, not as a magician handles his puppets, 
 but as a Living Spirit, breathing in and through 
 living souls. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 121 
 
 Now, it is a law of the Divine Operation 
 that in working under finite conditions it 
 respects those conditions ; that in using created 
 and hmited agencies, it has regard for the 
 hmitations of those agencies. I am far from 
 saymg that no more is accomphshed than 
 would he accomphshed if the agent were left 
 to itself. What I do hold is that the more in 
 the case, the supra-natural i^lus, is supernaturah 
 not natural. The process here, as we are all 
 agreed, is a supernatural process, the result is 
 a Divine supernatural result. So much is not 
 questioned. What now? Just this: While 
 fully recognising the Divine supernatural 
 co-efacient, the Divine supernatural process, 
 and the Divine supernatural result, we must 
 also recognise the lower, finite co-efficient as 
 continuing unalterably itself. Its qualities, its 
 possibihties, its activities, its inherent hmita- 
 tions remain the same. There is no change of 
 essence, of structure, of elemental potenc3'. 
 An inanimate agent, when supernaturally com- 
 missioned, does not become animate. The 
 fire of a miracle is never anything but fire. 
 The pneuma of a dead wind is never changed, 
 as the Eabbis of old thought, into the pieuma 
 of a living spirit. The irrational brute is not 
 transformed into a rational being. The raven 
 that fed Elijah was nothing more than a bird. 
 Nor does man, when supernaturally influenced, 
 cease to be a man. An inspired man is not 
 
122 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 God. Dr. Charles Hodge says, most truly and 
 beautifully: "When He ordains praise out of 
 the mouths of babes, they must speak as babes, 
 or the whole power and beauty of the tribute 
 will be lost."* Inspiration does not change the 
 human personality, does not efface its inherent 
 qualities, does not expunge its limitations, does 
 not change the finite into the infinite, the 
 human into the superhuman. That is the law, 
 the universal law in nature and in history. If 
 we engage in a priori speculation at all, it 
 should be along the line of that law. Eeason- 
 ing antecedently along that line, proceeding 
 from the actual to the probable, basing our 
 conclusions on what we see through all the 
 works of God, we should expect to find, in the 
 human co-efficient of a supernatural revelation, 
 the inherent limitations of that co-efficient. 
 So far are we from being entitled to say before- 
 hand that God must make His human auxiliary 
 superhumanly infallible in every possible par- 
 ticular, that the very opposite is alone what 
 analogy justifies us in affirming. 
 
 Brethren, let me give another illustration of 
 the danger of such a priori speculation con- 
 cerning w^hat God must be or do in the 
 revelation of Himself; and may God help me 
 to treat the subject with all becoming rever- 
 ence. The Mystery of mysteries in God's 
 
 * Systematic Theology. Vol. I., page 157. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 123 
 
 revelation of Himself to men is the Incarna- 
 tion. " In the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God, . . . and the Word became flesh." 
 That such a thing would be, that such a thing 
 could be, is what no human speculation could 
 have anticipated, what no human intellect 
 oould have deemed possible. But let me 
 suppose that in some way, by some sweet, 
 Divine intimation, the thought had come to 
 some devout mind, as, for aught w^e know, it 
 may have come to one or another, that one day 
 God would become man. How would he have 
 conceived it ? How from his narrow premises 
 must he have conceived it? Is it not natural 
 to suppose that he would have formulated his 
 conception something after this fashion : 
 ''Will God indeed come down and dwell 
 among men as one of them? What an 
 august spectacle will that be ! What a tran- 
 scendent type of manhood in all respects will 
 the w^orld then w^itness ! What perfection ! 
 What dignity ! What invincible strength ! 
 What unapproachable, awe-inspiring majesty ! 
 How immeasureably exalted above all His 
 human fellows will that being be ! How 
 serenely impervious to all the disturbances 
 and distractions of the weltering moral chaos 
 around Him ! How Divinely exempt from 
 all the weaknesses, the imperfections, the 
 stumblings and strivings of the wretched 
 
124 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 weaklings to whom He had descended ! God 
 a man ! How can I believe it ? But if a man, 
 then surely man at his best ! " A natural 
 expectation, would it not be ? Would the 
 opposite picture have been anticipated, have 
 been deemed probable, or even possible? 
 What ! an Incarnate God down in the dregs 
 of human existence ! passing through, sharing 
 in the infantile dependence, weakness, ignor- 
 ance, discipline, growth of a creature ! coming 
 up like a root out of dry ground, with no 
 beauty or comeliness, that men should desire 
 Him ! bowed to the earth with a burden of 
 unutterable shame and anguish ! and sweating 
 great drops of blood in the throes of tha 
 conflict ! trembling with fear and praying 
 with strong cryings for delivery ! touched with 
 the feeling of our infirmities ! helped by an 
 angel ! tried in all things like as we are ! 
 learning — yes, learning — obedience by His 
 sufferings ! tempted ! baffled ! groaning ! 
 weeping ! agonising ! forsaken of the Father ! 
 Man's feeble logic could never have grasped 
 this tremendous mystery.-^' It could never 
 
 * It is enough to refer to the Messianic hopes of the 
 Jewish people, their rejection of Chist because His coming 
 was so opposed to all their preconceptions, and to the 
 painful slowness with which even the disciples became 
 reconciled to the reality. How instructive are Peter's 
 remonstrances and Christ's rebuke, as recorded in Matt, xvi, 
 21-23. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 125 
 
 have dreamed it. It would have protested 
 against it. It must have pronounced it 
 impossible. If, then, it would have been a 
 mistake, nay, as we now see, a mistake bor- 
 dering on blasphemy (see Matt. xvi. 23) to 
 pronounce antecedently against an incarnate 
 revelation of God, subject to the limitations of 
 weakness, of ignorance, of bondage, to the 
 contractions and detractions of that ineffable 
 Kenosis of the Godhead, ought we not to be 
 most reverently slow, most cautious, most 
 humble, in pronouncing against an inspired 
 revelation of God, subject to certain wisely 
 permitted limitations of human weakness, 
 ignorance and fallibility?^ What know we 
 of the Divine Thought ? How know we what 
 Divine, infallible, and perfect Purpose may be 
 served even by these limitations and falli- 
 bilities? Does not Scripture itself intimate 
 that at least there is such a purpose, and that 
 it does work through just such channels of 
 human frailty ? Is not God's strength always 
 made perfect in man's weakness ? Has not 
 God committed His treasures to earthen 
 vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the 
 power may be of God ? Did not God choose 
 ''the foolish things of the world, that He 
 might put to shame them that are wise ; the 
 weak things of the world that He might put 
 
 * See the extract from Mr. Gladstone further on. 
 
126 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 to shame the things that are strong ; and the 
 base things of the world, and the things that 
 are despised, . . . yea, and the things 
 that are not, that He might bring to naught 
 the things that are? " If God thns chooses to 
 work out His problems through surds and 
 fractions and zeros, who are we to say Him 
 nay ? Brethren, this is God's way ; this is the 
 law. What right have we to say where that 
 law shall stop? to decide how much of the 
 earthen vessel shall count as a factor ? how 
 much or how little of the human folly, weak- 
 ness, nothingness, is compatible with the 
 Divine Purpose ? God is not limited as to 
 His means and methods in communicating 
 His will to men. Had a literal, stereotyped, 
 incorruptible infallibility in every jot and tittle 
 of the record been an indispensable requisite, 
 God had a thousand resources at His command 
 for securing such a record. That He chose 
 men, yes, men with all their ignorance, and 
 weakness and fallibility ; that He intrusted 
 His revelation to their stammering tongues 
 and to their stumbling pens ; that He deposited 
 the interpretation of His eternal ways in 
 earthen vessels, which could not escape the 
 corruptions and mutilations of time ; simply 
 shows that a literal, particularistic infallibility 
 is of less moment in the sight of God than 
 some other things ; of less worth, perhaps, 
 than the thrill of a human touch, the glow of 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 127 
 
 a red-hot word, the pulse of a throbbing heart, 
 the hghtning of a Hving eye, the flash of a soul 
 on fire ; of less worth — who knows ? — than the 
 faltering of the pilgrim's foot, dearer to heaven 
 than the lordly step of Gabriel. If I rightly 
 interpret Paul in the tenth chapter of Eomans, 
 and elsewhere, it is one chief glory of the Gospel 
 as compared with the Law that it is not a for- 
 mal, stereotyped letter, but a personal voice, a 
 living heart, a breathing soul, the effluence of 
 a divinely magnetized personality, an epistle 
 written net with ink, but with the Spirit of the 
 living God."^ Calvin E. Stowe was not far 
 from right when he said : " It is not the words 
 of the Bible that were inspired. It is not the 
 thoughts of the Bible that were inspired. It 
 is the men who wrote the Bible that were 
 inspired." t I feel constrained, accordingly, 
 to protest against the a priori assumption 
 that God can not or will not inspire men 
 wthout making them infallible as Himself, as 
 unscientific, against all analogy, irreverent, and 
 
 * See'Eom. x. : 8-10, 14-18 ; xii. : 1 f ., 5 f . ; 1 Cor. i. : 4 f .,. 
 17 f. (21) ; ii. : 1 f . ; iii. : 9 f. ; ix. : 2 ; xii. : 4f. (12, 13, 27) j 
 2 Cor. ii. : 14; iii. : 2 f.; iv. : 6 f . (13) ; vi. : If.; Gal. 1. : 
 15, 16 ; Eph. i. : 17 f . (19, 23) ; ii. : 10 , iii. : 20, 21 ; v. : 7 f . ; 
 PhU. i.:7,20, 27f.; ii.: 151; Col. i. : 3 f . (6), 9 f. ; ii.: 6f. ; 
 iv. : 5 ; 1 Thes. i. : 8; ii. : 12, 13; 2 Thes. i. : 3 f., 11 f. 
 Cf. 1 Pet. ii. : 5 f., 9 f., 11 f., 15 f. ; iii. : 1 f., 15 f. ; 
 iv. : 10 f . 
 
 t History of BooTcs of the Bihle, p. 19. 
 
128 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 presumptuous, as well as unscriptural and con- 
 tradicted by the facts. 
 
 In all humility, therefore, instead of dictating 
 what God must do, let us inquire reverently 
 what God has done, how God has spoken ; in 
 what form, really, actually, concretely, practi- 
 cally, the revelation of His will has come to 
 men. It is a theme on which volumes might 
 be written. I can at this time only single out 
 a few salient points. And as my own parti- 
 cular field of study is the New Testament, I 
 will limit the present discussion to that field. 
 There is this advantage, also, in looking at this 
 department of the subject : that if the theory 
 I am opposing is valid anywhere, it applies 
 to the New Testament ; if it breaks down 
 there it will hold nowhere. 
 
 I must call attention at the outset to the 
 disadvantage under which the defence even of 
 the best attested conclusions of modern criti- 
 cism labours from the serious lack of acquaint- 
 ance with these conclusions which the attacks 
 made upon them generally betray. Most of 
 the discussions which have come under my 
 notice in our religious journals and elsewhere 
 -evince a quite inadequate appreciation of the 
 present situation as touching Biblical Science. 
 As against the conclusions of to-day, they are 
 for the most part as ineffectual as the guns of 
 1860 would be against an ironclad ship or fort 
 of 1890. These three decades have effected an 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 129 
 
 enormous change, a revolution, in fact, in the 
 problems to be solved, in the difficulties to be 
 removed, in the positions to be assumed in 
 the defence of the truth. 
 
 Let me give one illustration : These thirty 
 years have witnessed the birth and early growth 
 of one new and most important branch of Bib- 
 lical Science. I refer to Biblical Theology, the 
 very chair out of which the utterances have 
 proceeded which have occasioned the present 
 agitation. Thirty years ago that science, as 
 it is understood and prosecuted to-day, was 
 unknown. It is a young discipline, as yet, 
 with much work before it, but entering vigor- 
 ously on its career, blazing its way, proceed- 
 ing on lines of its own, working by methods 
 of its own, and elaborating results which have 
 their distinct place and value in the science of 
 the Bible. Young as it is, it has already accom- 
 plished marvels. It has opened up new vistas 
 of thought, established new starting-points of 
 inquiry. It has propounded, and is daily pro- 
 pounding new questions to solve. It is neces- 
 sitating new solutions of old questions. It is 
 bringing old facts into new foci, as well as 
 bringing new facts to light. It is putting old 
 truths under new lights, and if not discovering 
 new truths, it is at least compelling new and 
 larger statements of the old eternal verities. 
 Its conclusions cannot fail to have a most 
 important and decisive bearing on the religious 
 
 9 
 
130 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 and theological thought of the future. And 
 yet I have seen in our religious journals articles 
 and paragraphs criticising, and even resenting, 
 the claims put forth in behalf of Biblical Theo- 
 logy, as though the advocates of that science 
 were advertising some special patent of their 
 own, or vaunting some special quality of their 
 personal theology, to the disparagement of 
 every other. The same sort of objection, pro- 
 ceeding from the same want of familiarity with 
 the subject, has often been urged against the 
 " Higher Criticism," as though it arrogated for 
 itself a higher level than your criticism or mine. 
 Those whom I am now addressing have seen 
 and heard such complaints respecting these 
 sciences. They have seen it argued not so very 
 long ago that the champions of Biblical Theo- 
 logy were arrogating quite too much for their 
 favourite study ; that all sound theology is 
 Bibhcal Theology, Hodge's Theology, Shedd's 
 Theology, and the rest. But can this sort of 
 thing be accepted as competent criticism ? 
 Systematic Theology and Bibhcal Theology are 
 distinct disciplines, as much so as Logic and 
 Mathematics. Mathematics may be logical, 
 but Mathematics are not Logic. Systematic 
 Theology may be biblical, but it is not Biblical 
 Theology. I beg your pardon for dealing in 
 such truisms ; I only regret that it seems to be 
 necessary. Biblical Theology was hardly in its 
 cradle when Dr. Charles Hodge wrote his three 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 131 
 
 volumes of Systematic Theology, and I know of 
 no dogmatic system that can be said to exhibit 
 any distinct consciousness or trace of the influ- 
 ence of the sister science. The methods of the 
 two are in fact well-nigh incompatible. Dog- 
 matic Theology is largely deductive ; Biblical 
 Theology inductive. The former aims to be 
 systematic and logical ; the latter critical and 
 exegetical. The one deals with revealed truth 
 chiefly in its abstract forms ; the other in its 
 concrete, historic, and personal expressions.* 
 Systematic Theology lumps all the books of 
 the Bible together, arranges their miscella- 
 neous contents around some philosophic centre, 
 or along certain logical lines, picking out one 
 passage here, another passage there, as the 
 exigency on the one side, and the fitness on 
 the other seem to justify ; disregarding, or at 
 most regarding only in a very meagre way, the 
 different connections, the variant types, the 
 remote and often antithetic points of view, 
 the gradual evolutions, the higher and lower 
 planes of thought and belief. Biblical Theology 
 studies the Bible as Astronomy studies the 
 heavens ; each star or planet — Sirius, Mars, 
 Mercury, Venus — in its own place, orbit, life, 
 
 * See Ueuss's History of Christv^n Theology in the 
 Apostolic Age, Introduction, Chap. I., " Scholastic and 
 Biblical Theology." Weiss's Biblical Theology of the 
 New Testament, Introduction, § 1, " The Problem of the 
 Science.'* 
 
132 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 development, movement, the minor systems, 
 Jupiter and Saturn, with their moons, the con- 
 stellations, asteroids, nebulae, and all that tells 
 the story of the heavens. So Biblical Theology 
 looks at and inquires into each separate star, 
 the prophetic and apostolic clusters, the major 
 and minor systems, the binaries, asteroids, 
 satellites, and star-dust, uttering meanwhile 
 the prayer of the saintly Herbert : 
 
 Oh, that I knew how all thy lights combine. 
 And the configuration of their glorie ! 
 
 Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, 
 But all the constellations of the storie. 
 
 Dogmatic Theology subjects Scripture to 
 the logical categories, the metaphysical termi- 
 nology, the polemic accentuations, the eccle- 
 siastical dogmas, which eighteen centuries of 
 uninspired reflection and speculation on the 
 contents of Scripture have imposed on our 
 interpretation of the same. Biblical Theology 
 takes us direct to the fountain-head, to the 
 original material as it is in itself, as it lies 
 in its providential environment, as it gushes 
 out of the living well-spring, as by the Divine 
 ordering of timeand place and person it pours 
 its living contribution into the great Eiver of 
 Life. 
 
 The theology of the schools is based on 
 the principle of systematic self-consistency. 
 It is a logical unit ; and by an instiact of self- 
 
 
AND INSPIRATION. . 133 
 
 preservation it ignores it if it can, it excludes 
 as far as it can, or if it must recognise, it 
 belittles and attenuates all it can the anti- 
 thetic truths which would imperil the unity 
 of the system. The Arminian dogmatism does 
 this with the Calvinistic side of the Gospel. 
 The Calvinistic dogmatism does the same with 
 the Arminian side. One Dogmatik says : " I am 
 of Cephas." It fails of absorbing the best part 
 of Peter, and leaves out Apollos altogether. 
 Another says : " I am of Paul." It excludes 
 John, and leaves out one whole side of Paul, 
 absorbing his particularism, perchance, but 
 failing to assimilate his universalism. But 
 the Theology of the Book and of its books 
 is weighted with no such logical embarrass- 
 ments. It aims to ascertain what everij in- 
 spired teacher has to say, and all that each 
 inspired teacher says, all of Peter, all of John, 
 all of James, all of Paul, their antinomies, 
 their aira^ Xeyofjueva, and their aira^ voovixeva, 
 their polarities and their paradoxes, their pro- 
 vincialisms, as also their large spiritual 
 cosmopolitanisms. 
 
 It is not strange that the conclusions of 
 Biblical Theology should at times seem sus- 
 picious to those who have read their Bibles 
 only through the glasses of one-sided dog- 
 matism. There are more things in the heaven 
 and earth of the younger science than have 
 been dreamed of in the philosophy of the other. 
 
134 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 There are aspects of Kedemption, of which 
 Paul, for example, is full, a race-redemption,* 
 cosmic reconciliation,! the re-unification of the 
 universe,! of which your scholastic theology 
 knows little or nothing. Dogmatism gives us 
 one phase of santification, as we find it pre- 
 dominantly perhaps in Paul, as a subjective, 
 progressive process, predicated of the Christian 
 in this life. But what of other statements in 
 Paul, such as that, " He who began a good 
 work in you will perfect it until the day of 
 Jesus Christ "?§ What of the objective 
 sanctification of the Epistle to the Hebrews? 
 What of "the purification of heaven" itself 
 in that Epistle ? What of the objective- 
 subjective sanctification of the Apostle John, 
 in which there is no recognition of progress 
 even in this life, but which is presented as 
 a single absolute fact ? If now, by the study 
 of Bibhcal Theology, I have been aided to 
 the better appreciation of these many-sided 
 representations of Divine Truth, am I to be 
 shut up to the one-sided interpretation of a 
 theology to which this method of studying 
 
 * 1 Rom, V. 8 ; xi. 32 ; xv. ; 8 f. ; 1 Cor. xv. 22 ; 2 Cor. v 
 15; 1 Tim. iv. 10; Tit. ii. 11. And cf. Gal. iii. 8; Phil. ii. 
 10; 1 Tim. ii. 4— 6. 
 
 t Eom. xi. 15 (c£. v. 12) ; 2 Cor. v. 19. 
 
 X Eph. i. 10, 21—23 ; iv. 10 ; 1 Cor. xv. 24r-28 ; 2 Cor. 
 V. 17 f. ; Phil. iii. 21 ; Col. i. 20. 
 
 § Phil. i. 9 ; cf . 1 Cor. i. 8. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. I35 
 
 the Word was unknown? Is all of Divine 
 Truth in our Systematic Theology ? Is it all 
 in the Confession of Faith? While going 
 with these helps as far as they take us, are 
 •we never to go a step further ? 
 
 Bibhcal Theology is of special importance 
 in thus unfolding to us the compositeness of 
 Bible truth, and in giving us the key to its 
 rich and suggestive variations.^ It puts us 
 moreover in touch with the man who speaks to 
 us in|the name of God. We feel that in Peter, 
 in^^Jolm, in James, we have an inspired man, 
 not a divinely-manipulated automaton. We 
 come to understand why, in discussing the 
 same subject, Paul says this, and says it thus ; 
 James says that, and says it so; why the first 
 Evangehst gives this report of our Lord's dis- 
 courses, the fourth Evangehst that report ; 
 why the second Gospel puts such a fact in 
 this light, the third Gospel in another. This 
 Novum Organum. of Bibhcal Theology, calhng to 
 its aid Criticism, the Higher and the Lower, 
 puts us in possession of the human personal 
 equation in the Inspired Word, as we never 
 
 * See especially Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New 
 Testament, Introduction, § 1 (c). See also the excellent 
 remarks which follow, (d), showing how a complete 
 Scriptural systematic theology must build on this com- 
 posite basis, uniting all the variations in a larger 
 synthesis, which shall so far as possible harmonise aU, 
 without suppressing any. 
 
136 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 possessed it before. It reveals to us what 
 Farrar calls "The Messages of the Books"; 
 nay more, the mission of each writer, known 
 and unknown ; and helps us to see how even 
 in his idiosyncracies, even in his limitations, 
 each is fitted for his particular place and task. 
 Take the Apostle Jude, for example. Look 
 at him as illuminated by Biblico-Theological 
 lights. What an interesting picture ! What 
 a vivid personality ! With his intense 
 Hebraism, his prophetic fire, his weird ima- 
 gination, his antique eloquence, the apoca- 
 lyptic tinge of his representation, his mental 
 limitations even, his inability to get entirely 
 outside the literary environment in which 
 his mind has always moved, with its legen- 
 dary exegesis and its apocryphal ingredients 
 — but what of that? What is a cobweb 
 on the mane of a lion? What is a fleck of 
 soot, a speck of unassimilated carbon, hovering 
 around the beacon-fire which warns the ship 
 at sea off the rocks? What is a touch of 
 mediaevalism in Dante's Divine Comedy, or 
 an anachronism in Milton's " Paradise Lost " ? 
 What if one or two minor details in Jude are 
 to be estimated in the light of the man's 
 literary environment, and qualified by the 
 clearer teaching of the larger Word? Was 
 he any the less a prophet and an apostle? 
 Did not the Divine Light irradiate even these 
 minute opaquer spots? Nay, did not even 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 137 
 
 the relative crudity, which a raore advanced 
 New Testament Christianity soon left behind, 
 have its own peculiar value and force for the 
 time being, and for those whom he was spe- 
 cially addressing, and even by virtue of its 
 being no more and no other than it was ? 
 
 In this connection let me note very briefly 
 the vast gain which has accrued to the critical 
 faculty itself by the use of the improved critical 
 methods of the present ; the deeper insight, 
 the increased delicacy and tact, the more facile 
 apprehension of clues and their leadings, the 
 finer appreciation of habits and drifts of 
 thought, of undertones of sentiment and ex- 
 perience, of the modulations of mood and 
 passion, of the nuances of phrasing and ex- 
 pression, of colour, atmosphere, tone, group- 
 ing, treatment ;— the culture, in short, of those 
 literary instincts and methods, the possession 
 of which makes our age, however deficient in 
 creative power, pre-eminent in critical skilL 
 That there has been a palpable gain within 
 the last half century in the application of 
 expert tests to the criticism of the Bible on 
 the literary side, no competent and fair-minded 
 judge will deny. 
 
 But I pass on to consider more specifically 
 the results obtained by the appHcation of these 
 tests to the Gospel record in the New Testa- 
 ment, and the significance of these results for 
 our conception of the inspiration of that 
 
J38 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 record. After a century of exhaustive inves- 
 tigation and sharp discussion, the most sober- 
 minded and trustworthy critics are now rapidly 
 reaching a consensus of judgment on this most 
 important and vital subject. Certain conclu- 
 sions may be regarded as established to the 
 point of the highest reasonable probability. I 
 will try to formulate these as briefly as possible, 
 in so far as they are vital to the decision of the 
 question before us. Beginning with the 
 Synoptic Gospels,* it is now generally admitted 
 that in the form in which we have them, they 
 are derived immediately from certain written 
 sources. These are mainly two : (1) A Fact — 
 Source, consisting chiefly of deeds, incidents in 
 the hfe of our Lord, together with such con- 
 versational or other remarks as naturally 
 a,ccompany them, to which may be added a 
 few short discourses, parables, and the like. 
 In its purest form this Source is identified with 
 the principal groundwork of our Mark. It is 
 found also as the pragmatic groundwork of 
 Matthew and Luke. (2) A Word — or Logia — 
 Source, consisting mainly, though not exclu- 
 sively, of sayings and discourses of Christ, 
 
 * The limits of the occasion for which the paper was 
 prepared prevented the carrying out of my original pur- 
 pose to compare the Synoptic form of the Gospel with the 
 Johannean. Those who are familiar with the most 
 decisive conclusions of criticism on this head are well 
 aware how greatly they would have strengthened the 
 argument. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. . 139 
 
 which we find in its earliest and most historic 
 form in Luke, but in its fullest and most 
 elaborate form in our Matthew, to whom the 
 earliest tradition (represented by Papias) 
 accredits it. The primary material of these 
 Sources is unmistakably Apostolic, using the 
 word in its broader New Testament sense.* 
 It proceeds from credible eye-witnesses and 
 inspired servants of the Word. This is 
 directly asserted by Luke (i. 1 f.) and con- 
 firmed throughout by the internal character- 
 istics of all the Gospel narratives. 
 
 This Double-Source Theory is now all but 
 universally regarded as the key to the solution 
 •of the Synoptic problem.f 
 
 In addition to these two main Sources, 
 there are other special documents peculiar to 
 
 * For whicli consult Bp. Lightf oot's Excursus on " Tlie 
 Name and Office of an Apostle," in his Commentary on 
 Galatians. 
 
 t There is still room as yet for differences of opinion re- 
 specting the precise relations to each other of the 
 original groundworks and present canonical forms of the 
 Gospels. These differences do not affect, however, the 
 more essential points in respect to which substantial 
 unanimity prevails. See Prof. Bruce on " The Increasing 
 Consensus Among Critics of All Schools and Countries," 
 and on the way in which " the question is being gradually 
 narrowed," The Presbyterian Review, Vol. V., p. 630. And 
 compare Prof. Sanday's article, " A Survey of the 
 Synoptic Question," in The Expositor of February, 1891, 
 p. 87 f ., and especially his Second Article in the March 
 number, entitled "Points Proved or Probable," p. 179 f. 
 
I40 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 each Evangelist, notably Luke, as examples 
 of which we may take the opening chapters- 
 respecting our Lord's birth and child- 
 hood, and ch. xv., with its immortal triad of 
 parables. 
 
 These documentary sources, particularly the 
 first two, were called forth by the inadequacy 
 of the primitive oral tradition, for either the 
 perpetuation or the dissemination of the 
 Gospel record. They came to be of especial 
 service in the instruction of catechumens ; and 
 perhaps the most satisfactory explanation of 
 the definiteness, uniformity, and universahty, 
 which they acquired, and which made it 
 possible for them to supersede all other like 
 documents of that age, is to be found in the 
 catechumenical use that was made of them.* 
 
 * The proem of Luke's Gospel will be found especially 
 instructive at this point. It will be noted that Luke 
 recognised the twofold source of the record mentioned 
 above. He accurately describes the former when he says 
 that " Many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative 
 concerning the, facts " (irepl rav TrpayixaTcov)^ as trans- 
 mitted from the original "eye-witnesses" (ol oltt' apxrj^ 
 avToirrai). He well describes the latter when he states 
 his own object to be that Theophilus "might know the 
 certainty of the words wherein he was catechetically in- 
 structed " (Trepl civ KaTTjx^Qvs Xoyov). This last clause 
 is also significant as to the catechetical function of the 
 earlier Gospel records. Let it be noted, furthermore, that 
 Luke's statement as to the primary sources of the mate- 
 rial of these documentary records stamps them with th& 
 authority of credible and inspired witnesses. Ch. i., 2. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 141 
 
 Looking at the way in which the Synoptic 
 Evangehsts have made use of these documents, 
 we find that the versions to which they had 
 access respectively, while substantially iden- 
 tical, must have varied in some details. There 
 is internal evidence also that each adjusted and 
 edited the material in his own way. Mark, 
 e.g., has stamped the groundwork of his 
 Gospel with many vivid touches which may be 
 distinctly traced to the personality of Peter. 
 There are visible indications of Luke's own 
 hand touching up the record in his Gospel, not 
 seldom producing a marked variation from the 
 more original type as exhibited in Matthew or 
 Mark. He has a way, also, of supplying a 
 " motive " for an incident or a parable, which 
 is lacking in the other Evangehsts, and which, 
 however it be explained, at least increases the 
 perplexity of the harmoniser. Matthew has a 
 way of elaborating a particular discourse, or of 
 grouping parables or facts, on other than strict 
 historic lines. The Sermon on the Mount, e.g., 
 as found in Matthew, can not be regarded as a 
 verbatim report of a single connected dis- 
 course, but rather as in the beginning, indeed, 
 a memorable discourse, the historic form of 
 which has been more clearly reproduced by 
 Luke, which Matthew has enlarged by the 
 addition of cognate remarks made at other 
 times and places, and systematised into a more 
 complete ideal presentation by Christ of the 
 
143 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 principles and laws of His kingdom. So also 
 in the report of our Lord's eschatological dis- 
 course, Matthew has, by the introduction of a 
 single word, " immediately after the tribulation 
 of those days" (xxiv. 29), foreshortened, in a 
 material way, the perspective of the whole 
 prophecy, putting Christ's final coming, in 
 accordance with the expectation of the Apo- 
 stolic age, in the immediate future. # Thus it 
 will be seen that the editorial elaboration and 
 adaptation of the source-material has tended in 
 the aggregate result to multiply and intensify 
 the individual peculiarities and divergencies of 
 the Synoptics rather than to bring them into 
 closer correspondence. 
 
 But back of these documentary sources lies 
 the oral traditional Gospel, the first form which 
 the Gospel record necessarily assumed, which, 
 of course, disappeared with the first generation 
 of Palestinian Christians, and soon passed over 
 into the written documentary form. The 
 theory that our Gospel record was the direct 
 transcription of this oral Gospel, which was 
 for a time quite prevalent, has now been 
 abandoned by all the leading critics as inade- 
 quate to account for the facts, although it is 
 
 * Whether, as in the text, the insertion of iv94as be 
 attributed to the editorial elaboration of Matthew, or its 
 omission to the editing of Mark and Luke, the effect in 
 either case on the prophetic perspective can not be 
 ignored. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 143 
 
 not denied that there are features of the record 
 for which the recognition of its influence would 
 still help to account.* 
 
 Once more : Back of all these sources, oral 
 and written, lies the important fact, now un- 
 questioned, that our Lord's discourses were 
 spoken in Aramaic, and that to this language 
 must be referred the great bulk of the original 
 material of our Gospels. The first form of 
 the oral Gospel was undoubtedly Aramaic. 
 The first form of the Logia Source was, 
 according to the express testimony of Papias, 
 Aramaic. The basis of the other main 
 Source was Aramaic, as we may reasonably 
 infer from the study of Mark, its purest 
 representative. The same was true, doubtless, 
 of most of the other special documents, e.g. 
 those of Luke, to which reference has been 
 made.f 
 
 This is the account which the best modern 
 criticism gives of the composition of the Syn- 
 
 * It should be noted that a single direct oral prototype 
 of onr written Gospel record is forbidden by the fact that 
 already the New Testament record reflects three types of 
 the tradition — to wit : the Marco-Petrine, the Matthaean 
 (Logia), and the Johannean, leaving out of the ac?ount 
 the indefinite floating mass of Agrapha, the study of 
 which has at last been initiated by the recent work of 
 Eesch. 
 
 t On this feature of the case see the very interesting^ 
 series of articles by Prof. Marshal], now publishing in The 
 Expositor, on " The Aramaic Gospel." 
 
144 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 optic Gospels. How does this account bear 
 on the interpretation of the record, and 
 on onr conception of the mode of inspira- 
 tion? 
 
 First, let us note that we have here the com- 
 plex result of a complex process. Our study 
 of the Gospels, and especially of " the Harmony 
 of the Gospels," has made each one familiar 
 with the lack of perfect correspondence be- 
 tween the Gospel narratives. The Synoptic 
 story, I need not say, is full of breaks, leaps, 
 omissions here, additions there, transpositions 
 all the way along,* with many variations in 
 matters of detail, which by no means affect 
 the substance of the record, but which are an 
 endless and often insoluble perplexity to those 
 who are in search of an exact literal harmony ; 
 Osiander, e.g., one of the earliest of our rigid 
 modern harmonists, finding it necessary, in 
 order to maintain the perfect consistency of 
 the record, to introduce Peter's wife's mother 
 as three times falling ill of a fever, of which 
 Christ three times healed her. We are all 
 familiar with these characteristics. But the 
 point I would emphasize is this : the prevalent 
 
 * " The Gospels, and especially the first three, can in no 
 sense be regarded as methodical annals. It is, therefore, 
 difficulty and perhaps impossible, so to harmonise them in 
 respect to time as in all cases to arrive at results which 
 shall be entirely certain and satisfactory." — Eobinson's 
 Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek: Introduction to 
 the Notes. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 145 
 
 critical view of the structure of the Gospel 
 record puts a totallj^ new aspect on the problem 
 of solving the irregularities and discrepancies. 
 So long as it was held that the " original auto- 
 graph " of each Gospel was throughout the 
 original production of the author whose name 
 it bears ; that Matthew wrote out all the Gospel 
 under his name, as Plutarch, e.g., wrote out 
 each of his Lives ; that Mark did the same 
 either from information supplied by Peter, or 
 by simply condensing Matthew ; that Luke at 
 least wrote out an original recast of Matthew 
 and Mark, with additions from sources of his 
 own — for this was substantially the old theory ; 
 it might perhaps be urged, with a show of 
 reason, that these differences, being known to 
 the authors, were intentional and susceptible 
 of an explanation to their minds, if not to 
 ours ; * that they were in large measure only a 
 question of order, of expansion, of condensa- 
 tion, of supplementation. Even then it was a 
 serious task to reconcile these divergencies in 
 such a way as to meet the requirements of 
 
 * " Such apparent inconsistencies and collisions with, 
 other sources of information are to be expected in imper- 
 fect copies of ancient writings; from the fact that the 
 original reading may have been lost, or that we may fail to 
 realise the point of view of the author, or that we are 
 destitute of the circumstantial knowledge which would 
 fill up and harmonise the record."— Drs. Hodge and War- 
 field : Presbyterian Review, Vol. II., p. 237. 
 
 10 
 
146 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 a verbal inspiration * With the present con- * 
 elusions of criticism, however, such an expla- 
 nation is utterly out of the question. A re- 
 course to the ipsissima verba of the original 
 autograph fails us out and out. For the great 
 bulk of the Gospel material there is no original 
 autograph. There never was one. There was 
 no ipsissima verba report of our Lord's words 
 taken down on the spot. They passed into the 
 memory of. those who heard them, and that in 
 their Aramaic form. The two basal records, 
 the Fact record, and the Word record, were 
 gradually organised out of those memories. 
 What of the ipsissima verba in that organising 
 process ? \ With the increasing demand for 
 
 * It may be well to state here, once for all, tliat in this 
 paper the expression " verbal inspiration " is in such con- 
 nections as the above used for brevity, according to a 
 common usage, to designate the dogma of absolute verbal 
 inerrancy. It will be seen further along that I myself 
 hold strongly to the theopneustic quality of the words as 
 well as thoughts of Scripture. 
 
 t To relegate this traditional stage of the Gospel record 
 to the category of "Revelation," and to limit "Inspira- 
 tion " to the written formulation, would be the height of 
 logical fatuity and self-contradiction. If an ipsissima verba 
 inspiration was needed anywhere, it surely was needed in 
 laying the foundations of the record. It was the conscious- 
 ness of this, doubtless, which led Drs. Hodge and Warfield 
 to contradict their own logic and sharp discriminations by 
 saying of the superintendence which they identify with 
 the essence of inspiration that it "attended the entire 
 process of the genesis of Scripture." — See Note 2, p. 148. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 147 
 
 ■exactness, perpetuity, and a wider circulation, 
 the record gradually took the written form. 
 How about the ipsissima verba in that process ? 
 How close the correspondence between the oral 
 and the written forms ? Who knows ? What 
 modifications may have taken place ? — Who 
 knows ? Soon came the need for a Greek 
 record. Gradually the primary Aramaic ma- 
 terial took on a secondary Greek form. How 
 about the ipsissima verba in that process ? 
 Did absolutely no modification take place ? 
 How do we know that ? What changes may 
 have come into the collation, the combina- 
 tion, the didactic and catechetical adaptation, 
 the dissemination of the various numerous 
 records ? ^ We know nothing of all this. We 
 only know that without a standing ipsissima 
 verba miracle running through every step of 
 all these processes, an ipsissima verba result 
 would have been impossible. What right have 
 we to af&rm that such a miracle was wrought ? 
 Where is the evidence ? Nay ! every advance 
 which criticism has made in the examination 
 of the Gospel record has only made it more 
 and more certain that the varying represen- 
 tations of the record can be accounted for only 
 as being the inevitable accompaniments of 
 human fallibility in the complex processes 
 through which the record reached its final 
 form. It is now as certain as anything can 
 
 * Compare Luke i. 1. 
 
148 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 well be, as a matter of historical record, that^ 
 when one Evangelist says that two blind men 
 were healed by Christ near Jericho, while 
 another mentions but one ; when one describes 
 the healing as taking place on the way into 
 Jericho, the other on the way ont ; these varia- 
 tions are to be taken at their face value, as 
 representing diversities in the sources, as the 
 honest, but immaterial contradictions of honest 
 human testimony, when subjected to the com- 
 plicated and trying conditions through which 
 the Gospel witness has passed — divergences 
 which, so far from discrediting the essential 
 fact, the miracle, only corroborate it to every 
 candid judgment.* 
 
 But it is claimed that inspiration is not 
 necessarily concerned with this process of 
 building up the record, but with the final for- 
 mulation of it.t I hope to show further along 
 
 * The same remark applies to the divergences found in the 
 narratives of the healing of the centurion's servant (Matt, 
 viii. 5 f. ; Luke vii. 1 f .), and of the demoniac of G-adara 
 (Matt. viii. 28 f . ; Mark v. If.; Luke viii. 26 f .) ; the 
 calling of the Capernaum Apostles (Matt. iv. 18 f . ; Mark 
 i. ; 16 f. ; Luke v. 1 f .) ; the raising of Jairus's daughter 
 (Matt. ix. 18 f. ; Mark v. 22. f; Luke viii. 41 f.). 
 
 t '' In many cases these gifts [Eevelation and Inspiration] 
 were separated. Many of the sacred writers, although inspired, 
 received no revelations. This was probably the fact with 
 the historical books of the Old Testament. The Evangelist 
 Luke does not refer his knowledge of the events which he 
 records to revelation, but says he derived it from those 
 * which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and mini- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 149 
 
 what an utterly inadequate and unscriptural 
 view of inspiration this gives us. For the pre- 
 
 sters of tlie Word.' It is immaterial to us where Moses 
 obtained his knowledge of the events recorded in the Book 
 of Genesis ; whether from early documents, from tradition, 
 or from direct revelation. No more causes are to be 
 assumed for any effect than are necessary. If the sacred 
 writers had sufficient sources of knowledge in themselves, 
 or in those about them, there is no need to assume any direct 
 revelation. It is enough for us that they were rendered 
 infallible as teachers." — Dr. Charles Hodge, Systematic 
 Theologyy Vol. 1., p. 155. " Inspiration is that Divine 
 influence which, accompanying the sacred writers equally 
 in all they wrote, secured the infallible truth of their 
 writings in every part, both in idea and expression, and 
 determined the selection and distribution of their material 
 according to the Divine purpose." [Observe that nothing 
 is said of the inspiration of the material. That is not 
 assumed as necessary.] By what some writers, as Dod- 
 di-idge, Lee, &c., have called "the inspiration of super- 
 intendence," is " meant precisely what we [Dr. A. A. Hodge] 
 have given above as the definition of inspiration." — Dr. A. A. 
 Hodge, Outlines of Theology, pp. 67, 69. Drs. A. A. 
 Hodge and B. B. Warfield, in their joint article, " dis- 
 tinguish sharply between Eevelation, which is the frequent 
 [but not constant], and Inspiration, which is the constant 
 attribute of all the thoughts and statements of Scripture, 
 and between the problem of the genesis of Scripture on the one 
 hand, which includes historic processes and the concur- 
 rence of natural and supernatural forces, and must account 
 for all the phenomena of Scripture ; and the mere fact of 
 INSPIEA.TION on the other hand, or the superintendence by 
 God of the writers in the entire process of their writing, 
 
 WHICH ACCOUNTS FOR NOTHING WHATEVER BUT THE ABSO- 
 LUTE INFALLIBILITY of the rccord in which the revelation, once 
 generated, appears in the original autograph. It will be 
 observed that we intentionally avoid applying* to this 
 
ISO BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 sent I am concerned with the literary and 
 critical aspect of the position. 
 
 Note, to begin with, how strange it is that 
 if an ipsissima verba infallibility, secured by 
 a supervision which is the essence of inspira- 
 tion, was essential, the record as it stands 
 should present so many difficulties on that 
 theory. We have heard of prohibition which 
 does not prohibit, of protection which does not 
 protect. Have we here an infallible super- 
 visory inspiration which does not inspire in- 
 fallibihty ? It looks very much like it, if we 
 are shut up to the ipsissima verba theory. 
 Mark, again, that the difficulties which 
 
 inspiration the predicate '^ influence/ It summoned on. 
 occasion a great variety of influences, hxd its essence was- 
 superintendence. TMs superintendence attended the entire 
 process of the genesis of Scriptui-e, and particularly the 
 "process of the final composition of the eecord/* — The 
 Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 225 f . I cannot resist the 
 temptation to call attention to the extraordinary logical 
 confusion into which our par nohile fratrum dogmaticorunu 
 plunge in the last sentence. After ''distinguishing sharply'* 
 between "the genesis of Scripture, and the mere fact of 
 inspiration," or its equivalent and " essence " — to wit, 
 " superintendence " — we are gravely assured that " this super- 
 intendence" [which is "the essence" of inspiration] attended 
 the entire process of the genesis of Scripture [which is to- 
 be " sharply distinguished " from inspiration] ! ! And 
 strange to say this confusion comes immediately after this 
 solemn warning: ''It is important that distinguishable 
 ideas should be connoted by distinct terms, and that the- 
 terms themselves should be fixed in a definite sense ! " — 
 Review, p. 225. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 151 
 
 criticism finds are by no means explicable 
 as lapses of the pen. They are too closely 
 bound with the warp and woof of the record. 
 Structural variations,^ dislocations of the nar- 
 rative,f the transposition of events, t in some 
 instances the duplication of the same event 
 or saying in the same narrative, § these surely 
 
 * As in the reports given respectively by Matthew and 
 Luke of the Sermon on the Monnt — Matt. v. 7 j Luke vi. 
 20 f . Compare also the structure, introductions, contents, 
 and forms of the discourses, &c., recorded in Matt, xii, 22 f ; 
 Mark iii. 20 f; Luke xi. 14 f; also in Matt. x. 1 f ; Mark vi. 
 7 f J Luke ix. 1 f ; also in Matt, xviii. 1 — 35 ; Mark ix. 33 — 50 j 
 Luke ix. 46—50. 
 
 t E.g. in Matt. (x. If.) the ordination of the Twelve 
 comes some time (cf . xi. 1 f.) hefore the events recorded in 
 ch. xii. 1 — 21 ; whereas in Mark (ii. 23 — iii. 12) and Luke 
 (vi. 1 f.) they follow, though at no very long interval. 
 Again, the contents of chs. viii. — ix. come considerably 
 before (cf . ix. 35 f . ; xi. 1 f ., 20 f .) the events of ch. xii. ; 
 whereas in Mark and Luke the order is totally reversed, 
 the events of Matt. xii. being recorded in Mark ii. 23 f . ; 
 iii. 1—35 ; Luke vi. 1—19 (p. c. Matt. xii. 22 f . not until 
 Luke xi. 14 f.), and the events of Matt. viii. 18 — ix. 26, in 
 Mark iv. 35 — v. 43, and Luke viii. 22 f . Again, the calling of 
 Matthew, which in. Mark (the same order substantially in 
 Luke) comes before the contents of ii. 23 — v. 21, in Matthew 
 comes after the parallel parts of the record. 
 
 X Note, e.g., in Matthew the position of the Galilean tour, 
 comparing the context of Matt. iv. 23 f . with the context of 
 Mark i. 35 f . ; Luke iv. 42 f . ; the place of the Sermon on the 
 Mount in Matt. (v. 1 f.), as compared with its place in 
 Luke vi. 20 f. ; the order of the three temptations in Matt, 
 iv. 1 f ., as compared with Luke iv. 1 f . 
 
 § Cf., e.g., Matt. v. 29 f. with xviii. 8f. ; ix. 32 f. with xii. 
 22 f . ; V. 24 with xxiii. 22. 
 
152 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 are not transcriptional deviations from the 
 original autograph. 
 
 Still further, on the ipsissima verba original 
 autograph theory, textual criticism, as it re- 
 stores to us the purer, more original, form of 
 the text, should tend to eliminate these discre- 
 pancies, and to hring the various representa- 
 tions into closer harmony with each other. 
 What is the fact ? The very reverse. The 
 more corrupt the text the smoother it is, 
 the more in harmony with itself, the more do 
 we find both of verbal and material assimi- 
 lation in parallel passages. The older and 
 purer the text, the rougher we find it, the 
 more striking are its individuahties, the more 
 sharply accentuated are the differences, the 
 less conformity do we find to a standard of 
 infalhble exactitude. 
 
 Let me give you one or two examples : In 
 Mark i. 2 f. we have two Old Testament cita- 
 tions from two prophets, the first from Malachi, 
 and the second from Isaiah. In the] received 
 text citations are introduced with the formula : 
 *' As it is written in the prophets." The true 
 reading, however, is: "As it is written m 
 Isaiah the prophet." ^ Here the false reading 
 gave us absolute inerrancy. The true read- 
 ing gives us at least an inexactitude, which, 
 whatever else may be said of it, is not un- 
 qualifiedly favourable to the affirmation that 
 
 * So, of course, the Eevised Version. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. I53 
 
 the name "Isaiah" in the New Testament 
 always meant one particular man, and nobody 
 else. 
 
 Again : In Mark ii. 26, we read in the 
 Authorised Version (following the received 
 text) that David ''went into the house of 
 God in the days of Abiathar, the high priest." 
 As a matter of fact, Abiathar was not the high 
 priest at the time, but Abimelech. The ex- 
 planation which a liter ah stic exegesis has com- 
 monly offered of the statement is, that Abiathar 
 became high priest afterward, and that he is 
 called so here by anticipation. And we may 
 grant that, following the less authentic text, 
 such an explanation, though not the most 
 probable, was not impossible. But unfor- 
 tunately textual criticism comes in, and 
 proves that the passage should be read : 
 ''when Abiathar was high priest"* which 
 puts the whole explanation out of court at 
 once. Transcription had corrected the his- 
 torical accuracy out of the text ; criticism, 
 doing its duty honestly, has put it back. 
 
 Once more : In Matthew (xix. 17), where the 
 ruler asked our Lord: "Good Master, what 
 ^ood thing shall I do that I may have eternal 
 life?" Christ answered, according to the 
 received text : " Why callest thou Me good ? " 
 Mark and Luke both give precisely, verbally, 
 the same answer. So far the theory of verbal 
 
 * So the Eevised Version. 
 
154 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 inspiration is safe. But unfortunately here- 
 again textual criticism finds that Matthew's 
 text should read : " Why askest thou Me con- 
 cerning that which is good" 9"^ — a difference 
 not only in the words but in the thought, and 
 indeed in the point and pith of the answer. 
 Thus we see that the tendency of a more exact 
 knowledge of the text is to accentuate the in- 
 dividuality and variations of the records, so far 
 as the nearest approach even to our original 
 autographs enables us to judge. 
 
 And now is it supposed that we solve all 
 the difficulties connected with the preliminary 
 processes in the building of the record, by 
 throwing the responsibility for inerrancy on 
 the final revision? Shall we say that the 
 inspiration of the Gospel of Luke, e.g.^ is to 
 be sought for — not in the material, not in the 
 documents which he confessedly used ; but in 
 the editorial compilation and elaboration of the 
 material ? t Surely this is a most unsatisfac- 
 tory solution. Of all the make-shifts, to which 
 the theory of absolute inerrancy compels its. 
 adherents, this is to my mind the weakest. 
 Inspiration a mere matter of editing and proof- 
 reading, of correction and revision, crossing out 
 and touching up with the pen an uninspired 
 record, and so making an inspired thing of it t 
 I challenge this conception here and now as- 
 unworthy, degrading, belittHng, as more hostile 
 
 * So here, again, the Revised Version, f See Note 2, p. 148^ 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 15 5" 
 
 to a robust, living faith than anything I know 
 of short of rationahsm ! Inspiration— what is 
 it? Theopneustia ! The Breath of God! 
 The Life of God ! The pulsation of God's 
 thought and heart all the way through. If 
 you do not give me that, you give me stone for 
 bread. " The words that I have spoken unto 
 you are spirit and are hfe." The idea that 
 inspiration resolves itself into the correction of 
 a date, substituting one man's name for another^ 
 changing a number, inserting a caption — im- 
 portant as such particulars may be in their 
 way — such an idea of inspiration is suitable 
 only for Theology in Lilliputia. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, where are we? 
 What have we ? Have we an infallible 
 revision ? Have we an inerrant result ? Have 
 we a New Testament, or an Old Testament, 
 with absolutely no mistake, no inaccuracy, 
 from beginning to end? I know of no re- 
 spectable critic who claims that. Everybody 
 will admit that, in the processes of transcrip- 
 tion and transmission, at least, some error has 
 crept into the book, some contradiction, some 
 inaccuracy, which, as the matter stands, can- 
 not be accepted as the exact statement of that 
 particular matter. But is not that virtually to 
 give up the whole position ? What is inspiration 
 for ? Surely to advantage the reader."^ But what 
 
 * " God gave His Word, not for the private use of the 
 fifty or sixty chosen men to whom it was first revealed,, 
 
156 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 is the value of an infallible editorship which 
 does not secure a permanently infallible text ? 
 Here is an error which has been in the text 
 for fifteen centuries, and which, there cannot 
 be much doubt, will stay there now for all the 
 centuries to come. What difference does it 
 make, so far as the readers of the past fifteen 
 centuries and the readers of all future cen- 
 turies are concerned, whether the error was in 
 the original autograph or not ? How does it 
 affect the value of the record to-day, for you 
 and for me, to say that the error which is there 
 to-day was not there eighteen hundred years 
 ago ? Your inerrant autograph is an abstrac- 
 tion ; your inerrant text is an abstraction. 
 Does God hang His revelation on an abstrac- 
 tion ? Does the present error destroy the 
 inspiration of the Bible as we have it ? We 
 all say not. Then why should the original 
 error destroy the inspiration of the Bible as 
 it was first given ? If absolute verbal infaUi- 
 bility were essential to inspiration, does not the 
 loss of that infallibility imply the loss of that 
 inspiration ? If it were essential that the first 
 copy should be inerrant in every possible par- 
 ticular; if without such inerrancy it could have 
 no authority ; why is not the same inerrancy 
 essential to every copy, and where does the 
 
 but for tlie salvation of the innumerable company of tbe 
 redeemed." Dr. E. P. Humpbrey, Second General Council 
 of the Presbyterian Alliance, 1880, p. 109. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 157 
 
 authority of our present copies come from? 
 You say : "A single error breaks down the 
 Bible."# One comes up and points out an 
 apparent error. Drs. Hodge and Warfield 
 are constrained to admit that it has all the 
 appearance of an error, f but that if we only 
 had the original autograph, etc. He is a busy 
 man, and cares very little for hypothetical 
 abstractions, and replies : " On your own 
 theory the Bible has all the appearance of 
 being broken down by what has all the 
 appearance of being an error. When you 
 find your original autograph I shall be pleased 
 to hear from you," You get the General 
 Assembly to declare that, unless God gave an 
 absolutely errorless Bible, He gave no Bible 
 at all. Your people construe that to mean 
 that, unless you have an absolutely errorless 
 Bible, you have no Bible at all. What have 
 you or they gained ? I thank God that I am 
 not shut up to any such conclusion ; and, most 
 of all, I thank God that when an inquiring 
 soul comes to me with his difficulties I do not 
 have to shut him up to any such conclusion. 
 There are spots on yonder sun ; do they stop 
 its being a sun ? Why, science tells me that 
 
 * "■ A proved error in Scripture contradicts not only 
 our doctrine, but the Scripture claims, and therefore its 
 inspiration in making those claims." Drs. Hodge and 
 Warfield, TTie Presbyterian Bevieiv, Vol. II., p. 245. 
 
 t See Note, p. 145. 
 
158 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 they are a part of the solar economy, and that 
 the sun is all the more a sun for the spots ! 
 How do I know that it may not be so with the 
 Eible ? 
 
 But the theory that all the errors in the text 
 •are surreptitious, that none of them are to be 
 referred to the original autographs, is one 
 which honest criticism finds itself unable to 
 •accept. Some, of course, might be accounted 
 for in this way, but that the vast majority, and 
 especially that those which present the most 
 serious difficulties are later corruptions, is 
 utterly out of the question. I have already 
 fihown that this theory fails us in the Gospels. 
 Let us take one example out of the Epistles. 
 In Galatians iii. 17, Paul says that the Law 
 ■came 430 years after the Covenant with 
 Abraham. But according to three express 
 historical statements found elsewhere — to wit, 
 God's prediction to Abraham (Gen. xv. 13), the 
 •statement of the Book of Exodus (xii. 40), and 
 the statement of Stephen (Acts vii. 6) — the 
 sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt, 
 and their bondage there, continued 400 or 430 
 (so Ex. Z. c.) years, to which must be added the 
 200 years between the covenant with Abraham 
 and Jacob's descent to Egypt, making more 
 than 600 years from the Abrahamic covenant 
 to the giving of the Law. According to the 
 Hebrew Bible, and according to Stephen, 
 Paul's chronology is at fault by about 200 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 159 
 
 years. And, unfortunately, we are precluded 
 from falling back here on that convenient 
 abstraction, the original autograph, by the 
 unquestionable fact that, according to his 
 customary rule, Paul is here following the 
 Septuagint, which has added certain words 
 to the Hebrew text in Exodus {I. c.) so as 
 to make the 430 years include the sojourning 
 in Canaan, along with the sojourning in Egypt. 
 Now, as a question of criticism, Bibhcal and 
 historical, I cannot help beheving that the 
 Hebrew text and Stephen are right here, and 
 that the Septuagint and Paul are wrong. 
 What am I to do ? If I instruct my class that 
 Paul's statement is infalhbly inspired, I put 
 Stephen in the wrong, I have the Old Testa- 
 ment passages to explain, and I have serious 
 historical difficulties to remove.^ Will you 
 
 * Of these difficulties, the most serious, and the only one 
 to which I will now refer, lies in the extraordinary multi- 
 plication of the children of Israel in Egypt. The facts of 
 the case, as given in Genesis and Exodus, are the follow- 
 ing : 1. The number of the Israelites at the beginning 
 of the sojourn in Egypt was seventy souls (Gen. xlvi. 27). 
 — 2. The number who went forth out of Egypt is given at 
 " six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside 
 children" (Ex. xii. 37). This would give about three 
 millions for the entire number. — 3. This remarkable in- 
 crease had taken place under the most grievous oppression 
 and bondage (Ex. i. 7-14).— 4. In the face also of concerted 
 methods of extermination (Ex. i, 15-22). Many of the nega- 
 tive critics of the Bible, basing their deductions on the tra- 
 ditional chronology represented by the Septuagint, which 
 
i6o BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 blame me if, instead of putting an artificial, 
 forced construction on such a passage in the 
 interests of an a ])riori theory, I prefer a 
 straightforward, manly, sober, reverent view 
 of the difficulty, like that which Prof. Beet has 
 taken in his Commentary? — " The above dis- 
 
 limits the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt to 230 years, 
 have questioned the entire narrative. So, among others. 
 Bishop Colenso, who argued the case very skilfully and 
 forcibly from that point of view. Professor W. H. Green, 
 D.D., of Princeton, in his book. The 'Pentateuch Vindicated 
 from the As;persions of Bishop Colenso, thus disposes of the 
 argument. Respecting the Septuagint reading of Ex. xii. 
 40, he says : " The gloss thus put upon this passage in 
 Exodus, as it seemed to have the authority of an inspired 
 Apostle in its favour in Gal. iii. 17j and as the genealogy of 
 Moses (Ex. vi. 16-20) appeared to preclude the supposition 
 that 430 years were spent in Egypt, became the well-nigh 
 universal view of the case. It still has its advocates, 
 though the leading Biblical scholars of Europe have abandoned' 
 it." On the passage in Galatians, Dr. Green says : " This 
 language of the Apostle, however, does not appear to us to 
 be decisive of the point at issue. The interval of time is 
 only incidentally mentioned. Precision of statement regarding 
 it was of no consequence to his argument." And on the chrono- 
 logy itself Dr. Green delivers this judgment: "The 
 evidence is, we think, conclusive that the abode in Egypt 
 lasted 430 years. This is the natural sense of Ex. xii. 40> 
 and none would ever think of extracting a different meaning 
 from it, but for reasons fotind outside of the verse itself. 
 . . . . The verse makes no allusion to Canaan, but only 
 to Egypt." In a subsequent chapter he shows how a term 
 of 430 years in Egypt meets all the requirements of the 
 narrative touching the multiplication of the nation, etc. 
 His whole argument is a striking illustration of the fact 
 that honest criticism yields in the end the best apologetic 
 results. — See pp. 117 f., 141 f., of The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. i6i 
 
 cussion warns us not to try to settle questions 
 of Old Testament historical criticism by casual 
 allusions in the New Testament. All such 
 attempts are unworthy of scientific Bibhcal 
 scholarship. By inweaving His words to 
 man in historic fact, God appealed to the 
 ordinary laws of human credibility. These 
 laws attest with absolute certainty the great 
 facts of Christianity. And upon these great 
 facts, and upon these only, rest both our faith 
 m the Gospel and in God, and the authority 
 of the Sacred Book. Consequently. 
 our faith does not require the absolute accuracy 
 of every historical detail in the Bible, and is 
 not disturbed by any error in detail which may 
 be detected in its pages. At the same time, our 
 study of the Bible reveals there an historical 
 accuracy which will make us very slow ta 
 condemn as erroneous even unimportant state- 
 ments of Holy Scripture. And in spite of any 
 possible errors in small details or allusions, the 
 Book itself remains to us as— in a unique and 
 mfinitely glorious sense— a hterary embodiment 
 of the Voice and Word of God." I most 
 heartily say Amen to every line of that 
 statement. It is the only tenable position 
 to take. 
 
 This illustration brings up another point of 
 importance in Bibhcal criticism. I refer to the 
 use made of the Old Testament in the New. 
 Without going into detail, let me call attention 
 
 11 
 
1 62 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 to the fact that almost every possible way in 
 which an Old Testament passage can be cited 
 is adopted."^ As a rule, the citations follow 
 the Septuagint, sometimes closely, sometimes 
 loosely. Sometimes the Seventy as cited is an 
 exact translation of the original. Sometimes 
 it is a free, but faithful, rendering, giving the 
 sense rather than the words. Sometimes it is 
 hardly a translation at all, but a paraphrase. 
 Sometimes it gives a sense quite different from 
 the original. In making the citation, the New 
 Testament writer sometimes quotes the Sep- 
 tuagint verhatim. Sometimes he changes a 
 word or two. Sometimes the change brings 
 the passage into closer conformity to the 
 original Hebrew. Sometimes the change 
 introduces a variation both from the Hebrew, 
 and from the Septuagint. Sometimes the 
 writer gives a new translation of the Hebrew, 
 apparently his own. I appeal to every candid 
 student of these facts whether they comport 
 with the notion of a rigorous verbal infallibility. 
 To my mind they are quite conclusive of the 
 contrary. Calvin himself, referring to the de- 
 viation of the Seventy, as cited in Heb. xi. 21, 
 from the Masoretic Hebrew text, says of 
 the Apostolic use of the Old Testament : " The 
 Apostle does not hesitate to accommodate to 
 his own purpose {non duhitat suo instituto 
 
 * See D. M. Turpie, The Old Testament in the New, 
 p. 266 f . 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 163 
 
 uccommodare) what was commonly received. 
 He wrote, indeed, to the Jews ; but to those 
 who, being dispersed through various countries, 
 had exchanged their national language for 
 Greek. We know that in such a matter 
 the Apostles were not very scrupulous {non 
 acleo fuisse scricpulosos)," hj which, of course, 
 Calvin means that they were not careful about 
 exactitude in all matters of detail. " In the 
 thing itself," he adds, ''there is but little 
 difference." * 
 
 * It may be well to add here that, rigid in some respects 
 as was Calvin's dogma of inspiration as set forth in his 
 Institutes, though by no means as rigid as the later dogma, 
 his attitude became very much freer when brought face 
 to face with the particular problems of criticism. So 
 rationalistic, indeed, did his treatment of the Old Testa- 
 ment seem to the more orthodox Lutherans of his day, 
 that they charged him with Judaizing. One of them calls 
 him Calvmus Judaizans (Aeg. Hunnius, Vit. 1593). Another 
 accuses him of interpreting the passages about the Mes- 
 siah and the Trinity in the sense of the Jews and the 
 Socinians (see reff. in reuss. History of the New Testament, § 
 •550). To the phrase, lua TrXrjpcadrj in connection with O, T. 
 citations, he gave so elastic an interpretation, that this, too, 
 was denounced as rationalistic (see Tholuck on Calvin as 
 an Interpreter, Bibl. Eepos. ii., p. 541 ff.). He recognises 
 an occasional inaccuracy in the text. On Matt, xxvii. 9, 
 he says : " The passage itself plainly shows that the name 
 of Jeremiah has been put down by mistake instead of 
 Zechariah." He is, at least, not anxious to trace it back 
 to the original autograph. " How the name of Jeremiah 
 crept in, he says, I do not know, nor do I give myself much 
 -trouble to inquire {nee anxie lahoro)." On Luke xxiv. 36 
 and elsewhere, he recognises contradictions, but uniformly 
 
 O 
 
i64 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 I have thus far sought to show that the- 
 theory of an ipsissima verba infaHibihty in 
 Scripture fails when brought to the test of 
 the best assured conclusions of criticism. It 
 remains to take a brief look at the positive 
 side of the question. For, allow me to say, 
 that to us, eveu as to you — nay, to us even 
 more than it can be to you — who say with 
 Drs. Hodge and Warfield that "the essence 
 of inspiration was superintendence," inspira- 
 tion has a very positive side ; is a massive, 
 all-controlling, overwhelmingly predominant 
 fact, throughout the very warp and woof of 
 the Bible from beginning to end. Inspiration 
 is not to be measured by the trifles which 
 have passed under our review. A trifle, to 
 be sure, may be a fact ; and if a fact, it is 
 , a sin to deny it, whether small as an atom or 
 big as Jupiter. And if anywhere we are to 
 bow before the facts it is in the sphere of 
 Divine truth. It is not, as Professor Briggs 
 
 dismisses them as of no importance, leaving as they do the 
 substance of the narrative unaffected. He doubts the 
 Petrine authorship of the Second Epistle, and cannot be 
 prevailed upon to acknowledge Paul as the author of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews {ego ut Paulum agnoscam auctorem 
 adduci nequeo) . " Only in his very earliest writings/' says 
 Eeuss (History of the New Testament, § 335), " does he follow 
 tradition." He was, in fact, a pioneer of the Higher 
 Criticism, and it is only too evident that, if the question 
 of confirming his election to one of our Biblical chairs 
 were to come before us to-day, he would fail of getting a. 
 unanimous vote. 
 
AND INSPIRATION, 165 
 
 says, a pleasant task to point out errors in 
 Scripture. We do it only as the interests of 
 truth require, because we dare not handle the 
 word of God deceitfully. Nothing is worth 
 saving that cannot be saved honestly, not even 
 that Book. But we are at an infinite remove 
 from taking these as the measure of the Bible. 
 Cromwell showed his manliness in ordering the 
 painter to put in his portrait the wart on his 
 face ; but who would dream of judging Crom- 
 well by his wart ? What are these trifling 
 inaccuracies in Scripture when compared vdth 
 the Burden of the Book ? If one of the Gos- 
 pel records varies from another in respect to 
 the details of a miracle, what difference does 
 it make if the miracle remains ? If there are 
 minor incongruities in the narratives of 
 Christ's appearances after His resurrection, 
 is not the fact of his resurrection made all 
 the more certain even by these incongruities ? 
 If Paul did — in very respectable company, too 
 — make a mistake of two hundred years in 
 stating his argument to the Galatians, what 
 has that to do with the argument ? Does it 
 weaken in the slightest the sledge-hammer 
 blow with which he crushes Jewish legalism 
 dead for ever ? If Stephen transposes certain 
 Old Testament incidents, or confuses certain 
 names, does that affect the convicting power of 
 his terrific arraignment of an apostate Israel ? 
 Was not the power of the Holy Ghost in 
 
1 66 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 every word that he spoke, even when least 
 accurate?* Suppose that one of his hearers 
 had undertaken to reply to him, saying : " You 
 have said that Abraham left Haran after the 
 death of his father, Terah ; whereas, if you 
 study the figures in Genesis, you will find that 
 Terah must have lived fifty years or more in 
 Haran after Abraham left. You were mistaken, 
 also, in saying that Abraham bought the se- 
 pulchre of the sons of Ham or in Shechem. If 
 you look into the matter a little more closely 
 you will find that that was Jacob, and that 
 Abraham bought his purchase at Hebron of 
 
 *It is one of tlie pitiful subterfuges of the mechanical 
 theory that Stephen was not, or may not have been, inspired. 
 Luke, forsooth, in his account of the external circum- 
 stances attending the discourse, was inspired, but Stephen 
 not ! And this in face of all that the inspired Luke says 
 about Stephen, that he was " full of grace and power " 
 (Acts vi. 8) ; that his opponents " were not able to withstand 
 the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake " (vi. 10) ; 
 that during this same address, " all that sat in the council, 
 fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the 
 face of an angel " (vi. 15) ; that his unbelieving hearers 
 "^ were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their 
 teeth" (vii. 54) ; that at the close, Stephen himself , "being 
 full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven 
 and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right 
 hand of God " (vii. 55 f.). This man's inspiration, an open 
 question at the least, to be denied if the exigencies of an 
 infinitesimal literalistic inspiration requires it; but the 
 words of the annalist, who thus introduces the discourse : 
 " And the high priest said. Are these things so .^ And he 
 said," potent with the essence itself of inspiration— super- 
 vision ! Is not such a theory self-condemned .? 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 167 
 
 Ephron the Hittite." But would that have 
 silenced Stephen ? Such a criticism on such 
 a speech would have been like flinging a feather 
 in the teeth of a cyclone. 
 
 God has not been afraid to commit the 
 excellency of His treasure to earthen vessels. 
 He is not alarmed lest the weakness of the 
 vessel should be a damage to the treasure. He 
 has not shrunk from risking His truth on the 
 liabilities of traditions, translations, transcrip- 
 tions, and their inevitable accompaniments of 
 fallibihty. He has not been concerned lest the 
 popular misconceptions of a pre-Copernican 
 astronomy, or of a pre-Lyelhan geology, or of 
 a pre-Linnaean botany, should compromise His 
 revelation of Himself. I thank God that it is 
 so. I rejoice that. Divine as is the Book, Divine 
 as no other book is, it is still so thoroughly 
 human ; so beautifully threaded with the fibre 
 of human nerve, thought, and sensibility ; so 
 sweetly veined vdth the crimson channels of 
 the heart's blood, hfe, and experience. I rejoice 
 that, supernatural as it is, supernatural as no 
 other book is, it is still so thoroughly natural, 
 that its literary hfe and growth blend so 
 lovingly and harmoniously with the currents 
 and processes of the world's divinely-appointed 
 hfe and growth. I rejoice that God, when He 
 speaks in the language of earth and by the 
 mouth of His servants, comes so low down that 
 He is not ashamed to use bad grammar, is not 
 
i68 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 afraid of a barbarism or a solecisra, does not 
 shrink from an archaism or an anachronism, 
 does not disdain an antediluvian setting for 
 the doctrine of the Creation or the Fall, or 
 what a scientist might derisively call a Kinder- 
 garten formula for the truth of Providence, or 
 the Judgment. He does not hang eternal issues 
 on details that are relatively insignificant. He 
 has not so poised the Eock of Ages that the 
 Higher or Lower Criticism, with pickaxe or 
 crowbar, digging out a chronological inaccu- 
 racy here, or prizing off a historical contradic- 
 tion there, is going to upset it. The critic 
 may be all right, the crowbar may be all 
 right, but the Eock of Ages is all right too, 
 and it will stand fast for ever. Do not, I 
 beseech you, charge upon God the priggish 
 precision which makes as much of a mole- 
 hill as of a mountain. God does not care to 
 be honoured in that way. Do not degrade 
 Him by requiring that He should poise before 
 His earthly children as an intolerant, if not 
 intolerable. Pedant, who insists on his ^'s 
 and g's with no less vigour and pertinacity 
 than on His godlike SHEMA : " Hear, O 
 Israel!" — or on His everlasting AMEN: 
 "" Verily, verily, I say unto you ! " 
 
 But what of the positive bearing of the 
 conclusions of criticism on our conception of 
 inspiration? Take, e.g., its conclusions in 
 respect to the structure and contents of the 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 169 
 
 Synoptic Gospels. What do they teach us as 
 to the fact of inspiration ? They teach us that 
 it is a much larger fact than the scholastic 
 notion which resolves it into mere supervision. 
 Its scope is much wider. It is the note of a 
 supernatural age ; an age in which super- 
 natural forces were at work on an extensive 
 scale ; in which supernatural facts had been 
 witnessed by multitudes, and had stamped . 
 their impressions on thousands of living souls ; 
 an age when supernatural charismata abounded 
 in the Church ; an age of miracles, of super- 
 natural healings, of supernatural tongues. It 
 was pre-eminently an age of prophetic inspira- 
 tion, in which the Old Testament predictions 
 were fulfilled : " And it shall be in the last days, 
 saith God, I will pour forth of My Spirit wpon 
 all flesh ; And your sons and your daughters 
 shall prophesy, And your young men shall see 
 visions, And your old men shall dream dreams ; 
 Yea, and on My servants, and on My hand- 
 maidens in those days will I pour forth of My 
 Spirit ; And they shall prophesy." * It was an 
 age in which there was an order of prophets 
 in the Church and a gift of prophesying in the 
 churches. It was an age when Luke could say 
 that '' many have taken in hand to draw up a 
 narrative concerning these matters which have 
 been fulfilled [or fully established] among us " ; 
 an age whichfurnished Luke with that inimitable 
 
 * Acts ii. 14 f. 
 
ijo BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 story of the Infancy, written nobody knows by 
 whom, perhaps, as Alford suggests, by Mary,, 
 the mother of our Lord, but as plenarily 
 inspired, before Luke ever got hold of it, as 
 anything that Peter or John ever wrote ; an 
 age which furnished the fragment at the end 
 of Mark, written nobody knows by whom, but 
 attesting itself to the consciousness of the 
 Church to-day, as throughout the centuries, as 
 the inspired "Word of God, as truly and a& 
 fully such as all of Mark ; * an age which 
 furnished the pericope of the woman taken in 
 adultery, written nobody knows by whom, but 
 as full of Jesus as the diamond is full of the 
 sun ; f an age of inspired Christian hymns, 
 some of which have found their way into the 
 record, sung nobody knows by whom, but 
 sweet and grand as the apocalyptic melodies 
 of heaven's own Alleluias ; X an age when, as 
 the appendix to John's Gospel declares, if all 
 the facts known respecting Christ were written, 
 the world itself would not contain the books 
 that should be v^ritten ; an age when we know 
 not how many inspired records and epistles- 
 
 * See Revised Version at Mark xvi. 9 f . 
 
 t See Revised Version at John vii. 53— viii. 11. 
 
 X See 1 Cor. xiv. 26; Col. iii. 16; Eph. v. 19. See exx. 
 in the songs of Mary, Zacliarias, and Simeon (Lk. i. 46 f., 
 67 f. ; ii. 29 f . in Eevised Version and Westcott and Hort ; 
 also Eph. V. 14; 1 Tim. iii. 16, in Westcott and Hort^ 
 Cf. Acts iv. 24 f.). See Winer's Grammar of the New Testa- 
 ment Diction, § 68, 3, 4. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 171 
 
 were written and lost ; * an age which built up 
 mighty Christian traditions, not Hke the dead, 
 dry petrifactions of Judaism, but fresh, living, 
 burning traditions, to which the Apostles 
 could appeal as instinct with vital energy and 
 authority, f Think you that in such an age 
 there would be any lack of inspiration for 
 building up the Gospel record ? Look at the 
 quantity and the quality of the inspiration 
 which this view gives you ; not the pedantic, 
 pedagogical supervision of ** jots and tittles," 
 but the grand, living expression of " the powers 
 of the world to come ; " not an occasional 
 spurt or spasm, but a great dynamic, oecu- 
 menical fact ; not the flow of a few artesian 
 wells, but a mighty tide, surging out of the 
 great supernatural deep. What a broad,, 
 impregnable base you have here for the 
 Gospel record ! What a great cloud of 
 witnesses ! What palpable energy and vital- 
 ity of conviction palpitating through every 
 line of the manifold testimony? What 
 overwhelming, convincing power in the con- 
 sentaneous strength of the Gospel witness to 
 its own transcendent facts, when this witness 
 is found to rest on no artificial support, is 
 
 * See 1 Cor. v. 9 ; 2 Cor. x. 10, xi. 28 ; 2 Thess. ii. 15, 
 iii. 17; Phil. iii. 18 (Col. iv. 16? more probably the 
 extant Ep. to the Ephesians) ; 3 John iii. 9. — See Salmon's 
 Introduction to the New Testament, Lecture XX. 
 
 t See Luke i. 2 ; 1 Cor. xi. 2, 23 ; 2 Thess. ii. 15 ; iii. 6 ; 
 2 Tim. i. 13 ; 2 Peter ii. 21, iii. 2 ; Jude 3, 17. 
 
172 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 secured by no mechanical uniformity, but 
 comes to us through what Professor Beet 
 calls "the ordinary laws of human credibility," 
 bearing those marks of honesty, independence, 
 frankness, individuality, spontaneity, internal 
 verisimilitude, which everywhere and always 
 guarantee the truth of human testimony ! Is it 
 not the claim and glory of the Gospel story 
 that it combines the dignity and authority of a 
 ^heavenly recital with the piquant frankness, 
 the homelike naivete of the conversational 
 fireside tale ; here aud there, it may be, con- 
 tradicting itself in small matters, breaking out 
 Into artless variations and impulsive incon- 
 sistencies, but all the more surely thereby 
 winning its way to the faith and love of the 
 heart ? 
 
 The most important question of all still 
 remains to be considered. What is inspira- 
 tion — not in itself, but as a fact, as a 
 characteristic of the Bible? In giving my 
 answer to this question, I know no better 
 course to take than to follow the line of 
 thought in the first chapter of our Con- 
 fession of Faith, perhaps the noblest chapter 
 in that immortal document. Let me ask your 
 attention to what is most essential in that 
 magnificent statement of the truth respecting 
 Scripture. " Although the light of nature, 
 and the works of creation and Providence, do 
 so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 173 
 
 power of God, as to leave men inexcusable ; 
 yet they are not sufficient to give that knov7- 
 ledge of God, and of His v^ill, which is 
 necessary unto salvation." Let us ponder 
 that statement a moment. Why was Scrip- 
 ture given ? The answer of our Confession 
 is : Because " the light of nature was not 
 sufficient." Sufficient for what ? "To give 
 [a certain] knowledge." Knowledge of what ? 
 Of botany ? chemistry ? geography ? By no 
 means. The light of nature is sufficient for' 
 that. It is not sufficient, however, "/or the 
 hnowledge of God " — that Great Infinite Being 
 with whom, as spiritual immortal beings, we 
 have to do; ^' and of his will" — that ex- 
 pression of God's eternal thoughts and pur- 
 pose which most essentially concerns our 
 spiritual welfare and our eternal destiny ; and 
 still more explicitly, " not sufficient for that 
 knowledge of God which is necessary " — for 
 what ? For science ? for art ? for civilisa- 
 tion? necessary to fill a cyclopedia? to 
 equip a college graduate? — nay, "but which 
 is necessary unto salvation." What is all 
 secular knowledge compared with " that 
 knowledge of God which is necessary unto 
 salvation "? That was the great need of the 
 world ; it was to supply that need that when 
 the light of nature failed man, God interposed. 
 Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times,* 
 
 * Revised Version, " by divers portions.'* 
 
174 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 and in divers manners, TO EEYEAL HIM- 
 SELF." Mark that! Not in the first in- 
 stance to give a book, not to transmit a 
 revelation about Himself, not to write or 
 cause to be written, a series of definitions, 
 logical categories, abstract propositions relating 
 to His person, His nature, His attributes ; but 
 ''to reveal Himself" — actually, factually, in 
 living deed, as well as by the living Word ; by 
 theophanies, by covenants, by dispensations ; 
 by orders, institutions, structures — legislative, 
 administrative, civil, religious ; by sacrifices 
 and sacraments, Urim and Thummim, blood 
 and Shekinah ; by mediations of grace and 
 life most various, touching, and sublime — 
 didactic, devotional, priestly, prophetic ; by 
 dream, vision, psalm, symbol, type, miracle — 
 a golden chain of Divine manifestations and 
 interpositions reaching down through the 
 centuries ; every new link charged with more 
 of God — God in it all — God Himself — God in 
 person ; the Power of God, the Heart of God, 
 the Life of God in everything ; and all for 
 SALVATION ! Emphasize that again ! Bevelatioji 
 and Bedemption — twin divinities, advancing 
 together, side by side, step by step, every step 
 ablaze with Deity ! the Divine processes widen- 
 ing with the suns, more, and more, and ever 
 more of God in everything imtil at last the 
 climax is reached — the Word becomes flesh; 
 the Son of God is born on earth, lives — suffers 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 175 
 
 — dies — rises again — ascends to the right hand 
 of the Majesty on high, to reign King of kings, 
 and Lord of lords, God blessed for ever. 
 Amen ! 
 
 Here in these great facts, these great his- 
 toric processes, these theophanies .of glory, 
 these miracles of power and love, these super- 
 natural interventions of redeeming grace, we 
 have God revealing Himself. That precisely, 
 as our Confession puts it, is the primal fact. 
 Here you have the material of the Word of 
 God, the stuff of inspiration, the substance 
 of the Gospel. Paul's definition of the Gospel 
 is just that : " The Power of God unto Salva- 
 tion." Not a thing of power, not a mighty 
 system, not a tremendous engine, but Dunamis^ 
 Power, God's Power, Personal Omnipotence, 
 at work as Omnipotence, saving the world. 
 *' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.''* 
 That is Redemption. That is Revelation for 
 Redemption. The life of the Revelation is 
 there, the power of the Revelation is there, 
 in that Divine working ; not in words, not 
 in definitions, not in abstract statements — 
 how much of God can you put into words ? 
 How much of the Eternal can you pack into 
 a definition ? How much of the Infinite can 
 you squeeze into a dogma ? — No, not in these, 
 but in those stupendous supernatural forth- 
 puttings of God Himself, which blazon their 
 way all along from Eden to Golgotha. 
 
176 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 So much for the first step — the redemptive 
 revelation of Himself by God. " It pleased the 
 Lord," first of all, thus " to reveal Himself, 
 and to declare His will unto His Church.'* 
 "What next ? " And afterward,'" mark the 
 order, the dependence, and the purpose, " and 
 afterward for the better preserving and pro- 
 pagating of the truth, and for the more sure 
 establishment and comfort of the Church 
 against the corruption of the flesh, and the 
 malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit 
 the same wholly unto writing, which makefch 
 the Holy Scripture to be most necessary ; 
 those former ways of God's revealing His 
 will unto His people being now ceased." 
 The Bible is thus the written record of the 
 revelation. What, then, is the object of the 
 record? Generically and primarily the object 
 of the record is the same with the object of 
 the Eevelation, to wit : Salvation. Specifically 
 the record is given for three purposes sub- 
 ordinate to the great generic purpose : (1) To 
 interpret the Eevelation, or, in the lan- 
 guage of the Confession, '' to declare God's 
 will" in the Eevelation. For man, alas! is 
 ignorant, blinded, besotted by sin, and needs 
 to have this wondrous Divine Drama of 
 Eedemption explained. (2) To perpetuate the 
 Eevelation, " those former ways of God's re- 
 vealing His will having now ceased." (3) To 
 apply the Eevelation ; or to make it effectual 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 1 77 
 
 «,gaiDst the trinity of evil — the world, the flesh, 
 and Satan. 
 
 What now is the function of Inspiration? In 
 a word, it is to mediate the Revelation ; to inter- 
 pret, to record, to apply it ; to put us, to put all 
 generations, under the immediate power of those 
 Divine realities ; so far as possible to bring 
 us face to face with this incomparable drama 
 of Power and Love Divine, face to face ivith 
 God revealing Himself. All through the ages 
 the Spirit of God was teaching one and another 
 to understand, to interpret, to record, to apply 
 that wondrous process. There, then, you have 
 the Revelation ; here the Inspiration. There 
 the supernatural history ; here the super- 
 natural record. There the fact ; here the 
 story. There Sinai ; here Exodus. There 
 Bethlehem, Galilee, Calvary, Olivet ; here 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There Pente- 
 cost ; here the Acts. .And as the Revelation 
 was building, so the Book was building. As 
 that became high and broad, this became 
 rich and full. And so the Book became the 
 double of the deed. By the Divine cor- 
 relation of energy, the life and power of the 
 one became the life and power of the other. 
 The Facts burn in the Words. The living 
 History throbs in the living Record. And so 
 to-day, and throughout all time, in all that 
 makes the Bible the power of God unto 
 salvation, it is the Voice of God, the Word 
 
 12 
 
178 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 of God, the supreme, the only, the infallible , 
 authority.* 
 
 That is what the Bible teaches concerning 
 itself. It is part of the supernatural, Divine 
 process of saving a lost world, of rehabilitating 
 a ruined humanity. Inspiration is the formal 
 factor in that process, as Eevelation is the 
 material factor. Thus regarded, I have no 
 hesitation in saying that the Bible is inspired 
 wholly, inspired through and through. The 
 men are inspired, as Professor Stowe said. 
 The thoughts are inspired, as Professor Briggs 
 says. The words are inspired, as Professor 
 Hodge has said. These are " the sacred 
 writings which are able to make wise unto- 
 SALVATION, through faith which is in Jesus 
 Christ." " Every Scripture is inspired of God„ 
 and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for cor- 
 rection, for discipline which is in righteous- 
 ness ; that the man of God may be complete, 
 furnished completely unto every good work."^ 
 
 * I take pleasm^e in referring to the admirable state- 
 ment of this historic and literary relation of Eevelation 
 and Inspiration in Drs. Hodge and Warfield's article on 
 Inspiration, in The Presbyterian Review, Vol. II. For more 
 complete and systematic discussion of the subject, see 
 Dr. G-. P. Fisher's Nature and Object of Revelation (Scribner : 
 New York) ; Dr. A. B. Bruce : The Chief End of Revelation 
 (Hodder & Stoughton) ; Dr. G. T. Ladd : " The Doctrine of 
 Sacred Scripture, and What is the Bible ? (C. Scribner's Sons, 
 New York) ; Dr. W. Sanday : The Oracles of God (Longmans,. 
 Green, & Co.). 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 17^ 
 
 That is what Inspiration is for, for training- 
 and completing in the Divine life. How can 
 error in chronology, or physical science, affect 
 that process ? '' The words that I have 
 spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." 
 Yes ! in these inspired words there is a 
 Divine pneumatic power such as no other 
 words have. They are Spirit- words. Life- 
 words. "Which things we teach, not in 
 words that man's wisdom teacheth, but which 
 the Spirit teacheth." What things ? Eead 
 the context. " Whatever things God pre- 
 pared for them that love Him." '' The deep 
 things of God." " The things that were freely 
 [graciously] given to us of God." These are 
 the things about which Inspiration concerns 
 Itself. God's things, God's deepest things, 
 God's best things, the things which have the 
 most, the deepest, of God in them." " These 
 things," says the Apostle of God in them, 
 ** we teach in words which the Spirit of God 
 teacheth." Most assuredly ! Who can doubt 
 it? I beheve in that declaration of Paul's 
 with all my heart. I could not help believing 
 it if Paul had never said it. As I read what 
 the Bible says about God, about Christ, about 
 the Spirit, about man, sin, salvation, about 
 holiness, duty, life, death, eternity, I feel, to 
 the depths of my being, that the very words 
 thrill with Divinity ; they glow with the 
 ardours of the heaven above me; they are 
 
i8o BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 instinct with the power of an endless life ; 
 the majesty of eternity is in their rhythm ; 
 deep calleth unto deep in the thunders of their 
 diapason ; the pathos of the blessed Comforter 
 is in their stillest, smallest voice ; the very balm 
 of Paradise is shed upon them ; even upon their 
 anomalies rests the glory of the Shekinah ; as 
 they pass before my eye they are radiant with 
 the One altogether lovely ; as they echo in my 
 heart-strings they are vocal with God. 
 
 It is most strange to me that our theologies 
 liave not before now found the secret of In- 
 spiration in that transcendent passage of Paul, 
 from which I have just cited a few lines — the 
 clearest, the fullest, the profoundest treatment 
 of the subject that has ever been given. Let 
 me give the whole passage (1 Cor. ii. 6 — 16) : 
 " Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that 
 are fully grown : yet a wisdom not of this 
 world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are 
 coming to nought : but we speak God's wisdom 
 in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been 
 hidden, which God fore-ordained before the 
 worlds unto our glory : which none of the 
 rulers of this world hath known ; for had they 
 known it, they would not have crucified the 
 Lord of glory : but as it is written : things 
 which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and 
 which entered not into the heart of man, 
 whatsoever things God prepared for them that 
 love Him. But unto us God revealed them 
 
AND INSPIRATION. i8i 
 
 through the Spirit : for the Spirit searcheth 
 all things, yea, the deep things of God. For 
 who among men knoweth the things of a man, 
 save the spirit of the man, which is in him? 
 even so the things of God none knoweth, save 
 the Spirit of God. But we received not the 
 spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is 
 from God; that we might know the things 
 that were freely given to us of God. Which 
 things also we speak, not in words which man's 
 wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teach- 
 eth ; combining spiritual things with spiritual 
 words [or, marg. — interpreting spiritual things 
 to spiritual men]. Now the natural [or : un- 
 spiritual, Gr. psychical] man receiveth not 
 the things of the Spirit of God : for they are 
 foolishness unto him ; and he cannot know 
 them, because they are spiritually judged [or, 
 examined]. But he that is spiritual judgeth 
 [or, examineth] all things, and he himself is 
 judged [or, examined] of no man. For who 
 hath known the mind of the Lord, that he 
 should instruct Him ? But we have the mind 
 of Christ." 
 
 That is Inspiration. How, then, shall 
 we characterise it .? "Verbal" Inspiration? 
 " Supervisional .? " " Ofadal ? " '' Plenary } " 
 "Dynamic } " Why not take Paul's word at once, 
 which sums up what is most real in all these 
 designations ? " Pneumatic Inspiration ! " 
 There you have it all. There you have not 
 
i82 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 only Paul's word, but Christ's. '' The words 
 that I have spoken unto you are Vneumar 
 Make that your watchword, and you can hold 
 the fort against all comers. 
 
 'Pneumatic Inspiration : what does it mean ? 
 
 1. The Spieit of God is the primary, the 
 vital, the essential, factor. 
 
 2. The spirit of man is the co-ef&cient : that 
 in man which is the organ of God, and of all 
 Divine Eeality. 
 
 3. The contents of Inspiration are ^Tiewma^ic 
 realities. And what does the Apostle say of 
 these .? (i.) They have their foundations in the 
 depths of the Godhead. They are '* the deep 
 things of God." (ii.) They are above and 
 beyond all secular science. " Not of this world " 
 [or, age : atcoz^, saeculuvi]. (iii.) They are the 
 embodiment of a Divine Philosophy. " We 
 speak God's Wisdom." (iv.) They are attained 
 through a Divine initiation. '* In a mystery." 
 (v.) They date from the past eternity. " Fore- 
 ordained before the worlds." (vi.) They fill the 
 future eternity. " Prepared for them that love 
 Him." (vii.) They are supra-sensual. " Eye 
 saw not, ear heard not." (viii.) They are 
 supra-psychical. ** The natural [psychical] 
 man receiveth them not/' (ix.) They are 
 supra-rational. " Which entered not into the 
 heart of man." (x.) They are the peculiar 
 province of the Spirit, ''who explores the 
 depths of God." ** None knoweth them save 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 183 
 
 the Spirit of God." (xi.) They are freighted 
 with Divine Grace. *' Freely given to us of 
 God." (xii.) They culminate in spiritual per- 
 fection. " Unto our glory." 
 
 4. The processes by which they are appre- 
 hended are pneumatic. *' They are spiritually 
 judged." 
 
 5. The utterances, by which they are ex- 
 pressed, are pneumatic, theopneustic. *' In 
 words which the Spirit teacheth." "Combining 
 spirituahties with spirituahties." 
 
 6. And to crown all this all-pervading, all- 
 assimilating Pneuma is the Mind of the Lord. 
 ''We have the mind of Christ." 
 
 Pneumatic Inspiration ! Is it not just that } 
 Do you ask for characteristics of Inspiration ? 
 There they are. Tests of Inspiration .? What 
 more could you wish for .? Safeguards of in- 
 spiration .? Are these not enough .? If these 
 will not guarantee the inspiration of the Bible, 
 what will .^ According to our Confession, the 
 inspiration of Scripture is a self-witnessing 
 fact. *' We may be moved and induced by the 
 testimony of the Church to a high and reverend 
 esteem for the holy Scripture ; and the heaven- 
 liness of the matter, the ef&cacy of the doc- 
 trine, the majesty of the style, the consent of 
 all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is 
 to give all glory to God), the full discovery it 
 makes of the only way of man's salvation, the 
 many other incomparable excellencies, and the 
 
i84 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby 
 it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the 
 Word of God ; yet, notwithstanding, our full 
 persuasion and assurance of the infallible 
 truth, and Divine authority thereof, is from the 
 inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing wit- 
 ness, by and with the Word, in our hearts.'* 
 " The Supreme Judge, ... in whose sen- 
 tence we are to rest, can be no other but the 
 Holy Spirit, speaking in the Scriptures."* 
 Does not that which is of the Spirit evidence 
 itseK ? With this pneumatic conception of the 
 Book, can we be in doubt about the inspira- 
 tion, about the quahty, contents, scope, pur- 
 pose of the inspiration? Can we have any 
 trouble about verifying it ? The Bible is a 
 pneumatic Book. The groundwork, the sub- 
 stance, all that makes the Book what it is, is 
 pneumatic, f The warp and woof of it is 
 pneuma. Its fringes run off, as was inevitable,, 
 into the secular, the material, the psychic. Can 
 we not, as persons of common intelligence even, 
 much more with the internal witness of the 
 Spirit to aid us, discriminate between the 
 fringe and the warp and woof ? Do not the 
 
 * The Confession of FaitJi, Chap. I., Sees. V., X. Com- 
 pare the Larger Catechism, Qu. 2, 3, 4, and Answers. 
 
 t See The Larger Catechism, Qu. 5 (The Shorter Cate- 
 chism, Qu. 3) and Answer. " Qu. What do the Scriptures 
 principally teach ? Ans. The Scriptures principally teach 
 what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty 
 God requires of man.^' 
 
AND lASPIRATION. 185. 
 
 " spiritualities " and the " heavenlinesses " 
 of Scripture distinguish themselves from all 
 that is lower, as the steady shining of the 
 everlasting stars from the fitful gleaming of 
 earth's fire-flies ? Even if the task of discrimi- 
 nating were immeasurably harder than it is, 
 we should not complain. God lays on us in 
 many matters, in matters, too, of great prac- 
 tical moment, the responsibility of separating 
 the things that differ. " Why, even of your- 
 selves judge ye not what is right?" This 
 responsibility is a part of life's discipline. It 
 is not God's way to do all our thinking for us. 
 His training is not a process of cram. 
 
 Let me ask your attention to these weighty 
 words of Mr. Gladstone : "No doubt ther& 
 will be those who will resent any association 
 between the idea of a Divine Eevelation and 
 the possibility of even the smallest intrusion of 
 error in the vehicle. But ought they not to 
 bear in mind that we are bound by the rule of 
 reason to look for the same methods of proce- 
 dure in this great matter of a special provision 
 of Divine knowledge for our needs as in the 
 other parts of the manifold dispensation under 
 which Providence has placed us ? Now, that 
 method or principle is one of sufficiency, not 
 perfection ; of sufficiency for the attainment of 
 practical ends, not of coiiformity to ideal 
 standards. Bishop Butler, I think, would wisely 
 tell us that we are not the judges, and that we 
 
i86 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 are quite unfit to be the judges, what may be 
 the proper amount, and the just condition of 
 any of the aids to be afforded us in passing 
 through the discipline of Hfe. I will only 
 remark that this default of ideal perfection, 
 this use of a twilight instead of a noonday 
 blaze, may be adapted to our weakness, and 
 may be among the appointed means of 
 exercising our faith. But what belongs to 
 the present occasion is to point out that if 
 probability and not demonstration marks the 
 Divine guidance of our paths in life as a 
 whole, we are not entitled to require that 
 when the Almighty in His mercy makes a 
 special addition by revelation to what He has 
 already given to us of knowledge in Nature 
 and in Providence, that special gift should be 
 unlike His other gifts, and should have all its 
 lines and limits drawn out with mathematical 
 precision.'"^ 
 
 That is the only rational, the only philoso- 
 phic, the only Scriptural ground to take. It is 
 the ground of our Confession. The inspiration 
 of the Bible is pneumatic, not psychic, not 
 secular. The infallibility of the Bible is 
 pneumatic, not psychic, not secular. It is 
 the infallibility of practical sufficiency, not 
 the infallibility of absolute ideality. It is 
 an " infaUible rule," standard measure. What 
 
 * The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. By W. E. 
 ■Gladstone. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 187 
 
 does that mean ? I have a yard-stick, a three- 
 foot rule. As such it is perfect, all-sufficient. 
 If I make a mistake in measuring yards or / 
 feet with it, it will be altogether my own 
 fault. And yet, perhaps, it is notched, it is 
 cracked, some of the inch lines are blurred ; 
 one or two may possibly be slightly inexact. 
 If I were to apply the microscope to it, I 
 should no doubt find flaws in it. If I were 
 to try it for microscopic measurements, it 
 would fail me. But as a yard-stick, as a 
 three-foot measure, it is infallible. So with , / 
 the Bible. Its infalHbility is not a micro- 
 scopic infinitesimal infallibility respecting all 
 particular things in the heavens above or in 
 the earth beneath, or in the waters under the 
 earth. It is an infallible rule of faith ; i.e., of 
 Christian faith, of Gospel faith, of the faith 
 which is necessary to salvation. 
 
 That, as I have shown, is the teaching of 
 Scripture itself. That is plainly the teaching 
 of our Confession. It is so interpreted by the 
 most competent authorities. Dr. Laidlaw, 
 Professor of Theology in the New College in 
 Edinburgh, in a recent address on " The 
 Westminster Confession in the Light of the 
 Present Desire for Eevision," speaking of the 
 Chapter on the Scriptures, says that " it re- 
 frains from detailed specification as to the 
 authorship, age, or literary character of the 
 canonical books. Not makings these matters 
 
i88 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 essential to faith, it thus leaves open what 
 has been called, perhaps rather broadly, the 
 whole field of Biblical Criticism. It deals in 
 the same manner with all details as to mode 
 and degree of inspiration, which could be 
 consistently left open by those who accept 
 the Scriptures as the infallible rule of faith 
 and duty. Once more, while claiming for the 
 original Scriptures such immediate inspiration 
 and such providential care as fits them for 
 their purpose, it has refrained from such 
 assertion of verbal inerrancy as Biblical 
 scholarship disallows."^ 
 
 The leaders of English and Scotch Presby- 
 terianism are well-nigh a unit on this point. 
 Dr. Blaikie, the President of the Presbyterian 
 Alliance, and of whom I need say no more, 
 was solicited last year to sign a paper con- 
 demning the views of Dr. Bruce and Dr. 
 Dods. He declined to do so on the ground 
 that while strongly maintaining the fact of 
 Inspiration, he could not accept the rigid view 
 which takes inspiration to mean inerrancy. 
 " Well-known facts in the actual structure 
 and contents of Scripture seem to me to 
 forbid it."f Dr. Rainy is well kaown as 
 Principal of the Free College of Edinburgh 
 and the leader of the Free Church. Last 
 year, in a speech in the Free Assembly, he 
 
 * British Weekly, November 13, 1890, p. 34. 
 t British Weekly, October 30, 1890, p. 3. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 189 
 
 thus defined his personal position. I quote 
 from an abstract in The British Weekly of 
 June 6, 1890: "He started with the in- 
 errancy of Scriptures, even in details, as 
 that which he was incKned to hold. Only 
 he refused to impose it on others; out and 
 out he refused to do so, especially upon his 
 students. He did so partly because he 
 thought such matters despicable, but also 
 because Scripture itself did not seem to have 
 it much at heart to make them sure of accu- 
 racy of this kind; rather, it seemed conspi- 
 cuously to refuse to do so, and any quotations 
 to the contrary were mistakes." In the 
 Enghsh Presbyterian Church, during the 
 recent discussions of the New Confession 
 of Faith, Principal Dykes, of the Presbyterian 
 College in London, the leading theologian of 
 the Church, Dr. Monro Gibson, who is ac- 
 cepted as the incoming Moderator, and other 
 leaders, pronounced decisively against the 
 theory of inerrancy. Two years ago, when 
 Dr. Dods was nominated for the Exegetical 
 Chair of New College, Edinburgh, declarations 
 Hke the following were quoted against him : 
 *' I believe the Scriptures contain an infahible 
 rule of faith and hfe. I beheve they are the 
 authoritative records of the revelations which 
 God has made, but it is impossible to affirm 
 that all the statements contained in Scripture 
 are strictly accurate; impossible, that is, to 
 
I90 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 claim for Scripture an absolute infallibility.'^ 
 He was elected by an overwhelming majority. 
 That is enough to show where the Free Church 
 stands on this particular issue. 
 
 Brethren, our Church can not afford to go 
 beyond Scripture, beyond our own Confession, 
 or beyond our sister churches, on this question ► 
 "We hear about " dangerous errors," views and 
 utterances which tend to unsettle faith. Let 
 me tell you where the danger lies, as it con- 
 fronts me in my work from year to year. It 
 lies in putting the Bible in a false position, in 
 claiming for it what it does not claim for itself. 
 It lies in a 'priori assumptions respecting in- 
 spiration and infallibility, which are not borne 
 out by the facts. It lies in holding up 
 your iron-clad dogma of verbal inspiration and 
 literalistic infallibility against the advances 
 made by an humble, prayerful, reverent inves- 
 tigation and criticism of Scripture as the Word 
 of God. I have nothing to say in behalf of a 
 bald, agnostic, materialistic naturalism, or of 
 an arbitrary, capricious rationalism, which, 
 with a priori dogmatism, denies the super- 
 natural, belittles or expunges sin and salvation, 
 eliminates out of history God's revelation of 
 Himself, evaporates out of the Bible its pneu- 
 matic inspiration, chops up its contents into 
 lifeless fragments, and sweeps away book after 
 book into the abyss of legend and myth. When 
 the Biblical Criticism of our theological semi- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 191 
 
 naries is found to be engaged in that business, 
 when it comes in conflict with the Bible's own 
 claims to pneumatic inspiration, then it will 
 be time to sound the alarm, then it will be 
 time for action. But, on the other hand, a 
 dogma of inspiration, and of the authority of 
 Scripture, which, in its mistaken zeal, refuses 
 to recognise accomplished results, antagonises 
 the most enlightened, devout, and believing 
 Bibhcal scholarship of the day, puts the ban 
 on all inquiry which will not bow to its rigid 
 literalism and mechanicalism, such a dogma 
 is in our day, whatever it may have been in the 
 past, an obstruction to faith, a menace to the 
 unity and peace of the Church, an arrest of 
 the healthy growth of Christian science, and 
 a serious bHght on the free, robust, sym- 
 metrical development of the Christian life. 
 You protest against the unsettHng of faith. 
 You do well. But they also do well who 
 protest against keeping up needless barriers to 
 faith. You condemn criticism which destroys 
 behef in the Scriptures as the Word of God. 
 But beware of including in your condemnation 
 the criticism which helps to make such belief 
 in the Scriptures possible. You may be sure 
 that as long as you tie up faith in the Bible 
 with faith in a secular inspiration, as long as 
 you hang the infalhble authority of Scripture 
 as the rule of faith on the infallible accuracy 
 of every particular word and clause in the 
 
192 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Book, as long as you exalt the Bible to the 
 same pinnacle of authority in matters re- 
 specting which God has given us clearer, 
 fuller, more exact revelations elsewhere, as 
 in matters respecting which the Bible is the 
 only revelation, the irrepressible conflict 
 between faith and science will go on, and 
 the Drapers and Whites of each generation 
 will have their new chapters to add to the 
 record. Every new discovery in science or in 
 archaeology that seems to contradict some par- 
 ticular statement will produce a panic. Every 
 advance in criticism will tend to unsettle the 
 faith of somebody whom your teaching has led 
 to confound the form with the substance. 
 Having learned from you that the shell is 
 part of the kernel, and finding that he cannot 
 keep the shell, he will end by throwing away 
 both shell and kernel. 
 
 For one I mean to do my part in putting an 
 end to this mistaken defence of Divine Bevela- 
 tion. Shipwrecks of faith without number 
 have been caused by it. It is the very thing, 
 according to his own confession, that made an 
 unbeliever of the most brilliant scholar of 
 Erance, perhaps of the world to-day, Ernest 
 Benan. It is the very thing that drove into 
 infidelity the strongest champion of the popular 
 infidelity of England, who died the other day 
 in his unbelief, Charles Bradlaugh. So testifies 
 iiis own brother, a believer. But for this the 
 
AND INSPIRATION, 193 
 
 iridescent declamation of Kobert IngersoU in 
 our own country, with his " Mistakes of 
 Moses," would collapse like a pricked balloon. 
 The Christianity of our day cannot afford to 
 fight the battle of the Book along that line. 
 The Presbyterianism of our country cannot 
 afford to put itself in antagonism to the most 
 enlightened as well as devout Christian scholar- 
 ship of the day. It cannot afford to put the 
 yoke of bondage to an exploded relic of post- 
 Beformation scholasticism on the consciences 
 of our young men, alive as they are to the 
 gains of reverent and careful study of the 
 Book, and sensitive as they cannot fail to be 
 to the humiliation of such bondage. It can 
 not afford to silence the larger, profounder, 
 more Scriptural restatements of revealed truth 
 made imperative by improved methods of 
 Biblical research. Nor can it afford to 
 precipitate any issue on our churches, the 
 surest result of which will be to foment sus- 
 picion, to drive out the spirit of charity and 
 of justice, to gender misunderstanding and 
 alienation between our chairs of instruction 
 and our pulpits and pews, and to widen the 
 .gap between honest inquiry and earnest faith. 
 
 13 
 
BIBLICAL SCHOLAESHIP 
 AND INSPIRATION. 
 
 II. 
 
 By HENKY PEESEEVED SMITH, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Hebrew in Lane Theological Seminary, 
 Cincinnati. 
 
BIBLICAL SCHOLABSHIP AND 
 INSPIBATION. 
 
 The natural theory concerning an inspired 
 book is illustrated by the Mohammedans. The 
 Prophet of Mecca, in his observation of Jews 
 and Christians (in whom he recognised wor- 
 shippers of the true God), discovered their 
 Scriptures to be the source of their religion. 
 He classified them therefore as " book-people," 
 and endeavoured to construct a similar sacred 
 code for his own followers. The result is the 
 Koran, whose contrast with the Bible is in 
 many respects remarkable. Throughout this 
 book God appears as the speaker. Its contents 
 are made known to the prophet by direct reve- 
 lation, and it is never tired of emphasizing its 
 own infallibility. Yet the discrepancies are so 
 marked that they did not escape the notice of 
 the author himself, and he propounded the 
 theory, afterwards elaborated by the commen- 
 tators, that a later revelation must abrogate an 
 earlier one. He confessed forgetfulness also,* 
 
 * " Whatever verses We cancel or cause thee to forget. 
 We give thee better in their stead, or the like thereof/' 
 — Koran II. 100, quoted by Sir William Muir, The Cordn, 
 p. 41. 
 
198 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 and in one instance avowed that Satan 
 had insinuated a false revelation into his 
 mind.* 
 
 ^ IThe transmission of this book is well known. 
 No particular care was taken of the revelations 
 during the author's life, or for some time after 
 his death. As the number of his " companions" 
 was diminished by death, the danger of losing 
 the revelations became evident, and with the 
 lapse of time discrepancies in the various 
 readings became marked. War threatened to 
 break out between parties who swore allegiance 
 to different readings.! One of Mohammed's 
 amanuenses was therefore commissioned to 
 collect the fragments *' from date-leaves and 
 tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of 
 men," to which other traditions add from 
 fragments of parchment or paper, pieces of 
 leather, and the shoulder or rib-bones of 
 camels or goats. As this standard text was 
 corrupted by careless copyists, probably under 
 the influence of still living tradition, the Caliph 
 Othman had an authorised edition made by a 
 committee of scholars. " Transcripts [of this] 
 were multiplied and forwarded to the chief 
 cities in the empire, and the previously- 
 existing copies were all, by the Caliph's com- 
 
 * The " two Satanic verses/' cf . Muir, Life of Mahoniet 
 (1877), p. 86 sqq. 
 
 f Or different wordings, for the transmission was still 
 largely oral. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 199 
 
 mand, committed to the flames." * The text 
 was still Tinvocalised, the points not being 
 added until about fifty years later. 
 
 Now the point I wish to make is this : We 
 have full knowledge of these details concerning 
 the Koran ; we know its discrepancies, its care- 
 less editing, the violent means taken -to secure 
 uniformity in its text, the late origin of its 
 vowel points ; the Arab scholars know these 
 also, for it is from them that we get the in- 
 formation. Yet the Arab theory maintains the 
 following points : 
 
 1. The Koran is eternal in its original essence 
 and a necessary attribute of God. 
 
 2. It was written down in heaven on a 
 ''treasured tablet," from which it was com- 
 municated piecemeal to Mohammed by the 
 angel Gabriel. 
 
 3. It is written in an Arabic style, which is 
 perfect and unapproachable. " The best of 
 Arab writers has never succeeded in producing 
 its equal in merit." 
 
 4. Every syllable is of directly Divine origin. 
 This includes the unintelligible combinations 
 of letters put at the head of certain Suras. 
 
 5. Its text is incorruptible, " and preserved 
 from error and variety of reading by the 
 miraculous interposition of God Himself.'* 
 To account, however, for the slight variants 
 
 * Miiir, Life of Mahomet, p. 557. 
 
200 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 which actually exist, the Koran is said to 
 have been revealed in seven dialects. 
 
 6. As being the truth of God, it is the 
 absolute authority, not only in religion and 
 ethics, but also in law, science, and history.* 
 
 The point I make is : This is the kind of 
 Bible we 'should hke to have God give us, and 
 when we construct for ourselves a theory of 
 revelation we do it along these Hnes. Allow 
 me to illustrate by a brief review of theories 
 which have been held concerning the Old 
 Testament. We naturally begin here with the 
 Jew. 
 
 First, however, let us remark that the clear 
 distinction which our theologians make be- 
 tween Kevelation and Inspiration is a com- 
 paratively modern distinction. Inspiration 
 naturally goes with Kevelation. It is the 
 Divine method of Kevelation. A superinten- 
 dence of the record as distinct from the giving 
 of the truth did not occur to the ancients > 
 because they did not reflect upon the record, 
 except as containing the truth. Kevelation 
 and Inspiration, then, are not distinguished. 
 The earliest Jewish testimonies concern them- 
 selves with the haw as contained in the book. 
 This Law seems to be identified with the 
 
 * The authorities for these statements are, besides those 
 already quoted, Noldeke, GescMchte des Qorans; Hughes, 
 Dictionary of Islam; Palmer, '" The Qur'an '' (Sacred BooJc& 
 of tJie East, YohYI.). 
 
AND INSPIRATION. ioy 
 
 heavenly Wisdom.* It is, therefore, as tha 
 Moharamedan would say, one of the attributes 
 of God. When God would build the world, 
 He looked upon the Tora as a builder looks 
 upon the plan of a building.! This plan was- 
 delivered into the hands of Moses at Sinai 
 by the angels in the form of a written book. 
 This preference of the Law to the other Scrip- 
 tures is very natural to the Jew, and its con- 
 sequence is the distinction of two grades of 
 inspiration. *' Holy Scripture came into being 
 by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and is 
 therefore derived from God, who speaks 
 therein. Nevertheless, there are within the 
 Scripture different grades of Inspiration ; in 
 that the Law is the primary revelation, the 
 other Scriptures are secondary." 
 
 In inquiring into the history of this doctrine 
 of Inspiration, we are struck, however, by the 
 variety of opinion that has prevailed. Although 
 the Jews give a higher place to the Law, yet 
 at a later time they dignified the other books 
 by making them also a part of the revelation to 
 Moses. Eabbi Isaac said, " All that the 
 prophets were to prophesy later they received 
 from Mount Sinai, for so Moses declares, 
 
 * Sirach XXIV., 22. The reference to Bariich IV., 1, 
 given by Weber, does not seem to assert the existence of 
 the Law /rom eternity, though it asserts that it will endure 
 for ever. 
 
 t Bereshith Eabba, I. 
 
202 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Deut. xxix. 15."* On the other hand, that 
 Ezra may not be deprived of the glory belong- 
 ing to him, later opinion made him the author 
 of the whole Hebrew Bible, it having been 
 lost during the captivity. So the Fourth Book 
 of Esdras declares (xiv. 19-22) that the Law 
 has been burned, and Ezra prays that it may 
 be restored by him. God grants his desire, 
 ordering him to provide five amanuenses. 
 When he goes into the open country with the 
 amanuenses, God gives him a cup to drink. 
 When he has drunk he dictates to the scribes 
 the twenty-four books of the Old Testament, 
 and seventy others which he is ordered to 
 keep secret. The fact that such various views 
 could be held shows how impossible it is to 
 speak of any established or settled view of 
 Eevelation or of Inspiration at this early time. 
 If we come down to the later period, how- 
 ever, we shall discover a theory of Inspiration 
 which is definite enough, though it still refuses 
 to distinguish Inspiration from Eevelation. It 
 starts with the Law as given at Mount Sinai. 
 It identifies this with the received text of the 
 punctuators. It affirms that even the form 
 of the letters (liter m finales, beth at the begin- 
 ning of Genesis) was ordained by God. '* As 
 Moses ascended the mountain he found God 
 making the ornamental points [Ketharim] of 
 
 * Shemoth Eabba, XXVIII. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 203 
 
 -the letters [in the Law]." The extraordinary 
 points, the Qeri and Kethibh, the division 
 into paragraphs by spaces — these were all in 
 the Divine model just as in a Hebrew Bible 
 of the present day. Some scholars, however, 
 were more radical and affirmed that the vowel 
 points (and, of course, with them the sacred 
 text) were given to Adam in Paradise. Others 
 believed the points to have been added by 
 Ezra and the so-called Great Synagogue. 
 Mediating theologians tried to combine the 
 different views. Azariah de Eossi supposed 
 the points first communicated to Adam in 
 Paradise and transmitted by him to Moses, to 
 have been '' partially forgotten, and their pro- 
 nunciation vitiated during the Babylonian 
 captivity ; that they had been restored by 
 Ezra, but that they had been forgotten again 
 in the wars aud struggles during and after 
 the destruction of the sacred Temple ; and 
 that the Massorites, after the close of the 
 Talmud, revised the system and permanently 
 fixed the pronunciation by the contrivance of 
 the present signs."* 
 
 To judge of the success of this author by gene- 
 ral experience, we may conjecture that his well- 
 meant attempt brought upon him the hatred 
 of both parties. The general opinion of later 
 Jewish authorities is to the effect that Ezra 
 
 * Ginsburg, The, Massoreth Ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita, 
 p. 53. 
 
204 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 called a convention of elders and scribes on his 
 return from the captivity — the prototype of the 
 later Sanhedrim. This Great Synagogue first 
 considered the subject of the Canon — gathering 
 the sacred text into one volume and rejecting 
 uninspired writings. They then deliberated 
 on the text, marking off the verses, settling on 
 the correct reading, the use of the vowel letters 
 and the Qeri and Kethibh. They further added 
 the points, both the vowel points and accents. 
 As if this were not enough, they made also 
 the Aramaic translations called the Targums^ 
 and added the Massora proper ; that is to sav. 
 they counted the number of letter b, wurds and 
 verses in each book, noted these figures in the 
 margin, marked the middle word and verse in 
 each book, and called special attention tO' 
 unusual forms, that the scribes might make no 
 mistake. This work, we may suppose, they 
 stamped as authentic, and took measures to 
 have it correctly transmitted.* 
 
 The influence of this theory upon Christian 
 thinkers will be noticed later. The theory 
 itself is certainly rigid enough, and its method 
 would clearly secure an authentic Scripture. 
 The only trouble with it is that it is entirely 
 unsupported by facts. The Great Synagogue 
 never had any existence. It has arisen from 
 a misunderstanding of Ezra's activity in the 
 
 * Buxtorf, Txberias, cc. X., XI. Sclinedermann, Die Con- 
 traverse des L. Cavellus mit den Buxtorfen u. s. w., p. 27. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 205 
 
 great popular assembly, the account of which 
 is contained in Nehemiah viii. Ezra's work 
 at that time was, no doubt, of unspeakable 
 moment. But in the account we have, it is a 
 thoroughly practical one, instructing people in 
 the Law and pledging them to its observance. 
 Of settling the Canon we do not hear a word, 
 and, indeed, we are tolerably certain that the 
 whole Canon was not settled until a much 
 later date. If Ezra (the Great Synagogue 
 never existed, as I have said) did not even 
 settle the Canon, much less can we suppose 
 that he attended to the scrupulosities of the 
 Massora. Concerning the vowel points, we 
 know that they were not invented until some- 
 where near the eighth century of our era, and 
 that the Massora is a growth of many cen- 
 turies. Finally, the surprising uniformity of 
 the Hebrew text has been secured by the loss 
 or destruction of all copies that differed from 
 one authorised model. But this model was 
 settled upon certainly after the first Christian 
 century. 
 
 We are discussing the subject of Inspiration, 
 and it might seem at first sight as if all this 
 Jewish theory was irrelevant. Let us notice, 
 therefore, where we are. I suppose I am right in 
 saying that we mean by Inspiration the Divine 
 influence exerted upon the minds of the vn:iters 
 of the Bible, which led them to choose and 
 shape their material so as to make the result 
 
2o6 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 the authoritative rule of faith and practice 
 The Jewish theory concerning the Great 
 Synagogue was shaped by the same interest 
 which leads us to formulate a doctrine of 
 inspiration. And when Elias Levita showed 
 the late origin of the vowel points, he was 
 violently accused of what would be called 
 among us " low views of inspiration." 
 
 But I wish to go further, and as some 
 object to the assertion that such a thing as 
 bibliolatry is possible, to call your attention to 
 some other theories which have been held by 
 the Jews, and have also had large influence in 
 the Christian Church. The Jews were in 
 dead earnest when they argued that the Bible 
 is the Word of God, and therefore every item 
 in it is true. They went further, and con^ 
 eluded that every item in it is important truth 
 and w^orthy of God. In applying the theory 
 to the facts they would not be misled by 
 appearances. It does indeed seem that some 
 of the statements are trivial, and taken in 
 their literal sense they make difficulties. The 
 obvious conclusion is that they contain a 
 deeper sense. The search for this deeper 
 sense leads to the whole system of allegorical 
 interpretation of Scripture. Besides this, some 
 things in Scripture are ambiguous or obscure. 
 If we are to reach the truth we must have a 
 guide. The hypothesis of an inerrant Word 
 leads to the demand for an inerrant interpreta- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 7.07 
 
 tion. The rabbinical authorities postulate both 
 a deeper sense and an authoritative interpreta- 
 tion. The latter is provided in the so-called 
 Oral Law, v^^hich, though embodied in com- 
 paratively late written documents, w"as held ta 
 be in fact as old as Moses, having been trans- 
 mitted orally from him to the time of its 
 written redaction, a period of about seventeen 
 centuries. This view of the Mishna* (or even 
 of the whole Talmud) has been maintained 
 until comparatively recent times. ** We can- 
 not suppose that God would give an imperfect 
 Law. An authorised interpretation is there- 
 fore needed, which we have in the Talmud 
 (Oral Law). It is natural, therefore, that we 
 [Jews] hold to this that we may not grope in 
 darkness."-)- This view is even now the view of 
 orthodox Judaism, and it is in substance as 
 old as the New Testament. For we see that 
 at that time the " traditions of the elders " 
 had usurped the place of the Divine Law. 
 It could hardly be otherwise. The Oral Law, 
 as the alleged interpretation of the written 
 command, must be immediately obeyed — it 
 was itself the medium through which the 
 written Law was obeyed. The simple Word 
 was insufficient, while the traditional decision 
 exactly met the particular need. The latter 
 
 * Gfrorer, I., 250 j Weber, 87 ; Jost, Geschichte des Juden- 
 tums, I., 93. 
 
 f Vide A. T. Hartmann, Die enge Verhindung des A.T.. 
 mit dem N.Y., p. 514. 
 
2o8 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 was therefore the more important. This is 
 declared by a recent Jewish authority to be 
 "a universally recognised principle: the de- 
 cisions of the Scribes are more tveighty than 
 those of the Law,'* The logical result, there- 
 fore, of this theory of inerrancy was to sub- 
 stitute for the Scripture the alleged authorised 
 interpretation. 
 
 The decisions of the wise, however, were 
 ■concerned vdth practical matters, points of 
 casuistry, such as always arise under a code of 
 morals. On the other side, much even of the 
 Tora is not embraced under the head of com- 
 mand or prohibition. To make use of this, 
 the system of allegory was developed. " The 
 fondness of the Jews for allegorical exposition 
 found its support in the belief that the excel- 
 lence of the Tora lay in the inexhaustible 
 spring of varied interpretations indicated in 
 the assertion that the revelation was first 
 given in seventy languages. This variety was 
 deduced from Jeremiah xxiii. 29 : * My words 
 :are as a fire and as a hammer that breaks the 
 rock in pieces.* Who can count the fragments 
 into which the stone is shattered by a strong 
 arm, and who can count the sparks sent forth 
 loj the fire ? '"'^ Besides the theory that each 
 passage has seventy meanings, we hear that 
 
 * Hartmann, 534, quoting from Eashi on Gen. xxxiii. 20, 
 and Ex. vi. 11. The same in substance from the Talmud, 
 Weber 84. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 209 
 
 Moses himself expounded each section in 
 forty-nine different ways. This dehrium 
 reaches its height in the later assertion 
 which makes each verse of the Law to con- 
 tain no less than six hundred thousand 
 meanings, if we may trust the authority 
 of Eisenmenger. * But not to insist upon 
 this, the methods of obtaining some of the 
 admitted seventy meanings are calculated to 
 show the small value of such a theory. One 
 of these methods is the so-called Gematria, 
 based on the numerical value of the letters. 
 This value was calculated for any word, and 
 the resulting number was put into the place 
 of the word, or if this gave no sense any other 
 word whose component letters gave the same 
 sum might be substituted in its place. The 
 numerical value of a single letter might be 
 significant. The large 37 ( = 70) in Deut. 
 vi. 4, is one of the arguments for the theory 
 of seventy senses just considered, , The letters 
 might be interchanged by Athbash or Albam.f 
 A word might be taken as the basis of an 
 acrostic, each of its letters taken as the initial 
 of a new word, or it might be made into 
 another by an anagram. In this way, from 
 the first word of Genesis it was discovered 
 
 * Eisenmenger^ Entdecktes Judenthum, I., 458, 
 
 t A for Z, B for Y, and so on, would represent the 
 
 Athbasli in English. A for N, B for O, and so on, the 
 
 Albam. 
 
 14 
 
2IO BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 that the world was created on a New 
 Year's Day,* and a word in Gen. ii. 4 shows 
 that the earth was created for the sake of 
 Abraham. 
 
 It is clear that this is simply exegetical 
 legerdemain, and it need not detain us 
 longer. Its main value is that it shows where 
 a high theory of the value of Revelation may 
 land us. It is in line with the declaration 
 of the Eahbis that God HimseH studies the 
 Law three hours every day.f It brings with 
 it almost inevitably the magical application of 
 Scripture exemplified in the use of its verses as 
 charms or amulets, in regard to which we may 
 be pardoned for asserting that they have no 
 more real efficiency than a leaf from the mass- 
 book. But these extravagances aside, the 
 more sober form of the theory carried out in 
 the allegorical interpretation of Scripture has 
 been so important in the history of the Church 
 that we may profitably look at it a little more 
 closely. The most prominent exponent of it 
 among the Jews was Philo of Alexandria, and 
 his influence in the early Church can scarcely 
 be estimated. As a devout Jew, Philo accepted 
 the Old Testament as the Word of God, whose 
 inspiration extended to the most minute par- 
 ticulars, placing the highest value upon the 
 Law as he put Moses above the other pro- 
 
 * Eeuss, 721 ; Buxtorf, Tiberias (1620), p. 163. 
 t Weber, p. 17. 
 
AND INSPIRATION, 211 
 
 phets. He does not confine his theory to 
 the Hebrew text, but extends it to the Greek 
 translators. "He accepts the story which 
 ascribes to the translators of the Pentateuch 
 a miraculous concurrence in the choice of 
 words. He speaks of the translators them- 
 selves as * hierophants and prophets,' and 
 maintains that the Hebrew and Greek Scrip- 
 tures are such that they must be admired 
 and reverenced * as sisters, or rather, as one 
 and the same both in the facts and in the 
 words.' He fully acts upon this belief, and 
 . . . accords to the Greek text as profound 
 a veneration and faith as if it had been written 
 by the finger of God Himself."* On this basis 
 Philo proceeds to discover the hidden truth by 
 means of the allegorical method. All true 
 wisdom is contained in this reservoir. Con- 
 sequently, the Greek philosophy must have 
 been derived from it. And the results obtained 
 by his method are really those of Greek philo- 
 sophy. His general system we may pass by 
 for the present. What interests us is his 
 theory of interpretation. This is that each 
 verse of Scripture has, besides its natural 
 grammatical or literal meaning, a secondary 
 or higher sense.f This latter is the more 
 
 * Drummond^ Philo, I., 15. 
 
 t This theory was not, of course, original with Philo, 
 but already in use. — Schiirer, Geschichte des Jildischen Volkes, 
 II., 871 ; Hartmann, 536. 
 
212 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 important — tlie reality of whicti the literal 
 sense is only the shadow. To show what 
 he means, let me quote the following : " The 
 paradise in Eden is the type of virtue. The 
 stream which waters it is Goodness, which 
 divides into the four streams of the four 
 cardinal virtues."* Again, "the five cities 
 of the Plain destroyed by the Divine punish- 
 ment for the abominations of their inhabitants, 
 are the five senses, the instruments of sinful 
 pleasure." The four ingredients of the incense 
 (Exod. XXX. 33) represent the four natural 
 elements. The incense itself ascending to God 
 represents the adoration of the universe made 
 up of these elements. In the great allegorical 
 commentary to Genesis, " the leading thought 
 is that the history of mankind as related in 
 Genesis is, in fact, an imposing psychology 
 and ethic. The different men described (good 
 and bad) are the different conditions of the 
 soul."-]- Astonishing as this appears to us, 
 there can be no doubt that it was employed 
 in all seriousness by a devout and profound 
 thinker, who supposed he was engaged in 
 developing the meaning of the Word as in- 
 tended by God Himself. And it concerns us 
 here to notice that this method of exegesis was 
 compelled by the rigidity of the theory in con- 
 nection with the nature of the facts of the 
 
 * Hartmann, 579. f Sdiiirer, II., 839. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 213 
 
 record. The difficulty of interpreting the 
 language of Scripture literally was such that 
 the exegete took refuge in the higher sense. 
 The theory of the later Eabbis, that the sacred 
 text " could contain nothing derogatory to 
 the Deity, and that it could contain nothing 
 contrary to sound reason," was Philo's also. 
 ''Adam and Eve could not have hidden them- 
 selves from God, for God has interpenetrated 
 the universe and left nothing empty of Him- 
 self ; and, therefore, the account refers only to 
 the false conception of the wicked man. . . . 
 To suppose that God really planted fruit trees 
 in Paradise when no one was allowed to live 
 there, and when it would be impious to fancy 
 that He required them for Himself, is ' a great 
 and incurable silliness.' The reference, there- 
 fore, must be to the paradise of virtues with 
 their appropriate actions implanted by God in 
 the soul.'* * One is tempted to quote more at 
 length, but these examples are sufficient to 
 show how the allegorical sense must, under 
 the claim of doing the highest honour to the 
 Word of God, really nullify its natural and 
 legitimate meaning. 
 
 From Philo the transition is natural to the 
 Christian Church, in which, indeed, Philo was 
 honoured almost as one of the Fathers. Before, 
 however, we inquire into methods of inter- 
 
 * Drummond, I., 19. 
 
214 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 pretation, let us notice the significant fact, 
 that no one of the oecumenical councils of the 
 undivided Church makes faith in the Scrip- 
 tures a test of orthodoxy. Belief in the " Holy 
 Ghost who spake by the prophets " is professed 
 in one early creed ; but the indefiniteness of 
 the expression shows how little need was felt 
 of a definition as to the nature of the written 
 Word. It was after the middle of the fourth 
 century before the Church felt the need of 
 officially defining even the extent of the Canon, 
 and this was done in provincial synods only, 
 and the Apocrypha were included in the Old 
 Testament. In fact, as has been said, "it 
 did not at all seem at first as though Christ 
 would found His Church upon a Scripture, or 
 even as though the elaboration of a sacred 
 record were an essential feature of its founda- 
 tion."* The Church was, in fact, founded 
 upon the spoken words of the Apostles, and 
 after the Apostles had been removed from 
 their earthly activity the tradition of their 
 words was distinct enough to serve as a guide. 
 But, of course, the Old Testament had its 
 place as a means of instruction, and with it 
 the method of instruction illustrated in Philo. 
 The Epistle of Barnabas discovered in the 
 three hundred and eighteen servants of Abra- 
 
 '■* Thiersch quoted by Dietzsch. Studien und Kritiken 
 (1869), p. 472. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 215 
 
 ham a prediction of the crucified Jesus.* The 
 method reminds us of the Gematria of the 
 Jews. Clemens of Alexandria sees in the 
 four colours of the Tabernacle the four natural 
 elements. Abraham's three days' journey to 
 the place of Moriah represents the three 
 stages of development of the human soul. 
 This author, indeed, says in so many words 
 that the whole Scripture has only allegorical 
 sense, f 
 
 Origen, the most learned man of the time, 
 perhaps the most learned man of antiquity, 
 adopts this theory to the full. He distin- 
 guishes a twofold or threefold sense, and values 
 the allegorical exposition because the simple 
 grammatical meaning of many passages is in- 
 credible or unworthy of God. The Latin 
 Fathers accepted the same theory. Ambrose 
 speaks of a threefold sense — historical (literal), 
 mystical, and moral. If the hteral sense gives 
 us a contradiction, the solution is found in the 
 other senses. Augustine's generally sober judg- 
 ment follows the same path, though his alle- 
 gories are rather types. Esau and Jacob are 
 types of Jew and Christian. Abel represents 
 the slain Christ, Seth the risen Christ, Joseph 
 the ascended Christ. Ham is "the sly gene- 
 ration of the heretics." Isaac, blind in his 
 
 * Diestel, GeschicMe des Alien Testamentes in der Christ- 
 liehenKirche, p. 31. 
 t Hartmann, p. 558. 
 
2i6 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 old age, prefigures the blindness of the Jews. 
 The rock twice smitten with the rod points 
 to the cross of Christ, because two pieces of 
 wood [rods] joined together make a cross. 
 Even Jerome, whose work as translator made 
 him especially sensitive to the literal meaning, 
 follows the allegorical method in his exposition. 
 At the same time, he confesses that many diffi- 
 culties are to him insoluble. It is of no use to 
 puzzle ourselves too much with the literal 
 sense, for the letter killeth. In the chrono- 
 logy, especially, he finds such discrepancies 
 and confusion that he leaves the subject to the 
 dilettanti.* 
 
 These examples will suffice to show that 
 the Church before the Eeformation had no 
 apprehension of the problem before us. In 
 a general way, Inspiration was held as con- 
 nected with Eevelation. But it was attributed 
 to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament as 
 well as to the canonical books. It was, 
 indeed, attributed to many pseudepigrapha 
 and even to heathen poets and philoso- 
 phers. But Apostolic tradition at first, and 
 afterwards the voice of the Church, was re- 
 garded as equally inspired, and this tradition 
 furnished the authority in faith and morals 
 upon which all men leaned. And when the 
 difficulties of the Scripture record forced 
 
 • Diestel, pp. 89 and 98. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 217 
 
 themselves upon the careful student, they 
 were explained by a supposed mystical or 
 spiritual sense. In the Middle Age, the line 
 was not sharply drawn between Scripture and 
 the Fathers. Hugo of St. Victor, who is 
 more reserved than many others, ranks as 
 authorities (1) the Gospels, (2) the other books 
 of Scripture, (3) the decretals and canons of 
 the Church, (4) the writings of the Fathers. 
 The latter contain the same truth with the 
 others, only more clear and more expanded.* 
 The Eoman Catholic Church stands on this 
 ground to-day. The Council of Trent for- 
 mally asserts that it receives and venerates 
 with equal piety and reverence all the books 
 of the Old and New Testaments, as also the 
 traditions dictated by Christ's own word of 
 mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved 
 in the Catholic Church by a continuous suc- 
 cession. Eecent publications show that this 
 church also holds in substance to the alle- 
 gorical method of exposition. I will simply 
 call attention here to some examples which 
 have fallen under my eye : Eve is a type of 
 the Virgin Mary. Sarah is a type of wisdom 
 and virtue, and Hagar a type of philosophy, 
 the handmaid of theology. Keturah's de- 
 scendants represent the heretical sects of 
 New Testament times. Abraham seeking a 
 
 * Diestel, p. 178. 
 
2i8 ■ BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 bride for his son is a type of God the 
 Father, who also seeks a bride (the Church) 
 for His Son. EHezer, who is sent on this 
 errand, is the representative of the twelve 
 Apostles. The well at which Eebecca is 
 found corresponds to the water of baptism, 
 and the presents brought by Eliezer are the 
 Divine Word and the good works of the saints. 
 Jacob's words, " I am Esau, thy firstborn," 
 cannot be called a lie — they are a mysterium — 
 in a tropical sense they are true. Jacob, in 
 using them, is a type of the Gentiles, who 
 claim and receive the adoption and blessing 
 belonging to the Jewish people. Jacob had 
 two wives. So Christ calls the Jew and the 
 Gentile. Leah, the tender-eyed, is the blinded 
 Israel. Pharaoh, who commanded the mid- 
 wives to kill the Hebrew babes, is a type of 
 Satan, who tries to destroy the virtues by 
 means of human science and wisdom, which 
 often lead to heresies. Deborah (the Syna- 
 gogue) incites Barak (Israel) to battle against 
 Sisera (Satan) and routs his forces. Jael (the 
 Church) meets him, stupefies him with milk 
 (prayer), and slays him with the nail (of the 
 Cross). Samson even is made a type of 
 Christ. Now, these examples are taken from 
 a book published with the approval of Eoman 
 Catholic authorities * within the last ten years, 
 
 * Zschokke, Bihlische Frauen des Alien Testamentes, 
 Freiburg, 1882. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. , 219 
 
 and written by a professor of theology in a 
 distinguished university. They show with 
 perfect clearness how the lofty profession of 
 finding all truth in the Bible really unfits 
 one to discover the real truth of the Bible. 
 It is this virtual nulKfying of Scripture by 
 tradition against which the Protestant Church 
 protests. To this church we now turn our 
 attention. 
 
 The principle of the Eeformation, I need 
 not remind you, is a double one. Its two 
 parts are justification by faith and the 
 authority of Scripture alone in matters of 
 faith and fife. Of these two the former is 
 the vital principle, the second is regulative. 
 In Luther's own experience they developed in 
 this order. He first experienced justification 
 by faith. In order to maintain his Christian 
 life, he had to defend it against the champions 
 of the Church. At first he supposed he had 
 also the authority of the Church on his side. 
 But investigation showed him that this autho- 
 rity was at least divided. In this way he was 
 driven back upon Scripture alone. Luther's 
 theory was in substance this : Christ is pre- 
 sented to the sinner in the Gospel either as 
 heard in the Church or as read in the Bible. 
 He is immediately recognised as the needed 
 Saviour and as the Son of God. He is appro- 
 priated by faith, and the behever is justified 
 and adopted into the family of God. Up to 
 
220 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 this point it is clear that nothing more is 
 claimed for the written Word than that it 
 gives a historically credible account of the life 
 of Christ. The peculiar normative quality of 
 the Word comes out in the subsequent life of 
 the believer and the Church. Questions of 
 doctrine and of duty arise. There will be 
 perplexities in the individual heart as well as 
 differences between different members of the 
 Church. To settle these the appeal is to the 
 written Word. It is clear that Luther would 
 claim no further infallibility for the Bible than 
 this, and, indeed, he expressly declares as much 
 in his judgment of the canon. He proposes 
 this rule : What proclaims Christ is Scrip- 
 ture. ** What does not proclaim Christ is 
 not apostolic, though written by St. Peter or 
 by St. Paul. What proclaims Christ is apostolic, 
 though it were written by Judas, Annas, Pilate, 
 or Herod." On this internal evidence he would 
 include the first book of Maccabees in the 
 canon, as he would exclude the epistle of 
 James. He cannot bear the book of Esther 
 because it Judaises so. In regard to the 
 epistle to the Hebrews, he takes the middle 
 ground: ''Although the author does not lay 
 the foundation of faith, which is the Apostle's 
 work, yet he builds thereon gold, silver, and 
 precious stones, as St. Paul says. If now some 
 wood, hay, or stubble is intermixed, this shall 
 not hinder our receiving the precious doctrine 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 221 
 
 with all honour — nevertheless, we may not 
 make this equal to the apostoHc epistles."* It 
 is quite in accordance with this, that the first 
 doctrinal treatise of the Keformation — Melanch- 
 thon's Loci — had no section on the doctrine of 
 Scripture at all, while even in the later editions 
 he only treats briefly the difference between the 
 Old Testament and the New. t The early 
 Swiss reformers stand on the same ground. 
 " The Word of God in Christ is the highest 
 authority. Zwingli finds church councils 
 enough in the words of Christ." Bullinger 
 says, in one instance, that the writers of the 
 Bible are sometimes led astray by defective 
 memory. J Calvin, as we might expect, is 
 more full on the doctrine of Scripture, yet he 
 does not give a clear statement as to the con- 
 nection of inerrancy and inspiration, and, in 
 fact, recognises the difficulties in the case. He 
 does not hesitate to affirm that the Scriptures 
 are written in "a humble and contemptible 
 style." Three evangelists (he adds later) 
 " recite their history in a low and mean style. 
 Many proud men are disgusted with that sim- 
 plicity, because they attend not to the principal 
 points of doctrine." § In his commentaries 
 
 * Luther^ Yorreden zur Heiligen Schrift. 
 t Klaiber in the Jahrh. f. Deutsche Theol. TL, p. 3. 
 X Quoted by Tholuck, Zeitschr. fur Christl, Wissenschaft, 
 I., 139. 
 
 § Institutes, I., VIII., X., and XI. 
 
222 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 he concedes minor errors and discrepancies of 
 the writers (compare Tholuck, p. 131). What 
 Calvin emphasizes, in full accord with Luther, 
 is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. '' The 
 testimony of the Spirit is superior to all reason 
 [^.e., to the Evidences usually adduced for 
 Scripture]. For as God alone is a sufficient 
 witness of Himself in His own Word, so also 
 the Word will never gain credit in the hearts 
 of men till it be confirmed by the internal 
 testimony of the Spirit. It is necessary, there- 
 fore, that the same Spirit who spake by the 
 mouths of the prophets should penetrate into 
 our hearts to convince us that they faithfully 
 delivered the oracles which were divinely en- 
 trusted to them. . . . Some good men are 
 troubled that they are not always prepared with 
 clear proof to oppose the impious when they 
 murmur with impunity against the Divine 
 Word, as though the Spirit were not, therefore, 
 denominated a seal and an earnest for the 
 confirmation of the faith of the pious ; because, 
 till He illuminate their minds, they are per- 
 petually fluctuating amidst a multitude of 
 doubts. Let it be considered, then, as an 
 undeniable truth, that they who have been 
 inwardly taught by the Spirit, feel an entire 
 acquiescence in the Scripture, and that it is 
 seK-authenticated, carrying with it its own evi- 
 dence, and it ought not to be made the subject 
 of demonstration and arguments from reason ; 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 225 
 
 but it obtains the credit which it deserves with 
 us by the testiraony of the Spirit."* There 
 can be no doubt that these words of Calvin 
 correctly state the position of the reformers. 
 They are the source of the statements of the 
 Protestant creeds on this subject, nearly all 
 of which emphasize the testimony of the Holy 
 Spirit, and no one of which ventures to af&rm 
 the inerrancy of Scripture apart from matters 
 of faith and doctrine, unless it be the Swiss 
 Formula Consensus, of which I shall speak 
 later, t If. now, we ask, what it is that we 
 are assured of by this testimony, we shall agree 
 that it is the articles of sin and law and grace 
 which Melanchthon makes the subjects of his 
 Loci. Or, as the Heidelberg Catechism says : 
 Three things are necessary for me to know : 
 first, the greatness of my sin and misery ; 
 second, how I am redeemed from all my sins 
 and misery ; third, how I am to be thankful 
 to God for such redemption. These are the 
 things which the Holy Spirit sets before us in 
 Scripture, and moved by that same Holy Spirit 
 we recognise in the portraiture the Divine 
 Author and accept the Word as His. " AH in 
 this Book is tributary to sin and salvation ; 
 
 * Institutes, VII., IV. and V. 
 
 t The Irish Articles which, however, were soon super- 
 seded by the Thirty-nine Articles, af&rm the Canonical 
 Boots to be of " most certain credit " as well as of the 
 highest authority. 
 
224 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 all leads up to Calvary." This I heard from 
 one of our own pulpits, recently, and this is in 
 harmony with the voice of the Evangelical 
 Church in her creeds and confessions. 
 
 But because we recognise the Divine author- 
 ship of the doctrine set forth in the Bible, does 
 it follow that we have a guarantee for every 
 detail of its historical statement? Because 
 you recognise the voice of God addressing you 
 as a sinner, and freely inviting you to Christ, 
 can you therefore assert, for example, that the 
 list of Dukes of Edom, in Genesis (ch. xxxvi.), 
 is exactly and absolutely correct ? This is the 
 question which confronts us when we come to 
 make the Bible a historical study. It is evi- 
 dent that the great reformers would have 
 answered the question in the negative, and 
 they would have declared that whether this 
 list were correct or not made no difference as 
 to the main question. The following genera- 
 tion of theologians, however, did not so answer 
 the question. From the inspiration of the 
 Bible they deduced its historical accuracy on 
 every point. The reasons for this are not far 
 to seek. After the Council of Trent, the 
 Eoman Catholic polemic became sharper. It 
 became the endeavour of the Eoman Catholic 
 party to show the necessity of tradition and 
 the untrustworthiness of Scripture alone. This 
 led the Protestants to defend the Bible more 
 tenaciously than before. In addition, the scho- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 225 
 
 lastic philosophy, though almost contemp- 
 tuously rejected by Luther, still influenced the 
 minds of men. The thick quartos of Gerhard, 
 as has been recently said, would lose a good 
 part of their dimensions were they deprived of 
 what was borrowed from Thomas Aquinas. 
 We are here concerned simply with the effect 
 of this movement upon the doctrine of Holy 
 Scripture. This doctrine was of course more 
 sharply formulated. It was extended to the 
 style of the writers. It affirmed that each book 
 of the Canon must have been formally approved 
 and joined to the others as soon as written. It 
 went great lengths in affirming the perspicuity 
 of Scripture, or if it admitted the difficulty of 
 some passages it explained them as God's 
 method of stimulating study by curiosity, or 
 even as the Divine arrangement for impressing 
 upon the laity due respect for the learning of 
 the ministry. Finally, the errorless trans- 
 mission was made equally a matter of logical 
 deduction. That I may not be suspected of 
 exaggeration, let me give you a few details. 
 It was denied by Voetius " that any examina- 
 tion or reflection was necessary on the part of 
 the inspired writer in regard to that which was 
 written, since it was given him immediately 
 and in an extraordinary manner,"* contra- 
 dicting Luke i. 1 — 4. Even the language and 
 style of the Bible must be wholly faultless. 
 
 * Yan Oosterzee, Dogmatics, I., 171. 
 
 15 
 
226 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Diversity of style was denied or explained as a 
 matter of Divine choice simply. " The Holy 
 Spirit had a preference {singular em gitstum] 
 for the style of Poly bins ; therefore he chose 
 this among all then existing Greek styles." * 
 Quotations already made show how much more 
 correct was Calvin's view. " Whatever is 
 related by the Holy Scriptures is absolutely 
 true [verissima], whether it pertains to doc- 
 trine, morals, history, chronology, topography, 
 or nomenclature ; and there can be, there must 
 be, no ignorance, carelessness or forgetfulness 
 attributed to the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit 
 in wrriting the sacred books." t The conse- 
 quence is drawn with rigour — there can be no 
 error in the transmission, no more than in the 
 original. For where would be the certainty or 
 truth of Scripture were there any errors of 
 transmission ? So far we have been describinsf 
 the Lutheran view. The same tendency is 
 visible in the Eeformed Church. But it is 
 worth noting that this period of stringent 
 devotion to the infallibility of Scripture is 
 the period of the bitterest polemic among the 
 Protestant Churches. Calovius, the most con- 
 sistent upholder of this doctrine of Inspiration, 
 was one of the bitterest enemies of the Cal- 
 
 * Calovius, quoted by Klaiber, Zeitsch. Luther. Theol., 
 1864, 23. 
 
 t Quenstedt, quoted by Luthardt, Compendium der Dog- 
 matxk, p. 294. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 227 
 
 vinists, hated them worse than he did the 
 Roman Cathohcs, used his influence to put 
 them down by the civil power, and attacked 
 with all the virulence of a strong and uncom- 
 promising nature Calixtus, who tried to find a 
 modus Vivendi with the other churches. Nor 
 should we forget here that this was the century 
 in which the Copernican system triumphed in 
 astronomy, and that among its opponents were 
 found these theologians who opposed to it 
 indubitable proofs from Scripture. ^'== In the 
 Reformed Churches there was the same ten- 
 dency to emphasize the Divine factor in 
 Inspiration. The influence of the two Bux- 
 torfs in the Swiss Churches led to an especial 
 emphasis on the Jewish theories of the Old 
 Testament Canon. It was held that the Canon 
 was settled by the Great Synagogue, and that 
 the points were a part; of the revelation to Ezra, 
 from whom also the Massora was derived. 
 
 The ascription of the points to Adam even 
 was revived by some zealous theologians. 
 The younger Buxtorf found it difficult to 
 decide between Adam, Moses, and Ezra as 
 the original punctuator. The discussion of 
 this point led to the adoption of the Swiss 
 Formula Consensus, in 1675, which declared 
 the vowel points to be inspired. This is the 
 only Protestant creed, however, which took 
 
 * So Calovius and Voetius, cf. Ga%s, pp. 342, 461. 
 
228 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 such a stand, and it was of only local import- 
 ance, and even in Switzerland it had bat tem- 
 porary validity. It is evident, then, that these 
 high and stringent theories were never the 
 theories of the Church. In fact, there never 
 were lacking men in the Evangelical churches 
 who protested against them or refused to 
 accept them. The history of the doctrine of 
 the Hebrew vowel points is instructive in this 
 regard, and for this reason I venture to call 
 attention to it somewhat more at length. 
 
 As there may be some laymen interested in 
 this matter, let me explain that the letters 
 of the Hebrew alphabet are, in their original 
 force, aJl consonants. The vovv'els are supplied 
 by smaller signs, called points, placed in, over, 
 or beneath the letters. The three letters k, t, 1, 
 may represent, therefore, a number of different 
 forms, as katal, kittel, kotel, kuttal. In prac- 
 tice, however, the context is nearly always 
 sufficient to decide Vv-hat word is intended in 
 a particular place, and no difficulty is felt by 
 the practised scholar in reading unpointed 
 texts, and these are in use in all Hebrew 
 books except the Bible. For the sake of 
 accuracy, however, the Bible is generally 
 written (and printed) with the points. As 
 we have seen, the later Jewish theory ascribes 
 these points to Ezra, if not to Moses or Adam; 
 and this opinion was embraced by the Bux- 
 torfs and others, who felt that God could not 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 229 
 
 have committed His Word to an uncertain 
 script. The attack on this view was made 
 about the same time by two men. One of 
 them, Morinus, was a Koman Catholic, and 
 he was (at least) partially moved by a desire 
 to overthrow the security of the Protestants, 
 and to prove the necessity of the tradition of 
 the Church, in order to a correct interpreta- 
 tion of the Bihle. But he called attention 
 to facts overlooked by the Protestants, and 
 so far forth aided to a correct solution of the 
 problem— eventually, that is, for his polemic 
 tone hindered at first a correct estimate of his 
 arguments. The other champion of the late 
 origin of the points was Lodovicus Cappellus, 
 Professor in the French Protestant College at 
 Saumur. He was at first, as he avows, of the 
 opinion of Buxtorf. Against his will, he was 
 forced, by facts, to the opposite conclusion. 
 His observations were embodied in a treatise,* 
 the MS. of which was sent to Buxtorf the 
 elder for his opinion. As this distinguished 
 scholar advised against the publication, Cap- 
 pellus sent the manuscript to Erpenius, a dis- 
 tinguished Dutch orientalist, and Erpenius 
 published it at once, with a preface of his 
 own, but without the author's name. The 
 history of the younger Buxtorf 's attack and 
 
 * ArcanvAn Pundationis Bevelatum. Eepublislied in one 
 volume^ folio, with the Notce Criticce and the VindidcB Arcani, 
 1689. 
 
230 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Cappellus's rejoinder need not be given in 
 detail. But we may learn soroething from 
 the method of argument pursued. It is, on 
 Cappellus's side, partly a careful examination 
 of the reasons adduced by the advocates of 
 antiquity, partly the marshalling of facts by 
 them overlooked or not allowed due weight. 
 For example, it had been alleged that the 
 points are necessary to the correct under- 
 standing of the text. But this is by no means 
 so. Modern Hebrew, as well as Syriac and 
 Arabic, are constantly read and printed with- 
 out points, and no difficulty is felt in reading 
 and understanding them by those familiar 
 with the languages. Again, the opinion of 
 the Jews had been alleged. But this is by 
 no means unanimous, and in fact the weight 
 of authority is rather against the antiquity 
 than for it. Elias Levita, himself no mean 
 scholar, was sustained by Kimchi and other 
 distinguished authorities. And among the 
 authorities cited by Buxtorf some were cer- 
 tainly of very recent date. So far the reply to 
 allegations. Now positive arguments are the 
 following : first, the argument from silence. 
 The points are not mentioned by Jerome or by 
 the Talmud. Buxtorf might reply, indeed, 
 " They may have existed, nevertheless." And, 
 indeed, the silence of an author concerning 
 a fact may not prove the non-existence of 
 the fact. But in some circumstances the 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 231 
 
 argument from silence is very weighty in- 
 deed. Jerome bad frequent occasion to discuss 
 points of Hebrew grammar. He mentions 
 the letters and their occasional ambiguity. 
 Had the points existed, he would surely have 
 mentioned them ; and so of the Talmud, 
 which often discusses the different possible 
 meanings of Bible verses. Again, the fact 
 that the Jews use an unpointed roll of the 
 Law in the synagogue shows that the points 
 are not ancient. Ecclesiastical customs, as 
 we know, are conservative — tenacious of old 
 forms. Had the points been introduced by 
 Ezra they would have been introduced every- 
 where. The unpointed synagogue rolls are 
 survivals of ancient custom. Another argu- 
 ment is the complication of the system itself. 
 It is entirely too elaborate to be the invention 
 of a single age ; it bears all the marks of 
 having grown up through several genera- 
 tions. To all these arguments Buxtorf can 
 only reply by hypotheses, designed to admit 
 what he was compelled to admit, but at the 
 same time to show how his theory might be 
 held, nevertheless. His main argument was 
 the danger to the Christian faith of the new 
 hypothesis. 
 
 As I have said, it is now known as definitely 
 as any historic facts can be known that Cap- 
 pellus was right. The points were not in- 
 vented until after the redaction of the Talmud, 
 
232 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 and they were then gradually developed through 
 two or three centuries. The reasons which 
 establish this fact are those urged by Cap- 
 pellus himself. Notice, they are critical rea- 
 sons, mainly belonging to what we now know 
 as the lower criticism to be sure, but critical, 
 nevertheless. And, indeed, it is often difficult 
 to draw the line between the lower criticism 
 and the higher. Criticism is simply the careful 
 examination of the facts to discover what they 
 really teach. It takes no assertions without 
 examining the grounds on which they are 
 made. And having carefully examined the 
 facts, it seeks for the hypothesis which will 
 most naturally explain them all. 
 
 The point we have reached is the high- water 
 mark of the doctrine of Inspiration. We have 
 discovered that the early Church had no doc- 
 trine of Inspiration in our sense of the word 
 Inspiration. Its affirmations are invalidated 
 by a theory of allegory, which completely over- 
 shadows and destroys the true sense of Scrip- 
 ture. The reformers who swept this away 
 were concerned with the testimony of the 
 Holy Spirit, which assures us of matters of 
 doctrine and duty in the Word of God, with 
 no interest in affirming historic inerrancy. 
 The extreme development of Protestant dog- 
 matics in the seventeenth century, in oppo- 
 sition to the Eoman Catholic polemic, led to 
 unwarranted emphasis of the Divine side of 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 233 
 
 Scripture, and an almost total ignoring of the 
 human side. This theology, in strict logic, as 
 it supposed, affirmed the perfection of style of 
 the Bible, its freedom from grammatical errors, 
 the absence from it of accommodation to 
 human limitations, its strict accuracy even in 
 the matter of natural science, topography, 
 and chronology, and, finally, its miraculous 
 preservation from transmissional corruption 
 by means of the Massoretic system.* The 
 majority of these points are now universally 
 given up. 
 
 It is of more importance to note that this 
 extreme theory v^as always the theory of 
 some theologians only. There always were 
 evangehcal and devout men who did not 
 accept it. But that I may not weary you 
 with historical details, let me come down to 
 the practical point of the teaching of to-day. 
 I shall j)i'ot)ably not be wrong in assuming 
 that so much of the theory of verbal in- 
 errancy as can be held at the present day is 
 held, stated, and defended by Prof. Gaussen, 
 late of Geneva, whose book on Inspiration! has 
 m our theological world almost the dignity of a 
 classic. I will endeavour to state his theory. 
 
 * No one seems to liave been staggered by the fact 
 that the Old Testament alone received such a remarkable 
 system for its preservation. 
 
 t Theopyieustij , or the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. Translated by E. N. Kirk. New York, 1842. 
 
234 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Prof. Gaussen states his case in this way 
 (p. 40) : " The Scriptures are given and 
 guaranteed by God even in their very lan- 
 guage." As an alternative statement of the 
 same thing he gives : " The Scriptures con- 
 tain no error ; that is, they say all they ought 
 to say, and only what they ought to say.' 
 You will notice that the point upon which 
 the whole theory turns is the definition of 
 the word error. It is clear that the author 
 means error of any kind, for later he admits 
 *' that if it be true that there are, as is said, 
 erroneous statements and contradictory ac- 
 counts in the Holy Scriptures, their plenary 
 inspiration must be renounced " (p. 110). 
 The alleged errors which he discusses under 
 this head, and the existence of which he 
 denies, are : discrepancies in the Gospel narra- 
 tive, points of chronology, and matters of 
 physical science. In regard to the last 
 named, he says: ''We freely admit that if 
 there are any physical errors fully proved in 
 the Scriptures, the Scriptures could not be 
 from God. But we mean to show there are 
 none, and we shall dare to challenge the adver- 
 saries to produce one from the entire Bible.' 
 He then proceeds to show the accuracy of 
 the expression in Joshua, '* The sun stood 
 still in the midst of heaven." There is, 
 then, he says, " no physical error in Scrip- 
 ture, and this great fact, which becomes more 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 235 
 
 admirable in proportion as it is more closely 
 contemplated, is a striking proof of the in- 
 spiration which has dictated to their writers 
 even in the choice of the least expression." 
 There would seem to be no doubt, therefore, 
 of the meaning of this author. I have always 
 supposed Dr. Charles Hodge to mean the 
 same thing when he says (TheoL, I., 152) 
 that the Scriptures are "free from all error, 
 whether of doctrine, fact, or precept." If 
 what the sacred writers assert, he says later 
 (p. 163), God asserts, which, as has been 
 shown, is the Scriptural idea of inspiration, 
 their assertions must be free from error." 
 Again, he says, ''The whole Bible was written 
 under such an influence as preserved its human 
 authors from all error, and makes it for the 
 Church the infalhble rule of faith and prac- 
 tice." Notice there are two statements here. 
 Had Dr. Hodge contented himself with affirm- 
 ing that the whole Bible was written " under 
 such an influence as makes it for the Church 
 the infallible rule of faith and practice," no 
 one could have objected. The other clause is 
 the one to which we object, and whose ap- 
 plication to the Old Testament I affirm to 
 be impossible. Drs. Hodge and Warfield, 
 in their well-known article, say: "It is evi- 
 dent, therefore, that every supposed conclusion 
 of critical investigation which denies the apos- 
 tohc origin of a New Testament book, or the 
 
236 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 truth of any part of Christ's testimony in 
 relation to the Old Testament and its con- 
 tents, or which is inconsistent loith the 
 absolute truthfulness of any affirmation of 
 any book so authenticated, must be incon- 
 sistent with the true doctrine of inspira- 
 tion ; " and again : *' The historical faith of 
 the Church has always been that all affir- 
 mations of Scriptui'e of all kinds, whether of 
 spiritual doctrine or duty, or of physical or 
 historical fact, or of psychological or philo- 
 sophical principle, are without any error 
 when the ipsissima verba of the original 
 autographs are ascertained and interpreted 
 in their natural and intended sense."* 
 These statements are exactly in line with 
 those of the authors quoted above, except 
 that they make a reservation concerning the 
 transmission of the documents. Now, these 
 authors (p. 237) admit that this statement 
 is to be tried by the facts, and it is to the 
 facts of the Old Testament that I propose to 
 go. First, however, allow me a word of per- 
 sonal explanation. Some years ago, when a 
 candidate for ordination, I received as a text 
 for my trial sermon the well-known passage of 
 II. Timothy, " All Scripture is given by inspira- 
 tion of God." In that sermon I took the very 
 ground of the authors I have been quoting. 
 
 * Presbyterian Review, 1881, pp. 236 and 238. The 
 italics are mine. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. lyj 
 
 For more than fifteen years since that time I 
 have been engaged in the direct daily study of 
 the Old Testament. It has been my duty to 
 familiarise myself with the facts of the record, 
 and as well with the statements of scholars 
 about those facts. I well recall the reluctance 
 which I felt to read some books which departed 
 from "the views commonly received among 
 us," and on reflection I cannot convict myself 
 of undue sympathy with German mysticism or 
 rationalism. But I have felt it my duty to 
 know facts, and I sincerely believe that the 
 truth of God is evident in all the facts of His 
 Word. But in the examination of facts to 
 which I now proceed, remember that it is my 
 desire to give no one pain. And I ask you 
 not to take my statement, but to examine 
 the record itself. Dr. Charles Hodge well 
 says (I. p. 11): "Almost all false theories 
 in science and false doctrines in theology 
 are due in a great degree to mistakes as to 
 matters of fact." Three classes of facts seem 
 to have been ignored by the advocates of an in- 
 errant Inspiration. 
 
 1. The first class is the least important, 
 and may be said not to bear upon inerrancy. 
 It includes the cases where writings have 
 been included in the books of those who 
 were not their authors. I will not take up 
 the Pentateuch which has recently been dis- 
 cussed at length by others. The hypothesis 
 
238 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 of a redactor there has raet with so Httle 
 favour that it may be well to strengthen his 
 position by showing his activity elsewhere. 
 Look first at the Minor Prophets. We 
 have them, as you know, in twelve separate 
 books. They are, however, in the Hebrew 
 Bible one book. It is clear that an editor 
 has gathered together what prophetic frag- 
 ments were in circulation in his time and 
 united them in one roll. His activity was 
 confined to arranging them in order. He 
 may have added the titles in some cases, 
 but his knowledge of the authors was slight. 
 That Joel was the son of Pethuel ; that one 
 fragment was a vision of Obadiah, and that 
 one contained the word of the Lord to 
 Israel by Malachi — these are very slight ad- 
 ditions to our knowledge. Sui^pose, now, he 
 found a fragment without the author's name 
 and inserted it in the series. It would not 
 have been distinguished externally from the 
 work of the author immediately preceding. 
 This is what the critics suppose actually to 
 have taken place. In the book assigned to 
 Zechariah there is a sharp distinction in style 
 and situation between the first eight chapters 
 and the rest of the book. The second half is 
 assigned to an older prophet. Strictly speak- 
 ing, the hypothesis does not contradict the 
 doctrine of inerrancy, and I should not have 
 alluded to it except to prepare the way for a 
 
 f 
 
AND INSPIRATION, 239 
 
 similar case which has made no small scandal 
 in the theological world. I allude, of course, 
 to the book of Isaiah. Divest your mind of 
 preconceptions now, and look at this case. Let 
 us suppose the redactor of the book of the 
 Minor Prophets to have had a book of Isaiah 
 which included only the first thirty-nine 
 chapters of our book of that name. He 
 has also in his possession the magnificent 
 evangelical prophecy which is more familiar 
 to us than almost any other part of the 
 Old Testament. He does not know the 
 author's name, or perhaps it is not safe to 
 have it known. What more likely than that 
 he should make it an appendix to the book of 
 the kindred prophet — the two together make 
 up a roll about the size of the book of the 
 Twelve. This would not be out of harmony 
 with the process of gathering the other book, 
 and the only way in which it would violate the 
 strictest theory of inspiration is in making 
 appear as Isaiah's what is not his. But it 
 will be replied, as has so often been rephed : 
 this is a merely gratuitous hypothesis, one of 
 those wild vagaries of the German seekers 
 after novelty of which we have had so many. 
 Let us look, therefore, at the arguments by 
 which the critics support their vagary. 
 
 In the first place, it is known that the earliest 
 order of the prophetical books in the Old Testa- 
 ment Canon was Jeremiah, then Ezekiel, then 
 
240 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Isaiah. The only reason for departing from 
 the chronological order that can be suggested 
 is that the Book of Isaiah was felt to be an 
 anthology like that of the Minor Prophets. 
 
 Secondly, it is rather curious that a narra- 
 tive piece (chapters xxxvi.-xxxix.) should be 
 found in the middle of the Book of Isaiah. 
 Such a notice would come more naturally at 
 the close of the book. We actually find one 
 at the end of Jeremiah. There is nothing 
 extravagant in the supposition, therefore, that 
 the redactor of Isaiah's works had concluded 
 his book with this historical notice, and that 
 the last twenty-seven chapters were added to 
 a book already complete. 
 
 The third argument, from style, is of course 
 less obvious to the English reader ; but I think 
 even the English reader will discover differ- 
 ences. 
 
 Lastly, the situation in the second part of 
 the book is entirely different from that in the 
 first part. Kead over the first chapter of 
 Isaiah as a characteristic sermon of the pro- 
 phet. Note the commanding tone in which 
 he calls heaven and earth to hear his arraign- 
 ment of Israel. Look at the Israel he de- 
 picts in its pride, and sinfulness and hypocrisy. 
 " Hear the word of Jehovah, rulers of Sodom ! 
 Give ear to the instruction of our God, people 
 of Gomorrha ! To what purpose is the mul- 
 titude of your sacrifices, saith Jehovah ? I am 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 241 
 
 sated with holocausts of rams and the fat of 
 fathngs ; and the blood of bulls and lambs and 
 goats I do not delight in. When ye come to 
 see my face — who hath required this at your 
 hands, to trample my courts ? Bring no more 
 vain oblations ; incense is an abomination to 
 me ; new moon and Sabbath, the calling of 
 assembly — I cannot abide iniquity with festive 
 meeting." Now, after reading this chapter, 
 turn to the fortieth : " Comfort ye, comfort ye, 
 my people, saith your Lord ! Speak to the 
 heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her 
 term of service is completed, that her guilt is 
 pardoned, that she hath received of the hand of 
 Jehovah double for all her sins. Hark ! One 
 cries in the wilderness : Prepare the way of 
 Jehovah, level in the desert a highway for our 
 God. Every valley shall be filled up and every 
 mountain and hill brought low, and the steep 
 shall be made level, and the rough country a 
 valley. And the glory of Jehovah shall be 
 revealed, and all flesh shall see it, for the 
 mouth of Jehovah has spoken." Now, what I 
 say is : Eead through this whole second part. 
 Note how God comforts His mourning people, 
 promises to deliver them, speaks to Zion as 
 desolate and forsaken, a captive and an outcast, 
 promises to bring back her children, to rebuild 
 ' her walls, to punish her oppressors. Eead this, 
 and you will feel that the message could have 
 come with appropriateness to the people in the 
 
 16 
 
242 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 captivity, and not to the people of Isaiah's time, 
 whose situation was so different. This is, at 
 any rate, the conclusion of the majority of the 
 critics. No one denies the genuineness of the 
 prophecy ; no one denies that it is a genuine 
 prophecy, that is ; and this being admitted, 
 it gains in force and beauty on the critical 
 theory. 
 
 Now, if we admit the critical conclusions in 
 this case, the question is whether they affect 
 the doctrine of inerrancy. I do not see 
 that they do, that is to say, they do not 
 .show the inaccuracy of any statement of 
 Scripture, though they show the inaccuracy 
 of the arrangement of Scripture. I pass to 
 a more serious case. As you are well aware, 
 the Book of Psalms is generally ascribed 
 to David. The reason is that a number of 
 individual Psalms bear his name in the title. 
 Probably, no one now goes to the length of 
 some of the Kabbis and Fathers in supposing 
 that David wrote the whole book. But, as in 
 the original the titles form a part of the text, 
 there has been a strong disposition among con- 
 servative commentators to vindicate tlieir accu- 
 racy. But the critical conclusion is different 
 in regard to a number of them. I will adduce 
 only one, Psalm cxxxix., which is ascribed to 
 David, both in the Hebrew and in the Seventy. 
 But only a slight knowledge of the language is 
 Jiecessary to see that it is entirely different in 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 243 
 
 style from any other Psalm attributed to David. 
 The difference is not of a kind that exists be- 
 tween the various compositions of the same 
 man. The language is the language of another 
 epoch. If you v^ere to find a poem of Burns 
 pubHshed in Shakespeare's works, you would 
 not suppose it Shakespeare's. Shakespeare is 
 versatile, to be sure. He could vary his style 
 to suit any exigency. But you know he never 
 wrote like Burns. Now this is not an ex- 
 aggerated statement of the case with this 
 Psalm. I have one more instance under this 
 head — the Book of Ecclesiastes. As you are 
 already familiar withthe problem, I will only say 
 that the postexilic authorship was announced 
 by Luther, and is accepted by as orthodox 
 scholars as Delitzsch and Ginsburg. In fact, 
 the argument is as strong as it can possibly be 
 from style and vocabulary. To suppose Solo- 
 mon the author of the book is about like sup- 
 posing Spenser to have written In Memoriam, 
 There can be no question, on the other side, that 
 the author assumes the character of Solomon. 
 So that we have a clear case of a sacred writer 
 writing under an assumed name. Many Bible 
 students see nothing improper in an inspired 
 writer using any form of literature, and after 
 Bunyan's immortal allegory, fiction would seem 
 not to be an unworthy vehicle of s^Diritual truth. 
 But if we admit this, then the theory, that every 
 statement of an inspired writer is without error 
 
244 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 in its natural and legitimate sense cannot be 
 maintained. 
 
 2. For my second class of facts, I will ask 
 you to look at the historical books from Joshua 
 to Kings, inclusive. We have here a series of 
 books V7hich give a connected narrative for the 
 period from the conquest of Canaan to the 
 Exile. Of course, it is conceivable that such 
 a narrative should be made after the method of 
 an official register. Each scribe would add to 
 the book a sketch of his own time and pass it 
 on to his successor. It has been supposed by 
 some that the Hebrew records were kept in 
 this way, but the theory is without support 
 from the facts. The continuity of the narra- 
 tive from Joshua to Zedekiah has been secured 
 by editing. The method of the redactor is 
 quite plain. He has made up his story by 
 extracts from already existing documents, 
 making very little change of himself, but in- 
 serting an occasional note which serves to make 
 the connection clear. As he refers us to the 
 Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (or Israel 
 as the case may be), it is clear that one of his 
 sources was an extensive historical work 
 bearing this title. But the fact of compila- 
 tion is clear in other places than those in 
 which he mentions his authority. Take for 
 example the Book of Judges. Chapter ii. 6, 
 reads : " Now, when Joshua had sent the 
 people away, the children of Israel went every 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 245 
 
 man unto his inheritance." Then follows the 
 mention of the death and burial of Joshua. It 
 is clear that this was originally the beginning 
 of the book. And the book of which this was 
 the beginning extended through chapter xvi. 
 It was strictly a book of the Judges. Itself, 
 however, was a compilation, as is evident from 
 the varying character of its parts. This book, 
 after it was finished, received two supplements: 
 one, the story of Micah, the other, of the war 
 against Benjamin. These belong chronologi- 
 cally at the beginning of the book, for one is 
 dated when Jonathan, the son of Gershom, 
 and therefore grandson of Moses, was still a 
 young man, which could not have been long 
 after the death of Joshua. In the other, 
 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of 
 Aaron, is High Priest, and this must have 
 been about the same time. The book re- 
 ceived also a preface, giving an account of the 
 gradual conquest of the land. Let me call 
 your attention to one section only of this pre- 
 face. It is i. 10-15, and it contains the account 
 of the conquest of Hebron by Caleb. The 
 same account is contained in Joshua xv. 
 13-19. In one case Joshua gave Hebron to 
 Caleb ; in the other the children of Judah 
 went against it " after the death of Joshua." 
 It is clear that we have here an inaccuracy in 
 one of the narratives. The difficulties in the 
 history of David are well known. In one 
 
246 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 chapter he is abeady a warrior when invited 
 to the court to play before Saul. Saul loves 
 him and makes him his armour-bearer. In the 
 other he is a stripling who comes providentially 
 into camp in time to meet the giant, and 
 appears to be wholly unknown to Saul. I 
 know the latter account is not in the Seventy 
 in the earhest form of that version. But this 
 only shows the extreme freedom vnth which 
 the text was treated at a very late date, and 
 even leaving out the part not in the Seventy, 
 we still have serious discrepancies. 
 
 It is not to emphasize these discrepancies 
 that I call attention to these facts at this point, 
 but to show the extreme difficulty of applying 
 the theory of inerrancy to documents of this 
 kind. The theory is that " all affirmations of 
 Scripture of all kinds are without any error." 
 Now, what are " the affirmations of Scripture " 
 in the cases we have been considering? The 
 theologians are careful to tell us that inerrancy 
 does not guarantee the truthfulness of the words 
 of Satan in Gen. iii., or of the speeches of Job's 
 friends in their argument with him. 
 
 What shall we say of the books we have 
 been discussing? Where is the point of in- 
 errancy? Is it in the originals from which 
 the narrative has been compiled ? Is it in 
 the arrangement ? Is it in the notes of the 
 the redactor? Or is it in all these? Some 
 of the advocates of inerrancy have declined to 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 247 
 
 postulate inerrant transmission, because it 
 would call for a standing miracle. The con- 
 tinuous influence which would secure original 
 inerrancy for all the documents would be just 
 such a standing miracle. The Song of Deborah 
 was composed, let us say, 1,300 years B.C. 
 The final touches to the books we are con- 
 sidering were given not earlier than the Exile, 
 which began about 600 B.C. The materials 
 which are now in our historical books, there- 
 fore, were composed during a period of seven 
 hundred years. Was there a standing miracle 
 during all this time ? Or shall we assume that 
 the final redactor received the gift of inerrancy 
 so that he changed the language of his sources 
 so as to leave no inaccuracies ? Of this, again, 
 there is no evidence. For, arguing on the 
 basis of individual style, we discover that 
 the redactor has generally left unaltered the 
 documents he has embodied in his narrative. 
 His supervision has generally gone only so far 
 as to make an occasional note or insert a con- 
 necting phrase. Or does his inerrancy extend 
 simply to the reproduction, so that our con- 
 fidence extends only to the accuracy of his 
 quotation? This, indeed, is what the critics 
 generally accept. But it is far from what the 
 advocates of inerrancy claim. Unless we can 
 assume the standing miracle, the historical 
 sources of the Old Testament need, in order to 
 discover the truth of events, the same sort 
 
248 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 of analysis, sifting, and cross-questioning that 
 must be given to other sources of history. 
 And this analysis, sifting, and cross-questioning 
 is precisely — higher criticism. 
 
 Before we leave this point, let us look at 
 another phase of it. Several books of the 
 Old Testament — notably the Psalms, Proverbs, 
 Job, and Ecclesiastes — labour under the same 
 difficulty of discovering where the statements 
 of the author are — those statements which are 
 free from error. Take the book of Job, for 
 example. It presents us the picture of a grand 
 trial. The pious sufferer has to contend with 
 fears within as well as fightings without. It 
 is not only the speeches of his friends which 
 contain error, Job himself loses sight of God. 
 He doubts His justice and His love. The 
 author does not make his own opinion 
 heard. He lets the situation speak to us.. 
 The value of the book lies not in any 
 assertion even of God Himself — sublime as 
 is the tr'jth He speaks. No ; the value of 
 the book of Job lies in the spectacle of a 
 human soul in the direst affliction working 
 through its doubts and at last humbly con- 
 fessing its weakness and sinfulness in the 
 presence of its Maker. The inerrancy is in 
 the truth of the picture presented. It can- 
 not be located in any statement of the author 
 or of any of his characters. The same is true 
 of the Psalms. They present us a picture of 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 249 
 
 pious experience in all its phases. We see 
 every variety of soul in every variety of 
 emotion. The assertions of the authors can- 
 not be taken for absolute truth. Nor can the 
 authors, though doubtless all were sincere 
 believers in God, be taken as sinless models 
 for the Christian. Only Christ is that. The 
 Psalms present us a record of actual experi- 
 ence of believers in the past. We can study 
 and profit by this experience all the more 
 that it has in it human weakness. The 
 subjects of the experience doubtless had the 
 power of correctly expressing their feelings, 
 but that is not the inerrancy which has been 
 claimed for them, and which the theologians 
 desire. The imprecations which have been 
 such a stumbling-block to some are enough to 
 prove this point. 
 
 3. So far we have noticed the difficulty of 
 applying the theory of inerrancy. We are in 
 a position, however, to go further. We have, 
 as you know, two parallel histories in the Old 
 Testament. One is contained in the books 
 from Genesis to 2 Kings ; the other is con- 
 tained in the books of Chronicles. These 
 latter, indeed, once were joined with Ezra 
 and Nehemiah, so as to form a continuous 
 narrative (if narrative it maybe called, where 
 so much is simply genealogical) from Adam to 
 the Persian monarchy. But this does not now 
 concern us. For our present inquiry, we 
 
250 
 
 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 are interested in the two forms of the his- 
 tory of Israel as presented on the one side in 
 the books of Samuel and Kings, and on the 
 other in the books of Chronicles. The study 
 of these books shows the method of the 
 authors with a definiteness which leaves 
 nothing to be desired. We see that the 
 Chronicler had before him our book of Kings 
 as one of his sources. He takes from it what 
 suits his purpose. What he takes he generally 
 transfers without material change. He omits 
 a good deal which does not answer his purpose, 
 and he inserts a good deal from other sources. 
 He pursues exactly the plan, that is, which we 
 suppose to have been followed by the other 
 historical writers. Now compare the following 
 passages : — 
 
 2 Sam. viii. 4. And 
 David took from him 
 1,700 horsemen and 20,000 
 footmen, 
 
 X. 16. The children of 
 Ammon sent and hired 
 the Syrians of Beth 
 Rehol3 and the Syrians 
 of Zobah 20,000 footmen, 
 and the King of Maacah 
 with 1,000 men, and the 
 men of Tob 1,200 men. 
 
 X. 18. David destroyed 
 of the Syi'ians 700 chariots. 
 
 1 Ohron. xviii. 3. And 
 David took from him 
 1,000 chariots, and 7,000 
 horsemen, and 20,000 foot- 
 men. 
 
 xxix. 6. Hanun and the 
 children of Ammon sent 
 1,000 talents of silver to 
 hire them chariots and 
 horsemen. So they hired 
 them 32,000 chariots and 
 the King of Maacah and 
 his men. 
 
 xix. 18. David destroyed 
 of the Syrians 7,000 
 chariots. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 251 
 
 xxiv. 9. There were in xxi. 5. There were of 
 
 Israel 800,000 valiant men all Israel 1,100,000 that 
 
 who di-ew sword, and the drew sword and Judah 
 
 men of Judah were was 470,000 that drew 
 
 500,000. sword. 
 
 xxxiv. 24 So David xxi. 25. So David gave 
 
 bought the threshing to Oman for the place 
 
 floor and the oxen for 600 shekels of gold by 
 
 50 shekels of silver. weight. 
 
 1 Kings iv. 26. And 2 Chron. ix. 25. And 
 
 Solomon had 40,000 staUs Solomon had 4,000^ stalls 
 
 for horses. for horses and chariots. 
 
 xvi. 2. The height [of iii. 4. The height [of 
 
 the house] 30 cubits. the porch] 120 cubits. 
 
 vii. 26. It [the brazen iv. 5. It received and 
 
 sea] held 2,000 baths. held 3,000 baths. 
 
 Now, it will be said at once that these are 
 all discrepancies in numbers which are very- 
 liable to corruption, and that therefore these 
 are all cases of error in transmission. But I 
 ask you to notice that these are, all but one, 
 cases in which the larger number is in the text 
 of the Chronicler. Where the age of a king 
 or the length of his reign is concerned, I have 
 not taken account of the difference. But in 
 matters of statistics it is curious that the 
 errors should be nearly all one way. Eemem- 
 bering that the Chronicler was much further 
 away in time from the events narrated, we find 
 it natural that he should have an exaggerated 
 idea of the resources of his country in the days 
 of her glory. In the case of David's iDurchase 
 of the field of Oman, he finds the price a 
 
252 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 niggardly one for a prince to pay. He there- 
 fore does not hesitate (supposing that a mis- 
 take has been made) to put in a larger sum. 
 Of course, we need jiot lay this to the charge 
 of the final redactor of the book. He had 
 probably before him other written elaborations 
 of the history in which his exaggerated idea of 
 the past was already embodied. The personal 
 equation is as difficult to suppress in the 
 historian as is individuality of style. Why 
 should one be overruled any more than the 
 other } The Chronicler lived in a time when 
 the Mosaic law had taken substantially the 
 position we find it occupying in the New Testa- 
 ment times. Piety was to him the observance 
 of this law. He looked back through this 
 medium to David and Solomon and the good 
 kings of their line. He had lost all interest 
 in the Israel of the Ten Tribes, because they 
 had disappeared from his vision, or lived only 
 in the heretical Samaritans of his time. Now, 
 we all know how difficult it is to picture to 
 ourselves a different piety from our own. 
 Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, we pic- 
 ture to ourselves as an enlightened Christian of 
 the nineteenth century. We do not like to 
 confess that he was guilty of deception, or that 
 Jacob, the Prince of God, took an unfair 
 advantage of his own brother. So with the 
 Chronicler, He could think of David only 
 as a saint of his own pattern. Therefore, he 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 253 
 
 does not copy from the older history the 
 shadows that rest upon David's hfe. His 
 adultery, the trouble with Amnon, the usurpa- 
 tion of Absalom and of Adonijah, the charge 
 of vengeance delivered to Solomon — these are 
 left out of his history altogether. To him 
 David is the nursing father of the legitimate 
 priesthood, and the virtual builder of the 
 Temple. But you will say this does not give 
 us error in the record. Let me, then, call 
 attention to the following : 
 
 1 Kings ix. 11. Solo- 2 Chron. viii. 2. The 
 
 mon gave Hiram 30 cities cities wliich Hiram gave 
 in the land of Galilee. Solomon, Solomon built 
 
 them and caused the 
 children of Israel to dwell 
 there. 
 XV. 14. But the Ugh 2 Chron. xiv. 3. For he 
 
 were not taken took away the strange 
 away. Nevertheless, the altars and the higli places 
 heart of Asa was perfect (cf . v. 5 : Also he took 
 with the Lord all his days. away out of all the cities 
 
 of Judah the high places). 
 
 These certainly look on their face like direct 
 contradictions, and if we aUow for the personal 
 equation of which I have spoken, we can easily 
 explain them. It would be hard indeed for a 
 Jew of the Persian period to imagine Solomon 
 giving away the sacred territory of Israel to the 
 heathen king. Kather must he suppose the 
 mighty Solomon to be the recipient of gifts of 
 territory. The same line of reasoning is fol- 
 
254 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 lowed in the second quotation. The high places 
 were the old sanctuaries of Jehovah, regarded 
 as legitimate before the building of the Temple, 
 even by the author of the book of Kings (1 Kings 
 iii. 2), and used without reserve by Samuel. As 
 time went on they fell more and more into 
 disrepute; and after the exile the requirements 
 of the law were carried out, and the only sanc- 
 tuary of the people was the Temple at Jeru- 
 salem. The remembrance of the high places 
 was only that of illegitimate places of worship. 
 The Chronicler and his generation could not 
 imagine a good king as even tolerating them. 
 Hence the change in his account. Allow me 
 to call your attention to one more instance. K 
 you will compare the two accounts of the 
 coronation of the young King Jehoash, which 
 are found in 2 Kings xi. 4-16, and 2 Chron. 
 xxiii. 1-15, you will be struck by some re- 
 markable differences. As you will remember, 
 the Queen Mother had, on the death of Ahaziah, 
 slain all the male members of the royal family 
 except the infant Jehoash, and had herself 
 seized the kingdom. The young prince, who 
 escaped the massacre, was kept in concealment 
 until his seventh year, when, by the efforts of 
 Jehoiada the High Priest, he was seated upon 
 the throne, and the usurping queen was slain. 
 The account in the book of Kings is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " And in the seventh year Jehoiada sent and 
 
AJSD INSPIRATION. 255 
 
 fetched the captains over hundreds of the 
 Carites and of the Kunners, and brought them 
 to the House of Jehovah and made a covenant 
 with them, and made them take an oath and 
 shov^ed them the king's son. And he com- 
 manded them saying : This is the thing ye 
 shall do. The third part of you that come in 
 on the Sabbath and keep the guard of the 
 palace, . . . and the two parts of you that go 
 forth on the Sabbath and keep the guard of the 
 House of Jehovah [shall come] unto the king. 
 And ye shall surround the king each with his 
 weapons in his hand, and he that comes within 
 the ranks shall be put to death, and ye shall be 
 with the king when he goes out and when he 
 comes in. And the captains of hundreds did 
 according to all that Jehoiada the Priest com- 
 manded them. And they took each his men 
 — those coming in on the Sabbath with those 
 going out on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada 
 the Priest (and the Priest gave them David's 
 armour of state) and the Eunners stood each 
 with his weapons in his hand, from the south 
 side of the House to the north side of the 
 House, about the House and the altar, round 
 about the king. And he brought out the king 
 and placed upon him the diadem and the testi- 
 mony and made him king and anointed him. 
 And they clapped their hands and said : Long 
 live the king! " 
 
 The history here is so plain there can be no 
 
256 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 mistaking. The principal actors are the officers 
 of the body-guard with their men. This body 
 of soldiers is divided, as was the case also in 
 David's time, into three companies. These take 
 their turn in guarding the temple and the 
 palace, one-third being on duty at one point 
 and two-thirds at the other. The Sabbath is 
 the day when they exchange one post for the 
 other, and it is probable that on that day, when 
 the multitude at the temple is larger, two 
 companies are on duty there, and only one 
 company at the palace, while during the week 
 the reverse is the case. Jehoiada, after show- 
 ing the three centurions that the rightful heir 
 to the throne is still alive, agrees that the 
 company on duty at the temple, instead of 
 going down to the palace, shall remain. When 
 the other two companies come up from the 
 palace, therefore, the whole body-guard will 
 be around the young king, and Athaliah will 
 be left without soldiers. The plan is carried 
 out, and Athaliah, hearing the noise, comes 
 unattended to the temple, because she has no 
 soldiers at her command. This account, then, 
 makes the matter the business of the body- 
 guard, with which (except the High Priest) 
 priests and people have nothing to do. How 
 now does the Chronicler see the incident ? In 
 his account the Carites and Eunners disappear. 
 Jehoiada counsels indeed with certain captains 
 of hundreds, but who they are does not dis- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 257 
 
 tinctly appear. Instead of collecting troops, 
 they go about the country and gather all the 
 Levites and the heads of fathers' houses. It is 
 a matter m which the whole people therefore 
 take part. The account goes on : 
 
 ** And all the congregation made a covenant 
 with the king in the House of God. And he 
 said unto them : Behold, the king's son shall 
 reign as Jehovah hath spoken concerning the 
 sons of David. This is the thing which ye 
 shall do. The third part of you that come in 
 on the Sabbath of the Priests and of the 
 Levites shall be at the outer gates. And a 
 third of you shall be in the palace, and a third 
 part in the gate Jesod, and all the people shall 
 be in i.he courts of the House of Jehovah. 
 But let them not come into the House except 
 the priests and those ministering to the 
 Levites — they may come in because they are 
 holy ; and let all the people keep the guard of 
 Jehovah. And let the Levites surround the 
 king each with his weapons in his hands, and 
 he that cometh into the House shall be put to 
 death, and let them be with the king when he 
 cometh in and when he goeth out. And the 
 Levites and all Judah did according to all that 
 Jehoiada the Priest commanded." 
 
 Now it is perfectly clear that there is a dis- 
 crepancy in the two accounts. In one, the 
 main (in fact the only) actors besides Jehoiada 
 are the royal guard. They come into the 
 
 17 
 
258 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 temple, thej^ surround the king, they guard him 
 and proclaim him king, and they kill Athaliah. 
 In the other account the body-guard is not 
 even mentioned. The captains of hundreds 
 seem to be Levitical chiefs. They gather the 
 Levites from the whole country. Tliese do 
 exactly what in the other account is attributed 
 to the mercenaries. Yet in spite of the con- 
 spiracy being known to all the Levites and all 
 Judah, Athaliah has no inkling of it, and comes 
 unattended into the temple. The account in 
 Kings is the original, and the deviations are 
 due to the point ofview of the Chronicler. In 
 the time before the exile, as we know from 
 various sources, there was no scruple (in prac- 
 tice, at least) against the entrance of foreigners 
 into the temple. Ezekiel distincth^ denounces 
 this as one of the customs of the time before 
 the captivity. '' Thus saith the Lord God : 
 ye house of Israel, let it suf&ce you of all your 
 abominations in that ye have brought in aliens 
 uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in 
 flesh to be in My sanctuary to profane it when 
 ye offer My bread, the fat and the blood." The 
 earlier kings, therefore, had guarded the temple 
 with their own troops. But the stringency 
 with which the later Jews guarded the temple 
 from profanation made the Chronicler unable 
 to realise this ; especially that a High Priest 
 should have called upon the royal troops for 
 service in the temple seemed to him incredible. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 259 
 
 He supposed the Levites must have been 
 called upon for this service, and hence he sub- 
 stituted them in the text.^ It is clear that we 
 cannot ascribe freedom from error to the state- 
 ments of a book compiled in this way. You 
 will say, then, it should be cast out of the 
 Canon. To which I reply, by no means. The 
 book of Chronicles is invaluable to us, not for 
 what it directly teaches, but for the light it 
 throws indirectly upon its own time. What 
 the Jews of the Persian monarchy v/ere think- 
 ing, how they regarded the older history, how 
 they were preparing the way for the Scribes 
 and Pharisees, for the Crucifixion and the 
 Eoman war, for the Talmud and Barkochba — 
 this is made known to us in the book of Chron- 
 icles, and by almost no other book of the Bible. 
 But it is made known to us by reading between 
 the lines ; that is to say, by considering and 
 
 * As some questions have been raised by my assertions 
 about the Chronicler, I will add that of course I do not 
 suppose him guilty of intentional falsification of the 
 record. He had before him, it would appear, a considerable 
 literature which had commented on the history in the 
 spirit of the time — his changes are made from these docu- 
 ments. The ideas which govern this literature were a part 
 of the mental furniture of the Chronicler himself. His 
 inspiration, which made him a source of religious edifica- 
 ^tion to his contemporaries, and which makes his work still 
 a part of the infallible rule of faith, d-id not correct his 
 historical point of view any more than it corrected his 
 scientific point of view, which no doubt made the earth 
 the centre of the solar system. 
 
26o BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 weighing not what the author says of others, 
 but by what he betrays of himself. What is 
 the truth of history, my friends ? Is it simply 
 the narrative of events definitely defined, and 
 labelled, and arranged in order ? Is it a cata- 
 logue of kings, of each of which it records 
 that he was born, and made war, and died? 
 Is it not rather a series of pictures, each of 
 which describes an age with its thoughts, its 
 aspirations, its ideals ? If so, sacred history 
 cannot be made up by a string of inerrant 
 statements. It must show unconsciously, and 
 by suggestion, the spirit that informs the Church 
 of God, and makes it live and grow. To secure 
 us an inerrant chronicle of dates and names 
 would not give us this history. To give us the 
 pictures of the men drawn by themselves is to 
 give us this history. To discover these pictures, 
 and to locate them, and set them in their true 
 light, is the work of Biblical Theology working 
 by criticism. 
 
 And now I must be prepared to hear an 
 objection urged against the view here pre- 
 sented. If we cannot trust the Bible to be 
 accurate in minor details we cannot trust it 
 in anything. If we must give up one we must 
 give up aU. In reply to this I say, first, that 
 a very large number of able and evangelical 
 theologians do not admit this. Many of those 
 who hold the most rigid theory of Inspiration 
 say expressly that the admission of chrono- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 261 
 
 logical or historical errors would not invalidate 
 the infallible authority of the Bible. To sub- 
 stantiate this let me name Kichard Baxter, 
 who for himself says that he believes all errors 
 now in the text to have come in by transmis- 
 sion. I quote from the " Eeasons for the 
 Christian Keligion " the following : 
 
 " But those men who think that these human 
 imperfections of the writers do extend further, 
 and may appear in some by-passages of chron- 
 ologies or history, which are no part of the 
 rule of faith and life, do not hereby destroy 
 the Christian cause. For God might enable 
 His apostles to an infallible recording and 
 preaching of the Gospel, even all things neces- 
 sary to salvation, though He had not made 
 them infallible in every by -passage and circum- 
 stance any more than they were indefectible 
 in life. As for them that say, * I can believe 
 no man in anything who is mistaken in one 
 thing, at least, as infallible, they speak against 
 common sense and reason ; for a man may be 
 infaihbly acquainted with some things who is 
 not so in all. A historian may infallibly 
 acquaint me that ther#was a fight at Lepanto, 
 . . . who cannot tell me all the circum- 
 stances of it. ... I do not believe that any 
 man can prove the least error in the Holy 
 Scripture, in any point according to its true 
 intent and meaning ; but if he could, the 
 Gospel, as a rule of faith and life in things 
 
262 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 necessary to salvation, might be, nevertheless, 
 proved infallible by all the evidences before 
 given."* Without investigating a large num- 
 ber of theologians who are quoted f as making 
 similar concessions, I will only call your atten- 
 tion to the fact that Christian Apologetic 
 declares that the great things of Scripture can 
 be proved without assuming the inerrancy of 
 the record at all. President Patton, of Prince- 
 ton, holds this view, as is well known. " I 
 must take exception to the disposition on the 
 part of some (he says) to stake the fortunes of 
 Christianity on the doctrine of Inspiration. 
 Not that I yield to any one in profound con- 
 viction of the truth and importance of the 
 doctrine. But it is proper for us to bear in 
 mind the immense argumentative advantage 
 which Christianity has aside altogether from 
 the inspiration of the documents on which it 
 rests." J According to President Patton, then, 
 
 * TTie Practical WorJcs of the Rev. Richard Baxter, 
 London, 1830, Vol. XXI., p. 349. 
 
 t The author of the article, " Inspiration," in McClintock 
 and Strong's CyclojpcBdia, says : " Others have gone so far as 
 to avow that the value of the regions element in the revela- 
 tion would not be lessened if errors were acknowledged in 
 the scientific and miscellaneous matter which accompanies 
 it. Among those who have held this form of the theory 
 are Baxter, Tillotson, Doddridge, Warburton; Bishops 
 Horsley, Kandolph, and Whately, Hampden, Thirlwall, 
 Bishop Heber, Dr. Pye Smith, Thomas Scott, and Dean 
 Alford.^' 
 
 X Patton, The Inspiration of the Scriptures, i). 22. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 263 
 
 SO far from its being true that, unless the Bible 
 be inerrant in every detail, we must give up 
 its testimony to the matters of greater weight- 
 so far from this being true, we might give up 
 the inspiration altogether, and still have the 
 assurance of these greater matters. 
 
 But, when a thing is said to be unthinkable, 
 the best way to answer the assertion is to 
 show that it has been thought. Some say 
 they cannot conceive a Bible that can be 
 relied on in matters of faith and morals, 
 without making it infallibly true on points 
 of chronology, history, and natural science. 
 To this I reply : Many men have received 
 the Bible, and do receive the Bible, as their 
 infalHble authority, who do not actually attri- 
 bute to it, and who have not actually attri- 
 buted to it, inerrancy in minor matters. This 
 is true, as I have already said, of the Eeformers. 
 It is dangerous to cite a German in this con- 
 nection. But the time was when Tholuck 
 was honoured in America as a defender of the 
 faith. Tholuck declared himself decidedly* 
 against the absolute inerrancy of Scripture. 
 
 * In the article cited above. I might add here that 
 among those who do not assert inerrancy, "but limit 
 inspiration to snch matters as directly pertain to the 
 proper material of revelation, i.e.. to strictly religious 
 truth," are to be found (according to McClintock and 
 Strong) John Howe, Bishop Williams, Burnet, Lowth, 
 Bishop Watson, Law, Barrow, Conybeare, Bloomfield, and 
 others. 
 
264 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Among living theologians, Luthardfc has earned 
 the gratitude of the Protestant Church at large 
 hy his fruitful labours in varied fields of re- 
 search. Luthardt declares that the older 
 theology " certainly went too far." Van 
 Oosterzee was, during his life, the repre- 
 sentative of the orthodox party in the 
 Eeformed Church of Holland, yet he declares 
 that " errors and inaccuracies in matters of 
 subordinate importance are undoubtedly to 
 be found in the Bible. A Luther, a Calvin, 
 a Coccejus, among the older theologians ; a 
 Tholuck, a Neander, a Lange, a Stier, among 
 the more modern ones, have admitted this 
 without hesitation."* And in our own country 
 there has recently been published a book, by 
 a careful investigator, which, while an able 
 defence of " Supernatural Eevelation," declines 
 to assert inerrancy, f The author says: "As 
 to the meaning of Oeoirveva-ro'; [in 2 Tim. iii.'lG], 
 there is not, and cannot, be any material 
 difference of opinion. The chief difference 
 relates rather to the object and degree of in- 
 spiration, whether it is the writings or the 
 
 * Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 1. p. 205. It is 
 worth, noting that the latest defence of inerrancy comes 
 from Germany^ by Eohnert, noticed in The Independent of 
 March 5, 1891. 
 
 f Supernatural Revelation: an Essay concerning the 
 basis of the Christian Faith, by C. M. Mead, Lectures on 
 the L. P. Stone Foundation, delivered at Princeton Theo- 
 logical Seminary. 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 265 
 
 writers that are inspired ; and whether tine 
 inspiration secures absolute infallibility or not. 
 From the word itself, however, as EUicott, 
 Warrington, and others, properly insist, we 
 cannot infer a verbal inspiration, such as the 
 older theologians taught" (p. 299, sq. ; the 
 italics are mine). Again, after defining the 
 '* deliverance of the Christian judgment in 
 favour of the general and special trustworthi- 
 ness of the New Testament in its descriptions 
 [note !] of Christ and the Christian revelation," 
 the author goes on to say: "Does this mean 
 now that everything, without exception, that 
 is found in the Scripture is to be accepted as 
 absolute, unadulterated truth ? Is all critical 
 inquiry into the historical and scientific 
 accuracy or logical soundness of Biblical utter- 
 ances to be cut off? By no means. The 
 Bible was written by imperfect and fallible 
 men ; and it is only by the use of the rational 
 and critical judgment that Christians have come 
 to regard it of exceptional trustworthiness. 
 
 " If the same method of examination should 
 reveal occasional instances of discrepancy and 
 error, this loould be nothing more than what 
 might be expected, unless it has been demon- 
 strated that the ivriters ivere so i7ispired as 
 to make them absolutely infallible. But no 
 such demonstration has ever been made " 
 (p. 330 sq.). 
 
 But if you still feel that the concession of 
 
266 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 minor errors endangers the spiritual truth, let 
 me ask you to notice the similar line of argu- 
 ment that might have been followed in the 
 past, but which has not actually resulted in 
 the overthrow of the Scriptures or of the 
 Church. 
 
 Suppose an inquirer comes to you with the 
 question how you know the Old Testament 
 Apocrypha not to be part of the Bible. You 
 explain to him the history of the Jewish Canon 
 and the testimony of the New Testament. He 
 asks, " Has the Church not actually accepted 
 these books as Scripture at some periods of its 
 history, and have not some eminent theologians 
 used them as the Word of God?" You will 
 be compelled to answer in the affirmative. 
 If, now, your inquirer says, "" Well, if God 
 cannot guarantee His Word so that His 
 Church can tell exactly what it is, then I 
 cannot be sure that any of it is His," how 
 will you answer him ? Surely you would not 
 admit that this uncertainty, even in a 
 matter of such importance as the extent of 
 the Canon, invalidates the Bible. 
 
 Or if a Bible student comes to you with 
 the Kevised Version, and complains that the 
 Bible has been mutilated by the omission of 
 the passage concerning " three that bear wit- 
 ness in heaven," what will you do ? You will 
 explain the process of transmission by manu- 
 script. You will tell him that the verse is no 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 267 
 
 part of the original Scripture, but has crept 
 into some copies by mistake. If now he says, 
 " If God cannot secure His Word from errors 
 of copyists, I cannot rely upon any part of it," 
 what will you say ? You will not admit this 
 argument either, though it is precisely your 
 own in case of admitted historical errors. 
 
 But, again, if one inquire why the Kevised 
 Version gives so many marginal renderings, 
 some quite different from the text, you may 
 be compelled to explain to him that the 
 Hebrew is in some respects an imperfect 
 language ; that it has but two tenses, for ex- 
 ample, so that the time of an action is often 
 difficult to define as exactly as we should 
 like ; that, moreover, the Hebrew script was 
 at first very defective, and though it has been 
 admirably supplemented by the system of 
 points, yet there is reason to think the points 
 sometimes in the wrong. After all this, he 
 might take your line of argument and say, 
 " If God could not express this revelation more 
 accurately than that, I cannot depend upon 
 it at all." But would he be right ? 
 
 Now, all these are admittedly true. The 
 Canon had no such authentication (so far as 
 we know), as we should have insisted upon 
 had it been a human document to be handed 
 down as an authority. The text has not been 
 preserved from error in transmission, and it 
 was committed to a language of limited powers 
 
268 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 of expression and to a script peculiarly liable to 
 ambiguity. But we all hold that it is, never- 
 theless, to us the infallible rule of faith and 
 practice. If we suppose that the human 
 factor, even in the autographs, showed traces 
 of human fallibility, I do not see that that 
 invalidates the rule of faith. 
 
 But now I want to call your attention to 
 certain grave consequences of insisting that 
 Inspiration implies absolute inerrancy. The 
 first is, that this insistance may drive some 
 to an utter rejection of the whole Kevelation, 
 because they suppose themselves to discover 
 a single contradiction in the Scriptures them- 
 selves, or a single statement that conflicts 
 with the established facts of natural science 
 or of profane history. Dr. Evans has already 
 alluded to this, and I will not enlarge upon 
 it. Only it should be observed that the 
 chances for error in the Old Testament are 
 much greater than in the New Testament. 
 The Old Testament took form in a cruder 
 state of society, and its books cover a much 
 greater period of time than is the case in 
 the New Testament. We should naturally 
 expect greater difficulties in the Old Testa- 
 ment. The caution exercised with regard to 
 a priori theories in regard to the New Testa- 
 ment commends itself with double force when 
 we come to the Old. 
 
 A second danger of insisting upon the doc- 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 269 
 
 trine of inerrancy is that it reverses the order 
 of the two principles of the Protestant Church. 
 As we have seen, the vital principle of the 
 Eeformation was justification by faith. The 
 formative principle was the sufficiency of 
 Scripture as the rule of faith. If, now, you 
 invert them and put the Scripture first, do 
 you not endanger the faith in Christ ? In 
 practice I do not believe this is done. If an 
 inquirer comes to a pastor, he is not met 
 with a demand to believe the Scripture to be 
 infallible in its every statement, but with the 
 exhortation to believe in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and this on the ground of the simple 
 historical testimony of the Scriptures as the 
 testimony of honest witnesses. But, is not 
 the central point in the Christian life the 
 central point in theology also ? And I will 
 confess here the surprise with which I dis- 
 covered what I think to be a grave defect in 
 the theology of the distinguished Dr. Hodge. 
 If you will read that author's discussion of the 
 subject of Faith you will acknowledge, I 
 think, that it suffers from just this defect. 
 Dr. Hodge defines faith as " the persuasion 
 of the truth founded on testimony," and then 
 adds : " The faith of the Christian is the per- 
 suasion of the truth of the facts and doctrines 
 recorded in the Scriptures on the testimony of 
 God." * A little later he says that the faith 
 
 * Systematic Theology, III., pp. 67, 68. 
 
270 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 which secures eternal life " is founded not on 
 the external or the moral evidence of the 
 truth, but on the testimony of the Spirit 
 with and by the truth to the renewed soul." 
 Further on he gives the correct definition : 
 " To beheve that Christ is God manifest in 
 the flesh ... is to receive Him as our God. 
 This includes the apprehension and conviction 
 of His Divine glory and the adoring reverence, 
 love, confidence, and submission, which are 
 due to God alone." But how this can be 
 reconciled with the other definition I do not 
 see. But suppose they mean the same thing. 
 Dr. Hodge, as we have seen, declares all 
 the assertions of Scripture free from error. 
 If, now, faith is believing the facts and doc- 
 trines recorded in the Scriptures on the tes- 
 timony of God, the life of faith becomes simply 
 a mental effort to hold on to these facts. The 
 young Christian studies his Bible and finds 
 some things which seem to him contra- 
 dictory. According to this theory, he must 
 believe there is no error or he loses his 
 Christian faith. He must hold on to the 
 Bible (it will be said) no matter what science 
 says or secular history, or the evidence of 
 his own common sense. This is not the 
 faith of Luther or of Paul or of the Shorter 
 Catechism, which declares that " Faith in 
 Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we 
 receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 271 
 
 as He is offered to us in the Gospel." What 
 the pastor in his ministrations desires to 
 awaken and foster in his converts is this faith 
 in Jesus Christ. 
 
 All Scripture is God-inspired — true ! But 
 the remarkable thing is that the text affirms 
 more than this. All Scripture is not only 
 God-inspired, but all Scripture is '^profitable 
 for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for 
 instruction, which is in righteousness ; that 
 the man of God may be complete, furnished 
 completely unto every good work." This 
 seems to me the hardest part of it. I find 
 no difficulty in supposing the list of Dukes 
 of Edom God-inspired, even though in the 
 original autograph it had some names wrongly 
 placed. But do you make it profitable for 
 instruction in righteousness ? Do you make 
 it profitable* to yourself for completely fur- 
 
 * Everyone knows that the profitableness of all Scrip- 
 ture is not realized in ordinary Christian experience. A 
 brilliant lecturer says that once, when eating a very fine 
 shad, onp of the company began to question him about his 
 faith in Scripture. The questioner held up one difficulty 
 after another and asked, " What do you do with this ? '* 
 The reply was, " I treat it as I do the bones in my fish — I 
 quietly lay it on one side." In practice, this is what every- 
 one does. The soul does not feed on genealogical tables 
 or lists of forgotten kings, no matter how strenuously 
 it believes that they are all profitable for instruction in 
 righteousness. Nor does the preacher make use of these 
 in his work — though there is a tradition that a sermon 
 was once preached on " the nine-and-twenty knives " 
 
272 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 nishing yourself to every good work ? If 
 not, you cannot lightly condemn me for not 
 drawing your deduction from its inspiration. 
 Surely, you would not allow me to censure 
 you for not practising upon your own con- 
 fession of its profitableness. How to make 
 all Scripture profitable is at least as important 
 a question, and it is a more practical question 
 than how to establish its absolute inerrancy. 
 
 brought up from the captivity, and another on "the 
 night-hawk, the owl, and the cuckoo," from the list of 
 unclean birds. In practical Christian experience and 
 edification, some things in the Bible are quietly left at 
 one side. 
 
 Now, if a comparative anatomist were to study the shad, 
 the bones would become of the first importance to him. 
 It would hardly be necessary for the bystander to re- 
 monstrate with him for spending so much time on the 
 bones which contain no nutriment. But we, as students 
 of the Scripture, are precisely in this condition. We sup- 
 pose the very things which the ordinary Christian may 
 quietly leave unused — we suppose these to throw light on 
 the structure of Scripture. When we bring them forward 
 with this purpose, we are met by the assertion that these 
 cannot be what they seem to be — discrepancies cannot 
 exist. In other words, it is persistently asserted that 
 there can be no bones in the fish— that it is all good; 
 therefore we must swallow bones and all, or at least must 
 pound the bones fine by some reconciling hypothesis and 
 then declare them good meat. 
 
 The Lord Jesus at one time met the disciples when they 
 were hungry, and gave them a piece of fish broiled on the 
 coals. Were He to bring me such a gift, I should expect 
 to find it excellent fish. Should I, therefore, expect to 
 find it unlike any other fish in structure ? Would it be 
 disloyalty to Him to stop and look for the bones ? 
 
AND INSPIRATION. 273 
 
 And here is to the theological teacher the 
 most serious question of all. To insist upon 
 a constant assertion and defence of the in- 
 errancy of Scripture is to turn the Y/hole 
 science of exegesis into a study of harmonistics. 
 No douht infidelity is constantly alleging con- 
 tradictions and discrepancies that do not exist. 
 For that reason, I would be slow to urge those 
 which I suppose to exist. But to spend one's 
 time in hypotheses designed to show how dis- 
 crepancies may be reconciled is generally a 
 fruitless task. 
 
 The truth frankly acknowledged is the 
 truth's own best defence. But it is to be 
 expected that we will discover some new 
 truth. It is the duty of the special student 
 to announce the discovery. That he will 
 sometimes be hasty, sometimes will be one- 
 sided, is to be expected. And it is to be 
 expected that his positions will be attacked. 
 It is desirable that they be attacked, for it 
 is by discussion that the truth is advanced. 
 I am sure no one in a theological chair in 
 the Presbyterian Church could object to the 
 sharpest discussion of his pubUshed views. 
 Indeed, he would welcome it as a means of 
 clarifying his own statements. But the dis- 
 cussion ought to discuss statements and not 
 persons. In this revision year, we have heard 
 much of the hberty given by the subscription 
 to our standards. Is this a liberty to those 
 
 18 
 
274 BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP. 
 
 only who agree with us, to those only who do 
 not believe the Pope of Kome to be an Anti- 
 christ, or even to those only who investigate 
 the problems of theology " in order to vin- 
 dicate the truth as held by our Church"? 
 These questions must be answered by our 
 pastors and elders, for they bear rule in the 
 house of God. For one, I can say I want 
 to have them answered rightly, not only for 
 my own sake and the sake of the institution 
 I serve, but for the sake of the whole Church 
 of God, and for the sake of His truth. And so 
 I end where my friend began. In order to 
 progress there must be sympathy and con- 
 fidence between pastors and professors. The 
 work is one. Our aim is one. We must all 
 account to the one Lord, '* whose we are and 
 whom we serve." May He help us to know 
 His truth and to do His will ! 
 
LONDON : 
 SPEAIGHT AND SONS, PRINTERS, 
 FETTER LANE. 
 
13 (57- 14, FLEET STREET, LONDON, 
 
 JAMES CLARKE & CO/S BOOKS 
 
 Pamphlets. 
 
 The Beauty of God, and Other Sermons. By T. 
 Vincent Tymms. Price 2d. I2s. per loo. 
 
 An Appeal to Young Nonconformists. Five Papers. 
 By R. F. HoRTON, Hampstead. Price 2d. I2s. per loo. 
 
 A Quiet Day for Ministers in Manchester. By 
 Rev. S. Hartley. An Address delivered in Besses Congre- 
 gationil Church, Prestwich. Price id. 6s. per lOO. 
 
 What is a Christian Church, and Why Should I Join 
 One. By Eric A. Lawrence. Price 2d. 
 
 The Needs of Young Men. By Archdeacon Farrar. 
 Paper, id. j or 3s. per 100. 
 
 Public Morality. By Vox Clamantis. Reprinted in 
 pamphlet form from The Christian World, i. Betting 
 and Gambling — 2. Our Streets — 3. Our Amusements — 
 4. Drink — 5. The Getting and Spending of Money. 
 One Penny each, or 3s. per 100. 
 
 THREE SERMONS BY DR. CLIFFORD, 
 
 The Pulpit and Human Life ; or, the Minister as the 
 Interpreter and Spiritual Leader of Human Life. An Address 
 delivered to the Students of the Lancashire Independent 
 College, Manchester. Price Twopence. 
 
 The Old Testament in the Teaching of Jesus. 
 
 A Sermon preached at the Annual Meetings of the Baptist 
 Churches of the Midland Association, held at Wolverhampton. 
 Price Twopence. 
 
 Coming Theology. By J. Clifford, M.A., D.D. Second 
 
 Edition. An Address from the Chair of the General Baptist 
 Association. Price 3d. 
 
JAMES CLARKE ^ CO. S 
 
 The Moral Pirates, and the Cruise of "The 
 Ghost." With Twenty-five Illustrations. By W. L. 
 Alden. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Reedham Dialogues. A Dozen Dialogues for Children. 
 By late John Edmed, Head Master of the Asylum for 
 Fatherless Children, Reedham, Croydon. Eighth Thousand. 
 Imperial 32mo, cloth, is. 6d. 
 
 What of the Night? A Temperance Tale of the 
 Times. By Marianne Farningham. Fourth Thousand. 
 Crown 8vo, Illuminated Cover, is. 
 
 The Baby's Annual. 
 The Rosebud Annual for 1892. The Twelve Monthly 
 
 Numbers of The Rosebud. In handsome cloth binding. 
 Nearly 300 charming illustrations. Quarto, 4s. 
 
 Daily_ Chronicle : " The genial Preston Guardian : " To many 
 
 humour in which children take such homes this book comes as a yearly visitor 
 
 delight distinguishes a large number oj eagerly looked for by the children, 
 
 the tales ^ sketches, and rhy-mes ; and whose expectations this year we are 
 
 the illustrations, which reach a total sure will be more than realised" 
 of nearly three hundred, possess excep- 
 tional merit." 
 
 One Volume Novels. 
 
 A Man's Mistake. By Minnie Worboise. Crown 8v0, 
 
 cloth, 5s. 
 
 All He Knew. A religious Novel. By John Habberton, 
 Author of " Helen's Babies," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Roslyn's Trust. By Lucy C. Lillie, Author of 
 "Prudence," " Kenyon's Wife," " The . Household of Glen 
 Holly." Crown Svo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 ^^ I hav^ seldom, if ever, read a work of fiction that moved 7ne with so much 
 admiration."— Gi^Q-RO-K MacDonald. 
 
 For the Right : A German Romance. By Emil 
 Franzos. Given in English by Julie Sutter (translator of 
 " Letters from Hell"). Preface by Dr. George MacDonald. 
 Crown Svo, cloth, 3s. 6d. Third Edition. 
 
 Dinah's Son. By L. B. Walford. Crown Svo, cloth, 
 3s. 6d. 
 
 Hagar : A North Yorkshire Story. By Mary 
 
 Linskill, Author of " Between the Heather and the Northern 
 Sea," " The Haven under the Hill,'' &c., &c. Crown Svo, is. 
 
PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 LiLLO AND Ruth ; or, Aspirations. By Helen Hays. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Mertonsville Park ; or, Herbert Seymour's Choice. 
 By Mrs. Woodward. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. 
 
 Clarissa's Tangled Web. By Beatrice Bristowe. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. 
 
 Sister Ursula. By Lucy Warden Bearne. Crown 
 8vo, cloth, 5s. 
 
 Priscilla ; or, The Story of a Boy's Love. By Clara 
 
 L. WiLLMETS. Cloth, IS. 6d. 
 
 The Cathedral Shadow. By Marianne Farn- 
 ingham. Fifth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. ; gilt 
 edges, 4s. 
 
 The Snow Queen. By Maggie Symington. Third 
 Thousand. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, is 6d. ; gilt edges, 2s. 
 
 BY AMELIA E. BARR. 
 
 " Mrs. Barr's stories are always pleasant to read. They are full oj sweetness 
 and /z^/z/f."— Scotsman. 
 
 *'/» descriptive writing, in simplicity and gracefulness of style, and in perfect 
 mastery over her characters, Mrs. Barr can hold her own with any living English 
 fiovelist." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 NOW READY. 
 
 Friend Olivia. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 In a variety of handsome cloth bindings, or bound uniformly, crown 8vo. 
 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH. 
 
 In the Press. A Sister to Esau. 
 She Loved a Sailor. In Spite of Himself 
 
 /list Ready A BORDER SHEPHERDESS 
 
 The Last of the Mac- 
 
 Allisters. 
 Woven of Love and Glory 
 Feet of Clay {with portrait 
 
 of author^ 
 The Household of McNeil 
 
 Paul and Christina 
 The Squire of Sandal Side 
 The Bow of Orange Ribbon 
 Between Two Loves 
 A Daughter of Fife 
 Jan Vedder's Wife 
 
 *^ A new and cheap edition of "Jan Vedder's Wife" is now 
 issued. In paper cover, price \s. 6d. 
 
 The Harvest of the Wind, and Other Stories. 
 By Amelia E. Barr. Crown 8vo, paper, is. 
 
JAMES CLARKE ^ GO'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 NOVELS BY EMMA JANE WORBOISE. 
 
 NEW AND CHEAP EDITION. 
 
 *^* These Novels, which have hitherto been sold at Five Shillings 
 each, are now issued at 
 
 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH. 
 
 Thornycroft Hall 
 
 MiLLICENT KeNDRICK 
 
 St. Beetha's 
 Violet Vaughan 
 Margaret Torrington 
 The Fortunes of Cyril 
 Den HAM 
 
 SiNGLEHURST MaNOR 
 
 overdale 
 Grey and Gold 
 Mr. Montmorency's 
 
 Money 
 Nobly Born 
 Chrystabel 
 Canonbury Holt 
 Husbands and Wives 
 The House of Bondage 
 Emilia's Inheritance 
 
 F.ATHER Fabian 
 Oliver Westwood 
 Lady Clarissa 
 Grey House at Endlestone 
 Robert Wreford's Daugh- 
 ter 
 The Brudenells of Brude 
 The Heirs of Errington 
 Joan Carisbroke 
 A Woman's Patience 
 The Story of Penelope 
 
 SiSSIE 
 
 The Abbey Mill 
 Warleigh's Trust 
 Esther Wynne 
 Fortune's Favourite 
 His Next of Kin. 
 
 The following 35-. 6^. Volumes are now issued at Three Shillings eaa 
 
 Married Life ; or, The Story of Phillip and Edith. 
 Our New House ; or, Keeping up Appearances. 
 Heartsease in the Family I Amy Wilton 
 Maude Bolingbroke Helen Bury 
 
 BOOKS FOR THE HOLIDAYS. SPECIAL OFFER. 
 
 A limited number of the following Novels, published at Four 
 Shillings and Sixpence, are now offered at Two Shillings and 
 Sixpence, 
 
 Campion Court 
 Evelyn's Story 
 Lottie Lonsdale 
 
 Sir Julian's AVife 
 The Lillingstones 
 The Wife's Trials 
 
 14,9/91 
 
1 1012 01245 6473