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 The Bible on the Rock: 
 A Letter to 
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 THE BIBLE ON THE ROCK 
 
 A LETTER.;^Bn 
 
 H(; 
 
 
 PEINCIPAL EAINY. 
 
 ON HIS SPEECH IN THE FREE CHURCH COMMISSION, AND 
 
 ON PROFESSOR W. R. SMITH'S ARTICLES IN 
 
 THE 'ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE SABBATH ON THE ROCK/ 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE lY. BRIDGE. 
 
 DAVID BETCE & SONS, BUCHANAN STREET, GLASGOW. 
 A. & E. MILNE, ABERDEEN. 
 
 18 7 7. 
 
& 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 On this Eock, viz. : — That it is imiDossible for God, as an infinitely just and trutt- 
 loving Lawgiver and Judge, to bring the Bible into Court at the Last Judgment 
 against those who, in their life-time on Earth, knew, and yet disobeyed its laws and 
 truths (Rom. ii. 12-16), unless the Bible were true in every page, unless it contained 
 truth without a?ii/ mixture of error — that it was impossible for God to give the Bible, 
 the whole Bible, as the bule oi faith and life ' (Confession, 1st Chai:)ter) if it contained 
 any erroneous statement — for then men would be hound by the EuLE from God to 
 believe what was untrue — on this rock, that the Bible, as ' the EuLE ' and the Witness 
 against transgressors, must, of necessitj'', be true in every part — the Bible maj^ safely 
 rest till the Archangel's blast summon the dead to Judgment. If any member or 
 office-bearer in a church were to be at liberty to conjecture and assert that parts or 
 part of the Bible was not true, all would be entitled to the same libertj^ and then, 
 each man following his own fancy or reason, would receive and reject as he pleased; 
 the result being, that there would be a vast variety of contradictory and conflicting 
 beliefs, under which the doctrine of the Inspiration and Divine Authority of the 
 ■whole Bible would be utterly abandoned. No church, in these circumstances, could 
 possibly exist in harmony and peace. Wherefore it is absolutely necessai-j'- for a 
 Christian church to bind its members together in unity of faith, by making them 
 adhere to the doctrine of Inspiration as laid down in the Confession of Faith, Chap. 1st, 
 where it is said the Holy Scriptures are '■infallible truth'' in every part, for 'all the 
 parts consent,^ or agree, that the obscure parts are to be interpreted, not by the con- 
 jectures or reasoniugs of men, but by those ' places ' of Scripture ' that sjieak more 
 plaiuly;' that no error is to be conceived to be in the Bible, on the ground that it was 
 written by men and that men may err, because the Confession asserts that the writers 
 of Scripture were not left, like the authors of the Apocrj'pha, to their merely human 
 fallible jjowers, but were inspired by God to write the truth, and that, therefore, the 
 Holy Scriptures are the real and true ' Word of God,' He Himself being responsible 
 for all the statements therein, precisely as a merchant is responsible at law for letters 
 signed bj' the firm, though they were written by the corresponding clerk. . God 
 attached His signature to the books of the Bible by giving the writers the power to 
 work miracles, or allowing none of their words to fail in coming to pass. If, there- 
 fore, any office-bearer in a church shall assert that parts or part of the Bible is not 
 true as delivered by God's insjjired writers — that any one of them put in his own false 
 inferences, founded on his ignorance, as part of a true narrative — that historical facts 
 related in certain books, as that of Jonah, and which are declared to have been 
 historical facts by our Lord Himself (Matt. xii. 39-42) are nevertheless ■not facts but 
 poetical fiction, mere invented incidents imagined to point a moral or adorn a tale ; 
 if such office-bearer shall thus, and in other ways, contradict the Holy Scriptures, he 
 has entirely renounced, in his works, the doctrine of Inspiration, and, therefore, his 
 word cannot be received that he believes in the doctrine. Either his general Affirmative, 
 that he believes in the doctrine, is a falsehood; or, he is incapable of perceiving so 
 simple a truth as that ' A ivhole includes all its parts.'' For if he declares that the 
 whole Bible is true, and the ^chole of it is of Divine Authority, why does he destroy his 
 Affirmative by his sp'>cial Negatives, which declare that such and such parts are ■not 
 true. He must retract his special Negatives before his general Affikmatiye can be 
 received by any church. 
 
A LET TEE, &c. 
 
 42 RUTHERGLEN ROAD, 
 
 Glasgow, 2Sth March 1877. 
 To rRINCIPAL RAINY, 
 
 PiEv. Sir, 
 
 The defence of Bible truth is tlie duty of every 
 christian man. This is my apology for writing this Letter to 
 you. I deeply regret, both for your own sake, and that of the 
 churches in Scotland, that in your speech delivered on 7th 
 inst., in the Free Church Commission on Professor W. E. Smith's 
 Case, you seemed to take up positions which cannot be logically 
 maintained. These positions are dangerous to the stability of 
 scriptural truth in the land ; and I keenly felt at youi- appearing 
 to throw over them the shield of your well known character as 
 a calm and deliberate thinker. I am persuaded that you occu- 
 pied these positions, not from a desire to do so, but from miscon- 
 ception. I know that the interests of religion are not dearer to 
 me than they are to you, and I hope that when the truths I 
 have to illustrate are presented to you in a light different from 
 that in which you have been accustomed to behold them, we 
 may see eye to eye, and be of one mind. 
 
 Your first erroneous position was, that the references by 
 Christ and His Apostles to the writings of Moses, do not indi- 
 cate that Moses was the author. Your own words, as corrected 
 in the Daily Bevicw, are as follows : — 
 
 Principal Rainy. ' What I really said was that the references by our 
 Lord and His apostles, to sayings or doings of Moses, do not decide as to 
 the authorship of the books in which these sayings or doings are recorded.' 
 
 This is exactly the position on Avhich Professor Smith stands. 
 In his remark to the College Sub-Committee, in vindication 
 of his article entitled ' Bible,' he says {College, Committee, 
 Special Report, page 21) : — 
 
 Professor Smith. ' It is asked whether our Lord does not bear witness 
 to the ]\Iosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. If this were so, I should feel 
 myself to be on very dwujeroiis and untenable ground. But it appears to mo 
 that only a venj strained exegesis can draw any infereuce of authorship from 
 the recorded words of our Saviour.' 
 
 In the following simple reasoning, I shall not attempt a 
 ' very strained exegesis,' and yet will be able to infer that Christ 
 held Moses to be the author of Deuteronomy, and that, conse- 
 quently, Professor Smith, according to his own confession, 
 
stands on ' very dangerous and untenable ground.' First, I 
 admit that neither our Lord nor His apostles say in words so 
 express as these, ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, that Moses 
 wrote the book of Deuteronomy, witli the exception of a few 
 brief additions recording events which occurred after his death, 
 and which, therefore, had to be appended by another sacred 
 writer ' (see the record of the death and burial of Moses in the 
 last chapter). But such express declaration is not required, 
 since the doctrine of the Confession of Faith is, that a deduction 
 by ' good and necessary consequence' is as binding as what is 
 ' expressly set down in Scripture ' (Chapter 1st, Clause 6th). 
 The appeal then is to reason to decide the question ; and in my 
 reasoning I shall, as a layman, only give expression to the 
 unbiassed common sense of the laity of Scotland. When Luke, 
 in Acts XV. 21, says — 
 
 ' For Moses of old time hath in every city theui that preach him, being 
 read in the Synagogues every Sabbatli-day.' 
 
 If he does not mean that the writings of Moses were read in 
 the Synagogue, tvhat does he mean ? Again, when Luke states 
 that the Eisen Lord enlightened His two darkened disciples at 
 Emmaus, and (Luke xxiv. 27) 
 
 ' beginning at Moses, and all the prophets he expounded unto them 
 in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.' 
 
 If by the word ' Moses,' the sacred writer did not mean the 
 writings of Moses, who shall venture to say that by ' prophets,' 
 he meant the writings of the prophets ? We know what answer 
 Professor Smith is prepared to give to these questions — he con- 
 jectures that the Jews conjcdared that Moses was the author of 
 the Pentateuch ! And his followers do not hesitate to say that 
 Christ and His apostles addressed the Jews according to their 
 false belief, for they sought not to teach them historical criticism, 
 or the facts of the case, but only the way of salvation. It is 
 needless to remark that this assertion is pure conjecture, incap- 
 able of any proof, seeing that neither Christ nor His apostles are 
 here to inform us that their business was not to teach according 
 to historical truth. Passing from such verses as these two now 
 quoted — we approach those from which the school of higher 
 criticism shall attempt in vain to escape. Jesus Christ, the final 
 Judge of Jew and Gentile, knows what will be transacted at the 
 day when all shall stand before tlie great White Throne, and to 
 the Jews He uttered these ever memorable words (John v. 45-47). 
 ' Do )iot think that I will accuse you to the Father, there is one that 
 accuselh you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye 
 would have believed me ; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his 
 ivritings, how shall yo believe my words.' 
 
 It has ever been held that by these words the Saviour 
 meant that the Jews would be judged by the Law or five books 
 
of Moses. Paul distinctly announces tlie same truth (Romans 
 ii. 12). 
 
 ' For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without 
 law ; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law.' 
 
 The book of Deuteronomy confirms this view. God said to 
 Moses, ' Write this song that it may testify against them as a 
 witness ' (Deut. xxxi. 21). The whole book of the Law was to be 
 a witness against them (Deut. xxxi. 26); and Moses, in refer- 
 ence to disobedience of the Laws in Deuteronomy, said, ' Cursed 
 be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law, to do them ' 
 (Deut. xxvii. 26). Tlie same view can be established from the 
 writings of even Professor Smith. In his article ' Bible,' he 
 says : — 
 
 ' Ezra is a scribe who comes to Jerusalem armed not with a fresh 
 message from the Lord, but with the book of the Law of Moses. This Law 
 book was the Peotateuch ; and the public recognition of it, as the rule of 
 the Theocracy, was the declaration that the religious ordinances of Israel 
 had ceased to admit of development.' 
 
 Since the Pentateuch then was ' the rule' the Law of the 
 great moral Governor for the life — the daily practice of the 
 Jews, His moral creatures, it follows of necessity that by that 
 rule they shall be judged at last. And the point of our argu- 
 ment is, that Fact not Fiction, can become the basis of judicial 
 action ; of a sinner's condemnation before the final bar of God. 
 If there be a flaw in the indictment — if the law which is to be 
 a witness against the sinner was not really enacted at the time, 
 it bears on its face that it was enacted — then that forged law 
 cannot be produced to condemn the criminal. On the face of it, 
 the book of Deuteronomy many times declares it was written 
 by Moses (Deut. xxxi. 24, etc.). With the distinctness of a Law 
 passed by the British Parliament, Moses gives even the very 
 day when part was addressed to the Jews before they crossed 
 the Jordan. ' In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on 
 the first day of the month, Moses spake unto the children of 
 Israel, etc. (Deut. i. 3). But if the book of Deuteronomy, as 
 Professor Smith first conjectures, and then asserts, was not 
 written by Moses — if, as he says, tlie speeches ascribed in the 
 book to Moses were never uttered by him, but composed by 
 some unknown author about 700 years after Moses was dead — 
 if this unknown author acted the part of Sir Walter Scott, when 
 writing the Waverley novels, by putting into the mouth of an 
 historical person what he never said, then there is a flaw in the 
 indictment of Jesus Christ against the Jews, and they would 
 have been justified in saying unto Him ' We are not afraid of 
 Moses accusing us of neglecting any references to you. If 
 these references exist anywhere, they are in the book of 
 Deuteronomy, and that book was WTitten not by Moses but by 
 
some autlior unknown to us, wlio fabricated the Look seven 
 centuries after Moses was dead, so Moses or liis writings will 
 never accuse us before the Father about you.' A plain illustra- 
 tion will send this argument home. During the reign of Charles 
 the Second, the King's commands to the Scottish Parliament in 
 Edinburgh were generally written and signed, not by the King 
 himself, but by Lauderdale. If seven days after Lauderdale had 
 ceased to be the King's minister, a person in London had drawn 
 out a Law, and both dated it a month before the time wdien it 
 was actually written, and signed it with Lauderdale's name, 
 such forged documeut could never appear in Law against any 
 subject. How then could the book of Deuteronomy, with its 
 numerous laws, be as Moses affirmed, a witness against trans- 
 gressors (Deut. xxxi. 26), how could it be brought into court 
 against the disobedient, if the book, on the face of it, was dated 
 seven centuries before it was written, and bore the signature of 
 Moses as the writer, though he was not the writer ? If the 
 school of higher criticism, conjecture that the Jews were entitled 
 to be judged by the book of Deuteronomy, if they, irrespective of 
 its autliorship, believed it was divine — such conjecture would 
 be a wilful evading of our argument, which is, tliat a iust Law^- 
 giver cannot bring a forged document into court against his 
 subjects. Even that Scottish Parliament which sat in Edinburgh 
 during the reign of Charles the Second — a Parliament that shall 
 ever be infamous in the memory of Scotchmen for its injustice 
 and tyranny — even that Parliament would not have produced 
 in court against the Covenanters a Law written and signed, not 
 by Peter Wedderburn, the Clerk of Council, but by another 
 individual personating Wedderburn, and signing his name — 
 would not have produced it, even though the Covenanters had 
 believed the forged document to be genuine. Professor Smith, 
 this reasoning is no 'very strained exegesis.' I know my country- 
 men, and I appeal to their plain common sense to say, if Jesus 
 Christ could be worse at the last, than that infamous Parliament 
 that drenched the soil of Scotland with the blood of unoffending 
 men — if the Judge of all the earth, who ever shall do right, 
 could bring a forged document into court against either Jew or 
 Gentile — if fiction instead of fact, can become the basis of 
 judicial action. 
 
 We pass now to a reference made to Moses, not by Christ 
 himself, Init by the apostle Peter. In his sermon, after he 
 had miraculously healed the lame man at the gate of the Temple, 
 he introduced, as an essential part of his reasoning, these words 
 (Acts iii. 22-23)— 
 
 'For Moses ti-uly said uuto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your 
 God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye hear 
 in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to 
 
pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed 
 from among the people.' 
 
 Upon this passage we remark, that though fiction as a 
 parable may illustrate Divine truth, it can never become an 
 essential part of reasoning with a moral creature on his duty. 
 And the question is, Did Moses utter that prediction, or did he 
 not ? The declaration of the Holy Ghost through the lips of 
 Peter is, that Moses truly said these words. Either he said them, 
 or he did not. If, as Professor Smith conjectures, he did not 
 say them, then the Holy Ghost, speaking through Peter, declared 
 that if the Jews did not receive the fiction that Moses said what 
 he did not say, and believe that Christ was the prophet Moses 
 predicted was to come, though Moses predicted nothing of the 
 kind, or, in other words, if they did not believe a lie, they 
 would, every soul of them, be destroyed from among the people ! 
 According to Professor Smith's conjecture, we are to suppose 
 that Peter, or rather, the Holy Ghost speaking through him, 
 reasoned after this fashion — ' These ignorant Jews conjecture 
 that Moses prophesied of One like unto himself, who was to 
 arise in their midst, though he did not so prophesy ; and I will 
 take advantage of their false conjecture, and threaten them that 
 if they do not receive Jesus as the promised Prophet, they shall 
 be utterly destroyed.' Again, we repeat, it is impossible for men, 
 and more so for God, to make fiction instead of fact the basis of 
 a solemn aj)peal to immortal souls on matters which directly 
 concern their eternal destiny. If Professor Smith will admit 
 that Moses is the author of the words which Peter quoted from 
 Deuteronomy (xviii. 18, 19) predicting the coming of another 
 Prophet mighty in signs and wonders like Israel's leader out of 
 Egypt, then his theory regarding the book of Deuteronomy is 
 overthrown in a moment, for in his article ' Bible' he says — 
 
 ' There is no reason to think tliat a prophet ever received a revelation 
 which was not spoken directly and pointedly to his own time.' 
 
 I have (Principal Eainy) given only these two passages as 
 a specimen of what can be deduced by ' good and necessary' in- 
 ference from the many references by Christ and His apostles to 
 the writings of Moses. The other numerous passages you can 
 yourself carefully examine in the light of good and necessa-ry 
 inference. Permit me now to point out to you another line of 
 thought. According to the doctrine of the Larger Catechism, 
 Avhich is one of the Free Church Standards, it is laid down that 
 Christ, the Alpha and Omega of Eevelation, is in His character 
 of the Prophet of the Church responsible for all the references 
 to the writings of Moses which are to be found in the Old 
 Testament, because (Question No. 43) 
 
 Christ executeth the office of a Prophet, in revealing to the Church 
 in all ages, ' by His Spirit and Word, the whole will of God.' 
 
8 
 
 These words ' in all ages' imply tliat Clirist was the revealer 
 of truth in Old Testament as well as in New Testament times. 
 And Peter expressly says, that the Spirit which was in the 
 prophets, or writers of the Old Testament, was the Spirit of 
 Christ (1 Pet. i. 11; 2 Pet. i. 20). Carrying with us this truth 
 that our Lord is responsible for all the Old Testament references 
 to the writings of Moses, let us for a single trial turn to the 
 book of Joshua, and find what can be deduced from it by ' good 
 and necessary consequence.' The book opens with an account 
 of God appearing to Joshua immediately after the death of 
 Moses, and giving him this charge (Josh. i. 7, 8) — 
 
 ' Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe 
 to do according to all the law, which Moses luy servant commanded thee ; 
 turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper 
 whithersoever thou goest. lihifi hook of the Law shall not depart out of 
 thy mouth ; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou 
 mayest observe to do according to all that is icrittcn therein.'' 
 
 Prom this passage we infer tliat a written book which Joshua 
 had then in his possession — a book containing what Moses had 
 commanded — was to be the sole guide, the only rule of Joshua's 
 actions. Moses died 1451 years before Christ, and within seven 
 years after Joshua had received the solemn charge not to turn 
 to the right hand or to the left from the written book of the 
 Law of Moses ; he came with the Israelites to Mount Ebal, and 
 then and there carried out to the very letter the instructions 
 contained in the written book, which for seven years he had 
 kept in his possession. That book was the book of Deuter- 
 onomy, because there is no book in the Bible except Deutero- 
 nomy which contained the Mount Ebal instructions. From 
 Joshua 8tli chapter 30-35th verses, we learn that, as commanded 
 by Moses, Joshua built an altar at Mount Ebal, offered sacrifices, 
 wrote a copy of the Law on the plaster on the stones, read the 
 Law to the people, and proclaimed the blessings and curses as 
 contained in the 27th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. 
 Within the short space of five verses the author of Joshua four 
 times informs us that Joshua rigidly and faithfully carried out 
 all his instructions as contained in the written book then in his 
 possession. Professor Smith conjectures that the book of Deut- 
 eronomy was not then in the possession of Joshua, not being in 
 existence until 700 years afterwards — that is. Professor Smith 
 conjectures that Joshua acted according to his written instruc- 
 tions 700 years before the instructions were written out ! This 
 is certainly a very tall conjecture — a very strained specimen of 
 exegesis — but as we proceed we shall see that there is no con- 
 jecture too deep or too high which the school of higher criti- 
 cism is incapable of forming. But conjecture as it may please, 
 that school shall never escape from the inevitable conclusion 
 
that Joshua could not possibly obey the laws in the book of 
 Deuteronomy, and read out before the people the very blessings 
 and curses, word by word, if the book of Deuteronomy had not 
 then been in his possession. A profound critic might suppose 
 that the book of Joshua was not written until 750 years after 
 the death of Moses, consequently about fifty years after Pro- 
 fessor Smith's supposed date for the ^\Titing of Deuteronomy, 
 and that the author of Joshua, finding the Mount Ebal instruc- 
 tions in Deuteronomy, made his narrative in the book of Joshua 
 to agree with the Mount Ebal commands in Deuteronomy. But 
 such a conjecture would be not only an utter abandonment of 
 the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures — a plain asser- 
 tion that one lie had been forged to cover another — but it is a 
 conjecture that no Scottish peasant, who knows his Bible, could 
 possibly form. From 1 Kings ix. 16 we learn that 440 years 
 after the death of Moses, the King of Egypt captured Gezer, 
 burnt it with fire, slew the Canaanites that dwelt therein, and 
 made a present of the city to his daughter, Solomon's wife. And 
 from Joshua xvi. 10, we find that when the book of Joshua was 
 written, tlie Canaanites had not been driven out of Gezer, but 
 were dwelling therein " vnto this day" that is, at the time the 
 book of Joshua was written. Again, from 2 Sam. v. 6-8, we 
 learn that 402 years after Moses died, David captured the 
 stronghold of Zion, and drove out the Jebusites, who formerly 
 inhabited Jerusalem. And on turning to Joshua xv. 63, we 
 find these words, — 
 
 ' As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of 
 Judah could not drive them out ; but the Jebusites dwell with the 
 children of Judah at Jerusalem " unto this day. '''''' 
 
 From this verse it is evident that the Jebusites were not 
 driven out of Jerusalem when the book of Joshua was written ; 
 and, as David drove out the Jebusites at least 300 years before, 
 Professor Smith's supposed date for the writing of Deuteronomy, 
 it follows of necessity that the book of Joshua was written 
 centuries before Professor Smith's conjectured date for the 
 writing of Deuteronomy ; that, therefore, tlie author of the book 
 of Joshua could not fabricate his Mount Ebal narrative (Josh. 
 viii. 30-55) to agree with Professor Smith's unknown author, 
 who put into the mouth of Moses words he never said. Con- 
 jecture as it may, the school of higher criticism shall never 
 wriggle from the inevitable conclusion that Joshua could not 
 keep the Mount Ebal instructions as written in the book of 
 Deuteronomy if the book of Deuteronomy had not been in his 
 possession, and that Jesus Christ, the revealing Propliet of the 
 Church in all ages, is responsible for tlie declaration in the book 
 of Joshua, that Joshua at Mount Ebal faithfully carried out to 
 the letter the Mount Ebal instructions contained in the written 
 
10 
 
 book of the law of Moses. That the book of Deuteronomy was 
 really in the possession of Joshua is evident even to every un- 
 learned reader, for Deuteronomy expressly says that ' when 
 Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a 
 book, until they were finished ;' that Moses commanded the 
 Levites to put the book of the Law which he had just finished 
 writino' in the side of the ark of the covenant for safe preserva- 
 tion (Deut. xxxi. 24, 26). 
 
 I have thus, Eeverend Sir, briefly indicated how, by deduc- 
 tions of good and necessary consequence, the truth can be estab- 
 lished, that the references by Christ, His apostles, and other 
 sacred writers, to the books of Moses, do decide that JNIoses was 
 the author of Deuteronomy — of as much of it as the Bible 
 ascribes to him, which, I may say, is the whole of it, with the 
 exception of the last chapter, which is merely a biographical 
 appendix briefly relating his death and burial, and this biogra- 
 phical appendix in no way interferes with the Mosaic Laws and 
 addresses. If you will carefully examine all tlie other Bible 
 references by this mode of good and necessary inference, you 
 will soon come to hold with me that there is no truth in the 
 Confession of Faith or Shorter Catechism which has better Bible 
 proof than the truth that Moses was the author of Deuteronomy. 
 
 The second erroneous position you took up in your speech 
 in the Commission was, that Professor Smith's views do not 
 involve a renunciation of the doctrine of the Inspiration of the 
 Scriptures. Two lines of reasoning are here open to me. Either 
 to make Professor Smith prove that by his baseless conjectures 
 he has reduced the book of Deuteronomy, as well as other books, 
 to the rank of apocryphal writings, or to exhibit what is the 
 doctrine of the Confession of Faith on Inspiration, and then by 
 quotations from Professor Smith's articles in the ' Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica,' sliow how completely he has departed from the 
 doetrine as held by the Free Church. 
 
 In the first centuries of the Christian era there were in ex- 
 istence, in addition to the books which at present compose the 
 New Testament, several epistles which, on their face, pretended 
 to have been written by Peter, James, John, and Jude, but were 
 not in reality written by these apostles. The early Christian 
 Church excluded these epistles from the canon of Scripture on 
 the ground that they were sjnmoits, because they pretended to 
 have been composed by the apostles when they were not. The 
 words of our Lord to the Church in Ej)hesus may, in a sense, 
 be applied to these epistles ; the Church ' had tried them which 
 had said they were the apostles' writings, but were not, and had 
 found them liars (Rev. ii. 2). For excluding the pretenders, the 
 Church received the commendation of her Lord. And the ques- 
 tion which I put to Professor Smith is, ' Did the early Church 
 
11 
 
 act wisely and righteously in excluding epistles which pretended 
 they were written by the apostles but were not ?' If tlie Church 
 then acted wisely and righteously, on what principle can he 
 justify the Jewish Church for not excluding Deuteronomy when 
 it appeared ? — because, he says, those living when the book ap- 
 peared knew it was a mere personation — a mere pretending to 
 have been written by Moses. Moral duty is eternal. AVhat 
 was just for Christ's Church of the first century was as just for 
 His Church seven centuries before. There were Grod-sent men 
 living, as Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Josiah, when the book ap- 
 peared ; and Professor Smith distinctly says they knew it was 
 a personation : how did they not exclude the pretender from the 
 canon, precisely as the early Christian Church excluded the 
 pretending epistles ? He little knows with what absurdity he 
 has robed himself about by his conjectures, and, tlierefore, for 
 his own sake, for the sake of the Free Church, and the sake 
 of truth, I shall now trample these conjectures under foot. 
 
 It has ever been held in Britain that a book which was not 
 written by the author whose name it bears (as Deuteronomy 
 bears on its face, in many pages, the name of Moses as th e 
 author), tlien the book is spurious ox forged, and forgery is fraud. 
 The same plain common sense view has been held on the con- 
 tinent of Europe by even the Eationalistic divines. Thus, 
 Dr Kuenen, the Eationalistic Professor in Leyden, Holland, 
 whose critical views and conclusions are almost in every case 
 the same as those of Professor Smith — Dr Kuenen says — 
 
 ' It may now be accepted as proved that the discourses and laws of 
 Deuteronomy were put into the mouth of Moses. At a t'me Avhen notions 
 about literary property were yet in their infancy, an action of this kind 
 was not regarded as at all unlawful. Men used to perpetrate sucli 
 fictions as these without any qualms of conscience. . . . 1 he ideas of 
 that day were not the same as ours. " Now or never ; " the Mosaic party 
 had to gain their end. Their victory, although (joined by cuiiuiiuj, must 
 not be attributed to the stratagem of which they made use, but to the 
 good cause which they upheld, and with the weapons with which they 
 defended it.' 
 
 Professor Smith knew very well it would never do to inform 
 the British public that many of the books of the Biljle had been 
 got up by fraud, and, therefore, in his article ' Bible,' he pre- 
 sented a theory of liis own, which he thought justified the sacred 
 writers in pretending to be, not themselves, but other men. 
 They did not write, he said, in ' pious fraud,' but 
 
 'as ancient (heathen) writers are not accustomed to distinguish his- 
 torical (lata from historical deductions^ the author of Deuteronomy ncttiir- 
 alhf presents his views in dramatic form in the mouth of Moses^ (article 
 'Bible'). 
 
 In defending his theory, he said to the College Sub-Com- 
 mittee that it was 
 
 ' the theory that God permitted the author of Deuteronomy to take a 
 
12 
 
 liberty common to every historian of antiquity^ and thrown certain didactic 
 matter into the form of a speech.' 
 
 At such a theory and such a defence the critics of even the 
 Higher School on the Continent could not but scoff in utter 
 disgust ; they are too clear-sighted not to perceive, what Pro- 
 fessor Smith cannot perceive, that the things he has compared 
 cannot bear comparison. He says, the liberty taken by the 
 author of Deuteronomy, was a liberty 'common to every historian 
 of antiquity.' I challenge him to the proof. I challenge him 
 to produce a single instance of even a heathen historian who 
 wrote a book, and on almost every page of it said it was written, 
 not by himself, but by another man. Let him search the 
 records of Greece and Eome for even a single case. Let him 
 remember that the date he assigns as that of the first appearance 
 of Deuteronomy was 700 years before Christ, and that at that 
 early period no heathen historian whatever had began to write, 
 and that consequently the author of Deuteronomy could not 
 possibly copy their example. Greek and Roman historians, 
 when describing the heroes of their history, could look at the 
 particular circumstances in which these heroes were at the 
 moment placed, and, judging of their feelings under these cir- 
 cumstances, make the heroes paint themselves, by giving expres- 
 sion to their feelings in a speech. That speech, made by the 
 historian, was a representation of the jvohahle ; but when Eabbi 
 Shammai, or whatever else was his name who wrote the book of 
 Deuteronomy, said on almost every page of it, that it was writ- 
 ten, not by himself, but by Moses, who died 700 years before 
 the time of the real writer, was that a representation of the 
 probable ? It was a downright lie, and every man who can 
 perceive the plainest of moral distinctions, will say it was a lie 
 — a lie such as even a heathen historian was never guilty of. 
 No, Professor Smith, the charge against your theory is not, as 
 you say, simply the putting of ' didactic matter into the form of 
 a speech.' I am astonished beyond expression at Professor 
 Smith's comparison and defence. God ' jjerviiticd,' he says; 
 but if God be the God who inspired the Bible, He must have 
 approved and assisted, as well as permitted. And is there not 
 a heaven-wide difference between the Bible by which the whole 
 Christian world shall be judged at the last, and such books as 
 those of Tacitus, Livy, or Thucydides ? The heathen authors 
 might put speeches into the mouths of their characters, as 
 Shakspeare made speeches for Shylock, imagining how, in the 
 circumstances, they would feel and act ; but will these heathen 
 productions be used as a law-book to judge the world ? The 
 Great Moral Governor, in view of Adam's race standing before 
 His bar, had to make sure that His Book of Judgment was per- 
 fect truth in every page. Again, the book of IJeuteronomy is 
 
13 
 
 in reality a book of legislation, and again I challenge Professor- 
 Smith to find a single case ont of the records of antiqnity in 
 which the heathen author makes his characters enact laws, giv- 
 ing the very date, place, and circumstances of the enactments, 
 when in reality they had not enacted these laws. The book of 
 Deuteronomy gives the place, ' on this side Jordan,' etc. ; the 
 date, ' the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day 
 of the month, Moses spake unto the children of Israel these 
 laws,' etc. (Deut. i. 1-3). So it turns out that no heathen author 
 ever acted as Professor Smith declares was done ' by every his- 
 torian of antiquity;' that, in short, no heathen historian had 
 such a base conscience as the unknown author of Deuteronomy. 
 And yet morality, when Deuteronomy was written, was not so 
 low in Israel as among the heathen, for Moses, in chap. iv. verse 
 4, asked the children of Israel, ' what nation is there so great, 
 that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law 
 which I set before you this day V 
 
 I believe that if Professor Smith had been able to see before- 
 hand the logical consequences of his conjectures, he would have 
 shuddered at the thought of ever forming them. To the College ' 
 Sub-Committee, when they told him his views had caused a feel- 
 ing of anxiety as to the influence of his tuition upon students, 
 and as dangerous ' in the way of surrendering to objectors the 
 literal credibility of other books of Scripture hitherto received as 
 historical,' he thus wrote — 
 
 ' I am convinced that there is nothing in what I have written to touch 
 a faith which moves in the lines of sound Protestant doctrine, and rests 
 on the bases indicated in the first chapter of our Confession ; and I can- 
 not be answerable for the effect of my teaching on men whose belief in the 
 Bible moves in other lines and other foundations.' 
 
 And in his defence to the Sub-Committee what did he 
 write ? — that notwithstanding the book of Deuteronomy having 
 been written by a man who pretended he was Moses when he 
 was not Moses,- and lived 700 years after Moses was dead, he 
 (Professor Smith) believed the book had Divine authority, and 
 that its Divine authority ' rested on the witness of our Lord 
 and testimonium Sjnritns Sancti,' which means a fabricated 
 story has Divine authority, and that Jesus Christ and the Holy 
 Ghost bore witness and testified that men should believe in a 
 lie. If the school of higher criticism can sink to a lower depth 
 of conjecture, let it descend at once, that we may know how low 
 human nature can fall. 
 
 I am anxious to avoid doing injustice to Professor Smith, 
 I only desire by a plain and full dissection of his views to open 
 his eyes — the logical eyes of his mind — but I think I do him 
 no injustice when I say, that after he found, from the strong 
 condemnation of his theory of the liberty of ancient heathen 
 
14 
 
 authors being a justification of the fraud of his unknown author 
 in having personated Moses, he formed a new theory as a cover 
 for the crime. That second theory is, that the personation was 
 not fraud, because the people who lived when the book was first 
 given to the Church knew it was a personation. It was in his 
 article ' Chronicles,' this second theory first reared its head. He 
 there says, that when the chronicler coined the speech of Abijah 
 in 2 Chron. xiii., ' the contemporaries of the author tinderstood it 
 was a free (or coined) composition.' Then he wrote a letter to 
 the Daibj Bevieio, in which he said — 
 
 ' It seems to me plain tlmt the author of Deuteronomy Avas at liberty 
 to choose such a way of setting forth his inspired admonitions. The use of 
 literary forms is not fraudulent when the nature and object of the form 
 are as transparent as they must have been to the Jirst readers in the case 
 before us.' 
 
 This second theory is w^orse and more untenable than the 
 first ; for 1st, It is purely imaginary to say that the first readers 
 must have known of the personation, because, as we have said, 
 there never was such a case of personation as that which Pro- 
 fessor Smith ascribes to his unknown author of Deuteronomy, in- 
 venting the enactment of laws, with date, place, and circumstance, 
 and putting on almost every page the name of a false author 
 as the real author. There never having been such an author, 
 there never could have been such readers. 2d. This theory 
 makes Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Josiah, and the whole Jewish 
 Church extremely cnlpahle in covering a fraud. 3d. It makes the 
 unknown author and Jewish Church exceedingly blind in not 
 seeing that though the first generation of readers were aware of 
 the personation, succeeding generations would not be aware of 
 the literary freedom or trick, and so be deceived into the belief, 
 that when the book of Deuteronomy said that Moses was the 
 writer, he was indeed the writer. Put this to the proof. In 
 any Sabbath-school let a teacher, holding Professor Smith's 
 views, say to the children, ' Now, though Deuteronomy says 
 that Moses wrote it, he really did not wa-ite it,' and the children 
 will at once ask, ' Why, then, does the Bible tell a lie ? ' I have 
 been a Sabbath-school teacher for thirty years, and know liow 
 children reason. 4tli. It is impossible for Professor Smith to 
 hold this second theory, for, in his article ' Bible,' he had formed 
 another theory, which swallows up this second one. 
 
 The Pentateuch, and the so-called earlier prophets (Joshua to Kings) 
 form together a continuous narrative. It is plain, however, that the whole 
 •work is not the uniform production of one pen, but that in some way, a 
 variety of records of different ages and styles have been combined to form 
 a single narrative. Accordingly, Jewish tradition bears that ]\Ioses was the 
 author of the Pentateuch, Joshua, the book named after him, Samuel, 
 the book of Judges, and so forth. As all Hebrew history is anonymous — 
 a sure proof that people had not yet learned to lay weight on questions of 
 authorship — it is not probable that this tradition rests on any surer ground 
 
15 
 
 than conjecture; and, of course, ascribe icho saw in the sacred hooTcs \.\\q 
 whole outcome of Israel's history would naturally leap to the conclusion 
 that the father of the Law was the author of tlie PeLtateuch. 
 
 Here Professor Smith affirms three things. 1st. That Jew- 
 ish tradition bore that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. 2d. That 
 the tradition probably rested on conjecture. 3d. That from what 
 a scribe saw in the sacred books, he would naturally leap to the 
 conclusion that Moses was the author of tlie Pentateuch, and so 
 of Deuteronomy. Professor Smith has two kinds of natural 
 leaping. 1. That a scribe on reading the sacred books (as the 
 Pentateuch) would naturally leap to the conclusion that Moses 
 was the author. 2d. That those who first read Deuteronomy 
 naturally leapt to the conclusion that Moses was not the author, 
 but that some unknown author had personated Moses. Now, 
 which of these two kinds of leaping will Professor Smith abide 
 by, for he cannot hold them both ? If the really natural kind 
 of leaping was to recognise Deuteronomy at once as not the 
 production of Moses, but a personation, how did the Church for 
 twenty centuries lose the art of leaping naturally, and come to 
 such a wrong conclusion as to hold that Closes wrote Deutero- 
 nomy ? We shall hereafter show that this suspension of natural 
 leaping must have been caused by a miracle. 
 
 Should Professor Smith form a third theory of exculpation, it 
 shall be demolished as easily as the first and second have been 
 swept away. In the meantime, we may regard it as a settled 
 point, that when the unknown author declared on every page of 
 Deuteronomy that not himself, but Moses was the author, his 
 statement was fiction, not fact ; or, in other words, that Professor 
 Smith's theory necessarily makes Deuteronomy to be a fiction. 
 Now, what is his theory with regard to fictions ? In his article 
 ' Bible' he says — 
 
 ' Esther, too, has been viewed as a fiction by many who are not over 
 sceptical critics, but on this view a book which finds no recognition in the 
 New Testament, and whose canonicity was long suspected by the Christian 
 as well as by the Jewish Church, must sink to the rank of an Apocrijphal 
 production.^ 
 
 li fictions such as Esther, and the books of Job and Jonah 
 are, as we shall yet see, also fictions or mere inventions in the 
 eyes of Professor Smith — \i fictions must, as he says, sink to the 
 rank of Apocryphal j)roductions, why should not Deuteronomy, 
 Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Song of Solomon, etc., for he gives us to 
 understand that all these books were personated, instead of 
 being written by the authors whose name they bear on their 
 face, why should they not all sink to the rank of Apocryphal 
 productions ? Verily the mouth of the pit is oj)ening ! 
 
 Our second line of reasoning is the most convincing to show 
 that Professor Smith has entirely renounced the doctrine of In- 
 spiration, as held by the Free Church. In words lie says he 
 
16 
 
 holds the doctrine, but in woi'hs he denies it ; and only by his 
 works shall he be justified or condemned. We have to inquire, 
 1st, What is meant by Inspiration — Inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures ? 2d, Wherein has Professor Smith renounced the 
 doctrine of Inspiration, as laid down in Scripture ? 1st, What 
 is an inspired writing ? It is a Qo^-coimnanded, God-assisted, and 
 God-siiperintended writing, and therefore is as true in every page 
 of it as if it had been written by the finger of God HimseK; it is 
 truth without any mixture of error. It must have been com- 
 manded, for Jehovah always selected His own messengers. It 
 must have been God-assisted, for the writers of themselves knew 
 not exactly how much or how little God desired them at the 
 time to declare, and especially they knew not what future events 
 to predict, or what new knowledge God then wished to commu- 
 nicate to men. It must have been God-superintended to keep 
 them from error in the statement of old truths, such as selecting 
 from old manuscripts before them, and especially to keep them 
 from error arising from their individuality, which would have to a 
 certainty often opposed the aim of God, had not the Holy Ghost 
 enlightened that false-tending individuality. Thus the indivi- 
 duality of Peter, his Jewish prejudices, his natural standpoint, 
 perfectly unfitted him to proclaim the Gospel to Cornelius or 
 other Gentile. Consequently the Holy Spirit had to correct 
 that biased individuality by the vision of all manner of beasts 
 in a great sheet (Acts ix. 11-16), before Peter was allowed to 
 preach to the Gentiles. Wlien the knowledge possessed by the 
 writer and his individuality were exactly fitted to represent 
 what God wished to communicate to the Church, the superin- 
 tending Holy Ghost allowed the mental powers and individuality 
 of the writer to have full swing, for only thereby could the 
 writing be natural and powerfully affect the reader, but the 
 moment the knowledge was defective, or the individuality tend- 
 ing to misrepresent the aim of God, then the Great Superin- 
 tender interfered with the necessary correcting process. Paul 
 says he spoke some things by permission of the Superintending 
 Spirit, other things he gave by express commandment, or com- 
 munication received. Even Paul could not be left to himself, 
 for then he often would have opposed the aim of God. He of 
 himself would have preached the Gospel in Asia, but was for- 
 bidden by the Holy Ghost. He assayed to go into Bithynia, 
 but the Spirit suffered him not. He knew not God's intentions 
 with regard to Macedonia until the night vision indicated the 
 mind of the Spirit. The view thus given of Inspiration is the 
 doctrine of the Confession of Paith, as shall hereafter be shown. 
 Before quoting from Professor Smith's articles in tlie ' Ency- 
 clopedia Britannica,' it must be distinctly understood that the 
 complaint against these articles is not one regarding the author- 
 
17 
 
 ship of hooks on wliicli the Bible is silent respecting the author- 
 ship. AVhere the Scripture is silent, every man has a riglit to 
 form his own conjecture as to the author ; but when the Scrip- 
 ture is not silent, he has no riglit to contradict the Scripture. 
 Personally I believe that some unknown insjnred writer was 
 employed by God to add to Deuteronomy the account of the 
 burial of Moses ; to add to Joshua the account of Joshua's 
 burial ; to add to 1st Samuel what occurred after the death of 
 Samuel, etc. ; and that Ezra, under the guidance of the Holy 
 Ghost, made a few necessary additions to several books, as Gen. 
 xxxvi. 31-39, and gave late instead of the primitive name to 
 places, because, if the additions were ever to be made at the 
 right time, it was when numerous copies of the Law and the Pro- 
 phets were^required for the use of the synagogues, which arose 
 after the captivity. But I shall never object to any man sup- 
 posing it was not Ezra who made the last very brief yet 
 necessary additions in several books ; and such additions are 
 never in the Biljle ascribed to the main author of such books, 
 only he is bound to suppose it was some ins2nrecl writer, acting 
 under the superintendence of the Holy Ghost. Nor is the com- 
 plaint against freedom of thought. No man more vindicates 
 free thought than I have ever done, and have ever practised. 
 The complaint against Professor Smith is that he has violated 
 his contract with the Free Church. That Church is an associa- 
 tion of those believing in the Inspiration of the Scriptures, as 
 laid down in the Confession; and it placed Professor Smith in 
 his Chair to defend the Bible, not to contradict it. He has con- 
 tradicted it, and, therefore, having violated his contract, he must 
 stand before the bar of the Church. 
 
 The order in which Professor Smith's articles should be read 
 is ' Chronicles,' ' Bible,' ' Canticles,' and ' Angel.' The article on 
 'Chronicles' first awakens suspicion of coming mischief, that 
 entitled ' Bible' confirms the first impression of error and danger, 
 ' Canticles ' shows what an exquisite capacity the School of 
 Higher Criticism have for forming conjectures, and ' Angel,' in- 
 stead of being robed in tlie light of heaven, is a dreary negation. 
 The trail of the Eationalistic serpent is over them all, but around 
 ' Angel ' the slime is most abundant. We now give quotationSj 
 beginning with the article ' Chronicles :' — 
 
 ' What seems to be certain and important for a right estimate of the 
 book [of Chronicles] is, that the author lived a considerable time after 
 Ezra, and stood entirely under the influence of the religious institutions of 
 the New Theocracy. This standpoint determined the nature of his interest 
 in the early history of his people. . . . After the Captivity, it was 
 impossible to write the history of Israel's fortunes otherwise than in a 
 spirit of religious pragmatism. But within the limits of the I'eligious con- 
 ception of tlie plan and purpose of the Hebrew history, more than one 
 point of view n light be taken up. The book of Kings looks upon the 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 history in tlie spirit of tlie prophets — iu that spirit which is still echoed 
 by Zechariah (i. 5, 6), " Your fathers, where are they, and the prophets, 
 do they live for ever? But my words and my statutes, which I com- 
 manded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers, so 
 that they turned and said, ' Like as Jehovah of Hosts thought to do unto 
 us, so hath he dealt with us.' But long before the Chronicler wrote, the 
 last spark of prophecy was extinct. The New Jerusalem of Ezra was 
 organised as a municipality and a church, not as a nation. The centre of 
 relujious life was no longer the living prophetic word, but the ordinances 
 of the Pentateuch, and the liturgical service of the sanctuary.' 
 
 Do you mean that, though the people had the books of the 
 Prophets, these proplietic books were not to be a guide to their 
 religious life as well as the Pentateuch ? But go on — 
 
 ' The religious vocation of Israel was no longer national, but ecclesias- 
 tical or municipal, and the historical continuity of the nation was vividly 
 realised only within the walls of Jerusalem and the courts of-, the Temple 
 in the solemn assembly and stately ceremonial of a feast day. These 
 influences operated naturally most strongly on those who were officially 
 attached to the sanctuary. To a Levite even more than to other Jews, 
 the history of Israel meant, above all things, the history of Jerusalem, of 
 the Temple, and of the Temple ordinances. Now, the author of 
 "Chronicles" betrays in every page his essentially Levitical habit of 
 mind.' 
 
 There is as yet no harm in this conjecture, because, if an in- 
 sjDired writer's individuality was exactly fitted to represent the 
 aim of God in the communication, the individuality in that 
 case would be an advantage. But, beware how you conjecture 
 farther. Go on — 
 
 ' It even seems possible, from a close attention to his descriptions of 
 sacred ordinances, to conclude that his special interests are those of a 
 common Levite rather than of a priest, and that of all the Levitical func- 
 tions, he is most partial to those of the singers, a member of wdiose guild 
 Ewald conjectures him to have been. To such a man the older delineation 
 of the history of Israel, especially in the books of Samuel and Kings, could 
 not but appear to he dcjicicnt, iu some directions, while iu other resi^ects its 
 narrative seemed supeijinous, or open to misunderstanding — as, for ex- 
 ample, by recording, and that without condemnation, things inconsistent 
 with the Pentateuchal Law,' 
 
 Now you are on dangerous ground, for God never selected 
 inspired agents whose individuality was prepared to quarrel 
 with inspired writings then in existence. But go on — 
 
 ' For the sake of systematic completeness, the Chronicler begins with 
 Adam, as is the custom with later Oriental writers. But he had nothing 
 to add to the Pentateuch, and the period from Moses to David contained 
 little that served his purpose. He, therefore, contracts the early history in 
 a series of genealogies, which were doubtless by no means the least in- 
 teresting part of his work at a time when every Israelite was concerned 
 to prove the j>urity of the Hebrew descent. From the death of Saul the 
 history becomes fuller, and runs parallel with the books of Samuel and 
 Kings. The limitations of the author's interest in times past appear in the 
 omission, among other particulars, of David's reign in Hebron, of the dis- 
 orders in his family and the revolt of Absalom, of the circumstances of 
 Solomon's accession, and of many details as to the wisdom and splendour 
 of that sovereign, as well as of his fall into idolatry.' 
 
19 
 
 Is this all pure conjecture of yours, that the narrative of the 
 'Chronicler' was all shaped by the 'limitations of his own m- 
 tcrest' in the subjects which he describes ? so that he omitted 
 recording events in which he had no personal interest ? You 
 thereby reduce him from an inspired to a mere human author. 
 Since his interest led him to omit, did it also lead him to in- 
 vent, and thus record what never occurred ? 
 
 ' In general, it seems safe to conclude, with Ewald, Butheau, and other 
 cautious^ critics, that there is no foundation for the accusation that the 
 Chronicler invented his story in the interests of his parenetic and practical 
 purposes. But, on the other hand, it is not to he doubted that, in shaping 
 his narrative, he allowed himself the same freedoms as Avere taken by other 
 ancient (heathen) historians, and even by early copyists ; and it is the 
 business of historical criticism to form a clear conception of the nature of 
 the limits of these freedoms, with a view to distinguish in individual pas- 
 sages between the fact devised by the Chronicler from his written sources, 
 find the literarij additions, explanations, and influences which are his 
 own.' 
 
 The cloven foot appears now. Give us a sample of the 
 literary additions made out of his own imagination by the 
 Chronicler. 
 
 ' A certain freedom of literary form was always allowed to ancient 
 (heathen) historians, and need not perplex any one who does not apply a 
 false standard to the narrative. To this head belongs especially the in- 
 troduction of speeches, like that of Abijah in 2 Chron. chap. xiii. This 
 speech is, no doubt, a free composition, and would be so understood by the 
 author's contemporaries. By such literary devices, the author is enabled 
 to point a lesson without interrupting the thread of his narrative by reflec- 
 tions of his own.' 
 
 I would rather a historian 'pointed a lesson' without stick- 
 ing it on the head of a lie. I always believed, until I read your 
 conjecture about the inspired writers being employed by the 
 Holy Ghost to coin sjjceches out of their hrain, that king Abijah, 
 the grandson of Solomon, really uttered the speech to Jeroboam 
 which we find in 2 Chrpn. xiii. chap. ; but now I do not know 
 luhat to believe. You dare to tell the public that they are not 
 to perplex themselves about the coining of the Bible speeches ! 
 Is it nothing, sir, to be led to the conclusion that every speech 
 in the Bible, even the speeches of Jesus Christ, are mere fabri- 
 cations ? I shall show you that your articles inevitably lead 
 to this conclusion. In the meantime, give us a specimen of the 
 Chronicler's literary 'explanations and influences wliich are 
 his own.' 
 
 ' Thus, in 1 Chron. xxi. 28, an explanation is givoii of the reasons which 
 led David to sacrifice on the threshing floor of Oman, instead of going to 
 the brazen altar at Gibeon. But it is certain that, at the time of David, the 
 principle of a single altar Avas not acknowledged, and, therefore, no ex~ 
 jilanation icas required. In 1 Kings iii. 3, 4, Gibeon appears only as the 
 chief of many high places; and it is difficult to aA^oid the conclusion that 
 the Chronicler has simply inferred, from the iinportance of this sanctuary, 
 
20 
 
 tliat it must have possessed a special limitation, •wliicli could only rest in 
 the presence of the old brazen altar.' 
 
 It shall be proved to you that the principle of a single altar 
 for all sacrifices, except those extraordinarily ordered by God, 
 was known long before the time of David. This unfortunate 
 conjecture of yours, or rather imported from the Continent, has 
 been a direful will-o'-the wisp. It has placed you on a false 
 standpoint, from which you cannot survey the Bible aright. 
 Instead of your finding fault with the Chronicler for his un- 
 covering to us the mind of David, and accusing him of inferring 
 from his ignorance, and putting in his false inference as part of 
 a true narrative, you would, had you possessed a clear critical 
 eye, have thanked him for the information he gives us. If you 
 compare the narrative in 2 Sam. xxiv. 15-25, with that in 
 1 Chron. xxi. 14-30, you will find that both agree in saying that 
 David reared an altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah, the 
 Jebusite, and offered sacrifices thereon, simply because he was 
 commanded by the prophet Gad to do so — the prophet having 
 been sent with the order from the angel of the Lord. And then 
 the Chronicler lets us see within the soul of the bowed-down 
 monarch. In his heart he preferred, as an altar, that which 
 stood beside the Tabernacle, then at Gibeon, for there he had 
 been accustomed to sacrifice to God, his chiefest joy ; there was 
 the ark before which he had leaped with overflowing joy — the 
 ark for which he longed to build a temple; there his own 
 psalms were sung ; there he had lately commanded burnt offer- 
 ings to be presented continually every night and morning (1 
 Chron. chap, xvi.), to the God who had in the past delivered 
 him out of all his troubles ; but to that beloved altar he could 
 not go in that hour of his extremity, when the angel stood over 
 the doomed city to destroy it ; he could not go where his heart 
 yearned to go, to enquire of the Lord, who had so often answered 
 him ; he could not go, because he was commanded by God to 
 build the altar on Araunah's threshing-floor ; he could not go 
 because that order from God came to Gad through the dread 
 angel with the drawn out sword. The Chronicler offered no 
 needles 5 explanation; and by your asserting he inferred from his 
 own false conjecture, and then put the inference in three verses 
 as part of the narrative, you practically accuse him with invent- 
 ing a part of the story, for he does not give his statement as an 
 inference, but as a fact. You thus rob him of the attribute of 
 an inspired writer, for no inspired writer was ever permitted by 
 the Su]3erintending Spirit to invent upon false suppositions. 
 
 In the article ' Chronicles' Professor Smith has thus prac- 
 tically renounced the doctrine of inspiration. Now, we will 
 q[uote from the article ' Bible.' The first extract shows that he 
 regards the writers of the historical parts of Scriptui-e merely as 
 
21 
 
 human authors left to their own judgment and resources with- 
 out any assistance from the Divine Spirit. 
 
 ' If a man copied a book, it was his to add and modify as Tie pleased^ and 
 he was not in the least bound to distinguish the ohi from the new. If he 
 had two books before him, to which he attached equal worth, he took 
 large extracts from both, and harmonised them by such additions and modi- 
 fications as he felt to be necessary. But, in default of a keen sense for 
 organic unitj^, very little harmony was sought in points of internal struc- 
 ture, though great skill was often shown as in the book of Genesis in 
 throwing the whole material into a balanced scheme of external arrange- 
 ment. On such principles, minor narratives were fused together one after 
 another, and at length in exile a final redactor completed the great work, 
 on the first part of which Ezra based his reformation, Avhile the latter was 
 thrown into the second canon.' 
 
 Was Professor Smith Kving 3000 years ago, that he knows 
 the ancient mode of compiling the Sacred Books ? Let him 
 produce his proof, and not act like his own chronicler in infer- 
 ring from his own ignorant conjectures. This, then, is Professor 
 Smitli's theory of inspiration, that the sacred writers, in com- 
 posing tlie books of the Old Testament, copied so much from old 
 documents, and added and modified as they pleased. This is the 
 explanation of ' Holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
 the Holy Ghost.' As for the prophets, they sprung up like 
 mushrooms from the soil. 
 
 ' In spite of the crass and unspiritual character of the mass of the 
 people, the noblest traditions of national life were entwined with religious 
 convictions ; and the way in which a prophet like Amos could arise un- 
 trained from among the herdsmen of the wilderness of Judah shows how 
 deep and pure a current of spiritual faith flowed among the more thought- 
 ful of the laity. Prophecy itself may, from one point of view, be regarded 
 simply as the highest efflorescence of the lay element in the religion of Israel.' 
 
 If Amos had got no preparation from the Holy Ghost for his 
 prophetical work, all the eftiorescence of the lay element in the 
 land would have been of no more use to him than the efflores- 
 cence of the thistles of the wilderness. In addition to adding 
 and modifying as they jjleased, to putting in their false inferences 
 as true narrative and personating other men, the inspired writers 
 went a step farther, and, like Homer in the Iliad, invented inci- 
 dents which never happened, and then got succeeding inspired 
 writers to declare that the fiction was fact. The school of higher 
 criticism has got this length, and yet declares it holds with a 
 true and loving heart to the Confession's doctrine of inspiration. 
 
 ' In the book of Job we find poetical invention of incidents attached for 
 didactic pxrposes, to a name apparently deiived from old tradition (Satan ? 
 1 Chron. xxi. 1). There is no vcdid a priori reason for denying that the Old 
 Testament may contain other examples of the same art. The book of 
 Jonah is generally viewed as a case in point. Esther, too. has been viewed 
 as & fiction by many who are not over sceptical critics, but on this view a 
 book which finds no recognition in the New Testament, and whose canon- 
 icity was long suspected by the Christian as well as by the Jewish Church, 
 must sink to the rank of an apocryphal production.' 
 
22 
 
 If the book of Job be a poetical invention of incident, how 
 does the apostle James speak of his patience and deliverance 
 as fact (James v. 11) ? Was James inspired to mislead men to 
 the end of time by calling fiction fact ? With regard to the re- 
 marks on the book of Jonah, I know not whether to burst out 
 into indignation or into tears at such melancholy blindness. 
 
 Would Jesus, the faithful and true Witness, solemnly speak- 
 ing to the Jews of the last judgment (Matt. xii. 40-42), intro- 
 duce into His reasoning as facts the repentance of the men of 
 Nineveh at the preaching of Jonas, and of the fact of that 
 prophet having been three days and nights buried in a living 
 grave, as a type and promise that he himself would remain un- 
 corruptcd three days and nights in another tomb if these events 
 had not occurred ? In the same breath he speaks of the Queen 
 of Sheba's visit to Solomon as a fact ; was it not a fact ? Shall 
 the school of higher criticism contradict Jesus Christ when He 
 asserts that the narrative is historical fact ? If they dare to do 
 so, let that school renounce the name of Christians, for verily 
 they follow not Clirist. 
 
 Professor Smith loses no opportunity to contradict Christ 
 and His apostles. Our Lord distinctly affirms that David wrote 
 the 110th Psalm (see Matt. xxii. 43-45). In the sermon which 
 converted three thousand souls, Peter based his argument upon 
 David having prophesied of Christ's resurrection (Acts ii. 25- 
 36). Peter declares that David wrote the 16th and 110th Psalms, 
 but Professor Smith does not allow that David wrote either of 
 them. Prom article ' Bible' we quote — 
 
 ' The assertion that vo psahn is David's is certainly hyper critical, and 
 few remains of ancient literature have an authorship so well attested as 
 the 18th or even as the 7th Tsalm. These, along with the indubitably 
 Davidic poems in the book of Samuel, give us a sufficiently clear image of 
 a very unique genius, and make the ascription of several other poems to 
 David extremely probable.' 
 
 Here he allows that David wrote only the 18th and 7th 
 Psalms ; and the question is, why did he not also allow that 
 David wrote the 16th and 110th Psalms, when Peter ascribes 
 both to him; and our Lord distinctly says he wrote the 110th. 
 Is it because these two latter prophesied directly of Christ ? 
 and Professor Smith does not believe in j^^'cddction, it being 
 miraculous. Why does Professor Smith deny that Isaiah wrote 
 chapters xl.-lxvi. ? 
 
 ' Other applications follow, namely, in the book of Isaiah, Avhere the 
 anovymous chapters xl.-lxvi. cannot be imderstood in a natural and living 
 way, except by looking at them from the historical stand-point of the 
 exile.' 
 
 He here positively declares that chapters xl.-lxvi. were 
 written at or after the captivity, consequently by some ' ano7iy- 
 mous' writer, who lived about 200 years after Isaiah. Now 
 
23 
 
 Matthew (chapter iii. 3) declares that Isaiah wrote the 3d verse 
 of the 40th chapter. In Matthew viii. 17 he declares that Isaiah 
 wrote the 4th verse of the 53d chapter. John, in chapter xii. 
 37, 38, af&rms that Isaiah wrote the 53d chapter. Paul, in 
 Eomans x. 20, asserts that Isaiah wrote chapter 65th. And the 
 question is, how dare Professor Smith contradict these three 
 apostles ? Again, we ask, is it because he does not heheve in 
 the miraculous ? and, therefore, rejects Isaiah's direct predictions 
 of Christ. We must get at the bottom of this contradicting the 
 inspired apostles, and so we go on quoting. 
 
 ' In this sketch of the prophetic writings we find no place for the book 
 of Daniel, which, whether composed in the early years of the Persian 
 empire, or, as modern critics hold, at the time of the Maccabee wars, pre- 
 sents so many points of diversity from ordinary prophecy as to require 
 entirely separate treatment.' 
 
 Professor Smith is a modern critic, and he says, ' Modern 
 critics hold that the book of Daniel was written at the time of 
 the Maccabee wars, or about 140 years before Christ, and 400 
 years after the time of Daniel; consequently, the book was 
 written after its predictions had been fulfilled. That is, the 
 lying author put accomplished history, past events, into the 
 shape of prediction. Did Professor Smith's hand not shake 
 when he wrote the lines we have quoted. But now for a richer 
 quotation still. 
 
 ' The prophecies contain, 1st. V\.Q]yxooi oi present sin ; 2d. Exhortation 
 to present duty ; 3d. Encouragement to the godly, and threatening to the 
 wicked, based on the certainty of God's righteous purpose. In this last 
 connection prophecy is predictive. It lays hold of the ideal elements of the 
 theocratic conception, and depicts the way in which, by God's grace, they 
 shall be actually realised in a Messianic age, and in a nation purified by 
 judgment and mercy.' 
 
 The truth is out at last. In Professor Smith's conception of 
 prophecy there is no room for the prediction of future events. 
 The only sphere of prediction whicli he will allow is for any 
 man to foretell that God will 'encourage the godly,' 'and 
 threaten the wicked, hccatise it is God's certain and righteous 
 purpose in all ages to do so. What a mighty prophetic power 
 is needed to predict all this ! Why, any Saul, with half-a-liead, 
 may now be among the prophets ! How I love that misty 
 sentence, ' Prophecy lays hold of the ideal elements of the theo- 
 cratic conception (that means the conceptions of rebellious Israel, 
 who, according to Isaiah, did not know as much as the ox or the 
 ass (Isaiah i. 3) lays hold of their conceptions, ideal conceptions 
 (not true conceptions of the predicting Holy Ghost), and depicts 
 the way in which these ideal conceptions of men shall be actually 
 realised in the Messianic age.' They must have been wonderful 
 men, those with the ideal conceptions, and quite different from 
 their descendants, who lived in the days of Christ ; for He came 
 
24 
 
 unto His own, and His own did not recognise Him by tlieir ideal 
 conceptions : they received Him not. Professor Smith, be a man, 
 and tell us plainly if you believe the Holy Gliost gave to the 
 prophets predictions of Christ, which no human imagination 
 could have conceived ; tell us plainly, if you deny the miraculous. 
 
 Tlie age of miracles has not ceased ; we shall prove it. Let 
 us remember, then, that many books whicli bear on their face 
 and throughout their pages their real author's name — as Deuter- 
 onomy, Daniel, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, etc. — Professor 
 Smith affirms were not written by their real authors. For in- 
 stance, of Ecclesiastes he says — 
 
 ' The book of Ecclesiastes bears every mark of a very late date, long 
 after the exile.' 
 
 Let US also remember that, when these fictitious books ap- 
 peared, the people, as Professor Smith declares, hieiv that they 
 Avere fictions. And now let us look at this procession. Pirst 
 comes Moses, the second, with a Deuteronomic scroll in his hand, 
 and pretends to be Moses the first, the leader out of Egypt. 
 But the people only smile, for they naturally jump to the con- 
 clusion that he is Moses the second. Following him is a 
 venerable aged man, with his silver beard to his knees. He 
 holds up ' Job,' but the people cannot receive his statement that 
 it is true, though they say it is a poem almost divine. Then 
 comes a queer-looking fellow, witli a sailor's cap, for he has lost 
 his own. His scroll is named ' Jonah,' and contains inventions 
 far surpassing those of Sinbad tlie Sailor, which lie passes off as 
 fact; but the people know better, and only laughingly say, 
 ' that it is as likely he swallowed tlie whale, as that it swallowed 
 him.' Next comes an old battered Jew, personating Solomon, 
 the preacher in Jerusalem. The mob laugh immoderately, at 
 which he indignantly holds up ' Ecclesiastes,' whereupon they 
 laugh the more, for they would not believe he was Solomon, 
 though he wore a crown of brass — the veritable Solomon having 
 been dead 700 years. With pompous stride a little man, with 
 a sword by his side, next appears, and declares he is Daniel, 
 Prince of Babylon. The mob cheer him, saying he is a splendid 
 fellow, who can write past history like future prophecy. After 
 him comes a fat jolly singer, known as the ' Chronicler,' with 
 lungs strong as a bull of Baslian, and an enormous nose, for he 
 had been singing through his nose all his days. Holding up 
 ' Chronicles ' he cries, ' all true ; all true as father Abraham 
 himself.' Some of the people, with a merry twinkle, reply, 
 ' We know you coined Abijah's speech, and clipped your story 
 to your tunes ;' while others bawl out for a song. In the wake 
 is a motley crew of literary impostors, with their various cries 
 and scrolls ; but in every case the people naturally jump to the 
 true conclusion, and, with an instinct as true as an ox for grass, 
 
25 
 
 tliey distinguish fiction from fact. Now, I can prove from Pro- 
 fessor Smith's articles that this natural jumping continued 
 among the Jews for 600 years, and therefore it was a natural, 
 not an accidental, faculty of the people. I can also prove that 
 this natural jumping faculty was suddenly suspended about a 
 century before Christ, and that the suspension has continued 
 for twenty centuries, for during these twenty centuries people 
 believed that Moses wrote Deuteronomy, etc. I can also prove 
 that the suspension is not everlasting, because the old natural 
 mode of jiimping is being reintroduced into the School of Higher 
 Criticism. The suspension, therefore, must have been caused 
 by a miracle, for that school says a miracle is a suspension of a 
 natural law. What indescribably clever fellows are the higher 
 critics to have discovered and revived a system of natural jump- 
 ing, so long unhappily lost to the world. With what title shall 
 Ave honour them ? Shall it be ' The real descendants of the 
 Original Jumping Jews,' who knew that when a man said ' yes ' 
 he meant 'no ?' If this title be too long, call them ' The Pro- 
 fessors of oblique Jumping.' The age of miracles has not ceased. 
 There is another suspension that requires to be restored, and 
 will, no doubt, in this age of resurrection, be soon revived. The 
 sacred writers personated (Professor Smith says), and they did 
 it naturally (he further says) ; and they did it out of pure dis- 
 interestedness ; ' for he still further says the people knew of the 
 I^ersonation, and, therefore, the writers could not derive the 
 slightest advantage from it. Out of a pure law of their mental 
 nature they did it. For 600 years this law of disinterestedness 
 operated, but in the New Testament times it suddenly ceased, 
 for the Church would not receive personated epistles. If the 
 subsequent articles yet to be printed in the ' Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica' appear with the signature of ' The Prophet Jcremiali 
 as the o^eal author, instead of with the initials 'W. E. S.,' eveiy 
 one will cry out, ' the suspension has been removed ; the good 
 old times are back again; the projDhetical spirit of Israel is 
 restored !' 
 
 The subject is too serious for mockery. If God employed 
 the inspired writers of the Old Testament to ' add and modify 
 as they pleased;' to put in their false inferences, based on their 
 erroneous conjectures, as part of a true historical narrative ; to 
 invent historical incidents, as those in Jonah, and then employed 
 Christ and His apostles to declare that the poetical invention 
 was historical fact — did God not also employ the inspired WTiters 
 of tlie New Testament to carry on the same system of atrocious 
 fraud ? Will the School of Higher Criticism leave us anything 
 in which to believe ? Will they leave untouched the New 
 Testament ? No, they ivill not. Ewald, the prince of conjec- 
 turers, whom Professor Smith in his articles glorifies, did he 
 
26 
 
 receive even the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ ? That 
 School of Higher Criticism, renouncing, practically renouncing 
 tlie supernatural and miraculous in the Old Testament, because, 
 as Dean Stanley said the other day, 'the supernatural and 
 miraculous were becoming more and more distasteful to men of 
 culture !' that school cannot logically stop from denying the 
 resurrection of Christ, because it was miraculous. And if 
 Christ be not risen, then farewell to hope for miserable earth. 
 Professor Smith will not leave even the New Testament alone. 
 We quote from article ' Bible ' — 
 
 ' All the earliest external evidence points to the conclusion that the 
 Synoptical Gospels are ?»;?i-apostolical digests of spoken and written 
 apostolic tradition, and that the arrangement of the earlier material in 
 orderly form took place only gradually, and by mamj essays.' 
 
 What does Professor Smith mean by this sentence ? One 
 thing he means is, that the Gospels were not written by 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He got an opportunity of 
 explaining to the College Sub-Committee his meaning, and he 
 did not, in the vindication he returned, allow that these men 
 wrote the Gospels. He said — 
 
 ' I fully recognise that the material of the Synoptical Gospels is genuine 
 apostolic tradition. I speak only of the steps by -which that tradition was 
 digested into its present shape.' 
 
 Nothing is so unfair in a case like Professor Smith's, where 
 the deep anxiety of the Church has been awakened, than am- 
 hiyuous language. If he means that the tradition or first state- 
 ment was genuine apostolical, and cdso that the first true 
 statement continued to be truly handed down from one to 
 another until written truly in the gospels, why does he speak 
 in a very different manner in his article ' Bible ?' 
 
 ' A considerable portion of the New Testament is made up of writings 
 not directly apostolical, and a main problem of criticism is to determine the 
 relation of these writings, especkdhj the gospels, to apostolic teaduncj and 
 t7-adition.^ 
 
 If the gospels are perfectly true, why sliould criticism make 
 it a main part of its work to determine the relation between the 
 gospels and apostolic teaching and tradition. If, beforehand. 
 Professor Smith admits that the gospels perfectly represent 
 what he calls apostolic teaching and tradition (for he will not 
 admit apostolic ivriting) that admission declares that the relation 
 is already known, and needs no further investigation. The very 
 fact, that he says the relation requires still to be determined, is 
 the assertion that the school of higher criticism, or the pulling 
 down school, is not satisfied that tlie gospels contahi truth with- 
 out error. And luliy sliould the gospels contain truth without 
 error, since Professor Smith holds "that Old Testament narratives 
 are not to be received as narratives, seeing the narrative con- 
 tains heathen historian freedoms, invention of incidents, and false 
 
27 
 
 conjectures, based on ignorance or prejudice, put in as part of 
 the truth ? The Lord, that changeth not, could not be expected 
 to be less fraudulent in the New Testament than He was in the 
 Old ; but if the blame of the fraud is to be thrown not upon 
 Himself, but upon His servants, then they were inspired indeed, 
 inspired by the Holy Ghost. Let us dissect this theory of Pro- 
 fessor Smith. He says that after ' many essays' or attempts the 
 gospels were gradually worked up into their present shape. 
 Then all the attempts which preceded the final successful 
 attempt were not inspired, for an inspired attempt would have 
 been complete at once. If all the abortive essays to write a 
 gospel were made by one individual, how did the Holy Ghost 
 come to inspire only his last attempt ? If made by many unin- 
 spired individiials, was the man whom Professor Smith calls the 
 final editor' left to his own judgment like the ' chronicler' 
 what to put in and what to keep out, according to his own 
 stand-point and the interests of his profession ? for then we 
 would all need to be jumping Jews to know what freedoms he 
 took, and how many of the speeches he coined himself, and then 
 ascribed to Christ. Again, if the gospels were written ivhile the 
 apostles lived, were the apostles not the fittest of all men to de- 
 clare what they had seen and heard in the company of Christ ? 
 and if the gospels were written after the apostles died, how does 
 Paul say that the Gospel of Luke was lying beside him when he 
 wrote the First Epistle to Timothy ? Paul, in 1 Tim. v. 18, 
 says, ' T]ie Scripture saith,' ' The labourer is worthy of his hire.' 
 On turning up a Greek Testament, we find that Paul exactly 
 quoted these words from Luke's gospel, 10th chapter, 7tli verse. 
 In the Greek Paul uses the very same words as Luke, though 
 our English translators have expressed the same Greek word in 
 two forms; by 'hire' in Luke x. 7, and by ' reioard' in 1 Tim. 
 V. 18. I calmly put this question to Professor Smith, ' Which 
 is the most natural conjecture, that God employed men after 
 the apostles were dead to paint the character of Jesus Christ to 
 mankind while the world lasts, or that Lie should employ as 
 painters the apostles, who had been in the company of Christ 
 night and day during His ministry ; who gazed upon His counte- 
 nance in all its changes of compassion, sorrow, and joy; who 
 had leaned on His bosom, and seen into His soul, and who, 
 therefore, as John beautifully expresses it, were able to declare 
 unto men ' what they had heard, what they had seen with their 
 eyes, what they had looked upon, and their hands had handled 
 of the Word of life' (1 John i. 1) ? Every man knows that this 
 last is the most natural conjecture, viz., that God would employ 
 men like John to paint the Saviour of the world, but this 
 natural conjecture does not suit the purposes, of the Higher 
 School of Criticism, for then they could scarcely declare that 
 
28 
 
 the apostles who sealed their testimony with their blood could 
 misrepresent Christ in their gospels. Therefore the Continental 
 School hold the gospels were written by men who could and did 
 misrepresent things in the gospels, being necessarily led to this 
 from their stand-point interests and prejudices. Professor Smith, 
 let me say to you, that you know the mass of church members 
 in the Free Church are laliouring men and women, of men who, 
 like myself, have never been in a Divinity Hall in our life, that 
 we take a plain common sense view of things, and believe that if 
 the gospels had been written, as you say the book of Chronicles 
 and other books of the Old Testament were written, there is not 
 a single page of any of the gospels which we then could assur- 
 edly know was true, the anchor of our souls would be gone, our 
 hopes for ever blasted, and we would be justified in treading the 
 Bible under our feet with scorn, and casting it from us with in- 
 tense disgust. But I know heaven and earth shall pass away 
 before you or any higher critic shall prove that any part of the 
 Bible was written as you say the books of Deuteronomy, 
 Chronicles, Job, Jonah, and Daniel were written. 
 
 Professor Smith thinks his views have a right to exist in the 
 Free Church. To the College Sub-Committee he wrote — 
 
 ' It is not, of course, my present business to answer all objections to 
 my views, but only to elucidate their right to exiat, and be discussed witidn 
 the Church.' 
 
 He should have said a right to exist loitJiout being discussed, 
 for the discussion of them is their death. I shall discuss with 
 him, and, to give prominence to his views, I shall put them in 
 large type, and my own reasoning in small type. Tlie initials 
 S.S.T. mean Sabbath-School Teaclier ; Prof. S. means Professor 
 Smith. 
 
 S. S. T. — When did Deuteronomy first make its appearance ? 
 
 Prof. S. — ' It is difficult to suppose that the legislative part of 
 Deuteronomy is as old as Moses. The Law of high places given 
 in this part of the Pentateuch was not acknowledged till the 
 time of Josiah, and was not dreamed of by Samuel and Elijah. 
 The Deuteronomic legislation is not earlier than the prophetical 
 period of the eighth and seventh centuries before Christ. . . . 
 A written law-book was found in the Temple, and acknow- 
 ledged by the high priest (2 Kings xxii. 23). The legislation of 
 this book corresponds not with the old Law in Exod. xx. 24, 
 which contemplates the worship of Jehovah on other altars than 
 that of the central sanctuary' (Deut. xxxiii. 19) (Art. 'Bible.') 
 
 S. S. T. — The supposition of there being a new law in Deuteronomy 
 regarding a mujle national altar, different from the law on that point in 
 Exodus or Leviticus, is, as I shall yet show yon, one of the wildest con- 
 jectures ever formed, and totally opposed to Scripture. You think 
 Deuteronomy was written shortly before it was discovered in the days of 
 
29 
 
 Josiah — that is, about 700 years after the death of JNIoses. "Wliy do you 
 thiuk Moses could not write that book ? 
 
 Prof. S. — ' The wliole theological stand-point of Deutero- 
 nomy agrees exactly M'itli the period of prophetic literature, and 
 gives the highest and most spiritual view of the law to which 
 our Lord Himself directly attaches His teaching.' 
 
 S. S. T. — I cannot see how, at the commencement of the Theocracy, 
 God did not require to give holy and spiritual laws to guide His people, 
 since in Exod. xix. 5, 6, Moses said God's object was to make the Jews, 
 by their obedience to His laws, ' a peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests, 
 an holy nation.' Moses in Deuteronomy does not rise higher than this, 
 for in 14tli chap. 2d verse, he repeats the tliought — they were to be 'a 
 peculiar people, an holy people.' In point of fact, Deuteronomy is not 
 more spiritual than Exodus or Leviticus. When the apostle Peter sum- 
 moned Cliri.-itiniis to holiness, he had no higher sanction than to quote 
 Lev. xix. ii , ' Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.' In Exod. 
 XX. 6, God said, ' He showed mercy unto those who loved Him and kept 
 His commandments ; ' and the royal law of love which Clirist repeated, 
 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' was a quotation from Lev. 
 xix. 18 ; it was not from Deuteronomy. Why, then, since Deuteronomy 
 is not more spiritual than Exodus or Leviticus, do you think Moses could 
 not write it V 
 
 Prof S. — ' Deuteronomy cannot be placed at the beginning 
 of the Theocratic Development, without making the ivliole history 
 
 UNINTELLIGIBLE.' 
 
 S. S. T. — Do you not see that, by such a conjecture, you make your 
 unknown personating author iin'tutelUgiblef We will suppose that he held 
 the same opinions that you do, and if you contradict each other, then you 
 cannot both be true. He reasoned thus : The book I have to write is too 
 spiritual for Moses to have composed it, therefore I will put it in the mouth 
 of Moses ! It would make the whole histoiy of Israel unintellif/ible if I 
 were to date it at the her/inning of the Theocratic Development, therefore I 
 will date it at the beginning of the Theocracy ! Why, sir, you make your 
 personating author a complete hedlamife. Why was he so foolish as to put 
 his writing into the mouth of Moses ? 
 
 Prof S. — ' If the author put his work into the month of 
 Moses, instead of giving it, with Ezekiel, a directly prophetic 
 form, he did so, not in pioits fraud, but simply because his 
 object was not to give a new law, but to expound and develop 
 Mosaic principles in relation to new needs.' 
 
 S. S. T. — Well done. Professor Smith ; you have, with your own hand, 
 fired the mine beneath your feet, and up you and your personating author 
 go into the air together. You have annihilated yourself, and made him 
 doubly demented. The strength of your argument for rejecting the 
 Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy is, that Deuteronomy contained 7iew 
 laws, not known till the days of Josiah ; and then you destroy your own 
 argument, by saying that the object of your author was not to make new 
 laws. And you have made him doubly demented, for, if his object was 
 not to make new laws, why did he really make new laws, which are not to 
 be found in Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers, as the Mount Ebal instruc- 
 tions (Deut. 27th Chap.), prohibition against multijjlying horses, etc., etc. ? 
 Do you not admit that both you and your author are unintelligible, truly 
 incomprehensible, for why should you engulph your own conjectures ? 
 
30 
 
 and why should he put into the mouth of Moses a writing too high for 
 Moses, and ascribe to the beginning of the Theocracy a booli that would 
 not do for its beginning, and enact new laws, when he had no intention of 
 enacting new laws ? Tell me truly what this demented author of yours 
 really intended to do ? 
 
 Prof. S. — ' I have said liis object was not "pious fraud," 
 but " to expound and develop Mosaic i^rinciijles in relation to 
 oiew needs." ' 
 
 S. S. T. — Now you make him triply mad ; as to the piety of his fraud, 
 madmen are not responsible. His object, you say, was ' to expound and 
 develop ^ios,&iQ, principles ;'' but you deny that Moses gave the principle of 
 a single altar, for, in your article ' Chronicles,' you say 'it is certain that, 
 at the time of David, the princijjle of a single altar was not acknowledged.' 
 That you have made your author triply mad shall now be proved. If his 
 object was to expound and develop Mosaic principles to the vew needs of 
 the men in the time of Josiah, why did he put in the Mount Ebal instruc- 
 tions, since the men of Josiah could truly say, these instructions have no 
 relation to us, for our fathers crossed the Jordan more than 800 years ago, 
 and to Mount Ebal we have no access, the whole territory of the ten 
 captive tribes being now a province of Assyria. In like manner the men 
 of Josiah could have said to your autlior, ' Your orders about slaying or 
 driving out every Cauaanite in the land would have suited our fathers, 
 before Joshlfa and the Princes of Israel made a league with them to let 
 them live, but they do not suit us since the league was made. Your 
 orders against the multiplying of horses would have suited Solomon's time 
 better than ours. Your Avarnings against idolatry and following the 
 inhabitants of the land, should have been given to our fathers before they 
 crossed the Jordan, not now when ten tribes of Israel are away, and it 
 may be for ever, into captivity. Your prediction of women eating their 
 own infants through famine in the siege, has come after the fulfilment, 
 for unhappy mothers in Samaria fed on the innocent babe (2 Kings vi. 
 29). Your book cannot be a witness against the whole tv/elve tribes of 
 Israel, as you say it is for their disobedience ; for ten of these tribes are 
 not to-day, and they have never seen your book. The book is too late 
 by eight centuries at least. Jehovah has come with His message too late 
 for His people.' Thus, Professor Smith, all that you have yet said against 
 Moses not being the author of Deuteronomy is utter folly. Why do you 
 think he did not write it ? 
 
 Prof. S. — ' Tlie book of Deuteronomy presents quite a dis- 
 tinct type of style. Many critics since Graf have had the idea 
 that the Deuteronomic hand is the hand of the last editor of the 
 whole history from Genesis to Kings, or at least of the non- 
 Xevitical parts thereof.' 
 
 S. S. T. — I am no critic, nor the son of a critic, but an unlearned, self- 
 taught layman, and yet I know that the style of any man changes in forty 
 years. Does the old man of sixty write as he did when twenty years of 
 age? Moses was eighty years when he wrote Exodus, and one hundred 
 and twenty when he wrote Deuteronomy, and that book of Deuteronomy 
 is an exquisite photograph of the soul of Moses when one hundred and 
 twenty years of age, and when he kneiv that within a month he must die. 
 The heart of the old grandfather of his people is seen in every page. 
 AVith the frequent repetition of an old man, who tells the same story again 
 and again, he is not content with telling the people tioice within three 
 chapters that the Lord was angry Avith him for their sakes, and would not 
 let him cross into the promised land (i. 37 ; iii. 26), he must repeat it 
 
31 
 
 again in the 4th chapter, ' I miTst die in this Land : I must not go over 
 Jordan.' And how, with intensest earnestness, he warna and entreats, 
 entreats and warns — an intensity that could come only from having seen 
 the bodies of the whole rebellious generation laid in the sands of the 
 desert — an intensity based on the fear of luiparalleled judgments in the 
 future for disobedience, as if these judgments, like an overtlowing flood, 
 would carry them on in agony to destruction. In all Adam's race, from 
 Adam to this hour, there never has been a man except JNIoses who could 
 write Deuteronomy, for he alone had the age, the fidelity to God, the 
 sympathy for man, the wilderness training -which were absolutely neces- 
 sary to its being written as it is. Professor Smith, why cannot you 
 believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch ? 
 
 Prof. S. — ' Astnic (1753 a.d.), observed that the respective 
 uses of Jehovah (Lord), and Elohim (God), as the name of the 
 Deity, afford a criterion by which two documents can be dis- 
 sected out of the book of Genesis. That the way in which the 
 two names are used can only be due to difference of authorship, 
 is now generally admitted.' 
 
 S. S. T. — It seems to me the critics of the higher school will admit 
 anything but the deductions of common sense. I)o you imagine that it 
 required two authors to construct the brief story of Jacob's dream of the 
 ladder at Bethel (Gen. xxviii. 12-22), for in that brief story of a dozen 
 verses the names Jehovah and Elohim, Lord and God, are both used? 
 A lay elder sometimes puts on a white necktie, and sometimes a black 
 one ; and the higher critics declare that the Avearing of the two ties is 
 proof that the elder is two different men ! As to your other reasons why 
 Moses could not be the author of the Pentateuch, I am ashamed to answer 
 them myself, for the answering of them is work only for Sabbath scholars, 
 not for a Sabbath-school teacher. For instance, you conjecture that 
 Deut. ii. 12 refers to the irhole of Palestine already being in possession, 
 when it refers only to the territory then acquired on this side Jordan, and 
 in such safe possession that the men of the two tribes could leave their 
 wives and children in the cities, and go over Jordan to fight with the 
 other tribes the battles of Israel. You conjecture that Gideon could not 
 have refused the offer of the people to make him ruler, if the law regard- 
 ing the kingdom or the choice of a king, in Deut. xvii. 15, had then been 
 known. But why cannot you see that the verse says God was to choose 
 the king, it was not the pccjile, and that Gideon, knowing God had not 
 anointed him, could not but refuse? Saul was chosen and anointed by 
 God. And, coming to that disastrous conjecture of yours, that the prin- 
 ciple or law of a single national altar was not known in Israel till the age 
 of Josiah, know that Exod. xx. 2-4 does not countenance a number of 
 'high places.' Our translators have put, '■In all places where I record 
 my name ; ' but in the Hebrew is it not, ' In the place where I record my 
 name?' And even were it in the Hebrew 'in all j^laces,' still it must be 
 in places not chosen by the people, but ' places where I the Lord record 
 my name.' Your supposition that Deut. xxx. 19 commands one altar, is 
 totally unfounded ; it no more commands one altar than it commands 
 Zebulun and Issachar ' to suck of the abundance of the seas, or of treasures 
 hid in the sand.' And now, shall I astonish you, by telling you that the 
 book. Deuteronomy, of which you write so much about, is the very book 
 you seem to know nothing about, for it is the only book in the Bible that 
 COMMANDS one altar for national and all general purposes — Deut. xii. 
 4-14 : ' In the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there 
 thou shalt bring thy burnt-offerings,' etc., verse 14; 'Take heed that 
 thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place,' verse 13 ; 'There shall 
 
on 
 
 be a place wliicli the Lord your Goi shall choose,' verse 11 — the only 
 book in the Bible that commands cme altar for general purposes, and also 
 COMMANDS a special altar for a special purpose. At that very time the place 
 of the one general altar was God's habitation (Deut. xii. 5), even the door 
 of the Tabernacle where the ark reposed, and where that ark reposed, 
 whether in Tabernacle or Temple, there was God's habitation, and there 
 the Jews must bring their sacrifices (Deut. xii. 5). And yet God, foresee- 
 ing all the future, commanded Mos.es to write that a special altar for a 
 special purpose was to be erected at Mount Ebal, and sacrifices offered 
 thereon (Deut. xxvii. 6, 6). 
 
 In thus commanding in Deuteronomy a special altar for a specially com- 
 manded or permitted purpose, God Avas looking on to the hour when He 
 would command Gideon to build an altar ' unto the Lord thy God upon 
 the top of this rock, and offer thy father's young bullock for a burnt 
 sacrifice thereon' (Judges vi. 25, 2G) ; to the hour when He would command 
 David to rear an altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah ; when He would 
 permit Manoah to offer a kid on the rock beside him (Judges xiii. 19, 20); 
 to the hour when, under His guidance, Elijah would propose the test of 
 fire from heaven upon the altar on Mount Carmel, the altar never to be 
 forgotten while the sun looks down on earth. At Mount Ebal the Jews 
 had hotli the national altar before the door of the Tabernacle and the special 
 altar erected of stones. And it was not in Deuteronomy that the law of 
 one altar for national purposes was first given. In Exod. xxix. 10, 11, the 
 place for offering was ' the door of the Tabernacle.' In Leviticus many 
 times it is said the offerings must be brought to the door of the Tabernacle 
 (Lev. i. 3 ; iii. 2 ; iii. 8 ; iii. 13 ; iv. 4, etc.) And so stringently was a 
 single altar for all general and national purposes announced in Leviticus, 
 that ' the man who did not bring his ox, lamb, or goat to " the tabernacle 
 of the Lord," blood was to be imputed to that man, and he was to be cut 
 off from among his people' (Lev. xvii. 3, 4). So Moses ordered a single 
 altar for general purposes, with more sternness in Leviticus than in Deuter- 
 onomy. That the Jews did know of a single altar within seven years after 
 the death of Moses, is evident from Joshua xxii. 29 : ' God forbid that 
 we should rebel against the Lord, to build an altar for burnt offerings etc., 
 besides the altar of the Lord our God that is be/ore His tabernacle.'' The 
 descendants of these men who thus nobly spoke acted differently, and 
 sacrificed upon high places of their own choice, and God bore with that 
 violation as He bore with many others ; but when the cup of judgment' 
 was full, Judah was not carried into captivity fer sacrificing to the Lord 
 on high places, but for burning incense and sacrificing unto other gods 
 (2 Chron.'xxxiv. 25). I am sick of your baseless conjectui^es about Deuter- 
 onomy ; so turn from that book, and tell me why you reject Solomon as 
 being the author of ' Canticles.' 
 
 Prof. S. — ' It is certain that the title is not from the hand 
 that wrote the poem.' 
 
 S, S. T. — It is of no consequence with me whether Solomon, Ezra, or 
 other sacred writer put in verse 1st, the Song of Songs, which is Solo- 
 mon's. What is your view of the poem ? 
 
 Prof. S. — The view which is at present dominant recognises 
 in the poem a more or less prononnced dramatic character, and 
 following Jacobli distinguishes the Shepherd, the true love, or 
 husband of the Shulamite from King Solomon, who is made to 
 play an ignominious part. 
 
 S. S. T. — I know the higher critics suppose Solomon is acting the part 
 
of a villain, in attempting to get the Shulaniite into his harem. What 
 could the object of the writer be in thus representing Solomon ? 
 
 Prof. S. — The poem cannot be long dated after the death of 
 Solomon, and it was written in a spirit of 'protest against tlie 
 court of Zion, and probably based on recollection of an actual 
 occurrence. It is a poem in the northern dialect, with a 
 northern hero, and scenery contrasting the pure, sivvplicity of 
 Galilee with the corrupt splendour of the court of Solomon, and 
 is clearly the embodiment of one phase of the feeling which 
 separated the ten tribes from the house of David.' 
 
 S. S. T. — The Bible says it was heavy burdens or taxes, not the pure 
 feeling of Galilee, that made the ten tribes revolt at the senseless answer 
 of Eehoboara. I understand, from what you have written, that the object 
 of the poem was to represent the love of the Galilean maiden for her 
 shepherd, and also to serve the political purpose of keeping severed the 
 pure ten tribes from the corrupt court of Zion. If Jeroboam's subjects, 
 with their calves for gods, were so good, how did all the religious people 
 among them flock to Judah and Jerusalem (2 Cliron. xi. 13-16)? and if 
 the poem was partly to serve a political purpose, how did ' Canticles' 
 find its Avay into the Canon ? 
 
 Prof. S. — ' The deletion of the book from the Canon was pro- 
 videntially averted by the allegorical theory.' 
 
 S. S. T. — Here you renounce the doctrine of iiispiration again. You 
 hold the book is not a Divine allegory ; and also, that because it was mis- 
 taken for an allegory, it found its way into the Canon. Since it is there 
 by mistake and on a false ground, you must believe it should not be there ; 
 hut the Confession declares the Song of Solomon is inspired, and shoiUd 
 be in the Canon ; thus you contradict your Confession. The poem ix a 
 vrntest, but a protest from God, against man loving the creature with 
 warmer affection than the Creator is loved, and is an allegory, though the 
 connection between the earthly and heavenly bride is not to be sought for 
 in every verse. In the writing of it, the imperial fancy of Solomon laid 
 all Palestine under tribute for his imagery ; we see the poetical power 
 that mellowed into the description of old age when the almond tree should 
 flourish ; the style of parts of his proverbs, ' Let the wife of thy youth 
 be as the loving hind, and pleasant roe.' Your unknown author must 
 have been an inimitable politician in concealing so successfully his political 
 object, that if a million Scotchmen were to be made to read his poem, and 
 then asked, ' Did you discover that the object of the poem was a protest 
 of pure Galilee against the court of ZiouV not one man in the million 
 would say he had discovered such protest. Your conjectures, Professor 
 Smith, are so original and above common sense, that I want your notions 
 about the angels — ' angels ever bright and fair.' 
 
 Prof. S. — The notion (long current in dogmatic theology, and 
 wliich goes back to the earliest controversies between Jews and 
 Christians) that ' the Angel of the Lord,' as contradistinguished 
 from created angels, is the Logos, the second person of the 
 Trinity, has found defenders down to the present time (Heng- 
 stenberg, Kiel, etc.) but rxrtainhj does not express the sense of 
 the Old Testament writers.' 
 
 S. S. T. — You are at your old trick again — coutrculk'tiiu/ the Scriptures. 
 Turn to Exod. iii. 2, and find that ' the angel of the Lord' in the burning 
 
 G 
 
84 
 
 bush is called ' God' and ' Lord' in the 4th verse, and the ' I Am' in verse 
 14. Christ applied the name ' I AM' to Himself (John viii. 68.) Is there 
 no distinction in the Old Testament between created angels and ' the 
 Angel of the Lord ? ' 
 
 Prof. S. — The two angels, wlien they come to Lot, are appa- 
 rently as direct a manifestation of God. to liim as the third was 
 to Abraham (Gen. xix. 13, 14). . . . The function of the 
 angel so entirely overshadows His iKrsonality that the Old 
 Testament does not ask who or what this angel is, but what He 
 docs. And the answer to this last question is that represents 
 God to man so directly and fully, that when He speaks or acts 
 God Himself is felt to speak or act.' 
 
 S. S. T. — Contradicting the Scriptures again. The two angels that went 
 to Lot did not conceal their i^ersonality, for they said to Lot, ' The Lord 
 hath sent us to destroy this place (Gen. xix. 13), while the third who waited 
 with Abraham is called ' the Lord' Himself (Gen. xviii. 13, 17, 20, etc.) 
 The Old Testament and the New give the angels names, as ' Gabriel,' 
 ' Michael' (Daniel ix. 21; x. 21; Luke i. 26; Jude 9). Do you suppose 
 the angels are mere allegories, representing a peculiar mode in which God 
 Himself manifests Himself to men ? 
 
 Prof S. — It is indeed certain that the angelic figures of the 
 Bible narrative are not mere allegories of Divine providence, 
 but WEEE regarded as possessing a certain superhuman reality. 
 But this reality is matter of assivmrption, rather than of direct 
 teaching. Nowhere do we find a clear statement as to the crea- 
 tion of the angels. 
 
 S. S. T. — You say that the angelic fiyures were, on an assumption, 
 regarded of having a certain kind of suj^erhuman reality ; but what is your 
 <ncn opinion — were these figures mere figures o/ speech? 
 
 l*rof S. — To the guidance of Israel by the angel of Jehovah 
 succeeds the belief in angelic guidance of individuals ! Psalm 
 xxxiv. 7 (' The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them 
 that fear him, and delivereth them'), more or less poetically 
 WORKED UP. Psalm xci. 11 ('For He shall give His angels 
 charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone '). 
 Conversely, 2ycstilencc or other judgments are angelic visitations. 
 2 Sam. xxiv. ; 2 Kings xix. 35 ; Psalm Ixxviii. 49, where the 
 ' evil angels' of the English Version are not wicltd angels, but 
 angels of evil. 
 
 S. S. T. — You thus insinuate, as plainly as possible, that the angel 
 who slew 185,000 Assyrians (2 Kings xix. 35), was not a person but a 
 visitation! INIoreover, you insinuate, or rather assert, that the angel whom 
 God sent to Jerusalem to destroy it (1 Chron. xxi. 15), after David had 
 numbered the people, was not a person but a visitation., though the 
 ' Chronicler' says, in verse 18th, that the visitation spoke, and said unto 
 Gad the prophet, ' Go, command David to build an altar on the threshing- 
 floor of Araunah.' No wonder you are angry at the Chronicler for putting 
 in as fact his own conjectures, for, if we believe the Chronicler, it is hard 
 also to believe that a pestilence spoke. Byrou was an open sceptic, and 
 yet he believed the angels were persons — 
 
 ' The angel of God spread Lis wings on the blast, 
 And breathed ou the face of the foe as he passed.' 
 
35 
 
 The devil himself believed in good angels, for he applied Ps. xci. 11, 12, to 
 Christ (Matt. iv. 6) ; and if you do not believe in wicked angels, you leave 
 the whole Bible perfectly unintelligible, for, from Genesis to Revelation, 
 the whole theory is that ' the seed of the woman, Christ the Lord, would 
 bruise the head of the old serpent, called the devil and Satau, would 
 destroy the works of the devil, and redeem men from the consequences of 
 the first temptation in Eden.' Professor Smith, why did you not, as a 
 minister of the Gospel, in that article ' Angel,' confess your belief in good 
 and also in fallen angels? Are not the fallen angels reserved for judg- 
 ment? (Jude 6). Can a pestilence be brought before God's bar to be 
 judged for sin ? Why do you delight at every point to oppose the Holy 
 Scriptures? Is it because you know not what they contain, or that you 
 have resolved to reject them ? Why will you, a sworn adherent of the 
 Free Church Confession of Faith, not plainly declare your belief in angels, 
 when your Confession asserts the existence of good angels as persons, and 
 of wicked angels who shall be judged? Why will you nibble at the 
 cherished faith of your countrymen, that angels hover around the dying 
 bed to waft the spirit home ? For Christ's sake, for your soul's salvation 
 sake, either with becoming manliness come out of the Church, or cease to 
 write such articles as you have written in the ' Encyclopsedia Britannica. 
 
 CRAWFOKD AND M'CABE, PRINTERS, QUEEN STREET, EDINEUEaH.i 
 
-^cracuse, N, Y 
 Stockton, Calif. 
 
BS500 .S66W7 
 
 The Bible on the rock : a letter to 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00043 8459 
 
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