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 THE 
 
 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA 
 
 ARTICLE I. 
 
 THE BIBLICAL CRITICISM OF THE PRESENT DAY.^ 
 
 BY THE REVEREND ABRAHAM KUYPER, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 In keeping with an ancient custom, it will be a rule at our 
 University that the eixchange of the rectorate shall be accom- 
 panied by an oration ; and it is preferred that each rector shall 
 take a theme from his own department. I also desire to ob- 
 serve this rule, and therefore the Annale Academici and the 
 inaugural of the new rector are preceded by this address on 
 Present-day Biblical Criticism, viewed from the point of its 
 dangerous tendency to the church of the living God. I am 
 deeply sensible of the importance of the task imposed on me 
 by this choice of subject; I feel Avhat modesty is demanded of 
 me when I undertake to differ from celebrated and talented 
 colleagues, who are for the most part my superiors; I know 
 my need of greater courage than my own heart prompts, w^hen 
 I raise my hand and voice boldly against current opinions ; — 
 but may I refrain when the dangers that threaten the church 
 compel me to speak? And, I add, do you expect anything 
 else, when for several months past a reply has been invited 
 from our side about this cardinal point in the conflict of spir- 
 its ? It is indeed our conviction which, with an appeal to your 
 
 1 Translated from the Dutch by J. Hendrik de Vries, D. D., Princeton, 
 New Jersey. 
 
 Vol. LXI. No. 243. 1 
 
410 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Ji-ily> 
 
 considerate judgment but without the least uncertainty, we 
 
 express, — that the biblical criticism of the present day is de- 
 
 I structive of the best interests of the church of the living God, 
 
 (for the reason that it revokes her theology, robs her of the 
 Bible, and destroys her liberty in Christ. Give me your atten- 
 tion as, in the development of these three propositions, I shall 
 show that biblical criticism as it is prosecuted in our times 
 at almost e^rery Protestant university on the continent of 
 Europe, must result in the utter destruction of theology; that 
 it cannot continue without robbing the church of the Holy 
 Scriptures ; and that it must end in surrendering her, utterly 
 defenseless, into the arms of the most unbearable, because in- 
 tellectual, clericalism. And may He, before whose glory 
 I reverently bow and for the welfare of whose church I plead, 
 be in this the inspirer of my word and the judge of my 
 thoughts ; while in this sacred task, also, our help is in the 
 name of the Lord Jehovah, the Rock of our strength, and 
 the Strength of our life. 
 
 I. 
 
 Biblical criticism of the present day tears the parts of the- 
 ology out of their relation, violates its character, and substi- 
 tutes for it something which is no theology. Such is the three- 
 fold complaint in which I treat the first part of the subject in 
 hand, as I undertake to prove the proposition that present-day 
 biblical criticism must end in the destruction of theology. 
 
 Theology is a science which, if it is analogous to philosophy 
 and psychology, is distinguished from all other sciences by 
 this fundamental point, that it does not occupy itself with the 
 knowledge of the creature, but of the Creator ; hence of a God 
 who, as creator, cannot be included in the range of the 
 creaturely. The object of theology, therefore, is God. Not 
 God and something besides which is coordinated with him; 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 411 
 
 but God alone, and under him the creature is considered only 
 in so far as it either instrumentally reveals the knowledge of 
 God or for his glory takes this knowledge up into itself. In 
 anthropology, man is the; centrum, and the Almighty is con- 
 sidered only as the interpretation of the religious sense ; but in 
 theology God himself is the centrum, and no mention of man 
 is justified, except in so far as God uses him for his own sake.. 
 
 Again, in all other sciences man observes and thoughtfully 
 investigates the object, and subjects it to himself, but in the- 
 ology the object itself is active ; it does not stand open, but 
 gives itself to be seen ; does not allow itself to be investigated, 
 but reveals itself; and employs thinking man as instrument 
 only to cause the knowledge of his Being to radiate. Hence 
 the confession of God, the Holy Spirit, speaks of him also as 
 'O ^€0X070?, Ecclesicc Doctor; " the things of God knoweth no 
 man, but the Spirit of God," " for the Spirit searcheth all 
 things. Yea, the deep things of God " (1 Cor. ii. 10) ; and all 
 rol theology is essentially one beautiful building which, in all 
 ages and among all nations, has been reared, according to a 
 fixed plan, by that Spiritus Architectonicus whom we, who 
 are called theologians, merely assist as upper servants. 
 
 And, finally, theology is not born, like other sciences, from 
 the motive of need or from the impulse after knowledge, but 
 from the impulsion of the Holy Spirit. In giving us a theology, 
 God has a purpose to fulfill. He wills that the: knowledge of 
 his Being shall be received by us ; and that, having been cast 
 into the furrows of our minds and hearts, it shall germinate; 
 and, having germinated, that it shall bear fruit to the honor 
 of his name. It is therefore a positive science in which object 
 as well as end are not first to be found, but are posited in ad- 
 vance; and in its origin, power of development, and direction 
 it is determined by one and the seJf-same principle, — the Self- 
 
413 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 revealing God. As Thomas puts it, "Deo docetur Deum docet, 
 ad Deum diicet " ; or, better still, in the words of one of our 
 own divines : " A theologian is 6 ra tov &£ov e« &eov ivcoinov 
 Tov ©eo£/ ci9 Bo^av &€0v Xejcov."^ 
 
 If, therefore, distinction is made between the departments 
 of theology which touch its heart and those which occupy a 
 subordinate place, the division into principal and subordinate 
 departments is determined by the shorter or farther distance 
 of these departments from this theological centrum. Hence 
 ; the heart of theology is dogmatics, and those lying farthest off 
 I are the critical-literary studies, and, in fixed consteilation with 
 j' these, exegesis, pastoral theology, and church history round 
 about the centrum. A just proportion demands that the 
 strength of the best theologians and the best powers of most 
 theologians be devoted to this central, spiritual labor, and 
 that only a part of the strength and a proportionally small part 
 of time be devoted to the purely literary. Thus lies the normal 
 relation of the parts as it is determined encyclopedically, in 
 virtue of her principle, by the nature of theology itself. And 
 this relation is wholly torn apart by the present-day biblical 
 criticism ; in the economy of theology it upturns all order ; 
 makes that which is subordinate principal ; devotes the finest 
 energies to that which lies nearer the circumference ; with- 
 draws its best heads and best hours from the central study of 
 theology, and thus occasions the birth of a monstrous hydroce- 
 phal. Or, to express the same in a nobler figure, it is like a 
 regal banquet at which all the threads of the table linens have 
 been numbered, and every spot and scratch on the golden 
 goblets have most carefully been recorded; while, to the mor- 
 tification of the guests, the sparkling wine is wanting. 
 
 1 [ This line of thought is worked out more fully by the author in his 
 Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 — Tr.] 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 413 
 
 May this be tolerated? As the advocates of this vivisection 
 of the Scripture repeatedly assure us, the knowledge of God 
 rises also from the rich life of nature and man. Consequently 
 theology also deals with the creation. But what would we 
 think of the theologian, who, upon arriving at the point of the 
 creation, began at once, without any self-restraint, to spend 
 his best energy in the construction of a geology? Theology 
 posits an Incarnation of the Word ; will our theologians, for 
 this reason, preface Christology with broad physiological and 
 gynaecological studies of man's conception and embryonic ex- 
 istence? Human personality also charms and attracts by its 
 diorama ; does this make the man who spends his time and 
 strength in anatomical, pathological, and physiological studies 
 a theologian? Must we work through the whole conflict 
 about materialism, chemically and geologically, microcosmic- 
 ally and dialectically, before as theologians we are allowed to 
 count with the soul as existing? Theology makes confession 
 of the resurrection of the body ; is she bound, before rejoicing 
 in her hope, to trace chemically the boundary which in our 
 body separates the nutritive from the organic substratum? 
 And, not to mention other points, theology also teaches a com- 
 ing catastrophe which shall bring about the end of things ; 
 must she analyze by spectral analysis the component parts of 
 all the planets, in order that she may speak authoritatively of 
 a burning of the elements at the Lord's return? Would such 
 a conception of study ever form a theologian ? Would he who 
 makes these things almost exclusively his studies be permit- 
 ted to style himself a professional theologian? Could it be 
 said that such studies were governed by the principle of the- 
 ology? Will it do still to speak of theology^, when the inter- 
 ests that should claim the attention subsequent to this ele- 
 mentary analysis are neglected from sheer lack of time? 
 
414 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 And, if not, can we still speak of theology when not the 
 Scripture, — which were excellent, — but the introduction to 
 the Scripture, occupies the whole heart and head; when much 
 is said about the Scripture, but ever so little from or upon 
 the authority of the Scripture; yes, when ministers, though 
 they bear the title of theologian, are wholly unacquainted with 
 thei spiritual life of their congregations, and, while almost 
 opposing their people's holiest efforts, undertake to satisfy 
 their own sense of honor by covering up these defects in elab- 
 orate presentations of what has been argued over and for 
 this Bible as literary substratum? 
 
 Moreover, this one-sided study of this microscopic analysis 
 disables the eye to see the holy synthesis. A chemist is not 
 commonly a poet. In this way the powers for real theological 
 studies remain undeveloped. They lose their sacred character ; 
 they remain barren ; and, what is worse, they foster pride rather 
 than humility. Even now nothing is more common than to 
 hear youthful theologians, whose studies have scarcely begun, 
 whose knowledge of language and of antiquity barely suffices 
 to carry them along, and who still owe the world the first 
 proof of their higher ability, deprecate the Scriptures in a 
 way which but betrays that their superficiality echoes what 
 their limited powers fail to grasp. 
 
 As results of this, by far the greater part of the theological 
 domain is stili untilled ground ; the real theological sense is 
 dulled ; and most of those who call themselves theologians de- 
 clare their study already ended when the portal which leads 
 from the outer courts to the sanctuarium of the sancta theo- 
 logia still waits their steps. 
 
 Though I readily grant, indeed, that there must also be 
 an outer court, by virtue of which these studies may and 
 must assert their relative rights, I enter my protest against 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 416. 
 
 the delusion that these studies render one a theologian; I 
 nisist that these elementary studies be relegated back again to 
 their proper spheres ; and that no one of us be longer permitted 
 to ignore the atrophy of the higher theology which, of direful 
 necessity, has originated from the hypertrophy of these lower 
 studies. 
 
 For, and this was my second complaint, such a dispropor- 
 tionate, excrescence is apt to become a constitutional defect, and 
 present-day biblical criticism has, consequently, not only torn 
 theology out of its relation, but has also falsified its character. 
 1 his could not be otherwise. When we do not regulate with 
 a clear consciousness the course of our studies according to 
 the principle of our science, that course of studies governs us, 
 raid subjects us unconsciously to the power of that other prin- 
 ciple, from which the impulse to this divergence in the 
 course of studies was born. No accident put upon the study 
 of the Scripture its present-day stamp. It was rather a gen- 
 eral disposition of the spirits which, in all the countries of Eu- 
 rope, almost simultaneously raised very similar presumptions 
 against the Scripture. The Schleiermachers and Robertson 
 Smiths, the Kuenens and Colensos, are but the most accurate 
 interpreters, on Scripture grounds, of the spirit which, as a re- 
 former of the once current conceptions, has transposed the en- 
 tire human consciousness in every department of life ; even the 
 revolution in theology, such as we have already witnessed in 
 politics and in social and domestic relations. Encyclopedically 
 this was most sharply declared in the claim that the locus de 
 S. Scripfura should be removed from the gable of dogmatics, 
 and be given a place in the transept of the media gratics. It 
 will not do to say that this merely implied a change of place. 
 Because, in the first place, in dogmatics the media gratice are 
 
416 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 taken officially, hence it is not a doctrine of the Scripture, but 
 a treatise of the praedicatio Verhi, which, alongside of the min- 
 istrations of the sacraments, appears under this rubric ; as fool- 
 ish, therefore, as it would be to include the whole Christology 
 and soteriology under the locus de Sacramento, just so untena- 
 ble is the proposition to fuse the locus de S. Scriptura with 
 what dogmatics teaches concerning the preaching of the Word. 
 And, secondly, a still more serious objection presents itself. 
 By taking away the locus de S. Scriptura from the entrance 
 (introduction) to dogmatics, the ethical tendency has changed 
 the very nature of the principium of theology. Our fathers 
 have ever maintained that the Scripture was not one of many 
 fountains, but the principium of our knowledge of God. The 
 fountain of the knowledge of God, they said and very correctly, 
 is God's own self-consciousness alone ; is only present with the 
 Creator, and cannot hide in something creaturely; and exists, 
 therefore, exclusively in the theologia archetypa; while the 
 principium of our knowledge of God, i. e., the principle, the 
 organic beginning, the germ, from which springs all knowl- 
 edge of God in the order of its parts, and in which 
 of necessity the entire wealth of theology is potentially 
 included, is neither tradition, nor the Christian consciousness, 
 nor yet our higher implanted life, but solely and alone the Holy 
 Scripture. Contradictory to this view, the ethical tendency in 
 the present-day study of the Scriptures has made the twofold 
 mistake: first, to locate the real source of the knowledge of 
 God in the implanted life ; and, secondly, as a simple conse- 
 quence, to have that knowledge of God, as far as it is to be- 
 come conscious, spring from the unconscious mystery of the 
 soul; both these being philosophical ideas, one from Fichte, 
 and the other from Schelling, and in a peculiar setting 
 imported by the giant mind of Schleiermacher into the 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 417 
 
 theological domain. This attacks radically the work of the 
 Holy Spirit, whose very office it is to reveal to, in, and by the 
 church conscious knowledge of God in a form which is 
 adapte;d to our human consciousness. " The way, the truth, 
 and the life," are in Christ, but the Holy Spirit takes these 
 from that Christ " to show them unto you " ; not by impress- 
 ions on the conscience, or impulses of feeling, neither by the 
 inoculation of a lymph of life ; but by the Word, i. e. by the 
 utterance of the self-consciousness of God, interpreted in the 
 form of our human consciousness. Again, this error is a rad- 
 ical subversion of the Divine ordinances, which are as analo- 
 gous to the realm of nature as of grace. For, as we have the 
 series of a " perception," from this perception a " thought," 
 and from that thought the " word " ; so we have, also, the series 
 of a " blade," an " ear " and a " grain of wheat," or, if you like, 
 the series of '' inflammable material," " smoke," and " flame." 
 What do you sow? And how do you ignite fire? Can you 
 sow blades of corn, or can you make fire with smoke ? Indeed 
 in order that you may quicken the life of the blade, you must 
 needs have the perfectly ripe grain of wheat ; and, to ignite fire, 
 you need a glowing spark or flame. In the same way it is 
 the ordinance of God in spiritual things, not to begin with an 
 unconscious perception, but to have the clearly conscious Word 
 addressed to you, from which Word the perception shall be the 
 first to germinate, and from which perception the thought shall 
 ripen until at last from the Word a word of your own shall be 
 born within you. In spite of its praiseworthy efforts to maintain 
 the confession of the church, the ethical tendency, under the 
 pressure of the same philosophical revolution-principle, from 
 which the present-day biblical criticism borrows its impulse, 
 has altogether changed the face of theology. With us they 
 confess a God who is concious of himself, and consequently 
 
418 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 tbey hold to a Cognitio Dei Archetypa, but the knowledge 
 which we derive from the living God is in their system so little 
 like the Ectypic, i. e. which has originated by the impress of 
 God's self-consciousness, as to be reached by a slow process 
 from the emotional lifes of the organs of revelation. Conse- 
 quently this tendency was forced to take God the Holy Ghost 
 and " the family-spirit of the congregation " to be synonymous, 
 and, by the identification of the otherwise distinguished con- 
 ceptions of life, power, and word, to introduce a Babylonian 
 confusion of speech, which strangely mixes up all conceptions, 
 and lends a floating character to every term, and, after the 
 Romish style, allowed a continuous lifei-revelation to become 
 apparent in the church, which at first took a place by the side 
 of the Scripture, but which even now, with such men as Rothe, 
 has usurped the authority of the Scripture. 
 
 The smooth transition, therefore, from believing to modern 
 ethicals is found with Rothe, von der Goetz, Frank, and 
 Rabiger. Thus far the ethicals still reverenced the rule 
 " to make a separation between the sacred and the profane 
 (Ezek. xlii. 20) ; and, even in spite of their starting-point, 
 they still confessed faith in an absolute chasm between the 
 holy and the unholy. But, and this is my third complaint, 
 from this same principle, present-day Bible-study has pro- 
 duced a still more bitter fruit with the moderns, and in the place 
 of the disconnected and grievously degenerated theology has 
 given us an entirely other and new science. If there is no 
 theologia ectypa, i. e. no communication of truth in a form 
 appropriate to our consciousness, then, it was said, you have 
 no right to value your perceptions as being essentially higher 
 than ours : they do not differ specifically, but at most only in 
 degree of development ; in the religious life also there is a 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 419 
 
 Darvvinistic process. And thus the wall of separation between 
 the holy and the profane fell away; the chasm between the 
 sacred and the common was filled in; idolatries were no\y 
 taken as the religions of the nations; and, together with the 
 sacred writings of other people, the sacred books of Israel 
 were tested by the touchstone of all profane literature. Our 
 theologians then dispersed into four different tents of science : 
 There was a science of philology, and henceforth its priests 
 would take notice of Semitic literature ; there was an ethnical 
 science, and the science of religions should henceforth be 
 known as its subdivision; there was a science of psychology, 
 and under its auspices religious feisling would be investigated ; 
 and, finally, there was a science of philosophy, whose task it 
 now became to furnish a philosophy of religion. Thus along- 
 side of, and over against, sacred theology, there arose an en- 
 tirely other and separate science, no longer of God, but of 
 religion. And the grievance of the church of Christ is, that 
 this brand-new " science of religion " committed the lamenta- 
 ble act of dishonestly announcing itself by the old name of 
 " theology," and, while expeiling sacred theology, which it 
 had at first ignored, altogether from the domain of the state- 
 faculty, now carries itself as though it were the only lawful 
 tenant, yea, owner, of the ancient sacred house. Hence our 
 complaint against you, v/ho, as our brethren making confes- 
 sion of the name of Jesus, have cooperated to effect this change, 
 is not merely that you have mutilated theology and have al- 
 lowed it to be falsified ; but much more that, by the abandon- 
 ment of dogmatics and practical theology, you have allowed 
 the heart and the brain of the sancta theologia to be removed, 
 in order, as a soulless mummy embalmed with spices, to have 
 it laid away in the modern sarcophagus. 
 
 See, my brethren, in the name of the Lord, this pains us; 
 
420 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July> 
 
 it grieves us that, with your leave, the profane "science of 
 reHgion " has been allowed to ascend the throne of the sancta 
 theologia, and that as willing priests you offer it the; services 
 of your splendid talents, and as willing choir-boys bring to it 
 the incense of your homage. For this makes the churches of 
 the living God to suffer loss. If, indeed, you cannot destroy 
 them as churches, you can injure their well-being. And this 
 is being done. According to the Lord's ordinance, a theology 
 belongs to the church in the earth. She cannot live without 
 it. Where she is deprived of it she must languish. She needs 
 a theology that she might grasp the more hidden sense of God's 
 Word; that she might discover the deflection of the line of 
 error; to protect the medical art of the soul from passing into 
 a spiritual quackery ; to exhibit thei reasonableness of her faith 
 and as apologete to plead for it. The church needs a theology 
 that she might be inwardly edified, and kept from error, 
 and be able; to command m^oral confidence from the learned and 
 unlearned alike. In brief, she needs a theology which, while 
 it differs not specifically, but only gradually, from the knowl- 
 edge of sacred things on the part of the laity, does not stand 
 outside of it, but in the service of the Holy Spirit, blooms 
 and flourishes with it upon one root; which, joined to her 
 past, directs the course of former thought into the chan- 
 nels of our days ; and which, by virtue of that origin, trains 
 ministers who do not move as exalted creatures in an atmos- 
 phere above the people, but dwell among them as their spirit- 
 ual noblemen, who in but purer and finer forms cause to shine 
 forth what is her life; and that of her children. And this you 
 withhold from the churches, you vivisectors. By your pres- 
 ent-day studies of the Scriptures, you cause the church to be 
 deprived of it. You offer her a science which has no connec- 
 tion with her confession, and you send her pastors who, how- 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 421 
 
 ever learned and reverend, if in other ways they are serious, 
 must confess shamefacedly their ignorance of the things of the 
 Spirit, and, instead of feeding the church, must needs be fed 
 and warmed by her. And so it is no wonder, that diseases in 
 the church are on the increase hand over hand, that sects are 
 multiplying, that practice does not follow the teaching, and 
 that " shepherd and flock," distrustful of each other, stand 
 mutually opposed, instead of unitedly enjoying the glory of 
 Jesus' name. Even society at large, yes the country, suf- 
 fers by it. For a spiritual circle which finds its image in a 
 marsh, instead of in a clear lake, throws out of necessity poi- 
 sonous vapors, which spoil the national spirit. By robbing 
 the church of her theology, she is robbed also of that wonder- 
 ful power of thought which made us Calvinists for ages 
 together an invincible stronghold in the midst of the land; 
 and, by presenting wandering ethical ideas in the stead of the 
 nourishing bread of practical theology, discipline and order 
 are undermined, and the moral sense of justice is weakened. 
 And therefore, in behalf of that misappreciated and the- 
 ology-robbed church, we have planted in this new University 
 a slip of the old plant, with the prayer that God may give it 
 increase. Our aim was not to place a better theology by the 
 side of one less good, but, where there was none, to plant one 
 anew, however imperfectly its form. For consider it well, at 
 the state universities there is no longer any theology. It is 
 lost. A science of religion has taken its place, a science of an 
 altogether other caliber, but which the state, less honestly, at 
 the price of misleading the church of God, carries under the 
 name of the old firm. Hence our faith in our future, what- 
 ever storms may be gathering over our heads ; but hence also 
 the bitter opposition we meet with from our brethren. For 
 nothing disturbs peace of mind so much as want of courage 
 
422 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Jwly, 
 
 to break off from what has become a temptation. And the 
 state-faculties are a temptation; a temptation to all Christian 
 brethren who are not wholly weaned from homage to this 
 officially scientific world ; a temptation to Christian parents 
 who, however warm and earnest in their prayers for their sons, 
 are anxious to choose for them the way that is socially safest; 
 and a temptation no less to our young men who desire to 
 become; ministers of God's word. For you know that from that 
 " faculty without theology " there runs a path to the church 
 that has been made entirely smooth and straight. While with 
 us, who have reinstated the sancta theologia in its former 
 honor, one is to all appearances surrounded by a wall without 
 any means of escape. 
 
 II. 
 
 After the encyclopedic there follows the dogmatic side of 
 the question. For the biblical criticism of the present day, 
 according to r.vy second point, does not merely withhold the- 
 ology from the congregations, but, what is worse, it robs them 
 of their Bible. 
 
 When do the congregations have a Bible and when not? 
 Allow me to speak of this holy matter plainly as a day-laborer, 
 because the Holy Scripture is a divine jewel common to the 
 day-laborer and professor. And then, I say it frankly and un- 
 hesitatingly, to us Christians of the Reformed faith, the Bible 
 is the Word and the Scripture of our God. When in private 
 or at the family-altar I read the Holy Scripture, neither Moses 
 nor John addresses me, but the Lord my God. He it is who 
 then narrates to me the origin of all things and the calamitous 
 fall of man. God tedls me with silent majesty how he has ap- 
 pointed salvation to our fallen race. I hear him himself re- 
 late the wonders which he wrought for our deliverance and 
 that of the people of his choice, and hov/, when that people 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 423 
 
 rebelled against him, he afflicted them in his wrath, and when 
 chastened restored them again to his favor, the whilst they 
 sought the day of the coming of the Son of his love. In the 
 midst of that sacred history I hear the Holy Spirit singing to 
 my spiritual ear in the Psalms, which discloses the depths of 
 my own soul ; in the prophets I hear him repeat what he 
 whispered in the soul of 'Israel's seers ; and in which my own 
 soul is refreshed by a perspective which is most inspiring and 
 beautiful. Till at length, in the pages of the Niew Testament, 
 God himself brings out to me the Expected One, the Desire 
 of the fathers ; shows me the place where the manger stood ; 
 points out to me the tracks of his footsteps ; and on Golgotha 
 lets me see, how the Son of his unique love, for me poor doomed 
 one, died the death of the cross. And, finally, it is the same God, 
 the Holy Spirit, who, as it were, reads off to me what he caused 
 to be preached by Jesus' disciples concerning the riches of that 
 cross, and closes the record of this drama in the Apocalypse 
 with the enchanting Hosanna from the heaven of heavens. 
 Call this, if you will, an almost childish faith, outgrown by 
 your larger wisdom. But I cannot better it. Such is my Bible 
 to me, and such it was in the bygone ages, and such it is still, 
 the Scripture of the church of the living God. The human 
 authors must fall away ; in the Bible God himself must tell 
 the narrative, sing, prophesy, correct, comfort, and jubilate 
 in the ear of the soul. The majesty of the: Lord God is the 
 point in question, and that only. If then the Scripture: has 
 spoken, all controversy is ended ; when it affirms, the latest 
 doubt departs ; even the habit of turning to the Scriptures, in 
 times of need or despair, for help and direction from God, 
 seems to me by no means unlawful, but a precious usage. 
 Thus I stand with x\ugustine, and with Comrie, who entirely 
 along his lines exclaimed : " When I read the Scripture, I 
 
424 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 listen to what God speaks to me; and, when I pray, God lis- 
 tens to what I stammer." 
 
 This does not mean that the church looks for something 
 extraordinary in that Book as such. A "vis siipernaturalis 
 sacra scriptiircu inhcerens/' such as the Lutheran faculties 
 taught over against Rathman, and such as, alas ! among our- 
 selves is maintained by some, is inconceivable for the Calvin- 
 ist. To him the holy book is as the deep water in the dia- 
 mond. As long as that precious stone lies on the, table in its 
 dark state, the most beautiful diamond can scarcely be dis- 
 tinguished from a worthless piece of glass. Value is imparted 
 to it only by the inshining of the light. In this way the Scrip- 
 ture becomes the Holy Scripture only when the Holy Spirit 
 sends forth his reflections, which causes God, the omnipresent 
 God, to address my soul in and through that book. If the 
 figure of speech were not profane, I would say, that, even as 
 the; telephone is a speaking from the distance, such is that 
 book of the Testaments to me. If now I enter into relations 
 with that book, and the Holy Spirit works his illumination, 
 then is my soul joined to my God, and my God to my soul, 
 and the speech of the Eternal One begins. Every idea of a 
 something accidental in the Scripture is thus excluded. It 
 did not originate of itself, but it v/as brought about after a 
 fixed plan. The eternal counsel of God contained the original, 
 the faint copy of which is given us in the Scripture. " I have 
 known of old," sings the Psalmist, " concerning thy testimo- 
 nies " " that thou hast established them forever." The soil 
 in whicH it was to develop itself was expressly prepared; in 
 the germ from which it was to grow lay the protoplasm of 
 its full glory. It is the living stone, firm, solid as stone, and 
 yet seething with life. They who wrote it did not write it 
 for their own sakes, but for the church of God, for which it 
 
190-1.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 435 
 
 was intended. " That not unto themselves, but unto us, they 
 did minister the things " i. e. for the church of God of all 
 ages ; so that at the end of the dispensation of miracles, Al- 
 mighty God would be able to speak to and through his church 
 with indeclinable certainty in the. highest form, viz. in that of 
 the Conscious Word. I grant you, this is not a definition : at 
 most it is but a refection out of my own soul for the sake of 
 communicating the impression of the Scripture-mystery. For 
 the Scripture-secret is a mystery, equally wonderful and impen- 
 etrable as the creation in the beginning, the incarnation in the 
 midst of the ages, and thei final catastrophe which still tarries. 
 Wonderful, not for the sake of the book itself, but because 
 here also it is : God touching the finite, and the wave-beat of 
 the eternal broken upon what is devoid of all power that in- 
 sures continuance of being. 
 
 If now the question is raised by what name the church of 
 the living God has been accustomed to designate this mode 
 of origination of the Scripture, we reply : " Inspiration, the- 
 opneusty, by the Holy Spirit." From the nature of the case 
 tliis Scripture-theopneusty concerns a somewhat different ques- 
 tion from that other inspiration, which was merely the vehicle 
 of revelation. This is not said to evade a difficulty. Candidly 
 spoken, I also belong to those backward ones who stand im- 
 movably convinced that God wrote the law himself upon the 
 tables of stone, spake himself with audible voice from Sinai, 
 appeared in the theophanies, sent angels to comfort sinners, 
 and, as the wonderful worker for, to, and in Israel, of wonder- 
 ful things, surely also foretold to man in prophecy what he, 
 the Almighty One, thought of man, and purposed with the 
 children of men. That all that relates to revelation is passed 
 over in this paper, is therefore done least of all from fear; 
 Vol. LXI. No. 243. 2 
 
426 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 but only for the sake of clearness. For revelation could 
 have been given, and could still have be'en continued, without 
 there ever having been prepared a theopneustic Scripture. 
 Imagine that revelation worked out in its course, without any- 
 thing more, and there is nothing of the Scripture itself yet 
 existent ; then that Scripture is still to come ; it is still to come 
 about after a fixed purpose ; by a plan which includes also the 
 means by which that Scripture should be wrought and formed, 
 and this wondrous means the church calls " the theopneusty." 
 It is possible, though I do not afifirm it, that in olden times 
 still other mighty miracles took place; which have not been re- 
 corded; it is certain that important, effective prophetical ad- 
 dresses were made, of which the Scripture makes no mention ; 
 we know that Jesus spoke and did many things of which we 
 have no report; also that the Apostles spoke and wrote what 
 has not been handed down to us ; but all this, however pre- 
 cious it must have been to Israel and the early Christian 
 churches, does not touch the Scripture as the Scripture of the 
 Church of God. For the Scripture brings us from that revela- 
 tion only that much and just so much as was determined by 
 God to be kept in the permanent organism of the Conscious 
 Word for the church of all ages. No accident regulated what 
 was admitted into it and excluded from it. It was the fixed 
 choice of God which directed itself after the need of the souls 
 of God's elect and the wants of the church of Christ, knov/n 
 from eternity, and therefore satisfying for all ages. It is a 
 mystery of love and comfort which can be explained only 
 when each and every writer, whose inestim.able grace and hon- 
 or it was to record a larger or smaller part of that Scripture, 
 v/as not his own master in the writing, but only rendered ser- 
 vice as an instrument of the Holy Ghost, and was so wrought 
 upon and directed by the Koly Ghost, that the page of Scrip- 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 427 
 
 ture, which, after pencil and pen had been laid aside, lay before 
 him, contained and was possessed of equal fixedness, as though 
 it had originated by an immediate, divine creation. 
 
 How are we to interpret this ? Does this mean to say that 
 the Holy Spirit could have used Abiram for this wondrous 
 task as well as Moses, Saul with equal safety as David, Judas 
 Iscariot equally well as John? This is the way in which it 
 has been preseinted, and, if compelled to do so, I myself would 
 not, even in this, determine a limitation to the almightiness 
 of God. God can raise children unto Abraham also from the 
 stones of the street ; and the prophecy of Balaam, the number- 
 ing of Saul with the prophets, and the redemption-idea on the 
 lips of Caiaphas, amply show, that, if needs be, the Holy Spir- 
 it has this power also at his disposal. But it is quite another 
 question whether the Holy Spirit has willed to work the the- 
 opneusty in such a magical v/ay. And this we answer in the 
 negative. On the contrary, theopneusty appears to consist 
 in this, that the Holy Spirit temporarily took away from the 
 human spirit the immediate disposal of the operation of his 
 " spirit, soul, and body " ; which he then from within out 
 assumed himself ; and in such a way that, in the measure in 
 which man was spiritually disposed, the Holy Spirit operated 
 in and by the human spirit, or even repressed the human spirit 
 wholly. H for a moment I may speak of the human sensor- 
 ium as the wheels, and the human spirit the axle, then the 
 mystery consists in this, that in theopneusty the Holy Spirit 
 either turned the axle at his pleasure, or lifted that axle out 
 and acted himself in the place of it. Compare Daniel at the 
 Hiddekel with thel man of Tarsus, and the distinction I refer 
 to will be clear. No idle speculations on the different styles 
 of the writers or the characters peculiar to their circle of 
 
428 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 thought need detain us. By the constant usage of another in- 
 strument, the result must be different. And that not by acci- 
 dent, for the Holy Spirit did not chose his instrument for this 
 glorious work only at the given moment, but created and pre- 
 pared such an instrument already in the succession of the gen- 
 erations, b}' tlie forming of heart and brains, in the manner of 
 education, the leading of the daily life, and mostly also by in- 
 ward grace. 
 
 To narrate history, the Holy Spirit used an instrument in 
 which the memory of facts was present, and in whose spiritual 
 periphery, if I may say so, were found the scrolls and docu- 
 ments and all necessary data. To sing psalms for the church 
 of the living God, the Holy Spirit did not employ a prosaic 
 caviler, but a poetic spirit, which itself was deeply shaken, 
 moved, down-trodden, and which heroically lifted itself up 
 in the Spirit. In like manner, for the apostolic gnosis, the 
 Holy Spirit did not choose a Thomas but a Paul ; not a Thad- 
 deus, but a Simon Bar-jonas ; not an Andrew who stood afar 
 ■off, but a John whose head reclined on Jesus' bosom. Hence 
 the only point in question, therefore, is that of psychical analy- 
 sis ; whether, indeed, the human person was framed to serve, 
 such as he is, wnth all the knowledge which he himself pos- 
 sesses, as the organ of another spirit. And this is possible ; 
 people can be possessed of other spirits. A strange spirit can 
 speak through one so possessed. The Gospels tell us this 
 definitely, and I myself have heard this double speaking in 
 one possessed of frenzy. If now our spirits are susceptible 
 to possession by evil spirits, why not also by good; and if by 
 •_good, why not then by the Holy Spirit ? The " est Dens in 
 nobis, agitante calescimus illo " ; all the gifts of genius ; all 
 relal powers of poetry and art; also the several forms of 
 divination, show that another spirit can achieve something 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 429 
 
 in ours. Even among us there are sometimes spirits who 
 capture and hold other spirits so entirely in their powers that 
 they use them literally as their own doubles, or who, stronger 
 still, multiply their own spirit a thousand fold in whole com- 
 panies of men. Think of a Napoleon at Austerlitz. Is it 
 not the spirit of that one man of short stature which thexe 
 causes the whole phalanx of his generals, and the many thou- 
 sands of horsemen, to turn as one mighty wheel about the 
 pivot of his will ? And if in these several domains, by anal- 
 ogy, it appears possible to render a human psychical and 
 physical being, by the entering in of another spirit in his 
 spirit, serviceable to the will of that other spirit, why then 
 should the possibility be disputed that God the Holy Spirit 
 does this same thing in a divine, i. e, absolute sense. " The 
 Holy Spirit," says Jesus, will bring to mind " ; is not that 
 an intellectual capacity to employ the memory in one's im- 
 mediate service ? And would not that same Holy Spirit be 
 able equally easily and surely to introduce new and conscious 
 thoughts into the human spirit? You yourself are able to 
 transmit conscious thoughts into the mind of another. To 
 accomplish this you speak. But what is " speaking " other 
 than a passing on of the thought from your heart in the vi- 
 bration of air-waves? and what the voice, and those vibra- 
 tions of air-waveis, other than conductors along which your 
 thought is carried to the auditory nerve of the person ad- 
 dressed? and what is this auditory nerve in turn but a con- 
 ductor or wire along which your thought is introduced into 
 the spirit of that other man? Your motor-nerves which set 
 in motion the muscle of your organ of speech, the air-waves 
 which were set to vibrate by these muscles, the sensorial audit- 
 ory-nerves of the ether which were affected by these vibrations 
 and passed them on to his spirit, are altogether nothing else 
 
430 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 than leaders which you employ to repeat the impression of 
 your spirit in the spirit of the other, so that the same clear, 
 conscious, and full-orbed thought arises in him which at first 
 was only in you, and which only now has come to him. And 
 why then should not the Holy Spirit, who, after all, is not 
 bound to these intermediate links of nerves, air-waves, and 
 muscles, — why should not the Holy Spirit not be able to do 
 immediately what we are able to do mediately, and, enter- 
 ing in within us, transplant entirely conscious, new, and 
 full-orbed thoughts from himself into our spirit? Hence I 
 take the writers as entirely instrumentally in the service of 
 the Holy Spirit, including everything they knew, together 
 with the entire result of their previous training, even to their 
 surroundings and credentials, and maintain that the Holy 
 Spirit has used this whole person, with everything belonging 
 to him, to remind in and through him, to sift, to purge, to 
 think, to write; but also, alongside of this, that without any 
 intermediaries of motor or sensor nerves, and hence also 
 without inflection of the muscles of speech, or the vibration 
 of the air-wave, the Holy Spirit communicated new, consci- 
 ous, clear thoughts to them. That God also spoke with audi- 
 ble voice is sufficiently shown by Sinai and Tabor. But this 
 is not the que-stion with the inspiration of the Scripture; this 
 was inspiration by the entering in of the Spirit into the cen- 
 trum of the personality of the writers, and an absolute sub- 
 jection of what was in and belonged to them to the sovereignty 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 By this the rationalistic pretext which separates between 
 " Scripture " and " Word of God " even as the present-day 
 protest against the inspiration of the words, is judged of it- 
 self. The Scripture is God's word both as a whole and in its 
 parts. Synthetically, because the extent and the content of 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 431 
 
 the Holy Scripture in its organic resumption has God for their 
 author and is given to the church as type of the incarnation. 
 The Scripture, however, is also God's word analytically, i. e. 
 in each of its parts; not because, each of these parts brings 
 us a new thought of God in a divine form, but because the 
 actual thoughts of God as well as the thoughts of men, and 
 even those of Satan in so far as the Scripture writes them 
 down for us, yea, every song and every narrative of the Bible, 
 even of what the godless have dared to undertake against 
 God Almighty, is here placed before us, not with the uncer- 
 tainty of the human, but under the infallible credential of 
 the divine, i. e. of the word of the Holy Spirit. The latest 
 dogmatists in Germany abandon more and more the idea of 
 an inspiration which concerns the thoughts, but not the words. 
 Rothe declares : " On the whole, words and thoughts are 
 inseparable." There are no thoughts without words; they 
 cannot be expressed and held fast otherwise than in words 
 and by means of w'ords." Even the moderns do not deny this 
 any longer. It was indeed pure " thoughtlessness," as Rothe 
 called it, to advocate an inspiration of the thoughts and to 
 deny the inspiration of the words. He who does this is not 
 a thinker, let alone a psychologist. No, as often as the Holy 
 Spirit entered a human personality, in order to use him as 
 instrument for the writing of a page of Scripture, the end 
 could not be reached save as either the thoughts that were 
 already in him or those that were newly inspired first entered 
 into his human consciousness. No thought can enter into 
 our consciousness but of itself it puts on the garment of rep- 
 resentations and conceptions. And again they cannot come 
 forth out of this consciousness upon paper save in the form 
 of words and syntax. If the Holy Spirit gave the thoughts 
 only, and left the task of expression to man, all certainty 
 
432 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 would be lost. But, no, the working of the Holy Spirit was 
 not by halves, it went on; and as he was able to enter the 
 spirit of man, he equally governed the human consciousness, 
 and efifected the transition from thoughts into conceptions, 
 and from these conceptions into words ; and only when his 
 thoughts stood written down on the parchment did the Holy 
 Spirit rest from this his glorious work, and saw that it was 
 good. Hence it was also a verbal inspiration, — not mechanic- 
 ally by whispering into the fleshly ear, but organically by call- 
 ing forth the words from man's own consciousness, i. e. by 
 employing all those words which were on hand in the spirit- 
 ual sensorium of the writer. Even as the child of God con- 
 fesses : " God works absolutely in my personality every good 
 thing (deed, word, and intention), and at the same time I 
 work all things myself, walking in the works which God has 
 prepared for me, " ; the author of Scripture may confess : 
 " The Holy Spirit inspires absolutely every thought and every 
 word in me, and yet I write every word myself, studying the 
 meaning of the words which God has prepared for his 
 church." It also applies therefore to the form of the Scrip- 
 ture: ovK ev 8iSaKTol<i avdpoo7rLvrj<; ao^ia<i \6yoi,<i aXV el 8i8aK- 
 Toi^ djiov rrvevixaro'i, TrvevfiaTiKoh TTvev/XTtKa av<yKpivovTe<i, 
 i. e. a content inspired within me by the Spirit, and given 
 back in the words which the Spirit pressed out of me. Hence 
 the result is, that, apart from the question whether the writers 
 realize it or not, by them as instruments a book or song or 
 epistle was written, which in its original form, i. e,. as auto- 
 graphon, bare in itself the infallible authority of having been 
 wrought by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 And this is the point in question which concerns the 
 church of the living God. There may be some incoherence 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 433 
 
 in the theory of inspiration, the words employed in describing 
 it may be ill-chosen ; all this is nothing as long as the fact of 
 inspiration remains untouched and its result immovable. The. 
 divine fixedness over against the uncertainty of all human 
 ponderings, is chiefly that which makes the Holy Scripture 
 " holy," i. e. a bible for the church of God. Hence the ques- 
 tion which, in view of the Scripture-study of the present day, 
 presents itself is not, whether it gathers about itself other 
 hypotheses concerning the mystery of the inspiration of the 
 Scripture, nor whether it modifies the judgment about the 
 Scriptures from the literary view-point, but only and ex- 
 clusivel)% whether it leaves us in the possession of such an 
 inspiration of the Scripture, whose result offers us for its 
 entire content the unweakened guarantee of divine certainty. 
 From the view-point of the modern tendency this is scarce- 
 ly any longer a question as such. The moderns without dis- 
 tinction antagonize with one accord such a view of the Scrip- 
 ture as a fruit of superstition, and make it a point of honor to 
 impress it deeply upon the congregations that such a Holy 
 Scripture never existed, save in the imagination of the cred- 
 ulous. No further word of them is therefore necessary. But 
 we cannot pass those by who have erected their tent, midway 
 between the moderns and ourselves, and whose banner car- 
 ries the ethical symbol. For with these learned men the 
 strange phenomenon appears that, according to the impression 
 of the church, no less decisively than the moderns, they 
 abolish the Holy Scripture as a book of divine authority, and 
 at the same time personally, in strongest terms and most af- 
 fectionate assurances, declare to you that the violation of a 
 tittle or jot of God's word is held by them to be a sin before 
 God. Hence the presentation of their ideas demands more 
 than ordinary care. It will be less easy to reach any conclu- 
 
434 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 sions from the declaration of their self-consciousness, which 
 renders the test of their declaration concerning the parts of 
 Scripture in particular the more necessary. What they un- 
 justly demand concerning the Scripture, viz, that we should 
 not commit ourselves to what the Scripture says of itself, but 
 to what we observe in it as a whole, will be the only safe guide 
 to help us make our way through the labyrinth of their 
 studies. I call it a labyrinth; for, in sooth, with however 
 much indulgence and brotherly kindness we may judge their 
 labors, the complaint cannot be repressed, that by the in- 
 definiteness which characterizes the definitions of their con- 
 ceptions, the writers of this tendency both mutually and from 
 themselves, even at times in their self-same books, so differ 
 from each other, and so confuse the representation, that to be 
 ethical of tendency and clear seem never capable of going 
 hand in hand. 
 
 To hold myself strenuously to the point in question, I pass 
 the consideration by, whether, in their general starting-point, 
 the ethicals still stand upon the basis of the faith, and confine 
 myself exclusively to the assertion, that, so far as it concerns 
 the particular point of the Scripture-inspiration, they alto- 
 gether walk the line of the moderns. For though, in the mat- 
 ter of revelation, the ethicals still acknowledge much of what 
 the moderns deny, and even radically depart from the moderns 
 who deny every intervention of the living God in that which 
 has once entered upon being ; and while, for the most part, the 
 ethicals accept such a personal role on the part of God in his- 
 tory by manifestation and revelation, by regeneration and il- 
 lumination, still all this does not touch the Scripture inspira- 
 tion. Whether, for instance, in his prophecies which he pro- 
 claimed on the squares of Jerusalem, Isaiah was operated by 
 the Holy Spirit does not affect the Scripture-question in the 
 
1904,] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 435 
 
 least. With the Scripture the only question concerned is, wheth- 
 er the person who wrote the book that is named Isaiah, was so 
 inspired in the writing of it by the Holy Spirit that he pro- 
 duced a sure and infallible product. For these are two entire- 
 ly different question, whether in their official activity Moses 
 and the prophets, or the evangelists and apostles, were led by 
 the Spirit and quickened as organs of revelation, or whether 
 the persons who wrote our Bible-books were in the writing it- 
 self inspired in the absolute sense. The first may be granted 
 and at the same time the second pertinently denied; — and this 
 is what the ethicals have actually done. They still believe with 
 us in a revelation wrought by God through immediate inter- 
 vention. Among the elements of that revelation they too ac- 
 cept a certain working of God upon the spirit of prophets 
 and apostles, and are willing to confess with us that 
 in all their official work an Isaiah or a John were men " filled 
 with the Holy Ghost," in their whole personality. But when 
 from this sphere of revelation I pass on to the question of the 
 completion of the Scripture as Scripture, and of the putting- 
 together in a book not only of what Paul and John them- 
 selves wrote, but of all the books, including the historic books, 
 which lie before us, and then ask, whether a specifically peculiar 
 and an absolutely sure inspiration governs this act of writing, 
 they definitely deny it, and so deny the real inspiration of the 
 Scripture entirely. 
 
 Do we hereby lay anything unlawfully at their charge? Let 
 this be decided by Rothe, who is the brightest, relatively clear- 
 est, and most celebrated among the soberer writers of this ten- 
 dency, and to whose processes of thought no single new ele- 
 ment has been added by the later dogmatists of their class, — 
 a man to whom I appeal miOre gladly because he himself de- 
 clares : " The opinion which I here write down is none other 
 
436 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 than what openly or tacitly is thought and confessed among 
 all believing theologians " ; because he valiantly opposes the 
 eiffort of the ethicals longer to hide their real meaning from the 
 people, and no less because Rothe has likewise dominated and 
 quickened the ideas of the Scriptures current especially among 
 the younger ethicals in the Netherlands. 
 
 And Rothe candidly declares, that there is no objection to 
 call our newer representation of the matter " the inspiration of 
 the Holy Scripture, v;hich is the same name given it by the an- 
 cient church, and it is deemed lawful to launch it out as such 
 upon the world. This, however, is not well done, and must lead 
 to a confusion of ideas. In truth, our aspect of the matter 
 is of a totally dififeirent sort from the church's doctrine of 
 Inspiration." Thus you hear it from his own lips that it is 
 "something of an entirely different sort," and at the end he 
 does not hesitate to reach this serious conclusion : that the 
 Bible which presents its image to the exegete for exegesis is 
 readily different from that which the orthodox theologian 
 and the ordinary believing Christian takes it to be when rev- 
 erently he takes the Holy Book in hand. 
 
 And what is that better and ethical representation accord- 
 ing to Rothe ? It originates from Schleiermacher, the 
 scholarly philosopher and more than theologian who, half 
 a century ago, at an unhappy hour, posited the fatal principle 
 against whose pricks the whole arniy of the meditating theo- 
 logians have kicked their heels, and by which throughout its 
 fatal process of development the ethical tendelncy was and is 
 governed ; from Schleiermacher, according to whom we are 
 to understand by inspiration nothing other than " the activity 
 of the; universal mind in the will of the individual for the 
 sake of producing a definite special work." " So that act 
 of composing one of the holy books and the preceding and 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 437 
 
 fundamental creation of thought in the soul of the Scripture- 
 writer cannot be looked upon as an act of divine revelation." 
 Corresponding to this, Rothe's representation is that there is 
 a church of Christ. From this church a higher life operates 
 outward. She owes this higher life to the Holy Spirit, who 
 pitched his tent in the midst of her, and elevates the sinful 
 life up to a " divine-human " life. This church exists organic- 
 ally. Hence her nobler organs, the apostles, possessed this 
 Geineingcist in a special measure, and under this constella- 
 tion their enlightenment became higher graded than that of 
 the ordinary laity. And that which in the most pregnant sense 
 caused this illumination to become inspiration, was the fact 
 that for a single time God lifted up the life in their soul 
 by a new touch, which made their consciousness of God more 
 clear, and from this brightened consciousness of God they 
 were able to produce rich and new thoughts. As a result 
 of this, Rothe held that there can be no mention of an infal- 
 libility of Scripture ; that most of the writers, but never the 
 Scripture itself, can be called inspired ; that inspiration 
 differs greatly in degree among the writers severally; 
 and that therefore the explanation given by the apostles of 
 the Scripture of the Old Covenant often seems to him incor- 
 rect ; that their representation of Christian truth cannot be 
 taken to be normative for us per sc; and that, which is es- 
 pecially noteworthy, even the image, the picture, given us 
 of the Christ is not of itself possessed of a guarantee of being 
 a faithful reproduction. Rothe therefore abandons altogether 
 the narratives of creation and the fall ; views the historical 
 books as collections of records and documents which teem 
 with mistakes ; and when the sum-total is reached, there is 
 little more left of his Bible than what, if it be in an imperfect 
 way, has come to us as the result of preceding spiritual reve- 
 
438 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 lation in those books, and what we can obtain from it by the 
 criticism of faith. Hence, according to the ethicals, for the 
 church of our day there is alongside of and above the written 
 Word, the living divine revelation, which continues to operate 
 just as it did in earlier days. 
 
 Concerning this ethical representation allow me to present 
 three observations : The radical mistake in this representation 
 is, in my opinion, the assertion that " the truth ever bears an 
 ethical character." This certainly applies to its central origin 
 in God, and equally to its effect upon persons ; but can by no 
 means hold true of its historical process of manifestation nor 
 of its organs. He who first takes away from the truth every- 
 thing that is not ethical ; makes " truth " to mean a "seeing of 
 the kingdom of God," and then quotes the text " Whosoever is 
 not born again cannot see the Kingdom of God," — such an one 
 can very easily maintain so incorrect a representation. But 
 .since the sensorium of " truth " is not the Will, but the con- 
 sciousness, we object most strenuously to this maiming of the 
 truth, and this obliteration of the boundary-lines between con- 
 ceptions which are so specifically different. The ihelamatic and 
 the noetic life form indeed two separate spheres, whose ming- 
 ling together beclouds our whole representation, and confuses 
 all our thoughts. 
 
 The representation derived from the foregoing, that " in- 
 spiration " is bound to " regeneration," is equally faulty. 
 This also is an effort to render an altogether different con- 
 ception ethical, by which that which is beautiful, ordered, and 
 distinguished is melted down chaotically. That which follows 
 from and after regeneration is illumination, the enlighten- 
 ment, which falls to the portion of every child of God, but 
 v.'hich, as the case of Balaam clearly shows, differs specifically 
 from inspiration. 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 439 
 
 No less faulty is their representation that the new elements 
 of revelation which the Scriptures of the prophets and apos- 
 tles offer us had risen from the depths of their inner lives, 
 whose ethical character has been eminently elevated by the 
 divine touch. Even though it were possible to imagine 
 that they were free from sin, even then life would be 
 quickened by the Word ; since, indeed, Jesus does not say : 
 " This is to know thee, that they have eternal life " ; but, on 
 the contrary, " This is life eternal, that they know thee " ; — by 
 the Word is the creation, by the seed of the Word the recrea- 
 tion of our soul. But since, moreover, sin continued to break 
 the harmony in them, the distinction must be the stronger 
 maintained between the ethical and the non-ethical in the 
 revelation-organs. Or is it not so? Souls that are greatly 
 endued with grace are frequently greatly deficient in under- 
 standing ; while in others who are of large understanding 
 the measure of grace is sometimes almost shamefully unno- 
 ticeable. What overtook Rome when, for the sake of having 
 an infallible Christ, they demanded a Mary of an immaculate 
 conception, is the same that has overtaken the ethicals ; for, 
 in a similar way, they deny the infallible thought of the Scrip- 
 ture, because ethically the sinless mother of such infallible 
 thought remained wanting in the soul of its writers. In fact, 
 therefore, their " theanthropic," i. e. divine-human life, is noth- 
 ing but a confusion of conceptions sprung from the same fun- 
 damental error. For a " divine-human " life, which commimi- 
 cates itself to the redeemed by tincture, as the theosophists 
 dream, or, if you like, by way of atoms, is a teaching which 
 is altogether unreformed, even rather than, for the sake of the 
 communicatio idioviatmn, pseudo-Lutheran, founded upon 
 nothing less than a confiisio nafiirarum, i. e., a pantheistic 
 mJnglinsr of the divine and the human. 
 
440 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 And finally an equally great fault is the falsification which 
 is thus introduced into the confession of the Holy Spirit : 
 partly because they continually take the personal Holy Spirit 
 as identical with his quickening reflex in the church, naming 
 him her family-spirit; and partly because, thus limiting the 
 Holy Spirit to thei ethical domain (the domain of law and 
 norm, will and judgment), they dispute his right to the hon- 
 orable title of being the Herald of the deep things of Grod, 
 i. e. the Communicator and the Inspirer of conscious thoughts. 
 
 My second observation concerns equally a confusion, not 
 this time in two different spheres, but in distinguishable peri- 
 ods of development in the same sphere. 
 
 The first church, it is said, received the, life without the 
 written word, atqui ergo it also exists for us indeipendently 
 of the Scripture. This is a conclusion which should be re- 
 jected, because the embryonic state differs from the exuteri- 
 nal specifically in this, that the embryo absorbs within itself 
 the mother-blood immediately, while the adult must prepare 
 the food himself: — a specific difference which can be formu- 
 lated as follows : that inspiration produced something while 
 illumination can only reproduce, — the reason why the church 
 cannot get on without a Scripture in which it finds the image 
 to be reproduced delineated in pure outlines. Though we do 
 not deny that with an adult person the ozone from the atmos- 
 phere may enter into him through the mouth, nostrils, and 
 ear, and through the pores of the skin, and that in like man- 
 ner the church of the Lord may drink from the spiritual at- 
 mosphere through her spiritual pores, we refuse to stamp this 
 spiritual ozone with the name of the Word of God, just as 
 surely as the famishing man would scorn you when, as he 
 called after you for bread, you would undertake to satisfy his 
 hunger with atmospheric ozone. 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 441 
 
 My third observation is, that in this way the ethical ten- 
 dency exhibits a theory which gUtters indeed very tempting- 
 ly, but fails of the explanation which it is bound to give. 
 
 Rothe himself acknowledges that the apostles of the Lord, 
 and we add the Lord himself, have subscribed, not to the inspi- 
 ration of the ethicals, but to that one which we defend. He 
 acknowledges that the church of all ages, under the Old and 
 New Covenant, have taught not a looming up of the truth 
 from out the unconscious ethical life, but very truly a com- 
 munication of conscious truth; also, that what the' believing 
 Christian feels in this pious reading of the Scripture, is not 
 covered by his, but only by the orthodox theory. He grants, 
 indeed, that the Scripture does not come with this theory to 
 the ethicals, but that the ethicals introduce this theory into 
 the vestibules of the Scripture. And every one perceives 
 that this explains nothing, and simply posits a new imaginary 
 something by the side of the object to be explained. When, for 
 instance, and this is one out of a hundred, Isaiah foretells that 
 Hezfikiah is to have another fifteen years added to his life, it 
 is plain that this number fifteen could not have loomed up from 
 the depths of ethical life ; so that already, by this single fact, 
 the ethicals are brought to face the painful choice, either to 
 declare that their theory is insufficient, or, worse yet, to min- 
 imize Israel, one of the noblest organs of revelation, to a very 
 unethical fortune-teller or an imposter of a low spiritual level. 
 
 My last observation is, that to draw a usable conclusion 
 from such imperfect premises, the ethicals themselves appear 
 at length as the judges of their own theory. 
 
 What does Rothe assert? This, that the prophets and apos- 
 tles could not have possessed an " errorless " knowledge of 
 the truth, since they were ethically imperfect ; nevertheless, 
 h€ himself dares to maintain that (risum teneatis amici) he. 
 
442 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [July, 
 
 Rothe, and his ethical friends (who ethically may stand be- 
 neath the apostles), are perfectly well capable, with these im- 
 perfect pieces in hand, to attain unto " an errorless knowledge 
 of the truth." Thus Rothe readily turns his back upon the 
 theory which rendered it necessary to abandon the infallibility 
 of the apostles, as soon as it touched himself and his con- 
 genial allies. In this way thelematic imperfection and noetic 
 accuracy are taken to be compatible with each other, and the 
 common methods of speech of the less " unconscious " people 
 resumes with the ethical scholars again its original right. 
 
 Hence, however much we appreciate in the ethical theo- 
 logians that struggling with both hands to oppose the irresist- 
 ible impulsive force of the principle, which, as a serpent fos- 
 tered in their bosom, attacks their faith at the very heart; yet 
 with reference to this question of the theopneusty, their sys- 
 tem may not be characterized less harshly than as a cloudy 
 mingling of philosophical theories with gnostic aspirations, 
 covered by the content of a faith-consciousness which belongs 
 to Rome, and not to us ; and that complaint must be entered 
 against it, that by this thretefold motive it leads to the absolute 
 destruction of the inspiration of the Holy Scripture. Of the 
 Scripture-inspiration, Rothe himself has said : " Sit ut sit aut 
 non sit," and the modern Lipsius expressed it still more clearly, 
 that all effort to save inspiration by the abandonment of the 
 old dogma could result in nothing but self-deception and mis- 
 guidance of others. And therefore, however much they may 
 classify us in the corpus znrorum ohsciirornm, and try to make 
 the church dogma ridiculous by the " automaten-parodie," 
 we hold fast inexorably to the ancient and unweakened theop- 
 neusty ; in our historical simplicity, or, if you will, in our edu- 
 cational backwardness, still believing that, even though he re- 
 main ethically imperfect, an embassador is capable of transmit- 
 ting without error what his sovereign inspires him with. 
 
666 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 THE BIBLICAL CRITICISM OF THE PRESENT DAY.^ 
 
 BY THE REVEREND ABRAHAM KUYPER, D.D., LL.D. — TRANS- 
 LATED BY THE REVEREND J. HENDRIK DE VRIES, D.D. 
 
 But some of you may say, Is there no good whatever in the 
 biblical criticism of the present day ? Is it merely a stumbling 
 over straws and a game of critical splitting of hairs ? Or have 
 you not heard of the very serious charges which are laid against 
 the views of the ancient church? Did not these grave asser- 
 tions, which, in spite of ourselves, compelled our scientific 
 mind to agree with them, ever disturb your scientific con- 
 science? And, if so, how can you harmonize your beautiful 
 confession with them? 
 
 In response to which inquiries, allow me a single word, 
 which, if it does not engage itself with particulars, holds itself 
 true to principle and motive. 
 
 First, as it appears to me, the gigantic labor which our crit- 
 ics have devoted to the Scripture, is by no means lost. On the 
 contrary, I have the firm conviction that in the end, and under 
 God's gracious disposal, even the excesses of the most rad- 
 ical Scripture-anatomists will be productive of good. How 
 could it ever be unimportant and to no purpose, as far as prin- 
 ciple and reverence allow it, to study the origin of the Holy 
 Scripture in the processes of its entering upon existence ; to 
 point out the seams where the pieces of the shining robe have 
 been so beautifully woven together ; and in a better way than 
 was ever done before to frame, if not with mathematical cer- 
 ^ Concluded from page 442. 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 667 
 
 tainty at least with conjecture, the circle in whose midst, the 
 author by whom, and the time in which, a book of Scripture 
 originated? So little do I aim at the abandonment of these 
 studies, that I would no sooner sanction an official ban upon 
 these vivisectorial excesses and physiological indelicacies with 
 the Corpus Scriptures than with the corpus hnmanum. But 
 if, in the circle of the medical sciences, these vivisectorial ex- 
 cesses and physiological violations of common chastity are not 
 prohibited by law, has not the nobler-mnded medicus the 
 right, in virtue of the principle itself of his science, — i. e. in 
 the name of the human character that belongs to it, because it 
 has the home for its object, — to protest against these shame- 
 ful cruelties, and the no less shameful indelicacies, as inde- 
 cent and unlawful? Or, is it not true that in his bodily ap- 
 pearing man ceases to be worthy of the honor of furnishing 
 an object for a separate science, when, treating the animal cru- 
 elly and himself having become bestial, he degrades himself 
 to being little better than a corpus vile? And have we no 
 equal rights, when it concerns the Corpus Scriptures, to enter 
 our complaints on the ground of the absence of feeling in the 
 vivisectors and the offensive profanities of the Scripture- 
 physiologists ; not in spite, but in the name, of our science ; 
 both because, by their actions, the principle itself of theology 
 is violated, and because a patchwork quilt such as they make 
 the Scripture to be does no longer reward the trouble of sci- 
 entific investigation. 
 
 I welcome the finest perception by the senses [aXaOiqcns:), 
 also, in the domain of criticism. But even as our nerves and 
 brains, the critical organ also can suffer from hypersesthesis, 
 so that it cannot do other than observe incorrectly ; thus reach- 
 ing that inharmonious condition which makes every noise 
 seem louder, every touch more startling, and every uneven- 
 
6®8 Bihlicd Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct, 
 
 ness the rougher to its sense. Such a hyperassthesis becomes 
 a power that g-overns the patient, the irresistible impulse of 
 which is heightened by one's very efforts to resist. Where- 
 fore not every one who announces himself needs to be heard, 
 nor is all criticism indiscriminately to be taken into account, 
 but it must first be determined, by the principle of theology 
 itself, whether we deal with a normal observer, or with one 
 who, abnormally excited, is not able to criticise correctly. 
 
 Finally, the Holy Scripture condemns the world and the spir- 
 it that governs it. Hence nothing can be more natural than 
 [that this spirit of the world, which has made itself so strongly 
 I felt in this age, should bend its energies toward the breaking- 
 down of the authority of the Scripture. Either it must bend 
 before the Scripture or the Scripture must bend to it, and it 
 cannot be otherwise than that the spirit which inspires the 
 j world, must wage inexorable war against the spirit that in- 
 spired the Scripture. The antithesis formed by the two is 
 diametrical. And since we also, who are investigators of the 
 Scripture, have drunk of the spirit of the world, the danger 
 is possible that our biblical criticism may adopt a tentative 
 character, whereby, under the mask of honoring it, our study 
 of the Scripture may tend to undermine its authority. This 
 presumption has indeed become a probability by this single 
 fact, that many men who attach no significance whatever to 
 the Scripture, and scarcely believe in it at all, devote to it the 
 best parts of their life and the choicest of their powers. 
 
 The principle of theology itself, therefore, must needs watch 
 against the degeneration of her scientific and sacred charac- 
 ter, both as regards the extent of the principle, the assthesis 
 of the investigator, and that which determines the tendency 
 of the investigation. Hence I do not plead for conservatism. 
 If that were my aim, I could readily make my task much 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 669 
 
 lighter by setting up Reuss against Kiienen, Schultz against 
 Reuss, and the collaborators of Langc's Commentaries against 
 Schultz, in order finally to assume for my own responsibility 
 only so much as the most conservative have yielded to the 
 claim of criticism. But what would this avail? For the sake 
 of secondary considerations, conservatism merely disparages 
 theories whose validity one is bound to honor, and principles 
 to whose spread one is prepared to devote his energies. There 
 is no strength in this. And therefore I make no appeal at the 
 bar of conservatism, but ask the encyclopedia of our science, 
 what the proper principle of theology here both allows and 
 disallows. And when, with respect to this radical question, w€ 
 grant that theology, as was shown in the beginning of this 
 article, having not the creaturely but the Creator as object, 
 takes no observations, but, in direct distinction from all other 
 sciences, becomes sensible of facts, so that in the science of 
 theology it is not the spirit of the subject but the spirit of the 
 object which is the active investigator, it follows immediately 
 that all study, which, as shown by its results, has ceased to be 
 the instrument in the employ of God the Holy Spirit, falls. 
 eo ipso, outside the boundaries of the theological domain. 
 This is a position which, from the nature of the case, is abso- 
 lutely devoid of strength to our opponents, and therefore is 
 not intended for those, who, after having embalmed theology, 
 i. e. " the science of God," have proclaimed that the science 
 of " Religion " is queen ; but which I maintain in its entirety 
 in the face of every one who still professes with us to be 
 priests in the temple of theology. 
 
 As long as we desire to be theologians, we may never raise the 
 building of our science, save under and in the service of God 
 the Holy Spirit, since he is our only Architect and Master- 
 
670 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 builder. Thus if, as a measure of safety, we apply this princi- 
 ple first to another part of this science, we, as theologians, are 
 in duty bound to dismiss the free-will services in the domain 
 of ethics of both Martensen, the mediating theologian, and Van 
 der Goltz, the full-blooded ethical, since the one condoned and 
 called good the violation of an oath, and the other the violation 
 of the commandment of honesty in persons of high station 
 [Von Bismarck was here referred to]. The works of both 
 these masters fall short of the seal of the Holy Spirit, and are 
 as such, eo ipso, refused admittance, as contraband, at the the- 
 ological frontier, where the blade of the cherub glitters, and 
 the Spiritus Creator is worshiped as Omnium Solus Doctor. 
 If now we apply this same standard to the study of the 
 Holy Scripture, the leading thought which we reach will be 
 as follows : — 
 
 1. That every view, according to which what is holy can 
 appear in the form of a lie, and by which, under the use of the 
 shameful invention of the so-called " pious fraud," the Holy 
 Spirit is made to counteract his own deepest character, must 
 be rejected, as being based upon an erroneous investigation. 
 To pretend, for instance, that in books which one accepts as 
 canonical the Holy Spirit represents myths as history, and 
 places before us a vaticinium ex eventu in a false form as 
 prophecy, is to attribute absurdities to that Spirit which are 
 inconsistent with his integrity. 
 
 2. Each theory — and this will be considered a little more 
 at length — must equally be dismissed, whose result antago- 
 nizes what the Holy Spirit asserts in the Scripture concern- 
 ing the Scripture. 
 
 No one denies that the Holy Scripture comes to us with 
 an absolute principle. It asserts, indeed, that, all " wisdom " 
 of the world is " foolishness " ; that only the Spirit, who 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 671 
 
 speaks of himself as the searcher of all things, can teach us 
 wisdom ; and that, for this reason, every creaturely spirit must 
 subject itself in its thinking, speaking, and acting, now and 
 eternally, to that Spirit. This places us before an absolute 
 dilemma ; a choice with no way of escape. For this principle 
 must either be contested, by doing which return is made to 
 the wisdom of the world ; or this principle must be accepted, 
 and this gives it the right of way across the entire domain 
 of our studies. With those who chose the first member of this 
 dilemma, we can have no further dealings here : for them there 
 exists no longer any Scripture. But of those who made the 
 better choice, and who with joy and with an undivided heart 
 have said " Amen " to this absolute Scripture-principle, we 
 ask in all seriousness, " What claim is made in the Holy 
 Scripture which it announces concerning itself as Scripture?" 
 And here our way separates itself irrevocably from that of 
 the ethicals. For when we reach this point, the ethicals say: 
 " This you must determine from the facts as they present them- 
 selves to you in that Scripture ; and if you find errors there, 
 it but shows, eo ipso, that the Scripture does not pretend to 
 be infallible." This, however, is no correct process of reason- 
 ing, and I reject it on these two decisive grounds: (1) be- 
 cause, sanction to pass such a judgment is only conceivable 
 when one is in possession of the autographs themselves, — for, 
 as the case now stands, it is possible that errors have crept in 
 later on in what was written without error; and (3) because 
 the self-witness of the Holy Spirit concerning his own work 
 is far more authoritative than the judgment which you, O fal- 
 lible man, form on the ground of this work of the Spirit. In 
 a child, indeed, it would be presumptuous and disrespectful 
 if he formed conclusions from his father's doings that are 
 contradictory to the conscious self-witness of the father; and 
 
672 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 how can you dare to pass criticism upon the self-consciousness 
 of the Scripture when you have no other standard in hand 
 than that which you assume to find in the Scripture? 
 
 And, therefore, I neither ask Rothe nor Rabiger what the 
 Scripture claims to be, but the highest interpreter of the 
 Scripture-organism itself; to-wit, the Christ and his anointed 
 apostolate. If, then, Christ and his apostles declare that the 
 Scripture of the Old Covenant is very really inspired, and that 
 by this inspiration it is of binding authority even to the ex- 
 tent of the individual word; or, to cite a single point in detail, 
 if, with a lifted finger, the Son of God says to me, " Thus and 
 so has Daniel the prophet spoken; my disciples, consider it!" 
 and I, like the ethicals, should form a contrary conclusion 
 notwithstanding, then I would deem that I had forfeited the 
 claim to the name of theologian, and I would consider myself 
 to have entered into a flagrant contest with the real principle 
 of my science, since I contradicted the Holy Spirit in the self- 
 conscious declaration of his absolute interpreters. 
 
 3. Every critical study of the Holy Scripture must be re- 
 jected as being foreign to theology, which is governed by a 
 philosophical principle which evidently reacts against the prin- 
 ciple of the Holy Spirit. And this canon especially interprets 
 a good deal. 
 
 Let us consider this in the following four points : — • 
 
 (1) Indisputably the entire Scripture-study, especially that 
 of the Old Testament, is at this moment governed by the ques- 
 tion, whether there was a fall from holy to unholy, or whether 
 there was a gradual ascent from the lower to the pure and 
 holy. This question returns in three stages : First, with Adam ; 
 then with Israel in the wilderness ; and, finally, with the early 
 Christian church. And because this question is now answered 
 in the negative, the hamartialogy of Genesis iii. must be the 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 673 
 
 product of phantasy ; the nobler parts of the thorah must not 
 be attributed to Moses, but lie at the end of the Israelitish de- 
 velopment; and the consciousness of the Christian church 
 must only ripen gradually. And now I ask, " Is there a ten- ' 
 dency to be noted here, or not?" And when I know, that the 
 elimination of the fall is at present the principle of all philos- 
 ophy; that the idea of such a fall is most deeply insulting to 
 the pride of the human spirit; and that the Holy Spirit con- 
 demns the wisdom of the world in this very point; that, in 
 giving holy gifts to Adam and to Moses, and graces and pow- 
 ers on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit exhibits the di- 
 vine majesty, and in each subsequent falling away our deep 
 corruption, is it not folly itself for us theologians to be train- 
 bearers of a Scripture-study which at each of these three 
 points secularizes the Scripture? 
 
 (2) Seeking an accord with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of 
 the world runs again and again after Synergism, in order, by 
 accentuating human activity, God's inworking may not merely 
 be limited, but destroyed, particularly in its absoluteness. 
 Likewise there is a tendency at work in the biblical criticism 
 of the present day to undertake the same contest against the 
 sovereignty of inspiration which Arminius waged against the 
 sovereignty of grace. For whereupon does the denial of 
 prophecy rest other than upon the denial of God's immovable 
 decree? What is the humanizing of inspiration other than a 
 repeated protest against a grace, which, being irresistible, 
 never fails of its purpose? 
 
 (3) The " wisdom of the world " constantly seeks to reduce 
 the immediate work of God in history to ever smaller dimen- 
 sions, and cannot rest until the factor " God " has entirely dis- 
 appeared from the same. In like manner, the Scripture also, 
 which lays its witness in the scale against this very process of 
 
674 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 the wiping out of God's name, had to be distilled until creation 
 passed away in a Darwinian evolution; the miracle went hid- 
 ing; inspiration was reduced to an unobservable touch of a 
 soul unconscious of that fact; and, finally, the human author 
 appeared so one-sidedly in the foreground that at length there 
 remained no higher honor for the Divine Author (Auctor pri- 
 marius) than the service of a laudatory editor with the people 
 who still believe. 
 
 (4) It has ever been a trait of the wisdom of the world, 
 and it is this especially in our days, to class the idolatries of the 
 nations who do not know God, as very honorable forms of 
 religion under the self-same category with the religion of 
 Jesus. Its philosophical principle, that there is no wall of sep- 
 aration between the sacred and the profane, compelled and 
 still compels it to do this. But this was bound of necessity 
 to overthrow the whole Scripture-study, especially that of the 
 Old Testament. The simple change of the name by which 
 henceforth all idolatry, however defiant its character might 
 be to the only true God, is called " religion," is a criticism on 
 the Old Covenant that condemns its entire world-view. And 
 so it came to pass, that, wholly contradictory to the teachings 
 of Scripture, Israel's religious development was explained 
 to have sprung from the same root as that of the heathen, and, 
 finally, the nobler idolatrous nations were represented as co- 
 operators in the work of establishing what Israel, yes what 
 Jesus, confessed. 
 
 Thus we see that this irresistible spiritual impulse of the 
 philosophy of our age to transpose in every way the "Deus- 
 homo " into the "Homo-deus," was bound of an iron necessity 
 either disdainfully to cast off the whole Scripture or, when 
 piety refrained from this, to take apart the joining map of 
 that Scripture and put it differently together again, till at 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 675 
 
 length, in direct opposition to its own principle, the Scripture 
 had guaranteed or subscribed this false hypothesis of the 
 " wisdom of the world " with its seal. This, however, shows 
 to us no less that that theologian tears up his credentials, who, 
 instead of opposing hand to hand this process of roughly pull- 
 ing out the leaves of this most precious of all the roses of 
 Sharon, is either sufficiently cowardly or thoughtless to allow 
 himself to be carried along by this current of the humanizing 
 of the Scriptures and to present it under pleasing colors to 
 the masses. 
 
 That, after the subtraction of all this, there still remains 
 serious objections at several points to the absoluteness of the 
 inspiration of the Scripture, we neither deny nor hide, even 
 though one readily sees to what small dimensions this moun- 
 tain of insurmountable obstacles has already fallen away. 
 This, however, does not remove the necessity that, so far from 
 passing lightly by the still remaining objections, the scientific 
 theologian must look them squarely in the face, always bear- 
 ing in mind this fourfold consideration : — 
 
 1. That some of these objections flow from the undeniable 
 fact that the perfect autographs do not lie before us, but an 
 imperfect text, which is a text with errors. 
 
 2. That the writing down by the Holy Spirit of what was 
 inspired has nothing in common with the protocolization of 
 an authentic official report, but that the several events and 
 truths, yea, the same events and truths in their many-sided 
 significance, have been brought to the canvass by the Highest 
 Artist with a diversion of color and many-sidedness of inter- 
 pretation which may indeed confuse the near-sighted cabalist, 
 but which by its delightful harn:onies fills the master-student, 
 standing at a distance, with heavenly raptures. 
 
 3. It remains indeed the calling of apologetics to bring 
 
676 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 out the passages of Scripture that sound contradictory to 
 each other, in their real, even though it be covered, harmony. 
 Hence the need of loci paralleli, not after the style of the de- 
 parted supranaturalists, — ah, they, indeed, had no more the- 
 ology ! — no, but in the spirit of the Juniuses and Voetiuses ; 
 a spiritual, no narrow-minded Harmonistica ; not a pitiful 
 amateur effort, but a logical interpretation of our sense of 
 representation by paying attention to the TroVe; ttw?; vtto tiVo9; 
 and Kara rtV. 
 
 4. If, then, there still remain seeming inexplicables, cruces 
 interpretum, in the Holy Scripture, before which not I, — for 
 that implies nothing, — but all confessing theologians stand, 
 even then I do not hesit,ate a moment to say it in the hearing 
 of the whole scientific world, that, facing the choice between 
 leaving this question unanswered, and with the simple-minded 
 people of God confessing my ignorance, or with the learned 
 ethical brethren from scientific logicalness rejecting the infalli- 
 bility of the Scripture, I firmly choose the first, and with my 
 whole soul shrink back from the last. 
 
 For, to say with Rothe and his followers, that there are 
 myths in the Scripture ; the creation-narrative is pious phan- 
 tasy ; phantasy likewise the narrative of the fall ; the prophecies 
 are products of a higher-tensioned spiritual life ; the testi- 
 monies borne by Christ and his apostles concerning the Old 
 Covenant are devoid of normative power; the apostolic rep- 
 resentation of the truth is equally little normative and bind- 
 ing ; even the image of the Christ which they outline and paint 
 is not fixedly reliable; and then solemnly to declare that the 
 whole Scripture from Gen. i. 1 to Rev. xxii. 21 is their Word 
 of God, is more than I can do; it is too bold for me; it looks 
 wonderfully much like a protcstatio actiii contraria, which I 
 hear, but of which I have no understanding. And when, more- 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 677 
 
 over, I observe that in the circles of these " faithful " ones 
 the modernizing vivisectors are widely known, and that, on 
 the other hand, the orthodox champions of inspiration— r 
 such as Gausen not only, but also such men as Hodge and 
 Philippi ; yea, even Beck and Mehring — are scarcely known at 
 all, then, in all seriousness, I am filled with apprehension for 
 the future; then I seem to hear the rushing sound as of rap- 
 idly falling waters ; and I feel the " zeal of God " come over 
 me which compels me to reject a " word of God " so-called 
 but which is fallible, as a contradictio in terminis, which ex- 
 changes fixedness of principle for half-measures, and which, 
 while ever going backward, with the face turned toward 
 Christ, constantly separates itself but further from the 
 " Christ according to the Scriptures." 
 
 And should any one still answer that, judging as I do, I 
 myself am not justified, since I acknowledge errors, if not in 
 the autographa, at least in the texts at our service, then let me 
 remove this latent objection by this other question, whether, 
 if you held in your hand a cup of pure gold but whose edge 
 is slightly damaged, and I held in my hand an entirely perfect 
 cup but of gold which is not real, you would sa)^, " It is all 
 the same to me : I will cheerfully take your imitation in ex- 
 change for my golden cup "? 
 
 III. 
 
 As has been shown, the biblical criticism of the present day 
 deprives the church of her theology, and robs her of her Bible. 
 What remains to be demonstrated is, that it also attacks 
 the church's right to her liberty in Christ, or, if you please, 
 consigns her to the embraces of the worst, because intellectual, 
 kind of clericalism. 
 
 A troubled soul, tossed with tempest and not comforted, is 
 
678 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 filled with anxiety, and thirsts after certainty. In the heart 
 of one who is so apprehended of the Lord, even though he be 
 a plain day-laborer, the sacred things of the Almighty have 
 found a lodging, and therefore in the depths of his soul the 
 powers of hell antagonize those sacred things. Thus a con- 
 flict is waged as of giant-forces in his breast, and that oppresses 
 him ; he sees no way of escape ; he faints beneath its tension, 
 except He who is compassionate takes compassion on him, 
 and sets him up upon the Rock of the Word. Only when he 
 stands on that Word, does the oil of gladness drip in his soul 
 instead of mourning, and the garments of praise begin to shine 
 forth in place of the spirit of heaviness, and the man breaks 
 forth in singing the praises of Him who has set him free from 
 bonds ; also from those oppressing bonds of dependency upon 
 man, who at best is but a creature of dust. For to obtain real 
 peace, an unshakable faith, and a full development of powers, 
 our soul must, in the depth of depths and forsaken of all men, 
 depend on God Almighty alone. To draw one's being im- 
 mediately from God's own hand, consciously and continuous- 
 ly, this renders one invincible, enables one to become heroic, 
 and makes us surpass ourselves. This was the secret of the 
 power by which Calvinism once astonished the world. That 
 forms character, steels the will with energy, and sets man, 
 the citizen, the confessor of Jesus, truly free. 
 
 But how does the Lord impart this assurance, with and 
 without the intervention of man, to the numbers of his elect, 
 and through them to the church? We should look this ques- 
 tion sharply in the face, for there are many reasons, because 
 of which the Scripture, such as the churches and especially 
 the laity have it in these days, in itself falls short of this cer- 
 tainty. In the first place, as far as we know, all the autographa 
 of the books of the Holy Scripture have been lost, and we have 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 679 
 
 nothing at our disposal save incorrect manuscripts. Again, the 
 number of books belonging to the New Testament has never 
 been absolutely and infallibly fixed ; even in the days of the 
 Reformation heated conflicts were waged about the canonicity 
 of more than one book. And, in the third place, what the or- 
 dinary layman can have, is never more than a translation of 
 the original, to none of which translation the seal of infalli- 
 bility is ever attached. If now with regard to the Scripture 
 the church occupied the deistical viewpoint, that, after having 
 created the word, the Holy Spirit abandoned that Word to it- 
 self, all the benefit of the inspiration would be lost to God- 
 seeking souls. But this is not the case. Diespising every 
 form of deism, the church interprets the relation of the Holy 
 Spirit to the Scripture in the sense of a rich and quickening 
 theism, and the Reformed churches especially, in this also sur- 
 passing the Lutheran sister-church, have ever maintained that 
 the Word by itself never amounts to anything, and never pro- 
 duces power other than as the instrument of the Holy Spirit, 
 and hence, in all ages, has never been abandoned of that Holy 
 Spirit. Her confession is, that by revelation the Holy Spirit 
 has prepared the material out of which the garment of the 
 Scripture should be woven. When that material was pre- 
 pared, the Holy Spirit has inspired the individual pieces of 
 Scripture in successive times. After that, through the agency 
 of the church, the Holy Spirit has gathered the books which 
 had been so prepared and finished. Furthermore, the Spirit 
 has watched over the text of the Word which he had inspired. 
 The Holy Spirit has no less irradiated the translations in 
 which that Word was to come to the nations. That same Holy 
 Spirit has ever afterward himself interpreted that Word 
 through the official preaching, and has mingled it with faith 
 in those that are called unto life. And with no one of God's 
 
680 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 elect has the Holy Spirit rested, until the Word, infallibly in- 
 spired centuries ago, bare fruit equally infallible in that soul, 
 as though it had been inspired for the sake of that soul alone. 
 
 The Holy Spirit effects this purpose in two ways; which 
 as fides humana and Udes divina must sharply be distinguished. 
 Fides humana which is tides, and therefore equally surely pro- 
 ceeding from God, is the reliance which the church places in 
 the authority of the Spirit's work by means of the organism 
 of the church, which aims at the canon, the determining of the 
 text, the translation and the exegesis of the books. Concern- 
 ing each of these, therefore, a brief word. 
 
 What books form the canon, is by itself as unquestionably 
 certain as it is to the anatomist, what members do or do not 
 belong to a normal human body. The Scripture is an organ- 
 ism. Nothing can be added to it or taken away from it. It is 
 complete in the fullness of numbers and entirety of its parts. 
 The question, however, whether at each given moment the 
 church is in the possession of the anatomical tact which is 
 necessary with a firm hand to decide upon each part of the 
 Scripture, or each book that is presented with this claim, must 
 be answered in the negative. That certainty fluctuates as the 
 waters of spiritual life in the midst of the churches swell in 
 volume or contract. But so far from lessening thereby the 
 confidence of the laity, the Holy Spirit has so disposed the 
 parts of Scripture, that those on which the life depends have 
 never been doubted, and in the books that have never been 
 doubted the stream of truth flows in all its fullness ; and sub- 
 sequently the Holy Spirit has directed also this canonical work 
 with so firm a hand, that the generous recognition of by far 
 the most books astonishes us far more than the continuous 
 doubt expressed concerning a very few. 
 
 With respect to the text of the Sacred Scripture, the same 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. G81 
 
 confession is in place. There is no official text in the original 
 language for the New Testament, and the textus receptus is 
 certainly stripped of much beauty by errors. Of this, how- 
 ever, we likewise confess that that text has not been abandoned 
 to chance, but has been watched over with tender care by the 
 Holy Spirit. It cannot be granted that, when finally, in the 
 counsel of God, the great moment had come in which, some 
 four centuries ago, the Word of God was to enter upon its 
 vast circulation through the press, the text which was then 
 chosen under the appointment of God can have been an indif- 
 ferent one; a most imperfect and an almost hopelessly im- 
 paired and injured one; and it must rather be confessed that 
 it is entitled to a peculiarly prominent place in the front ranks 
 on account of its eminently historical significance. At the 
 hand of other manuscripts the textus receptus may and must 
 be subjected to corrections, but, disrobed of its spiritual pref- 
 erence, it never needs to make room for older witnesses as a 
 castaway per se. For myself, at least, I have never felt the 
 logical stress of the argument, that a manuscript of the fourth 
 century, eo ipso, is a more correct copy of the autographon, 
 than a manuscript of an early origin but perhaps following 
 an older and therefore a purer text. 
 
 The direction of the Spirit also included the translations , 
 even though it be least of all in absolute measures. Consider 
 it well, that now in the translations alone, and not in the orig- 
 inal, the Word exists for thousands who thirst after the liv- 
 ing God, and who without that Word will never find Him. 
 Even literary men declare that both Luther's version and the 
 Dutch staten-Bible are such surprising products of sanctified 
 genius, that, apart from a higher inspiration, they can scarcely 
 be explained. Such translations by the church, as the pillar 
 and ground of the truth, and offered to the laity in the very 
 
6,8? Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct 
 
 prosperous period of her spiritual life, are for this reason the 
 Bible to the people; to theologians indeed ever appealable to 
 the original, and never in itself to be taken as authority, but 
 of so great value nevertheless and of such spiritual signifi- 
 cance, that, under the Spirit's leading, the layman is entirely 
 justified who binds his conscience to this translation, and not 
 to a text that was foreign to him. 
 
 And, finally, as to the exegesis of the Scripture, here also 
 the Holy Spirit is the real exegete and, in difference of opin- 
 ion, the Supremus Judex. This judicature the Spirit exer- 
 cises by laying out the lines of the truth in the confessional 
 standards of the churches ; by impelling the preaching and the 
 study of the Scripture in those lines; and even when, in the 
 instrumental use of the Word, He accustoms the souls of be- 
 lievers to that fixed course. 
 
 But, however much this providence of the Holy Spirit may 
 be able to quicken a fides hiiniana in the churches, it does not 
 finish the work of the Holy Spirit. For this human faith can 
 never give absolute assurance, and Calvin himself recognized 
 that an unregenerated man, provided he is a man of thought, 
 cannot be convinced by us of the theopneusty of the Scriptures. 
 The semi-somnolent masses may be held in rein by ecclesi- 
 astical authority, but independent, thoughtful spirits never. 
 Not as though there were separate rules for rich and poor, but 
 because, as Twesten correctly observes, " the absolute faith 
 on the divine character of the Scripture can never rest other 
 than on the immediately divine witness." For if human rea- 
 son were ever able to demonstrate the divine, then reason 
 would stand superior to the divine, and thus, eo ipso, the divine 
 character of the divine word would be destroyed. 
 
 However much our fathers depended upon the theistic and 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 
 
 683 
 
 unceasing activity of the Holy Spirit with tlie Word, they have 
 never attributed any higher value to the fides humana than of 
 being a preparative and directing v^ork, and their real power 
 and actual strength has never sprung from any other source 
 than the immediate Witness of the Holy Spirit. This Witness 
 of the Holy Spirit was not taken in the Lutheran sense, as of 
 a " Spiritiis Sanctus in ipsa Scriptura loquens et testiUcans," 
 and much less still in the heavy sense of our present-day theo- 
 logians, as a harmony of the reflex of the Spirit in us with the 
 reflex of the Spirit in the Scripture ; but a witness of the Holy 
 Spirit which is born, as Calvin puts it, when that same God 
 the Holy Spirit who spoke centuries ago through the mouth 
 of the apostles and prophets enters into my heart, and by a 
 supranatural witness imparts to me the indisputable assur- 
 ance: I, God-myself, have inspired this Scripture, this di- 
 vine Word. 
 
 This touches the heart of the question. He who has re- 
 ceived that witness stands immovable as a wall. He who has 
 not received it, undulates as a wave of the sea. And every 
 eflFort of man to replace this witness of the Spirit by one's 
 own demonstration, is sinful, falls short of the glory of God, 
 and never accomplishes its purpose. All children of God re- 
 ceive this witness at his appointed time, so surely, that even 
 the ethical theologians who came to life, after they had played 
 through their entire repertoire of negations, had to come back 
 to the church and confess that, after all, " this is the Word 
 of our God ! " And therefore, it is this witness of the Holy 
 Spirit which breaks the teeth out of the mouth of all clerical- 
 ism; which, after the removal of every middle-link, binds the 
 soul immediately to God; and thereby enriches each layman 
 with that invaluable right of spiritual liberty, from which 
 heroic courage, firmness of character, and real love of freedom 
 
684 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 are born. This is the fulfillment of the jubilant prophecy, that 
 a man need no. more say to his brother, " Know the Lord," 
 for that all shall know him, even from the least unto the great- 
 est. Or, if you please, call it the holy, divine, and only real 
 equality which brings the profoundest scholar to his knees by 
 the side of the humblest house-mother, with an assurance in 
 the heart which is absolutely similar and unmovable. 
 
 But, and this is our complaint, the newer Scripture-study 
 injures, likewise, this beautifully ordered state of things. It 
 turns loose what was fast; it lifts each piece of the Scripture 
 out of its grooves ; and, unwilling and helpless, the laity are 
 delivered into the hands of the men of Semitic and classical 
 studies. Of course nothing remains of the translation, and 
 youthful preachers who have scarcely an elementary knowl- 
 edge of the original languages will, with appeals to the original 
 text, substitute the translation by their own idea, until the 
 humble layman is forced to exclaim : " What a wretched trans- 
 lation I have ! Would that I could read Greek and Hebrew my- 
 self ! " But even this is not the end, misguided soul ; for, 
 hear how they tell you in all varieties of ways that the original 
 text itself is hopelessly impaired, even to such an extent that 
 the manuscripts offer no sufficient result, and turn on turn 
 the conjecture-process must be risked; and then, — oh, the 
 height of self-conceit, of which, drifting with that stream, I 
 myself was guilty, — we see young men coming fresh from the 
 academy who deem themselves fully matured and justified to 
 train their wits by practicing the art of making conjectures 
 at the expense of the Holy Scripture. And even if that were 
 all. But then the poor laity must furthermore be told that this 
 narrative is a myth, and the other has come to us from 
 Parseeism ; that not only with respect to editorship but also 
 with respect to the content, the books of Moses are of much 
 
1904.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 685 
 
 later origin ; that the reports of the creation and of the fall are 
 sacred phantasies ; that Daniel was a pious fraud ; yea, even 
 that the word of the apostles cannot be normative, neither for 
 our confession nor for the picture which we form for ourselves 
 of the Lord. To all this the laity must listen ; and when it con- 
 cerns the confessional standard, they are told, that God's 
 Word, apart from every formula of faith, is the proper confes- 
 sion of the Reformed Church. And when one asks, " Do you 
 mean by this the Scripture ? " the answer runs, " No, but mere- 
 ly God's word in that Scripture." And when further it is asked, 
 "Is it what is there recorded as God's word?" again the an- 
 swer runs, " No, it is not that. The prophets called it so in a 
 metaphorical sense, but it was really the product of their own 
 thoughts." And this is what the church of God feels deeply 
 hurt about, and against which she rebels with all the intensity 
 of her thirst after liberty and zeal of fidelity to a sacred 
 charge. She smarts under it as under the jeers that impugn 
 the seriousness of her heart, and as under a game at the ex- 
 pense of the needs of her soul. It stings her as the insult of a 
 jeering clericalism, and in the name of the Lord she resents it. 
 
 For, though I well know that even thus the Holy Spirit can 
 and does work an inward and certain witness in the regener- 
 ated soul, by all this the historic consciousness is weakened; 
 — and moreover, aside from the regenerated and the redeemed, 
 there are still the children of the churches, and it makes the 
 blood rush to the face to see how mercilessly and unpardona- 
 bly cruelly these vivisectors of the Holy Scriptures deal with 
 the souls of our children. 
 
 For of course, when the Scripture is open to question as 
 they say it is, a common copy of our version becomes an al- 
 most worthless volume ; the country-pastor is the only one who 
 can explain it from his books ; the Orientalist and the Grsecist 
 
686 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 become the seers of our days, whom all Israel must counsel; 
 and the specialty in introduction-studies becomes the High 
 Priest of a new-born church, before whose oracle the aston- 
 ished masses bend their knees. 
 
 Add to this that, in consequence of this all-disintegrating 
 criticism, every new preacher has other things to proclaim iti 
 the self-same congregation; also, that this theistic, never-ceas- 
 ing activity of the Holy Spirit is ignored; yea, that above all 
 else the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the same way as in- 
 spiration is either weakened after the Lutheran style, or in the 
 Fichtean sense is subjectivated, — and, in all seriousness, I ask, 
 Is it said too much, is it spoken too crassly, when, after having 
 exhibited this vivisection that has presumptuously been applied 
 to the Scripture, as the corruptor of our theology and the an- 
 nihilator of the Bible, I at length no less seriously brand it as 
 an avenue to clericalism ; and that therefore, as a free-born son 
 of a nation which purchased its liberty from Spain and on the 
 ground of this Testimony of the Holy Spirit, I protest against 
 this violation of the right of the churches and this injury 
 worked against the liberty of the laity? 
 
 I have come to the end of my task, and my threefold pro- 
 test against the biblical criticism of the present day has been 
 entered. I find no fault with what is done by those who are 
 outside, nor with what has been done by any in the capacity 
 of Semitic philologians. But I deplore that in the domain of 
 the church of Christ, and in the very temple of the sacred the- 
 ology, the Holy Scripture has been so roughly handled by 
 those who profess themselves to be Christian theologians, that 
 at their hand the Holy Bible has been recklessly and unspar- 
 ingly carved and torn loose in its several parts, and has had 
 its organism remodeled after philosophical hypotheses. I think 
 
11)01.] Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. 687 
 
 I have shown with logical accuracy both the encyclopedic, dog- 
 matic, and ecclesiastical ruin which this critical vandalism has 
 perpetrated, and, that I might shun the very appearance of 
 spiritual cowardice, I have boldly and candidly set over- 
 against this my own confession respecting the Holy Scripture. 
 I did this in the still consciousness that, with no cover or 
 fingers over my eyes, I looked the criticism squarely in the 
 face; condoned and mollified nothing; and that with an hon- 
 est, scientific conscience I stand immovably firm in the confes- 
 sion of the inspiration by the Spirit, I am quite prepared that 
 this will occasion surprise with one, bitterness with another; 
 but why should I be denied the right to speak, when it has 
 come to this pass, that even they who confess the name of Je- 
 sus offer the incense of approbation to the most radical anato- 
 mists of the Scripture ? God the Lord has granted me the cour- 
 age of my conviction, and though this conviction may seem ut- 
 ter foolishness to our modern Greeks, and to our ethical Israel 
 a stone of offense, I hold myself fast to it, even as all the dear 
 people of God have embraced it these nineteen centuries, as 
 " the Power of God," a power given us of God not for the 
 pleasing of our pride, but for the making sure of our salva- 
 tion. 
 
 And if with this I take my departure both from my modern 
 and ethical opponents, I say to the moderns among my critics, 
 " Even though, as it seems to me, you wander and err, yet with 
 you there is logical consistency ; for, as you say, the Scripture 
 is a scripture like other books, entirely human of origin ; and 
 therefore there is no inspiration either, no more regard for the 
 elect who call for certainty, and the whole sancta theologia is 
 metamorphosed into the science of religion." To the ethicals, 
 on the other hand, who, because they still confess the holy 
 name of the Lord, are still my brethren ; to them I say : " Smelt 
 
688 Biblical Criticism of the Present Day. [Oct. 
 
 away the philosophical alloy from the pure gold which still 
 hides in the kernel of your faith. Be done with that limping 
 on two mutually excluding principles. Choose once more a 
 form that will suit the glorious life in which you also desire 
 to lave and satisfy your soul. Above all, have pity, have 
 mercy, upon those who are deeply hurt, because they are the 
 church of the living God." And if the younger among them 
 were to ask, if then they must violate their insight and do vio- 
 lence to their scientific conscience, I would answer, " No ; never 
 do that. It is never safe to do anything against the conscience, 
 and no difficulties of conscience m.ay ever be called con- 
 quered before they are conquered indeed. But if you would 
 do violence, if you would try your strength against something, 
 oh, then, in the name of the Lord, let me urge you to do vio- 
 lence indeed against the highness of our human thinking, 
 cast your biblical criticism, and not the Bible, into the melting- 
 pot, and, as theologians, and as shepherds of the flocks, cease 
 from aspiring to be anything else, or anything higher than 
 small in your own wisdom and correspondingly more richly 
 endued instruments of the Holy Ghost." 
 
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