Division 
 Section 
 
^-^^ 2 1914 
 
 HARTFORD SEMINIRY PUBLICATIONS, NO. 3 
 
 [new series] 
 
 Ci^e Eclattonjs of jQeto Cc^tamcnt ^tnt}^ 
 to ti^c pvtmit age 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 Rev. ANDREW C. ZENOS, D.D. 
 
 HOSMER PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS 
 
 January i6, 1SS9 
 
 HARTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 18S9 
 
THE RELATIONS OF NEW TESTAMENT 
 STUDY TO THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 IN assuming the duties of the chair, to which these exercises 
 officially inaugurate me, I cannot overlook the peculiar import- 
 ance of its history. During the first fifty-three years of its life this 
 Seminary has had but two Professors of New Testament Exegesis. 
 The first of these, the venerable Dr. Thompson, one of the founders 
 of the institution, is still with us. I cannot tell how much his pres- 
 ence enhances the solemnity of this hour to me. It must certainly 
 remind us all of the original intent and purpose of those who labored 
 and sacrificed for the successful founding of the Seminary. I am 
 sure I express the sentiment of us all when I say, long may he abide 
 with us, not only to link the present with the past, but also to take 
 part in the work of consolidating and enlarging the usefulness of the 
 institution. The second teacher of New Testament Exegesis, and 
 properly the first incumbent of the Hosmer Professorship, was the 
 able teacher and eminent scholar. Dr. Matthew B, Riddle. Were it 
 customary for incoming occupants of Seminary professorships to speak 
 extensively of their predecessors, as it is, for example, for members of 
 the National Academy of France on taking their seats in that august 
 body, we would find enough to occupy us profitably this hour in re- 
 counting the public labors of one whose work, through the Committee 
 of Revision and independently, cannot fail to form a permanent factor 
 in New Testament scholarship in this country. 
 
 But we are here not to magnify the chair of New Testament Exegesis 
 in this Seminary, nor to speak of the work of predecessors. Nor on the 
 other hand are we here to take an encyclopaedic view of our depart- 
 ment, and to trace out its relations to the other branches of the theo- 
 logical curriculum. We are here rather to face a duty. An inscru- 
 table Providence through a series of many steps has led us to unite 
 our efforts in a common work. We are to ask and answer the 
 questions, what that work is, and what it demands of us. In order to 
 
be specific I shall limit myself to the answer as found in the consid- 
 eration of the subject : I'he Relation of New Testament Study to the 
 Present Age. 1 shall try to speak briefly of the function and office 
 of the New Testament interpreter, of how it is affected by the 
 movements and conditions round about us, and hoV it proposes to in- 
 fluence them in return. 
 
 Exegesis is a science and an art ; and, in the ordinary acceptation, 
 the term includes not merely the actual interpretation of literary and 
 other productions, but also all preparatory steps looking towards such 
 interpretation. We may be allowed on this occasion to speak of it 
 in a general and comprehensive way without distinguishing between 
 its parts. 
 
 On the assumption that the Bible is in a true sense the product of 
 a supernatural influence — the Word of God — not a mere body of 
 literature and, as such, the product of the human mind— ^ for then it 
 would hardly be worth our while to undertake its study, its interpreta- 
 tion, and dissemination on as large a scale as we are doing — on this 
 assumption it will be seen that there is a striking resemblance, 
 amounting to a perfect analogy, between the spheres of Natural 
 Science and of Biblical Science ; the one is occupied with the inves- 
 tigation of Nature — the Work of God — with the design of lifting up 
 man as a physical and intellectual being to the fullness of his stature 
 — the realization of his possibilities ; the other is occupied with the 
 Bible — the Word of God — aiming to elevate man as a moral and 
 spiritual being to the ideal of his manhood. Just as Natural Science 
 divides its work into sections and departments, so that by specializa- 
 tion it may be done thoroughly and well, so Theology, though in 
 comparatively recent years, has divided its work with the same end in 
 view. In this division of labor, it is scarcely necessary to say, the 
 exegete stands to Theology exactly as the explorer to Science at 
 large, or the microscopist to Biology, or the workman in the laboratory 
 to Physics and Chemistry : he is the observer, the collector of facts. 
 These facts he ascertains, describes, and hands over to his fellow- 
 workers in other departments ; to the historian to be classified and 
 arranged in their chronological and natural (genetic) order ; to the 
 systematic theologian to be grouped in logical systems ; to the pastor 
 and preacher to be used in the practical relations of life. His branch 
 is the discovery and interpretation of facts ; this done, his distinctive 
 task is ended. The question now is, wiiat help can the spirit of the 
 day give him in such a task ? 
 
5 
 
 Let it be observed : First — That the age is one of motion and 
 progress. The Hfe and activity of the world in everything, and, for 
 our purpose we may say, especially in science and literature, is, to put 
 it mildly, very rapid. Steam and electricity, the railroad and the tele- 
 graph, have not only made travel and communication easier and 
 quicker, but they have sent their influence into the remoter spheres 
 of art and literature, and by facilitating the execution, the multiplica- 
 tion, and the circulation of the products of art and letters, they have 
 quickened activity in them. Thus in a certain way obstacles in the 
 path of that subtle power, which works more quickly than steam or 
 electricity — the human mind — have been removed, and freedom has 
 been given to it to carry on its work as it never did before. And so 
 progress, which took centuries for its consummation, is now being ac- 
 complished in years. Neither is intellectual work, as in the days of 
 old, carried on in seclusion. The worker enters his study from a 
 world busy with its myriad forms of life ; these he cannot escape if he 
 would, and somehow does not attempt to avoid ; but as if fascinated 
 by them, he plants his study in their very midst. Our largest institu- 
 tions of learning are gravitating toward the centers of active life, the 
 great cities. Thus the very blood as it courses through the veins of 
 the student carries the lingering influence of life and action, and 
 prompts him to impatience, to increased energy, and economy of time. 
 And this not only in other forms of literary work, but also in 
 what once was thought to be the furthest away from the dread influ- 
 ence of the world — the study of the Scriptures. In fact, the influence 
 is no longer dreaded. Why should it be ? Why should the student 
 of God's word dread movement and life ? Far from hindering 
 and confusing, it has greatly helped him. Look at the accumulation 
 during this century of materials for the criticism of the text of the 
 New Testament ; it has only served to make the basis of New Testa- 
 ment study surer by furnishing a reliable and pure text, the most es- 
 sential, the most preliminary of all its parts. Or look at the documents 
 recently brought to light: the " Teachmg of the Twelve Disciples," 
 the translations of Tatian's Harmony into Armenian and Arabic, the 
 original of Barnabas' Epistle, the Clementine Homilies in full, the 
 Clementine Epistles, and the work of Hippolytus "Against All Here- 
 sies," the Syriac recensions of the Ignatian Epistles — all these dis- 
 covered within fifty years, half of them within fifteen 3'ears ; 
 what a stream of light they have thrown on the knotty problems 
 connected with the origin, the purpose, and interpretation of the 
 New Testament writings. Or again, look at the collations from 
 
the writings of the early interpreters of the Gospel, and the 
 translations of these into the modern languages. How much help 
 may be derived from them in carrying on the study of the New 
 Testament ! Their nearness in point of time to the date of the ori- 
 gin of the Gospel, betokens an acquaintance with customs and spirit, 
 and a consequent clearness of vision, that must aid the student; and 
 even their errors in method can only show wherein the dangers of 
 the interpreter await him. Or again, look at the archaeological and 
 topographical explorations that have helped to fix long debated 
 locations and illumine doubtful passages. All these acquisitions 
 have led far toward the center of vision, in the New Testament 
 Scriptures. Sometimes this progress is said to be the residue of con- 
 flict with unbelieving criticism. Without denying that such conflict 
 has forced much helpful thought and activit)', we may n'lore truly say 
 that both believing and unbelieving workers have been actuated meas- 
 urably by the aggressive, progressive, enterprising restlessness of the 
 times. 
 
 Some have looked at these and similar movements with timid eyes. 
 ]\Iovement, they have said, is not always progress, nor is the novel 
 and startling always the true. Others have launched into them 
 boldly, perhaps recklessly, and pressing into unknown seas they have 
 made shipwreck of their faith. Two sections of the world look upon 
 everything new in two different ways exactly opposed to one another, 
 both wrong in their extreme forms, and both right as tempered and 
 modified by one another, and at the point where they meet and blend. 
 The first, restless, impatient with settled forms, takes novelty as a 
 recommendation and a badge of truth. A priori, what has just ap- 
 peared is the fruition of long processes, and therefore right until 
 proved to be wrong ; refusal to worship it is effete, antiquated, mori- 
 bund, obsolescent. On the other hand, there are those who, satisfied 
 too easily with what they hold, see not the necessity for change ; 
 they look upon progress with suspicion. They say, " let well enough 
 alone." In view of these contradictory tendencies, it behooves the sci- 
 entific investigator to watch lest he clog the way to true progress, on 
 the one hand, by a fanatical adherence to the old, after it has been 
 proved wrong ; or lead and be led to ruin, as a scholar and as a human 
 being, by readily falling in with every new theory, or even by giving it 
 the presumptive right against the old. But the special danger of our 
 age is from the tendency to accept the novel too rashly. Are not 
 all things making rapid progress .^ Why should we not keep pace 
 with other departments of science ? Questions such as tiiese, un- 
 
consciously or consciously entertained, lead many to an unreasoning 
 radicalism. In our field especially, this tendency leads to the reversal 
 of the natural order of things, to the demand that the old and exist- 
 mg order of truth shall show its consistency with the new or yield, 
 instead of asking for due credendals from the new. Let us insist on it 
 that that which has been accepted for a long while and proved a 
 source of comfort and a means of guidance, has some foundation of 
 truth hidden away from us, perhaps, by the lapse of time, but suffi- 
 ciently strong to have enabled it to stand ; that it cannot be rejected 
 without danger to the cause of truth, except on sufficient evidence 
 and after mature and thorough discussion. No new discovery is en- 
 titled to a supreme place in our systems until it has proved its right 
 thereto by a complete and universal confutation of all that may be 
 inconsistent or opposed to it in the already existing system ; until 
 it has exchanged friendly words of greeting with its predecessors, or, 
 if need be, crossed swords and overcome. We speak of Galileo as of 
 a great man and a martyr to science, and we do well ; but when we 
 become inordinate in our denunciations of those who stood in his way, 
 and condemn them without having a clear conception of their fault ; 
 when we expect them to have received the truth, as truth simply, be- 
 cause Galileo announced it as a novel and startling discovery, in spite 
 of its apparent or real inconsistency with the body of their former 
 knowledge, we commit a grave offense against the rights of existing 
 truth. 
 
 True progress must from the nature of the case be the result of 
 slow processes. The most violent revolutions in politics not only, 
 but in science and art, are the outbursts not of sudden thoughts and 
 feelings, but of long and, slow growths. They are not the happy 
 thoughts of individuals so much as the distinct and articulate utter- 
 ance of that which has been in process of preparation in the minds of 
 men through long ages. 
 
 These general principles acquire special significance when we come 
 to the interpretation of the New Testament writings. Here, if any- 
 where, the facts and principles which should revolutionize the ex- 
 isting state of affairs must be the work not of one individual nor 
 the outcome of a single mental act, but the residue of a long, slow, 
 and painful process. For this is not a sphere which has come to 
 the attention of this age, like some of the natural sciences, within the 
 memory of living men, in which every step forward must be largely 
 tentative. It is rather a sphere in which men have labored for long 
 and weary centuries ; we are in duty bound to examine the manner and 
 
result of their labors, to test the principles on which it was carried on, 
 to traverse the route trodden by them and determine its bearings. 
 To ignore this work, to underestimate the acumen and honesty of 
 past students, and with a masterly stroke of the pen to consign the re- 
 sult to oblivion, is a sign of arrogance, not of scholarship. True 
 scholarship will heed both parts of the injunction, which is as rational 
 as it is scriptural, to 'Trove all things, hold fast that which is good." 
 Hold fast that which has proved itself good until something better 
 offers. Never give up, except on irrefragable proof, what has been 
 satisfactory to the workers of the past, who toiled and sacrificed more 
 heroically than any modern scholars know how to do or have any op- 
 portunity of doing. If this is traditionalism, then we may cheerfully 
 accept the name, and confidently claim that such traditionalism is 
 not only consistent with progress, but that it is the true progressive 
 spirit, as opposed to the hasty acceptance of crude and undigested 
 views under the influence of the mere desire to advance. 
 
 We may now go a step further and say that special caution is 
 necessary in dealing with the Scriptures. For although as a literary 
 and historical product theoretically they are to be treated exactly as 
 other writings, we cannot ignore the fact that they are in practice 
 never so treated. The existence of the miraculous in their accounts 
 makes naturalistic critics and interpreters infinitely more careful, yes, 
 exacting in their demands for evidences of authenticity. What would 
 be perfectly satisfactory evidence in establishing the authorship of 
 Horace or Plato is set aside as absolutely inadequate when a work 
 claims to be St. Paul's or St. John's. But if the content thus preju- 
 dice the case on one side, why should not the effects produced by 
 these writings in the world, with their undoubted beneficent influence, 
 prejudice it in another way. Just as exorbitant demands for cre- 
 dentials are made and met, why should not the claim be heeded that 
 they be not experimented with or hastily treated ? They have been 
 held in such estimation as to make it perilous to the faith of many to 
 disturb existing opinions about them. It is of course the duty of the 
 scholar to face this danger when he is sure of his ground, but it is 
 not always certain that change will lead to improvement ; and so it be- 
 hooves him to wait until his results are something more than guesses 
 before insisting on their acceptance. If, as is said, " fools rush in 
 where angels fear to tread," it becomes the wise scholar not to 
 enact the part of the . fool. And we can urge this the more 
 earnestly : — 
 
II. Because the age we live in furnishes the safeguard through its own 
 scientific method. The development of the natural sciences, largely 
 within this century, and the attainment of reliable results in them 
 through inductive processes of research, have impressed investigators 
 in every field of labor with the validity and value of these methods 
 not only, but also with the feasibility and wisdom of adopting them in 
 other spheres ; hence history has been and is being rewritten within our 
 days on this new basis ; hence also such a branch of study as psychol- 
 ogy is being submitted to the process of reconstruction with the sci- 
 entific method as the means of rebuilding. It is not therefore strange 
 that the circle of the theological sciences should be called upon to ex- 
 amine their stock of acquisition from the past ; to modify, if necessary, 
 the results attained and bring them within the range of scientific 
 expression ; to change at any rate the process of work so as to 
 secure the same clearness, order, and scientific reliability which other 
 branches of study have obtained. Only a stubborn, and not the 
 truth-loving conservatism, will fail to heed this voice and adopt its 
 suggestion. The features of the scientific method commend it to the 
 seeker of truth, and are these, viz.: 
 
 I. Absence of a priori bias in approaching the subject to be inves- 
 tigated. Bias here does not of course mean interest. Interest, 
 even love amounting to enthusiasm, is helpful ; it is certainly better 
 than a cold and apathetic disposition in the student. Nor does ab- 
 sence of bias exclude working hypotheses, as purely tentative and 
 provisional affairs, to be corrected or rejected, as the facts may de- 
 mand during the course of investigation. Nor again, can the term 
 bias include the same elements throughout an investigation, or mean 
 the same thing under all circumstances. At different stages in the 
 progress of research it must mean more or less. For certain stages 
 of investigation all that has been discovered and established on a 
 sound basis must be a stepping stone for further progress ; it would be 
 worse than folly not to keep it in mind, as a sort of prejudice in 
 prosecuting the work. For the astronomers of the Lick observatory 
 it would be raving madness not to approach their task with the posi- 
 tive assurance that the Copernican theory of the solar system is true, 
 or that the formulae of Newton and Kepler on the law of gravitation 
 are proved. So in investigating the question whether the Bible is or 
 is not the Word of God — a question which in the ordinarily accepted 
 sense belongs, if at all, to the earliest stage of exegesis — this freedom 
 from bias would require the investigator to come with his mind en- 
 tirely divested of prejudice in favor of the actual occurrence of mir- 
 
lO 
 
 acles in the world, of which God's giving His Word would be one, or 
 against their possibility ; it would call on him to set aside for the 
 time his philosophical notions, to survey the whole field, to take 
 account of all the facts, giving each its due weight, and then to 
 build his theory on the facts thus found ; not to assume that there 
 have been supernatural occurrences, and proceed to seek evidence 
 for the assumption ; nor, as skeptics are doing, start with the postulate 
 that miracles are impossible, their acceptance unscientific and uncrit- 
 ical, and proceed to the facts, of course not to interpret, but sim- 
 ply to explain them away. It will not avail to say that this prejudice 
 is scientific because based on natural science. For this claim, aside 
 from the fact that it uses the term scientific in a narrow and confus- 
 ing sense, is not true. Natural science has simply nothing to say on 
 the subject of the supernatural ; and to this position, always held by 
 believing scientists, the better class of non-Christians, have seen 
 themselves compelled to come. The possibility of the supernatural 
 though extra-scientific (using the word scientific in the narrow sense), 
 is not unscientific (again in the narrow sense) ; rather in the highest 
 and broadest sense, it is scientific to admit the possibility of miracles, 
 and unscientific to deny it. Now, when we have found by such 
 an introductory investigation that the New Testament writings are 
 what they claim to be, it becomes not only a dereliction of duty to 
 discard the fact, but an altogether unscientific procedure. It 
 must enter into our apparatus. It must have at least a twofold ef- 
 fect on us : first, it must compel us, as we go further in our work, to 
 seek for guidance from the Author of the Word ; to approach it with a 
 humble, prayerful spirit. Anything else would amount to cutting our- 
 selves off from the only safe leadership in our exploration. Difficult 
 as this is, and important as are the issues at stake, we cannot afford 
 to neglect the assistance coming from a right attitude of mind and 
 heart, in dealing with God's Word. Secondly, the conviction that the 
 literary products before us are due principally to divine inspiration, 
 must compel us to take the thought of inspiration into the subsequent 
 stages of our research. The question we have to answer at every step 
 and in view of every new fact is : " What is the exact and full meaning 
 of this fact ? " and it can only be answered properly by taking into 
 account all the factors that have produced it. If divine influence is 
 one of these, any answer made independently of the divine element 
 must be defective. Hence it is easy enough to understand how, when 
 an interpreter has been convinced that the New Testament is the work 
 of men only, as such, he must explain its statements exactly as he 
 
II 
 
 would any other literature ; but it is impossible to account for the in- 
 consistency of a Christian scholar, whose mind is made up that he is 
 dealing with the Word of God, and who yet persists in leaving out the 
 fact of inspiration from his exegesis. The scientist who believes in 
 evolution, never leaves it out of his accounts of geology or biology. 
 
 To sam up : during the earliest stage of our work, scientific free- 
 dom from prejudice means everything ; later, it means less and less, 
 until in pure Exegesis it consists in putting aside preconception as 
 to what the Word of God is or contains, and readiness to find in it 
 just what has been put in it by its Author. If a priori theories held 
 before are found there, as very probably some of them may be, well 
 and good, but if not, i/iey are to be corrected or surrendered, not the 
 Word of God. This is honesty, scientific honesty, in which those 
 who have adopted the so-called " Christian consciousness " theory can- 
 not indulge very largely. It would disturb the results they have ob- 
 tained through the application of their pet method. 
 
 2. After the mind has been prepared for its task it will meet a 
 second requirement in the use of the modern method, /. e., exact- 
 ness in the observation of facts. This will include a minute ex- 
 amination of materials in detail, and a comprehensive and exhaustive 
 grasp of all the material available. In the first of these particulars our 
 lesson is learned from the microscope as used in the natural sciences. 
 We have come to know that centers of vitality are imperceptible to 
 the naked eye ; whole cycles of facts that had escaped the observ- 
 ation of men before the use of the microscope were important to the 
 utmost in their bearings ; as they are taken into consideration now, 
 they bid fair to revolutionize every department of natural science ; 
 they have done so with every branch of biology. History has felt the 
 strength of this principle and sent its students deeper and closer into 
 the life of events, and restated in truer terms its record of the world's 
 life. A single neglected document brought to light has often proved 
 more valuable in revealing the true and inner life of great movements 
 than whole libraries on the external aspects of the same movements. 
 Witness that outline, written in a sort of shorthand, of a sermon 
 preached here in Hartford two hundred and fifty years ago, and deci- 
 phered by an eminent citizen of Hartford, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull ; 
 in its scanty sentences it furnishes the key to the origin of the form of 
 government under which we are living ; it gives the true motives of those 
 who founded it, and proves that with them began " the government of 
 the people, by the people, for the people." And if minute and accu- 
 rate research is thus significant in science and in history, how much 
 
12 
 
 more so must it be in Biblical criticism and interpretation, where the 
 facts to be examined are facts of language and thought, subject to a 
 complicated and elaborate system of subtle laws, significant in their 
 slightest variations. We cannot be too thorough in our analysis here, or 
 too trenchant in our penetration. We cannot break up the elements we 
 are investigating into too small sections for the purpose of satisfying 
 this true and just claim of the scientific method. And, as if to indicate 
 the will of Providence in the matter, the wonderful development of 
 philological science in our days has opened more widely the door to 
 thoroughness. We have now the assistance of a true science of phi- 
 lology, where not more than a century ago scholars were satisfied 
 with conjecture. This is certainly as much of an indication lo the 
 Christian scholar of his duty as the removal of obstacles in the way 
 of missionary work, or the occurrence of great crises is an indication 
 to the Church that the time is ripe for vigorous work in evangelizing 
 the world. And to emphasize the need of care and discrimination, 
 let it be further observed that not every microscopic particle of bio- 
 plasm is a center of vitality, nor is every old and obscure scrap that 
 may come to light the key to the intricacies of a great historical 
 movement, nor every grammatical form or combination of words 
 the expression of cardinal thought. J^Jor must we draw back because 
 others in the infancy of our science, attempting to be minute and sys- 
 tematic, went astray into unwarranted allegorisms and fantastic de- 
 lusions. Error there has certainly been in the past, and crudity ; but 
 instead of keeping us away, they should simply call forth vigorous 
 effort to substitute that which is better and sounder. 
 
 Furthermore, the survey of the field must also be exhaustive. There 
 is nothing more pernicious than the tendency to build large theories 
 on a slender and one-sided collection of facts. How often this ten- 
 dency has resulted in misleading vagaries and delayed true progress. 
 How often systems have been built only to be pulled down, after a 
 long and wasteful war as to their merits ; and this simply because 
 the builders had failed or refused to take into account large cycles 
 of facts directly bearing on their theories. Why need we review the 
 history of criticism, both lower and higher, to be convinced of this ? 
 One illustration will suffice. The higher criticism has built theory after 
 theory of the origin and authorship of the earlier books of the Old 
 Testament, only to have them pulled down with the very implements 
 with which they had been constructed. The controversy is fierce and 
 bitter even now over the last and most astounding of these theories ; 
 and when that is razed to the ground, as it must in its essential points 
 
13 
 
 sooner or later, another and a more astounding will probably take its 
 place. But meanwhile, how confidently we are told that this structure 
 is now built on rock; that the scaffolding is already in process of taking 
 down, and that the palace stands magnificent, aerial and perfect, the 
 joy of the whole world (of higher critics, no doubt). It is a singular 
 fact, however, and ominous as well as singular, that the very theorists 
 who so confidently assert the triumph and permanency of these re- 
 sults complain constantly of the uncertainty of the Old Testament 
 text, and propose to correct it by comparison with that of its ancient 
 translations and by conjecture. But if the text be confused and cor- 
 rupted, how can any far-reaching inferences be evolved from it ? If it 
 be true that the very data are uncertain, what becomes of the theo- 
 ries ? The unsophisticated mind will suspect from this complaint 
 that the data are not exactly what the theorist would like to have 
 them. 
 
 3. Closely connected with and growing out of this feature of the 
 scientific method, notice its third element, the correct interpreta- 
 tion of the facts it finds. Correct interpretation again is secured 
 partly by a sound judgment and partly by the application of ac- 
 cepted tests. Of the necessity of sound judgment there never has 
 been and can hardly be a doubt. The special point at which 
 the modern method helps men in reaching reliable interpreta- 
 tions is the application of standard tests. As illustrating this, it 
 would be interesting to rehearse the accounts of Prof. Tyndall's exper- 
 iments with abiogenesis as given by himself. How patiently he 
 watched over and repeated again and again the same experiments — 
 dozens of times, some of them — taking more and more stringent 
 measures each time to guard against all possible error, and notwith- 
 standing the fact that they all pointed constantly to one conclusion, 
 distrusting the result until all possible avenues of mistake had been 
 shut off and the inference seemed unavoidable. Truth to the 
 scientist is a mighty and revered name, and nothing may be dogmat- 
 ically uttered in it, until it has been over and over again measured 
 and sounded and weighed in the balance and not found wanting. 
 
 III. But we must pass to a third feature of our age as it affects our 
 science — its practical character. With all its dangers when exag- 
 gerated, the influence of it, if duly regulated, is bound to be whole- 
 some. It is bound to result in the pruning off of many vain specu- 
 lations, castellated structures, and unnecessary hypotheses, some of 
 
H 
 
 them imported from across the ocean, where, perhaps, not as much 
 regard is had for practicaUty as on these shores. If the interpreter 
 of the Bible heeds this voice, he will first of all take the spirit of 
 practicality into the sphere of investigation, which means that he will 
 not keep his common sense out of his study. As ministers, we call 
 upon men to take their religion into the affairs of life ; let us not as 
 students neglect to take the practical common sense of life into the 
 study. Criticism etymologically is, after all, the exercise of sound 
 judgment, and as a faculty it is the result and constant attendant of 
 practical tact. Ordinary common sense is its substratum and neces- 
 sary prerequisite. Every good critic may not be actually a good 
 business man or a successful statesman, but he would have made one 
 if he had devoted himself to politics or commercial pursuits. The 
 critical faculty necessary for the scholar is nothing but the business 
 tact of the merchant developed in a different line, trained to see and 
 pass upon another set of facts than those of business life. But it 
 should not on this account be blinded to their practical bearings. 
 Then, if the scholar heeds this call for practicality, he will have re- 
 gard and cater to the actual need and capacity of the world. He 
 will not allow himself to be so engrossed with the dignity and value 
 of true scholarship as to lend a deaf ear to the demand for popular 
 and easy interpretations of the Word of God. The hunger for the 
 truth is great, and unless sound exegesis practicalizes and popular- 
 izes its results, this hunger will be met by cheap substitutes, which 
 cannot but do harm. Let us not decry the popular Sunday-school 
 lesson-leaf and cheap commentary until we have infused the spirit of 
 practicality into our interpretations and brought these down to the 
 needs of the people. But I leave this part of the subject with the 
 full assurance that whatever I may say on it is but the feeble echo of 
 the thoughts of this audience. 
 
 These are in brief some of the salutary influences exercised by 
 modern thought and life on Bible exegesis. In submitting to these, 
 our science incurs a debt. How shall it repay it.!* How shall it, as 
 thus vitalized and quickened by contact with the forces of tlie day, 
 bear fruit to feed the age ? Out of the number of spheres which it 
 must touch and help, we select three as pre-eminently needy of its 
 influence — more so than others — more so than ever — these are 
 Polemics, or controversial theology, Apologetics and the practical 
 work. 
 
15 
 
 I. And first of Polemics. Nothing is better known than the fact 
 that in the attempt to systematize and formulate the doctrines of the 
 Bible there have arisen, from time to time, differences of opinion, and 
 that these differences have, in the providence of God, led to fierce 
 conflicts, proverbial for their well-nigh savagery. It is equally well 
 known that th>ese controversies have not always raged over the same 
 parts of the system of biblical truth ; that every age has seen the bat- 
 tlefields shifted. No sooner did the Gospel fairly take root, than ques- 
 tions as to its relations to the old law began to agitate the world ; 
 these relations adjusted, there arose long and animated debates on 
 the divinity of the Lord, on the personahty of the Holy Spirit, the 
 nature of sin, the atonement, the Divine sovereignty, and the free 
 will of man. It seems as if it were a law of Providence that progress 
 should be the product of strife. As in a living organism the centers 
 of life change constantly, so in .theology the crossing of swords takes 
 place on different battlefields. The change is occasioned by the ac- 
 cession of new material to the sum of the world's knowledge. Each 
 accession calls for a re-adjustment of the relations of the old to the 
 new, and of the parts of the old to each other. Hence each genera- 
 tion has its individual disputes. To fight in the lines of a hundred 
 years ago would be in the highest degree Quixotic. The questions 
 which were mooted during the early decades of the present century, 
 on dogmatics, liturgies, and church government are no longer the sub- 
 jects of such animated discussion as they aroused then ; without los- 
 ing their interest to the historian, they have been stripped of their 
 pivotal, radical aspect to the controversialist. Others have sprung up 
 to take their place and for a time to monopolize the attention of 
 .hinkers. The scene of activity has shifted. Parties have been 
 .argely recast. Even such discussions as made all New England alive 
 with interest between Hopkinsians and their opponents, Tylerists and 
 Taylorists, Bushnellists and anti-Bushnellists, are largely matters of 
 the past. They have left their imprint on the thoughts of the present. 
 No doubt they live in literature and in the memory of many veterans, 
 who witnessed them and took part in them ; the smoke and dust still 
 linger on the field, but the warriors have either departed or turned 
 their attention to other affairs ; and the issues for which they fought, 
 if not finally decided, rest for a season until a new impulse stirs men 
 to take them up again. The questions of our day are diff'erent ; to 
 our minds quite as important ; indeed, much more so. It behooves, 
 therefore, the polemic theology of our day to seek new ammunition 
 from a sound exegesis. It is of small consequence whether the re- 
 
i6 
 
 suit be change in the forms and formula already attained. Whether 
 it amounts to sufficient gain to warrant the revision of creeds or not, 
 whatever results from controversy carried on upon the basis of a 
 sound interpretation of the Scriptures, whether depth or breadth or 
 strength or clearness must be looked upon as an undoubted gain. 
 There are creed-making epochs in the history of the world as there 
 are liturgy-making epochs. Not every age furnishes the taste and 
 sensibility that will put the net result of progress into forms of worship 
 and thus furnish the most acceptable and uplifting liturgical expres- 
 sions ; nor does every age produce a mind or minds capable of ex- 
 pressing through the clearest and truest words the crystallized result of 
 past investigation and controversy in acceptable creeds. Nevertheless, 
 the effort to improve liturgy and creed goes on. Like the life of the 
 plant it moves continually, though only at stated intervals it may be 
 possible to mark the amount of growth. Let controversy go on then, 
 but let every shot fired in the warfare be loaded from the great arsenal 
 of sound scriptural interpretation. If the Scriptures are what they 
 claim to be, no other storehouse of ammunition and weapons is to be 
 found anywhere, and the weapons drawn from the Scriptures may 
 be used without fear ; they are safe for attack or defence. 
 
 n. But a louder cry for ammunition in our day comes from another 
 battlefield ; a battlefield, the din and clamor of whose warfare bids 
 fair to drown for a time that of pure controversy ; it is the warfare be- 
 tween Christian belief and modern unbelief. The authority of the 
 Scriptures, and the validity of that authority, are the points at issue. 
 And both sides in this contest, strange as it may seem, appeal to the 
 facts, as revealed by a thorough examination of the Scriptures them- 
 selves. What do the Scriptures claim to be ? Is their claim well 
 founded ? These questions cannot be answered satisfactorily without 
 a careful, fearless, and searching investigation. The Bible has been 
 long accepted as a unique production ; how is this claim borne out by 
 a comparison of its contents with those of other human literary pro- 
 ductions ? Here we have the task, which the higher criticism pro- 
 poses to itself; and together with it the nicer task of defining inspira- 
 tion. And this task the modern apologetic has to undertake and 
 carry on with the light, which a sound exegesis may throw on its work. 
 There was a time when petty objections were made to the Christian 
 Scriptures on the ground of apparent inconsistencies and inaccuracies 
 to be found in theory. These furnished a great part of the apolo- 
 gist's line of attack. Now, not to mention the fact that answers 
 
17 
 
 made to rude objections formulated fifty or even fifteen years ago 
 are not as satisfactory as answers that can be made to-day in the 
 Hght of a fuller discijssion and larger archaeological research, — 
 now, the point assailed is the foundation itself. About it the con- 
 flict has been raging ; and it has been going on now long enough to 
 show the usefulness of continuing it to the bitter end. Certainly 
 the believing side has not been the loser through it. Claim after 
 claim made by the opponent has been shown to be hollow by re- 
 search and reasoning, and the battle has narrowed down to a lim- 
 ited field. It may be too sanguine to say that more such work as has 
 been done within the last fifty years would compel the enemy to sur- 
 render completely ; but it i^ certainly true that skeptical criticism has 
 vastly moderated its claims, so much so, that little now is lacking for 
 a complete demonstration that the New Testament Scriptures, at least 
 from the historico-critical standpoint, are impregnable. 
 
 No doubt it is customary in our day, in certain quarters, to speak 
 slightingly of the historic argument, as if the apologetic of the day 
 must be based not on it, but on the internal argument, the intrinsic 
 worth and appeal of the Gospel to the human heart. So far as 
 this fashionable tendency has a positive element it may be readily 
 assented to. If it means that emphasis must be laid as never before 
 on the internal adaptation of Christianity to the human need, it ex- 
 presses a profound truth. The force with which the Gospel comes to 
 men grows as the experience of the world with it becomes larger and 
 fuller. Its inner meaning is better known than ever it was, and nat- 
 urally it speaks to the heart more convincingly. But if on the other 
 hand this tendency means that the argument from miracle and proph- 
 ecy must be abandoned, there never was a more groundless demand 
 than it makes. The historic argument is as true and valid and 
 strong as ever, and stronger by as much as historic certainty is en- 
 hanced through progress in historic method. But if the apologist, 
 in compliance with the demand to insist on the intrinsic side of 
 his subject, shall attempt to strengthen his position on that side, 
 what more potent ally will he find than the exegesis which will 
 furnish him with a profounder and a more exhaustive understand- 
 ing of the Gospel ? Witness as a result pertaining to this point, 
 the triumphs of the Christological idea in our days. Christ's life 
 was made the point of dispute by unbelievers ; immediately Christ's 
 life, Christ's words, Christ's character, His nature, His person. His 
 powers, these as constituting the very core and life of Christianity, 
 were made the subject of a minute and careful exammation by 
 
i8 
 
 New Testament exegesis. As a consequence, the stream which 
 began in Apologetics has overflowed and fertilized every other 
 field. The Christological idea has grown to si^ch proportions that the 
 Church may well think she never knew Christ as well before in her 
 history. 
 
 III. But we must close with a few words on the last, the largest and 
 most important field where the results of our work are to be used — 
 the ordinary duties of the ministry. We have already spoken of the 
 need of practicality in study. We have said that the student must 
 meet the practical man on his own ground. Let us now insist on it 
 that there he must press him to accept t^ie results of study. Too 
 often the temptation comes nowadays to look upon study in general 
 as secondary to work. However this temptation may be met by other 
 study, the study of the Scriptures must face it with a determined and 
 unyielding front. We do not forget the facts in the case. The de- 
 mands on the minister's time and energy from every conceivable 
 quarter are immense and persistent. But instead of compelling 
 him to neglect his Greek Testament, the fact ought to lead to the 
 employment of an assistant, to the division of the parish, to any 
 other practical plan that practical men can devise, rather than the 
 unpractical and impracticable scheme of preaching and pastoral vis- 
 itation without constant communion with the very source and ground- 
 work of his office. The more pressing the needs of the field, the 
 more fully should the laborer equip himself with the implements of 
 his labor. The louder the demands on the pastor for work, the bet- 
 ter should he prepare himself for it, first by personal communion with 
 the Lord of the harvest and then by a careful study of the Word of 
 Truth, the more skillfully he should be able to handle the Scriptures, 
 and the more familiar he should be with all their riches and powers 
 and capacities. 
 
 We might as well attempt to raise roses on the bush which has 
 been cut off from its roots, as try to enforce the doctrines, practices, 
 and methods of the Bible without a thorough, minute, repeated, and 
 independent reinforcement from its store of facts. Why need we 
 point at this time to history, instructive as it is familiar in this respect ? 
 Whenever and wherever the interpretation of the Word has been un- 
 dertaken and carried on sincerely and persistently, the consequence 
 has been moral and religious healthfulness ; wherever and whenever 
 its authority has been disputed or ignored, wherever it has been or is 
 carried on upon a defective isagogical and exegetical system, the re- 
 
19 
 
 suit is moral and religious laxitj-. The time is past when a minister 
 could base a sermon or enforce a word of exhortation on a misunder- 
 stood and misapplied text of Scripture without being detected and 
 despised for it ; the day has not come, will never come, when it will 
 be acceptable to the healthy conscience for the minister to prove m 
 the first half of his sermon that the words of his text are not true, 
 and then proceed to show the lessons to be drawn from them. Jug- 
 gling with the basis of religious mstruction cannot be tolerated long, 
 whether it be the result of ignorance or arrogance. If the world is 
 to be won to Christ it must be through His Word, and the better His 
 Word is known and understood by those who are to use it the easier 
 the task will be and the sooner success will follow. 
 
 So then, look at it from whatever point of view we will, the age 
 enters into our work as a giver and a taker ; let us see to it that it 
 gives us nothing but elements of health and vigor, and that it takes 
 the light and life which will keep it thoughtful and devout, its faith 
 unshaken, its Christian energy unabated. 
 
 And to this end may we always devoutly look up unto Him who 
 hath intrusted us with His own living oracles. 
 
Caylord Bros. 
 
 Makers 
 Syracuse. N. Y. 
 
 PAT. JAN. 21, 1908 
 
BS476 .Z55 
 
 The relations of New Testament study to 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00050 6891