s LQ.UCJISTER
 
 Ex Libris 
 -. C.K. OGDEN ; 
 
 
 ~s 
 

 
 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST TO THE 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Seven Efcfcresses 
 
 C. J. E L L I C O T T, D. 
 
 BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDEB THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, B.C. 
 
 BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET. 
 NEW YORK : B. & 3. B. YOUNG & CO.
 
 ATHENAEUM 
 CANCELLED. 
 LIBRARY.
 
 PEEFATOEY NOTICE. 
 
 THE following Addresses form portions of 
 a Charge delivered very recently to the Clergy 
 and Laity of the Archdeaconries of Gloucester 
 and Cirencester. 
 
 As the object of the Addresses is stated 
 fully in the opening portion, no further com- 
 ment is here necessary. In the great contro- 
 versy that has now been evoked in reference 
 to the trustworthiness of the Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament, few will deny that it is 
 desirable that both sides should fairly be 
 heard. 
 
 C. J. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. 
 
 GLOUCESTER, 
 
 November, 1891. 
 
 2015278
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 II. THE TWO THEMES 35 
 
 III. THE TWO ARGUMENTS 61 
 
 IV. THE APPEAL TO CHBIST . . . . 89 
 V. THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW . 119 
 
 VI. THE LORD'S REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND 
 
 PROPHECY 149 
 
 VII. CONCLUSION . . 180
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE subject which, on the present occasion, 
 I propose to bring- before the two Archdea- 
 conries which it is now my duty to address, 
 is the teaching- of our Lord and Master as to 
 the authority of the Old Testament, and the 
 extent to which He authenticates the Divine 
 origin and character of the different books of 
 the Old Testament to which He was pleased to 
 refer. 
 
 The reasons which have led me to choose this 
 subject for our consideration will, I think, at once 
 readily suggest themselves to all to whom these 
 words are addressed. Independently of the sort of 
 general feeling that the time has come when the 
 discussion of such a subject cannot profitably be 
 delayed, there are probably few of us who would 
 not agree in the more particular conviction that 
 recent circumstances have now made this dis- 
 cussion positively imperative, and of the most
 
 8 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOK. 
 
 vital and urgent necessity. The Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament have been often assailed : 
 their historical trustworthiness has been denied : 
 their statements in regard of the early history 
 of the world have been impugned ; the morality 
 they teach has, in many cases, been denounced 
 not only as imperfect, but even as in direct 
 opposition to the teaching of the Gospel ; their 
 claim to be divinely inspired, in any sense that 
 would imply a qualitative diiference between 
 them and the higher productions of human 
 thought, has been eagerly disavowed and re- 
 jected. With all this we have been long since 
 familiar ; but that with which we have not been 
 familiar, that which calls out our present anxiety, 
 and makes discussion imperative, is the strange 
 fact, that views which appear to many incon- 
 sistent with what may be termed the historical 
 trustworthiness of large portions of the Old 
 Testament, are now advocated and commended 
 to us by earnest Christian writers, of whom, it is 
 impossible to speak otherwise than with respect, 
 and who, in argument, must be treated by us 
 with all brotherly kindness and consideration. 
 
 This strange fact, it is right to say, can to 
 some extent be accounted for. The criticism to 
 which we allude would appear to be the outcome 
 of an effort made by earnest Churchmen at one
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of our ancient Universities to remove the diffi- 
 culties felt, it is said, by many young men of 
 serious habits of thought and of cultivated minds, 
 in reference to the Old Testament, its composi- 
 tion, its facts, its miraculous element, and its 
 claims to be received as a divinely inspired 
 revelation of the origin and early history of our 
 race ; and, more particularly, as a truthful revela- 
 tion of the dealings of Almighty God, in past 
 ages, with one chosen nation, and through them, 
 directly or indirectly, with all the children of 
 men. The unhesitating belief which the Church 
 appears to require, not only in the general teach- 
 ing and pervading truths of the sacred volume, 
 but in its theophanies, its miracles, and its pro- 
 phecies, has been found, it is said, to be a stum- 
 bling-block of so grave a nature to young men of 
 really religious minds, that some re-statement 
 of the generally received view of the Old Testa- 
 ment has become absolutely necessary. It is 
 maintained that the general interest in religion 
 is far greater and more real than it was only a 
 few years ago, and that unless we are prepared 
 to see that general interest either die out or 
 become merged in some form of philanthropic 
 agnosticism, we must reconsider the whole ques- 
 tion of the inspiration of Holy Scripture and 
 especially of the Old Testament.
 
 10 CHRISTUS OOMPEOBATOK. 
 
 Whether this is a correct statement of the 
 prevalent feelings of the more earnest and culti- 
 vated of the young- men of the present day, or 
 whether it is an unconscious exaggeration of 
 what may be felt by a limited number of specu- 
 lative minds with which the advocates of the 
 new biblical criticism may have come more 
 closely into contact, I am wholly unable to say. 
 I come myself very closely into contact with 
 young men of earnestness and intelligence ; and, 
 as yet, I have certainly met with no examples 
 of the class in whose interest we are urged to 
 reconsider our current views of the character 
 and composition of the Old Testament. Four 
 times, each year as it passes, I have the oppor- 
 tunity of contact with young minds ; and up to 
 the present time, I do not remember to have 
 met with a single instance in which any serious 
 difficulty appears to have been felt in reference 
 to the Old Testament ; nor have I been led to 
 infer from what has been told me that doubts 
 and difficulties as to that portion of the Book of 
 Life prevail among the general class of the 
 students at our Universities, to anything like 
 the extent which, it is alleged, is now to be 
 recognised. 
 
 I am, of course, well aware that those with 
 whom I come in contact belong to a class that
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 we may reasonably hope is but slightly, if at all, 
 affected by difficulties as to the trustworthy 
 nature of the Book that is afterwards solemnly 
 placed in their hands. I am aware also that 
 the information that I may receive from such a 
 class as to the current opinions of young- men at 
 our Universities may be partial and inadequate ; 
 still I cannot resist the impression that the class, 
 in the interest of which these novel views of the 
 Old Testament have been set forth, is much smaller 
 at any rate at the Universities than is com- 
 monly supposed. Under these circumstances I 
 must be excused if I retain the fixed opinion that 
 there are far better ways of dealing- with the 
 difficulties of these young men than by the un- 
 reserved publication of disquieting and precarious 
 concessions. 
 
 It may be doubted, however, whether the 
 desire to help the distressed faith of others has 
 been the only motive principle in the publication 
 of the essays which have given rise to the present 
 disquietude. The writers tell us honestly that 
 they were compelled for their own sake no less 
 than that of others to write what they have 
 written l . They avow themselves to be under the 
 conviction that the attempt must be made to put 
 the Catholic Faith into its right relation to 
 1 Lux Mundi, Preface, p. vii. (ed. x).
 
 12 CHBISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 modern intellectual and moral problems ; and 
 they distinctly tell us that if the true meaning 
 of this faith is to be made conspicuous it must 
 be disencumbered, reinterpreted, and explained 1 . 
 The avowal is singular and significant ; singular, 
 as it would have seemed more natural to attempt 
 to put these intellectual and moral problems into 
 their proper relations to the Catholic Faith than 
 conversely; and significant, as showing the 
 direction and bias of the minds of the writers. 
 Their conviction would clearly seem to be that 
 the Faith, or, to put the most charitable construc- 
 tion on their words (for their language is not 
 clear), the current Faith of the Church is that 
 which must be operated on, and especially in 
 reference to the authority and inspiration of 
 Scripture. 
 
 Be the motive principles however of this 
 attempt to disencumber and reinterpret the 
 Faith what they may, this is certain, that 
 with regard to the authority of Holy Scripture 
 and particularly of the Old Testament, the 
 attempt has created in sober minds a wide- 
 spread alarm and disquietude. And certainly 
 not without reason. Independently of the 
 precise nature and details of the attempt, of 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, Preface, p. vii.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 which I shall speak afterwards, the quarter 
 from which what has been called the Higher 
 criticism of the Old Testament originally ema- 
 nated, and the plainly avowed principles of its 
 earlier exponents, all combine in calling- out 
 anxiety, even in the minds of those who might 
 not be wholly averse to a theology willing to put 
 forth from its treasures things new and pro- 
 gressive as well as authenticated and old. The 
 pedigree is certainly not satisfactory. This so- 
 called ' higher criticism ' of the Old Testament 
 took definite shape some two generations ago. 
 It commenced with Genesis and the earlier 
 historical portions of the Pentateuch. In these 
 it claimed to demonstrate the existence of 
 earlier documents in portions which had been 
 supposed to be the work of a single writer ; 
 and it called especial attention to many indica- 
 tions, of which but little notice had been taken, 
 that the alleged work of the single writer had 
 received additions at periods considerably later 
 than the supposed date of the original work. 
 If it had stopped here there would have been no 
 serious cause for apprehension. But it went 
 much further. It proceeded to adopt criticisms 
 which steadily tended more and more to disin- 
 tegrate the inspired record, until, about half a 
 generation ago, three writers of considerable
 
 14 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 learning 1 and acuteness 1 brought to something- 
 like completeness this work of critical demoli- 
 tion. Ingenious theories were framed to 
 support it, resting slightly upon language, 
 but far more on internal arguments, until at 
 length a view of the composition and probable 
 dates of the books of the Old Testament has 
 been commended to the general reader which, to 
 use the most guarded language, is irreconcile- 
 able with a sincere belief in the inspiration, and 
 even the trustworthiness, of several of the 
 writings of the Old Covenant. 
 
 There is however one characteristic of this 
 modern view of the Old Testament, as set forth 
 by the three writers to whom I have referred, 
 which must always steadily be borne in mind. 
 And it is this, not merely that this modern view 
 tends to, or prepares the way for, a denial of the 
 supernatural, but that it owed its very origin to 
 the assumption that the existence of the super- 
 natural in these early records is exactly that 
 which wrecks their credibility. This perhaps is 
 not absolutely stated in so many words, but it is 
 
 1 The three writers to whom I refer are Professors Graf, 
 Kuenen, and Wellhausen. From the remarks of the last- 
 mentioned writer in his Prolegomena to the History of Israel 
 (p. 4, note, Edinb., 1885), it would appear that to Prof. Ecus? 
 of Strasburg must be assigned an important share in the 
 early development of the question.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 impossible to deny that the preconception and 
 assumption which runs through the whole of 
 the particular critical investigations to which I 
 am referring-, is a disbelief in the possibility of 
 the miraculous. Attempts have been made 
 from time to time by eminent writers in our 
 own country to show that the basis of the well- 
 known histories of Israel and of the Religion of 
 Israel is not really so naturalistic as it is assumed 
 to be. But to this there is but one reply, that 
 almost every chapter of both these histories, 
 and especially of the one last mentioned, will 
 show either directly or by fair inference the 
 futility of all such attempts. The basis of the 
 histories and criticisms of the most eminent 
 foreign exponents of the so-called Higher 
 criticism is patently and even avowedly natural- 
 istic. ' We have outgrown the belief of our 
 ancestors ' is the candid language of one of these 
 writers, and certainly one who is not the least 
 eminent among them. We thus do not deem 
 it unfair to say that the whole system of Old 
 Testament criticism, as set forth by some at 
 least of these foreign expositors, is based upon 
 rejection of special revelation, miracles, and 
 prophecy, in a word, the supernatural in all 
 its relations to the history of the Chosen 
 People.
 
 16 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Now in calling 1 attention to this startling 
 characteristic of the majority of the best foreign 
 treatises on this Higher criticism, I do not for 
 one moment desire to imply that writers of our 
 own country who may have, somewhat too 
 freely, availed themselves of the results at which 
 these writers have arrived, are committed to 
 their views of the supernatural and the miracu- 
 lous. Each writer must be judged by his own 
 statements, and by the reservations he may 
 make in accepting the conclusions of others. 
 I suggest then no inferences as to the opinions 
 of those writers to whom, in the sequel, I shall 
 more particularly refer, but I desire, notwith- 
 standing, to make plain, at the very outset, 
 that disbelief in the supernatural has had a 
 great deal to do with the development of modern 
 views of the Old Testament. There is, at any 
 rate, some such link between them as may at 
 least suggest the greatest possible caution in 
 assimilating results which have been arrived at 
 under preconceptions such as I have described. 
 This link there is ; and it is my firm conviction 
 that the obvious readiness with which these 
 novel views of the composition of the Old 
 Testament have been accepted by imperfectly 
 educated or unbalanced minds is due to a prac- 
 tical, though it may be unrealised disbelief in
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 many of the miracles recorded in the Sacred 
 volume, and perhaps even in the miraculous 
 element generally. 
 
 There is also another principle which, though 
 by no means of so dangerous a character as the 
 rejection of the supernatural, has nevertheless 
 produced almost equal effects in the shaping of 
 theories as to the component parts of several of 
 the books of the Old Testament, and in affixing 
 to the books the dates that are currently as- 
 signed to them. And the principle is this, to 
 assume the existence of a continuous conflict 
 between the schools of the Prophets and 
 the Priesthood, and also of persistent efforts 
 made, especially in the later periods of the 
 history of the nation, on the part of the Priests 
 and Levites to secure the supremacy. That there 
 may have been, from time to time, strongly 
 developed antagonisms, and that commanding 
 h'gures like Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha may 
 have provoked jealousies, and called forth oppo- 
 sition in what may be termed the ecclesiastical 
 party, is perfectly thinkable, though, it must be 
 admitted, the traces of such jealousies and opposi- 
 tions between priests and prophets in their 
 class-relations to each other are but few and 
 shadowy. To assume however that most of the 
 historical books were re-modelled, over-written, 
 B
 
 18 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 or otherwise tampered with by the priestly 
 party in consequence of these rivalries, is to 
 assume far more than there is any sufficient 
 evidence to demonstrate. Theories of a some- 
 what similar nature played their part in a past 
 generation with reference to the New Testament. 
 There are some of us old enough to remember 
 how books of the New Testament, about the 
 design of which no reasonable doubt could be 
 entertained, were regarded simply as the out- 
 come of the controversies that arose between 
 Judaizing and Gentile Christianity, emer- 
 gences from opposing schools of thought, and 
 written manifestations of the vigour of Apos- 
 tolic dissensions. These theories, we may re- 
 member, had their day, enjoyed for a time a 
 partial popularity, and caused in many minds 
 anxiety and disquietude. But now where are 
 they ? Cast away long since on the waste-heap 
 of baseless speculations, exploded, and forgotten. 
 And that such will be the fate of a large portion 
 of those that we are now considering, in refer- 
 ence to the Old Testament, is certainly not a 
 very hazardous prophecy. 
 
 But these two presuppositions are not the 
 only manifestations of a bias which seriously 
 affects the equities of argument. We may 
 rightly note, in one of the three chief modern
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 exponents of this Higher criticism, language 
 of a tenor that seems very far removed from 
 the tone that ought to mark all discussions of 
 what is by a general consent regarded to be a 
 record of God's dealings with man. Reverence 
 it might be too much always to expect ; but 
 seriousness of tone, and, at least, some regard 
 for the feelings of general readers might be 
 expected from a writer of such recognised 
 scholarship, learning, and cultivation as the 
 author of the Prolegomena of the History of 
 Israel. When for example such a narrative as 
 that which we find in one of the early chapters 
 of the First Book of Samuel, a narrative in 
 which Divine mercy is represented as a conse- 
 quent on national repentance, is described as 
 ' a pious make up/ and set aside as not having 
 'a word of truth in it/ and when similar 
 language is constantly reappearing, and fraud 
 frequently imputed when the narrative does 
 not harmonise with the general theoiy, we cannot 
 but feel that we are dealing with a writer whose 
 bias is antecedently so strong against the docu- 
 ments that he is analysing, that the impartial 
 character of his criticisms and his conclusions 
 may most fairly be called into question. The 
 eager and scornful advocate takes far too much 
 the place of the judicial critic in a work that 
 B 2,
 
 20 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 claims to be an impartial setting forth of 
 national history. 
 
 Prejudices and presuppositions then are dis- 
 tinctly to be recognised in this so-called Higher 
 criticism of the Old Testament, and must have 
 their due weight assigned to them in any esti- 
 mates we may form of this criticism. It is too 
 commonly assumed that all the prejudices and 
 presuppositions are only to be found among 
 those who disallow its conclusions. Prejudices 
 and presuppositions on such momentous sub- 
 jects as those we are now considering will be 
 found distinctly on both sides. They will con- 
 tinually show themselves on the most impartial 
 pages, and will often vitiate what might other- 
 wise be equitable and even persuasive conclusions. 
 Against all such presuppositions it will be my 
 duty in these Addresses constantly to be on my 
 guard, and more particularly so as we pass onward 
 into the more serious phases of the great 
 questions that will come before us in the present 
 discussion. 
 
 And yet I must here frankly admit that with 
 every effort and desire to write with the most 
 scrupulous impartiality, it will be very hard to 
 avoid, from time to time, myself manifesting 
 the very bias which I am here deprecating. 
 The very nature of the argument that forms
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 the substance of these Addresses almost neces- 
 sarily carries with it a tendency to pre-judgment 
 which it will be almost impossible to resist. 
 How far Christ authenticates the Scriptures 
 that speak of Him, which is the main question 
 proposed to be answered in these Addresses, is 
 a question which can never be answered without 
 the constantly recurring danger of over-claim, 
 and so ought never to be applied to particular 
 cases that have not been considered beforehand 
 with the most scrupulous care. The whole 
 validity of the final conclusions will turn upon 
 the choice of the passages which are supposed to 
 contribute answers to the general question, and 
 upon the equity and impartiality with which 
 they are discussed. In pointing out, then, pve- 
 judgments in the case of those we criticise, we 
 are bound not only to exercise the utmost 
 vigilance in avoiding them ourselves, but also 
 distinctly to recognise the liabilities to bias 
 which the very tenor of the particular form of 
 argument will be certain to introduce. 
 
 It may, however, be just said in passing that 
 it is fairly open to question whether the liabili- 
 ties to bias are not quite as dominant in the 
 working out of theories of disintegration as in 
 the use of authority in countervailing them. 
 There is a fascination in a destructive argument,
 
 22 CHKISTTJS COMPROBATOK. 
 
 especially when it necessitates ingenious elabo- 
 ration, possibly quite as potent as any that may 
 be found in the simpler and less personal process 
 of traversing it by an appeal to One whose 
 judgment, when expressed, must be accepted as 
 ultimate and irreversible. There is qxiite as 
 much tendency to bias in one case as in the 
 other. But to proceed. 
 
 Thus far we have confined our thoughts to the 
 chief sources from which the new criticism has 
 emanated, and to the general characteristics 
 which this criticism very distinctly reflects. 
 We have thus far alluded mainly to the three 
 foreign writers whose names are most closely 
 connected with the reconstruction of the literary 
 history of the Old Testament ; and we have 
 named the apparent presuppositions on which, 
 consciously or unconsciously, they have executed 
 their work. We now turn to those with whom 
 we are more particularly concerned, the emi- 
 nent writers in our own country who have 
 adopted, with more or less reservation, the 
 results which these foreign writers have arrived 
 at, and who are now commending to the serious 
 attention of English Churchmen some modified, 
 but still very disquieting conclusions. On these 
 conclusions, and on the general course of the 
 argument which must be followed in regard to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 them, we will now make a few preliminary 
 comments. 
 
 It is, however, somewhat difficult from the 
 present state of the case to do this with perfect 
 clearness and impartiality. Our English re- 
 presentatives of the new school of criticism are 
 not, as yet, completely agreed among themselves 
 as to how far they are prepared to accept the 
 results on which foreign critics appear to be 
 unanimous ; nor again is it perfectly clear what 
 particular conclusions, which the majority have 
 accepted, have caused the widely-spread dis- 
 quietude which, there can be no doubt, does 
 exist among English Churchmen at the present 
 time. We seem therefore obliged, in order to 
 arrive at an equitable judgment on these points, 
 and properly to understand the precise state of the 
 complicated controversy, to feel our way towards 
 some sort of standard, by means of which we 
 may more correctly estimate the true nature of 
 current opinion on the Old Testament. It will 
 be desirable, therefore, to arrive at some agree- 
 ment as to what may be considered the generally 
 received view of the age and authorship of those 
 Books of the Old Testament that have been 
 more particularly the subjects of controversy. 
 We shall then have some kind of standard to 
 which reference can be properly made ; for the
 
 24 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOtt. 
 
 mere general term ' the traditional view,' as 
 frequently used by writers on these subjects, is 
 far too vague and too diversely understood, if 
 left undefined, to be made any use of as an avail- 
 able standard of comparison. 
 
 We must begin then by defining- as clearly as 
 we can what is meant by this general term, and 
 in what sense it is generally used by writers on 
 the Old Testament. The following would seem 
 to be a rough, but substantially correct state- 
 ment. By the Traditional view we commonly 
 understand the view that has been generally 
 maintained in the Jewish Church, and also in the 
 Christian Church ; and which may be expressed 
 in the following terms, viz. that the Books 
 of the Sacred volume, in its historical portions, 
 have been written or compiled, from contempo- 
 raneous documents, by a succession of inspired 
 writers beginning with Moses and ending with 
 Ezra and Nehemiah. 
 
 But here it is obvious that something more 
 precise is needed if we are to have anything like 
 a standard with which other views can be com- 
 pared ; it being frankly admitted that, in the 
 general estimate of the nature of the contempo- 
 raneous documents and the manner in which 
 they have been dealt with by the succession of 
 inspired compilers, modern investigation and, it
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 is fair to add, modern criticism have introduced 
 some changes and rectifications. As this recti- 
 fied view is the standard towards which we are 
 feeling- our way, our first care will be to set forth 
 the Traditional view with those rectifications in- 
 troduced which our present state of knowledge 
 has enabled us to make. We shall then have a 
 fairly defined standard ; and in using, as we shall 
 have frequently to do, the term Traditional 
 view, we must be understood as always meaning 
 the Traditional view in its rectified form. 
 
 In the second place it will be necessary to set 
 forth clearly, in a similar manner, the results of 
 modern criticism, and to sketch out the general 
 estimate that has now been formed of the lead- 
 ing historical Books of the Old Testament by 
 foreign critics, and especially by those foreign 
 writers to whom we have already alluded. 
 
 In the third place it will only be just care- 
 fully to specify the extent to which the views 
 of these foreign writers are actually accepted by 
 the English Churchmen with whom we are 
 here more particularly concerned. We shall 
 thus have clearly before us what, according to 
 these writers, we are to be considered at liberty 
 to believe as to the origination of the Books 
 of the Old Testament. It will then lastly 
 become our duty to consider, closely and care-
 
 26 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 fully, whether this enlarged liberty of belief can 
 be reconciled with the teaching- of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Gospels, so far as 
 it bears upon the trustworthiness, and authority 
 of the older portions of the Book of Life. 
 
 We have thus before us a two-fold work. In 
 the first place we shall have to institute a care- 
 ful comparison of the rectified Traditional view 
 of the Old Testament with the view of modern 
 criticism, which it will be convenient to term 
 the Analytical view, the term 'analytical' being 
 apparently the truest descriptive epithet of this 
 newer, or so-called Higher criticism of the Old 
 Testament, and having the advantage of not 
 suggesting any pre -judgment as to the worth 
 and validity of the system. In equitable contro- 
 versy nothing is of greater importance than the 
 choice of terms, in the description of the views 
 of opponents, which correctly characterise, but, 
 in regard of any expression, favourable or the 
 reverse, are as far as possible colourless. The 
 terms ' traditional ' and ' analytical ' seem fairly 
 to fulfil these conditions, and it is under these 
 terms that we shall institute the comparison. 
 
 It must be observed, however, that the com- 
 parison of these two views can only, in Ad- 
 dresses like the present, be of a broad and 
 general character. To enter into minute de-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 tails or to analyse the separate reasonings, 
 often highly technical and complicated, on 
 which some of the results of the Analytical 
 view of the Old Testament are perhaps over- 
 confidently based, lies beyond the scope of our 
 present endeavour. It is a work, however, that 
 I trust will be undertaken by some competent 
 scholar ; for in the study of these subjects 
 nothing has more impressed itself upon me 
 than the unwarrantable nature of many of the 
 assumptions on the Analytical side in the dis- 
 cussion of these argumentative details, and the 
 obvious bias with which the discussion has been 
 conducted. That bias, I need scarcely say, is 
 the bias against the supernatural, which fre- 
 quently seems to permeate and modify the 
 whole tenor of the criticism. It is of the 
 utmost importance that this last-mentioned 
 characteristic should always be clearly borne 
 in view. The obliteration or, at the very least, 
 the minimising of the supernatural is too 
 plainly the principle, avowed or unavowed, 
 that influences or conditions the whole of the 
 more advanced Analytical investigation of the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 When this comparison between the opposing 
 views has been fairly made, the second part of 
 our work will then commence. With the two
 
 28 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 competing- views clearly before us, we shall pro- 
 ceed to make our appeal to Christ and to His 
 teaching, as to which of the two views is most 
 in harmony with the Lord's general teaching 
 as to the relation of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments. 
 
 But, alas, it will be necessary for us, first, to 
 justify such an appeal ; and, next, to show that 
 the appeal is made to an infallible Judge, and 
 to One whose judgment, when it can be shown 
 clearly to be intimated or given, must be ac- 
 cepted as final, whatever Analytical criticism 
 may presume to say to the contrary. This 
 judgment we shall endeavour to obtain in re- 
 ference to the Law and the Prophets, or, to 
 speak more precisely, in reference to the earlier 
 portions of Scripture which include the Mosaic 
 law, and the subsequent portions, whether his- 
 torical or prophetical. 
 
 We shall then, lastly, review the whole argu- 
 ment, and endeavour to show that those with 
 whom we are more particularly concerned, 
 English Scholars and Churchmen, have gone 
 much too fast and much too far in their con- 
 cessions to the so-called established results of 
 the modern criticism of the Old Testament. 
 This criticism, as we have seen, is of foreign 
 growth. It is distinguished by great acumen s
 
 INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 and almost boundless self-confidence. When it 
 tells us, for example x , that ' the exegesis of the 
 writers of the New Testament, in reference to 
 the Old Testament, cannot stand before the 
 tribunal of science,' we see the lengths to which 
 men, in many respects earnest and truth-seek- 
 ing, are hurried by their convictions of the cor- 
 rectness of their own hypotheses ; how all sense 
 of proportion seems to be lost ; and how vitally 
 necessary it is to test these over- confident asser- 
 tions, and to ascertain for ourselves how far 
 these views of God's Holy Word can be deemed 
 to be compatible, either with the results of fail- 
 reasoning, or with the teaching of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 How writers of the high tone and Christian 
 earnestness which obviously characterise some 
 of the English exponents of the Analytical 
 view of the Old Testament, can have been led 
 to advocate some of the conclusions which will 
 l)e set forth in the investigations that will 
 follow, is by no means easy to understand. If 
 it be to help the weakened faith of younger 
 men in some of the forms of the supernatural 
 that present themselves in the Old Testament, 
 if it be intended to alleviate the difficulties 
 
 1 See Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 487, 
 l.), Lond. 1877.
 
 30 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 they may feel in accepting- such miraculous in- 
 cidents as those related in the earlier portion .of 
 the Book of Genesis, or in the history of Jonah, 
 then, however well-intentioned such aid may 
 be, no worse form of giving it could really have 
 been devised. And for this serious reason, that, 
 say what we may, reason as we may choose, we 
 shall never obliterate the conviction that there 
 is such a close and organic connexion between 
 the Old Testament and the New Testament, 
 that whatever applies to the one, in regard of 
 acceptance of the miraculous, is also applicable 
 to the other. If the supernatural is to be mini- 
 mised in the Old Testament, will it be long be- 
 fore the same demand will be made in reference 
 to the New ? To safe-guard the miraculous in 
 the New dispensation, when criticism has either 
 explained it away or attenuated it in the Old 
 dispensation, will in practice be found to be 
 utterly hopeless. It will be in vain to plead 
 that the Incarnation involves a completely 
 different state of things, that the visible 
 presence of the Creator of the world in the 
 world He came to save involves necessarily 
 ever alterable relations with that world, and 
 makes possible and thinkable in the case of 
 the Lord what in Elijah and Elisha would be 
 incredible and unimaginable. Vain it will be,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 and utterly in vain ; nay, worse than in vain. 
 For the same spirit that has found irreconcile- 
 able difficulties in the supernatural element of 
 the Old Testament, will ultimately challenge 
 the evidence on which the Incarnation rests. 
 And the more so, as all the age-long- testimonies 
 of the Old Testament, all the fore-shadowings, 
 all the promises that were greeted from afar l , all 
 the sure words of prophecy, will have been ex- 
 plained away and dissipated ; and there will re- 
 main nothing save two narratives which, it 
 will be said, bear so patently the traces of illu- 
 sion, or, at the least, of an idealism expressing 
 itself under the guise of alleged facts, that 
 the doctrine of the Word become flesh, the 
 doctrine which is the hope, light, and life of 
 the universe, will in the end be surrendered to 
 the last demands of what will have now become 
 not a distressed, but a ruined faith. When 
 that blessed doctrine is surrendered, the total 
 eclipse of faith will have commenced, and the 
 shadows of the great darkness will be fast 
 sweeping over the forlorn and desolate soul. 
 
 It is simply amazing that these things are 
 
 not realized by those who are now advocating, 
 
 it may be in a modified form, views of the Old 
 
 Testament which, at any rate, owe their origina- 
 
 1 Heb.xi. 13.
 
 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOK. 
 
 tion to writers who frankly avow that the 
 religion of Israel is regarded by them as simply 
 one of the principal religions of the world, 
 nothing less and nothing more, and is to be 
 dealt with according to the principles of ordi- 
 nary critical history *. Inability to accept the 
 supernatural is the distinctive feature of the 
 Analytical system ; all its results patently dis- 
 close it ; all its investigations consciously or 
 unconsciously presuppose it. How modifica- 
 tions of such a system, or deductions that may 
 be drawn from it, however cautiously and 
 guardedly, can ever be used to help failing 
 faith, especially in such an age as our own, is 
 to me inconceivable. When the freedom of the 
 Creator of the Universe to modify the varied 
 evolutions of His own blessed work, to give 
 fresh energies to secondary causes, and to inter- 
 pose, in accordance with that law eternal by 
 which He sustains and developes the energies 
 of all things, when all this is now, as it is, 
 directly or inferentially denied, when the last 
 foolish utterance on the subject is that belief in 
 the supernatural ought to be regarded as a 
 
 1 See Kueneu, Eeligion of Israel (Introd.), vol. i. p. 5, Lond. 
 1874. On the general view of this able writer in reference 
 to the historical books, see Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scrip- 
 ture, vol. i. pp. 371 sqq., Edinb., 1883.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 religious offence l , is this a time for English 
 Churchmen to make concessions in regard of 
 belief in the miraculous incidents of the Old 
 Testament? Is this a time to suggest that the 
 narratives before Abraham may be of the nature 
 of myth 2 , and to regard as the dramatised work 
 of an unknown writer a portion of the Old 
 Testament which the Saviour of the world 
 vouchsafed to use in His conflict with the 
 Enemy of mankind 3 ? Is this a time for such 
 perilous concessions ? 
 
 After what has been said, can it be longer 
 doubtful that it is now our plainest duty to 
 give up all such hopeless attempts of aiding 
 shaken faith ? Is it not the height of impru- 
 dence to make concessions which inevitably 
 will only prove to be instalments of the ulti- 
 mate surrender of the supernatural ? Ought we 
 not rather to try ' to lift up the hands that 
 hang down, and the palsied knees 4 ,' by the 
 quickening power of truth, 'patiently and sym- 
 pathetically set forth, by the inherent per- 
 suasiveness of time-honoured beliefs, and by 
 bringing more clearly home to young hearts 
 
 1 On this utterance, see two articles in The Spectator for 
 May 9 and 16, 1891 ; pp. 655, 686. 
 
 2 See Lux Mundi, p. 357. 
 
 3 See Lux Mundi, p. 355. * Heb. xii. 12. 
 
 C
 
 34 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 the credibility of that Traditional view of the 
 Old Testament, which, when properly set forth, 
 will be found to have lost nothing- of its old 
 and persuasive vitality ? 
 
 To this duty we now address ourselves, and, 
 as has already been intimated, will proceed to 
 place in contrast the rectified Traditional view 
 of the Old Testament, and the Analytical view, 
 alike in its more extreme form, and in the 
 modified form in which, unhappily, it has met 
 with the approval and acceptance of learned 
 and honoured writers from whom it is a pain 
 to be forced thus seriously to diH'cv.
 
 II. 
 
 THE Two THEORIES. 
 
 WE now enter definitely into a full consider- 
 ation of those statements as to the Old Testa- 
 ment which are regarded by foreign writers of 
 eminence and learning- as fully established by 
 modern criticism ; and which, further, are said 
 to be very generally admitted by writers and 
 scholars who have made the nature and compo- 
 sition of the Old Testament their especial 
 study. 
 
 We may ourselves admit, at the very outset, 
 that there is an amount of accordance between 
 foreign scholars and critics as to the general 
 structure of the earlier Books of Holy Scripture, 
 and even to some of the more important de- 
 tails, considerably beyond what we might have 
 expected, when the differences of the points of 
 view of the writers are properly taken into 
 account. It is startling, for instance, to find a 
 c 2
 
 36 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 venerated writer like the late Dr. Delitzsch in 
 accordance with Professor Wellhausen in many 
 essential matters connected with the Book of 
 Genesis, and to find coincidences of opinion in 
 regard of some of the characteristics of the 
 Pentateuch between writers as divergent from 
 one another in theological principles as Dr. 
 Dillmann of Berlin and Professor Kuenen of 
 Leyden. 
 
 But we must not be unduly led away by 
 these accordances. In the first place, we have 
 to deal with men who have many psychological 
 characteristics in common, great industry, un- 
 exampled patience in sorting entangled facts, 
 singular insight into the true adjustment of 
 complicated details ; but, with all this, a rash- 
 ness and precipitancy in conclusion, and, not 
 unfrequently, a very discernible want of pro- 
 portion in their setting forth of results and ulti- 
 mate principles. If it be not insular prejudice 
 to say so, we can hardly fail to recognise the 
 absence of that cool common-sense which, in 
 subjects such as those we are now considering. 
 is a gift, a veritable c/tarisma, which can never 
 be dispensed with ; and without which no 
 amount of industry, no accumulations of learning, 
 will ever ensure trustworthiness, or even veri- 
 similitude, in the results ultimately arrived at.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 37 
 
 In the next place, this must not be forgotten, 
 that there is a fascination in these investiga- 
 tions, in these excursions into the unknown, 
 which exercises a very powerful influence over 
 those who, from any reason, enter into them. 
 It may seem to be due to the simple desire 
 of arriving at truth ; but only too often, if an 
 honest analysis of mental motive be made, it 
 will be found that the attractiveness of theory- 
 making, and of forming some consistent view 
 of perplexing phenomena, will account for much 
 of the sort of contagious interest that is felt in 
 Old Testament analysis, and will explain the con- 
 fidence that is felt in the development of this 
 speculative criticism. It certainly was so, some 
 three-quarters of a centuiy ago, when the 
 origination of the Four Gospels was the subject 
 of the theological activity of the time. Sober 
 writers were led into the most elaborate schemes 
 of Gospel construction l . Coincidences of opinion 
 were found among scholars of very different 
 theological views ; agreement was almost arrived 
 at as to what was to be deemed the aboriginal 
 
 1 Readers who may care to see brief accounts of these 
 bygone schemes will find them in the Introduction to Meyer's 
 Commentary on St. Matthew, 4, in the still useful work of 
 the late Professor Norton, Evidences of the Genuineness of the 
 Gospels, vol. i. pp. 239-315, London, 1847, and in the older 
 Introductions to the New Testament.
 
 38 CHR1STUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Gospel, just as now we are assured, in regard of 
 the Pentateuch, that the primal document, 
 the ' Source ' as it is termed by Wellhausen, 
 is a discovery of modern biblical analysis about 
 which no reasonable doubt can be entertained. 
 
 We must then certainly not place too much 
 reliance on the alleged agreement of leading- 
 critics and scholars as to the composition of the 
 early Books of the Old Testament ; and most 
 certainly we may pay little heed to the as- 
 surance of a recent writer on this subject that 
 the modern development of historical criticism 
 is reaching results as sure, where it is fairly 
 used, as scientific enquiry 1 . 
 
 But it will be well now to enter into details, 
 and to proceed to place these alleged certitudes 
 in contrast with that Traditional view of the 
 characteristics and composition of the Old Tes- 
 tament which, with some modifications, has ex- 
 isted for two and twenty centuries ; and which, 
 we may very confidently say, will substantially 
 remain to the end. Modifications there may be. 
 Each age as it passes suggests, it may be, some 
 rectifications. Each period of controversy like 
 the present necessitates a closer study, both of 
 matter and of language, and consequently a 
 clearer perception of those details in which 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 357.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 39 
 
 surer knowledge enables us to introduce recti- 
 fications and corrections. These modifications 
 we may expect, but subversive changes in the 
 estimate of the true nature of Holy Scripture, 
 such as those which we are now invited to 
 accept, will never enter into the credenda of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 We begin, then, by defining what we mean 
 by the term that we are using, the Traditional 
 view of the Old Testament. We mean that 
 view of the contents, their authorship, and their 
 trustworthiness, that prevailed in the Jewish 
 Church after the final formation of the Canon 
 of the Old Testament, that is clearly to be re- 
 cognised in the New Testament, and has con- 
 tinued in the Christian Church, with but little 
 substantial modification, to this nineteenth cen- 
 tury of salvation. Now, however, in the closing 
 years of this century, we are told that this 
 view must, to a great extent, be given up. 
 We are in fact called upon to set aside the 
 greater part of the beliefs of the past, and to 
 see in the Old Testament a collection of ancient 
 documents, many of highly composite structure, 
 which came consecutively into existence cen- 
 turies later than when they have been sup- 
 posed to have been written ; and which, after 
 various re-editings and redactions, only re-
 
 40 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 ceived the form in which now we possess them, 
 in the later, if not the latest, period of the 
 Exile. 
 
 What general answer have we to make to 
 these startling- demands ? Well, to begin with, 
 certainly this, that the view that we are thus, 
 somewhat summarily, called upon to dismiss 
 may in substance be recognised as dating from 
 the time of the Apocrypha. We find in the 
 writings of that period not only the same 
 recognised divisions that were current in the 
 days of our Lord 1 , but a deliberate ascription of 
 sacredness to the ancient Books 2 , and especially 
 to the Mosaic Law and to its author, into 
 whose soul Wisdom herself vouchsafed to enter 3 . 
 The Books of the Old Testament were appar- 
 ently ascribed, as we now ascribe them, to pro- 
 phets, the term prophets in the Apocrypha 4 
 being applied not only to men who ' showed 
 what should come to pass 6 / and who spake ' from 
 the mouth of the Lord V but who were guided 
 by His Spirit, and ranked with the ' friends of 
 GodV 
 
 1 Ecclus. i. Prologue. a i Mace. xii. 9. 
 
 8 Wisd. x. 1 6. 
 
 * See Bretschneider, Dogmatik der Apocryph. Schriften, 
 4, 68 sq. 
 
 5 Eccles. xlviii. 25. 6 i Esdras i. 47. 
 
 7 Wisd. vii. 27.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 41 
 
 We may recognise substantially the same 
 views in Philo, though in a more exaggerated 
 form. With him the Old Testament is ever 
 regarded as one divine whole, breathed through 
 by the Spirit of God, one inseparably connected 
 holy Word, of which the Pentateuch is to be 
 accounted the crown and the glory l . The same 
 views are expressed by Josephus, though in 
 more restrained and moderate terms. He, too, 
 regards the Sacred Scriptures as a divine whole. 
 They were written by a succession of prophets, 
 the greatest of whom was the inspired writer 
 of the Pentateuch, true prophets, yet with 
 separate gifts, some writing under immediate 
 inspiration from God, others only truthfully 
 and faithfully recording the events of their own 
 times, though never without some measures of 
 divine guidance and direction 2 . 
 
 Such generally were the views entertained in 
 the Jewish Church after the formation of the 
 Canon of the Old Testament ; such the views 
 in the time of our Lord ; and such, though not 
 without various modifications in detail, the 
 views entertained by the early writers in the 
 Christian Church, the Eastern Church in- 
 
 1 See Ewald, History of Israel, vol. vii. p. 204 (Transl.) 
 London, 1885. 
 * See Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 7, 8.
 
 42 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 volving 1 more of the speculative element, the 
 Western more of the formulated and traditional. 
 The broad principles that were maintained were 
 the harmony of the teaching- of the writers of 
 the Old Testament l , the org-anic unity of the 
 two Testaments 2 , the self-sufficiency of Scripture 
 for the setting- forth of truth 3 , and its blessed 
 and plenary perfection 4 . It is only in heretical 
 writing's, and particularly in the Clementine 
 Homilies, that we find any traces of that kind 
 of criticism of the Old Testament with which 
 this nineteenth century has made us so pain- 
 fully familiar. Even from early days contro- 
 versy has prevailed in regard of the nature of' 
 the inspiration and the infallibility of Holy 
 Scripture, but it is only in the last hundred 
 and forty years 6 , and particularly in the last 
 quarter of a centuiy, that the broad principles 
 
 1 Comp. Justin M., Cohort, ad Graecos, cap. 8, compared 
 with cap. 7. 
 
 2 Comp. Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. 16. 
 
 3 Athan. Contra Gentes, cap. i. 
 
 4 Cyprian (Prolog, ad Test. adv. Judaeos) uses the expres- 
 sion ' divinae plenitudinis fontes ' in reference to the ' Scrip- 
 turas veteres ac novas.' 
 
 5 The commencement of the present Analytical system is 
 referred by some writers to the French physician Astruc, who, 
 about the time named, pointed out that the passages contain- 
 ing the name Elohim can be arranged in a kind of narrative 
 form. See Ladd, Doctr. of Sacred Scripture, vol. ii. p. 240.
 
 THE TWO THEOEIES. 43 
 
 of the Traditional view have been deliberately 
 and even contemptuously flung- aside, and the 
 genuineness, integrity, and trustworthiness of 
 the OJd Testament impugned and traversed by 
 the industrious ingenuity and really limitless 
 assumptions of modem analysis. 
 
 This destructive criticism has, however, not 
 been without its uses. It has at last compelled 
 us to study more diligently and systematically 
 the Old Testament. For a very long- period 
 the critical study of the Old Testament has 
 been comparatively neglected by biblical scholars. 
 The Hebrew language has to a great extent 
 dropped out of the curriculum of modern 
 theology ; the critical questions that have been 
 now brought to the front by men of singular 
 acumen, as well as of untiring industry, come 
 upon us with a kind of startling novelty ; and 
 we find ourselves, as it were, taken by surprise, 
 and brought suddenly face to face with ques- 
 tions pressed upon us by experts, to which we 
 are uneasily conscious that we can give no 
 answers that can stand five minutes of steady 
 criticism. 
 
 This state of things is, however, passing 
 away. We are at length beginning to realise 
 the gravity of the present state of the Old 
 Testament controversy. The Traditional views
 
 44 CHKISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 are -being re-examined under the light of 
 modern discoveries ; and efforts are beginning 
 to be made fairly to put in contrast that in- 
 spired and trustworthy record of the past bear- 
 ing the name of the Old Testament, and sealed 
 with a belief of more than two thousand years 
 in its genuineness and integrity, with that 
 strange conglomerate of myth, legend, fabrica- 
 tion, idealised narrative, falsified history, drama- 
 tised fable, and after-event prophecy to which 
 modern critical analysis has sought to reduce 
 that which our Church, day by day, calls the 
 ' most Holy Word ' of Almighty God. 
 
 Such a contrast we are now endeavouring to 
 make in this Charge, a contrast which it is 
 believed will in itself go far to re-assure the 
 perplexed and the doubtful, and will show what 
 we must term the dangerous credulity of those 
 who are advising us, for the sake of the shaken 
 faith of young men at our Universities, to 
 accept the leading conclusions of this revolu- 
 tionary analysis. To strive to help failing faith 
 is a noble endeavour, but there are limits to 
 the extent to .which that help is to be carried. 
 Are we to have no thought for the countless 
 numbers of those simple trustful believers who 
 in the language of a modern poet, are leading 
 ' lives of melodious days,' because clinging to
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 45 
 
 the old faith, and accepting what Apostles and 
 Evangelists, yea, and the dear Lord Himself, 
 have expressly guaranteed to them ? Are these 
 babes in Christ to be forgotten ? Are good and 
 earnest men to be so over-eager for the com- 
 paratively few, as to lose sight of those whose 
 very salvation may be endangered by this 
 precipitancy of literary credulity? 
 
 At any rate let us make our contrast. Let 
 us state succinctly on the one side what we 
 have termed the rectified Traditional view of 
 the composition and authorship of the Old 
 Testament, and, on the other side, the modern 
 Analytical view ; and then, further, those modi- 
 fications of it which English Churchmen of 
 earnestness and piety advise us to accept as 
 helpful to weakened faith, and as that which, 
 to use the words of one of these writers, may 
 ' legitimately and without real loss be conceded 1 .' 
 Conceded, and to whom? To Eduard Reuss 
 and to Graf, to Kuenen and to Wellhausen, and 
 to their followers in this country who adopt, 
 in a greater or less degree, their conclusions. 
 When the contrast has been completed, we will, 
 without entering into any technicalities, let 
 common sense be brought to bear upon the 
 contrast, and endeavour to make a rough but 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 362.
 
 46 CHRTSTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 equitable estimate of the preponderance of the 
 probability which the Traditional view may 
 claim over the Analytical view, and the real 
 insufficiency of the arguments on which this 
 latter view appears principally to rely. This 
 done, we will then make our appeal to far 
 higher and more conclusive authority. 
 
 1. The rectified Traditional view may be con- 
 veniently expressed under the following formu- 
 lated statements. 
 
 We have full reason for believing, 
 i . That the Book of Genesis was compiled by 
 Moses, in its earlier chapters from primeval 
 documents 1 which may have been brought by 
 Abraham from Chaldsea, and in its later chap- 
 ters (except parts of xxxvi.), from family records 
 of a distinctly contemporaneous origin, which 
 we may reasonably believe to have been pre- 
 served in the families of the successive patriarchs 
 as the archives of their race. That these should 
 have been accessible to the divinely appointed 
 
 1 It appears now to be generally admitted that there may 
 have been documents extant at the early date referred to, 
 whether traced in a small character on brick tablets, or 
 otherwise: see Leuormant, Sistoire Ancienne de T Orient, 
 tome i. p. 18, Paris, 1881. See also an interesting article 
 on early writing, ib. pp. 397-450 ; comp. Duncker, History 
 of Antiquity, vol. i. p. 278 (Transl.), Lond., 1877. The cunei- 
 form writing appears to have originally come from the 
 Sumero-Accadians : see Lenormant, ib., tome iv. p. 30.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 47 
 
 leader of the race, himself a man of known 
 learning- J , that he should have arranged them 
 and illustrated them by contemporary notes, is 
 a supposition so reasonable, that, though no more 
 than a supposition, it may be accepted at least as 
 more plausible than any other which has yet 
 been advanced. 
 
 2. That, of the four remaining- Books of the 
 Pentateuch, the first, the Book of Exodus, as 
 the autobiographical character of large portions 
 of it seems clearly to indicate, was written by 
 Moses, or, at least, under his immediate direction 
 and authority. That the Book of Leviticus, as 
 containing the statutes and ordinances for the 
 most part expressly stated to have been revealed 
 to Moses, must, if not actually written by him, 
 have been compiled by authorised scribes under 
 his immediate supervision. That the Book of 
 Numbers, as containing more mixed material, 
 may be considered to have been compiled, in 
 part from the legislative revelation made directly 
 to Moses, in part from contemporary records 
 made by Moses in obedience to God's command 2 , 
 in part from documentary annals including refer- 
 ences to books 3 that may have been compiled 
 
 1 Acts vii. 22. 
 
 z Numb, xxxiii. 2 ; see also Exod. xvii. 14. 
 
 3 Numb. xxi. 14, 21.
 
 48 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR 
 
 during- the lengthened abode in the wilderness, 
 but all, as the tenor of the whole Book, and 
 its concluding verse seem distinctly to imply, 
 under the authority and general oversight of 
 Moses. . . . Finally, that the Book of Deutero- 
 nomy, containing as it does, not without notes 
 of time and place, the addresses of the closing 
 days of the inspired legislator (which we may 
 regard as having been specially recorded and 
 preserved by official writers 1 ), assumed its present 
 form, as one passage seems in some degree to 
 suggest 2 , under the hand of Joshua. 
 
 3. That the Book of Joshua, which is rightly 
 considered by all recent critics as standing in 
 close connexion with the Pentateuch, was simi- 
 larly compiled by some contemporary writer or 
 writers under the direction of Joshua, in part, 
 as the narrative seems to imply, from communi- 
 cations personally made by Joshua, and, in part, 
 from documents and records made at the time by 
 official writers and recorders, of whose existence 
 and employment, even in those early days, we 
 find traces in the Pentateuch. 
 
 4. That the Book of Judges is a compilation, 
 not improbably made by the prophet Samuel, 
 
 1 See Girdlestone, Foundations of the Bible, pp. 21, 24, 
 Lond., 1890. 
 
 a Deut. xxxii. 44,
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 49 
 
 from contemporary records, family memorials, 
 and other existing- materials 1 , commencing- with 
 events recorded in Joshua, and extending-, 
 though not in perfect chronological order, over 
 a period of about 400 years. 
 
 5. That the Books of Samuel and of Kings 
 are compilations consisting in part of the com- 
 positions of contemporary prophets, beginning 
 with Samuel and with Nathan and Gad 2 , and 
 in part of selected materials from official records, 
 sacred and secular, put together, and perhaps 
 added to by seers and prophetical writers 3 , of 
 whom Jeremiah was the last and, as he well 
 may have been, one of the principal con- 
 tributors 4 . 
 
 6. That the Books of Chronicles were a com- 
 pilation, possibly, nay, even probably, by Ezra, 
 made largely from the Books of Kings, or from 
 the documents on which these Books were based, 
 but with abundant references and allusions to 
 nearly all the earlier historical Books including 
 the Pentateuch 5 . 
 
 7. That the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah 
 
 1 See Girdlestone, Foundations of the Bible, pp. 40 sq. 
 Lond., 1890. 
 a I Chron. xxix. 29. 
 
 3 Corup. 2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15 ; xvi. n, al. 
 * See Girdlestone, Foundations of the Bible, p. 35. 
 5 See Girdlestone, pp. 56 sq. 
 
 D
 
 50 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOB. 
 
 were written by the writers whose names they 
 bear 1 , and contain, in part, extracts from 
 official documents and from contemporary re- 
 cords, and also, in part, narratives of personal 
 history. 
 
 8. That the prophetical writings are written 
 by those whose names are, in every case, specified 
 in their writings, and that they contain, in 
 some instances, portions of contemporary history, 
 but that the main element of their writings is 
 distinctly predictive, and has reference to events 
 that belong to what was future and posterior 
 to the time when they were mentioned by the 
 writer. 
 
 9. Lastly, that the historical Books, as we now 
 have them, bear plain and unmistakeable marks 
 of the work having passed through the hands, 
 not only of the early compiler or compilers, but 
 of later editors and revisers, numerous notes, 
 archaeological and explanatory, some obviously of 
 an early, and some of a late date, being found in 
 nearly all the books, but particularly in the more 
 ancient 2 . 
 
 Such would appear to be a fair and correct 
 
 1 Girdlestone, p. 1 2 ; but see Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred 
 Scripture, vol. i. pp. 546 sq., Edinb., 1883. 
 
 2 See especially, Girdlestone, Foundations of the Bible, 
 chap, x, xi, pp. 66-81.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 51 
 
 statement of what we have agreed to term the 
 Traditional view of the historical and prophetic 
 Books of the Old Testament, modified as it now 
 is, and, in some particulars, rectified, by modern 
 research. 
 
 II. We now turn to the opposing- theory, to 
 which we have agreed to give the colourless 
 epithet of ' Analytical,' as claiming to be founded 
 on a searching criticism of the historical Books of 
 the Old Testament, and especially of what is 
 now called the Hexateuch (the Pentateuch and 
 the Book of Joshua) these early Books involv- 
 ing the widest alleged divergences from the 
 formulated statements which have been set forth 
 in the foregoing paragraphs. 
 
 This Analytical view we will first place before 
 the reader in the form now generally adopted by 
 the most acute foreign critics of the Old Testa- 
 ment : we will then pass onward to notice the 
 extent to which they have been accepted by 
 recent writers of our own country and Church. 
 The results that have been thus accepted will 
 unhappily be found to be considerable; but the 
 tone in which they are set forth is widely 
 different from that adopted by the majority of 
 the foreign critics, and is marked by a temperate 
 and reverential spirit which, at any rate, shows 
 some recognition of the momentous issues that 
 D 2
 
 52 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 are involved, and the influence they must exercise 
 on the faith of the general reader of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 The results of the Analytical theory, as arrived 
 at by the most acute foreign critics, may be thus 
 briefly summarised : 
 
 i. That the Old Testament did not assume its 
 present form till a somewhat late date in the 
 period of the Exile. 
 
 3. That the later historical Books, and 
 especially the two Books of Chronicles, disclose 
 methods of constructing history which justify 
 the limited estimate that has been formed of the 
 trustworthiness of the earlier Books, and prepare 
 us for the inferences that have been drawn from 
 a critical investigation of them. 
 
 3. That this critical investigation, in the case 
 of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua (now 
 usually called the Hexateuch), discloses at least 
 three strata of narrative and legislative details, 
 of different dates and distinctive peculiarities, 
 which, after having been revised and re-edited, 
 possibly several times, have at last been not un- 
 skilfully combined in the form in which they 
 have now come down to us. 
 
 4. That the three strata more particularly to 
 be recognised are (#) a History Book, itself 
 composite, as both names of Almighty God
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 53 
 
 (Jehovah and Elohim) are to be found in it, 
 dating from the period of the early kings 
 and prophets ; () the Book of Deuteronomy, 
 compiled in the days of Manasseh or Josiah by 
 some unknown writer, and having- some slight 
 affinity with the above-mentioned History 
 Book ; (c) a document, in its earliest state 
 of perhaps the same date as (#), historical 
 only in form, using throughout the name 
 Elohim, sometimes called the Grundsckrifi or 
 Fundamental Document, sometimes the Book 
 of the Four Covenants, sometimes, though 
 misleadingly, the earlier Elohist, which, after 
 having been carefully revised, became expanded 
 in the time of the Exile into what is called the 
 Priestly Code, its basis being Leviticus and 
 allied portions of Exodus and Numbers 1 . 
 
 5. That the three codes of Law found in the 
 Pentateuch conform to and corroborate this 
 analysis. 
 
 6. That in the present Books of Judges, 
 Samuel, and Kings, we have remodelled history, 
 and a repainting of the original picture 2 on a 
 generally uniform principle 3 , and with some 
 
 1 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, 
 (Transl.),Edinb., 1885. 
 
 ' 2 Wellliausen, pp. 293, 294. 
 3 Ib., p. 277.
 
 54 CHKISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 reference to Deuteronomy l , the accretions and 
 corruptions in the Books of Samuel being- 
 numerous, and especially where the prophet 
 stands in connexion with the history of David 2 ; 
 and the revision of the Books of Kings being 
 also very unrestricted 3 , thoug-h closer to the 
 facts than in Judges or Samuel 4 . 
 
 7. That the Prophets used history as a vehicle 
 for their own ideas 5 ; and that their so-called 
 predictions are only fallible anticipations of the 
 manner in which, according- to their concep- 
 tions, the Deity would,, consistently with the 
 character they ascribed to him, deal with the 
 subjects of His government 6 ; and this, notwith- 
 standing it is admitted that all the writers of 
 the New Testament, and our blessed Lord 
 Himself, ascribe divine foreknowledge to the 
 Israelitish prophets 7 . 
 
 8. That thus, to sum up a few leading 
 results to which we are led by the foregoing 
 statements, we are to regard the Book of 
 Deuteronomy as a fiction, founded it may be on 
 
 1 Wellhausen, p. 280. * Ib., p. 267. 
 
 3 Ib., p. 272. * Ib., p. 277. 
 
 5 Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy, p. 444 (Transl.), Lond., 
 1877. 
 
 6 Muir, Introduction to Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy, 
 p. xxxviii. 
 
 7 Kuenen, p. 448.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 55 
 
 traditions, and of no earlier date probably than 
 the eighteenth year of Josiah ; that the Taber- 
 nacle of Witness, or, as it is now commonly 
 called, the Tent of Meeting, and everything 
 connected with it, had never any existence except 
 in the fabricated history composed in the days 
 of the Exile, and that far from the Tabernacle 
 being the prototype of the Temple, it was the 
 Temple that suggested the deliberate and 
 elaborate fiction of the Tabernacle 1 ; and 
 further, that the older books were remodelled 
 according to the Mosaic form 2 , and that Chron- 
 icles, especially, was falsified by Priests and 
 Levites to sustain the belief that the tribe of 
 Levi had been set apart from the days of Moses 
 and that the Priesthood dated from that time 3 , 
 such a belief being, it is alleged, utterly in- 
 consistent with the truth. 
 
 Such, in brief outline, is the Analytical view 
 of the Old Testament, a view which, I regret to 
 say, has very many supporters, and in Germany 
 is fast becoming the accepted account of the 
 origin and formation of the earlier portion of 
 the Book of Life. That such a view should 
 meet with acceptance in any Christian country 
 is sad enough, and startling enough, but that it 
 
 1 Wellhausen, pp. 37, 39. 3 Ib., 294. 
 
 3 Ib., p. 126 note, 221, 222.
 
 56 CHKISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 should meet with acceptance to a considerable 
 extent at the hands of members of our own 
 Church is full of very sad augury for the future. 
 But it is so. In a carefully written article by 
 one of our University Professors, and in a 
 portion of a recent and well-known collection 
 of theological treatises, the substance of much 
 that has been just specified has been adopted 
 and set forth as a view of the Old Testament that 
 may be consistently maintained by an English 
 Churchman. 
 
 We are told, for example : 
 
 (1) That the earlier narratives before the call 
 of Abraham are of the nature of myth J , myth 
 being defined to be the product of mental 
 activity not yet distinguished into history and 
 poetry and philosophy 2 . 
 
 (2) That the Hexateuch owes its existence 
 to three principal sources, viz. those already 
 specified, the composite History Book, some- 
 times called the prophetical narrative, Deutero- 
 nomy, and the Priests' Code ; the first-mentioned 
 being the oldest, the second belonging to the 
 reign either of Manasseh or Josiah, and the 
 third to the period of the Exile, when the laws, 
 gradually developed out of an earlier and simpler 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 357. s Ib., p. 356.
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 57 
 
 system, were finally formulated in a complete 
 and definite code. 
 
 (3) That the Book of Deuteronomy is a re- 
 publication of the law in the spirit and power 
 of Moses put dramatically into his mouth 1 . 
 
 (4) That the later historical Books are of a 
 composite structure, and present to us the 
 phenomena of older narratives fitted into a 
 compiler's framework 2 ; and, generally, that 
 there is a considerable idealizing element in the 
 Old Testament history 3 . 
 
 (5) That in the Books of Chronicles we must 
 admit unconscious idealizing of history, and a 
 reading back into past records of a ritual de- 
 velopment which is really later 4 . 
 
 (6) That the predictive knowledge of the 
 prophets is general, and of the issue to which 
 things tend ; sometimes, but not usually, a know- 
 ledge of times and of seasons 5 , prophetic inspira- 
 tion being consistent with erroneous anticipations 
 as to the circumstances and the opportunities of 
 God's self-revelation 6 . 
 
 Such are the conclusions with regard to Old 
 Testament criticism which English Churchmen 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 355. 
 
 2 Prof. Driver, in Con temporary Review for Feb. 1 890, p. 216. 
 
 3 Lux Mundi, 354. * Ib., p. 353. 
 
 5 Ib., p. 346 ; but see note, p. 345. 6 Ib., p. 346.
 
 58 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 are advising 1 us to accept. Sucli the sort of 
 compromise, if compromise it can justly be 
 called, which those who stand in the old paths, 
 and substantially hold the Traditional view, are 
 now invited to make with those who maintain 
 in its completeness the Analytical view, as it 
 has been set forth in this Address. 
 
 Now, in the first place, let any fair-minded 
 reader simply set side by side the six statements 
 just made with the eight statements of the 
 Analytical view made a little earlier, and then 
 form his opinion of the relation of the two. 
 And will it not be this ? that the difference in 
 tenor between the two groups of statements is 
 slight ; and that it is impossible to regard the 
 statements of the English writers as otherwise 
 than expressive of a general acceptance of the 
 Analytical view ; modified, it will be observed, 
 in certain details, and minimised, to some extent, 
 in phraseology, but, when thus modified, in no 
 degree approximating to the rectified Traditional 
 view, or to be regarded as a mediating statement 
 between the two theories. 
 
 We have really only two views to place in 
 contrast; but, in doing so, it will be only right 
 and equitable to recognise that we are not 
 justified in imputing to the English advocates 
 of the Analytical view the extreme opinions
 
 THE TWO THEORIES. 59 
 
 which the foreign advocates can be shown, 
 either by direct statement or by necessary 
 inference, indisputably to hold. This, however, 
 may always be said, that the tendency of 
 unbalanced minds, if they accept any modified 
 view, to pass onward into the unmodified, is very 
 patent. The real harm then that has been done 
 by recent English writers lies in the plain fact 
 that they have, though with the very best inten- 
 tions, actually prepared the way for shaken and 
 unstable minds to arrive at results which will at 
 last be found to involve inability to accept the 
 supernatural, and so, a complete shipwreck of 
 the faith. 
 
 These things are sad and serious, and do justify 
 us in inviting these well-intentioned writers 
 to reconsider their whole position, and to ask 
 themselves whether they may not more profit- 
 ably devote their efforts to a guarded rectification, 
 where it may be needed, of the Traditional view, 
 and whether these over-hasty excursions into the 
 Analytical are not full of peril, not only to 
 simple and trustful souls, but even to those 
 in whose interest these adventurous excursions 
 have been made. 
 
 But we must now proceed onward with our 
 general argument. We have set forth, we trust 
 fairly and correctly, the two opposing views,
 
 60 CHEISTUS COMPftOBATOR. 
 
 the rectified Traditional and the Analytical, 
 and also the few real modifications that have 
 been suggested in the latter. We must now 
 put these views to the test, and give full and 
 fair consideration to the two leading arguments 
 which must influence us in our choice between 
 the Old and the New Learning, between tra- 
 dition and critical hypothesis, between his- 
 torical supernaturalism and ultimately natural 
 development, between alleged facts and al- 
 leged myths, between the leading features of the 
 belief of the Jewish and of the Christian Church, 
 and the investigations, confessedly acute and 
 elaborate, of a few distinguished scholars and 
 critics of this last half of the nineteenth century. 
 These two leading arguments we will en- 
 deavour to develop in the next Address, and in 
 those which will follow it. We will first make 
 our appeal to the reasonable and the probable : 
 we will then make that appeal which, if rightly 
 made, must bring to a close all controversy, 
 the appeal to Him to whom the Old Testament 
 bears witness, and whom the New Testament 
 reveals, to Him in whom dwell all the treasures 
 of wisdom and knowledge 1 , the Light of the 
 world as well as the Saviour of the world, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 1 Col. ii. 3.
 
 III. 
 
 THE Two ABGUMENTS. 
 
 WE have now before us the two theories as to 
 the composition of the Old Testament and its 
 appearance in its present form. Both theories 
 relate more particularly to the historical portions, 
 and of these pre-eminently to the earlier Books, 
 as it is upon these Books and the inferences 
 that appear deducible from their structure, that 
 controversy assumes its most emphasized form. 
 
 Into this controversy we must now enter; 
 but it can only be on general and broad issues, 
 the critical discussion of details being- out of 
 place in Addresses of the nature of the present. 
 All we can hope to do is to obtain a clear view 
 of the two estimates that have been formed of the 
 nature of the Old Testament ; to weigh carefully 
 the general arguments which may be advanced 
 on either side ; and finally to set forth clearly the 
 reasons which may appear to justify ua in 
 accepting one, and rejecting the other of the two 
 views of the Old Testament that have now been
 
 f2 CHKISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 placed circumstantially before us. This is a 
 case, it will be observed, in which there can be 
 no compromise in any real sense of the word. 
 Each view may derive some useful details from 
 the mode of development adopted in the view to 
 which it is opposed ; some results arrived at by 
 the one may be accepted by the other, but there 
 is clearly no common ground. On one side we 
 have historical tradition, on the other literary 
 criticism and analysis. Each must justify itself 
 by its appeal to the facts and circumstances of 
 the case, and by its claim to give a more reason- 
 able and probable account of them that can be 
 given by the other, and reason and common- 
 sense must be the arbiters. It is, however, by 
 no means easy, in such intricate and compli- 
 cated questions, so to state the matter that issue 
 may fairly be joined upon it, and the argument 
 conducted in a manner that will be intelligible 
 to the general reader. Still the attempt must 
 be made. 
 
 Perhaps, then, the simplest mode of conducting 
 the controversy will be thus, to narrow the 
 arguments by maintaining the truth of two pro- 
 positions, the one relating to a comparison of 
 probabilities, the other to an alleged fact. If 
 both can be maintained, we shall have good 
 grounds for coming to a distinct decision on the
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 63 
 
 merits of the case. Argument will have been 
 heard on both sides in two forms, and the 
 grounds on which the judgment is arrived at 
 will be laid out fairly and openly. 
 
 We will then, having the two views before 
 us, put forward two general arguments for main- 
 taining the Traditional view as it has been set 
 forth in the foregoing Address. One of these 
 arguments shall form the subject of the present 
 Address ; the other, and more conclusive argu- 
 ment will be set forth in the Addresses that 
 will follow. These two arguments may be briefly 
 gathered up in the two following statements : 
 
 A. That the Traditional view is intrinsically 
 more probable than the Analytical view. 
 
 B. That the Traditional view can, with every 
 appearance of probability, claim the authority of 
 our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. 
 
 The first of these statements, into which we 
 may now at once enter, suggests at the very out- 
 set some sort of general comparison between the 
 two views, without which we can hardly ap- 
 preciate the more detailed considerations that 
 will follow. Any careful comparison will be 
 found to show that the two views differ (a) in 
 the fundamental presupposition on which each 
 rests ; (b] in the general character that each 
 presents of the Old Testament history ; (c] in the
 
 64 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 design and purpose which each view seems un- 
 mistakeably to indicate as pervading- and con- 
 ditioning the history. 
 
 (a) Of these three fundamental differences, we 
 have already alluded to the first. It is this 
 momentous difference,' that the Traditional view 
 presupposes the supernatural and miraculous, 
 and deals with its manifestations without any 
 apparent consciousness that they could ever be 
 supposed to suggest untrustworthiness in the 
 narrative. In the Analytical view, as we well 
 know, it is utterly different. Some of the advo- 
 cates of this view, as we know from their own 
 language, assume from the very first a natural- 
 istic basis, and regard the miraculous as the 
 most certain indication of the unhistorical and 
 untrustworthy, or, as the newly-coined phrase- 
 ology describes it, of idealized history. Others 
 adopt more modified views, and either minimise, 
 as far as trustworthiness will seem to permit, 
 the miraculous occurrences mentioned generally 
 in the Old Testament, or, at any rate, dispose of 
 the first eleven chapters of Genesis as a product 
 of mental activity, not yet distinguished into 
 history and poetry 1 , or in other words as 
 mythical^ 
 
 1 See Lux Mundi, p. 356 (Ed. x), and comp. Pref. to Ed. 
 X. p. xxviii. note.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 65 
 
 As this last is one of the assertions of the modi- 
 fied Analytical school, let us briefly consider it. 
 
 Mythical, in any ordinary sense of the word, 
 these chapters certainly are not. That they con- 
 tain ancient, and, as their characteristics appear 
 to indicate, trustworthy traditions 2 , we may feel 
 disposed to admit : nay, we may go so far as to 
 believe that they were committed at a very early 
 period to writing-, and, not improbably under 
 two forms, were, with other early documents, in 
 the hands of Moses, and were used by him in 
 the compilation of the Book of Genesis. This we 
 may admit ; and for this there would seem to be 
 some amount of evidence. Nearly all the most 
 important matters in those chapters have ap- 
 peared in similar forms in the traditions of 
 some ancient nations but with this striking 
 and most suggestive difference, that the 
 Hebrew record alone maintains, and in every 
 particular is permeated by, an unchanged and 
 unchanging monotheism 2 , and further, alone 
 
 1 This word must not be misunderstood, as if it were 
 merely synonymous with ' myth ' or with ' legend/ As here 
 used it means teaching that might not yet have been em- 
 bodied in writing, though this embodiment probably took 
 place (in this case) far sooner than has commonly been sup- 
 posed : comp. Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne de V Orient, 
 tome i. p. 1 8 (Paris, 1881). 
 
 3 The presence of this, not only in the early, but in the 
 E
 
 66 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR, 
 
 puts forward a true ethical conception of sin 
 and its consequences 1 . 
 
 What we have then in these remarkable 
 chapters is a manifestation of a selective inspi- 
 ration, under which it may be, in the first 
 instance, the Father of the faithful bore away 
 with him from Chaldsea the early and truthful 
 form of the primeval tradition, a form that at 
 a later period, under the providence of God. was 
 to pass under the inspired revision of that first 
 great prophet 2 , who wrote of his Lord, and to 
 whom we owe these earliest pages of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 To speak of them as mythical is misleading, 
 and, however ingeniously explained away, incon- 
 sistent with the generally received meaning of 
 the word. 
 
 But to return : we have shown that the Tradi- 
 tional view and the Analytical view differ in 
 their fundamental presuppositions. That they 
 should also differ in the general character they 
 
 patriarchal history, is to Prof. Kuenen a reason for regarding 
 even the patriarchal narrative as unhistorical : see Religion 
 of Israel, vol. i. p. 107 sq. (Transl.), Lond. 1874. 
 
 1 Traces have been thought to exist in Mazdeism, but it 
 does not seem to amount to more than a recognition of 
 a final retribution : see Spiegel, Erdnische Alter thumskunde, 
 vol. ii. p. 149 sq. (Leipz. 1877). 
 
 2 Comp. John v. 46.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 67 
 
 present of the Old Testament history, and of the 
 ultimate design which they ascribe to it, seems 
 to follow almost as a necessary consequence. It 
 will be well, however, briefly to illustrate each of 
 these further particulars, as they prepare us, 
 from the very first, to recognise the essential and 
 fundamental differences between the two views 
 which we shall afterwards more particularly set 
 in contrast. 
 
 (6) According to the Traditional view the 
 character of the Old Testament history is per- 
 fectly natural and simple. It begins with what 
 may be termed the preliminary and prehistoric. 
 It speedily passes into family history, presenting 
 each leading character with a freshness that seems 
 to tell of contemporary recording, and of a 
 studious preservation of archives, which the 
 growing consciousness of a great and divinely 
 ordered future seemed age after age more dis- 
 tinctly to prescribe. The family history in the 
 fulness of time passes into national history ; the 
 laws that are to bind the nation together are 
 enunciated, and afterwards supplemented, when 
 the entry of the nation into the promised land 
 seemed to require final additions and enhance- 
 ments. The stream of national history is still 
 represented as flowing onward, but under just 
 such limitations as the tribal separations and the 
 3
 
 68 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 apportioned settlements in a newly occupied and 
 hostile country would be certain to involve. So, 
 for four hundred years, the national history 
 reflects the existing- state of the national life, 
 and we have in the Book of Judges just the 
 brief and epitomised record which seems exactly 
 to correspond with the circumstances. With 
 the establishment of the monarchy we pass into 
 a different stratum of the national history. The 
 contemporaneous nature of the record becomes 
 again more patent and defined, and the history 
 of the Covenant people more completely answer- 
 ing to the character which is to be traced through- 
 out of simplicity, fidelity, and truth. Such at 
 least is the character which the Traditional view 
 seems to present to us of the Old Testament 
 history. 
 
 But it is otherwise when we pass to the 
 Analytical view. The character of the history 
 presented to us is widely different. The simpli- 
 city which we have seemed to trace in it dis- 
 appears. In its earlier portions it is, according to 
 the theory, highly composite. In its succeeding 
 portions it has become, we are assured, remodelled, 
 interpolated, and rehandled ; and we have no 
 longer to do with the various elements of the 
 unfolding story of a nation, but. almost exclu- 
 sively, with the efforts of a priestly party, which,
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 69 
 
 at a late period of the national history, were all 
 concentrated on representing- the past as authen- 
 ticating- the present, a present when national 
 independence was fast ceasing to exist. 
 
 (<?) And if the character of the history, under 
 the two views, is thus widely different, so ob- 
 viously will it be with its purpose and design. 
 Under the Traditional view the whole object of 
 the narrative is to set forth the history of the 
 Covenant people, and God's dealings with the 
 nation from which, as according to the flesh, the 
 Saviour of the world was to come. Under the 
 Analytical view all this becomes subordinated 
 to the one dominant principle of establishing 
 the priestly code, and consolidating priestly 
 authority. All the history of the past has to be 
 modified accordingly ; its deep and persistent 
 purpose becomes clouded, if not obliterated, and 
 a purpose placed in the foreground which tends 
 to alter our whole estimate of the essential 
 character of Old Testament history. 
 
 These considerations alone would seem suffi- 
 cient to lead us to decide in favour of that 
 estimate of the Old Testament history which 
 the Traditional view seems distinctly to embody. 
 We must not however forget that against this 
 Traditional view, plausible as it certainly is, and 
 maintained as it has been from the very time
 
 70 CHRISTUS COMPEOBATOB. 
 
 when the Old Testament canon was closed, 
 there are objections which cannot be over- 
 looked, objections, to the reality of the force of 
 which, the Analytical view owes in great measure 
 the reception it has met with. These objections 
 have emanated, comparatively in recent times, 
 from the critical investigations of some of the 
 most acute and disciplined minds in Europe, 
 and must claim from every candid reader of the 
 Old Testament a full and attentive consideration. 
 This, however, must be borne in mind, that some 
 of the early objections made to the Traditional 
 view do not apply to the rectified form as speci- 
 fied in the second Address. For example, in the 
 Traditional view in its unmodified form, Moses 
 was regarded as the inspired writer of the whole 
 of the Pentateuch. This was distinctly invali- 
 dated by the almost certain fact that two or 
 more narratives, different in style and phraseo- 
 logy, must be recognised in Genesis, and may be 
 recognised, to some extent, in the Books that 
 follow. This, in the rectified Traditional view, 
 is admitted, as far as the Book of Genesis is 
 concerned, and Moses is claimed only as the 
 compiler of it from pre-existing materials, those 
 pre-existing- materials being- of very ancient 
 date, bearing unmistakeably the indications of a 
 divinely inspired selection, and, as we have
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 71 
 
 already said, having been probably brought by 
 Abraham from Chalda?a. On this and similar 
 objections, important as they were at the time, 
 we need not now dwell any further. We have 
 simply to acknowledge that here not only was 
 modern criticism right, but that we owe to it, 
 in this particular, clearer views of the structure 
 of one portion of the Old Testament. 
 
 I. But it is not so when we pass on to 
 the other leading objections against the Tra- 
 ditional view which we must now fairly con- 
 sider. 
 
 i. It is maintained that large portions of the 
 ritual and ceremonial laws which we find, es- 
 pecially in Leviticus and Numbers (of Deutero- 
 nomy we shall speak separately afterwards), 
 cannot possibly owe their authorship to Moses, 
 that they are far too minute to have formed a 
 part of the desert legislation, and must be re- 
 ferred to a much later period of the national 
 history. 
 
 In this objection there is plainly considerable 
 force, a force which any candid mind must 
 feel when reference is made to such a solemn 
 portion, for example, of the Mosaic legislation 
 as that which is described as the Book of the 
 Covenant 1 , containing as it does the words 
 
 1 Exocl. xxiv. 7. This portion appears to extend from
 
 72 CHBISTTJS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 spoken by God (Elohim) to Moses, with asso- 
 ciated judgments (Exod. xxi-xxiii), read in the 
 hearing of the people (ch. xxiv. 7), and solemnly 
 accepted by them (ib.). In this Book of the 
 Covenant we certainly find, in apparently close 
 connexion with the Decalogue, judgments con- 
 taining, not only matter of great moral and 
 religious importance, but precepts that we 
 might at first sight regard as of a very trivial 
 nature. How are we to account for such an 
 association, and that too in a portion of Scrip- 
 ture where we might a priori expect to find 
 nothing but what was of fundamental signifi- 
 cance? Two answers seem to suggest them- 
 selves : the one, that these apparently trivial 
 matters are specified as illustrations of the wide 
 ethical bearing to which the primary command- 
 ments were to be understood to extend ; the 
 other, that the apparently incongruous elements 
 were really additions made at a much later 
 period, at one of the so-called re-editings or 
 revisions through which it is admitted in the 
 Traditional view that the Pentateuch and other 
 historical Books did probably pass. 
 
 chap. xx. to chap, xxiv, inclusive. It has been doubted 
 whether the Decalogue is to be included in the Book of 
 the Covenant. Prof. Ladd cites in favour of the inclusion, 
 Exod. xxiv. 28 ; Deut. iv. 13 : see Doctrine of Sacred Scrip- 
 ture, vol. i. p. 100 note (Edinb. 1883).
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 73 
 
 Without attempting to decide between these 
 two forms of answer to the objection, this cer- 
 tainly may be said, that there does not seem 
 anything unreasonable in the supposition that 
 later observances, ritual and ceremonial, may 
 have been annexed to the fundamental Mosaic 
 ordinances, and that the Law-Book, especially 
 in its less mportant details, may have grown, as 
 we know the Psalm-Book did grow, in the later 
 period of Jewish history. The objection above 
 alluded to is certainly of considerable force, 
 but it does not lie beyond the reach of what 
 may be fairly regarded as reasonable and pro- 
 bable explanation 1 . 
 
 2. A second important objection is also to be 
 recognised in the apparent fact that, in the 
 long period that ensued between the entry into 
 Canaan and the times of the earlier kings, we 
 find no traces of the observance of regulations 
 of the Mosaic law, even in those particulars 
 which seemed to be prescribed with great legis- 
 lative stringency, as, for example, the appear- 
 ing before the Lord at the three great festivals 2 . 
 
 The general answer seems reasonable, that 
 
 1 See Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 
 536 sq. 
 
 " See Exod. xxiii. 14-17. This and other allied objections 
 are dealt with by Dr. Hodgkin in his short but admirable 
 Essay, Old Testament Criticism, pp. 18 sqq. (Lond. 1890).
 
 74 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 when we take into consideration the circum- 
 stances of the occupation of Canaan, and the 
 utterly different state of things between the 
 national union of the wilderness, and the sharply 
 defined local separations in Canaan, we may 
 realise, not only how likely it was, but even 
 how certain it was, that many laws would 
 remain in abeyance, and would only pass out 
 of that state when the national union became 
 again more of a reality ; and when, by the 
 establishment of a theocratic centre, the neces- 
 sarily suspended ordinances could by degrees 
 be put into use and complied with. In regard 
 of the particular law above alluded to, it is 
 certainly very worthy of notice that in the 
 chapter in Leviticus (xxiii.) in which mention 
 is made of the great festivals, they are spoken 
 of as ' holy Convocations ' l , without, however, 
 any indication of pilgrimages to some one ap- 
 pointed place being included in the expression. 
 Here again the objection, though at first sight 
 of a serious nature, becomes greatly modified 
 when such an absence of any mention of a 
 definite locality and other circumstances of the 
 case are taken fully into account. Much more 
 might be said, but the nature of these Ad- 
 dresses does not permit us to enter far into the 
 1 Lev. xxiii. 37.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 75 
 
 details of these complicated questions. Let this 
 particular objection be urged in the strongest 
 possible form, this answer will always remain, 
 That there is ngthing inconceivable in divinely- 
 guided legislation taking into its purview 
 a period and a state of things in which 
 its regulations both could be, and would be, 
 complied with. It was ' by a prophet that the 
 Lord brought Israel up out of Egypt V 
 
 3. A third general objection to the Traditional 
 view, whether in its rectified or its unrectified 
 form, may also be alluded to. It is the very 
 broad and sweeping objection that the Old 
 Testament history is so honey-combed with 
 anachronisms 2 , contradictions, repetitions, and 
 inconsistencies of every varied form, that a 
 view of its composition such as that which is 
 embodied in the Traditional view, must at once 
 be set aside by every critical student of the 
 Old Testament as utterly outworn and un- 
 tenable. 
 
 That it is so regarded by an increasing 
 number of foreign critics, and by some English 
 writers, must, we regret to say, be frankly ad- 
 
 1 Hosea xii. 13. 
 
 2 A patent anachronism, very often alluded to, is said cer- 
 tainly to exist in Gen. xxxvi. 31. Even here however there 
 is something to be said on the other side : see Delitzsch, Neiv 
 Commentary on Genesis, vol. ii. 247 (Transl.), Edinb. 1889.
 
 76 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 mitted ; but it may be fairly said, on the other 
 side, that the more the Old Testament history 
 is carefully and impartially considered, the 
 more plain does it become that the tenor of 
 the objection we are now considering is not in 
 harmony with the true facts of the case. The 
 true facts of the case are as follows : first, that 
 only a very small proportion of the alleged 
 anachronisms and contradictions has really been 
 proved to exist; and secondly, that assuming 
 as a fact that such a proportion does exist, its 
 presence can very reasonably be accounted for. 
 Let us remember that we have recognised in 
 several cases the existence of ancient documents 
 out of which the history has been compiled, and 
 further, scattered through all the earlier Books, 
 the presence of explanatory and illustrative 
 notes, some of which may have been inserted 
 at a very early period. The process of compila- 
 tion and the nature of some of the notes will 
 help largely in accounting for the appearance 
 of several of the more patent anachronisms and 
 contradictions. Repetitions must be expected 
 where two or more ancient records were before 
 the compiler, and where the combination was 
 effected in some cases by a simple juxta-position 
 of the documents, rather than by that critical 
 fusion of the contents which we now associate
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 77 
 
 with the idea of carefully worked-out history. 
 Lastly, let it be remembered that the narrative 
 of the Old Testament has obviously passed 
 through the hands of a few successive editors, 
 and that it would be simply contrary to all ex- 
 perience not to find that such procedures had 
 imported some amount of divergences and in- 
 consistencies. When we take into account all 
 these circumstances connected with the Sacred 
 narrative, our surprise must be, not that we 
 seem to find these alleged difficulties in certain 
 portions of the history, but that the number of 
 the difficulties which may claim to have a real 
 existence are really so few. 
 
 II. But we must now pass to the other side of 
 the controversy. Hitherto we have considered the 
 more important objections that have been urged 
 against the Traditional view. Can it be said 
 that the Analytical view presents no equal or 
 greater difficulties ? This it would seem by no 
 means easy to maintain. It does seem hard 
 to believe that for more than two thousand 
 years the Jewish Church and the Christian 
 Church have been wrong in their general 
 views of the composition of the Old Testament, 
 and especially of the nature and character of 
 the Mosaic legislation. Can we regard it as 
 possible that the labours of a handful of scholars
 
 78 CHRISTUS COMPROBA.TOR. 
 
 and critics, mainly in the latter half of the nine- 
 teenth century, either now have effected, or will 
 effect, a valid reversal of a judgment on the Old 
 Testament which till lately could appeal to the 
 criterion of St. Vincent of Lerins, and point to 
 the counter-signatures of ages of acceptance. 
 But we need not pause on this speculative diffi- 
 culty, as the practical difficulties involved in the 
 theory itself will be found to be quite enough 
 to enable us to form a judgment on its validity. 
 We may now proceed to consider a few of the 
 leading objections to the Analytical view of 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 i. The first objection we have to urge is a 
 general objection which has been fairly ex- 
 pressed by Professor Ladd when he reminds us 
 that the modern theory we are how considering 
 ' leaves the earlier formative and fundamental 
 periods of the history of Israel almost com- 
 pletely without a literature, in order that it 
 may concentrate all the productive energies of 
 the nation in the age of Ezra V We are per- 
 mitted to believe that there were some .floating 
 records, Jehovistic and Elohistic, in the days of 
 the early kings, but when we enquire how far we 
 can rely upon them as containing trustworthy 
 
 1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 531, Edinb. 
 1883.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 79 
 
 information, either as regards early history or 
 early legislation, we are told by one leading 
 representative l of the Analytical view that we 
 cannot regard such a history as that of Abra- 
 ham and the patriarchs, even in its principal 
 facts, as truly historical, on account of the pure 
 and elevated religious views that are found in 
 it ; and, in effect, by another, that the laws 
 that really belong to the Mosaic age are so few 
 as to bear no comparison with the general bulk 
 of the legislation 2 . Now against such views the 
 objections seem really insurmountable. Can 
 we possibly set aside, as we are invited to do, 
 the vivid history of the patriarchs as mythical, 
 or as the product of conflicting traditions, 
 simply because they involve pure ideas of in- 
 ward religion and spiritual piety ? Or again, 
 can we conceive it possible that the countless 
 laws and interlying history which we have been 
 accustomed to associate with the Mosaic period 
 were, after all, simply due to the productive 
 activity of an age separated by wide centuries 
 from the time of the alleged facts ? Is it too 
 much to say that thus to crush into the period 
 
 1 Professor Kuenen : see above, note 2, p. 65. 
 
 2 On the alleged mass of legislative matter that owes its 
 origin entirely to the Priestly Code, see Wellhausen, Pro- 
 legomena to the History of Israel, p. 342 sqq. (Transl.), 
 Edinb. 1885.
 
 80 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 of the Exile this really vast amount of fabri- 
 cated legislation and re-written history is so 
 preposterous as to constitute an objection which 
 the very circumstances of the case must show 
 to be not only valid and reasonable, but practi- 
 cally insuperable. 
 
 2. Closely allied with this objection is a second 
 of scarcely less force and validity, viz. that the 
 Analytical view obscures, almost to obliteration, 
 the work, influence, and even the very per- 
 sonality, of Moses. According to the Tradi- 
 tional view, Moses is not only the divinely 
 commissioned leader of the people, but is 
 throughout the watchful and inspired legis- 
 lator, speaking with the authority of God, 
 enunciating during the long period in the wil- 
 derness laws, not only for the varying circum- 
 stances of the present, but, with prophetic 
 foresight, for the whole future of the Covenant 
 people, laws which, even when they were 
 enunciated, might have been dimly felt to be 
 applicable only to distant days and utterly 
 changed circumstances, but were to form the 
 chart, as it were, of national development. In 
 the Analytical view, on the contrary, Moses 
 passes almost into a shadow, and his legislation 
 into a few primal laws and a few covenant 
 obligations. He is admitted to have conducted
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 81 
 
 the Exodus ; for this, in the face of the utter- 
 ances of the early prophets, modern criticism 
 dare not deny, but this is practically all that is 
 left to us of one whom all the traditions, his- 
 tory, and literature of Israel regard as the great 
 prophet who was the founder of the national 
 greatness, and whom every law, rightly or 
 wrongly, claimed as, under God, its author and 
 origin. The actual Moses of the Analytical 
 view is some unknown person or persons who 
 lived ages afterwards in the declining days of 
 the Exile. Does not common sense itself protest 
 against such an absolute inversion of all his- 
 torical testimony and all historical credibility? 
 
 3. A subsidiary objection of the same ultimate 
 tenor as the foregoing is involved in the refusal 
 to recognise Deuteronomy as owing its author- 
 ship, in anything like its present form, to him 
 who speaks in it, in its opening chapters, in his 
 own person, and whose words and ordinances it 
 professes to record Moses the man of God l , 
 whom the Lord knew face to face 2 . This re- 
 fusal is now assumed far too hastily and too 
 triumphantly to be so patently justified by the 
 whole character of the Book as scarcely to need 
 any argument. It is admitted that the sub- 
 stance may have been Mosaic, and even that some 
 
 1 Deut. xxxiii. i. 2 Ib. xxxiv. 10.
 
 82 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 ancient written documents l may have formed 
 the basis of this vivid and remarkable work ; 
 but, that it was constructed or, as the phrase 
 runs, 'dramatised,' by some unknown writer in 
 the days of Josiah, is one of those ' established 
 results ' of modern criticism which it is deemed 
 to be simply hopeless to deny. In a word, no 
 other belief is to be open to us than this, that 
 Deuteronomy is simply a republication of the 
 law, some six or seven centuries after its first 
 publication, made by this unknown writer 'in 
 the spirit and power' of Moses, and put dra- 
 matically into his mouth 2 . 
 
 The objections to such a view are clearly 
 overpowering 1 . In the first place, the claims 
 that the Book itself makes as to its authorship 
 are too distinct and too numerous to be set aside 
 in any other way than by ascribing- conscious 
 fraud to the republisher, and a deliberate misuse 
 of the name of the legislator. Early in the 
 Book, Moses is described as declaring the law 
 that follows 3 , and appears in the first person as 
 the narrator of the marvellous and providential 
 story. Towards the close the same statement 
 
 1 See Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 529 
 (Edinb. 1883). 
 
 " Lux Mundi, p. 355 (ed. x). 
 3 Deut. i. 5 ; comp. ch. v. I.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 83 
 
 is reiterated l . Nay, more, it is expressly said 
 that Moses wrote the foregoing law and deli- 
 vered it unto the priests, and unto all the elders 
 of Israel 2 , and the statement is repeated in lan- 
 guage even more definite and precise. Written 
 the words were, and written ' in a book ' 3 ; and 
 the words that were written embodied the 
 covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to 
 make with the children of Israel at the close of 
 their long wanderings in the wilderness. And 
 then, as if it were to authenticate all, Moses 
 adds his sublime parting psalm 4 , and concludes 
 with his benediction on the tribes that were 
 then about to enter into the long promised 
 heritage 5 . If any words can conclusively con- 
 nect a book with its author these words are 
 verily to be found in the Book of Deuteronomy. 
 If these words are not the words of Moses, then 
 it is only by literary jugglery and a real misuse 
 of words that the unknown writer can be cleared 
 of the charge of representing his own words as 
 the ipsissima verba of another, or, to use plain 
 terms, of conscious fiction. 
 
 The importance and especially serious nature 
 of these considerations will be seen in a later 
 Address. 
 
 1 Deut. xxix. I. 2 Ib. xxxi. 9. 
 
 3 Ib. xxxi. 24. 4 Ib. xxxi. 30. 
 
 * Ib. xxxiii. 3. 
 
 P 2
 
 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 4. Other objections in details may easily be 
 added, such, for example, as the really pre- 
 posterous conception that the elaborate descrip- 
 tion of the Tabernacle was simply due to the 
 imagination and invention of the legislator of 
 the Exile *, or that the writer of Chronicles deli- 
 berately falsified the Books of Samuel and 
 Kings 2 , when the supposition is certainly as 
 reasonable as it is charitable that this much 
 maligned writer was only guilty of using other 
 sources then extant which might have differed 
 in details from the Books of Samuel and of 
 Kings. Objections of this nature to the as- 
 sumptions of the Analytical view might be 
 multiplied almost indefinitely, but in an Ad- 
 dress such as the present we can only notice 
 the broader and more striking objections, and 
 so we may close with an objection which, if not 
 applicable to all the supporters of the Analytical 
 view may yet be urged very strongly against 
 one of the two main supporters of this unproved 
 and unprovable theory. The objection is this, 
 that the elimination of the purely predictive 
 element from the prophets of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and the resolution of what is commonly 
 
 1 See Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, 
 pp. 38 sqq., (Transl.) Edinb. 1885. 
 
 2 Wellhausen, ib. chap. vi. pp. 173 sqq.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 85 
 
 understood as prophecy into sagacious calcula- 
 tion of what might probably take place, is 
 absolutely irreconcileable with the numerous 
 instances in which the prophet does plainly, to 
 use a prophet's own words, tell of events 'be- 
 fore they spring forth 1 .' 
 
 This objection few will deny to be of a most 
 real and most valid nature. If we are to deny 
 the existence of the purely predictive element 
 in the prophets of the Old Testament, we must 
 be prepared to deny the existence of any bond 
 of ethical unity between the two Testaments. 
 Messianic anticipations become an illusion, and 
 the teaching oflhe dear Lord Himself fallibility 
 and error 2 . We are in the dreaiy realm of 
 absolute naturalism. It may be said that few 
 in this country are prepared to follow the Ley- 
 den professor to such lengths as this. We may 
 hope that it is so. There are, however, it is 
 to be feared, tendencies to minimise the pre- 
 dictive that may be traced in many of the 
 writings of our own country. We are told, for 
 example, that the predictive knowledge is of 
 the issue to which things tend 3 . This it cer- 
 
 1 Isaiah xlii. 9. 
 
 3 Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 547, 
 (Transl.) Lend. 1877. 
 3 Lux Mundi, p. 346 (ed. x). It is only just to the writer
 
 86 CHHISTUS COMPBOBATOR. 
 
 tainly is, but it is much more than this. And 
 it is this ' much more ' than we may often per- 
 ceive to be consciously or unconsciously mini- 
 mised, until, of the two elements of all genuine 
 prophecy, the ethical and the predictive, the 
 second becomes more and more evanescent. It 
 is, in fact, only an illustration of that anti- 
 supernatural current of thought which is now 
 stealing- silently but steadily into the theology 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Such are some of the leading- objections which 
 may be urged against the Analytical view. 
 When compared with the objections against the 
 Traditional view which have bffen already spe- 
 eitied, it will be admitted, I think, by any one 
 who will candidly consider the two classes of 
 objections, that the objections against the Ana- 
 lytical view are of a more fundamental nature 
 than those that have been urged against the 
 Traditional view. The latter class rest more on 
 difficulties in detail ; the former on difficulties 
 in regard of general principles. On such mat- 
 ters, however, minds will differ to the very end 
 of time. Where definite proofs cannot be ob- 
 tained and only probabilities balanced against 
 
 to say that, though the expression used is unsatisfactory, the 
 note on p. 345 shows that he seeks to strengthen the evidence 
 of detailed prophecies.
 
 THE TWO ARGUMENTS. 87 
 
 probabilities, the individual writer can do little 
 more than express his own deliberate judgment. 
 That judgment will certainly be biased, the bias 
 being due to the extent and degree of the recog- 
 nition of the supernatural. Each side claims to 
 have cumulative evidence in its favour. Each 
 side claims the right of rectifying former opinions. 
 To this last-mentioned claim no objection can 
 be made ; but this certainly may be urged, that 
 the rectifications on the part of the supporters 
 of the Analytical view are far more continuous 
 and persistent than the rectifications made by 
 those who are advocates of the Traditional view. 
 Such continuous rectifications, however, ought 
 not to be found fault with, still less ought they 
 to be made the subject of controversial banter 1 . 
 They are, at any rate, honest admissions of 
 over-hasty generalisations, and, as sucn, deserve 
 to be respected. The effect, however, is unfa- 
 vourable to the acceptance of the principles to 
 which they are applied, and suggests the doubt 
 whether finality has yet been arrived at, and 
 whether present results, about which so much 
 undue confidence has been expressed, may not 
 undergo still further rectifications. 
 
 Putting all these considerations together, we 
 seem justified in expressing the strong convic- 
 1 As in Cave, Battle of the Standpoints, pp. 44 sqq.
 
 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 tion that the thesis which we have endeavoured 
 to maintain in this Address has been main- 
 tained, and that the Traditional view is in- 
 trinsically more probable than the Analytical 
 view.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE APPEAL TO C HEIST. 
 
 WE now turn to an argument of a very 
 different nature. Hitherto we have considered 
 the details of opposing 1 theories, and the facts 
 on which the two modes of regarding- the Old 
 Testament claim respectively to be based. We 
 now turn to a final Authority. We now make our 
 appeal to the Great Teacher, and aver that the 
 view which we have, thus far, shown to be the 
 more probable of the two, on the merits of the case, 
 can, with every appearance of probability, claim 
 His approving authority, and that the Tradi- 
 tional view of the Old Testament can, for its 
 justification, appeal to the teaching of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 But here, at the very outset, two of the 
 gravest possible questions present themselves, 
 and must, as far as we can do so, be answered 
 in the present Address J . 
 
 1 This Address was written prior to the appearance of an 
 important article in the Church Quarter y Review for 
 October 1891, entitled 'Our Lord's Knowledge as Man,' to 
 which the student's attention may be particularly directed. 
 It may be added that a careful review of Lux Mundi will be 
 found in the same valuable periodical for April 1890 : see 
 also the number for October 1890, p. 219.
 
 90 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 The first question is this, Have we a right 
 to make such an appeal ? Is the subject of the 
 composition and of the historical credibility of 
 the Books of the Old Testament a subject on 
 which we can, with propriety, appeal to the 
 teaching- of our blessed Lord ? 
 
 The second question is a more difficult one, 
 and may be thus formulated : Does the 
 doctrine of the Two Natures permit us to 
 ascribe to our Lord in His human nature an 
 intuitive and unerring knowledge in matters 
 relating to the Old Testament which belong to 
 the general domain of research and criticism ? 
 Or, to put this really momentous question in 
 another form, Was the limitation of our Lord's 
 humanity, and the degree of what is technically 
 called His Kenosis, of such a nature that His 
 knowledge in regard of the authorship and 
 composition of the Books of the Old Testament 
 was no greater than that of the masters of 
 Israel of His own time? 
 
 Till these two questions, the one relating to 
 the rightfulness of the appeal, the other, to the 
 validity of the appeal, in reference to the Old 
 Testament, are fully answered, it is waste of 
 time for us to investigate those individual 
 passages which may appear likely to form a 
 secure basis for our inferences as to the teaching
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 91 
 
 of our Lord on the nature and authority of the 
 Old Testament. Let us beg-in then with the 
 first question, Is such an appeal proper and 
 permissible ? 
 
 i. At first sight it might seem unnecessary 
 to enter into such a question at all. Who 
 could doubt that it is proper and permissible ? 
 When we pause for a moment to recall the 
 plain fact that our blessed Lord either cites or 
 refers to passages in the Old Testament Scriptures 
 probably more than four hundred times l , and 
 when we further remember that in many of 
 these He speaks of the Old Testament in a 
 direct and definite manner, the question of St. 
 Peter 2 seems to rise to our lips, and we ask to 
 whom can we go for guidance save to Him Who 
 has the words of eternal life, and Who not only 
 before His resurrection, but after it, in His 
 holy risen body 3 , made the Old Testament and 
 its relation to Himself the subject of His inspired 
 teaching. When we call this to mind it does 
 
 1 A full list of the passages in the Gospels in which our 
 Lord either cites from or refers to the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures will be found in Archdeacon Denison's Speech in Convo- 
 cation, pp. 33-39 (Lond. 1891). If we exclude passages that 
 are found hi more than one of the Gospels, the number of 
 passages and references would appear to be fully what is 
 stated in the text. 
 
 2 John vi. 68. 3 Luke xxiv. 27, 45.
 
 92 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 seem strange that we should have to pause and 
 vindicate the rightfulness of such an appeal as 
 that which we are now preparing- to make. If 
 those that labour and are heavy laden are 
 invited by Christ to come to Him J , surely those 
 who are in doubt and difficulty as to the 
 nature of an integral portion of God's Holy 
 Word may come to Him, nay, must come 
 to Him, if they are to hope to find rest for 
 their souls. I should hardly have dwelt on 
 this had it not been stated by one of our 
 Bishops to a body like that which I am now 
 addressing 2 that he objected on fundamental 
 grounds to the argument that if our Lord Jesus 
 Christ has virtually asserted a certain character 
 for a certain writing, there is no appeal from 
 His verdict. If the objection to the argument 
 were really valid, then an appeal to the authority 
 of our blessed Lord might be useless and out 
 of place. But is not the argument objected to 
 perfectly sound ? It is not certain that in the 
 case supposed there is no appeal. Surely there 
 
 1 Matth. xi. 28. In this passage the reference is not so 
 much to the labours and burdens of life generally, as to the 
 soul-troubles arising from the burdensomeness of Pharisaic 
 teaching, and its inability to remove the oppression of the 
 consciousness of sin : see Meyer in loc. 
 
 2 Charge of the Bishop of Carlisle, as reported in The 
 Guardian of July 23, 1890, p. 1163.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 93 
 
 can be no appeal, unless we are prepared to take 
 up the startling- position that virtual assertions 
 of Christ are to be considered open to challenge. 
 
 What is meant by a virtual assertion ? 
 
 If it means that it is an assertion in an indirect 
 rather than a direct form, then, in the case of 
 Jesus Christ, it plainly cannot be challenged, 
 unless we can bring ourselves to believe (which 
 God forbid) that the indirect assertions of Chrisb 
 may involve fallibility owing to the limitations 
 of His human nature. What may be challenged 
 is whether, in what our Lord says, there is a 
 virtual assertion at all. This, in any particular 
 case, may be deemed fairly open to enquiry and 
 investigation, and when we deal with particular 
 cases, as we shall do in the two following 
 Addresses, then the utmost care will be taken 
 not to claim as virtual assertions what the words, 
 critically examined, may not distinctly evince 
 to be such. But if, on critical investigation, it 
 seems beyond reasonable controversy that a 
 virtual assertion is made, then that assertion, if 
 we have every reason to believe that the words 
 are correctly reported, whether it relates to 
 doctrine, ethics, or to questions relating to the 
 authority or credibility of the Old Testament, 
 is certainly to be deemed conclusive and incon- 
 trovertible.
 
 94 CHRIST US COM PROS ATOR. 
 
 We cannot then consider that the exception 
 taken to the argument above alluded to can in 
 any degree affect the confidence with which we 
 may appeal to Christ in reference to the nature 
 and authority of the Old Testament. Not only 
 may we appeal but we ought to appeal. What 
 we especially need in these complicated questions, 
 and in the discussion of the subtleties of argu- 
 ment involved in the Analytical view, is the 
 steadying element which a careful consideration 
 of the tenor of our Lord's references to the Old 
 Testament will always be found to impart. It 
 is not pre-judgment that the appeal to Christ 
 brings with it, but rather a due and wholesome 
 reverence which it infuses in our investigations. 
 It reminds us that the place we are entering is 
 holy ground, and that we cannot treat the 
 matter as a mere literary question, or leave it to 
 be worked out by competent critics, and 
 patiently wait for the result. We must go at 
 once to Christ for guidance, and through the 
 medium of His references to the Old Testament, 
 references which one of our keenest opponents 
 speak of as ' furnishing ample material for 
 admiration 1 ,' prepare ourselves for making our 
 final choice between the two views of the 
 
 1 Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 547 
 ^Transl.), Lond. 1877.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 95 
 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament which we have 
 analysed in the preceding- Address. 
 
 2,. But here we pass into the second and 
 graver question, Can we rely absolutely and 
 unconditionally on the results of this appeal ? 
 Can we ascribe to our Lord in His human 
 nature such an unerring knowledge, in regard 
 of the details of the subject-matter of the con- 
 troversy, as may enable us without a hesitation 
 or a doubt to accept the conclusions which equit- 
 able criticism may deduce from His words ? Or, 
 to put the question in another form, and par- 
 tially in the words of a direct opponent, are we, 
 or are we not, prepared to admit the possibility, 
 on the part of our Lord, of exegetical mistakes ? 
 This is really the momentous question. It has 
 received recent answers from contemporary 
 writers of our own Church that are very far 
 from reassuring. One writer has contended for 
 the possibility of 'intellectual fallibility' on 
 the part of our Lord, but has afterwards had 
 the loyalty and good sense to withdraw words 
 which, we are forced to say, ought never to 
 have been written. Another has used language 
 with regard to the circumscription, as it were, 
 of the Word by the human body which opens a 
 wide door to inferences of a somewhat similar 
 nature, and, to say the least, cannot be har-
 
 96 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 monised with the teaching- of St. Athanasius. 
 Another form of the same tendency to minimise 
 the knowledge of our Lord in His human 
 nature is to be recognised in the attempt to 
 place on a parallel the Lord's evincing of no 
 more than the human knowledge of the time, in 
 the realm of science, when He spoke of the sun 
 ' rising,' with His supposed evincing of no more 
 than the same limited knowledge in the realm 
 of history 1 . The comparison, however, is hardly 
 even plausible. In the one member of the com- 
 parison, the Lord spoke from what the eye 
 beheld, and as we, who know fully that the sun 
 does not rise, speak to this very hour ; according 
 to the other member, the Lord would have to be 
 supposed to have placed limits on His histori- 
 cal knowledge which we claim to have over- 
 stepped, and, to use perfectly plain language, 
 to be ignorant of that about which we use no 
 conventional language, but distinctly assert that 
 we know. 
 
 All these varied attempts practically to reduce 
 the knowledge of the Lord, in reference to the 
 
 1 Comp. Lux Mundi, p. 360 (ed. x). See also Sanday, 
 Oracles of God, Lect. viii. p. no (Lond. 1891) an interest- 
 ting lecture, but deficient in its realisation of the truth (see 
 below) that the nature of the humanity of the sinless Lord 
 was not, and by the nature of the case could not be, ' on the 
 same footing with that of His fellow-men (p, in).
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 97 
 
 actual facts connected with the history of the Old 
 Testament, to the level of the knowledge of the 
 times in which He vouchsafed to ' dwell among 
 us/ impose upon us the duty of attempting to 
 return some definite answer to the general ques- 
 tion we are now considering. We must face it 
 humbly and reverently, but yet distinctly and 
 without subterfuge, otherwise our appeal to 
 Christ will be in vain ; the counter-appeal from 
 Christ's words to Christ's alleged ignorance will 
 be made, and we shall be reminded, as we have 
 been reminded by one of the most able sup- 
 porters of the Analytical view, that 'with regard 
 to the revered Master must the right of criticism 
 be maintained 1 . 1 In other words, the teaching of 
 Him, 'in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily,' must be subjected to the test- 
 ing of the sin-clouded intellect of mortal man. 
 
 The confusion of thought on this subject is 
 simply portentous. W r hen, in this very passing 
 year, a Bishop preaching from a University pul- 
 pit 2 , speaks in one portion of his sermon of the 
 Lord's voluntarily leaving to His human nature 
 
 1 Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 547 
 (Trans!.), Lond. 1877. 
 
 2 See Church of England Pulpit for March 21, 1891, pp. 
 J 35> J 38. The two passages, unaltered, will be found in a 
 recently published volume of sermons by the Bishop of Man- 
 chester, pp. 36, 48. The italics are not in the original. 
 
 G
 
 98 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 its associated limitations, ' its human weakness 
 and ignorance'; and, in another, affirms 'our 
 Lord's human ignorance of natural science, 
 historical criticism, and the like,' but does not 
 deny e the possibility of the miraculous communi- 
 cation of such knowledge ' ; and when, still 
 further, he concludes with asserting ' the reality 
 of our Lord's human limitation as well in know- 
 ledge as in moral energy' when we read such 
 things, it does seem that the holy doctrine of 
 the Two Natures does need reiteration and re- 
 enforcement. 
 
 Let us then again hear old truths, and for a 
 brief space again tread in the old pathways of 
 Catholic thought. 
 
 We may begin with this simple but most vital 
 question On what does modern thought base its 
 imputation of ignorance to our blessed Lord in 
 subjects such as we are now considering, viz. 
 the real nature, texture, and historical trust- 
 worthiness of the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
 ment? The answer of modern thought is 
 promptly returned, On the experiences of our 
 own human nature. As we cannot by intuition 
 arrive at a knowledge of the age, authorship, 
 and composition, of these ancient writings, but 
 can only hope to do so by patient investigation 
 and long-continued critical research, so also
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 99 
 
 must it have been with Christ ; otherwise the 
 humanity He vouchsafed to assume would not 
 have been a true humanity, the Incarnation 
 would not have been that true emptying- Him- 
 self of His divine glories and prerogatives which 
 is involved in the Apostle's significant term. 
 In a word, the reasoning in this answer is from 
 the characteristics of human nature, as known to 
 us by experience, to the characteristics of the 
 human nature of our Lord. If, to use the lan- 
 guage of Athanasius l , 'ignorance is the property 
 of man,' so, it is contended, must it have been 
 in the case of the human nature of Christ. But 
 is such reasoning admissible ? It is utterly 
 inadmissible, and for these three weighty and 
 most sufficient reasons. 
 
 i. We cannot, logically or theologically, 
 reason from a nature which is confessedly sinful 
 to a nature which was confessedly sinless. The 
 Word truly became flesh, but it was sinless 
 flesh, flesh such as that of Adam before the Fall. 
 
 1 Contra Arianos, iii. 45 ; see also 37. It is one thing 
 to assert that our Lord could 'carry our ignorance' ( 37), 
 or, in other words, be capable of it in His human nature, 
 and quite another to assert that, in any given matter such 
 for example as the nature of Holy Scripture this ignorance 
 did in actuality exist. On the view of Athanasius, see 
 Newman's note on 45, Select Treatises of S. Athanasius, 
 Part II. p. 464 (Library of the Fathers, Oxford 1844). 
 G 2
 
 100 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 If we knew the characteristics of the human 
 nature of Adam when God created man in His 
 own image, when He breathed into his nostrils 
 the breath of life, and man became a living soul, 
 then such reasoning might be valid ; but, as it 
 is, such reasoning is utterly invalid ; and to say 
 that the Lord in His human nature could not 
 know, or rather, did not know, what the modem 
 critic claims to have discovered and substan- 
 tiated, is simply an untenable assertion. What 
 precisely the nature of Adam, before his Fall, 
 was, in respect of knowledge or nescience, we do 
 not know ; but this certainly we do know, that 
 there is no belief vouched for by a greater 
 unanimity of Catholic teaching, as may be 
 seen in Bishop Bull's famous discourse on the 
 State of Man before the Fall 1 , than this, that 
 our first parents, before their fall, were endowed 
 ' with certain gifts and powers supernatural 2 ,' 
 and that of these, ' divine illumination or know- 
 ledge was a leading grace V Why then may 
 we not believe that our dear Lord, in His purely 
 human nature, had this divine illumination in 
 everything that related to God's Holy Word, 
 and that, in virtue of this nature, and apart from 
 every other consideration, He had that enduring 
 
 1 Bp. Bull, Works, vol. ii. pp. 52-136 (Oxford 1826). 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 82. 3 Ibid., p. 84.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 101 
 
 nearness and ' assession ' of God : (to use the 
 word of St. Basil in reference to our first parents) 
 by which, on any movement of His will, the 
 truth in all its details was at once present to 
 Him. When, for example, He solemnly quoted 
 Deuteronomy in His conflict with the Tempter, 
 may we not believe, simply on the above grounds, 
 that He did know the real nature of that which 
 He was quoting? 
 
 If we cannot positively prove this from what 
 has been said, may we not assert that we have 
 shown very sufficient reason for not believing 
 the contrary ? 
 
 2. But we may go further. Thus far we have 
 only reasoned from the sinlessness of the Lord's 
 human nature, from human nature as He had it 
 in common with unfallen Adam. We may now 
 ask if there was not a mysterious epoch when that 
 human nature must have received a still higher 
 illumination. When, by the banks of the Jordan, 
 the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form on the 
 baptized Lord, and the paternal voice declared 
 that He was the beloved Son in Whom the Father 
 was well pleased, is it possible to conceive that 
 in Him, Who, the Evangelist tells us, returned 
 
 1 irpoatSpda rov Qtov. Basil, Quod Deng non est auctor 
 malorum, cap. 6, vol. ii. p. 78 (Paris 1722).
 
 102 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 from the Jordan ' full of the Holy Ghost V there 
 could have been the faintest trace of any 
 nescience with regard to the true nature of 
 those Scriptures which He was about to set 
 forth and to fulfil. Though we may not presume 
 to dogmatize on the spiritual effects of this 
 descent of the Holy Ghost, we may at any rate 
 believe that the earthly elements which the 
 Lord vouchsafed to wear received an unction (to 
 use a simile of Athanasius) 2 , and that the Lord 
 in His human nature, in addition to the increase 
 in wisdom of which the Evangelist speaks, did 
 verily receive in His baptism a still fuller spiri- 
 tual increase, that so, in His human nature, He 
 might be more fully equipped for the conflict 
 that followed, and for all things involved in His 
 Messianic work and in the bringing of the 
 Gospel message to the hearing and to the hearts 
 of mankind. 
 
 Without entering further into this profound 
 subject we may certainly consider this as 
 beyond all reasonable controversy that in the 
 holy and mysterious circumstances connected 
 
 1 Luke iv. i. 
 
 2 Contra Arianos, i. 47. The whole of this chapter (47) 
 deserves very careful reading : see also Newman's note in 
 loc., Select Treatises of 8. Athanasius, Part I. p. 247 sq. 
 (Oxford 1842).
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 103 
 
 with the Lord's baptism, we have no mere 
 manifestations of divine glory simply to quicken 
 the faith of the Baptist or of those that might 
 have been around him, no miraculous incidents 
 to shed a glory on the works and words of the 
 great preacher of the wilderness no simply 
 inaugural signs of the Lord's entry into His 
 Messianic ministry, but the visible tokens and 
 accompaniments of an endowment of our Lord 
 in His holy human nature for the Messianic 
 office, an endowment, real and measureless, by 
 the gifts and illumination of the Holy Spirit of 
 God 1 . 
 
 If this be so, and who can fairly doubt it? 
 then have we not, as it were, a second guarantee 
 that the knowledge of the Lord which we are 
 assured by direct statement 2 , and by many a 
 verifying incident, extended to the then present 
 thoughts and imaginations of men's hearts, 
 included also the recorded thoughts of the past 
 and all that appertained, directly or indirectly, 
 
 1 Comp. Acts iv. 27, x. 38, and the note of Meyer on the 
 former passage. ' Henceforward,' to use the language of 
 Dorner, ' by Divine gift His personal perfection is ripened 
 into redeeming strength in reference to His wisdom, His 
 knowledge of heavenly things, His holiness, His might and 
 miraculous power.' System of Christian Doctrine, 108. 2, 
 vol. iii. p. 379 (Transl.). 
 
 2 John ii. 24, 25.
 
 104 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 to the form in which they were expressed? 
 Can we draw any imaginary lines of demarca- 
 tion round these plenitudes of knowledge ? 
 Can any arguments drawn from the Kenosis, or, 
 in simpler words, from our blessed Lord's vouch- 
 safing 1 to empty Himself of His divine glories 
 and prerogatives, ever be found to justify us in 
 saying in regard of the Scriptures He came to 
 fulfil, that though He might know, and even 
 thus receive at His baptism a still further 
 knowledge of the ethical and religious nature 
 of the written Word, He could not, as man, 
 know its literary nature and texture as it is now 
 claimed to be known by the criticism and 
 research of the nineteenth century ? 
 
 If it be urged, and it is strongly urged, that 
 unless we are prepared to say this we are opening 
 ourselves to the charge of denying the complete 
 reality of the Lord's humanity, and, at the very 
 least, of perilously approaching the margin of 
 Apollinarian error, is not an answer, after what 
 has been said, readily forthcoming ? The charge 
 against us is, that in thus attributing to our Lord, 
 as man, a complete knowledge, literary, as well 
 as ethical and religious, of the Scriptures which 
 He referred to and expounded, we are ignoring 
 the very conditions of our human nature, and 
 infringing upon its reality. What is our
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 105 
 
 answer ? That we certainly may be ignoring 
 the conditions of our human nature, and of 
 human nature as now we find it, but that it is not 
 human nature in this state which we attribute to 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, or on which we are 
 speaking- when we refer to the Lord's humanity. 
 We assert the great truth, which so many are 
 now willing to evade, that our blessed Lord, 
 verily and truly, is perfect Man : but perfect 
 Man he would not be ; man in his perfection 
 as well as truly God he could not be, if we 
 are to impute to Him our own imperfect, and 
 (so to speak) dis-illumined humanity, and do 
 not steadily recognise the distinctions between 
 the sinless and illumined, and the sinful and 
 darkened, which we have already drawn in 
 preceding paragraphs. Our attitude verily is 
 not Apollinarian, but Athanasian and Catholic. 
 But to proceed. 
 
 The two reasons and considerations which we 
 have now stated and briefly discussed appear to 
 be, both of them, valid and of real cogency. 
 They seem to justify the assertion that a 
 fulness of intuitional knowledge must be as- 
 cribed to our Lord in His human nature in 
 reference to the Old Testament ; and they seem 
 further to show that any inferences that may be 
 legitimately drawn from the declarations of
 
 106 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 Christ or from His use in argument of the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament must, at the 
 very least, strongly influence our judgment in 
 deciding between the two views which we have 
 stated and examined in the preceding Addresses. 
 The more clear and legitimate the inference, the 
 stronger will be the conviction that the decision 
 has been fairly and rightfully made. But 
 reasonable and cogent as the two foregoing 
 considerations may be, there is a third which to 
 many minds will seem still more conclusive, and 
 will go far to render it impossible to believe 
 that in the Lord's holy and perfect human 
 nature there could have been any shadows of 
 nescience as to the true nature and charac- 
 teristics of those Scriptures which He alluded to, 
 cited, elucidated and appealed to during the 
 whole course of His ministry, and even ex- 
 pounded after His resurrection. 
 
 3. This third reason is founded on the Catholic 
 doctrine of the Two Natures and their relations, 
 the one to the other, relations that are nowhere 
 set forth more clearly or with more persuasive 
 precision than by our own Hooker in the fifth book 
 of his Ecclesiastical Polity 1 . The doctrine of the 
 Two Natures, as we well know, is this, that in 
 the unity of the person of Christ two whole and 
 1 Chap. 53, 54.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 107 
 
 perfect natures are indivisibly yet unconfusedly 
 united and co-existent l . From the closeness 
 however of this conjunction, though the proper- 
 ties of the one nature are never infused into the 
 other, it is indisputable that both the body and 
 soul of Christ did receive by the influence of 
 Deity wherewith they were united qualities and 
 powers above nature. 'Surely,' as Hooker 2 says 
 in his marvellous simile, ' as the sword which is 
 made fiery doth not only cut by reason of the 
 sharpness which it simply hath, but also burn 
 by means of that heat which it hath from the 
 fire, so there is no doubt but the Deity of Christ 
 hath enabled that nature which it took of man to 
 do more than man in this world hath power to 
 comprehend.' We see this plainly enough in 
 regard of the body of our Lord, in the walking* 
 on the water, in the healing virtue that flowed 
 forth, at the touch of faith, in the scene of the 
 Transfiguration, and in many other illustrative 
 incidents. We see it, too, in regard of the 
 Lord's human soul, in His discerning the 
 thoughts of those around Him, and in that 
 
 1 Or to adopt the full form of words as we find them in 
 the Definitio Fidei of the Council of Chalcedon, 6^o\oyovfji(v 
 
 eva KOI TOV avrbv Xpiarov, flov, Kvptov, fiovo'ytVT), tv 
 
 8vo fpvaeaiv aav"^\vrws, drpfirrajs, dSiatptrcus, dxajpiffrcas yvoapi- 
 fyntvov : Routh, Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 79 (Oxon. 1840). 
 
 3 Eccl. Polity, v. 54. 6.
 
 108 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOK. 
 
 knowledge of what was in man which the 
 Evangelists tell us was present with the Lord 
 in all its plenitude. If we admit this, and 
 not to admit it is to impugn the veracity of the 
 Gospel, can we refuse to accept the conclusion 
 of Hooker that the human soul of Christ must 
 have had an ever present illumination and, to 
 use his own words, ' must of necessity be en- 
 dued with knowledge so far forth universal, 
 though not with infinite knowledge peculiar to 
 Deity itself 1 .' When we add to this the variously- 
 expressed but distinctly accordant testimony of 
 all the Catholic writers on the Incarnation, 
 when Athanasius does not hesitate to assert that 
 ' Christ being in the flesh deified the flesh 2 ,' and 
 when Theodoret plainly says that in Christ ' the 
 human power is a partaker of the divine power 3 ,' 
 and when these expressions find echoes in all 
 the great writers of antiquity, can we hesitate 
 for a moment, on the one hand to repudiate that 
 odious form of modern teaching which tells us 
 that in His human nature the Lord was 
 nescient if not fallible? Can we also, on the other 
 
 1 Eccl. Polity, v. 54. 7. The admirable precision of this 
 great writer will especially be recognised in this statement. 
 
 2 The words in the original are : kv crap/cl wv fOeoirotd (or 
 Of oTrouf) TTJV ffapica, Contra Arianos, iii. 38. 
 
 3 Eran. ii. p. 172, cited by Hooker, Eccl. Polity, v. 54. 5.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 
 
 hand, feel hesitation or difficulty in maintaining 
 distinctly and firmly this most certain truth, 
 that the Lord Jesus Christ did verily in His 
 human nature not only know all that has been 
 known or can be known as to those Holy 
 Scriptures which He came to set forth and 
 fulfil, but further, that owing- to the union of the 
 two Natures, and to the inflowing- of divine gifts 
 and powers into His sinless humanity, every 
 question relating to the Scriptures must be 
 considered as finally and for ever settled by Him, 
 whensoever it can be shown, by the nature of 
 His utterance, that the question must have been 
 really before Him ? 
 
 The attempt has sometimes been made to set 
 aside these conclusions by the objection that 
 they are but the communicatio idiomatum of 
 Damascene in a more g-uarded form *, and that 
 if there is any substantial truth in such a doc- 
 trine, there oug-ht to be some trace of some 
 operation of the human in relation to the 
 divine, and yet how can that be ? How can the 
 divine nature, of which the eternal attribute is 
 the changeless and the unalterable, receive in 
 
 1 On this doctrine, and the reservations under which it 
 must be held (viz. that there is not any mutual participa- 
 tion of both natures, though a co-operation often, and 
 association always), see Hooker, Eccl. Polity, v. 53. 4.
 
 110 CHBJSTUS COMPKOBATOE. 
 
 any true sense whatever, from the human and the 
 alterable ? Is not this simply unthinkable ? It 
 is not unthinkable. Scripture supplies us with 
 one illustration of one communication, of a form 
 of knowledge, too of the human nature to the 
 divine nature which, with all reverence we say 
 it, that latter nature could not, in the way 
 mentioned, have acquired. We allude to the 
 mysterious declaration of the author of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews 1 , that our great High 
 Priest, 'though He was a Son, yet learned 
 obedience by the things which He suffered.' 
 Here it seems clearly revealed, that the Son of 
 God did, through His human nature, acquire a 
 knowledge, experimentally, which as the eternal 
 and impassible God it was not possible for Him 
 so to have acquired. Other illustrations might 
 be brought, but probably enough has been said 
 to show that the doctrine on which we are rely- 
 ing cannot be set aside by an objection, plausible 
 as it might seem at first sight, as that we have 
 just been considering. No, the doctrine that by 
 virtue of the union of natures the human nature 
 has been replenished by all such perfections as 
 that nature can receive, stands firm and un- 
 shaken, and deserves from us, in these questions 
 as to the amount or extent of our Lord's know- 
 1 Heb. v. 8.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. Ill 
 
 ledge in His human nature, a far greater recog- 
 nition and application than it has yet received 
 from the theology of the nineteenth century. 
 
 In old times these questions relating to our 
 blessed Lord's alleged nescience or ignorance 
 were keenly debated. Thomists and Scotists 
 took their sides, and with but little practical 
 result. We may see them all, and the singular 
 questions which the acuteness of the disputants 
 on both sides brought up for discussion, in any 
 of the older treatises on dogmatic Theology *. 
 
 Into these things, however, it is neither 
 necessary nor desirable for us to enter. Two 
 things we may claim to know, and for our 
 present purpose these are enough: first, that 
 in the one blessed Personality two whole and 
 perfect natures, the divine and the human, were 
 united ; secondly, that some form of communi- 
 cation must have existed between the two 
 natures in consequence of this union. The 
 precise extent and amount of the communica- 
 tion between the divine and the human we 
 
 1 For a full and clear statement of the opinions of Fathers 
 and Schoolmen on this profound subject, the student may 
 be referred to Forbes (of Corse), Instructiones Sistorico- 
 Theologicne, Book iii. ch. 19, 20, vol. ii. pp. 110-128 (Amstel. 
 1 702). The valuable note of Dr. Liddon, in his sermon on The 
 Trustworthiness of the Old Testament (p. 15), may also be read 
 with great profit.
 
 .1 12 CHR1STUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 cannot define : we can only say with Forbes, 
 ' quaenam autem et quousque voluerit Deus 
 Christo viatori revelare, nemo mortalium asse- 
 qui potest V Notwithstanding-, we may draw, 
 in particular cases and with due regard to the 
 subject-matter, very reasonable inferences as to 
 the form the communication might be supposed 
 to assume, and the sort of guarantee it would 
 supply of the truth and trustworthiness of the 
 declarations on the part of the humanity. We 
 may reasonably believe, for example, that if 
 there were any subjects in which impartation of 
 knowledg-e from the divine might be conceived 
 to be certain and clear, it would be in matters 
 connected with the Holy Scripture. To be- 
 lieve, on the contrary, that a pure and sinless 
 human nature, so open as it would necessarily 
 be to the inflowing of the divine nature, could 
 know no more in regard of the true nature of 
 the Scriptures of the Old Testament than was 
 known by the most learned of the teachers of 
 the time of our Lord, must surely, after what 
 has been said, be regarded by any sober mind as 
 simply impossible. 
 
 It is certain from Holy Scripture 2 that there 
 
 1 Instructiones Historico-Theologicae, iii. 20. 42, vol. ii. 
 p. 127. 
 
 2 Matth. xx iv. 36; Markxiii. 32.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 113 
 
 was one thing that, as Man, our Lord knew not, 
 the day and the hour of the final judgment. 
 This, the Word, as ' the voluntary mirror to 
 Christ as Man ' (to use the words of Scotus), 1 did 
 not will to reveal. It is, however, equally cer- 
 tain that there is no other passage in Holy 
 Scripture in which nescience can be legitimately 
 regarded as predicated of our blessed Lord, or by 
 which the principle of the ' communication ' 
 which we have discussed could be deemed to be 
 set aside. 
 
 But to conclude. We are now, it would 
 seem, in a position to return our answer to the 
 second question, Whether we can, absolutely 
 and unconditionally, rely on the results of our 
 appeal to the authority of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in regard to the Old Testament; and 
 that, not merely in its general aspects, but in 
 details of authorship and composition, wherever 
 it can be fairly shown that such details lie in- 
 cluded in the Lord's utterances. And our 
 answer must be, that we can ; for it has been 
 based on three solid considerations, which it 
 may be convenient again finally to specify. 
 
 We have seen, in the first place, in reference 
 to the alleged limitation of knowledge on the 
 part of our Lord in consequence of His human 
 
 1 Cited by Forbes, iii. 20. 42, vol. ii. p. 127. 
 H
 
 114 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 nature, that we can draw no inference from our 
 human nature as we know it by experience ; and 
 that we have not, and cannot have, any know- 
 ledge of those higher powers, qualities and in- 
 tuitions which essentially belong 1 to human 
 nature in its purity. We have further seen 
 that, in the circumstances of the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost immediately after our Lord's bap- 
 tism, and in the endowment, as we have pre- 
 sumed to deem it, for His Messianic office, we 
 may reverently believe that His holy human 
 nature received still fuller treasures of wisdom 
 and knowledge, and still more vivid illumina- 
 tion. And lastly, we have seen that the blessed 
 doctrine of the union of the two natares in the 
 one Person warrants the belief of an enhance- 
 ment of the human nature by the divine, and 
 such an enhancement, so steadfast and contin- 
 uous, as makes it simply inconceivable that He 
 who had ' the words of eternal life Y and had so 
 often the words of the Holy Scriptures on His 
 lips, could actually know less, as to the composition 
 of those Scriptures, than the critic of our own 
 times claims now to know, and to be able to set 
 forth with all the certitude of science. With 
 such cumulative proofs, who can for one moment 
 
 1 John vi. 68.
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 115 
 
 doubt that our second question has been an- 
 swered, and that in our next Address and the 
 Address that follows it, we may rightfully and 
 with the most enduring confidence appeal to 
 every utterance of the Lord, whether in reference 
 to the Law or the Prophets, which, when accu- 
 rately considered, can be shown to bear upon the 
 trustworthiness of the Scriptures of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 Only one lingering objection, so far as I can 
 see, can with any show of plausibility be urged 
 against what has been said. And it is this, that 
 our Lord never claimed to be an infallible or 
 even special interpreter of the Holy Scriptures. 
 It has been asserted, perhaps a little recklessly, 
 that just as the Lord said to the man who came 
 to Him about the division of the inheritance, 
 ( Who made me a judge or a divider over you? l> so 
 the Lord would have said in reply to a question 
 about the age or author of a passage in the Old 
 Testament, ' Who commissioned Me to resolve 
 difficulties in historical criticism? 2 ' The assertion 
 is scarcely even superficially plausible, as the 
 questions on which we would fain receive the 
 judgment of the Lord are as widely removed 
 
 1 Luke xii. 14. 
 
 2 Bishop of Manchester, in the sermon above referred to, 
 note 2, p. 97. 
 
 H a
 
 116 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 from the request of the ' one out of the multi- 
 tude ' as can readily be conceived. Our questions, 
 even if they may happen to relate to age or 
 authorship, are really questions that go to the 
 very heart of the matter. They are questions 
 that relate not to the things of this world, but 
 to the things that ' belong to peace,' here and 
 hereafter, the trustworthiness of the Scriptures 
 and their claims to be received as the inspired 
 Word of Almighty God. 
 
 This, certainly, we may concede, that critical 
 enquiries, to use the words of Professor Ladd 1 , 
 ' rarely appear to have entered the horizon ' of 
 the teaching of oar Lord. The passages, how- 
 ever, as we shall see from the two Addresses 
 that will follow, are by no means few in which, 
 though there may be no special and direct 
 teaching on the subject, there is often an in- 
 ferential teaching of a very suggestive and even 
 conclusive character. It will be seen that our 
 Lord does, from time to time, inferentially 
 return such answers to our enquiries in reference 
 to the Old Testament as may equitably be 
 claimed to be authoritative, and as justifying us 
 in arriving at definite conclusions as to the tenor 
 of His teaching. We cannot, then, assign to 
 
 1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 29 (Edinb. 1883).
 
 THE APPEAL TO CHRIST. 117 
 
 the objection any greater weight than this that 
 it correctly states an admitted fact, viz. that 
 the questions relative to the composition and 
 structure of the Old Testament, which are the 
 subjects now mainly before us, did not form any 
 special and defined part of our Lord's teaching-. 
 This comparative silence, however, is no warrant 
 whatever for affirming that our Lord would not 
 have entertained such questions if they had 
 been definitely brought before Him : still less 
 will it justify the denial that His teaching does, 
 from time to time, involve inferences and even 
 opinions as to mattei'S of biblical criticism 
 which have the closest possible relation to our 
 present controversies. More need not now be 
 said. The passages in which such inferences or 
 opinions are supposed to be involved, will be 
 specified and carefully analysed, and then be 
 left to speak for themselves. 
 
 The question also whether Christ may not 
 in some instances have spoken, either by way of 
 accommodation, or only seemingly and not 
 actually on our present questions, must not be 
 summarily dismissed. The dulness or hardness 
 of the hearts of those to whom He was speaking 
 may be thought to have necessitated forms of 
 expression which may be claimed as resulting 
 from some principle of consideration for the
 
 118 CIIRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 spiritual state of those who were addressed ; 
 but here again each place and each passage 
 must speak for itself. This only do we un- 
 hesitatingly deny, that the Lord's general 
 teaching as to the Old Testament, and 
 those characteristics of His teaching on the 
 subject which all reasonable interpreters would 
 be willing to recognise, could by any possibility 
 be attributed to any principle of accommodation, 
 in the ordinary sense of the words. That He 
 Who was the Truth and the Light, as well as 
 the Way, could have systematically so taught 
 in reference to God's Holy Word, out of defer- 
 ence to the prejudices or the ignorance of His 
 hearers, is utterly inconceivable. 
 
 The teaching of Christ on the subject of the 
 Holy Scriptures must now be ascertained in 
 detail. We have proved that such an appeal 
 as we are about to make to Him is rightful, 
 and that the results can be unconditionally 
 relied on. To that appeal we devote the two 
 following Addresses.
 
 V. 
 
 THE LOED'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 
 
 WE now proceed with the details of the 
 appeal to Christ in reference to the Old Testa- 
 ment. This appeal, we have seen in the fore- 
 going- Address that we are fully entitled to 
 make ; and we have further seen that the ful- 
 ness of divine knowledge, which we must 
 ascribe to our Lord and to His teaching, indis- 
 putably warrants our accepting as conclusive 
 and final the answers to that appeal, whenso- 
 ever they can be shown to be either included 
 in, or legitimately deducible from, the recorded 
 teaching of our Lord. 
 
 But first of all, what exactly is the tenor of 
 our appeal? Is it not substantially this? for 
 guidance in our estimate of the view of the Old 
 Testament that is now pressed upon us by 
 modern teachers, and has been set before us, 
 both in its full, and in its modified form in a 
 foregoing Address. 
 
 Such is the tenor of the appeal. Now in
 
 120 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOK. 
 
 what form can the answer be given ? Can it 
 be otherwise than by the utterances of Christ 
 in regard of the Old Testament, and the de- 
 ductions that may legitimately be drawn from 
 them ? If this be so, then it will at once be 
 seen that the utmost care must be taken in 
 selecting out of the numerous references of 
 Christ to the Old Testament only those that 
 bear directly, or by just and clear inference, on 
 the subject-matter of the appeal. It cannot be 
 too strongly urged that when we appeal to the 
 words of Christ as authenticating the Old Tes- 
 tament, we must make it clear to demonstration 
 what it is that they really do authenticate. 
 The loose and popular way in which the appeal 
 to Christ's words has often been made has 
 greatly impaired, in many cases, the validity of 
 the argument, and has raised prejudices against 
 the whole nature of the appeal, from which, as 
 we have partly seen in the preceding Address, 
 even writers of high character have not been 
 able to free themselves. The ad captandnm 
 argument, bad always, is pre-eminently bad and 
 reprehensible in momentous controversies like 
 the present. 
 
 We shall have, then, to exercise the greatest 
 care in our selection of the references of our 
 Lord to the Old Testament ; and especially to
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 121 
 
 be on our guard against pressing them beyond 
 what they will logically and exegetically bear. 
 The references of our Lord which bear directly 
 on our present controversy are confessedly few ; 
 but the references to the Old Testament, and 
 the citations which He vouchsafed to make 
 from it, are very numerous, and these references 
 and citations do indisputably create impressions 
 which are of great subsidiary moment, and often 
 carry conviction where more direct arguments 
 may seem to fail. A few of these impressions, 
 derived simply from a general review of these 
 citations and references taken as a whole, it 
 may here not be inappropriate to specify. They 
 are but impressions, but they are impressions 
 which many of us will recognise as having 
 exercised considerable influence on our estimate 
 of the real nature and trustworthiness of the 
 Old Testament. Of these general impressions 
 we may mention three or four that seem to bear 
 most upon present controversies. 
 
 The first relates to the form of the written 
 Word, and is this : That the Old Testament 
 to which our Lord referred was practically iden- 
 tical with that which we have now in use. 
 There are, as we well know, many instances in 
 which the exact words as quoted by our Lord 
 are not found in any text. It may even be
 
 122 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 true, as asserted by a very competent writer, 
 that the text of the Hebrew Scriptures in cur- 
 rent use in our Lord's days was not the same in 
 all respects as that which we now have : still 
 the deviations when analysed are of a nature 
 that certainly does not invalidate the general 
 truth of the impression. We may be thankful 
 that the text which we have is as pure as it 
 seems to be. That much, however, remains to 
 be done in this particular department may be 
 perfectly admitted. 
 
 A second impression certainly is, That our 
 Lord's knowledge of the Scriptures of the Old 
 Testament, speaking humanly, was of the most 
 exact and comprehensive nature. This im- 
 pression is created not only by the numerous 
 citations or references, extending as they do 
 from Genesis to the Second Book of Chronicles, 
 but also by the reminiscences, so to speak, of 
 the Old Testament which our Master's words 
 seem constantly to be bringing home to us. 
 And, it is worthy of note, that they are reminis- 
 cences solely of the canonical Scriptures. Not 
 only is there no citation directly made from the 
 Apocrypha, but, as seems most probable, not 
 even a reference to it, or an echo from its words 1 . 
 
 1 See Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 35 
 (Edinb. 1883).
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 123 
 
 A third impression relates to the general 
 aspect in which our Lord regarded the Scrip- 
 tures which He cited or alluded to. That He 
 regarded them as pre-eminently Holy Scripture, 
 cannot possibly be doubted. This is shown in- 
 directly by forms of reference or citation : ' The 
 Scripture ' l ; ' The Scriptures ' 2 ; ' The law and 
 the prophets ' 3 , in reference to the whole of the 
 Old Testament ; ' The law ' 4 , in similar inclu- 
 sive reference ; 'the Scriptures of the prophets' 5 , 
 and, on one occasion, somewhat significantly, 
 ' all the things that have been written through 
 the prophets' 6 ; and lastly, the solemn 'It is 
 written ' 7 , these all being known forms of re- 
 ferring to Holy Scripture in the time of our 
 Lord, and certainly implying that as they were 
 regarded by our Lord's contemporaries, so were 
 they regarded by Him. 
 
 We may mention yet a last impression which 
 seems produced by a very large number of pas- 
 sages, viz. that there was a divine fulness in 
 whatever was cited or referred to, something 
 far beyond the letter, depths of meaning really 
 
 1 John vii. 38, comp. verse 42 ; x. 55. 
 
 2 John v. 39. 
 
 3 Luke xvi. 16, comp. Matth. xxii. 40, and conversely 
 Matth. xi. 13. 
 
 * John x. 34. 5 Matth. xxvi. 56. 
 
 Luke xviii. 31. 7 Matth. iv. 4, 7, 10, al.
 
 124 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOB. 
 
 to be found even in what might seem the 
 simplest forms of expression : in a word, that 
 the Scriptures of the Old Testament were really 
 God's Holy Word, and were so accounted by 
 Him Who referred to them. The Lord's refer- 
 ence to the words ' the God of Abraham, the 
 God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' *, as having 
 been spoken by God, will occur almost at once 
 as an illustration that perhaps, more than any 
 other, has tended to deepen the impression I am 
 now alluding to. 
 
 These are simply a few general impressions. 
 Yet if we paused here, and went no further in 
 our appeal to our Lord on the nature of the Old 
 Testament, would it be easy to resist the convic- 
 tion that a view of Holy Scripture such as we 
 have considered in the Analytical view could 
 never be in harmony with these impressions? 
 Books, some of them written at a late date for 
 the advancement of the claims and interests of 
 a special class, dramatised compositions, ficti- 
 tious or re-written histories, how little could 
 they deserve to be spoken of in the terms or 
 regarded under the aspects in which, and under 
 which, they were spoken of and regarded by the 
 great Teacher. What a conviction just these 
 few impressions seem to bring home to us that 
 
 1 Matth. xxii. 32 ; Mark xii. 26.
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 125 
 
 He Who came to bear witness to the truth 1 could 
 never have borne such a witness as that which 
 is implied in what has been already said, if the 
 writing's of the Old Testament really were what 
 they are represented to be by modern analysis ! 
 But impressions are but impressions, though 
 I know not whether in subjects like the present 
 they may not exercise an influence more truly 
 to be depended on than many a formulated 
 argument. At any rate they have their value, 
 and may deserve to be considered as manifesta- 
 tions of a kind of spiritual instinct that cannot 
 wholly be ignored. Still our appeal to Christ 
 must go much further than this ; we must leave 
 impressions, and pass onward to those definite 
 statements and inference-bearing utterances 
 which are readily to be found amid the very 
 numerous references of our Lord to the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 I. Let us take then, first, that cardinal state- 
 ment in which, at the very beginning of His 
 ministry, and under circumstances of much 
 solemnity, our Lord distinctly specified His 
 own relation to the Scriptures of the Old Tes- 
 tament, and especially to the Law, whether in 
 its more restricted or its more exclusive refer- 
 ence. This relation was stated both negatively 
 1 John xviii. 37.
 
 126 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 and affirmatively, in short and precise terms, 
 and corroborated by a further statement marked 
 by a similar directness and precision. The words 
 of our Lord to which we are now referring, as 
 we probably well remember, are from the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount. They immediately follow 
 the Beatitudes and the short opening address to 
 the disciples, and form in effect the text for the 
 earlier portion of the Sermon. The words are 
 these : ' Think not that I come to destroy the 
 law or the prophets : I came not to destroy but 
 to fulfil. For verily I say unto you,' observe 
 how attention is solemnly called to what fol- 
 lows, ' till heaven and earth pass away, one 
 jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from 
 the law, till all things be accomplished 1 .' 
 
 Words could not be stronger. They were ad- 
 dressed primarily to the disciples, but, as is 
 afterwards clearly indicated 2 , to many of the 
 thronging multitude besides. The intention of 
 the words was to prepare for a right under- 
 standing of the illustrations which followed; 
 and, it may be, also to check vague hopes of 
 covenant-changes which old prophecy might 
 seem to justify 3 , and which actually were im- 
 puted to St. Stephen a very few years affcer- 
 
 1 Matth. v. 17, 18; comp. Luke xvi. 17. 
 
 2 Matth. vii. 28. * See Jer. xxxi. 31.
 
 THE LOKD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 127 
 
 wards 1 . Hence the distinctness and precision 
 of the Lord's declaration. There can indeed 
 hardly be any doubt as to the exact meaning. 
 The only questions that can possibly be raised 
 are in reference to the sense in which the term 
 ' the law' is to be understood, and to the nature 
 of the Lord's fulfilment of it. That ' the law ' 
 cannot be restricted to what is now termed the 
 moral law, as contrasted with the priestly, or 
 ceremonial law, seems certain, even though the 
 illustrations are from the moral law, as such 
 a restricted use would be contrary to the use 
 of the word in all similar passages in the New 
 Testament. It can only mean the whole Mosaic 
 law, the books of the law, as every Jew of the 
 days of our Lord would have understood this 
 term to include and signify. Nor can there 
 be much doubt as to the sense in which Christ 
 speaks of Himself as come to fulfil the law. 
 He fulfilled the law when, whether by word 
 or deed, He set forth its innermost meaning 
 and contents, all in fact that was designed by 
 God when the law was declared, or the cere- 
 monies, in obedience to His divine word, en- 
 joined upon the covenant-people. Precepts, 
 enactments, ceremonies, types, and symbolical 
 details, all were to have their essential meaning 
 1 Acts vi. ii, 14.
 
 128 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 and purpose brought out by the Great Teacher, 
 and to receive their completion and consumma- 
 tion in Him. And from this law thus compre- 
 hensive and diversified no jot or tittle was to 
 pass away, until all things should be accom- 
 plished and this present age should melt into 
 the age that is to come. 
 
 What a revelation ; how suggestive and how 
 full of teaching in reference to questions that 
 are now exercising our thoughts. If Moses the 
 man of God, in obedience to the commandment 
 of God, set forth the law in the varied forms in 
 which it has come down to us, in the books 
 which are associated with his name, such a re- 
 velation as that which we are now considering 
 becomes conceivable. We can understand that 
 even the ceremonial, as involving the typical, 
 is to lose no jot or tittle of its spiritual reality 
 until this dispensation pass utterly away. Its 
 very typical connexion with Christ clothes it 
 with what might be termed a provisional per- 
 petuity, an endurance till all things be accom- 
 plished. God has spoken, and His word, even 
 in what might be considered as by its very 
 nature only for a time and a season, endures as 
 to its essential and absolute elements. All this 
 we can understand and realise ; but it is on the 
 tacit assumption that those constantly recurring
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 129 
 
 words in the Books of the Law, ' And the Lord 
 said unto Moses,' are not to be reduced to a mere 
 liturgical formula, but to be accepted as meaning 
 what they say. Deny this, however, directly or 
 inferentially, imagine the writer of the Exile 
 using the convenient form of words to intro- 
 duce what he might have thought Moses would 
 have said if the circumstances had ever come 
 before him, in a word, adopt the current theory 
 of the Priestly Code, as it has been set forth in 
 a preceding Address, and we find ourselves far 
 in the realm of the unthinkable. That the 
 'idealizations' of the pious Jew of the Exile 
 should be so spoken of by Him, ' through Whom 
 came grace and truth 1 / must seem, at any rate 
 to all plain believers in God's Holy Word, as 
 beyond the possibilities of our conception. For 
 it to be possible to entertain such a conception, 
 we must first conceive the idealizer to have 
 been inspired to write as he did write ; but an 
 inspiration that can be compatible with con- 
 tinually attributing to God utterances and en- 
 actments alleged to have been made to Moses, 
 when they were due only to an interested 
 writer, who was making use of the great Law- 
 giver's name, is an inspiration that is outside 
 all reasonable and reverent consideration. 
 
 1 John i. 17. 
 
 I
 
 130 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 We contend then that the assumptions in- 
 volved in the Analytical view relating- to the 
 origin of the Priestly Code are not consistent 
 with the solemn declarations of our Lord in 
 reference to the Mosaic Law, which we have 
 just been considering-. If the Analytical view 
 is to be maintained, much more than the jot and 
 tittle will have to be surrendered to the ever 
 increasing- demands of modern analysis. 
 
 2. From the relation of our Lord to the Law 
 generally, we may now pass to a brief consi- 
 deration of two of its precepts from which some 
 inferences may be drawn as to the general ques- 
 tion, how far His teaching guides us in our 
 choice between the two views. These two pre- 
 cepts are the law of the Sabbath, and the enact- 
 ment relative to Divorce, the two precepts in 
 regard of which there was an enduring dissidence 
 between the teaching of our blessed Master and 
 the rabbinical teaching of the day. In each of 
 these some glimpses may be obtained of divine 
 guidance in the anxious and difficult questions 
 which the so-called Higher criticism has forced 
 upon our consideration. 
 
 (a) Let us take first the precept relating to 
 the Sabbath, and here select for investigation 
 one passage in which our Lord does seem to 
 treat in a critical manner this distinguishing
 
 THE LORDS TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 131 
 
 precept of the Mosaic law. Our Lord's general 
 attitude to questions connected with the Sabbath 
 we know well, but on this w r e need not dwell in 
 our present enquiry. It may be summed up in 
 the single emphatic declaration, made by our 
 Lord when His disciples were censured by the 
 Pharisees for plucking- the ears of corn on the 
 Sabbath day, the declaration, founded on the 
 relation of the Sabbath to man, that ' the Son of 
 Man is Lord even of the Sabbath V This atti- 
 tude is maintained throughout. What we have 
 however here to notice is not our Lord's autho- 
 rity over the day, but the reasoning which, on 
 one occasion, He was pleased to enter upon in 
 relation to the Sabbath, and the inferences that 
 flow from it in relation to the general question 
 of this Address. Let us recall the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 At the unnamed festival at Jerusalem, men- 
 tioned by St. John in the earlier part of his 
 Gospel 2 , an impotent man was healed by. our 
 
 1 Mark ii. 28. There is some little doubt as to the refer- 
 ence of the &ffre. The conclusion would not seem to be 
 drawn from the fact that the Son of man was the Head of 
 humanity (Meyer, al.}, but from the fact that He was the 
 Saviour of man, and so had power even over that which was 
 primarily designed for the spiritual good of man : see Weiss, 
 in loc. 
 
 * John v. I. 
 
 I 2
 
 132 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Lord at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath 
 day. The performance of this act of mercy on 
 the Sabbath called out a malignant bitterness 
 in the Jewish party which, when our Lord 
 visited Jerusalem some months afterwards at 
 the Feast of Tabernacles 1 , appears to have 
 vented itself anew, and to have called forth 
 from our Lord an appeal to the law of Moses 
 of a profoundly instructive character. He 
 alludes to the known fact that circumcision was 
 performed on the Sabbath, when that Sabbath 
 was the eighth day 2 , and in doing- so he draws 
 a kind of contrast between the sanctity of the 
 Sabbath and the sanctity of circumcision, and 
 the relation of each to the law of Moses. Our 
 Lord, in fact, here passes a critical judgment 
 upon the relation of circumcision to the Sab- 
 bath which, when carefully considered, suggests 
 important and far-reaching inferences. He in- 
 ferentially confirms the narrative in Genesis as 
 to the origin of circumcision 3 , and its connexion 
 with what may be termed the patriarchal dis- 
 pensation ; He confirms, also, the fact of its 
 incorporation in the law of Moses 4 , and further, 
 by the whole tenor of His argument, implies 
 that the priority of the rite gave it a kind of 
 
 1 John vii. 2. 2 John vii. 22. 
 
 3 Gen. xvii. lo, xxi. 4. * Lev. xii. 3.
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 133 
 
 legislative pre-eminence over the Sabbath. 
 Whenever the eighth day brought the two 
 rites into competition, the Sabbath yielded to 
 circumcision. The rabbinical principle, 'cir- 
 cumcisio pellit salbatum,' could actually, in this 
 particular, claim the authority of the Lord 
 Himself. 
 
 With the inferences which have been drawn 
 from this remarkable passage as to questions 
 connected with the Sabbath, we are not here 
 concerned, but we are closely concerned with 
 the broad fact that our Lord does in this pas- 
 sage set, as it were, His seal on the reality of 
 patriarchal histoiy. Few as are the words, 
 parenthetical as the reference to the patriarchs 
 may be J , the fact remains, that in a passage of 
 a distinctly critical character our Lord makes 
 this allusion, and further, that in referring to 
 Moses and, by inference, to the Book of Levi- 
 ticus, in which circumcision is ordained, the 
 
 1 The purport of this parenthetical clause has been dif- 
 ferently explained. The simplest view seems to be that our 
 Lord mentions a well-known fact to show that Moses (to 
 whom the Jews were appealing) himself accepted a system 
 which involved a breaking of the Sabbatic rest. The more 
 common view is that our Lord names the fact to show the 
 greater authority of the earlier law than of the later ; so 
 Bengel, Meyer, al. This, however, does not harmonise so 
 well with what follows.
 
 134 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 personal lawgiver becomes connected at least 
 with a passage in a particular Book, for here, 
 in the verse we are considering, the context 
 precludes the term Moses being regarded as 
 synonymous with the Mosaic law. When to 
 this we add that, in the verse that follows, our 
 Lord mentions that the object of the exception 
 is that the law of Moses should not be broken, 
 may we not at least say this, that in the 
 passage we are considering the personal Moses 
 is connected with the law that bears his name 
 in a manner which makes it reasonable to be- 
 lieve that he himself wrote far more of that 
 law than modern criticism is willing to admit. 
 In a word, if we adopt the Traditional view the 
 whole passage becomes consistent and intelli- 
 gible. 
 
 (#) With the passage relating to divorce we 
 may deal more briefly, as it has not the same 
 critical aspects as the passage that has just been 
 considered. It is, however, of very great im- 
 portance in reference to the earliest portion of 
 the Book of Genesis. 
 
 It will be remembered that, towards the close 
 of our Lord's ministry, we are told both by St. 
 Matthew l and St. Mark that the Pharisees put 
 
 1 Matth. xix. 3 sqq. ; Mark x. 2 sqq.
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 135 
 
 a question to the Lord in the hope, apparently, 
 that He might be drawn into the then current 
 dispute between the schools of Hillel the 
 ' looser,' as he was termed, and Shammai the 
 ' binder.' The answer of our Lord is somewhat 
 differently worded by the two Evangelists, but 
 the substance is the same. According to St. 
 Mark the Lord answers the question by another 
 question, ' What did Moses command you?' and 
 the answer is given, as it only could be given, 
 out of a book with the authorship of which 
 modern criticism assures us Moses had little or 
 nothing to do, the Book of Deuteronomy 1 . 
 Against this answer, which our Lord treats as 
 really no more than permissive, and as a tem- 
 porary concession to hardness of heart and a 
 low moral condition on the part of those to 
 whom it was made, against this the Lord sets 
 the primal state, ' male and female made He 
 them 2 ', and God's primal declaration in refer- 
 ence to marriage, whether uttered through 
 Adam or the original writer, ' For this cause 
 shall a man leave his father and mother and 
 cleave unto his wife ; and they twain shall be- 
 come one flesh V 
 
 1 Deut. xxiv. I. 
 
 2 Mark x. 6 ; see Genesis L 27. 
 
 3 Mark x. 7 ; see Genesis ii. 24.
 
 136 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Now whence do these words thus deliberately 
 cited and returned in answer to a formal and 
 momentous question, whence do the words 
 come? As we well know, from the first and 
 second chapters of Genesis, or, in other words, 
 from a portion of that ancient book which we 
 are now invited to consider as a mythical por- 
 tion, a portion ' in which,' to use the words of a 
 recent writer, 'we cannot distinguish the his- 
 torical germ, though we do not at all deny that 
 it exists V Is it too much to say that to 
 derive, from a source in which the historical is 
 indistinguishable, the answer of Christ to such 
 a question as that which was put to him, is to 
 many minds inconceivable. And the more so, 
 as on the Traditional view that Moses was the 
 compiler, or, as those who heard the words 
 would have said, the author, we have just that 
 form of answer that would have materially 
 helped to bring conviction to the hearers, an 
 appeal from Moses to Moses, from the inspired 
 legislator to the inspired compiler or writer of 
 primeval history. That it was an appeal of 
 this kind, or was felt to be so by those to whom 
 the words were addressed, we of course cannot 
 assert ; but this we may presume to say, that it 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 357 (ed. 10).
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 137 
 
 is not, what we must regard the other view- 
 to be, simply inconceivable, unless indeed we 
 adopt a theory of accommodation which, doubt- 
 ful at all times, would seem to be doubly so in 
 a case like the present. 
 
 3. But we may now pass from the Laws to 
 the Lawgiver. There is, it has always seemed to 
 me, an argument of some little weight deducible 
 from the frequent reference of our blessed Lord 
 to the person and authority of Moses. If we 
 turn to a concordance and eliminate our Lord's 
 mention of the name from incidents or passages 
 which may have appeared in a preceding Evan- 
 gelist, we shall find, I think, that the name 
 occurs in our Lord's discourses some eighteen 
 times, and in the great majority of cases with a 
 clearly personal reference. He is spoken of by 
 our Lord as having given the law 1 , as standing 
 in connexion with historic events 2 , as having 
 written of the Lord 3 , as being one whose writ- 
 ings stood, as far as belief in them was con- 
 cerned, on a kind of parity with our Lord's own 
 words 4 , and as one about whose command en- 
 quiry is made before a question of controversy 
 is answered 5 . If we add to this the fact of our 
 
 1 John vii. 19. 
 
 2 Luke xx. 37 ; John iii. 14, vi. 32, al. 
 
 3 John v. 46. * John v. 47. 
 5 Mark x. 3.
 
 138 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Lord talking- with him when he was permitted, 
 with Elias, to appear in glory on the Mount of 
 the Transfiguration 1 , and to speak of the decease 
 that the Lord was to accomplish at Jerusalem 2 . 
 When we fairly consider these intimations of 
 the aspect in which Moses was regarded by our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, we must at once feel how 
 widely different this Moses of the Gospels is 
 from the Moses of the more advanced writers of 
 the Analytical school. The Moses of that 
 school is little more than the great national 
 ' Kadhi ' of the wilderness 3 , the conscientious 
 judge between man and man, the wise counsellor 
 whose brilliant leadership in the Exodus made 
 every Hebrew turn instinctively to him for help 
 and guidance in trials and difficulties, the founder 
 of consuetudinary law, and the one who by con- 
 necting his own family or tribal God 4 with the 
 religious faith of Israel, gave to that faith a 
 national existence and history. Such, accord- 
 ing to the Analytical view, is the true historic 
 Moses. The imaginary Moses, according to 
 that view, is the Moses of the Exile, the Moses 
 
 1 Matth. xvii. 3 ; Mark ix. 4 ; Luke ix. 30. 
 
 2 Luke ix. 31. 
 
 3 Wellhausen, History of Israel, p. 434 (Transl.) Edinb. 
 1885. 
 
 * Wellhausen, ib., p. 433, note, a particularly painful 
 note to read.
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 139 
 
 of the Priestly Code, and, after what has been 
 just set forth the Moses, not only of the un- 
 broken belief of the Jewish Church, but of the 
 Gospels and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
 break to which we have come, in connexion 
 with the history of Moses, between the Analy- 
 tical view and the testimony of the Gospels, must 
 be pronounced to be complete. We have seen 
 in a former Address that the obscuration of the 
 work of Moses as a legislator and as the founder 
 of an organised religion, formed an argument of 
 some validity against the Analytical view. We 
 now see what would appear to be a still stronger 
 argument, the Moses of the Analytical view 
 cannot be harmonised with the Moses of Christ. 
 All this is very monitory. It places very clearly 
 before us the real spiritual peril of being led 
 away by the plausibilities and cleverness of 
 modern criticism, and it seems to tell us very 
 plainly that if we are so led away we must be 
 prepared to reconstruct our credenda. 
 
 4. Hitherto we have noticed subjects in which 
 we stand opposed, more particularly, to the 
 extreme party. W T e may conclude with noticing 
 one subject in which all adherents of the Ana- 
 lytical view, the moderate as well as the extreme, 
 are cordially united. The subject is indeed one 
 which it may seem a little presumptuous to
 
 140 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 propose to re-discuss ; as, if there is one point on 
 which it is claimed that all intelligent critics 
 are completely agreed, it is that the Book of 
 Deuteronomy was never written by Moses. We 
 are told by one writer that ' in all circles where 
 appreciation of scientific results can be looked 
 for at all, it is recognised that it was composed 
 in the same age as that in which it was dis- 
 covered 1 ', viz. in the days of Josiah. Another 
 writer, of a very different tone of thought, tells 
 us practically the same, ' we may suppose,' he 
 says, ' Deuteronomy to be a republication of 
 the law in the spirit and power of Moses, put 
 dramatically in his mouth 2 .' Another writer 
 is quite willing to concede that the laws in 
 Deuteronomy are not inventions, but mostly 
 the direct reproduction of more ancient enact- 
 ments; but he, like the rest, assigns the compo- 
 sition of the Book to some unknown writer of 
 the age of Manasseh or Josiah 3 . On this point 
 
 1 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, p. 9, 
 (Transl.). 
 
 2 Lux Mundi, p. 355 (ed. x). 
 
 3 Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Tes- 
 tament, p. 82 (Edinb. 1891). It may Be right here to notice 
 that this Charge was written, and indeed in print, prior to 
 the appearance of the carefully constructed, and calmly 
 reasoned volume to which reference is here made. Fortu- 
 nately for the present writer, the learned Professor had stated
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 141 
 
 all are agreed, that in Deuteronomy we may have 
 Mosaic traditions, but that the actual composer 
 of the Book was some pious unknown Jew, who 
 some seven or eight centuries after the days 
 of Moses, put dramatically into the mouth of 
 the great legislator this republication of the 
 Law 1 . 
 
 Now it may seem great hardihood to urge 
 any form of argument against such a general 
 consent ; still there is plainly something to be 
 said on the other side, when we take into con- 
 sideration our blessed Lord's references to this 
 particular Book, and the circumstances under 
 which these references were made. 
 
 The something that may be said on the other 
 side is this, that our Lord, on three separate 
 occasions, so referred to the Book of Deutero- 
 nomy as to make it morally improbable that the 
 Book could have been so referred to if it had 
 been written, not by Moses, but by one who 
 impersonated him and wrote in his name. Let 
 
 his general results in a clearly written article .in the Con- 
 temporary Review for February, 1890, to which reference is 
 made in Address II. I thus trust that I have not in any 
 way mis-stated the general views taken by this most able 
 representative of the English Analytical school. 
 
 1 See, however, the comments of Professor Driver, op, cit., 
 p. 84, in which he speaks of the writer as ' introducing 
 Moses in the third person.'
 
 142 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 vis briefly consider the three occasions, and see 
 if there is not some ground for the statement 
 that has just been made. 
 
 The first passage to which, we may direct 
 attention is brief, but of very great importance. 
 It occurs in the concluding portion of our Lord's 
 address to the Jews after His miracle at the 
 pool of Bethesda l . In this address, after telling 
 His hearers that if they were believers in Moses 
 they would be believers in Himself, He adds 
 these confirmatory words, ' For he wrote of 
 Me 2 .' Now in these words, it may be said, that 
 there is no doubt that our Lord is referring to 
 the striking Messianic prophecy in the Book of 
 Deuteronomy, in which Moses is represented as 
 having solemnly declared unto ' all Israel ' 3 that 
 the Lord their God will raise up unto them a 
 prophet from the midst of them, of their brethren, 
 like unto him that was speaking to them 4 .' The 
 reference of our blessed Lord is however not 
 to be confined to this passage. Every type and 
 typical ceremony in which the Messiah was 
 prefigured in the Mosaic ritual must be deemed 
 to be included in the declaration ; but that this 
 
 1 John v. 46. 2 Verse 46. 
 
 3 Deut. v. i. 
 
 4 Deut. xviii. 15. This passage is also referred to by St. 
 Peter (Acts iii. 22), and by St. Stephen (Acts vii. 37).
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 143 
 
 particular passage was at the time pre-eminently 
 present to the thoughts of our Lord may with 
 all reverence be regarded not only as probable, 
 but as certain. And for this reason, that this 
 prophecy was a direct communication from 
 God. For it must not be forgotten that it is 
 stated by the writer that God communicated to 
 him almost word for word this unique utter- 
 ance 1 . The prophecy of the writer is simply a 
 re-utterance of the all but ipsissima verba of 
 Almighty God. 
 
 Now, under these circumstances, is it think- 
 able that the writer could have been any other 
 than Moses ? Does it not seem almost beyond 
 controversy that our Lord's words must be taken 
 to the letter, and as setting the seal to our 
 belief that Moses, and no other than Moses, 
 wrote, at any rate, this portion ? Would the 
 dramatiser, who, if he existed, was ex hypotkesi, 
 a devout and God-fearing Jew, have dared to 
 declare that God had so spoken, unless he had 
 known that it was so ? And how could he have 
 known that it was so, save by direct communi- 
 cation from God ? And what right have we 
 for supposing that he did so receive it, and was 
 thus a distinct medium of divine revelation ? If 
 this is not maintained, the only possible sup- 
 1 Deufc. xviii. 17.
 
 144 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 position that seems left is, that the Deutero- 
 nomist dramatiser had some writing- of Moses 
 before him for the words ' wrote of Me ' seem 
 to preclude tradition in which this prophecy 
 and its dependence on divine authority was 
 distinctly specified. But if, whenever pressed 
 by what seems fair argument, the critic has to 
 take refuge in these helping-out hypotheses, it 
 does not seem unreasonable to doubt the validity 
 of the theory which these hypotheses are called 
 out to support. At any rate the case stands 
 thus. Our blessed Lord definitely says that 
 Moses wrote of Him ; and the tenor of the pas- 
 sage precludes the possibility of the word Moses 
 being taken to mean aught else than the per- 
 sonal Legislator. Now in the Book of Deutero- 
 nomy a striking and unique passage is found, 
 in which it is generally admitted that Moses 
 does refer to our Lord. The question then 
 appears finally to assume the following form, 
 Which is the more probable, that Moses, who 
 wrote the passage, wrote the Book (excepting of 
 course the last chapter) in which the passage 
 is found ; or that an unknown writer, imper- 
 sonating Moses, should have happened to have 
 had a written document of Moses, from which 
 he inserted the passage ? Few, we think, could 
 hesitate as to the answer to the question.
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 145 
 
 There is not, I believe, any other passage in 
 which our Lord mentions the name of Moses in 
 reference, direct or indirect, to the Book of 
 Deuteronomy. But passages there are in which 
 our Lord refers to or makes citations from it, 
 which it seems almost impossible to think He 
 would have made if the Book was simply the 
 work of a dramatiser. When, for example, the 
 designedly ensnaring question was put to Him 
 as to the quality of the commandment that 
 entitled it to be counted as the great or the first 
 commandment *, is it reasonable to suppose that 
 He would have made (according to St. Matthew) 
 a nearly exact citation of two solemn verses of 
 Deuteronomy 2 , if the Book had been the late- 
 formed composition or fabrication which it is 
 alleged to be. Such a supposition seems, to use 
 the lightest form of words, to jar with our moral 
 convictions. 
 
 Still more will this be felt if we take into full 
 consideration the circumstances of our Lord's 
 Temptation, and of His use of the Book of 
 Deuteronomy in His personal conflict with the 
 Tempter. All the circumstances of those forty 
 
 1 Matth. xxii. 36 sq. ; Mark xii. 29 eq. Observe in each 
 passage tho term iroia, as marking precisely the nature of 
 the question. 
 
 8 Deut. vi. 4, 5. 
 
 K
 
 146 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 days of conflict have not been revealed to us ; 
 but this we do know, that at their close, most 
 probably on the last of the days, three culmi- 
 nating- temptations were directed against our 
 Incarnate Lord, alike in His body, soul, and 
 spirit ; and we know, too, that each was repelled, 
 simply and conclusively, by a passage from the 
 written Word of God. And from what part of 
 Holy Scripture did the three passages or parts 
 come ? Each one, as we well know, came from 
 this Book of Deuteronomy. Two of the passages 
 came from the 6th chapter 1 , and one from the 
 8th chapter 2 all three purporting- to form part 
 of the second solemn address delivered by Moses 
 to all Israel in the land of Moab. Each is in- 
 troduced by our Lord with the solemn 'it is 
 written,' a form of words which, to say the very 
 least, stamps each passage as a direct and con- 
 sciously-made citation from the Word of God. 
 Each involves an appeal to an authority behind 
 the words, which the very Tempter ^himself not 
 only recognises, but with which he seeks to 
 enhance one of his own temptations. 
 
 Such are the three citations from Deutero- 
 nomy in the particular case we are now con- 
 sidering, citations made under the most 
 solemn circumstances that it is possible for us 
 
 1 Verses 13, 1 6. 2 Verse 3.
 
 THE LORD'S TEACHING AS TO THE LAW. 147 
 
 to conceive, and apparently claiming- to be 
 integral portions of the inspired Word of God. 
 Can such passages owe their real origin to an 
 idealizing- writer of the days of the reformation 
 of Josiah? Is there not something- which to 
 most minds would seem to be unthinkable in 
 the supposition that the fabricated and the im- 
 personated l could find any place in a scene such 
 as that of the Temptation of our Lord ? And 
 the more so, when this subjective argument can 
 be supported by the plain objective fact, that 
 the unbroken tradition of the Jewish and of the 
 Christian Church has always assig-ned to the 
 great Lawgiver the authorship of the first 
 thirty-three chapters of this most quickening 
 portion of the Mosaic law. The last word has 
 certainly not yet been spoken in a subject which 
 modern criticism somewhat precipitately claims 
 to have now settled beyond the possibilities of 
 controversy. 
 
 "We have now considered our Lord's testimony 
 to the trustworthiness of the Old Testament, 
 more particularly with reference to the earlier 
 portions of the sacred Volume and to the Mosaic 
 law. His testimony as to the prophets, and as 
 to the historical events of the Old Covenant, 
 we reserve for the following Address. 
 
 1 Consider ch. xviii. 1 7. 
 K 2
 
 148 CHEISTUS COMPEOBATOR. 
 
 As far as we have gone, we appear to have 
 found that our first impressions have been con- 
 firmed by subsequent and more particular in- 
 vestigations. Throughout these investigations 
 the tenor of our Lord's references may be 
 equitably claimed as supporting, it may be 
 indirectly, yet in a manner that carries much 
 conviction what we have termed the Tradi- 
 tional view of the Old Testament. And this 
 claim our opponents do not seem disposed to 
 reject. Nay, the very fact that assumptions 
 have been made as to the possibilities of a real 
 nescience, on the part of our Lord in His human 
 nature, seem to imply some general belief that 
 the aspect in which He regarded the Old Testa- 
 ment does not harmonise with the aspect in 
 which it is regarded by modern criticism. 
 
 Are not all these things full of suggestion, 
 and full also of monitory significance ? If the 
 testimony of Christ is what it has appeared to 
 be, then the likelihood of offence being given 
 by a criticism that has to maintain itself by 
 attenuating the real knowledge of Christ, has 
 become perilously great, and His own words 
 come solemnly home to us : ' It must needs be 
 that offences come, but woe to that man by 
 whom the offence comethV 
 
 1 Matth.xviii. 17.
 
 VI. 
 
 OUR LORD'S REFERENCES TO HISTORY 
 AND PROPHECY. 
 
 WE now pass to the consideration of our 
 Lord's teaching- in regard of the historical and 
 the prophetical Scriptures of the Old Testament, 
 and to the inferences which may be drawn from 
 His teaching as to the trustworthiness of the 
 writers. 
 
 Before, however, we enter into the details of 
 this teaching, it will be necessary to make a 
 few preliminary comments. 
 
 i. We have now before us two classes of 
 references ; the one, to certain facts and events 
 to which our Lord makes brief allusions in His 
 addresses to His disciples and to the Jews ; the 
 other, to prophecies relating to Himself and to 
 His Messianic work. From the former of these 
 no very conclusive inferences can be drawn.
 
 150 CHEISTUS COMPEOBATOR. 
 
 The historical references or, to speak more cor- 
 rectly, the historical allusions are not in any 
 respect of a critical nature. The twelve or 
 thirteen separate incidents to which our Lord 
 refers seem all specified with the simple view of 
 defining, illustrating, or emphasizing, the sub- 
 ject-matter of the addresses in which they are 
 found. They are not thus necessarily substan- 
 tiated or authenticated by the fact that reference 
 is made to them, but, as will be seen hereafter 
 in detail, the manner in which the greater part 
 are alluded to is such as to make it improbable 
 that our Lord regarded them as otherwise than 
 as veritable events of veritable and trustworthy 
 history. 
 
 It is, however, otherwise with our Lord's re- 
 ferences to prophecy. From almost all of these 
 it will be seen that inferences may be drawn as 
 to our Lord's recognition of the inspiration -of 
 the writers and the reality of their predictions. 
 It "may be often doubtful whether the words of 
 the prophecy admit of a primary reference, or 
 whether we are justified in admitting a typical 
 view of the words or incidents, and in believing 
 that our Lord did the same. This, however, will 
 not be doubtful, that our Lord did regard the 
 writers to whom He refers as inspired by God, 
 and as speaking predictively. In fact, the words
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 151 
 
 of the first Evangelist ' spoken by the Lord 
 through the prophet ' l represent the view which 
 was entertained by the Apostles and also by our 
 Lord Himself. This there seems no reason to 
 doubt. It is, however, just what is doubted by 
 some of the more advanced writers of the Ana- 
 lytical school. The authorship of the prophetical 
 books has been for the most part left unchal- 
 lenged. The dates also at which the different 
 books were written have been in a few in- 
 stances, as in the case of the Book of Daniel, 
 and in the second portion of the Books of Isaiah 
 and Zechariah, the subjects of vigorous con- 
 troversy, but in the great majority of cases have 
 not been seriously called in question. What has 
 been called in question is the predictive element, 
 whether in reference to national events, or to 
 the Messianic dispensation. Writers like Prof. 
 Kuenen do not hesitate to regard the alleged 
 predictions as simply fallible anticipations of 
 the manner in which those who uttered them 
 considered the Deity must, as a consequence of 
 His character, according to their view of it, act 
 towards nations and individuals 2 . The tradi- 
 tional views of Messianic prophecy are freely 
 
 1 Mattb. i. 22, ii. 15 : see Eevised Version. 
 a See Muir's Introduction to Kuenen, Prophets and Pro- 
 phecy in Israel, p. xxxviii (Lond. 1877).
 
 152 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 recognised as forming a beautiful whole l , but are 
 gently set aside as having no historical reality 
 to rely on. If appeal is made to the writers of 
 the New Testament, and to their plainly ex- 
 pressed views of prophecy, we are distinctly 
 told that their exegesis cannot stand before 
 the tribunal of science 2 ; and if even a higher 
 appeal is made it is respectfully but firmly 
 pronounced to be unavailing 3 . 
 
 It is, however, right to say that such views 
 have not as yet met with any reception at the 
 hands of those who are supporting the Analyti- 
 cal view among ourselves. Still there are signs 
 that increasing difficulty is being felt in regard 
 of definite predictions 4 , and that the anti-super- 
 natural bias which is certainly to be recognised 
 in the writings of the foreign exponents of the 
 
 1 Kuenen, p. 496. 2 Kuenen, p. 487. 
 
 8 Kuenen, p. 547. The grounds on which this far-going 
 writer takes up this extreme view are, (i) that the Lord's 
 words are transmitted to us in another language than that in 
 which He customarily spoke ; (2) that the citations are from 
 another version than that in which He presented them ; (3) 
 that the narrators have not always done Him justice. 
 
 4 Consider, for example, the statement of a moderate and 
 learned American critic, who thus writes on the subject : 
 ' We have reason to doubt whether prophetic inspiration 
 ever results in the clear and definite knowledge of some single 
 occurrence which is to take place in the future.' Lacld, 
 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 347 (Edinb. 1883).
 
 KEFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 153 
 
 Analytical view is beginning, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, to be shown in this country by writers 
 on Old Testament prophecy. 
 
 2. Another general remark that may be made 
 on both the classes of references, the historical 
 and the prophetical, which we are about to con- 
 sider, is that, with regard to the space of time 
 which they cover, both are distinctly compre- 
 hensive. The twelve or thirteen allusions to 
 historical events in the Old Testament begin 
 Avith Genesis and end with the Second Book of 
 Chronicles, and include allusions to events men- 
 tioned in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Num- 
 bers, Samuel, and Kings. They may thus be 
 considered as samples of our Lord's usual mode 
 of referring to the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
 ment in His discourses, whether to His disciples 
 or to the Jews. They also seem to suggest that 
 if more of our Lord's discourses had been re- 
 corded by the Evangelists we should have found 
 in them similar allusions to the leading events 
 in the history of the chosen people. 
 
 But be this as it may, a general view of the 
 allusions which are recorded would seem to 
 create the impression that the Lord regarded 
 both the earlier and the later events as tradition 
 has always regarded them, viz. as real and his- 
 torical, and as rightfully holding their place in
 
 154 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 the truthful annals of the nation. This further 
 may be said, that not one of the references 
 favours the supposition that any of the events 
 might be mythical, or that any might have 
 been re-written by some priestly editor of adul- 
 terated history : on the contrary, the obvious 
 simplicity and directness of them all seem un- 
 favourable to any other supposition than that 
 of the reality of the incidents to which they 
 refer. 
 
 But this is but impression. If it is to be 
 substantiated it can only be so by a considera- 
 tion of individual passages. 
 
 Much the same might be said of our Lord's 
 references to prophecy. If we include therein 
 both direct quotations and the more distinct 
 allusions, we have more references to the pro- 
 phetical, than to the historical Scriptures ; and 
 if we add to them the references, direct and 
 indirect, to the Psalms, fully twice as many. 
 These references, too, as in the case of the his- 
 torical references, range over some extent of 
 time. Besides the Psalms, the Books of Isaiah, 
 Hosea, Jonah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and 
 Malachi, are either cited from, or referred to, 
 sometimes with, but more commonly without, 
 specific mention of the names of the writers. 
 So cogent also and so pertinent are these
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 155 
 
 references, that even anti-predictive and anti- 
 supernatural writers like Kuenen, though they 
 by no means admit that our Lord's uses of 
 prophecy are to be regarded as necessarily free 
 from exegetical error l , do draw clear distinctions 
 between the references to prophecy made by our 
 Lord and the references made by His Evan- 
 gelists and Apostles, and do recognise to some 
 extent the wisdom and knowledge with which 
 the great Master made His citations from the 
 prophets of the Old Covenant 2 . 
 
 We do not, however, dwell upon such recog- 
 nitions as these. What we now contend for is 
 simply this, that, as in the case of the histori- 
 cal allusions, the impression conveyed was that 
 our Lord considered the events referred to as 
 real, so, in these references to prophecy con- 
 sidered generally, the impression that seems left 
 upon the mind is that the Lord recognises in 
 the prophets to whom He refers the gifts of in- 
 spiration and predictive knowledge, especially 
 in their relation to Himself and His sufferings. 
 This impression we must substantiate, and prove 
 to be correct by considering in detail some of 
 the citations or references which seem more dis- 
 tinctly to reveal the teaching of our Lord as to 
 
 1 See above, note 3, p. 152. " Kuenen, p. 547.
 
 156 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Old Testament prophecy. We begin, however, 
 with our Lord's references to History, and will 
 now endeavour to show, from some selected 
 examples, that it is certain that He regarded 
 the events as real, and that, thus far, He may 
 be considered to set His seal to the truth of Old 
 Testament History. 
 
 i. The first two examples which we pro- 
 pose to consider relate to that portion of the 
 Book of Genesis which we are told by a recent 
 writer is of the nature of myth, and ' in which 
 we cannot distinguish the historical germ, 
 though we do not at all deny that it exists V 
 The two events are the death of Abel and the 
 Flood. 
 
 Now in regard to the first, what historical 
 germ is there about which we can be in any 
 difficulty ? We learn from Genesis that the 
 blood of Abel was shed by his brother, and that 
 his blood cried unto God from the ground 2 . To 
 this event two Evangelists 3 tells us that our Lord 
 referred in a rebukeful utterance, most probably 
 in the hearing of the Scribes and Pharisees 4 , in 
 which He solemnly declares that all the righteous 
 blood shed on the earth from the blood of Abel 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 357 (ed. 10). 2 Genesis iv. lo. 
 
 8 Matth. xxiii. 35 ; Luke xi. 51. 
 * See Meyer on Matth. xxiii. i.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 157 
 
 to the blood of Zechariah will come upon those 
 to whom these words were more particularly 
 addressed. Now, when we turn to the narra- 
 tive of the death of Zechariah and mark his 
 dying- words 1 , and the sort of analogy they 
 suggest, with what is said of the blood of Abel, 
 is it possible to doubt that our Lord was placing- 
 before those to whom He was speaking two 
 historic circumstances and two historic persons ? 
 And are we not justified in saying this, that 
 the resolution of the history of the death of 
 Abel into myth is out of harmony with the 
 tenor of our Lord's words, and that we can only 
 understand those words as implying- that Abel 
 was a person as really historical as Zechariah ? 
 If a serious speaker marks off a period of time 
 by the names of two persons, one of whom is 
 historical, is it natural to suppose that the 
 other is mythical ? It is certainly far from 
 natural to suppose this in the case of the solemn 
 and realistic words on which we have been com- 
 menting. 
 
 The reference to the Flood is mentioned by 
 the same two Evangelists 2 , and in both with 
 the addition of particulars not recorded in 
 Genesis. The reference apparently forms part 
 
 1 2 Chron. xxiii. 22. 
 
 1 Matth. xxiv. 37 sq. ; Luke xvii. 26 aq.
 
 158 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 of a solemn address delivered by our Lord on 
 the occasion of a question being put to Him by 
 the Pharisees, concerning the coming of the 
 Kingdom of God l . In such a discourse we 
 may feel confident that every word and every 
 allusion must have its fullest significance. The 
 details which our Lord drew from the treasury 
 of His own divine knowledge could never have 
 been added to the merely mythical or tradi- 
 tional. We are told indeed the contrary. It is 
 said that our Lord suggests by these very addi- 
 tions that He is simply treating the Flood as 
 typical 2 , and that we have here a tradition used 
 as a vehicle for spiritual teaching 3 . But is 
 tradition rather than history what we should 
 expect in such a discourse, and in reference to 
 such a subject? Tradition, and embellished 
 tradition, when the question was as to the 
 coming of an event, solemn and real beyond all 
 words the coming of the kingdom of God ? 
 Does not the very principle of homogeneity 
 require that there should be reality, historical 
 reality in the illustration corresponding to the 
 reality of that which it illustrates. Surely if 
 an event alleged to have taken place in the past 
 
 1 See Meyer on Lukexvii. 26. 
 
 2 Lux Mundi, p. 359 (ed. 10). 
 
 3 Preface to Lux Mundi (ed. 10), p. xxxv.
 
 KEFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 159 
 
 history of the world is placed before us by the 
 Lord as typically foreshadowing the greatest 
 and most certain event in the history of the 
 future, it is but reasonable to suppose that the 
 event so typically used was a real event, and 
 was so regarded by our Master. 
 
 We may pass from these two events to an- 
 other which, though not included in the so-called 
 mythical period, has been often regarded as little 
 better than legendary and traditional, the de- 
 struction of the cities of the plain, and the fate 
 of Lot's wife 1 . Here it is even less possible than 
 in the ease of the Flood to doubt that our Lord 
 regarded the event as real, and as forming a 
 truthful portion of truthful history. In His 
 words describing the overthrow, He adopts the 
 language of Genesis, and in the solemnly ap- 
 pended warning authenticates the account of 
 the fate of the lingering woman who perished 
 in the whirling storm, and whose memorial was 
 one of those salt cones which the traveller still 
 finds by the shores of the Dead Sea 2 . It is 
 simply impossible to avoid the conclusion that 
 our Lord does confirm the historical truth of the 
 
 1 Luke xvii. 29, 32. 
 
 2 See Lynch, United States Expedition, p. 143 (Lond. 
 1858); see alsoEwald, Hist, of Israel, vol. 1.314 (Transl.), 
 Lond. 1883, and coinp. Joseph. Antiy. i. II. 4.
 
 160 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 narrative, and that, convenient as it may be 
 found to push backward these illustrations of 
 the supernatural into the region of leg-end, His 
 use and application of the narrative distinctly 
 forbids it. It may be quite true that the Lord, 
 as a general rule, lays but little stress on the 
 details of the account which He employs ; still, 
 in this case, it must not be forgotten that, in 
 regard of the manner of the destruction of the 
 cities, He adopts the very language of the 
 original narrative. 
 
 The three remaining instances of references 
 made by our Lord to incidents mentioned in the 
 Old Testament, all of them, it may be ob- 
 served, miraculous, are the appearance of God 
 to Moses in the burning bush 1 , the descent of the 
 manna 2 , and the lifting up of the brazen 
 serpent 3 . 
 
 In the first of these three instances we have 
 the concurrent testimony of three Evangelists * 
 that our blessed Lord used the narrative to sub- 
 stantiate a doctrine of vital importance. The 
 present case, then, is a case, not merely of pass- 
 ing allusion, but of definite teaching ; just one 
 of those cases, in fact, in which we are justified 
 
 1 Exod. iii. 2 sqq. 2 Exod. xvii. I4sqq. 
 
 8 Numb. xxi. 8, 9. 
 
 * Matt. xxii. 31 sqq. ; Mark xii. 26 sqq. ; Luke xx. 27 sqq.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 161 
 
 in claiming that our Lord's words are to be con- 
 sidered as spoken with plenary authority, and as 
 admitting 1 no assumption of any accommodative 
 use of the passage. They are spoken too with 
 studied precision, ' in the Book of Moses, in 
 the place concerning the Bush 1 ,' and cannot 
 possibly be understood in any other sense than 
 as authenticating the narrative, and the mira- 
 culous circumstances related by Moses. We 
 have, then, here an authoritative recognition, 
 not only of the narrative, but, by reasonable 
 inference, of the inspiration and divine mission 
 of Moses. 
 
 The second instance 2 is of equal importance. 
 The allusion to the manna is not merely inci- 
 dental, but forms the typical substratum of the 
 deep teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum 
 of Himself as the living bread, the bread of 
 which he that eateth will live for ever 3 . The 
 allusion to the manna was first made by the 
 Jews. The events of the preceding day and 
 the Feeding of the Five Thousand had turned 
 their thoughts to the great miracle that was 
 associated with His ministry, and they ask, it 
 may be, that the Lord should prove Himself to be 
 
 1 Mark xii. 26 (Revised Version) ; comp. Luke xx. 37 
 (Revised Version). 
 
 a John vi. 49. 8 Verse 58. 
 
 L
 
 162 CHHISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 their long looked-for Messiah by some analogous 
 miracle which tradition taught them to look for 
 in the Messiah 1 . The answer is contained in 
 all that follows ; and in that answer the miracle 
 of the first-given manna is not merely alluded 
 to, but stated in the most definite and unreserved 
 language 2 . That the Lord Jesus Christ here 
 places his seal upon a miracle which modern 
 criticism regards as a story that the Priestly 
 Code has made use of for pressing upon the 
 people the sanctity of the Sabbath, and has spoilt 
 in the using 3 , may be considered as beyond 
 reasonable doubt. 
 
 In the third case 4 the allusion is brief, but 
 the circumstances under which it was made, and 
 the deep teaching of the passage where it occurs, 
 render it impossible to take any other view than 
 that which recognises in the words a reference 
 to a real and historical event. According to the 
 best interpretation of the passage, the verse 
 which contains the reference sets forth a second 
 reason and motive for belief in the Lord Jesus, 
 prefacing it by an allusion to an event in the 
 
 1 Schoettg. Hor. ii. 475 (cited by Meyer). 
 
 2 John vi. 49, 58. 
 
 3 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, p. 
 352 sq. (Transl.), Edinb. 1885. 
 
 * John iii. 14.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 163 
 
 past that had a doubly typical character. The 
 raising up of the brazen serpent foreshadowed the 
 Crucifixion ; the healing power which flowed 
 forth to him who gazed, on the serpent betokened 
 the saving power of faith in the crucified One. 
 That the whole is only a legendary story, we 
 are confident, will be pronounced by every 
 fair mind utterly incompatible with the fact 
 recorded by the Evangelists, that it was re- 
 ferred to by our Lord typically to set forth the 
 doctrine of His own ever-blessed Atonement. 
 A legendary story embellished by priestly in- 
 genuity could never have formed the typical 
 background for the Atonement of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Of the remaining references, the most im- 
 portant are those in which our Lord alludes to 
 Elijah's being sent to the widow of Zarephath x , 
 and to a miraculous event in the history of 
 Elisha 2 . The allusions were made in the syna- 
 gogue at Nazareth, and in the address of our 
 Lord which followed His public reading of 
 Isaiah. The importance of the allusions is due to 
 the fact, that the record of the ministries of Elijah 
 and Elisha contains many accounts of miraculous 
 events, in some of which even believers have felt 
 
 1 Luke iv. 26 ; I Kings xviii. 9 sqq. 
 
 2 2 Kings v. I sqq. 
 
 L 2
 
 164 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 passing- difficulties, and all of which have been set 
 aside, almost as a matter of course, by supporters 
 of the Analytical view as utterly unhistorical. 
 The narrative of the life of the first prophet is 
 suffused with the miraculous ; and, in the case of 
 the second prophet, not only during his life but 
 even after his death the miraculous clings to 
 him l . It is thus of no little moment that our 
 Lord, in His public teaching, referred to events 
 in the life of each of the two prophets in a 
 manner which seems to indicate that He accepted 
 and confirmed by His authority, at the very 
 least in the instances alluded to, the truth of the 
 Scriptural narrative. Such an attestation of a 
 narrative, in parts of which real difficulties have 
 been felt, must cause, in all sober minds, an 
 immediate arrest of judgment. It may not 
 always in itself at once convince, but it never 
 fails to prepare the way for considerations which 
 often bring about a conviction more real and more 
 lasting than is brought about by more direct and 
 more elaborate argument. The simple feeling 
 that He thus believed will often be found to re- 
 move almost at once many a speculative difficulty. 
 Lastly, it is worthy of especial notice, that 
 just those miraculous events which seem more 
 particularly to put our faith to trial such, for 
 
 1 2 Kings xiii. 20 sq.
 
 KKFEKENCES TO HISTORY AXD PROPHECY. 165 
 
 example, as those connected with the histories of 
 Elijah and Elisha, or with the early history of 
 Genesis, are the events to which, it would 
 seem, our Lord has been pleased more particu- 
 larly to allude. 
 
 2. We may now pass onwards to our Lord's 
 references to prophecy ; but before we consider 
 passages which clearly belong to tbis portion of 
 the subject, it may be well first to notice a well- 
 known and anxiously discussed passage, in which 
 the question turns not so much on the prophecy 
 as on the credibility of the events connected 
 with it. T am alluding, of course, to the 
 passages relating to the Book of Jonah and 
 to the prophet's mission to Nineveh. Careful 
 interpretation will here do something for us. 
 
 When we refer to the Gospels we find that 
 our blessed Lord twice alluded to Jonah, once 
 after the healing of a demoniac \ and once, very 
 briefly, a little later 2 ; and in both cases in 
 answer to a demand from the Jewish party for 
 a sign. It is only with the words spoken on 
 the first occasion that we are particularly con- 
 cerned. These are given fully, and, as it would 
 seem, in their original form by St. Matthew. 
 The report of the words in St. Luke's Gospel is 
 
 1 Matth. xii. 39 sq. ; Luke xi. 29 sq. 
 
 2 Matth. xvi. 4.
 
 166 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 more condensed. In both of these passages, 
 however, it is clear that the prophet, and not his 
 preaching*, is the sign and the type. His 
 preaching- and its results are mentioned, but 
 quite independently, being designed simply to 
 put in contrast the acceptance of the message 
 of Jonah on the part of the Ninevites, and the 
 rejection of the message of One greater than 
 Jonah by the Jews. 
 
 How the prophet is a sign is very distinctly 
 mentioned by St. Matthew : ' As Jonah was 
 three days and three nights in the belly of the 
 fish, so shall the Son of man be three days and 
 three nights in the heart of the earth V With 
 the details and the decision of the question 
 whether ' the heart of the earth ' refers to the 
 sepulchre or to Hades, we need not here concern 
 ourselves. The ' three days and three nights ' 
 of the Lord's being in the heart of the earth 
 requires in either case the same explanation. 
 And the common explanation seems to be the 
 right one, that ' the three days and three 
 nights' in reference to our Lord are used, not 
 with any studied precision, but simply in echo of 
 the words in the Book of Jonah 2 , and as popu- 
 larly designating the whole day and parts of two 
 
 1 Matth. xii. 40. 2 Jonah i. 17.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 167 
 
 other days, which was the exact peiiod in the 
 case of our Lord, and, for aught we know, 
 may have been so too in the case of Jonah. 
 Thus considered, the time is typical ; the 
 belly of the fish is typical ; the deliverance 
 of Jonah is typical. And of what ? Of the 
 Resurrection, and of what preceded it. On 
 this we may fairly ask this further question : 
 If the history of Jonah is not only a fiction, but, 
 as a responsible writer has said, a story bearing 
 marks of it as patently as any of the tales in 
 the Thousand and One Nights 1 , if the circum- 
 stances are not only improbable but grotesquely 
 so, is it conceivable that such a story would be 
 used by our Lord as a type of His resurrection ? 
 Is an unreal narrative, a narrative which, if 
 interpreted historically ' justly gives offence 2 ,' to 
 be regarded as typical of the great and real 
 miracle which is the foundation of Christianity ? 
 In a word, is any other view fairly compatible 
 with the nature of the comparison than that our 
 Lord regarded the Jonah-sign as a reality, and 
 the particular deliverance of Jonah as a fact ? 
 and if He did so, further critical enquiry is fore- 
 
 1 Dr. Cheyne, iu an article in the Theological Review for 
 1877, p. 2I2 - 
 
 a Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 214, 
 (Transl.), Lond. 1877.
 
 168 CHRISTUS COMPEOBATOR. 
 
 closed. The Jonah-miracle may seem amazing ; 
 })ut still more amazing-, if we consider it in 
 detail, is the resurrection from the dead. Our 
 conclusion then is that our Lord was here re- 
 ferring to an historical event, though we have 
 no power of supplying anything, whether from 
 contemporary history or otherwise, which might 
 seem to make the event more readily conceivable 
 to those who have made up their minds to dis- 
 believe it. 
 
 We now pass to a few selected instances of our 
 Lord's references to definite prophecy, and more 
 particularly to those that related to Himself. 
 
 It is however difficult to make a selection, as 
 all our Lord's references to prophecy really 
 convey, almost equally strongly, the same im- 
 pression, viz. that our Lord distinctly recognised 
 the inspiration of the prophets of the Old 
 Testament, and the predictive contents of their 
 writings, and especially their pervasive references 
 to Himself, His work, His sufferings, His death, 
 and His exaltation. How He regarded the 
 prophets collectively as speaking of these things, 
 we are thrice reminded by St. Luke : once, 
 before His sufferings, with a detail that brings 
 to the memory the express words of the great 
 prophecies in the latter portion of Isaiah 1 ; once, 
 1 Isaiah 1. 6, liii. 4, 5.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 169 
 
 after His resurrection,' when He vouchsafed to 
 interpret to the two disciples at Emmaus, 
 ' beginning from Moses and from all the 
 prophets 1 ,' the things foretold in all the Scrip- 
 tures concerning- Himself ; and yet a third time, 
 even more solemnly, as it was probably im- 
 mediately before the Ascension, when, as the 
 Evangelist studiedly records, He opened the 
 mind of the Apostles, that they might under- 
 stand the Scriptures 2 , and particularly those 
 relating- to His suffering's and resurrection ; so 
 that thus we may rightly say that, in the 
 Lord's last address on earth, the collective tes- 
 timony of the prophets and of all Scripture 
 formed the subject of His parting and verifying 
 words. 
 
 And so it was during the Lord's whole 
 ministry. His references and allusions to pro- 
 phecy were very numerous. Twice He refers 
 to those words of Hosea 3 which characterised all 
 the tenor of His ministry. Twice He cites 
 Isaiah by name ; once in reference to the dulness 
 of heart of the nation to whom He had vouch- 
 safed to come 4 ; and again, when rebuking the 
 
 J Luke xxiv. 27. a Luke xxiv. 45 sq. 
 
 5 Hos. vi. 6 ; see Matth. ix. 13, xii. 7. 
 
 4 Matth. xiii. 14 sq. ; see Isaiah vi. 9, and the remarks of 
 Turpie, Old Testament in the New, pp. 88 sq. (Loud. i868\
 
 170 CHRISTUS COMPKOBATOE. 
 
 hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, and 
 showing that their very worship was vain in 
 the eyes of God 1 . When He speaks of the 
 Baptist, He refers to Malachi 2 , and discloses the 
 true and ultimate meaning- of the prophet's 
 words, introducing in them, as He does so, a 
 change which makes the prophet the very 
 mouthpiece of the Eternal Father. When He 
 purges the temple 3 , in the few words in which 
 He vouchsafes to give the reason for the act, He 
 refers to two of the old prophets 4 . In His last 
 great prophecy 5 He alludes by name to that one 
 of the old prophets, I am referring to the 
 prophet Daniel 6 , to whom modern criticism 
 more particularly denies the name of a prophet, 
 and even of a trustworthy historian 7 ; and when 
 He stands before the High Priest and the 
 Sanhedrim 8 , He adopts words from the same 
 prophet 9 which all present at once recognise 
 
 1 Matth. xv. 7 sq. ; Mark vii. 6 sq. ; see Isaiah xxix. 13, 
 and couip. Turpie, pp. 196 sq. 
 
 2 Mai. iii. i : see Matth. xi. 10; Luke vii. 27. 
 
 3 Matth. xxi. 13 ; Mark xi. 17 ; Luke xix. 46. 
 * Isaiah Ivi. 7 ; Jer. vii. n. 
 
 5 Matth. xxiv. 15 ; Mark xiii. 14. 
 
 6 Dan. ix. 27, xii. n. 
 
 7 ELuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 147 
 (Transl.), Lond. 1877. 
 
 8 Mattb. xxvi. 54 ; Mark xiv. 62 ; Luke xxii. 60. 
 
 9 Dan. vii. 13.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 171 
 
 and, with perhaps two solitary exceptions l , 
 wildly act upon. 
 
 It is, however, as we have already implied, 
 when His suffering's and death were nigh at 
 hand, that the Lord's references to prophecy 
 became more distinct and emphatic. There 
 are two occasions on which our Lord cites 
 definitely prophetic words under circumstances 
 which preclude the possibility of any other 
 supposition than that He knew them to have a 
 Messianic reference, and cited them accordingly. 
 The first occasion is immediately after the 
 celebration of the Last Supper, when the dis- 
 persion of the Apostles was foretold 2 . Here 
 our Lord, significantly changing the impera- 
 tive to the future 3 , uses words from Zecha- 
 riah *, which from the manner in which they are 
 introduced ( f it hath been written '), cannot be 
 regarded as semi-proverbial, but as a definite 
 reference to prophecy. On the second occasion, 
 under the same solemn circumstances 5 , our Lord 
 
 1 Joseph of Arimathaea (Luke xxiii. 50, 51), and probably 
 Nicodemus ; comp. John vii. 50. 
 
 2 Matth. xxvi. 31 ; Mark xiv. 27. 
 
 3 See Turpie, Old Testament in the New, p. 152 (Lond. 
 1868). * Zecb. xiii. 7. 
 
 5 Luke xxii. 37 ; see Isaiah liii. 12. The same words are 
 found in Mark xv. 28 (Auth.).but are rightly omitted in the 
 Revised Version with clearly preponderating authority.
 
 172 CHETSTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 quotes words from the great Messianic prophecy 
 of Isaiah, which He not only applies directly to 
 Himself, but enhances by the further declara- 
 tion that they must be fulfilled in Him, and that 
 ' that which concerneth ' Him, that which the 
 prophet had foreshadowed, and He Himself had 
 recently foretold 1 , is having its fore-ordered issue 
 and fulfilment. 
 
 This statement of the divine necessity that 
 prophecy must be fulfilled in Himself is in truth 
 one of the strongest arguments in favour of the 
 Traditional view of prophecy, especially in its 
 relation to our Lord, that can be adduced. It 
 is a direct testimony on the part of our Lord, of 
 the truth and reality of the Messianic prophecy 
 of the Old Covenant. It is a testimony that 
 was, at least three times, explicitly given ; 
 once in the passage we have already considered 2 ; 
 once at the betrayal at the garden of Geth- 
 semane 3 ; and once again, after the Resurrection, 
 in even more comprehensive language, when, in 
 the last address on Olivet, the ascending Lord 
 set His final seal on Messianic prophecy in the 
 great authenticating declaration ' that all things 
 must needs be fulfilled which are written in the 
 
 1 Luke xviii. 31-34; see also Matth. xvi. 21, xx. 18 ; Mark 
 viii. 31, ix. 32 ; Luke xxiv. 7. 
 
 2 Luke xxii. 37. 3 Matth. xxvi. 54.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 173 
 
 law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, 
 concerning Me l .' Nay, we may add to this, if we 
 take what seems to be the natural connexion of 
 the passage 2 ; we may reverently say that even 
 on the Lord's cross of suffering the fulfilment 
 of prophecy was the subject of His divine 
 thoughts. The words ' I thirst ' were spoken that 
 Scripture might be fulfilled. And when the 
 words of the prophetic psalm 3 were substantiated 
 to the very letter, then all things were indeed 
 accomplished 4 ; and with the words of the old 
 Psalmist on His lips 5 , He who came to fulfil 
 prophecy, and fulfilled it in all His blessed minis- 
 try, fulfilled it with His dying breath. 
 
 Only one reference remains to be noticed. It 
 is different in character to all that have been 
 alluded to ; and it seems to show that, in one 
 instance at least, our Lord did pronounce a 
 judgment on prophetic Scripture which, when 
 carefully considered, must be regarded as having 
 a very far-reaching significance. The reference 
 is to Psalm ex. (Sept. cix.), a reference given in 
 substantially the same form by the first three 
 
 1 Luke xxiv. 44 ; see Lectures on the Life of our Lord, 
 p. 41 a. 
 
 " John xix. 28 ; see Meyer in loc. 
 
 3 Psalm Ixix. 21. 
 
 4 Observe the carefully chosen word Tt\ti<uOri. 
 
 5 Luke xxiii. 46 ; Psalin xxxi. 5.
 
 174 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOE. 
 
 Evangelists 1 . What we may deduce from this 
 passage is this : First, that the Psalm was 
 written by David, and that thus this particular 
 superscription is right. Secondly, that David 
 was here writing by direct inspiration of the 
 Holy Ghost. Thirdly, that the reference to 
 the Messiah is so distinct, that David may be 
 regarded as consciously speaking of Him 2 . All 
 this seems patently to be deducible from what 
 Professor Ladd justly calls this ' decisive utter- 
 ance 3 .' It is perfectly true that we can draw 
 no inference from this particular case as to 
 the Davidic authorship of other Psalms, or as to 
 the nature of the inspiration of David in other 
 Psalms which we may believe to have been 
 rightly ascribed to him ; still the passage stands 
 as a kind of beacon-light, displaying to us 
 what, in one instance at least, was the judg- 
 ment of the Lord Jesus Christ in reference to 
 Messianic prophecy. Surely with the rays of 
 such a light upon us we may accept the words 
 of an Apostle, and believe that neither this nor 
 any other prophecy ever came by the will of 
 man, but that ' men spake from God, being 
 
 1 Matth. xxii. 41-45 ; Mark xii. 35-37 ; Luke xx. 41-44. 
 
 2 Comp. Delitzsch in loc. 
 
 s Tiie Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 63 (Edinb. 
 1883).
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 175 
 
 moved by the Holy Ghost V The attempts on 
 the part of modern criticism to explain away 
 the impression which this memorable passage 
 will not fail to leave on any candid mind, are 
 many, but all singularly hopeless. It may be 
 perfectly true that our Lord is asking a ques- 
 tion rather than making a statement 2 , but if 
 the question is of such a nature that it plainly 
 involves and implies the recognition on our 
 Lord's part of certain facts and truths, why are 
 these facts and truths not to be put in evidence 
 as recognised by Him, and as having the seal of 
 His authority ? The true answer to this is, 
 because it is inconvenient to modern criticism, 
 which has settled that the Psalm is of a very 
 late date, and has no Messianic reference at 
 all. 
 
 But is not modern criticism utterly wrong ? 
 Let us put this to the test by this simple ques- 
 tion : Is it to be regarded as probable that, if 
 the Psalm had really been of this late date, 
 there was no one in the gathered company of 
 Pharisees to whom the words were addressed 
 who knew that it was so ? If this was not 
 probable, then why did not some one of these 
 experts at once traverse the Lord's question by 
 
 9 
 
 1 2 Pet. i. 21. a Lux Mundi, p. 359.
 
 176 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 the easily made statement that David never 
 wrote what was imputed to him ? If, on the 
 other hand, it was probable, then can we possibly 
 believe that a metrical fabrication claiming to 
 be a psalm of David and an oracle of God, and 
 challenging- attention by setting forth a doc- 
 trine so unfamiliar as the Messiah's everlasting 
 priesthood 1 , could have crept into the jealously 
 guarded Scripture, three or four centuries after 
 the date of Ezra's Bible, and remained there 
 undetected ? Whatever else may be said of the 
 Scribes, they were certainly careful and jealous 
 guardians of the very letter of the Scriptures. 
 
 We are thus, apart from other considera- 
 tions, forced by common sense to believe that 
 the psalm was Davidic, and was known to be so 
 by our Lord and those to whom He was speak- 
 ing. And we are confirmed in this by what 
 followed. The question produced a startling 
 effect. It raised, on the authority of David, 
 the question of the Divinity of the Son of 
 David ; and we read, as we might expect to 
 read, that no man ' durst from that day forth 
 ask Him any more questions V 
 
 We have now concluded our examination of our 
 
 1 See Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament,^ 230, vol. 
 ii. p. 413 (Transl.), Edinb. 1875. 
 * Matth. xxii. 46.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 177 
 
 Lord's references to history and to prophecy, 
 and the results at which we have arrived would 
 seem to be as follows. 
 
 First, that the impressions conveyed by a 
 general survey of the references to history and 
 to prophecy appear to be substantiated in each 
 case by the more detailed examination. This 
 examination has, we believe, been cajried out 
 with fairness and impartiality, and with due 
 regard to recognised principles of Scriptural in- 
 terpretation. The conclusions to which it leads 
 are certainly, that the historical references 
 were to real events, and to acknowledged facts 
 in histoiy ; and that the prophetical references 
 imply throughout a clear recognition on the 
 par.t of our blessed Lord of the inspiration of 
 the prophets He referred to, of the reality of 
 their predictive knowledge, and of the dis- 
 tinctness of their Messianic foreshadowings and 
 prophecies. 
 
 It is with these conclusions that we are here 
 more particularly concerned ; because if they are 
 correct they do distinctly negative, not merely 
 several of the results of the Analytical view and 
 of the conclusions at which its advocates have 
 arrived, but even some of the ground-principles 
 of modern criticism. This is very plainly felt 
 by the supporters of that movement, and may 
 M
 
 178 CHEISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 account for the earnestness and even bitterness 
 with which any reference to Christ is depre- 
 cated in matters alleged to belong- exclusively 
 to the domain of critical enquiry. We have 
 touched upon this in a foregoing- Address, but 
 we may again ask, why are we to be precluded 
 from this reference to the Great Teacher ? Had 
 He not the words of eternal life 1 ? Did He not 
 come into the world to bear witness to the 
 Truth 2 ? If He is the Light of the world, the 
 true Light that lighteth every man, are we to 
 dispense with that Light in a domain where it 
 is more particularly needed ? We have seen in 
 this Address the blessed nature of the guidance 
 we receive in regard of God's Holy Word when 
 we turn to Him, the freshness, the freedom, 
 the life that breathes through His teaching of 
 that Word ; how events and facts seem quick- 
 ened with a new life when He alludes to them, 
 and how the sure word of prophecy is made 
 more sure to us when He is the interpreter. 
 The more we enter into detail the more vividly 
 is all this impressed upon us. 
 
 We conclude, then, this Address with the 
 hope, and indeed the belief, not only that we 
 have substantiated that which we have sought 
 
 1 John vi. 68. 2 Ibid, xviii. 37.
 
 REFERENCES TO HISTORY AND PROPHECY. 179 
 
 to substantiate not only that we have shown 
 that many of the results of modern criticism in 
 reference to God's Holy Word are inconsistent 
 with the teaching of Christ, hut that we have 
 also incidentally demonstrated the rig-htfulness 
 of the appeal to Ckrittw com.probator. 
 
 M 2
 
 VII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE have now concluded our consideration of 
 the momentous subject which I have felt it my 
 duty to bring before the clergy and laity of the 
 two Archdeaconries at the present Visitation. 
 I have followed the outline sketched out in the 
 opening Address, and have, I trust, placed 
 clearly before those to whom the separate Ad- 
 dresses have been delivered the different sub- 
 jects which must be included in any discussion 
 on the trustworthiness of the Old Testament. 
 
 What now remains to be done is very briefly 
 to recapitulate ; to gather up the results at 
 which we have arrived, and to draw a few 
 deductions which may fairly be drawn from 
 them, and may afford some guidance, whether 
 monitory or directive, in the grave controversy 
 into which the imprudence of fellow-churchmen 
 has unhappily involved us.
 
 CONCLUSION. 181 
 
 The circumstances which have necessitated 
 the choice of the subject we have reviewed in 
 the opening- Address. It has been there proved 
 to us beyond, I trust, the possibility of dispute, 
 that the necessity is real and urgent. Had I 
 not felt it to be so, I should not, on this occa- 
 sion, have chosen such a subject as the present, 
 involving 1 , as it has done, long-continued study, 
 widely extended reading, and closely applied 
 thought, when there is so much of a simpler 
 and more practical nature that may seem to be 
 inviting our attention. But when views of the 
 Old Testament, such as we have discussed in 
 the foregoing Addresses, have been put forward 
 not merely by opponents, but by earnest mem- 
 bers of our own Church, when we are told 
 that we must be prepared to make considerable 
 changes in our literary conception of the Scrip- 
 tures 1 , that the earlier narratives, for example, 
 before the call of Abraham, are of the nature of 
 myth 2 , that we may regard the writings of 
 two of the prophets as dramatic compositions 
 worked up on a basis of history 3 , and when, 
 finally, it is asserted that the modern develop- 
 ment of historical criticism which teaches us 
 such things leads us, where it is fairly used, to 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 356 (ed. x). 
 a Ibid. p. 357. * Ibid. p. 355.
 
 182 CHRISTUS COMPEOBATOB. 
 
 results as sure as scientific inquiry 1 , then 
 surely it becomes a paramount doty to ask if 
 it be possible that these things are so, and that 
 we may teach them and preach them con- 
 sistently with a belief in the veracities of God's 
 Holy Word. 
 
 The need being- thus urgent, we next made it 
 our care plainly to set forth the two competing 
 views of the Old Testament, the Traditional 
 and the Analytical ; and then to state as fully 
 as our limits permitted the two arguments on 
 which a choice between the two views must 
 ultimately turn, the intrinsically greater pro- 
 bability of the truth of the Traditional view 
 than of the truth of the Analytical view, and the 
 claim that the Traditional view can make of 
 accordance with the teaching of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. To this it would have been easy to add 
 the testimony of the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment, but, for our present purpose of reassuring 
 disquieted minds, it seemed sufficient to rest 
 npon a full and valid demonstration of the 
 teaching and testimony of Christ. Before, 
 however, this demonstration could be made, it 
 was necessary to establish the rightfulness of 
 the appeal to Christ, and the absolute certitude 
 of His judgments wheresoever they could be 
 
 1 Lux Mvndi, p. 357.
 
 CONCLUSION. 183 
 
 shown to have been either made, or to be justly 
 inferrible. This being- done, there remained 
 only to set forth fully and in detail the teaching 
 of the Lord, first as regards the earlier Books 
 and the Law, and next as regards the historical 
 and the prophetical Scriptures. This has now 
 been completed, with a due regard to the con- 
 sideration that the Lord's authority cannot 
 rightfully be claimed in any given case, unless 
 careful investigation shall have first shown that 
 His words either do express an authoritative 
 judgment, or, as is most commonly the case., 
 can be shown to involve it by a just considera- 
 tion of the circumstances and the tenor of the 
 passage. 
 
 Such is a brief recapitulation of the foregoing 
 Addresses, and of the general current of the 
 argument. We have now to consider the gene- 
 ral results we have arrived at, and the teachings 
 and the warnings which they involve. And 
 the first result would appear to be this that 
 the active principle in the genesis and develop- 
 ment of the Analytical view, is disbelief in, or 
 inability honestly to accept, the supernatural. 
 This has been patent throughout. In some 
 cases it has been distinctly stated at the outset, 
 and made a postulate before any investigation 
 was entered into, or any discussion commenced.
 
 184 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 Writers like Professor Kuenen have done us 
 unconsciously a great service by honestly avow- 
 ing- the position they take up, and the prin- 
 ciples on which they estimate the history or the 
 prophecy that they criticise. They deserve, too, 
 our gratitude for another reason. Having- made 
 the avowal, the writer we have mentioned and 
 some others of his school, commonly write 
 in a temperate, and sometimes almost a reve- 
 rential, spirit, when taking- up extreme positions, 
 or carrying-, as they often do, their criticism into 
 the very citadel of Christian belief. Only too 
 commonly, as in the case of Wellhausen and 
 others that mig-ht be named, a tone is adopted 
 in the criticism of events involving- or in 
 any way tinged by the supernatural that is 
 most painful and most repulsive, and is utterly 
 unworthy of the indisputable ability, and 
 unique ingenuity as well as patient industry, 
 that mark especially the writer we have just 
 mentioned. To return, however, to our point, 
 aversion to, or, to put it in the mildest form, 
 disinclination to accept the supernatural, is the 
 characteristic in a greater or less degree of all 
 the more pronounced supporters of the Ana- 
 lytical view. 
 
 In regard of those with whom we are more 
 particularly concerned, English writers who
 
 CONCLUSION. 185 
 
 have adopted many of the results of these 
 foreign critics, though neither their tone nor 
 their postulates, it may be fairly said that, 
 if not for themselves yet for others, they have 
 yielded so far to the dangerous bias as obviously 
 to be not unwilling to concede very far too 
 much if by doing so succour could be brought 
 ' to a distressed faith.' And yet it is certain 
 that it will ultimately be in vain, and worse 
 than in vain. The simpler souls in Christ, 
 now startled and shaken by these profitless 
 concessions, will become the distressed many, 
 while the few for whom this perilous venture 
 has been made will inevitably, after a brief 
 pause, find themselves again swept into the 
 current of the anti-supernatural, and borne far 
 beyond the succour of minimising concessions 
 or ' disencumbered ' faith. It is frequently 
 said that such anticipations as these will not 
 in the sequel prove to be correct, and that the 
 heady current will at last find its way into the 
 broad peaceful mere ; or, to adopt another 
 simile used by a recent writer, that there will 
 be a sort of landing-place at the foot of the 
 inclined plane down which criticism is now 
 passing, where it will of its own accord come 
 to rest 1 . We ask eagerly what this landing - 
 1 Sanday, The Oracles of God, p. 61 (Lond. 1891).
 
 186 CHRISTUS COMPEOBATOB. 
 
 place can be ; and we are told that it is the 
 consciousness of the sacred writers themselves, 
 the consciousness that they are writing under 
 the inspiration to which they lay claim. 
 
 But will this arrest the course of modern 
 criticism ? Will a declaration such as the 
 familiar ; Thus saith the Lord,' or ' The word 
 of the Lord came,' or the very frequently 
 repeated ' The Lord spake unto Moses, saying-,' 
 impose silence or even reserve on Analytical 
 enquiry ? Nay, rather, will it not even the 
 more call it out and stimulate it ? The writer 
 of the Book of Jonah begins with the declaration 
 that the ' word of the Lord came unto Jonah ' ; 
 but have these words prevented the Book of 
 Jonah being denounced as a fiction, or the 
 symbol of the great fish as ' a shrivelled-up 
 myth 1 .' When it is said 'The Lord spake 
 unto Moses, saying,' what is it that a singu- 
 larly sober and impartial writer plainly tells 
 us 2 ? Why, that ' an historical statement is 
 made to lend its form to an ethical and reli- 
 gious doctrine,' and that ' such a statement may 
 fitly be subjected to all the tests of accurate 
 'history.' No, consciousness on the part of the 
 
 1 Dr. Cheyne, in Theological Review for 1877, p. 215. 
 a Professor Ladd, in his large work, The Doctrine of 
 Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 729 (Edinb. 1883).
 
 CONCLUSION. 187 
 
 sacred writers, however earnestly or emphatically 
 expressed, will never stay the course of modern 
 biblical criticism. Nought will stay it when 
 once inability to accept the supernatural has 
 become a settled characteristic of the soul. If 
 our investigations have helped to bring out 
 more distinctly the close connexion that exists 
 between this so-called Higher criticism and dif- 
 ficulty as to acceptance of the supernatural, they 
 will not have been made in vain. 
 
 2. A second result to which we seem led by 
 the general course of our argument is this, that 
 if we accept the Analytical view we must recon- 
 struct our views and estimate of Revealed doc- 
 trine, and, generally, of the Inspiration of Holy 
 Scripture. Let us illustrate this statement in 
 reference to fundamental doctrine as revealed to 
 us in the Old Testament. 
 
 Our current view of Old Testament revela- 
 tion, it may be assumed, is substantially to this 
 effect, that from the first chapter of Genesis 
 to the last chapter of Malachi, a gradual dis- 
 closure is made to us of the nature of Almighty 
 God, and of His dealings, through one favoured 
 race, with the children of men. These dealings 
 reflect from the very beginning redemptive 
 love ; and history and prophecy combine in 
 bringing that redemptive love ever more and
 
 188 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 more clearly home to each succeeding- genera- 
 tion. A promise and the evolution of a promise 
 form to the general reader the spiritual sub- 
 stance of the Old Testament, and place all por- 
 tions of the Sacred volume before him in coherent 
 unity. Redemption through Christ that is to 
 come is the ultimate tenor of the revelation of 
 the Old Testament. Redemption? But from 
 what? Let us suppose the answer to be, as 
 it ought to be, From sin, and from death, 
 and from spiritual hosts of boundless evil, 
 ' world-rulers V as an Apostle calls them, of this 
 darkness in which we dwell. But whence is 
 such an answer derived ? What event is there 
 in the past, or what series of events, that makes 
 Redemption the fundamental necessity to man 
 that all revelation thus proclaims it to be ? The 
 answer, let us hope, will at once be given ; the 
 Fall. But is the Fall a fact? One thing is 
 certainly a fact, that there is radical evil in 
 man's nature ; all experience proves the truth of 
 the Apostle's experience, that when he would do 
 good, evil was present with him 2 . But how is 
 it so, and why is it so ? Does the Fall, if it be 
 a fact, explain this? Let us again hope that 
 the answer will be, Yes, veraciously and per- 
 suasively. 
 
 1 Eph. vi. 12. 2 Horn. vii. 21.
 
 CONCLUSION. 189 
 
 From this sort of questioning- addressed, as 
 we have supposed, to the current believer, it 
 becomes at last abundantly clear that on the 
 view taken of the Scripture narrative of the 
 Fall the gravest spiritual consequences will be 
 found to depend. Now we are told, not merely 
 by foreign writers but by English Churchmen, 
 that the narrative of this Fall and the other 
 narratives prior to the call of Abraham are of 
 the nature of myth, that is, ' of a product of 
 mental activity not yet distinguished into his- 
 tory and poetry and philosophy 1 .' But what 
 exactly does this mean when we apply this 
 statement to the Fall ? Does it mean that the 
 narrative in Genesis is a typical representation 
 of what takes place in every individual soul, 
 just as it has been said that our Lord treated 
 the Flood as typical 2 , or does it mean, that 
 though to some extent we may recognise sym- 
 bolism in the narrative, ' the passage,' as Dorner 
 rightly says, 'has to do with the first human 
 pair and their historical fall 3 ' ? And if it has 
 this latter meaning, why, in the case of an event 
 on which all the redemptive history of mankind 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 356 (ed. x). 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 359. 
 
 3 System of Christian Doctrine, vol. iii. p. 13 (Transl.), 
 Edinb. 1882.
 
 190 CHR1STUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 depends, has it not been said so with the utmost 
 distinctness by those Churchmen who are com- 
 mending to us the new criticism? The pro- 
 nounced advocates of the Analytical view, at 
 any rate, make their meaning- quite plain. They 
 dismiss the whole as fable, or as the Semitic 
 mode of accounting 1 for the existence of radical 
 evil. The Fall becomes a figure of speech, and 
 our whole view of Revelation, as we have already 
 said, must be reconstructed. Are we to stand 
 ourselves or let others stand upon the brink of 
 an error so perilous as this, and not utter one 
 word of salutary warning ? 
 
 The result of our foregoing considerations 
 would seem to be this, that the Analytical 
 view of the Old Testament, if thoroughly ac- 
 cepted, must involve fresh views not only of 
 history, but of vital and of fundamental doc- 
 trine, and that any attempt to utilise it for the 
 sake of helping the distressed faith of a few 
 may end, we had almost said must end. in 
 endangering the faith, and, it may be, even the 
 salvation of thousands. If there is any hesita- 
 tion in accepting the reality of such a truth as 
 the Fall, there never can be any heart-whole 
 belief in the realities of the Redemption and 
 the Atonement. 
 
 We have touched upon the perils which the
 
 CONCLUSION. 191 
 
 advocacy of the modern criticism of the Old 
 Testament may involve in regard of revealed 
 doctrine ; we may now notice the difficulties in 
 which it places its exponents in regard of In- 
 spiration. 
 
 The view of Inspiration that is now taken by 
 all the more sober interpreters of Holy Scripture 
 is substantially in accordance with what an 
 Apostle has said in reference to prophecy, 
 ' Men spake from God, being moved by the 
 Holy Ghost V Another Apostle, as we shall well 
 remember, speaks of the inspiration breathed as 
 it were into what was written, a fact as real 
 as the inspiration of the writer, but not lending 
 itself so easily to the elucidation of the essential 
 idea to which modern theology is now more 
 particularly addressing itself. Attention is now 
 primarily directed to the operation of the 
 blessed Spirit on him who either spoke or wrote 
 under the holy influence, rather than to that 
 which was spoken or written. Adopting this 
 mode of regarding Inspiration we may very 
 readily accept the excellent definition of In- 
 spiration given by a writer whose ability and 
 learning I greatly respect, but from whose con- 
 clusions I am compelled, in many particulars, 
 very widely to differ. Speaking of the pro- 
 1 2 Peter i. 22.
 
 192 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 phets, Psalmists, moralists, and historians of the 
 Old Covenant, Mr. Gore most truly remarks 
 that 'their inspiration lies in this, that they 
 were the subjects of a movement of the Holy 
 Ghost, so shaping-, controlling, quickening their 
 minds, thoughts, and aspirations, as to make 
 them the instruments through which was im- 
 parted "the knowledge of God and of the 
 spiritual life " V With the tenor of this pas- 
 sage we may heartily agree, but when we begin 
 to apply it to several particular cases the results 
 at which we seem constrained to arrive are very 
 different from those arrived at by the writer. 
 
 Let us take two or three cases which have been 
 already touched upon in some of the foregoing 
 Addresses, for example, the case of the Book 
 of Deuteronomy, of the Books of Chronicles, and 
 of the Book of the prophet Jonah. And here 
 let us be careful not to impute to those with 
 whom we are now arguing any of the estimates 
 of these Books that have been form'ed by the 
 thorough-going advocates of the Analytical 
 view. Let us take the view which English 
 Churchmen have taken, and have considered to 
 have been proved plainly and decisively by 
 critical investigation. Let us assume that the 
 Book of Deuteronomy is what is euphemistically 
 
 1 Lux Mundl, p. 342 (ed. x).
 
 CONCLUSION. 193 
 
 called ' dramatic ' ; or, in plainer words, that it 
 was not written by Moses, though it can be 
 shown, at the very least, inferentially that it 
 professes to have been written by him, but that 
 it owes its existence to the literary activity of 
 an unknown writer who lived eight centuries 
 after his death. Let us admit that it was the 
 work of a pious Jew who felt that the times in 
 which he lived seemed to call for some more vivid 
 setting- forth of the Mosaic law. Let us even 
 suppose that he had something to work upon, 
 some oral traditions, some fragmentary records 
 of words believed to have been spoken by Moses, 
 and that his simple aim was to republish the law 
 in what he deemed would be its most attractive 
 and effective form. Let us make all these 
 assumptions, assumptions which, it may be 
 said, writers like Wellhausen would reject with 
 a sneer, and writers of the school of Kuenen 
 would briefly tear to pieces as baseless and un- 
 critical, let us however make them, and sup- 
 pose them generally to commend themselves to 
 a certain number of sober thinkers in our own 
 Church ; yet could the majority of us ourselves 
 believe, or persuade others to believe, that a 
 book written as we have supposed was, in any 
 true sense of the word, an inspired book, or that 
 the Spirit of truth had inspired the writer thus 
 N
 
 194 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 to impersonate the great Lawgiver of the past. 
 Every fresh proof from the contents of the Look 
 that it did inferentially claim to be written by 
 Moses would make the case more hopeless. The 
 dramatic republication that we are invited to 
 believe in would be more clearly seen to be, after 
 all, really pious fraud, and the position taken 
 up by clear and reverent thinkers like the late 
 lamented Dr. Liddon would be felt to be more 
 impregnable than ever, viz. 'that unless there 
 be such a thing as the inspiration of inveracity/ 
 we are shut up to the choice between accept- 
 ance of ' the authority of some of our modern 
 critics, and any belief whatever in the inspira- 
 tion of the books which they handle after this 
 fashion.' 
 
 Very much the same language may be used 
 with regard to the modern views of the Books 
 of Chronicles. As we have seen in an earlier 
 Address, we are to believe that they present to 
 us a version of history that cannot be regarded 
 as a true recital of events, but as a recital 
 which had the imprimatur of the priestly 
 schools. We have before us the narrative of 
 the Books of Kings, and we can see for our- 
 selves and mark the discrepancies and differ- 
 ences. We are not invited to think that the 
 compiler of the Chronicles had before him a
 
 CONCLUSION. 195 
 
 different series of documentary annals on which 
 he relied more than on the narrative of the 
 Books of Kings ; we have proofs forced upon us 
 that there was intentional modification. We 
 are not, however, to regard this as conscious 
 perversion, but as ' unconscious idealizing of 
 history 1 ' (whatever that may mean), and a read- 
 ing back into the records of the past the usage* 
 and ceremonial of the present. Now taking 
 thus, as we are studiously taking, the mildest 
 and most apologetic view of results of the Ana- 
 lytical criticism of the Old Testament, we are 
 still justified in asking whether reverent com- 
 mon-sense will permit us to believe, if the 
 literary procedure was what it is alleged to be, 
 that we could rightly regard the result as a 
 product of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 An inspiration of the Holy Ghost in writing 
 the history of the past or the present we can 
 understand ; we can realise an inspiration by 
 which the working out of the will of God may 
 be foreseen in the future ; we can believe in an 
 inspiration of reminiscence, and an inspiration 
 of selection, but an inspiration of the idealizing 
 of history, or, in simpler language, of re- paint- 
 ing history, must be pronounced to be, in the 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 354 (ed. x). 
 N 2,
 
 196 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 case of the great majority of Christian minds, 
 incredible and inconceivable. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to pursue the subject 
 in reference to the Books of Jonah and of 
 Daniel. Of both we have spoken elsewhere. 
 The former we have seen to be regarded even 
 by English Churchmen as a fiction 1 , and the 
 other we know to be regarded by modern criti- 
 cism as a history of events contemporaneous 
 with the writer of them, disguised in the garb 
 of prophecy. But without pressing these ex- 
 pressions of more advanced opinion, we will 
 simply take the more diluted description of 
 these Books as 'dramatic compositions worked 
 up on a basis of history 2 ,' and content ourselves 
 with asking how it is possible to maintain that 
 if they have this dramatic character it will be 
 no hindrance ' to their being inspired 3 ,' or 
 rather to their being accounted to be so. If the 
 word ' inspired ' means that the Holy Ghost 
 inspired the two writers in the dramatic opera- 
 tions attributed to them, then we may at least 
 say, that the assertion that the Spirit of truth, 
 who leads us into all truth 4 , was concerned in 
 the' working up on a basis of history of these 
 
 1 Dr. Cheyne, in Theological Review for 1877, p. 214. 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 355 (ed. x). 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 355. * John xvi. 13.
 
 CONCLUSION. 197 
 
 dramatic compositions, must be regarded simply 
 as a statement which, it may be added, it will 
 be found very difficult to sustain. 
 
 This tendency to go considerable lengths with 
 the Analytical criticism of the writings of the 
 Old Testament, and then in the sequel to turn 
 round and say that they are inspired, is now 
 becoming- very common. Each critic is making 
 his own diagnosis and settling for himself when 
 inspiration is to be attributed to a writing of 
 the Old Testament, however much that writing 
 may have suffered at his hands. A recent 
 writer on the criticism of Holy Scripture makes 
 this perfectly plain. Speaking, we may pre- 
 sume, for himself and the advocates of what 
 he terms ' higher criticism,' he says that, ' We 
 determine the inspiration of the book from its 
 internal character and the voice of the Holy 
 Spirit speaking in it to the believer 1 .' In a 
 word, the settlement of the vital question is to 
 be purely subjective. The testimony of the 
 Church, the canonicity of the Book, the judg- 
 ment of Catholic writers, all become as nothing. 
 The judgment of the individual, on the presup- 
 position that he is qualified to form it, is to 
 settle the question, however doubtful it may be 
 
 1 Dr. Briggs, in the American Review for July, 1891, as 
 cited in the Religious Review of Reviews for August, p. 163.
 
 198 CHBISTUS COMPEOBATOR. 
 
 whether the blessed Spirit may have vouchsafed 
 t,o speak to him hereon or no. Nothing- really 
 is more melancholy in this whole controversy 
 on the authority of Holy Scripture than the 
 reckless manner in which the judgment of that 
 which is declared by an Apostle - to be ' the 
 pillar and ground of the truth V is set aside by 
 Christian teachers when endeavouring- to find 
 some basis for belief in God's Holy Word. This 
 is the very last result that those English Church- 
 men who have supported the Analytical view of 
 the Old Testament would wish to see arrived 
 at. When one of them says that ' it is be- 
 coming more and more difficult to believe in the 
 Bible without believing in the Church 2 ,' we may 
 readily perceive that no sympathy is felt with 
 modern individualism, and yet nothing has more 
 helped to call out that individualism than the 
 very criticism of the Old Testament which has 
 been precipitately advocated. 
 
 3. We have pointed out two of the leading 
 results at which we seem to have arrived ; but 
 one other, and that of far, far more importance 
 than either of those already mentioned im- 
 portant as they most certainly are yet remains 
 to be mentioned. And it is this, that the 
 
 1 i Tim. iii. 15. 
 
 2 Lux Mundi, p. 338 (ed. x).
 
 CONCLUSION. 199 
 
 judgment of our Lord and Master, so far as we 
 have been able to derive it from His use of the 
 Old Testament, His references to it, and the 
 declarations He has made in regard of it, is 
 sufficiently clear to justify us in making the 
 following assertion, that our Lord's view of 
 the Old Testament is not only consonant with 
 the Traditional view, but may even be regarded 
 as supporting and confirming it ; and that in no 
 particular, or, to use the most guarded language, 
 in no particular of any real importance, has it 
 appeared to favour the Analytical view. This 
 result, thus expressed, we do not think would 
 l)e seriously contested by those who are opposed 
 to us. The judgment at which we have arrived 
 in some of the many passages we have ex- 
 amined though we have done our very best to 
 maintain a strict exegetical impartiality, 
 may be called into question as influenced by 
 presuppositions, or may be attenuated when 
 subjected to closer examination ; still we sin- 
 cerely believe that what may be called the net 
 result will not be found to be substantially 
 different from that we have defined it to be. 
 
 Assuming, then, that it is so, we find our- 
 selves confronted with the serious question, 
 How are we, as English Churchmen, to order 
 ourselves in the present controversy ? Some of
 
 200 CHBISTUS COMPEOBATOR. 
 
 the answers to this vital question we have 
 already incidentally dealt with in foregoing 
 Addresses, but two answers there are which 
 must now be more particularly considered. 
 
 (a) The one is that we must believe that our 
 Lord so used human nature and its limitations 
 of knowledge, so restrained ' the beams of Deity ' 
 (this expression is Hooker's) l as to observe the 
 limits of the historical knowledge of His age. 
 This statement, which we have collected with 
 anxious care from the words of the writer to 
 whom we have had frequently to refer, and 
 after those words had received a very necessary 
 revision 2 , may now be regarded as the most 
 restrained form of answer which has been put 
 forward by the English advocates of the Ana- 
 lytical view of the Old Testament. At first, 
 to the great disquietude of all parties in the 
 Church, and to the grievous injury of the faith 
 of many of the ' babes in Christ V answers were 
 made by English Churchmen patently asserting 
 
 1 Lux Mundi, p. 360. Hooker, however, it may be ob- 
 served, speaks (with greater precision) of the beams of Deity 
 ' in operation ' either restraining or enlarging ' themselves ' ; 
 Eccl. Polity, v. 54. 6. 
 
 2 Up to the fourth edition the words were different, and 
 were very properly altered ; see Preface to ed. x, p. xxxiii. 
 and Preface to ed. v. 
 
 3 l Cor. iii. i.
 
 CONCLUSION. 201 
 
 or admitting fallibility in Christ ; and though 
 most of those answers have been either ex- 
 plained away or retracted, yet it is to be feared 
 that some of them are still permitted to remain, 
 in spite of widely circulated remonstrances. 
 These answers, however, and the answers given 
 by foreign advocates of the Analytical view, we 
 will leave unnoticed, and simply confine our- 
 selves to a brief consideration of the answer in 
 the form in which we have specified it above. 
 Can we, as loyal Churchmen, accept it ? The 
 answer, if we admit the validity of the argu- 
 ments in Address IV, can only be that the 
 doctrines of the sinlessness of Christ, and still 
 more the doctrine of the union of the Two 
 Natures, unitedly forbid the acceptance of 
 words which imply limitation in respect of 
 historical knowledge. We firmly hold with 
 Hooker that the union of natures adds perfec- 
 tion to the weaker nature 1 , and that the soul 
 of Christ was endued, with universal, though 
 not with infinite knowledge peculiar to Deity 
 itself 2 ; and we are solemnly persuaded that the 
 assumption that the Lord willed not to know, 
 in His perfect and illuminated human nature, 
 the things concerning the Holy Scriptures, 
 
 1 Eccl. Polity, v. 54. 4. 
 
 2 Ibid., v. 54. 7.
 
 202 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 about which mortal man claims to have know- 
 ledge now, is inadmissible, and at variance with 
 Catholic teaching-. 
 
 The erroneous conception that seems to give 
 rise to all such assumptions is this, that if the 
 Lord in His human nature had this wide- 
 reaching knowledge, that nature would cease 
 to be true human nature, whereas, as it has 
 been well argued, an eye that cannot discern, 
 say, the satellites of Saturn, does not cease to 
 be a true human eye when it sees them by 
 means of its conjunction with a telescope l . We 
 are compelled, then, to set aside this form of 
 answer to the general question now before us as 
 to the attitude which, as Churchmen, we must 
 assume in the present controversy. We cannot 
 get behind what has distinctly appeared to be 
 the teaching of Christ in reference to the Old 
 Testament, by assuming that He spoke simply 
 on the basis of the highest knowledge of His 
 own times, and that His nescience does not bar 
 our acceptance of the results of modern criticism 
 in the somewhat modified form in which they 
 are now commended to us. 
 
 () The other form of answer to the question 
 that is before us, may now in conclusion re- 
 ceive our careful attention. If we cannot con- 
 
 1 See Literary Churchman for Aug. 21, 1891, p. 331.
 
 CONCLUSION. 203 
 
 sider ourselves free to accept, we will not say 
 the Analytical view T in the form in which 
 foreign criticism presents it, this being- utterly 
 incompatible with the tenor of our Lord's 
 teaching-, but the Analytical view as pressed 
 upon us by English Churchmen, are we to 
 declare that the question is foreclosed, and that 
 the authority of the Lord binds us to repudiate 
 all critical enquiry whatsoever into the compo- 
 sition of the Books of the Old Testament ? This 
 surely would be a hard saying on the other 
 side, and hurtful to that reverential study of 
 the Holy Scriptures, that searching of them, 
 that reading, marking, and learning which 
 prepares the way for the fuller understanding 
 and inward digesting of the blessed Book of 
 Life. There is a teaching now about us and 
 around us as to that Book which it is not 
 either reasonable or wise simply to denounce. 
 There is much in that teaching that bears, as 
 we have seen in these Addresses, the sinister 
 mark of disavowal of the supernatural ; much 
 that is repulsive, much that may even involve 
 peril to the faith. But there is also in it much 
 that promotes and stimulates that close study 
 of the Scriptures which can never be without 
 ultimate profit to him who conscientiously un- 
 dertakes it. Happy, however, are they who are
 
 204 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 drawn to God's Holy Word by higher influ- 
 ences, and are taught by the teaching of the 
 Spirit. Happy, indeed, are they who, from 
 the fulness of a heart-whole belief, can receive 
 the written word, without a thought rippling 
 the still waters of the soul as to the circum- 
 stances under which it holds its place in the 
 Book of Life, or as to the hand that traced it on 
 the roll of prophecy, or on the records of God's 
 revelation of Himself to mankind. Blessed 
 and happy are such, and woe to those who 
 heedlessly or needlessly cause disquiet to these 
 gentle spirits, whether by giving a half-approv- 
 ing currency to criticisms of God's Holy Word, 
 which weaken the trust in its plenary authority, 
 or by concessions which (as we have seen) 
 bring in their train modifications of vital and 
 fundamental doctrine. 
 
 Even, however, with such gentle spirits in 
 the foreground of our thoughts, we cannot 
 advocate the attempt to silence this new 
 teaching by the voice of authority, mighty 
 and momentous as we have seen that authority 
 to be. It is wise and it is seasonable, for the 
 sake of those who, with the best intentions, 
 may plainly have been going too fast and too 
 far, to reason gently with them, and to show 
 them what must be the ultimate issue of this
 
 CONCLUSION. 205 
 
 plausible and seductive analysis. Arguments 
 from consequences, as Dr. Liddon has im- 
 pressively pointed out, cannot be set aside with 
 impunity. ' If it be obvious,' as he says, ' that 
 certain theories about the Old Testament must 
 ultimately conflict with our Lord's unerring 1 
 authority, a Christian will pause before he com- 
 mits himself to these theories.' The appeal to 
 Christ may be fruitless to those who have deliber- 
 ately crossed a Rubicon ; but in the case of the 
 great majority the appeal, if wisely and persua- 
 sively made, will rarely fail to suggest some hesi- 
 tation, some reconsideration of theories which are 
 traversed by the teaching- of Christ, or by the 
 inferences which immediately flow from it. 
 
 The greatest use, however, of the appeal to 
 Christ will probably be discernible in the case 
 of two of those classes which now especially are 
 looking earnestly to us, God's ministers and 
 the stewards of His mysteries, for help and for 
 sympathizing guidance. To the young, in 
 whose hearts the authority of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ is still the ruling influence of the 
 spiritual life, the appeal to Him, in reference to 
 the Books that spake of Him, will always 
 minister light and reassurance. Nor will it be 
 less helpful to that large class of sober-minded 
 biit imperfectly instructed believers, who are
 
 206 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 now, as it were, standing- at gaze, startled and 
 shaken in faith by finding- the Traditional view 
 of the Old Testament, for which we have seen 
 in these Addresses the arguments really remain 
 as valid as ever, either gently set aside, or 
 obscured by statements which honoured names 
 commend to them as vouched for by investiga- 
 tions as precise and as trustworthy as those of 
 science itself. To this class the appeal comes 
 with a force and a steadying power which no 
 other argument for the authority of the Old 
 Testament supplies to us in any comparable 
 degree. The assured fact that the Hebrew 
 Bible, as we have it now, is identical, save 
 perhaps in some few subordinate details of text, 
 with the Bible as it was in the days of our 
 Lord, and the further fact that strong and 
 clear proofs can be drawn from the recorded 
 words of our Lord that, in what we have 
 described as the Traditional view of the Old 
 Testament, we are now regarding the sacred 
 volume substantially as He regarded it, are 
 indisputably facts on which every disquieted 
 spirit may rest with the fullest confidence, 
 anchors on which it may securely ride out the 
 gales of passing controversies. 
 
 The appeal to Christ, then, is not made with 
 any design of attempting to silence all criticism.
 
 CONCLUSION. 207 
 
 or to set aside all thorough-going- investigation. 
 We have made the appeal chiefly to reassure, 
 and to forewarn, and to direct. We have made 
 it to reassure those who may have been led to 
 doubt in the truth of the Traditional view. We 
 have made it to forewarn those who may have 
 been attracted by the results of modern biblical 
 criticism that some of these results will be found 
 plainly to be in conflict with the authority of 
 Christ. But, in doing this, we have not failed to 
 direct the attention of earnest students of the 
 Old Testament to many details of biblical criti- 
 cism which the very appeal to Christ proves to be 
 not only open to us for discussion, but as earnestly 
 needing it at our hands. We have admitted that 
 the Traditional view has been rectified in some 
 particulars, such as the composition of the Book 
 of Genesis, and we by no means refuse to admit 
 that careful research may prove that further 
 rectification may be needed in other particulars. 
 This we are prepared to admit; but it is one thing 
 to rectify a view in particulars on which it is 
 plain that our Lord has not, directly or in- 
 directly, expressed any kind of judgment ; and 
 another thing to advocate a view that is incom- 
 patible with it. 
 
 The particulars which need further investi- 
 gation are many, and have a bearing upon
 
 208 CHBISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 many important and interesting 1 questions. 
 We may name the subject of the language in 
 which the different Books of the Old Testament 
 are written, a subject on which we have not 
 touched in these Addresses, for the simple 
 reason that on some of the most important 
 questions connected with it the judgment of 
 experts has been greatly divided. If, for ex- 
 ample, it be correct, as recently maintained by 
 the Laudian Professor of Arabic in Oxford 1 , 
 that there was a well-developed New- Hebrew 
 as early as 200 B.C., widely different from the 
 Middle-Hebrew of Nehemiah, and still more 
 widely different from the Old- Hebrew of the 
 earlier Books, many of the hypotheses of the 
 Analytical view will have to be completely re- 
 constructed ; but this cannot as yet be said to 
 be substantiated. If, on the other hand, as is 
 maintained by Hebrew scholars of high reputa- 
 tion, the early editors of the Masoretic text are 
 to a great extent responsible for the similarity 
 of language that certainly seems to pervade the 
 Hebrew Books of the Old Testament, then 
 arguments from language become utterly pre- 
 carious. But this hypothesis is as far from 
 being generally accepted as the former one. To 
 
 1 See Margoliouth, Essay on the Place of Ecclesiasticus in 
 Semitic Literature, p. 21 (Oxford, 1890^.
 
 CONCLUSION. 209 
 
 attempt then in such a state of thing's to argue 
 from language is absolutely futile and inad- 
 missible. There is thus in this department of 
 criticism a wide field for research and investi- 
 gation. 
 
 Other subjects, such as the whole question of 
 the Text, the Notes in the earlier Books and 
 the historical Books, the marks of compilation 
 in the Pentateuch and in later Books, the 
 probability of additions being made from time 
 to time to the ceremonial Law, the quotations 
 and references in the historical Books, and the 
 consequent relations of the Books to each 
 other, the genealogies, early and late, and the 
 ' principles on which they appear to be con- 
 structed, the legitimacy of the inferences that 
 have been drawn from the names of Almighty 
 God, a clear statement of the alleged Ana- 
 chronisms and Contradictions, all these, and 
 others that might be added to the list, are now 
 seriously demanding a far more thorough and 
 systematic investigation than they have yet 
 received at our hands. To such subjects all the 
 best efforts of modern criticism may be safely 
 and helpfully directed. It is on these details 
 that a far fuller knowledge is required before 
 we can hope either to place the principles and 
 conclusions of what we have termed the Tra- 
 o
 
 210 CHRISTDS COMPKOBATOR. 
 
 ditional view on a secure basis of tested facts, 
 or to maintain a strong position against the 
 increasingly aggressive efforts of the modern 
 destructive criticism. 
 
 This destructive criticism, however, need not 
 give us any great anxiety. The real enemies 
 and ultimate levellers of this so-called Higher 
 criticism are they of its own household. For 
 a time there is a kind of union in destructive 
 effort among the adherents of this school of 
 thought, but when any attempt is made to 
 formulate anything of a constructive nature, 
 the union becomes speedily dissolved. Expert 
 is ranged against expert ; theory is displaced 
 by theory ; hypothesis by hypothesis ; until at 
 length the whole movement, that once seemed 
 so threatening, silently comes to rest, and finds 
 its nirvana among the dull records of bygone 
 controversies. It has been so with the Higher 
 criticism of the New Testament ; it has been 
 so, to some extent, with the attempts to teach 
 and preach a gospel of evolution, and so most 
 assuredly will it be with the destructive criti- 
 cism of the Old Testament, which is now 
 causing so much anxiety, and has been helped 
 by so many lamentable concessions. 
 
 Our efforts to set these things in their true 
 light, and fairly to examine what we have
 
 CONCLUSION. 211 
 
 termed the Analytical view, and the concessions 
 that Churchmen have ill-advisedly made to it, 
 are now brought to their conclusion. Much 
 more might be said. But we trust enough has 
 been said to reassure those who may have been 
 disquieted, not simply by the attacks on the 
 credibility of the Old Testament, and the dis- 
 belief in the supernatural from which they 
 spring, for this has been always so, but by 
 the recent admissions which, confessedly from 
 a good motive, have been made by Churchmen 
 of known learning and piety, in reference to the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 To reassure has been my principal motive in 
 preparing the foregoing Addresses. But not 
 the only motive. I have sought also to warn. 
 I have felt, and most deeply felt, the dangers, 
 especially to the young, of accepting theories, 
 ingenious and even fascinating as they may 
 appear to be, of the origin and composition of 
 the Old Testament, which careful investigation 
 may show to be irreconcileable with the teaching 
 of Christ. In the case of all such theories, and 
 indeed of the Analytical view generally, it has 
 been my care to point out whence they origi- 
 nate, and what they ultimately involve. They 
 originate, as we have seen, in most cases from a 
 readiness, if not to deny, yet assuredly to mini- 
 O 2
 
 212 CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR. 
 
 mise the supernatural ; and by the inevitable 
 drift of consequences they commonly end in 
 some form of spiritual paralysis, some enduring- 
 inability to lay hold of the life eternal. This 
 downward drift and ultimate issue may easily 
 be traced out. If the theory is irreconcileable 
 with the teaching- of Christ, and is fairly felt to 
 be so, then the temptation to believe in a 
 possible ignorance on the part of our Lord, 
 becomes in many minds irresistible, and the 
 way is paved for a belief in the possibility, not 
 only of His ignorance, but even of His falli- 
 bility, and so, by dreadful inference, in the 
 possibility of our hope in Him, here and here- 
 after, being- found to be vain and illusory. . . . 
 Most truly has it been said by Dr. Liddon that 
 there is one question compared with which all 
 these questions as to the Old Testament fade 
 into utter insignificance, and yet it is a question 
 up to which, under the influence of this Ana- 
 lytical criticism, they will constantly be found 
 to lead. That question, to summarize the 
 words of the great preacher, is this, and nothing 
 less than this, With whom have we to do, 
 here and hereafter, a fallible, or the infallible 
 Christ ? 
 
 When such a question as this is found ulti- 
 mately to be raised by the novel criticism that
 
 is now being applied to the Old Testament, 
 surely it must be well for all those who may 
 feel attracted by it to pause, seriously to pause, 
 and to take to heart these words of Almighty 
 God, as He thus spake by the mouth of the 
 prophet ' Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in 
 the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, 
 where is the good way, and walk therein, and 
 ye shall find rest for your souls V 
 
 1 Jeremiah vi. 16. 
 
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