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THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
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the Present Crisis  5/-
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THE BIBLE

AND

MODERN CRITICISM

BY
SIR ROBERT ANDERSON, K.C.B., LL.D.

WITH A PREFACE
BY THK RIGHT REVEREND
HANDLEY C. G. MOULE, D.D.
BISHOP OF DURHAM

FIFTH EDITION
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27 PATERNOSTER ROW
190S

PREFACE
THE following chapters have little need of
any prefatory remarks of mine. Alike
their subject, their material, and the author's
handling of that material, will command the
attention of a wide circle of readers, and will
indeed, repay it. But I am honoured by the
request to prefix these few paragraphs, and I
obey. I have the author's full leave to say that there
are details in the matter of the book, and even
certain aspects of the treatment, from which I
hold myself detached. For example, I cannot
commit myself to concurrence with the whole
of the important but incidental criticism of the
Revised Version. I am in suspense on some
main items of Sir R. Anderson's discussion of
outlines of the prophetic future, while I regard
with profound respect the ability and the sug-
gestiveness of the discussion. Again, I must
dissociate myself from certain passages which

vi PREFACE
reflect upon the animus of some representatives
of the New Criticism with a severity I cannot
follow. Among both leaders and followers in
that school I reckon some much-respected friends,
of whose reverent and Christian aims I am
sure ; and that fact is continually with me in
any expression of the profound anxiety with
which I view the tendency of the school.
But when I have said this, I am amply free, as
I am earnestly willing, to avow my mental and
spiritual sympathy with the great envoi of this
remarkable book.
What is the book "i It is the free and (to use
the word in its best sense) popular presentation
of the results of an independent study of the New
Criticism, as actually put before us in representa
tive works, done by a student entirely free from
professional bias, and trained in a severe school
of legal and judicial investigation to sift witnesses
and weigh evidence. It is an example of exactly
the sort of work which, in my opinion, the Church
needs in an eminent degree, and which is, I
fear, lamentably rare to-day — the careful study of
religious problems by layman at once open-minded
and devout. In the best specimens of such study
there is often, to my thinking, a quite peculiar
value ; a fresh and bracing air of thought all their

PREFACE vii

own, a faculty for throwing wholesome light upon
subjects tangled by the over-handling of experts.
Experts, as Sir R. Anderson often pertinently
reminds us, are by no means, as such, good
judges. " At the bar we sometimes find a man's logic
swamped by his learning; and so it is in theo
logy." Thus wrote the late Lord Hatherley to
me, in a private letter, thirty years ago, and went
on to say that he wished for leisure to illustrate
the poor reasoning power of some of the greatest
German literati. Lord Hatherley was one of
our first masters of evidence. He was a life-long
student of the Holy Scriptures. And the modest
Introduction to his Continuity is a fine summing-
up in favour of their properly supernatural
character. That book was a noble lay contribu
tion to the defence of faith. Another master of
the practical application of legal science gives us
another here.
And is there not a cause? The attitude
towards Holy Scripture of a vast deal of cultured
thought and responsible teaching at present offers
assuredly a problem which it is idle to dismiss as
if it were not portentous. By whatever process
it has come to be, teachers and disciples far and
wide now regard the Old Testament (to speak

viii PREFACE
of it only for the instant) from an angle totally
different (I use the words deliberately) from that
taken by our Lord Jesus Christ, alike before and
after His Resurrection from the dead. To Him,
tempted, teaching, suffering, dying, risen, "?/ is
written" was a formula of infinite import. The
principle this expressed lay at the heart of His
teaching. It is not too much to say that it
belonged to the pulse, to the vital breath, of His
message to others, and, what is mysteriously yet
more, to His certainty about Himself. But in
wide circles of our Christendom it is now openly
or tacitly taken to be out of date, to be narrow,
to be uncultured, to make much of "it is written;"
as if an appeal to a definite supernatural book-
revelation were a thing discredited and to be
given up.
If a severe necessity of irrefragable truth
demands this, be it so. But let not the conclu
sion be reached, or rested in, light-heartedly, and
smoothly decorated with the comfortable phrase
ology current in articles and reviews. The con
clusion, if true, is portentous. It is a confession
that on a matter central in His message our
Master was much mistaken. He appears thus as
not merely capable of nescience ; that is a very
different matter; the most cautious, the most

PREFACE

worshipping, theology may hold that He con
sented, in His Humanity, to limitations of His
conscious knowledge and to silence outside those
bounds. But here He appears as ignorant with
that sort of ignorance which profoundly impairs
the whole value of a teacher — the ignorance of
the man who does not know where his knowledge
ends, and so makes confident affirmations, and
draws confident inferences, where his basis as to
facts is unsound.
Such a fallible Christ lies open to the suspicion
of fallibility on other matters than the nature and
integrity of the Old Testament ; and reasonably.
The theology which denies the Lord abnormal
knowledge of facts of the past is only consistent
when it extends its denial to the future, and takes
cum grano the New Testament doctrine of His
Return, which is a matter either of revelation, or
of the vaguest and most impalpable forecast.
Such extensions have undoubtedly come to be
freely made within Christian circles ; and not
only in the Encyclopedia Biblica.
If these conclusions be demanded by irrefutable
fact, let them be made, and accepted. But not
(I repeat) light-heartedly, and as if we were the
freer for them, and could talk glibly about them
in the best modern style. Let us make them

PREFACE

with a groan, and take care to carve no more the
unauthentic promise on the tombs of our beloved.
But first let us be absolutely sure that our
detraction from the complete infallibility of the
Lord Jesus Christ has infallible grounds. Let
us take particular care to be sure that its basis is
no a priori theory of the genesis of Religion,
which may even already be on its way to discredit
in the court of knowledge and thought.
Wisely does Sir R. Anderson disclaim any
neat theory of inspiration ; as wisely does he
emphasise the true, the profound, humanity of the
Bible. But all the more is he in the right when
he analyses with the utmost rigour the flaws in
the modern analysis of the Book, and calls
reverent attention to the mysterious facts of its
organic structure, and gives us both precept and
example for an always deepening study of its
hidden treasures.
The matter is one where, while the fairness of
controversy must be guarded, as ever, its mere
courtesies may not always be in place. For the
question is of tremendous urgency. " We are
contending for our all." HANDLEY DUNELM.

PREFATORY NOTE
TH E title of this book is borrowed from The
Times. It was the heading given to an
important correspondence, in which I was per
mitted to take a prominent part, some years ago,
in the columns of the leading journal.
I will only add that my obligations to the
Bishop of Durham are much greater even than
they here appear to be. And I am deeply
indebted to two other friends for valuable help.
I would specially name the Rev. Robert Sinker,
D.D., of Trinity College, Cambridge. R. A.

NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
The following paragraphs from the " Note to
the Second Edition" contain all that seems
necessary by way of preface in issuing a Fourth
Edition of this work. Or if I add anything, it
will be merely to express my appreciation of
the generosity and favour with which the book
has been received by Christians generally.

xii NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
Any hostile criticisms which have been offered
on statements contained in these pages are fully
answered by other portions of the book itself.
And my apology for all "sins of omission" will
be found in the opening sentence of Chapter
XIX. Moreover, a detailed reply to certain
favourite theories of the critics, which I am
said to have left unnoticed, would have no weight
with the critics themselves, and is not needed
by those for whom the book is intended.
Take ex. gr. the theory as to the late date
of the Books of Moses. Even if the case made
out by the critics were as strong as it is weak,
it would be refuted by the single fact that the
Pentateuch was emphatically the Bible of the
Samaritans. That the Samaritans would have
accorded such peculiar and unbounded reverence
to purely Jewish Books, and to Jewish Books of
a period long after the captivity of the ten tribes
of the house of Israel, is a figment unworthy of
serious discussion. Its acceptance by the Higher
Critics gives proof that they are incapable of
dealing with evidence. R. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
The purpose of the book, i. Appeals to authority barred, 2.
The Mart)TS, 2. Shallow and jaunty scepticism, 4. Prof.
Cheyne's Encyclopmdia Biblica, 5. Credulity of the critics, 9.
CHAPTER II
The Bible a human book, 10. Rationalists and Revolutionists,
12. Dean Alford quoted, 13. The Encydopcedia Biblica and
Hastings' Bible Dictionary, 14. Are the Gospels inspired ? 15.
Police oiBcers v. the Saints, 17. Quotations from Goldwin
Smith, 19 ; and from Matthew Arnold, 20. The question
again restated, 21. CHAPTER III
Origin of the Higher Criticism, 22. The Reformation and the
Bible, 23. Neglect of Scripture, 25. How to meet the
critics, 27. Professors and book scholars, 28. The " Ptole
maic System," 29. The letter of a penitent sceptic, 31.
CHAPTER IV
Charles 11., 36. Faith and morals, 37. Robertson Smith's
apostasy, 38. History and aims of the Higher Criticism, 39.
Prof. Cheyne, 41. The Higher Criticism not a preserve of
Hebraists, 42. The Pentateuch, 43. Isaiah II., 45. Harnack
on the New Testament, 48. The nature of prophecy, 50.

jriv CONTENTS

CHAPTER V
Charles Reade on miracles, 52. Christianised sceptics, 53.
Prayer, and a silent heaven, 54. The Divinity of Christ the
real question, 55. Matthew Arnold on miracles, 56. The
rejection of Christ and of the Bible, 58.
CHAPTER VI
Presumption for a written Revelation, 64. " Brainless idiots,"
and great lawyers, 65. Christianity rests on a Divine revela
tion, 67. The Old Testament accredited by Christ, 67.
Christ discredited by the critics, 69. Why not have two
wives? 70. Kenosis theories, 71. The two sides of the
tapestry, 77. CHAPTER VII
The method of the inspiration, 78. David and his sin : Carlyle's
testimony, 80. Verbal inspiration, facts and fallacies, 83.
Yahweh or Jehovah, 87. The human element in miracles, 88.
Verbal inspiration discussed, 89.
CHAPTER VIII
Verbal inspiration, continued, 95. Dependent on translations, 96.
Words are but counters : " Eternal," 97. " Priest," 98.
Original records lost, loi. Various readings, 102. The
Revised Version of New Testament, 104. The "Herald
Angels' Song," 108. CHAPTER IX
The Creation story of Genesis, in. The Gladstone- Huxley
controversy, 112. The Times correspondence of 1892, 115.
The teaching of Genesis and the creation "day," 119.
CHAPTER X
The Book of Daniel, 129. Questions of language, 131. " His
torical Errors," 135. The Canon, 138. The "Seventy
Weeks," 138.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI
The Book of Jonah. An Irish story, 142, Whale or shark, 143.
The miracle, 146. Accredited by Christ, 147. Historical
difficulties, 149. CHAPTER XII
Moral difficulties : Queen Victoria and a homicide, 155. Des
truction of the Canaanites, 157. The Jews and the world,
159. The price of Araunah's threshing-floor, 161. The
clironology of the Bible, 162.

CHAPTER XIII
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament : a conversation
with a Higher Critic, 169. Bishop Gore's school, 172. In
spiration of the Gospels, 175. The Lord accredited the Old
Testament, 175. He assured the inspiration of the New
Testament, 176. The Epistles, 179. The Apocalypse, 183.

CHAPTER XIV
Vaccination : the scepticism virus, 185. The " Ptolemaic
System " of Bible Study, 186. The First and Fourth Gospels
as read on this system, 187.
CHAPTER XV
The true exegesis of the Gospels, 194. The scope of Matthew,
198. The Lord's testimony, 201. The crisis of the Ministry,
204. The parables of chapter xiii., 205, Other effects of
His rejection, 206. CHAPTER XVI
The Parousia. Amateur detectives, and ignorance of the Higher
Critics, 210. A conference on the Gospel, and the
doctrine of the t3rpes, 216.

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVII
Errors in the Gospels : an Irish story, 221. The blind men
outside Jericho, 224. Theudas's insurrection, 226. "This
generation shall not pass," 227. The Inscription on the
Cross, 227. CHAPTER XVIII
The Last Supper and the day of the Crucifixion, 232. The
"Preparation," 237. The day of the "First-fruits," 238.
The Calendar a prophecy : Doctrine of the Festivals, 243.

CHAPTER XIX
Summary and conclusion, 249. The critics and their com
petence, 252. Practical advice, 255. "Post-mortem talk,"
258. The Genesis "documents," 260. The origin of Higher
Criticism, 261. Kenosis teaching of the Higher Criticism,
and the issue at stake, 264.
Appendix — PAGE
Note I. Isolated Texts relied on by the Higher
Critics ..... 267
Note II. The Revised Version of the New Testament 269
Note III. "Three Days and Three Nights" . . 271
Note IV. The Genealogies of our Lord . . 273
Note V. The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of
God, and the Church . . . 275

CHAPTER I
IN these days of unrest many Christians are
distressed by doubts whether the Bible
may be received with the settled and simple
faith accorded to it in the past. They have been
corrupted or disturbed by the Christianised
scepticism which prevails ; and, to use an apt
illustration, their anchor has dragged and they
are drifting. It may be, therefore, that one
who has known similar experiences, and is no
stranger to such doubts, may be able in some
measure to help others who are thus troubled.
In the history of Christendom, Churches of
every name, and — as judged from the inquirer's
point of view — of every degree of orthodoxy or
of error, have agreed in regarding the Bible
as a divinely inspired and infallible revelation.
No detailed- proof of this statement is necessary
here, for not only is its truth acknowledged,
but the grounds on which the historic belief

2 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
is challenged lie entirely apart from all appeals
to authority.
And no appeals of this kind shall prejudice
my discussion of the question. Being by
temperament and habit a sceptic, they weigh
but little with me personally, and I have found
a firmer basis for my faith. But there are two
sides to this. Many there are who loudly protest
against appeals to authority, and yet their own
faith in Holy Scripture has been jettisoned
solely because contemporary scholars of a certain
school have declared against the old beliefs.
If authority is to decide the question, the
issue is not doubtful. For every one of these
apostles of unfaith, scholars of equal eminence
may be cited on the other side. And behind
them is the overwhelming testimony of " the
whole congregation of Christian people dispersed
throughout the whole world," who, all down the
ages until recent times, have spoken with one
voice upon this subject. If our nineteenth century
critics are to be listened to, are these to be refused
a hearing ?
Nor can we forget the martyrs, who in un
numbered thousands — their names are written in
heaven, but earth has kept no record of them —
braved every kind of agony of mind and body

Ch. I.] THE MARTYRS' TESTIMONY 3
that could be devised by religious hate — the most
fiendish type of hate that fallen human nature
knows. It was not strong men only who swelled
their ranks. Weak women there were, too, and
even children were not wanting. What was the
secret of their triumph ? Was it " the general
sense of Scripture corrected in the light of
modern research " .'' In the solitude of the dungeon
and amidst the horrors of the torture chamber
they were sustained by words from the Bible,
which they took to be the words of God. Words,
for example, such as these : " He hath said ' I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee,' so that
we may boldly say ' The Lord is my helper,' and
' I will not fear what man shall do unto me.' "
But further knowledge and higher culture, forsooth,
would have taught them that the words, " I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee," are but an
inaccurate quotation from a book which is now
known not to have the authority that for thousands
of years has been attributed to it ; and that the
added words are by "a sub-apostolic writer"
whose treatise is separated by no hard and fast
lines from similar writings outside the canon of
Scripture. So at least the critics would have us believe.
But if we are to shut out the testimony of the

4 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
martyrs, as well as that of "Christian people
dispersed throughout the whole world," including
contemporary scholars equal in fame to the critics,
let us not be guilty of the unfairness and stupidity
of assuming at the start that the critics are right.
Let us refuse appeals to authority on either side,
and deal with the question on its merits.
And this leads me, by way of further preface,
to enter a protest against the shallow and jaunty
scepticism of the day. The issues at stake are
tremendous, and in dealing with them no degree
of earnestness and solemnity can be excessive.
One of the apostles of unfaith will tell us that
" Milton and Shakespeare and Bacon, and Can
ticles and the Apocalypse and the Sermon on
the Mount, and the eighth chapter of Romans
are all inspired." That " there is a true inspira
tion in the instinct of the owl ; that it is heard in
the rushing of the wind ; that it is seen in the
springing of a blade of grass ; that it murmurs
along the streams that flow among the hills."
Such trifling is deplorable. A mere peasant can
see that if this be the meaning of inspiration, we
must fall back upon natural religion. If the
Bible be nothing more than what such writers
see it to be, Christianity rests on no rational basis.
This is no argument in proof that the Bible is

Ch. I.] THE " ENCYCLOPAEDIA BIBLICA " 5
inspired ; but it ought to check all levity in
dealing with the question. If my bank-notes are
forgeries, I am a ruined bankrupt ; this does not
prove them genuine, but it will prevent my parting
with them unless compelled to do so by cogent
proof that they are counterfeit.
But it will be said, perhaps, that in England at
least no scholar of repute among the Higher Critics
assumes a position which is really destructive of
Christianity. Though they challenge the au
thority of various books of the Canon, they leave
untouched all that is vital. Let us test this.
The Encydopcedia Biblica is the most recent
exposition of the views of this school. Its editor
is Professor Cheyne, of Oxford, ^ a man who is a
teacher of teachers, and whose name stands high
as an authority on all subjects of this kind. The
following extracts are culled from the article on
the Gospels : —
" Several of the reported sayings of Jesus clearly bear
the impress of a time which he did not live to see "
(§136). " The conclusion is inevitable that even the one
Evangelist whose story in any particular case involves
' To give him his full title, the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D.,
Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at
Oxford, and formerly Fellow of Balliol College; Canon of
Rochester.

THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM

less of the supernatural than that of the others, is still
very far from being entitled on that account to claim
implicit acceptance of his narrative" (§ 137).
" With reference to the resurrection of Jesus . . . the
appearance in Jerusalem to the two women is almost
universally given up. . . . The statements as to the
empty sepulchre are to be rejected " (§ 138).
" As for the feeding of the five thousand and the four
thousand, so also for the withering of the fig tree, we still
possess a clue to the way in which the narrative arose
out of a parable" (§ 142).
" It is very conceivable that a preacher on the death
of Jesus may have said, purely figuratively, that then
was the veil of the temple rent in twain."
" We must endeavour to ascertain how many, and still
more what sorts of cures were eiifected by Jesus. It is
quite possible for us to regard as historical only those of
the class which even at the present day physicians are
able to effect by psychical methods, — as more especially
cures of mental maladies.
" It is not at all difficult to understand how the
contemporaries of Jesus, after seeing some wonderful
deed or deeds wrought by him which they regarded as
miracles, should have credited him with every other kind
of miraculous power without distinguishing, as the
modern mind does, between those maladies which are
amenable to psychical influences and those which are not.
It is also necessary to bear in mind that the cure may
often have been only temporary " (§ 144).
No one who reads the foregoing extracts will
be surprised at the writer's raising the question

Ch. I.] AN END OF CHRISTIANITY 7
" whether any credible elements were to be found
in the Gospels at all." " All the more empha
tically " therefore he enumerates nine passages
which he saves from the general wreck.' These,
he goes on to say, " might be called the founda
tion pillars of a truly scientific life of Jesus ; . . .
they prove that in the person of Jesus we have to
do with a completely human being, and that the
Divine is to be sought in Him only in the form
in which it is capable of being found in a man ;
they also prove that He really did exist, and
that the Gospels contain at least some absolutely
trustworthy facts concerning him. "2
Any person of ordinary intelligence can see
that this teaching makes an end of Christianity
altogether. The public facts of the life of the great
Rabbi of Nazareth are not questioned. What
the world saw nineteen centuries ago, the world
believes to-day. And those facts, combined with
His traditional teaching, may be made the basis
of a Christianised Buddhism which would possibly
' These are. Matt. xi. 5 (Luke vii. 22) ; Matt xii. 31, f. ; Mark iii.
21 ; vi. 5, f. ; viii. 12 ; viii. 14-21 ; x. 17, f. ; xiii. 22, and xv. 34
(Matt, xxvii. 46).
' § 138. I trust no one will judge me harshly for thus
reproducing here this blasphemy. I deem it a duty to do so
because so many Christians are trifling with the infidel move
ment in ignorance of its aims and methods. The article cited is
not by the Editor.

8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
be the best of all human religions. But Chris
tianity is not a human religion, but a divine revel
ation of transcendental truths and of facts that
are of such a nature that no amount of mere
human testimony could accredit them.
" The first of these facts, upon which all the
rest depend, is that the Nazarene was the Son of
God. The founder of Rome was believed to be
the divinely begotten child of a vestal Virgin.
And in the old Babylonian mysteries a similar
parentage was ascribed to the martyred son of the
Queen of Heaven. What reason have we then
for distinguishing the birth at Bethlehem from
these and other kindred legends of the ancient
world?"! He was, we read, " declared to be the Son of
God , , . by the resurrection from the dead."
But even this is filched from us: "the statements
as to the empty sepulchre are to be rejected." Some
of the German sceptics formerly accepted the public
proofs of the resurrection, and therefore their
teaching seemed to imply belief in that supreme
miracle. Among the initiated, however, they ex
plained the " resurrection " by denying the death.
The cumulative evidence that the Nazarene was

" The Buddha of Christendom, p. 96.

Ch. I.] CREDULITY OF THE CRITICS 9
seen alive after the Crucifixion was proof that He
had not really died. As He hung upon the
cross He swooned, and before He recovered con
sciousness He was laid in the sepulchre. The
superstitious imagination of the disciples, unnerved
by the terrible ordeal they had suffered, gave a
colour to the facts ; and ere the Gospel narratives
came to be written, the resurrection legend had
gained shape and substance. But the Oxford
infidelity of to-day is far in advance of German
infidelity of half a century ago. The Gospels are
now romance pure and simple, with no foundation
save the public facts, and a few isolated passages
which prove that the great Teacher was really an
historic personage.
And the objective foundations of our faith being
thus destroyed, Christianity in its subjective phase
is the merest superstition. Not one of the nine
authentic passages, thus saved from the wreck,
will avail us here. Faith is impossible. We
must fall back on mere opinions. And he who
would die for his opinions is a silly fanatic. The
man who has nothing to rest upon but Professor
Cheyne's Bible, and yet believes in " the forgive
ness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the
life everlasting " is obviously a credulous person
who would believe anything.

CHAPTER II
NO error lives unless it rests upon some
element of truth. And the Higher
Criticism owes its vitality to the fact that
the Bible is a human book. The written
Word is the counterpart of the Living
Word. And the ancient controversies about
the Christ have in modern times their
counterpart in controversies about the Scrip
tures. Human nature being what it is, men
in their eagerness to escape from one error are
prone to rush into another. The old Gnostic
heresy, in that development of it which main
tained that everything material was evil, tended
to the denial of the humanity of Christ. This
led to an assertion of His humanity in a way
which encroached upon the doctrine of His
Divine nature. In the swinging of the pen
dulum of opinion the mean of truth was lost,
and the two extremes were manifested in the

Ch. II.] THE BIBLE A HUMAN BOOK ii
practical denial that He was man and the
practical denial that He was God.
So has it been with the Bible. The ration
alism of the post- Reformation age asserted or
assumed that the Bible was only and altogether
a human book. An unintelligent orthodoxy
maintained that it was only and altogether
Divine. And both these extremes find advo
cates in England to-day. The sympathies of
the Christian are naturally with those who give
an exclusive prominence to the Divine side of
Scripture. But our sympathies must not betray
us into a participation in their error. Christ
was not half man and half God ; He was abso
lutely human, and yet absolutely Divine. And
so is it also with the Bible. While it is absolutely
the Word of God, it is also the most thoroughly
human book in the world. Hence its amazing
power over the hearts and minds of men. And
our condemnation of the Higher Critics must
not blind us to the fact that if they have not
actually rescued this truth, they have brought
it into prominence and made it real. But on
the other hand our debt to them in this regard
cannot be allowed to outweigh, or even to
palliate, the evil of their system.
We owe a debt to the red revolutionists of

12 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
a century ago. But what lives in our memory
is not the good which has resulted from their
work, but the excesses they committed in
achieving it. The German rationalists and
their imitators and disciples of the Encydo
pcedia Biblica are in their own sphere on a par
with the men of the Reign of Terror in France.
To teach us that a queen is but a woman, we
do not need the shameful spectacle of the blood
stained guillotine, the debasing lesson that, as
Edmund Burke expressed it, "a woman is but
an animal, and not the highest kind of animal
either." And we can know, and rejoice in the
knowledge, that the Bible is thoroughly, ex
quisitely human, without having to suffer the
ordeal of seeing our adorable Lord thus
patronised and blasphemed, and the holy
writings which testify to Him perverted and
degraded. If a surgeon thinks only of his patient's dignity
and rank, a trembling hand perchance may unfit
him for his task. But the man who plunges his
knife into a living human body as though it
were the carcase of a brute, is no better than
a butcher. And so we can criticise the Bible
on its human side without ever allowing
ourselves to forget that it is "the living

Ch. II.] DEAN ALFORD'S ESTIMATE 13
and eternally abiding Word of God " ; but we
search in vain the writings of the critics for
any indication of the reverence which is its due.
How different the spirit which animates them
from that which characterised that great expositor
and divine. Dean Alford ! Here are the closing
words of his New Testament Commentary : —
" I have now only to commend to my gracious
God and Father this feeble attempt to explain
the most mysterious and glorious portion of His
revealed Scriptures : and with it, this my labour
of now eighteen years, herewith completed. I
do so with humble thankfulness, but with a sense
of utter weakness before the power of His Word,
and inability to sound the depths even of its
simplest sentence. May He spare the hand
which has been put forward to touch His Ark."
If the critics know anything of the spirit of
these words they are consummate masters of
the art of concealing their emotions.
It will be said, perhaps, that the book I have
cited does not fairly represent the teaching of
the Critical School. If the objection refers to
those who belong to the Church of England,
it is well founded. It is happily unusual for
English gentlemen to give solemn pledges in
entering upon positions of influence and trust.

14 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
and then to flout and violate those pledges. '
But the Encydopcedia Biblica is in this sphere
what the enfant terrible is in the family circle —
it gives out unblushingly what many of the critics
themselves would deprecate.
The difference between the work in question
and the more conservative and cautious Dic
tionary of the Bible edited by Dr. Hastings,
to which Professor Driver, of Oxford, has lent
his name, is that the one represents the Bible
as error and romance mipgled with truth, and
the other as truth mingled with romance and
error. For certain purposes the distinction is
a real one, but here it is immaterial. For the
question I have raised is whether the old-
fashioned belief in the inspiration of Scripture
can be maintained ; and the main purpose
of every work emanating from these writers
is, as they would say, to remove the diffi
culties and dangers which the historic view
of inspiration is supposed to create.
The one set of writers hand me a purse of
coins, with an assurance that most of them
are genuine. The other set of writers hand
¦ Ordination in the Church of England is conditioned on an
unequivocal reply to the question, " Do you unfeignedly believe
all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ? "

Ch. II.] ARE THE GOSPELS INSPIRED? 15
me a purse of coins, with a warning that
most of them are counterfeit. But as I am
unable to distinguish between the base coins
and the gold, honesty forbids my trading with
any of them, and therefore all my seeming
wealth is practically useless. In either case
the Bible is like a lottery bag, from which
blanks and prizes must be drawn at random.
If the one section of the critics may be trusted,
the prizes abound ; if the other section be right,
the blanks predominate. But in either case, I
repeat, faith is impossible, and therefore Chris
tianity is destroyed.
I am not prejudging the question raised in
my opening sentences : I am merely seeking to
state it clearly and intelligently, and to enter
a protest against levity in dealing with it. Let
me put it in a concrete form : Are the Gospels,
as the critics of every section tell us, merely
human documents, based in part upon the
memory of the writers, in part upon earlier
records, in part upon oral traditions of the
great Teacher's acts and words.? Or are they,
as Christians have heretofore believed, God-
breathed Scriptures — the Word of God, by
which the sinner may be born again, and
the disciple may "grow in grace" and be
" throughly furnished unto all good works " ?

1 6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM

For example, may I trust the record contained
in the third chapter of John.? Not one of the
disciples, we may be sure, was with the Lord
when Nicodemus "came to Him by night." But,
waiving that, what reason have we for supposing
the interview is reported accurately ? Very many
people bear testimony that the words of the 14th,
15th, and 1 6th verses have been the means of
producing in them that change of heart and life
which the Bible calls being born again and being
converted. But this implies that the words are
not a mere fallible human record of a conversation
alleged to have occurred between Christ and a
Pharisee ; but an infallibly inspired proclamation
of Divine love to the lost, bringing everlasting
life to all who believe in the Son of God. Now
these two views stand entirely apart. One or
other of them must be false. And which is it ?
Take another case. Who vouches for the
record of the scene enacted, and the words
spoken by our Divine Lord, in Gethsemane?
The three disciples who alone were present lay
sleeping, wholly unconscious of the solemnity and
significance of that awful hour. And the critics
tell us that when at last they awoke they were
so utterly dazed and stupid that they mistook the
shimmer of the moonlight for an angelic appa-

Ch. II.] POLICE OFFICERS v. THE SAINTS 17
rition. Either the record is in the strictest sense
inspired, or else it is no better than a fairy tale.
I have often wondered at the definiteness
with which some police officers could repeat the
identical language used by a prisoner on arrest,
or in the course of a railway journey. In these
men habit and training have developed a natural
aptitude for accuracy. Eliminate, as the critics
do, the work of the Spirit of God, and I have
no hesitation in saying that if I had on one side
the testimony of the police inspectors of the
department I recently controlled, and on the
other side that of all the apostles and evangelists,
I should trust to the memory of the officers rather
than to that of the saints. But an officer's duty
requires that as soon as practicable after hearing
any important statement he shall record it in
writing ; and if some months after the event I
found that he had neglected that duty, and yet
that he professed to repeat the exact words used
in a prolonged conversation, I should lose all
confidence both in his judgment and in his
truthfulness. And now to explain my parable. What
importance am I to attach to the record ol
prolonged discourses supposed to have been
spoken by the Lord ; such, for example, as " the
3

i8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Sermon on the Mount," ' "the Second Sermon
on the Mount," ^ or the Lord's last words before
the Passion, 3 recorded more than forty years
after they were uttered? If the Gospels are
not inspired in the strictest sense in which
theologians speak of inspiration, these records are
¦worthless. Indeed if the critics are right, the
Evangelists belonged to the class of "chatty"
and imaginative people whose presence is often
welcome in social life, but always dreaded in the
witness chair of a Court of Justice. It avails
nothing to plead that the apostles were very holy
men. Experience teaches us that very holy men,
and very learned men, too, may be very silly.
And if some of the critics are to be believed,
silliness was as marked a characteristic of the
Evangelists as holiness.4
In all this, I repeat, I am not " laying down
the law," but only "stating the case." Neither
am I specially addressing those who sympathise
with my conclusions. I appeal to all intelligent
and fair-minded thinkers. The only kind of
" Matt, v., vi., and vii. • Ibid. xxiv. and xxv.
• John xiv., XV., xvi., and xvii.
? Indeed the patronising tone of their criticisms implies that
if men of their own type had been employed to write the Gospels,
the record would have been free from the defects and errors
which now mar it.

Ch. II.] GOLDWIN SMITH'S TESTIMONY 19
person I wish to ignore is the fool. We all
know the sort of morbidly active-brained child
who will pull a valuable watch to pieces, and
then tell us with a smile that " there was nothing
in it but wheels and things." He has his counter
part in the foreign infidel type of scholar, who,
albeit as ignorant of man and his needs as a
monk, and as ignorant of God and His ways as
a monkey, sets himself with a light heart to tear
the Bible to pieces. If the Bible must be given
up, it is a disaster unparalleled in the history of
Christendom. "The Reformation was a tremendous earth
quake ; it shook down the fabric of mediaeval
religion, and as a consequence of the disturbance
in the religious sphere, filled the world with
revolutions and wars. But it left the authority
of the Bible unshaken, and men might feel that
the destructive process had its limit, and that
adamant was still beneath their feet. But a
world which is intellectual and keenly alive to
the significance of these questions, reading all
that is written about them with almost passionate
avidity, finds itself brought to a crisis the cha
racter of which any one may realise by distinctly
presenting to himself the idea of existence without
a God."

20 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
These are the words of one ' whose thorough
sympathy with " science and criticism " could not
blind him to the gravity of the crisis they have
caused. Fresh and vigorous minds will press on
where these teachers now timidly shrink back.
And while a religious agnosticism may afford a
doubtful refuge to the cultured classes, agnosticism
with no element whatever of religion will engulf
the unthinking multitude. Men may well start
back at sight of such a goal.
Hear another witness, a veritable apostle of
unfaith. In answer to the infidel taunt that
Christianity was "an awful plague," because
its success involved the ruin of Roman civilisa
tion, Matthew Arnold writes : " It was worth
while to have that civilisation ruined fifty times
over, for the sake of planting Christianity through
Europe in the only form in which it could then
be planted there." * And surely some feeling of
deep regret, if not of misgiving about his own
position and influence, must have touched his
heart as he penned the lines : —
« The sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd ;
' Professor Goldwin Smith,
• God and the Bible (Preface).

Ch. II.] THE THESIS RESTATED ai
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar."
I have already restated my thesis : let me do
so once again. We shall gain nothing by dealing
with generalities. Let us open the Gospels at
the last of the test passages I have cited, and take
the well-known words : —
" Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe
in God, believe also in me.
"In my Father's house are many mansions :
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go
to prepare a place for you.
"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again and receive you unto myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also."
May we still use such words as these to
comfort us in sorrow, and to cheer and
strengthen us when life is failing, and its
supreme crisis is drawing near? May we still
trust them, as our fathers did, as a message
from the heart and lips of our Saviour and Lord,
ministered to us by the Divine Spirit who
Inspired His servant to record them ? May we
read the Gospels thus ? Or is all this but an ex
quisite dream from which we must awake to the
clear, cold light of nineteenth-century criticism ?

CHAPTER III
IN this enlightened age we are not content
with checking the spread of a disease when
it appears : we seek to diagnose it and to dis
cover its origin. And an inquiry of this kind
respecting the prevailing epidemic of unbelief
cannot fail to be useful.
The scepticism of the day may be clearly
traced to the rationalism which almost swamped
the religious life of Germany in the second half
of the eighteenth century. But the chief cause
of that apostasy has never been fully recognised.
Not even in the darkest periods of the history of
Christendom had the character and authority of
the Bible ever been questioned. ^ It was always
regarded as the inspired word of God, the
supreme and infallible guide in all questions of
faith and morals. But just as apostate Jews in a
preceding age had "made the word of God of
• Questioned by Christians, I mean ; and speaking broadly.

Ch. III.] THE REFORMERS AND THE BIBLE 23
none effect by their traditions," so also did
apostate Christians.
In England the law is supreme. But it does
not rest with "the man in the street" to
interpret the law : that is the function of the
King's Courts. And so here. The supremacy
of the Bible was unquestioned. But the Church
was the " keeper " and the " interpreter " of
it ; and it so kept it as to keep it from the
people, and it so interpreted it as to "change
the truth of God into a lie." An open
Bible was the prize at stake in the glorious
Reformation struggle. The leaders in that great
revolt proclaimed the truth of salvation in Christ
apart from the Church, and without the interven
tion of priests. And this truth set the conscience
free from the bondage which had enthralled it.
But justification by faith was not the only
truth that had been lost in the superstitions of a
thousand years. Every truth of the Bible had
been perverted or darkened. And yet the men
who came after the Reformers were content to
maintain the ground already gained. "The
Bible the religion of Protestants " was a proverb
in the Reformation age. But in the age which
followed it, the religion of Protestants became
narrowed to the special truths which the Refor-

24 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
mation brought to light. And with what result ?
In course of time the memory grew dim of the
darkness and perils of pre- Reformation times,
and of the struggle by which liberty was won.
More than this, the methods of the Reformers
were forgotten, and the spirit which inspired
them had died out. And so it came to pass that
when the eighteenth century gave a new impetus
to the mental activity and free thought promoted
by the Reformation ; and the German ttiind, so
famed for its analytical subtlety, turned to the
study of Scripture in the cold light of reason,
difficulties innumerable presented themselves.
And to these difficulties the Evangelical Churches
had no adequate answer to offer. The Bible was
discredited by the ignorance and incapacity of its
defenders ; and the resulting mischief has never
been retrieved.
It is no reproach upon the Reformers that their
writings fail to help us in such bloodless conflicts.
For theirs was a life and death struggle such as
leaves no leisure for questions like those which
make up the stock-in-trade of the critics. But if
they could revisit the scenes of their labours and
their triumphs, how deep would be their indignation
and distress at the discovery that the mass even of
real Christians have no fuller knowledge of Divine

Ch. III.] POST-REFORMATION APOSTASY 25
truth than they themselves had attained. And
this wholly understates the case. From the
great truths which Luther taught with a fulness
and boldness never since surpassed, the Lutheran
Churches have largely apostatised. The doctrines
of Grace have been swamped in a pagan sacra-
mentalism which destroys true Christianity.
And such an apostasy can only be explained by
ignorance of Scripture as a whole. It was
charged upon the Hebrew Christians of
apostolic days that they were ignorant of the
A B C of revealed religion ; ^ and a like charge
can be sustained against the Evangelicalism of
Germany at the close of the eighteenth century.
" Truth is one " ; but when the circle of Divine
truth is broken, men soon forget its unity, and
the segments that remain lie open to attack.
What advance had been made in the knowledge
of Scripture during the two centuries and a half
from the date of the Diet of Worms? The
Bible as a whole is, of course, " a book of
piety " ; and its worth in that respect is un
challenged. But, ignoring that element, the Old
Testament naturally admits of a threefold division
— the historical, the typical, and the prophetical.
' Heb. V. 12.

26 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
But history lies outside the special province of
theology. Prophecy was ostentatiously neglected
until Hengstenberg appealed to its testimony in
answering the rationalists. And as for the third
division, Hengstenberg himself lamented the
prevailing ignorance respecting it. " The eluci
dation of the doctrine of the types," he declared,
" now entirely neglected, is an important problem
for future theologians."
And how can any one who is ignorant of " the
doctrine of the types," and of the grand scheme of
Divine prophecy, understand the New Testament
aright? Such a man has not learned even the
language in which the New Testament is written.
Nor does this remark apply only to special
passages : it bears upon the scope and meaning
of entire books, and the relation of the books to
one another — the "hidden harmony" of Scripture
as a whole.
The rationalistic crusade against the Bible,
which Eichhorn christened "the Higher Criti
cism," owed its strength and success to the appeal
it made to the human element in the Scriptures.
The Bible is called " the word of God " for the
same reason that Christ is called " the Word of
God " — it expresses the mind of God. But as
Christ is " very God " and yet perfect man, so the

Ch. III.] CRITICISM CANNOT BE STIFLED 27
Bible, while absolutely Divine, is yet the most
human book in all the world. And as the Living-
Word became subject to all the infirmities of
humanity, sin excepted, so also the written Word
is marked by all the characteristics of human
writings, error excepted.' German Evangeli
calism, however, had neglected the human side
of the Bible, as indeed a certain type of Evan
gelicalism does to the present day.
But to attempt to stifle criticism of Scripture
by the cry that " the Bible is the word of God "
only serves to excite distrust on the part of
earnest and honest-hearted inquirers. There never
was an attack made upon the truth that could
not be refuted. " Truth is one " ; but error is in
its very nature inconsistent, and therefore absurd.
And while Divine truth is spiritual, and can only
be spiritually discerned, human error is natural,
and can be met on its own ground. We cannot
" reason " men into the kingdom of God, but by
reasoning we can expose errors which prejudice
them against it.
We can appeal to them, moreover, not to
expend all their scepticism upon "the Biblical
writers," but to reserve a little of it for the
' I here use the word " error " in its deeper sense, and I do not
prejudge questions which shall be considered in the sequel.

38 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
critics themselves — to carry the Higher Criticism
one step further, and bring the exponents of the
science within its scope. Take Professor Blank,
for example, who criticises the Bible in such a
patronising way. Surely it is legitimate to
investigate his fitness for his self-appointed task.
His eminence as a scholar in his own particular
line is unquestioned. But would those who know
him best accept him as an arbitrator in any case
where a sound judgment, and breadth of view,
and common sense are necessary qualifications ?
Or if the case came into court, and Professor
Blank were found to be foreman of the jury
empanelled to try it, would not the parties ask
for half an hour's adjournment, and retire to
consider a compromise rather than go to trial ? *
"After all," says Matthew Arnold, "shut a

' Some years ago I published a defence of one book of Scrip
ture against the attack of an eminent critic, and Mr. Gladstone
was at the pains of writing two successive letters to impress on
me that the distinguished scholar in question was wholly wanting
in the judgment requisite for dealing with questions of the kind.
One of the prominent figures in Charles Lever's most popular
novel is Dr. Barrett, who was Vice-Provost of Trinity College,
Dublin, a century ago. His extraordinary erudition made him the
envy and admiration of contemporary scholars ; his extraordinary
silliness made him the butt of every undergraduate. And stories
of his great learning and his great folly are rife to the present
day. And in no department of scholarship is this phenomenon
more likely to be manifested than in that of Philology.

Ch. III.] MATTHEW ARNOLD ON THE CRITICS 29
number of men up to make study and learning
the business of their lives, and how many of
them, from want of some discipline or other,
seem to lose all balance of judgment, all common
sense 1" In the same connection, he speaks of
"the ordeal of the Englishman's strong and strict
sense for fact," and he adds, " We are much
mistaken if it does not turn out that this ordeal
makes great havoc among the vigorous and
rigorous theories of German criticism concerning
the Bible-documents." And " German criticism "
does not cease to be German because during the
present generation it has been fathered by
Englishmen. " Great men are not always wise," ' and even
in the natural sphere they may prove to be blind
guides. The "Ptolemaic System" is a monu
mental proof of this. Pythagoras had taught
men to regard the sun as the centre of our
system ; and that truth held sway until, by
methods analogous to those of the Higher
Critics of to-day, Ptolemy persuaded his con
temporaries to abandon it. And for long
centuries all the wisdom of the wise was on
the side of error. And when we turn to the
» Job xxxii. 9.

30 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
religious sphere the wonder is how any Protes
tant, with the history of Christendom open to
him, can be influenced by the dicta of men of
intellect and genius. Down to the present hour,
have not men of the highest eminence in every
branch of human knowledge bartered the truths
of Christianity for the pagan superstitions which
are the stock-in-trade of priestcraft ?
The leaders in this Higher Criticism crusade
in England have facile pens and they are
prolific authors. And yet if they may be judged
by their writings, there is not one of them
who is a student of prophetic truth or of
the typology of Scripture. Their Bible is
but an ill-assorted collection of Jewish books.
Their " Jesus " came to found a new religion,
and they seem very hazy about His coming
back again. The ground-plan of the Bible they
know nothing of.
"The whole Scriptures are a testimony to
Christ : the whole history of the chosen people,
with its types, and its law, and its prophecies,
is a showing forth of Him." Thus wrote Dean
Alford, one of the greatest commentators of
our age. But all this has no existence for the
critics ; and if they would speak out plainly, some
of them would brand it as superstitious drivel.

Ch. III.] WHY THE CRITICS ARE SCEPTICS 31
As the spiritual Christian reads their books
he is conscious of an atmosphere and an environ
ment that are uncongenial. For their writings
are in great measure but a post mortem upon
dead truth. Some of them, like the Jews of
old, have "a zeal for God, but not according
to knowledge." But these are a minority. As
for the rest, if they have ever known what it
means — but here I tread on delicate ground,
and I will call a witness from the grave to
express my meaning. The following letter,
which appeared many years ago in the columns
of the Record newspaper, made a profound im
pression on me at the time, and it may appeal
to others to-day. The writer of it withheld his
name, but I was told at the time that he was
Professor Birks, of Cambridge. Here are his
words : —
" You well observe in a recent article that the public
is becoming accustomed to the strange vagaries on the
Bible which men of learning and high position in the
Church seem so constantly falling into.
" I should be glad to express, through the medium of
your columns, what appears to me the secret of all this ;
and I the rather desire to do so, because I am myself a
monument of the delivering power and mercy of God in
this very matter.
" It is very observable that almost all the men who

32 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
have thus notoriously erred from the way of truth are
men of some kind of eminence in natural ability. Of
Mr. Maurice I cannot say I think that even in natural
things he excels in distinctness of ideas, or the power of
clearly discerning nice differences. But the errors of
such men as Heath, and especially Bishop Colenso,
cannot be attributed to any confusion of mind as to
things which differ — their eminent honours at Cam
bridge forbid our taking that view. Besides, I know
from past experience in the same gloomy school, that
the possession of very considerable natural acumen does
not in the least degree aid a man whose mind is per
plexed about the foundations of Bible truth.
" As to the objections urged by the above gentlemen
to the generally-received views of Scripture, and the
doctrines which flow so immediately from its simple
and spiritual acceptance as the Word of God, they
know as well as we do that they are hackneyed and
as old as our fallen nature, but then that does not
remove them ; they cannot receive the simple accounts
of Scripture, because they have not Divine faith. I
remember when I first began to read the Bible (and
I thought I was sincerely seeking the truth) I was
miserable because I could not believe it ; I dared not
reject any statement I found there, but I could not
fully believe it was true. The Bishop of Natal just
expresses what I felt, and the fact that we took exactly
the same University honours (in different years of course)
makes me sympathise with him peculiarly. My own
history was just this : — I had read and studied deeply
in mathematics, had mastered every fresh subject I
entered upon with ease and delight ; had become
accustomed (as every exact mathematician must do)

Ch. III.] THE "RECORD" LETTER 33
to investigate and discover fundamental differences
between things which seem to the uninitiated one
and the same ; had seen my way into physical
astronomy and the higher parts of Newton's immortal
'Principia,' and been frequently lost in admiration of
his genius till St. Mary's clock warned me that mid
night was past three hours ago. I had, in fact (as we
say), made myself master of dynamics, and become
gradually more and more a believer in the unlimited
capabilities of my own mind ! This self-conceited idea
was only flattered and fostered by eminent success in
the Senate House, and by subsequently obtaining a
Fellowship at Trinity, and enjoying very considerable
popularity as a mathematical lecturer.
" It would have spared me many an hour of misery in
after days had I really felt what I so often said, viz.,
that the deeper a man went in science, the humbler he
ought to be, and the more cautious in pronouncing an
independent opinion on a subject he had not investigated
or could not thoroughly sift. But, though all this was
true, I had yet to learn that this humility in spiritual
things is never found in a natural man.
" I took orders, and began to preach, and then, like
the Bishop among the Zulus, I found out the grand
deficit in my theology. I had not the Spirit's teaching
myself, and how could I without it speak "in demon
stration of the Spirit and of power " ?
" In vain did I read Chalmers, Paley, Butler, Gaussen,
&c., and determine that, as I had mastered all the other
subjects I had grappled with, so I would the Bible, and
that I would make myself a believer. I found a poor,
ignorant old woman in my parish more than a match
for me in Divine things. I was distressed to find that
4

34 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
she was often happy in the evident mercy of the Lord
to her, and that she found prayer answered, and that all
this was proved sincere by her blameless and harmless
walk amongst her neighbours ; whilst I, with all my
science and investigation, was barren, and unprofitable,
and miserable — an unbeliever in heart, and yet not
daring to avow it, partly from the fear of man, but
more from a certain inward conviction that all my
sceptical difficulties would be crushed and leaped over
by the experience of the most illiterate Christian.
" I was perfectly ashamed to feel in my mind like
Voltaire, Volney, or Tom Paine. I could claim no
originality for my views ; and I found they were no
comfort, but a constant source of misery to me.
" It may now be asked how I came ever to view
Divine truth differently. I desire to ascribe all praise
to Him to whom power belongeth ; I desire to put my
own mouth in the dust, and be ashamed, and never
open my mouth any more, because of my former un
belief I cannot describe all I passed through, but I
desire with humility and gratitude to say, I was made
willing in a day of Christ's power. He melted down
my proud heart with His love ; He shut my mouth for
ever from cavilling at any difficulties in the written
Word ; and one of the first things in which the great
change appeared was, that whereas beforetime preaching
had been misery, now it became my delight to be able
to say, without a host of sceptical or infidel doubts
rushing into my mind, 'Thus saith the Lord.' Oh, I
am quite certain no natural man can see the things of
God ; and I am equally certain he cannot make himself
do so. ' It was the Lord that exalted Moses and
Aaron,' -said Samuel ; and, ' By the grace of God I am

Ch. III.] THE "RECORD" LETTER 35
what I am,' said St. Paul ; and so, in a modified and
humble sense, I can truly say.
" It used to be a terrible stumbling-block to me to
find so many learned men, so many acute men, so many
scientific men, infidels. It is not so now ; I see that
God has said, ' Not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble' ; I see, as plainly as it
is possible for me to see anything, that no natural man
can receive the things of the Spirit of God. Hence I
expect to find men of this stamp of intellect coming out
boldly with their avowals of unbelief in the written
Word of God. The only answer I can give to them is :
' God has in mercy taught me better ' ; and never do I
sing those beautiful words in the well-known hymn but
I feel my eyes filling with tears of gratitude to the God
of all compassion —
" Jesus sought me when a stranger.
Wandering from the fold of God."
" So it was with me ; so it must be with any one of
them if ever they are to know the truth in its power, or
to receive the love of the truth that they may be saved.
" I feel very much for the young of this generation,
remembering the conflicts I passed through in conse
quence of the errors of men of ability." '

¦ After the Third Edition of this book had gone to press, the
author ascertained that the writer of the foregoing letter (which
appeared in the Record, October, 1862) was the Rev. Robert
Walker, M.A, Vicar of Wymeswold, Leicestershire.

CHAPTER IV
I HAVE always felt that the death of
Charles II. left a stain upon the fair fame
of England. No, I do not mean Charles I. ;
neither would I endorse the words of Junius that
" he ought to have died upon the same scaffold."
For that Whitehall execution is a matter as to
which opinions may differ. But that the nation
that beheaded his father and deposed his brother
should have permitted him, after such a reign, to
die in his Palace as King of England — this is
a fact which in my humble judgment is discredit
able to the English people.
Even during that infamous reign there were
multitudes of people who believed in the virtue
of women. But no person of culture — no one
who was abreast of the times, or who understood
the trend of contemporary thought — acknow
ledged a traditional belief of that kind. And
*' Society " tacitly ignored it. In fact it came to
36

Ch. IV.] FAITH AND MORALS

37

be looked upon as proof of narrow-mindedness or
boorishness. The profession of morality became
unfashionable. The standard of morality was-
gone. The analogy between faith and morals is close
and real. And the decline of morality in the
Restoration period is finding its counterpart in
the sphere of faith to-day. We have come
within sight of an apostasy unparalleled in the
history of Christendom. Every attack which open
infidelity has ever launched against the Bible is-
now being repeated by men " who profess and call
themselves Christians," and who claim to be the
apostles of a new movement in defence of the
citadel of Christian truth. And just as vice
became fashionable in the days of Charles II., so,
as Professor Cheyne naively owns, this system of
attacking truth in the interests of truth has
become " fashionable " in Britain to-day. The
appearance of his Encydopcedia has checked
the movement for the moment : but the scare
thus caused will soon subside. It has fluttered
the lesser lights of the Higher Criticism, who
have been serving as acolytes in the worship of
this new goddess of Reason. For they are not
clear-headed enough to see that Professor Cheyne
has only pressed their own principles to legitimate

38 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
conclusions. Without help from France, Charles 1 1 .
could not so easily have overcome what he
deemed English prudery ; and so here, foreign
critics have been called in to force the pace with
their British brethren. The French women were
more "advanced " than the English ; that was all.
And this is precisely what is said about the
Encydopcedia writers as compared with ordinary
British critics.
The late Professor Robertson Smith is ap
pealed to on every hand in proof that there is
nothing in the Higher Criticism to injure or alarm
a Christian. By far the most interesting per
sonality among contemporary critics, his apologia,
published soon after he was deprived of his Chair
in Aberdeen, was marked by the glow of real
spirituality. Evangelical fervour, too, charac
terised the man. As honest and upright as he
was amiable and attractive, he seemed at that
time to be a martyr to the cause of truth. It is
this very element, however, that makes his case
such a warning.
" Thanks to the cold sluggishness of our
national character," well - seasoned " society
ladies " may possibly have spent a dozen years
at the court of Charles without becoming much
worse than when they entered it. But no

Ch. IV.] ROBERTSON SMITH'S APOSTASY 39
pure woman in the gush and glow of life could
pass through such an ordeal without sinking to
the level of those by whom she was surrounded.
And no man of Robertson Smith's temperament
could allow his mind year after year to be
saturated with German infidelity, and yet end
where he' began. His Old Testament in the
Jewish Church discloses what he was in 1881 :
the Encydopcedia Biblica shows what he became.
For by him it was that this sad book " was
originated." He it was "who requested Professor
Cheyne to take up the work as showing his own
• uncompromisingly progressive spirit.' " ^
People are led to suppose that the Higher
Criticism is the outcome of an honest inquiry
after truth. But the history of the movement
as written by the critics themselves explodes such
a delusion.2 Of Eichhorn, " the founder of
modern Old Testament criticism," Professor
Cheyne writes that " it was his hope to contribute
to the winning back of the educated classes to
religion." And to attain this end he set himself
to eliminate from the Bible everything to which
the rationalists took exception. " Religion " is

' The Times, April 11, 1902.
' In proof of my words I need but appeal to Professor
Cheyne's Founders of Old Testament Criticism.

40 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
fair ground for compromise ; but Christianity is
not a religion but a faith ; and faith, like morality,
admits of no compromise.
Men like Matthew Arnold may create a
mythical " Jesus " out of materials supplied by an
expurgated edition of the Gospels, from which
everything distasteful to their fastidious scepticism
has been eliminated. And they may make this
" Jesus " the Buddha of an ideal religion which
will please every one except the sinner who is
conscious of his need of a Divine Saviour. But
all this is treason to the Christ of God ; and the
Christian who sets himself to "huckster" ^ the
truth in this way, either sinks to the level of the
rationalist, or leads others down to that abyss.
This may take two generations to accomplish.
Eichhorn's greatest pupil, Ewald, was as devout
as himself, but his criticisms were more searching.
Ewald's greatest pupil, Wellhausen, became a
mere rationalist ; and, as Professor Cheyne justly
says, he only applied Ewald's principles more
consistently.*
' 2 Cor. ii. 17. The primary meaning of the word translated
" to corrupt " is " to huckster," and the whole passage indicates
that it is in this sense the apostle uses it. Eichhorn treated the
Bible on the principle of a "Dutch auction"; he adapted his
wares to the market, huckstering the Scriptures to suit the
rationalists. • Founders of Old Testament Criticism, p. 107.

Ch. IV.] PROFESSOR CHEYNE'S POSITION 41

Professor Cheyne himself is the English Well
hausen. i He is our only critic of eminence who
is clear-sighted enough to see the end of the road
on which he is travelling, or courageous enough
to follow it. In his judgment, expressed of
course in veiled language and with perfect
courtesy, other critics, such for example as his
distinguished colleague at Oxford, are the timid
advocates of an impossible compromise. Pro
fessor Driver's "sympathy with old-fashioned
readers " has led him, he says, " to forget the
claims of criticism." 2 It is this "spirit of com
promise " 3 that Professor Cheyne " chiefly
dreads." And the compromise he deprecates is
not Eichhorn's compromise with rationalists, but
the tendency of the English critics to pander to
the weakness of those who revere the Bible and
believe in the Divinity of Christ. We have
already seen how summarily he rejects the
foundations of Christianity, and we need not be
surprised at his assertion that by no one " has it
yet been made probable that there was a his
torical individual among the ancestors of the

• Only in the sense here indicated. For unlike Wellhausen,
Professor Cheyne is always reverent in tone, and he is one of the
fairest of the critics.
' Founders of Old Testament Criticism, p. 366. 3 ibid., p. 247.

42 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Israelites called Abram." ^ The existence of
Abraham is not even probable. The sceptic
would say it is not " certain," and thus leave an
opening for discussion ; but on both vital and
incidental questions Professor Cheyne has the
courage of his convictions, and boldly takes the
unassailable ground of open infidelity, *
Here I would wish to expose another popular
blunder. The idea prevails that the Higher
Criticism is the special preserve of Hebrew
scholars. Now this is undoubtedly true of the
sort of study for which Eichhorn coined the title,
namely, a critical examination of the text of a
book with a view to analysing its contents. But
any one can see that there is no connection what
soever between an inquiry of that kind and the
rejection of the supernatural element in the Bible
in order to propitiate the Rationalists. We must

' Founders of Old Testament Criticism, p. 239.
= Infidelity is a strong term, but not too strong. In an article
ill The Nineteenth Century for January, 1902, Professor Cheyne
says that Abraham was a " lunar hero.'' Having regard to our
Lord's references to the Patriarch, this is shockingly profane ;
and having regard to the recent discoveries of archasology, it
is on other grounds extraordinary. Professor Cheyne would
possibly deny that he says this. But he says that Winckler, the
German, says it ; and he repeats it with approval, calling it "A
turning-point in Old Testament study," and commending it to
the attention of English scholars. I never knew a receiver of
stolen goods who did not resent being called a thief !

Ch. IV.] THE MOSAIC ERA LITERARY 43
avoid the stupid pedantry of explaining a phrase
by its origin and not by its use. The Higher
Criticism at once degenerated into what it is to-day
— a sceptical crusade against the Bible, tending
to lower it to the level of a purely human book.
Here, however, the pioneers of criticism com
pare favourably with their successors. They
had the excuse of the ignorance which then
prevailed about Old Testament times. The
attack on the Pentateuch, for example, was based
on the assumption that the Mosaic Era was
a barbarous age. It seemed an anachronism to
suppose that such a literature could have existed
at such a time. But this, as Professor Sayce will
tell us, was " a baseless assumption due to the
ignorance of the critic." ^ Referring to the work
of " the excavator and the decipherer " in Eastern
lands, the same writer goes on to say, " Discovery
has followed there upon discovery, each more
marvellous than the last, and a lost world of
culture and civilisation has been brought to
light. . . . We can follow the daily life of the
Egyptian 3,000 years ago more minutely than the
daily life of a medieeval Englishman ; , . and
study the letters of Canaanites who lived before
' Lex Mosaica, p. 7.

44 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
the birth of Moses." And again, " In the
century before the Exodus, Palestine was a land
of books and schools." ^
But though the only reasonable foundation of
the attack on the Pentateuch has thus been
destroyed, the critics go on repeating the state
ments made in ignorance of all this by their great
predecessors. Or if they try to shore up their
crumbling edifice, it is by the abuse of a few
isolated texts which are pressed remorselessly into
the service. 2
Let this fact, then, be kept prominently in view,
that a knowledge of Hebrew has nothing what
ever to do with the question of the authenticity of
the books of Moses. And speaking generally,
philology has only an incidental importance in
the whole Higher Criticism controversy. If, for
example. Professor Driver declares that "the
Hebrew of Daniel is that of a much later age
than the sixth century b.c," he is answered by
Professor Cheyne, who, though a more uncom
promising critic, is a safer guide on matters
of this kind. We may therefore dismiss the
Hebraists altogether from this part of the inquiry.
And even in relation to questions which
' Lex Mosaica, p. 9. ' See Appendix, Note I.

Ch. IV.] THE SECOND ISAIAH THEORY 45
specially concern them, the function of the
experts is merely to prepare the proofs. The
decision should rest with those who have practical
experience in dealing with evidence. To allow
the critics to adjudicate upon the evidence they
have themselves prepared would be quite as
stupid and as dangerous as to permit the police
to try the prisoners whose cases they bring into
court. And yet this is, speaking generally, the
attitude maintained by educated Englishmen
towards every question raised in this controversy.
It is intellectually as deplorable as that of the
Irish Roman Catholic peasant who grovels before
his priest and takes the law from his mouth.
Take for example the Isaiah controversy. The
critical attack upon Daniel not only destroys one
of the great Messianic prophecies, and impairs the
authority of the New Testament, but impugns the
teaching of the Lord Himself But this "second
Isaiah " hypothesis involves no element of this
kind. The question therefore is open to dis
cussion, and the Christian may consider it on its
merits. The reasons urged in favour of it are
undoubtedly striking and important. They are,
first, certain literary differences which mark the
various sections of the Book ; and secondly, the
definiteness of the references to the exile and the

46 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
return, contained in the latter portion of it. No
one will dispute, however, that were it not for
this second consideration the question would not
be pressed ; for in a writer so " versatile " as
Isaiah,! a change of style is by no means extra
ordinary. And the critics do not deny that God
might have inspired Isaiah to utter all these
prophecies. In a recent sensational murder trial, it was
suggested that the real delinquent was a stranger
who resembled the accused. The suggestion
was a reasonable one, and its acceptance would
have explained certain difficulties in the case for
the prosecution. But an experienced judge and
a sensible jury wanted to know where this stranger
had come from, and what became of him. And
so here. We want to know something about this
Isaiah II.2
If it were possible to hold that the "second
Isaiah " was the real Isaiah, this difficulty might
perhaps be ignored. For the author of the open-

' " A writer so versatile and dramatic." Professor G. A. Smith's
Isaiah. ' I fear I shall be deemed ignorant for speaking of two Isaiahs.
I really forget how many of them are reckoned by some of the
critics — sixteen, I think. But in these pages I wish to deal
seriously with the criticisms of sober scholars, and to ignore the
vagaries of faddists.

Ch. IV.] SECOND ISAIAHS 47
ing prophecies of the Book — those scathing
denunciations of the religion of the people — may
well have been hated and persecuted ; and it is
conceivable that his very name should have been
erased from the popular annals. But the last
twenty-seven chapters are altogether unique, not
merely by reason of their unequalled brilliancy
and power, but also because they are such "com
fortable words " as never before or since were
heard in Israel. A prophet raised up in the dark
days of the exile to deliver such messages of hope
and joy would have become immortal. He would
have been the idol of the whole nation, the most
famous and popular personage of his time. But
if we are to accept the theory of the critics, he
appeared and vanished again, like a morning
mist, without leaving even the vaguest tradition
of his name, his personality, or his career. And
this, remember, in the exilic or post-exilic period,
that is to say within historic times.
And when we are told that there were several
"second Isaiahs," a galaxy of the most brilliant
prophetic stars that ever shone in the national
firmament of Israel, the suggestion becomes so
utterly preposterous that if the case could be
brought before any serious judicial tribunal it
would be " laughed out of court."

48 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
But as usual with experts, the critics look only
at one side of the question. And while experience
refuses to sanction an hypothesis so wild as that
which they propose, it warns us authoritatively that
in common with all experts they are exceptionally
liable to err.
In his History of the Criminal Law, Sir James
Fitzjames Stephens places on record the matured
judgment of the Judicial Bench that no kind of
evidence needs more the test of cross-examination
than that of experts. In no other sphere save
that of religious controversy would sensible people
accept the dicta of experts until they had been
thus tested ; and yet the history of the Higher
Criticism movement gives abundant proof that
no class of expert is more untrustworthy than the
critic. What about Schleiermacher, and Baur, and
Strauss, and their several schools ? Who now
defends their conclusions ? The New Testament
fared worse at their hands than does the Old
Testament to-day at the hands of their successors.
And yet the lucubrations of those brilliant scholars
and critics are now put aside as "an episode "
even by such an arch-heretic as Professor Har
nack of Berlin. " There was a time " (he writes)
" — the general public indeed have not got beyond

Ch. IV.] VAGARIES OF CRITICISM 49
it — in which the oldest Christian literature, in
cluding the New Testament, was looked upon as
a tissue of deceptions and forgeries. That time
is passed. For science it was an episode in which
it learned much, and after which it has much to
forget. . . . The oldest literature of the Church
in all main points and in most details, from the
point of view of literary criticism, is genuine and
trustworthy." ^
What guarantee have we, then, that the vagaries
of present-day criticism about the Books of Moses,
the Prophets and the Psalms, will not be dis
missed as lightly by the Higher Critics of the
future ? I am not referring here to the puerilities
of " the Polychrome Bible " — such puerilities
offend the common sense of all intelligent people.
What I have in view is such theories, for example,
as that the dispensation of the prophets preceded
the dispensation of the law — a very slight
acquaintance with the general scheme of revela
tion will save us from any error of the kind ; or
to take another case, that prophetic writings
which deal with the events of the captivity must
be assigned to the captivity era. This theory

' He adds : " In the whole New Testament there is in all pro
bability only a single writing which can be looked upon as
pseudonymous in the strictest sense of the word — i.e., 2 Peter."

50 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
originated with the sceptics, and it is a neces
sary part of the rationalistic crusade against the
supernatural element in Scripture. But it is
adopted by critics of a different school, who
defend it on the ground that to suppose a prophet
to become " immersed in the future would be not
only without parallel in the Old Testament, it
would be contrary to the nature of prophecy. "^
Now this is a question as to which we need no
help from the philologist. Any Christian who
has made a life study of the Bible is as com
petent to form an opinion upon it as the ablest
Hebraist in Christendom. And most of us would
insist that this theory is utterly opposed to fact.
If the 64th chapter of Isaiah was necessarily
written after the captivity, the 53rd chapter
was necessarily written after the crucifixion. And
so also with the Messianic Psalms, and number
less passages in the minor prophets. Professor
Driver tells us that " the prophet never abandons
his own historical position." And therefore he
calls the prophecies of Isaiah " discourses." In
other words, the prophecies came by the will of
man. But no prophecy of the Scripture is of this
character. " For no prophecy ever came by the
' Professor Driver's Introduction, p. 224.

Ch. IV.] THE PROPHETS SPOKE FROM GOD 51
will of man ; but men spake from God, being
moved by the Holy Ghost " — borne along as a
storm-caught ship is driven before the wind.^
• 2 Peter i. 21. The word " moved " is literally carried along :
see its use in Acts xxvii. 15, 17 (driven). The whole passage is of
great importance in this connection — " No prophecy of the Scrip
ture is of any private interpretation." The word rendered " inter
pretation" occurs here only. The verb is used in the LXX.
(Gen. xli. 12) as the translation of the Hebrew paihar, to open
unfold, disclose. And the word here rendered " private " occurs
113 times in the New Testament, but nowhere else is it so
translated. It is rendered " his own " 77 times. And the word
" is " is not the verb to be, but to come into existence, to come to be.
What the passage declares, therefore, is that no prophecy ever
originated with the prophet's own unfolding (or sending forth).
It speaks, not of the interpretation of the prophecies, but of their
origin and source, and thus disposes of the theories of the
critics. (See Dr. BuUinger's Figures of Speech used in the Bible,
p. 130.)

CHAPTER V
CHARLES READE, the great novelist,
thus states in his own inimitable way the
attitude of the Christianised sceptic toward the
miraculous in Scripture : " Say there never was
a miracle and never will be, and I differ with,
but cannot confute you. Deny the creation and
the possibility of a re-creation or resurrection ;
call David a fool for saying, * It is He that hath
made us and not we ourselves,' and  a wise
man for suggesting that, on the contrary, mole
cules created themselves without a miracle, and
we made ourselves out of molecules without a
miracle ; and although your theory contradicts
experience as much as, and staggers credulity
more than, any miracle that has ever been
ascribed by Christians or Jews to infinite power,
I admit it is consistent, though droll."
But, he goes on to say, once grant the creation
of the world, and "it is a little too childish to
52

Ch. v.] CHRISTIANISED SCEPTICISM 53
draw back " and to haggle over miracles of the
kind recorded in the Bible.
The intelligent and consistent sceptic is entitled
to respect and sympathy. But what can be said
for the man who professes to believe in the
Apostles' Creed, and yet rejects on a priori
grounds the Gospel miracles !
Here is the preface to the Fourth Gospel : —
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by Him ; and without Him was not
anything made that was made." The sceptic at
once declares his unbelief And from his own
standpoint he is right ; for he regards the record
as human, and no one but a credulous fool
would believe such statements on merely human
authority. The Christianised sceptic, on the
other hand, assures us that "the Nazarene" was
really the God who made the heavens and the
earth; and yet he cannot believe in His healing
a case of paralysis, or raising Lazarus from the
dead.^ Was there ever such an instance of
"straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel"!
For not only do the minor and incidental
' John V. 1-9 ; xi. 44.

54 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
miracles of the Ministry rest upon the same
testimony as the great foundation miracle of the
Incarnation, but if that greatest of the miracles
be accepted, the others are in such sense con
nected with it that, even if no record of them
remained, we might reasonably assume they took
place. Will my readers decide this question for
themselves ? Suppose a parent, or wife, or hus
band, or child were lying at the point of death,
and you knew that He who made the world was
sojourning in our midst "in fashion as a man,"
would all the Professors and sceptics of Christen
dom prevent you from seeking His presence, and
casting yourself at His feet with the appeal that
He would cure your loved one ?
But it may be said, if this argument were sound
such cures would be as frequent now as in the
days of the Ministry. To which I answer first,
that this objection is not legitimate with the
Christian, for the Scriptures themselves explain
the mystery of a silent heaven in the present dis
pensation ; and secondly, that notwithstanding
that explanation, the silence is the greatest trial
which faith has to endure. Matthew Arnold's
God — "the Eternal, not ourselves, that makes
for righteousness " — may satisfy the student in the
dreamland of his library ; but men who have to

Ch. v.] the divinity OF CHRIST 55
do with the stern realities of life will say of this
fastidious sceptic what Pascal said of Descartes,
that the only God he admitted was a God who
was useless. There are times in every life when
" heart and flesh cry out for the Living God " ^ —
a real, personal God. Reason revolts against the
conception of a God that could not cure our sick,
and heal our afflicted ones. His power is beyond
question. If, then. He does not do it, are we to
conclude that His goodness and love are at fault?
This is a part of the searching discipline of the
life of faith.2
It is at the foundations that intelligent and true
scepticism challenges the truth of Christianity.
The miracles controversy is the merest skirmish
ing. The Divinity of Christ is the field upon
which must be fought the decisive battle between
faith and unbelief From the human standpoint,
the supreme miracle of the Incarnation is in
credible. Here the Christian and the unbeliever
measure their distance. And the one as well as
the other holds a position which is unassailable.
It is the attempted compromise of the Christianised
sceptic which is intellectually contemptible. The
sceptic says, " No amount of human testimony
' Psa. Ixxxiv. 2.
* The Silence of God deals specially with this question.

56 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
could avail to accredit such a miracle ; therefore
I reject it." The Christian leaves that position
unchallenged, but he answers, "The truth you
refuse does not rest upon human testimony, but
upon a Divine revelation ; therefore I accept it."
Let me repeat my question in another form.
And here I appeal to any honest, sane, and
sensible man, I care not whether he be believer
or unbeliever. Christian or Pagan : Suppose the
Divine Being who made heaven and earth were
sojourning among us, would you expect Hinj to
work what we call miracles ? In other words,
would you attribute to Him power greater than
we ourselves possess ? The question needs only
to be stated ; for the answer is obvious. Not only
should we look for miracles, but if, in circum
stances which would lead any good man to act, the
miracles were wanting, their absence would dis
credit the assumption that the Being was Divine.
The more closely this matter is investigated,
the more clearly it will appear that the Divinity
of Christ is the pivot on which the whole con
troversy turns ; and the effect of sceptical criti
cism upon every fearless and logical thinker will
be to compel him to make choice " between a
<leeper faith and a bolder unbelief"
Says Matthew Arnold, "At the stage of ex-

. Ch. v.] MATTHEW ARNOLD ON MIRACLES 57
/  _ 
perience where men have now arrived, it is
evident to whoever looks at things fairly that
the miracuTous^afa of the Bible . . . proceed
from a medium of imperfect observation and
boundless credulity. The story of the miraculous
birth and resuscitation of Jesus was bred in such
a medium." ' I respect a thinker and writer of
this type, and I freely acknowledge that if the
Bible be nothing more than these Higher Critics
would have us believe, he is entirely in the right.
The Christian believes, while the sceptic rejects,
"the story of the miraculous birth." But the
Christianised sceptics accept the Christian's creed
while they destroy the foundation on which it
rests. And yet they pose as persons of superior
enlightenment and intelligence !
If people would use their reason and common
sense in this matter, the battle would soon be joined

• God and the Bible (Preface). His argument against the
evidential value of miracles (Lit. and Dogma, chap. vi.
especially) I deal with in my Silence of God, though without
citing him. With much of it I agree. The assumption that
miracles are impossible indicates merely the stupid tendency of
the human mind to become enslaved to the results of experience.
It reminds me of Dean Swift's story of the man with the wonder
ful nose. The learned society of the place met to discuss the
case, and passed a resolution that no man could have such a
nose. At which juncture the man himself walked in, nose and
all I Any one can find proofs that what are called miracles
occur even in our own day.

58 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
between faith and unbelief and we should be rid
of the shallow and illogical half-scepticism of the
critics. A teacher appeared in Judea, and pro
claimed himself to be the Son of God and Israel's
Messiah. Utterly unaccredited by the established
religion of the time, he gathered round him a
company of disciples — humble men all of them,
mostly peasants and fishermen, wholly unknown
to fame. Every element that, in our own day,
we should call orthodox and respectable agreed
in repudiating him. We are apt to assume that
the religious leaders of the Jews were either fools
or fiends, whereas the testimony of the Apostle
Paul gives proof that they were men of piety and
zeal — men who were certainly not inferior in these
respects to the religious leaders of Christendom
at any period of its history.
But these men rejected Him on perfectly
reasonable grounds. It is, perhaps, impossible
for us to understand their position, or to view
the facts as they viewed them. But here is
the startling testimony of one who in early life
had stood where they did. " There was in such
a Messiah," he writes, "absolutely nothing — past,
present, or possible ; intellectually, religiously, or
even nationally — to attract, but all to repel." ^
• Dr. Edersheim, Life and Times of the Messiah (vol. i., p. 145).

Ch. v.] CHRIST AND THE BIBLE 59
How was it, then, that His disciples believed
on Him ? " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
Living God," was the Apostle Peter's testimony.
To which the Lord made answer, " Flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father which is in heaven."' The facts were
the same for both. But the facts were regarded
from wholly different points of view. The Jews
regarded them in the light of human judgment :
the disciples viewed them in the light of a Divine
revelation. And the reasons given for disparaging the
Bible to-day are but the echo of the reasons
urged for rejecting Christ in the days of the
Ministry. One of the popular exponents of the
Higher Criticism has denounced the "baseless
notion that a book written by human pens and
handed down by human methods, transcribed,
translated, compiled by fallible minds, is, or can
be, the Word of God." Yes ; this is so very like
what they said about the Lord. " Is not this the
carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James
and Joses and Judas and Simon ? And are not
His sisters here with us? And" (the record
adds) "they were offended at Him." 2 Of course
¦ Matt. xvi. 16, 17. " Mark vi. 3.

6o THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
they were ; and if the critics, including the writer
I have quoted, had lived in the days of the
Ministry, their principles would have led them
to take sides with those who rejected Him.
" But the Bible contains not only what is false,
but what is positively immoral and evil." Yes ;
and they said of Him, " Behold a gluttonous man
and a wine-bibber." * They even called Him
Beelzebub ; 2 and the critics have never gone so
far as this in denouncing Holy Scripture.
These grosser charges against the Lord were
altogether blasphemous ; and so are these baser
libels upon the Scriptures. They discredit only
those who make them. But as regards what may
be described as legitimate criticisms, it will be
urged that the critics are fair and intelligent and
devout, and that they can prove the truth of all
they say. Yes, they think they can prove the
truth of it. And many of the leaders of the
Jews were quite as devout and intelligent and
fair as they. The facts, moreover, on which the
Jews relied in denying that the Nazarene could
be the Son of God were indisputable ; whereas
the grounds on which the critics deny that the
Bible can be the Word of God are most of them
' Matt. xi. 19. • Ibid. x. 25.

Ch. v.] CHRIST AND THE BIBLE 6i
untenable, and all of them disputed.' And those
that are admitted — the " human pens " and
"human methods" — have their counterpart in the
facts of the family and workshop at Nazareth.
I am not playing with words. Nor am I using
the rejection of Christ as a mere illustration of
my theme. This would be irreverent. I insist
that the cases are parallel. There is a definite
analogy between the grounds on which the Jews
rejected Christ and the grounds on which some
critics reject the Bible. And the cause of the
rejection is the same in both cases — the incapacity
of unspiritual men to deal with spiritual things.
If the Lord had not claimed to be Divine, they
would have ranked Him among the greatest of
their Rabbis. And if the Bible did not claim to
be Divine, it would be held in the highest honour
by many who now disparage it. But the Jews
insisted that the Lord should be judged like any
other human being, just as the critics maintain
that the Bible must be treated like any human
book. And the inevitable result in the one case
was the crucifixion of Calvary : in the other, it is
the apostasy of the Encyclopedia Biblica.
That "a book written by human pens, and
• See Chaps. VII. and VIII., post.

62 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
handed down by human methods," should be the
Word of God, does not seem so wild a suggestion
as that "the carpenter, the son of Mary," should
be the Son of God. As for the book, even if we
throw in the "transcribing" and "translating,"
not only does the notion not appear "baseless" at
all, but the objections to it can be shown to be
either inapplicable or frivolous.'
If positive proof be demanded that the Bible is
the Word of God, we must rise above the level at
which the critics ply their trade — we must take
account of its deeper, spiritual meaning ; but in
answering their objections and criticisms we can
meet the critics on their own ground. Not so
with the truth that " the Nazarene " was the Son
of God. Here we are confronted with that which
not only clashes with all experience, but which
transcends all human thought. Therefore it is
that flesh and blood cannot reveal it.
And these solemn words of the Lord Jesus
Christ are not falsified by the fact that there are
multitudes who, apart from any spiritual appre
ciation of a Divine revelation, profess to believe
in His Divinity. For the acceptance of what is
true in itself if it be based on grounds which are
' See Chaps. VII. and VIII., post

Ch. v.] PASCAL ON RELIGION 63
either false or inadequate, is not faith but super
stition. And of this character are all beliefs
begotten of mere " religion," whether the religion
be called Christian or Pagan. For, as Pascal
wrote, religion makes people stupid.'

' The passage is given in God and the Bible (Preface). He is
dealing with the difficulty people urge that they cannot believe,
and his prescription is that they should act as if they believed ;
using " the ordinances " — taking holy water, having masses said,
&c., and he adds : — Naturellement meme cela vous fera croire &
vous abetira. No wonder that the Port Royal editors suppressed
a passage so cruelly cynical but so true I For while Christianity
elevates and ennobles the whole being, mere religion seems to
make men either fools or fiends.

CHAPTER VI
SHIFTING the burden of proof is one of the
commonest tricks of casuistry. By this
artifice Infidelity would inveigle us into allowing a
presumption against the existence of a written reve
lation. But, as has been well said, "Agnosticism
assumes a double incompetence — the incompetence
not only of man to know God, but of God to make
Himself known. But the denial of competence is
the negation of Deity. For the God who could
not speak would not be rational, and the God who
would not speak would not be moral." And the
author of these words ' sums up his argument by
declaring that "the idea of a written revelation
may be said to be logically involved in the notion
of a living God."
This might be stated much more strongly.
What should we think of a man who, living in
wealth in some distant colony, never communi-
' Principal Fairbairn, of Oxford.
64

Ch. VI.] THE TESTIMONY OF LAWYERS 65
cated with his family in England, even though
aware of their being in perplexity and trouble and
want ? ' It seems inconceivable that a good and
loving God could leave His offspring without a
revelation during their sojourn in a world so full
of doubt and care and sorrow and sin. But these
pages are addressed to Christians, and every
Christian believes that we have a revelation. In
spite of all that has been said about it, indeed,
some of us believe that the Bible is the Word of
God. But this only proves our want of intelli
gence. For, we are assured, no one believes it
nowadays unless he is " a brainless idiot." 2
The study of the law, Edmund Burke declares,
" does more to quicken and invigorate the under
standing than all other kinds of learning put
together." Here then is the mature and deliberate
testimony of a great lawyer : " Frequent peru
sals of the Old and New Testament have satisfied
him that each is an inspired work, such as no
wisdom of man could have framed ; and further,
that the earlier Revelation is inseparably con
nected with the later, as the acorn is connected
' Even among criminals it is only the most degraded of men
who forget their families.
" If the author I quote were living I should pillory him by
giving his name. But as he has gone to his account, I abstain
from doing so. 6

66 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
with the oak which springs from it." ' This
" brainless idiot " was Lord Chancellor of
England. Among the other " brainless idiots " who have
in the full blaze of modern " culture " cherished
this despised belief in the Bible, may be reckoned
his immediate successor. Lord Cairns, the greatest
Lord Chancellor of modern times. I am assured
that Lord Selborne may be classed in the same
category. And to them may be added two other
very eminent lawyers and judges. Lord Justice
Lush and Mr. Justice Archibald. In such com
pany no one need be ashamed of belonging to the
guild of the "brainless idiots." And if the faith
of the Christian rested on such a basis, it might
be shown that that guild includes not a few of the
greatest of living scholars and thinkers.
But it is not because the Bible is accredited by
the faith of eminent and saintly men that the
Christian reverences it as the Word of God.
And it is for the Christian I am writing. Were
it otherwise, my argument would run on wholly
different lines. And if any one demands my
definition of a Christian, I may answer, for my
present purpose, every one who accepts the
' Lord Hatherley's Continuity of Scripture.

Ch. VI.J CHRIST ACCREDITS THE BIBLE 67
" Apostles' Creed " ; every one who believes that
the Lord Jesus Christ was the Only-begotten Son
of God. Now the only rational basis for such a
belief is a Divine revelation. The man who
denies the inspiration of the Gospels, and yet
believes in the Incarnation, is, I repeat, a credu
lous person who would believe anything. With
the honest agnostic or infidel I should wish to
discuss this question in a patient and sympathetic
spirit ; but with fools I have neither sympathy
nor patience. Here, however, I am addressing
neither honest infidels nor credulous fools, but
Christians whose faith is being undermined by
both. And the moment we accept the Gospels as a
Divine revelation, we have done with th&t protigi
of the critics, the " historic Jesus," and we stand
in the presence of our Divine Lord and Saviour.
And from His hands it is that we receive the
Hebrew Scriptures. Three times over in the
Temptation He appealed to the Book of Deuter
onomy as the Word of God — His only defence
and answer to the Devil's arguments and claims.
And in the Sermon on the Mount He says r
" Think not that I am come to destroy the law or
the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfil. For verily I say unto you. Till heaven and

68 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law till all be fulfilled." The "jot"
is the smallest letter in the alphabet ; the " tittle "
is one of the smallest strokes — minute points
and projections, by which certain letters are dis
tinguished. No language could express more
unequivocally the Divine authority of every
detail of " the law and the prophets." '
And in His teaching after the resurrection, we
are told, " Beginning at Moses and all the pro
phets. He expounded unto them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself "^ Dean
Alford's note upon this is so admirable and so
apt, that I cannot refrain from quoting it. The
"things concerning Himself" he says, "mean
something very different from mere prophetical
passages. The whole Scriptures are a testimony to
Him: the whole history of the chosen people,
with its types, and its law, and its prophecies, is
a shewing forth of Him. And it was here the
whole that He laid out before them . . . the

' " A book partly legend, partly dishonest legend, fabrications
for a purpose, with history which is not history, with a Levitical
code made looo years after the time of Moses, . . . — can such a
book as this be one to which the Son of God puts the solemn
declaration above given?" — Higher Criticism, What is itf By
Rev. Robert Sinker, D.D., of Cambridge, p. 170.
' Luke xxiv. 27.

Ch. VI.] THE CRITICS DISCREDIT CHRIST 69
meaning of the whole, as a whole, fulfilled in
Him." That this was the Lord's estimate of the
Hebrew Scriptures I need not delay to prove.
For it is not disputed. The Higher Critics
acknowledge it, and as it bars advance in their
sceptical crusade against the Bible, they give it pro
minent notice. To avoid risk of misrepresenta
tion, I always like to state the views of opponents
in their own words. So I turn again to the most
up-to-date and accredited text-book of the Higher
Criticism. And here I read ; " Both Christ
and the apostles or writers of the New Testa
ment held the current Jewish notions respecting
the Divine authority and revelation of the Old
Testament." '
How inferior the Christ of these critics is to-
themselves, both in spiritual and natural intelli
gence ! But the profanity of the words, and the
folly and conceit which they betoken, will be
plain to every Christian. What the decoy is to-
the libertine, these men are, though unwittingly,
to the avowed infidel. Just as a pure woman is
insidiously trained to hear language and to tolerate
suggestions which in time prepare the way for
' Hastings' Bible Dictionary, article " Old Testament," p. 601.

70 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
advances of a kind that at first would have excited
disgust and anger ; so the holy and healthy
spiritual instincts of the Christian are gradually
deadened by his becoming accustomed to hear
his Divine Lord thus patronised and disparaged.
" Writings of this character are far more dan
gerous to the simple-minded Christian than any
direct attack on his Master. They are very
shockingly irreverent. A patronising tone is
assumed, which exhibits the critic as presuming
to judge Him who, we believe, will be our Judge."
These weighty words, which the Christian will
do well to ponder, are from the pen of one of the
Lord Chancellors whom I have already quoted.
If the subject were not too sad and too solemn
for ridicule, I would illustrate this teaching by
applying it in another sphere. Why should not a
man have two wives ?
The question will provoke a wild scream of
indignation : in view of the teaching of the New
Testament, how can any one dare to raise it ?
Yes, the teaching of the New Testament is
explicit, but "both Christ and the apostles or
writers of the New Testament held the current
Jewish notions respecting" marriage. The im
portance of the question of marriage is absolutely
trivial in comparison with that of the character

Ch. VL] "KENOSIS" THEORIES 71
and authority of Holy Scripture. And if the
testimony of the Gospels and Epistles on the one
question may be thus evaded, it is mere trifling to
appeal to it on the other. If the Higher Critics'
estimate of the Bible be a just one, then, in view
of the history of the Patriarchs, the position of
woman and the sacredness of marriage must be
classed with the superstitions which the Christian
religion has borrowed from a degenerate Judaism.
Most true it is that the Lord Jesus Christ was
man, and that " being found in fashion as a man
He humbled Himself" Within certain limits
therefore, Kenosis'^ theories have their place. But
not upon the question here at issue. To assert
that His teaching had no higher authority than
that of man, is a perilous position for a Christian
to assume. But even if we could for the sake of
argument concede this, it would not touch the
fact that the same Holy Spirit who inspired
mere men to speak from God, was given to Him
without measure; and on that Divine fact He
based His claim to speak "the words of God. "2
What mean such statements as these, " He that
rejecteth Me and receiveth not My words hath
» A Greek word, the noun of the verb used in Phil. ii. 7. (" He
emptied Himself," R.V.)
^ John iii. 34.

72 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
one that judgeth him: the word that I have
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
For I have not spoken of Myself ; but the Father
which sent me. He gave me a commandment,
what I should say, and what I should speak. " '
And again, " Believest thou not that I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me ? The words that I
speak unto you, I speak not of Myself" ^ In view
of such language, we can understand His solemn
declaration, " Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but My words shall not pass away." 3
" The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,
full of grace and truth " — not grace only, but truth ;
for "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 4
Hence His testimony to Himself " I am the
light of the world ; " S "I am the way, the truth,
and the life." ^ And yet we are told deliberately
by men who claim to be Christians and Christian
ministers, that His whole teaching respecting
matters of vital importance in relation to faith and
morals, was steeped in ignorance and superstition.
For let the facts be kept clearly in view : we are
called " brainless idiots " for believing that the
Old Testament is the Word of God ; and yet in
this we are merely following our Divine Lord.
' John xii. 48, 49. ' Ibid. xiv. 10. 3 Luke xxi. 33.
« John i. 14, 17. s Ibid viii. 12. ' Ibid xiv. 6.

Ch. VL] "KENOSIS" THEORIES 73
It is not easy to write calmly upon this subject,
but I will maintain a studied reserve. Let the
plain facts speak. I claim the utmost attention
to them, for their importance is immense. The
Higher Critics admit that " the Divine authority
and revelation of the Old Testament" was ex
pressly taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. But to
avoid the consequences of this admission, they
represent that in this matter the Lord was the
dupe of " a current Jewish notion," or in other
words, of an ignorant error. And this, remember,
is not the position or language of the extreme
section represented by Professor Cheyne, but of
the " cautious " and " conservative " English
critics of Professor Driver's school.
To raise the question, as some do, whether the
Lord was versed in higher mathematics or the
discoveries of modern science, would be a mere
quibble were it not for its profanity. And the
objection that in childhood He must have been
subject to the limitations of childhood is wholly
irrelevant. For it is with the Christ of the
Ministry that we have to do. And the question
does not relate to limitations upon knowledge in
matters as to which He was silent, but to ignor
ance leading to teaching which the critics allege
to be false and mischievous, on subjects of vital

74 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
moment to His disciples and to the Church for
all time. But even this is not all. When He
appeared to His disciples after His resurrection,
not only did He not revise the teaching of the
days of His humiliation, but He repeated it with
increased definiteness.'
Counsel in a lawsuit has sometimes to advise
that unless some adverse witness can be dis
credited, the case must collapse. In this Higher
Criticism campaign, the witness who must be
discredited is our Divine Lord. No straining of
the doctrine of the Kenosis will cover this : it brings
us within sight of the great Anti-christian apostasy
of the latter days.^
As we proceed, then, let us keep these two facts
clearly in view. First, that the Lord Jesus
Christ regarded the Old Testament as Divinely
inspired in the very sense in which all these
critics repudiate inspiration ; and secondly, that
' The " Jesus '' of Matthew Arnold, the agnostic, is " manifestly
above the heads of his reporters " (Lit. and Dogma, Pref. 1888) ;
the "Jesus" of these writers who claim to be Christians, is
manifestly on a level with them.
' There lies before me as I write, the current number of a weekly
religious paper which has done yeoman's service in the Higher
Criticism crusade. It contains a fierce attack upon Prof. Cheyne
and the third volume of his Encyclopaedia. I turn the page to
find a notice of an able and valuable little book of the Rev.
David M'lntyre, of Glasgow, entitled The Divine Authority of the
Scriptures of the Old Testament ; and here I read, " All this citation

Ch. VL] "KENOSIS" THEORIES 75
the only escape from that conclusion is to dis
parage either His teaching or the record of it.
And this is to destroy Christianity altogether.
Even Professor Cheyne and his school accept
the personality of "the historic Jesus." He was
they tell us, " undoubtedly a devout Jew ; " and as
the traditional teaching of this traditional Jesus is
superior to that of Mahomet or Gautama, " the
Christian religion " would no doubt survive the
collapse of Christianity. But that is not what
concerns us here. The Christian is not the
votary of the best of all human religions. He is
the recipient of a Divine revelation which has
brought Him the knowledge of salvation in a
personal Saviour, and has made him the redeemed
disciple of a personal Lord and Master. We are
followers, not of the historic Jesus of the critics —
the dead Buddha of nineteen centuries ago — but
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son

of passages is useless, unless it first be made good that our Lord's
knowledge of critical questions was different from that of his con
temporaries." This suggests Dr. Pusey's words, "I know not
whether the open blasphemy of the eighteenth century is more
offensive than the cold-blooded patronising ways of the nine
teenth." Can anything well go further than this— that in His
apprehension of the very Scriptures which testified of Himself,
our Lord was less intelligent than the editor and staff of this
newspaper 1 I would wish to believe that the words were written
hurriedly and thoughtlessly.

76 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
of God, who "died for our sins according to the
Scriptures." '
Now any clear thinker can see that if in the
words I have just quoted, "the Scriptures"
mean mere human records, this whole system
rests upon a foundation of sand. The death
of " the historic Jesus " is a fact so well accredited
that no transcendental proof of it is needed. But
that " Christ died for our sins " is a fact which
nothing but a Divine revelation could possibly
accredit. Therefore it is that those who give
up inspiration generally end in giving up the
atonement. But Christ " rose again the third day, according
to the Scriptures." What Scriptures ? The refer
ence is to the Old Testament, of course. But
where does the Old Testament tell us that Christ
would die for our sins and rise again the third
day ? Here comes in the force of Dean Alford's
words : " The whole Scriptures are a testimony
to Him ; the whole history of the chosen people,
with its types, its law, and its prophecies."
But just as the unbelieving Jews were entirely
taken up with the humanity of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and He was nothing to them but " the
' I Cor. XV. 3.

Ch. VL] TWO SIDES TO THE TAPESTRY 77
carpenter's son," so these critics are engrossed
with the human side of Scripture. Its deep
spiritual significance they ignore. They study
the tapestry upon the wrong side, and write
ponderous tomes replete with important and use
ful information of every kind about the materials
used in the making of it, and the men who wove
it, and the marvellous way it was put together
at different periods and how it has been preserved
to our own day. But its chief defect — natural
enough, having regard to its history — is the utter
want of design or pattern of any kind. We,
however, who look at the fabric upon the upper
side are filled with admiration at its symmetry
and beauty. And as we think of the Master
mind that planned it, and mark the way in
which every detail of His plan has been realised,
all that those who are busy plodding at the
other side of it can tell us serves only to
deepen our wonder and to increase our delight.

CHAPTER VII
WE have seen that our belief in God
tends to a belief in the existence of
a written revelation.' And having reached this
point it would be idle pedantry to discuss the
rival claims of the Bible and of other books.
Moreover, I am writing for Christians, and
with the Christian the only question open is —
How, and to what extent, is the Bible inspired?
Now it is admitted that the Lord Jesus Christ
has taught us to reverence the Hebrew Scrip
tures as inspired in the strictest sense.^ And
we have seen that if pa,rt at least of the New
Testament be not inspired in that same sense,
there is no rational basis for believing any of
the transcendental truths of Christianity.
What concerns us, then, is the method of the
inspiration. And the first question which arises
may be popularly stated thus. Whether did God
' P. 64, ante. ' P. 67, ante.
78

Ch. VIL] THEORIES OF INSPIRATION 79
inspire the Scriptures, or the men who wrote
them ? Now I am not going to enter on this
well-worn controversy. Were I to restate the
question and ask. Are the Scriptures inspired
writings ? or Are they the writings of inspired
men ? it would need a lengthy chapter to explain
the point at issue. I take note of the fact, first,
that the Bible itself advances no theory of
inspiration ; and secondly, that none was ever
formulated until modern times. And further,
I would urge that between these rival theories
there is no such antithesis as the controversy
supposes. True it is that " Saul among the prophets "
became a proverb ; and a dumb ass was once
inspired to rebuke a prophet. But not even
the Higher Critics have suggested that either
Balaam's Ass or the Son of Kish made any
contribution to the written revelation. If by
inspired men be meant men filled with the
Spirit, and specially guided by the Spirit, then
we may assert with confidence that the Biblical
writers were inspired men.
Which of course will call out the taunt. Was
David one of your " inspired men " ? That sneer
shall be answered in the words' of a rugged,
honest-hearted man of the world : —

8o THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
" David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into
sins enough ; blackest crimes ; there was no
want of sins. And therefore the unbelievers
sneer and ask, Is this your man according to
God's heart? The sneer, I must say, seems
to me but a shallow one. What are faults,
what are the outward details of a life, if the
inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations,
true often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it,
be forgotten ? ' It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps.' Of all acts, is not, for a
man, repentance the most divine ? The deadliest
sin, I say, were that same supercilious con
sciousness of no sin ; — that is death ; the heart
so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility
and fact ; is dead : it is ' pure ' as dead dry
sand is pure. David's life and history, as
written for us in those Psalms of his, I con
sider to be the truest emblem ever given of
a man's moral progress and warfare here below.
All earnest souls will ever discern in it the
faithful struggle of an earnest human soul
towards what is good and best. Struggle often
baffled, sore baffled, down as into entire wreck ; yet
a struggle never ended ; ever, with tears, repent
ance, true unconquerable purpose, begun anew." '
' Thomas Carlyle, Heroes, Sect. II.

Ch. VII.] DAVID AND URIAH 8i
A passing word about the " blackest crimes."
I am no apologist of evil. But the matter of
Uriah's wife I leave to each man to settle with
his own conscience, asking him only not to forget
the facts. Most men cater for the sin which
brings them down ; but the temptation which
led to David's fall was not of his seeking. By
accident it was that Bathsheba crossed his path.
Nor did he even know that she was married.
And when he had brought the woman into
peril, he tried to save her by recalling her
husband to Jerusalem. But in this he was
foiled by Uriah's keenness as a soldier. He
was bent on " returning to the front " ; and
drunk or sober he could not be turned from
his purpose. The wretched king was thus
confronted by the fact that the death of the
man he had wronged was the only possible
way to save the woman he had tempted. The
horrible doom of the unfaithful wife awaited
her. And in desperation he framed the guilty
plot. It is a terrible instance of what men
have so often proved, that one sin always
leads to another, and immorality often leads
to crime. The only unique element in David's
case was the depth and permanency of his
repentance. Here is the Divine summary of
7

82 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM

his life story : " Save only in the matter of
Uriah the Hittite, David did right in the eyes
of the Lord, and turned not aside from any
thing that He commanded him all the days
of his life."^ No wonder that he was "a man
after God's heart! "^
Yes, it was men like David that God used
to write the Bible. And the fifty-first Psalm
betokens more fitness for the part than the
smug Pharisaism and self-confidence of all the
critics of Christendom.
There is no doubt that the writers were
inspired men. And those whose lives are un
folded to us were severely trained in the school
of God. They knew the meaning of the crucible
and the refiner's fire. As the apostles proved
in later times, they were made a spectacle to
angels and to men. Visions of unutterable glory,
like those vouchsafed to Isaiah and Ezekiel, alter
nated with sufferings that tore their very heart
strings. And here it may be said in passing,
that no one can even understand the Scriptures
who is entirely a stranger to experiences
like those of the men who wrote them. We
can beat back attacks by exposing ignorance
• I Kings XV. 5.
' See Professor Margoliouth's striking passage on this sub
ject in his Defence of the Biblical Revelation, pp. 209, 210.

Ch. VIL] VERBAL INSPIRATION 83
and folly and error, and turning the weapons
of assailants against themselves. But " the
natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him ; neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned."' And the tenor of
a spiritual life is the path of discipleship, and
discipleship means being a partaker of the
sufferings of Him who was called "the Man
of Sorrows," as well as a sharer of the joy
that is unspeakable and of the peace that passes
understanding. But some will say, "All this is unreservedly
conceded : the men who wrote the Scriptures were
inspired, and inspired to write them ; and there
fore their writings are inspired. But though the
thoughts were divinely given them, the words in
which they expressed them were their own. Our
difficulty springs from the dogma of verbal
inspiration." Now fii^st, let us face the facts ; and they are
facts some of which a certain phase of dull
"orthodoxy" blindly ignores. A critical examina
tion of the text will satisfy us that, for example,
the prophecies of Isaiah were written in Isaiah's
language, and those of Jeremiah in Jeremiah's
• I Cor. ii. 14.

84 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
language, and so on. The inference drawn from
this is that, even assuming that God suggested
the ideas, each writer must have been left free to
express them in his own words ; and therefore
that inspiration is no guarantee of accuracy
Whether this be so or not, must be decided on
other grounds. To base it on the ground stated
involves the fallacy of supposing that God has a
language of His own, and therefore that human
words cannot have a Divine authority.
A more egregious fallacy there could not be.
The connection between language and thought is
one of the most interesting problems of meta
physics. But words are merely sounds ; and in
one sense the relation between a word and the
idea it represents to a trained mind is as arbitrary
as that which a note on the piano bears to the
musical sound produced by striking it. A trained
mind, I say, because if the idea be not there, the
sound will not call it up.
But, it will be objected, words have a history,
and therefore they are not mere arbitrarily chosen
sounds. True, but this only adds force to my
argument. Some new idea arises in the mind,
or some new object is presented to it. The
existing vocabulary contains no word to represent
it, and a new one is framed to supply the want.

Ch. VIL] WORDS ARE BUT COUNTERS 85
To those, therefore, who frame the word, it seems
to carry its own meaning ; but this is due solely
to its connection with the mental processes which
led to its birth. To others it is but a sound.
For example, the fraudulent way in which
" escheats " were formerly seized by the Crown
led to the creation of the word " cheat " ; but
there is not one person in ten thousand who now
thinks of its origin, and to such it is a mere sound
which they have learned to connect with a
particular idea.
If a man has not the conception which we
associate with the word " eternal," the word, even
though it were emblazoned across the sky, could
not evoke it. And shouting olam or aionios into
his ear would be mere noise to him. " Words
are the counters of wise men, the money of fools."
They represent ideas, but they have no intrinsic
value. And, as I have said, their relation to the
ideas they represent is arbitrary. Write pain on
a piece of paper, and show it on Dover pier : you
vdll be referred to a doctor. Cross the Channel
and exhibit it at Calais : you will be directed to
the refreshment-room. I
' Some one may object that the sound would be different.
Very well. At Calais, call out the French word for lady, aad
they may imagine you have lost a travelling companion : at
Dover they would certainly think you most profane.

86 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
The argument is that cis Isaiah, for example,
wrote in his own language, his writings cannot
be called "the Word of God." Will the critics
tell us in what language other than his own the
prophet could have written? If a man makes
a communication to another, he conveys it either
in his own language, or in that of the recipient,
But as God has no language of His own. He
speaks to men in theirs. Would the Bible be
more Divine if it were written in some celestial
volapuk, with a superadded miracle, unparalleled
in the whole range of recorded miracles, to make
men understand it? A nice sort of Bible that
would be!
Of course, God could have made all the
prophets use the same words and idioms as the
earliest of them. But what would have been
gained by this? Some people would persuade
us that the English race now holds the place once
held by Israel. If this were so, and God were to
give us a special revelation to-day, it would not
be in ancient Hebrew, but in modern English.
Even supposing, for example, that Yahweh is the
correct orthography of the great covenant name,
we may be quite sure that Jehovah is the name
by which God would call Himself in addressing us
— that name which is enshrined in the relio-ious

Ch. VIL] THE NAME JEHOVAH 87
thought and worship of all the English-speaking
races of the world. For Yahweh would be mere
jargon save to the Hebraist ; and it is very
doubtful whether the Hebraist's knowledge of the
etymology of the term would not mislead him as
to its significance.
Take these words, for instance : " The Lord
Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is
become my salvation." ' Now to the believer,
as such, the question of the spelling or the
etymology of the name is of no more import
ance than that of the type in which it is printed.
The only practical question is whether he has the
conception which the name is intended to call up.
The name was in use from primeval times : it
was the great covenant name of God. But it
was not till He identified Himself with an earthly
people that men could know what it really meant
to have a Jehovah God.^
' Isa. xii. 2.
" This is the meaning of Exod. vi. 3 (see Appendix, Note I). I
venture to suggest that the use of Yahweh, or Yahveh, savours of
pedantry. It is justified on two grounds ; ist, traditional
authority (for the contempt which the critics feel for " traditional
beliefs" does not apply if the tradition be Rabbinical) ; and
2ndly, that it carries its own meaning. To which plea I answer
that its etymological meaning is not its meaning as used in
Scripture. It is not an English word, and its use is therefore
precisely the same kind of pedantry as, e.g., using Firenze instead
of Florence.
The vowels of our magnificent word Jehovah are accounted

88 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Some men, no doubt, would be better satisfied
with the Bible if all the prophets had written in
exactly the same dialect and style ; and better
still if they had written in Pauline Greek or
modern English. That would have been a
miracle indeed, and really worth notice! Of
course, God might have inspired the Scriptures
in this way. Yes, and the Lord might have fed
the multitudes without using up the disciples' little
store of loaves and fishes. But this is not His
way. Divine power summoned Lazarus from
the grave, but it was left to human hands to loose
him from the grave-clothes. Divine power called
Jairus's daughter back to life, but her parents
were commanded to give her food.' It appears
to be a principle with God never to put forth
Divine power save in so far as human means
are inadequate or unavailable. And any one
who grasps this principle holds a clew to the
for thus : The old Hebrew MSB. had no vowels, but when the
name occurred, the Jews suppressed it from feelings of reverence,
and read Adonai instead ; and the vowels of this name were
inserted under the line to remind the reader of the ken, or word
to be read. As a matter of fact, the name was uttered daily in
the blessing of the priests (Diet. Christ. Ant., vol. i., p. 198) j and
the spelling of the many names with which it is incorporated
,(such as JehoiAa., Jefeoshaphat, &c.) would indicate that Jehovah
may be correct. Yahveh is a mere guess which may be right or
may be wrong.
' Luke viii. 55.

Ch. VII.] THE FACT OF INSPIRATION 89
solution of many a difficulty in this matter of
inspiration. It is a principle which mars the
dramatic effect of most of the miracles, the miracle
of inspiration not excepted ; but dramatic effect is
not studied in Divine miracles at all.
In this aspect of it, then, the verbal inspiration
difficulty is unworthy of notice. The only ques
tion of any practical importance is whether, as
the New Testament so plainly teaches, God
spoke "through" (or "in") the writers of the
Old. But just as the morbidly inquisitive brain
of a certain sort of child insists on seeing inside
a watch, when sober common sense asks only
whether it can be trusted to tell the time ; so
while " the common sense of faith " is content to
know that God inspired the Bible, there are
minds that demand to know all the mysteries of
the problem of inspiration. And some people
think they have solved these mysteries, just as
there are men who fancy they have mastered the
infinite wonders of Nature. But wiser heads
distinguish between the facts, whether of revela
tion or of nature, and the theories which men
offer in explanation of them. We do well to
accept with intelligent and unfaltering confidence
the fact of inspiration so clearly taught by our
Divine Lord ; but we do well also to view

90 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
with great distrust all human theories relating
to it.
" But," some one will here interrupt, " any
body can see the difference between a man's
recording matters within his own knowledge, and
matters or truths of which he could know nothing
except by direct revelation." Yes, anybody can
see it. And after he has seen it, what then?
Does the interrupter mean, for example, that the
prophet is to be believed implicitly when he
declares that " the ransomed of the Lord shall
return, and come to Zion with songs, and
everlasting joy upon their heads " ' ; but
that he is not to be trusted when in the next
sentence he records that "In the fourteenth
year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of
Assyria came up against all the defenced cities
of Judah and took them " ? « And if he does
not mean this, what sense is there in the
interruption? Any one but a Higher Critic
would test a chain at the weakest link, and
not at the strongest. He would say, "If you can
satisfy me that God made the prophet write those
words about future blessing for Zion, I shall have
no doubt about the Sennacherib invasion." The

' Isa. XXXV. 10. ¦ Ibid, xxxvi. i.

Ch. VIL] OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 91
problem has difficulties for those who want to
frame theories of inspiration ; but the Christian
who merely wants to be assured that the truth
of Scripture is Divinely guaranteed, brushes the
difficulties aside.
" But," the objector says again, " the manner
in which the Old Testament is quoted in the
New — loosely quoted sometimes from the
notoriously loose Septuagint translation — ex
plodes all your theories of verbal inspiration."
Well, so much the worse for the theories. But
will the objector tell us in what way this affects
the fact of inspiration. The Bible was not
written for the wise of this world ; still less for
fools. To understand it aright we need both
spiritual intelligence and common sense. The
latter quality will help us here. Any one who
possesses it can see that in the historical narrative
of Isaiah xxxvi.-xxxix., for example, the sense
is everything, and the choice of words is a
matter of comparative indifference. Whereas in
chapters xxxv. and xl. absolute verbal accuracy
may possibly be essential. And so we find some
times a quotation so loosely given that care is
needed to trace it to its source, while in other
cases emphasis is laid upon the very tense of a
verb or the number of a noun. It is not that

92 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
in the one case the statement is less true than in
the other, but that less importance, or possibly
none, attaches to the particular words used to
express it.
Instances of this are familiar to every Bible
student. Here, for example, is one of them. Of
those who denied the resurrection, the Lord
demanded, " Have ye not read that which was
spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob ? God is not the God of the dead, but
of the living." ' Now here the whole force of the
argument depends on the tense of the verb. To
say that the language of Exodus means merely
that God was the God of the patriarchs, would
be quite in keeping with the loose way the Bible
is treated by the critics. But the word is not I
was the God of Abraham, but " I am the God of
Abraham " ; and therefore Abraham is still an
existing person, a person in being. And as a
clew to the use of Scripture, it is noteworthy that
these words were spoken " by God," and spoken
to those whom the Lord was then addressing.
Take another instance still more striking.
"Is it not written in your law, ' I said. Ye
' Matt. xxii. 31, 32.

Ch. VIL] THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST 93
are gods'? If He called them gods to whom
the word of God came (and the Scripture
cannot be broken), say ye, &c." Now here
Psa. Ixxxii. is ascribed to God, and not to the
Psalmist ; it is declared to be Scripture which
cannot be broken ; and it is appealed to as
making "an end of controversy." And as in
the other case, the force of the argument depends
on the absolute accuracy of the words.'
We see, then, how and why a Divine revelation
must be made in the language of those to whom
it comes. And upon their fitness and capacity
to receive it depend any limits and failure of the
revelation. For words are merely like paper
securities for money. Intrinsically valueless,
their worth depends on the gold they represent.
If the gold be wanting, the paper is only paper
and nothing more. If the thoughts the words
represent are absent, the words are only empty
sounds. Therefore it is that inspired men are
needed to be the channels of a revelation, and
spiritual men alone can understand it aright.
" Behold, God is my salvation ; I will trust
and not be afraid : for the Lord Jehovah is my

» John X. 34, 35. The critics meet all this by representing
the Lord as an ignorant person and the Evangelists as being
untrustworthy. See Chapters VI. and XIX.

94 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Strength and my song ; He also is become
my salvation." We are dependent on Hebrew
scholars to give us these English words : we
are absolutely dependent on the Spirit of God
to enable us to understand them. True exegesis
consists in " interpreting spiritual things to spiri
tual men." ' And therefore Hebrew scholars as
such cannot help us here ; for they can only
explain natural things to natural men. '
• I Cor. ii. 13, R.V. marg.

CHAPTER VIII
WHEN Xerxes issued his great proclamation
in favour of the Jews, it was sent, we are
told, to each of the hundred and twenty -seven
provinces of the Empire, from India to Ethiopia,
"and unto every people after their language."'
Could any of the nations have pleaded a wrong
or a disability because the royal commands
reached them only in their own dialect or tongue ?
Was this not altogether an advantage and a
benefit ? We may be sure that the great king
would have made short work of such a grievance,
and of those who urged it. He would have
judged, and rightly judged, that the objection
was merely an excuse for disaffection or disobe
dience. And yet one of the popular objections urged
against "verbal inspiration" as a practical truth
is that ordinary Christians being ignorant of the
' Esther viii. q.
95

96 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
language in which the revelation was given are
entirely dependent on translations. But this is
only another phase of the very difficulty discussed
in the preceding chapter. It is based upon the
fallacy of supposing that words have any intrinsic
or essential meaning. As we have seen, the
ablest Hebraist in Christendom has not neces
sarily any better knowledge of the Old Testament
revelation than the humblest Christian who enjoys
the benefit of his learned labours. And if he be
not spiritually enlightened, it may be confidently
assumed that the humble Christian will have the
advantage. The pundit indeed can trace words
to their roots, but this sort of inquiry, important
and interesting though it be to the philologist,
may for practical purposes prove misleading.
The meaning of a word depends, not upon its
origin, but upon its use ; and its use may vary
at different periods of a language's development.
For example, one whom we call an uncultured
peasant our forefathers would have described as
a "lewd villain " ; and a clever youth they would
have called a "crafty knave."
Every ancient language has a history; but
while the history of modern English, and, to a
certain extent, of New Testament Greek, is open
to our view, the steps by which the language of

Ch. VIII.] OBJECTIONS TO INSPIRATION 97
Moses and the prophets had reached the stage
of what we call sacred Hebrew, are unknown.
One thing is certain, namely, that the language
of the Old Testament, like that of the New,
was an adaptation to high and sacred uses of
words which had been current in pagan com
munities. And this being so, it might be
plausibly contended that our own language,
having been formed and moulded upon Christian
thought, is a fitter vehicle for the communication
of Divine truth even than the Hebrew of the
prophets or the Greek of the apostles and
evangelists. Words are but counters ; and
counters which were rescued from base or
vulgar uses may not be so fit to stand for the
gold of revealed truth as ours which never have
been thus prostituted.
Take an illustration. The English peasant
who hears of eternal life through faith in Christ
may grasp fully and at once the truth those
words convey ; while the Jewish peasant was
much in the position of an Englishman with
some newfangled translation which tells him
of " age-enduring life through faith in the
Anointed One."
As a matter of fact the heresies of the
eschatological controversy largely depend on

98 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
the undoubted fact that neither ancient Hebrew
nor classical Greek had any term equivalent to
our English word " Eternal." The Pagan mind
had no such conception. Their highest thought
was of prolonged existence in time, whereas
eternal life in Christ is outside the sphere of
time both in its origin and in its continuance.
Or take a different sort of case. If the word
" priest " suggests a false conception to a man's
mind, the study of its Hebrew or Greek equiva
lent will in no way correct the error. During
a summer holiday in the West of Ireland I once
had opportunities of addressing Roman Catholics,
and I conceived the plan of weaning them from
the errors of their creed by speaking of the priest
hood of Christ. But I found that while my words
were Scriptural and right, the meaning they
conveyed to my hearers was wholly false and
wrong. They understood me to mean that what
Roman Catholic priests were and did, Christ was
and did.
And this experience gave me the clew to the
meaning of the closing verses of the fifth chapter
of Hebrews. The Hebrew Christians, in ignor
ance, as the writer says, of the rudiments even
of revealed religion, assumed that there was a
necessary connection between the office of a priest

Ch. viii.] THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST 99

and the offering of sacrifices for sins ; ' and there
fore the doctrine of the priesthood of Christ
operated in their case to undermine one of the
great truths of the Epistle,, that "there is no
more offering for sin." 2
All objections to verbal inspiration which are
based on the phenomena of language may be
ruled out, for they rest on no substantial founda
tion. That a revelation could be made only in
human language is a necessity from the limitations
of human thought ; and how there can be language
without words — how there can be inspiration

' Ignorance which the most elementary knowledge of Scripture
ought to have removed ; for there were sacrifices long before
there were priests. The words of Heb. v. 12 (R.V.) are, " Ye
have need that one teach you again which be the rudiments of the
first principles of the oracles of God." The words of vi. i are,
"the first principles of Christ." The one refers to revealed
religion generally, the other to the special revelation of Judaism.
¦ At Professor Sanday's Oxford Conference on this subject, the
Rev. Mr. Puller, of the " Cowley Fathers," was the only member
who seemed to grasp the elementary truth that the work of
priesthood began after the sacrifice had been killed, and that the
priesthood of Christ dates from His ascension. " On earth He
could not be a priest at all" (Heb. viii. 4, R.V.).
The R.V. of Heb. v. i makes havoc of the truth. It tells us
that every high priest is taken from among men, and is appointed
to offer sacrifices for sins. The teaching of the verse is correctly
given in A.V., that every high-priest-taken-from-among-men
(i.e., every Aaronic priest) is appointed for that purpose. But our
High Priest is "the Son of God" (iv. 14), and His priesthood ia
based upon the Sacrifice which has for ever put away sin, so that
now "there is no more offering for sin " (x. 18).

loo THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
other than verbal inspiration — is a metaphysical
problem which I confess I am not clever enough
to be able to solve.' And the question whether
a revelation gains or loses by being translated
from one language into another depends on
whether the language into which it is rendered
is better or worse fitted to clothe and express the
thoughts contained in it.
The objections which some writers urge
against verbal inspiration are analogous to those
which other writers urge against belief in a
personal God who' thinks and loves. They
call this "anthropomorphism." But let no one
be scared at being called by such a hard
name. They who use it — very superior persons
they are — are like silly children who ape full-
grown people. When the silly children discover
their folly by some disaster, they can be whipped
and put to bed ; but the philosophers may not
discover theirs until it be too late for repentance.
We do not assume that God really has ears and
nostrils and hands and feet, any more than that
He has a language of His own. But the wisest
and best of us are like children — very young and
very foolish children, — and as He pities us as
" Of course a revelation may be by way of visions, as in the
Apocalypse j but this only puts the question one step back.

Ch. VIII.] ORIGINAL RECORDS LOST loi
a father pities his children. He speaks to us about
Himself in a way we can understand. Let no
one, then, be cajoled or browbeaten into the
mingled pedantry and silliness and sin of thinking
we are wiser than He is, or that we can do-
without verbal inspiration and the God of the
Bible. But an objection of another kind remains.
The original records of the Divine revelation.
have been lost, and vast periods of time separate
us from them. For example, some five and
thirty centuries have passed since Moses wrote,
and yet the oldest Hebrew record we possess of
his writings was probably written after the time
of Alfred the Great of England. We deem it
a disadvantage to have access only to a copy of
an important document, but here it is a case of
repeated copying during thousands of years, and
in circumstances of which we know but little.
Now this objection is a real one, and it must be
owned that at first sight it seems extremely for
midable. But its practical importance grows
less and less the more closely we examine it.
In the first place, the special importance to
us of the Hebrew Scriptures depends on their
relation to Christianity ; and as the Jew was
the custodian of them, it is certain that if they

102 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
have been wilfully tampered with, the change
has not been made in the interests of Christian
truth. But in the second place, the extreme
reverence with which the Jews regarded their
Scriptures affords a powerful guarantee against
any deliberate corruption of the text. It may
be taken as certain that any errors which
have crept in are errors accidentally made in
copying the manuscripts. And when estimating
the number and, what is of more importance, the
character of such errors, the Jewish reverence for
the text claims very special consideration. For it
insured such care in copying as to make any
blunder of a really serious kind improbable in
the extreme.
We know, for example, that in the days of the
Massoretes, to whom we practically owe our text
of the Old Testament, not only the words, but
the very letters, contained in the sacred books
were counted. And we know also that even
when words were believed to have been errone
ously inserted or omitted, the scribes never dared
to make a correction save by a marginal note.
And there is no reason to doubt that these
practices were based on the habits and traditions
of earlier days.
Hostile critics have sometimes sought to score

Ch. VIII.] TEXTUAL CRITICISM 103
a point by appealing to the Samaritan Pentateuch
and the Septuagint version. But not even a
hostile critic would deny that if the Massoretic
text were revised in the light of those authorities,
the result would be prejudicial to accuracy ; and,
further, that even if the revision were drastic and
reckless, it would not affect a single question of
morals or a single point of Christian truth or
doctrine. And this being so, the whole question,
so far as the Old Testament is concerned, is one
of purely academic interest.
And a kindred remark applies equally in regard
to the New Testament. A fact which is all the
more striking and important because the materials
for hostile criticism here are vastly greater than
in the case of the Old Testament. All our
leading commentators have grappled with the
question. As it has been well said, " All of them
face that formidable phantom of textual criticism,
with its 120,000 various readings in the New
Testament alone, and will enable us to march up
to it, and discover that it is empty air ; that still we
may say with the boldest and acutest of English
critics, Bentley, 'choose (out of the whole MSS.)
as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by
design out of the whole lump of readings, and not
one article of faith or moral precept is either

104 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
perverted or lost in them. Put them into the
hands of a knave or a fool, and even with th«
most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not
extinguish the light of any one chapter, or so
disguise Christianity but that every feature of it
will still be the same.' "
These words have since received most striking
confirmation. In the Revised Version of the
New Testament textual criticism has done its
worst. It is inconceivable that it will ever again
be allowed to run riot as in the work of the
Revisers of 1881. When that version appeared.
Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln raised the
question "whether the Church of England, —
which in her Synod, so far as this Province is
concerned, sanctioned a Revision of her Authorised
Version under the express condition, which she
most wisely imposed, that no changes should be
m.ade in it except what were absolutely necessary,
— could consistently accept a version in which
36,000 changes have been made ; not a fiftieth
of which can be shown to be needed, or even
desirable." But what concerns us here is not the changes
in the translation, but the far more serious matter
of the changes in the text. The question at issue
between the majority of the Revisers, who followed

Ch. VIII.] THE REVISED VERSION 105

Doctors Hort and Westcott, and the very able
and weighty minority led by Dr. Scrivener, the
most capable , and eminent " textual critic " of
the whole company, was one with which every
lawyer is familiar, but of which the Revisers may
have had no experience, and with which they
were not competent to deal.
We have a far greater number of MSS. of
the New Testament than of the heathen classics ;
but, strange to say, with four exceptions, none of
these are older than the sixth century of our era.
But we possess " versions " (or translations) which
are older than any known MSS. ; and the writings
of the early Fathers abound in quotations from the
New Testament.' We are thus enabled indirectly
to reach MSS. much older than the oldest that
have survived. And as the Fathers were
scattered over the Christendom of their time,
their acquaintance with the text was derived,
of course, from very many independent sources.
And when their quotations agree with one
another, and also with the " versions," as well as
with our later MSS., many of which must have
been copied from MSS. more ancient than any
' It has been said that if the Gospels were lost the text could
be regained, with trifling gaps, from the writings of the Ante-
Nicene Fathers. (Dr. Sinker's Higher Criticism, p. 177.)

io6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
which have survived, this agreement will satisfy
any one who is versed in the rudiments of the
science of evidence.
But while the lawyer understands the value of
indirect evidence, the layman is always inclined
to disparage it in favour of the direct. Witnesses
of credit and repute testify that they saw the
accused commit the crime with which he is
charged. What more can any one want ? The
average juryman is ready at once to convict ; and
he cannot imagine why the judge should allow
further time to be spent upon the case. But the
judge knows well that evidence of this kind is apt
to err, and needs to be tested with the utmost
care.' Now the old MSS. are the witnesses of
credit and repute, and the Revisers played the
part of the average juryman ; and there being
unfortunately no one to check them, they con
victed the Authorised Version of inaccuracy in
numberless instances. But, in the opinion of
the greatest critical authority among the Revisers,
whose protests were unavailing to prevent this
deplorable mutilation of the sacred text, the
' Of course, if the accused is seized at the time, the evidence of
eye-witnesses is conclusive. The conflict between direct and
indirect evidence arises where the accused is arrested after
an interval, and his identity becomes the salient question in the
case.

Ch. viii.] THE REVISED VERSION 107
system on which these changes were made "is
entirely destitute of historical foundation." '
If the Revisers had kept to the terms of their
commission, and been content with the cor
rection of " manifest errors," a very few sessions
would have sufficed to produce a text which
might have commanded universal acceptance.
But it is certain that errors were not manifest
when many of the greatest of contemporary
critics and scholars could not regard them as
errors at all — men like the minority upon their
own company, men like the eminent prelate I
have quoted, and the learned editor of The
Speaker's Commentary. And as several of the
Revisers themselves have explained in detail the
principles on which the revision of the text was
conducted, and those principles are found to be
unsound when judged by the science of evidence,
our confidence in the result of their labours is
destroyed. The "argument" of the present volume
demands a reference to this question, but a
fuller discussion of it would be out of place.
I will therefore dismiss it by citing a single
illustrative instance of reckless and erroneous
' Dr. Scrivener, Plain Introduction, &c.

io8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
alteration of the text. And instances of the
kind abound, especially in the Gospels.
The instance I select is " the Herald Angels*
song," and I choose it not only as being
thoroughly typical of the methods of the
Revisers, but also because of its importance and
the interest attaching to it. " Glory to God in
the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward
men " : ' for these words, which hold such a place
in the memory and heart of every English-
speaking Christian, the miserable substitute
offered us is, " Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace among men in whom He is well
pleased." This one piece of mutilation might
suffice to discredit the work of the Revisers.
Two questions are here involved, the altered
text, and the translation of that text. The
English of the Revisers, says one of the most
eminent of their own number, " can be arrived at
only through some process which would make
any phrase bear almost any meaning the trans
lator might like to put upon it." 2 " ' Men in
whom He is well pleased,' " says the editor of
The Speaker's Commentary, " seems to me im
possible as a translation of avOpwn-oi EvSoKiag. I
• Luke ii. 14.
" Dr. Scrivener's Introduction (Ed. Miller), vol. ii., p. 347.

Ch. VIII.] THE HERALD ANGELS' SONG 109
do not know whether those Greek words have
any meaning, but if they have they must desig
nate men of a certain quality or character." '
Then as regards the text, the whole difference is
the addition of the letter s to the word eudokia ;
and the manuscript authority for this addition is
the reading of four ancient Greek MSS., 2 every
other known copy of the Gospels being against it.
Now this is precisely the sort of question in
respect of which any one who has practical
acquaintance with the science of evidence would
appeal to Patristic authority, and that appeal
would dispose of the whole matter ; for the
testimony of the Greek Fathers in favour of the
familiar reading is overwhelming.3
' R.V. of the First Three Gospels, p. 30. Canon Cook adds,
"What is meant by the marginal rendering 'men of good
pleasure' I am utterly at a loss to conjecture."
" Canon Cook enumerates them as the Sinaitic, and A, B, and
D, and he adds that the text of the first and third of these " was
noted as incorrect by a critical scholar at the time when the
manuscript was written " (Ibid., pp. 27, 28).
3 In The Revision Revised (pp. 42-44), Dean Burgon gives the
list of Fathers from the second to the sixth century, indicating
that the words as known to us, i.e., as given in our A.V., were
quoted by them fifty-eight times. Speaking generally, the Greek
authorities are on the side of the A.V. ; while the R.V. can
appeal to the Latin versions. This is remarkable, but the
explanation of it is simple. Some ancient MS. upon which the
first Latin version was based, evidently omitted the preposition
from the sentence, and as this destroyed its meaning the s was
added to eudokia to make the words intelligible.

no THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
" On earth peace, good will toward men " —
the Christian may still rejoice in these hallowed
and most precious words. And he may assume
with confidence that here, as in so many other
instances, the Revisers' changes in the text are
new errors, and not the correction of old errors.
And yet the fact remains — indeed it is uni
versally acknowledged — that even a revision
conducted so unwisely and on a system so
opposed to all the principles and rules of evidence,
has not destroyed a single truth of Christianity
or left a single point of Christian doctrine or
practice in jeopardy. The sceptical taunt that
textual criticism undermines the truth of Inspira
tion is for ever silenced by the Revised Version
of the New Testament.'
• See App. Note II.

CHAPTER X
SOME there are who will have read the
preceding chapters with sympathy, who yet
will feel that their own special difficulties remain
unnoticed. They love the Bible, and are assured
that it is in the main Divine, but there is much
in the Old Testament which unduly tries their
faith. " The creation story of Genesis," they
would say, "is discredited by science. The Book
of Jonah is incredible. The Book of Daniel can
no longer be defended. The history of Israel is
marked by moral difficulties which cannot be
explained away. And no one can now defend
the correctness of Old Testament chronology.
" Nor are these difficulties confined to the Old
Testament. Whatever theoretical defence may
be made for the inspiration of the Gospels, the
fact remains that they are marked by errors
which prove that, if they be inspired, inspiration
affords no guarantee of truth."

112 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
With these several questions I will now pro
ceed to deal.' And first as to "the proem to
Genesis." If I were beginning an octavo volume,
I should seek to recapitulate the controversy on
this subject, and to define the stage it has at
present reached. I should mark the various
positions which have been successively occupied
or abandoned by the disputants, as one or
another of the fluctuating theories of science has
gained prominence, or newly found fossils have
added to " the testimony of the rocks." But I
will content myself with recalling the main inci
dents of the discussion between Mr. Gladstone
and Professor Huxley some years ago in the
pages of the Nineteenth Century."^
In The Dawn of Creation and Worship Mr.
Gladstone sought to show that the order of
creation as recorded in Genesis has been "so
affirmed in our time by natural science that it
may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and
established fact." He averred that science was
perfectly in accord with Moses in recognising
that life appeared upon our globe in the order of
' This chapter is based in part upon Chapter VIII. of the
author's Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion — a book long
out of print.
° The articles in question appeared in the later months of 1885,
and January and February, 1886.

Ch. IX.] THE CREATION STORY 113
first, the water population ; second, the air popu
lation ; and, third, the land population. To
which Mr. Huxley replied as follows : —
" It is agreed on all hands that terrestrial lizards and
other reptiles allied to lizards occur in the Permian
strata. It is further agreed that the Triassic strata
were deposited after these. Moreover, it is well known
that, even if certain footprints are to be taken as
unquestionable evidence of the existence of birds, they
are not known to occur in rocks earlier than the Trias,
while indubitable remains of birds are to be met with
only much later. Hence it follows that natural science
does not ' afifirm ' the statement that birds were made
on the fifth day, and ' everything that creepeth on the
ground ' on the sixth, on which Mr. Gladstone rests his
order ; for, as is shown by Leviticus, the ' Mosaic
writer' includes lizards among his 'creeping things.'"
The following is the quotation from Leviticus
which Mr. Huxley "commended to Mr. Glad
stone's serious attention " : — " And these are they
which are unclean unto you among the creeping
things that creep upon the earth ; the weasel,
and the mouse, and the great lizard after its kind,
and the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the
lizard, and the sand-lizard, and the chameleon.
These are they which are unclean unto you
among all that creep" (chap. xi. 29-31, R.V.).
And he added, "The merest Sunday-school
9

114 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
exegesis, therefore, suffices to prove that when
the Mosaic writer in Gen. i. 24 speaks of creep
ing things, he means to include lizards among
them." A charming specimen this certainly is of " the
merest Sunday-school exegesis." The argument
which so completely satisfied its author, and
silenced his opponent, is nothing but an ad
taptandum appeal to the chance rendering of
our English Bible. For the word translated
" creeping thing " in Leviticus xi. has no affinity
with the word so rendered in Genesis i. 24,
whereas it is the identical word which our trans
lators have rendered " moving creature " in
the twentieth verse, which records the first
appearance of animal life.'
Mr. Huxley's answer was, therefore, an over
whelming refutation of his own position. Science
proclaims the seniority of land reptiles in the
genesis of life on earth, and the despised Book of
Genesis records that " creeping things," which, as
Mr. Huxley insists, must include land reptiles,
were the first "moving creatures" which the
Creator's fiat called into existence.

' The word in verses 24 and 26, relating to the life of the
sixth day, is remes ; but in verse 20, relating to the fifth day, it is
sheretz, which occurs ten times in Lev. xi.

Ch. IX.] HUXLEY'S ATTACK ON GENESIS 115
Some may think that if Mr. Huxley were still
with us he could make short work of this. But
the plea will not avail. In the Times correspon
dence of ten years ago on The Bible and Modern
Criticism, I put him on his defence on this very
question. His only answer was to repeat his
blunder. Thereupon Canon Girdlestone inter
vened to assure him that " he had been wholly
misled by the English version," and the Duke of
Argyll challenged his representation " both of the
contention of Mr. Gladstone and the narrative in
Genesis." My own rejoinder was to repeat his
words in detail and to hold him to them.
Lawyers have a plea of " confession and avoid-
dance " ; Mr. Huxley's next letter was marked by
avoidance without confession, and ended by a
sneer at my reference to the spiritual side of Holy
Scripture. To which the Duke of Argyll replied
as follows :
" In Professor Huxley's letter in your issue of yester
day he completely shifts his ground. He now asserts
that Genesis ascribes creation to acts which he calls
' supernatural,' whereas, he urges, science asserts that it
originated in a ' process of natural evolution.'
" This antithesis is absolutely unknown to the litera
ture both of the Old Testament and the New. It is
equally unknown to science and also to philosophy. The
Bible knows nothing of what men now call ' the super-

ii6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
natural.' It regards all ' natural processes ' as the work
of a Divine Being. Professor Huxley asserts or implies
that this is erroneous, and that wherever we can trace
the operation of natural causes, we must exclude all
idea of a Divine origin or direction. I venture to
assert, on the contrary, that this is very bad science,
and still worse philosophy." ^
The letter enlarges upon this, and ends by
noting that the " broad issue " for which Mr.
Huxley contended was, "that in ascribing the
creative working to a Divine Being the narrative
of Genesis is in ' irreconcilable antagonism ' with
modern science," an issue in which he would not
have "the general support of the most eminent
men of science in the United Kingdom."
My own final reply appeared in the same issue
of The Times, as follows : —
My rejoinder to Mr. Huxley shall be brief. Any one
who will be at the pains to turn to his Nineteenth
Century articles will see that "his argument from
Leviticus," instead of being, as he now pleads, " inci
dental " and " superfluous," was vital to his attack upon
Mr. Gladstone's position. Upon it depended the only
allegation of fact, as contrasted with theory, in his
indictment of the Mosaic cosmogony. According to
' The Times, February 8, 1892. Mr. Huxley's letter here re
ferred to is that which appeared in the Times of the 3rd, and
which is reproduced in his Life (vol. ii., p. 297).

Ch. IX.] REFUTATION OF HUXLEY 117
science reptiles existed before birds, but according to
Genesis birds existed before reptiles. So he asserted.
And the ground of his assertion was that, while birds
belong to the fifth period of creation, " creeping things "
belong to the sixth, and that "creeping things" are
defined by " the Mosaic writer " himself in Leviticus xi.
to include reptiles.
Now that this is proved to be merely an ad captandum
appeal to the phraseology of the English Bible, Mr.
Huxley takes refuge in the plea that the word used in
Genesis i. 24 may include reptiles. But this, even if
true, will not help him. The fact remains that the
word in Leviticus xi. is wholly different from the word
used in Genesis i. 24, whereas the validity of his argu
ment depends on its identity with it. And the argument
is his, not mine. He it is who insists that Genesis i.
must be interpreted by Leviticus xi. ; and, adopting his
canon of interpretation, I have shown that he is " hoist
with his own petard."
It is on petty points of this sort that the conventional
attacks upon the Bible rest. But the foundations of
faith are of a very different character. If facts be
adduced to prove the Bible false, I shall give it up, and
cease to be a Christian. But practical men and men of
common sense care little for mere theories. In common
with many other Christians I regard the Darwinian theory
of evolution as being, within strictly defined limits, a
reasonable hypothesis. But the peculiar biological
theories with which Mr. Huxley's name is prominently
identified, are in a different category. I am old enough
to remember the time when they first gained currency in
England. I am young enough to be warranted in
hoping I may outlive their popularity. But these

ii8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
unproved, and possibly ephemeral, theories of the hour,
dignified by the title of " natural science," are put for
ward as the grounds on which the Book of all the ages
is to be rejected !
Mr. Huxley wrote another letter, but it con
tained nothing save pretentious phrases about
science, and ungenerous sneers at those who
believe the Bible. So far as this controversy is
concerned he left his opponents in possession of
the field. The fact asserted by Mr. Gladstone
remains established by this searching test. It is
asserted, and it will still be asserted as unblush
ingly as if this correspondence had not taken
place, that Genesis is proved false by the facts of
science ; whereas the testimony of science, what
ever it be worth, confirms the Biblical order of
creation.' In The Nineteenth Century Mr.
Huxley wrote, " There is no one to whose
authority on geological questions I am more
readily disposed to bow than that of my eminent
friend Professor Dana ; " and Professor Dana's
decision was, " I agree in all essential points with
Mr. Gladstone, and believe that the first chapter
of Genesis and science are in accord."
¦ And if any one now seeks to get rid of this by falling back
on the " coincidence " theory, the mathematician will cut in to
tell him that the order of any seven events can be given in no
less than 5,040 ways.

Ch. IX.] THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 119
For my part, I am willing to make the
scientist a present of this conclusion. If Pale
ontology, instead of confirming, as it does,
the Mosaic cosmogony, seemed to discredit it,
the fact would only serve to strengthen the
belief I entertain on independent grounds, that
the fossils may be relics of an earlier economy of
life, which was engulfed in the catastrophes which
produced the present rock-formation of our earth.
Whether the origin of our globe was nebular
or meteoric, it may have been the home of life
for ages before the epoch of the Adamic creation.
In the record of that creation the conception of a
making-out-of-nothing has no place. The Bible
is merely the history of the Adamic world, and
even that, moreover, only as a background on
which to display the great revelation of redemp
tion. The opening verses of Genesis, therefore,
mark the successive eras through which the
Creator rescued our planet from its " waste and
void " ' condition, and prepared it as a fitting
home for man ; but as to its origin and earlier
history Holy Writ is silent. ''In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth." But

' Gen. i. 2. These same words are used in Jer. iv. 23 of the-
ruin brought upon the land by the judgment of " the Desolations."
That the earth was not originally " waste " Isa. xiv. 18 declares.

I20 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
when the beginning was, we cannot even con
jecture ; and if we go on to inquire the meaning
of "creation," all that Scripture will tell us is
that "things which are seen were not made of
things which do appear " — a statement which will
bear every test that can be applied to it. If in
the past this earth ever suffered a catastrophe
such as that which Scripture declares will engulf
it in the future, the Mosaic narrative would be at
once accounted for and explained.
That narrative is a part of the revelation upon
which Christianity is based, and one essential
portion of it — ^the recorded origin of the woman
— is enshrined in the Christian system as typical
of the spiritual union between Christ and His
Church. I accept that narrative as a Divine
revelation. And I endorse Mr. Huxley's dictum,
"that it is vain to discuss a supposed coincidence
between Genesis and science, unless we have first
settled, on the one hand, what Genesis says, and,
on the other hand, what science says." The
matter is not ripe for discussion. We are a very
long way indeed from settling " what science
says " ; and while it seems to be taken for
granted that " what Genesis says " is known to
all, closer study and fuller knowledge will destroy
all dogmatism here.

Ch. IX.] THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 121
When it is said that God " made the firma
ment," and the " two great lights," and the
"beasts of the earth," the same word is used
as when Noah "made" the ark, and Moses the
tabernacle. If abiogenesis' were an ascertained
fact, and not an exploded error, the advocate of
spontaneous generation might appeal to the lan
guage of the Creator's _/f«^, "Let the waters bring
forth," " Let the earth bring forth." If evolution
were an established truth, and not a mere theory,
the evolutionist might turn to Genesis, and mark
how order and life were slowly evolved in the
world. Nor need he find any difficulty in sup
posing that mammals may have been developed
among the "water population," and the " air popu
lation " too, before animals of that order appeared
upon the land. Mr. Huxley's argument on this
point is valid only as destroying the position to
which his " Sunday-school exegesis " forced Mr.
Gladstone to retreat.
I turn to the narrative. The earth existed, but
it was "desolate and empty," a mere waste of
waters, wrapped in impenetrable darkness. The
changes recorded are, first, the dawn of light, and
then the formation of an atmosphere followed by
' A term coined by Huxley himself to express spontaneous
generation.

122 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
the retreat of the waters to their ocean bed ; then
the dry land became clothed with verdure, and
sun and moon and stars appeared.'
But the question remains. What was the
creation day ? No problem connected with the
cosmogony has greater interest and importance.
I own to a decided conviction that while the
passage clearly indicates our ordinary day, the
word is used in a purely symbolic sense. When
dealing with a period before man existed to mark
the shadow on the dial, and before the sun
could cast that shadow, it is not easy to
appreciate the reason, or indeed the meaning,
of such a division of time as our natural day.
" Days and years and seasons " seem plainly to
belong to our present solar system, and this is
the express teaching of the fourteenth verse. ^
The problem may be stated thus : As man is
to God, so his day of four and twenty hours is to
' The laughter formerly excited by the idea of light apart from
the sun has died away with increasing knowledge (see Dr. Sinker's
Higher Criticism, p. i2i) ; and, in our ignorance of that primaeval
life, it is idle to question the possibility of the third-day vegetation.
It may possibly have been the "rank and luxuriant herbage" of
which our coal-beds have been formed ; for one statement in the
narrative seems strongly to favour the suggestion that our present
vegetation dates only from the fifth or sixth day (Gen. ii. 5, R.V.).
' That the earth is older than the sun may at one time have
appeared impossible. But it seems to be involved in the
meteoric hypothesis.

Ch. IX.] THE CREATION "DAY" 123
the Divine day of creation. And here I would
suggest that the " evening and morning " may
represent the interval of the cessation from work,
which succeeds and completes the day. The
words are, "And there was evening, and there
was morning, one day." ' The symbolism is
maintained throughout. As man's working day
is brought to a close by evening, which ushers in
a period of repose, lasting till morning calls him
back to his daily toil, so the great Artificer is
represented as turning aside from His work at the
end of each "day" of creation, and again re
suming it when another morning dawned.
And is not this in keeping with the mode in
which Scripture speaks of God ? It tells us of
His mouth and eyes and nostrils. His hand and
arm. It speaks of His sitting in the heavens,
and bowing Himself to hear the prayer ascending
from the earth. It talks of His repenting and
being angry. And if one cavils at this, he may
fairly be asked. In what other language could
God speak to men ?
Nor let any one fall back on the common
fallacy that a Divine day is a period of a thousand
years. With God, we are told, a day is as a
" If the creation story was revealed by way of Apocalyptic
visions, these words are fully explained.

124 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
In a word, the seeming paradox of the trans
cendental philosophy is endorsed by the express
teaching of Scripture, that time is merely a law
of human thought. When, therefore, God speaks
of working for six days and resting on the seventh,
we must understand the words in the same sym
bolic sense as when He declares that His hand
has made all these things.'
But the mention of the creation sabbath is the
crowning proof of the symbolic character of the
creation "day." God "rested on the seventh
day from all the work which He had made."
Are we, then, to suppose that He resumed the
work when four and twenty hours had passed ?
Here, at least, revelation and science are at one :
the creation sabbath has continued during all the
ages of historic time. God is active in His
universe, pace the atheist and the infidel, but the
Creator rests. Scripture, indeed, tells of a
supreme catastrophe that is yet to engulf our
planet, and of a new creation which is to follow
it, of which the resurrection of Christ is the
earnest and pledge. But these are topics I must
not enter upon. I content myself with noticing
' Isa. Ixvi. 2. See p. loo ante.

Ch. IX.] THE CREATION "DAY" 125
the well-recognised fact that the creation sabbath
is a vast period of time, and urging that the
working days of creation must be estimated on
the same system.
This must be borne in mind as we proceed.
The water population and the air population
belong to the same " day" ; but ages of time may
have intervened before the appearance of the
latter.' So also with the land population of the
sixth day. For aught that we can tell, the
appearance of man may have been separated
from that of other mammals by a period of time
as prolonged as that which divides the present
hour from the close of the creation " week." 2
But all this is mere conjecture. And my
object in suggesting it is not to frame a system
of interpretation, but to enter a caveat against
confounding the teaching of Scripture with any
' Of course the suggestion of the Authorised Version is
erroneous that the water was the birthplace of the " feathered
tribe." The words are, " Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creature that hath life, and let fowl fly above the
earth in the open firmament of heaven."
' The second chapter indicates that there was an interval
between the formation of the man and of the woman. The
Paleontologists' proofs that earth was the dwelling-place of
intelligent beings at a much earlier period, are not complete
enough to justify any definite comparison between those earlier
inhabitants and the Adamic race. Indeed, it is doubtful whether
they afford certainty of being pre-Adamite at all.

126 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
system of interpretation whatever. I deprecate
the idea that I am posing as a " reconciler." I
have no such ambitious aim as that of seeking
to convince the scientists. I wish rather to warn
the faithful against assaults upon the Mosaic
cosmogony, based on " the merest Sunday-school
exegesis " on the one hand, and on the theories
of science on the other. 'Y\vt facts of science in
no way clash with Scripture. They serve only
to assist us in understanding it aright.
Of the origin of our world the first chapter of
Genesis tells us nothing, save that " in the
beginning," whenever that was, God created it.
It may be, as Mr. Tyndall said in his Belfast
address, that " for aeons embracing untold
millions of years, this earth has been the theatre
of life and death." But as to this the Book of
Genesis is silent. It deals merely with the
renewing and refurnishing of our planet as a
home for man. And this, moreover, as I have
already urged, to prepare the foundation for the
supreme revelation of redemption.
In conclusion, I would guard myself from any
suspicion of seeking " to prove the truth of the
Mosaic narrative." My object here is to beat
off^ attacks which stumble or distress ignorant and
weak-kneed believers. And to this end I have

Ch. IX.] GENESIS AND SCIENCE 127
shown that Professor Huxley, the ablest and
most bitter assailant of Genesis which this age
has produced, has been met and routed upon
ground of his own choosing. The first chapter
of Genesis " was not written to teach science " ;
but not a single "fact of science" can be found to
discredit it. This cannot be said of any one of
"the religious books of the East" — in this re
spect they are but a tangle of error and folly.
Neither can it be said of any scientific book pub
lished before recent years. The "science" of
the last generation is discredited by the dis
coveries of our own times. Never until our own
times have Scripture and science been in accord ;
but the changes which have harmonised them
have been in science and not in Scripture. And
this can only be explained on one of two
hypotheses. Either science was more advanced
when Genesis was written than at any time
during all the Christian era, or else " the Mosaic
narrative " is a Divine revelation. '

" The Times correspondence quoted in this chapter originated
with a " declaration on the truth of Holy Scripture," signed by
Dean Goulbourn and a number of other clergymen, which
appeared in The Times of December 18, 1891. My object in
intervening was to point out that these clergymen in taking their
stand upon the ground that the Church was " the witness and
keeper of Holy Writ," betrayed the cause they sought to defend,

128 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
and were false to the Church of England, which in Article XX.
claims only to be " a witness," &c. My second letter {The Times,
January 23, 1892) was in reply to the letter of " A Beneficed
English Clergyman of Twenty-five Years' Standing," who took
infidel ground. Mr. Huxley's reply appeared in The Times of
January 26th. Letters from the Duke of Argyll, Canon Girdle-
stone, and myseU appeared on February ist, and were answered
by Mr. Huxley on February 3rd and 4th. My last letter (quoted
above) appeared on February 8th, and Mr. Huxley's rejoinder
on the iitii. The title "The Bible and Modern Criticism " was
assigned to the correspondence by the editor of The Times.

CHAPTER X
MORE than a quarter of a century ago,
when I first came definitely under the
influence of the Higher Criticism, doubts began
to undermine my faith in Holy Scripture. I
then knew but little either of the history or the
aims of the movement ; and a taste for critical
inquiries, combined with impatience of mere
" orthodoxy," created in my mind a prejudice in
its favour. At the same time I had a sufficient
acquaintance with the general scheme of revela
tion, and especially with the typology and pro
phecy of Scripture, to prevent my being misled
by the teaching of the critics about the Pen
tateuch, or by their theories that the " Priestly
Code," as they call it, was later than the Prophets.
This being so, it was not till I reached the
Book of Daniel that I felt any serious alarm.
The New Testament is so identified with that
book (as the critics themselves allow) that if
10 1^

130 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Daniel be discredited, the authority of the Gospels
and Epistles is impaired, and the Apocalypse
must be entirely given up. And yet the case
against the book seemed overwhelming. Not
only was its authenticity destroyed by glaring
historical errors, but its claim to genuineness was
vetoed by the very language in which it was
written : its Hebrew, I learned, belonged to a
later period than the Captivity, and the Greek
words contained in it absolutely precluded an
earlier origin than the date of Alexander's con
quest. Now, unlike the critics, my tenure of the public
position I held was not conditioned upon any
pledge that I believed the Scriptures. Had I
come to accept the conclusions of the critics, I
might have continued to draw the emoluments of
my office without any twinges of conscience or any
reflection upon my honour. When, therefore, I
set myself to investigate the case against Daniel,
I did so in the same spirit in which I have not
infrequently prosecuted criminal charges against
persons whom, though I greatly wished to save,
I was determined to bring to justice if guilty. I
say this because it is the fashion to assume that
to attack the Bible gives proof not only of " cul
ture," but of mental vigour and freedom, and that

Ch. X.] THE BOOK OF DANIEL 131
its defenders are always narrow-minded and
prejudiced. I first took up the special question upon which
I was dependent upon the experts, namely, the
philological features of the book. And here I
kept to the writings of the critics. My first shock
was the discovery that, according to the evidence
of some of the most advanced and fearless of its
assailants, the Hebrew of the book decides
nothing as to its date.' The bold statements
to the contrary, therefore, are proof only of
recklessness on the part of those who make them.
And my amazement and indignation reached a
climax when I discovered that the supposed Greek
words in Daniel\ia.d, one after another, been given
up by the critics, until only two or three remained ;
and that it is upon these words, which are the
names of musical instruments, that the critics veto
the acceptance of the book.^ If the instruments
' See, e.g.. Professor Cheyne's article " Daniel " in Encyc. Brit.
' Professor Driver of Ojcford declares that " the Greek words
demand, the Hebrew supports, and the Aramaic permits, a date
after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great " (Book
of Daniel, p. Ixiii.). In the Introduction to Daniel in " The Temple
Bible," Dr. Sinker writes ; " Yet about this time a brother of the
Greek poet Alcaeus held office at the Court of Babylon. Still
earlier, Sargon mentions the Greeks (Javanu) of Cyprus ; and
much earlier, we find a Greek in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets.
Clearly then there is no reason why in the time of Daniel Greek
musical instruments and their names should not have been known
in Babylon."

132 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
themselves came from Greece, it might be
assumed that they would carry with them to
Babylon the names by which they were known in
the land of their origin. In no other sphere
would men listen to what passes for proof when
Scripture is assailed. In no other sphere would
such trifling as this be tolerated. If only these
men could be "got into court," and subjected to
cross-examination, they would lose not only their
case but their reputation 1
The argument from the language of the Book
of Daniel having thus utterly broken down — in
truth it is an insult to our intelligence — we dismiss
the Philologists from the inquiry altogether. The
remaining question is one of evidence of a wholly
different kind ; and no university professor, how
ever eminent, is as fit to deal with it as the
trained lawyer or the experienced juryman. I
press this. These pages will be read by many
who are as competent to decide the fate of Daniel
as any of the critics whose dictum about the book
is blindly accepted by the public. And those
who study the controversy will recognise the
truth of Hengstenberg's statement, that the attack
upon the book originated in a prejudged deter
mination to eliminate the supernatural element
from the Bible. Devout men like Eichhorn and

Ch. X.] THE ATTACK ON DANIEL 133
his pupil Ewald sought to win the rationalists
back to religion by joining in their attack upon
the only true basis of religion.
A criminal prosecution sometimes originates in
some virulent prejudice which clouds the judg
ment even of fair and upright men. The Dreyfus
case in France is the most famous example of this
in modern times. No generous mind would
tolerate the belief that men like the French
Ministers of State were the guilty accessories to
an infamous plot against an innocent man. They
deprecated the methods of the prosecution, but
they accepted the result. And so here, men like
Professor Driver accept the verdict of the Higher
Criticism against the Book of Daniel, while
deprecating the "exaggerations of the rationalists."
But whence these exaggerations ? The Public
Prosecutor does not " exaggerate " in presenting
a case to the court. On the contrary he is
careful to state it with perfect fairness, and to
notice every point in favour of the accused as
well as against him. Not so, however, a private
prosecutor. The " exaggerations " of the German
critics are the clearest proof that the crusade
against Daniel was the outcome of prejudice or
malice. In my published defence of the book I have not

134 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
sought to score a single point by trading on these
" exaggerations." The popularity of the Dean of
Canterbury precluded my ignoring him, but I
have taken Professor Driver as the accredited
exponent of the case of the English critics. And
in meeting his indictment of Daniel, I have
accepted his own statement of the evidence. Any
competent tribunal would, I believe, decide that
the Septuagint translation of the book is older
than the date to which the critics assign the
Hebrew original, and that the canon of the Old
Testament was closed anterior to that date.
But meeting them on their own ground, I have
shown that no part of their case against the book
will stand the test of cross-examination. And
further, it has been demonstrated that its great
central prophecy has been fulfilled in Messianic
times with absolute definiteness and precision.
And this demonstration Professor Driver himself
has cited,' only to leave It and pass on ; though
if it remains unchallenged it should end the
controversy. If there are those whose faith in Scripture
depends on the fate of Daniel, a brief summary
of the defence of the book may serve only to
• Book of Daniel, p. 149.

Ch. X.] DANIEL: HISTORICAL ERRORS 135
prejudice the issue. And yet the briefest sum
mary Is all that can be given within the limits of
this chapter.'
The critics' attack upon the book rests on three
grounds : — philological peculiarities, historical
errors, and its position in the canon. The first
I have already dealt with. As regards the second,
the only vital " error " Is the opening statement of
the book, that Nebuchadnezzar Invaded Judea In
the third year of Jehoiaklm. But this is a fact In
history established by writers sacred and profane.
The critics here rely on the history of Berosus,
quoted by Josephus. That historian tells that
during the expedition Nebuchadnezzar heard of
his father's death, and at once handed over his
Jewish captives to others, and " himself hastened
home across the desert." The German rationalists,
mixing up Berosus with Scripture,^ and under
standing neither. Infer that it was from Car-
chemish, where a decisive battle was fought in
the fourth year of Jehoiaklm, that Nebuchadnezzar
started homewards. But Carchemlsh Is on the

' Dean Farrar's philippic is a portly volume ; and in Professor
Driver's Book of Daniel the " Introduction " alone occupies
a hundred closely printed pages. My reply to both occupies
only a hundred and eighty pages of large and leaded type (Daniel
in the Critics' Den, 1902). Greater condensation is impossible.
" Jer. xlvi; 2.

136 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Upper Euphrates, and the road thence to Babylon
is clear of the desert altogether. If, as Berosus
tells us, Nebuchadnezzar had Jewish captives, he
must have invaded Judea ; and if the desert
lay between him and his capital, it must have
been from Judea that he set out on his homeward
journey. This "historical error" is a blunder so glaring
that a schoolboy might well be ashamed of it.
And yet it Is gravely adopted and reproduced
by English ecclesiastics and Professors for the
enlightenment of a much deluded public' It
is a specimen of the " historical errors " of the
Higher Critics. Ex uno disce omnes.
Another "historical error " deserves a passing
notice. When the sceptics first framed their
indictment of Daniel, Belshazzar appeared to be
a myth. For history testifies that the last king
of Babylon was Nabonldus ; that he was absent

' See Professor Driver's Book of Daniel, p. 2. Dean Farrar's
words are : " Nor did Nebuchadnezzar advance against the Holy
City even after the battle of Carchemish, but dashed home
across the desert." One does not expect to be amused by a book
on such a subject, but this is really amusing. The fact is these
English scholars copy from the German rationalists without
inquiry or independent thought. The refutation of this silly
blunder does not depend merely on the point above mentioned,
but upon the history as a whole. See Daniel in the Critics' Den,
App. I.

Ch. X.] BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS 137
from the capital when Cyrus entered it, and that
he lived many years after the Persian conquest.
The contradiction between history and Scripture
was complete. But the since deciphered Inscrip
tions have disclosed that Belshazzar was eldest
son and heir to Nabonldus, that he was regent in
Babylon during his father's absence, and that he
was killed the night the Persian army entered
the Inner city.'
The only difficulty still unsolved in the Daniel
story is the identity of Darius the Mede. But
here again the inscriptions tell us that, in the
conquest of Babylon, Cyrus had united with him
a Median of such power and fame that it was he
who appointed the new officials ; and that when
an amnesty was proclaimed. It was issued In their
joint names. The absence of Darlus's name from
the commercial tablets Is amply explained by the
fact that, as Daniel Indicates, he, like Belshazzar,
was only a viceroy or vassal king.
Not one single new point against Daniel has
been brought to light for a century. Every
decade brings to light some new proofs of its
genuineness and authenticity.
' Professor Sayce's statements on this are but a false inference
from a false reading of the tablet. See Daniel in the Critics' Den,
App. II.

138 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Daniel's place in the Canon is too large a
question for incidental treatment. But the mere
fact of its inclusion would satisfy any fair tribunal
of the genuineness of the book, and it renders it
absolutely certain that the Sanhedrim regarded
it as genuine.' In the Septuagint version, more
over, it is placed among the prophets, as in
our English Bible ; which seems to Indicate
that such was its original position. And if
so its transfer to the third division of the
Canon was effected, no doubt, after the beginning
of the Christian era. The Hebrew Bible now
brackets it with the Psalms of David and
other books held by the Jews In the very
highest esteem.
Then, again, the critics cannot tear from Its
pages the great prophecy of the " Seventy
Weeks." And that prophecy, so far as its fulfil
ment belongs to the past, was fulfilled with such
definiteness and precision as to make an " end of
controversy " upon the whole question. Taking
history from the historian and chronology from
the chronologist, it will be found that the interval
from the Issue of the decree to build Jerusalem to
the public proclamation of the Messiah, was
• See Daniel in the Critics' Den, pp. 99-1 ii.

Ch. X.] DANIEL ACCREDITED BY CHRIST 139
exactly and to the very day the period foretold
by Daniel.'
Could the prediction have been a mere guess
by some learned and pious Jew? If we refer
this question to a mathematician he will tell us
that in such a forecast the chance of accuracy
would be so small, and the probability of error
so great, that neither the one nor the other could
be expressed arithmetically in figures. The calcu
lation, in fact, would become lost In Infinity. The
attempt, therefore, to dismiss the fulfilment of the
prophecy as a mere coincidence "Is not intelligent
scepticism, but a crass misbelief which is sheer
credulity." And lastly the fact claims notice — and this
alone should satisfy the Christian — that the Book
of Daniel bears the express imprimatur of our
Divine Lord. Witness His words : " When ye,
therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy

" According to Dan. ix. 25, sixty-nine sevens of prophetic years
were to elapse between the issuing of the edict to rebuild the
city, and " Messiah the Prince" ; and the period from ist Nisanin
the 20th year of Artaxerxes (Neh. ii.) to " Palm Sunday " when
our Lord made His public entry into Jerusalem (Luke xix. 36-38)
was exactly 173,880 days (=69 x 7 X 360). This is dealt with in
detail in The Coming Prince, and also in Daniel in the Critics' Den
(1902).

140 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
place." The attempt to evade this by the plea
that the words here given in italics are a
gloss. Is so unwarranted that no English writers
would have suggested it were it not that they
follow the German sceptics like sheep. The
words occur in the great prophecy of Matthew
xxiv. ; and the reference to Daniel is so unmis
takable that the omission of the name could not
even obscure it.
Bishop Westcott declares that "no other
book of the Old Testament had so great a share
in the development of Christianity." It is Heng
stenberg's testimony that "there are few books
whose Divine authority is so fully established by
the testimony of the New Testament, and In
particular by the Lord Himself." And even
Professor Bevan of Cambridge — one of the
narrowest of the critics — ^admlts that " the in
fluence of the book is apparent almost every
where." But the Christian accepts the Book, not because
Its rejection would be, as Sir Isaac Newton urged,
"to undermine the Christian religion"; but
because Its claims to acceptance are complete
and convincing, and the case for its rejection

Ch. X.] THE BOOK OF DANIEL 141
owes its seeming cogency only to ignoring some
of the most salient facts, and misrepresenting
others.'

¦ In reading this chapter in the proof I am increasingly im
pressed with its inadequacy as a defence of Daniel ; especially
as I have so very recently (Easter, 1902) published my full
answer to the indictment as formulated by Professor Driver and
Dean Farrar. In Daniel in the Critics' Den (1902) not a single point
urged by the assailants is overlooked, and the critics are put
upon their defence. I have only now had the benefit of reading
the " Introduction " and Notes to Daniel in The Temple Bible.

CHAPTER XI
AMONG the many stories told of Chief
Baron O'Grady, first. Lord Guillamore, of
the Irish Court of Exchequer, there is one about
a judgment of his which is probably unique In
judicial annals. The two puisne Barons who
were sitting with him in bank In the hearing of
an important case, had delivered elaborate judg
ments, taking opposing views of the law ; and the
Chief Baron's judgment which followed was given
In the single sentence, " I agree with my brother
Smith for the reasons assigned by my brother
McClelland." When the mind Is wavering In its acceptance
of what seems to be true and right, there is
nothing so helpful as an able and exhaustive
statement of all that can be said upon the other
side. In this way I owe much to the Higher
Critics for settling my faith In Scripture ; and I
confess that my full acceptance of the Book of
143

Ch. XL] THE BOOK OF JONAH 143
Jonah dates from my study of their reasons for
rejecting it.
We all know the old woman who was ready to
believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, if only
the Bible said so ; but we are not all equal to
faith feats of that kind. From standard books of
great authority I learned that it would be as
impossible for a whale to swallow a man as for
a man to swallow a whale ; the shark was said
to be the only fish In the sea that could accom
plish it ; and my faith became somewhat knock-
kneed In presence of the shark.'
But I was reminded of the words, " Now the
Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up
Jonah." Yes, there Is no doubt that Almighty
God could extemporise a sea monster for the
purpose. And such a miracle would not Involve
a greater display of power than many others ; but
it would be a miracle of a kind that has no pre
cedent or analogy in Scripture. We have learned
to re-define " supernatural power" ; for "nature"
is merely a way of expressing one sphere of God's
working. And as already noticed. Divine miracles
are wholly free from any merely dramatic display

' I am not justifying my scepticism. For the word translated
" whale " in our New Testament may mean any large fish. But
our minds easily become enslaved not only to ideas but to words.

144 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
of the resources of the Almighty.' My difficulty
therefore was, not that what was narrated was
supernatural, but that it seemed ««natural.
And yet the fact was indisputable that nothing
in the Old Testament was accredited more de
finitely by the Lord Jesus Christ than this very
miracle. It was used by Him not as an inci
dental Illustration, but as a prophecy and a type in
the strictest sense, of His death and resurrection.
There is no evading this ; and therefore the
Christian will find that to jettison the prophet
Jonah, so far from calming the waves of scepti
cism, will only bring the barque of his faith into
still greater peril.
We have become accustomed to find that
distinguished Professors, and ecclesiastics of high
degree, in criticising the Bible, sometimes display
ignorance of spiritual things ; but in the sphere of
the natural one does expect facts from their lips
and pens. A friend of mine put up a new summer-
house In his garden. The entrance to it is so
wide that a carriage and pair might drive through
it ; and that entrance consists of the jaws of a
sperm whale !
A whale unable to swallow a man I In his
' See p. 88, ante.

Ch. XL] JONAH AND THE WHALE 145
Cruise of the " Cachelot," Mr. Bullen, an experi
enced whale fisher himself, describes the creature's
mouth as large enough to hold a picnic party, and
he tells of a shark 15 feet long being found
In the stomach of one of these monsters. A
whale that he himself helped to kill ejected the
food it had swallowed ; and It was, he says, " in
masses of enormous size, some of them being
estimated to be of the size of our hatch-house,
viz., 8 feet X 6 feet X 6 feet." And in this
connection he mentions a fact of special interest
here, that the whale when dying vomits the
contents of its stomach.
This same writer discusses the question how a
monster so unwieldy can get hold of the smaller
fish. "It Is manifestly absurd," he says, "to
suppose the whale capable of catching fish In the
ordinary sense, indicating pursuit." And his
explanation of it is that " as the cachelot swims
about with his lower jaw hanging down in its
normal position, and his huge gullet gaping
like a submarine cavern, the fish unwittingly
glide down it."
When In the light of these facts I again take
up the Book of Jonah, I am conscious of a strange
revulsion of feeling. The Hebrew Concordance
tells me that when I read that " God prepared a

146 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
great fish," the word used is the same as when
the king of Babylon " appointed " a certain pro
vision for Daniel and his companions. In other
words, the statement means that in the providence
of God, when Jonah was thrown overboard, one
of these huge sea monsters was swimming by,
"his huge gullet gaping like a submarine cavern,"
and Jonah went down just as a midge might go
down the throat of a man when running against
the wind.
This part of the miracle, therefore, which I was
inclined to reject as being unprecedented and un
natural, proves to be no miracle at all. Neither
is there any miracle in Jonah's being vomited out
again : that was a process as natural as for a child
to get rid of Its dinner. Both the swallowing and
the vomiting were perfectly natural, and there
was nothing about either to excite even our
wonder, much less incredulity. Where the
miracle began and ended was that God preserved
the life of His servant through it all.
And here — to repeat a favourite phrase — faith
and unbelief must measure their distance. To
say that God could not do this is to deny God
altogether : to say He would not do it is absurd
— any one of us would do it in similar circum
stances if only we had the power : to say He did

Ch. XL] JONAH ACCREDITED BY CHRIST 147
not do it is a flagrant case of begging the
question. The New Testament refers to Jonah
as a prophecy of the resurrection of Christ. For
"He rose again the third day according to the
Scriptures" ;^ and where, save in Jonah, shall
we find In the Old Testament a plain and clear
prophecy of His rising on the third day? And
the Lord Jesus Christ, In the most definite and
solemn manner. Identified Himself with this very
miracle. In the beginning of His ministry
" signs " abounded ; but when, after the Council
which decreed His rejection, the Pharisees again
demanded a "sign," His answer was that the
only sign they should have was " the sign of the
prophet Jonah." His words, repeated we know
not how often, cannot be explained away : — " As
Jonah was three days and three nights In the
whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights In the heart of the earth. "^
Some people seem to classify the miracles of
Scripture. The little miracles they accept as a
matter of course : it is only the big ones which
try their faith. I would suggest to such people

' I Cor. XV. 4 (see p. 76, ante).
' Matt. xii. 38-40, and xvi. 4. The Lord may have given the
same answer a score of times for aught we know. And see
p. 144, ante, and Appendix, Note III.

148 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
to enter the Jonah miracle low down on their list,
but at the top to place those most stupendous and
seemingly incredible of all miracles, the incarna
tion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when in some little measure they have
realised who and what He is. His words will
silence unbelief; and they will recognise that
whatever judgment may be formed upon the
Book of Jonah, the miracle which It records is
inseparably identified with the truth of Christianity.
That it was on account of the miracle that the
Germans decreed the rejection of the Book no
honest person would dispute. But after their
manner, they heaped up Incidental reasons for
their decision. And these reasons their English
followers have, with childlike simplicity, adopted.
Their interpretation Is of the nightmare kind ;
everything in the book ought to have happened
differently ; things are included which ought to
have been omitted, and things are omitted which
ought to have been Included. The only element
of doubt is whether it is typical, or mythical, or
legendary, or allegorical. Historical it certainly
cannot be.
Now this sort of criticism any Old Bailey
practitioner could work up far better than the
Professors. For let It be kept in view that the

Ch. XL] DR. DRIVER ON JONAH 149
whole argument from the language of the Book
may be ruled out. Professor Driver indeed
asserts that "It cannot have been written until
long after the time of Jonah." But this is only
Professor Driver's way. Even such an uncom
promising critic as Professor Cheyne dissociates
himself from such a conclusion ; ' and as any one
can see, the grounds set out in support of it are
entirely inadequate. And this being so, we may
dismiss the Hebraists from the inquiry, and
consider the general question on its merits.
Though Professor Driver denies the genuine
ness of the book, he is careful, as usual, to dis
sociate himself from the reckless extremes of
. the more advanced critics. " No doubt," he says,
" the outlines of the narrative are historical."
And yet "there are indications that it is not
strictly historical." 2 These " indications " are —
That the conversion of the Ninevites is " con
trary to analogy."
That such a conversion "should have pro
duced so little permanent effect."
' He somewhat superciliously remarks, "The evidences of date
are difficult to seize " (Encydopcedia Britannica, article " Jonah ").
And see Speaker's Commentary, "Jonah," Excursus B ; and also the
late Dr. John Kenned/s valuable monograph On the Book of
Jonah (chap. viii.).
» Introduction, "Jonah."

ISO THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
That it is not "easy to imagine" the king
acting as Is represented.
This, remember, represents the superior
enlightenment and intelligence of the Higher
Criticism. Of the king referred to we know
nothing ; and possibly if his character were
known it would not be " easy to imagine " his
acting in any other way I And as regards the
second point, it Is only a student among his
books, who knows nothing practically of human
nature, who could entertain such an objection.
I put it on this ground because It Is idle to
appeal to the history of the chosen people in
the wilderness, for these critics dismiss the
divinely given story as a legend. But the
repentance of the Ninevites is " contrary to
analogy." Yes, and the conduct of masses of
men when moved by any powerful passion
is generally "contrary to analogy."
But there is something else which, If we
extend our view beyond our own times, is also
contrary to analogy ; and that Is that any man
holding the position of an English clergyman
should treat with such entire indifference
the words of his Divine Lord. " The men
of Nineveh shall rise In judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn It ; because

Ch. XL] A TRAVESTY OF JONAH 151
they repented at the preaching of Jonah ; and,
behold, a greater than Jonah is here."' Let the
critics, dealing with the studies which alone are
within their competence, give us reasons to
doubt the genuineness of the Book of Jonah,
and we will consider the question on its merits.
But that the men of Nineveh repented at the
preaching of Jonah is a fact which rests, not on
the Book of Jonah merely, but on the word of
"a greater than Jonah" — the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself^ The view of the Book presented by these
writers is but a grotesque travesty. We seem
to see a dripping, half-drowned Jew rushing
through Nineveh, and shouting his startling
message, like an escaped lunatic turned town-
crier. And presto ! all the inhabitants repent
and turn good like clockwork, while the prophet
himself turns sulky and bolts. This is their
reading of it. This Is Higher Criticism !
" Oh, the blindness of conventional critics,
groping in Hebrew records not for pearls of
facts, but for pebbles of dogma ! They have
failed to observe that the God of Jonah is the
God of the New Testament. Yet it Is so, and
' Matt. xii. 41. * See note, p. 74, ante.

152 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
this great book connects the two Bibles, instead
of contrasting them." '
The Book is essentially a drama, of which the
brief and quickly changing scenes present a story
that is wonderfully real and intensely human.
Can men who scout the idea of a prophet's
refusing a call to service, and fleeing from the
Lord, know anything of the deeper experiences
of a spiritual life ? And in such cases the
Divine action is generally " contrary to analogy."
When Paul was bidden to go to Rome, and yet
turned to Jerusalem, he was brought to Rome
as a prisoner, discredited by a chain : when
Jonah was bidden to go to Nineveh, and yet
took ship for Tarshish, he ended by entering
Nineveh as a prophet accredited by a miracle.
For the fame of his miraculous deliverance pre
ceded him 2 ; and when he proclaimed that the
God by whom he had been thus delivered had
decreed the destruction of their city, all men
naturally hung upon his words. What calls to
righteousness he uttered upon that wonderful

* The words are from the pen of Charles Reade. He declares
that this Book of " 1,328 EngUsh words" "is the most beautiful
story ever written in so small a compass " (Bible Characters).
' The Lord's words in Luke xi. 30 admit of no other meaning.
He Himself as crucified and risen was to be " a sign " to Israel,
just as Jonah rescued from death was a sign to the Ninevites.

Ch. XL] THE TRUE STORY OF JONAH 153
text during the forty days of his ministry we
know not. We can only conjecture what such
preaching must have been.
And when the forty days were expired, he left
the capital and made a hermit's lodge in which to
wait "till he might see what would become of
the city." But the days went by and nothing
whatever happened. There must have been
critics and sceptics in plenty in a place like
Nineveh, and we can well imagine how they
crowed. The men of faith, the " overcomers,"
are "a little flock" in every age ; with the many
the prophet and the prophet's God must soon
have become a byword and a jest. And we
can realise how Jonah would murmur against
God, even as Elijah did, and, like him, exclaim,
" I have been very jealous for the Lord God of
hosts." Every Christian who knows what it is to have
a spiritual history has In some little measure had
such experiences as these. And then it is that
a silent heaven crushes us ; then it is that the
heart craves some token of the Divine presence.
And we can imagine with what gladness Jonah
recognised such a token in the gourd raised up
to shelter him. We can imagine, too, the bitter
ness of the recoil when the vulgar facts of a

154 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
waking day — the east wind and the garish sun
shine — destroyed his gourd and threw him back
upon himself. And as the curtain falls upon
this last scene we almost seem to hear the
closing words, " Thou hast had pity on the
gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither
madest it to grow ; which came up in a night
and perished in a night. And should not I
spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are
more than six score thousand persons that
cannot discern between their right hand and
their left.?"

CHAPTER XII
WHAT I am about to narrate may well
appear so incredible that I am prepared
to find that my personal guarantee of its truth
will at first sight fail to carry conviction.
A few years ago — I could give details of every
part of my narrative — a certain London merchant
killed an unfortunate wretch whom circumstances
had placed in his power. He did not actually
kill him with his own hands, but he had him
brought to a secluded room which was deliberately
prepared for the purpose, and there he stood by
while his victim was strangled by a man whom
he had hired to do the deed. I myself examined
the place. I can testify, moreover, that all the
facts were known, not only to the authorities, but
to the Queen. And yet not only did the homicide
go unpunished, but, with full knowledge of all I
have narrated. Her Majesty singled him out for
royal favour and conferred a title upon him.
155

iS6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
What estimate will my readers form of such
conduct on the part of one whom we have been
taught to regard as a pattern and paragon of
public and private virtue?
But before they pass judgment upon the facts
they ought to know a few additional details. The
victim of the tragedy I have described was a con
demned murderer ; the man who was paid to
strangle him was the common hangman, the
secluded room was In Newgate prison, and the
merchant who received a knighthood was the
Sheriff" whose official duty it was to execute the
criminal. And now the meaning of my parable will begin
to dawn upon the reader. Let these added
details be suppressed, and a plain narrative which
does not contain a syllable that is untrue or even
exaggerated, may seem to endanger the reputa
tion of Queen Victoria. And It is precisely by
this sort of suppression that the Bible and the
God of the Bible are misrepresented. Will any
" person of culture " in our day dare to defend
the extermination of the Canaanites ? Will any
one, I answer, dare to defend the strangling of a
poor helpless wretch in a shut-in room ?
It is not God's way to justify Himself at the
bar of His creature's judgment. He acts and

Ch. XII.] DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES 157
speaks autocratically. But in this matter He has
deigned to explain His decrees. Men read the
Bible story In the false light of the evolution
craze. They picture to themselves a number of
semi-clvlllsed tribes on the upward path of pro
gress, exterminated by an invading horde of
religious fanatics.' But the Christian knows that
they were a degenerate and apostate race whose
destruction was decreed by a God of infinite
mercy, because they had given themselves up to
unnatural and loathsome sin. Four centuries
had passed since Sodom fell. And among the
citizens of Sodom not even ten could be found
who were clear of the evil. What then must
have been the condition of the land when God at
last called in the Israelites as His executioners ?
Of the guilty nations there was one that
seemed still to merit pity, and on account of that
nation the judgment was delayed. If for four
generations the favoured people were left as
strangers in a strange land, it was " because the
iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full." 2

' The discoveries of the archeologist make it plain that at the
era of the Exodus, Palestine had long enjoyed a high civilisation
(Lex Mosaica, p. 9). The nations were lapsing from civiUsation,
not emerging from barbarism.
" Gen. XV. 16, and see xiii. 15 and xviii. 32, and compare Rom.
i. 21^. This is not a subject for plain speaking. I will dismiss

iS8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Considering that the historic Church of Western
Christendom, by disparaging the sacred bond of
marriage, affects a higher standard of morality
than the Divine revelation of Christianity will
sanction, it is not strange that men should claim
to be more merciful than God. But the Bible
narrative makes it clear as light that the exter
mination of the Canaanites was the carrying
out of a Divine decree. That the men of. a
wandering tribe, with neither cavalry nor
"military base," and encumbered by multitudes
of women and children and camp followers,
should conquer a nation with walled towns
and " chariots of iron " — the equivalent of
modern artillery — this is a feat to which his
tory affords no parallel. And seven such nations
fell before the Israelite invaders. Such facts
seem to indicate that it was as clearly a Divine
judgment as was the destruction of Pharaoh's
army in the sea.
To the solution of other " difficulties " of a
kindred type my parable may afford the clew ; as,
for example, the imprecatory Messianic Psalms,

it with the strange confession that prior to knowledge acquired at
Scotland Yard, these Divine judgments upon Canaan were a
difficulty to my faith. There are some kinds of vice that seem to
spread like leprosy, and to become hereditary.

Ch. XII.] THE JEWS AND THE WORLD 159
which are prophetic warnings of Divine judg
ments upon those who take the place of enemies
of God. But I turn away to notice briefly
difficulties of another kind, which depend, not on
ignoring facts, but on perverting them. I will
select one as illustrating the class to which I refer.
What can be more unlike the Christian's God
than the scheme of granting to the Jews a
monopoly of Divine favour, and leaving the
world to its fate ? To which I will make answer
by asking another question. What can be more
unlike the Christian's Bible ?
In commerce there are two well-known
systems on which merchants deal with the public.
The one Is to sell directly to every one who
wishes to become a customer ; the other is to
deal only through an agent. When the owner
of some famous French vineyard, for instance,
appoints an English agent, and refuses to supply
his wines except through that agent, his object is
to make it easier for the English public to obtain
supplies, and to ensure them against adulteration
and fraud. And God's purpose for Israel was
that that favoured nation should be His agents
upon earth. Jerusalem was to be " the place of
His name." But " the house of God," designed
to become a house of prayer for all nations, they

i6o THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
treated as their own, and ended by making it "a
den of thieves."'
All nations are to be blessed In Christ ; and the
Israelites as a people were a type of Christ, and
ought to have been a blessing to the world. But
instead of bringing honour to the name of God,
they caused His name to be blasphemed among
the heathen. 2 They were as false to the Divine
trust committed to them, as the " historic Church "
of Christendom has been in this Christian dispen
sation. In cases of this kind human error either ousts
Divine truth altogether, or else becomes so
identified with it in popular estimation that
men in rejecting the error reject also the truth.
And in this respect very "superior persons" are
often the greatest offenders. Matthew Arnold,
for instance, like many another writer of the same
type, identifies the truth of the Eden fall with that
horror of Augustinian theology, the damnation of
infants. 3 Indeed the whole Augustinian doctrine
of election, as distinguished from the truth of
election, is a case of putting the new wine of the
Christian revelation into the old bottles of a
bygone dispensation.
' I Kings viii. 41-43 ; Isaiah Ivi. 7 ; Mark xi. 17 (R.V,).
' Rom. ii. 24; Ezek. xxxvi. 20, 23. s See p. 2ig, post.

Ch. XII.] ARAUNAH'S THRESHINGFLOOR i6i
I will here notice, in passing, a Biblical
"blunder" of which much has been made. In
2 Sam. xxiv. 24, we read that David bought the
oxen and threshingfloor of Araunah for fifty
shekels of silver. From i Chron. xxi. 25, we
learn that David gave 600 shekels of gold for the
place. It is extraordinary that any honest and
intelligent mind could find a difficulty here.
Fifty shekels of silver were presumably a fair
price, though to us it seems very little, for the
oxen and for the temporary use of the threshing-
floor, for the purpose of the sacrifice.' And this
was all that the king had In view at the moment.
But does any one imagine that the fee-simple of
" the place " — the entire site of the Temple — was
worth only fifty silver shekels ? David went on
to purchase the entire homestead out and out ;
and the price he paid for it was 600 shekels of
gold. And this is what the " Chronicler " records.
The " Chronological errors " of the Bible fall
within the same category. Mere textual blunders
seem scarcely worth notice here, such, e.g., as the

" The English reader must not base anything on the force of
the English words " buy " and " bought " in 2 Sam. xxiv. 24. The
narrative in Chronicles suggests that it was the Lord's "answering
him by fire " that led the king to go on to the purchase of the
place.

1 62 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
reading seven instead of three in 2 Sam. xxiv. 13,'
and eight instead of eighteen in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9.
Having regard to all the circumstances, the wonder
Is that such mistakes are so rare. But the whole
scheme of Biblical chronology is regarded as
proof of error. This will repay looking into.
No sceptic will accept the wild chronology of
the Egyptologists. If the English people were
not so unimaginative, they would reckon the
several dynasties of the Heptarchy as successive,
and thus lay claim to a really Imposing national
antiquity. But no one who has studied the
subject will dispute that the story of man's
tenancy of the earth reaches back to an earlier
period than Biblical chronology appears to
warrant. Such a discovery, however, troubles
only those who suppose the Bible to be a history
of the human race.^
Upon this subject the Intelligent Bible student
will not fail to arrive at three conclusions. The
first Is that there is a definite system In Biblical
chronology ; and the second Is that the writers
had no thought of any system whatever. And,
thirdly, finding that there is a system, and that it
' LXX. reads three, and this in itself proves that it is merely an
error of copying.
" See p. 194, post.

Ch. XII.] BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY 163
Is not the outcome of human thought or plan, he
will accept the obvious conclusion that it is
Divine. Some of our chronologists have vaguely noticed
such a system, but all of them have been misled
by the universally prevailing error of regarding
the birth of Christ, and not the Crucifixion, as the
crisis and close of the Jewish dispensation. As
to His birth date Scripture Is silent; but His
death date Is fixed with definiteness. For no date
in history Is indicated more precisely than the
epoch of the Ministry, namely, the 15th year of
Tiberius Caesar ; and as the Crucifixion occurred
at the fourth Passover of the Ministry, its date is
definitely fixed by Scripture itself as InA.D. 32.'
On a subject of this kind all heresies and fads
are to be deprecated. Let us accept the dates as
given by our greatest chronologist, Fynes Clinton.
But with one slight correction. His " Adam "
date Is B.C. 4138, and his "Deluge" date 2482;
but for cogent reasons given by the learned
author of the Ordo scedorum, I would add three
years to the Gen. xii. -xiv. period, and fix the

" Luke iii. i is an end of controversy on this subject with all
who reject the nightmare system of interpreting Scripture. The
matter is fully discussed in Daniel in the Critics' Den, App. vi.,
and also in The Coming Prince, to which I beg to refer the reader.

£64 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Creation at b.c. 4141, and the Deluge at B.C. 2485.
Clinton assigns the Call of Abraham to B.C. 2055,
and the Exodus to b.c 1625.
Clinton fixed these several dates without
reference to any system ; but their striking
significance will be made clear by the following
table : —
B.C.
4141 Adam — The Creation. 1 ^,^ .
^ ^ J-1656 years.)
2485 Noah— The Flood. \ \ 2086 years.
V430 years. )
2055 Abraham — The Covenant../ I430 years. ]
1625 Moses — The Law. J [2086 years.
}-i656years.J
A.D.32 Christ — The Crucifixion. J
Now to dismiss these results as accidental is
simply absurd. Certain it Is that they are
absolutely accidental in the sense that they were
not designed either by the chronologist or by the
" Biblical writers." But the proof these figures
afford of a Divine plan of " time and seasons " Is
overwhelming. And If any one should still in
sist that the results are a mere coincidence, the
mathematician will tell him that the probabilities
against such a coincidence are altogether Incalcu
lable. In a word, such a conclusion is a misbelief
which revolts our intelligence.

Ch. XIL] BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY 165
Are we, then, to conclude that the period from
this " Coronation year," 1902, to the first appear
ance of the Adam race on earth was exactly 6,042
years.-* By no means. Scripture itself will furnish
us with a clew to the system on which the Divine
chronology is framed.
According to i Kings vi. i, Solomon's temple
was begun in the 480th year from the Exodus.
" If a little of the time and energy which the critics.
have expended in denouncing that passage as a
forgery or a blunder had been devoted to searching
for Its hidden meaning, their labours might per
chance have been rewarded. That the chronology
of the period was known is plain from Acts xiii.,
which enables us to reckon the very same era as
573 years. How then can this seeming error of
93 years be accounted for ? It is precisely the
sum of the several eras of the Servitudes. The
inference, therefore. Is clear that ' the 480th year '
means the 480th year of national life and national
responsibilities." '
' Acts xiii. 18-21 gives 40 years in the wilderness, 450 years-
under the Judges, and 40 years for the reign of Saul. To which
must be added the 40 years of David's reign, and the first three
years of Solomon, for it was in his fourth year that he began to.
build the Temple. The servitudes were to Mesopotamia for 8
years, to Moab for 18 years, to Canaan for 20 years, to Midian for
7 years, and to the Philistines for 40 years. See Judges iii. 8, 14 ;
iv. 2, 3 ; vi. i. ; xiii. i. But 8 -H 18 -1- 20 -f 7 -(- 40 years are pre-

1 66 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Call this a coincidence, and the mathematician
will tell you again that the probabilities against
such a coincidence are simply incalculable.
When the rejection of one hypothesis involves the
acceptance of another, mere unbelief degenerates
Into misbelief.
A life without God Is death. Righteousness
must keep a strict account, or Grace may pardon.
And when God forgives sin. He " remembers It
no more." The record is wiped out, and the time
it covers is treated as a blank. The days of our
servitude to sin are Ignored in the Divine chron-

¦cisely equal to 93 years. To believe that this is a mere
coincidence would involve an undue strain upon our faith.
Acts. xiii. 20 is one of the very many passages where the New
Testament Revisers have corrupted the text through neglect of
the well-known principles by which experts are guided in dealing
with conflicting evidence. It is certain that neither the apostle
said, nor the evangelist wrote, that Israel's enjoyment of the land
was limited to 450 years, or that 450 years elapsed before the era
of the Judges. The text adopted by R.V. is therefore clearly
wrong. Dean Alford regards it " as an attempt at correcting the
difficult chronology of the verse ; " and he adds, " taking the
words as they stand, no other sense can be given to them than
that the time of the Judges lasted 450 years." That is, as he
explains, not that the Judges ruled for 450 years — ^in which case
the accusative would be used, as in verse 18 — but, as the use of
the dative implies, that the period until Saul, characterised by the
rule of the Judges, lasted 450 years.
The objection that I omit the servitude of Judges x. 7, 8 is met
by a reference to the R.V. The punctuation of the passage in
Bagster's Bible perverts the sense. That servitude affected only
the tribes beyond Jordan.

Ch. XIL] BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY 167
ology. May not this be the explanation of the
enigma ? And if it be, we shall be prepared to
find that possibly the Divine chronology of the
race omits as many periods of various lengths as
does the 480 years era of i Kings vi.
But this Is mere conjecture. What concerns us
is the fact, first, that the chronology of the Old
Testament is framed upon a system, and a system,
moreover, which is not of human design ; and
secondly, that there is a mystic element in It.
And If when the Egyptologists have been brought
to reason by some process akin to " cross-examin
ation," it should become clear that the history of
our race extends back far beyond the time of
which Scripture appears to take cognisance, the
discrepancy may be thus accounted for.
The element of design is beyond question, and
the clew to it is to be found in the history of the
favoured people. As we have seen, the covenant
with Abraham Is made the central date between
the Creation and the Cross, and the ages measured
back and forward from that epoch are each
divided Into two periods of equal length, but
in inverse order. And the history of that people
is marked throughout by cycles of "seventy
weeks " of years.
From the entrance into Canaan (b.c 1586-5)

1 68 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
to the establishment of the monarchy (b.c 1096)
was 490 years.
From the kingdom (b.c 1096) to the Servitude
to Babylon (b.c 606) was 490 years.
From the conquest by Babylon the national
history of Judah was suspended until the royal
edict of Artaxerxes Longimanus of Persia ordered
the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and
restored the old polity of the Judges ; and then
began the mystic era of 490 years which con
stitute the " seventy weeks " of Daniel's prophecy.
And from the dedication of Solomon's temple
(b.c 1005) to the dedication of the second temple
In the sixth year of Darius Hystaspis (b.c 515)
was also a period of 490 years.
Now all this is deduced from works written in
different ages by men who had no plan or purpose
of the kind in view. To attribute the results to
chance is too silly for discussion, and no intelli
gent person will hesitate to conclude that the
chronology of the Old Testament Is part of a
Divine plan, or " economy of times and seasons."
I deprecate the suggestion that the Christian's
faith In the Bible depends on such Incidental
proofs of its "hidden harmony." But they are
not altogether without value as an antidote to
the scepticism of the critics.

CHAPTER XIII
I HAVE a vivid recollection of a conversation
it was my privilege to hold some years ago
with one whose words, whether by voice or pen,
always command the attention of the public, and
who has identified himself to some extent with
the Higher Criticism. He took exception to my
saying that the truth of Christianity is Identified
with the Divine authority of the Hebrew Scrip
tures. The teaching of the Lord Himself, he
averred, was its full and sufficient basis ; and for
that teaching we are dependent only on the
Gospels. And on my pressing him he maintained
that the Gospels were inspired in a special sense
— in the strictest sense, indeed, in which both
Jews and Christians have spoken of Inspiration —
so that even in such prolonged discourses as "the
Sermon on the Mount," we have an infallible
record of the very words of Christ.
" But," I urged, "if you accept the Inspiration
169

170 TPIE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
of the Gospels — and the denial of it destroys the
only reasonable foundation for our faith in Christ
— you must accept also the Lord's teaching as to
the Divine authority of the Old Testament. You
want me to believe, moreover, that the Gospel
of Luke, for example. Is fully and strictly inspired,
but that the Acts, written by the same Evangelist,
Is of lower authority and value ; and that the
Epistles, though written by inspired Apostles,
were not Inspired in the same sense as the
Gospels, two of which are by men who were not
apostles at all."
To this I received no answer. Nor is any
answer possible. Every free and fearless thinker
will side with me in saying that no compromise
of the kind thus proposed Is tenable. We must
make choice between two positions in this matter.
Either the Bible Is "God-breathed" (which is
the traditional belief of the people of God In all
ages), or else its claim to our faith Is merely that
It consists In the main of the writings of men who
received Divine revelations, and therefore that It
contains such revelations. Or to state the prob
lem In other words, either the Bible is the Word
of God, or it merely contains portions and truths
which may In a sense be thus described.
And the question here involved Is not affected

Ch. XIII.] INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE 171
by doubts as to the genuineness of some particular
book or books. If an expert examines the con
tents of my purse and convinces me that one of
my coins is spurious, the discovery only serves to
give me increased confidence In the value of the
rest. This is not in the least what people usually
mean who say that the Bible merely contains the
Word of God. They mean that the human
element so permeates the mass that no part of it
is absolutely Divine. The Divine element, there
fore, which is also present, and on account of
which they maintain in a sense the Inspiration
of the Scriptures, Is no guarantee of absolute
truth. In fact they give to the word Inspiration
" a meaning which Is in great measure independent
of the truth or falsehood of the writings so
inspired." '
Now any person of ordinary intelligence can
see that a Bible of this kind affords no ground
for faith. We may say " I think," " I hope ; "
but to go on and say " I believe," " I know,"
would be unwarrantable. This does not trouble
the mere library student; but those who are
actively engaged in the Christian ministry, and
have practical acquaintance with the spiritual
» Prebendary Wace, D.D., Lex Mosaica, p. 610.

172 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
needs of men, know well that this half scepticism
will not satisfy any who are alive to the great
realities of "sin and righteousness and judgment."
For nothing short of certainty will satisfy the
awakened soul.
Until recent years. In Britain at least, certainty
was found in the Bible regarded as Divinely
Inspired ; and here it was that faith and unbelief
measured their distance. But it Is a notable test
of the growth of " the Christian religion " and the
decline of Christianity, that so many of those who
give up the Bible are eager to claim a footing in
the camp of faith. The compromise which satis
fies some Is that to which I have referred, the
setting up an inner Canon within the Canon of
Scripture, by arbitrarily selecting certain books
as being In a special sense inspired. But this, as
we have seen, is not even consistent with Itself.
The Lux Mundi school, on the other hand,
has fallen back on "the Church" as the source
of authority. In this matter the position of the
Church of Rome is that of the Latin fathers in
the teaching of the fourth and fifth centuries. It
was definitely formulated by Augustine of Hippo,
according to whom, as Professor Harnack puts it,
" The Church guaranteed the truth of the faith,
when the individual could not perceive It." But

Ch. XIII.] THE "LUX MUNDI" SCHOOL 173
behind the Church was an inspired, and therefore
infallible, Bible, of which it was the Divinely ap
pointed custodian.' Now this position Is at least
intelligent, and it may be stated in a way that seems
to command approval. Our Courts of Justice are
not above the law, but they are the accredited
exponents of the law ; and It rests with them, and
not with private persons, to interpret the law.
And so here, the Church does not claim to supplant
the Bible, but merely to interpret it authoritatively
and infallibly.
And this was, with certain modifications, the
position maintained by English High Churchmen
of the last generation. But the new school of
which the editor of Lux Mundi is the apostle,
sets up the Church, not because the private
Christian is Incompetent to Interpret the Infallible
Bible, but because the Bible, so far from being
infallible, is marred by error, and therefore affords
no sure basis of faith.
The ancient theory is thus described by
Professor Huxley in his last letter in the Times
correspondence cited in a previous chapter 2 : —
"The infallible Church guarantees the infallibility

' This is reaffirmed in that wonderful document, the Pope's
Encyclical letter of November 18, 1893.
• Chap. IX., ante.

174 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
of the Bible ; and the Infallible Bible guarantees
the infallibility of the Church. But if the Hindoo
who rested the earth-bearing elephant upon a
tortoise, and was met by the question, ' On what
then does the tortoise rest ? ' had answered, ' On
the elephant,' the reply would not have very
much assisted the querist."
But this writer's " earth-bearing elephant " rests
upon a tortoise which rests upon nothing. He
claims belief of the facts recorded In the Gospels,
but refuses to guarantee that the Gospels are free
from error ; and when we demand why we should
believe them, the answer we get Is, "To these
facts, in the Church's name, we claim assent." We
are to accept the facts, he tells us, not only with
out raising the question whether the Scriptures
which record them are Inspired, but without
exacting an assurance even that they are true.'
I cite these witnesses merely to confirm what
every Intelligent thinker must recognise, that
faith — or, in other words, Christianity — must
have some fixed and sure foundation. And this
we have first and chiefly in the words of the Lord

' Bishop Gore's creed on this subject is formulated in Lux
Mundi (see p. 340 especially), a work to which in his more recent
treatise on the Church he expressly refers his readers. I have
more fully discussed the question in The Buddha of Christendom.

Ch. XIII.] OUR LORD'S TESTIMONY 175
Jesus Christ Himself. " Heaven and earth shall
pass away," He declared, " but My words shall
not pass away." His words were not " inspired" :
they were absolutely Divine : it Is the record of
them that is inspired. Nor let any one object
that here my argument moves in a vicious circle.
For these pages are addressed to Christians, and
the faith of the Christian can have no other basis
than the Gospels, regarded as God-breathed
Scripture. H I were writing for sceptics — If the
question at Issue were the truth of Christianity —
my argument would run on different lines.
And from this standpoint it is that we proceed
to consider the character of the Bible as a whole.
As we have seen, the Hebrew Scriptures are
accredited to us by the Lord Himself' His
language respecting them Is clear and explicit:
*' The Scriptures cannot be broken." " They are
they which testify of Me." " It Is easier for
heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the
law to fail." And the resurrection brought no
change In His teaching. Kenosis theories, there
fore, will avail nothing here. " Beginning at
Moses and all the prophets. He expounded unto
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
' See pp. 67-69, ante.

176 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Himself" " And He said unto them, These are
the words which I spake unto you while I was
yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which were written In the Law of Moses, and in
the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning
Me." ' This was the well - known threefold
division of the Hebrew Bible — the Law, the
Prophets, and the other writings. The Book
of Psalms came first in the last division of the
Canon, and thus gave its name to the whole.
The Bible which the Lord thus unfolded to His
disciples was Identical with the Old Testament
we have in our hands to-day, not one book or
chapter less or more, and He thus accredited It
as a whole a;nd in every part as being a testimony
to Himself 2
But the question remains whether the New
Testament has equal claims upon our faith.
Now, first, let us mark the Lord's assurances
and promises to those whom He left as His
witnesses upon earth. In view of persecution to
come. He said this to them, " When they deliver
you up, take no thought how or what ye shall
speak ; for it shall be given you in that same
hour what ye shall speak. For It is not ye that
' Luke xxiv. 27, 44. ' See p. 68, ante.

Ch. XIII.] VERBAL INSPIRATION 177
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which
speaketh in you." ' At another time, and in a
different connection. He said again, " When they
bring you before the synagogues, and the rulers,
and the authorities, be not anxious how or what
ye shall answer, or what ye shall say ; for the
Holy Spirit shall teach you In that very hour
what ye ought to say." ^
If " verbal Inspiration " Is not here implied,
will some one tell us how It could be more clearly
described or expressed ? Or are we to suppose
that these men were to utter Divinely given
words when defending themselves before the
courts, but that they were to sink to some lower
level of inspiration when declaring or expound
ing truth for the guidance of the Church in all
ages? "He that heareth you heareth Me," He
said In appointing them to their ministry ; 3 and
so fully was their testimony to rank with His
own, that a worse doom than that of Sodom and
Gomorrah shall befall the house or city that
refused to "hear their words." ^

' Matt. X. 19, 20. " Luke xii. 11, 12 (R.V.).
3 The fact that these words have been prostituted by the
Church of Rome to cover the gigantic imposture of its claims,
must not be allowed to rob us of their true meaning and
legitimate application.
'I Matt. X. 14, 15. 13

178 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
At the first great Pentecost, we read, "They
were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began
to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
them utterance." Again I ask, if this be not
" verbal Inspiration," what is .'' But though thus
inspired to preach to a Jerusalem crowd, these
same men were left to "sanctified mother wit"
when they sat down to write the Gospels which
were to be the basis of His people's faith to the
end of time !
Here was His promise to them : " The
Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in My name. He shall teach you all
things, and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you." ' If these
words were fulfilled, there is an end of the
inspiration controversy so far as the New
Testament is concerned.
Some writers on Inspiration convey the im
pression that they regard it as a sort of spiritual
electricity or steam, which was not to be wasted
by supplying more than absolutely necessary.
And judging God by their own mean thoughts,
they suppose the supply was so stingy as actually
to fail of its purpose altogether. For that
' John xiv. 26.

Ch. XIII.] INSPIRATION OF THE EPISTLES 179
purpose was not to please or satisfy cranks or
critics, but to reveal to us with absolute definite
ness and certainty the truth of God for faith to
rest upon, and the will of God for heart and
life to follow and obey. And any inspiration
which comes short of this Is practically worth
less. Now when we come to the Epistles we must
read them in the light of these promises of
inspiration and infallible guidance to those who
wrote them. We know the estimate in which,
under the Lord's teaching, the Apostle Peter
held the Old Testament prophets ; ' and yet
he makes those prophets subordinate to the
apostles. " Unto whom it was revealed," he
writes, " that not unto themselves, but unto us
did they minister the things which are now
reported unto you by them that have preached
the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent
down from, heaven." ^ For they had the presence
of the Holy Spirit in a new and peculiar sense,
unknown even to the prophets of Jehovah. And

' See p. 51, ante.
' 1 Pet. i. 12. This is to be understood by reference to the
Lord's promise that they would have the presence of the Holy
Spirit in a special sense different from that in which He was with
the people of God before the ascension (John xiv. 17 ; xv. 26 ;
xvi. 7, 13).

i8o THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
therefore their words were Divine. " The mouth
of Jehovah hath spoken it," was Isaiah's language
respecting the great prophecy of comfort, and he
added, "the word of our God shall stand for
ever." And these Identical words are applied
by the apostle to the apostolic preaching. Their
word was "the Word of God" by which be
lieving souls were born again to God — that
word which " endure th for ever."'
If this was not verbal inspiration, what is ?
But are we to suppose that this enlightenment
was limited to Gospel sermons, and denied them
when they entered upon the discharge of their
highest apostolic functions ? ^
And not only does the Apostle Peter place
apostolic words on a par with those of the
greatest of the Hebrew prophets ; he goes
further and brackets the Epistles of the Apostle
Paul with " the other Scriptures " 3 — those holy
writings which " cannot be broken," which were
held to be "the Word of God" — "the oracles
of God."
' I Pet. i. 23-25 ; Isa. xl. 5-8.
» The Church of Christendom regards the preaching the Gospel
to the world as essentially an apostolic function. But this was
precisely the ministry which, after Pentecost, the apostles left to
the body of believers (Acts viii. i, 4. Mark the words, " except
the apostles.").
3 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.

Ch. xiii.] the APOSTLE PAUL'S CLAIM i8i
And the Apostle Paul himself, when his
authority was questioned in Corinth, wrote such
words as these : "If any man think himself to
be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge
that the things which I write unto you are the
commandments of the Lord." '
Now In these pages I am not laying down
the law, or defending any theory of inspiration.
I am writing merely as a Christian to Christians,
and dealing with Scripture as I find it. And I
have done so in an unconventional way which
will shock some old-fashioned people. At the
risk of still further offending them, I will ask
this question : "If this is not the language of
an inspired apostle, and intended to place his
Epistle on a par with the very words of His Lord
and Master, must we not write him down as
either an hysterical fool or an arrogant and pro
fane ecclesiastic ? "
And now I ask for special attention to this
Apostle's language in the earlier part of this same
Epistle : it is the nearest thing the Bible gives
to an explanation of inspiration. " Now," he
writes, " we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the spirit which is of God ; that we
' I Cor. xiv. 37.

i82 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
might know the things that are freely given us by
God. Which things also we speak, not in the
words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual." ' For the translation of
these last words, the Revisers suggest two alter-
natives.2 But to avoid side Issues, let us take
the passage as it stands. And I ask, If the
apostle had In view the suggestion that Inspiration
extended only to the "things " he wrote, and not
to the words in which he wrote them, could he
have met it more definitely ?
Not only were his communications about things
Divinely revealed, but they were made, not in
words such as human wisdom would suggest, but
in words taught him by the Spirit of God. Will
some one tell us how " verbal inspiration " could
be expressed. If this does not express it ? Or
does the critic again try to escape by the quibble
that this kind of inspiration applied only to
apostolic speaking, and not to apostolic writing?
Not, I repeat, that such inspiration places the
Apostle In the position of the Planchette In a
• I Cor. ii. 12, 13.
= The one is to read combining for "comparing," in which
case the clause means, " combining the things of the Spirit with
the words which the Spirit teaches us to use in regard to them " ;
and the other is, " interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men."

Ch. XIIL] the APOCALYPSE 183
spiritualistic siance — as a sort of animated type
writing machine. In inspiration God uses the
mind as well as the hand of man, and He gives
His revelation in human words — the language
of the agent whom He thus employs.'
I have dealt thus briefly with the Epistles. Of
the Apocalypse I need not speak at all ; for all
must recognise that if it be not what it claims to
be — a Divine revelation — its visions may be
dismissed as the lucubration of a disordered
brain. And between these alternatives the
Christian will not hesitate. It fitly closes the
sacred volume. "It recapitulates and confirms
all the preceding testimony of prophets and
apostles. As it refers to the history of God's
kingdom on earth from the Garden of Eden to
the reign of David — so it brings before us. In
new combinations, and with a light fuller and
brighter, the symbolism of Isaiah and Daniel, of
Ezekiel and Zecharlah. The glorious facts and
doctrines revealed In the Gospels and Epistles, are
presented here in the most condensed form. Only
in the light of its predecessors can this Book be
understood. The wonderful and manifold threads
laid during many centuries are here connected ;
' See pp. 86, 87 ante.

1 84 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
the voices of all previous witnesses are blended
together for the last time. In harmony majestic
and melodious." '
"But," It will be said, "if we come down to
the prosaic level of fact, all this is met and answered
by the errors of the New Testament ; and it is
chiefly in the Gospels — the pivot on which all the
rest Is made to turn, that these errors will be
found." This claims consideration, and the
following chapters shall be devoted to it
" The words are Adolph Saphir's.

CHAPTER XIV
TO poison a healthy body with the virus of
a foul disease is horrible, but yet when
smallpox is raging vaccination becomes a duty.
And in these days when an epidemic of scepticism
prevails, and no one can hear a sermon or read
a book without risk of infection, inoculation by
a friendly hand may possiby serve to avert a
malignant attack of the disease.
Let us be done with grandmotherly theology.
The dark ages are past and gone. We belong
to an age of enlightenment. The Twentieth
Century has dawned. No Protestant, moreover,
should fear free thought. To fall back upon
authority and traditional beliefs is sheer apostasy
from the principles of the Reformation.
Beneath appeals like these there lies a definite
element of truth. And, truth or no truth, they
are always popular. I am bound, moreover. In
honesty to confess that personally I am pre-
I8S

1 86 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
disposed to respond to them. Every book I
have written gives proof of fearlessness in
bringing critical methods to bear upon the study
of Scripture. I cannot associate myself with any
general campaign against criticism. My quarrel
with the Higher Criticism is not because it is
criticism, but because, instead of being what It
claims to be, it is criticism of a spurious
type. I have already referred to the Ptolemaic
System. " Ptolemy the Astronomer was a
' Higher Critic' The belief had long prevailed
that the sun was the centre of our system ; but he
had no difficulty in proving that this traditional
belief was untenable. Once he got men to
consider the matter from their own standpoint,
all could see the absurdity of supposing that the
earth on which they lived and moved was flying
helter-skelter round the sun. And nothing more
was needed but to keep the mind occupied with
the many apparent difficulties of the hypothesis
he opposed, to the exclusion of all thought of
the few but insurmountable difficulties of the
theory he advocated. The Professors and
experts were convinced, the multitude followed
suit, and for more than a thousand years the
puerilities of the Ptolemaic System held sway,

Ch. XIV.] THE "PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM" 187
with the sanction of infallible science and the
blessing of an infallible Church." '
Let us then turn to study the Scriptures on
the " Ptolemaic System." This kind of work
is not to my liking, but I think I could do it as
well as the Professors. Shutting out God, let us
insist on dealing with the Bible from the purely
human standpoint, and treat it as a purely human
book. Were I writing a many-volumed work,
I should like to go over the whole of the Old and
New Testament In this way. But here I must
be content to take a test case, as the lawyers
would say ; and I cannot do better than keep to
the Gospels. And still further to limit the
subject, I will confine myself to the First and
the Fourth. I want to inoculate the reader with
the scepticism virus.
Apart from superstition and the thraldom of
received opinions, can any honest-minded person
fail to recognise that these Gospels receive their
colour and mould from the idiosyncrasies of the
men who wrote them ? Could we not name a
" Matthew " and a " John " within the circle of
our own acquaintance ? Matthew Is a man of
narrow mind and heart, who has not a thought
' Daniel in the Critics' Den, 1902 Ed., p. 146,

1 88 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
beyond the interests of his little land and people.
The very first sentence of his book gives proof
of this. His Messiah Is the son of Abraham the
Arab chief, and of David the petty tribal king.
The triviality of Joseph's pedigree is his next
concern. He then goes on to record the birth
of the sacred child as connected with a dream
and a prophecy ; and he makes occasion to bring
in a story of his being hailed, even in Infancy, as
" King of the Jews," and being regarded by
king Herod as a rival claimant to his throne.
The preaching attributed to the Messiah is
another indication of the writer's character. We
all know the sort of man who delights in the
pedantry of discarding familiar expressions, and
of using phrases peculiar to himself Such a man
was Matthew. Three-and-thlrty times he insists
on writing "kingdom of heaven," though not
one of all the other writers of the New Testament
employs the expression even once. It was not
that he coined It. He borrowed it from the Book
of Daniel, which relates so specially to the fortunes
of the Jewish nation.
Then comes " the Sermon on the Mount," that
crux of the orthodox. People of a certain sort
pretend that the world could be governed on the
principles there enunciated ; but they are careful

Ch. XIV.] THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 189
not to act on them when their own Interests are
involved. This is followed by the record of a few
extraordinary miracles ; and next we come to the
sending out of the disciples. And what a com
mission they received, if Matthew may be trusted !
" Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into
any city of the Samaritans enter ye not : but go
rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." '
Jews, and none but Jews, are even to hear about
the Saviour of the world ! Could the wit of man
frame words more inconsistent with what the rest
of the New Testament declares to be the spirit
and scope of Christianity ! 2
But why go on ? From the first chapter to the
last we shall search In vain for a single sentence
to raise the narrative above the plane of Jewish
Interests and hopes. Even the great prophecy
recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter has
Jerusalem for its centre. And the vision of
judgment in the chapter which follows represents
blessing or doom to the Gentiles according as
• Matt. X. 5, 6.
• " If Christianity consist of the doctrines preached in the
Fourth Gospel it is not too much to say that the Synoptists do not
teach Christianity at all. The extraordinary phenomenon is
presented of three Gospels, each professing to be complete in
itself, and to convey the good tidings of salvation to man, which
have actually omitted the doctrines which are the conditions of
that salvation " (Supernatural Religion, ii. 465).

I go THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
they befriended or persecuted the favoured nation.
And finally, even the great commission after the
resurrection is represented here as addressed to
Jews, charging them to baptize and teach the
Gentiles.' The change from the First Gospel to the Fourth
is like emerging from a gloomy cloister to the
free air of heaven and the open sunshine. The
True Light was in the world — His own world,
the world that He had made. " The Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and
truth." And the secret of His coming was
because God loved the world ; and the purpose
of it was " that whosoever belie veth In Him
should not perish, but have eternal life." Who
soever. The narrow channel of a nation's hopes
is lost in the great wide sea of Divine love. And
there Is life, and not judgment, for the sinner
who believes. " For God sent not His Son into
the world to condemn the world ; but that the
world through Him might be saved."
But here a doubt obtrudes itself : a cloud
appears and shuts out our sunshine. If the
peculiarities of the First Gospel be due to the

" This is true ; but the inference here drawn from it is, I need
not say, entirely false. The commission is a prophetic one.
See The Buddha of Christendom, pp. 270-273.

Ch. XIV.] DIFFICULTIES AND DOUBTS 191
character of the writer of it, may not also the
distinctive features of the Fourth be thus ac
counted for. And if it be clear that both cannot
be Inspired, what ground is left for claiming a
Divine authorship for either ?
Difficulties and doubts of this kind troubled me
even before I left school. But fortunately I did
not then know that they were supposed to be
proof of abnormal cleverness. For though in
childhood I often met a pundit who, as I after
wards discovered, was one of the pioneers of
Higher Criticism in this country, he never tried
to corrupt the faith of the young, as so many of
his successors do to-day. And had he done so he
might possibly have failed to influence me ; for
we children were impressed not so much by his
great learning as by his great silliness. So in
my schoolboy days, instead of thinking I was
very clever, I took for granted I was very
wicked ; and I generally dismissed the matter in
the hope that when I became a Christian In the
true and real sense, I should be able to read the
Bible differently, and to understand things which
then seemed to me inexplicable — a hope that was
in due time realised, though not in the trans
cendental way that I expected.
Some people seem to enjoy parading their

192 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
inner experiences. To me it is an ordeal. But
I will submit to it If others can be helped thereby.
In the first enthusiasm of my Christian life I
gave no thought to difficulties such as these.
But there are times, as every Christian knows,
" when neither sun nor stars in many days appear,
and no small tempest lies on us " ; and at a
crisis of this kind these difficulties all came back ;
and in the light of knowledge gained in my
college days, they seemed more utterly insoluble
than ever.
Men place in parallel columns the events
recorded in the Evangelists' narratives, and call
this a " Harmony of the Gospels." What I
wanted was a clew to some sort of harmony In
the doctrines they taught. A systematic study
of them brought me no relief I could make
something of the Synoptists, as they are called ;
but John refused to blend with Matthew. I
turned to Commentaries and " Introductions," and
found in them almost everything except what I
was in search of. If I could have satisfied
myself that the Fourth Gospel was Divinely in
spired, I should have been willing to throw over
the other three. But proof of this was wanting.
It was written long after the other Gospels, and
therefore, viewed as a human document, it was
less trustworthy than the rest.

Ch. XIV.] DIFFICULTIES AND DOUBTS 193
Discoveries of this kind delight a Higher Critic ;
to me they gave only pain. If a man has cogent
proof that his father is a rogue or his wife
unfaithful, he must face the fact, and consider
how to act on it. But one who would accept the
proof with alacrity and pleasure is not more utterly
contemptible than the man who can contemplate
the collapse of faith in the Bible without distress,
if not dismay. I kept my difficulties to myself,
until a lecture I heard one evening in a friend's
drawing-room gave me a clew to the solution of
them ; and the Bible became a new book to me
from that hour. At this point I will drop the
personal element In my narrative, and give in
another chapter the results attained. To
describe the steps by which those results were
reached would be, if not uninteresting, at least
unprofitable.

14

CHAPTER XV
THE Bible is the history of man." "The
Gospels were written to teach the way of
salvation." These are but specimens of popular
errors which serve to make those who hold
them an easy prey to the sceptics.
Save for a brief preface of eleven chapters,
covering a period measured by thousands of years,
the burden of the Old Testament is the story of
the Hebrew race. And the first book of the
New Testament is the sequel and conclusion of
the Old. The Gospels are not a set of faulty and
erring narratives, written with a common object.
Their purpose in the Divine scheme of revelation
is to present the Lord Jesus Christ In the four
great aspects of His mission and work, ' as
Israel's Messiah, Jehovah's Servant, Son of Man
and Son of God. And it is by a true instinct
that earnest souls turn to the Fourth Gospel when
' " Four discriminated aspects of their common subject, . . .
but one portrait " (Bampton Lectures, 1864).
194

Ch. XV.] MATTHEW AND JOHN 195
they seek the path of life ; for the words which
close the twentieth chapter describe the contents
of every page, " These are written that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ;
and that believing ye might have life through
His name."
I must adhere to the limits I have set myself,
and deal only here with Matthew and John.
Does any Christian really believe that the striking
differences between the two, from first to last, can
be explained on the theory that the one apostle
was a bigoted Jew and the other a dreamy
enthusiast ?
And if the Gospels be mere human docu
ments, nothing less than this will account for the
facts. Both men received the same teaching
throughout the whole period of the Ministry.
Both heard those " most sacred of all sacred
words " uttered upon the eve of the Crucifixion.
Both were re-commissioned In the same terms
after the resurrection. And yet as we study the
First Gospel — I here repeat as fact and truth what
I have already suggested as a sceptical difficulty
— " From the first chapter to the last we shall
search in vain for a single sentence to raise the
narrative above the plane of Jewish interests and
hopes."

196 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Let me give a startling instance of the contrast
In the teaching. The Fourth Gospel tells of eternal
life as the free gift of God to every sinner who
believes In Christ ; whereas In the First Gospel
the only passages where eternal life Is mentioned, '
deal with it on strictly Old Testament lines.
There are two possible explanations of all this.
Either one of the apostles of the Lord — men
specially chosen to be His witnesses in a wholly
peculiar sense — deliberately set himself to mis
represent his Master's mission and pervert His
teaching ; or else he did this Innocently, through
sheer stupidity and Ignorance. Will any Chris
tian dare to Identify himself with either of these
hypotheses ? Can any one — Christian or not —
suggest a third ?
Yes, a third Is possible ; but it assumes that
the Gospels are. not mere human records. "Christ
was a minister of the circumcision for the truth
of God to confirm the promises made unto the
fathers." 2 And "the Hebrew Gospel," as it Is

" Matt. xix. 16, 29 ; xxv. 40-46.
' Rom. XV. 8. The next verse runs on, " And that the Gentiles
might glorify God for His mercy.'' To the people of the cove
nant His coming was a matter of promise : to Gentiles (who are
" strangers from the covenants of promise " — Ephes. ii. 12), it was
pure mercy. The Divine accuracy of Holy Scripture never
misses distinctions such as this.

Ch. XV.] THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 197
sometimes called, is the Divine record of this
" Ministry of the Circumcision."
With this clew to guide us we shall find that
the very same characteristics which, in my case
at least, tempted to unbelief, now establish faith.
People read the New Testament backwards, and
with erroneous preconceptions of its scheme and
scope ; and when they reach its preface they
demand, "What has a Jewish genealogy to do
with the advent of the Son of God as the Saviour
of the world?" The answer is, "Absolutely
nothing" ; and the Gospel which so presents Him
omits even the mention of His birth. The Bible
opens with the declaration, "In the beginning
created God " : ' so here, "In the beginning was
THE Word. 2 And then, " The Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. " How made flesh it
matters not. " He was in the world, and the
world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not. But as many as received Him to
them gave He the right to become children of
God, even to them that believe on His name."
The casual reader will miss nothing from these
words ; and yet the omission I have made is one
of the utmost moment. I have quoted the tenth
' Gen. i. i. This is the order of the words in the Hebrew.
' John i. I.

198 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
and twelfth verses ; here is the eleventh : " He
came unto His own, and His own received Him
not."^
This brief sentence gives the whole purpose
and scope of the First Gospel. Now we can
appreciate its opening words, " The book of the
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the
son of Abraham." He was "a minister of the
circumcision," the earthly people of the covenant
— " of whom,"- as the Apostle Paul declares, " is
Christ as concerning the flesh." * And he speaks
of Him again as " of the seed of David."3
Hence His genealogy is traced to Abraham, the
father of the covenant and the founder of the
race, and to David, the head of the royal
house. 4 Hence, too, the emphasis laid upon the
fact of his birth in Bethlehem, the royal city.
Let me repeat all this in borrowed words.
" The record of St. Matthew, ever recognised as
the Hebrew Gospel, is the true commencement of
the New Testament, showing how it grows out of

' Our English idiom cannot express the meaning here : the
margin of R.V. gives one of the " schoolboy translations " that
so often mar that work. The French is more apt : " II est venu
chez soi, et les siens ne I'ont point regu."
» Rom. ix. 5, R.V. ' 2 Tim. ii. 8.
* As regards the difference between the genealogies of Matthew
and Luke, see Appendix, Note IV.

Ch. XV.] CANON BERNARD ON MATTHEW 199
the Old, and presenting the manifestation of the
Son of God not as a detached phenomenon, but
as the predestined completion of the long course
of historic dispensations. It is the Book of the
generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the
Son of Abraham. It founds Itself on the ideas
of the old covenant. It refers at every step,
especially In Its earlier chapters, to the former
Scriptures, noting how that was fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophets. It is a history of
fulfilment, presenting the Lord as the fulfiller of
all righteousness, the fulfiller of the Law and the
Prophets, not come to destroy, but to fulfil. It
sets Him forth as a King and Lawgiver in that
kingdom of heaven for which a birthplace and a
home had been prepared in Israel : and thus
corresponds to that period in the historical course
of events when the word was preached to none
but to the Jews only."'
And now it only remains for me to give, in
this new light, a brief sketch of the contents of
' Canon Bernard's Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament,
being the " Bampton Lectures,'' 1864. This book, long out of
print, but now happily reissued, is one of the most valuable of
the Bampton series. Such another, though of a wholly different
character, is Dr. Hatch's volume of 1880. Though The Organi
sation of the Early Christian Churches is one of the greatest
theological books of the age, it appears to be systematically
" boycotted " by High Church and Low Church alike.

200 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Matthew's Gospel. The briefest will suffice ; for
others will find, as I did, that once the key is in
their hands, they can open the treasure for them
selves. One proviso, however, is essential. The
Old Testament teems with prophecies and pro
mises relating to the Jewish race. But the
way some people dispose of these is to appro
priate most of them to the Gentile Church of
this dispensation, and to dismiss the rest as
Hebrew poetry. And with this sort of "inter
pretation" of Scripture I can make no terms.
Those who adopt it may skip the rest of this
chapter : it will have no meaning for them.
Between the second chapter of Matthew and
the third, there is an interval of more than thirty
years. The third chapter speaks of the Baptist's
mission, and records the baptism of Christ. The
Old Testament closes with the promise, " Behold,
I will send you Elijah the prophet " ; and the
opening page of the New Testament tells of the
ministry of him who came "In the spirit and
power of Ellas." John was Elijah, if they would
receive him.^ The baptism of Christ is an enigma
to those who attach a pagan meaning to the
• Matt. xi. 14, R.V. (margin). On this passage see by all means
Dean Alford's note, as a correction to the prevailing scepticism on
this subject.

Ch. XV.] PREACHING THE KINGDOM 201
ordinance. His purpose was to identify Himself
with the true remnant of the nation. Then
followed " the Temptation " ; and " from that
time" His ministry began. The Lord Himself
took up the Baptist's testimony, " Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven Is at hand." ' Literally,
"the kingdom of the heavens" — an expression
used three and thirty times in Matthew, and never
once again in the New Testament.^ The fulfil
ment was at hand of all that God had prophesied
and promised of a time when the heavens would
rule over the earth — a reign of righteousness and
peace. The closing verses of the fourth chapter receive
but little notice, and yet their importance in the
narrative is immense. "He went about all
Galilee teaching In their synagogues and preach
ing the gospel of the kingdom and healing all
manner of sickness and all manner of disease
among the people. And His fame went through
out all Syria ; and they brought unto Him all
sick people . . . and He healed them. And
there followed Him great multitudes of people"
from every part of all the land.
The seeming triumph of this first circuit of the
• See Matt. iii. 2 ; iv. 17 ; x. 7.
' See Appendix, Note V.

202 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Ministry led to the proclamation of the principles
of that kingdom which He preached — the spiritual
and moral atmosphere which must prevail where
God rules. For such Is the purpose of the
Sermon on the Mount. Men are always ready
for Divine blessing if only they can have it on
their own terms. If after working siich miracles
the Lord had proclaimed a holy war, the nation
would have rallied round Him. Or had He pro
claimed His " brotherhood " with fallen man — had
He preached a "gospel of humanity" — their
heathen conquerors even might have hailed Him
as a deliverer and carried Him in triumph to the
deserted palace of the Caisars ; for never, perhaps,
before or since, was the pagan world so full of
weariness and despair as in the hateful reign of
Tiberius.' But His purpose was far different. Christen
dom has taught, throughout Its history, that by
His advent He fulfilled the law and ignored the
prophets ; His contemporaries looked to Him to
fulfil the prophets while accepting their own In
terpretation of the law. But the Sermon on the
Mount makes it as clear as light that if the
' During the period of the Ministry, Tiberius was absent from
Rome. He had withdrawn to the island of Capreae, where he
gave himself up to an orgy of sensuality.

Ch. XV.] THE LORD'S MIRACLES 203
heavens are to rule the earth, the will of God
must be " done on earth as it is done in heaven." '
The narrative next records a series of miracles
of special significance. There was One in Israel
who could put His hand upon a leper and yet be
undefiled*; who could heal the sick by a word, 3
or by a touch 4 ; who could command the winds
and waves, S and control the powers of hell ^ ; who
could not only heal the body, but cure and save
the soul.7 And as a crowning public proof that
His power reached to the under world. He could
even raise the dead. 8
This was the period of His personal ministry.
He afterwards commissioned the Apostles, giving
them the same powers He Himself had exercised,?
and entrusting them with the same testimony,
"The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Hence
the limit placed upon their ministry ; for " the
' That the question should even be raised whether the Sermon
on the Mount should guide men now in government is proof of
the hopeless ignorance of Scripture which prevails. It is teach
ing for the governed in the days of the kingdom. Its principles
are eternal, but some of the definite precepts of this " kingdom "
teaching were expressly cancelled by our Lord Himself (see,
e.g., Luke xxii. 35, 36). The common belief appears to be that
the Lord's presence or absence is an element of no importance
whatever. But that is not His view of the matter I
' Matt. viii. 3. 3 Ibid. viii. 13. * Ibid. viii. 15.
s Ibid. viii. 26. ' Ibid. viii. 28-32. ' Ibid. ix. 2.
• Ibid. ix. 25. 9 Ibid. x. 8.

204 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
kingdom of heaven " is the Messianic kingdom
in its earthly aspect.
Chapter xii. records the crisis which changed
the entire character of His public ministry. The
religious leaders of the nation had seen His
miracles and heard His words — they had received
all the public proofs of His Messlahshlp; and
what was their response? They "went out and
took counsel against Him how they might destroy
Him."' The Lord's answer was to "withdraw
Himself;" and though the multitudes which
crowded after Him still proved His power to
heal, instead of bidding them, as in the past, to
tell others of His fame. He " charged them that
they should not make Him known." The chapter
closes with words of awful judgment upon that
" wicked generation " that had thus rejected Him.^
His rejection gave a new character also to His
teaching. Till then it had been open : now It
became veiled in parables. The rejection of the
light brings judicial blindness. The parables
were given that all might hear the new phase of
"kingdom" teaching, but that only those whose
eyes and ears were spiritually open should know
and understand it. 3
' Matt. xii. 14. ' Ver. 45. > Matt. xiii. 10-17.

Ch. XV.] PARABLES OF MATTHEW XIII. 205
No greater contribution has ever been made to
theology than will be his who fully and intelligently
elucidates the teaching of the thirteenth chapter
of Matthew. It contains seven parables. The
first is the preface to the rest, and governs them
all. The Divine description of their subject and
scope is "the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven." ' There was nothing secret about the
kingdom foretold In prophecy and preached by
the Lord and His apostles. But a heavenly
kingdom in which a king reigning in righteous
ness gives place to a sower sowing seed. Is an
utter enigma. The theories of expositors here
are no answer to the ridicule of rationalists. But
the Divine explanation of the " mystery " silences
both the ridicule and the theories.
Human apostasy and sin cannot thwart God's
purposes, but they may and do postpone the ful
filment of them. The disciples themselves came
to understand that, on account of their Lord's
rejection, there was to be another "coming." 2
These parables give us the key to the whole
Intervening period. The first unfolds the
" mystery" of an unseen Sower taking the place
of a manifested ruler. The next three describe
" Ver. II. ¦ Matt. xxiv. 3.

2o6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
the public effects of the ministry of " the Sower."
These, together with the prefatory parable, were
spoken to the multitude : the final three, togethei
with the interpretation of the parable of the tares
were spoken privately to the disciples,' and they
teach what is essential and secret.
In the earlier phase of the Ministry "signs"
were openly given, abundantly sufficient to satisfy
the doubts and silence the cavils of the Pharisees. ^
But when, after they had thus proved themselves
to be "a wicked and adulterous generation," they
again sought a "sign," the answer they received
was a definite refusal. The only miracle they
were to witness now was that of the Prophet
Jonah — the death and resurrection of their re
jected Messiah.3 And following upon this. He
forbade all further testimony to His Messlahshlp.
In this later phase of His ministry He had
enjoined silence upon those who benefited by
His "signs"; now He forbade even His dis
ciples to tell any one that He was the Christ, and
He unfolded to them the mystery of His Passlon.4
But exigencies of space forbid my pursuing the
subject further in detail. As regards the great
prophecy of the twenty-fourth chapter, I will only
' Matt. xiii. 36. ' See, e.g., John ii. 23 ; iii. 2, R.V.
3 Matt. xvi. 1-4. * Ibid. xvi. 20, 21, R.V.

Ch. XV.] THE ARGUMENT RESTATED 207
say here that it deals, not with " the end of the
world," but with the consummation of the age ' —
the events which are to mark the close of " the
evil age which has set In." 2
In conclusion let me restate this part of my
argument. If we are to regard Matthew as a
merely human book, we find ourselves compelled
to account for Its peculiar characteristics in either
of two ways. Either the writer, albeit he was an
apostle of the Lord, and shared all His teaching,
remained in utter ignorance of the distinctive
truths of Christianity ; or else, with a knowledge
of these truths, he perversely and wickedly con
cealed or distorted them.
The critic must make choice between these
alternatives. But the Christian refuses both ; for
he rejects the assumption on which both are based.

' Matt. xxiv. 3 (R.V. margin). The word used in verse 3 is
sunteleia (cf. Heb. ix. 26) ; the word telos is employed in verse 6.
Matt. xxiv. has been well described by Dean Alford as "the
anchor of apocalyptic interpretation." I have dealt with it in
chapter xiii. of The Coming Prince.
' Gal. i. 4. The " age " here intended is that of chapter xiii.
(see p. 205, ante), which is to end with the return of Christ to
establish His kingdom. And then "the mystery of God will
be finished" — the mystery that a God of infinite power and
goodness permits evil to prevail in the world (Rev. x. 7 ; xi. 15).
That will not be an " evil age," and God's people will not need
deliverance from it. " The evil age which has set in " is the age
during which Christ is rejected.

2o8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
To him the First Gospel is not a mere human
treatise, but a Divine revelation ; and grasping
the thought that the purpose of that revelation
was to present Christ as Israel's Messiah, he
accounts for the extraordinary phenomena of the
book in the only way in which they can be reason
ably explained, namely, that the Spirit of God so
guided and restrained both the mind and the hand
of the writer, that his narrative from first to last
does not contain a single sentence inconsistent
with the Divine purpose with which it was
written. It is not that the Lord's words were not
accurately recorded by the Evangelists, but that,
while His teaching covered the whole field of
truth, the inspiring Spirit led the writers to dis
criminate, so that each gave prominence to that
aspect of it which he was used to present. A
commander-in-chief may lay before his generals his
whole plan of battle, but when he issues his orders
each brigadier receives only what it concerns him
to know. The Infantry are not told what part
the cavalry will have to play, and neither is in
formed where the artillery will be placed. So
was it with the Lord and His teaching. In the
very same discourses probably He unfolded to
the apostles the truth relating to the kingdom of

Ch. XV.] THE ARGUMENT RESTATED 209
heaven, and kindred truth in relation to the wider
sphere of the kingdom of God.' But though
these men heard the same words, and though no
doubt they discussed them together times without
number, the fact remains that when they came to
write, these various aspects of truth were kept
distinct. If this Is to be explained on natural
principles, it is a phenomenon which Is absolutely
without parallel in human experience.
• See Appendix, Note V.

IS

CHAPTER XVI
THESE sceptical critics always remind me
of the amateur detective. The amateur
detective is strong on details. But he generally
enters upon an inquiry with a fixed preconcep
tion as to what he is going to find, and he
exhausts his power of attention upon trifles that
seem to point in the direction on which his mind
is set. The trained expert, on the other hand,
coming in with an open mind and a wider
knowledge, will seize on clews that the amateur
has missed.
The microscope serves to make the wonders of
nature seem all the more wonderful, and no criti
cism of Scripture can be too searching and
minute. If only it be intelligent and spiritual.
Such criticism, moreover, is an antidote to the
criticism of the sceptics. For if " knowledge is
power," Ignorance Is weakness. And in no
sphere Is this more true than In the spiritual.

Ch. XVI.] THE "SECOND ADVENT" 211
But the knowledge that is wanting is the know
ledge of Holy Scripture. For all Scripture is
profitable, that the man of God may be "ready
at every point." ' And we cannot with impunity
neglect large sections of Scripture which are
Inextricably interwoven with the rest.
The doctrine of the " Second Advent," as
theologians call it, will serve as a notable illustra
tion of this. The New Testament speaks of the
coming of the Son of Man to earth, to bless His
people upon earth. It speaks of the descent of
the Lord from heaven, and of His people being
caught up from earth to meet Him. It speaks of
His coming as a bridegroom to claim a bride. It
speaks of His coming as a king to receive a
kingdom. It speaks of His feet standing on the
Mount of Olives, " in like manner " as He stood
there with His disciples on the day of His
ascension. It speaks of His being revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming
fire, taking vengeance. It speaks of the dead,
small and great, being arraigned before the great
white throne above. It speaks of the living
nations upon earth being gathered before His
judgment throne of glory.
' 2 Tim. iii. 17. Thus it is that Alford renders it.

212 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Now what are we to make of all these con
flicting statements ? A dull Evangelicalism in
the past was content to read them at dlff"erent
times, and to believe them all without attempting
to understand them. But to maintain such an
attitude in the face of modern criticism Is to
court disaster as certainly as if we were to face
modern artillery with the ordnance used at
Waterloo. Scripture itself must teach us how
all these apparently irreconcilable statements can
be reconciled.
But first let us hear what the critics have to
say about them. We turn for enlightenment to
the standard work already quoted. Dr. Hastings's
Dictionary of the Bible, of which Professor Driver
of Oxford Is one of the principal editors. The
article entitled "Parousia"' deals with this subject.
Its effort to harmonise the passages fails. They
represent, we are told, " two distinct types of
thought." In the one " the Parousia is conceived
after the analogy of the contemporary Jewish
Apocalypses": in the other "the Parousia is
rather the completion of an order of things
already existing." "The question naturally pre
sents Itself as to which of these two types most
¦ A Greek word meaning "the coming," or (as, e.g., in 2 Cor. x. 10
and PhU. ii. 12) " the presence."

Ch.XVL] the critics on the "PAROUSIA" 213
fairly represents the teaching of our Lord." If
to this question a clear answer can be given, all
will be well. But the general result is that the
confusion is due to " an imperfect apprehension
by the disciples of the Master's meaning." '
The only certain thing, therefore. Is the utter
uncertainty that exists as to the truth upon this
subject. Not a single statement In the New
Testament relating to the future Coming Is
worthy of confidence. And as the New Testa
ment writers may not be trusted on this most
vital Issue, no clear-headed, sensible person will
give Implicit belief to their words respecting any
of the transcendental doctrines of Christianity.
Faith is impossible. Agnosticism becomes the
only rational attitude of mind.
But this does not solve the difficulty. How,
then, are all these conflicting statements to be
explained ? Now what would be the thought of
one who tried to reconcile the prescriptions of
some eminent physician, and then denounced
him because the effort failed ? Such a genius

' The alternative, we are told, would be " to believe that He,
who in all other respects possessed an insight so much clearer than His
contemporaries, should, in the matter of eschatology alone, have
had nothing new to contribute." The italics are mine, and they
are designed to call attention to the manner in which rome men
dare to speak of their Divine Lord.

a 14 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
would not be more unintelligent than are these
exponents of "the best and latest scholarship."
Prescriptions differ because the cases to which
they apply are different. And the predictions of
the Parousia differ for a like reason.
The Bible teems with prophecies and promises
relating to earth, which still await fulfilment.
And not one of these shall fail. God has not
" cast away His people whom He foreknew."
Israel's rejected Messiah is to return ; and " they
shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and
mourn." Meanwhile this Gentile dispensation
has intervened ; for Israel's temporary loss is our
eternal gain. And God has purposes for earth that
reach beyond a gathered Church and a restored
nation. "The earth shall be full of the know
ledge of the Lord " : this is not a rhetorical
shriek, but a Divine prophecy. " Thy will be
•done on earth as it Is done In heaven " is not a
•day-dream of pious fools, but an inspired prayer
for the realisation of a Divine purpose plainly
revealed In Scripture. This very earth, so cursed
and blighted by human sin, shall yet be the scene
of a display of Divine power and goodness,
bringing glory to God and blessing to mankind.
Mingling with these manifold displays of grace
there will be sessions of judgment. And all are

Ch. XVL] the CRITICS ON THE "PAROUSIA" 215
included in " the doctrine of the Parousia." For
every purpose of God, whether of judgment or
of grace. Is headed up In Christ ; and therefore
in the unfolding of these purposes there will be
many manifestations of Christ. And while the
Higher Criticism, In keeping with its persistent
ignorance of Divine truth, takes all these many
Scriptures, and throwing them into " hotch-pot "
(as the lawyers would say), parades the resulting
mass of confusion and error and folly as the
outcome of superior enlightenment, the spiritual
Christian will seek humbly and reverently to
" sort " each of these Divine prophecies (as Lord
Bacon puts it) " with the event fulfilling the
same," assigning to each Its right place In the
grand scheme of revelation.'
And that phase of Evangelicalism which shares
the Ignorance of the critics leaves the Bible an
easy prey to their attacks. If the Christian
neglects the Bible he cannot be " ready at every
' There is nothing exceptional about this " Parousia " article.
On the contrary, it is a fair specimen of the pompous pedantry
of book-scholarship, combined with a special type of igno
rance characteristic of writers of this school. I use the word
"ignorance" deliberately, for while they pose as the apostles
of a new enlightenment in the exposition of the New Testa
ment, their writings give proof that, as already urged, they
are ignorant of "the word of the beginning of Christ" — the
very language in which the book is written.

2x6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
point." The "doctrine of the types," for instance.
Is not an abstruse branch of study which, like a
" special subject " in a school curriculum, may
safely be ignored. It bears upon the most
elementary truths.
Many years ago I was present at a conference
convened to consider what people call " the
simple Gospel." Among the clergymen who took
part In the discussion there were two of con
siderable note as teachers. Before half an hour
elapsed one of them had practically unfurled the
banner of Calvinism, and the other that of
Armlnianlsm. According to the one, Christ has
borne the sins of His people ; and though the
Gospel Is to be preached to all, salvation is only
for the elect. According to the other, Christ has
borne the sins of the whole world, and the doom
of the impenitent will be due to their rejection of
the Gospel.
Now both these positions cannot be right, and
yet both can appeal to numerous passages of the
New Testament which seem to support them.
Where then are we to find the key to the
enigma ? The typology of the Pentateuch is the
Divine picture alphabet which God has given to
enable us to spell out these truths ; and If, whether
from carelessness or arrogance, we neglect it, we

Ch.XVL] THE DOCTRINE OF THE TYPES 217
are sure to fall into error. Calvinism assumes
that the sin-offering exhausts the doctrine of the
Gospel. But the sin-offering Is only one of many
kindred types, and all are needed to unfold In its
fulness the sacrifice of Christ. True it is that
the sin-offering was only for the redeemed people ;
but it was not by the sin-offering that they
obtained redemption. When we speak of Christ's
bearing our sins, we use a figurative expression ;
but the figure is not rhetorical but typical, and
the sin-offering is the type which explains it.
Therefore It is that Scripture never speaks of
Christ's "bearing the sins of the world." He
is " the propitiation for the sins of the whole
world ; " and forgiveness of sins is to be preached
to all, for " He gave Himself a ransom for all ; " '
He came to be " the Saviour of the world." 2
But what of the Baptist's testimony, " Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of
the world " ? 3 I do not forget It. But In the
accuracy of Scripture language there Is a definite
difference between " bearing the sins of the world,"
and " taking away the sin of the world."
"What hair-splitting!" some one will here
exclaim. Yes ; in attacking or perverting Scrip-
" I Tim. ii. 6. ' i John iv. 14. ' John i. 29.

2i8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
ture, attention to the minutest and most trivial
points Is " Higher Criticism"; but in the defence
of Scripture it Is hyper-criticism I The special
truth of the sin-offering is the identification of
the offerer with the victim. Substitution is but
a half-truth. But there can be no Identification
with Christ until we receive the Gospel. Then
It Is, and not till then, that we become one with
Him. And if one with Him, His death is our
death, and we can adopt the words, "His own
self bare our sins in His own body on the tree."
This is the language of the sin-offering. But In
the Passover, by which redemption was obtained,
there was no laying on of hands, no previous
identification of the sinner with the victim. The
victim died for the sinner's sins, but it was by the
sprinkling of its blood that the sinner obtained
the benefit of the sacrifice. The Gospel by
which we are saved Is that " Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures," and faith
is the counterpart of the sprinkling of the blood.'
The sin-offering typified Christ's bearing the

" Dean Alford explains John i. 29 by reference directly to
Isa. liii. 7, and presumably to the sin-offering. But the bracketing
of the slaughtered lamb with the shorn sheep in the prophecy
clearly proves that the words do not refer to the offerings, but
present the Messiah as the innocent and uncomplaining victim
of the violence of men. Moreover the word there rendered

Ch.XVL] the DOCTRINE OF ROM. V. 219
sins of His people. But redemption involves a
larger question than this. For man Is not merely
a committer-of-slns, but a sinner In a deeper
sense. He belongs to a sinful race. I am not
discussing the philosophy of sceptical expositors,
but the plain teaching of Scripture. "Through
oiie trespass the judgment is unto all men to
condemnation." ' Not that all men shall be in
fact condemned, for the believer " shall not come
into condemnation " ; ^ but this Is the scope and
tendency of the judgment. And " Even so,
through one righteous act, 3 the free gift is unto
all men to justification of life." Not that all
are justified, but that this Is the scope and
tendency of the grace. Words could not teach
more plainly that the death of Christ is as far-
reaching as the sin of Adam. By that death He
has taken away the sin of the world, and God
has reconciled the world to Himself.4
With the critics the types of the Pentateuch
are but a part of " the priestly code," which was

" slaughter " is not a sacrificial term. It is never used of killing
for sacrifice ; never at all in the Pentateuch, save in Gen. xliii. 16.
And the word translated " laid on " in verse 6 is never once
used in connection with the offerings or sacrifices.
' Rom. V. 18. » John v. 24.
3 Ancai(D/ja — " an amendment of a wrong ; hence, judgment,
punishment " (Liddell and Scott). * 2 Cor. v. 19.

220 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
based on the success or failure (I know not
which) of the ministry of the prophets. They
have no Divine significance whatever. But with
the intelligent Christian these types are " the
word of the beginning of Christ." He turns to
the New Testament to find the doctrine relating
to each one of them, and he turns back to the
Pentateuch, as to a key-picture, to make sure that
he has overlooked nothing in the doctrinal teach
ing of Christianity. If, for example, as we have
seen, he reads of Christ as a Sin-bearer, he
studies the Sin-offering ; if he reads of the
"lamb" of our redemption, the Passover; If of
the blood of the New Covenant by which
we are sanctified, and of which the cup of the
Lord's Supper is the sign and emblem, then the
twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus unfolds its depth
of meaning. '
These paragraphs are humbly offered as
instances of true criticism in contrast with the
criticisms of the critics. Such instances might
be multiplied Indefinitely. And in such proofs
of the absolute accuracy and hidden unity of
Scripture, the Christian finds overwhelming
cumulative evidence of its Divine origin and
authority.
" See The Buddha of Christendom, ch. xii.

CHAPTER XVII
IN the course of a summer visit many years
ago at one of the historic homes of Ireland,
an incident occurred which often comes to my
mind as I read the criticisms of the critics upon
the Gospel narratives.
The eldest son and daughter of the house left
us one morning to spend the day with relatives
some half-dozen miles away. Late at night, from
my bedroom window, I saw the returning carriage
drive up to the hall door. The lady alighted
with a gentleman who was not her brother. At
breakfast next morning she told us that her
brother had remained at his cousin's house, and
she had brought back a Mrs. Somebody — men
tioning a name I did not know. Owing to the
disturbed state of the country, surprise was
expressed that two ladies should have thus driven
home alone at night. This enabled me to press
the question whether a gentleman had not

222 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
escorted her ; and her answer was unequivocal
that her only companion had been the lady she
named. When in my official life I have found a conflict
of testimony between persons of known integrity,
I have always sought some way of reconciling
them. But in this case I confess I was baffled ;
and had I not had more confidence in my friend
than the critics have in the Bible, I should have
given her up as being utterly untruthful, and
perhaps worse. But I afterwards obtained from
her the solution of the enigma. The lady she
named was the wife of their doctor. His house
was near the gate of the park ; and when his wife
alighted he took her place in the carriage and
drove with my friend to the hall door.
Not all the Biblical critics of Christendom
can find in Scripture a more hopeless conflict
of testimony than would have been my friend's
account, and my own, of her return to her father's
house that night. If we had both written about
It without first comparing notes, I should have
asserted that her only companion was a gentle
man; she would have declared that her only
companion was a lady. " Sherlock Holmes "
himself could have made nothing of It. And yet
the solution of it seems ludicrously simple when

Ch. XVIL] DIFFICULTIES IN THE GOSPELS 223
all the facts are known. She was thinking of
her six miles' drive ; I, of her arrival at the
house. Both accounts, therefore, would have
been absolutely true, though to all appearance
one or other would have seemed absolutely false ;
and any one who attempted to play the r61e of
" reconciler " would have fared badly at the
hands of the critics.
There are difficulties In the Gospel narratives
which appear equally inexplicable. And the
efforts of zealous " reconcilers " to explain them
sometimes do more harm than good. They
probably admit of some very simple explanation,
which would be obvious If all the circumstances
were In view. The question, however, to which
they give rise in the mind, I will not say of a
competent critic, still less of a spiritual Christian,
but of any person endowed with common sense —
a quality which seems to be sometimes lacking to
both Christians and critics — concerns the general
character of the writings thus seemingly Impugned.
And here I am not assuming that the Evangelists
were inspired, but merely that they were com
petent and trustworthy witnesses.
To introduce into this book a glossary of
difficult passages would be wholly foreign to Its
scope : indeed it would make it unreadable. In

224 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
the preceding chapters I have selected Illustrative
examples of the objections dealt with, and I will
still pursue the same course. I will proceed to
give instances of difficulties which appear insolu
ble, of others which are easily explained, and of
a third class which indicate only the perversity or
the ignorance of those who urge them.
Of the class first mentioned I know of no case
more apt than that of the blind men outside
Jericho.' A definite contradiction seems to mark
the Gospel narratives. I am not referring to the
fact that Matthew mentions two men as healed
on the occasion, whereas Mark and Luke speak
of one only. The received explanation of this —
that " the sources from which each Evangelist
took his narrative" diffiered in this way — is
strangely shallow and unintelligent, for this only
puts the " difficulty " one step back. But a little
knowledge of human nature and of real life will
oust that " difficulty " altogether. If either
Evangelist said that the Lord cured only one
blind man on the occasion, the matter would be
different. But one of the two men was evidently
a well-known character — " blind Bartimeus " —
while the other, possibly, was a stranger to the
' See Matt. xx. 29-34 J Mark x. 46-52 ; and Luke xviii. 35-43.

Ch. XVIL] THE BLIND MEN AT JERICHO 225
locality. Two of the Evangelists speak only of
the man who was known : Mark names him, and
Luke refers to him as " a certain blind man."
To represent this as a " contradiction " bespeaks
the perversity of fools.
But a very real difficulty remains ; Luke repre
sents the incident as occurring when the Lord
was approaching Jericho, while the other Gospels
say expressly that it was when He was leaving
the town. The contradiction here seems as
hopeless as that recorded in my Irish story.
Possibly, however, the explanation of It would
be just as simple ; but I, at least, decline to
play the r61e of " Sherlock Holmes " in dealing
with Holy Scripture.
A popular preacher and writer who Is one of
the lesser lights of the Higher Criticism has
published the statement that in his Oxford days
"the whole foundation" of his faith was shaken
by discovering that, in Acts v. 36, Gamaliel is
said to have mentioned an Insurrection under one
Theudas, whereas Josephus records an Insurrec
tion under a man of that name half a century
later; the inference being, of course, that the
Evangelist was thus proved to have blundered.
Who among us has not been equally silly at
times ! But some of us are shrewd enough to
16

226 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
conceal our silliness from other people. There
are three possible explanations of the difficulty,
any one of which would suffice. First, in any
conflict of statement between a writer so accurate
as Luke, and a writer so notoriously inaccurate
as Josephus, the presumption of error is entirely
against the historian, and not against the
Evangelist.' Secondly, it is very probable that
the Theudas of Gamaliel's speech is one of the
insurgents mentioned by Josephus under another
name. But thirdly, the whole difficulty assumes
that the historian enumerates all these Insurrec
tions, whereas, in fact, he declares there were
" thousands " of them ; and one Theudas may
well have been the leader of such an outbreak
before " the days of the taxing," and another
Theudas may have headed a similar revolt during
the reign of Claudius. ^
Among the difficulties which, though easily
explained, seem to unsettle the faith of a certain
sort of people, there is one that may serve
to illustrate the perverseness of some of the

' For the sake of argument I here treat the Third Gospel as a
merely human book.
" Antiquities, xvii. 10,4, and xx. 5, i. Josephus mentions three
Judases within ten years, and four Simons within forty years as
leaders of such revolts. There may well, therefore, have been
two named Theudas in the same half -century.

Ch. XVIL] "THIS GENERATION" 227
German critics. " Verily I say unto you," the
Lord declared in telling of the dread events
which are to herald His return, " this genera
tion shall not pass till all these things be
fulfilled." ' What meaning can possibly be given
to these words, save that the Parousia was to
occur in the lifetime of those to whom He spoke ?
The question is answered by a fact well known
to the critics themselves, that the word here
rendered generation " has in Hellenistic Greek
the meaning of a race, or family of people." ^
And any intelligent reader can see that in other
passages also it Is used in that sense. 3 The Jews,
instead of suffering the fate of every other
conquered race in all the world's history, were
to remain a separate people to the end. The
Lord's words, therefore, instead of proving a
stumbling-block ought rather to establish our
faith. People seem to be strangely troubled about
the Inscription upon the Cross. Dean Alford
writes : —
"The title over the cross was written in Greek.

• Matt. xxiv. 34.
' Alford's Greek Testament ; and see any Lexicon.
3 See, e.g., chap, xxiii. 36, and various passages in the LXX., as,
e.g.. Gen. xxxi. 3 ; Jer. viii. 3.

228 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
According then to the verbal-inspiration theory,
each Evangelist has recorded the exact words of
the inscription ; not the general sense, but the
inscription itself — not a letter less or more. This
is absolutely necessary to the theory." '
Extraordinary statements these from a writer
who is usually so sensible and so accurate.
Whether any inspiration other than verbal in
spiration Is possible, is a problem of metaphysics,
and I am not going to discuss it here. Neither
shall I defend any "verbal-inspiration theory."
What concerns us is the fact of inspiration, so
plainly taught by the Lord Himself And as we
have seen in a previous chapter, the fact of
inspiration is consistent with sometimes insisting
upon the exact words of Scripture with a definite
ness so minute that men would call It "hair
splitting," and in other instances quoting Scripture
in a way that men would call " loose." What
ever human theories of inspiration may demand,
verbal inspiration does not assume that "each
Evangelist has recorded the exact words of the
inscription," but that the record as given by each
was guided and controlled by the Spirit of God.
And no one who has studied the human element
' Com., vol. i., Prol. I. § vi. i8.

Ch. XVII.] INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS 229
in other Divine miracles will be surprised at find
ing a human element in this miracle of inspiration.
But to resume. Each of the four Gospels
gives the inscription in a slightly different form.
Here Is the text of each : —
" This Is Jesus, the King of the Jews " (Matt.
xxvii. ^y).
"The King of the Jews " (Mark xv. 26).
"This is the King of the Jews" (Luke xxiii.
38). " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews "
(John xix. 19).
Now let us assume, for the sake of argument,
that the full inscription was, "This is Jesus of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Its purpose
was clear — not in the least to identify the accused,
but solely to give the accusation on which he was
condemned. Pilate would not have noticed the
charges which so excited the religious leaders of
the Jews ; but the claim to be a King they
represented as a political offence. And though
he saw that the prisoner Was no rioter, no leader
of sedition, and that the accusation was dis
honestly preferred, he feared lest the Sanhedrim
should make trouble for him with Caesar If he
refused to entertain it.' Therefore he yielded to
' John xix. 12.

230 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
their clamour. But he revenged himself upon
them by putting up the charge in a form that
brought them into contempt, giving prominence
to the royal title. Their remonstrance was most
noteworthy. " Write not ' The King of the
Jews,' but that He said, ' I am King of the
Jews.'"' And this, which alone was essential,
or important, all the Gospels agree In giving.
But this is not all. " The title over the cross
was written in Greek." If Dean Alford's words
are to be judged as the Bible is judged, this
statement is a sheer blunder. " The title " was
written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin; and
this is probably the explanation of the whole
matter. "The Hebrew Gospel " might be ex
pected to record the Hebrew inscription. Luke,
writing for a Roman officer, would, not unnaturally,
reproduce the Latin. ^ The inscription as given
by John may well be the Greek. And Mark
gives merely, as his words imply, the gist of the
charge — " the inscription of the accusation."
I have dealt thus fully with this matter in
spite of the fact that I am personally unable to
sympathise with people who find a difficulty in
' John xix. 21.
" " This is the King of the Jews " has a distinctly Latin
ring.

Ch. XVIL] INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS 231
differences of the kind. Such differences only
prove that the Gospels are not, as the critics
would tell us, copied from one another, or from
a common source, but that they are wholly in
dependent narratives. And they weigh nothing
with people who have any practical knowledge
of men, or who have intelligent views of in
spiration. For nothing tends more to discredit
witnesses than mechanical uniformity of state
ment ; and In revelation, as In nature, we may
expect to find endless variety of detail combined
with absolute unity in essentials.
In conclusion, I will deal with a difficulty of a
totally different character. But it is Important
enough to deserve a chapter to itself. The three
first Gospels, we are told, are at variance with
the fourth, as to the day on which the Lord was
crucified.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE reader will do well to skip this chapter.
If it were written to prove Scripture to be
wrong, it would be interesting ; and, moreover,
it would betoken " culture," and might even
attract the notice of the newspapers. But as its
object is merely to defend Holy Writ on a
subject about which enough has been written
against it to fill a bookcase, it is really not worth
reading. The first three Gospels agree that the Lord's
Supper was instituted at the Jewish Passover on
the night before the Crucifixion.' Here is
Matthew's testimony : —
"On the first day of unleavened bread the
disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where wilt thou
' Theories of an " anticipatory celebration " by the Lord and
His disciples on the 13th Nisan, or a deferred celebration by the
leaders of the Jews on the 15th, are preposterous. Here I will
but refer my readers to Dr. Edersheim's Life and Times of the
Messiah, a book which ought to be an "end of controversy" on
4he subject of the present chapter. 232

Ch. XVIII.] DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION 233
that we make ready for Thee to eat the Pass
over ? " Not " the first day of the Feast" as the
A.V. gives it, but the day on which leaven was
put away, namely, the 14th Nisan. Mark and
Luke state even more explicitly that it was the
day when the Passover was killed.'
But, we are told, " It appears from John xviii.
28 that on the Friday morning the Jews who
conducted our Lord to the pretorium had not yet
eaten the Passover." That day, therefore, must
have been the X4th Nisan. And this Is confirmed
by the fact that the Evangelist calls it "the
preparation of the Passover" and adds that the
following day " was a high day," 2 which proves
that it must have been the Feast day, or 15 th
Nisan. 3
Now at this stage I do not ask that the
Evangelists shall be believed as men who were
inspired, nor that their writings shall be accepted
' Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Mark xiv. 12 ; Luke xxii. 7.
= John xix. 14, 31.
3 In Hastings's Bible Dictionary (vol. ii., p. 634), Prof. Sanday,
after noticing that the Synoptists identify the Last Supper with
the Passover, goes on to say, " St. John, on the other hand, by a
number of clear indications (John xiii. i ; xviii. 28 ; xix. 14, 31),
implies that the Last Supper was eaten before the time of the
regular Passover, and that the Lord suffered on the afternoon of
Nisan 14." Prof. Cheyne's Encyclopedia Biblica says, "The
Synoptists put the Crucifixion on Friday the 15th Nisan, John on
Friday the 14th" (article "Chronology," p. 806).

234 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
as Divine oracles, but only that they shall be
treated as intelligent and trustworthy witnesses
are treated in our courts of justice. Three of
them agree in giving a clear and explicit account
of certain facts ; while the fourth uses language
which appears to some to conflict with that of the
others. The first question, therefore, would be
whether either the competence or the truthfulness
of any of them is open to suspicion. And to this
the answer is an emphatic negative. The cir
cumstances, moreover, veto the suggestion of a
mistake ; for the events of those dreadful days
must have been burned into the memories of all
who took part In them. This being so, the point
upon which any tribunal would fix attention
would be whether the evidence of the witness
that seems to differ from the rest may not have
been misconstrued.
I seize upon that point. And my contention
is not that, by straining words cr having recourse
to far-fetched explanations, the last Gospel can
be twisted into agreement with the others ; but
that the exegesis which makes it differ from
them is in every part of It a tangle of blunders.
For as Lange says, "If the expressions of John
be pondered in their full significance, he will be
found to have declared more accurately than the

Ch. xviii.] THE SUPPER NOT THE FEAST 235
rest of the Evangelists that [the Lord] Jesus was
crucified on a Friday, and that it was on the first
day of the [Feast of the] Passover (viz., on the
15th Nisan)."'
First and chiefest among the blunders which
mark this controversy is that of confounding the
Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Just as the Feast of Weeks came to be known as
Pentecost, so the earlier feast was popularly
called the Passover.^ But no intelligent and
devout Jew would confound the Supper with the
Feast. The language of the Law Is clear, "In
the fourteenth day of the first month at even is
the Lord's passover ; and on the fifteenth day of
the same month is the feast of unleavened
bread." 3
Bearing this in mind, we open John xiii. The
scene is laid at the Paschal Supper, before the
Feast of the Passover 4 — that is, on the eve of
the festival. And when Judas went out, the
disciples supposed he was gone to buy what was
needed for the feast (ver. 29). The feast was a
Sabbath, when trading was unlawful ; but to
' Life of Christ, pt. vi., sect. ii.
» See Luke xxii. i, and cf. Josephus, Ant. xiv. 2, i, and xvii. 9, 3.
3 Lev. xxiii. 5, 6 ; Numb, xxviii. 16, 17.
* We must distinguish this from such passages as Matt. xxvi. 17,
where the A.V. wrongly introduces the word " feast."

236 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
make provision for all that was needful for the
feast was lawful on the preceding night.' For
yet another blunder is the assumption that always
and for all purposes the Jewish day began In the
evening. 2 The Passover was eaten during the
evening of the 14th Nisan ; the feast day began
the following morning.
The weekly Sabbath was reckoned from
evening to evening. And every day was so
reckoned for purposes of ceremonial cleansing —
a fact which enables us to detect another of the
blunders of this theory. Ceremonial defilement
lapsed at sundown. 3 Therefore, as the Paschal
Supper was not eaten until the evening, the Jew
would not have been precluded from partaking,
by reason of his having entered the Pretorium
early in the day. Not so, however, with the
holy offerings of the feast day,4 which were eaten
before evening. The only question, therefore, is
whether partaking of them could properly be
described as " eating the Passover." The law of
Moses supplies the answer — " Thou shalt sacri
fice the Passover unto the Lord thy God of the
• Edersheim's Life and Times of Messiah, vol. ii., p. 508.
' One source of error here is the assumption that either the
modern Jewish calendar or practice is the same as in the days of
the Ministry.
3 Lev. xxii. 7. * The Chagigah of the Talmud.

Ch. xviii.] "THE PREPARATION" 237
flock and the herd . . . seven days shalt thou
eat unleavened bread therewith." '
And further still. The Pharisees planned the
betrayal on the night of the Supper, because they
feared a riot if they seized the Lord upon the day
of the Feast. 2 For the suggestion that it was
unlawful to be out of doors on that night is due
to confounding the law of the Passover in Egypt
with the law of the annual celebration.
But the day of the crucifixion was " the prepa
ration of the Passover ; " 3 and must not this
mean the day before the Passover ? My answer
is that not a single writer, sacred or profane, can
be quoted In support of such a view. "The
preparation " was a term in common use among
the Jews to describe the day before the weekly
Sabbath. It is so used by each of the Evan
gelists, and by none more definitely than the
Fourth, in this very chapter. Every Friday was
"the preparation"; this particular Friday was
"the Passover preparation." 4

' Deut. xvi. 2, 3, cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 7, 8.
' Matt. xxvi. 5 ; Mark xiv. i, 2. ' John xix. 14.
* See Matt, xxvii. 62 ; Mark xv. 42 ; Luke xxiii. 54 ; and John
xix. 31 and 42. Josephus (Ant. xvi. 6) cites an imperial edict
relieving the Jews from appearing before the tribunals either on
the Sabbath or after the ninth hour of preparation day. This
term was so universally used that it even passed into the Chris-

238 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
One point still remains : " that Sabbath was a
high day." ' True ; for not only was it, as being
the Sabbath of Passover week, one of the
greatest Sabbaths of the year, but further, as
being the second day of the Feast, it was kept by
the Jews as "the day of the First-fruits " — one of
the " red-letter days " in the calendar.
And now I will turn away to criticisms of
another kind, far higher than any of which the
Higher Critics take cognizance. Men would be
happy in this world if only they could shut out
God. And every human religion is designed as
a sort of backsheesh to appease or please the
Deity. But the Divine religion of Judaism was
for a redeemed and happy people; and its special
characteristic was a series of festivals — seasons of
national rejoicing. The month Nisan began the
sacred year ; 2 and In that month the first great
festival was celebrated — the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, or of Passover. One of the rites per-

tian Church ; and in his note on Mark xv. 42, Dean Alford quotes
Bishop Wordsworth as saying that it is "the name by which
Friday is now generally known in Asia and Greece." See also
his note on Matt, xxvii. 62.
' John xix. 31.
» Before the Exodus it was the seventh month (Exod. xii. 2),
a position it still holds in the civil year.

Ch. xviii.] the JEWISH FESTIVALS 239
taining to it was the cutting of the first sheaf of
the ripened grain, and presenting it in the
Temple. During the seven succeeding weeks
the entire grain harvest was garnered ; and then
took place the " Feast of Harvest," or as It was
commonly called, of Pentecost. But in Palestine
the harvest of the trees was as important as that
of the field ; and in the autumn, when all had
been gathered in, was celebrated the " Feast of
In-gathering," or of Tabernacles — the great
"harvest-home" of the nation. Feasts they
were, and the people were called upon "to
rejoice " as they celebrated them. All human
religion Is marked by sadness : in the harmony of
the Divine religion the ruling note was joy.'
The first great festival immediately followed
the Paschal Supper ; the last, the Day of Atone
ment. For all true worship and all real joy begin
with, and are based upon, redemption and for
giveness. The sacred calendar was thus intended
as a prophecy ; and every part of it has its fulfil
ment in the great reconciliation. Holy Writ
teaches expressly that the Sheaf of the First-
fruits prefigured the resurrection of Christ. Its
acceptance was the public proof of the Divine
" The law of the Feasts will be found in Exod. xxiii. 14-17 ;
Lev. xxiii. ; and Deut. xvi. 1-17.

240 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
blessing upon the harvest, and the pledge that
all would be safely garnered. And so, in the
antitype, the resurrection of Christ Is the pledge
and proof that all His people shall, like Him, be
raised — " Christ the first-fruits ; afterward they
that are Christ's, at His coming." '
But in the post-captivity revival, the Jews
misread the long-neglected law, and in error
appointed the day after the feast day, instead
of "the morrow after the Sabbath," for the pre
senting of the first-fruits. And thus it came
about that the Lord was lying in the grave
upon the very day the rite was celebrated which
prefigured His resurrection from the dead. That
rite belongs not to the Sabbath, but to " the
morrow after the Sabbath" — not to the seventh
day, which was the " rest " of the old creation,
but to " the first day of the week," the rest-day
of that new creation of which He is the First
born and the Head.^

' I Cor. XV. 23. The words are iv ry irapovai^ airov. It is not
an isolated event, but the time of His presence as contrasted
with this, the time of His absence.
= Deut. xvi. 9 makes it clear that the day of the first-fruits was
not to be a Sabbath, and that the Divine intention was that a
sheaf of corn, cut that very day, should be carried to the Temple
and waved before the Lord. And it follows, of course, that the
true day of Pentecost (which in that year was observed upon
a Sabbath) must always be the first day of the week — a fact

Ch, xviii.] the TEACHING OF THE TYPES 241
The seeming fitness of assigning the death
of Christ to the very day the Paschal lamb was
killed has weight with many.' But this is owing
to the almost exclusive prominence which popular
theology accords to that most popular of types.
The offerings of the opening chapters of Leviticus 2
have a still larger place in the doctrinal teaching
of the New Testament 3; and these great sacri
fices of the law marked the feast day on which
the Lord was crucified. 4
Other synchronisms, too, there were. The
greatest mystery of the Passion was not His
suffering from men, but His being forsaken of
God. In a real sense, indeed, the sufferings
inflicted upon Him by men were but a conse
quence of this. Hence His reply to Pilate,

which confirms the presumption that it was when assembled on
the Lord's Day that the Church received the gift of the Holy
Ghost. It is held by some that the ambiguous word employed
in Acts ii. i means "fulfilled" in the sense of passed (Smith's
Bible Diet., " Pentecost," vol. ii., p. 786).
' To suppose it occurred at the same hour is a blunder. The
lamb was killed " between the evenings," i.e., between the sun's
decline and its final disappearance — about 6 p.m. (Edersheim,
ii. 490).
' The burnt-offering with its meat-offering, the peace-offering
(the Chagigah of the Talmud) and the sin-offering (Lev. i.-iv.).
3 In Hebrews, e.g., the offerings of the law are prominently
mentioned, while the Passover has no place in the doctrine of the
Epistle. * Numb, xxviii. 17-23. (Comp. Josephus, Ant. iii. 10, 5.)
'7

242 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
" Thou couldest have no power at all against
Me, except it were given thee from above."
If men seized and slew Him, It was because
God had delivered Him up. " This is your
hour and the power of darkness," He exclaimed
in Gethsemane. And not till that destined hour
had struck was the Almighty Hand withdrawn
which till then had shielded Him from outrage.
His death was the close, and not the beginning,
of His sufferings : in truth it was the hour of His
triumph. The yearly Passover was merely a memorial
of the Passover in Egypt; and the midnight
agony In Gethsemane was the great antitype
of that midnight scene when the destroying angel
flashed through the land of the Pharaohs. And
as His death was the accomplishment of His
people's deliverance, it took place upon the
anniversary of " that selfsame day that the
Lord did bring the children of Israel out of
the land of Eg^pt."' And that day again was
a great anniversary : it was " the selfsame day "
of the covenant with Abraham. 2
" Exod. xii. 51.
' Ibid., verse 41. The day of the resurrection was also an
anniversary. On the 17th day of the month Nisan (or Abib)
the renewed earth emerged from the waters of the Flood (Gen,
viii. 4); the redeemed people emerged from the waters of the
sea, and the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Ch. xviii.] THE CALENDAR A PROPHECY 243
As we have seen, then, the Sacred Calendar
of Israel is a prophecy of redemption. In the
Temple there was the Inner shrine within the
second veil, where none but the High Priest
might ever enter ; the holy place, into which
the priests might come ; and the court without,
where all the people could approach. And In
redemption we have the same threefold division :
first the Christ, and those who, as "partakers of
the heavenly calling," have, in Him, the right
of nearest access ; secondly, the earthly people,
yet to become a kingdom of priests ; and, thirdly,
the great multitude of the redeemed of earth.
And so here. The sheaf of the first fruits in its
primary interpretation stands for Christ alone.
But the prophecy of the Calendar, like many
another prophecy, has a double fulfilment ; and,
in its secondary application, that sheaf represents
not merely the personal Christ, but the official
Christ, including all who share " the heavenly
calling."' And the wave loaves of Pentecost

' " The heavenly calling " is not limited to " the Church which
is His body" — the special election of the present dispensation ;
it includes also the Bride — a special election out of Israel in the
dispensation to follow. John the Baptist — the last great prophet
of the earthly people — speaks of the Bride (John iii. 29); and
then the Bride disappears from Scripture, to reappear in Rev.
xix. 7, xxi. 9 ff., which relate to the restoration of the earthly

244 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
represent the earthly people, as such, in their
special place of privilege and blessing.
But the covenant promise to Abraham included
blessing for all the nations of the earth. This is
in the book of the beginnings — the book of
Genesis ; and in the visions of the Revelation,
the book of the endings, we read of the elect
Pentecostal company of the redeemed of Israel
on earth, and then of the palm-bearing multitude
of the Feast of Tabernacles — " a great multitude
which no man could number, of all nations and
kindreds, and people and tongues." '
This Is not a wild inference from Isolated texts.
It is the burden of prophecy as a whole. The
present dispensation, we are expressly told, is
typified by the first of the sacred festivals. " Our
passover has been sacrificed, even Christ," says the

people. But Christian theology more suo appropriates all Israel's
blessings, the bridal glory not excepted, and with exemplary dis
crimination apportions the curses to the Jews ! Holy Scripture
nowhere speaks of the Church of this dispensation as the bride ;
and Eph. v. 25-33 asserts by implication that it is not. To appeal
to 2 Cor. xi. 2 is mere trifling.
" Gen. xxii. 18, Rev. vii. 3-9. (The carrying of branches of
palm trees marked the Feast of Tabernacles, Lev. xxiii. 40.) And
compare Rev. xiv. 1-6. The scene here again is laid on earth.
First we have the 144,000 of the redeemed of Israel ; and their
promised blessing is followed by the proclamation of " the ever
lasting gospel " to " every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and
people." Zech. xiv. gives the result in plain, prosaic words.

Ch. xviii.] "RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS" 245
Apostle in enjoining holiness of life, " wherefore
let us keep the feast." ' And the true Pentecost
is yet to come. The great event of the Church's
baptism, as recorded in the Acts, was within the
scope of Joel's prophecy, 2 but it was not the fulfil
ment of it. That belongs to those wonderful and
awful days of mingled blessing and judgment,
which are to herald " the times of the restitution
of all things " — the period of the last great
festival, the Feast of Tabernacles.
For the " restoration of all things " Is not, as
some would tell us, the accomplishment in eter
nity of a scheme, now secret, to bring all the lost
to heaven. It is the realisation upon earth, and
in days which shall yet be marked and measured
in human calendars, of a Divine purpose plainly
declared upon the open page of Scripture. Of
these " times of restoration " the inspired Apostle
tells us, " God hath spoken by the mouth of all
His holy prophets since the world began." And
to make it more emphatic still, he adds, " Yea,
all the prophets, from Samuel and those that
" I Cor. V. 7, 8 (R.V.) The subject here is, not the Euch?irist,
but the Christian life on earth.
' Joel ii. 28-iii. 2. Mark the language of the inspired Apostle
in Acts ii. 16. In the accuracy of Scripture a distinction is
often made between events which are within the scope of a
prophecy and events which fulfil it.

246 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
follow after, as many as have spoken, have like
wise foretold of these days." In a word, they
are the burden of all prophetic testimony, from
first to last, in relation to what theologians call
"the Second Advent."
In the simple prose of the Epistle to the
Romans this same truth is plainly taught. The
" fall " of Israel has proved " the riches of the
world " ; the setting aside of Israel, " the recon
ciling of the world." What then, the Apostle
asks, shall be their restoration to favour but "life
from the dead " ? Mark the force and meaning
of these words. When the coming Pentecost —
the presentation to God of the " two wave loaves "
of Israel and Judah restored to Divine favour and
blessing — leads on to the last great Feast of
Ingathering, results will be achieved on a
scale so vast and wonderful that, in contrast
with them, the greatest present-day successes
in evangelising the world will seem like death.
In comparison with the Feast of Passover the
Feast of Tabernacles — that coming triumph of
redemption — will be "as life from the dead."
But in the great mass of critical literature all
this Is absolutely Ignored. And yet it is but
the realisation of the prayer, " Thy will be
done on earth as It Is done in heaven" — words

Ch. xviii.] THE SCOPE OF THE BIBLE 247
which are daily uttered as an incantation by
multitudes of people who regard the hope of
their fulfilment as a dream of fanatics.
Even that poor type of Evangelicalism whose
horizon of truth Is narrowed to what might be
described as the Police Court Gospel which tells
how Christ has paid the sinner's penalty, stands
on a vastly higher level than the mere religionist,
with his "carnal ordinances," not omitting ritual
and millinery. But such teachers, one and all,
leave us an easy prey to rationalistic critics. For
while they vehemently assert that the Bible is
the Word of God, they use it merely as a book
of piety or of religion.
The story is told of one who hid himself in the
library of a famous German theologian of the
eighteenth century, that he might learn the secret
of his fellowship with God. Let us thus take the
place of eavesdroppers upon the Apostle of the
Gentiles as he writes his great Redemption
treatise. He first unfolds the wonders of grace
in the gospel. Then he turns aside to mark
how every Divine scheme of blessing for man
on earth has been baffled by human sin. And
lastly he goes on to show how this tale of
apostasy and ruin is but a dark background
for the display of a supreme purpose which is

248 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
to include the fulfilment of all that has thus
seemingly been thwarted and lost. And having
thus reached the climax of the revelation en
trusted to him for the Church, nothing remains
but to enforce by exhortation and appeal a life
of holiness and righteousness befitting those who
are recipients of such " mercies." But ere he
turns the page he exclaims in adoration, " O the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His
judgments and His ways past finding out. For
of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all
things : to Him be the glory for ever. Amen."

CHAPTER XIX
THIS book has already passed the limits I
had fixed for it ; and though I seem to
have but touched the fringe of a subject which
is inexhaustible, the present chapter must be
the last.
Here, then, is my answer to the question of
the opening page. Whether, in view of modern
criticism, the Bible may still be received with
the settled and simple faith accorded to it in the
past? "I hold no man's proxy," and yet in a
sense I represent a class that may surely claim a
right to be heard in this controversy. Taught in
early life to regard the Bible as the inspired Word
of God, we came in time to feel the power of
destructive criticism. And our faith was severely
tested by the strain. For the man who believes
on mere human testimony that a virgin bore a
child, and that a dead man came back to life, is a
superstitious creature who would believe anything,
149

250 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
The question at issue, therefore, is between
agnosticism and Christianity. And we have
faced that question in the light of all that the
critics have to urge. Some of us have studied
the Bible quite as diligently as they have ; and
as the result, while wholly free from the trammels
of "articles" and "creeds," we have come back
to the faith of those who framed those formularies.
We do not look upon the martyrs with patronising
pity as fanatics or fools. The faith they died for
we deem worth living for. And if belief in Holy
Scripture in the sense in which they believed in
it led to the same consequences now as in dark
days gone by, we trust we should not shrink from
them. My answer, then, is clear and unequivocal. As
for the manner of it I am well aware of its faults
and imperfections. But one characteristic of it,
for which I expect to be taken severely to task, I
refuse to regard as a fault at all. At the outset
I waived appeals to authority, and therefore I
have deliberately abstained from paying the
critical scholars the homage to which they are
accustomed. To adopt the words of Dr. Pusey,
" I have turned against sceptics their own
weapons, and used ridicule against the would-
be arguments of a false criticism which thought

Ch. XIX.] MORALITY OF THE CRITICS 251
itself ' free ' because it made free with God's
Word." '
My treatment of the critics is due to no want
of deference for scholarship. But that which
gives them such a commanding influence upon
the public mind is not their scholarship, but the
vantage-ground they occupy as professors of
Christian universities or colleges, or ministers of
Christian Churches. Their power to attack the
Bible is mainly due to positions they have gained
by giving solemn pledges to defend It. Not that
I accuse them of conscious dishonesty in this.
They are above the suspicion of such a charge.
But they do not view things as others view them.
The morality of religious men seems to differ
from that of ordinary men. The critics see no
inconsistency between their position and their
teaching ; just as they cannot see the obvious
consequences of that teaching. Moreover, with
some notable exceptions, they are mere experts,
and experts are proverbially lacking in judgment.
To speak In this way of such eminent person
ages will seem to some people almost to savour
of profanity. Many of us have laughed over
David Ross's warning to his wife in The Days of
' Dr. Pusey's Daniel (Preface).

25 » THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Auld Lang Syne, " We maun be cannie wi'
John's title, wumman, for ye ken professor is a
by-ordinar' word : a' count it equal tae earl at the
verra least, an' it wudna dae tae be aye usin't."
But in this controversy we cannot afford to be
"cannie." The issues at stake are too tremen
dous. And moreover, nothing sublunary is
sacred to a lawyer.
I may plead, too, that I have merely brought
the critics within the meshes of their own net. I
have treated them as they themselves treat the
" Biblical writers." Appeals to the New Testa
ment they refuse on the ground that the inspired
Apostles of the Lord, and even the Lord Him
self, were prejudiced and ignorant : is it very
shocking, then, to question their own competency ?
As for me, I would say, in borrowed language,
how deeply I feel my " utter weakness before the
power of His Word and my inability to sound
the depths even of its simplest sentence." But
yet it would be the merest affectation in one who
knows even a little of the spiritual meaning and
" hidden harmony " of Scripture, to pretend that
he can study such works as Hastings's Bible
Dictionary and The Encydopcedia Biblica without
being conscious of living In a sphere which most
of the writers seem to have never entered, and

Ch. XIX.] COMPETENCE OF THE CRITICS 253
of the very existence of which they display no
knowledge. It will be said perhaps that In these books the
editors and contributors write avowedly as critics,
and it is not fair to assume that they are only
critics. But can any one point to anything that
has come from their facile pens which gives proof
of acquaintance with the spiritual power of Holy
Scripture as " the living and eternally abiding
Word of God"? (i Pet. I. 23.)'
" It Is the first rule of criticism," one of the
most eminent and trusted of the critics tells us,
" that a good critic must be a good Interpreter of
the thoughts of his author " ; ^ and it would be
difficult to frame a sentence which more definitely
discredits the whole fraternity. "These are they
which bear witness of Me " 3 Is the Divine
Inscription upon the Hebrew Scriptures ; and in
ignoring this the critics are entirely out of touch
¦ " Robertson Smith," exclaims a friend at my elbow. " Oh the
pity of it!" is my rejoinder; for I recall such words as these:
"Only of this I am sure at the outset, that the Bible does speak
to the heart of man in words that can only come from God"
(Old Testament in the Jewish Church). But see p. 39, ante. And
one of the most notable of his successors in Scotland is now
running the same course ; so that Professor Cheyne need no
longer pity his weakness [Old Testament Criticism, p. 245).
' Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church,
Lecture III,
s John V. 39 (R.V.)

254 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
with the thoughts both of the God who inspired
the Bible and of its human authors.
Our quarrel with the Higher Criticism, I repeat
with emphasis, is not because it is criticism, but
because it is purely destructive, and therefore
the lowest kind of criticism. And, moreover, it
systematically ignores the science of evidence,
on which all true criticism rests. In fact, when
judged by every test that can be applied to it,
it is found wanting.
In the higher sense of the word a "critic"
is a skilled and impartial judge — all that here
in England we expect a judge to be. Its
secondary meaning is that of " a harsh examiner,"
a hostile fault-finder. These sceptical writers
belong to the second category. And let this be
kept in view. We do not reject the ascertained
results of true criticism. Our protest is against
the assumptions of a criticism which is unsound
in principle, and which is carried on by unsound
methods. " We are prepared as Christian men to
receive and welcome the fullest light of the new
learning. We are not prepared to be dragged at
the wheels of those who would give us a dis
credited Old Testament, an emasculated New
Testament, a fallible Christ." '
' These words are quoted from Dr. Sinker's valuable treatise
on The Higher Criticism (p. 184).

Ch. XIX.] SCEPTICISM AND SCHOLARSHIP 255
If therefore I may venture to combine practical
counsel with this summary and retrospect, I would
say, first, let no one be " browbeaten out of belief"
by these attacks upon Holy Scripture. The
Bible is not discredited because eminent scholars
have turned against it in the camp of faith.
The critics represent indeed that the scholarship
of Christendom is with them. But the claim
is absolutely unfounded.' Their apparent pre
eminence is due largely to their being adepts in
the art of what the Americans call " literary log
rolling." They are " a mutual admiration society."
No one of them can raise a cry but that the whole
party responds. And then the secular Press joins
in. For the Press is with them. Naturally.
For the newspapers represent "the world," and
" the world " is never on the side of Divine
truth. The alarming spread of scepticism among the
Nonconformists during the last quarter of a
century has been largely due to their wincing
under this charge of want of scholarship. They
long refused to barter the faith of Christ for
German rationalism. But Matthew Arnold's

' Such a book as Lex Mosaica is in itself an answer to it That
notable work is a complete refutation of the critical attack upon
the Pentateuch.

256 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
appeal for " culture " was a veiled taunt which
they keenly felt ; and like the schoolboy who is
shamed Into evil ways by the fear of being deemed
unmanly, they betook themselves to the new cult.
Under this influence many of the younger men
are now ministers of "culture," instead of being
ministers of the gospel. The result is that while,
politically and socially. Nonconformity never stood
higher, as a spiritual power it has sensibly
declined. It is bartering its birthright for a
mess of pottage.
It is noteworthy that this boast of a monopoly
of scholarship, and this taunt of want of culture,
were among the weapons used by the Arians in
the supreme controversy of early days. Those
who stood with Athanasius In the great struggle
for the faith of Christ appeared for a time to be a
weak minority. But the undeclared suffrages of
" the whole congregation of Christian people "
were behind them; and in the end the truth
triumphed. If I may go on to offer advice of a still more
practical kind, I would say in the words of that
most sensible of men, the town clerk of Ephesus,
" Seeing that these things cannot be gainsaid, ye
ought to be quiet." It is Idle to hold exciting
meetings, and to shout for "about the space of

Ch. XIX.] NEGLECT OF THE BIBLE 257
two hours " that the Bible is the Word of God.
A reaction is sure to follow ; and when the shout
ing Is over thoughtful people will turn away to
listen to the critics.
The success of the sceptical movement is not
due to the strength of the attack, but to the
weakness of the defence. With the vast majority
of Christians the Bible Is nothing more than " a
plan of salvation " and " a book of piety." Of
" the riches both of the wisdom, and knowledge of
God " which it unfolds they are content to
know nothing. The golden threads of type and
prophecy which are in the warp and woof of it
from Genesis to Revelation, they ignore. And
some who pose as champions of the Bible share
the Ignorance of those whom they seek to lead.
No wonder, therefore, if scepticism prevails.
I once asked the late Bishop of Limerick, when
visiting him in his charming summer home upon
the Kenmare river, whether, when separated from
his library and his work, the time did not some
times hang heavily. I well remember Dr. Graves's
answer. " Give me," said he, " a single square
yard on the side of a dry ditch, and I can find
enough to interest me for a day." To me, I
confess, a Kerry ditch, wet or dry, would be
nothing but a ditch. And there are multitudes
18

2S8 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
"who profess and call themselves Christians" to
whom the Bible Is nothing but a book. And yet
with the spiritually intelligent every page of it will
bear the microscope. Not a single student of
prophecy can be found In the ranks of the critics ;
not a single individual who understands the
Pentateuch as "the word of the beginning of
Christ." '
Let us never forget that the Higher Criticism
is what has been called ''post-mortem talk." No
one could make a constant study of a post-mortem
report upon some lost relative or friend without
becoming morbid or degraded. And a like
deterioration seems to result from the habitual
study of the critics. Let us then keep their books
on the upper shelf, and use them only for reference.
These writers seem to miss even the open and
obvious scope of the Old Testament as the Divine
history of the Abrahamic race. And its esoteric
teaching about Christ, which pervades not merely
the writings of the Prophets, but the Law and the
" Former Prophets " (as the historical books were
called), they entirely ignore. And it is neither

» In other words, the critics know nothing of the typology of
Scripture. And therefore they are ignorant of the language in
which Christian doctrine is taught in the New Testament (see
p. 26, ant£).

Ch. XIX.] CONFIDENCE IN THE BIBLE 259

wholesome nor even safe for the Christian to
accustom himself to a system of Bible study in
which Christ has no place.'
Here I would add a warning against being
frightened by a parade of seeming errors in the
Scriptures. In the preceding chapters I have
selected examples of various classes of difficulties,
and have shown how some that may seem to be
insoluble can not only be explained, but so
explained as to become helps to faith. Others
there are, no doubt, to the solution of which
we cannot find a clew, though perhaps, if we
had all the facts and circumstances In view, the
solution might be simple and obvious. But surely
it Is a poor sort of faith that depends on the
absence of difficulties.
Treat your Bible as you would treat your friend.
A friendship that cannot bear the strain of a
misunderstanding does not deserve the name ;
nor a faith that gives way in presence of a diffi
culty. But with many the place the Bible holds
resembles that not of a friend at all, but rather
that of a mere acquaintance. For proofs that it is
the Word of God are clear and abundant. But

¦ " It is ignorance of Christ which turns the Scriptures into a
dark, inexplicable riddle." — Birks's Modern Rationalism.

26o THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
they do not lie open on the surface. Gold and
diamonds are not picked up upon the highway ;
men need to dig for them. Even Nature hides
her treasures from the trifler. God Is " a re warder
of them that seek Him diligently."
But nothing is gained by exaggeration or
overstatement. When, adopting the language of
Scripture itself, we call it the Word of God, the
oracles of God, we make full allowance for possible
errors In transcription, and imperfection in trans
lation. But as we have seen, to press these
considerations to a point that would impair
its Divine authority betokens perverseness and
pedantry. And this leads me to repeat a warning against
Identifying the fact of inspiration with any
definition of it, or with popular theories
respecting It. Many people, for instance, seem
to assume that we cannot regard Genesis as
inspired unless it be maintained that every
portion of it was imparted to Moses in the
same way that the 53rd chapter of Isaiah was
Imparted to the prophet. But what warrant is
there for this? If the Higher Criticism view
of Exodus, for example, be sustained, that book
is a profane fraud, and our Divine Lord is an
unreliable teacher. But if the a priori argument

Ch. XIX.] THE GENESIS "DOCUMENTS" 261
in favour of a written revelation be valid,' it
vetoes the assumption that there was no such
revelation during the thousands of years which
preceded the Mosaic age. That Genesis was
based on existing "documents" is a reasonable
suggestion ; but the inference that this disproves
its claim to inspiration Is false. Our Lord set
His seal upon the book as a whole, but He said
no word either to guide or to restrain the efforts
of reverent and competent criticism to analyse it.
While therefore the absence of definitions and
theories will seem to some a serious defect in
this book, it Is a defect which I refuse to remedy.
If any one doubts whether God could make His
will known to men, unmistakably, and in language
they can understand, the question at issue Is not
inspiration at all, but the power and character of
God. And while an Intelligent scepticism will
apply the severest tests to anything claiming to
be a Divine revelation, the rejection of it on
a priori grounds is nothing but the dull stupidity
of an ignorant unbelief
The Higher Criticism is, as we have seen, the
product, not of nineteenth century enlightenment,
but of eighteenth century rationalism. And yet
' See p. 64, ante.

262 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
it can boast of a far more venerable origin. For
while there is plenty that is novel in its elaborate
details, in its main outlines there is nothing new.
People talk as though the faith of the Church as
to Holy Scripture was settled in an uncritical and
ignorant age when the objections and difficulties
which now Influence the minds of men were
unknown. The thought Is worthy of this
conceited age of ours. The faith of the Church
was settled under a fire of keen and Intelligent
criticism. Names such as Celsus and Porphyry,
and the rest, not to speak of the Gnostics and
other sects, will occur to every student. The
" Mosaic narrative " was, then as now, explained
as allegory, or dismissed as fable. The Mosaic
books were declared not to be Mosaic at all, but
the product of a later time. The historical books
were discredited as being unauthentic, and the
miracles were ridiculed. And in the case of
such books as Jonah and Daniel it may be
averred that the modern attack adds nothing
that will stand the test of still more modern
discoveries. The distinctive element in the
Higher Criticism is merely that the attack is
now delivered from the Christian camp.
And in conclusion I would repeat with
emphasis a warning against being deceived as

Ch. XIX.] SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MOVEMENT 263
to the significance of the present movement.
There is nothing which proves more plainly a
critic's want of judgment, and of clearness of
vision, than the incapacity to see that the
Christ controversy of the Early Church is re
opened by the Bible controversy of to-day. A
supernatural creed which does not rest on a
supernatural foundation is not faith, but super
stition. Puzzle - headed people may taunt us
with putting the Bible in the place of Christ,
but every clear thinker recognises that once we
pass out of the sphere where reason and the
senses can teach us, we are dependent absolutely
on a Divine revelation.
Not that " the historic Jesus " Is a myth. The
rejection of the Evangelists' testimony betokens
not a reasonable scepticism, but the stupidity of
the " boot-eating " juror, who doggedly refuses
to believe the evidence. But an Intelligent
appreciation of the evidence for the public facts
of His life and ministry stands quite apart from
belief in the Divinity of Christ. The foundation
truth of Christianity is that the Man of Calvary
Is now sitting upon the throne of God. And I
appeal to all fair minds whether I am not justified
in saying that those who believe this upon no
better authority than the Higher Critics' Bible,

264 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
are credulous and superstitious. We can reach
the Living Word only through the written Word.
Therefore in contending for a really inspired —
an absolutely authoritative — Bible, we can say
with Athanasius, " We are fighting for our all." '
But it is not merely In this incidental way that
the Higher Criticism undermines the foundations
of Christianity. It attacks them directly. The
critics freely acknowledge that the Lord Jesus
Christ accredited the Old Testament as being the
Word of God. Unless, therefore, they can dis
credit His testimony their whole position must
be condemned as not only false, but profane.
And from this, as we have seen,^ they do not
shrink. The Christian truth of the Humiliation is that,
with the full realisation of all that He was, and
the clear apprehension of all that God had
revealed In the Scriptures which testified of
• It is a well-known fact that the present dearth of candidates
for Holy Orders is due, not to the causes publicly put forward,
but to the effects of the Higher Criticism in undermining faith
in the Incarnation among those who might be expected to offer
themselves for ordination. And it would be a rash statement at
this moment to assert that the majority of the clergy believe the
Apostles' Creed. The book Contentio Veritatis, by " Six Oxford
Tutors," bears startUng testimony to the extent of the present
apostasy. Those of the writers who clearly believe in the
supernatural appear to do so as Churchmen and not as Christians.
¦ Pp. 69-74, «"'«•

Ch. XIX.] "KENOSIS" HERESIES 265
Him, the Lord in infinite grace stooped to the
lowest depths of self-emptying and self-effacement.
But the Kenosis of this new theology betokens
not Divine grace but human misfortune. It Is
not the humiliation of Christ, but His degrada-
tion. It is not that He became man, but that
He sank to the level of a Jew of that age. Not
that while " knowing that the Father had given
all things Into His hands and that He was come
from God and was going to God," ' He humbled
Himself; but that knowing nothing more than
His contemporaries. His mind was warped by
prejudice and ignorance. ^
Such is the doctrine of the critics on this
question of transcendent importance. Nor Is it
an excrescence upon their theology that might
be got rid of : it is vital to their system. They
admit that they are challenging what has been
the belief of the Church in all ages. They admit
that that false belief — ^as they deem it — Is based
upon the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their whole position, therefore, is untenable
unless they can disparage His authority or His
competence. It is clear, therefore, that the Higher Criticism
' John xiii. 3.
¦ This is merely a summary of the argument of chap. vi.

266 THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
raises again in a new and more subtle phase
the same issue as the old Arian heresy. It is
not the Bible that is at stake, but the Christ of
the Bible. Is it, then, the language of exaggera
tion to declare that in resisting it "we are
fighting for our all"?

APPENDIX NOTE I.
(Chap. IV. p. 44, anfe.)
Isolated Texts Relied on by the Higher Critics.
It is notorious that great heresies are generally based on
isolated texts, and the rationalistic attack on the Pentateuch
relies on a perversion of Exodus vi. 3 and Jeremiah vii. 22.
The former passage is used by the critics to prove that the
name " Jehovah " was unknown to the Patriarchs. It is droll
how these men employ arguments which refute themselves; for
if the book be a literary forgery it is certain that the brilliant
author of it would not have given himself away like this.
Most of the Tubingen heresies have an element of
truth in them, and the figment that Jehovah was the tribal
deity of Israel is a travesty of the truth that this was
God's covenant name — His name in relation to His people as
brought into covenant relationship with Himself. To Abraham
the covenant was a promise ; it was not till four centuries after
wards that it was established as a public fact. The Patriarchs
received private revelations, but now He was about to declare
Himself openly. Hence His words in Exodus vi. — " Thou
shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh," And He adds, " I am
Jehovah; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and
unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but as to My name Jehovah I
was not known to them " (R.V., margin). The significance of
that name was never known until (as He goes on to say) He
267

268 APPENDIX

"remembered" His covenant; that is, until the time had
come for Him in fulfilment of it (see p. 87, ante) to deliver
His people from their sojournings and their bondage.
" Wherefore, say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah "
(ver. 6).
Jeremiah vii. 22 reads : " I spake not unto your fathers, nor
commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the
land of Egypt, concerning burnt-ofiferings or sacrifices." And
this is taken as proof that "the Levitical Code'' was not in
existence in Jeremiah's day.
Such a perversion of the prophet's words would be impos
sible but for the prevailing ignorance of the teaching of the
Pentateuch. To the intelligent Christian they appear to be
merely a bare statement of a fact which is plain upon the open
page of the Book of Exodus. The prophet adds, " But this
thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will
be your God, and ye shall be My people." This was the
burden of aU the Divine teaching at the Exodus. When God
brought Israel out of Egypt there was not even a suggestion
of the Levitical code of sacrifices. That was promulgated
after the formal dedication of the covenant, as a Divine
provision to maintain Israel in the position already assured to
them as a redeemed and holy people. And its significance
was twofold. Its esoteric teaching was of Christ. Its outward
value was solely as a test of obedience. But when, in the
pre-exilic apostasy, the Jews made it a mere religion, and put
it in the place of heart-obedience to God, it became only a
curse to them.
I will risk a charge of egotism by referring here to Chapter
XII. of my Buddha of Christendom. I do so, however, because,
though it affords a refutation of this error of the critics, it was
written without any reference to the Pentateuch controversy.

NOTE II.
(Chap. VIII. p. no, ante.)
The Revised Version of the New Testament.
I wish to bring in the R.V. controversy only in so far as my
argument demands it. The method on which the revisers
dealt with the text has been thus described by one of the
company (Dr. Newth), whose account is confirmed by Bishop
Ellicott himself. The Bishop, as chairman, asked whether
any textual changes were proposed. "By tacit consent" Drs.
Scrivener and Hort were left to reply by stating their respective
views. "Dr. Scrivener opens up the matter by stating the
facts of the case and giving his judgment on the bearings of
the evidence. Dr. Hort follows, . . . and, if differing from
Dr. S.'s estimate of the weight of the evidence, gives his
reasons and states his own view. After discussion the vote
of the company is taken, and the proposed reading accepted
or rejected. The text being thus settled, the chairman asks
for proposals on the rendering."
Is it any wonder that a learned writer declared that if this
description of their action " is not a kind of joke, it is quite
enough to 'settle' this Revised Greek Testament in a very
different sense"? Fancy a question of prescriptive rights
being " settled " in such a manner as this in a court of justice !
And remember that, while "textual criticism" sounds very
recondite, the question at issue in every instance was as
definitely a matter of evidence as is the case in a suit about
a water-course or a right of way. And it ought to have
been dealt with according to the established principles and
rules of evidence. 269

270 APPENDIX

If the four or five most ancient MSS. were always in accord
a plausible case might be made out for following them to the
exclusion of the other authorities. But as a matter of fact they
are scarcely ever in accord in any instance where they differ from
the Received Text. Suppose that in a prescriptive rights
action the "ancient witnesses " called for the plaintiff differed
in their evidence, and the jury by a majority vote decided to
follow some of them in opposition to the others and also to the
united voice of the rest of the community ; and you have in a
parable the action of the Revisers in "settling" the Greek text.
And in numberless cases where the Revisers happily
refused to mutilate the text, they compromised matters by
allowing the insertion in the margin of an alternative reading,
which, though possibly quite devoid of authority, suggests
a doubt as to the right reading of the passage.
The question of the translation is quite outside the purpose
of this reference to the R.V., which is merely to emphasise
the fact that sceptical objections based on textual criticism
are worthless. I will therefore dismiss the matter with a
word of comment and a word of advice.
An old MS. may have survived its fellows for the same
reason that an old pair of boots sometimes survives, namely,
through having been put aside on account of some fault or
blemish. Of the five most ancient MSS. which the Revisers
chiefly followed, three are declared by critics of eminence to
be corrupt and untrustworthy.
And the advice I venture to offer to readers who cannot
revise the R.V. for themselves is this : Read the Gospels
always in the Authorised Version, using the R.V. only as a
book of reference ; and when the text diflfers, assume that the
A.V. is right, for in the great majority of cases it is so.

NOTE IIL
(Chap. XI. p. 147, ante.)
"Three Days and Three Nights."
Some people cannot understand how the Lord's words that
He would be "three days and three nights" in the grave
could be true if He died on Friday and rose on Sunday
morning. This is a notable instance of the common blunder
of interpreting words and phrases otherwise than by their use.
Words are but counters ; they have no intrinsic value. The
only practical question, therefore, is What do they stand for ?
And what alone concerns us here is. What meaning did the
Lord's words convey to those to whom they were addressed ?
To this question the Gospels afford the answer. Four-and
twenty hours after His burial the Jews came to Pilate and
said, "We remember that that deceiver said, while he was
yet alive. After three days I will rise again ; command there
fore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day "
(Matt, xxvii. 63, 64). Compare with this 2 Chron. x. 5-12,
relative to the new king and his Israelite subjects. " He said
unto them, Come again unto me after three days. ... So
Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third
day." Or see Esther iv. 16; v. i. The Queen's order to her
people was, " Fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink, three
days, night or day." And yet " On the third day " Esther
held the banquet.
In either case the words conveyed to those who used and
heard them a meaning different from that which we attach to
271

272 APPENDIX
them. Had Jeroboam not come on the third day it would
have meant rebellion. Had that Easter Sunday passed leaving
the seal upon the tomb unbroken, the guard would have been
withdrawn, and the Pharisees would have proclaimed their
triumph. A prison chaplain would find no difficulty in explaining
this to his congregation. Our civil day begins at midnight,
and the law reckons any part of a day as a day. Therefore
while a sentence of three days means three days of twenty-
four hours, equal to seventy-two hours, a prisoner under such
a committal is seldom more than forty hours in gaol ; and I
have known cases where the period was in fact only thirty-
three hours. And this mode of reckoning and of speaking
was as familiar to the Jew as it is to the habituis of our
criminal courts. " A day and a night make an Onah, and a
part of an Onah is as the whole." Dr. Lightfoot quotes this
Jewish saying in his Horoe Hebraicce (Matt. xii. 40) ; and he
adds : " Therefore Christ may truly be said to have been in
his grave three Onoth .... the consent of the schools and
the dialect of the nation agreeing thereunto."
I have seen it stated that as Jonah's imprisonment in the
whale lasted three days and three nights the Lord must have
laid for as long a period in the grave. But this is only another
phase of the same blunder. There is no reason to suppose
that Jonah's " three days and nights " was a longer period
than our Lord's.

NOTE IV.
(Chap. XV. p. 198, ante.)
The Genealogies of Our Lord.
Some people seem to assume that the gospel "Genealogies"
were dictated to Matthew and Luke by the Spirit of God:
others, that they were based on the gossip of Joseph's family.
It is not easy to decide which view is the more extraordinary.
These genealogies were of course transcripts of Jewish records ;
for such pedigrees were a speciality with the Jews, especially
in the case of families belonging to the Royal or Priestly
houses. And if they had not been authentic they would have
been promptly exposed, and the Gospels discredited, by
the Jewish opponents of Christianity. As Dr. Bloomfield
writes {Greek Test. Com.) : " If these genealogies of Christ
(which must be understood to have been derived from the
public records in the temple) had not been agreeable thereto,
the deception would have been instantly detected."
This is so obvious that I should not notice it were it not for
the use made of these genealogies by certain of the critics.
For example, one of the lesser lights, quoted more than once
in these pages, referring to the very probable hypothesis that
Matthew gives the pedigree of Joseph, and Luke that of Mary,
predicts that " a coming generation of Bible students will find
it almost incredible that such an explanation should have been
seriously urged." He goes on to notice superciliously that
iq ^73

274 APPENDIX

" Joseph's family occupied twenty-eight generations, while in
the same time Mary's family got through thirty-eight genera
tions ; " and ends, " Luke inadvertently states that Joseph was
the son of Heli, when he meant that Mary was the daughter
of Heli." This is meant to be very smart. The reader must
decide whether such writing does not justify my treatment of
the critics. The real question thus raised is not at all the
inspiration of the Gospels, but whether the Evangelists are
deserving of any attention or respect.
An alternative explanation, that Matthew gives Joseph's
genealogy as legal successor to the throne of David, and Luke
his private genealogy, is maintained with much erudition and
force in Lord Arthur Hervey's Genealogies of our Lord Jesus
Christ. An epitome of his argument will be found in his
article, "Genealogy of Christ," in Smith's Bible Dictionary.
A brief notice of the other view will be found in Dean
Plumptre's note to Luke iii. 23 in Bishop Ellicott's New
Testament Commentary for English Readers.
Dr. Bullinger states the matter thus: — "Matthew gives
the royal and legal line through Solomon ; Luke gives the
natural and lineal line through Nathan. The former is the
line according to legal succession ; the latter is the line accord
ing to natural descent. . . . Both lines meet in Joseph, the
son of Jacob by birth, and the son of Heli by marriage with
Mary, Heli's only daughter." '
' Number in Scripture, p. 159. In a footnote he notices that the verb
used in Luke iii. 23 means ' ' to own as a custom or usage " (Liddell & Scott).
It is not " as was supposed," but " as was leckoned by Jewish customs."
(Bloomfield's Gr. Test.)

NOTE V.
(Chap. XV. p. 20I, ante.)
The Distinction between the Kingdom of Heaven,
THE Kingdom of God, and the Church.
The term " Kingdom of Heaven," or, to be strictly accurate,
" the Kingdom of the Heavens," occurs thirty-three times in
the First Gospel, and nowhere else in the New Testament.'
The Greek work basileia has the same range of meaning as
our English word "Kingdom." It means (i) royal authority;
sovereign power; rule; or (2) the territory or country over
which a king rules. Therefore the Kingdom of the Heavens
must mean either (i) the rule of the heavens over the earth,
or else (2) the heavens as the scene or sphere of Divine rule.
We cannot hesitate in deciding that (i) is the meaning here,
" the heavens " standing for " God " by a well-known figure of
speech. And our best commentators, recognising this, refer
to the Book of Daniel to explain it ; but, having thus found
the key, they generally throw it away unused.
" That the heavens do rule " was announced to Nebuchad
nezzar as a present fact and truth (Dan. iv. 26). But yet the
visions of Daniel ii. and vii. foretold a future kingdom — a
kingdom in the same sense in which Babylon, Persia, Greece,
and Rome were kingdoms — foretold a time when God would
take back the sceptre of earthly sovereignty which He had
" The expression was used by Jewish writers in a v^ue sense = the
inward love and fear of God (Hora HebraiciE, Matt. iii. 2).
275

276 APPENDIX

entrusted to Nebuchadnezzar. Now this Messianic kingdom
is connected in prophecy with the race of Abraham and the
throne of David. And the New Testament opens with a
revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ as the heir of David and
of Abraham — the Messiah of the Promises, the king of
Messianic prophecy. And His ministry began by an an
nouncement that the promised rule was about to come.
Matt. iii. 2 was not the statement of a present truth or fact,
but a prophetic declaration. This was the purpose of the
First Gospel ; and the Holy Spirit so guided and restrained the
writer of it that it contains not one single sentence that is
inconsistent with that purpose. It is the Gospel of the
Kingdom of Heaven; for the expression is peculiar to
Matthew, who uses it some thirty-three times, meaning always
and only the promised Messianic earthly kingdom.
The expression " the Kingdom of God " occurs five times
in Matthew ; fifteen times in Mark ; thirty- three times in Luke;
twice in John (iii. 3, 5) ; seven times in Acts, and occasionally
in the Epistles. In this expression the word " Kingdom "
has no longer a fixed meaning. In some of the passages it
means the rule of God ; in others, the whole sphere in which
that rule is exercised ; and in others again it has an ethical or
spiritual meaning, as representing the state of blessedness
pertaining to the Divine rule. John iii. 3, 5 affords a notable
instance of this third category. Scripture would never say
" Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of
Heaven.^' Still more incongruous would it be to say "he
cannot see the Church.^' Many things may be predicted of
both the Kingdom of Heaven and of the Kingdom of God ;
just as of England and of the British Empire. But though
the terms may often be used interchangeably, they are not
synonymous.

APPENDIX 277

This will appear very plainly if we examine the passage in
Matthew where the term " the Kingdom of God " occurs.
They are chaps, vi. 33 ; xii. 28 ; xix. 24 ; xxi. 31 and 43. The
intelligent student of Scripture will see that in no one of
these passages could "the Kingdom of Heaven" be used.
Chap. xvi. 19 claims special notice. It has been said
that if these words had not been written the apostasy of
Rome could never have arisen. If the distinction I am
pleading for were recognised, the pretensions of Rome would
collapse. It was in relation to the Earthly Messianic Kingdom
that the Lord conferred upon Peter this " power of the keys."
To talk of "the Keys of the Kingdom of God" is absurd.
More silly still does it seem to the intelligent Christian to talk
of the Keys of the Church which is the body of Christ. But
Rome, though claiming to be the inspired keeper of the
truth, is ignorant of these distinctions, albeit they are so
obvious and so elementary.
In no case can the term "Church of God" be used
interchangeably with "Kingdom of Heaven." For the one
means a company of people, and the other a system of
Government. The English word "Church" has meanings
which the Greek word Ecclesia does not possess. In the
LXX. Ecclesia is the usual rendering for the Hebrew Kahal
(as 'Adah is usually rendered sunagogS). And whether in
the LXX., in the New Testament, or in classical Greek it
means only and always a company of privileged or represen
tative people. Acts xix. 32, 39, 41 may appear an exception,
but we who are used to hearing an election mob addressed as
" gentlemen " need not wonder if a Greek official flattered an
Ephesian mob by the use of the word Ecclesia. And the
English rendering of i Tim. iii. 15 may also seem an
exception. But there, as in verses 4, 5, and 1 2 of the same

278 APPENDIX
chapter, the word house is used by a common figure of speech
for household. Paul so uses the word again in r Cor. i. i6 ;
and it is so used in several passages in Acts. The language
of I Pet. ii. 5 cannot be strained to support the figment that
a building would ever be an Ecclesia.
It is noteworthy that the word occurs nowhere in the
Gospels save in Matt. xvi. i8, and xviii. 17. And I deprecate
any exposition of these passages which makes them refer
exclusively, or even primarily, to the present dispensation.
Such an exegesis is, I think, refuted by the fact that it is in
the teaching of the First Gospel that these words are recorded.
But may I here hazard the opinion that a right understanding
of our Lord's words in Matt. xvi. 16-19 would suffice to
undermine the whole fabric of the apostate religion of
Christendom ?
In the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians the word
ecclesia acquires a new dignity. In every other occurrence of
it in the New Testament, and always in the LXX., it represents
a company of people on earth. But in Ephesians and Colossians
it includes saints on earth and saints in heaven. Having regard
to I Cor. xii. 12, some would maintain that the body means
only the saints on earth. But the closing words of Eph. i.
("His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all")
precludes any such limitation. And the language of Ephesians
and Colossians vetoes the suggestion that the term "body"
is merely an illustration of the union between Christ and the
Church. It is a figure, of course; but we must distinguish
between a figure which is the expression of a fact and a figure
which is merely an illustration of a fact. The union between
Christ and those who are members of His body must be more
real, not less real, than the union between a man and the
members of his natural body.

INDEX

Abraham, a " lunar hero,'' 42
Advent, The Second, 211 ff, 227, 246
Alford, Dean, 13, 30, 68, 76, i66»,
200», 207», 2i8», 227, 238»
Anthropomorphism, 100
Apocalypse, The, 183
Araunah, The threshing-floor of, 161
Argyll, Duke of, llj, I28»
Arnold, Matthew, 20, 28, 40, 54,
56. S7i 74». 160, 255
Bampton Lectures, Canon Bernard's,
I94», 199
„ ,, Dr. Hatch's, iggn
Belshazzar, 136, 137
Bentley, 103
Berosus, History of, 135
Bible, Authority of the, i, 15, 19, 22,
175 ff, 249
„ Character and scope of the,
15, 119, 194, 257
„ a human book, 10, 11, 12, 27
„ a Divine book, 11, 27
„ MSS of the, loi, IDS, 109,
270
Birks, Prof., 31, 35«, 259«
Bullinger, Dr. E. W., si», 274
Calendar, The sacred, 238, 243
Calvinism, 216, 217

Canaanites, Extermination of the,
156-158
Carlyle, Thomas, 80
Charles II., Death of, 36, 37, 38
Cheyne, Prof., 5, 9, 37, 39, 40, 41,
42, 44. 75. I3i». 149
Christ, The Divinity of, li, 55, 56,
175, 263
„ Rejection of, 58-61
„ Testimony of, to the Scrip
tures, 69, 72, 74, 78, 175
Chronological errors, 161 ff
Chronology, Biblical, 163 ff
Church, The, 172, 243^ (see
" Ecclesia ")
Creation, The, 112 ff
Criticism, see " Higher Criticism"
Critics, Capacity of the, 28, 30, 49,
132, 210, 2is», 251, 25s
„ Inconsistency of the, 53, 57,
251
,, Credulity of the, 9
Crucifixion, The date of the, 163,
232 ff
Dana, Prof., 118
Daniel, Book of, 44, 45, 129 ff
Darius the Mede, 137
David, King, 79-82, 161
" Day," The Creation, 122-125

279

28o

INDEX

Driver, Prof., 14, 41, 44, 50, 73,
I3i«. 133. 134. 136, 149. 212
Ecclesia, Meaning of the word, 277
Edersheim, Dr., 58, 232», 236«,
24in
Eichhorn, 26, 39, 40n, 41, 42, 132
Encyclopedia Biblica, The, 5 ff, 12,
14. 37. 39. 61, 233«, 252
Epistles, Inspiration of the, I79ff
Evidence, Principles of, 106
Ewald, 40, 133
Experts as witnesses, 45, 48
Fairbairn, Dr., 64
Farrar, Dean, 134, I35»
Feasts, The Jewish, 238 ff
First-fruits, The, 239, 240, 243
Gamaliel's speech (Acts v. 36), 225,
226
Genealogy, Our Lord's, 198, 273
Genesis, Documents of, 260, 261
Genesis, The creation story of,
iiiff
Gethsemane, 16, 242
Gladstone, Mr., 28«, Il2ff
Gospels, Scope of the, 15, 16, 194
Graves, Bishop, 257
Harnack, Prof., 48, 172
Hastings' Bible Dictionary, 14, 69,
212, 233«, 252
Hatherley, Lord, 65, 66, 70
Hebrew and the Higher Criticism,
42, 44, so, 94, 96, 132, 149
Hengstenberg, 26, 132, 140
" Herald Angels' Song," The, 108
HigherCriticism.Character of,26,43,
129, 150, 251,
254, 258, 262
„ Origin of, 39, 261
Streneth of. 10.

Higher Criticism, Tendency of, 9,
37. 43. 61, 70. 264
Humiliation, The, 264 (see Kenosis)
Huxley, Prof. , on Genesis, 11 2 ff, 1 27
„ ,, on Infallibility, 173
Incarnation, The, 8, 55
Infants, The damnation of, 160
Inscdption on the Cross, The, 227-
230
Inspiration, 4, 78 ff, 169 ff, 260
Verbal, 83 ff, 95 ff,
177 ff, 228
„ No definition of, 261
Irish story. An, 221
Isaiah, Book of, 45-47, 86, 90, 91
Isaiah II., 45, 46
Jehovah, The name, 86, 87, 267
Jericho, The blind men at, 224, 225
Jews, Position of the, 159
,, Restoration of the, 246
John, Gospel of, 53, 190, 194, 197
Jonah, Book of, 142 ff
Kenosis, The, 71-74, 175, 265
Kingdom of heaven. The, 201 ff, 275
Kingdom of God, 275
Lange, 234
Language of the Prophets, 86, 93,
97
Lawyers, Testimony of great, 65, 66
Lux Mundi School, The, 172-174
Marriage, 70
Martyrs, The, 2, 3, 250
Massoretes, The, 102
Matthew, Gospel of, 187 ff, 195 ff,
276
Miracles, 52-57, 88, 147, 203, 206
Morality and Faith, Analogy be
tween. 77-^Q. 60-70

INDEX

Nicodemus, i6
Nonconformists, Scepticism among
the, 255
O'Grady, Chief Baron, 142
Ordination pledges, 14, 251
Parables of Matthew xiii. , 204, 205
Parousia, The, 21 1 ff, 227
Pascal, 55, 63
Passover, The, 218, 220, 233, 235 ff
Pentateuch, The, 43, 44, 129, 255«,
258
Pentecost, Feast of, 239, 243, 245
Police V. Saints, 17
Preparation, The, 237
Priesthood of Christ, 98, 99
Prophecy, Character of, 50, 51
Prophecy, Study of, 26, 30
Ptolemaic System, The, 29, 186
Pusey, Dr., 250
Queen Victoria and the homicide,
155, 156
Reade, Charles, 52, 152«
Reformation, The, 19, 23, 24
" Restitution of all things," The, 245
Resurrection, The, 8, 76, 147
Revised Version, The, 99«, 104 ff,
i66«, 269
Revolution, The French, 12
Saphir, Adolph, 184
Sayce, Prof., 43, I37»
Scepticism of the Day, The, 4, 22, 53
Scrivener, Dr., 105, 107, 108, 269
" Sermon on the Mount," The, 188,
202, 203«
Servitudes, The, 165

Sinker, Dr. R., 68k, io5», I22k,
13IK, 254
Sin-offering, The, 217, 218, 220
Smith, Goldwin, 19
Smith, Robertson, 38, 39, 253«
Speaker's Commentary, Editor of
the, 107, 108
Stephen, Sir J. F., 48
Surgeon and patient, 12
Swift, Dean, 57K
Tabernacles, Feast of, 239, 244,
246
Tapestry, Two sides to the, 77
Temptation, The, 67
Theudas, The insurrection of, 225,
226
"Three days and three nights,"
147, 271
Tiberius, The reign of, 163, 202
Times, The, 39, 115, I27«
Tyndall, Mr., 126
Types, Doctrine of the, 26, 216,
220, 238 ff, 2S8»
Verbal Inspiration, see " Inspira
tion"
Victoria, Queen, 155
Virgin birth. The, 8, 249
Weeks, The Seventy, 138, 139, 168
Wellhausen, 40, 41
Westcott, Bishop, 105, 140
Whale of Jonah, 143-146
Words, Meaning of, 84 ff, 96-98
Wordsworth, Bishop, 104
Xerxes, Proclamation of, 95
Yahveh, The name, 86, 87

SOME OF THE TEXTS EXPLAINED
OR NOTICED.

Exodus.

VI. 3

XXIV. 24

PAGE
. 87«, 267

2 Samuel.

I Kings.

XXI. 25 .
liii. 7 .

ix. 25

I Chronicles. Isaiah.
Jeremiah. Daniel.
Matthew.

XI. 14 .
xii. 38-40
xiii.
xxii. 31, 32
xxiv. 3
xxiv. 34
ii. 14 .
xxiv. 27, 44

Luke.

161
16S
161
2l8« 268 139

. 200
. 147
. 205
. 92
. 207
. 227
108-110 . 176

John.

1. 1-3 ,
i. 10-12
i. 29
X. 34. 35
xiv. 1-3

111. 19. .
V. 36 .
xiii. 18-21

XV. 8

u. 17

V. I
V. 12

Acts.

Romans.

PAGE S3
197
217 93
21

245225
i65«

196

I Corinthians.
ii. 13 . . . . 94, 182
XV. 3  76
XV. 23 . . . . . 240

2 Corinthians.

40

Hebrews.

2 Peter.

25. 98, 99

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JAMES NISBET & CO., LTD., 21, Berners St., W.
" For Us Men "
Chapters on Redemption Truths.
Cloth, 25. dd. net.
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WORKS BY THE RIGHT REV.
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The Epistle to the Romans . Cr. 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
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Ephesian Studies. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s.
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Colossian Studies : Lessons in Faith and Holiness
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Philippian Studies : Lessons in Faith and Love
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" Dr. Moule carefully translates and paraphrases each section of St.
Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, and draws out the permanent
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Outlines of Christian Doctrine. Fcap. Svo, 2s. 6d.
" Mr. Moule has attempted a very difficult task, and has at least
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reader feels that he is reading a statement of a theology which is the
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as a rule arranged and expressed excellently." — Guardian.
To My Younger Brethren : Chapters on Pastoral
Life and Work. Cr. Svo, cloth, Ss.
"Practical, sensible, and devout." — Glasgow Herald.
"This is a valuable work, thoughtful and practical in a high
degree. " — Christian.
Veni Creator : Thoughts on the Person and \Arork
of the Holy Spirit of Promise. Cr. Svo, cloth, 5s.

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