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THE BEDELL LECTURES, 1891 
 
 HOLY WRIT 
 
 AND 
 
 MODERN THOUGHT 
 
 A Review of Times and Teachers 
 
 BY 
 
 A. CLEVELAND COXE 
 
 BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW-YORK 
 
 ' No book can be written in behalf of the Bible like the Bible itself.' 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 }i West Twenty-third Street 
 1 802 
 
Copyright, 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & CO. 
 
 1892. 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
TO THE RT. REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, 
 
 GREGORY THURSTON BEDELL, D.D., 
 
 THIRD BISHOP OF OHIO. 
 
 My Venerated Brother: To you 
 I dedicate these Lectures, with feelings of 
 tender fraternal regard, thanking God that 
 you and your amiable consort survive to 
 watch successive products of the Lecture- 
 ship of which you are co-founders. May 
 those which I now lay before you prove 
 acceptable in some humble proportion, as 
 those of my predecessors have been in 
 such high degree. 
 
 Here, amid the shades of Kokosing, in 
 the house so long your home, and where 
 you once so hospitably received me, I have 
 enjoyed the hospitalities of our younger 
 
4 DEDICATION. 
 
 brother In the Episcopate, to whom you 
 resigned your cares, and who has entered 
 into your labours with energy and with 
 marked abilities for his great work. Need 
 I say how constantly your name and that 
 of Mrs. Bedell have been upon his lips and 
 those of his family and his guests, as every- 
 thing about us has suggested some grate- 
 ful remark? As I looked over the scene 
 from my windows, in the kindly light of 
 the ''summer of All-Saints" — the em- 
 bracing river far below, the woods around 
 still heavy with their foliage in autumnal 
 colours, and the opening which discloses the 
 distant spire — or when I heard the chiming 
 bells send forth their music as a call to 
 prayer, I have felt that your spirit, as well 
 as your personal history, is here enshrined 
 in meet memorials. Long may it be so, if, 
 indeed, the world itself is destined to any 
 long duration. But how little this concerns 
 us, who look for new heavens and a new 
 earth, and who cherish a trembling hope 
 
DEDICATION. 5 
 
 for the Master's gracious judgment and 
 award. May we, with all those who have 
 kept the Faith, receive together an abun- 
 dant entrance into that glory which shall be 
 revealed through our blessed Redeemer. 
 Let me commend myself and my diocese 
 to your prayers and benediction, as, my 
 Rt. Reverend brother. 
 
 Yours in Christ, 
 A. CLEVELAND COXE, 
 
 Bishop of Western New York. 
 
 KOKOSING, November 5, 1891. 
 
. PREFATORY. 
 
 These Lectures were delivered in the 
 chapel of Kenyon College, on the 3d and 
 4th of November, 1891. But they have 
 been subsequently revised, abridged in 
 some portions and enlarged in others: a 
 measure to which I was prompted by the 
 recent appearance of able works that ren- 
 dered some of my own endeavours less 
 needful, and made room for the admission 
 of fresh material more likely to be useful. 
 Three sentences which I borrow from Dr. 
 Pusey's learned work on *' Daniel " might 
 be taken as mottoes for my Lectures, as 
 follows : (i) '* It seems to be almost a prin- 
 ciple with some to hold what is assailed to 
 
8 PREFATORY. 
 
 be uncertain. ... (2) Rationalism was the 
 product not of the attacks on the Gospel, 
 but of its weak defenders. ... (3) No 
 book can be written in behalf of the Bible 
 like the Bible itself." 
 
 A. C. C. 
 
 See-House, Buffalo, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Modern Thought 1 1 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 Higher Criticism 68 
 
 LECTURE IIL 
 The Highest Criticism 128 
 
 Notes 238-271 
 
HOLY WRIT AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 Christians are not of the past only. 
 To them belong all time, and eternity at its 
 end. Since Abel reared his altar and wor- 
 shipped the Paschal Lamb, the Christian 
 Faith has been visible in men of faith; 
 and ever since there have been Cains, pro- 
 fessing a rational Deism, but denying the 
 atonement and rejecting the Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world. In our 
 day the Cainites boast themselves to be 
 "liberal Christians." They are free to 
 give away what does not belong to them, 
 
12 HOLY WRIT 
 
 and they kiss the Christ in order to hand 
 Him over to be crucified. So stands the 
 case in our times, and "of our own selves" 
 men have arisen "speaking perverse things." 
 What is our duty in such a crisis? Let us 
 remember that it is no new peril ; the 
 Church has passed through fires much 
 more terrible : and St. Paul's prescription 
 still assures us of our great resource. 
 " Night and day with tears," he reminded 
 the primitive faithful that such dangers 
 should arise, but he rehearsed his own 
 teaching ; proclaimed it to be " the whole 
 counsel of God," and added a charge to all 
 bishops, whether of the first or second 
 order, to " watch and remember" what he 
 had testified, and thereby and therewith to 
 " feed the Church of God which He hath 
 purchased with His own blood." Under 
 such instructions I stand before you this 
 day. I offer no apology for my adhesion 
 to what always, everywhere, and by all the 
 apostolic churches has been professed as 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 3 
 
 "the Faith once dehvered to the saints." 
 To Christians I address myself, to build 
 them up in this holy Faith, to show them 
 that they have no cause for alarm or 
 anxiety, and to prove that what figures as 
 " modern thought " is but the same old un- 
 belief in new disguises, while, at this very 
 moment, the activity and predominance of 
 truth have never been more marked. The 
 phases of Christianity in our day are most 
 encouraging. Even the press arrayed 
 against us is doing the work of the Apos- 
 tolic Church, for what it successfully assails 
 is not the Faith, nor the Church. It is old 
 scholasticism ; it is Aristotle, not St. Paul ; 
 it is Luther perhaps, or Calvin, or Laynez, 
 the three fathers of modern sectarianism. 
 It is not Athanasius, nor the Nicene Con- 
 fession ; above all, it is not the Scriptures, 
 nor the Holy Spirit who gave them, nor 
 Christ who sent Him to teach all truth and 
 to abide with us forever. I have lived 
 through the greater part of this century, 
 
14 HOLY WRIT 
 
 and from a child have watched everything 
 that concerns the Church with an interest 
 the most profound. I have studied the 
 greater issues of my times, and to some 
 extent have had a share in their workings ; 
 and when I compare the present with what 
 I recall as the state of things in my youth, 
 I feel strong and hopeful — yes, confident 
 and sure — that truth triumphs and will 
 prevail. I recollect what German thought 
 and scholarship were when Schleiermacher, 
 heretic as he was, began to rebuke heresy 
 and to shame unbelief. I recall what An- 
 glicans were when Hugh James Rose blew 
 the trumpet that drew Pusey back from 
 Rationalism and started the great Catholic 
 revival which has been felt through all 
 Christendom and which has made the 
 Anglican Church a beacon-light to Greeks 
 and Latins and to thousands among the 
 Reformed ; extending her missionary work 
 over all the earth, and giving her a geo- 
 graphical catholicity which even Athanasius 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 5 
 
 never dreamed of as a possibility. Ger- 
 many itself, in our days, has become the 
 ally of Nicene orthodoxy: her presses 
 burst out with new wine — with the out- 
 come of fruits of a Christian scholarship, 
 which more and more is of the pure flavour 
 and of the essential spirit of the Gospel. 
 In a word, while it is true that the enemy 
 comes in Hke a flood, it is not less true that 
 the Spirit of the Lord has uplifted a stand- 
 ard against him. The Faithful Promiser 
 has not disappointed us. The day is at 
 hand when " the vile person shall no more 
 be called liberal^ Let us ''contend ear- 
 nestly for the Faith once delivered to the 
 saints " : the Spirit of the Lord will accom- 
 plish the rest. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me. I am not 
 affecting to despise the forces of the 
 enemy. These forces were never so re- 
 spectable as now ; for they come to us not 
 only in sheep's clothing, but with much of 
 the temper and external character that is 
 
1 6 HOLY WRIT 
 
 borrowed from the flock of Christ. More- 
 over, they are armed with weapons that 
 Christianity has put into their hands; for 
 science is born of Christian enhghtenment, 
 and has never existed in a flourishing and 
 progressive estate, save only in Christian 
 lands and schools. These weapons they 
 turn against the Queen of Sciences, but 
 only by feint and stratagem, never in the 
 fair encounter of liberal conflict; for he 
 only is "liberal" who meets us with fact 
 for fact, and with logic for logic. I affirm 
 and will show that such " liberals " as cap- 
 tivate the popular mind rarely tell the 
 whole truth; they assume what is not 
 proved; they supply ''missing links" by 
 imagination; they sneer where they can- 
 not refute, and boast of victory before their 
 field is won. And yet among those who 
 do all this are men of real science and of 
 mental powers the most astute. They are 
 honest, too, for they first victimize them- 
 selves and are captivated by their own wit 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I 7 
 
 and ingenuity. Besides, they have on 
 their side many prestiges of a period un- 
 exampled for brilliant enterprise and dis- 
 covery, which the popular mind cannot 
 but wonder at and admire to intoxication. 
 When physical truths are demonstrated of 
 which philosophy never dreamed' before, 
 how easy to . assume that moral and spir- 
 itual experiments are equally sure to revo- 
 lutionize the convictions of all men and 
 to dethrone the Faith of ages! Young 
 men catch at this idea and adopt it prac- 
 tically. Impatient and headstrong, they 
 inebriate themselves with the caprices of 
 the moment, and imagine that it is a brave 
 thing to doubt, to reject, to cavil, and even 
 to blaspheme. They forget that it is he- 
 roic in such a crisis to say, **I believe" ; to 
 stand by the old flag and dare to defend it ; 
 to say, "Under this standard all that is light 
 and truth has been won for mankind, and 
 never will I desert it while there are yet 
 battles to be fought and many fortresses to 
 
1 8 HOLY WRIT 
 
 be captured, before there can be any claim 
 for surrender at discretion." 
 
 I recognize that such conflicts are be- 
 fore us. We must anticipate surprise, and 
 wounds, and temporary defeats. Difficul- 
 ties will be startling, and nothing but slow 
 and patient investigation will overcome 
 them. Experts in physics and experts in 
 criticism will be needed to match and over- 
 match and master the apparent discoveries 
 that will overthrow the faith of some. So it 
 was when Copernicus and GaHleo restored 
 the true ideas of the universe, which science 
 for two thousand years had stolen away 
 from the intellectual world, through the 
 most marvellous system of false philosophy 
 that was ever framed by human invention. 
 In alHance with processes truly scientific so 
 contrived as to look like demonstration, and 
 which solved many scientific problems, it 
 was yet ''all false and hollow." Alphonso 
 of Castile sadly reproached the Maker of 
 the universe for the clumsy work which. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 9 
 
 nevertheless, as a man of science, he ac- 
 cepted for reahty. It was science which fet- 
 tered the Church itself by these false dog- 
 mas; with which men of science, emanci- 
 pated by Copernicus, a presbyter of Latin 
 Christendom, now charge the Church as 
 at fault, because the court of Rome anath- 
 ematized the true science and persecuted 
 Galileo. But when was the court of Rome 
 authorized to speak for Christendom? Or 
 when did the Church Catholic ever dogma- 
 tize in such matters? I say, then, just as 
 faithful men were troubled when the Chris- 
 tian priest Kopernik restored truth and 
 prostrated false science which scientists 
 had maintained for ages In the teeth of 
 what Pythagoras had taught and even 
 Cicero had theoretically stated,^ so now 
 great scientific truths ^ will seem to shake 
 the spheres above and the earth under our 
 feet, but will lead to deeper study of Holy 
 Scripture, and will bring forth, out of 
 1 See Note I. 
 
20 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Scripture, " things new and old," harmo- 
 nizing both and confirming all. He is only 
 half a believer who is afraid of anything - 
 that can be proved, no matter by whom ; 
 no matter where, in heaven, earth, or the 
 spaces beneath the earth. One thing is 
 proved beyond conjecture, and has sur- 
 vived all assaults of philosophic unbelief, 
 and that is the revealed knowledge and 
 wisdom of God, and of Christ who is the 
 Rock of Ages. This the Christian knows, 
 and on this he is planted, come what will 
 and prove what men may. They will 
 prove many things which appear to contra- 
 dict this theorem ; but be patient. Known 
 .truth cannot conflict with any known truth. 
 If there be conflict, it is because there is 
 a lie somewhere, and we Christians know 
 where the lie is sure to be found. Give us 
 time, and it will be exposed. Meantime, 
 "none of these things move us." We 
 ** know whom we have trusted," and we 
 know what we have intrusted to Him. I 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 21 
 
 profess before God and man, that all that is 
 demonstrated in what is called " modern 
 thought " is to me a source of perpetual 
 delight and a confirmation of my faith. In 
 short, many difficulties are removed by the 
 true science of our age, and afTord help 
 to my mind and to my ministry. I could 
 multiply details; but, in a word, all that is 
 the characteristic progress of our times only 
 goes to elucidate much that was, even re- 
 cently, hard to credit in the books of the 
 old prophets. " Many shall run to and fro, 
 and knowledge shall be increased." Who 
 could have foreseen the amazing fulfilment 
 of this promise concerning the latter day, 
 as it has been realized in our own lifetime ? 
 ** Ethiopia shall ivith a sudden start stretch 
 forth her hands unto God." That is the 
 promise. And look at what is going on in 
 the Dark Continent, opened to the Gospel 
 and to civilization all at a bound. When 
 Humboldt's " Cosmos " appeared, it was 
 credited as the ripe fruit of all modern dis- 
 
22 HOLY WRIT 
 
 covery. If much of it has already been 
 thrown aside as mere lumber for college 
 garrets, why should we hastily commit our- 
 selves to what is yet theoretical in the works 
 of Huxley and Darwin? But if otherwise, 
 then it goes further than theology has ever 
 ventured, to prove that this earth is to be 
 burned up ; that the great catastrophe may 
 be near at hand ; that if delayed, it is, as 
 St. Peter affirms, because it is *' kept in 
 store" by the word and power of God, 
 " reserved unto fire against the day of 
 judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 
 Chemistry and geology alike refute nothing 
 Biblical, but confirm many startling say- 
 ings of the Master and of His Apostles. 
 In optics and acoustics we find demonstra- 
 tions of some of the most mysterious reve- 
 lations of Scripture, inexplicable till now ; 
 and electricity and magnetism go far to 
 show how readily, by known powers of 
 nature, iron may be made to swim ; or 
 how, by using preternatural, not strictly 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 23 
 
 supernatural forces, the body of our Lord 
 might have sustained itself walking upon 
 the waves of Gennesareth.i 
 
 It is time that I should meet your 
 thoughts by acknowledging that I can do 
 little in two or three lectures, necessarily 
 thrown into a popular form, toward accom- 
 plishing what only can be done by tech- 
 nical processes, to which only the expert is 
 equal — what should be done, in short, upon 
 a scale of expansive research, with exhaust- 
 ive analysis, and with logic the most elabo- 
 rate and inexorable. This is obviously out 
 of the question; what, then, can I hope to 
 do? I think I can show you grounds for 
 my own settled convictions, and reasons 
 why nobody should be in a hurry to com- 
 mit the bark in which his Hfe and his soul 
 are the freight to the foaming currents of 
 contemporary theory ; to the peril of rocks 
 that underlie their floods, and of cataracts 
 into which they may project the advent- 
 
 1 See Note II. 
 
24 HOLY WRIT 
 
 urer. I can show you that *' modern 
 thought" is, in fact, somewhat stale, com- 
 ing to us, as it does, from two centuries of 
 perpetual experiment, which warn us, like 
 all experience, that speculations of one 
 generation have frequently been exploded 
 by the next, and laughed at by all that 
 have followed. 
 
 I propose to present you with a brief 
 survey of times and teachers, which it wall 
 be well for you to examine and refute if 
 you can, before you adopt what happens to 
 be popular just now. When you arrive at 
 the conclusion that after ages of commo- 
 tion nothing has been reached upon which 
 thinking men are willing to unite, so far as 
 it seems to conflict with the Nicene Faith,^ 
 perhaps you will be wise enough to draw 
 the very practical conclusion to *' hold fast 
 that which is good" until something better 
 is tried and demonstrated as a proper sub- 
 stitute for the Gospel and the Church. 
 1 See Note III. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 25 
 
 ''Modern thought," so called, has as- 
 sumed two positions as its base, which 
 remain to be proven. A Christian knows 
 they never can be proven against the 
 Revelation which has stood all tests and 
 survived all attacks directed against it from 
 such assumptions. Here they are : 
 
 I. No genuine prophecy of future events 
 has ever been uttered, or can be made, in 
 the nature of things. 
 
 II. Miracles, or supernatural interrup- 
 tions of nature, are impossible in the law 
 and order of the universe, and cannot be 
 established by testimony. 
 
 Bear these assumptions in mind, and, as 
 believers in revealed religion, follow me in 
 my survey of their history. They are not 
 modern, in reality, but are revived in our 
 times, like rusty iron furnished with a new 
 edge, the advances of science supplying 
 the pretext that it is a modern implement. 
 David Hume made the most of such a 
 weapon in the last century ; but it is note- 
 
26 HOLY WRIT 
 
 worthy that Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 whose theism was the original of deistical 
 unbehef in England, introduced his argu- 
 ment against Revelation by claiming for it 
 a supernatural attestation, i He declares 
 that Almighty God, by a miracle, approved 
 His work against Christianity, and wishes 
 us to believe that his mission was accred- 
 ited by exceptional seals alike of prophecy 
 and miracle, by which he is authorized to 
 deny that such seals were awarded to the 
 prophets and evangelists. Such is the 
 credulity into which God permits men to 
 fall when they deliberately renounce " the 
 faith of reason." 
 
 Theism, of the less ignoble sort, is as old 
 as Greek philosophy, where it was not ig- 
 noble, because it pointed to the dawning of 
 the better day. Pantheism is the germinal 
 thought of the Brahmins, Agnosticism of the 
 Epicureans, as Pessimism is of the Buddh- 
 
 iLeland's "Views of Deistical Writers," p. 20. Ed. 
 London, 1837. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 27 
 
 ists; and "modern thought," so called, 
 only revives these spectres of the night. 
 Reaching no result, and demonstrating 
 naught but its own impotency, it falls back 
 on a nude deism which denies the " super- 
 natural," but affirms nothing intelligible by 
 which unbelief can be united and organized. 
 Its creed is reducible to " I know nothing," 
 and that is all that is credible in its profes- 
 sions. Thank God, we Christians do know 
 something, and are able to confirm our an- 
 cient Faith by all that is true and reason- 
 able in " modern thought " itself. 
 
 But let us go back to Irenaeus and Hip- 
 polytus, and we may add Epiphanius ; to 
 their museum of old and exploded antago- 
 nisms. There you find the genera and spe- 
 cies of all unbelief and misbelief, the brood 
 and swarm of reptile and insect, which 
 came out of the heart of Simon Magus and 
 out of the mouth of Elymas the Sorcerer. 
 If not scientifically classified and labelled 
 by these grand old masters, yet preserved 
 
28 HOLY WRIT 
 
 they are for inspection; as one finds in curi- 
 osity-shops '' the alHgator stuffed," or the 
 " dried beetle with a pin stuck through 
 him." Examine them carefully, and there 
 you find " modern thought " as Christians 
 met it two thousand years ago. The Em- 
 peror Julian himself accepted defeat when 
 he honestly gave up all pretence to be a 
 Christian and professed a philosophical 
 heathenism, varnished with a dilute moral- 
 ity which he stole from the Galilean of 
 Nazareth — from Him whom he hated and 
 would not name as the Christ, preferring 
 Jupiter and Venus to the Light of the 
 world. 
 
 Nevertheless, we may meet '' modern 
 thought " on its new arena, disguised as 
 " science," and professing the ancient an- 
 tagonism under this mask of new learning. 
 It gives the Christian grand advantages : 
 for (i) it is yet the same old Antichrist, 
 over and over again despoiled of the ar- 
 mour in which he trusted; and (2) it is, 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 29 
 
 after all, the same old field on which we 
 have engaged him before. Prove (i) one 
 unquestionable prophecy out of Daniel 
 against a modern Porphyry, and away goes 
 the whole rabble of railers against the 
 supernatural. Establish (2) a single mir- 
 acle like that of which the conversion of 
 Saul of Tarsus is the indelible demonstra- 
 tion, and the supernatural is enthroned 
 where no pretext of philosophy can shake 
 it ; nay, where science itself may be invoked 
 to aid it by its confessed limitations, such 
 as are pointed at by the common sense 
 of Shakespeare's axiom, '* There are more 
 things in heaven and earth than are dreamt 
 of in your philosophy." 
 
 In ultimate analysis you will find nothing 
 new in all that now confronts us. It is not 
 surprising that Narcissus is carried away 
 with self-admiration, as he surveys himself 
 in the brilliant surface of our times, a period 
 in which the inventive genius of mankind 
 has surpassed itself and multiplied its mar- 
 
30 HOLY WRIT 
 
 vels, examples of stupendous achievements. 
 We have confessed that in this spirit of 
 natural vain-glory multitudes of clever and 
 scientific scholars have arrayed themselves 
 against Christ and the Word of His Truth. 
 Such opponents — we repeat it — are to be 
 antagonized only by minds with a passion 
 for research similar to theirs ; by attain- 
 ments equal, if not superior ; by a candour 
 the most fearless in admitting a difficulty ; 
 and by a patience of investigation sharply 
 in contrast with the rash anticipations of 
 those who, while many links remain to be 
 supplied, proclaim mere theory as if it were 
 demonstrated fact. Men who revere scien- 
 tific truth, and who hold divine truth so 
 firmly that they rely upon all truths as its 
 helpers, are the only adherents of the Gos- 
 pel whose vigour of faith fits them to be its 
 defenders. But as for the menaces of the 
 present moment, we may say not only, 
 " None of these things move us," but that 
 there is a Providence which has permitted 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3 1 
 
 the transient evil to ensure a lasting good. 
 Our faith has become indolent and supine. 
 Samson has dallied and slept, and the Phi- 
 listines are upon him. We are in need of a 
 shaking, and of an awakening to greater 
 works than have been attempted for ages. 
 Perhaps we must be prepared for persecu- 
 tions. I am not ashamed to avow my belief 
 that ours is the 'Matter day" — whatever 
 that may include or imply, about Vv^hich I 
 have nothing to say at present. If it is the 
 age when '* knowledge is increased," it is 
 also the age of anarchy, such as agrees 
 with what is said of the final Antichrist, 
 that " Lawless One." It is the age when 
 perilous times have come ; when many de- 
 part from the faith, when iniquity abounds 
 and the love of many grows cold. In 
 short, it is an age answering, in every par- 
 ticular, to those prophecies of unregulated 
 Democracy which breed the awful conse- 
 quences described by St. Paul. Look at 
 his frightful portraiture, to which every 
 
52 HOLY WRIT 
 
 day's report in the journalism of Europe and 
 America supplies the comment^ '* Even 
 as they did not like to retain God in their 
 knowledge, God gave them over to a rep- 
 robate mind, . . . being filled with all 
 unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, 
 covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, 
 murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisper- 
 ers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, 
 proud, boasters, inveiitors of evil things, 
 disobedient to parents, without understand- 
 ing, covenant-breakers, without natural af- 
 fection, implacable, unmerciful. . . . Be- 
 cause that, when they knew God, they 
 glorified Him not as God, neither were 
 thankful ; but became vain in their imagina- 
 tions, and their foolish heart was darkened. 
 Professing themselves to be wise, they be- 
 came fools." 2 True, St. Paul is here de- 
 scribing the former heathenism with which 
 he was then contending, but not less does 
 
 1 Romans i. 28. Note IV. 
 
 2 Note also II. Tim. iii., the entire chapter. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 33 
 
 he identify it with the great apostasy of 
 the last days — a return to just such 
 heathenism. I say, then, that Providence 
 is (i) awakening our energies to fresh in- 
 vestigations of Scriptural truth, as sustained 
 by all true science, and with light of science 
 capable of yielding new^ confirmations to 
 God's Holy Word. At the same time. He 
 practically prepares us for (2) the final or- 
 deal through which the world is soon to 
 pass. 
 
 I proceed from the Catholic standpoint 
 to a survey of " modern thought," its ori- 
 gin, and its performances, from which it 
 will appear that (i) there is nothing in the 
 present outbreak that differs radically from 
 what had been encountered in the two 
 centuries preceding our own ; (2) that these 
 ages have yielded all that is real and sub- 
 stantial in their consequences to the un- 
 deniable triumph and spread of the Gospel ; 
 and (3) that all of the past which lends 
 itself to any species of unbelief has bred the 
 
34 HOLY WRIT 
 
 decay of nations and the most intolerable 
 evils in society, or has reduced itself to 
 nonentity and fruitless Pessimism. It has 
 constructed nothing ; confessedly, the equa- 
 tion of its outcome is zero. 
 
 Observe the workings of Providence in 
 modern history, which dates from a cent- 
 ury of preparations that ended with the 
 world- awakening discovery of America. 
 Separated from the Mother Church of 
 the Orient by the creation of the Papacy, 
 under Nicholas I., the churches of Europe, 
 even under this yoke, maintained the 
 Nicene Faith, the Apostolic Episcopate, 
 and much of their respective autonomies. 
 The waking up of men and nations forced 
 upon Europe the convulsions of Luther and 
 Calvin ; and the reactionary work of Lay- 
 nez, at the Council of Trent, produced a 
 corresponding novelty, the so-called ** Ro- 
 man Catholic Church." This was the prod- 
 uct of Laynez after seventeen years of in- 
 cubation, during which the opposition of 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 35 
 
 older bishops was stifled, because as they 
 died they were replaced by more servile 
 men. These did what Laynez inspired, 
 what the Vatican commanded. Luther 
 and Calvin were not more really the crea- 
 tors of new sects than this wily Laynez. 
 As Quinet observes, the Council of Trent 
 changed everything, without calling atten- 
 tion to the revolution effected by its work.i 
 Its constituent members did not themselves 
 comprehend what they had done, till all 
 was over. The creed of Pius IV. and its 
 new catechism supersedes Catholicity in 
 Western Europe. The great councils of 
 antiquity are ignored and their anathemas 
 despised. Aristotle is made a dogmatist,^ 
 and neutralizes the whole succession of 
 Biblical doctors, from Clement of Alexan- 
 dria to St. Bernard. Syllogism supplies the 
 place of testimony. With a new creed 
 and catechism, behold a new Church. The 
 historic Episcopate is abolished, the name 
 
 ' Note V. 
 
36 HOLY WRIT 
 
 only being retained. The three holy orders 
 are pronounced to be those of *' presby- 
 ters, deacons, and subdeacons." Bishops are 
 only a grade in the hierarchy — the Pope is 
 universal bishop. Diocesan bishops are 
 merely his vicars — presbyters endowed 
 with his functions for local uses, but pos- 
 sessing no Episcopal character of their own 
 under Christ, or derived immediately from 
 Him. The Bible itself is revolutionized : 
 the Apocrypha is made canonical Scripture, 
 and the Latin Vulgate, while yet in flux, 
 and with its text wholly unsettled, is made 
 equivalent to the inspired Hebrew and 
 Greek. ^ Practically worse than all, the So- 
 "ciety of Laynez is made the governing 
 synod of Latin Christendom. For three 
 hundred years the voice of the Western 
 Church is unheard in councils.^ The Jesuit 
 is supreme : pontiffs reign but cannot rule, 
 save as the '* Black Pope " directs. But, 
 as was observed, this stupendous change is 
 
 1 Note VI. 2 Note I. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 37 
 
 silently imposed. The " White Pope " sub- 
 serves the purposes of the scene ; another 
 pulls the wires, but he gesticulates and 
 utters a voice. The Latin Mass is not 
 changed, and the people, who see only 
 their old forms of worship, are unconscious 
 of their new position. In contrast with the 
 sects of Luther and Calvin, they imagine 
 theirs is the '* Old Church." Under this 
 mask of antiquity, the Jesuits began to 
 operate upon Germany with masterly 
 effect. Ranke tells the story, but he knows 
 little of Catholicity and fails to penetrate 
 the secret of what was done. For the con- 
 tinent of Europe had discarded its familiar- 
 ity with antiquity, and Laynez had broken 
 with the Fathers not less really than Luther 
 and Calvin. The devastating wars that 
 followed obliterated all the ancient land- 
 marks. The very idea of such a Church as 
 was recognized by the Nicene Creed per- 
 ished in these conflicts. The human intel- 
 lect was at sea once more, without chart or 
 
38 HOLY WRIT 
 
 compass. The outraged mind and con- 
 science of nations were frenzied to insanity. 
 The Gallicans struggled heroically, for a 
 time, to revive the ancient constitutions and 
 to harmonize the new religion with the 
 creed of antiquity.^ Bossuet, with Titanic 
 energy, forced the modern system to ac- 
 cept, at least in France, rejected shreds of 
 Catholicity, as understood by all its doctors 
 and Fathers. The school of Port Royal 
 strove to preserve the morality of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount and the love of Christ 
 as the bases of Christian character. Pascal 
 and the Arnaulds, with Fleury and others 
 of kindred genius, carried on this holy war, 
 till their houses were razed to the ground 
 and their dead torn from their graves. 
 Jesuits no longer wore their mask, but 
 proudly disclosed '* the hand of Joab " in 
 their triumph over the Church of the Gauls. 
 It was the voice of Rehoboam's counsellors 
 once more: "The pontiffs have chastised 
 
 1 See views of Leibnitz, in Quinet, ut supra. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 39 
 
 you with whips, but we will chastise you 
 with scorpions." 
 
 In Germany, while Rome laughed at the 
 impotency of inorganic Faith to resist their 
 invasion, they drove the frantic mind of a 
 new generation into scepticism. Spinoza 
 had forced it to assume a philosophic form, 
 such as fascinates men who are halting be- 
 tween two opinions. And thus we reach 
 the sources of what has created the devas- 
 tations of irreligion for two centuries in con- 
 tinental Europe. The Faith of the Gospel, 
 the Creed and Church Unity had been 
 wrecked and forfeited alike by Luther and 
 Calvin and Laynez. There was nothing 
 left for drowning men but the individualism 
 of "save himself who can." And each, 
 grappling something that floated in the 
 billows, if he escaped to land, proceeded to 
 shape it into an idol, and to commend it to 
 mankind as the solution of all problems in 
 the mystery of human life. 
 
40 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Out of Sheol, Annas and Caiaphas 
 seemed to have stirred up this Jew Spi- 
 noza to avenge them upon Saul of Tarsus : 
 for whereas the " Reformers " of Latin 
 Christendom had accepted St. Paul, ex- 
 pounded by St. Augustine, as at once their 
 philosopher and doctor, his name was su- 
 preme with their disciples. But it had be- 
 come identified with a new scholasticism, 
 and was so entangled with metaphysics that 
 ** modern thought " was already conceived 
 and born. Spinoza turned the ** Reforma- 
 tion " into scepticism by refinements upon 
 the ideas of Descartes, who had broken 
 with Aristotle and his early Jesuit teachers. 
 The era of interminable speculation was 
 thus begun, and the evolution of ** isms," 
 in serial forms, was inevitable. The mass- 
 ive energies of Leibnitz stimulated imita- 
 tions, and minds the most ignoble vied with 
 men of lofty aspirations to. make themselves 
 lawgivers and to settle religion upon philo- 
 sophic foundations. At such an epoch, the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 4 1 
 
 boast of "illumination" — the philosophy 
 of enlightenment — comes down to the 
 masses only in the form of negations, and 
 through the instrumentality of superficially 
 clever talkers and looser thinkers. Of 
 these, he is the most popular who denies 
 the most, and is the loudest and most arro- 
 gant in his assumptions. Especially is he 
 successful if his philosophy is a disguised 
 sensualism, and his creed *' Let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die." To revert 
 to old paganism is its plan, but its policy 
 is to dress it up and set it forth as Thought. 
 Given a materializing Berlin — or, perhaps 
 I should say, a sentimental Boston or a 
 Mammon-worshipping New York — retri- 
 bution visits such a place from an insulted 
 Creator, as of old when He said, " I also 
 will choose their delusions." ^ Thus Di- 
 vine Wisdom permits some adventurer to 
 attract the unwary by the defiant impu- 
 dence of his " doubts " ; by his boldness in 
 
 * Isaiah Ixvi. 4. 
 
42 HOLY WRIT 
 
 attacking everything that good men be- 
 lieve, and practically outraging all that they 
 love and cherish as truth. So, while the 
 earnestly religious enquirer draws back 
 from perilous conclusions, these find their 
 time and place, because they have no 
 scruples. As, for example, when Wolff 
 had stirred up attention and patronage 
 at Halle, Berlin was ready for practical 
 illumination by somebody less unlike itself. 
 The Lord left them to their lusts, and they 
 sold themselves to Nicolai, whom they 
 conceived to be the consummate flower 
 of German " illumination." He was but a 
 looking-glass, in fact, in whom they saw 
 Self reflected — in all their caprices and 
 tastes and fashions ; so that in crying him 
 up they simply adored themselves. By ex- 
 amining such a personage, one gets the 
 measure of his followers. An eminent Ger- 
 man^ of our own times has thus described 
 
 ^ Dr. Kahnis, " German Protestantism," p. 44. Edin- 
 burgh translation, ed. 1856 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 43 
 
 him : " He was a bookseller who had ex- 
 celled in no single branch of science, and 
 yet he sat in judgment upon all the depart- 
 ments of literature, in one of its most flour- 
 ishing periods. A man of average intel- 
 lect, without productive power, with the 
 education of a dilletante, he had the arro- 
 gance to pass sentence upon all the crea- 
 tions of genius. A man of wholly unphilo- 
 sophical mind, but skilled in the use of bold 
 and unscrupulous argument, he ridiculed 
 the philosophy of its German masters." 
 Posturing as the Coryphaeus of a loftier 
 " Protestantism," he actually became the 
 original of what more learned men have 
 lifted into a " higher criticism." He dared 
 most and went furthest. Hence, he be- 
 came such a power that even Fichte felt 
 called not only to recognize him, but to 
 break this butterfly on his remorseless 
 wheel. 
 
 Fichte says : " His Protestantism was 
 simply a protestation against all truth; 
 
44 HOLY WRIT 
 
 against all that is above our senses, and 
 against every form of religion that finds its 
 end of controversy in faith. To him, relig- 
 ion was by no means a matter of heart 
 and life ; it was only such education of the 
 head as might furnish him with materials 
 of never-ending talk. His freedom of 
 thinking was freedom from all that was, 
 and is, ThoiLght: the licentiousness of empty 
 rumination, without substance and without 
 aim. Liberty of judgment " — pray listen 
 to this — '' was, with him, the right of every 
 bungler and ignorant man to give his opin- 
 ion about everything, whether he under- 
 stood it or not, and whether or not there 
 was either head or tail in what he said."i 
 Have not just such characters been seen 
 among us — claiming '* all the brains " and 
 posing as the apostles or martyrs of '' mod- 
 ern thought" ? 
 
 When Leipzig was in its glory, two of 
 its most brilliant illuminators fell into a 
 
 * Quoted by Kahnis, p. 45, tit supra. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 45 
 
 quarrel — never mind about what, for it 
 only meant "who should be greatest" 
 So the retributive justice of a wise Provi- 
 dence gave Leipzig, also, its fool for meas- 
 urement; and as Leipzig merited some- 
 thing not quite so paltry as had sufficed 
 for Berlin, its "philosophers" found their 
 mental and moral metre in Bahrdt. If this 
 man was of larger intellectual calibre than 
 Nicolai, he proved immeasurably worse in 
 morals. He was a clever boy when he lis- 
 tened to the words and wit of Crusius and 
 Ernesti, then dividing between them the 
 admiration of the University.^ He es- 
 poused the more orthodox party of the 
 former, but only to migrate to that of 
 Ernesti when it better suited his supreme 
 devotion to himself. Ernesti, the well- 
 known Ciceronian critic, was perhaps the 
 first practical author of the now dominant 
 maxim that " the Bible must be treated like 
 any other book." But Bahrdt was so apt 
 ^ Kahnis, p. 131 ; but also, p. 119. 
 
46 HOLY WRIT 
 
 a scholar that he put it to its ultimate test, 
 anticipating in his subsequent career the 
 history of " higher criticism. " He mounted 
 a pulpit, where his aei^obatizing and peri- 
 phronizing could only be depictured by 
 Aristophanes himself. He was lifted by 
 the Athenian passion of the day into the 
 chair of a professor. Erfurt received him 
 after Leipzig, and Bahrdt succeeded Luther 
 in that field which Luther's piety had en- 
 nobled, only to demonstrate what had been 
 the product of Luther's fatal mistakes. He 
 still professed to be a Lutheran, but he 
 owns that when he deserted Crusius his 
 Lutheranism was professed with mental 
 reservations. And so he soon boasted that 
 Ernesti had supplied him with an " im- 
 movable foundation " for open unbelief, 
 by bringing theology to the touchstone 
 of philology and reason. Very logically, 
 therefore, he makes himself a libertine ; 
 and while lecturing on exegesis and divin- 
 ity, in this stage of his advance, he began 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 47 
 
 to enlighten the world by a new " Biblical 
 system of doctrine." One by one he re- 
 nounced all tokens of faith and worship, 
 and yet felt himself qualified to produce a 
 fresh translation of the Gospels and Epistles, 
 which he reduced, as Goethe sarcastically 
 remarked, to ** romance and familiar cor- 
 respondence." Yet he found admirers and 
 hearers, even among those who decorated 
 him with the title of '' the rake-hell pro- 
 fessor." When, at last, he was generally 
 voted a nuisance, he fled into Prussia, the 
 centre of " Illuminism," where he shook off, 
 in rags and tatters, the last remnant of his 
 faith, announcing his discovery that the 
 Scriptures were merely *' a human produc- 
 tion." Let his followers of our times claim 
 no credit for reaching this same conclusion. 
 Bahrdt was their shining original. He 
 called his system "naturalism," but con- 
 descended to associate himself with Moses 
 and the Divine Redeemer as an *' instru- 
 ment of Providence " ; adding, " precisely 
 
48 HOLY WRIT 
 
 as I regard Confucius, Luther, Semler, and 
 — Myself!" He died the victim of his 
 licentiousness ; and hardly was he in his 
 grave when the Reign of Terror, the fruit 
 of '* naturalism " as expounded by Rous- 
 seau, broke out in France. Prussia, where 
 Frederick had sown the wind, was destined 
 to reap the whirlwfnd. Bahrdt had only 
 figured as a stormy-petrel heralding the 
 tempest. 
 
 Here let me go back to the correspond- 
 ing history of unbelief in France, with a 
 glance at its influence upon Germany. 
 While we must praise God for the power 
 of that truly Catholic Restoration, which 
 saved England from the awful apostasies 
 which have predominated in continental 
 Europe, we cannot sufficiently appreciate 
 our blessings without studying in contrast 
 the co-operative tendencies of the systems 
 of Luther, Calvin and Laynez to develop 
 unbelief in its most practical and destruc- 
 tive forms. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 49 
 
 Voltaire, perhaps with a grim irony, con- 
 cludes the Henriade with the lame and im- 
 potent surrender of his hero's faith : an act 
 which cancels the claim of that prince to 
 the surname of " Great," and which has 
 borne fruits of incalculable bitterness for 
 his dynasty and for unhappy France. How 
 different would have been French history 
 had he made common cause with the Queen 
 of England, by treating the Trent Council 
 as an insult to human intelligence, and re- 
 storing the ancient doctrine and discipline 
 of Catholicity.^ Most respectfully did the 
 court of France listen to Theodore Beza 
 while he enforced the necessity of reforms ; 
 but when he was asked, WJiat, then, should 
 be done ? he could give no satisfactory an- 
 swer.^ Had he pointed across the Channel 
 and said, *' Let us restore the Catholicity 
 of the primitive centuries, as they have 
 done in Britain," he would have been the 
 greatest benefactor of Latin Europe that 
 
 1 Note VII. 2 Note VIII. 
 
50 HOLY WRIT 
 
 has arisen since the days of Irenseus and 
 Pothinus. Contrast the last three centuries 
 of French history with the same period in 
 England. 
 
 The story of Port Royal is one of the 
 most instructive in modern annals ; would 
 it were better understood! To the in- 
 trigues, the perfidy, and the cruelty of the 
 Jesuits is due their triumph over the school 
 of Pascal. In accomplishing it, like those 
 reptiles which destroy themselves while in- 
 flicting their venom upon a victim, they in- 
 volved their society and their country in a 
 common desolation. Out of their school 
 came forth Voltaire, trained alike to his 
 frivolity by their laxity of morals, and to 
 his exterminating hate by their fanatical 
 persecution of godliness and devotion in 
 such examples as those of the Arnaulds, of 
 Quesnel, and, in short, of all the Jansenists. 
 It was not difficult for their disciple to prac- 
 tise the same artifices against all who truly 
 loved Jesus Christ. To what had not the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 5 I 
 
 State religion been degraded when a Mas- 
 sillon could consent to lay hands on the 
 most dissolute of court favorites, making a 
 bishop and a successor to Fenelon of a 
 licentious infidel, the infamous Dubois! 
 This man, the companion and confederate 
 of Voltaire, who was not even in holy 
 orders when he was thus raised to the arch- 
 bishopric of Cambrai at a single bound, is 
 described by a contemporary^, in language 
 which nobody considers exaggerated, as a 
 " consummate liar, in whose character all 
 other vices — ambition, perfidy, avarice, and 
 debauchery — wrestled for mastery." All 
 this was notorious, yet Clement, though 
 personally a pontiff of the better sort, made 
 him " a prince of the Church," his own 
 councillor as cardinal, and his possible suc- 
 cessor in the Papacy.^ Does anybody 
 wonder at what followed, or at all the 
 
 *The Abbe Guettee describes Dubois as " un des 
 etres les plus vils qui aient deshonore I'humanite. " — 
 " L'Eglise de France," vol. xi., p. 345. 
 
52 HOLY WRIT 
 
 atheism which afflicts France to the present 
 moment?^ It was this that bred her en- 
 cyclopaedists, and, through them, her Dan- 
 tons and her Robespierres. 
 
 In an evil hour, Frederick invited Vol- 
 taire into Prussia, to figure at once as the 
 court favorite and the court fool — for he 
 condescended to accept both positions, and 
 to merit them alike by his servile flatteries 
 and his shameless misuse of wit and clever- 
 ness. It was he that made irreligion fash- 
 ionable among the grave and serious 
 countrymen of Luther and Melanchthon. 
 But Frederick, who inflicted this terrible 
 wound upon the social life of his people, 
 was not less guilty when he recalled Wolff 
 to Prussia, and to a professorship — from 
 which his stern old father had ejected him, 
 banishing him, " bag and baggage," from 
 the kingdom on two days' notice, by hur- 
 
 ^ It has been recently proved that the Roman Church 
 in France has no real hold on more than two millions 
 of her people. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 53 
 
 ried compliance with which he barely es- 
 caped the gallows. To requite him for 
 such hard usage, the junior Frederick made 
 him a nobleman ; thus assuring the univer- 
 sities that a claim to promotion, in his day, 
 should be no other teachings, from a pro- 
 fessor's chair, than such as shake alike 
 men's convictions of morality and of the 
 revealed Truth of God. 
 
 The mention of Wolff recalls what I have 
 said of Nicolai and Bahrdt, and makes it 
 proper for me to refer to the historic pages 
 of Ueberweg, or of Schwegler, for the less 
 ignoble workings of " philosophy," in the 
 progress of scepticism and finally for its 
 arrest. Why have I not directed attention 
 to the shining names which might thus 
 be recollected ? I answer, you may study 
 them in works devoted to their labours ; ^ 
 but my aim is to be practical, and I have 
 pointed to the fact that it is not such men 
 who make themselves felt by the masses 
 
 • See Note IX. 
 
54 HOLY WRIT 
 
 in any country. They use " great swelling 
 words," and appeal to scholars in behalf of 
 their theories, which are generally mingled 
 with cautions or diluted with ambiguities. 
 It is not Crusius nor Ernesti, nor the 
 schools of Leipzig and Tubingen, that have 
 leavened the popular thought of Germany. 
 "Modern thought" was popularized by 
 inferior men. That has been the work of 
 mere talkers — of Quixotic knights- errant, 
 who have gratified the people like mounte- 
 banks at country fairs ; or of professional 
 preachers, panting for applause, and trans- 
 lating, into the dialect of the superficial or 
 the vulgar, ideas gleaned at second-hand 
 from more prudent theorists, whom it de- 
 lighted them to surpass in audacity, forcing 
 their maxims to ultimate issues. Such men 
 never point out the fact that the masters 
 whom they quote may be interpreted, not 
 infrequently, as giving their oracles an 
 obscurity of form and phrase, in order to 
 prompt us to understand their deeper con- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 55 
 
 victions in the times which they foresaw 
 and in which our own lot is cast. For 
 nothing is more true than that even Ger- 
 man philosophy has been working towards 
 truth and towards the renovation of Faith, 
 steadily and progressively, from the day 
 of Kant to the present period, when Hegel 
 is claimed by not a few believers as furnish- 
 ing them with texts for the rebuke of irre- 
 ligion.i For myself, I find no help in 
 them. There is no need of reconstructing 
 the faith of Clement and Athanasius.^ 
 Yet one delights to observe that when a 
 crazy unbelief has exhausted itself, men 
 cannot return to soberness without an 
 advance toward belief. After Schleier- 
 macher,3 Germany began to talk seriously 
 about man in his moral faculties and his 
 immortal aspirations. This begets high 
 thinking and a movement of our spiritual 
 nature Godward. It is impossible for any 
 
 » See Note X. 2 ^ee Note XI. 
 
 3 See Note XH. 
 
56 HOLY WRIT 
 
 man to delight in the idea of God, save as 
 He has revealed Himself in Christ crucified 
 and risen again. So comes back not only 
 the smothered instinct that reaches forth to 
 the Unseen, but a developing capacity for 
 Faith and for searching the Scriptures in 
 love and with holy hope. Depend upon it, 
 the very men who boast themselves as pro- 
 gressive and advanced are priding them- 
 selves upon their possession of ideas which 
 are but fragments of exploded " lUumin- 
 ism." They mistake their epoch, and are 
 drifting backward in its muddy shallows, 
 while the grand current of philosophy, of 
 learning, of research, and of civilization rolls 
 on to flood the earth with light and truth, 
 ** as the waters cover the sea." 
 
 The consequences of ** Illuminism " in 
 France need only be pointed at : they ap- 
 pall mankind. Let us observe their less 
 noted effect upon the phlegmatic and more 
 serious Teutons. " That religious spirit 
 which imparts stability to a Christian peo- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 57 
 
 pie," says Kahnis, " had altogether per- 
 ished in the age of Illumiftism. . . . From 
 its spirit, which waged war with all that 
 had been handed down, Austria and Prus- 
 sia had reaped destruction." 
 
 Frederick himself trembled at the pros- 
 pects of what he began to foresee when 
 his last days darkened around him, often 
 prompting him to suicide. At the close of 
 the Seven Years' War, smothering his 
 chagrin, he thus gives vent to his forebod- 
 ings : " May Heaven preserve the sover- 
 eigns who shall govern this country from 
 the scourges and calamities which Prussia 
 had suffered in these times of trouble and 
 subversion." Did he fail to recognize the 
 subversion of his people's faith as the root 
 of all their troubles ? And for that, whom 
 had he to thank but himself? The severe 
 Calvinism of his father — who was a Crom- 
 well in his way — had imparted to the 
 troops he created a spirit of subordination 
 and discipline that amazed all men ; but 
 
58 HOLY WRIT 
 
 when the veterans of those first armies of 
 his son had fallen in the victories they won 
 for their king, the reinforcements by which 
 he endeavoured to replace them were found 
 incapable of the old drill and corps-spirit. 
 His loose example had leavened the new 
 generation. He found them deficient in 
 manhood. They lacked upward aspira- 
 tions, and hence were devoid of character 
 such as delights in discipline and develops 
 strength. They went into battles half de- 
 moralized before they fired a gun. The 
 vertebrate vigour of their parents had 
 given way under the corrosions of doubt. 
 What was the world to come for them? 
 What was their Fatherland ? Why should 
 they be soldiers for a few kreuzers per 
 week? Why die for anything? 
 
 Kahnis credits poor Frederick with nat- 
 ural remorse when he became sensible of 
 this. Carlyle remarks : " He cannot now 
 do Leuthens and Rossbachs for shining 
 feats of victory that astonish all the world. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 59 
 
 "His fine Prussian veterans have mostly 
 perished, replaced by new levies of troops 
 inferior both in discipline and native qual- 
 ity ^ Let us go back to Leuthen, a battle, 
 for Prussia's part in it, the most briUiant of 
 any since the great Gustavus, and not sur- 
 passed till the sun of Austerlitz rose for 
 Napoleon. It illustrates what has been 
 said of the contrast between the old troops 
 and the new, and, with abbreviations and 
 condensations, I shall let Carlyle describe it 
 in his own graphic way. He is relating 
 how the diminished and exhausted army, 
 of which his veteran corps was not only 
 the body but the soul, moved into action 
 on a field .where five thousand were to die, 
 or to lie in mortal agonies before nightfall. 
 The king had ordered that this movement 
 should be made in solemn silence — no 
 sound but their tramp and the measure of 
 music by which they marched. For a time 
 this was accomplished by men who con- 
 fronted almost certain death with the nerve 
 
60 HOLY WRIT 
 
 of principle and religious feeling. This had 
 elevated their military character far above 
 that of Roman legions — those embodiments 
 ot brute energy or mechanical force. 
 Every man was a hero, fired by love to 
 his Fatherland and a sense of duty to his 
 commander and his God. Carlyle adopts 
 the testimony of an eye-witness : " Their 
 steadiness, their swiftness and exactitude 
 were unsurpassable. All flowed on as if in 
 a review, and you could read in the eyes 
 of our brave troops the noble temper they 
 were in. . . . From the column nearest 
 the king — which was to be first in line and 
 to receive the immediate shock of the 
 action — he heard, all at once, the sound of 
 Psalmody — the many-voiced harmony of a 
 church-hymn well known to Frederick in 
 his youth. It had broken out among those 
 otherwise silent men, the band accompany- 
 ing." Here is one stanza that Frederick 
 recognized, as it went forth on the still air 
 from those heroes, their sonorous throats 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 6 1 
 
 giving full effect to every rugged Ger- 
 man word : 
 
 " Grant that with zeal and skill 
 
 This day I do 
 
 hat me to do behooves, 
 
 What Thou command'st me to : 
 Grant that I do it sharp, 
 
 At point of movement fit, 
 And when I do it, grant 
 
 Me good success in it! " 
 
 Carlyle says : ** He has heard the voice 
 of many waters ; has paused on the moun- 
 tains, hearkening to the far-off Psalms of 
 the Scottish Covenanters ; but a voice like 
 this, breaking the silence of severest dis- 
 cipline at such a terrible moment, few have 
 ever heard, before or since." 
 
 An officer, no doubt a martinet, spurs 
 forward and accosts the king. 
 
 Officer: " Shall I put a stop to this, your 
 Majesty?" 
 
 The King : " By no means — by no 
 means." 
 
 He felt for a moment the sublime emo- 
 
62 HOLY WRIT 
 
 tlons of religion, and he felt not less how 
 much it imported for him, and for the fort- 
 unes of the day. After a solemn pause of 
 reflection, turning to one of his generals, 
 Frederick spoke again. 
 
 The King : "With men like these don't 
 you think I shall have victory to-day?" 
 
 Carlyle continues : *' His hard heart 
 seems to have been touched, as it well 
 might be. Indeed, there was in him, in 
 those grim days, a tone as of trust in the 
 Eternal; as of real religion, piety, and 
 faith, scarcely noticeable in his history else- 
 where : his religion — and in zvithered forms 
 he had a good deal of it — being, almost 
 always, in a voiceless state. Nay, it was 
 ultra- voiceless — or voiced the wrong way,- 
 as is well known." 
 
 So speaks Carlyle.^ And now I ask, Is 
 there no lesson here which Americans need 
 to lay to heart in these days? Is our 
 
 1 " Life of Frederick," vol. vi., pp. 53, 183, 192. 
 Ed. Boston, 1884. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 63 
 
 epoch to learn nothing from the experiences 
 of the past — nothing from the history of 
 peoples ? Should our Washingtons or Lin- 
 colns give place even to Fredericks or to 
 Napoleons, is it likely that the change will 
 be for any lasting good to the Republic? 
 Is not our epoch surcharged with elements 
 out of which may break, at any moment, 
 the overthrow of law and social order? 
 To such outbreaks republics have ever been 
 subject, and they generally entail a chronic 
 series of convulsions which no republic can 
 survive. Let us be sure that many whom 
 men of culture and good taste are content 
 to let alone, as unworthy even of their re- 
 buke, are yet formidable tribunes of the 
 populace. They peddle their blasphemies 
 as popular lecturers or scientific sciolists. 
 They scatter firebrands among combusti- 
 bles, and Death and Hell ride after them. 
 Let the youth of our Republic study 
 France, just before and after Mirabeau 
 opened the States-General, and say where 
 
64 HOLY WRIT 
 
 they would have cried a halt to such prog- 
 ress as the encyclopaedists had begun. It 
 may be of practical use to them before 
 long in America. Let them halt betimes. 
 For the period of German renovation, 
 and its encouraging promise for the future, 
 I may refer you to Kahnis ; or it may be 
 sufficient to remind you of such names as 
 those of Neander, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, 
 Olshausen, Stier, the Jigavenly- minded Au- 
 berlen, and in our own day the profoundly 
 learned Delitzsch ; better than all these 
 the truly primitive and scriptural DoUinger, 
 and the great school of the rising Old 
 Catholics.^ But while the upward strug- 
 gles of these noble examples prove that 
 God has not forsaken those who represent 
 the Ages of Faith ; while they point to a 
 glorious future of Catholic restoration, in 
 which the Anglican Church is called to 
 bear so glorious a part, and in which all her 
 true sons will be found pressing forward, 
 
 > See Note XIII. 
 
AND iMODERN THOUGHT. 65 
 
 as one man, under the Cross of Christ — 
 what is more encouraging than the decrepi- 
 tude of rationaHsm, in the direct Hne of its 
 history, now perishing in " Pessimism " ? 
 Amid starthng flashes of apparent revival 
 in England and Holland, we may learn 
 to regard them as momentary reactions 
 merely. For phenomena precisely similar 
 flashed forth in Germany at the moment of 
 her renovation and revival, and they only 
 stimulated greater and better movements 
 to development and triumphant advance. 
 
 'The logical and historic outcome of 
 the " modern thought " we have traced 
 through two centuries is found indeed in 
 ''Pessimism," the scornful and contemptu- 
 ous school of Schopenhauer, which stands 
 like the '' Old Guard " at Waterloo, with 
 beastly language on its lips, but daring 
 to perish for a lost cause. ** Come on, 
 you cowards," they say to men who have 
 gone with them to the gulfs pointed out 
 by Nicolai and Bahrdt — though following 
 
66 HOLY WRIT 
 
 successive leaders less ignoble, and spirits 
 less audacious — "' come on, you lagging 
 cowards ; be bravely consistent with us. 
 Hear us as we proclaim the conclusion of 
 the whole matter: despair is our creed, 
 and suicide our ethics. Life is not worth 
 living ; there is no hereafter ; no hope, no 
 immortality, nothing but the grave; in 
 short — there is no God." Such is the 
 legacy of two .centuries of revolt from 
 Revelation, after all the sweat and blood 
 they have exacted from the image of God, 
 in its degradation ; such the last ditch into 
 which it is dragged down by that irrevers- 
 ible doom of dust and ashes which loads 
 humanity when it rejects Jesus and the 
 resurrection. Thank God, nevertheless, for 
 the truth of its dying groan ; for the ex- 
 piring breath with which it names itself 
 superlatively bad. It justly calls itself 
 " Pessimism " : the superlative is reached ; 
 nothing can be worse. ^ Let us stand firm 
 
 1 Note XIV. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 6/ 
 
 on the Rock of Ages; let us copy the 
 Uzzian's patience, and respond to his faith, 
 ** I know that my Redeemer Hveth." We 
 are not ashamed to sing the Nicene Creed 
 as a song of triumph when we survey the 
 adversary in his overthrow. So rose the 
 hymn of Moses and the Lamb by the Red 
 Sea, and so it is yet sung in that heaven of 
 heavens which was unfolded to St. John in 
 Patmos. 
 
68 HOLY WRIT 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 HIGHER CRITICISM. 
 
 It is not to intellectual pride that God is 
 pleased to manifest Himself in those treas- 
 ures of wisdom and knowledge which are 
 hid in Christ. It is the meek whom He 
 promises to guide in judgment; to the 
 lowly He reveals His way. Not that the 
 heights or the depths of revealed truth re- 
 quire less than the noblest e.fiforts of mind to 
 accept and measurably to understand them. 
 The grandest specimens of human intellect 
 have been framed and fashioned by the 
 power of the Gospel. The twain of our 
 fellow-men who have left the deepest 
 impression as well as the most practically 
 useful influences upon mankind are un- 
 doubtedly Moses and St. Paul : the one as 
 meek as he was majestic ; the other as self- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 69 
 
 abasing and humble as he was masterly and 
 commanding. No need to contrast the 
 grand series of men of genius who, as their 
 disciples, have swayed the thought of ages 
 with antagonists whom they have met, de- 
 feated, and left to ignominy, in every suc- 
 cessive age. Here is '* the Rock of Ages" 
 on the one hand, there are the innumera- 
 ble wrecks of theory and transient specula- 
 tion on the other. Look on this picture 
 and on that. What lives, what lasts, what 
 grows, what enlightens, civilizes, refines — 
 all this is on one side ; distraction and de- 
 struction are on the other. Modern science, 
 indeed, asserts itself as greater than Chris- 
 tianity, and, just now, is proud in its boast- 
 ings that it supersedes the Gospel; but 
 where is there any science except in Chris- 
 tendom? Who but Christians, in every 
 age, have been pre-eminent among discov- 
 erers and masters of scientific truth ? With 
 men whose knowledge " puffed them up " 
 what has been the comparative place of 
 
70 HOLY WRIT 
 
 true scientists ? With Copernicus and New- 
 ton and Leibnitz and Descartes, those 
 stars of the first magnitude, compare even 
 such satelHtes as Halley and the French 
 encyclopaedists. I say, then, it is not be- 
 cause the grandest intellect fails to find 
 illumination at the feet of Jesus Christ that 
 He repels the profane and self-sufficient 
 from discipleship in His school. It is be- 
 cause so sublime a Master, the Maker of all 
 things visible and invisible, who was from 
 Everlasting, and who upholds all things by 
 the word of His power, cannot consistently 
 communicate His infinite wisdom and 
 knowledge except to those who feel them- 
 selves less than little children in His pres- 
 ence. Not to the "wise and prudent" in 
 self-sufficient pride, but to those who as 
 mere " babes " enter the school of the An- 
 cient of Days, can His wisdom be imparted. 
 " If any man will do His will, he shall know 
 of the doctrine." 
 
 For myself, I should be a convert to the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 7 1 
 
 New Testament, as the result of examining, 
 in view of all objections, and in a full re- 
 view of his personal history, the single tes- 
 timony of St. Paul. I have never seen any 
 plausible attempt to give any account of 
 the appearance of such a character in hu- 
 man annals, other than that which he has 
 given us concerning himself. It has been 
 found utterly impossible to refute that his- 
 tory. Even Renan, like many others who 
 have attempted to rob us of his epistles, 
 gives us back enough of them to defeat his 
 whole argument and to enable us to recon- 
 struct the canonical text. And there the 
 Apostle stands : a man who has left upon 
 the nations and the ages the deepest mark, 
 and who has impressed himself upon intelli- 
 gent humanity more indelibly than any 
 other one merely human who ever lived 
 among men. 
 
 In recent days there appeared, in two 
 massive quartos, a Life of this Apostle/ 
 1 By Conybeare and Howson, London, 1854. 
 
']2 HOLY WRIT 
 
 which not only embodies his writings, but 
 traces every step of his travels, sounds the 
 waters to identify his voyages, exhibits 
 coins and medals that confirm his story, 
 and illustrates the fidelity of his companion 
 St. Luke, even as to statements the most 
 minute, or apparently accidental. When this 
 work appeared, an English reviewer ex- 
 pressed himself somewhat as follows : What 
 a phenomenon is here ! A Jew of Tarsus 
 who lived eighteen hundred years ago and 
 was put to death ignominously by Roman 
 law ; one, all of whose writings might be 
 printed on two pages of a London news- 
 paper, and who purposely had renounced 
 all claims to fame and worldly recognition, 
 is not the less remembered and celebrated, 
 in all parts of the world, in the second half 
 of this nineteenth century. And this man 
 furnishes material for a biography like this, 
 in costly and richly illustrated volumes ; 
 material supplied from world-wide re- 
 searches ; its cost advanced in view of the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 73 
 
 world-wide interest still felt in all that per- 
 tains to his career. Yes, and the reviewer, 
 when he speaks of this nineteenth century, 
 might justly have added — a century so 
 numbered and named and known in all the 
 earth because this man Hved. He forced 
 the world to acknowledge that the era he 
 introduced to Europe must be regarded as 
 starting with Christ, and from Him only, 
 as the era of regenerated humanity. Our 
 Christian computation therefore recognizes 
 this epoch as the most noteworthy in the 
 history of mankind. Observe, also, that 
 this biography of St. Paul meets a popular 
 want. The market value of literary works 
 is a test which our age loves to apply ; and 
 the fact is significant that thousands of 
 money in Germany, France, and America, 
 as well as England, have been invested by 
 the trade in this and other contemporary 
 works about St. Paul. Hardly had the 
 surprise of the reviewer been expressed at 
 the appearance of one such work, when, 
 
74 HOLY WRIT 
 
 behold, two more volumes, equally costly 
 and beautiful, appeared from the English 
 press : a work^ not merely gleaning over a 
 stubble-field, but gathering a fresh harvest 
 of illustration and exposition from similar 
 research. It expounds afresh all that is 
 associated with the name of the great pupil 
 of Gamaliel, of the rabid persecutor of 
 St. Stephen and other believers, who be- 
 came the converted Jew and the glorious 
 apostle of the Gentiles. Till the " higher 
 critics " can explain away even this class of 
 evidences that the Gospel lives and flour- 
 ishes, in spite of all that their agitations 
 have done to extinguish it, on any other 
 theory than that which the Gospel itself 
 commends to their acceptance, we may 
 calmly go on our way rejoicing that we are 
 believers, and that we > share the precious 
 inheritance of the disciples at Antioch, who 
 first received the namfe of Christians. 
 
 But it is assumed that a " higher criti- 
 
 ' By Lewin, London, 1878. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 75 
 
 cism " has been instituted, which is destined 
 to revolutionize the time-honoured convic- 
 tions of Christendom. What is meant by 
 this ''higher criticism"? Is it anything 
 more than an attempt to do, in another 
 way, what the illustrious divines of Chris- 
 tendom have been doing ever since the 
 days of Clement of Alexandria? Is it 
 meant to imply that their work is of 
 "higher" caste than the textual criticism 
 and work of Origen ? That he stuck in the 
 bark, while this goes to the pith of Script- 
 ure? As appHed to the Bible, they give 
 us a very confused and confusing name 
 for a very intangible thing. No agreement 
 seems established, as yet, as to the true 
 definition of the term ; as to its inclusive- 
 ness or its limitations ; or as to the schools 
 or the individuals who most truly and suc- 
 cessfully represent it. I have shown that 
 Nicolai and Bahrdt anticipated its purpose, 
 its plan, and much that is claimed for its 
 achievements. Its practical maxims are 
 
76 HOLY WRIT 
 
 (i) that the Bible must be treated Hke 
 other books, and (2) that as the result of 
 any such treatment all its reputed character 
 disappears. But such treatment merits 
 historical inquiry as to its origin and its 
 methods. And what are its results? 
 
 Similar views have had their day in the 
 field of classical literature, and it may be 
 instructive to observe with what ill success, 
 even there, the ignoble processes of a criti- 
 cism inspired by such maxims have been 
 attended. To take hold of any writer with 
 whose works the world has been charmed 
 for ages, for the purpose of degrading him, 
 denying his existence, or disputing his au- 
 thorship — is this " higher criticism " ? We 
 have been amused by the recent efforts of 
 some to dethrone Shakespeare and to prove 
 that Francis Bacon was the playwright who 
 wrote what goes by Shakespeare's name. 
 Voltaire disdained this same Shakespeare ; 
 but, gifted as he was by nature, he was 
 simply incapable of appreciating the lofty 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. "]"] 
 
 genius of the Bard of Avon, and was not 
 sufficiently educated in English to compre- 
 hend the beauty and delicacy of our lan- 
 guage as the mighty dramatist employs it. 
 What, then, are the detractions of his criti- 
 cism worth? It is a canon of the schools 
 that " to have an inward affinity with the 
 material of his subject is inseparable from 
 the character of a true critic." ^ We en- 
 trust the " Iliad " to a Gladstone, because he 
 loves Homer, and is nobly capable of iden- 
 tifying himself with the spirit of so great a 
 poet, and also of feeling, as well as weigh- 
 ing, idioms and words, and of imparting 
 what he finds in the beauties of his style 
 to minds less Homeric than his own. But 
 look in contrast at the "higher criticism" 
 of La Motte, who attempted to turn the 
 *' Iliad" into French verse, and to improve 
 it by reducing it to a caricature, and pluck- 
 ing it as a cook does a fowl. His version 
 
 1 A remark of Handeshagen, in " Auberlen on Di- 
 vine Revelation," p. 294 of Edinburgh translation. 
 
78 HOLY WRIT 
 
 was pronounced by D'Alembert a mere 
 skeleton of the original and a worse trav- 
 esty than his criticisms; yet D'Alembert, 
 who resents such a process when Homer is 
 its subject, applauds the same when applied 
 to the oracles of God. 
 
 I am reminded of Dr. Pusey's remark 
 about *' weak defenders " of the Scripture 
 canon when I recur to the Jesuit Hardouin's 
 defence of the "Iliad." His '' Apologet- 
 ics," says Mme. Dacier, " damaged Homer 
 far more effectually than all the theories 
 and assaults of gainsay ers." Bishop Light- 
 foot suggests what must be the ruinous re- 
 sult of applying to the classics such criticism 
 as is now inflicted upon the Law and the. 
 Prophets ; but this same Hardouin tried the 
 experiment, and started the Germans, who 
 seldom do things by halves, upon the revo- 
 lutionizing of all literature, sacred and pro- 
 fane, after his example. In France, Renan 
 has but copied the formulas of Hardouin in 
 assailing the Evangelists. The learning of 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 79 
 
 the Jesuit was as great as his use of it was 
 insane — if indeed there was not method in 
 his madness. He seems to have acted on 
 a secret design to create canons of criti- 
 cism which should impair the influence of 
 the Christian Fathers; for upon them he 
 turned the same weapons with which he 
 affected to have destroyed almost the en- 
 tire realm of Greek literature, including 
 Aristotle and Plato.^ He endeavoured to 
 persuade the world that Greek monks of 
 the thirteenth century had created most of 
 the great works ascribed to antiquity. This 
 idea once accepted, it was not difficult to 
 get rid of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and 
 even of other Greeks whose writings refute 
 the papacy ; and thus he swept away, as 
 he imagined, the great artillery of the An- 
 glicans and the Galileans, while his more 
 immediate motive seems to have been the 
 extirpation of Jansenism. 
 
 It should not be forgotten, moreover, 
 
 1 Note XV. 
 
8o HOLY WRIT 
 
 how transient has been the apparent 
 triumph of Niebuhr. Following in the 
 same lines, he congratulated himself that 
 he had entirely destroyed the received his- 
 tory of ancient Rome, with the credit of 
 Livy and other noble Latin authors. Far 
 more transient, we may be sure, will be the 
 mockery of popular writers who scorn the 
 New Testament and the Old without a 
 thousandth part of Niebuhr's acumen, and 
 with nothing of the apparent probability of 
 his theories. Sciolists indeed are they w^ho 
 dream that modern critics have already 
 abolished Holy Scripture by the methods 
 of Hardouin turned upon prophets and 
 apostles.^ 
 
 Perhaps we may best satisfy our- 
 selves on such points by examining those 
 methods in a practical way. I am so 
 sure that multitudes who talk about this 
 ** higher criticism" have no idea of its op- 
 erations that I will venture to enliven the 
 
 > Note XVI. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 8 1 
 
 serious considerations which I am trying to 
 enforce by a Httle sportive imitation of this 
 art as it has appeared in Germany and else- 
 where, in divers forms which seem to have 
 afforded to many clever men — and to fools 
 innumerable who laugh when bad men 
 cavil — an apology for unbelief and for blas- 
 phemy the most wanton and offensive. It 
 would be blasphemous indeed, and offen- 
 sive to ears polite, to furnish specimens of 
 their gross assaults upon Holy Writ. But 
 I will adopt their ideas and their manner of 
 criticism so far as to apply them to a work 
 of human genius. You will recall the fine 
 Pindaric ode of Gray, founded upon the 
 massacre of the Welsh bards by the first 
 Edward. It is cast into the form of proph- 
 ecy, and exemplifies the root-principles of 
 inspired prophecy when it rises into rhap- 
 sody. Isaiah, for example, when he breaks 
 into those outlines of the far-off Gospel 
 which everybody recognizes when he hears 
 the sublime oratorio of the Messiah, seizes 
 
82 HOLY WRIT 
 
 upon symbols or incidents or figures which 
 have little meaning till their force is found 
 in the Evangelists. Yet these tokens, all 
 assembled in the events of the Gospel, as- 
 sure us that he foresaw (dimly at times, but 
 most clearly at others) the Babe of Bethle- 
 hem, the Man of Sorrows, the crucified 
 Redeemer, and the risen Lord and God of 
 Christians. Now, this so-called " higher 
 criticism " undertakes to deny the whole 
 history of Isaiah and his writings ; or, ac- 
 cepting these in diluted forms, it proceeds 
 to strip his sublime lyrics of all their mean- 
 ing, and to find their entire interpretation 
 in contemporary circumstances compara- 
 tively mean and insignificant. 
 
 To proceed in like manner with Gray 
 and his ode, let me take for example his 
 assumed forecast of the history and fate 
 of Richard II., with which the admirable 
 tragedy of Shakespeare makes us familiar, 
 just as the Gospel of St. Luke lends itself 
 to the interpretation of Isaiah, or of the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 83 
 
 oratorio I have mentioned. This fine imi- 
 tation of Pindaric verse is known to have 
 been the production of Thomas Gray, for- 
 merly of Pembroke College, Cambridge. 
 Impersonating a Welsh bard, the poet in 
 bold Pindaric strophes forecasts prophet- 
 ically the Hnes of the Plantagenets and 
 Tudors, and sketches very strikingly the 
 progress of English history. There is one 
 strophe of the ode, or a fragment at least, 
 which I will now read with the respect due 
 to so grand a conception of the subject: 
 
 " Fill high the sparkling bowl, 
 The rich repast prepare, 
 Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast, 
 Close by the regal chair. 
 Fell Thirst and Famine scowl 
 A baleful smile upon the baffled guest. 
 Heard ye the din of battle bray? 
 Lance to lance, and horse to horse. 
 Long years of havoc hold their destined course, 
 And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their 
 way." 
 
 We may divide this strophe into two 
 parts, the first of which pictures the fate of 
 King Richard II., who, as contemporary 
 
84 HOLY WRIT 
 
 writers tell us, was starved to death soon 
 after his deposition by Bolingbroke, the 
 first prince of the house of Lancaster. By 
 an abrupt transition, the prophecy, in the 
 striking passage that follows, glances in 
 distant vision at the Wars of the Roses. 
 These allusions, or references, may seem 
 obscure ; the transition too abrupt, passing 
 to the wars of York and Lancaster, with 
 nothing interposed to indicate that the 
 vastly important reigns of Henry IV. and 
 Henry V. intervene. But these daring 
 liberties are taken in all rhapsodies of the 
 kind, and beautifully harmonize with the 
 idea of a seer, or prophet, who through the 
 vista of ages descries, confusedly enough, 
 as in a dream, the shifting scenes of the 
 future, and then breaks out into utterances, 
 like the Sibyl's, and still more confusedly 
 pictures what he has seen in his vision. 
 Now, that this is genuine criticism we are 
 well assured, for Mr. Gray gave the ode to 
 the public without notes; but when even 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 8$ 
 
 the learned complained of its obscurity, he 
 supplied annotations himself. At the same 
 time he apologized for yielding so far to thfe 
 advice of friends, because (he added) " he 
 had felt too much respect for the under- 
 standing of his readers to take that liberty," 
 previously. And here I must remark that 
 could that incomparable rhapsodist the 
 prophet Isaiah rise from the dead and sup- 
 ply annotations to the ninth or the fifty- 
 third chapters of his prophecy, not to speak 
 of many others, he might say, hke Mr. 
 Gray, that with readers acquainted with the 
 history of Jesus of Nazareth *' he had too 
 much respect for their understanding to 
 imagine any annotations to be needed." 
 In fact, he who studies Isaiah critically 
 should know something of the odes of Pin- 
 dar first ; for they clearly suggest the man- 
 ner of ancient poets, in their abrupt transi- 
 tions, and yet more in their grasping, here 
 and there, of symbols and minute incidents, 
 by which they identify their subject with 
 
86 HOLY WRIT 
 
 " the past, the distant, or the future." So 
 the Greek dramatists in their choral pieces ; 
 and so Mr. Gray, closely imitating Pindar, 
 throws light on the Psalmist's prophetic 
 rapture ; his distant view of things he did 
 not himself understand : for example, one 
 which disclosed a Sufferer crying out Lama 
 sabacthani, with hands and feet pierced, 
 and with His murderers " parting His gar- 
 ments " among them, and '' casting lots on 
 His vesture." 
 
 But now let me aspire to the dignity of 
 "higher criticism" and treat Gray's ode 
 just as the higher critics have treated David 
 and Daniel and Isaiah and all the prophets, 
 who, as St. Peter tells us, ** spake before- 
 hand of the sufferings of Christ " in such 
 exaltation or rapture of their faculties that 
 they were obliged, afterward, to study and 
 search their own writings to discover " what 
 and what manner of time the Spirit of 
 Christ which was in them did signify." I 
 proceed to do entire justice to the " higher 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 87 
 
 criticism " of the school of Strauss and 
 Paulus, and their recent admirers in Amer- 
 ica and England, by the following treat- 
 ment of a fragment of the ode we have 
 been considering. 
 
 REVIEWAL. 
 
 These verses, as is well known, have 
 been generally attributed to the genius of 
 Thomas Gray, and as such are endeared 
 to the itniversity which glories in his name 
 and reputation. But for the credit of the 
 university, as well as of so excellent a 
 poet, we think we can prove that this is 
 a mere fiction. We shall treat them by 
 the remorseless laws of scientific criticism, 
 just as we would treat a less popular poem, 
 and that in spite of a painful conviction 
 that we shall not be thanked by the uni- 
 versity for our fidelity to facts as they un- 
 doubtedly are. For on the face of it, this 
 " ode " is in such absolute contrast with 
 the style and the well-known tastes of Mr. 
 Gray that we must present the university 
 with this dilemma : either he never wrote 
 the '' Elegy in a Country Churchyard," or 
 he is not the author of a line of this turgid 
 and pompous array of obscure allusions 
 and far-fetched figures. Gray, as is well 
 
88 HOLY WRIT 
 
 known, was a man of fastidious tastes; a 
 calm, contemplative genius, a master of 
 English, delighting in country-life, and 
 fond of lingering among graves and epi- 
 taphs, listening to the owl under ivy- 
 mantled tov^^ers. Hence he confined him- 
 self to sweet idyllic verse, and his poetry 
 flows like the smooth meandering Avon, 
 in no respect like the rushing and broken 
 rapids of the Dove, in Derbyshire. His 
 thought is unartificial, true to nature and 
 to his own habits of life, and takes form in 
 expressions truly Arcadian. That this at- 
 tempted imitation of the Boeotian Pindar — 
 irregular, abrupt, cataclysmic, in short, not 
 to say bombastic and devoid of literary 
 merit — could possibly have proceeded 
 from the same pen to which we owe the 
 incomparable '* Elegy," is so preposterous 
 that we can only liken it to the exploded 
 fancy that the same pen wrote alike the 
 Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse. We 
 have no hesitation in dismissing it as an 
 effusion of Gray's ; in fact, we are forced 
 to conclude with the acute Professor v. 
 Diinkel, sustained by the profound Dr. 
 Kopfnicker, that the occurrence of words 
 and phrases that are not English is so fre- 
 quent in the entire performance that it 
 never could have proceeded from an edu- 
 cated Englishman. To this idea the keen 
 and penetrating intellect of v. Lumpen 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 89 
 
 has lent his decisive judgment, and he 
 cites, in corroboration, the word hauberk; 
 the expressions 7'egal chair and sable zuar- 
 rior; squadron, or a fleet, for a crowd, and 
 the mixt figure of mozving squadrons, an 
 unquestionable betrayal of the forger's per- 
 formance. It occurs to him that the 
 " ode " is a mere cento, so clumsily com- 
 posed that the sutures, or indications of 
 joiner-work, are self-evident to any com- 
 petent critic. Some lines are less ignoble, 
 but not one would suggest the authorship 
 of a scholar, much less of one endowed 
 with the accurate scholarship of Gray. 
 The sagacious results to which, after in- 
 credible research, the authorities aforesaid 
 have arrived, appear to us conclusive. 
 " The Beggar's Opera " of an inferior poet, 
 Mr. Gay, is itself made up of songs and 
 snatches from old street-ballads; and he, 
 most probably, in a mere moment of droll- 
 ery, might have thrown off this effusion. 
 It is a very life-like imitation of some 
 blind beggar in London, singing under 
 balconies, but trembling lest he should be 
 arrested by the police. Yet it may be re- 
 marked that the names of Gray and Gay 
 differ by a single letter only, and by a 
 ludicrous but very natural blunder of the 
 bookseller, if indeed it were not inten- 
 tional, he was able to palm off upon the 
 public the work of a less skilful hand as 
 
90 HOLY WRIT 
 
 the production of the author of the 
 ** Elegy," and to date it at a period when 
 Gray was in the height of fashion and pop- 
 ularity. With these remarks, after intro- 
 ducing the learned annotations of Kopf- 
 nicker, we shall conclude by restoring the 
 fragment to its original form (that of the 
 street-ballad), only regretting that, of 
 course, we cannot preserve the rhyme and 
 structure of ballad versification which Gay 
 had before him when he patched up the 
 strophe : 
 
 " Fill high the sparkling bowl, 
 The rich repast prepare." 
 
 1. Sparklijig bowl. Bowls are not used 
 for sparkling wines. The original word 
 was undoubtedly steaming, which at once 
 suggests the bowl of hot soup craved by 
 the appetite of a hungry crowder, or singer 
 of street-ballads : see Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 2. Rich repast. In mere drollery, Gay, 
 or we may say the forger, substitutes these 
 words for " comfortable meal," which 
 agrees with the preceding suggestion. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast, 
 Fast by the regal chair." 
 
 3. Reft of a ci'ozvn. Pompous words, 
 which probably gave the first hint for the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 9 1 
 
 fanciful whim that here was a poem on 
 English historical subjects, and that this 
 stanza intimates the death, by starvation, 
 of some English sovereign. All this is a 
 laughable blunder; for the original, no 
 doubt, was a very natural lament of the 
 beggar over the ** crown " (or piece of five 
 shillings) of which he had been *' bereft," 
 or rather robbed, in the streets. More 
 probably the beggar had lost a half-crown 
 only, as Diinkel ingeniously points out; 
 for beggars rarely gather so much, and 
 therefore tivo-and-sixpeiice would be the 
 more legitimate reading, unquestionably. 
 Robbed^f this sum — the idea is — he may 
 yet earn his bowl of soup. 
 
 4. Fast by the regal chair. The in- 
 genuity of Flickschneider has decided the 
 Masoretic controversy here against the 
 superstition of rabbins who adhere to 
 close as the true reading. We prefer his 
 hardihood to their minute and toilsome 
 deference for old MSS. As for regal chair, 
 it is bombastic verbiage for the well-known 
 "King's Bench"; or, as the research of 
 one of our greatest critics has proved, the 
 reference is to a noted chop-house near 
 King's-Be.nch-Walk, Temple Gardens. The 
 *' crown " in the preceding verse suggested 
 a reference to the tlirone in this. Nobody 
 ever referred to the Queen's throne at West- 
 
92 HOLY WRIT 
 
 minster by such a phrase as " regal chair" 
 but an American who calls his pinchbeck 
 trinkets Regalia. And what but the most 
 dogged adhesion to foregone conclusions 
 could make any one in his senses give such 
 a stilted phrase any higher significance than 
 that we have assigned? Can even a fool 
 imagine that a king of England ever ate 
 his dinner seated on his throne — nay, 
 fastened in it, as this critical text would 
 imply? All this from a beggar's longing 
 for his favourite seat in a London chop- 
 house ! 
 
 III. 
 
 " Fell Thirst and Famine scowl 
 
 A baleful smile upon the baffled gutst." 
 
 5. Fell Thirst and Famine scowl. 
 These lines are an interpolation introduced 
 to sustain the idea of a starving prince. 
 What have Thirst and Famine to do here, 
 if we retain those readings sparkling bowl 
 and rich repast? Gay's sportive wit must 
 not be charged with this. Some forger, 
 improving on Gay, in order to complete 
 the whim about " King Richard and his 
 death by starvation," has inserted it here, 
 where it makes mere nonsense of the pre- 
 vious reference to rich viands and bright 
 wines — phrases which in fact describe a 
 surfeit. It is now known that Richard 
 was assassinated by Sir Piers of Exon. If 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 93 
 
 the lines, as commonly received, point to 
 the death of any king of England, we must 
 revert to the Normans, therefore, for a 
 solution : it is true that Henry I. died of a 
 surfeit of lampreys. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Heard ye the din of battle bray? 
 Lance to lance, and horse to horse.' 
 
 6. Heard ye the din of battle bray ? 
 The word bray is here cleverly introduced 
 for obvious reasons. In short, the braying 
 of a costermonger's donkey interrupts the 
 beggar's lament for his half-crown and his 
 longings for his bowl of soup. Somewhat 
 too boldly Lumpen amends this line thus : 
 
 " Heard ye that bray? — the dinner-bottles," etc. 
 
 Where the beggar's reference to bottles and 
 his dinner is, indeed, more natural than 
 any appetite for battles. It is supposed to 
 be an exclamation, broken by the approach 
 of poHce. We dismiss it, reluctantly, how- 
 ever, as not supported by context. But 
 think of any one in his senses taking this 
 as a reference to the wars of York and 
 Lancaster ! 
 
 7. Lance to lance and horse to horse. 
 The lance is poetry for a catchpoll's staff; 
 but the rest is plain enough. What with 
 
94 HOLY WRIT 
 
 braying and singing, a crowd collects in 
 the street, and the beggar thinks he hears 
 the horse-guards coming up from White- 
 hall or Scotland-yard to disperse the mob. 
 
 " Long years of havoc hold their destined course, 
 And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way." 
 
 He naturally " moves on " and " thro' 
 the kindred squadrons mows his way." 
 Though here we must add that for squad- 
 rons (which applies to the sea, and could 
 only be accounted for by a mob of sailors) 
 we suppose the true reading should be a 
 fleet, suggested by the near neighbourhood 
 of Fleet Street. The word mow is a mere 
 blunder for move. We suggest, therefore, 
 that he " moves away " in a natural effort 
 to escape arrest, and the ignominious close 
 of his errant music behind locks and 
 bars. 
 
 If in this simulated review of a work of 
 genius I seem to have trifled, I confess it 
 not without compunctions ; for I revere the 
 poetic art and its masters so profoundly that 
 to deal with them after such manner, even 
 for a laudable purpose, strikes me as in a 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 95 
 
 measure profane. But my purpose is to 
 ask you, in all conscience, whether that can 
 be called "higher criticism" in any just 
 sense which trifles in such style with the 
 sublime literature of the sacred Scriptures 
 — with the historic simplicity, the transpar- 
 ent sincerity of narrative, the august juris- 
 prudence of the Pentateuch, and the in- 
 comparable poetry of Job or Isaiah, and 
 the Psalmist? If my imitation of such at- 
 tempts to '* treat the Bible like any other 
 book " is a caricature, still it is legitimately 
 wrought. It is a likeness nevertheless ; the 
 features cannot fail to be recognized as 
 characteristic ; its lights and shades bring 
 into strong effect none other than what they 
 delight to claim as the original and striking 
 mannerism of their school. So Voltaire 
 taught them to blaspheme the Old Testa- 
 ment, while he compliments it sarcastically 
 as well worth reading. So Renan, his more 
 learned and less filthy disciple, deals with 
 the Gospels. But it is in the Biblical com- 
 
96 HOLY WRIT 
 
 mentaries of professed Christians, among 
 Germans and Hollanders, that such criti- 
 cism may be found; works of men who 
 claim to be theologians and divines, while 
 they put forth the hands of Uzzah to the 
 Ark of God. From ** hfigher critics " like 
 these we may appeal to the highest criti- 
 cism. From "modern thought," which, if 
 it be only modern, must be still fluctuating 
 and unsettled, we turn to the Thought of 
 Ages; thought which the centuries have 
 tried, and which survives and is yet solid 
 and unshaken. For true criticism knows 
 not only what is due to the oracles of the 
 Most High, but, even to the same books, 
 if only because they have been counted 
 such by the noblest masters of human 
 thought ever since the Uzzian gave us the 
 oldest and the sublimest poetry that has 
 ever proceeded from the head and heart 
 of a man. Reflect how the refinement of 
 a heathen prescribed for the cave of Cumae 
 that canon of decent respect for even re- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 97 
 
 puted sanctity — ''Avaunt, avaunt, ye pro- 
 fane." ^ 
 
 The old herbalists inscribed on speci- 
 mens of certain humble but sweet-scented 
 flowers a caution against vulgar inspection : 
 " Turn away, pig, our savour is not for 
 swine." And I have been reminded of this 
 by the remark of a devout Hindu, who 
 doubts whether Europeans generally have 
 faculties sufficiently delicate for the full ap- 
 preciation of the New Testament.^ EngHsh 
 missionaries, he confesses, have roused the 
 dormant energies of the Hindus and stim- 
 ulated them to a '' religious activity which, 
 as the result, characterizes every part of 
 India." But Mozoomdar discovers that 
 ** Christ was an Asiatic," and responds to 
 the eloquence of his Gamaliel, Keshub 
 Chunder Sen, who taught him, as (he 
 thinks) no Occidental teacher could, to love 
 
 1 iEneid, Book VI. 259. 
 
 2 "The Oriental Christ," by Mozoomdar. Boston, 
 1882. 
 
98 HOLY WRIT 
 
 the " lamb-like meekness and simplicity of 
 Christ, His tenderness and humility, His 
 heart full of mercy and forgiving kindness, 
 and, on the other hand, His firm, resolute, 
 unyielding adherence to truth." Smitten 
 with the moral beauty and infinite perfec- 
 tions of His character and His doctrines, 
 this poor Hindu feels that He is more 
 than human, and bears his witness to the 
 power of this " Oriental Christ " to meet all 
 the longings and wants of human nature, 
 as no other can, especially in reaching 
 our sense of sin and our reachings- forth 
 after regeneration and eternal life. " I am 
 proud that I am an Asiatic," he says, ''for 
 Jesus and His disciples were Asiatics. . . . 
 And is it not true that an Asiatic can read 
 the imageries and allegories of the Gospel 
 with greater interest and a fuller perception 
 of their force and beauty than Europeans ?" 
 In short, he claims our divine Lord as in a 
 special manner belonging to the Orientals 
 first, and after that to other Gentiles, and 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 99 
 
 by this magnetic idea he supposes all India 
 even now feels itself drawn to Christ, and 
 will respond rapidly and more fully at no 
 distant day.^ I have been greatly moved 
 by the force of this argument, when I note 
 in contrast the coarser instincts and mate- 
 rializing thought of some among us out of 
 whom German pessimism is making con- 
 verts to Buddha ; who glorify " the Light 
 of Asia," while they close their eyes to the 
 Light of the World. No wonder that such 
 seem given over to ''a reprobate mind." 
 Mozoomdar, on the other hand, reminds 
 me of one *' who was not far from the king- 
 dom of heaven," and of one of whom it 
 is written, " When Jesus saw him He 
 loved him." And when I have gathered 
 fresh ideas of the Evangelists from this 
 gentle pagan, and have perceived fresh 
 fragrance exhaled from the Gospel texts 
 pressed by his reverent hand, I have felt 
 how mean and barren in comparison is this 
 
 1 On the Brahmo Somaj. See Note XVII. 
 
lOO HOLY WRIT 
 
 " higher criticism," which degrades all that 
 it touches, and makes the green herb and 
 the fruitage of gardens wither where it in- 
 trudes. Yes, and I comprehend, with new 
 emotions, something deep and far-reaching 
 in those words of that glorious Lover of 
 men's souls to whom we owe our Redemp- 
 tion — when He rejoiced in spirit and ex- 
 claimed, " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of 
 heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these 
 things from the wise and prudent and hast 
 revealed them unto babes." No wonder 
 that this '* Oriental Christ " called a little 
 child and set him amid the apostles as their 
 example. No wonder that the great Apos- 
 tle of the Gentiles gives us as a canon of 
 faith and interpretation his majestic axiom, 
 ** He that cometh to God must believe that 
 He is, and that He is a rewarder of them 
 that diligently seek Him." 
 
 The only competent critic of the Script- 
 ures, then, we must infer, is the scholar 
 who to " the wisdom of the serpent " unites 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. lOI 
 
 the spirit which finds its emblem in the 
 harmless and affectionate turtle-dove. He 
 loves the subject of his task next to its 
 Author, whom he loves supremely. He 
 is one who scrutinizes and clears the text 
 with a holy jealousy, guarding its integrity 
 and taking a holy care not to mar and 
 mangle it, lest it should be reduced to 
 nothingness, on pretext of analysis ; who 
 exults in illustrating its beauties, in disclos- 
 ing its harmonies with history and with 
 the habits and thoughts of its times ; and, 
 above all, who labours to commend it afresh 
 to successive generations, as the treasure 
 above all price, which, even for its lesser 
 merits, ** the world should not willingly let 
 die." And when I speak of its lesser mer- 
 its, I refer to merits which, even so, have 
 no parallel in all literature. If we would 
 comprehend the history of the earth itself, 
 we can find in no other cosmogony any 
 approach to the lofty ideal of Moses ; not 
 one that even apparently conflicts so little 
 
I02 HOLY WRIT 
 
 with all that science has demonstrated, or 
 that has guided science itself to such solu- 
 tions of difficulties as, in spite of the pru- 
 dent reticence of the author, are more than 
 hinted. This Book alone gives us any clue to 
 the patriarchal ages and habits of mankind ; 
 it alone hands down to us any plausible 
 account of the origin of language, of races, 
 of nations, and of the course of empire. 
 Apart from its instructions the land of 
 Egypt with all its monuments would be to 
 us unintelligible ; and the Hebrew people, 
 scattered among all kingdoms and peoples 
 of the earth, would remain an inscrutable 
 enigma. Of its sublime poetry ; its elo- 
 quent simplicity of narrative and its gold- 
 en chronicles of antiquity ; its grandeur as 
 giving us, in fundamental principles, a par- 
 agon of legislation ; its isolated perfection 
 as a philosophy of morals ; and its yet more 
 majestic solitude of glory, as presenting the 
 image of God perfectly realized in a Sec- 
 ond Adam — why should I speak? Have 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. IO3 
 
 not the world's own glorified philosophers, 
 thinkers, poets, legislators, scholars, artists, 
 authors of every class, in short, vied with 
 the preachers of Christ in confessing as 
 much as any of these ever claimed ? In- 
 imitable in its character, its structure, and 
 its materials, and surpassing all that has 
 been otherwise attempted or achieved by 
 the wit or the wisdom of man, have not 
 bitter infidels themselves been awed into 
 deference, or moved, as if out of respect 
 to themselves and to show themselves men 
 of taste and of judgment, to eulogize Holy 
 Writ, as, if not the Book of God, still the 
 god of books? It is Rousseau who re- 
 bukes those who compare the Crucified of 
 Calvary with him who drank the hemlock 
 in Athens. It is Victor Hugo who says 
 of the Christ of the Gospels 1 : 
 
 " Vous, qui pleurez, venez a ce Dieu — car II pleure; 
 Vous qui souffrez, venez a Lui — car II guerit ; 
 Vous qui tremblez, venez a Lui — car II sourit ; 
 Vous qui passez, venez a Lui — car II demeure." 
 
 ' I do not class Hugo with infidels. 
 
I04 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Now, it is such a book that we, in our 
 generation, behold, in the name of " higher 
 criticism," mangled and rent, degraded and 
 despoiled, and, like its Incarnate Author, 
 hung up to be scoffed at and mocked, and 
 ** crucified between thieves." 
 
 But let me turn to authors who represent 
 the highest criticism in contrast with those 
 of this boasted '* higher criticism," which 
 the popular mind has been led to suppose 
 exhaustively thorough in its examination 
 of the Scriptures, and subversive of their 
 claims upon faith and reason. When Ger- 
 many was regaining its hold upon Revela- 
 tion after its ages of unrest, and rejecting 
 in its pulpits what was still the fruitless 
 experiments of its schools, there arose in 
 England, to the astonishment of mankind, 
 a set of men, reacting from the follies of 
 Newman and Manning, who could do no 
 better than pick up the rags and tatters of 
 the Teutonic Babel, and parade them- 
 selves in such array as modern thinkers 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. IO5 
 
 and critics. But, as it has ever been in 
 England, where a Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church has never failed to raise up chosen 
 sons for such emergencies, this self-assert- 
 ing and superficial faction was met and 
 mastered by one who had passed through 
 all the mists and fogs of Germany before 
 they were born ; one to whom nobody 
 denied the qualification of scholarship the 
 most thorough and complete, as well as of 
 personal experience and contact with Ger- 
 man savants by whom his own religious 
 thought had been sadly leavened in his 
 early days.i The attempt to import " Illu- 
 minism " into England thirty years ago 
 was successfully met by Dr. Pusey, who 
 calmly remarked that he found nothing 
 new in the book " Essays and Reviews " ; 
 nothing with which older men had not 
 been familiar forty years previously, that 
 is to say, in the second and third dec- 
 
 1 " Daniel the Prophet " (see p. xxv., preface), Lon- 
 don, 1864. 
 
I06 HOLY WRIT 
 
 ades of this century.^ His acute remarks 
 strengthen my own position in the former 
 lecture. He says of these *' essayists " : 
 ** They asserted Httle distinctly, attempted 
 to prove less, but threw doubts on every- 
 thing. They took for granted that the 
 ancient faith had been overthrown. . . . 
 They ignored the fact that every deeper 
 tendency of thought or each more solid 
 learning had at last done away with some- 
 thing shallow, something adverse to faith. 
 They practically ignored all criticism which 
 was not subservient to unbelief." These 
 writers, in short, would have attracted little 
 notice had they not been clergymen of the 
 Church, sworn to '* banish and drive away " 
 precisely what they were introducing. Dr. 
 Pusey adds : " Had they ventured, in plain 
 terms, to deny half the truths as to the 
 Bible or the faith which they suggested to 
 others to deny, they would have aroused 
 the indignation of the whole believing peo- 
 
 ' Note XVIII. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I07 
 
 pie of England." Bad morals generally 
 give offensive warning of corruption in 
 matters of doctrine. 1 
 
 Pusey was a dangerous antagonist for 
 such men to wake up, especially when they 
 vaunted the attacks of " recent criticism " 
 upon the Book of Daniel as a triumphant 
 disproof of its authenticity. This challenge 
 was accepted by the learned doctor ; noth- 
 ing could have pleased him better. He 
 first laid his hand on the treatment which 
 the Pentateuch had received from David- 
 son,^ who adopted the maxims of the school 
 of unbelief as to miracles and prophecy, 
 and effectually stripped him of his armour, 
 convicting both him, and the Germans from 
 whom he quotes, of ** ignorance of the ele- 
 ments of Hebrew." His ignorance of the 
 Church Fathers was shown to be not less 
 astounding, and what he professes to quote 
 from Ewald is not found in Ewald at all. 
 
 » Note XIX. 
 
 ^ A prominent sectarian divine. See Pusey's Preface. 
 
I08 HOLY WRIT 
 
 In Dr. Davidson's series of opponents of the 
 authenticity of Daniel there is a vacntim of 
 1400 years, " from Porphyry the heathen 
 to ColHns the deist." After exposing the 
 compromises with which this teacher would 
 save something out of the Pentateuch and 
 the prophets, Dr. Pusey shows that in the 
 case of Daniel there is no room for such 
 compromises. There is here no choice be- 
 tween faith and unbelief: take all or reject 
 all ; and rejecting all, reflect that you 
 reject Christ Himself. So, while Pusey is 
 able to say, " I have conscientiously read 
 everything which has been written against 
 the Book of Daniel," he goes into its de- 
 fence with the alacrity of the strong man 
 to run a race. '* This Book," he says, " is 
 especially fitted to be the battle-field be- 
 tween faith and unbeHef. It admits of no 
 half-measures. It is either divine or — an 
 imposture ... in a word, one lie in the 
 Name of God." Hitzig coolly accuses the 
 book as a forgery and an intentional decep- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 109 
 
 tion, and Rosenmiiller imputes to its author 
 deliberate and elaborate fraud. With all 
 such unbelievers Pusey joins issue. " Their 
 major premiss is: (i) Since there cannot 
 be either prophecy or miracle, a book 
 claiming to contain definite prophecies or 
 a contemporary account of unmistakable 
 miracles cannot belong to the period to 
 which it is ascribed. Their minor prem- 
 iss is : (2) The Book of Daniel does 
 make such claims." £r^o, etc. Over 
 against all this Pusey sets his major and 
 minor, as follows: ''(i) Whatever Jesus 
 .says is true. (2) He has said that 
 Daniel is a prophet." Br^o, etc. Accept 
 this conclusion, or cease to call yourself 
 a Christian. 
 
 There it stands. No compromise here. 
 You must accept Daniel, or renounce 
 Christ. And never was a Waterloo defeat 
 more decisive than the fight which our au- 
 thor makes on this field. It completely re- 
 verses and overthrows what Bunsen had 
 
no HOLY WRIT 
 
 styled " one of the greatest triumphs of 
 modern criticism." But Bunsen, less ex- 
 travagantly indeed, shouted victory for his 
 friend Niebuhr in like manner, and lived to 
 see that Niebuhr was mistaken. I point to 
 this wt)rk, therefore, as an example of the 
 highest criticism, and as utterly demolish- 
 ing the whole system so much cried up in 
 our day and which overthrows the faith of 
 so many. It is a specimen of that expert 
 and specialist learning which I have spoken 
 of as requisite to the crisis ; and while I 
 profess no such learning myself, I do pro- 
 fess ability to appreciate the accumulated 
 stores of knowledge, massive and minute, 
 which are here brought into operation 
 against innumerable devices of the enemy. 
 '' Let God be true and every man a liar" 
 who presumes to contradict Him. So says 
 the Apostle, and this erudite priest and 
 doctor proves that such men are liars — 
 nothing less — arrogant and ignorant, too, 
 though he charitably suggests that they 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I 1 1 
 
 are blind while they say, *'We see." 
 Daniel, their chosen field, is lost for them, 
 and no devout student of this great argu- 
 ment can fail to see, by its aid, that the 
 Book of Daniel the prophet is part of that 
 Word— of which the Incarnate Wotd has 
 said, "Thy Word is truth." Pusey's calm 
 conclusion sounds like the language of an 
 old prophet risen again : '' You must make 
 your choice ; let it be a real one. But be- 
 fore you choose, set before you that day in 
 which you shall see unveiled all that you 
 now see in part. . . . God did not reveal 
 Himself that we should Hve in a twilight, 
 seeing nothing of His Truth distinctly, but 
 only men as trees walking. Twilight must 
 brighten into full day, or darken into the 
 heaviness of night." 
 
 As I read this I recall the impression 
 made upon my boyish heart by those strik- 
 ing lines of Sir Walter Scott,^ which even 
 
 1 "The Monastery," vol. i., p. 158. Ed. Boston, 
 1855. 
 
112 HOLY WRIT 
 
 poor Byron must have felt profoundly when 
 he copied them into his Bible : 
 
 " Within this awful volume lies 
 The mystery of mysteries. 
 Happiest they of human race 
 To whom the Lord has granted grace 
 To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, 
 To lift the latch and force the way ; 
 And better had they ne'er been born 
 Who read to doubt, or read to scorn." 
 
 But while I hold that a conscientious 
 study of Pusey's " Daniel " is of itself suffi- 
 cient to dissipate all the prestiges of this 
 pretended *' progress" in Biblical criticism, 
 I owe it to the memory of my illustrious 
 friend, Bishop Lightfoot, to direct renewed 
 attention to his equally meritorious work 
 on *' Supernatural Religion." And this for 
 another reason ; because it was called forth 
 from his unwearied brain and accumulated 
 wealth of learning alike by the vociferous 
 praises bestowed on an anonymous work, 
 and by the unprincipled tricks which 
 brought it into notoriety. A glance at the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. II3 
 
 Story of this publication ^ will supply a 
 needed comment upon the artificial nature 
 of the credit which such characters as its 
 author are able to secure from the huzzas 
 of the crowd, and from the patronage of 
 unbelief in the masquerade of science. In 
 contrast, a few citations from the pages in 
 which Lightfoot has examined the sophist- 
 ries of its author will prove the superiority 
 of truly scientific learning, and suggest the 
 processes by which pretenders are sure to 
 be found wanting, if tried in the balances 
 of accurate investigation. 
 
 The late Dr. Thirlwall, Bishop of St. 
 David's, was a literary prelate of eminent 
 abilities and splendid attainments. After a 
 brilliant career at Cambridge, and due 
 preparation in jurisprudence, he was called 
 to the bar in 1825, at Lincoln's Inn, with 
 every prospect before him of the highest 
 advancement in his profession. He might 
 
 1 "Supernatural Religion: An Inquiry into the 
 Reality of Divine Revelation." In two vols., 1874. 
 
114 HOLY WRIT 
 
 have aspired to the woolsack without im- 
 modesty, and would probably have been 
 made Lord Chancellor at no distant day ; 
 but in 1828 he took holy orders, and during 
 a long life he distinguished himself in every 
 effort of his pen, and by the mild dignity 
 of his intercourse with learned men, among 
 whom he seemed in some degree to reign 
 as facile princeps. Near the close of his 
 life all England was astonished by the ap- 
 pearance of an anonymous work ascribed 
 to him by general consent of the press, and 
 pronounced, with extravagant eulogies, not 
 only worthy of his erudition, but the con- 
 summate flower of his genius, and an un- 
 answerable argument against the credit of 
 Holy Writ, or, in short, of revealed relig- 
 ion. There was just enough in the hterary 
 tastes of Thirlwall and his known opinions 
 on certain subjects to give colour to such 
 an announcement. His early studies had 
 inclined him to the classical scepticism of 
 Niebuhr, then predominating, and he was 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. II5 
 
 supposed to share in some of the theolog- 
 ical vagaries of Bunsen. The appearance 
 of a work apparently marked by research 
 and real erudition, and generally attributed 
 to so eminent a bishop, while it aimed a 
 death-blow at the religion he had professed 
 through his whole life, could not fail to 
 command a sensational popularity. 1 Re- 
 viewers pronounced it, of course, a speci- 
 men of scholarship and critical acumen of 
 the highest merit. It is worth while to 
 observe how easily this reputation can be 
 gained for such a book ; how readily, on a 
 credit so fictitious, thousands will celebrate 
 the triumph of modern inquiry as complete 
 over truths which have been tried in the 
 fire for successive ages and have come forth 
 from every furnace unscathed. " The au- 
 thor," writes one, '* is a scientifically trained 
 critic : he has learned to argue and to weigh 
 
 1 The rumour was promptly denied, but the success 
 of the publication was secured by what — one trusts with 
 Lightfoot — was not a premeditated fraud. 
 
Il6 HOLY WRIT 
 
 evidence." ** The book," adds another, 
 " proceeds from a man of ability, a scholar, 
 and a reasoner ; i ... his scholarship is 
 apparent throughout." ''Along with a 
 wide and minute scholarship," says the 
 same reviewer, " the unknown writer shows 
 great acuteness." Again a third reviewer, 
 and one entitled to respect, praises " the 
 searching and scholarly criticism " of the 
 book. Still another sounds the same note 
 of admiration for the unknown author's 
 " careful and acute scholarship." These 
 eminent reviewers evidently supposed it 
 the work of the scholar to whom rumour 
 assigned it, and wholly worthy of a bishop 
 ** who had few rivals among his contem- 
 poraries as a scholar and a critic." One 
 wonders how even the masterly mind of 
 Bishop Lightfoot could take up a work of 
 such incomparable merit without fear and 
 trembling. His first inspection, however, 
 led him to the judgment that '' its criticisms 
 
 1 I condense from Bishop Lightfoot, p. 3. Ed. 1889. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. II7 
 
 were too loose and pretentious and too 
 full of errors to produce any permanent 
 effect." He adds: ''For the most part, 
 attacks of this kind on the records of the 
 Divine Life are best left alone." Even so, 
 for they soon expire in their own mephitic 
 savour, and, as with Bahrdt and Nicolai, 
 their memorial perishes with them. But 
 the book was obtaining notoriety from the 
 popular acceptance of its imputed author- 
 ship, and Lightfoot could no longer forbear. 
 He says : '' I was forced to break silence 
 when I found that a cruel and unjustifiable 
 assault was made on a very dear friend, to 
 whom I was attached by the most sacred 
 personal and theological ties; and as I 
 advanced with my work, I seemed to 
 see that, though undertaken to redress a 
 personal injustice, it might be made sub- 
 servient to the wider interests of the 
 truth." 
 
 The discussion which ensued is all-suffi- 
 cient to settle the questions I am now sur- 
 
Il8 HOLY WRIT 
 
 veying, historically. Nothing that has ap- 
 peared, anywhere, against the supernatural 
 element in Christianity has been more 
 loudly praised as a scientific and conclu- 
 sive argument against Divine Revelation. 
 Whoever wrote it, it was just what the 
 ''higher criticism" knew before, and had 
 settled by other processes. This was a 
 new sun risen upon the midday of Illumi- 
 nation.^ If this is not decisive, there is 
 nothing further to be said. 
 
 Be it so. And let it be compared with 
 the calm examination and refutation of 
 Joseph Lightfoot, that worthy successor of 
 Joseph Butler in the See of Durham. He 
 adds little in the way of comment, but that 
 little is terribly significant of the position 
 of the anonymous one who could trade 
 successfully on the injury which attributed 
 an assault on Christianity to the great 
 
 1 A second, third, and fourth edition appeared in two 
 volumes, 1874; fifth and sixth editions followed in 1875 ; 
 a third volume in 1877; a complete edition, three vols., 
 in 1879, 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. II9 
 
 name of a Christian bishop. Considering 
 that the anonymous writer boasts of the 
 long years during which his work had 
 been maturing, what an indictment against 
 Thirl wall was made by ascribing it to 
 him! *' No words," says Lightfoot, *' can 
 be too strong to condemn the heartless 
 cruelty of this imputation. . . . The bishop 
 had Hved in the full blaze of publicity ; and 
 on his fearless integrity no breath of sus- 
 picion had ever rested : yet, when increas- 
 ing infirmities obliged him to lay down his 
 office, he was told that his Hfe for years 
 past had been one gigantic lie, . . . had 
 for years past been guilty of the basest 
 fraud of which a man is capable." 
 
 Lightfoot turns to a critical examina- 
 tion of the work on '' Supernatural Relig- 
 ion," with the reflection that it " presents 
 a trenchant contrast to the refined schol- 
 arship and cautious logic" of Thirl wall ; 
 and his first step brings Out evidence that 
 a schoolboy might convict the author of 
 
I20 HOLY WRIT 
 
 the grossest ignorance of the Greek gram- 
 mar, and of the most unconscious parade 
 of the same, when he tries to correct an 
 accurate rendering of Dr. Westcott's, and 
 another of Tischendorf's, both of whom 
 he accuses of falsifying what they present 
 as a translation. Next, the bishop deals in 
 a similar manner with another example, as 
 negligent of tenses as the other was of 
 moods: adding that these two specimens 
 have been selected not as by any means 
 the worst examples of his Greek, but be- 
 cause an elaborate argument is thus 
 wrecked on the rock of syntax. The Latin 
 of our Priscian is next tried, after other 
 blunders in his Greek have been pointed 
 out, and lo! an imperfect subjunctive is 
 treated as a present indicative, in sublime 
 neglect of rules which boys who have been 
 drilled in Caesar are expected scrupulously 
 to observe. His German — yes, even that 
 — fares no better than his treatment of the 
 dead languages, in the crucible of Light- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 12 1 
 
 foot's criticism. It is to be noted that 
 these and other tokens of ** acute scholar- 
 ship " are corrected in subsequent editions 
 — but only tacitly; that is, without honour- 
 able acknowledgment of the source of the 
 improvement. Reflect that we are now 
 considering a superlative specimen of the 
 "higher criticism." I cannot forbear, 
 therefore, to quote entire the following deli- 
 cately worded expressions of the true critic. 
 He says : " Having shown that the author 
 does not possess the elementary knowledge 
 which is indispensable, ... I shall not 
 stop to inquire how far he exhibits those 
 higher qualifications which are far more 
 rare: whether, for instance, he has the 
 discriminating tact and nice balance of 
 judgment necessary for such a work; or 
 whether, again, he reahzes how men in 
 actual life do speak and write now, and 
 might be expected to speak and write six- 
 teen or seventeen centuries ago; without 
 which qualifications the most painful study 
 
122 HOLY WRIT 
 
 and reproduction of German and Dutch 
 criticism is valueless." 
 
 When we reflect that the three ponder- 
 ous volumes of this ''Great Unknown" 
 have the one merit of presenting the whole 
 case against Revelation as put forth by 
 "higher criticism," we see the real service 
 the " Unknown " has really effected for the 
 cause of truth. Here is all that can be 
 said by High Dutch and Low Dutch ; here 
 is the concentrated result of all their think- 
 ing, scratching, erasing, and digging and 
 delving, from the epoch of Spinoza to this 
 of Schopenhauer and his caput -mortmtm^ 
 Pessimism. And upon all this sits Light- 
 foot in his supremacy of intellectual, power 
 and knowledge and understanding and wis- 
 dom, like a Daniel come to judgment. Out 
 of his court emerges the Fourth Gospel in- 
 tact and unscathed ; the Synoptists come 
 forth sustained and vindicated ; the Apoc- 
 alypse, and, in short, the Canon of Script- 
 ure, as witnessed by the Fathers, are es- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 23 
 
 tablished and confirmed. We have heard 
 of those chambers of compression that 
 closed upon the victims of the Vehmgericht. 
 Without cruelty, but with unsullied justice, 
 this convict is subjected to Hke punishment 
 by the righteous tribunal of Lightfoot. The 
 walls close in upon him slowly and surely, 
 and he becomes straitened on every side, 
 till with terrible retribution he is reduced 
 to nothingness and perishes in flagrant de- 
 lict. Yes, flagrant is the word for the 
 crime; for meanness and subterfuge are 
 here laid open with judicial calmness and 
 just exposure, in all the colourless severity 
 of demonstration that speaks for itself and 
 crushes without comment. Ushered into 
 notoriety and into trade by a fraud of un- 
 speakable wickedness, and passed through 
 edition after edition, in which tacit correc- 
 tions and sneaking evasions are a cognovit 
 of blunders innumerable — stat nominis um- 
 bra. A very thin ghost is all that is left of 
 this gigantic Anonymous. Like one of the 
 
124 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Nephilim, like the prodigy that emerged 
 from the fisherman's drag-net, in the Ara- 
 bian fable, so came this trumpeted giant 
 before the world, a portent and a menace, 
 a threat of extinction to the Gospel of 
 Christ. Not by stratagem, but by main 
 strength, Lightfoot has forced him down 
 again into his box, under Solomon's seal, 
 and with the derisive scorn of scholarship 
 and of integrity he has been kicked back 
 into the Dead Sea, where at least one of 
 his ideas will be gratified : for his book, we 
 may be sure, there will be no resurrection. 
 There are times when long-suffering faith 
 and fidelity to God have a right to answer 
 fools according to their folly. " It came 
 to pass that Elijah mocked them." For a 
 moment I have given vent to the thoughts 
 which came to my mind as I closed this 
 completed work of that "king of men" — 
 in a nobler sense another " prince-bishop " 
 of Durham. It was just before he died, 
 and his book was the last gift of one whose 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 12$ 
 
 friendship was to me most dear. How pro- 
 foundly I have felt the grandeur of his char- 
 acter, the sweetness of his humility and 
 charity, the beauty and perfection of his 
 scholarship ! Since the days of Bede, who 
 sleeps the sleep of peace in Lightfoot's own 
 cathedral, the Church of England has never 
 ceased to breed such men. Think of her 
 immortal Alcuin;^ think of her schoolmen, 
 the greatest and best of their kind ; think 
 of Wiclif, the restorer of Holy Scripture ; 
 think of Ridley for doctrine and Cranmer 
 for liturgies. I should blush for myself 
 were I ashamed to add, think of Tindal and 
 Coverdale and Jewel, in evil days so much 
 better and wiser than their times ; and re- 
 member Hooker, whose sober judgment 
 and vast erudition, said a pope, *' shall en- 
 dure till the conflagration that must con- 
 sume all things." And since those fiery 
 days from which she came forth " a vessel 
 of honour fit for the Master's use," what 
 
 » Note XX. 
 
126 HOLY WRIT 
 
 treasures of sanctified learning have been 
 amassed for Christendom by her sons, lay- 
 men as well as divines. Oh, how humbled 
 I feel, as I converse, in their massive works, 
 with Taylor and Bull and Butler and the 
 noble army of confessors and doctors who 
 have continued their bright succession to 
 our own times. Shall we ever have schools 
 of consecrated learning in America, clus- 
 tered about motherly cathedrals, where stu- 
 dious men may daily *' devour the adver- 
 sary," or furnish armour and artillery for 
 their brethren in the field, condemned, like 
 me, to practical work, and to bear " the 
 burden and heat of the day " ? In view of 
 wants like these in our own dear Church, 
 and in view of the degenerate school in 
 England which has made common cause 
 with the ignoble and covert assailant of 
 Divine Revelation, forgive me for closing 
 with a song, which is yet a sermon and a 
 prayer. I quote an English layman ; verse 
 from the chaste and lofty genius of Words- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 2/ 
 
 worth ; not least, and, thank God, not last, 
 among those who have glorified the family 
 name. 
 
 " For, as on earth it is the doom of Truth 
 To be perpetually attacked by foes, 
 Open or covert, be the Priesthood still, 
 For Truth's defense, replenished with a band 
 Of strenuous champions in scholastic arts 
 Thoroughly disciplined. Nor — if in course 
 Of the revolving world's disturbances 
 Cause should recur (which righteous Heaven avert!) 
 To meet such trial— /rc-w their spiritual sires 
 Degenerate ; who, constrained to wield the sword 
 Of disputation, shrunk not, tho' assailed 
 With hostile din, and combating in sight 
 Of angry umpires, partial and unjust: 
 And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire, 
 But blessing God and praising Him, bequeathed 
 With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame, 
 The Faith, which they by diligence had earned, 
 Or by illuminating grace received. 
 For their dear countrymen and all mankind." 1 
 
 1 " The Excursion," Book VI., p. 446. Am. ed., 
 1837. 
 
128 HOLY WRIT 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 THE HIGHEST CRITICISM. 
 
 That glorious name of the faithful 
 which was awarded them at Antioch is 
 still claimed as honourable by many who 
 depart from the faith and assail it with the 
 mahgnity of the Sadducees. But he only 
 is a Christian who " believes in his heart 
 and confesses with his mouth " that Jesus 
 Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, was 
 proved '' the Son of God, with power, by 
 the resurrection from the dead."^ He only 
 is a Christian who makes this profession in 
 the words of the great Catholic symbol — 
 ** He rose again according to the Script- 
 ures; " that is to say, in the words of the 
 same symbol, the Scriptures of the Holy 
 
 1 Rom. i. 4; X. 9. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 29 
 
 Ghost, " who spake by the prophets." 
 And if the Holy Ghost spake by a succes- 
 sion of prophets, " which have been since 
 the world began," much more hath He 
 spoken by apostles and evangelists, since 
 the Holy Spirit was sent to fill the whole 
 Church, and to lead it into all truth — the 
 Gospel of the New Testament. This is 
 Holy Writ, in the contemplation of which 
 we invoke the Highest Criticism, and pass 
 from the gainsay ings of Core and his imi- 
 tators to the consideration of apostolic tes- 
 timony : for not upon human theory, but 
 from " the witness and keeper " of Holy 
 Writ, we accept what we believe concern- 
 ing the ''oracles of God." 
 
 Of the difficulties suggested by Holy 
 Writ, and which have proved fatal lo his 
 countrymen for successive generations, be- 
 cause Luther made every man his own 
 pope. Dr. Kahnis well remarks : *' That 
 which every human science allows to itself 
 without losing confidence in itself should 
 
I30 HOLY WRIT 
 
 surely be permitted to a science which has 
 to deal with divine mysteries," The book 
 of Nature presents mysteries quite as im- 
 penetrable as those of Revelation. The 
 finite, in both alike, is unable to compre- 
 hend the infinite : for God's thoughts *' are 
 not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways." 
 Hence, in an admirable temper, he pro- 
 ceeds : " It is no disgrace to say, here is 
 a difficulty which I cannot remove, an ob- 
 jection which I cannot refute, a contradic- 
 tion which I cannot reconcile." Science is 
 forced to do this incessantly. Copernicus 
 admitted the difficulties of his own system, 
 but adhered to it, because in rejecting it he 
 encountered difficulties vastly more numer- 
 ous and more formidable. What then? 
 
 li- 
 st. Peter recognized all this, and provides 
 
 the remedy in his comments upon St. Paul's 
 Epistles : '' In which are some things hard 
 to be understood, which they that are un- 
 learned and unstable wrest, as they do, 
 also, the other Scriptures, to their own de- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 131 
 
 struction." We must be patient, and ad- 
 here to known Truth. 
 
 It has not been sufficiently perceived 
 that we owe all this commotion about 
 *' treating the Bible like any other book " 
 to the fact that the German reformers (so 
 called), in breaking away from Rome, failed 
 to re-occupy the rocky fastnesses of primi- 
 tive Catholicity. Hence the Holy Script- 
 ures became to their schools so many 
 sibylline leaves which every man must re- 
 construct according to his own conscious- 
 ness. Luther himself rejected the Epistle 
 of St. James,^ and with it the Catholic doc- 
 trine of justification by faith — which insists 
 that works are the essential element of the 
 faith which justifies. So early in his effort 
 to construct what he considered the crite- 
 rion of a " standing or falling Church," did 
 he create the fact of a fallen CJmrcJi. 
 
 That all clear ideas of testimony and of 
 the Church CathoHc perished in his experi- 
 
 1 Note XXI. 
 
132 HOLY WRIT 
 
 ment may be clearly discovered in the work 
 and the personal despair and misconcep- 
 tions of the eminent Lutheran whom I 
 have so often cited in these lectures.^ In 
 his suspiria de profitndis he invokes a bet- 
 ter spirit, and reflects in the anguish of 
 his own heart upon the emptiness of the 
 " union " effected between the Lutherans 
 and the Calvinists in 1817, under the pious 
 Caesarism of Frederick III. Listen to this : 
 " The iLiiited clergy promised to teach the 
 Christian doctrine in such a manner as each 
 for himself , after honest inquiry and accord- 
 ing to the best of his convictions, draws it 
 from Scripture." Here was the creation of a 
 papacy in every individual ; the pope, which 
 Luther said, in his coarse way, " every man 
 carries in his own belly." And Kahnis re- 
 bukes its impotency in the simpHcity of his 
 heart, and as if it were a discovery of his 
 own, in these words : '* If every Protestant 
 divine is to expound Scripture in his own 
 
 1 Kahnis, pp. 262, 308, 328. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 33 
 
 way, to form the doctrines and shape their 
 structure each one after his own method, 
 what must be the result? " He gives the 
 answer of common sense to his own ques- 
 tion : ** The result must be a chaos of 
 standpoints, like atoms crossing one an- 
 other, with which no church, no sound sci- 
 ence could be possible." 
 
 Precisely so. And such is the chaos I 
 have been surveying, and out of which the 
 best minds of Germany are struggling to 
 free themselves ; while, to the surprise of 
 mankind and the scandal of English com- 
 mon sense, there are some among us who, 
 instead of stretching forth the helping hand 
 of our Catholicity to bewildered spirits, are 
 endeavouring to import among us a similar 
 Protestantism. In language which Kahnis 
 seems to adopt ^ — concerning "the miser- 
 able condition of Protestantism " — he tells 
 us that one of the ablest of his brethren 
 was forced to exclaim : " I confess can- 
 
 ' Ut supra, p. 308. 
 
134 HOLY WRIT 
 
 didly, I am sometimes ashamed of being 
 obliged to call myself a Protestant." If any 
 one wishes to prove that Germany needs 
 to learn a practical way out of chaos, by 
 restoring Catholic law, as the Anglicans did 
 three centuries ago, let me further elicit 
 such evidence from the learned Lutheran 
 aforesaid. He calls for '' a subjective Chris- 
 tian spirit," by which Germans often mean 
 what we call an objective one : " a spirit 
 which with cordial sympathy enters into 
 the phenomena of the past life of the 
 Church'' He deplores " the mistakes and 
 aberrations of a mode of exposition coinci- 
 dent with the theology of mere feeling, a 
 formless individualized Christianity." He 
 adds : '* The spirit of historic representa- 
 tion, which alone corresponds to the history 
 of the Church, is to feel as a Chnrchmany 
 What an unconscious tribute to the Angli- 
 can Prayer-book, to the Ordinal and the 
 Liturgy! What an impeachment of the 
 whole " reformation " attempted by Luther 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 35 
 
 and Calvin in his further complaint that 
 the use they made of Scripture " prevented 
 them from giving its due place to the his- 
 torical view." One would think he was 
 quoting our own standard divines when he 
 speaks of the conviction of the whole 
 Church that " the same Spirit who has re- 
 vealed Himself in the Old and New Testa- 
 ment prevails hi her.'' And this convic- 
 tion he actually substitutes for Luther's 
 maxim, as the test *' of a standing or falling 
 Church." " It is not the consciousness of 
 this or that individual, but the consciousness 
 of the Church, which must interpret Script- 
 ure." And again, " It is therefore in the 
 spirit of the Chnrch that the Scriptures 
 must be interpreted." And yet again, 
 speaking of those who laboured to depose 
 the Rationalists : '' It was hence a necessary 
 progress of exegesis to reduce the word of 
 Scripture to the Christian consciousness, 
 ... to reproduce out of the Word the 
 Spirit who has produced the Word." And 
 
136 HOLY WRIT 
 
 once more : '* This consciousness has not 
 been left without witnesses : the interpreter 
 must go to the work in relation zvith tJie 
 voices of all centuries.'" Hear it, ye Chris- 
 tians of America, to whom we have com- 
 mended the ** Historic Episcopate," for 
 I add what follows this lofty appeal to 
 Catholic Testimony, exhibiting the utter 
 despair to which Kahnis is reduced for 
 the want of it in Germany. ** Feel as a 
 Churchman," he says — but where is the 
 Church for a German Protestant? He 
 gives it all up in desperation, with these 
 melancholy words : ** But since there does 
 not exist a Catholic Church, but only par- 
 ticular churches," a man with the right 
 spirit ** will not permit himself to deny the 
 peculiarities of his oivn particular church'' 
 Thus he flounders and falls back into the 
 very chaos he has been describing and be- 
 wailing: "There does not exist a Catho- 
 lic Church." Hear it, ye heavens, and 
 give ear, O Earth — the Church of Christ 
 
AT\D MODERN THOUGHT. 1 37 
 
 has failed! The Church founded on the 
 Rock of Golgotha by the risen Christ has 
 been too feeble for the gates of hell. What 
 then ? His advice amounts to this : Let 
 the poor swimmer in this deluge of unbe- 
 lief cling to his own particular fragment of 
 the wreck, drift where it may. Alas ! to 
 borrow his own eloquent figure, " What is 
 the use of setting the hands of one's dial 
 when the mainspring is broken!" 
 
 Even Ranke, while he points to the 
 causes of those rapid reconquests of the 
 Jesuits in Germany which he chronicles, 
 feels his w^ay toward an elucidation when 
 he says:i "This effect was without doubt 
 produced because the German theologians 
 had never arrived at any clear understand- 
 ing among tJieniselves'' He should have 
 said, ** Because in their fury as reformers 
 they forgot to be restorer's'' The Angli- 
 cans refused to follow them, and made 
 themselves indeed " healers of the breach 
 
 1 Vol. i., p. 418. Bohn's translation, 1858. 
 
138 HOLY WRIT 
 
 and restorers of paths to dwell in," by a re- 
 turn to the Catholic system of the eldest 
 antiquity. 
 
 Theoretically, the pious Auberlen, while 
 he has no practical principle to enforce be- 
 cause he has no historic Church to which 
 he can turn as a '* witness and keeper of 
 Holy Writ," reaches a Hke conclusion with 
 Kahnis, against the abuse of private judg- 
 ment. He flies from the burning cities 
 of the plain, scorched by their retribution 
 and not untainted by their contagion — seek- 
 ing a Zoar, which, like Kahnis, he seeks in 
 vain. For him also there is no church of 
 Testimony and of Record to furnish rest 
 for his feet. But he accepts the conclusion 
 of a contemporary author, in the following 
 words,! which might have been written by 
 Bishop Bull : " God will not lead and in- 
 struct men by the Scriptures alone ; He 
 employs also His Spirit and the Church : 
 
 1 " Divine Revelation," p. 247. Edinburgh trans- 
 lation, 1867. See pp. 244-248, 345, 358. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 39 
 
 therefore He has given His word in a form 
 which can be sufficient to lead into all truth 
 — only in connection with the other guides.'* 
 To the same purpose Scripture speaks of 
 itself : " No prophecy of the Scripture is of 
 any private interpretation. . . . But there 
 shall be false teachers among you." What 
 are these " other guides " of which Auber- 
 len feels the want, which only can refute the 
 false teachers ? In his candid, even affec- 
 tionate view of poor Schleiermacher's grop- 
 ings toward the hght, Auberlen proves, 
 though he does not explicitly adopt, the 
 great value of the Patristic Testimony ; the 
 famous Canon of Vincent ; the rule of faith 
 of the whole Church under the great syn- 
 ods, and before popes were heard of, save 
 by prophetic vision, as among the *' many 
 Antichrists." St. Jude, in like foresight, 
 suppHes in essence St. Vincent's rule, as St. 
 Paul and St. Peter did before him.^ But 
 
 1 II. Thess. ii. 13, 14; II. Tim. i. 13; II. Peter i. 
 20 ; ii. passim; St. Jude, especially 1 7 to end. 
 
I40 HOLY WRIT 
 
 hear the sigh of Menken, when, in 1805, he 
 published his "Attempt to Provide a Guide 
 to Individual Instruction in the Truths of 
 Scripture." In the Preface he says: ''I 
 would gladly speak of the conformity or 
 non-conformity of my work to the stand- 
 ard of the church, if there were a church 
 existing! " 
 
 Let me proceed to the consideration of 
 the principle that " the Bible must be 
 treated like any other book," so far as to 
 show (i) in what sense we demand that it 
 should be recognized practically, and (2) 
 how it must be guarded by logical limita- 
 tions. 
 
 The miracle of our Lord's resurrection, 
 which I assume to be accepted by all who 
 have any claim to be called Christians, pre- 
 cludes any hesitation with regard to minor 
 miracles which culminated in this. This 
 principle takes away also every plea against 
 prophecy, which is only a species of mira- 
 cle, and one to which our Lord's resurrec- 
 
AND iMODERN THOUGHT. I4I 
 
 tion has set the sufficient seal. How ab- 
 surd to talk about '* the fixt laws of the 
 universe," which the enemy pronounces to 
 be the base of his unbelief ; as if their very 
 fixedness were not the necessary base of 
 miracle itself, the very law which gives 
 all its force to an exception. Clearly, if the 
 fixt laws of the universe were not laws^ 
 but merely fluctuating phenomena, there 
 could be no miracle. We hold to these 
 laws, and hence when there arise unques- 
 tionable exceptions, we exclaim : " Here is 
 the finger of God." The Lawgiver Him- 
 self is revealed : '' let all the earth keep 
 silence before Him." 
 
 Keeping this in view, the Bible may be 
 ** treated like any other book," and we de- 
 mand that it should be, just so long as the 
 canons of true criticism are scrupulously 
 regarded. So argues our Lightfoot : ex- 
 perto crede Roberto. While he shrinks 
 from no critical examination of the Scrip- 
 tures, as a whole or in detail, such as any 
 
142 HOLY WRIT 
 
 competent scholar would devote to a book 
 of incomparable dignity, in the exercise of 
 judicial conscientiousness and with respect 
 for the convictions of others, he cannot con- 
 sent to the proposals of every bungler and 
 caviller to treat the Bible as such charac- 
 ters might treat any book. For he says 
 of the essayist already mentioned : " When 
 I observed that the author, not content 
 with ignoring the facts and reasonings, 
 went on to impugn the honesty of his op- 
 ponents; when I noticed that, again and 
 again, the arguments on one side of the 
 question were carefully arrayed, while the 
 arguments on the other side were alto- 
 gether omitted ; when I perceived that he 
 denied the authenticity of every work, and 
 questioned the applicability of every ref- 
 erence which made against him ; when, in 
 short, I saw, that however sincere the 
 writer's personal convictions might be, the 
 critical portion of the work was stamped, 
 throughout, with the character of an advo- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I43 
 
 cate's ex-parte statement, I felt that he 
 had forfeited any claim to special forbear- 
 ance." Now, it is just such critics as this 
 author, who in the estimate of review- 
 ers had carried away the palm from all 
 competitors as an example of exhaustive 
 scholarship, and of a successful attack 
 upon Christianity — it is just such men as 
 he, men after the, pattern of Nicolai and 
 Bahrdt, that bawl most loudly for the 
 privilege of treating the Book of books 
 **as they would treat any other book." 
 By which they mean, as even they would 
 not treat any other book in the world ; for 
 this is the only book which they hate with 
 a hatred like that of Julian the Apostate. 
 Lightfoot weighs his words, when he pre- 
 scribes widely different qualifications as 
 a prerequisite for the exercise of judicial 
 faculties by any one who would judge 
 righteously of the Scripture canon. He 
 adds that, with such a course of prepara- 
 tion as he indicates for reading Irenaeus, 
 
144 HOLY WRIT 
 
 one " would be in a more favourable 
 position for judging rightly of its early- 
 history than if he had studied all the mon- 
 ograpJis which have issued from the Ger- 
 man press during the last half century'' 
 And Lightfoot's judgment in this matter 
 is supreme. Ruling out, then, all such 
 characters as the author of the ** Essay on 
 Supernatural Religion," and all such as 
 would treat Isaiah as my simulated re- 
 viewal treats Gray's Ode, we do not 
 merely allow — for we demandy rather — (i) 
 that the Bible should be treated like any 
 other book in so far as research the most 
 exhaustive, and scrutiny the most micro- 
 scopic, can be brought to bear on it by 
 truth-seeking and truth-loving men. But 
 (2) we demand that if the preliminary ex- 
 amination shall prove that the Bible is 
 wholly unlike any other book in its two- 
 fold history — in the history of its origin 
 and preservation, and in the history of its 
 influence upon humanity — then, in so far, 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I45 
 
 its treatment should be commensurately 
 unlike the treatment of other books. He 
 who should dig up an old and encrusted 
 copper vase, for example, but should find 
 reason, in the suggestions of experts, to 
 examine it with the delicacy due to a work 
 of ancient art, would undoubtedly proceed 
 to investigate it with a proportionate re- 
 finement of feeling. If on further exam- 
 ination he should find that the copper was 
 probably silver, in the estimate of compe- 
 tent judges, he would apply his chemical 
 tests yet more tenderly ; and should these 
 suggest that, after all, if not merely parcel- 
 gilt, it was pure gold, then it is quite cer- 
 tain he could not pursue his work except 
 on this idea, and no longer as a problem, 
 but as a theorem. Hopefully and in love 
 with his task, he would exult in every 
 token that his theorem was capable of 
 demonstration. Holy Writ should be dealt 
 with on like principles ; for it comes to the 
 critic's hands wholly unlike any other 
 
146 HOLY WRIT 
 
 book, and hence cannot be justly treated 
 otherwise than as a thing of superlative 
 dignity. Any one may begin with it prob- 
 lematically, but still respectfully; he may 
 be scientifically sceptical at the outset, and 
 disposed to question its character, and in 
 so far he tnay be severe, provided he will 
 be just. But when he cannot deny that 
 the believer has ground for his theorem, 
 that it will be found pure gold, even 
 though tried with fire, he will not be re- 
 luctant to submit it to a fiery ordeal in the 
 lofty spirit of one who follows up experi- 
 ment as a lover of truth, and with good 
 hope that he can reach with honest satis- 
 faction a " Q. E. D." like that which seals 
 a demonstration of EucHd. It is thus that 
 the erudite Pusey says with the dignity 
 of a scholar and of a judge : " I have con- 
 scientiously 7'ead everything which has 
 been written against the Book of Daniel. 
 But, although the belief as to 
 the prophecies of Daniel must be part of 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I47 
 
 my religious being, since it is inseparable 
 from my belief that Jesus is God — this in 
 no way interferes with the examination of 
 these prophecies in themselves. I cannot, 
 indeed, examine them as one who doubts. 
 Even in matters of certain hu- 
 man knowledge men do not ignore their 
 own knowledge in order to impart it to 
 others or to remove their objections." I 
 suppose such is the great principle laid 
 down for believers in St. Paul's canon — 
 ** Prove all things." He subjects the 
 Scriptures to trial with a theorem, not as a 
 problem. He demonstrates his theorem, 
 however, just as the astronomer, assuming 
 the truth of the Copernican system, never- 
 theless invites the closest examination of 
 the facts and processes which establish it, 
 though in flat contradiction to our senses 
 and to all the convictions of scientists, as 
 they were propagated and plausibly sus- 
 tained for thousands of years after the true 
 theory had been stated. 
 
148 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Widely different are the processes of 
 Truth's adversary, though he also has his 
 theorem. He assumes that all is false, but 
 ** his wish is parent to his thought," and 
 he sees nothing, grants nothing, weighs 
 nothing, that conflicts with his prejudice, 
 his malevolence, his hatred of Truth and 
 Light. *' Disbelief," says Pusey, ** has 
 been the parent, not the offspring, of their 
 criticism — their starting-point, not the win- 
 ning-post, of their course." This has been 
 made evident enough in the unanswerable 
 pages of Pusey and Lightfoot ; and of 
 Guettee, in his examination of the brilliant 
 Renan, that victim, like so many of his 
 countrymen, of scepticism engendered by 
 Ultramontane dogmas. Such the fruits 
 of Jesuit persistency in demanding faith 
 where nothing but credulity can respond, 
 since what they require of the human in- 
 tellect has no connection with evidence. 
 
 By contrast, you have learned the mean- 
 ing of the " higher criticism," and of what 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I49 
 
 I call the ''highest criticism." In these 
 lectures I also proceed as on St. Paul's 
 canon, and state the case, not to preclude 
 your own examinations, but to stimulate 
 them. I invoke the most searching, investi- 
 gation of the great authors who have satis- 
 fied me, and of those whom they have so 
 ably refuted and exposed in their true 
 character, as equally incompetent for want 
 of sound learning, and incapable for want 
 of candour. 
 
 Weak defenders of truth are they who 
 not merely forget to hold the old fast- 
 nesses of Christendom, but those who fail 
 to seize and occupy the ground which has 
 been fairly won. 
 
 We must not suffer it to be overlooked, 
 after two centuries of warfare such as I 
 have surveyed, that not an inch of foothold 
 claimed by the Catholic Church has been 
 surrendered. But more, in every conflict 
 we have gained fresh ground. Out of the 
 eater has come forth meat; out of the 
 
I50 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Strong, sweetness. Renan has been forced 
 to give us back so much of St. Paul, and 
 of ApostoHc history, as enables us to re- 
 construct all that he had shattered in the 
 imagination of some. Daniel is not only 
 reconquered, but planted more firmly in 
 the canon than ever before. Burgon has 
 reclaimed the concluding verses of St. 
 Mark by a masterly exercise of learning 
 and logic ; and the canon of the New Tes- 
 tament rises like the Phoenix out of the 
 flames, in which they boasted that it had 
 perished. Of the Fourth Gospel, take the 
 following judgment of one whose right to 
 speak will not be questioned, at least by 
 the enemy. He says : ** Nearly all the 
 savants who apply the rational method to 
 the history of theology reject the Fourth 
 Gospel as wholly apocryphal. I have re- 
 flected largely and anew upon this prob- 
 lem, and I have been unable to modify, 
 in appreciable degree, my previously ex- 
 pressed opinion. Only, as I disagree on 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 151 
 
 this point with the general opinion, I have 
 felt it my duty to exhibit in detail the 
 grounds of my persistency." The same 
 writer in like manner states his confidence 
 in the Gospel of St. Luke and the Acts of 
 the Apostles as in continuity the work of 
 the same author. He gathers up all that 
 has been said by the rationaHsts, and adds : 
 " Shall we, then, yield to these objections? 
 I think not, and I persist in my behef, etc." 
 So speaks the redoubtable Renan.i It is 
 all-important, also, to note that, after all 
 these years of perpetual theorizing, de- 
 molishing, disproving, and of creating new 
 systems out of mere remnants and pre- 
 sumed discoveries, the ultimaUtm, if not 
 similar to this, is not positive but absolutely 
 negative. After it has been a hundred 
 times proclaimed, " Here are at last the 
 facts;" ''It is now ascertained;" in short, 
 ** We now know, and can speak positively," 
 
 * " Les Apotres," par Ernest Renan, pp. ix.-xv. 
 Introduction. *(Eleventh edition.) Paris, 1882. 
 
152 HOLY WRIT 
 
 — after all this, it has come down to " We 
 know nothing." The actual outcome of 
 " higher criticism " as to the canon of Holy 
 Writ amounts to this : " When, by whom, 
 and how it was created it is impossible for 
 us to determine." ^ Yes, and if we ignore 
 all the accumulations of evidence, shut our 
 eyes to demonstrated facts, and close our 
 ears and our minds alike to the preponder- 
 ance of probabilities and the concurrent 
 testimony of experts, how easy it would 
 be to treat the revelations of astronomy 
 and the elemental truths of geology with 
 a similar exclamation of contempt, crying, 
 *' It is impossible to determine." 
 
 But, finally, we are asked to give a 
 broad margin to '* the human element." 
 Weak defenders, in order to be ** liberal," 
 first make it broader, and then throw it as 
 a sop to the insatiate jaws of unbelief. 
 Doubtless there is a human element where 
 human language is employed, when the 
 1 Note XXII. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 53 
 
 Infinite condescends to the finite mind and 
 talks to man in his own idioms, limited by 
 the immensity of our ignorance. In mere 
 versions of Scripture this element becomes 
 appreciable, and when we fall back on the 
 original text, there is yet a human element 
 to be allowed for in questions of text and 
 of guardianship; while there remains a 
 very important inquiry, and one that re- 
 quires to be more fully treated by devout 
 believers than it has been, respecting those 
 parts of Scripture which are professedly 
 compilations. In such case, possibly, we 
 may not claim for the editor exemption 
 from human fallibility, any more than we 
 do for the devout and faithful creators of a 
 version like the Peshito or the Vulgate. 
 A striking example of what I would con- 
 cede is furnished by the discourse of the 
 friends of Job. They spake *' truths that 
 wake to perish never"; but they appHed 
 them injudiciously and with persistent mis- 
 take. Hence the decisive judgment of 
 
154 HOLY WRIT 
 
 God Himself, who moves them to a sac- 
 rifice of faith and repentance, to prayer, 
 and to Job's intercession, with the words, 
 *' Lest I deal with you after yoiw folly, in 
 that ye have not spoken of me the thing 
 which is right, like my servant Job.'' 
 Here, then, we are warned to read those 
 sublime words of Eliphaz, Elihu, and the 
 others, just as we read the Apocrypha, 
 according to St. Jerome,^ " for the edifica- 
 tion of the people, but not to sustain the 
 authority of the Church's doctrines." By 
 this rule we read alike the Apocrypha 
 and the words of Elihu, but cannot cite 
 them as unquestionable truth, save only as 
 they are sustained by the canonical Scrip- 
 tures. Happily, the Catholic Church has 
 never tied her children's faith to any theory 
 about inspiration ; but, practically, she pre- 
 sents us with her canon — the Old Testa- 
 ment stamped by Christ Himself with His 
 
 ^ The late Bishop of Winchester refers to the Bene- 
 dictine ed. Tom. i., p. 938. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 155 
 
 seal, as the gift of the Holy Spirit, and 
 the New, invested with like character, by 
 Apostolic testimony — the whole clothed 
 with that majestic summary of authentica- 
 tion : ** Every Scripture inspired of God is 
 also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for 
 correction, for instruction, which is in right- 
 eousness." I quote the Revised Version, 
 not because I admire its clumsy rhetoric, 
 but to preclude verbal objections ; and be- 
 cause it allows the margin of Scripture for 
 which I have argued. The words of Elihu, 
 though not wholly inspired, are included 
 in *' Scripture," yet we have shown that 
 they are, in some cases, not " profitable." 
 St. Paul's rule claims inerrancy for inspired 
 Scripture only ; and this illustrates other 
 cases where there is a human element to 
 be allowed for, if we can prove it human. 
 Yes, and there is the crucial point. There 
 was a human element in the personality of 
 the Divine Redeemer, but presumptuous 
 indeed is he who would undertake to 
 
156 HOLY WRIT 
 
 separate it from the Person of the One 
 Christ. The very hem of His garment 
 was more holy than that Ark of the Cove- 
 nant which Uzzah profaned by his touch, 
 when he essayed to uphold it, because it 
 was shaking. And just so the Uzzahs of 
 our day have presumed to deal with Him, 
 in whom were ** hid all the treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge " ; in whom dwelt 
 "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. "^ 
 The Dutch critics venture to define the 
 self-emptying of His humility as implying 
 the contrary of all this ; He became less 
 divine, and practically human only, by the 
 mystery of His Incarnation. This is no 
 '' modern thought" ; it is the old profane- 
 ness of Celsus. Even Tertullian^ is cen- 
 sured by the devout and learned Pearson 
 for too great freedom of phrase, though he 
 restricts this self-humiliation to His *' ter- 
 
 ' Coloss. ii. 3, 9 ; Philipp. ii. 7. On the Kivuaiq, 
 see Pearson (on the Creed), p. 156. Ed. Oxford, 1890. 
 
 2 "Ante-Nicene Fathers " (translated), vol. iii., p. 
 530. Ed. Buffalo, 1885. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 157 
 
 rene flesh, which made all things else 
 about Him Wonderful; as when they said : 
 * Whence hath this man this wisdom? ' " 
 
 The Dutch and German critics assume 
 the " human element " whenever they pick 
 up a bit of manna which their dyspeptic 
 element cannot inwardly digest. Upon the 
 living and life-giving text of Holy Writ 
 they sit anatomizing, as if it were a vulgar 
 corpse for dissection. But the Christian 
 assumes the very reverse : he accepts the 
 canon as holy, and as something not to be 
 subjected to ''private interpretation"; as 
 instinct with divinity, and a frame-work on 
 which it is impiety for the individual mind 
 to inflict a scar. Not this, but *' the 
 Church's consciousness " is the only lawful 
 court of appeal, as Kahnis and Auberlen 
 have found it. And this principle practi- 
 cally excludes all scepticism, from a rever- 
 ent mind, so rarely does one indisposed to 
 cavil encounter a real difficulty. 
 
 Not a jot or tittle which touches the 
 
158 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Nicene Creed can be proved a human ele- 
 ment ; no, not even the text of ** the 
 Three Witnesses." This text cannot be 
 quoted as indubitable Scripture, and hence 
 should never be appealed to for proof, yet 
 it says nothing but what Scripture says 
 elsewhere; just what the Church itself has 
 always testified. Therefore, like the words 
 of Elihu, where he says what Job says, and 
 says what all Scripture confirms, we rever- 
 ently accept it as doctrine, while we would 
 not cite it to confirm any dogma. Though 
 the propriety of excluding it has never 
 been proved, it could not now be inserted 
 — which is a different thing — on the text- 
 ual evidence in the possession of us Mod- 
 erns. But it proves volumes for the 
 Scriptures as we have them, that this one 
 case is exceptional, and stands quite alone. 
 In a word, then, even the criticisms of 
 the adversary may contribute here and there 
 a marginal note to our English Bible, and 
 many conjectural annotations to commen- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 59 
 
 taries. They may point to apparent indi- 
 cations of the " human element " in vexed 
 passages, but they cannot prove deductions 
 merely conjectural. They may also dem- 
 onstrate that certain ancient manuscripts 
 have been too much relied upon ; or that 
 others have been too little appreciated. 
 But nothing which they suggest as emen- 
 dation is referable to any standard that 
 Christians can accept, or to any unanimity 
 among the critics as to what should be 
 done with conjectures resting generally on 
 the ** consciousness " of one author, with 
 which the " consciousness " of others does 
 not correspond. As, for example, in spite 
 of all that almost every rationalist has 
 claimed as proven against the Fourth 
 Gospel, we have seen that Renan finds no 
 reason to alter his conviction (which he im- 
 agines helps his particular theory) that the 
 objections amount to nothing. Strauss has 
 proved to his own satisfaction that the 
 Gospels were purposeless fables. Not to 
 
l60 HOLY WRIT 
 
 be behind others who went further, how- 
 ever, he pronounces! "^ great part of 
 these accounts — t/ie FoiLvth Gospel^ espe- 
 cially — to have been gotten up for party 
 purposes." Hitzig decides that the Epistle 
 to the Philippians is " plagiarized from the 
 *Agricola ' of Tacitus." As a specimen of 
 his acumen, this author derives the name 
 of ^sop from *' the hyssop that springeth 
 out of the wall." This is the class of crit- 
 ics who build theories on the " human 
 element" — a school to which Matthew 
 Arnold ascribes *' great force of critical 
 opinion." The threshings and winnowings 
 of this ** higher criticism" leave little of 
 the sheaves, except tares and chaflf, in 
 the hand of the husbandman. What they 
 would sweep away is precious seed that 
 lies, safe and sound, upon the floor, or is 
 gathered into the Church's garner. Let a 
 heathen who is coming to the Light, re- 
 
 1 Auberlen, "Divine Revelation," p. 287, and see 
 more of Hitzig, Lightfoot, S. R. pp. 24, 25. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. l6l 
 
 prove those who turn away from it. ** The 
 want of faith," says Mozoomdar/ " is a 
 dreadful cause of evil in the world ; it is 
 the killing of one half of human nature. 
 . . . The men who profess to teach re- 
 ligion without the fulness and maturity of 
 faith deserve to be singled out as blind 
 leaders of the blind." 
 
 ''Hail, Holy Light!" Out of Dante's 
 Inferno it is sweet to mount into Paradise. 
 We have gained the loftier plane of the 
 Highest Criticism ; of thought uplifted by 
 faith, and hope, and love, above the ma- 
 terial, the gross, the sensual, and profane. 
 There is criticism which pierces to the 
 kernel and sticks not in the bark ; which 
 sees through the veil of the letter and 
 communes with the ethereal spirit ; which 
 halts not with dialect and idiom, though 
 it analyzes language in all its forms ; which 
 deals with style as the vehicle of mental 
 force, but as not infrequently the stamp 
 
 1 " Oriental Christ," pp. 104, 105. 
 
1 62 HOLY WRIT 
 
 and imprint of God, speaking with the 
 voice of man. It explores the artificial 
 varieties of rhetoric and poetry, like the 
 merchantman " seeking goodly pearls " ; 
 it identifies itself with the author, his indi- 
 viduality, his times, and surroundings ; it 
 leaves ample room and verge for the hu- 
 man element, but, by a critical instinct, it 
 recognizes everywhere, as inseparable from 
 its operations, a suffusing spirit, the living 
 and light-giving element of Divine inspi- 
 ration. And so we come to men of faith, 
 to the true critics, to the thought of ages ; 
 to the sacred canon, whole and undefiled ; 
 settled and defined from the beginning; 
 settled in the only times and by the only 
 court in which such definition was possi- 
 ble; settled by contemporaneous evidence 
 compared with which the guesses and ob- 
 jections of *' modern thought " present no 
 case for judicial reopening. 
 
 It has been well remarked^ that " ob- 
 
 ' Pusey, Preface to his " Daniel." 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 63 
 
 jectors of old were as acute as now, or 
 more acute than those now;" and they did 
 their worst from the days of Alexander 
 the coppersmith to those of Juhan the Em- 
 peror. '' It would be difficult, probably, to 
 invent a new heresy." ^ . . . ** The Jews 
 tried what pseudo-criticism could do against 
 the prophecies 2 as to our Lord and His 
 Church." But over against them, in the 
 city of books and of scholars, rose up that 
 colossal succession of the Faith's defenders 
 whose criticism is the highest, as it was the 
 earliest, in the Noviis Ordo Sceclorttm, the 
 Era of Light. Beginning with St. Mark, in 
 all probability, and with not less likelihood 
 counting among its founders Apollos, '' the 
 logical, and mighty in the Scriptures," 
 the School of Alexandria is the earliest 
 comment of history on the words of Christ 
 to the fishermen—" Ye are the light of the * 
 world." Who among the heroes of ** mod- 
 
 1 Pusey, lit supra. 
 
 2 See one of the eighteen places altered by the 
 Scribes, in Pearson {tit supra), p. 361. 
 
1 64 HOLY WRIT 
 
 ern thought" can be named as considera- 
 ble, when compared with Pantaenus, that 
 ** SiciHan bee," who imparted ''the death- 
 less element of knowledge" to his successor 
 Clement the Athenian, born under the 
 Antonines, but converted to Christ, and 
 rearing up Origen as his pupil? Of this 
 illustrious critic says Cyril of Alexandria, 
 " he was a man admirably learned and 
 skilful, and one that searched to the depths 
 all the learning of the Greeks, zvith mi ex- 
 actness rarely attained before y Alexander 
 of Jerusalem eulogizes him as his master, 
 " greatly useful and helpful." Theodoret 
 says : '' He surpassed all others, and was a 
 holy man." Eusebius applauds him as 
 ** incomparable " in the mastery of Chris- 
 tian philosophy. St. Jerome testifies that 
 he was the most learned of all the ancients. 
 And to this a recent scholar and translator 
 sets his seal when he says 'A "So multifari- 
 
 1 The Rev. Wm. Wilson, Edinburgh, 1868. See 
 also "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. ii., pp. 165, 166. Ed. 
 Buffalo, 1885. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 65 
 
 ous is the erudition, so multitudinous the 
 quotations, and the references to authors 
 (in all departments and of all countries), 
 most of whose works have perished, that 
 these works of Clement could only have 
 been composed near an extensive library 
 — hardly anywhere but in the vicinity of 
 the famous Library of Alexandria.'' 
 
 And as a critic and collector of the 
 Scriptures, who shall be compared with the 
 encyclopaedic Origen ; erratic as a theolo- 
 gian, indeed, but in the creation of his 
 " Hexapla," the prince of critical scholars, 
 and the benefactor of the human race. Epi- 
 phanius reckons up his works, greater and 
 less, his treatises and essays, as amounting 
 in all to the number of 6000 ; and Jerome 
 is justified in saying that he wrote more 
 than anybody could read. Isaac Barrow 
 calls him '' the father of interpreters." 
 Scrivener,! a master of '* textual criticism," 
 
 1 " Introduction to the Criticism of the N. T.," 
 p. 451. Ed. Cambridge, 1874. 
 
1 66 HOLY WRIT 
 
 after comparing his work with what " six- 
 teen more centuries have produced," says : 
 " Seldom have such warmth of fancy and 
 so bold a grasp of mind been united with 
 the life-long, patient industry which pro- 
 cured for this famous man the honourable 
 appellation of the Adamantine'' What 
 more need I say of this great school than 
 that it culminated in Athanasius, who 
 stood "against the world," when it wav- 
 ered as to the faith, and reconquered it for 
 Christ. In the West, St. Jerome became 
 the father of Biblical learning, but he 
 wrought with the '' Hexapla" before him, 
 in the *' very autograph " of Origen. It 
 must not be forgotten that innumerable 
 copies of the Scriptures had perished in 
 the Diocletian persecution, but that the 
 continuity from Origen was never lost ; for, 
 as Scrivener puts it, " From Jerome's time 
 downward, the stream of extant and direct 
 manuscript evidence flows on without in- 
 terruption." 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 67 
 
 This glance at the great Fathers of 
 Scripture criticism is important for sev- 
 eral reasons. (i) It establishes the fact 
 that *' modern thought " and '* higher 
 criticism " cannot be compared with the 
 highest; and it reflects merited disgrace 
 on those of the moderns who have spoken 
 of these giants of the old time before us as 
 inferior to themselves. So that " thrice- 
 battered " author of the Essay on Siipe7'- 
 iiahiral Religion ventured to speak of 
 " the thorongJily uncritical character of the 
 Fathers, and the slight dependence which 
 can be placed upon their judgments," i.e., 
 as compared with his own, or with Hitzig 
 and other Germans on whom he relies. ^ 
 We venture to believe ** the old is better." 
 Personally, these ancients have had no su- 
 periors In our day ; and their own day was 
 the only day in which the essential evi- 
 dence could be supplied, or in which ma- 
 
 1 Note Lightfoot's remarks on this subject, passim ; 
 and pp. 268-9, for ^" interesting discussion. 
 
1 68 HOLY WRIT 
 
 terials could be identified with originals, or 
 rejected as impure. 
 
 And (2) it may be said, as it has been 
 constantly assumed in argument against 
 the canon, that great diversities of mind 
 and character existed among these ancient 
 scholars, so that they often lend no little 
 help to modern objectors. As I am now- 
 proving that the Fathers, by whose aid and 
 services the Church was able to construct 
 and settle the canon, zvere in all respects 
 critics the best qualified for their sacred 
 task, it must be evident that my point is 
 greatly sharpened by this fact. It is a con- 
 cession that there is hardly anything now 
 called ''modern thought" which those 
 Fathers had not considered, candidly dis- 
 cussed, weighed, and practically rejected. 
 For the Church is not merely " the keeper 
 of Holy Writ," she is also its faithful 
 "witness." Most important to my argu- 
 ment, therefore, is the fact that my valued 
 friend, Dean Stanley, and others who have 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 69 
 
 ventured with him, to the very verge of 
 falling, had also their less blameworthy 
 counterparts in the ages before the great 
 Synodical period, which made an *' end of 
 controversy" on so many points; which 
 settled the canon forever, and closed in- 
 numerable questions which cannot be re- 
 opened without shipwreck of faith. I have 
 already reminded you of the fact that mod- 
 ern German theology owes its chaotic 
 character entirely to its loss of catholicity, 
 and to practical ideas of Scripture as so 
 many SibyUine leaves, thrown loosely into 
 the world, to be picked up or to perish, 
 without any care to commit it to a faith- 
 ful stewardship on His part who watches 
 over even the sparrow's fall. We know 
 that the oracles of God were committed to 
 the churches, and so to that Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church, which cannot be de- 
 stroyed; which exists in continuity and 
 perpetuity as " the pillar and ground of 
 the Truth." 
 
I70 HOLY WRIT 
 
 For (3) not Clement, nor Orlgen, nor 
 Athanasius, nor Jerome, nor any doctor 
 of the primitive ages, was the arbiter of 
 the canon, or ever imagined himself to be 
 other than a disciple of the Apostles and 
 of their successors, in all the churches of 
 Christ, or to deserve consideration apart 
 from .^trict fidelity to their testimony and 
 to '* the Faith once delivered to the saints." 
 Much less was the canon subjected to a 
 decisive voice from any particular see. 
 Alexandria was then the mistress of the 
 schools, and foremost among Apostolic 
 churches. Not she, nevertheless, nor Jeru- 
 salem, nor Antioch, nor their younger sister 
 Rome, could claim any supremacy in judg- 
 ment. Nay, verily, for all the accumula- 
 tions of testimony and research; all the 
 genius and zeal of heroic martyrs and elo- 
 quent preachers ; all tradition and all learn- 
 ing, were submitted to the severest tests 
 of the churches everywhere ; and so the 
 canon was ultimately settled, and made the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I?! 
 
 blessed inheritance of all believers, and (as 
 it has proved itself) the source of all hu- 
 man enlightenment, as well as of infinite 
 consolation in this Hfe and of hopes beyond 
 the grave. Happily, (4) any Christian whose 
 learning and intelligence are equal to inves- 
 tigation, has, close at hand, a test which is 
 all-sufficient to decide whether his confi- 
 dence in Holy Writ shall rest on the proc- 
 esses of Baur and Paulus and Renan, 
 eighteen hundred years too late, and not 
 rather upon the " keeper and witness " of 
 the lively oracles, which gathered the 
 same in the ages most competent to tes- 
 tify, and which had known those who had 
 known the disciples of St. John. One of 
 these, Irenaeus, could certify to the book 
 which he himself received from Polycarp, 
 which Polycarp received from the Beloved 
 Disciple. Let the inquirer go to any li- 
 brary where good editions of the Fathers 
 are to be found, and simply turn to their 
 indexes, in the works of the Fathers who 
 
172 HOLY WRIT 
 
 lived and suffered before Nicaea.i Those 
 indexes show the canon just as we have it; 
 and if the inquirer gives time and attention 
 to what the Fathers say of these Scriptures, 
 he will see that they cited them as Holy 
 Writ ; as the lively oracles ; as the Word 
 of Christ and of God; and appealed to 
 them as testimony apart from which noth- 
 ing might be taught as of the Christian, 
 that is, the Catholic, Faith. 
 
 And thus I have appealed to evidence 
 which establishes the Scriptures on prin- 
 ciples of wisdom purely human — such as 
 agree with the maxims of jurisprudence. 
 The evidence that is conclusive must be 
 that of contemporaries — say the judges. 
 The American Constitution is to be studied 
 and understood by the writings of those 
 
 ' Though the plan of a General Bibliography and 
 Index was suggested by me, for the American edition 
 of the "Ante-Nicene Fathers," it was wholly executed 
 by my learned friend, the Rev. E. C. Richardson. I may 
 commend it, therefore, as a most valuable specimen of 
 the kind of work to which I refer. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 173 
 
 who framed it, and — by the continuous 
 decisions of this tribunal — adds our Su- 
 preme Court. Precisely analagous is what 
 Tertullian ruled in the questions we have 
 considered: and for the outside world 
 such is our reply. But, thank God, while 
 accepting all this, the Christian confides 
 in something that seals, confirms, and 
 infinitely magnifies the same. Not only 
 has he a supreme court in the Church 
 itself, which has adopted all the proc- 
 esses exacted by the world, and has 
 convinced the best and wisest of men by 
 the same, but we know that this she did, 
 with the ever-present and abiding help 
 of the Holy Spirit. He has led her into 
 all truth; he has never permitted the 
 whole Church to ''follow cunningly de- 
 vised fables;" he has fulfilled the Master's 
 promise,! by bringing to mind and pre- 
 serving in her, and for her, all things what- 
 
 1 St. John xvi. 13. Compare with this and the pre- 
 vious chapter, St. Matthew xxviii. 20. 
 
174 HOLY WRIT 
 
 soever the Master taught and commanded. 
 What we call the Bible, then, in the light 
 of the highest criticism, is a sacred library, 
 the divers parts of which are authenticated 
 as was never any other book in the world. 
 Its history requires us to treat it as wholly 
 unlike all other books, even if we begin 
 our researches by supposing the reverse. 
 It differs fundamentally from anything 
 ever devised or put together by the art of 
 man. Its two portions, the Old and the 
 New, are one entire whole, corresponding 
 as the wax and the seal, as the boss and 
 the die, as the minted coin and the graven 
 incision of its stamp. To illustrate, I quote 
 from the pages of the studious Hindu, 
 who, with the instincts of an Asiatic, has 
 discovered this in his own way.^ He says, 
 quoting another of his own kind : " There 
 is such a thing as the evolution of the di- 
 vine purpose in the order and history of 
 religion ; a logical sequence in the dispen- 
 
 ' Mozoomdar, tct stipra, pp. 135, 136. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I 75 
 
 sations of Faith. . . . They are linked to- 
 gether in one continuous chain, which can 
 be traced to the earHest age. ... In Jesus 
 we see the logical sequence of Moses ; the 
 New Testament is the necessary sequence 
 of the Old. . . . Moses taught stern jus- 
 tice, and inaugurated the kingdom of law ; 
 Jesus taught love, and inaugurated the 
 kingdom of grace. The theology of love 
 is the logical complement of the theology 
 of fear; the two form one integral Gospel 
 and are indissolubly connected." Truly 
 this Hindu might teach half of Germany 
 and Holland " which be the first principles 
 of the oracles of God."^ 
 
 Take, then, the Scriptures of the Old 
 Covenant, and observe that of these there 
 can be no question ; they were read, coun- 
 tersigned, sealed, and delivered afresh to 
 their new keeper and witness, the Church, 
 which is His body, by the Incarnate God. 
 He who denies this, like the impugners of 
 1 Heb. V. 12. 
 
176 HOLY WRIT 
 
 the Book of Daniel, has ceased to be a 
 Christian. But let us take it up like a 
 heathen, if you will, and see to what you 
 will be led, nay forced, by the facts. 
 
 When poor Frederick of Prussia said to 
 his court-chaplain. Dr. Jablonski : " I have 
 no time to study big books ; give me in 
 fewest words the surest evidence of your 
 religion," the reply was all-sufficient, and 
 marvellously comprehensive. The chaplain 
 answered in two words : ** Sire — the Jews'' 
 Let the unhappy disciples of Frederick and 
 Voltaire look at these two words and con- 
 sider what they imply. A phenomenon 
 stretching through the ages, from a period 
 to which the monuments and the memory 
 of man run not contrary ; here are the 
 Jews — everywhere are the Jews — where 
 are they not ? Look at them ; frame, if 
 you can, any theory about them which 
 corresponds with admitted facts, other 
 than that which the Church and her New 
 Testament maintain, and when you have 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I 77 
 
 done this there will be something original 
 in your '' modern thought." 
 
 Can any one in his senses deny that 
 here is a stupendous prophecy unanswer- 
 ably fulfilled? Very well. The enemy 
 has staked his whole adventure into the 
 chaos of " Rationalism," on the proposi- 
 tions (i), there can be no such thing as 
 miracle ; (2), no such thing as prophecy. 
 One prophecy fulfilled overthrows their 
 whole fabric of doubt. For prophecy 
 itself is miracle, and its fulfilment, if it 
 proves the prophecy, is likewise a miracle. 
 The supernatural is manifest in both, and 
 this established, their *' rationahsm " is 
 unreason and unbelief, as bad in philoso- 
 phy as it is corrosive in personal morals 
 and destructive in human society. For the 
 dispersion and actual condition of the 
 Jews, as known and read of all men, is 
 itself a stupendous fulfilment of prophecy. 
 Take their own prophets from them, and 
 we read of just what has come to pass. 
 
178 HOLY WRIT 
 
 We behold their temple destroyed, for 
 more than eighteen hundred years, and 
 Jerusalem (her sacrifices ceased) over- 
 spread with abominations, as foretold in 
 sorrowing words by their own Daniel, and 
 out of Daniel by the Man Jesus. Scat- 
 tered among all peoples, and assimilated 
 with none, an enigma beyond solution, 
 save in the light of the Scriptures, we 
 may say that their canon, and ours too, 
 comes to us bound up in them and with 
 them. " For what advantage then hath the 
 Jew?" asks the Jew of Tarsus,^ and he 
 answers : *' Much every way ; chiefly be- 
 cause that imto them were committed the 
 oracles of God.'' How well they kept this 
 trust let the pupil of Gamaliel and his glo- 
 rious Master teach us, not only by their 
 positive testimony, but by the overwhelm- 
 ing logic of their silence. Not a hint that 
 in this their chief stewardship the Jews 
 were unfaithful. '' Search the Scriptures," 
 
 * Rom. iii. i, 2. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. I 79 
 
 said Jesus, "they testify of Me," He 
 appeals over and over again to these, as 
 they were *' read in their synagogues every 
 Sabbath day." He comes ''to fulfil the 
 law and the prophets;" not ''to destroy," 
 but to pledge Himself that " heaven and 
 earth should pass away, but His Word 
 should not pass away." And reflect that 
 His words confirm the Psalms, and all the 
 prophets, including Job and Daniel and 
 Isaiah: yes, and "the Scriptures" as a 
 whole, as that phrase was understood 
 by all the Jews. Their Masorites watched 
 every letter in the volume of the Book. 
 They kept it in rolls and parchments and 
 costly envelopes, with tinkling bells and 
 enrichments. The daughters of Jerusalem 
 recalled the Psalms when they sat down 
 by the rivers of Babylon; the Ethiopian 
 proselyte carried Isaiah as a treasure, and 
 read it as he returned to Candace his 
 queen; Lydia and her faithful compan- 
 ions, not less by the waters of Macedonia, 
 
l8o HOLY WRIT 
 
 recited the same law and the same Psalter, 
 in a place by the river side^ " where prayer 
 was wont to be made." So not in syna- 
 gogues only, but bound up and handed 
 down by the circumcised race of Moses, 
 were those Scriptures taught to Timothy 
 by the holy women Lois and Eunice. If, 
 in spite of all this, the Jews, to whom He 
 came as the son of David, rejected Him, 
 let us thank God for His glorious Inter- 
 cession, " Father, forgive them," while we 
 dwell on His tender expostulation and point 
 to His accomplished prophecy. He says : 
 ** How often would I have gathered you 
 . . . and ye would not! Behold your 
 house is left unto you desolate. . . . And 
 ye shall be led away captive into all nations : 
 and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of 
 the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles 
 be fulfilled."! Thank God for that word 
 " until." Thank God for the hope for Ju- 
 
 1 Compare St. Matthe\v^ xxiii. 34 and xxiv. to verse 
 28, and St. Luke xix. 41-44. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. l8l 
 
 dah inspired by the incomparable prayer, 
 " Father, forgive them ; for they know not 
 what they do." 
 
 But how like the '' letting out of water " 
 from a Holland dyke is the violation of the 
 good rule, Quieta non movere. Take an 
 example that illustrates the whole history 
 of the *' higher criticism " as against the 
 highest. Take the crucial inquiry about 
 Koheleth, or the canonical Book of Eccle- 
 siastes. A learned writer^ who has done 
 much to shed light on this and other Bib- 
 lical questions, but with whose position on 
 one point I cannot agree, gives us the fol- 
 lowing overwhelming statement as to the 
 continuous and concurrent testimony of the 
 Hebrews and of Christians in favour of its 
 rightful place in Holy Writ : *' It must be 
 conceded, at the very outset, that no dis- 
 tinct evidence can be adduced of any 
 doubts having been expressed as to the 
 
 1 Dr. Ward on Ecclesiastes, pp. 80, 8 1. Ed. London, 
 1883. 
 
1 82 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Solomonic authorship of the book earlier 
 than the period of the Reformation. The 
 * Seventy ' and the Alexandrian Jews re- 
 garded it as the veritable production of the 
 great monarch of Israel. i Luther, in his 
 ' Table Talk,' was the first who ventured 
 distinctly to deny the Solomonic author- 
 ship, and the great Dutch scholar, Hugo 
 Grotius, more than a century later, was the 
 first who ventured to assign critical argu- 
 ments — not, it must be acknowledged, of the 
 most cogent character — in support of that 
 novel opinion." What then has a Christian 
 to do with his opinion ? To his credit, even 
 Luther seems in later years to have aban- 
 doned the novelty ; but when Grotius took it 
 up with rodent genius, his fellow Hollander, 
 Spinoza, rent the crevice into a crevasse^ 
 and lo ! *' the brook became a river and the 
 river became a sea," as happens so fre- 
 
 iNote XXIII. 
 
 2 An Americanism learned from the Creoles of the 
 Lower Mississippi. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 83 
 
 quently in the Netherlands, even down to 
 our times. But, continues our author, 
 "Although the judgment of antiquity in 
 favour of the Solomonic authorship ap- 
 pears to have been tnianimoiis,'' etc. : — 
 Well, what more do we want ? In a word, 
 he finds reasons to dissent, goes back to 
 what Luther could not maintain, and de- 
 tracts from the value of his own important 
 work by his surrender of this point to im- 
 pugners of the sacred canon. Pray, how can 
 he, in these days, know more about it than 
 all the elders of the synagogue ; than the 
 *' Seventy " and all their learned contem- 
 poraries; than the whole company of the 
 apostles ; nay, than our blessed Master 
 Himself, and His Holy Church, for well- 
 nigh twenty centuries? He shrinks from 
 his own argument, apparently, when, after 
 all, he modestly claims for it ^ no more than 
 that it is " highly probable." 
 
 It may be worth while to pause a minute 
 
 1 Wright, iit supra, p. 109. 
 
1 84 HOLY WRIT 
 
 for some further inquiry as to so curious a 
 phenomenon. What makes it '' highly- 
 probable " against the torrent of all testi- 
 mony and evidence? M. Renan, when 
 he wished to sustain his idea that it 
 teaches scepticism, vigorously supported 
 the Church's traditions as to its author and 
 its place in the canon ; afterwards it suited 
 him better to take a position directly the 
 reverse. Now, let us note how easy it is 
 for such a brilliant scholar to make out a 
 case on either side of so great a matter, 
 just as his caprice incHnes him to this or 
 that. 
 
 (i) The linguistic peculiarities of the 
 work, its Aramaisms more especially, hav- 
 ing been made a favourite argument against 
 the testimony of antiquity, M. Renan thus 
 decides : '* When the question is to deter- 
 mine the age of different writings in He- 
 brew literature, this criterion (as to Ara- 
 maic words and phrases) should never be 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 85 
 
 emJ>loyed without certain precautions." ^ He 
 can7iot conceive of such works as the books 
 of Job, Koheleth, and the Canticles, as hav- 
 ing been created in the period of intellect- 
 ual decadence which he ascribes to the 
 Jews after the Captivity. He hesitates not 
 to ascribe them to the epoch of Solomon, 
 ** a period so liberal and so brilliant in the 
 history of Hebrew genius." 
 
 (2) But what he could not conceive of, 
 when he supposed a Canonical fact most 
 likely to prove damaging to Christianity, 
 he is quite satisfied to accept when in- 
 spired by another idea. And so, now ** it 
 is certainly to be reckoned among the 
 more modern books of the Hebrew Hter- 
 ature." Its very language proves it to be 
 a modern book; it and the Canticles are a 
 few profane pages which have found their 
 way into that '* strange and admirable " 
 
 1 I translate from the original, which Dr. Ward so 
 generously supplies in his book, p. 117. 
 
1 86 HOLY WRIT 
 
 volume which is termed the Bible. More 
 to the same effect.^ 
 
 But although these assertions as to the 
 later origin of the Book give colour to 
 Dr. Ward's own ingenious theory, he is too 
 candid not to expose the perverse argu- 
 mentation of M. Renan in its true charac- 
 ter. He says : His ** study " of this Book 
 " has not thrown that light upon its age 
 and character which might have been 
 expected from a scholar of his celebrity. 
 As an article, his essay may be 
 deemed brilliant ; but judged as a contri- 
 bution to the understanding of Kohelethy 
 it is of little value, and must be character- 
 ized 2l'^ flippant y 
 
 Dr. Ward's own pages contain abundant 
 proof that nobody will ever be able to con- 
 struct any theory on these principles of 
 "higher criticism " which will put an end 
 to the ceaseless inventions and ingenuities 
 of successive authorities, each for himself 
 
 ^ Dr. Ward, ttt supra, p. 126. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 87 
 
 arriving at certainlys and conclusively s and 
 finallys^ about which no two can come to 
 any agreement. In the name of common 
 sense, then, why protract such a discus- 
 sion? What all antiquity sustains with 
 unanimity down to the days of Martin Lu- 
 ther, in fact, down to the days of Grotius, 
 presents not any difficulty for a score that 
 must be encountered when one leaps from 
 the terra firnia of testimony and unanimity 
 into the quicksand of speculation, or the 
 quagmires of private judgment. 
 
 The Highest Criticism, on the other 
 hand, (i) begins by accepting this unbroken 
 testimony and consent, as resting on the 
 authority of Christ himself, and the con- 
 clusive witness of His Church, enlightened 
 by the immanency of the Holy Spirit. 
 (2) Critical difficulties, greater or less, it 
 examines reverently, under St. Peter's pri- 
 mary canon,^ " Knowing this first — no 
 prophecy of Scripture is of private inter- 
 
 1 II. Peter i. 20, 21. 
 
1 88 HOLY WRIT 
 
 pretation. For no prophecy ever came hy 
 the will of man ^ but men spake from God, 
 being moved by the Holy Ghost (3) 
 From any source it accepts light, or learned 
 comment, which does not mar the integrity 
 of the Book and is consistent with these 
 canons of interpretation. (4) Nothing which 
 it seems to say can be accepted as the 
 true meaning, if it conflicts with less enig- 
 matical Scriptures. (5) If the highest 
 criticism meets an inexplicable difficulty, 
 though this is contrary to all experience, 
 it is content to say, Here is something on 
 which we have no sufficient guide to 
 pronounce our judgments ; it is a " dark 
 saying," to be reverently meditated upon, 
 with the prayer, ** Keep back thy servant 
 also from presumptuous sins." 
 
 Now, all the difficulties of M. Renan and 
 others, who will not accept these canons, 
 grow out of their rejection of them, and 
 out of their proud resolve to treat God's 
 Holy Word ** like any other book " — that 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 89 
 
 is, without reference to its character, its 
 pre-eminent dignity, and the history which 
 makes it wholly unlike any other book. 
 
 And where is any real difficulty in Kohe- 
 leth, if we take it just as it is, and regard 
 the latter chapters as " the conclusion of the 
 whole matter," to which all previous reflec- 
 tions on the mysteries of our present state 
 of being lead up the spirit of a man com- 
 muning with his own heart, and seeking 
 the rest which this practical conclusion 
 alone supplies ? It is a very useful part of 
 Scripture, if made the material of medita- 
 tion by a certain class of men, in excep- 
 tional experiences and certain states of 
 mind. At the outset, it supplies a sequel 
 to the marvellous history of Solomon, apart 
 from which many painful riddles must afflict 
 the believer. It completes his biography, 
 and rounds his career into an intelligible 
 whole. It implies his return to wisdom 
 and his desire to bequeath to the young 
 the lessons taught by his experience of 
 
IQO HOLY WRIT 
 
 folly, and by the horrible retributions of his 
 downfall. It is therefore a most striking 
 sequel to the Proverbs, and enables us to 
 read all his writings with the thought that 
 he ** died not as the fool dieth." Let other 
 difficulties be set in the shining light of the 
 '' risen Day star," the Gospel of Christ, and 
 all shadows disappear. That is the noontide 
 glory that throws back its illumination upon 
 the whole of the Old Testament, making 
 all things clear for the practical Christian. 
 
 I have loved and studied Kdheleth from 
 my youth up, and have found an unspeak- 
 able charm in its suggestiveness, answering 
 to so many moods of mind and experiences 
 of life. Where is its ''pessimism" if one 
 studies it under the canons I have named? 
 Considered as Solomon's own legacy to the 
 young man, it seems clear that he divests 
 himself of his royalties and assumes the 
 task of a preacher of righteousness, in sack- 
 cloth and as with ashes on his head, rebuk- 
 ing his own sins and making them preach a 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 191 
 
 warning to others. His constant reference 
 to God is the token of his abhorrence of 
 idolatry. In a most marked key-note of 
 thoughts which inspired his song, he loathes 
 his adulteries with " outlandish women " ; 
 with " the woman whose heart is snares 
 and nets, and her hands as bands." While 
 he pleased God he "escaped her"; if he 
 was '* taken by her," it was because he was 
 " a sinner. ' ' Among " a thousand ' ' — among 
 "all those" wives and concubines who 
 are numbered as " a thousand "1 — ''I have 
 not found one woman " ; not one fit to be 
 called a woman ; such as I have praised 
 elsewhere, saying, " A gracious woman re- 
 taineth honour." 2 And so his pesshnistic 
 complaints, natural to even good men, in 
 certain moods of mind, as in the case of 
 Job, he records only to overrule them. 
 This he does often by immediate and de- 
 cisive contradiction; he reserves the rest 
 for his majestic peroration, where, again, 
 
 ' I. Kings xi. 3. 2 Prov. xi. 16. 
 
192 HOLY WRIT 
 
 he falls into his familiar address, '* And 
 further, my son, by these be admonished." 
 Blessed be God that Solomon repented be- 
 fore he died, and crowned all his wisdom 
 by anticipating all the libraries that hu- 
 man wit should create, to the end of the 
 world, and showing the comparative van- 
 ity of all the books that should be written 
 — " Higher Criticism " and ** Modern 
 Thought" included — that should fail to 
 impress the awful idea of the day of 
 judgment, and the moral of its certain 
 approach : " Fear God, and keep His com- 
 mandments : for this is the whole duty of 
 man." 
 
 We come to the New Testament canon, 
 which rests on the miracle of the resurrec- 
 tion, accomplishing prophecy. If we be- 
 Heve accordingly, the conclusion is plain. 
 If we do not beHeve in Jesus and the 
 resurrection, we are not Christians. Let 
 men own this, and there is an end of it 
 The difficulty is with those who profess and 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 93 
 
 call themselves Christians, and yet surren- 
 der the Gospels and the Scriptures of the 
 apostles to the enemies of Christ. Let me 
 quote one of these enemies. He saysi^ 
 " Jesus, the great Founder, laid the base 
 of a new order of Humanity. ... It is 
 the same Jesus, who, by the sacred flame, 
 of which he had deposited the kindhng 
 spark in the hearts of divers friends, creates 
 institutions of supreme originality, animates 
 and transforms their spirits, and stamps 
 upon the whole His imprint divine. . . . 
 Under this influence, ever actuating and 
 triumphant over death, was developed the 
 f^ith of the resurrection, of the influence 
 of the Holy Spirit, the gift of tongues, 
 and the power of the Church. ... In 
 Antioch, the new centre, we shall see 
 Christianity separating itself definitely from 
 Judaism and receiving its name." Dis- 
 missing the claims of the " superlatively 
 great " St. Paul and of other apostles, 
 
 ' ** Les Apotres," ut siipra^ p. i., Introduction. 
 
194 HOLY WRIT 
 
 he adds, ''Nothing is more false than the 
 opinion which in our days has become 
 so fashionable, by which St. Paul must be 
 accounted the true founder of the Christian 
 religion. Its true Founder is Jesus." Such 
 — I say it not irreverently — is the Gospel 
 according to Renan. And thus even he 
 reproves the " other gospel " which, among 
 many teachers, who still boast themselves to 
 be Christians, " has become so fashionable." 
 But, observe, Renan, though more honest 
 than they, yet pronounces Jesus Himself 
 deceived, and a deceiver. By His own 
 confession Jesus must be a second Adam, 
 the founder of a new humanity. Tliis 
 youth of Nazareth, who dies upon the cross, 
 with a siiprevie originality , creates institu- 
 tions that have awakened the world to the 
 light and life of a day to which all before 
 it and beside it has been as night. And 
 this He does by a mere spark, implanted 
 in the bosoms of a few fishermen of Galilee. 
 Reflect that He had founded no institutions 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 95 
 
 when He died; had implanted in His dis- 
 ciples' hearts nothing which they regarded 
 as providing for such institutions ; so that, 
 in our view, all that Renan recognizes as 
 the supreme originality of His work, though 
 fully accounted for if He rose from the 
 dead and sent His Holy Spirit upon His 
 disciples, is a miracle not less than the 
 resurrection itself, if, as he assumes, this 
 be only a myth. Think of it! a dead 
 Christ, and one withdrawn forever from 
 sight, and leaving nothing but the impress 
 of His words and His three years of per- 
 sonal intercourse upon them, he transforms 
 mankind in nations, and throughout all 
 the world. And yet, this wonder-working 
 Jesus, according to this new evangel, was 
 consciously guilty of fraud ; " an Oriental 
 without the Western sense of truth," and 
 with a *' lower standard of morality " than 
 that which His own Gospel has impressed 
 on Western nations ! Verily, if all this be 
 true, the miracle is as great as any recorded 
 
196 HOLY WRIT 
 
 by the evangelists,^ and the disciple of 
 Renan must struggle with a thousand im- 
 probabilities for one. Let us leave such 
 to their task and rise to our own, in the 
 power of a *' faith which removes moun- 
 tains " by the solid confession, " He rose 
 from the dead, according to the Scriptures.'' 
 What followed, in the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, explains all that was done at An- 
 tioch, and nothing, not supernatural, can 
 explain the facts which Renan himself 
 allows, including the history of St. Paul. 
 Miracle and prophecy both established by 
 the resurrection of our Lord ; the gift of 
 the Holy Spirit assures us of Inspiration ; 
 and the Church as " the pillar and ground 
 of the truth," its witness and keeper, es- 
 tablishes the canon. This or nothing: 
 which? Renan gives us all we need ask 
 
 1 See the " Christ of History," by John Young, 
 LL.D., of Edinburgh, justly characterized as " a wise 
 and severe application of the inductive method to gos- 
 pels not disputed." And see his answer to Strauss, 
 p. 257. Ed. New York, 1855. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 97 
 
 to start with, and then bids us leap into a 
 gulf with him; denying the resurrection, 
 and asserting that this marvellous Jesus, 
 the author of a regenerated humanity, owes 
 his success to His complicity in a fraud 
 about the resurrection of Lazarus. From 
 this your conscience starts back, but there 
 can be no compromise. The abyss is '' the 
 bottomless pit" itself; you cannot flatter 
 yourself with *' Modern Thought " and 
 '' Higher Criticism " that the abyss is like 
 the clififs of Dover, and that you may arrest 
 yourself in the fall and hang 
 
 '* Half-way down, like one that gathers samphire." 
 
 You can't be a disciple of Renan, or of 
 those who adopt his processes while they 
 recoil from his conclusions, without ceasing 
 to "be a Christian. 
 
 One fact I have noted, though always 
 overlooked by the adversary, is all-impor- 
 tant to the case : the fact that the Christian 
 ministry had no existence when the Master 
 
198 HOLY WRIT 
 
 died on the cross. Even their ministry to 
 "the circumcision," which, till then, was 
 the only commission of the Eleven and 
 of the Seventy, was dissolved when Jesus 
 cried, '* It is finished." The disciples re- 
 turned to their nets, with no further thought 
 of being *' fishers of men " ; nor did they, 
 till the day of Pentecost, begin to compre- 
 hend their new mission to the Jews them- 
 selves, much less that they had any mission 
 to the Gentiles. Only the vision at Joppa 
 brought light to the eyes of St. Peter and 
 sent him to open the gates of the Church 
 to the nations by the baptism of Cornelius. 
 The existence and the succession of the 
 Christian ministry, therefore, must be ac- 
 counted for in some other way, as has 
 never beeti done, or we must hold to the 
 recorded facts, which alone are sufficient 
 to account for such a visible phenomenon. 
 That is to say, we must accept the resur- 
 rection of the Lord Jesus to found the 
 apostolic ministry, and the mission of the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 99 
 
 Comforter to qualify and to perpetuate it. 
 This ''original institution" was the in- 
 heritor of the Old Testament canon ; and 
 it alone was empowered to create and to 
 accredit the New. Reflect, then, that if 
 this be true, the collection of these Scrip- 
 tures was rendered a comparatively simple 
 task, when it was left to the stewardship 
 of the Church. 
 
 The Church confided in the presence and 
 power of the Spirit to guide them into all 
 truth; but understood, as well, that in 
 matters of fact they must use their own 
 faculties and proceed by rules of evidence 
 known and read of all men. The chief 
 difficulties were two: (i) the existence of 
 books, or writings, some edifying and 
 others grossly fraudulent, which were im- 
 agined, by some, to be Scriptures, or at 
 least quasi Scriptures; and (2) the fact 
 that for local and particular purposes a 
 measure of the Spirit had been poured out 
 upon private "young men and hand- 
 
200 HOLY WRIT 
 
 maidens," and might possibly have fur- 
 nished a foundation for such claims of 
 quasi Scriptural value. But the rule was 
 clear, (i) that only the apostles, and persons 
 by them accredited, were teachers of the 
 whole Church; and (2) that only such 
 writings as could be identified as apostolic, 
 by having been read and handed down as 
 such in churches founded by the apostles, 
 were Holy Scriptures. By this rule the 
 Church " tried the spirits " of all claimants, 
 and as a '' discerner of spirits," '" took forth 
 the precious from the vile," and thus be- 
 came as '' the mouth " of the Lord Himself, 
 speaking with authority. " He that hath 
 ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit 
 saith unto the churches." 
 
 But, it is objected, the Canon was formed 
 gradually, not without delays of judgment, 
 and while " some doubted," as in the case 
 of the resurrection itself. Yes ; and as in 
 that case the honest doubts and avowed 
 hesitation of St. Thomas and others worked 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 201 
 
 for " the greater confirmation of the faith," 
 and proved the faith itself a different thing 
 from superstition and creduHty, so, by the 
 sifting of evidence and the hearing of wit- 
 nesses, kept up through times of perpetual 
 persecutions, the sacred canon was verified 
 and settled beyond all peradventure. 
 
 What then would you prefer to this 
 sober process by testimony and evidence ? 
 Should it be golden plates dug up out of 
 the earth, and read by a miraculous crys- 
 tal? That was a "modern thought" 
 indeed, and has suited thousands in our 
 times, but it may be left to the Mormons 
 to defend it. Or, should each writing 
 have come to us accredited by the testi- 
 mony only of its author, as having been 
 approved by a miracle from heaven ? We 
 leave that to the earliest evangelist of 
 ** modern thought," Lord Herbert of 
 Cherbury. Or finally, should the whole 
 question have been referred to the wit of 
 M. Renan and others of the nineteenth 
 
202 HOLY WRIT 
 
 century, who fancy themselves better quali- 
 fied and better situated for exercising judg- 
 ment, than the Fathers of the sub-apostolic 
 age ? This seems to be the pet idea of the 
 Great Unknown who wrote on ** Super- 
 natural Religion;" but even he does not 
 point out how soon these great scholars, 
 including himself, may be expected to 
 come to an agreement. They have been 
 sifting and cutting and carping from the 
 days of the learned Bahrdt until now ; and 
 lo! the twentieth century will be upon us 
 before any two of the *' higher critics" 
 are likely to reach an agreement. A dime 
 stih jiidice lis est. 
 
 Let us then heartily praise God that His 
 Church did not leave ''the lively oracles" 
 to be collected by men *' having not the 
 Spirit," and according to the caprices of 
 such men well-nigh two thousand years 
 too late for the accumulation of competent 
 testimony. 
 
 Tertullian, himself a jurist expert in 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 203 
 
 Roman law, tells us how carefully the evi- 
 dence was collected ; and how a result was 
 reached satisfactory to all candid men, and 
 such as from the beginning, everywhere^ 
 and by all the cJmrcJies, was accepted, at 
 the earliest possible date. One cannot but 
 be amazed at the patient energy which, 
 amid raging fires of persecution, pursued 
 and accomplished this work; nor should 
 we forget how God overruled the persecu- 
 tions themselves to consume the dross and 
 to bring forth the gold of His Word *' seven 
 times tried with fire." For the persecutors 
 very soon discovered that the Church had 
 holy books, and they became witnesses to 
 this fact by making inquisition for them, 
 burning and destroying all they could 
 gather. At the same time, the Church itself 
 was made to discriminate the more strictly. 
 Every Christian was anxious to understand 
 what books he might surrender and what 
 he must hold dearer than life itself. The 
 blood of the martyrs thus sealed their testi- 
 
204 HOLY WRIT 
 
 mony to the writings of apostles and evan- 
 gelists. The supreme court of primitive 
 Christendom tried the case in the times 
 when evidence was abundant, and was vir- 
 tually that contemporary evidence which 
 jurists pronounce {fortissimo) the most 
 invincible. Thus, from this tribunal, the 
 only competent court of record, our Bible 
 comes to us an adjudged case, never to be 
 opened again, because in the nature of 
 things it cannot be; and because among 
 the books that men accept from antiquity, 
 this comes to us accredited by a hundred 
 testimonies to one, if compared with all the 
 rest. 
 
 And to this we are firmly bound, more- 
 over, by the test of its history since the 
 apostolic age ; a legitimate supplementary 
 argument. How does it stand? But for 
 this Bible, where would have been the 
 wiseacres who rail and write against it? 
 Themselves, at best, idolaters with Socra- 
 tes, or grosser pagans, like the persecuting 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 205 
 
 Antonines or the apostate Julian. More 
 probably, not by any means so good, but 
 barbarians and savages to this day. Try 
 this test. What has been the influence of 
 the Bible in proportion as it has been known 
 and loved, upon the individual, the state, 
 the world? Just in proportion as it has 
 been made to penetrate their intellectual and 
 moral life, what has been the result ? To 
 ask the question is to answer it. Behold 
 the leaven which the Church has '' hid in 
 three measures of meal," the three famiHes 
 of the world ; and behold the process still 
 going on till the whole shall be leavened. 
 And if you would recognize the true 
 Church, and its true ministers, take another 
 parable — a parable of fact : We recognize 
 the yearning bowels of the true mother, 
 not in one who would give over this Bible 
 to the knife, but in the voice which cries 
 out, '' In no wise slay it." 
 
 Pitiable indeed is the position of any 
 professional teacher of Christianity, to 
 
206 HOLY WRIT 
 
 whom his Bible is of problematical value ; 
 who knows nothing of a living Church ^ 
 which gives him an accredited Bible as the 
 '* sure word of prophecy " which '' cannot 
 be broken," and which he possesses as the 
 Word of God, able to make both him and 
 his hearers "wise unto salvation." The 
 preacher, not merely a professional adven- 
 turer, but one who comes with a commis- 
 sion, who believes in the Book from which 
 he takes his text, and with all his heart and 
 life commends it to his hearers, as St. Paul 
 and all the shining lights of Christendom 
 have presented it since the era of light was 
 begun — such a teacher cannot but inspire 
 respect. But, what is he but '* sounding 
 brass and a tinkling cymbal " who appears 
 before his auditors in this last decade be- 
 fore the twentieth century of Illumination, 
 to assure them that this sacred library is 
 yet a book of scattered leaves, alike in 
 matter and in measure, unsettled, unde- 
 
 1 Like bewildered Menken. See p. 140, supra. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 207 
 
 fined, and only to be accepted as he under- 
 takes to determine or as the interminable 
 confusions of " modern thought " may be 
 gradually sifted and the result accredited 
 by himself and by others not less infallible. 
 The world cannot listen to such men as 
 Bahrdt and Nicolai, without again running 
 down to " pessimism," which in its ultimate 
 forms means not that of poor Schopen- 
 hauer, but the more practical pessimism of 
 Danton and Robespierre, with a reign of 
 terror at the end. Society itself is doomed 
 to perish in strikes and insurrections and 
 anarchy, if we take for leaders men who, 
 owing their culture to the Bible and to 
 Christian schools, use it to rob the multi- 
 tude of all that gives power to conscience, 
 restrains their passions, and comforts them 
 in their sorrows. Take the recent example 
 of one who, kindly welcomed by Americans 
 to their hajls and homes, repays us by 
 scorning our most precious treasures, our 
 holiest instincts, and our hereditary Faith. 
 
208 HOLY WRIT 
 
 He goes to utmost California before he 
 casts off the restraints of decorum and tells 
 us what he is. He climbs Mt. Hamilton to 
 behold the heavens through the great eye 
 of the Lick Observatory ; and this inspires 
 him with little else than a paroxysm of 
 railing against Christianity, which he seems 
 to imagine was the author of the ancient 
 astronomy. He mocks at the " old Chris- 
 tianity " ; but pray what *' Christianity " is 
 not old? How can Christ's work be mod- 
 ern ? Alas ! in the " Modern Thought " of 
 this lecturer there is no " Christianity " 
 left, as I proceed to show. 
 
 It has been the glory of the Church, as of 
 the people, of England from remote antiq- 
 uity, that in honouring the Dominical Sab- 
 bath and God's Holy Word, they were even 
 singular among Western churches. ** Thou 
 hast kept my Word and hast not denied my 
 name." That message of the Master to an 
 early bishop seems to have been her hon- 
 our in very dark days, and the consequent 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 20g 
 
 blessing has not been denied her. Her 
 Bible is no " Protestant Bible," as her ene- 
 mies do vainly boast. It comes to us from 
 kings and priests, a growth and not a crea- 
 tion ; always " with former versions dili- 
 gently compared and revised." And her 
 laity, from Alfred down to '' Old John of 
 Gaunt — time-honoured Lancaster," have 
 ever been its defenders and its lovers. I am 
 sorry that times have changed, and that 
 now some who call themselves Englishmen 
 fail to see that the sun will set on the do- 
 minions of their sovereign if ever the sun- 
 shine of the Scriptures shall be dimmed or 
 withdrawn. I am sorry that such English- 
 men sometimes visit us ; and that sons of 
 her universities and heirs of her scholar- 
 ship, from whom we might expect contri- 
 butions to our stability, bring us, rather, 
 solvents and corrosives ; as if we had not 
 enough of that already ; as if our republic 
 were not threatened by immigrant anarchy 
 of the most ignoble sort, and as if England 
 
2IO HOLY WRIT 
 
 had a mission not to correct it by her sober 
 thought, but rather to kindle and inflame 
 it, adding fuel to fire. In concluding what 
 I have to say of Holy Writ, as still very 
 precious to our countrymen, I must illus- 
 trate my reflections upon English intrusion 
 and aggression of this sort, by what I have 
 said of Germany, under the popular in- 
 fluences of mountebanks who debauch the 
 popular mind. Renan, with his subtilities 
 and refinements, has hardly been felt by 
 the masses ; but when an itinerant lecturer 
 of repute comes from England to translate 
 and to transfuse him, he scatters among us 
 " firebrands, arrows, and death." For ex- 
 ample, Renan had spoken — with little credit 
 to his candour, for he knows better — of *' the 
 rage of the Church against Copernicus, 
 Giordano Bruno, and Galileo." But when 
 an English disciple of his, accepting all this 
 no doubt for true, comes to America and 
 gives us Renan at second-hand, but with 
 his own intensified and (I must add) tL7ire- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 211 
 
 fined additions, the populace swallow it, 
 of course ; especially when dealt to them 
 broadcast in the columns of a journal that 
 goes everywhere.^ Let us see Renan in 
 English, with the benefit of such a scholiast. 
 He says : 
 
 " The general mind, perhaps, hardly 
 realizes, even at this day, what a tre- 
 mendous blow was dealt at human self- 
 conceit and to the Ptolemaic rehgions 
 founded to suit it by the discovery of Gali- 
 leo. Well might the priests of the old or- 
 thodoxies stand aghast at him, and even go 
 so dreadfully far as to burn the gentle and 
 wise Giordano Bruno! At a stroke the 
 Florentine astronomer's ejaculation, 'E ptcr 
 si miiove ! ' swept away all the theology of 
 Dante and his sacerdotal doctors, made the 
 cosmology of the ' Divine Comedy ' im- 
 possible and grotesque, and dethroned the 
 race and the planet." 
 
 Now Renan knew very well, what his 
 scholiast apparently does not, (i) that the 
 Roman Inquisition is not the Christian 
 
 ^ Letter of Sir Edwin Arnold. See the Herald of 
 April 24, 1892. 
 
212 HOLY WRIT 
 
 Church, nor are the Jesuits '* priests of the 
 old ortlwdoxiesy (2) He knew that Gior- 
 dano Bruno was not burned for his science, 
 but for his Lutheranism, which he vented 
 in a manner neither '' gentle nor wise." He 
 was a splendid satirist and a *' good hater," 
 though nothing can justify his tormentors 
 in their cruelty. They dreaded his heresy 
 far more than they hated his philosophy ; 
 for (3) Galileo was somewhat indulgently 
 treated, while a Lutheran was fuel for 
 flames, as a matter of course. All this our 
 scholiast might have learned from that or- 
 nament of his own university, the late Dr. 
 Whewell, whose calm and judicial survey 
 of the whole subject proves, like Light- 
 foot's work in another department, how 
 cool and how just an ecclesiastic can be, 
 while laymen seem ready to renew burn- 
 ing and torturing, as bigots of *' modern 
 thought" and " higher criticism." But let 
 me recur to our scholiast. He says: 
 *' Old-fashioned Christianity had taught 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 213 
 
 that our world was the centre of things, 
 round which the sun revolved, for the sake 
 of which the stars were hung up like Japa- 
 nese lanterns in the firmament, and in 
 direct relation to which all the forces of in- 
 finite space were established." 
 
 But all this our scholiast reminds us was 
 ''exploded by Copernicus and Galileo." 
 Why does he not put it into the form of 
 truth and justice by adding, '* Yes, by 
 Galileo, who was a Christian, and by Co- 
 pernicus, who was a Christian priest'' ? 
 And now, let me remind him that neither 
 " old Christianity " nor *' modern Christian- 
 ity " has ever taught anything of the kind ; 
 for in all its teaching on such subjects, it 
 has simply reflected what science claimed to 
 have demonstrated ; what wsiS forced tipon 
 it as such. It was not the Church, cer- 
 tainly, that overruled the true theory in 
 the times of Pythagoras or Plato. Not 
 she defined the counter-theories main- 
 tained by Aristotle three hundred years 
 
214 HOLY WRIT 
 
 before the Incarnation. When Hipparchus 
 consolidated these counter-theories, and 
 with brilliant reasoning sustained and com- 
 pleted them a hundred and fifty years 
 before Christ's birth, it was not '' old-fash- 
 ioned Christianity," surely, that made the 
 earth the centre, and hung up the " Japa- 
 nese lanterns." If so, certainly neither 
 miracle nor prophecy is impossible. And 
 when, in the second century, and under the 
 scientific Antonines, Christianity was writh- 
 ing, like Laocoon and his sons, in the envi- 
 ronment of cruel persecutions (her only 
 philosopher, Justin Martyr, being fully oc- 
 cupied with his appeals to the emperors to 
 desist from their philosophic bigotry and 
 inquisition), was Ptolemy, the final editor 
 and asserter of the Hipparchian system, a 
 Christian ? Was he a priest of our relig- 
 ion? He was an adherent of the Anto- 
 nines, and for his day a brilliant scientist ; so 
 brilliant, that his system — which the scho- 
 liast asserts '* priests constructed " — main- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 21 5 
 
 tained Itself for thirteen centuries more. 
 Indeed, it died so hard that scientists of 
 the greatest eminence kept it up for a cent- 
 ury longer, after the priest Copernicus had 
 exploded it, and Galileo, a Christian, strove 
 in vain to finish it by *' a stroke " and by his 
 ejaculation ^^ E pur si muove'^ Where did 
 this Cambridge scholiast learn his history 
 of the sciences ? Surely not of Whewell. 
 No, nor of Rawlinson.^ But even Professor 
 Driver and Archdeacon Farrar, who eat 
 the Church's bread, but dilute the truths 
 they have sworn to defend, are not " bold " 
 enough for him. Let us hear him complain 
 again, not now of " old Christianity," but of 
 " higher criticism " and " modern thought," 
 of whose hierophants he says : 
 
 " The boldest and truest, even, have not 
 yet come into step with * star- eyed science.' 
 These ancient, mediaeval, and so-called 
 orthodox absurdities of a local * hell ' and 
 * heaven,' and Joshua's miracle, and of Heze- 
 
 ' See his " Herodotus," Book H., cap. 7, p. 277 of 
 vol. ii. Ed. New York, 1859. 
 
2l6 HOLY WRIT 
 
 kiah's reprieve linger still, like our popular 
 expressions of 'sunrise' and 'sunset,' and 
 the belief in the Mosaic cosmogony. Chris- 
 tianity itself has not yet sufficiently assimi- 
 lated Copernican and Darwinian doctrines. 
 When it does it will earnestly thank science 
 for showing how much more glorious it is to 
 be * least in the kingdom of heaven ' than 
 greatest in that petty sub-kingdom of 
 nature which the priests constructed, and of 
 how much nobler promise to be a descend- 
 ant of a mollusk and afterward of an ape, 
 with all the heights of creation to ascend to, 
 than a creature suddenly made out of clay 
 to occupy a garden." 
 
 So, then, all who stop short of blas- 
 phemy like this are ''behind the age." 
 This scholiast has swept away Christianity 
 with a flourish of his pen, surpassing Gali- 
 leo himself. He is the author of a new 
 creed, which rests on his own uninspired 
 thought and the assurance / tJiink, a sub- 
 situte for the Christian's we believe. And 
 here, in few words, is the new creed of the 
 new religion : 
 
 "Astronomy, I positively indeed think, 
 is the chief present hope of humanity, the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 217 
 
 best teacher of real and practical religion, 
 which will redeem men from the folly of 
 materialism by showing matter as infinite 
 and as spiritual as spirit itself." 
 
 Surely in this Creed we must recognize 
 the human element as superior to the Di- 
 vine, if we respond Amen. 
 
 But such is not the astronomy of Co- 
 pernicus, that exploded the *' star-eyed 
 science " of ages ; it is the succedanetim for 
 Divine revelation, to be taken on one man's 
 word of honour, I think; nay, on his sol- 
 emn affirmation, " I positively indeed Xhmk.'* 
 After this, from one who has glorified Bud- 
 dha, and received from his sovereign the 
 *' Star of India," and from the King of Siam 
 the decoration of the "White Elephant," 
 what room is there for doubt? On this as- 
 surance he expects us to forsake the Star of 
 Bethlehem and to go back to the East for 
 the '' Light of Asia," reversing the course 
 of the wise men who came from the East 
 to behold " the Light of the World." It is 
 
2l8 HOLY WRIT 
 
 amusing to follow him in prescribing a pil- 
 grimage to the Lick Observatory on Mt. 
 Hamilton, in California — *' from the pretty, 
 half-Spanish town of San Jose, not farther 
 than thirteen miles, as the crowjlies.'' Here, 
 then, is the Mecca of the new religion of 
 which he is the evangelist, and of which he 
 is persuaded "positively indeed." What 
 comfort for the savages in darkest Africa ! 
 Such is the illumination they require. They 
 have only to look through a telescope, and 
 consult Kepler's Laws, Newton's " Prin- 
 cipia," or the *' Mecanique Celeste " of La- 
 place, to be made ** wise unto salvation." 
 And what satisfaction it must bring to the 
 cottager and peasant in his own Christian 
 England! No more Bible and Prayer- 
 book ; no more Easter and Christmas : the 
 Lick Observatory has superseded the cross 
 of Christ, and Mt. Hamilton eclipses Cal- 
 vary. Oh, bleeding Lamb of God! this 
 from one baptized into Thy blessed Name ; 
 from one who has heard from infancy the 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 219 
 
 Story of the Passion; who has read the 
 prophecy of Isaiah and compared it with 
 what Pontius Pilate said of Jesus ; and *' be- 
 fore whose eyes " the Evangelist has set the 
 Saviour of mankind in the incomparable por- 
 traiture : " Then came Jesus forth wearing 
 the crown of thorns and the purple robe." 
 The history of astronomical science has 
 always seemed to me one of the strongest 
 proofs of the wisdom of God, in relegating 
 science to philosophers, and leaving to them 
 what He had made them able to do for 
 themselves. For, in the first place, had 
 Moses talked like Pythagoras, we see from 
 the history of this sage of science that it 
 would not have been accepted by scientific 
 men, and would have hindered the far more 
 important work which Moses was sent to ac- 
 complish, and by which human knowledge 
 itself has been enlarged. The Pentateuch 
 would have been a scandal to Hebrews, 
 greater than all that provoked their unbe- 
 lief in Revelation, even when it condemned 
 
220 HOLY WRIT 
 
 their " hardness of heart " ; and Gentiles 
 would have mocked at their credulity, as 
 vastly greater than their own, in accepting 
 what their eyes contradicted every day. 
 When, besides this *' hidden wisdom," one 
 finds so much cryptic philosophy in the si- 
 lence of Scripture ; such eloquence in what 
 it does not say ; such forethought in what 
 it so says as to harmonize with true science ; 
 when at last men should discover the as- 
 tounding contrivance of God, the glory of 
 His invention, and His prescience as the 
 Author of all creation — who can hesitate 
 to see in all this the infinite knowledge and 
 wisdom which accounts for it all? And 
 when one compares the Scriptures, written 
 by so many men, by men so different in 
 attainment and capacity, and separated by 
 such vast intervals of time, how wonderful 
 it is that the Old Testament is nowhere 
 committed to the grotesque systems of the 
 Hindus, nor the New to the scientific theo- 
 ries which were solidified by Hipparchus ! 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 22 1 
 
 And here let me recur to the pains taken 
 by that unknown sage whose relations to 
 Lightfoot are far more ignoble than those 
 of Ptolemy to Copernicus. I must thank 
 him for furnishing an argument for Revela- 
 tion which all good men have felt, but 
 which good men have had no taste to illus- 
 trate by details. 
 
 The jackal and the hyaena exult in prey- 
 ing upon the decay and putridity of bodies 
 which may once have been beautiful in 
 womanhood, or majestic as the framework 
 of the soul in noble men. And so this un- 
 known and exhaustive author has indeed 
 exhausted time and a persevering faculty 
 for scientific filth or foibles, gathering and 
 showing up the infirmities of Christian 
 Fathers, to whose preponderating grandeur 
 of intelligence he owes it that he himself is 
 not as ignorant as they were ; taking, as 
 they did, the scientists of their age for mas- 
 ters, but teaching those better things which 
 the world by wisdom could not know. 
 
222 HOLY WRIT 
 
 And while he works with relish at this 
 fact, that the very best and some of the 
 wisest of men fell into such absurdities and 
 marvellous scientific mistakes while they 
 trusted their own senses or the science of 
 their contemporaries, he never seems to see 
 the fact that nothing of the kind is found 
 in Holy Scripture, and that this goes far to 
 prove that its authors wrote indeed '* as 
 they were moved " by the Spirit of Wis- 
 dom ; even when they used the idioms of 
 the unlearned and yet shunned the splendid 
 ignorance of philosophers, whose theories 
 could captivate Aristotle and overcome the 
 science of Plato and of Tully. 
 
 If itinerant lecturers from abroad lose 
 their self-respect when they come among 
 us so far as to insult our American rever- 
 ence for the Common English Bible and 
 the Common Prayer of our forefathers, let 
 them reflect that from Mother England we 
 inherit also the Common Law, and that 
 through it we derive our social fabric and 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 223 
 
 the noble inheritance of our free constitu- 
 tion. Let them at least show some respect 
 for the law of the land, which I must now 
 commend to your hearts and minds as 
 giving honour to Holy Writ and defining 
 our civilization as distinctively Christian. If 
 there be any name among our eminent jur- 
 ists more honoured than the rest, perhaps 
 I may justly claim that distinction for one 
 whose commentaries are quoted in courts 
 of justice wherever the English language is 
 spoken. Where the Northern Crown shines 
 in the night-watches over England and 
 America, it. reminds us of Bunyan's angel 
 holding such a crown over the sordid soul 
 with his muck-rake, and appealing to his 
 conscience to *' set his affections on things 
 above"; and where the Southern Cross 
 meets the gaze of the Australians, it 
 teaches them the Christian astronomy 
 " which declares the glory of God " in the 
 firmament that " showeth His handiwork." 
 Alike near Arctic and Antarctic poles, and 
 
224 HOLY WRIT 
 
 all around the globe, the Common Law sus- 
 tains the Christian civilization of the Anglo- 
 Saxon family ; and wherever such law is 
 recognized, there our Chancellor Kent is 
 known as an authority and is quoted as 
 we quote Blackstone. Hear, then, his clear 
 statements, delivered from the bench sev- 
 enty years ago ; and reflect that the law as 
 he lays it down has been over and over 
 again affirmed anew, in the revised consti- 
 tutions and statutes of the State of New 
 York. 
 
 Seventy years ago, in defence of laws 
 which since then, I say, have been over 
 and over again re-enacted,^ he thus ruled: 
 
 "The act concerning oaths recognizes 
 the Common Law mode of administering 
 an oath — by laying the hand on and kiss- 
 ing the Gospels. Surely, then, we are 
 bound to conclude that wicked and mali- 
 cious words, writings, and actions, which 
 go to vilify those Gospels, continue— ras at 
 Common Law — to be an offence against 
 the public peace and safety. They are in- 
 
 1 See Note XXIV. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 22$ 
 
 consistent with the reverence due to the 
 administration of an oath, and among their 
 other evil consequences they tend to les- 
 sen, in the public mind, its religious sanc- 
 tion." 
 
 It had been argued that by the Common 
 Law '' Christianity is parcel of the law of 
 the land, and that to cast contumelious're- 
 proaches upon it tends to weaken the foun- 
 dation of moral obligation and the efficiency 
 of oaths." But to this the counsel for the 
 offender objected that — ''as here we have 
 no established religion, the Bible is no 
 more protected by law than the Creed of 
 Thibet or that of the Koran." This soph- 
 ism was soon disposed of by the court. It 
 was ruled as follows : 
 
 '' Authorities show that blasphemy 
 against God and profane ridicule of the 
 Holy Scriptures are offences punishable at 
 Common Law. Such offences have always 
 been considered independent of any es- 
 tablishment or the rights of the Church. 
 They are treated as ajfccting the essential 
 interests of civil society. . . . The very 
 idea of jurisprudence, with the ancient law- 
 
226 HOLY WRIT 
 
 givers and philosophers, embraced the re- 
 ligion of the country. . . . The free, equal, 
 and undisturbed enjoyment of religious 
 opinion, whatever it may be, is granted 
 and assured by the Constitution of this 
 State. But to revile with blasphemous 
 contempt the religion professed by almost 
 the whole comimuiity is an offence against 
 that right. . . . Nor are we bound by any 
 expressions in the Constitution, either not 
 to punish at all, or to punish indiscrimi- 
 nately, like assaults on the religion of 
 Mahomet, or the Grand Lama; and for 
 this reason, that the case shows we are a 
 Christian people; tJie morality of the coun- 
 try is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity ^ 
 
 It seems, then, that we have sacred 
 institutions which one who accepts our 
 hospitalities is bound to respect. Dog- 
 matic theology is, indeed, credited by our 
 Constitution with the privilege of taking 
 care of itself ; but over and over again has 
 it been ruled by our courts, that the civil- 
 ization of our republic is a Christian civil- 
 ization ; that our social fabric rests on the 
 Law of Moses as transformed by the New 
 Testament, and wrought into the enlight- 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 22 7 
 
 ened conscience of Christian nations by 
 ages of experience. 
 
 But to dispossess Americans of these 
 recognized axioms of jurisprudence is not 
 only to revolutionize us, but to subject us 
 to chronic revolutions like those of Mexico 
 and South America, where republics that 
 have not the Bible are our sufficient warn- 
 ing, if we are not unwise. I know my 
 duty as a Christian bishop in speaking to 
 the youth of a Christian university, and 
 through them to my native land. I have 
 spoken, heretofore, not wholly in vain, to 
 my countrymen, in behalf of our '' Com- 
 mon English Bible," ^ and now let me con- 
 clude by quoting again, as I did five-and- 
 thirty years ago, the memorable words of 
 an English pervert, who could not forget 
 the blessed Word *' which his mother 
 taught him," though he had left the 
 Church, his true mother, and sat down ** by 
 
 ' "Apology for the Common English Bible," p. 74. 
 Third edition, Baltimore and New York, 1857. 
 
228 HOLY WRIT 
 
 the rivers of Babylon to weep when he 
 remembered Zion." That Bible, the prod- 
 uct of ages, of saints and scholars, and of 
 devout princes, was once his own. He- 
 could not forget that it is the corner-stone 
 of English literature, the chief standard of 
 our language, the purest " well of English 
 undefiled " ; nor had he lost the faculty to 
 appreciate its place in the moral and relig- 
 ious life of a great nation. Thank God, 
 his ** right hand had not forgotten its cun- 
 ning," nor did his tongue "cleave to the 
 roof of his mouth " when he could utter 
 words like these : 
 
 " It Hves in the ear like music that can 
 never be forgotten, like the sound of the 
 church-bell which the convert hardly knows 
 how he can forego. Its felicities often 
 seem to be almost tilings rather than mere 
 words. It is part of the national mind and 
 the anchor of national seriousness. The 
 memory of the dead passes into it. The 
 potent traditions of childhood are stereo- 
 typed in its verses. The power of all the 
 gifts and trials of a man is hidden beneath 
 its words. It is the representative of his 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 229 
 
 best moments ; and all that there has been 
 about him of soft and gentle and pure and 
 penitent and good speaks to him forever 
 out of the English Bible. It is his sacred 
 thing which doubt has never dimmed and 
 controversy never soiled. In the length 
 and breadth of the land, there is not a 
 Protestant with one spark of righteousness 
 about him whose spiritual biography is 
 not in his Saxon Bible." 
 
 Here are siispiria de proftindis indeed; 
 but I adopt them as worthy to be followed 
 by a GlojHa in Excelsis. Not till Latin 
 Christendom is blest, in every nation, with 
 its Bible in the vulgar tongue, of which 
 something similar may be said, can the 
 Latin churches regain Catholicity. The 
 first bishop of Rome was able to say to his 
 fellow- Christians of the East : *' Ye under- 
 stand, beloved, ye well understand the 
 Holy Scriptures, and have looked very 
 earnestly into the oracles of God." To 
 what Church in all his communion can the 
 Roman patriarch now address these words ? 
 St. Clement might go on and quote to his 
 
230 HOLY WRIT 
 
 successor the text ^ which he applied to 
 others in his day : " I held forth my 
 words, and ye regarded not ; I called, and 
 ye did not hear." But these words are 
 our Bible; and if, as a mere man of the 
 world, I could appreciate, in its force of 
 truth as well as in that of its beauty, the 
 eulogy I have quoted, I should be con- 
 strained to say. What can a nation possess, 
 what can science give, what can astronomy 
 supply to the hearts and lives of men, to 
 be compared with such a Bible? Until 
 bereft of conscience, I should be forced to 
 rest happy in the conviction that nobody 
 can be justified in disturbing any people 
 reposing in the sweet assurance that such 
 a Bible is Eternal Truth. Let them alone, 
 I should say, in the enjoyment of convic- 
 tions so innocent and so sweet. What 
 other safeguard can I furnish, if this be 
 withdrawn, to the inexperience of youth 
 and of virtuous womanhood ? What other 
 
 ' Proverbs i, 23-31. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 23 1 
 
 balsam for the heart's wounds ; what other 
 cordial amid calamities ; what other deter- 
 rent from crime ; in a word, what other 
 gospel answering to all the wants of hu- 
 manity in life, in death, and beyond the 
 grave? If I were hard-hearted enough 
 to pluck a babe from the bosom of mater- 
 nal love and tenderness, and give it to be 
 nursed by the she-wolf of ancient fable, 
 even yet I should pause before I could 
 take away from a whole people, fathers, 
 mothers, young men and maidens, and 
 from lisping childhood, the confidence of 
 the apostle when he exclaimed, '' Lord, to 
 whom shall we go? Thou hast the words 
 of Eternal Life." 
 
 My young brethren of Kenyon College, 
 I have pointed you, in these lectures, to 
 two classes of our fellow-men; to their 
 contrasted lives and the utterly diverse 
 influences they have exercised on times 
 and peoples. Your own career, I trust, 
 will be fulfilled in the coming age, in the 
 
232 HOLY WRIT 
 
 twentieth century. Choose ye, this day, 
 by God's help, what it shall be in its ends, 
 its aims, in its relation to your country and 
 to your Maker. It should be unselfish, 
 heroic, soldier-like — yes, like that of sol- 
 diers, *' whose business 'tis to die." Says 
 one who knows too well the emptiness of 
 a life shaped by other maxims : '' The most 
 logical attitude of the tJiinker, in the pres- 
 ence of religion, is to act as tJwiigJi it zvere 
 true'' *' One should behave as though 
 God and the soul existed." Whose ex- 
 perience dictates this as the philosophy of 
 Hfe? Of course every believer's — but, I 
 believe in the depths of my soul, every 
 infidel's not less — when daylight dies 
 away from him, and the shadows of the 
 Dark Valley begin to appall. For he who 
 says this is the brilliant Renan, the same 
 unhappy man whose genius and perpetual 
 endeavour it has been to double-damn his 
 countrymen, delivering them over again 
 to a reign of terror and despair.^ 
 » Note XXV. 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 233 
 
 " Behave as if God and the soul existed 
 . . . act as though religion were true." 
 So says the Christian to him who exclaims, 
 " Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbe- 
 lief " ; and so say even the worst of men to 
 all who are in peril of becoming as misera- 
 ble as they. Assume, therefore, the truth 
 of Holy Writ, and begin to shape your life 
 accordingly, if only by saying daily the 
 Lord's Prayer. You will find it the only 
 prescription that imparts to the young man 
 wisdom and understanding — the wisdom 
 that inspires a true manliness, and makes 
 ignoble thoughts and habits repulsive to 
 taste as well as to conscience. This alone 
 tempers youthful passion, and supplies 
 purity to thought and deed. It yields in 
 contact and conflict with men the most 
 elevated rules of conduct ; supplies to in- 
 firmity and decay a firm support; affords 
 an animating assurance in the prospect of 
 death. If, in thus *' acting as if religion 
 were true," you find it the base of nearly 
 
234 HOLY WRIT 
 
 everything that elevates society; that 
 ameliorates the condition of the poor and 
 suffering; that dissuades from crime and 
 restrains the hand of violence; that knits 
 together the extremes of human estate, 
 making us "members one of another"; 
 becomes, in short, the source and spring of 
 all that realizes ''the bonds of love, the 
 cords of a man" — if, I say, as you press 
 on, and work up, and patiently refuse to 
 despair, you find yourself forced to recog- 
 nize that nothing is more strengthening 
 than that great law of Christian endeavour 
 — " None of us liveth to himself, and no 
 man dieth to himself" — then, surely, you 
 will have solved every difficulty and con- 
 quered every doubt. You will have learned 
 that this Gospel of Christ, and this only, 
 has been the inspiration of science, of 
 thought, of discovery, of invention, of judg- 
 ment in counsel and efficiency in action, 
 of progressive freedom, of rational liberty 
 and social happiness, of all that makes a 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 235 
 
 people truly great. But you will feel yet 
 more deeply that, while such are its inci- 
 dental blessings, its primary object and 
 concern is to regenerate humanity at the 
 core ; to cut out the ulcer and deformity 
 of sin ; to implant a new heart ; to make 
 us the children of God and heirs of immor- 
 tahty. So then, at least in the little sphere 
 of our personal work and influence, we 
 shall leave this world the better for that we 
 have lived and laboured in it. It may be 
 ours, through much of trial and self-discip- 
 line, 
 
 " To scorn delights and live laborious days ; " 
 
 and so to accomplish some great work that 
 makes life a victory and death a triumph; 
 but let us be content if only we may dry 
 some tears from mortal eyes, waken here and 
 there a sordid soul to shake off his bondage 
 and walk as a child of the Day ; if only we 
 may " do with our might what our hand 
 findeth to do," in the discharge of duty. 
 To you, as just putting on the har- 
 
236 HOLY WRIT 
 
 ness, with all happy possibilities before 
 you, let me commend those maxims of the 
 Christian Tully, with which he sounded his 
 triimpet for a fresh advance of the apos- 
 tolic army, just as Constantine gave peace 
 to the suffering Church and brought upon 
 her the enervating peril of friendship with 
 the world. " If life is a thing to be cov- 
 eted," he says, *' by one who is wise, ver- 
 ily for no other object should I desire to 
 live than that I may achieve somewhat 
 that is useful and worthy of a lifetime." 
 And again, looking to life's goal, afar or 
 near at hand as the case may be, he adds : 
 ** I shall feel that I have truly lived and 
 have discharged my duty as a man, if only 
 some souls, freed from error by my effort, 
 have been directed into the way that leads 
 to heaven." So speaks Lactantius. 
 
 So may you put on your armour, and 
 so lay it aside. You will thus have made 
 yourself the fellow-soldier of one whose 
 incomparable work for his fellow- men was 
 
AND MODERN THOUGHT. 237 
 
 crowned at last, by going lorth and suf- 
 fering for Christ, without the gate, bear- 
 ing His reproach. You may visit the 
 scene of his martyrdom, on the Ostian 
 road, under the walls of Rome. As you 
 stand there, you will seem to read his 
 epitaph: *' I have fought a good fight ; I 
 have kept the Faith." But there is one 
 spot in ancient Rome which I own impressed 
 me yet more. It marks the site of Nero's 
 Circus, where so many Christian heroes had 
 been burned in coats of pitch and sulphur 
 in the tyrant's vain attempt to extirpate the 
 Christian name. That spot is marked by 
 a simple monolith, the obelisk brought 
 from Egypt, of which everybody has read. 
 Reared, as it were, over prostrate idolatry, 
 and surmounted by a simple cross, it is in- 
 scribed with a text from the Apocalypse 
 which is at once a history and a prophecy : 
 Vicit Leo e tribit Jtidce — " The Lion of 
 the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, 
 hath prevailed." 
 
NOTES 
 
 I. 
 
 General Note. — In preparing these lect- 
 ures for publication, I have given them, 
 as far as possible, a special adaptation to 
 the wants of young men in our colleges and 
 universities. During the year that slipped 
 away (before the authorities in charge were 
 ready to put the lectures to press) I was 
 shocked by the irreligion of some of our 
 professional educators, and of a popular 
 lecturer from abroad who undertook to in- 
 culcate contempt for Christianity in writing 
 about the Lick Observatory, in California. 
 The president of our greatest university 
 eulogized the polygamous Mormons, and, 
 though a son of New England, compared 
 favourably the nomadic adventures of " Joe 
 Smith " and his miserable dupes with those 
 of the pious Brewster and the " Pilgrim 
 Fathers." And one, who has subse- 
 quently been elevated to the presidency 
 of Cornell, visiting the city where I dwell, 
 on a public occasion uttered words of con- 
 tempt for Holy Scripture, which I took 
 238 
 
NOTES. 239 
 
 occasion as publicly to rebuke. To such 
 corrupters of truth and morality our young 
 men are sent by the thousand, to be formed 
 and' framed for hfe; and what can be 
 looked for as the result but suicidal pes- 
 simism ? 
 
 As I shall have occasion to add several 
 notes on this subject to this more general 
 one, I herewith present young men with a 
 chronological table illustrating the relations 
 of modern and ancient scientists to the 
 fabulous astronomy which Copernicus ex- 
 ploded, and which Renan and others are 
 never tired of charging upon Christianity. 
 It was science itself which for ages before 
 and after the Incarnation tied and bound 
 the human mind to a most intricate and 
 yet a most specious invention of its own. 
 To this men of science clung with a big- 
 otry the most passionate and persistent ; re- 
 jecting, over and over again, the investiga- 
 tion of the hehocentric theory, and clinging 
 to empiricism so superstitiously that Coper- 
 nicus was afraid to publish his discover-, 
 ies, far more on their account than from 
 any fear of religious persecution. He was 
 himself an ecclesiastic^ and dedicated his 
 work to his Latin patriarch, invoking his 
 protection against men of science. Nor is 
 this all, for men of science the most eminertty 
 and deservedly sOy still resisted the true phi- 
 
240 NOTES. 
 
 losophy for a century and a half longer. In 
 England the learned Bishop Wilkins was 
 almost its only conspicuous defender in the 
 first decades of the seventeenth century, 
 and he did more than any professed scien- 
 tist to teach it to his countrymen and to 
 us. But here are the tabulated facts : 
 
 Table. 
 
 1. (B.C. 555-497.) Pythagoras and his 
 disciples taught the heliocentric system. 
 Philolaus of Crotona (B.C. 374) and Aris- 
 tarchus the Samian (B.C. 400) defended it. 
 
 2. (B.C. 429-347.) Plato, taught by Py- 
 thagoras, cautiously hinted it in his Timaeus, 
 and Aristotle recognized it as Plato's view, 
 which he himself seems not to have ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 3. (B.C. 160-127.) Hipparchus not only 
 rejected the heliocentric theory, but collect- 
 ing and formulating empirical ideas, pro- 
 duced the useful and for the age most brill- 
 iant system of cycle and epicycle, which 
 
 by its apparently satisfactory results be- 
 came the science of ** Modern Thought," 
 and Jield the JuLinan viind in bondage for 
 fifteen centuries ; philosophers riveting it 
 upon the intelligence of their times suc- 
 cessively by their devotion to established 
 science, and necessarily imparting it to the 
 
NOTES. 241 
 
 divines: for it was the apparent duty of 
 ecclesiastics humbly and gratefully to ac- 
 cept science from others who made it their 
 trade. 
 
 4. (B.C. 106-43.) Cicero understood the 
 heliocentric theory, and, with his customary 
 clearness, he thus expounds it : 
 
 " Hicetas of Syracuse supposed, accord- 
 ing to Theophrastus, that the sky, the sun, 
 the moon, the stars — in a word, all things 
 overhead — are immovable, and that in the 
 universe only the earth is in motion, turn- 
 ing on its axis with extreme velocity, pro- 
 ducing the same appearances which would 
 result if the earth were immovable and the 
 heavens in motion. Some pJiilosophers con- 
 sider Plato as sustaining the same opinion 
 in his Timceiis, though not without re- 
 serve." I translate from the Paris edition 
 of 181 7, vol. xxi., p. 371., Qucest. Academ., 
 Hber ii. 39. 
 
 5. (B.C. 100-44.) Julius Caesar, by the 
 aid of science as it stood, rectified the cal- 
 endar, but without any reference to the 
 system to which Cicero had pointed. 
 
 6. (a.D. 130-161.) The philosophic An- 
 tonines were fiercely persecuting the Chris- 
 tians, when Ptolemy, of the Alexandrian 
 schools, by his brilliant improvements upon 
 Hipparchus, gave the geocentric system a 
 new birth, as '* Modern Thought." It was 
 
242 NOTES. 
 
 now called by his name. The Church natu- 
 rally accepted it as ''science." Justin 
 Martyr, our only philosopher of that age, 
 and the first to claim philosophy for Christ, 
 was nevertheless too busy in persuading 
 philosophers to cease from persecuting his 
 brethren, to give much attention to astron- 
 omy. 
 
 7. (a.d. 1 1 5-1 8 1.) Theophilus of Anti- 
 och becomes the founder of the science of 
 "Biblical Chronology." Hales praises him 
 for the degree of accuracy he attained, and 
 Usher for his delicate sense of his deficien- 
 cies. (See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. ii., 
 pp. 87-120, ed. Buffalo, 1885.) The Tub- 
 ingen school discredit his authorship of 
 some of the writings attributed to him ; but 
 I adopt from Zahn the date 170 A.D. as the 
 period at which he flourished. He adheres 
 to earlier Alexandrian computations, but 
 deserves mention before I reach the next 
 name. 
 
 8. (a.d. 200-245.) JuHus Africanus, 
 " the ornament of the age in which he 
 lived," shows that, amid constant trials and 
 persecutions, the great Christian school of 
 Alexandria was pursuing scientific chronol- 
 ogy, in reliance on the scientists of the age. 
 (See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," ut supra, vol. 
 vi., pp. 123-140.) 
 
 9. (a.d. 325.) The Alexandrian patri- 
 
NOTES. 243 
 
 archate was now the seat of such astro- 
 nomical science as had been recognized by 
 heathen philosophers, and to its bishops the 
 Council of Nicaea confided the task of the 
 annual computation of Easter, which they 
 were to proclaim every year to the Catho- 
 lic Churches at the season of the Epiphany. 
 Under Constantine, therefore, astronomical 
 science was diligently cultivated at Alex- 
 andria, in humble submission to the '* Mod- 
 ern Thought " of Ptolemaeus. The Easter 
 Tables in our Prayer-Books are specimens 
 of their methods of computation, and of 
 their admirable use of the science of their 
 times. 
 
 10. (a.D. 130-1543.) From Ptolemy to 
 Copernicus is justly called a *' stationary 
 period." Dr. Whewell thus describes it: 
 ** It is a proof of tJie feebleness and servility 
 of intelleet in this period, that no one was 
 found to try the fortune of the heliocentric 
 hypothesis, according to the imp7'oved as- 
 tronomical knoivledge of the time.'' (See 
 Whewell, " Inductive Sciences," vol. i., p. 
 259, ed. New York, 1858.) Ptolemy had 
 improved li, and as his improvements seemed 
 to confirm the geocentric theory, and to se- 
 cure the results then considered " practical," 
 all the world acquiesced in it. Christianity 
 was engaged in converting the heathen to 
 Christ, and cultivated science only as it was 
 
244 NOTES. 
 
 taught by those who professed this noble 
 vocation. 
 
 1 1. (a.D. 640.) By order of Caliph Omar, 
 his generals burned the great library of 
 Alexandria, and Christian learning seemed 
 to perish. But the Arabs accepted it, and 
 proved good trustees of the treasure, though 
 they added little to its store. (See Whew- 
 ell, tit supra ^ 
 
 12. (a.D. 1 194-1250.) Frederick II., 
 '^Stupor Mtindi^' was crowned over the 
 "Holy Roman Empire," A.D. 1215. He 
 was a philosopher, and learned even be- 
 yond his times, but persecuted Christians 
 for '' heresies," and adhered to the super- 
 stitions of the age, cultivating astrology 
 rather than astronomy, yet contributing to 
 the period a spirit of impatient appetite 
 which was a prelude to the revival of 
 learning. 
 
 13. (a.D. 1 203-1 284.) Alphonsus the 
 Wise, who inherited science from the 
 Spanish Arabians, and reigned many years 
 in Leon and Castile, was a philosopher for 
 his times, but accepted the science of the 
 day with dissatisfaction. To him the witty 
 but profane complaint is attributed : '* If I 
 had been of the Maker's privy-council when 
 He created the universe, I could have 
 advised Him better." 
 
 14. (a.D. 1453.) The fall of Constanti- 
 
NOTES. 245 
 
 nople drove Greek learning to Italy, and 
 the residue of the century is the trophy of 
 what Christians of the older Church carried 
 to Western Europe after they had regained 
 from the Arabs, unimpaired, but little im- 
 proved, their own ancient property of 
 astronomical science. (See 11, supra.) 
 
 15. (a.d. 1473-1534-) Nicolas Koper- 
 nik, a Latin Presbyter of Poland, established 
 the heliocentric system scientifically, and 
 published his immortal work just before he 
 died. He acknowledged that it left many 
 difficulties unsolved, but he proved these 
 the small dust of the balance as compared 
 with the difficulties and absurdities it took 
 away. 
 
 16. (a.d. 1 564-1642.) Though many 
 divines as well as scholars had favoured the 
 Copernican theory, Galileo, through the in- 
 vention of the telescope, and the discovery 
 by its aid of lunar phases in the planet 
 Venus, crowned the Copernican system 
 with demonstrated success. 
 
 17. (a.d. 1 534-1674.) It was opposed, 
 nevertheless, by men of science of the first 
 order, such as Muller — or Regiomontanus 
 —(died 1478), by TychoBrahe (died 1601), 
 and Francis Bacon, who died in 1626. 
 Milton (died 1674) wavered, as his great 
 poem shows, and thus, even after Kepler 
 (died 1630), Europe had not accepted 
 
246 NOTES. 
 
 genuine science, in the persons of the great- 
 est professors of ''Modern Tliotcghty 
 
 18. (a.d. 1473-1543.) Thus Copernicus, 
 the Christian priest, was in advance of 
 science by more than a hundred years. 
 Compare these facts with the sneers of 
 Renan and of Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Preternatiirali^. 22). — What I mean 
 by 7nj/ words about optics and acoustics 
 may be explained by a reference to 
 ** ReHgion and Chemistry " (p. 43), by J. P. 
 Cooke, Esq., Professor of Chemistry and 
 Mineralogy in Harvard University : Scrib- 
 ner. New York, 1864. He quotes Tyn- 
 dal's anecdote of one who could not hear 
 the shrill noise of innumerable crickets, 
 though at the same time the dull thud of a 
 donkey's hoof, almost inaudible to others, 
 was very perceptible to his peculiar ear. 
 This is scientifically explained, and the 
 analogy between sound and light is said to 
 be complete, creating many similar dis- 
 crepancies in human experience. The eye 
 of one may see what is invisible to another, 
 by known laws of ethereal waves that pro- 
 duce the sensation of light on the retina. 
 Scripture, therefore, on scientific principles, 
 gives us a fact (II. Kings vi. 16) which. 
 
NOTES. 247 
 
 until these laws were understood, seemed 
 incredible. ** There is a Christian theory," 
 says Professor Cooke, *' which is perfectly 
 consistent with all known facts " (p. 323). 
 The vision of the shepherds (St. Luke ii. 
 13, 14) and their hearing of angelic voices 
 is vindicated by principles which Professor 
 Cooke lays down (p. 44), though without 
 reference to that or any other text. Ac- 
 cept, therefore, the pretcrnatiial, not the 
 supejiiatnral, for the base of many miracles 
 now known to be scientifically possible. 
 
 I have suggested that magnetism as now 
 associated with electricity intimates the 
 possibility of electrical currents in nature 
 which might conceivably lift a weight of 
 iron from the water, on the principle of the 
 ''carrying power" of a magnet. ''Elec- 
 tro-biology," so-called, though prematurely 
 classed with sciences, appears to me to have 
 demonstrated something in nature which 
 they name ody lie force, that explains much 
 more than is claimed for it by empirics : 
 e.g., the flight of birds, or rather their rising 
 in air and poising in the tenuity of ether — 
 as the weighty eagle does, bearing its prey 
 also, high over Mt. Blanc — seems by no 
 means sufBciently explained by mere wing- 
 power. The sea-gull darts, rather than 
 flies, far ahead of the swiftest steamer, and 
 then flings himself back again, and plays 
 
248 NOTES. 
 
 against violent winds to and fro, in mid- 
 ocean. So the little petrel walks upon the 
 waters, apparently, in a manner not wholly 
 explained by his wings ; and the flying- 
 fish seems to shoot into air by a projectile 
 force only feebly subject to fins, which are 
 not wings at all, and which can hardly ac- 
 count for its powerful leaps and springs. 
 I am not anxious to explain away the 
 supernatural. I see no difficulty in believ- 
 ing that the Almighty suspends His own 
 laws by the same omnipotence that created 
 them ; but I suggest that our Lord, through 
 human agents, often wrought many mar- 
 vels in the exercise of His omniscience by 
 the hmnaiient forces of nature and not by 
 any suspension of them. Had it been pos- 
 sible to lay the Atlantic cable without 
 public observation, the most astounding 
 ** impossibilities " would have been dem- 
 onstrated as fact, and must have been re- 
 garded as miracles. When our Master said, 
 ** Lazarus is dead," or to the nobleman, 
 "Thy son liveth," He may, as a man, have 
 exercised certain natural forces, by which 
 He perceived what He thus announced. Of 
 this possibility the empiricism of our day 
 seems to furnish evidence in anecdotes that 
 are not altogether to be classed with its 
 palpable frauds. For, "it appears," says 
 Professor Cooke, " that our bodies are mere 
 
NOTES. 249 
 
 channels of force ; machines whose motive 
 power emanates from the great centre 
 of the solar system " (p. 235). Grant this, 
 and you have a vast magazine of the mys- 
 teries of nature, which should make the 
 scientist ashamed of himself when he pro- 
 nounces a miracle " impossible" ; or when 
 he affirms the absolute fixedness of laws 
 about which we know nothing. The Chris- 
 tian's God is omniscient and omnipotent. 
 We cannot limit the Almighty. Nor can 
 we forget that He who gave us five senses 
 might have given us fifty — every one open- 
 ing up to us new views of His resources, 
 and of things not dreamed of by philoso- 
 phers. 
 
 III. 
 
 Nicene Faith (p. 24). — The confessions 
 of Luther and Calvin are made creeds, or 
 terms of communion; but far more com- 
 pHcated than these is the creed of Laynez, 
 called after Pius IV. This " creed" itself 
 is imposed in direct violation of Catholic 
 law, which forbids the compilation of any 
 other than the Nicene Creed, or additions 
 thereto. Laynez's creed requires '' a firm 
 faith and profession of all and every one of 
 those things which the Holy Roman Church 
 maketh use of,'' adding twelve articles to 
 the Nicene, or Catholic faith, of which one 
 
250 NOTES. 
 
 is the following: viz., "I likewise un- 
 doubtedly receive and profess all other 
 things defined and declared by the sacred 
 canons and general councils, and partic- 
 ularly by the Holy Council of Trent." 
 Here, then, the General Councils of an- 
 tiquity are not sufficient to define a Cath- 
 olic ; but particularly, the interminable 
 system of Trent theology is demanded as 
 that without believing which we cannot be 
 saved. Think what is here required, and 
 how few of those who profess it have any 
 idea of what all those tilings are. Note, 
 this is the creed of ** the Holy Roman 
 Church," not of the Catholic Church. For 
 the creed of Pius IV., of which Laynez is 
 the true author, Americans may as well look 
 into the " Compendium Ritualis Romani " 
 (p. 193), Baltimore, 1842. On " the Chal- 
 cedonian Decree," which forbids any other 
 than the Nicene Creed to be made the 
 Creed of Catholics, see the valuable work 
 of the Rev. John Fulton, D.D., New York, 
 1892. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Journalism (p. 32). — How largely our 
 newspapers deal in scandal and crime is 
 becoming a serious matter for the moralist, 
 if it be true that *' evil communications cor- 
 rupt good manners." We have been in- 
 
NOTES. 251 
 
 formed, in a recent lecture by the accom- 
 plished Mr. White, our minister to the Court 
 of St. Petersburg, that almost innumerable 
 cuttings gathered from newspapers pub- 
 lished in all parts of the country prove that 
 homicide is more prevalent among us than 
 in any other country called civiHzed, and 
 is largely committed with impunity, or with 
 trifling penalties. This statement is sus- 
 tained by the official '* Census Bulletin," 
 No. 182, now before me, in which ''homi- 
 cide" is thus reported: "Of 82,329 pris- 
 oners in the United States, June i, 1890, 
 the number charged with homicide was 
 7386. . . . More than one eighth are 
 awaiting trial; of those convicted, 158 are 
 awaiting execution ; 49 of these were found 
 in the Kansas penitentiary, 110 day having 
 been fixed for their execution by any gov- 
 ernor since 1872. The average sentence for 
 convicts not sentenced to death is 13 years, 
 292 days." Many culprits of this kind are 
 pardoned after trifling imprisonment ; many 
 after indictment are let out on bail, and are 
 never tried. 
 
 V. 
 
 Qicinet (p. 35). — (Recur to Note III.) 
 His work on *' Ultramontanism " was trans- 
 lated, under its author's sanction, and pub- 
 lished in London, 1845, with the subordi- 
 
252 NOTES. 
 
 nate title of " The Roman Church and 
 Modern Society." Unfortunately he does 
 not confine himself to this strictly accurate 
 and self-imposed term *' Roman," but falls 
 into the slip-shod vulgarism of confound- 
 ing it with " Catholic." But the work has 
 many merits, though full of the less offen- 
 sive forms of *' modern thought." Con- 
 sult the Third Lecture. He says : ** Lay- 
 nez, the Jesuit, became the soul of the 
 Council, and . . . the organization of the 
 Church assumed a new form " (p. 42). 
 " The address consisted in making this 
 change, without anywhere speaking of it'' 
 When the Vatican Council, after three ages 
 of reticence, was convened, the bishops 
 found themselves deprived of all synod- 
 ical rights, and reduced to a mere " synod 
 of sacristans" — as said Darboy, Archbishop 
 of Paris. The pontiff issued the dogma 
 of his own Infallibility, and they were 
 there only to register it ; their votes had 
 nothing to do with defining it, but mere- 
 ly signified their submission. Of course, 
 neither this nor the Trent conventicle had 
 any character in common with the free 
 Councils of antiquity. To this fearful con- 
 trast Quinet attaches special importance. 
 
NOTES. 253 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Vulgate (p. 36).— The Vulgate of 
 St. Jerome is not that which was thrust 
 upon the Roman Church by this decree. 
 It is another and a corrupted Vulgate 
 which was made equal to the ipsissinia 
 verba of the original Hebrew. In 1590 
 Pope Sixtus V. issued his second edition 
 of an infallible Bible, forbidding all other 
 Bibles to be read. He pronounced it the 
 book authorized by the Trent Council ; to 
 be '' cited, and no other, in all public or 
 private citations, expositions, etc." But in 
 1593 Clement VIII. cancelled all this, and 
 put out another edition, largely corrected 
 and altered from the one which his prede- 
 cessor had declared to be the Vulgate de- 
 fined and accepted by the Trent Council. 
 Now turn back to Note III. and observe 
 that all the decrees and definitions of that 
 Council are part and parcel of the creed 
 itself, as by that Council ordained for the 
 use of the ** Holy Roman Church." So, 
 then, Clement's Bible, or that of Sixtus, 
 which? Both are equally ** infallible," but 
 that which Clement has superseded as cor- 
 rupt in many places is the one which Six- 
 tus declares to be the one ordained by the 
 creed of his Church. See the *' Treatise 
 of Thomas James " (a contemporary of 
 
254 NOTES. 
 
 these popes), reprinted by the Rev. John 
 Edmund Cox, M.A., ed. London, Parker, 
 1843- 
 
 VII. 
 
 England and Trent (p. 49). — Let the 
 student recur to the Conference of Poissy 
 (Sept. 9, 1 561), and the remarkable letter 
 addressed to the Pope by the Queen- 
 mother, as its prelude, in which she de- 
 clares the number of those who had aban- 
 doned his Communion in France ** too 
 great to be restrained by laws or force of 
 arms." Laynez appeared at this colloquy ; 
 the Trent Council did not adjourn till Dec. 
 4, 1563. It was opened Dec. 13, 1545. 
 It was extraordinary that Catherine de 
 Medicis seemed favourable to reform. But 
 she resorted to the massacre of St. Barthol- 
 omew's day, as her final resource for de- 
 stroying the Huguenots, and the Pontiff 
 celebrated it with Te Denms. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Beza (p. 49). — After the council, Cathe- 
 rine wrote a letter in which she seems to 
 blame the Romish ecclesiastics for the fail- 
 ure. She also sent a request to the pontiff 
 to " re-establish the marriage of priests and 
 the Communion in the two species of bread 
 
NOTES. 255 
 
 and wine." France was ripe for reforma- 
 tion, but Beza fell into the net spread for 
 him, i.e., to get the Lutherans and Cal- 
 vinists into discord ; and Laynez ** turned 
 the colloquy into open war." See I'Abbe 
 Guettee, *' Histoire de I'eglise de France," 
 vol. ix., pp. 22-45. 
 
 IX. 
 
 PJiilosophy in Germany (p. 53). — Dr. 
 Stirling's edition of Schwegler is succinct, 
 and very useful for all ordinary readers, 
 and the editor's annotations are all valu- 
 able. His partiality for Hegel will com- 
 mend this editor to many in these days. 
 He says : '' The resurrection of Christ is, 
 to Hegel, an actual fact, etc." (p. 440). 
 ''Handbook," etc., ed. New York, Put- 
 nam's Sons. 
 
 The work of Ueberweg, translated by 
 my friend the late Professor Morris of the 
 Michigan University, and enriched by the 
 annotations of Dr. Schaff and others, is 
 desirable for the industrious student. 
 
 Hegel (p. 55). — It seems only fair to 
 quote here the language of the editor men- 
 tioned in the former note. He cuts the 
 Gordian knot (" Where is God in His sys- 
 
256 NOTES. 
 
 tern?") by reminding us that "Schopen- 
 hauer hated Hegel." He then claims for 
 Hegel that his philosophy was " avozvedly 
 a philosophy of restoration and religious 
 reaction." And he credits him with the 
 following positions: (i) Only in religious 
 belief is society possible. (2) A nation 
 that believes not in God and the immor- 
 tality of the soul, in the siipcynatural ele- 
 ments generally, must, even in its own 
 madness, dissipate and destroy itself. (3) 
 Negation had done its work ; it was time 
 for the affirmative to step in. Stirling's 
 edition of Schwegler (translated), nt supra. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Clement and Athanasins (p. 55). — I am 
 thankful that I can here refer to one of the 
 professors of "modern thought," who has 
 advanced very far toward the highest 
 thought in his estimate of these grand old 
 masters. He says : " It is instructive to 
 note how closely Athanasius approaches the 
 confines of modern scientific thought, sim- 
 ply through his fundamental conception of 
 God as the indwelling life of the universe." 
 See "The Idea of God," by Professor John 
 Fiske, pp. 83-109, ed. Boston, 1886. See 
 also " Institutes of Christian History," by 
 Bishop Coxe, pp. 27, 28, ed.Xhicago, 1887. 
 
NOTES. 257 
 
 XII. 
 
 After Schleierntac her, etc. (p. 55). — Here 
 Auberlen, who does full justice to Schlei- 
 ermacher, must be consulted. He says : 
 " His followers, the ablest among them, 
 very soon saw that Christian theology could 
 not long remain on the standpoint of their 
 master. . . . Beginning from that which 
 Schleiermacher had established afresh, the 
 fides qua credititr, they sought also to 
 make clear the fides quce creditttr, the sav- 
 ing truth of the Bible and the Church, 
 and to bring it out with growing fulness" 
 (p. 362). '* Divine Revelation " (trans- 
 lated), ed. Edinburgh, 1867, Clark. For 
 the plain story of reviving faith and love in 
 Germany, see Professor Cairns's translation 
 of " Krummacher's Autobiography," New 
 York, 1869, Carter. It is a devout book 
 which any one may read with profit, and 
 which the student of Germany (in the be- 
 ginnings of its revival of faith) will find a 
 most interesting reviewal. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Old Catholics (p. 64). — While the 
 great mind and spirit of Dollinger must be 
 credited with the brave movement which 
 rescued a few souls out of Sardis, at the 
 
258 NOTES. 
 
 crisis of Pius IX. 's " Infallibility decree," I 
 must here recall the beloved name of my 
 friend Hirscher, as the forerunner of this 
 restoration of Catholicity — the necessity of 
 which he felt, and urged powerfully in his 
 bt'ochtcre, '' Die Kirchlichen Zustande der 
 Gegenwart," Tubingen, 1849. It was trans- 
 lated in 1852, and published at Oxford 
 (Parker) by the author of these lectures. 
 Hirscher sustained this little treatise by 
 others in the same spirit, but was forced to 
 withdraw them. They were put into the 
 Index, and greatly censured by the Jesuits. 
 He was silenced like Galileo, but like him 
 he might ^2iy, E pur si muove. Dollinger 
 has carried on his work. The movement 
 is daily strengthening and extending itself. 
 See " Les Derniers Jansenistes," par Leon 
 Seche, vol. iii., p. 31, etc., Paris, 1892, 
 Perrin. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Pessimism (p. 66). — The authors above 
 referred to tell us all that is required about 
 the place of this pest in German philos- 
 ophy ; but I beg the reader who would 
 consider it more attentively, to avail him- 
 self of help afforded by a learned and use- 
 ful work, to which I shall have further occa- 
 sion to refer : viz., '' Ecclesiastes in Relation 
 to Modern Pessimism," by the Rev. C. H. 
 
NOTES. 259 
 
 H. Wright, D.D., of Trinity College, Dub- 
 lin, etc., London, 1883, Hodder. Note his 
 remarks on the opinion of Schopenhauer 
 concerning women, and ** the deficiency of 
 moral rectitude" in the sex. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Hardoidn (p. 79). — There is every reason 
 to suppose that he made his portentous 
 experiment with the approbation of the 
 Society of Jesuits. He could not have 
 published any important work without it, 
 by their rules ; and when they made him 
 sign a retraction in view of his want of suc- 
 cess, it zvas a mere farce ^ for he kept on in 
 the same career to the end, opposed by the 
 Galileans, but in high credit with the Ultra- 
 montanes. His epitaph will serve for that 
 of many critics of our times — Credulitate 
 picer, aiidacid jtivenis, dcliriis scnex. See 
 Supplement to Boyle, by Chaufepie, ed. 
 Amsterdam, 1750. Also, a good summary 
 of this extraordinary sophist's career, in the 
 English " Biographical Dictionary," vol. vi., 
 p. 444, London, 1784. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Niebithr (p. 80). — When I read Livy in 
 college, it was almost universally conceded 
 
26o NOTES. 
 
 that the Roman historians were mere fabu- 
 lists. In 1869, accompanied by an Amer- 
 ican savant, I surveyed the excavations on 
 the Palatine and elsewhere, under the elo- 
 quent illustrative guidance of Signor Lan- 
 ciani. Quotations from Livy had been set 
 up in divers places where the text of that 
 author was confirmed by the explorations. 
 " We are already far, thank Heaven, from 
 the period when it was fashionable to fol- 
 low the exaggerations of tJiat famotis 
 hypercritical school, which denied every 
 event in Roman history previous to the 
 second Punic War." So says the erudite 
 Lanciani in his work, "Ancient Rome in 
 the Light of Recent Discoveries," Boston, 
 1888, Riverside Press. Another "hyper- 
 critical school" is destined to be left be- 
 hind the age in the same way — and such 
 as Niebiihr is. Renan shall be. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Brahmo-Soniaj (p. 99). — Happily a very 
 succinct but interesting account of this 
 " worshipping assembly " — so they trans- 
 late it — is accessible to American readers 
 in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, vol. i., 
 p. 319, ed. New York, 1888, Christian Lit- 
 erature Society. 
 
NOTES. 261 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Dr. Pusey (p. 106). — For a just and 
 generous view of this learned and godly- 
 man, in his early relations with Germany, 
 see the Biography of Hugh James Rose, in 
 Dean Burgon's '* Lives of Twelve Good 
 Men," vol. i., p. 134, London, 1888, Murray. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Morals and Doctrine (p. 107). — It is 
 painful to note how commonly we find that 
 indifference to Divine Revelation, if it does 
 not proceed from deeds of evil, yet, sooner 
 or later, descends to them and breeds the 
 most corrosive ideas of what is sound in 
 ethics. The author so thoroughly exposed, 
 by Lightfoot at least, consented to the 
 cruel fraud by which his worthless book 
 was made profitable merchandise of the 
 market. I have been forced to mention in 
 these lectures, designed for the youth of a 
 college, the peril to any country of irre- 
 ligious teachings and examples in chief 
 seats of education. And now, because I 
 am amazed that Boston seems to acquiesce 
 in the ethical character imparted to Har- 
 vard by a recent discourse of its President, 
 I feel obliged as an American, and as one 
 
262 NOTES. 
 
 descended, in part, from the colonial sires 
 of New England, to put on record in these 
 pages his extraordinary words. It proves 
 the inevitable tendency of what is called 
 Liberalism. ** Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," 
 with Belial to boot, are all one in the 
 *' modern thought " that now rules in that 
 venerable university. Its ancient motto 
 has been practically changed to Bon Dieii, 
 boil diable; which means, if thus expounded, 
 that all is equally fair in morals reduced to 
 a cult, according to the conscience of any 
 sensuahst. Here, then, is the record, as I 
 take it from the New York Independent — 
 italics are mine : 
 
 *' * The Deseret Weekly ' contains what 
 purports to be an absolutely exact verbatim 
 report of the address made by President 
 Eliot of Harvard College in the Mormon 
 Tabernacle. With his address is an ac- 
 count of the speech by Wilford Woodruff, 
 Brigham Young's successor, cordially ap- 
 proving President Eliofs speech, and two 
 editorials also approving it. ' The Deseret 
 Weekly ' is the organ of the Mormoji 
 CJmrch and the authorized medium by 
 which the CJmrch autJwritics give their 
 viezt's to the saints. The following is the 
 portion of his address which attracted 
 notice, and it deserves all the criticism that 
 has been given it: 
 
NOTES. 263 
 
 *' 'Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been 
 spending the last forty-eight hours in the 
 wilderness of the Rocky Mountains, part of 
 the time unavoidably detained. My mind 
 involuntarily went back to the first journey 
 across the wilderness by civilized men and 
 women, to the plantation of tJiis superb 
 colony by a Christian CJmrch. It reminded 
 me of another planting 256 years ago, a 
 planting of another Christian CJmrch by 
 the Puritans and Pilgrims in New England. 
 They, too, crossed a wilderness — a wilder- 
 ness of water ; they, too, soitght freedom to 
 zuorship God; they, too, sought to subdue 
 the wilderness. They waited much longer 
 than you have done for fruition. Their 
 soil was poorer, their labour less promptly 
 rewarded, their sufferings greater. . . . 
 There is no motive in colonization like the 
 religious motive. The history of the world 
 proves that abundantly. Mind will not do 
 it. Neither will the search for furs, or for 
 game, or for fish, or any other wealth of 
 the land or sea. The great successful 
 colonies of this world are founded by men 
 and women of religions enthusiasm. Here, 
 therefore, you have founded a colony in the 
 finest spirit, in the hope of worshipping 
 God accordijtg to your consciences. And 
 yet here in this beautiful valley, here in 
 this most successful of American colonies, so 
 
264 NOTES. 
 
 far as redeeming the wilderness and estab- 
 lishing well-being in a single generatio7i is 
 concerned, has already arisen the question 
 of religious liberty.' " 
 
 Such is the " Liberal " idea of a " su- 
 perb " colony and of its plantation by 
 "Christian Church" — set forth for the 
 imitation of youth in Harvard University. 
 The "' poetry " of a Pilgrim celebration 
 was recently assigned to a Hibernian 
 zealot of Romanism : and now the " Pil- 
 grim Fathers " are, rather unfavourably, 
 wrought into a parallel with the besotted 
 disciples of *' Joe Smith." Are such ideas 
 of their forefathers to pass into the edu- 
 cation of New Englanders as historical? 
 What is the text-book of Christian morals 
 at Harvard since the Bible has been de- 
 graded by " higher criticism " ? And what 
 are the youth of Harvard to understand by 
 the phrase — '' a Christian Church " ? 
 
 XX. 
 
 Alcuin (p. 125). — Let me refer the read- 
 er to my " Institutes of Christian History " 
 if he would have a just idea of this beau- 
 tiful character, who flourished just before 
 the rise of the Papacy, under Nicholas I. 
 In the *' Caroline Books " he laid the foun- 
 dation of Anglican Restoration. He was 
 
NOTES. 265 
 
 the Athanasius of his age ; the instructor 
 of Charlemagne, and the engineer of his 
 poHcy in the great Council of the West, 
 which rejected the (pretended) '* Seventh 
 CEcumenical Council," which was rather 
 the Conventicle of Irene and the offspring 
 of her corrupt Court, if not of her own 
 personal depravity. 
 
 The ''Caroline Books" are, naturally, 
 omitted from the works of Alcuin, by 
 Romish editors ; but nobody supposes that 
 Charlemagne was their author, nor has 
 anybody been able to conjecture who could 
 have written them if not his venerated pre- 
 ceptor. My edition of Alcuin is that of 
 Frobenius, Ratisbon, 1777. In my "In- 
 stitutes of Christian History" (pp. 120, 
 121, lit siipi'ci) the reader will find a beau- 
 tiful quotation from one of his letters, and 
 .an historical estimate of his position. 
 
 XXL 
 
 Luther (p. 131). — If any one wishes to 
 know who was the founder of all the Ra- 
 tionalism that has afflicted Germany for 
 centuries, let him consult Auberlen (" Di- 
 vine Revelation," p. 231, ed. translation, 
 Edinburgh), where he makes the synoptic 
 Gospels of little account, and says of the 
 Epistle of St. James : "It is very dry and 
 
266 NOTES. 
 
 useless compared with St. Paul's Epistle to 
 the Romans, ... for there is nothing of 
 an evangelical kind in it'' That great 
 doctor was the illustrious translator of the 
 Scriptures, and thus the founder of Ger- 
 man Literature in the vulgar tongue ; but, 
 thanks be to God, the Anghcan Restorers 
 of Catholic orthodoxy were not his dis- 
 ciples. In his disputation at Oxford old 
 Latimer refused to be called a Lutheran, 
 and though treating his name respectfully, 
 he said: ** I do not take in hand here to 
 defend Luther's sayings or doings." See 
 his '* Sermons and Remains," p. 265, ed. 
 Cambridge, 1845. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The outcome of '' Higher Criticism'' (p. 
 152). — In this form of negation (ignoi^a- 
 imis) there are few who have been so dar- 
 ingly outspoken as a person to whom I 
 have referred in a former Note (p. 238), 
 who since he uttered such Icunguage about 
 the Holy Bible, has been elected to the 
 Presidency of Cornell University. His 
 language as reported is as follows : '' As- 
 tronomy has dislocated heaven and hell, 
 and sent the earth spinning round the sun. 
 Geology and biology, have revolutionized 
 our views about the formation of the earth : 
 
NOTES. 267 
 
 and now, last of all, the terrible agony of 
 biblical criticism is showing that the Bible 
 is a collection- of books, written, for the 
 most part, by we knozv not whom, at we 
 knoiv not ivhat date, and put together we 
 knozv not on what principled As I have 
 appealed, in vain, to his personal friends 
 to obtain from him a repudiation of this 
 statement, and as it has been repeatedly 
 republished and quoted as his, with no sign 
 of retraction, I am forced reluctantly to 
 suppose that the hundreds of both sexes 
 who repair to Cornell for education are to 
 be thus leavened with unbelief, unsuspect- 
 ingly, perhaps, by the known views of one 
 to whom they look up with admiration as 
 their example and pattern. For what is 
 ** education " in America forming the young 
 of the rising generation if such are their 
 preceptors ? 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The Seventy (p. 182). — The honour paid 
 to the Version of ''the Seventy," by our 
 Lord and His apostles, justifies us, it 
 seems to me, in regarding their judgment 
 in such a matter as this as decisive. Yet, 
 were it only that they were witnesses, 
 nearer to the source of testimony than we 
 are, their judgment at least is testimony 
 against which no modern critic can contend 
 
268 NOTES. 
 
 with any claim to superior knowledge of 
 history, or of a more critical insight as to 
 language and style. 
 
 And here I venture to go a little out of 
 my way to direct attention to the views of 
 evidence supported by Dean Lyall in his 
 " Propaedeia Prophetica " (ed. of Canon 
 Pearson, London, 1885), as, for example, 
 on p. 34, where he refers to scientific theo- 
 ries, probably correct, as to changes in the 
 structure of this planet, which theories are 
 yet contrary to all human experience, and 
 rest on no recorded testimony whatever. 
 See also (p. 297) why Scripture '* is not to 
 be treated as other books." 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Coimnon Law (p. 224). — The Common 
 Law is recognized by the Constitution of 
 the United States and by the Laws of the 
 State of New York. In the Constitution 
 of the State (Art. xxxv) it is provided that 
 ** such parts of the Common-Law of Eng- 
 land and of the Statute- Law of England 
 as " (together with Colonial legislation) 
 **did form the Law of the Colony on 
 the 19th day of April, in the year of our 
 Lord 1775, be and continue the Law of 
 this State." These provisions continue till 
 this day, and can only be subverted by 
 
NOTES. 269 
 
 the overthrow of our Hberties and institu- 
 tions. Similar provisions are general else- 
 where. 
 
 My references to Chancellor Kent were 
 all carefully verified by my young friend, 
 Philip Sherwood Smith, Esq., of Buffalo, 
 in the law libraries to which he has access. 
 He gives them as follows : *' People vs. 
 Ruggles, 8 Johnson, p. 290, et seq.; " in- 
 cluding '* Act concerning oaths, Revised 
 Statutes, first ed., vol. i., p. 405"; and 
 **Tremaine's Pleas of the Crown, p. 226, 
 case of Taylor." 
 
 The argument of Webster in the famous 
 ** Girard Case " greatly impressed me at 
 the time, and will always be worth refer- 
 ring to by persons interested in the " Re- 
 ligious Instruction of the Young, and the 
 Christian Ministry." See works of that 
 eminent jurist, vol. vi., pp. 133-184, and 
 the judgment of the Supreme Court of 
 Pennsylvania as therein cited (p. 182) in 
 the case of Updegraph, etc. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Renan (p. 232). — If in a former note I 
 have unfavourably contrasted Sir Edwin 
 Arnold's second-hand profaneness with that 
 of his original, M. Renan, I find that Canon 
 Pearson has very pointedly noted something 
 
270 NOTES. 
 
 of the same sort in others of the same school. 
 He refers to what is '* coarsely asserted in 
 vernacular writings, unrelieved by the dis- 
 astrous talent of M. Renan." See Pear- 
 son's note on Dean Lyall (lU supra), p. 35. 
 My friend Mr. Smith (see Note XXIV.) 
 calls my attention to a recent work of 
 Renan, in which he intimates the possibiHty 
 of his return to Faith in a very striking 
 passage. But since this Note was in the 
 printer's hands the death of this unfortu- 
 nate man of genius (Oct. 2, 1892) is an- 
 nounced, and has profoundly touched me. 
 On his grave I drop a tear of pity and of 
 painful grief. He was the victim of a state 
 of things he did not create ; of a religion 
 which has substituted credulity for faith, 
 and of a state of society which has revolted 
 from it into hardened unbelief. Leave him 
 to his God ; we are not his judges. But, 
 out of his blaspheming lips, we may truly 
 afhrm, has been uttered more for Holy 
 Writ, and to honour Christ, than has ever 
 proceeded from the hollow hearts of some 
 who profess to be Christ's ministers. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 General Note (p. 236). — See these quo- 
 tations from Lactantius, in his De Opificio 
 Z^^/.' " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. vii. p. 
 
NOTES. 271 
 
 299. The eloquent text of the original I 
 have given in the Introductory Notice to 
 that volume, with some remarks on the 
 author. Nor can I forbear to speak of the 
 enthusiasm with which one of the beloved 
 friends and associates of my youthful min- 
 istry used to quote it. I refer to the Rev. 
 Peter Schermerhorn Chauncey, the rector 
 of Christ Church, Hartford. In a copy of 
 the Prayer-Book which he gave me, he has 
 inscribed it, and, long since, the dear saint 
 rested from his labours, having more than 
 realized this master passion of his pure and 
 lovely life in his successful ministry. Un- 
 derneath his citation he has added, from 
 Castalio, this noble assurance of the ulti- 
 mate triumph of the Gospel: '*Non sem- 
 per pendebit inter latrones Christus ; 
 aliquando resurget crucifixa Veritas." 
 
 Amen. 
 
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 1 1012 00043 6859