n r i s and Feature.. fcibrarp of Che theological ^emmarp PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY The Estate of Philip H # Waddell Smith -553 OF PP/ "> '% THE SCRIPTURES, FUNDAMENTAL FACTS AND FEATURES. BY Rev. J. B. SHEARER, D. D., LL. D. Professor of Biblical Instruction, Davidson College ; Author of Bible Course Syllabus ; Modern Mysticism ; Sermon on the Mount ; and Studies in the Life of Christ. RICHMOND, VA. : Presbyterian Committee of Publication. Copyright by R. E. MAGILL, Secretary of Publication. 1908. Printed by Whittet & Shepperson Richmond, Va. SJebtcatton. TO THE MEMORY OF HER WHO FOR NEARLY FIFTEEN YEARS WAS MY HELPER AND INSPIRATION, AND WHO HERSELF SO LOVED THE SCRIPTURES THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Unities of the Scriptures, 9 CHAPTER II. The Object and Scope of Written Revelation, 16 CHAPTER III. The Universal Book, 31 CHAPTER IV. The Canon. Is it Divinely Authenticated? . . 41 CHAPTER V. The Supernatural in the Scriptures, 55 CHAPTER VI. Creation and the Creator, 71 CHAPTER VII. The Relations of the Bible and Science, .... 78 CHAPTER VIII. Evolution. What Is It ? 84 6 Contents. CHAPTER IX. Evolution. Is It Scriptural? 9° CHAPTER X. Geology — The State of the Question, 96 CHAPTER XI. The Six Days of Creation, 102 CHAPTER XII. The Deluge, 112 CHAPTER XIII. Influence of Judaism on Ancient Civilization, 123 CHAPTER XIV. Influence on Ancient Religions, 129 CHAPTER XV. Influence on Ancient Philosophy, 139 CHAPTER XVI. The Bible in Liberal Education, 149 CHAPTER XVII. God In History, 159 PREFACE. THIS little volume presents another group of Bible studies which the author has been elaborating for thirty-five years in college classes. The cordial reception given to three similar volumes, and the hearty endorse- ment given them in so many quarters, emboldens me to continue the publication of these formulated results of class-room experience. I still have material for several other little volumes, most of it as original and as valuable as anything that I have presented to the public for their approval. It is not easy to unify fifteen or twenty Bible Studies under one title, but I am assured by competent judges that the name given this group is both happy and ac- curate, and the trend of the discussions logically coherent. The views of holy writ herein propounded and upheld are outside of the beaten track, and may, to some, seem novel, but( the reader will find nothing in them that savors 06 modern liberalism. A licentious exegesis and criticism is rejected in the interest of an intenser traditionalism. The fashion has been too often to surrender one half of the truth in the vain effort to save the other. The defender of the Bible may expect to "die in the last ditch" if he 3 Preface. surrender the outposts of truth as indefensible. The critic may read the table of contents, and ask what have Evolution, Geology, the Flood and Science in general, to do with the fundamental features of the Scriptures. Let him read the book and see. A sound exegesis is as essential in its place as inspiration. False principles of interpretation adopted in the interest of a false philosophy or science must sooner or later betray the entire citadel of faith. J. B. S. Davidson, N. C. THE SCRIPTURES: FUNDAMENTAL FACTS AND FEATURES. CHAPTER I. The Unities of Scripture. THE Bible is an aggregation of books, comprising the best literature of the Jewish people, but not by any means all their literature, much of which has per- ished. Its production spans about sixteen hundred years of their history. It is the work of thirty-two or more authors, at wide intervals in some cases, and in some cases contemporaneous. This literature is unique in that it shows wonderful harmonies and unities, such as are not to be found in the literature of any other people. These unities are essential to the position of authority which the Scriptures claim for themselves, not only among the people who produced them, but over the entire human race; and, besides, they assume to regulate the well-being, and to set forth the destiny of all created in- telligences. They also set forth and declare the ontology of the universe of God, the permanency of heaven and hell, and the transient existence of the physical universe. Now, what are the unities which enable the Scriptures to assert and maintain their claims to this exalted position among the literatures of the nations? These unities are fourfold : io The Scriptures, I. Unity of authorship, with a variety of authors. Moses, David, John and others, were as distinctly the authors of the books they wrote as Josephus, Milton and Bancroft. The personal element is found throughout their writings. There is also a divine authorship. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his son." (Heb. i. I, 2.) This unity of authorship is effected by inspiration. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," (2 Peter i. 21.) This is perhaps the simplest and also the most exhaustive possible definition of inspiration. This unity is constantly assumed. "The Scriptures foreseeing that God Would 1 justify the heathen through faith," etc. (Gal. iii. 8.) Such foresight is divine. "The Word of God is quick and powerful . . . and is a dist- cerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb. iv. 12.) Such knowledge is divine. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." (Ps. xix. 7-9.) These all, the law, the testimony, the statutes, the com- mandment, the fear, the judgments, all reflect the divine attributes and perfections. There were none to dispute this assumption, and the prophet who wrote stood pre- pared to attest his commission by miracles of knowledge or power. For this reason categorical statements are few. The famous passage in 2 Tim. iii. 16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," stands impregnable in its context, even if the rendering of the Revisers be admitted, and sets up the divine authorship of all the valuable and Fundamental Facts and Features. ii necessary content of the Scriptures — valuable "because given by inspiration of God" — a better rendering of the participial clause. The author is the Lord, the mediator of all the coven- ants. "Thus saith the Lord" is the prophet's formula and constant refrain. (Ex. iv. 22; Is. xxii. 14, 15; Rev. i. 8, and elsewhere.) II. Unity of aim, plan and purpose. "I am Alpha, and Omega, the beginning, and the end, the first and the last." (Rev. xxii. 13.) "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts xv. 18.) "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and forever." (Heb. xiii. 8.) Such a God must needs have a plan and purpose in his book of revelation as he unfolded it in the cen-, turies. It may be gathered from the Scriptures and ex- pressed in three propositions. 1. To preserve and vindicate the old truth against all comers. Both before and after the flood sin and satan, and the deceitful heart of man, conspired to change the truth of God into a lie, and the conflict has raged in all the ages between truth and falsehood. The Cain and Abel feud was the beginning of the conflict. The first commandment at Sinai, "Thou shalt have no other God before me," vindicates his original authority against "gods many and lords many," seeking to usurp his authority. The fourth commandment says "remember." The two tables of stone might well be called a remembrancer, and a witness to the old truth, promulgated anew with all the sanctions of Sinai. The prophets were the restorers of the "old paths." The oracles of God were written out and committed to the Jews for the saving of the truth. 2. The Scriptures record the history of the conflict and its issues, down to the close of the canon, and set forth the final triumph of the truth. "The Scripture saith unto 12 The Scriptures, Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth." (Rom. ix. 17.) In the ten great plagues of Egypt, the great battle between monotheism and polytheism was fought to a finish. James says : "Ye have heard of the patience of Job." (James v. II.) In that wonderful book of Job, possibly the first written of the canon, we find the record of the most malignant assault that Satan was ever per- mitted to make upon the righteous in the person of Job, with the Lord pledged for his vindication. The slanderer was utterly routed, and the righteous forever vindicated. So all through the Scriptures, wars and conflicts ; God and his eternal truth on one side, and sin and Satan and falsehood on the other. 3. The Scriptures expound the way of life, from Eden to the resurrection. This is the most obvious aim and purpose of the Scriptures. Natural conscience, obvious facts in universal experience and revelation, all proclaim man a sinner lost, "without hope and without God in the world," under the wrath and curse of God. The earliest record tells of sin and death, and promises that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Every covenant, every sacrificial rite, every prophet, and every type fulfilled, point out and expound the way of life. Moses and David, Isaiah and Daniel, Christ and Paul, teach the way of life, and John tells of the New Jerusa- lem and its glories, and of the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment. Salvation from sin and death, and eternal life and holiness, are the reason for the book. Its other and abundant incidental value is but subordinate and ancillary to this great and glorious purpose. In setting forth these Fundamental Facts and Features. 13 things, we may not forget that God has done all this, not for our sake, but for "his own glory." III. Unity of Doctrine. By doctrine we mean the complement or aggregate of religious truth revealed and taught from the beginning, and emphasized by inspired teachers as needed, and passed down the ages to us in the written word. Some imagine that the doctrine of the earliest ages was crude, imperfect, full of error, limited and partial, or, at best, merely germinal. These hold that doctrine was progressive in its growth until it was com- pleted at the close of the canon; that the crudities were gradually eliminated, and that new and purer forms of truth were added as the race could bear them, or needed them. Our contention is that man had the same needs from the beginning that we have, and was as fully able to bear the truth. The Lord was their constant, if not their daily teacher, by direct theophany, and by inspired patriarch and priest. There is no evidence that anything was modified or revoked, and there is no evidence that anything was added. The principle of the growth of the Scriptures was not doctrinal development, but rather the preservation of the old truth against perversion and cor- ruption. One or two illustrations may suffice here. In Isaiah i. 10-15, the prophet sets up no new doctrine, but vindicates the spirituality of true worship against the aggressive formalism of his day. Malachi, in iii. 8, teaches no new doctrine when he arraigns those who withhold their tithes, and shows their guilt. Every prophet and teacher reiterates old truth. Even Christ and Paul appeal to previous authority rightly understood. Christ says, "Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me." (Jno. v. 39.) Paul says, "what saith the Scriptures?" (Romans iv. 3.) Isaiah says, "to thf 14 The Scriptures, law and to the testimony," (Isa. viii. 20.) The superior light of the later Scriptures from our point of view, and as we read them, is due to the controversies made neces- sary by new heresies; c. g., The doctrine of the sonship is emphasized because the Pharisees disputed the sonship of Christ; the Sadducean heresy made it necessary to emphasize the doctrine of the resurrection; and so with other truth. IV. Unity of Morals. Some suppose that the earlier Scriptures present a low morality, such as would not pass to-day, and that morals were gradually unfolded and improved until Christ presents to us a pure and holy moral code. The true doctrine is that both Testaments are equally pure, benignant and liberal, equally holy, just and good. This would appear from the fact that the Lord is equally the author of both Testaments. The moral law, proclaimed on Mount Sinai and expounded on the Mount in Galilee, is the expression of the divine holi- ness. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. xviii. 25.) "The law is holy, the commandment holy, just and good." (Rom. vii. 12.) These unities are not separate and unrelated unities, but they are all found running through the entire Scrip- tures. In this discussion they are merely designated and defined, but they will be much more fully elucidated and illustrated, and if need be, defended in other connections. To this the next chapter is devoted. These four unities constitute the general argument for inspiration. As in the physical universe, the several unities of gravitation, heat, light and electricity are found throughout, and argue one creator for the whole, him- self infinite in his wisdom and power; so in the Bible, its unities, noted and discussed, argue it to be the product of one, infinite in his "wisdom, power, holiness, justice, Fundamental Facts and Features. 15 goodness and truth." Speculative and philosophic discus- sions of inspiration have their place in defending the doc- trine of inspiration among the learned, but the common- sense argument here indicated is sufficient for the faith of the childlike believer, and also sufficient to anchor us in our study of the Scriptures. CHAPTER II. The Object and Scope of Written Revelation. WE USE the term "Revelation," in its wider sig- nification, as the name of the Sacred Scriptures, and as implying divine authority for the whole, just as we call the whole the Word of God. Both of these names imply the orthodox view of inspiration. We shall assume that the book is as distinctly divine as if it all were actually revealed, while it is as distinctly human as if all were of human origin. It is the analogue of the Incarnate Word, in whom perfect divinity and inerrant humanity meet in one person — the God-man. While it is not the purpose at this time to discuss this view, it will, no doubt, appear incidentally that no other working hypothesis is so satisfactory as this, no matter what in- ductions we seek to make from the Scriptures. Writing looks to permanent preservation in unvarying form, and carries authority when duly authenticated. The "Ten Words" were written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and kept in the ark of the testimony under the most awful sanctions. Moses wrote his law in a book, and put it either in or beside the ark for a witness. Samuel wrote the "manner of the kingdom" in a book. Christ said to Satan, "It is written." There is no difference of opinion here. Nor is it im- portant to settle whether there were previous writings from which much of the earlier books of revelation was taken, nor how far such writings may have been inspired. It is now popular to say that the Scriptures are a Fundamental Facts and Features. 17 growth, a development from a few germinal truths into a complete system of doctrine and morals, keeping pace with the exigencies of the race in passing from infancy, so called, to full maturity. This view finds the whole Scriptures congruous and coherent, like a growing plant adding shoot to shoot and leaf to leaf, and flowers and fruit at the appointed season. It finds the whole Gospel logically and coherently contained in the Protevangelion, just as the plant is contained in the seed, but not dis- coverable except as unfolded in successive stages of growth from century to century. There is another theory closely akin to this, which finds blemishes and incongruities, and misapprehensions of truth, and barbaric and semi-barbaric codes, the crude products of a still crude humanity, to be superseded, as the race advances and light increases, by sounder doc- trines and purer morals, down to the close of the canon. Some who hold this theory find a continuation of this evolutionary process in the "Christian consciousness" until it yields a fruitage not found in the Scriptures at all, and even impossible there, because of the still narrow and contracted view of the sacred writers themselves; or in other words, the spiritual insight of the nineteenth century "would have been an anachronism" in the first. These two theories are one, in that they both assume'a "continuity of doctrinal development." But the former is far more coherent with our notions of the Divine Teacher and Revealer ; while the latter, if true, might be cited to prove the same stages in the development of di- vinity as are argued for humanity. It is worth our while to consider whether there be any such doctrinal development in the Scriptures as would justify either theory. Looking backwards into the Scrip- tures from our standpoint, it is evident that some things 18 The Scriptures, seem much clearer and are far more emphasized in the later books. Good and substantial reasons may be found for this, other than the hypothesis of development; and it may be that the facts are utterly inconsistent with this hypothesis. We are often cautioned not to read into the Scriptures our own preconceptions, and especially not to read into the earlier books views of truth gotten from the clearer teachings of the later. Without disparaging this caveat, it might be well to emphasize a counter caution, not to, read out of the earlier Scriptures many things which are necessary to their having any signification at all, to the utter emasculation and invalidation of the later also. No one will deny the historic development of the race into families, peoples, and nations, for the Scriptures ex- hibit this fully. Nor will any one dispute the growth of the volume of the Scriptures from century to century. It remains, however, to discover the law of that growth by a careful reference to the facts they furnish, before we can set up the "historic continuity of doctrinal de- velopment" as the law of that growth. There are cer- tainly many facts found in them which not only set aside much of the argument for this hypothesis, but do suggest another hypothesis wholly incompatible with it, which may be stated in the following propositions : 1. The whole body of truth was known to the ancients as a concrete unity, prior to our present written revelation. 2. Apparent modifications and additions are but the practical adaptation and application of old truth to new and varying conditions. 3. In the earlier Scriptures those things were written and emphasized which were most readily corrupted or most easily forgotten. 4. The volume of inspiration grew to keep pace with Fundamental Facts and Features. 19 the obscurations which sin and Satan sought to put on the old truth. As new perversions and heresies arose, new prophets, divinely accredited, set up the old truth in refutation. In the completed canon we have the record of the conflict — truth triumphant, Satan discomfited. An exhaustive presentation and discussion of the facts that bear upon this question would require a volume. It may be profitable here, however, to cite the surface facts and indicate their significance in such form as to ''blaze the way" for a more exhaustive induction. I. The human race had no such infancy as is assumed, for which a small modicum of truth would have been sufficient. Primitive man was in all respects a wonder in creation, a wonder until now ; in body, perhaps a giant, certainly of iron constitution, ten times as long- lived as now, even after the curse and blight of sin and the death sentence had passed upon him ; in spirit, "made after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness and true holiness, with dominion over the creatures." Such was man — marvel of marvels ! Who will deny that his necessities and exigencies were as extensive as his facul- ties, and as varied as his millennial experience? or that his God-given knowledge was equal to them all? II. There was ample provision, both before and after the fall, for his thorough indoctrination, and for pre- serving and conserving the same, in the probable absence of written doctrine. There was face to face converse with the Lord Jehovah, the mediator of all the covenants, and the theophanic revealer of the ages, all for purposes of instruction. The family was made the locus of a "holy seed," and the Sabbath the special time for teaching "knowledge, righteousness and true holiness," just as now. The head of every house was a priest, and had the oracle by virtue of his office, a fact often overlooked. 2o The Scriptures, There were also inspired visions given for instruction and easily distinguished from ordinary dreams, whether understood or not, and also inspired expositions of the same. To all this was added tradition, made valuable by the long lives of the patriarchs, and by the oft-repeated testimony of actual experiences and realizations of truth, and guarded by the inspiration of priest and prophet. And ages later, when the family priest was superseded by a priestly caste, the prophetical order was greatly ex- panded so as to guard against the possible evils of a hereditary priesthood on the one hand, and to supple- ment a partial canon on the other. III. The actual knowledge of the first generation was far more than a mere germ. When we consider the brevity of the early history, the wonder is that we find so much expressed or implied. The record in Genesis was written for the Jewish people, and is to be under- stood as they understood it. For example: When they read that Cain and Abel made their offerings, there was no need to mention the distinction between the sin-offer- ing and the meat-offering, and all the details thereof; the mere mention of the offerings was ample exposition ; and when Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," there was no need to define the doctrine of providence ; it is simply assumed as fundamental in her creed. In- deed it is noteworthy that statements of doctrine in the earlier Scriptures are commonly made in concrete form by assumption and by implication, rather than by categori- cal statement. The same is true of the later Scriptures also, except when, in refutation of some heresy, it be- comes necessary to set up the old truth in positive categories. IV. The fulness and completeness of truth from the beginning may be amply illustrated : Fundamental Facts and Features. 21 (a) The constitution of the family is so definitely given that neither Moses, nor Malachi, nor Christ add anything to it, but rather quote the same in refutation of the heresies of their day. (b) The Sabbath must have had its full significance from the beginning, because subsequent references to it in the law are a reminder of older obligations rather than new legislation ; and Christ's careful expositions are but a re-definition of its original limitations, made necessary by perversions of the true nature of Sabbath observance. (c) The knowledge of God was as complete and ac- curate in the early ages as since. An Eternal First Cause is assumed as the creator of all things. He is man's friend and counsellor, law-giver and judge. He vindi- cates truth, and determines heresy as final arbiter. He passes sentence on the sinner, and executes the same, or protects the criminal for a purpose. He declares his mercy in the very face of forfeited favor, and stays the death penalty. His blessing on all the works of his hand and the interlacing curses vindicated his attributes of jus- tice, goodness, power and knowledge in those early days as clearly as now. He was recognized as the God of creation, of providence and of grace. And if it be true that the name Jehovah — Jahveh — translated Lord in so many versions, as well as in the New Testament, was the specific name of the second per- son of the Godhead, as can easily be shown, then the doctrine of the Trinity was the very surface doctrine of the earliest records, and the supposed necessity for the distinction of "Elohistic and Jehovistic" absolutely fails the critics. (d) And what of their moral code? No man can read the first eight chapters of Genesis and fail to see that the moral law was as inexorable as at Sinai, and was en- 22 The Scriptures, forced by stupendous sanctions, as the waters of the flood do testify. (e) But perhaps the Protevangelion was a mere ger- minal fore-shadowing of a plan of salvation to be un- folded and understood after the lapse of four thousand years. If we study it in the light of its origin and set- ting — the covenant of works, the tempter, the curse, the promise, the Cain and Abel feud, the accepted bloody sac- rifice, the rejection of the mere thank-offering, and the divine rebuke of Cain — we can but recognize the plan of salvation in its concrete entirety from which Cain and Socinus have taken nothing away, and to which Paul and Calvin have added nothing new. That plan of sal- vation revealed at Eden and transmitted in type and prophecy is, like its author, "the same yesterday, to-day and forever." V. For all practical purposes, however, cur proper starting point is Noah, and the quantum of truth which he possessed was the heritage of the race when entering on its new career. When we remember that he was a "righteous man," "perfect in his generation," and a "preacher of righteousness," enjoying the divine counsel both before and after the flood, it is safe to assume that all former truth was his, embracing, at least, what we have already sketched. All the facts of his life go to confirm this view, as witness his Sabbath, his sacrifice, his covenant, and his curse. We start here with no mere germ of truth, and with no imbecile infancy of the race, needing but a small modicum of knowledge. Whatever may have been the apostasies before the flood under the leadership of Cain and his sons, the race made a second start under conditions most favorable for preserving the knowledge of the true God and the way of life, and the old patriarch was their teacher for three hundred years. Fundamental Facts and Features. 23 The families descended from him, and growing into nations, were of one faith and worship, just as they were of one tongue. VI. In the course of time heresies were invented, and apostasies followed, and men started on the same career of evil as before the flood, except as retarded by the confusion of tongues and other causes. It became nec- essary in the economy of grace to adopt a new expedient, or a new line of policy (I speak reverently), in order to save the truth against the time of general apostasy. Tra- dition had once failed with all its associated advantages, such was the perversity of sin and the cunning of Satan. While the danger was still remote, Abram was chosen, and made a party to a special covenant ; a chosen people grew out of his loins, unique in their training and ex- ceptional in their relations to God. They were to receive the "oracles of God" in written, permanent form for a testimony against encroaching apostasies, and so to bless all nations, and prepare the world for the 'coming of the true seed, the promised Christ. VII. There is no evidence that apostasy was general in the time of the patriarchs, but rather the reverse. Abram found the "fear of the Lord" on the thrones of Egypt and of Gerar, and two hundred years later Joseph held no exceptional creed in Egypt. Melchizedek, king of Salem, was a high priest, and Abraham was only a temporary member of his constituency of family priests. There is no mystery about this man, if we recognize him as a high priest in a catholic hierarchy, to which, no doubt, belonged Potipherah, priest of On, Jethro, priest of Midian, of later date, and later still, Balaam, who was evidently high priest of his people, and of wide reputa- tion, a priest of the Lord, officially as true as steel, but personally as corrupt as sin, himself marking a stage 24 The Scriptures, in a growing apostasy. The indications are clear enough that the Canaanite nations were not yet apostates in the days of the patriarchs. Two centuries, however, wrought great changes in Canaan and in Egypt, while sixty-six were growing into two millions ; and they emerged at Mount Sinai to receive the written oracles none too soon to save the waning truth from her enemies. All the sub- sequent history shows that the nations were not ignorant of the claims of the Lord Jehovah, though they so largely rejected his authority. In David's day, Hiram, king of Tyre, was as orthodox in his expressions as David him- self, so far as the history goes ; and when Tyre and Israel had fallen into a common apostasy, the prophet Isaiah de- nounces against them 'both a captivity of seventy years, and apparently for the same reason. We need not cite similar knowledge of the truth at Nineveh and Babylon at a later day, for other forces were at work besides natural succession. It is, however, pertinent to notice that the earliest idolatry of which we have any record was a ritualistic idolatry in worship of the true God. And the more we study the usages and traditions of pagan peoples, the more evident it is that they are all but secondary crystallizations from a common faith, and the detritus from a common original formation, the origin and details )f which are in the Scriptures. VIII. The books of Moses put into permanent form all those things which were most liable to perversion, and which were in most need of emphasis amid changing con- ditions, whether they were ceremonial, civil or social cus- toms, or matters of moral obligation. They were not new, but were put in permanent and authoritative form against the corrupting tendencies of the age; e. g., the elaborate provisions of Leviticus do but record the more briefly stated practices of the earlier patriarchs, with con- Fundamental Facts and Features. 25 ceded new adaptations to new conditions ; the Sabbath, the altar, the bloody sacrifice, the priest, the clean victim were of early origin, while the special provision for the continual burnt-offering and other mere details of times, seasons and numbers were probably or at least possibly new; or in social law, the levirate marriage was as dis- tinctly lawful in Judah's family as in the happier nuptials of Boaz and Ruth; or in civil matters, the principle of government by elders was as distinctly marked when Moses covenanted with the elders of his people in Egypt, as when at Mount Sinai, by divine command, he called out the same seventy elders and put honor and responsi- bility upon them; or in the moral code, the harlotry of, Tamar was adjudged worthy of death centuries before the seventh commandment was promulgated from Sinai's top. Were it not for the obvious fact that Mosaic codes and customs were not new in their general trend and under- lying principles, and often in actual detail, hostile criti- cism could never have given them plausible origins else- where. On our theory, the hypothesis of earlier docu- ments and earlier codes would tend to strengthen their authoritative codification at Mount Sinai, rather than to disintegrate and weaken. Indeed the vocation of the destructive critic would utterly fail him on our theory, for if the codification and recension be only the making- permanent the doctrines of the ages, what matters it whether such codification took place earlier or later? His criticism is largely in the interest of the evolution of doc- trine, morals, government and civilization, if not of hu- manity itself. IX. There can be no question of the completeness of civil, social and moral law as presented in Mosaic legis- lation, while the ceremonial seems to occupy too much 26 The Scriptures, space and attention. There is a reason for this, however. The ceremonial system is an elaborate book of prophecy expressed in object lessons instead of written language, eminently adapted to exposition by parent, priest and prophet. It was necessary to fix the minutest detail? against corruption or loss. There is a minimum of verbal prophecy in the earlier books of Scripture because not then necessary; but in the later history, when the cere- monial was waning and "waxing old" and of increasingly difficult access on account of the dispersion, and was even suspended for a season, the volume of written verbal prophecy was rapidly expanded, and was promulgated through the synagogue, so as to set forth for all, both Jews and proselytes, that which had been so well ex- pressed in type before. It was only a change of method and means to meet new conditions. It may also be noted here that the prophets were much engaged in correcting abuses, restoring the law, and set- ting up sound principles against encroaching heresies in doctrine and practice. Here also the volume of inspira- tion grew to keep pace with the obscurations and perver- sions of faith and practice. Such truths as had not been attacked were little emphasized at an earlier day, or rather in the earlier Scriptures. The period of decline in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel was preeminently a time of apostasy. It is not surprising therefore that there was large work for the prophetic order and that their numbers reached five hundred at one time in the days of Ahab and Jezebel. The major and the minor prophets belong all to the period of decline and restoration. What wonder then that the truth seems to shine out with new light in their writings ! They were the restorers of the old paths rather than teachers of new doctrines. For example : When Isaiah arraigned formalism, and Fundamental Facts and Features. 27 vindicated the substance as against the mere form, was he promulgating a new doctrine, or was he not rather refuting a rampant heresy which substituted the form for the substance? a heresy scotched for a time, but not yet dead. When Malachi said, "Will a man rob God?" was he teaching God's ownership of the tithe as a new doctrine? He was only unmasking that rank heresy by which they not only withheld the tithe but justified themselves in it — a heresy unknown to Abraham, Jacob and Moses, who evidently believed that the tithe was the Lord's. Or take the Sermon on the Mount, when centuries later still, he that gave the law on Mount Sinai, ex- pounded the same on the Mount in Galilee, brushing away Pharisaic glosses and interpretations and traditions by which they "made the law of none effect," and re- stored the law to its original and true significance. Phari- seeism with its negative pole Sadduceeism, was the last great heresy of the ages. Christ and the apostles vin- dicated the old truth against all comers. They based their claims and their teaching on the known, accepted, obvious and common sense interpretation of the older Scriptures. "Search the Scriptures," said Christ. "To the law and to the testimony," cried Paul. Their teach- ings and writings bristle with polemics. Even the gentlo John cries, "Believe not every spirit," "No lie is of the truth." There was no more powerful exposer of heresy and expounder of truth than he, and in his epistles we find the only complete, exhaustive and final refutation of that most pestilent heresy, antinomianism. For four thousand years the Father of Lies exhausted all his ingenuity and malice to destroy the bulwarks of eternal truth. He succeeded only too well in deceiving our race and destroying the hopes of man. The Prince of 28 The Scriptures, Peace, the Revcaler, stood by his people and fought the battle with falsehood and sin. The enemy, when beaten on one field, planned his cunning assaults on another, till the whole ground was fought over. Every refuge of lies was overthrown, every hiding place was exposed, every possible heresy was sifted, and every truth vindicated. The victory was won; the record of the conflict was written ; the canon was closed. Prophet and oracle ceased because no longer needed. The Book contains the uni- versal and final appeal. We approach it with every hard question with the same confidence with which Joshua and Eleazer stood before the Shekinah. Satan can only go over the old battle field, and repeat himself and his tactics in order to deceive the unwary and the ignorant. His new pretences are all old; his new heresies are all obso- lete; his new disguises are but the tattered remnants of the sheep's clothing so often torn from him by the great shepherd of Israel. The wolf can only prowl on the old battle fields, and the most timid believer may put him to hasty flight with a single weapon from this armory. The recasting of old falsehoods in new philosophic forms of statement, and in new metaphysical nomen- clature is all that he now can do, and nothing pleases him better than when the defenders of truth handle the same weapons instead of that "sharp two-edged sword," which is the word of God. Human experience had already been exhaustive in Solomon's day, and he put much of it in permanent form for the guidance of those to come after. The same things in essence had been re-enacted in divers forms by agencies divine, human, and satanic, but the historic argu- ment, the logic of events was not yet complete. Howi much more may we now say with him, "The thing that hath been is that which shall be ; and that which is done Fundamental Facts and Features. 29 is that which shall be done; and there a is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, see, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us." What, then, is the law of the growth of the sacred oracles — the object and scope of written revelation? We answer in one triple proposition : To preserve and vindi- cate the old truth against all comers ; to record the history of the conflict and its issues ; and to expound and illus- trate the way of life from Eden to the resurrection. Objections to this theory arise from two sources : the mistaking of new historic facts and their obvious lessons for new revelations of truth ; and a total misapprehension of the relations of the prophets to the Mosaic economy, and even of Christ himself to the same, and through it, to the older covenants. Suffice it to say that the prophet was commissioned to enforce and not to modify ; and Christ was so "made under the law" to obey and to suffer, that it was not competent for him to add aught to, or take aught from that which he had before set up with paramount authority. He came "not to destroy but to fulfill." Several valuable corollaries flow from this theory if it be accepted in its entirety. 1. The fixity of truth from the beginning, like the fixity of species, while it presents great variety in its ap- plications and concrete manifestations, as the ages pass. 2. The absolute sufficiency and completeness of truth, written and unwritten, at the successive stages of the mediatorial economy. 3. The lawfulness of constructing a whole body of divinity on a few recorded truths, just as comparative anatomy reconstructs the ancient saurian on a single dis- covered bone; one bone implies all. 30 The Scriptures, 4. The superior value of the historic method, the logic of events, over the purely exegetical in the defence of truth. The methods of Augustine, Calvin and Hodge seem to be a partial reversal of the methods of Christ and Paul, and just so far weaker and less satisfactory. 5. It supersedes the plausibilities of the humanitarian,, the rationalist, the liberalist, and the destructive. 6. Christian apologetics rises to the higher ground of Christian polemics, putting the beast, the false prophet, and that old serpent to shameful rout with the word of God which is the "Sword of the Spirit." CHAPTER III. The Universal Book. THE study of literature is beginning to take a much higher place in education and deservedly so. Much of the so-called study of literature is limited to mere hand- books, setting forth names and personal traits of authors, and the names and character of their several productions, with brief selections by way of sample and illustration. Such studies seem intended to improve the taste and style of the student, and the result expected is aptly ex- pressed in the one word "culture." Such a study of lit- erature is wholly inadequate, and even misleading. The literature itself is the proper object of study. Books contain the best thinking of the men who wrote them, expressed in their best style, elaborated out of the real experiences of life, and arranged to accomplish noble ends. The man who masters the works of one great author, thereby approximates the greatness of his intel- lect, assimilates into himself his moral force, imbibes the very grandeur of his conceptions, and appropriates his knowledge in such a way that when he reproduces it in his own thinking, it comes with all the freshness and vigor of absolute originality. Such a student is thus so inspired with the aims and impulses of his author that he can start from his vantage ground and achieve yet greater things. The culture, which is in itself so desirable, is the natural and incidental product of such study, and not it- self the prime object of pursuit; just as happiness is the result of the pursuit of virtue, and is not itself the chief 32 The Scriptures, good. The student of literature, therefore, has little use for books about literature, except as he needs a grammar or a glossary. Some men study literature, again, on the same principle as that on which they string beads. Memory is the string, and fine figures, racy anecdotes, striking allusions and fine passages of rhetoric are strung thereon for ready use. To such a student of literature, a cyclo- paedia of quotations or a concordance, is the perfection of tools. If one could master the entire literature of a people, he would present in himself a marvel, versatility of genius, profundity of thought, universality of knowl- edge, the climax of wisdom, and the perfection of beauty. At least, he would realize in himself all these things, in so far as they are found in the literature he masters ; and just so far we might call him a universal man. Now, there is a literature, the absolute mastery of which will make this universal man. Greek and Roman literature fall far short of such perfection, though they ought to be studied, and will be studied till the end of time — studied as the fathers of English literature studied them. The literature of the English-speaking people falls short of a universal literature, except so far as it draws its inspiration from the universal fountain. There is a literature, unique and complete, the product of a remarkable people, extending over a period of six- teen hundred years, the expression of a long-continued civilization — a varying and widely-varied civilization^ Allow me to repudiate, once for all, the terms barbaric and semi-barbaric, as applied to a people whose law-giver was divine, and whose civil king and supreme judge was the Eternal Son of God. The literature of that people, comprised in the Scrip- tures of the Old and New Testaments, is, from every Fundamental Facts and Features. 33 point of view, the most remarkable of all the literatures. Modern critics call it a literature to disparage it; we call it the literature — The Bible — to exalt it and to locate it among literatures. It is unlike all other literatures in that it is both human and divine. We approach it from the human side and find it as distinctly human as if it were all human ; we approach it from the divine side, and find it as distinctly divine as if it were all divine — the analogue of the real Word, the God-man. Its facts are all attested, its conclusions are all incontrovertible, its principles are all impregnable. All the mere human pro- ductions of that people have been eliminated from the compend, and have in the main perished. You find therein all the valued elements and forms of literature: history and biography, poetry and proverb ; philosophy and fiction, civil codes and social customs, morals and religion, and, withal, a prophetic vision which sweeps the whole arc of time, from the creation to the final glory, and unfolds the mysteries of two eternities. Such a literature, with such an origin, and such author- ship, may well be set forth as a universal literature; and, bound in one volume, it may be called the Universal Book. It is a mistake to limit its value to matters spiritual, asi is the fashion in some quarters, and that for the purpose of disparaging the remainder, and with the result of de- stroying, or, at least, damaging the whole. Without quoting its own claims, it is fair to presume that the whole is profitable, and that none of its parts are super- fluous. It is safe and proper, just here, to premise a few things : (a) This literature grew in volume as the centuries passed, just as other literatures, but not on the same principle. Each addition to these last is, in part, the product of the time and conditions which gave it birth, 34 The Scriptures, and, in part, the product of personal genius, while the ad- ditions to the Bible are but the working out of a plan and purpose by one author, who determined the whole. This opens up the question of the object and scope of a written revelation — a question discussed in the last chapter. Suf- fice it to affirm, that it is not an evolutionary product of an evolving civilization, but rather a reducing to perma- nent form of the doctrines of the ages, and a necessary consecutive refutation of newly-rising heresies. The growth of the volume of inspiration kept pace with ad- vancing perversions, so as to save the truth against the time of universal apostasy. (b) Each separate book of the Bible reflects the local color and conditions of its author and times, and is ex- actly adapted to the immediate end for which it was written. This does not, as some imagine, mar its general utility, but rather enhances the certitude of its lessons. (c) This book, like all other books, is to be interpreted according to the laws of language, which are as imperious as the law of gravitation, and an honest and competent exegesis carries conviction against all comers. Sound exegesis is in its place as necessary as inspiration itself. Now, if the points made thus far be accepted, it will hardly be necessary to prove the Bible to be the universal book ; it would seem sufficient to illustrate the same. We need not forget, however, that apt illustrations carry with them all the force of a syllogism, and are far more easily apprehended. I. The Bible is pre-eminently a book of facts — attested facts. Now, science has for its object the discovery and proper formulation of facts, and seeks to make proper in- ferences from the same, by processes both inductive and deductive. True science must include all necessary data, gathered Fundamental Facts and Features. 35 from observation, experience, and competent testimony. Now, the Bible does not teach science, but every fact in the Bible or elsewhere has, or may have, a positive scien- tific value — so great that one single fossil shell found in the wrong place would necessitate the destruction and reconstruction of the entire classifications of one noble science, and perhaps the modification of others collateral. The facts of the Bible, then, are the primary, fundamental facts of science, attested and recorded by the Holy Ghost, through Moses and Daniel and Paul, and are of superior authentication to those recorded by Humboldt, Agassiz, and Spencer. The science which ignores those primary Bible data is partial, misleading, and presumptively false. 1. For example, the science of philology deals with the origin and growth of language. The philologist finds certain laws operating to-day in the formation of dialects and in divergencies of speech, and existing tongues show the operation of these laws in the past ; and he concludes that all differences of language originated in this way. The confusion of tongues at Babel is a primary fact, and should be so recognized. The failure to start with it leads to a final rejection of it. 2. Or take ethnology, which deals with the origin of nations and peoples. The true starting point of the science is found in the tenth chapter of Genesis, where are written the generations of the sons of Noah : "And by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." 3. Why has the philosopher sought the summum bonum, man's supreme good, in vain, except that he has overlooked the revealed fact, that "man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." 4. In ethics, the world is full of systems and theories, which practically ignore "the Fall," "total depravity," and 36 The Scriptures, the processes of "sanctification by the Spirit." There are no better attested facts than these attested in the Scriptures. 5. In psychology, the science of the human soul, men of the largest learning and ability have elaborated plausi- ble. systems of every shade, from absolute materialism on the one hand, to the subtlest idealism on the other; whereas the surface Bible data of "body" and "spirit" are the starting point of the study of man. And so through all the range of earth-born sciences. In their conclusions, they do sometimes suggest a mis- taken exegesis of the Scriptures — as in the case of Gali- leo — but they cannot convict them of error. All truth is a unit in its correlations, and presents essential har- mony at all overlapping points. How, then, shall agnos- ticism formulate a science in harmony with revelation? Faith, therefore, remands all "science falsely so-called" to revise its agnostic conclusions, and to introduce Bible data as fundamental and paramount. II. The Scriptures are full of general principles, as zvell as attested facts, which need no further enunciation or elucidation. Indeed, every categorical proposition is closely allied to and dependent on some general truth. When general truths are once duly authenticated, they rank along with the axiomatic truths by which they have been tested, and themselves become the tests of other rational processes. This is true in mathematics. Thus, when once it is proven that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, no rational process can be accepted as true which in premise or con- clusion contravenes this theorem. Now, the Scriptures are full of principles as well as facts ; and what is a prin- ciple but the statement of a complex fact? These prin- ciples are sometimes the conclusions of rational argument 5 Fundamental Facts and Features. 37 sometimes the utterances of a sanctified common sense; and sometimes the results of actual experience ; and some- times the more formal oracles of supreme wisdom; but, however they may appear to be set forth, they have tfod divine imprimatur and the seal of eternal truth. All other truths must accord with them or be rejected. Rational- ism hates these fetters and scorns their limitations, and claims for itself the inerrancy which it denies to the Scriptures, and brings all truth, human and divine, to the test of its own imperious and unwarranted assumptions. The principles of sound morals and good government, of true philosophy and common sense, are all found in this book of books, and woe betide all that varies from it. The illustrations of this will be more apparent as we illustrate this broader proposition. III. The Universal Book solves all the problems of the ages. Hebrew civilization, reaching from Abraham to, John, extending over two thousand years, modified by the civilizations of Egypt and Babylon, Assyria and Per- sia, Greece and Rome, and itself modifying them in turn, may fairly be supposed to have grappled with every, problem. In this there is "nothing new under the sun." "That which has always been shall always be." Human nature is everywhere and always the same, and asserts it- self under varying conditions. The same things in es- sence are re-enacted in divers forms, and their solutions are substantially the same. These problems are of su- preme interest to the generations engaged in their solu- tion, and they inspire the literature of every people. It seems fair to claim that this literature illumines every human path with the light of divine wisdom. Take the lowest view of the scope of revelation, that it is only re- demptive. Redemptive of what? Is it only a personal redemption? This view is too narrow, because every in- 38 The Scriptures, dividual has necessary relations to every other individual. Is it not also the redemption of the family and of the state? The race is to be redeemed, socially, politically, commercially and industrially, if ever it shall come to pass that "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fading together, and a little child shall lead them. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowl- edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." The revealed word is adequate to all the race results set forth in these wondrous figures of speech. The Bible is the text-book for the race; it touches human thought and action at every point, and may well regulate the whole. Let us cite a few illustrations. 1. The covenant made with Noah on that beautiful wSabbath day, when he came out of the ark, and ratified by sacrifice, and sealed with the bow in the cloud, as if. the very sign-manual of heaven were written across the sky, is the *'bill of rights" for the race, giving the guar- anty of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Under it the plowman follows his furrow and the reaper gathers his grain, for the promise is that "seed time and harvest shall not fail." Under it we eat flesh, as well as the fruits of the ground, and the eating of blood is for- bidden, because it is the life. Under it, murder is pun- ished with death ; blood redeemed with blood. This is a covenant for the race, and every attempt to set aside its provisions has met disaster and shame. 2. Or, consider the God-given right of representative free government. It was given to be exercised under a warrant. "Take you wise men, and understanding, Fundamental Facts and Features. 39 known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you." "Able men, and men of truth, who fear an oath, and hate covetousness." So long as the choice con- forms to the warrant, a nation may be free, but when the warrant is broken, jure divino free government perishes in anarchy or despotism. 3. Or, take another illustration. Aristocracies have been the bane of republics and the curse of all peoples. The Hebrew commonwealth had such checks and balances in its inspired constitution as to minimize their danger, if not to make them impossible. Aristocracies are a seven-headed monster, feeding insatiate on helpless popu- lations. History tells us of priestly aristocracies, blooded aristocracies, landed aristocracies, monied aristocracies, military aristocracies, literary aristocracies, and prescrip- tive aristocracies. It were an interesting study to see how the model republic was guarded against all these. The author hopes to discuss this elsewhere. 4. Take another illustration. Adulterations and imita- tions characterize the civilization of which we constitute a part. Foods and medicines are adulterated. Clothes and shoes are shoddy; tableware and jewelry are base but brilliant imitations ; education and religion, too, have their imitations and adulterations. I once heard the cynical Irish patriot, Mitchell, pronounce the word "civilization" with inimitable scorn. "A hybrid word," said he, "with a Latin head and a Greek tail, whose typical product is a God-forbidden mule." I do not know how far he under- stood the divine law against hybridization, adulteration, and spurious imitations. "It is confusion," says the di- vine law. 5. Take a last illustration out of hundreds more. The family is of divine origin; its constitution is of divine authority, the primordial unit of church and state, and the 40 The Scriptures, creature of neither, one woman for one man, an indissolu- ble bond, the man the head of the woman, the proper sub- jection of children, the autonomy of home, the end a holy seed. But, instead, the outcome has, too often, been polygamy, easy divorce, young America, woman's rights, boarding-house life, co-operative nurseries and kitchens, and the relegation of childhood and youth to mere hire- lings. Degrade marriage to a mere co-partnership be- tween equals, to be dissolved at will by either party with- out social stigma, these, and a host of other evils, sweep in like a flood, and the very foundations of church and state, as God ordained them, are destroyed. Who will construct anything better out of the ruins ? In conclusion, i. Suffice it to say that every phase of man's life has its laws, and every relation in life has its duties and responsibilities, and these all operate so like the laws of the physical universe that men talk helplessly of fortune and fate and destiny; and well they might, if left to solve the problems of either alone. But this Universal Book sheds over all the clear light of a divine purpose, and provides for every exigency. No man, nor people, nor nation are left between the upper and the nether mill-stone, to be ground to powder, except as the teachings of Scripture are neglected. 2. Some study the Scriptures devotionally ; some theo- logically ; others homiletically. I would disparage neither of these, except it be exclusive. Every educated man should find in them the unification and interpretation of all sound learning, and the test of all that is vicious and inadequate. There is nothing good in human thought and action, in its ultimate product and analysis, for which we do not find a warrant there, or at least a concrete il- lustration. Nor, is there any human heresy which is not fairly exposed and refuted, either expressly or by implica- tion in the Word of God. CHAPTER IV. The Canon of Scripture. Is It Divinely Authenti- cated ? THERE are many interesting questions concerning the Scriptures which are not yet answered ; and there are some others not yet formally asked, for want of a definite sense of their importance. If all could be answered in a satisfactory way, it would greatly simplify Christian apologetics, and supersede much hostile criti- cism. It has been long a matter of comment that most of the attacks on the Scriptures originate either in ignorance of the matters objected to, or of the evidence therefor, or in a misapprehension of some important principle or fact on which the authority of the Scriptures hinges. No question has occupied more attention than that of the authority of the Canon. By Canon we mean the authoritative list of books in our Bible. Such questions as these have given much trouble: Why does the Canon include certain books and exclude others? How do we know that all the books have been included or excluded that ought to have been ? Did the list of books need an inspired authentication as well as the books themselves? Various answers have been given to the trend of these questions. The Papist claims the obvious necessity for a divine authentication of the Canon. He finds it in the claimed infallibility of "Mother Church," in the exercise of which she includes in her list certain books which Protestants reject as spurious. She charges Protestants 42 The Scriptures, with rejecting these last on purely rationalistic grounds, and on a mere criticism of their contents. She says that if we reject the infallibility of her councils there is left us no authoritative Canon. The Higher Criticism, in minimizing the miraculous, and in reducing inspiration tq a higher action of merely human faculties, finds the crit- erion of all truth in Christian consciousness discerning truth as its own sole witness. This most refined form of rationalism finds some truth everywhere, both inside and outside of the Scriptures, and makes the question of canonical authority of little moment. It dismisses Papist and Protestant alike as worshippers of a kind of fetish called the Canon. It is not now the purpose to give these critics more than a passing notice, and such incidental refutation as may follow from an attempt to set up the truth. Nor is it our purpose to make formal reply to the Papist, for he seems to us to be right in his fundamental proposition that the Canon needs divine authentication. His mistake is in lodging it in the infallibility of his church. We are concerned with the Protestant view. We be- lieve in canonical authority for each and every book in the sacred volume as received. We hold this view in the full exercise of the right of private judgment as against the claims of popes and councils. But how do we reach it? We get it first by tradition and by authority, just a3 we do the most of our knowledge before we begin to verify for ourselves. Tradition gives presumptive and prescriptive authority, even though we do not accept it as final, as does the prelatist. When we wish further con- firmation we usually discuss the claims of the several books themselves, the external and the internal evidence of their genuineness and authenticity, both separately Fundamental Facts and Features. 43 and as parts of a whole. And as believers, we rely on the self-evidencing power of the Spirit operating in our hearts through the truth and giving us what is aptly termed spiritual discernment. This last is the beginning and the end with most minds, and ought so to be, for it is an ex- perimental knowledge of God and truth. A believer might, however, attain this from having seen and read one single gospel or epistle, or even from having heard one single sermon with no knowledge of the Canon as such. Many books of the Bible set up no special claim to canonical authority, such as Esther and Ruth. Is the Canon to be settled only by an examination of the in- spiration of each several book? And if we could by ex- amination determine the inspiration of any book, have we a right to assume that every inspired book belongs in the Canon and was enrolled therein? Our writers have realized the difficulty of a final argument from this source. They have, therefore, sought to set up the Old Testament Canon on the authority of the New. Nor is there any question that Christ and his apostles do give the most abundant and satisfactory testimony to the exact Canon as it stands to-day. Uninspired authors do the same, but not in a way so satisfying to the believer in both Testa- ments. Having accepted the Old Testament Canon on the authority of the New, it becomes necessary to vindicate the New, else both are put into the same jeopardy, unless we accept as final and satisfactory the usual argument from tradition confirmed as already outlined. The same instinct that seeks divine authentication in one case craves it also in the other. Does the authority of the whole Canon depend on a sound induction of particulars, and has such induction been exhaustive both by comprehen- sion and by exclusion? 44 The Scriptures, The more we look at this matter, the more we feel the need of an attested Canon, carrying with it the same au- thority as a list of books that we claim for their contents if they belong to it. It does not seem final and sufficient to rest the Old Testament Canon on the references of Christ and his apostles, for they do not so rest it. They found that Canon in existence as an authorized Canon, settled as against the Samaritans, who accepted only the first five books, and as against the earlier Sadducees, who rejected the later prophets. The question therefore recurs: On what authority did the Jews the world over accept it as complete and authoritative? Such authority, if they had it, would amply justify Christ and his apostles in bringing all their claims and teachings to the test of its contents. An appeal to it was a final appeal to divine authority itself divinely attested. The Old Testament Canon was settled during the inter- mediate period between the post-exilic prophets and Christ. If it be true, as is commonly stated, that the Jews were without prophet or oracle during that period, then the Canon could not have had more than the human authority of those who settled it. If, however, it can be shown that there was prophet and oracle during that period, then it may be possible to connect the settling of the Canon with them in such a way as to find a divine authentication. To this new question let us therefore ad- dress ourselves : i. The civil government of the Hebrew commonwealth was a theocracy, in which the Lord Jehovah was the civil head or king. The human head, whether judge, king, or governor, was his viceroy who ruled in his name and by his authority. The organs of communication between the king and his viceroy were prophet and oracle. The Fundamental Facts and Features. 45 prophet was a civil functionary as well as a religious teacher. The oracle was limited to the high priest, and belonged to him by virtue of his office, as will be shown presently. If we are right in claiming, as all the authori- ties do, that the theocracy continued from its institution at Mount Sinai to the coming of Christ, with a claimed interregnum during the period of the kingdom (which is hardly probable), then the prophet or oracle, or both, were a necessity. A means of inter-communication is an essential feature of a theocracy. Pagan theocracies had their oracles. The Papacy, which claims to be a theocracy, has been consistent in claiming infallibility. We thus have an a priori argument for the existence of prophet and oracle down to the time of Christ, which at least raises a presumption in its favor sufficient to throw the burden of proof on him who denies it. 2. When Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, saw the vision while ministering in the temple, and after- wards came out and "could not speak unto them," the people "perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple ; for he beckoned unto them and remained speechless." Luke tells the story so simply that we are constrained to conclude that the people were no strangers to such mar- vels. We need hardly quote the matter-of-fact way in which Mary received her vision, nor the recorded inspira- tion and prophecies of Mary, of Elizabeth, and of Zacha- rias, given before Christ was born, because plausible ex- ception might be taken to the fairness of their citation in this connection, though we by no means surrender the right to do so. 3. There are two cases much more to the point, Anna and Simeon. Anna, the prophetess, a "widow of four- score years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day," was 46 The Scriptures, only exercising her prophetic function when she saw the Babe, and "spake of him to all them that looked for re- demption in Jerusalem." Simeon was "just and devout," waiting for the con- solation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was upon him. and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." There is no need to quote his beautiful prophecies. Now both these, Anna and Simeon, date many years back into the intermediate period of which it is claimed, "they had neither prophet nor oracle," and cannot in any sense be called a part of a new dispensation. 4. Josephus makes mention of two prophets who lived half a century before the birth of Christ, Simeon or Pollio, and Sameas, his colleague. The former is sup- posed to be the father of the Simeon mentioned in Luke. Pollio and Sameas were president and vice-president of the great Sanhedrim, and also of the great university at Jerusalem, and were the most learned and influential of all the Jewish doctors. Josephus not only tells us that they were prophets, but he also gives some of their prophecies and their fulfilment, admixed with no puerili- ties. Why need we reject or even suspect his story when we find the cases of Anna and Simeon, belonging to sub- stantially the same period, attested by the inspired his- torian? The critic complains that there is no profane testimony to the Scripture prophet, and when we cite this testimony of Josephus, he flippantly rejects the whole because, forsooth, Josephus played the sycophant to the victorious Romans in his history of the Jewish wars. Away with such destructive criticism. 5. The crowning fact, however, is found in the eleventh chapter of John. In that last council of chief priests and Fundamental Facts and Features. 47 Pharisees, in which it was decided to compass the death of Jesus, the leading argument was made by Caiaphas in these words: "Ye fools, ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man die for the people, and not that the whole nation perish." The Evangelist in commenting on this, says, "This he spake not of himself, but, being high priest that year, he prophe- sied that Jesus should die for that nation." In other words, he prophesied by virtue of his office as high priest. John evidently knew that the oracle belonged to the high priest by virtue of his office, even though the office had been made venal by the Romans, and degraded to an annual appointment. Note also the remainder of the prophecy, "And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." The first part of the prophecy he used in its literal terms in furtherance of their ma- licious purposes ; the last and more glorious part he could neither comprehend nor use. We have here a case like Balaam's, officially true, personally corrupt. The office of Caiaphas, and his prophecy as high priest belong with- out question to the theocracy and not to a new dispen- sation. 6. There is one parallel fact which bears distinctly on these interpretations by way of corroboration. God did not leave his people without miracles of power as well as of knowledge for a testimony during the intermediate period. John tells us of this also in the fifth chapter of his gospel : "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep mar- ket a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." The new version puts the next verse, about the daily visit of the angel to the pool, on 48 The Scriptures, the margin, questioning its authority; but the material facts remain the same if this verse be rejected altogether on what many regard as insufficient grounds. The story is familiar. This sanitarium, so aptly named Bethesda, "House of Mercy," was an old institution at Jerusalem. The five porches and the multitude of sick folk, and the Sabbath visits of numerous friends on errands of mercy, were all a Jewish product, and the cures were miracles of power, or were nothing. John evidently believed in the whole, but mentions it only incidentally, not so much to give an account of the pool and its cures, as to tell of the malignity excited against the Master for healing on the Sabbath day the impotent man who had so long been unable to avail himself of the God-given cure. Such in- cidental mention rather strengthens the testimony of the historian. Much hostile criticism of this passage gets an honest backing in the supposed necessity of eliminating the miraculous from this period of the history. The facts cited all reinforce each other, and disarm such hostile criticism arising from such pre-judgment. Indeed, there is no presumption against either miracle or oracle at any stage of the Mosaic dispensation. Besides, the distinction of Jewish and Christian is of little moment in this connec- tion, for Christianity is only the culmination of Judaism and its full fruitage; and all. the prophecy and miracle connected with the birth of Christ, and of his forerunner, John, and with the ministry of both, are in their last analysis as distinctly a part of Judaism as the signs and wonders of Sinai. Nay, more, the last tragedy, in which they slew their King on Calvary, closes the theocratic covenant set up at Sinai; and the darkness, the quaking earth, the rending rocks, the opening graves, and the veil of the temple rent in twain, are but the fitting counter- parts of Sinai's scenes. Fundamental Facts and Features. 49 Let us return to the question of the Canon. There is no denying that it was settled in the intermediate period. It was a burning question in its day, on which largely turned the long and bitter feuds of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Samaritans. It is fair to assume that so important a question enlisted the best talent, the largest learning, and the highest authority to be found among the Jewish people. We are, therefore, prepared to accept the sub- stantial truth of the Jewish traditions, which tell us that the Canon was the special care of what they call the Great Synagogue, for want of a better name, consisting of one hundred and twenty men, beginning with Daniel, the prophet, and closing with Simon, the just, running over a space of two hundred years, and including the post-exilic prophets as well as their most learned doctors and their high priests. They ascribe much work to Ezra and his associates, and much also to the last on the list, Simon, the just, whose reputation for sanctity, piety, and learning seems to overtop all the rest, himself the most famous high priest of his people, to whom also belonged the oracle by virtue of his office, as it did to all his pre- decessors. It is significant also that numerous traditions and fables of the supernatural cluster around his memory. We are warranted in accepting the work of such men, itself of such gravity and perfected in such conditions, as final and authoritative. The Jews accepted their work as having the divine imprimatur upon it. Not only are the presumptions all in its favor, but the evidence is all concurrent. Such claims are paramount and could be set aside only, if at all, by the most overwhelming counter testimony, and that indisputably divine. None were left to question the authority of the completed Canon except the outside Samaritan, whose voice was no longer heard 50 The Scriptures, and to whom Daniel, Ezra, and Simon were a rejected tribunal. Starting on this impregnable foundation of divine au- thority, Christ and his apostles enforced their claims by continuous reference to "Moses and the prophets," with the superadded infallible witness of the Holy Ghost in signs and wonders following. The authority of that Canon was so well attested that Father Abraham could say to the rich man in torment, "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." The heresies of Christ's day did not attack the canoni- cal authority of a single book on the list. That had been settled beyond all cavil ; they rather perverted and nulli- fied certain Scripture teachings. Here, in part, originated the necessity for those additions to the canon which we call the New Testament. Just here also we may discover the necessity for the wondrous miracles of that gen- eration. The miracle, in its last analysis, is the prophet's testi- monial, God on the witness-stand alongside of his ser- vants guaranteeing their claims and avouching their teachings. The numerous miracles of Christ served this purpose : "Believe me for the works' sake ;" every word was established by triple testimony of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then came the apostles doing "greater works than these," greater certainly in their number and variety, and in the prodigious number of miracle workers, every one of whom was a proper prophet and a divinely commissioned teacher. We hardly realize their number. Beginning with Pentecost, the most extraordinary char- isms of the Holy Ghost were distributed direct from heaven on great numbers, as also on Cornelius' household. The same gifts came lavishly on all on whom the apostles Fundamental Facts and Features. 51 laid their hands. These teachers were so numerous at Corinth that it led to ambitious, but well-meant, disorders. It was proper, easy, and natural that the writings of inspired teachers should be received as of equal authority with their oral teachings, and be even more highly prized because of their permanent value. The church in the first century of its existence was practically a miracle-working and inspired church. One of the apostles lived till the close of the first century in the full exercise of his facul- ties and his office, and it is fair to presume that some on whom he had conferred the charisms of the Spirit lived until the middle of the second century, and that multitudes of competent witnesses who had seen them lived to a much later date. The gradual disappearance of these miraculous gifts must be recognized if we would acount for variant and semi-contradictory statements of later uninspired writers when referring to the continu- ance of miracles in the early church. The question now recurs: How was the New Testa- ment Canon settled? On what principle were the names of the several books enrolled on an authoritative list? It is confessed that the list was perfected and promul- gated and transmitted by uninspired men sitting in coun- cil. Did they sit in judgment on the inspiration of each book, and pass upon it as an original question? If so, their adjudication was only a matter of opinion and not final, and would be of no more force than if they had pro- mulgated the meaning of any passage of Scripture. The best human opinions are subject to revision, and often need it. Competent human testimony, however, is final as to questions of fact, Hume to the contrary, notwithstanding. It is here that the human and the divine meet in our. faith. We need a divine attestation for revelation, and 52 The Scriptures, we rely on human testimony to perpetuate the facts of the attestation, and here our faith rests secure. Now, the acceptance of any book of the New Testa- ment by the church of the first century and the early part of the second as authoritative is sufficient evidence of its canonicity, because the early church was for all practical purposes an inspired church, and the consensus of that church was final on vital matters. This would be the more obvious if some master hand would discriminate among the promises of the Holy Ghost and his infallible guidance, and show just how many of them were limited specifically to the apostolic church, and how many of them were of general application to the end of time. Such a discrimination would be of great value to settle many other matters that still need elucidation, such as the Papal infallibility, witness of the Spirit, higher life, faith cure, the limitations of church authority, the right of private judgment, and many others. The reader will find the author's solution of these burning questions in his little volume, "Modern Mysticism, or The Covenants of the Spirit, their Scope and Limitations." The real question to which the fathers addressed them- selves was this: What books did the church contempor- ary with the writers receive as genuine and canonical? This question they were abundantly competent to handle, for the evidence was all accessible; more so, however, for some books than for others, as the history shows, Some of the books were written earlier and had a wider publication than others. The acceptance of these, of course, was the promptest. Others were not accepted universally till the facts were known. It is true also that some of the books were strenuously objected to. This goes to show that they were wide awake and determined to sift all the evidence so as not to be imposed upon by Fundamental Facts and Features. 53 candidates for canonization. And what is more to the point, the objections raised against the canonicity of cer- tain books were based on their internal character and in- nate difficulties, as was notably the case with the Book of Revelation, rather than on any lack of evidence as to authorship, or as to acceptance by the contemporary church. In other words, the objectors sought to parry positive evidence by arguments purely rationalistic, a form of polemics not yet obsolete. There is no place here for the infallible attestation of " Mother Church" expressed by councils or otherwise, nor is there any need of it. We have a Canon, both the Old and the New, attested by those who were as competent to do so as the authors themselves to write with divine au- thority. We depend on competent uninspired testimony to bear witness to the fact of such attestation, and to transmit the list of the books as a substantial fact, just as also we depend on testimony for the contents of the books themselves. The case before us may not be made out as lucidly as could be desired, nor as conclusively as may be possible from a more careful study of all the facts bearing on the question ; still, there is no other hypothesis that satisfies the necessities of the problem so well. The Sacred Book furnishes us an infallible standard of faith and practice. Its authority must rest on other attestation than itself, and as infallible as itself ; otherwise, the argu- ment becomes the fallacy of reasoning in a circle, which has often been shown in discussing the necessity for the miraculous in attestation of a revelation from God. God has never left divine truth as its own sufficient witness. We do not depreciate the value of special evidence, both internal and external, to the genuineness and authen- ticity of particular books of the Canon, but the argument 54 The Scriptures, is, in the main, only ancillary and confirmatory, and is adapted to silence the caviller, or to strengthen the faith of the doubter. Such arguments confirm a claimed au- thority, but do not lay the foundations of it. If Christian apologetics shall once occupy this ground of a conceded Canon divinely authenticated, she can then cry with Paul, "To the law and to the testimony," or with Christ, "It is written;" her weapons shall be of- fensive instead of defensive ; her arrows shall be sharp in the hearts of the King's enemies. Modern criticism, a wild and careering steed, unmanaged and unmanageable, shall then be broken to harness, docile as any cart-horse, When genius, and faith, and critical acumen shall work together to decipher the oracle and to ascertain what is written, and ivhat "saith the Holy Ghost," then shall criti- cism herself use her weapons, destructive and remorse- less, but "mighty through God," for the "pulling down of strongholds," and for "casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowl- edge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." Note. — The Jewish Synod of Jamnia, about A. D. 70, issued an authoritative list of the Old Testament books. This list is claimed to be the same as that recognized in Christ's day and subsequently confirmed by Josephus. The action of this Synod may be fairly interpreted as declarative against certain new sects, the Essenes and Zealots, as well as against Sad- ducees and Samaritans, some of whom made an additional plea for certain apochryphal books, while some perhaps objected to including any but the five books of Moses. This Council did not make the list, but vindicated and declared it. CHAPTER V. The Supernatural in the Scriptures. WE DIVIDE all entities, and all their activities and relations, into two classes : The natural and the supernatural. These are correlated as creator and crea- ture, first and second causes. The supernatural is the logical and necessary condition of the natural. In definition, we start with the natural. The etymology of the word ''nature" suggests that which has been born, and that which is about to be born — all created things and their continual unfolding, their relations and correlations. We give the name to the finite and limited world, or uni- verse of matter and mind. Then the personified total of all finite causes, agencies and forces, and the sum of all phenomena in their action and reaction, we call natural law. In nature, the number of individual entities is prac- tically unlimited, and the potentialities are limited only by possibilities. There is but one supernatural essence or entity, a self- existing, eternal unit — not a mere force, but a person, having intelligence and will, and clothed with all the in- finite attributes necessary to originate, control, and direct nature and all its possibilities. This infinite God and his attributes, all his activities, all the modes and methods of his administration, and all the manifestations and revela- tions of himself, we comprehend under the name super- natural. Supernaturalism recognizes divine agencies, miracles; revelations and spiritual influences as they seem to be 56 The Scriptures, recorded in the Bible, and as expounded in the creeds and formularies of orthodox churches. Naturalism minimizes and largely rejects the super- natural elements in the Biblical record, and makes nature and nature's laws the sufficient source and origin of much, if not all, that is usually ascribed to the super- natural. It reduces the supernatural to the natural. Naturalism in its totality, leaves us a book, but no Bible; in its partial claims, it leaves us but little of our traditional Bible. In its last analysis, creation, human history, codes, institutions, morality, and religion, are made the evolutionary products of nature's forces. It sinks every thing into a dreary evolution, materialism; and fatalism. It is not our purpose here to confute these naturalistic heresies, nor to set up and defend the claims of super- naturalism, except incidentally. We simply propose to trace the supernatural in the Scriptures, according to the traditional view, and to see how far it is of the very es- sence of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. Supernatural works, activities, and processes, as re- vealed in the Bible, fall under five well-defined classes: Creation, Providence, Inspiration, Miracle and the Re- demptive processes. These we have discussed more or less fully in other connections. It is here only necessary to define these terms. i. Creation. God, in creation, originated the natural,, set up nature's laws, and established the present order of things. By absolute creation, he created matter and spirit out of nothing. By relative creation, he created the pres- ent cosmos, and filled the earth with teeming vegetable and animal life, using materials already existing. He wrought directly by his supreme power, without the use of second causes, for he created them. The divine fiat was the creative act. (Heb. xi. 2; Ps. xxxiii. 6-9.) Fundamental Facts and Features. 57 2. Providence. "God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions." Here is the di- vine immanence, with no hint of pantheism. (Acts xvii. 28; Col. i. 17; Eph. i. 11.) In Providence, he works in accordance with and through second causes. This doc- trine dates back to the beginning. (Gen. iv. 1, 25.) 3. The Redemptive. Christ, in the flesh, wrought a redemption to be applied to sinners. The actual redemp- tion of each sinner requires supernatural agencies, instru- mentalities, powers and processes, wrought in and for him, and accomplishing his regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, and final glorification. These we call redemptive, as the third form of the supernatural. These all have been, are, and shall always be wrought by the same Spirit who seals and applies to believers the benefits of redemption purchased by Jesus Christ. 4. Inspiration. The books of the Bible were written by men who were in a true sense the authors. But the Scriptures claim a divine authorship, effected through human agents. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. i. 21. Compare Heb. i. 1, 2.) This we call inspiration — also prophecy, that is, speaking for God under the inerrant teaching of the Holy Spirit. Their teachings and writings, whether historical, doctrinal, preceptive, or predictive, were determined by the Holy Spirit. The prophets' refrain was "Thus saith the Lord," "The word of the Lord, "The Holy Ghost saith," and such like. Unity of authorship, by and through a number of authors, is the claim. If this be true, the Scriptures are not a natural product of mere human intelligence, as other books are, but a supernatural pro- duct of divine intelligence. Is this claim true? 5. Miracle. The prophet needed testimonials. His mis- 58 The Scriptures, sion must be attested. His message must be duly authen- ticated. How? He that sent the Messenger and the message, must furnish the credentials. Neither natural law nor ordinary providence could attest an extraordinary messenger, much less may he furnish his own papers. The miracle was divinely wrought for confirmation. God on the witness stand, alongside of his prophet, attests his servant by sensible signs, which cannot be forged, imitated or disputed;. This is the Bible doctrine of miracles. We do not propose any exhaustive discussion of these five sub-divisions of the supernatural, but simply to define them sufficiently for recognition in all ordinary cases where they are found in the Scriptures. We may also note their logical and necessary coherency throughout. We may also well inquire if they do not constitute the very warp and woof of the Bible, so that, if they be minimized, and if they be eradicated or explained away, there will be nothing of value left. There may be, and probably there are, certain recorded acts and activities which evidently claim to be super- natural, and which are not so readily reduced to the classification given above. The flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the giving of manna for forty years, the fall of Jericho and other theocratic victories, the virgin birth of Christ, and other things, may seem not to fit our classification and definitions exactly. It is not necessary to our argument in this discussion to solve the difficulty of classification, provided we recognize them as belong- ing to the realm of the supernatural, and that the Scrip- tures so claim. It may not be amiss, however, to say that the things cited are not single acts or activities, but are complex, and when analyzed, the single activities may easily be Fundamental Facts and Features. 59 classified. For example, in the story of the manna, wei find predictive prophecy, divine communication, doctrine, providence, miracle and creative act. Just so far as any or all of the supernatural activities as above clessified are facts, they are the facts of history — of Bible history. Bible history, like all other history, is biographical. It records the acts and doings of persons. In addition to the men and devils and angels mentioned in Bible history, we have revealed on every page the three persons in one God, making history. Every act and do- ing of all these, as recorded, is part of the history. Every code of laws, every written record, every poem, proverb, and epistle, every precept and promise, every doctrine and every revelation, these all are part of the history, because they are the product of active persons. They are just as much facts of the history as ordinary historical narrative. The entire Bible is, therefore, a book of his- tory. It professes to be a record of facts. We may therefore put the question in this form: How far is the supernatural necessary to the integrity of the Book? Or in this form: If the supernatural be eliminated, how much have we left? Every section or segment of the history clusters about one or more human biographies ; the entire book clusters about its divine author, and is the divine biography, so far as man is concerned to know it. These Scriptures teach "what man is to believe con- cerning God, and what duties God requires of man" — an "infallible rule of faith and practice." First. Let us begin with Noah. This is the flood period of the history. We may note the supernatural here. 1. God passed sentence on the apostate race, and de- termined to destroy them with a flood of waters. We have a record of this supernatural act. 2. One man, Noah, was saved from the universal apos- 60 The Scriptures, tasy by providence and redemptive grace. According to the Scriptures, every righteous man has redemptive grace and providential care. 3. God revealed his purpose to Noah by theophany, dream, or some other form of inspiration. 4. God foretold the flood at the end of one hundred and twenty years. This was predictive prophecy. 5. God gave him minute plans for building the ark, which he followed accurately. This was another divine communication. 6. After the ark was finished, God gave him directions for saving his family and also animals, and for providing a supply of food for all. 7. When the time came, all beasts and birds and creep- ing things went into the ark, by twos and by sevens, led by an unerring and invisible hand; and all on the self- same day with Noah and his family. This was super- natural also. 8. The Lord shut him in, at the same time shutting out all others, man and beast and creeping things. 9. It rained forty days, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Was this only a cataclysm of nature's forces under the operation of natural law? Hardly. However, admit it to be so; who adjusted all the details to each other, so as to execute the divine pur- poses? There is but one answer. 10. "God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters were assuaged ; the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." Was this by divine fiat, or by providential control of nature's forces ? For the purposes of our argument, it makes little difference which; but we remember that the same Lord spake to the boisterous wind and tempestuous waves on the sea of Galilee, Fundamental Facts and Features. 61 "Peace, be still ; and there was a great calm." Why mini- mize the divine fiat ? it. At the end of one year and ten days, "God spake unto Noah" and bade him go forth with his family and all the living cargo aboard. 12. When Noah built his altar, and made his great holocaust, taking one of every clean beast and of every clean bird, "The Lord smelled a sweet savor;" and he "Said in his heart," and registered that wonderful decree found in Genesis viii. 21, 22. He promulgated it also, else we would not have the record of it. 13. The same day God blessed Noah, and gave him that covenant for "all flesh," as found in Genesis ix. 1-17, and ratified and sealed it with the bow in the cloud. This was the bill of rights for the race, under which we are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness." 14. Once more. After Noah's son, Ham, dishonored his father, God gave to Noah the brief but far-reaching predictive prophecy concerning his posterity, as found in Genesis ix. 25-27. Now, suppose that these fourteen supernatural things were eliminated from Noah's brief biography, how much would be left? Perhaps this: Noah, the unknown cap- tain of a sea-going vessel, in an unmarked time of un-» accountable disaster. Yet, there are some who remand all these supernatural activities to the limbus of the supersti- tious fancies and poetic license of exaggerating Asiatics. They would remand the flood itself to the realm of myth and legend, but for a world-wide tradition, confirmed to them by a certain flood tablet, dug up in the East, from which Moses, or beitter, some unscrupulous redactor elaborated our present Bible record. Second. It would be easy to take the biography of Adam, including his immediate family, and analyze it ia 62 The Scriptures, the same way, and point out every supernatural agency or activity mentioned in the record. We would find the supernatural so interwoven with every other thing in the history, that one could not have been real without the other. It is not surprising, therefore, that those who minimize or reject the supernatural, also reject the his- toricity of the first chapters of Genesis, to the no small damage of doctrine throughout the Scriptures. If there w r ere no first Adam sinning, how could there be a second Adam saving? The tendency, therefore, is to make Christ a great moral reformer, and to reduce all super- natural redemptive processes to mere personal reforma- tion. In ail this, there is a necessary logical coherency. They claim, however, that the poetic and allegorical stories of Genesis are of great value, and do teach great spiritual truths. Spiritual truths? All spiritual truth is of divine origin, and has been communicated to man by the Holy Spirit. This, at least, is supernatural. If the Spirit stands sponsor for the lessons taught, he must also stand sponsor for these so-called fables and allegories that teach them. This is inspiration. Third. It would be easy also to analyze the extended biography of Abraham, and show that there is little left when we eliminate all the supernatural elements, and all that is based thereon. It is small wonder, then, that naturalism makes Abraham a myth of an early day, gar- nished with many superstitious and impossible fancies. We need not pause to show what a toppling structure Paul built on this conceit, "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Fourth. Naturalism disposes of Job in the same way. perhaps with more literary encomium and dignity. They make the book of Job a great epic, conceived and ex- ecuted by some great unknown author of Miltonic inspira- Fundamental Facts and Features. 63 tion and genius. They forget that Milton's genius only arranged and elaborated the facts and truths gotten from inspiration. Who furnished the author of Job the eter- nal truths and facts for his great epic, and how ? Fifth. We must needs discuss Moses more in detail* for he is the storm-centre of the warfare between natural-i ism and supernaturalism. His biography covered 120 years of history, formative history for his people. The events of his period determined the destinies of con- tiguous nations and peoples. His codes, his institutions, his moral system, and his histories shall affect the desi tinies of men till the end of time. But how and why? 1. When Moses was born, his parents hid him for three months, not fearing the king's commandment. Paul says they did this by faith. Faith has a God-given warrant to rest upon. This warrant, whether general or specific, has a supernatural origin in some one of the usual forms of revelation. 2. His discovery and adoption by Pharaoh's daughter was a signal case of special providence, by which he was educated and prepared till forty years old, for his great mission. When his people rejected him, the same provi- dence directed his sojourn in Midian, till they were ready to receive him as their deliverer. 3. In Horeb, he met the Lord in the burning bush. He received his commission, and all the instruction and promises needed. His faith was confirmed by the miracles of the serpent-rod and the leprous hand, and he was directed to use these miracles in Egypt. Here were, at the least, four distinct supernatural actions. 4. He used these two signs, and also the sign of water turned to blood, before his own people, when covenanting with them to lead them out of Egypt, and also before Pharaoh when he formally demanded their release. These 64 The Scriptures, repititions count six supernatural events, for God, and not Moses, was the real miracle-worker, attesting the mes- senger and his message. 5. When Pharaoh refused, and defied the Lord God. and threw down the gage of battle, backed by the magi- cians, Jannes and Jambres, and by all the hierarchy of the Egyptian Pantheon, Moses accepted the challenge in the name of the Lord. The battle of the gods raged for a year in the field of Zoan and throughout Egypt, until their gods were all overthrown, their adherents fled be- fore Moses, and their entire hierarchy was laid low in the death of the first-born, from the palace to the hovel. Here we count ten great plagues and as many more, and perhaps twice as many more, special communications to Moses, all of which are to be counted as supernatural events. 6. We need hardly recount the crossing of the Red Sea, the sweetening of the waters at Marah, the war with the Amalekites, the giving of the manna, and the smiting of the rock for water at Meribah, and all the personal divine communications to Moses from Rameses to Sinai; except to say that the Bible record here is the record of a supernatural history. 7. How much more is the record of events at Sinai for a year a supernatural history. The giving of the law. moral, civil, social, typical, ceremonial, religious and ec- clesiastical, is all to be counted as part of this super- natural history, and the Lord becomes the theocratic head of the civil commonwealth, as well as their personal God and Saviour. 8. After they left Sinai, with manna for their daily food, and following the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, the history for forty years (the entire record) is a supernatural diurnal history. The Fundamental Facts and Features. 65 Angel of the Covenant is their king and leader, and Moses, his viceroy, held constant converse with him, face to face. There seems to be no historic event in all these years, whether prosperous or disastrous, which does not present the Lord as the supreme actor in it all. 9. If now we eliminate the supernatural from this life and history of Moses, there is nothing left except perhaps this: That some nomadic tribes left Egypt and dwelt in the desert till they became strong enough to dispossess certain other peoples in Palestine, and that in the course of centuries — say a thousand years — the Hebrew peoples and institutions 'were developed out of these semi-bar- barous nomads. Naturalism boasts of going all this length in rejecting the supernatural. Others, however, stop at a half-way house, and mini- mize the supernatural, accepting some things and set-* ting others down to the imaginings of a rule and uncul- tured people, themselves sampling, accepting or rejecting details according to their own subjective taste. 10. How about the authorship of the books of Moses ? We have no trouble with that matter if we accept the record of the supernatural as found therein. It we reject it, it makes but little difference what may be the latest theory of their origin. The Mosaic authorship had un- disputed right of way for more than three thousand years. It was accepted by the most learned Jewish Rabbis and doctors down to the time of Christ, also by Christ and his apostles, and ever since by Jews and Christians alike. No rival claimant has ever appeared in the field, much less had a following. It has been left for modern Chris- tians (?) to challenge the consensus and the beliefs of ages, and to reject the supernatural in the books, and then to expound the residuum according to the conceits of their evolutionary philosophy. 66 The Scriptures, ii. The contemporaries of Moses, according to the history, were convinced of the divine origin and authority of Mosaic institutions by the constant manifestations of the supernatural. But they did not receive them with an easy and ignorant credulity; they did not submit to innovations in law and custom without overwhelming proofs. Sometimes they did not submit until after the most gigantic struggles against Moses and against God. The history of their rebellions is the history of those struggles. The judgments and the plagues from the Lord often closed the controversy. The most notable in- stance of this was the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Even in that case, when nothing seemed left to them but despair, the Lord gave them a peaceful as- surance of his claims by the budding of Aaron's rod, and so the incident was closed. We may, however, reverse the argument from our point of view, and say that we cannot account for Hebrew institutions unless we accept the account of their super- natural origin. Circumcision, the Passover feast, and the feast of Tabernacles, are monumental customs which attest the story of their origin more signally than monu- ments of stone. 12. It would seem to be sufficient for a sound induc- tion in the issue before us to cite the five cases, so far analyzed, as concrete units of the history, and to show, as we have done, that the supernatural is of the very es- sence of the history, and may not be eliminated without its destruction. It would be competent for us to argue from these to the whole of the Scriptures. But we take two additional and more comprehensive views. Sixth. The entire sweep of the history, from Joshua down to the close of the Old Testament Canon. I. Joshua was the civil and military viceroy of Jehovah, Fundamental Facts and Features. 67 the theocratic head of his people. He made but one mis- take in his administration, and then he failed to consult the divine oracle. In sketching his administration rapidly, we can but note the crossing of Jordan, the fall of Jeri- cho, the incidents at Ai, and the hail-stones upon the enemy when he fought the allied kings, so that more died from the hail-stones than fell by the sword. At his command, the sun stood still in the midst of heaven about a whole day. He divided the land by lot under divine direction, and ordered all things by divine guidance. 2. The judges were extraordinary deliverers — divinely appointed civil and military rulers. "The time would fail us to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Sampson, and of Samuel," who, through faith subdued kingdoms, quenched the violence of fire, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 3. The kingdom was divinely constituted, and the kings were nominated and regulated by prophet and oracle. The theocratic king fought their battles so long as they kept his covenant and trusted his promises. Those who were recreant and apostate were rebuked and then overthrown down to the captivity. Both the cap- tivity and the return were foretold, and only accomplished by divine agency. 4. The era of the prophets overlapped the entire his- tory from Samuel to the restoration after the captivity and till the close of the canon. Their commission had no lack of attestation. Their inspired teachings and writings kept the people in constant contact with the supernatural. Thus we see at a glance that the entire sweep of the history, and of the divine administration, from Joshua to the close of the Old Testament Canon was so interwoven 68 The Scriptures, with the various forms of the supernatural, that we may not extract a single thread without doing violence to the entire fabric. Seventh. We may take a similar comprehensive glance at the New Testament. i. The stories of Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, Anna, and Simeon, in their entirety, are accounts of super- natural inspiration and revelation. They furnish the key to the mission of John the Baptist, as the forerunner of the Messiah, as foretold in Old Testament prophecy. The supernatural conception and the virgin birth of Christ stands or falls with these inspired annunciations, them- selves confirmed by inspired prophets of old. The very personality of Christ as God and man in two distinct natures, as confirmed and attested both by earlier and later Scriptures, finds its origin and explanation here. It is not strange, therefore, that those who minimize or reject the supernatural in these accounts are not slow to reject the divinity of Christ. On the contrary, a hearty acceptance of his divinity makes it easy to accept all the supernatural in the Scriptures, for it all centres in him. 2. Take a bird's-eye view of the life of Christ — the divine attestation at his baptism and at other times by a voice from heaven; his numerous and varied miracles of healing the sick, casting out devils, and raising the dead ; his reading the minds and hearts of men; the miracles of the twelve and of the seventy; his prophecies and their fulfilment; the fulfilment of Old Testament types and prophecies in him ; the wonders and portents at his cruci- fixion; his resurrection on the third day; the many in- fallible proofs for forty days ; and the ascension into heaven on Mount Olivet. We need hardly say that the story of his life is a story of the supernatural. Eighth. Take the apostolic period and administration. Fundamental Facts and Features. 69 It begins with Pentecost, and practically ends with the visions of John on Patmos. The power of working miracles probably remained till the middle of the second century, but we have no authentic record of it later than the close of the canon. The apostolic period is properly called the dispensation of the Spirit. It is so called be- cause his works and gifts abounded then as never before and never since. The rapid spread of the gospel — three thousand in one day and live thousand another day — at- tests his agency and activities in the redemptive processes. But we are here mainly concerned with the Charisims of the Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, foretold by Joel, and begun at Pentecost. These were obvious to the senses and to the intelligence, and were evidential of the claims of the Gospel. These gifts enabled believers, ir- respective of official position, to speak with tongues, to prophecy, to discern spirits, to heal the sick, to cast out devils, and to raise the dead. These gifts sometimes de- scended from heaven, and were sometimes conferred by the laying on of hands, and were so common that the early church was virtually an inspired and miracle- working church. The New Testament Scriptures are the logical and necessary product of such a condition, and in their entirety they are a supernatural historical and doctrinal product. Ninth. Conclusion. It would be easy to deduce many valuable corollaries from this discussion, such as the unities of Scripture, the unity of authorship, unity of aim, plan and purpose, unity of doctrine, and unity of morals. It would be easy to show that the Scriptures are Christo-centrie in the true sense. It is not irreverent to claim that the Scriptures are the biography of the Tri-une God, and is his own revelation of himself. But it is not within the scope of this discussion to g*o beyond the 70 The Scriptures, purpose announced at the beginning, to trace the super- natural in the Scriptures, and to show that, if the super- natural be eliminated, there is nothing left. We have sought to show this, not by argument and exposition, but by a simple exhibit of the actual content of Scripture. We may be mistaken in some matter of detail in classifying it as natural or supernatural, but it is only one in a thousand. Of the rest, there can be no mistake. The supernatural complexion, trend, and content are so obvious that "He that runneth may read, and the way- faring man, though a fool, need not err therein." The critic may argue with some plausibility that the ravens that fed Elijah were Arabs, but he cannot ex- plain away his supernatural victory over the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. A boy may detach a loose stone from a mountain crag, and as it rolls thundering down to the valley, he may imagine that he is tearing down the mountain, but the mountain remains. Even the earth- quake settles it yet more securely on its impregnable foundations. So is the impregnable rock of Holy Scrip- ture against all its enemies. CHAPTER VI. Creation and the Creator. CREATION is a doctrine of pure revelation, and is held as a matter of faith. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. "(Gen. i. i.) "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb. xi. 3.) Faith is not belief on insufficient evidence. We accept human testimony as a competent ground of belief, and we accept facts so authenticated without hesitation. Pure revelation is Divine testimony, and our belief in it is called faith. We only require that the revelation be au- thenticated to us as genuine in some satisfactory way. Then everything revealed is as distinctly a fact as if it were gotten from competent human witnesses, or by actual personal observation and experience. The Creator is a Divine person — not a mere force per- vading the universe, working out results by a mere nat- ural necessity. He is a person, having intelligence, choice and will, as well as power. We need not consider here how we got a knowledge of God as an actual existence ; whether from some intuitional process ; or by tradition ; or by arguments and proofs drawn from, natural religion. It is sufficient to say that the existence of God and his revealed presence were as distinctly realized by the first generation of men after the creation as was their own existence. This is the fundamental assumption of the entire Scrip- jz The Scriptures, tures, with no need of categorical statement. All ob- scuration of his existence and attributes has been the direct result of sin. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." (Psa. xiv. I.) "Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, he gave them over to a reprobate mind," &c. (Rom. i. 28.) "Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped the creature more than the Creator," (Rom. i. 25.) This whole mat- ter is discussed exhaustively in verses 18-32. When we say that God was the Creator, we attribute creation, in a proper sense, to the three persons of the God-head ; the Father originated, the Son executed, and the Spirit perfected. Because of the special agency of the Son, he is commonly spoken of as the Creator. In the second chapter of Genesis, and throughout the Old Testament, the Lord, Jehovah, the second person in the Trinity, is declared to be the Creator. The same is taught in the New Testament. (John i. 1-3; Col. i. 16, 17; Rev. iv. 11 ; and elsewhere.) His existence and his attributes may be learned from his works. This is the teleological argument, and is en- tirely legitimate. Every worker and every artisan leaves his own impress and imprint on his work, as distinctly as if it were his sign manual. Natural theology is entitled to a place of dignity as a science, in the same group with revealed and systematic theology. In fact, Revelation, or the Scripture, makes an authoritative re-statement of the doctrines of natural religion, while it adds what natural religion could never have discovered. In doing this, Revelation makes abundant use of the teleological argument for the existence and attributes of God, and especially his attributes. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy- Fundamental Facts and Features. 73 work," &c. (Psa. xix. 1-6.) The poet has rendered it beautifully ; "The spacious firmament on high, And all the blue etherial sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great original proclaim. In reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine." Paul says, ''The invisible things of him from the crea- tion of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- head." (Rom. i. 20. Compare Acts xiv. 17.) It is proper to distinguish between creation and provi- dence. Creation is a direct agency. "He said, Let there be light, and there was light." It was the Divine fiat. "He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast;" and so, numerously. Providence works by and through second causes ; it preserves and governs his crea- tures. "In him we live and move and have our being, and by him all things consist." He upholdeth all things by the word of his power." "He openeth his hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing." And so on, numerously. Both of these are supernatural activities — divine, not creature activities — and they must not be confounded with each other. Nor must they be confounded with the miracle, which is a special manifestation of Divine power for a revealed purpose at the time — a prophet's testi- monial. These scriptural distinctions have been much more fully discussed and elucidated in other connections. The supernatural is both the logical and the chronological condition of the natural. No creator, no creature; no 74 The Scriptures, supernatural, no natural ; no first cause, no second causes. Creation originated and set up nature and nature's laws. Every reference to creation in the Scriptures seems to be based on this assumption. Any philosophy that tries to ignore it stultifies itself. Two words in the original Hebrew are used in the ac- count of creation in Genesis, and are rendered respec- tively by the English words "created*' and "made." They are used interchangeably, and they are also used to sup- plement each other, as in the clause, "Which God created and made," (Gen. ii. 3.) By comparing i, 1, 16, 21, 25, 26, 27, 31; and ii. 2, 3, it will readily be seen that the words "created" and "made" are used interchangeably. This disposes of all attempts to distinguish between them as different processes, or even different stages of the same process ; nor can they indicate different methods in the creative act, as some have argued. It is futile to assume clear-cut differences of meaning and then interpret by them. The Creator is, from eternity, the self-existent first cause of all things else. The orthodox view is that the blessed Three-in-One dwelt in an eternal fellowship of love and bliss supreme; and at a certain point, which is called the beginning, he created all things else in the uni- verse, both matter and spirit, out of nothing; or perhaps he may have repeated the creative act, as seemed to him good, from time to time. This we call Absolute Creation. By it matter and spirit came into existence, with all their properties and qualities. Some think that this absolute creative act goes forth every time a child is born into the world. This we shall not now discuss. There is another creation, which we call Relative Crea- tion, which formed and fashioned existing materials into new and higher forms. Fundamental Facts and Features. 75 We find both of these kinds of creation ascribed to the Creator. "Things which are seen were made of things which do not appear." (Heb. xi. 3.) "All things were created by him, and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." (Col. i. 16, 17.) "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." If these similar passages do not teach absolute creation, we can only fall back upon the doctrine of the eternity of matter, and some of the theories of creation are based upon it. We find the doctrine of relative creation in the first and second chapters of Genesis, in which it is taught that the present cosmos, and all its organisms, both plant and animal, are made of the materials of the earth, "the ground," "the dust of the ground," and in the same sense. (Compare Gen. i. 11, 12, 20, 21, 24, 25; ii. 7, 9, 19, and iii. 19.) In this relative creation of Genesis, chapters i. and ii., the method was direct, and not through second causes. It was, however, in accordance with second causes, and nature's laws and forces. The divine fiat went forth six times in the six days. The various recorded steps in creation are logically coherent, and preparatory for man. The order of suc- cession could hardly have been changed' — light, atmos- phere, dry land and seas, plant life, the adjustment of the seasons, swarming life in the waters, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field and every creeping thing, and last of all man. Man's creation was unique among all the rest. He alone had a dual nature, spiritual and material. The more important part, the spirit, was first spoken into life in the "image and likeness" of God. (Gen. i. 26, 27.) This was absolute creation, with no hint of previously existing y6 The Scriptures, materials out of which to fashion the spirit — or rather, the two spirits, the male and the female, "Male and female created he them." Distinctions of sex are not accidental and temporary modifications caused by the body, but they belong to the spirit, and the body of each was ad- justed thereto. To the man was given a body just suited to his spirit; and so the body of the woman. These same bodies shall one day be raised and glorified. While they shall not marry nor be given in marriage in the res- urrection, we can but believe that mother will be a celes- tial woman to all eternity, and father will be a glorified man forever, just as we believe that the Son of man will be the glorified man Christ Jesus forever. The Scriptures evidently teach that there is a father's side and a mother's side in our God, and man, including the man and the woman — the twain in one — filled up this image and likeness. The heathen therefore were prompted by a felt need when they made their gods male and female. In Genesis ii. 7, 21-24, we find a supplementary ac- count, how God made bodies with animal life for the man and the woman, who were created in his image and likeness. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground — (his body only) — and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." The sole reference here is to the animal life of the body, for the words rendered "living soul" are used of every moving creature in the seas, (Gen. i. 20,) and of every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and every creeping thing, (Gen. i. 30.) This is not so evident to the English reader, because the word rendered; "living soul" in the one case is rendered "life" in the other cases. But in neither case is there any reference to a spirit or soul which was made in the image of God. This distinc- Fundamental Facts and Features. yy tion is important. The ibody dies, the breath departs from the nostrils, the animal life expires, but the spirit lives on. The Scriptures tell us of other created intelligences — angelic hosts of heaven, and the devil and his angels. We know something of their relation to the material uni- verse, their modes of existence, their characters and oc- cupations, as set forth in the Scriptures. CHAPTER VII. Relations of the Bible and Science. THE Scriptures are God's infallible word, both in direct statement, obvious implication, and neces- sary inference. This is the fundamental assumption of these entire discussions. The whole is both human and divine in its origin and authorship. It is a book of as- certained facts and verified principles. Every doctrine is a complex fact, and every principle has the force of an axiom, because it is divinely authenticated. "Thus saith the Lord," is the end of controversy. The doctrine of plenary inspiration justifies all this. Science is knowledge ascertained and systematized by man. The knowledge is gathered from every possible source, by every legitimate method, and must be verified in every possible way, and is properly called experience. It may be gotten by observation, experiment, and com- petent testimony; and its principles must be gotten by sound induction, and safe deduction from ascertained principles. All of this is legitimate, and even neces- sary, to satisfy the human mind. When we go beyond the classification of facts into the realm of relations and causes, we enter the realms of speculative science, in which hypothesis plays an important part, and a part entirely legitimate in the further pursuit of knowledge. When a science confirms truth gotten from othec sources, we say that one verifies the other, and we hail it accordingly. When a science contradicts truths sup- posed to be gotten from other sources, it is necessary to Fundamental Facts and Features. 79 call a halt, and to investigate and verify the one or the other; for truth has no contradictions, though it is often necessary to explain contraries and apparent contra- dictions. At best, however, all science is made by man, and is therefore, fallible. There are first principles, or axioms, which are necessary truths, but all else is fallible. Ob- servation, experiment, testimony, and speculation have in them a large element of fallibility, as may be abundantly shown in the history of science. A particular science embraces only a limited depart- ment, and the sub-divisions, following natural lines of cleavage, may be very numerous. The tendency now is to multiply these sub-divisions as the content of human knowledge increases. Every specialist is the representa- tive of a particular science. We may fairly conclude that the infallible Scriptures have the right of way against all comers, or, to change the figure, they sit enthroned, and demand the obeisance of all the sciences. True science is based on accurate observation and a real experience, and must embrace all possible data. Sciences are constantly revised, and frequently recon- structed, because of the discovery of new data, or a better reading of the old, or a better understanding of a real experience. Nor must it be forgotten that every fact, no matter how insignificant, has its place in the great universe of cause and effect; and it may have, and often does have, the highest scientific value. Failure to gather up and use all necessary and possible data gives us a science incomplete and presumptively false. It is well here to emphasize the fact, that all truth is a unit, and is in a proper sense God's truth, whether ex- pressed in nature or revelation. Truth must present es- 80 The Scriptures, sential harmony at all overlapping points. All facts have their exact place in the universe of God— they do not, and cannot, contradict each other. Contraries and apparent contradictions may be solved by a more accurate experi- ence, or by a wider generalization. The tendency of sciences to-day is to unify causes and forces. The har- monious interaction of forces and causes, and the so- called conservation of force, have doubtless been pressed too far when it is inferred that all physical forces may be unified into one. But they do teach that the great First Cause does work all his holy will in harmonious unity, whether in the spiritual or the physical realm. All the sciences are, therefore, correlated to each other. This might be easily illustrated, were it necessary to the trend of our discussion. The Scriptures do not teach science, or formulated sys- tems of facts, but they are full of facts in every depart- ment of knowledge. Every statement is accurate and divinely authenticated, and every principle is infallibly attested. Moses, Samuel, Daniel and Paul were trust- worthy witnesses. The Holy Spirit, who spake through them, could make no mistake in matters of observation and experience. Were Humboldt, Newton and Huxley observers worthy of credence? They, more. Scripture data, therefore, must not 'be ignored. Many sciences are incomplete, inadequate, and pre- sumptively or certainly false, because they ignore Bible data — the simplest and most obvious data. Ethics, psy- chology, sociology, philology, ethnology, etc., are incom- plete and false without Bible data, as may be easily seen. There have been many false systems of ethics which fail to make the fall of man in Eden, or the doctrines of human freedom and accountability, or the determining power of motive and disposition, essential parts of the science. Fundamental Facts and Features. 8i Psychology must start with the Bible facts of mind and matter. Failing of this, we have, on one hand, psy- chology without a mind, and on the other, a physical uni- verse without matter. We find all shades of doctrine in uncertain equilibrium between materialism and idealism, and then on to absolute nihilism. Such philosophies would be wiser to accept and start with what "is written." Sociology must needs be a system of rottenness, if it fails to start with the God-given constitution of the family, as found in the Scriptures. And the deadly virus of a vicious sociology inoculates every man, woman, and child in their relations to society, church and state, be- cause the family is the true basis of them all. Or, take philology — the science of language, its forma- tion, growth and modification. It usually ignores the confusion of tongues at Babel, and in its self-sufficiency declares the story a "myth which no well-informed scholar accepts." Or take ethnology. How few in modern times have made the tenth chapter of Genesis the starting point of ethnological science, and how many have denied that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." (Acts xvii. 26.) It is not amiss to say that much of the skepticism about the truth of .Scripture statements originates just here. A partial and incomplete science which has ignored Bible data presumes to challenge the truth of those data be- cause they contradict their teachings. Then, on the other side, a timid and cringing faith seeks to explain those data in conformity with such science. Then, before their work is fairly completed and accepted, a modified and changing science requires all the work to be done again. An evolutionary philosophy, playing the part of a critic, finds it necessary to deny the historicity of large paits 82 The Scriptures, of the Scriptures, and limits their inspiration to what they are pleased to call their spiritual lessons, because the whole trend of Scripture contradicts their "science, falsely so-called." The Scriptures are to be interpreted according to the laws of language solely. Language has its laws, which are as fixed and as imperious as the law of gravitation, or as any other of nature's laws. The Scriptures abound in all possible forms of expression, such as are found in all literature — the literal and the figurative; fable, alle- gory, and parable ; history and fiction, reality and vision ; proverb and category, and so on. But each of these is to be determined and interpreted according to the laws of language, and may not be determined by an outside dic- tation or by foregone conclusions. It is true, however, that interpreters of language often make mistakes in ascertaining its real meaning, be they ever so careful. The enunciation of general principles is more difficult to interpret than a statement of facts. His- torical statements are easier than complex doctrinal dis- cussions. Any outside authority may suggest a mistaken exegesis, by reason of some sidelight or supposed con- tradiction by facts obtained from other sources ; but the mistake must be verified by a re-examination according to the laws of language. Therefore, it is clear that science, either by its observa- tions or conclusions, may suggest that the Scripture has been misread or misinterpreted, but no amount of scien- tific proofs and demonstrations can correct the Scripture, or the exegesis of it. The only allowable correction must be made according to the laws of language, and by a proper application of those laws. On the other hand, sound exegesis may convict science of misreading and misinterpreting nature. The Bible is the infallible word of God ; science is the fallible word of man. Fundamental Facts and Features. 83 It is claimed, however, that nature and Scripture are both God's work, and are equally expressions of his truth when rightly understood, and are, therefore, co-ordinate in authority and mutually corrective. This claim is appar- ently made in the interest of the confessed unity of all truth. But not so. It is made in the interest of man- made science, and seeks to exalt it to the same position of authority as the impregnable rock of Sacred Scripture. It seeks more; it seeks to dominate the Scripture and to interpret it, and to determine the amount of credence that shall be given it. "The Book of Nature" is not a book, except by a figure of speech, and is in no sense co-ordinate with the book of revelation. If God were the author of a book of uni- versal science, in the same sense in which he is the author of the book of revelation, it would be a part of the im- pregnable rock of Sacred Scripture, and each would mu- tually interpret the other, just as we now compare Scrip- ture with Scripture in order to ascertain the exact teach- ing of the whole. But man-made books of science have no higher claim than the wisdom and skill and insight of their writers. How, then, can it be claimed that science and Scripture are mutually corrective? Faith, therefore, remands all the contradictions of a pretentious and sometimes an agnostic science, with in- structions to revise and introduce Bible data as of para- mount authority. In closing, we enter this caveat. The condemnation implied in this discussion belongs only to "science, falsely so-called," and not to all science. All the sciences, phy- sical and moral, have been and still are, most largely in- debted to devout men and men of faith, who have re- ceived the Scriptures in meekness and reverence, and have humbly sought the glory of God in all their work. CHAPTER VIII. Evolution — What Is It? THE hypothesis of evolution attempts, to account for organic nature as the resultant of mere natural laws. It either denies or minimizes the supernatural as a necessary agency in the physical universe, from its be- ginnings to its present complex condition of varied organ- isms animate and inanimate. An evolutionary philosophy also seeks to make all intelligence, morals, religion and all human institutions, the resultant of naturalistic pro- cesses and forces. The habitat of this hypothesis is so-called cosmic evolu- tion, in which the appearance of living organisms from time to time is a mere incident in the unfolding of nature towards it final consummation. It claims all growth development as an essential part of evolutionary processes, and then cites growth develop- ment as a proof of the hypothesis of evolution. This would seem to be reasoning in a circle. Growth development, however, has always been noted as a natural process, before ever the hypothesis of evolu- tion was invented, and must not be confounded with it. The seed becomes a tree, the egg becomes an eagle ; but the seed and the egg have in them a principle of life which is unfolded and developed according to nature's laws. Growth development originates no life and con- trols and directs no forces, but is itself controlled by them. So-'called cosmic evolution, as set forth in La Place's theory of the heavens, and the growth of strata Fundamental Facts and Features. 85 on the earth, as set forth in geology, are to be classed as growth development rather than evolution, and ought not to be confounded with it. Evolution seeks for the origin of the things which are afterwards developed by actual growth. It seeks the origin of life in its many types ; and of species as found at various stages of the earth's history. It seeks to con- nect the higher and lower forms of living organisms by some common origin, partly or wholly. We must also distinguish evolution from variation within the limits of species. The varieties and modifica- tions of the dog and the horse are very numerous, and so of many other animals. These varieties are even more evident in plant life, as seen by botanists. Cattle breeders and horticulturists are constantly seeking new and im- proved varieties inside the limits of species. Evolution- ists claim these variations as cases of evolution, and then cite them in proof of the theory. This again is reasoning in a circle. Evolution seeks to unify all species in a common origin as the resultant of some law of nature, with a minimum of direct creative power, if there be any at all. Certain analogies, likenesses, identities, and unities do indeed indicate a community of origin. Orthodoxy says they had a common creator. Evolution finds it in some natural law, even though they may not be able to define it ; there- fore they speak of some unknown law, unknown because no one has witnessed its operation, nor found any proof of it. Evolution assumes that every physical change had a physical origin, according to some physical law; they see that the unities indicate a community of origin, and conclude that some unknown law was in operation to pro- duce different species. This simply 'begs the question. 86 The Scriptures, There are two schools of evolution : The materialistic and the theistic. The former is sometimes called the atheistic school, because, if we concede the eternity of pristine matter, there is no place for a God in their sys- tem. Still, the adherents of this school are not specula- tive atheists. We do not, therefore, press the name of atheistic evolution ; and besides, it is an odious name. Materialistic evolution originates life from dead matter by some unknown law. It teaches that vital force is a property of original matter, as real as the physical and chemical forces with which we are familiar ; and that this vital force manifests itself whenever certain combinations of matter take place ; in short, that life is the result of a naturally formed organism, without any supernatural agency. It holds that the lowest possible form of cell life, which they call protoplasm was the source of all suc- ceeding life on the earth. This school, then, evolves all genera and species, in- cluding man, by purely natural processes. By a study of the fauna and flora of all the geological periods, from the lowest forms of infusorial life, along direct and col- lateral lines of descent till we reach man and the multi- tudinous divergent types of the present day, they find chains of succession and improvement, with important links missing here and there. They assure us that these missing links do exist, and must be assumed as logically necessary, and will doubtless be found some day. Under this scheme, man is absolutely material, and his life, reason, intelligence, and his moral nature, are only higher forms of the animal instincts of the lower animai creation, and are the resultant of material organization only. They do not teach that the man is descended from the monkey, as some suppose, but that the man, the monkey, Fundamental Facts and Features. 87 the ape, and the gorilla are descended in collateral lines, from a missing link which they call the anthropoid ape. So also, the oyster and the clam, in all their varieties, are all descended from seme common extinct ancestor; and that the oyster and the man, though now so widely diver- gent, are the natural progeny of some ancestor far back- in the ages, and near to the original protoplasm, the com- mon parent of all living organisms. They teach that all this has been accomplished by ages of infinite variations and differentiations, until types and species became fixed, as we see them to-day. This was done under the operation of two laws, which they call "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest." It is difficult to define these laws without giving to nature intelligent choice, and assuming that nature in some way either adjusted the organism to the environ- ment, or adjusted the environment to the organism. With- out such adjustment, no organism could live a single day after its birth, much less could it make the survival and prove itself the fittest. This form of evolution coheres with the atomic theory of Democritus, and with the ontology of Epicurus, and some boast of this fact. They held to the eternity of matter, with scant properties and qualities in its original condition, with a tendency to aggregation, and that its subsequent properties and qualities, as manifested in or- ganisms, animate and inanimate, are the natural result of that tendency to aggregation. This is bald materialism also. Materialistic evolution makes miracles an impossible product of natural law; it makes inspiration the product of a materialistic instinct; it degrades the Scriptures to the level of the vilest product of a beastly materialism, which is every whit as respectable as their materialistic 88 The Scriptures, philosophy. This is practical atheism, and we need pursue it no further. Theistic evolution ascribes the origin of matter, with all its properties, to absolute creation, just as the Scrip- tures do. They hold that all natural forces and causes are of supernatural origin, and that nature's laws worked out all the stages indicated by astronomical and geological sciences, without any direct interposition of divine power and agency. They call this God's method of creation. They claim that it is the highest possible tribute to creative wisdom and power to suppose that he created matter with such natural powers and forces that it wrought out the whole material and physical universe under the operation of so-called natural law, without the necessity of divine intervention. They apply this principle to every fact of the earth's history except the introduction of life. They deny the power of dead matter to originate life, or that life is in any sense a property or quality of matter. Materialistic evolution has made every effort to prove the doctrine of spontaneous generation under favorable conditions, and some are now engaged in producing imitations of life and its cellular motions in the laboratory. But theistic evolution denies the possibility of life except by divine agency. They ascribe the origin of life, and the creation of a few primordial forms, to the direct intervention of crea- tive power, and we call it relative creation ; i. e., the creat- ing or making of new and higher forms out of existing materials. Starting with primordial forms or types, they account for all subsequent life by evolution from these by a nat- ural descent, adopting the nomenclature and the exact theory of the materialistic evolutionist. Of course, there Fundamental Facts and Features. 89 are divergences of opinion ; some think that new types were introduced from time to time by direct creative act. Others think that evolution sometimes proceeded per sallum, or by a sudden leap to a higher type, instead of by the usual infinitesimal differentiations. The divergences are wider when they come to man. Some think he was born of brute parents, but per saltum — a leap from a brute beast mother to a low but real hu- manity. Some think that there was a direct divine agency put forth to make the transition. Some, again, claim that a direct creative act was necessary for man's body — that the gap is too wide to be covered by any possible form of natural generation. Some hold that all the lower forms of life, up to man, emerged by evolutionary processes. Probably all theistic evolutionists believe that the soul of man, that which differentiates him from the lower ani- mals, was a direct creation in the image of God. Here they part company entirely with the materialist — deny absolutely that the soul is a naturalistic product. They contend, further, that their views are not only allowed by a proper exegesis of Scripture, but also ac- tually taught by Moses as to the method of creation. Is this claim just? CHAPTER IX. Evolution — Is It Scriptural? THEISTIC evolution, as has been shown, ascribes life to a direct creative energy. It ascribes a few primordial forms to relative creation, and then claims that all subsequent forms and species grew out of these by spontaneous variation, natural selection, struggles for ex- istence, survival of the fittest, and mutation, without the interference of direct creative power. Some think that creative energy went forth from time to time to introduce new types. There is division of sentiment as to man. All of this has already been noted. They find it easy to invoke a direct creative energy whenever and wherever it seems to them necessary, having once conceded its necessary presence at any stage. They do not, as a rule, exclude God's providential direction and control in na- ture's processes all the way through ; but they consider it just as necessary then as now. They call this historic evolution, sometimes by direct creative energy, and after- wards by continuous providential control of nature's forces — "God's method of creation." It is easy to see that this theory is not pure evolution. So much of it as concedes the direct exercise of creative power is in no sense evolutionary ; and so much of it as is mere historic growth and development is not properly called evolution. The transmutation of species, or strict biological evo- lution, is the only evolution proper in their system, though it gives name for the whole. It is claimed that this trans- Fundamental Facts and Features. 91 mutation has taken place according to unknown and un- verified laws. There is no objection to so much of their system as concedes the existence of God, his creation of matter, his direct power, introducing life, and creating primordial forms and types, his providential government ever all, and his direct creation of man, in part, at least. Theistic evolution is unscientific, because it is unproven. It relies on the analogies and identities of form, purpose, and use in different species to prove the same birth origin, instead of the same creative origin. Besides, similarity and identity of environment would seem to prove that these observed analogies and identities have been neces- sary to the very existence of variant species on any theory of their origin and existence. Then, again, it is unscientific to assume the existence of facts essential to a hypothesis, and then from that hypothesis to argue the necessary existence of these hypo- thetical facts. Not a single case of transmutation has been discovered in the countless species of the present cosmos. Not a single fact has been found to connect these with the equally numerous species of a previous geological age, nor any fact to show that species then were not equally separate and fixed as in our day. Nor have any facts been found to connect the fixed species of any one geologic period with those of another. The com- parative anatomist is at no loss to classify a fossil of any age or period as belonging to a fixed species. The miss- ing links must needs be very numerous, but their exist- ence is mere guess-work ; no sound induction can be based upon their hypothetical existence. The hypothesis of transmutation of species rests upon other unproven hypothesis — for example, the existence of the unverified laws of natural selection and survival of the fittest; a proper environment and proper conditions for the 92 The Scriptures, operation of these laws ; a sufficient length of time for the necessary spontaneous variations and their final es- tablishment into fixity of species, and others. Now, if each one of these basic hypotheses has a certain ratio of probability, expressed in mathematical terms, we may combine these probabilities, just as we calculate the doc- trine of chances, and the resultant probability of the truth of them all amounts to a practical impossibility. It would be like balancing a truncated pyramid on its apex or smaller base, and another on it, and still another, and another, and the whole is a toppling mass of unstable equilibrium. In fact, the whole theory of evolution, con- sidered as a scientific structure, is now confessedly in a state of ruinous collapse. If evolution could be scientifically proven for plants and animals throughout the geologic ages prior to the ice age, after which man was introduced on the earth, it is certainly not true of man and the present cosmos. All the species of the world that now exist are fixed. There is no movement to higher types ; and every pre-historic bone or fossil yet discovered is easily located in its own fixed species. Evolution is unscriptural in every respect. It contra- dicts the common-sense exegesis of the first and second chapters of Genesis. The attempt to reconcile has been made in the interest of evolution, partly because it was supposed to be true, and partly to verify its truth. Others again, have tried to explain Genesis in such a way as to leave the right of way to evolution, and they say that the Scriptures are in no way interested in the truth or falsity of the doctrine. It confounds creation and providence. Creation is thq divine fiat, setting up nature and its laws, and fashioning new organisms. To this the theistic evolutionist agrees. Fundamental Facts and Features. 93 Providence works through second causes, controlling and directing nature's activities by and through its laws. This is certainly included in his definition of evolution as "God's method of creation." By the same argument, providence to-day might be called creation, and it ought to be so if natural processes are creative processes. "Mediate creation," or creation by natural processes, is a contradiction in terms. Creation 'brings into existence by a direct and immediate exercise of divine power; provi- dence upholds, directs, and governs. This distinction is Scriptural throughout, as we have seen in another dis- cussion. It also confounds creation and natural genera- tion. It cannot be claimed that God's relations to the creation of Adam and Eve were the same as his relation to the birth of their first-born son. One was creation, the other was natural generation. (Compare Gen. i. 21, 22, 27, 28; v. 1-3.) Plants, animals, and man were formed of the dust of the ground in the same sense, for the terms used are the same, or at least equivalent, for all — for plants, for ani- mals, and for man : For plants: "Let the earth bring forth grass, etc.," "And the earth brought forth grass," etc. (Gen. i. 11, 12.) "And out of the ground God made to grow every tree," etc., (Gen. ii. 9.) This was not spontaneous gen- eration and spontaneous variation, for "He made every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew." (Gen. ii. 5.) For animals : "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind." (Gen. i. 24.) "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air," (Gen. ii. 19.) 94 The Scriptures, For man : "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." (Gen. ii. 7.) "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen iii. 19.) Solomon, in speaking of men and beasts, says, "All go unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." (Eel. iii. 20.) Now, if the plant was made before it was in the ground, and every herb before it grew, it certainly was not by natural generation, nor by spontaneous variation. How, then, were animals and man, which were made of the ground in the same sense, the result of these causes ? Each species was complete of its kind and self-propa- gating. "The herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yield- ing fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." (Gen. i. 11, 12.) The same was true of birds and marine forms of life. "And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl mul- tiply on the earth." (Gen. i. 22.) And so with land ani- mals, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature, after his kind, beast, cattle, and creeping thing after his kind." (Gen. i. 24, 25.) So also was man to multiply, and no one questions the fixity of his species. The plant, the herb, the tree, the fish, the fowl, beasts, cattle, creeping things, and man were first created, and then came the seed and self-propagation by natural generation. It is plain, therefore, that every species was fixed by the crea- tive act, and that natural generation was not a stage of the creative act. (Compare Gen. ii. 9; ii. 5 ; v. 3.) Other Scriptures confirm this exegesis, either directly or by implication. The beasts and the fowls went into the ark, male and female, according to their kind, "to keep seed alive on the earth." (Gen. vii. 2, 3.) The ox Fundamental Facts and Features. 95 and the ass and the cattle of the fourth and tenth com- mandments imply the same fixity. In fact, the naming implied fixity of species as they came from the Creator's hand. This exegesis which has been made of the narrative of creation as given by Moses is the simple, common-sense interpretation ; it lies on the very surface, and seems to be the basis and starting point of revelation. If we sur- render its simple historicity in the interests of such science, it proves easy and natural to surrender the his- tory and the teaching of the next few chapters in the in- terest of any and every false philosophy, and so on through the entire Scriptures, till nothing is left but that which rationalistic conceits approve. Arraign the Scrip- tures at the bar of human reason, call it science, or philo- sophy, or higher criticism, or whatever you please, and the result is not far to see. Reason serves the summons, sits as judge, testifies as a witness, prosecutes the case, interprets the law, and pronounces the sentence — lynch law in a new role. This reverses the attitude of all the parties, and ends only in disaster. The general exegesis given is sustained by any fair interpretation of the whole trend of Scripture. Compare Job, chapters xxxviii. to xli ; Psa. xciv. 9 ; Isa. chapter xl. ; Matt. vi. 30; Psa. xxxiii. 6, 7. Evolution tends to elevate natural law into a supreme intelligent force, in the place of a personal creator, and is so far pantheistic. It also minimizes the supernatural and explains away the miraculous, and is so> far atheistic. It is thus that extremes meet. It is hard to distinguish between a thorough-going pantheism and a bald atheism. CHAPTER X. Geology and the Mosaic Cosmos. The State of the Question. GEOLOGY is the science of the earth's formation and growth. It is based on observed facts. Like every other science, it has its speculative side, its induc- tions, its deductions, and its working hypotheses. It has connections with other sciences, and its sidelights upon creation, and its bearing upon the Mosaic account of origins. Perhaps no one of the speculative sciences has rilled so large a place in public interest as this in modern times. It was the first of the physical sciences to demand a modified interpretation of the account of creation in Genesis. Starting with Galileo's claim that the earth is round, it suggested a revision of the exegesis which taught that the earth was flat and square, and that the heavenly bodies revolved around the earth. A more accurate study of the laws of language has enabled the reader to distinguish more accurately between literal and figurative language, and between the scientific and popu- lar use of terms. The whole Christian world has stood ready to revise the traditional interpretation whenever science has seemed to demand it. The age of the world, the duration of the creative activities, the extent of the flood, and other tradi- tional interpretations of Scripture have been challenged and revised at the behest of this and kindred sciences. It is a question whether this surrender and revision has not been carried too far, and whether principles of interpreta- Fundamental Facts and Features. 97 tion have not been adopted which tend to destroy all sound teaching; and whether this process has not opened wide the door for every form of error, and especially the evolutionary philosophy of tne Higher Criticism, and the practical rejection of the Scriptures as the infallible word of God. A false principle of interpretation once adopted to compass a certain end, is sure to assert itself elsewhere. The popular notion that the world is only six thousand years old has been given up, not only because geology seems to prove the contrary, but a careful study of Genesis does not make it so appear. It only says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Stratified rocks and fossils indicate great age. On any theory of the formation of the earth's strata much time was required. Also the formation of the coal meas- ures and the abrasion of mountains since their formation ; the filling up of estuaries ; the scooping out of valleys ; the formation of modern deltas, and many other things, satisfy the candid mind that much time has been required. The tendency, however, now is to shorten the estimates of the time necessary. There have been two leading theories, the Uniformi- tarian and the Catastrophist. The Uniformitarian claims that nature's forces have always moved slowly, and in the same volume as at the present time. This theory greatly extended the time neccessary. The Catastrophist has taught that the present adjustments have been the result of great catastrophes, or cataclysms of nature, operating with inconceivable power in the earlier ages, until the present state of equilibrium was reached. The more popular view now is, that it takes both these theories to account for present conditions. Stratified and fossiliferous rocks usually indicate periods of repose. 98 The Scriptures, Conglomerates, mountain ranges, upheavals, depressions, fissures, volcanic rocks and floods, indicate great catas- trophes and inconceivable forces. The geologist reports an order of succession of life on the earth, as indicated by fossils, which is much the same as in Moses' account in Genesis. We shall note the use made of this later on. Geology proper classifies the rocks and fossils found in the crust of the earth into periods of formation, and these periods are variously sub-divided, according to the order of formation and the fossils found in different strata. La Place's nebular hypothesis is an astronomical theory which overlaps geology because the earth is one of the heavenly bodies. It gives an outline of the origin and earlier formation of suns and planets and satellites — the formation of worlds. The geologist adopts La Place's theory as defining the origin and formation of the earth down to the time when life was introduced upon it. The crust of the earth furnishes nothing to the observer from which to make inductions from which to originate and set up this theory, though he may find some facts which seem to cohere with it. It is now customary to classify geologic times, or the life of the earth, into six great periods. Four of these are hypothetical, and drawn from La Place's theory of the heavens ; and the line of subdivision here would seem to be arbitrary, or, at least, to be suggested and dictated to serve a purpose. The fifth and sixth periods are gener- alizations from observation on the crust of the earth. These two periods seem to have necessary sub-divisions, as they are presented. We shall consider this further on. The meagreness of geological exploration, even on land, to say nothing of that which underlies the ocean beds, is also to be considered. The laws of simultaneity and sue- Fundamental Facts and Features. 99 cession are by no means settled. In fact, limited dredging of the ocean's bed suggests serious revision of these laws. Then again, fossils are often found in their burial places rather than where the animals lived. These things are noted as a caveat against the infallibility of geological science. Still, in this case also, there is no objection to any and every well-ascertained fact in historical geology. The question to be discussed is whether Moses said anything at all about it. Mere science can take no account of the supernatural in world-making, nor recognize its limits. This is true of all nature. In tracing the natural back towards its origin, no one can tell where the one ends or the other begins. This is a matter of revelation, as is all we know of creation ; and we know it only by faith in what God himself says about it in the Scriptures. It remains, there- fore, that the dJata given in revelation determine any theory of creation, or any cosmoganic theory, so far, at least, as the Scriptures touch it at all. An infidel theory rejects Moses altogether. It makes no difference to it what Moses does or does not teach in his account of creation. Its advocates claim that the whole story is made up of myths and fancies which have no real value except such as inheres in all mythical tradi- tions. It is not our purpose here to set up the Scriptures against the skeptic. We may, therefore, dismiss his con- tention as not pertinent to this discussion. There are two leading Christian theories held by men of equal faith and devotion. There would seem to be no objection to either theory as to its actual content if it be taught in the Scripture, and is sustained by a proper ex- egesis of the Mosaic account of creation. One theory claims that the days of Moses are indefinite ioo The Scriptures, periods of time, of immense duration, which they call cosmogonic days ; and that these days span the whole arc of time, from the first incandescence in a universe of in- finitely attenuated matter down to the creation of man. This theory is called the "Tayler Lewis" theory, not be- cause he originated it, but because he was the ablest and fullest expounder of it. The other theory follows the traditional view, that the six days of Moses are six natural days of twenty-four hours each, and that Moses did not essay to tell anything of the historic geology of the earth beyond about six thousand years ago. This is called the "Chalmers" theory, because it was elaborated and defended by Dr. Thomas Chalmers, who was an eminent scientist as well as theologian, and in no sense a disbeliever in geology. The Tayler Lewis theory takes the six periods already referred to, and draws an ingenious parallel with the six days of Moses, and claims that Moses was describing these six periods in definite terms as the real history of the various stages of creation — and that he so described the processes. Hugh Miller invented the theory that Moses saw it all pass before his eyes in panoramic visions, and that he wrote down the leading features of each cos- mogonic period. Principal Dawson presents this theory of cosmogonic days in his "Origin of the World," in tabulated parallels, and argues the essential harmony of the teachings of geology with the Mosaic account of creation. Professor Guyot, of Princeton, does the same thing in his book "Creation." Both these men were of great scientific at- tainments, of unquestioned piety, and learned in the Scriptures. The two books referred to are of great ability, and as fascinating as such a theme must be if it be ably presented 1 . Fundamental Facts and Features. ioi This theory makes Moses' seventh day the "Period of Human History." It also adds an eighth day, to which the Scriptures do point — a period of eternal blessedness in heaven. This theory, if true, converts geology, in its main outlines, into a "Thus saith the Lord." Chalmers' theory limits Moses' account to the creation of the present cosmos in six natural days. It holds that Moses makes no reference to the geological history of the earth prior to the week in which man was introduced upon the earth. It locates all the periods of the geologist, which embrace La Place's theory of the heavens as well, prior to these six days. It is willing to accept, so far as may be proven, all that geology teaches concerning its cosmogonic periods. Each theory would seem to be equally scientific. They part company on a mere question of exegesis. The only point at issue between the two is this, "What did Moses say in Genesis? And how is it to be interpreted and understood? What are the facts recited by Moses, and do these facts belong to historic geological science ?" This is the real question at issue. Much of the apparent con- tradictions of the Bible and science, and the logomachy of the scientist and the theologian has originated in mis- taking the real issue. The only question is "What does the P>ible teach, when fairly interpreted, according to the laws of language?" In this case, "Are Moses' days six natural days, or six cosmogonic days ?" CHAPTER XI. The Six Days of Creation. WE HAVE seen that the Tayler Lewis theory in- terprets the six days to be periods of great length, corresponding to the six periods of historic geology, as already noted. The Chalmers theory con- strues them as six natural days at the end of geological time, and at the beginning of human history. This is a question of pure exegesis. So* far as the science of geology is concerned, as a science, it is of small moment which theory prevails ; but it is of the utmost importance that correct principles of interpretation prevail, because the value of the inspired Scriptures depends on a sound exegesis, not only in this case, but everywhere. All errors and heresies in doctrine and practice seek to en- trench themselves in some false philosophy, and in some corresponding false exegesis of the Scriptures. The Tayler Lewis theory has three schemes of ex- egesis : i. That Moses' account is poetic and allegorical, rather than historic. 2. That Moses probably received his revelation of the creation in panoramic vision, possibly in six natural days. 3. That Moses' days are real periods of time of long duration, and that the details are accurate science in out- line. Lewis, Dawson, and Guyot use all three of these schemes. They argue the first and the second as plausible and 1 probable schemes, which do satisfy some inquirers Fundamental Facts and Features. 103 after truth; and the reader would suppose from their use of them that they consider them of real logical value. The fact is, however, that they all argue the third scheme elaborately, and seek to show, by the use of words and phrases, and by comparison of other Scriptures, and by necessary definitions, that Moses told the story of crea- tion in categorical statement, substantially as the geologist tells it. They claim, also, that the geologist confirms Moses, and thereby renders valuable service to the Scrip- tures, and then, in turn, that Moses confirms the geologist in his claim to have interpreted nature aright. Or, in other words, that the two are ancillary to each other, and mutually helpful. The first scheme claims that Moses' account is poetic and allegorical, rather than literal history. We may reply to this that there is no reason to suppose that this account of creation is poetry in any sense. The language he uses is the simplest form of prose writing — simple and yet majestic. Hebrew poetry has peculiarities of form and expression, which are easily identified as such, and Moses sometimes wrote in poetic numbers, but we would hardly expect him to write poetic prose in the form of historic statement unless he so intended it. No one, however, says that his account is poetry, but poetic. An allegory is one story told and another story meant, and the reader is expected to supply the second as he reads and studies the first. The first story may or may not be true; it may or may not be possible. The second story corresponds to the first in all their details, and the second story is not only possible, but true in all the details. The claim is put forth that the account of creation is alle- gorical, in order to teach some great spiritual truth. No one has yet written out the second story which is the alle- gorical lesson of Moses' story. But it is not claimed that the account is an allegory, but merely allegorical. 104 The Scriptures, We here note the three adjectives, "poetic, allegorical, and historical." Are they referring simply to style in the use of these three adjectives to characterize Moses' ac- count of creation? If so, the whole plea is sophistical. Later critics are more consistent when they deny entirely the historicity of Moses' account in the interest of what they are pleased to call "high spiritual lessons taught in poetic and allegorical form." No one denies that im- portant spiritual lessons may be drawn from the account of creation as well as from any and all of the works of God, so far as revealed or manifested. However, the advocates of the theory of cosmogonic days do not wish to get rid of the historicity of the Mosaic account. They evidently wish only to get rid of what might seem to be the necessary literal interpreta- tion of his simple story. The second scheme says that Moses probably received the revelation about creation by visions, similar to the prophetic visions of later prophets. Joseph and Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, Ezekiel and John, had visions indicating things that would come to pass, some near at hand, while others revealed the trend of history, the great historic events far away. Why not reveal to Moses the far distant past in panoramic visions passing before his face? Prophetic vision might look backward as well as forward, because the essence of the revelation is essentially the same in each case. Hugh Miller invented this theory, and held that the visions passed before Moses in six natural days, and are so recorded in Genesis. Others say, "probably in six natural days." If this be conceded, the six days of Moses are confessedly six natural days, and there is need of no further discussion of that point. The only question to Fundamental Facts and Features. 105 investigate is whether Moses records a series of visions, and if so, who may interpret them with authority. In the recorded visions of later times, they are recorded as such. Sometimes a prophet interpreted them, as, for example, Pharaoh's and Nebuchadnezzar's visions of the night. Sometimes they were interpreted by God who gave the visions, as in the case of some of Daniel's visions. Sometimes they were not interpreted at all, as in some parts of John's visions at Patmos, which have waited on their fulfilment to interpret them. Now, if Moses' account of creation is a series of visions they are not recorded as such ; nor is there the most dis- tant hint in the text or the context that Moses got any of his knowledge of the past in any such way. We say, therefore, that the assumption is gratuitous, and is made in the interest of a pre-conceived theory. And if his ac- count is a series of visions, who has a right to interpret them with authority? We are, therefore, at liberty to pass by this scheme as having no foundation in fact, nor in the principles of a safe exegesis. It is more to the purpose that the third scheme logically excludes the first and the second. It claims that Moses' account is real history, and that the details of it are in perfect harmony with the ascertained facts of science. If the account is poetic and allegorical, rather than his- torical, this impinges on the claimed historicity of the third scheme. And if it be a series of visions, and that, too, without an authorized interpreter, how can it be literal history? The three schemes would seem mutually to exclude each other. It is difficult to see why all three should be set forth in the same discussion, and even as- sumed to be true. It is not uncommon in civil proceed- ings in law for the defendant to set up several contrary, and even contradictory, pleas, so that, failing to prove 106 The Scriptures, one, he may fall back on another, or still another, either one of which would release him. Such processes, how- ever, are hardly allowable in logical investigation, much less the assumption of all at once. The third scheme is the one on which they mainly rely. We may, therefore, examine it in detail. They argue that the word "yom," which is translated "day," is often used as an adverb of time, of indefinite duration ; and that it is often used figuratively. We have examples of this in phrases like these, "in that day," "in the day," "the day of adversity," etc. This we freely concede, for the word "day" is used in a similar way in all languages. But we must determine from the context and from prescriptive usage when the word day is literal and when it is used adverbially or figuratively. Assuming that the word "day" is used figuratively here for an indefinite period, they make the "evening and the morning," the "darkness and the light," of Genesis i. 4, 5, to signify beginning and progress, quiescence and activity in nature's forces, in each period. They cite such familiar figures as these as parallel : "the morning and evening of life;" "sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning;" "work while it is day, the night cometh when no man can work." Then they claim that "the waters," and "the deep" of verse two are the names Moses gives to the measureless expanse of created matter, in its most attenuated possible form, before it began to contract and revolve and grow luminous by chemical action and frictional electricity. And they say that Moses uses these words to represent; it for want of better words, and (because of the poverty and the paucity of language, and its inadequacy to ex- press the real facts. Also, that the word "earth," in verse two, was the original "chaos" which became the Fundamental Facts and Features. 107 earth ages afterwards and was enveloped in the measure- less chaos of original matter; and that the "face of the deep," and the "face of the waters," on which the Spirit brooded, simply represented the formless and measure- less expanse of chaos. All the rest of Moses' account is accepted as literal. They rely mainly on the coincidences in the parallel between Moses' days and the cosmogonic days, and claim that they prove identity. They adopt an unproven hypo- thesis of world-making, sub-divide its stages in an arbi- trary way to suit a purpose, and give new and unusual definitions to the most familiar things in Moses' account, in order to institute a parallel, and then argue from this parallel to prove that they have rightly interpreted both Moses and astronomical and geological facts. The Chalmers theory says that they have probably in- terpreted nature aright, but not Moses. It claims that the entire account is literal, and that the words "waters," "the deep," "face of the waters," "day," "night," "even- ing," "morning," "darkness", and "light" are used in their simple and familiar meanings, exactly like the words "dry land," "earth," "seas," "fowls," "cattle," "grass," "fruit trees," "sun," "moon," "man," and "woman." On either theory the first verse is declarative and prefa- tory. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It indicates nothing as to the truth of either theory, and fits each equally well. No special hiatus of time is suggested, as some suppose, and either theory might begin with this statement. Verse two describes the condition of the earth just prior to the first day of Moses. "The earth was without form and void; and darkness was over the face of the deep ; and the spirit of God moved on the face of the 108 The Scriptures, waters." If we follow the literal interpretation, we notice several things : i. The earth was "without form." The Revised Ver- sion says "was waste." This indicates the absence of order and beauty as we now see, and implies that some previous order of things had been destroyed or laid waste. 2. The earth "was void." Gesenius says "desolation — empty." This must be empty of life, both vegetable and animal life, for he proceeds to tell how the conditions were prepared and improved, and then how all forms of life were introduced. 3. The earth was covered with water — a universal de- luge of waters, properly called "the deep." This is con- firmed by verses 9 and 10, which tell of the gathering of the waters into seas, and the appearance of the dry land. 4. Absolute darkness over the water covered the earth. 5. There was no suitable atmosphere. This has been accepted as the "firmanent" or expanse. Now, these five things do at least cohere with each other, and seem to have been the result of some great cataclysm of nature, the destruction of a former cosmos, to make way for a new order of things. This, again, coheres with the theory of the catastrophists, and with the fact of the post-glacial deluge, of which geologists tell us. It was once customary to locate the glacial period about three hundred thousand years ago. More recent authorities bring it down to ten thousand years ago, and even to four thousand years ago in Northern Europe. The theory of total darkness, and a total retraction, or shutting out of the sun's light and heat, accounts for the glacial period better than any other theory. Total darkness, intense cold, and a vitiated atmosphere, ac- Fundamental Facts and Features. 109 counts for the destruction of former life. Nothing but the post-glacial deluge could break up the glacial period. We may, therefore, suppose and fairly infer, that Moses begins his account of the creation while this deluge cov- ered the face of the earth, and he tells us of the creation of the present cosmos. It is easy to see that the waters that covered the earth (verse two) and the waters that were collected in one place, and called "seas," (verses 9 and 10) and the waters that brought forth abundant living, moving creatures (verses 20 and 21) were one and the same waters. This is required by a sound canon of interpretation, which says that the same word in the same context means the same thing, unless the context or prescriptive usage de- mand the contrary. We may easily see, in the light of this rule of inter- pretation, that the literal meaning of the word "day" is required, both by the context and by prescriptive usage. Verses 4 and 5 do express a natural day exhaustively. "God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning was the first day." This corresponds to the usage of the same terms in the Hebrew elsewhere, and we find the same forms of ex- pression in all languages to designate a natural day. In fact, we find two usages of the same term "day" in the same verse clearly recognized and authorized by prescrip- tive usage, i. e., day as opposed to night, and day in- cluding day and night. By looking further into the context, (Gen. ii. 2, 3,) we find that the seventh day is certainly a natural day. He ended his work and ceased or rested on the seventh day; and "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which no The Scriptures, God created and made." The day he sanctified was the seventh day of the week. The pronoun "it" fixes the matter. He sanctified it, because in "it" he rested. The fourth commandment confirms this. Now, if the seventh day in the count is a natural day, the other six must be the same, according to all modes of computation. Per- haps no expositor would be hardy enough to alter the statement and say that God sanctified the period of human history because in it he rested. The explanation of the fourth day presents less diffi- culties here than in the cosmogonic theory. It is easy to suppose that the causes which shut out the light of the sun, moon, and stars were only partially removed the first three days, and completely removed on the fourth day. This may not be the real explanation, but it is simpler than the more cumbrous hypotheses of the others. We may pass this further criticism on the cosmogonic day. Complex figures are disallowed in serious discourse, though they often constitute the soul of wit ; and they are unsuited to scientific statement. When any word or thing is used figuratively, the natural properties and qualities may not be used to amplify the figure without absurdity. The figure is limited to the single point and not to all its content. So, if the word "day" is used figuratively, we are not permitted to use any property or quality of the natural day except such as may be of the very essence of the figure. This rule is often sadly violated by allegoriz- ing expounders of Scripture. If the "day" be a figure of sreech, we may not talk of its evening or morning, its darkness and light. It is admitted by some geologists that only three or four species of shell fish survived the glacial period, that only one creeping thing, the cockroach, dates back to the carboniferous age, and that, of trees, beeches and larches Fundamental Facts and Features. hi survive in sections where they abounded in former geo- logical ages. There are several ways of accounting for these things without supposing that they set aside the Mosaic account of the creation of the present cosmos and its life, less than ten thousand years ago. Dawson admits the introduction of an Edenic group of animals along with man. Why not more? Why not all? CHAPTER XII. The Deluge. GEOLOGY discovers a great many floods in geologic ages, and each of these marks a stage in the re- mote history of the earth. Land and water date back very far in geologic time, and there is ample evidence that they have been in continual conflict. Aided by cold and heat, and by meteoric and seismic forces, the water has battled against continents and mountain ranges, shaping hills and valleys in endless change. Water has also been the necessary condition of infusorial and coral agencies, which have formed reefs and islands and unmeasured beds of strata. But water has done its greatest work in tremendous cataclysms of nature — storms and floods, abrading the continents, filling up valleys, depositing its freight of broken and disintegrated materials in strata of conglomerates, sandstones, slates, and clays. These great floods are in evidence everywhere, some of limited extent and duration, and some universal. From the nature of the case, the data are wanting to determine to what extent these many floods were contemporaneous, successive, limited, or universal. We know that some were limited and some were universal. Some seem to 'have been caused by the slow subsidence and uprising of coast-lines or continents, and others by the rapid crump- ling of the earth's crust, earthquake, fissure, and storm, producing the most terrific results in the rapid succession of ebb and flow. We have no history of all this except as the geologist Fundamental Facts and Features. 113 interprets present conditions as he sees them, and reads the record of rocks and strata. We are not here con- cerned with these, except to note that floods are no novelty in the earth's history. These works of nature are also God's works of providence; and David might well have said of them, ''The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled," etc. (Psa. lxxvii. 16-19.) Isaiah well said: "He hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hands," etc. (Isa. xl. 12.) And we may note that floods of water furnish a favorite figure throughout the Scrip- tures to set forth his power and control over all things, both for judgment and mercy, and for the glory of his great and holy name. The two last floods that prevailed on the earth are well authenticated, and perhaps better understood than any of the rest, because they are recent and their traces are more obvious. They are the post-glacial deluge and the Noachian deluge. They both seem to have been uni- versal. In Psa. civ. 6-9, we find a history that may easily describe both. "Thou coveredst it with the deep as a garment. The waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys, unto the place thou hast founded for them," etc. The post-glacial deluge calls for a brief consideration here, because it was once generally confounded with the flood of Noah, and its evidences were ascribed to the later deluge. Geologists tell us of a glacial period in recent times of the earth's history, during which there were immense accumulations of ice on that part of the earth's surface that stood out of the water. They once dated back this ii4 The Scriptures, period to many hundreds of thousands of years. The best authorities now, among whom we include Principal Daw- son, claim that it extended down to from six to ten thous- and years ago, and probably to four thousand years ago, in Northern Europe. This glacial period was broken up with a post-glacial deluge, which epoch ended all previous geologic history for the introduction of the present cosmos by creative hand. We claim that Moses took up the history at this point, as is much more fully set forth in another chapter, in which we discuss the six days of creation. The story of this deluge, and its conditions and its removal, as found in the first chapter of Genesis, is in a proper sense his- toric, because God is the historian by inspiration. We fairly infer the universality of this flood, from Gen. i. 2, This makes it easier to our exegesis and to our faith to accept Noah's flood as universal. This last flood we call "The Flood," to distinguish it from all others. It is our purpose to consider it in some of its aspects, so far as they affect the integrity and the proper exegesis of Scripture. First. The Flood is a well attested historic fact. The story is narrated in full detail in Chapters vi. to ix. of Genesis, which are sometimes spoken of as Noah's "log- book." Christ refers to the days of Noah and the doom of that generation, and adds, "So shall the coming of the Son of man be." (Matt. xxiv. 37-39.) He evidently believed in it. Peter says "God spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of right- eousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly." (2 Pet. ii. 5; Compare iii. 6.) "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." Also, 1 Pet. iii. 20. God cites the waters of Noah in Isa. liv. 9. Fundamental Facts and Features. 115 Was Noah a historic personage and a favorite? God cites to Ezekiel (xiv. 14) Noah, Daniel, and Job as the three men of the ages most likely to prevail with him. These references to Noah and the flood by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Christ and Peter, do severally and jointly endorse the entire story as found in Genesis, and re-inforce its ob- vious importance. We need hardly cite in confirmation the almost univer- sal tradition of the flood, embodied in the story of Deucalion, in the Vedas, or as told on the flood tablet of Babylon. There are some, however, who attach more importance to such evidence than to the Scriptures. These traditions, greatly modified in the transmission and garnished with poetic fancies and absurd conceits, lend their support to the simple story told by Moses. Second. Creation and the flood are two great epochs, strangely unlike and yet strangely alike. Creation origi- nates man and beast on the earth. The flood terminates that career for all, except to preserve seed of man and beast. Creation evokes a peopled cosmos out of universal deluge. That cosmos and its teeming millions perished by a flood of waters. Creation was the starting point of the human race. After failure and the destruction of the wicked, the race took a new start from Noah and his family. For all practical purposes, the flood was the be- ginning of human history, warned by the lessons of the past. There were creation covenants and blessings for the race. So, also, after the flood, Noah received en- larged blessings and covenants for his posterity. Third. The traditional view has been that the flood was universal and covered the whole earth, and that the highest mountains were covered. Modern science at- tacked the traditional view and denied its universality, limiting it to a comparatively small area in Central Asia. They used several arguments: n6 The Scriptures, i. There was no need of a universal flood to drown out a comparatively small group of people inhabiting Central Asia. 2. That science has not discovered traces of so exten- sive a flood. 3. That the ark was not large enough to hold pairs of all the animals in the world and their food. 4. That many of the animals lived in regions too re- mote to be represented in the ark. 5. That the accomplishment of the divine purpose did not require so great an expenditure and waste of energy. 6. Therefore, the exegesis of the flood must be revised to fit the facts, for all truth is a unit. In all this there is an underlying assumption that a limited flood is proven by a science as infallible as the Scripture record, and that the exegesis must be made to conform to the facts ascertained outside the Scriptures. This theory of the relations of the Bible and science started here. The acceptance of a limited flood was popu- larized, and many a loyal heart accepted the new exegesis in order to save the Scriptures. This principle has been made to do duty in many other directions in order to make the Bible fit every human conclusion supposed to be proven. Just here Rationalism gets in its perfect work, until, emboldened by its successes, it essays to arraign any and all Scripture at its bar, to ascertain what modicum of truth may be found therein. In itself considered, it would be a matter of small moment whether the flood was limited or universal. Nor would it seem to matter much if an honest but mistaken exegesis of the Scripture account fails to see the facts as they are. This often happens with no far-reaching hurt- ful results. But in the case before us, the issues are far- Fundamental Facts and Features. 117 reaching and vital. It is, therefore, more than the threshing over of old straw to discuss the flood once more. Let us examine briefly the arguments for a limited flood, which make it necessary to find a scheme of ex- egesis to correspond : 1. The first assumes that the human race was a small group, and that they were all settled in a comparatively small district. Where is the proof of this? If we con- cede that the antediluvians doubled the population by natural generation as rapidly as the Hebrews in Egypt, or as the negroes in the Southern States, and then take their long lives into the account, and calculate by geome- trical progression for the period from creation to the flood, we shall find that there may have been hundreds of millions of people on the earth when the flood came. The small population is a mere assumption, and can have no standing in the argument. 2. Admit it to be true that scientific exploration had not found evidences of so extensive a flood as was claimed. Had it traced the boundaries of their limited flood, and discovered that no wider limits were possible? This is a favorite fallacy, argumentum ab ignorantia. 3. The argument from the smallness of the ark has been often presented. God furnished the size and space and dimensions of the ark, and its system of ventilation. The animals and birds went in, led by an unerring in- visible hand. This implies that every one went to its own place, divinely assigned, and that his providence, or some other form of supernatural care, was over them through- out their year of confinement. It would seem immodest to bring this divine arrangement to a mere human, if not a hostile arithmetic, on the vain assumption that "figures will not lie." n8 The Scriptures, 4. The too great distance of many animals is also a pure assumption. We have heard of the migra- tion of animals and birds. God was the collector. Birds might come from the ends of the earth on rapid wing. Slow-moving land animals had 120 years to come if necessary. They were guided all by an instinct akin to inspiration. 5. The objector assumes that he knows the whole of the divine purpose in connection with the flood, and that a universal deluge was not necessary, but rather a waste of energy. We pass over the arrogance of this claim, and simply note that this argument is only a reiteration of previous assumptions. It would seem that all five of these pleas for a limited flood may be classed together, as mere negations and as- sumptions, under the fallacy of an argument from ig- norance. Rationalism is a much more respectable name for it. The latest form of the theory of a limited flood makes Noah the representative and the father of the Mediter- ranean races, and claims that the other seven great races of men were in no wise affected by the flood. We do not propose here to answer this theory, except as we may vin- dicate the traditional theory of a universal deluge. If universal, then the Toldoth-beni-Noah — the generations of the sons of Noah — include all the divisions of people on the earth, whether called families or races, as the Bible seems to teach in Genesis x. No one denies that the Bible story of the flood seems to teach that the whole earth was covered, and the high hills, and the mountains, fifteen cubits above them all. And that all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattie, and of beast, and of every creep- ing thing that creepeth on the face of the earth, and Fundamental Facts and Features. 119 every man and every living thing on the dry land and on the face of the ground and under heaven. And that pairs of every living thing, above named, upon the earth, went into the ark to be saved, and went forth out of the ark to breed abundantly in the earth, and multiply on the earth. It seems to be reiterated in every form of statement, and language seems to be exhausted to teach the traditional view. (See Gen. vi. 13, 17, 19, 20; vii. 8, 9> 15. : 9- 2 3; viii. 17, 19.) Now, is the traditional exegesis of a universal deluge a mistake? Have we only the record of a partial and limited flood, destroying man and beast and creeping thing only where it prevailed? The terms "the earth," "the dry land," "on the earth," "under heaven," "the world," "the high hills," "the moun- tains," "everything that creepeth on the earth," and such like, must be universal terms unless there be some ob- vious limitation in the context, or by prescriptive usage. We do not find either limitation in the context. But there is a supposed necessity for such limitation in the history, and it is found in this way. These terms are sometimes used in a limited way. The terms ren- dered earth, land, ground, etc., are sometimes used to signify limited parts of the earth; sometimes very narrow and small. How do we know this? By the context, and only by the context. It is not competent to say, that be- cause these terms are sometimes used in secondary and limited senses, therefore they are so used here, and must be so construed in order not to contradict the foregone conclusion of a limited flood. The advocates of this view would have written the story somehow thus : God was angry at the wickedness of man — (possibly the Mediterranean peoples) — and he determined to destroy their country, or land, where they i2o The Scriptures, dwelt, and announced, and finally sent, a flood to destroy them and their country, and every beast and creeping thing therein, and when the flood came it covered every high hill and every mountain in that area. But the more distant regions, peopled by birds and beasts and creeping things, (and possibly the seven other races of men) were not affected by it. The profaneness of rewriting the story so is not ours. If this were the only Scripture wrested in this way in order to make the Bible fit "science, falsely so-called," and other rationalistic conceits and vagaries, we could perhaps afford to dismiss it with a smile ; but unholy hands have reconstructed Bible history from creation to the birth of Christ in the interests of a self-sufficient rationalism. One ingeniously converts the story of crea- tion into infallible geological science; another finds in it the theory of evolution as God's mode of creation ; an- other decides with equal dogmatism that the earlier chap- ters of Genesis are allegory, legend and myth. All of these proceed on the same false principles of interpreta- tion, with an increasing variety of detail. It is a pleasure to record, however, that the exegetical dam once built around the flood has not withstood the assaults of scientific investigation. It goes without say- ing that a darn, to withstand a flood of waters, ought to be built on a sure foundation and of the best materials. There is abundant evidence, especially in Europe, of an ancient race of men easily differentiated from the men who have occupied the same regions within historic times. That race is called Prehistoric, Palaeocosmic, and Ante- diluvian. The Duke of Argyle and Principal Dawson argue, "That at the close of the Palaeocosmic age a deluge of water swept over our continents and caused a physical break between the earlier and later human ages." This Fundamental Facts and Features. 121 flood was of "short duration/' and the depressions and elevations connected with it are the last serious modifica- tions of the continents. The earlier breaking up of the glacial period, and the floating and melting of its ice- bergs, seem to have left no proper geologic formation. The grinding and polishing of gravels and stones, the crushing and grinding excoriations of the mountains and in the gorges, caused by the constantly moving glaciers, and their scattered loads of stone found on land then covered with water, is called the Drift, and is in no sense a geological formation. But the historic flood, of which all nations have a tra- dition, left its abraded materials all over the world as the last great geologic formation. Its name is Loess, or as Sir Charles Lyell calls it, "inundation mud." Some call it "diluvium." It is found throughout Eastern, Central and Western Europe, in the mountains of Wales, Siberia, China, North Africa, and North America. "It lies more or less over all the countries of the Northern Hemisphere, up to the heights of 4,000 and 5,000 feet. It is a loamy deposit, unstratified, though often of great thickness, destitute of marine shells, but with land shells and bones of land animals, and newer than the deposits of the glacial period, being in fact the latest deposit next to the modern peats and river alluvia." It is in places partially swept away by modern denuding agencies, but occurs in patches everywhere. In this formation, we find incredible and unmeasured accumulations of the bones of modern animals, where currents and eddies carried and deposited their floating- bodies in a final burial place. The thin-skinned animals were soonest decomposed and deposited. The Pachy- derms, or thick-skinned animals, floated longest in the currents of that shoreless ocean, and were deposited in a 122 The Scriptures, wide burial-ground, far away from their native haunts. We find large islands north of Asia that are built up en- tirely of the bones of mastodons and other pachyderms, while on the continent countless numbers of these ani- mals are buried in the diluvium, or frozen up in the marshes and estuaries of that region of cold and ice. In recent years, frozen bodies have been thawed out in suffi- cient preservation for the dogs and the wolves to feed on the flesh. All attempts to account for these things have failed, except as the remains of the flood described by an eye- witness and avouched to us by inspiration, and reinforced by a universal tradition. We rejoice that science has vindicated the story of the flood, and superseded the supposed necessity of revising the simple story as told in the Bible. Science is con- firming the Scriptures at many other points where un- belief and pride of opinion professed to find great diffi- culties and even impossibilities. Rationalistic criticism may peck at the crannies in the impregnable rock and imagine that they are tearing it way, but there is nothing to fear. The Scriptures are not of such exegetical flexi- bility that they may be twisted like a nose of wax to fit every scientific or philosophic fad that calls for recognition to-day. It will be exploded to-morrow\ "Their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being judges." CHAPTER XIII. Influence of Judaism on Ancient Civilization. WHAT was Judaism? When the people began, after the flood, to fall away to antediluvian apos- tasy, and to pervert and reject the truth and the worship of the true God, there was raised up a fami]> which, in a few centuries, was developed into a people to whom should be committed the oracles of God, to be kept against the time of general, if not universal, apostasy. The divine oracles were committed to Moses, written out bv him, and committed by him to that people. Their civil and social customs, their ritual and their religious faiths ; their education and their culture ; their families and their civil institutions ; their hopes for time and eter- nity were all formed and fashioned by those divine oracles. And, later on, those oracles were expanded and applied by inspired priest and prophet to meet changing conditions, and to preserve and conserve both oracles and people in their necessary relations and correlations. We may, therefore, affirm that Judaism was the concrete pro- duct and resultant of these oracles, both by natural pro- cess and by the working of the Holy Spirit, abiding in the oracles and working through them. If, therefore, we can trace large influences of Judaism on ancient civilizations, philosophies, and religions, we are entitled to claim that the real source of power and in- fluence was the Jewish Scriptures. No mere secular his- toric view, and no theory of naturalistic processes, will account for those oracles nor that people, nor the tre- mendous results achieved by them in the ancient world. 124 The Scriptures, Therefore, in tracing the influence of Judaism on an- cient civilization, we are, in the last analysis, tracing the influence of the Hebrew Scriptures on those civilizations. The same is true of their influence on philosophies and religions. The Jewish people were only a means to an end in the divine plan, and the Scriptures so represent it. Much has been said and written about the location of Palestine, the divinely appointed home of this people, who were to affect the destinies of the race, and of its eminent fitness by nature to safeguard and mould and fashion an imperishable people to dominate all others. We need here to touch on only a few points. Palestine was geographically the centre of the ancient world. Take the map, and put one leg of a pair of di- viders at Jerusalem, and describe enlarging circles with the other, and in its sweep will be included all the old civilization, Indian, Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. Besides, Palestine lay in the high- way of nations, by land and by water, both for commerce and for war. Egypt and Central Asia, and the Hittite Confederacy, for a thousand years coveted Palestine as an outpost against invasion, or as the base of operations for aggressive wars; for either of which her granaries were indispensable and her alliance supremely valuable. Proofs drawn from history need hardly be quoted here. It is more important to note that the Jews were cen- tral in the divine plan. Jehovah was both the civil and ecclesiastical head of that people. No other civil or re- ligious commonwealth ever had a divine head and a similar divine administration. In a broader sense, he was then, as he is now, "head over all things to the church." The Old Testament Scriptures are the record of the principles and methods of his administration; but mainly Fundamental Facts and Features. 125 they state and re-state and vindicate the truth against all comers. The full scope of his purpose is stated in his covenant promise to Abraham, "In thee shall all nations be blessed;" "all families of the earth." But how? They were the centre of learning and culture in Solo- mon's day, the scope and the patronage of which is set forth in the third and fourth chapters of the First Book of Kings. We have reason to think that the kingdom of David and Solomon was for eighty years the most glori- ous kingdom on earth. They had their opportunity and lost it. The kingdom failed of its mission. We need not here explain how and why. The captivity and dispersion made them missionaries to the race, unwilling missionaries, but real and successful. They carried their Holy Oracles with them, and their simple forms of spiritual worship; and all their achieve- ments in strange lands grew out of their Scriptures, di- rectly or indirectly, just as the Bible to-day differentiates Christian and pagan peoples. A few returned to Palestine at the restoration, to set up their temple and ritual worship, and maintain the theocracy until the King should come, and make sacrifice and offering to cease. Those who returned were perhaps one-fiftieth of the Jews of the dispersion. The great bulk of them remained in the countries to which they were carried away captive, and were gradually dispersed into every nation under heaven, but were not absorbed by any, for they had a mission. They became cosmopolite, rendering allegiance where- ever their lot was cast. They were usually prominent, prosperous, and petted. They were sometimes persecuted. Nebuchadnezzar first adopted the policy of protecting his Jewish subjects in his great empire. Cyrus and Alexan- der the Great, carried out the same policy more distinctly. 126 The Scriptures, So, also, did the four kingdoms into which his empire was divided, with two or three signal exceptions. Im- perial Rome recognized and continued the same policy as she extended her conquests to the ends of the earth. These things were not at all strange — because their thrift, integrity, intelligence, piety, allegiance, and their pure monotheism gave them position and influence in the midst of heterogeneous populations who were ever ready to violate their oaths and hatch treason. They were numerous in Asia, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, Sicily, Rome, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and the Lower Danube, as indicated by Jewish cemeteries found everywhere. They went along as the advance guards of civilization, wherever Roman arms penetrated and sub- dued barbarous peoples. Strabo and Juvenal and Seneca tell us of their promi- nence and prosperity. Strabo says, "They occupy and possess every place." Juvenal says, "The Jews sell every- thing." They were kings in commerce and real estate. Seneca says, "The vanquished have given laws to the vic- tors." While the ambitious Roman sought glory on dis- tant battle fields or provincial administration, the Jew de- voted himself to law and learning, to the bar and the forum. There is every reason to believe that the body of Roman civil law was the work of Jewish lawyers, who drafted, compiled, edited, and taught it in the schools. Gibbon says that this body of civil law is the one price- less legacy left to the world by the Roman Empire, even if it had left nothing else. Its true source and origin is the Jewish law-giver and his inspired legislation, as re- corded in the Scriptures. Its later expression is the civil law of Europe, and its still later expression is found in American constitutions, institutions and legislation. We here find ourselves face to face with the influence Fundamental Facts and Features. 127 of Judaism and their Scriptures on all successive civiliza- tions, ancient and modern, transmitted by inheritance rather than gotten by invention or discovery. The author hopes to elucidate this idea much more fully in another little volume, to be entitled ''Hebrew Institutions, Social and civil." He persistently holds and teaches that every- thing good in human institutions is of divine origin. The synagogue organization, which was the outward form of Judaism, during the centuries of the dispersion, accentuated and developed all that was good in them, and made effective a recognized brotherhood. Every syna- gogue was a school of morality and piety, and was a centre of religious life and activity, crowning their social life so that they were saved from the defilements of pa- ganism and consequent absorption. The synagogue or- ganization also unified and intensified their solidarity, and gave them great power for offense and defence, of which Gibbon gives some wonderful illustrations. Now, the Scriptures, constantly read and expounded on the Sabbath, and on two other days of the week, were the "be all and the end all" of their synagogue system, the unfailing source of their life and power. Every synagogue was also a mission station for the heathen around them, and immense numbers of pagans became proselytes, especially women. All this served to supersede a waning paganism and check a growing skep- ticism, and so prepared the Roman Empire for Christ and furnished a matrix for the Gospel. These facts have been much more fully unfolded in other connections. The main object of this discussion is to trace Judaism and their Scriptures as an unmeasured force among the nations, especially during five centuries of the dispersion. Their history during this period 1 has yet to be written, but it is a mistake to suppose those centuries to be a 128 The Scriptures, real eclipse, or a day of darkness and despair. Such a hopeless period did set in when they rejected their Mes- siah, and the dawn of a brighter day is not yet. We must not forget, however, that Judaism suffered immensely from contact with the civilizations around them, especially in the later history. The encroachment of Greek man- ners was the burning question which precipitated the Maccabean wars, the most heroic in history. But the en- croachment of Roman manners, backed by Herod and the Herodians, helped to intensify the Jewish spirit and solidify and save their integrity against the time of their linal dispersion. CHAPTER XIV. Judaism and Ancient Religions. IN approaching this subjeci, we may premise: I. Religious institutions are as natural to man as social and civil institutions; they date back to the be- ginning; and they are found among all peoples, from the lowest and most degraded forms of savage life, up to the highest civilization. The manifestations of religious life vary within these limits. 2. There is no evidence that religions originated in the religious instinct, so-called. At the same time, it is evi- dent that changes, additions, and modifications of doc- trine and ritual, and outward form and dress, varied pari passu with the deterioration of barbarous and savage peoples on the one hand, and with the advance of half- civilized peoples on the other. We may therefore expect to find countless varieties of detail in the religions of the world, just as in other institutions. 3. We expect, also, to find all these institutions modi- fying each other, and also modified, by contact of "other peoples. Imitation has played no unimportant part in human institutions, stimulated by sympathy, novelty, utility, and other subjective forces. 4. At the beginning there was but one religion, and so also after the flood. x\postasy before and after the flood was the natural outcome of sin — its heresies and practices. The oracles of God were committed to a people pre- pared therefor, in order to save true doctrine and true worship, while other nations and peoples were passing 130 The Scriptures, into paganism, which slowly crystallized in various forms which we call false religions. 5. It is not necessary to our purpose here to make ac- curate definitions of true and false religions, but we sim- ply assume such obvious and surface distinctions as are set forth in the Scriptures and are usually recognized. In fact, it is not here necessary to give a logical definition of a religion except as various features may be cited dur- ing the progress of this discussion. 6. The higher and more powerful religions have al- ways had sacred books and authoritative literature, which claimed a divine origin ; but the lower and more degraded forms of religion have no records except their traditional doctrines, superstitions and practices. This is just what we might expect. This same is true of their history, philosophy, and social life. The higher civilizations made permanent records of some sort. The lower have left little or none. It is easy, however, to connect the langu- age, the social usages, the traditions, and their religious beliefs and practices, with the higher types from which they have descended. This is true in most cases, at least, simply by comparison. 7. We do not propose here any exhaustive study of comparative religions, except to show a community of origin, and to trace the subsequent influence of the true oracles in conserving truth and preventing the corruption and decay of absolute apostasy. There are wonderful similarities and identities, both in form and substance, in principles and practice, as we shall see presently, and their modifications may often be easily traced. All institutions are based on fundamental beliefs, and are their concrete expression. False religions are the great conservative power in pagan nations. They conserve society and the state, even though they may Fundamental Facts and Features. 131 have no power to redeem the individual from sin and save the soul. Faith and natural virtues are necessary to the permanency of human institutions. Universal atheism leaves nothing but utter moral putrescence, anarchy, and self-destruction. The French revolution approximated this condition of things sufficiently to he an object lesson. Rulers of nations and peoples have not been slow to recognize the value of the sanctions of religion, to hold them to their moorings and strengthen the bonds of so- ciety and government, even when they themselves re- garded it as mere superstition. State support of religion has often been freely given to this end. False religions have derived something from a com- mon tradition. All nations have had a common origin, and in that common origin there was one true religion. It is impossible to say how much has been saved to them by direct tradition. It is safe to say that it has been over- estimated. Paul teaches this very plainly in Romans i. 20, 22, 25, 28, 32. In fact, the entire passage, from verse 20 to the end of the chapter, shows the utter futility of traditionary truth to purify and save the heathen world. He finds the reason in this : "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge." The light of natural religion, and of the natural con- science, has also been over-estimated, and for the same reason, as we learn from the same passage in Romans. Paul teaches, also, that the natural conscience gives the knowledge of sin, (Rom. ii. 12-15.) It 1S eas Y to see tnat this sense of sin, and consequent guilt, has given power to their religious sanctions. The only other source of the similarities and identities noted above was contact with revelation and the divine oracles through contact with Judaism. If these oracles helped to mould and fashion ancient civilizations, as al- 132 The Scriptures, ready set forth, still more did they mould and fashion their religions. And we may expect to find their influ- ence greatest where the contact was close and long con- tinued. On the other hand, those peoples who had the least opportunities to copy the true, have fallen into the lowest and most depraved forms of religious life. Now, concede the divine origin of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the argument is easy. There are certain basic faiths or principles found in all religions more or less distinctly, to-wit: Belief in a god or gods, and in many forms and manifestations of the supernatural ; a sense of sin ; need of atonement ; fear of wrath; efficacy of prayer; divine communications; ia moral code ; rewards and punishments in this life, and in a life to come; the need of a mediator; and such like. These faiths, if arranged in logical order, do well nigh formulate the abstract creed of Judaism and Christianity, and do argue a common origin for all religions. All religions had their temples and altars, sacrifices and offerings, priests and prophets, shrines and oracles, pray- ers and fastings, feasts and dances, ablutions and puri- fications. All of these are the outward form and expres- sion of the basic faiths cited above. Even the lowest and most degraded paganism retains and exhibits remnants and perversions of these things which are easily recog- nized. Archaic research finds identities in the names, titles, and attributes of the supreme gods of the ancients. For example, in Egypt the name of the supreme God was a form of the verb "to be," just as it is in the Hebrew. Shaddai, "the Almighty," was the name of the supreme god of the Phoenicians, exactly as among the Israelites, from Abraham down. No one will question the contact of Egypt and Phoenicia with Israel, from Abraham to Fundamental Facts and Features. 133 David. Jupiter, Jove, and Jehovah are confessedly one name. This name was adopted by the Romans from the Etruscans, along with other civil, social, and religious institutions. The relations of these Etruscans (Tar- shish) with Phoenicia and Israel are now conceded, reaching back from three to five hundred years before the founding of Rome. Besides, there are extraordinary historic and traditional identities, mythologies, and literary imitations. Many of these have been traced, some fanciful no doubt, but many real and instructive, because they tend to unify legend, romance, tradition, and real history, on the borderland of the actual and the fanciful. All the above named similarities and identities argue a community of origin, and they do utterly explode the theory that false religions are mere human inventions, the ingenious product of a religious instinct, as was once held. These identities have been so obvious that some have tried to unify all religions as substantially one, each of equal value to its votaries, and best suited to their several conditions. Some claim that faith is the supreme and saving element in all religions. There is no need here to refute this theory, except to say that a true faith rests on an infallible warrant and promise of salvation, which false religions cannot furnish. Their faith is a refuge of lies. Agnostics and higher critics have taken the lead in discovering and pointing out these identities ; and they have interpreted them to the discredit of the Scriptures, by finding other origin for them than divine revelation. They have pursued the same tactics in bringing the his- toric accuracy of the Scriptures under the limelight of archaeology and advanced scholarship. But, somehow, 134 The Scriptures, the impregnable rock of Sacred Scripture grows stronger with every newly discovered fact, truth or identity. "The stone which the builders rejected is become the headstone of the corner. Whosoever falleth upon it shall be broken, and on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder." A question emerges here. Why are not some of these other religions, in their better form of creed and ritual, sufficient ? We need only reply that none of them provide for an adequate atonement for sin and guilt, for deliver- ance from the power of sin, for holy living here, nor for perfected holiness hereafter. What is religion without these? To discuss this fully, would lead us too far afield. We recall that our theme is the influence of Judaism and its oracles on ancient religions. We may give further illustration and evidence of this by citing those false re- ligions that had, and still have, sacred books. Three great religions have dominated a large part of the human race, Magianism, Brahminism, and Mahom- medanism, and they all have sacred books. We need not here consider the Koran, the Moslem Bible, because in its origin it is contemporary with Christianity rather than Judaism, but recognizes both, and claims to be the ad- vanced and final form of both. This leaves us two for consideration. Magianism once dominated Central Asia, and seems to have been the rival of Sabianism, out of which grew the worship of the heavenly bodies, and ultimately all forms of Polytheistic idolatry. It left no* sacred books, unless certain papyri discovered in Egypt can be so classified. An old cult was called Zend, either because they wor- shipped fire, or because they kept sacred fires burning on their altars. Zoroaster seems to have reformed and popu- Fundamental Facts and Features. 135 larized this religion, and collated, wrote, or edited their sacred books under the name of Zend-a-vesta, the fire kindler. There is a wide diversity of opinion as to who he was, where he lived, and what was the nature and extent of his work. Some have argued that there were two Zoroasters, living centuries apart. His reputation was world-wide, and for centuries his name was a word to charm with in all departments of philosophy and wisdom, just as the name of Aristotle was used for a thousand years by the schoolmen. One tradition which has been largely accepted is that he was a servant of Daniel the prophet. His obvious knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures gives color to this tradition. We are concerned, however, about the con- tents of the Zend-a-vesta, or the Magian Bible. Assuming Zoroaster to be the author, compiler, and editor, we find him copying and adopting a large part of his system out of the Jewish Scriptures. He inserts a large part of the book of Psalms. He tells the story of creation, and of Adam and Eve, very much as Moses does. He makes mention of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Solomon. He calls his religion after Abraham, and his book he calls "The Book of Abraham," professing to restore the religion of Abraham by reforming the old Magian religion of the Medes and Persians. The doctrines of clean and un- clean meats, tithes to support the priesthood, defilements and purifications, keeping the priesthood in the same tribe, one high priest, sacred fire kindled from heaven, three sacerdotal orders, the shekinah or manifestation of the divine presence, and many other things, were either copied from the Jewish Scriptures or adopted from Jew- ish usages. He claimed, like Moses, that God spoke to him out of a flame of fire. He rejected all idolatry as 136 The Scriptures, rigorously as did the Jews, and taught a pure monotheism, and a rigorous morality with only one serious blemish. Only remnants of the sect remain in Persia in the poorer parts, poor and often persecuted by the Mohammedans, but still zealous for their faith and their traditions. They survive only by sufferance, probably because too poor to be plundered by their rapacious enemies. The conflict of this great and powerful religion with the Moslem power for a thousand years has not been written, but their scattered remnants, poor, peeled, and despised, tell the story. We need not be surprised at the wonderful identities found in Magianism and its Bible, because the Jews car- ried their learning and their Scriptures everywhere in the dispersion. Brahminism, in original and derivative forms, still dominates India, China, and Japan, more than half the human race, perhaps, certainly one-third. Buddhism, Shintoism, and Taoism are the more vigorous and ag- gressive unfoldings and absorptions of a waning and effete Brahminism. They rival each other and their mother, rather on the philosophic than on the religious side. They all hold to the same sacred books with greater or less tenacity. Their Vedas and Shasters, and especially the Rigveda, present social, moral, religious, and philosophic systems of great completeness. Brahminical learning and philoso- phy is to-day a most formidable adversary to cope with. Infidels like Jacolliot, in his "Bible in India," and Ed- win Arnold in- his "Light of Asia," profess to find the origin of Judaism and Christianity in the sacred books of the Hindoos. They make India the cradle of the race and the source of all civilization, philosophy and religion. They claim that Moses was only a bungling plagiarist and Fundamental Facts and Features. 137 imitator, spoiling many things he did not understand, and greatly marring the beauty and the symmetry of truths which are nowhere properly expounded and eluci- dated except in the sacred books of the Hindoos. They are not slow to furnish the identities we are looking for. For example, we find there the story of the creation and fall of angels ; the creation and fall of man ; Noah and the flood ; Abraham ; Moses' civil, social and religious usages; the birth of Christ; his miracles, parables, and moral teachings, &c, &c. As for these and similar identities, there can be no doubt, and they do argue a common origin. What is that origin? Which Scriptures are the original and which the imitation? We cannot here open the question of the genuineness, authenticity and plenary inspiration of the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Even the agnostic higher critic, who rejects the historicity of the gospels and reduces Christ and his work and teaching to the realm of fiction, would be hard run to show how the stories of the Sanscrit Vedas came to be rendered into Greek in or near the Apostolic age. Such audacity is hardly likely. But Edwin Arnold and his claims need to be noticed in a common-sense way. The foul and brutal aspersions of Jacolliot do not deserve notice, though they both claim substantially the same thing. Though the Vedas are written in Sanscrit, which is the sacred language, schol- ars tell us that they were written long after the Sanscrit became a dead language, and that the oldest of them were written only a few centuries before Christ, and some many years after him. There are many variations from the Scriptures, where they cover the same ground, and the variations are, some fantastic, some attempted explanations, and some natural corruptions. 138 The Scriptures. The same philosophic schemes are found in Christen- dom, especially the false, which are distinctly traceable to their sources in the Indian philosophies. Many cor- ruptions of Christianity originated in the Vedas, and found their way into the Western world, along with their false philosophies, and were copied as charged, but not into our Scriptures. The copied morals of Moses and of Christ are sadly corrupted when expounded by Brahminical teachers, until nothing is left but stench and rottenness, though clad in taste and aesthetic beauty, and made charming and attractive by poetry, music and art. We must not suppose that the Jews escaped unscathed in their contact with false religions around them. W T hile their Scriptures and their religious institutions escaped unmodified by the contact, the people themselves were not so fortunate. We need only quote their history during the Judges, their idolatries and their reforma- tions; or the history of the kingdom from Solomon to the final captivities ; the long and bitter struggles between the orthodox and apostate politico-religious parties, which ended in the destruction of the apostate, and the deporta- tion of the orthodox and their conservation under the protection of Daniel and the Babylonian Empire. CHAPTER XV. Judaism and Greek Philosophy. CIVILIZATION, religion, and philosophy are inti- mately connected. Every civilized people has always had its speculative science which we call philoso- phy. Every civilization has had its religious institutions and creeds, and corresponding speculations. The social and civil institutions are largely the product of their re- ligious and philosophic speculations. Philosophy among the ancients made no distinctions of physics, psychology, moral science, theology, ontology, and metaphysics, but embraced them all; but they gave large prominence to the speculative rather than the prac- tical. Modern students of ancient philosophies confine themselves almost entirely to the study of their specula- tions, and seek to trace successive schools in their origin and influence upon each other, and upon their adherent peoples, from generation to generation. We study mod- ern philosophy in the same way, as its changing phases have ramified and modified all institutions, civil, social, and religious, with their several creeds and constitutions. We need not illustrate this. We have, in the last two chapters, endeavored to trace the influence of Judaism and the Old Testament Scrip- tures on ancient civilizations and religions. If our con- tention is true, then it would need no argument to prove similar influences on ancient philosophies. It has been too much the custom to quote ancient philosophies as the unaided products of their day and 140 The Scriptures, time — a mere natural crystallization of the best thinking of the period to which they belong. Is this theory correct ? We limit this inquiry to the Greek philosophies, except as they point back to earlier origins. Every educator of youth, whether called wise men, sophists, or philoso- phers, adhered to schools of thought named for their founders or their principal expounders. Princes and kings had their tutors and advisers chosen from the most learned and cultured. We are told that Alexander had two tutors, one of them a Jewish rabbi, who did not leave him when he came to his majority and to his throne, but they travelled with him in his Asiatic conquests as his chosen counsellors and advisers. No doubt his great partiality to the Jews, and his great wisdom in dealing with them, was largely due to one or both these tutors and counsellors. The story has not been written of his consummate wisdbm, and skill, and statesmanship in founding cities, consolidating peoples, converting ene- mies, establishing local self-government under imperial sway, but we may give much credit to these counsellors of his, who had drunk at higher fountains of wisdom. The Greek philosophers were all speculative skeptics, and had no faith in pagan religions. Still, they com- mended and upheld them for state purposes, and as a con- servative force in society, just as some to-day endorse and patronize Christianity while they repudiate any per- sonal interest in it. Every system presents several ele- ments of a religious creed, with its moral code and re- demptive processes, with more or less emphasis. They start with a God and a cosmos, a psychology and a moral system, a future life, and how to meet its sanctions. Their philosophy falls short of a religion, in that it lacks all forms of worship, and all ends on self and its aspira- Fundamental Facts and Features. 141 tions. Much of the Brahminical cult in India and the wisdom of Confucius in China fall under the same category. We may now undertake a brief analysis of several leading schools of Greek philosophy. First. Pythagoras. He was, in a proper sense, the father of Greek philosophy, though by no means the orig- inator. He was born at Samos, the nursing mother of learning and philosophy. He lived and taught at Crotona, Italy, after his return from his travels, from 540 to 510 B. C. He travelled many years — some say ten years — in the East, and prosecuted his studies from Egypt to Central Asia and India, and had ample opportunity to study the cults of Egypt and India, and to master Judaism and Magianism. Tradition says that he sat at the feet of Zoroaster himself, whose reputation among the Greeks knew no limits, and whose connection with Judaism we have shown. For a century and more, no one was con- sidered qualified to teach philosophy who had not drunk at the fountain head from Egypt to India. We have already seen how the waters of Judaism had percolated into that fountain. Pythagoras returned, an eclectic in philosophy, as were all that came after him, but not a re- ligionist. 1. He taught that God was a unit — a monad — spiritual and eternal. This seems to be Magian monotheism. This God was the principle of life, or the soul of the universe. This sounds much like the efficient omni-presence taught in Scripture. 2. He taught that matter was also eternal, in chaos, till moved upon by this God with creative power and energy. We are not so much concerned here with his concentric spheres, nor his attempt to reduce all natural phenomena to the key of mathematical law. 142 The Scriptures, 3. He taught that there were superior and inferior gods (demons), spiritual essences, divine emanations, some pure and holy, and some corrupt. Every created spirit had a residence, or chariotage, or body, some more etherial, some grosser; and the inferior demons derived their corruption from their gross bodies. Note the kin- ship of this to the Bible doctrine of angels and devils. 4. He taught that man is threefold, the rational soul, the animal soul, or the life, and the body, and that all the corruption originates in the grossness of the material body. This origin and seat of corruption is thought by many to be taught in the Bible doctrine of the "sinful flesh." 5. He taught that asceticism, afflicting the body, and a heroic life purifies the soul, which is exalted to the rank of the superior gods for a blissful immortality. Those that fail are consigned to a purgatory after death, and then transmigrations, through animals and men, for an- other trial, and final purification and exaltation. The effects of this plausible philosophy, when adopted by Christianity, are not far to see. The doctrine of trans- migration made him and his followers vegetarians and made animal life sacred. We may trace much in his system to Scripture truth, and to its natural and easy corruptions. Indeed, the similarities and identities of this and other systems, when compared with Bible truth, are so obvious that skeptics seek to find in this the source of both the good and the bad in Christianity, and its historic development. The successive schools of Greek philosophy were essentially Pythagorean, and may be treated more briefly, so far as it seems necessary to mention them at all. Second. Plato. We pass over Socrates, because Plato puts his speculative philosophy into his mouth, and we Fundamental Facts and Features. 143 do not know how much is strictly Socratic and how much is Plato's own. The same may be said also of Xenophon, the accomplished civilian, soldier, and statesman, who puts his practical philosophy into the mouth of Socrates. Plato was born 430 B. C. He was a disciple of Par- menides and then of Socrates ; and he travelled and studied in the East several years after the death of Socrates. After his return, he taught at Athens. 1. His cosmos. He taught the eternity of matter as the substrate for created properties and qualities, which were impressed upon it by creative act. All the philoso- phies rejected the doctrine of the creation of matter, but they approximated it as near as possible. 2. His doctrine of Deity. His god was a self-existent, eternal, self-sufficient, quiescent unity, the source of all intelligence and power. He was not only a unity, but a trinity. The Platonic trinity consisted of "The Nous," "The Logos," and "The Psuche." The "Logos" eman- ated from the "Nous," and the "Psuche" emanated both from the "Nous" and the Logos." The "Logos" was the creator of all things, and the "Psuche" was the all- pervasive "Anima Mundi," or soul of the universe. This doctrine of Deity is so like the orthodox view of the church that unitarians reverse the real argument, and charge that the doctrine of the Trinity was gotten from Platonism instead of from the Bible. 3. He followed Pythagoras in his doctrine of superior and inferior demons, and the source of their corruption and sin. 4. His anthropology and psychology. Man has both soul and body, and the tx)dy is the source and seat of corruption. The human soul is a trinity, analogous to Deity; the "Nous," a sinning demon from a previous state of existence; the "Psuche" or animal soul and life; 144 The Scriptures, the "Thumos," or active energy uniting soul and body, and securing volition and action. This division corres- ponds closely to the popular Scotch analysis of man's faculties into the intellect, the sensibilities, and the will. Some expound the Bible as teaching an actual Trich- otomy, as Plato did. They seem not to recognize that heart, mind, soul, and spirit are names given to one and the same unit from different points of view. He taught that death destroyed the body, liberated the "Nous," to enter upon another state of existence, and the "Psuche" was re-absorbed into deity whence it emanated. 5. His moral and redemptive system. Every philoso- phy has, in the main, a high moral code, corresponding to the natural conscience and the dictates of the universal need of redemptive processes. In this, religions and philosophies overlap and re-inforce each other. Platon- ism was no exception. It enjoined asceticism, self-con- trol, self-culture, meditation, a placid or quiet spirit, and a philosophic temper, as adequate redemptive pro- cesses, self-originated. A rationalistic philosophy offers nothing better to-day in varied nomenclature. Faithful effort along these lines won for the soul a place among the superior gods. From the nature of the case, however, only a favored few could avail themselves of this scheme of redemption. It was hopeless for the masses, because of their poverty, ignorance, and degradation, and of their necessary pur- suits and environment. Their only hope for purification was in purgatory and transmigrations, as taught by Pythagoras and borrowed by him from Indian philosophy. He did this much, however, for the masses. He low- ered the standard on account of their hopeless condition, their besotted ignorance and their lack of opportunity. Here were defined the esoteric and exoteric systems of Fundamental Facts and Features. 145 morals, which distinction has made such havoc of morals in all ages. There is but one standard of morals. The distinction of standards for different classes is not justi- fied, as some suppose, by Christ's words, "to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." Third. The Epicurean and Stoical Schools. It would have been sufficient for our purpose to discuss the philo- sophies of Pythagoras and Plato, because they were near the fountain-head of influence, and, therefore, were most indebted to the influence of Judaism. The best is found in the earlier systems. As the centuries passed, the decay of morals, and the corrupting influence of wealth and a godless culture were attended by a corresponding in- crease of skepticism and decay of philosophy. We dis- cuss these two schools together, the one radical and the other conservative, and shall find in the ruins clear traces of the earlier and better philosophy. We wish especially to note the reaction of the baser philosophy on Judaism. Epicurus and Zeno taught rival schools at Athens about 300 B. C. They are called the Epicurean and Stoical schools. We may consider them together, largely by contrast. 1. Epicurus adopted the atomic theory of matter, as taught by previous philosophers. But he eliminated creation, and gave to the universe of atoms a tendency to aggregation ; and taught that all the forms in the uni- verse, organic and inorganic, were due to the fortuitous concourse of atoms. This is the baldest form of evolu- tion, and modern evolutionists are not slow to recognize and to boast of this origin for their dogmas. Zeno, on the other hand, taught that matter existed from eternity organized. 2. The former school was atheistic in its tendencies, though Epicurus admitted the existence of a god — a 146 The Scriptures, quiescent entity, far removed from any active concern or participation in the affairs of the universe — a sort of resi- duary deity left over from earlier philosophies. Zeno's school was pantheistic. He made God the active prin- ciple of life and motion, and the agent of all phenomena in eternally organized matter. This, too, is a modifica- tion of the older doctrine that God was the soul of the universe, but in the opposite direction. Modern pan- theism is much indebted to Zeno. 3. Epicurus taught a pure materialism, and that death and the dissolution of the body ended all for man. He offered nothing but annihilation. Zeno taught a finite separate existence of the soul and its final re-absorption into deity. This doctrine seems akin to the Nirvana of the Hindoo philosophy. 4. The summum bomim — man's chief good — has been the watchword of all philosophies. It has been pro- pounded and expounded variously as the goal of all his hopes and aspirations. Epicurus said happiness. His doctrine of virtue must conform to this definition, and be subordinated to it. He made happiness to consist of natural enjoyments, both the lower and the higher, for Epicurus himself was no sensualist. Virtue ministered to the higher enjoyments, and should, therefore, be the rule of life. Zeno made virtue the chief good. But his virtue con- sisted of a resigned self-possession, and a supreme con- tempt for pleasure or pain. His virtue was ascetic and heroic, despising rewards or punishments as incentives. 5. They both offered a moral code of a high order as the rule of life. But the watchword of one was pleasure, and of the other duty ; one, social, the other stern. These different phases were, perhaps, partly due to tempera- ment. But they both practically ignored rewards and Fundamental Facts and Features. 147 punishments as the sanctions and basis of sound morals. Their subjective valuations of virtue were substituted in the place of law. This was to be expected, for one made chance and accident the sole arbiter of destinies ; the other substituted relentless fate for the doctrine of Divine providence. 6. The system of Epicurus tended to licentiousness, and that of Zeno to recklessness. Under these rival schools practical philosophy superseded the speculative, and the whole civilized world ranged themselves under one or the other of these banners. It would be apart from our purpose to sketch the decay and the rottenness of Epi j cureanism in the Roman commonwealth in deadly conflict with the conservative Stoicism of the middle classes, who sought to save the sturdy old Roman virtues, out of, which conflict emerged the Roman Empire with a new lease on life. Among the Jews the Sadducees were the adherents of easy-going Epicurianism, pure materialists, denying both soul, spirit, and resurrection. The Essenes, of whom we know but little, seem to represent the stoical school, despising wealth and position and pleasure, and courting obloquy and hate and persecution. The Pharisees, be- ing intense religionists, did not follow either of these schools. Solomon, centuries in advance, tested this Epicurean philosophy to the full, and refuted it for all time. It says, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The rich fool in the parable is a type of this school; and Paul considered it the only logical alternative if there be no resurrection of the dead, and if our faith and hope are vain. Thus we have sought to exalt the Scriptures, and their institutions and promises, by showing their influence on 148 The Scriptures. ancient civilizations, religions, and philosophies, and by pointing out similarities, identities, perversions, and con- trasts. In so doing, we have sought to show that all that is good in human thought, and action is of divine origin. If, therefore, we discredit the Scriptures, we discredit the author of all good, and there is nothing left in all the universe to honor. CHAPTER XVI. The Bible in Liberal Education. WE ASSUME the ordinary view of the Sacred Scriptures as God's Word, written by men who were inspired by God to do so. This written word is the analogue of the Incarnate Word. Perfect Divinity and perfect, inerrant humanity meet in both, and are equally easy to our faith in both. The Bible is the Magna Charta of the Church of Christ, and is the unchallenged basis of our Christian civilization, and is the final appeal in doc- trine and morals. We might a priori easily locate such a book in education as The Book, the inspiration of every school room, the text-book for every form, without rival or substitute. History so locates sacred books in education. All the great religions of the world have had their sacred books, and used them most effectively in their educational sys- tems. Al Koran is the text-book for the Mahommedans, and the great Moslem university at Alexandria, with its 10,000 students, would topple and fall were that book removed from its foundations. The works of Confucius are the Alpha and Omega of the gigantic educational system of China. So with the Vedas and Shasters in India, where Brahminical learning and philosophy are more than a match for many an antagonist. It was so with the Zend-a-vesta among the Magians. And it was distinctly so among the Hebrews, where the Scriptures were put on the pedestal, from the family school to the great university at Jerusalem, and the whole people, 150 The Scriptures, young and old, spent one year in every seven in the study of their sacred oracles. A purely secular education was formerly unknown. Every ancient philosophy taught a theology, even without sacred books, and it is a most interesting study to trace all that was best in their teaching to the sacred books of some people, and at last to divine revelation. It is left for a Christian people to attempt to ignore their own sacred oracles in education, and only too successfully. A reaction has set in, however, just where it is most needed, and where, in the end, it will be most effective. There is a growing demand to reinstate the Bible in liberal education. The higher education moulds and fashions the lower. The exclusion of the Bible from the colleges and universities has largely excluded it from the lower schools. Restore it to its place in the higher education, and it will quickly and naturally find its place in the lower, by the process of ''levelling from the top downwards." It were easy to sketch the perfunctory re- ligious teaching of the closing century of college work, but profitless to do so in this connection. A new era is dawning, which demands a proper recognition of the book in liberal education. Is this demand pertinent? The Bible is germain to the trend of the so-called lib- eral studies. Now, which are the liberal studies? Latin, Greek, and Mathematics are so classified only because they are means to an end — the opening of the door to the liberal studies. These are history, mythology, poetry, art, psychology, ethics, sociology, statecraft, economics, ontology, literature, rhetoric, and all the sciences, physi- cal and metaphysical, with a super-added theology, con- crete or formulated. A mere specialist in any one of these is a crank. A man who may have mastered them all as separate and unrelated unities may be nothing more than a walking encyclopaedia. Fundamental Facts and Features. 151 The mind seeks unification in the pursuit of knowl- edge. It craves generalizations, and gropes after all pervading principles. Extreme sub-division of labor is not in itself wholesome, either for teacher or pupil. If one man could teach all the departments, he would unify them all. Pupils do by natural digestive processes unify and assimilate very much for themselves, even under conditions not the most favorable. The absence of nec- essary matter and proper methods does greatly retard the processes. Liberal education, therefore, ought to furnish a unifying course, itself full of suitable matter and taught with appropriate methods. Find a study germain to all, and teach it so, and the system is ideally complete and perfect. Such a study should present infallible data at all overlapping points, and attested principles regulative of all the rest, and should be taught as having authority. Revelation alone can pretend to such a position. Is it adequate? Try history. History deals with the origin and growth of peoples, the rise and fall of nations, and the progress of the race, either upwards or downwards. Now, the Bible gives the origin of the race and its only history for twenty-five hundred years ; it gives the key to all history by revealing God in history for fifteen hundred years more. History becomes a science when we can trace all the causes and forces which go to make it, whether they be civil or social, personal or political, moral or ecclesias- tical, or providential ; and that history is futile which fails to recognize all these. There is no philosophy of history which fails to find the lessons of history. The Bible tells us that Christ is "head over all things to the church," from Eden to Paradise, and unfolds the methods and principles of his government. Try ontology. This is the science of being, its sub- 152 The Scriptures, stance, modes, forms, and essential attributes. How a mere human philosophy struggles with the problem and babbles over its senseless jargon of contradictory conclu- sions ! The Bible reveals matter and spirit, divinity and humanity, angels and devils — their several modes of ex- istence and their essential qualities — their relations and correlations, so much, at least, as d'oes not transcend the powers of the human mind to know. Try mythology. Every people has its myths and legends and folk-lore, transmitted in fable, history, or song, or in the still more potent creed and ritual of its religious life and faith. The "gods many and lords many" of classic paganism, and their deified heroes, are meaningless fables and monstrous fancies, without the Bible notices of an earlier polytheism, while their rites, usages and stories are but traditions of the true, modi- fied and distorted, but not mere myths. Try sociology. Social order originated with him who setteth the "solitary in families." The origin of the family is divine, and its constitution is God-given. It precedes church and state, and is the primordial unit in both. Just as moral law must of necessity originate with the author of man's moral nature, so might we expect social law to originate from the same source. If, then, we bring all the social problems of the day to this divine standard, there will be scant room for modern social re- formers to stand upon. Try statecraft. Framers of state and national consti- tutions are careful to preface them with a bill of rights. The covenant with Noah is the bill of rights for the race. In Moses we find a jure divino warrant for repre- sentative free government. They chose "able men," "men of truth," "that feared an oath," and "hated covet- ousness" to be judges and rulers of thousands, hundreds, Fundamental Facts and Features. 153 fifties, and tens. When this warrant is violated in choice of rulers, it shall be written of them, "Woe is thee when thy King is a child;" "when the wicked bear rule the people mourn." Look you for the ideal commonwealth, with free choice of rulers, co-ordinate branches of gov- ernment, executive, legislative, and judiciary, state and federal relations adjusted, equilibrium of church and state safeguards against all the aristocracies, and so on? You find all in the Hebrew commonwealth. Try ethical science in its widest sweep as defining the limits of human virtue and obligation. Every philosophy has its ethical system, Socratic, Platonic, Epicurean, Stoic, Cartesian, Leibnitzian, Utilitarian, Fatalistic, and Rationalistic. They need all to be studied in the light of the divine law. Personal virtue, social duties, political ethics and religious obligations are all to be tested by the same infallible and authoritative standard. Compel every ethical system to make its obeisance to the sermon on the mount. Try physical science. She stands a priestess at the shrine of nature, and vainly questions the oracle? Is matter eternal? Whence came its laws? The limits of the natural and the supernatural ? The origin of species ? The beginning of life? The mode of creation? How the bones .do grow ? and a thousand questions more. Na- ture's oracle is silent. There comes no answer from those secret recesses in her temple. Mere subjective con- ceits are mistaken for nature's answers and are promul- gated with oracular confidence. The God of nature, who sits in clouds and darkness amid those mysteries, has spoken from within the vail, and told us all we need to know of these things. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. So that things which are seen were made of things which do not appear." 154 The Scriptures, Would you study literature, art, poetry, rhetoric, and oratory? These all have drawn their highest inspiration from the same divine fountain. He is a lean and barren critic who has not mastered scriptural ideals. Let him who studies these things drink at the fountain head. We have, then, the text-book for the race; it touches human thought and action at every point; its statements of facts are infallibly attested; its principles are as im- mutable as God's nature; its claims are paramount. It is common now for sight-seers in Egypt to travel by night on the Nile, and as the boat steams slowly along an electric search light of immense focal power, turns every way, revealing every obelisk and ruin and tomb with such vividness of detail as to startle and delight the be- holder. So The Bible is the great search light which sweeps the whole horizon of human thought and action, confirming the good and the true, and exposing every refuge of lies. Such is The Book, and such its relations to all other truth. "Thus saith the Lord" is the unceasing refrain. It is the full and complete revelation of the divine intelli- gence, so far as man needs to know it. It transcends and comprehends all truth, so far as man is related to it, or has any interest in it. In comparison with it, the wisdom of this world is foolishness. "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" Liberal learning cultivates the taste and the imagina- tion ; it chisels and polishes and beautifies and elevates, so as to reach, if possible, the spiritual part of man, and to realize, if possible, the ideal of Plato, and raise man to the rank of the superior gods. Plato thought to accom- plish this spiritual result by mere learning and culture, and so do many others to-day. No culture is complete Fundamental Facts and Features. 155 which does not consider the due equilibrium of all man's powers and needs. Not the least of these is the spiritual. Shall education neglect the highest and noblest part of man? The Scriptures alone meet all man's needs in this field also. Two great mistakes are now commonly made. Men pronounce The Bible merely and purely a spiritual book, and make great pretence of exalting its spiritual value, while they ignore or depreciate its universal features. They then studiously exclude it from a liberal education because it is a spiritual book, as if the educator has no interest in that part of man's nature which alone differ- entiates him from the brutes that perish. It is hard to say which of these mistakes is the more absurd and inde- fensible. Satan himself in the schoolroom could hardly dispose of the book more adroitly. It is a spiritual book, and meets all man's needs, and ought so to be used in the class-room. Not that every teacher turns preacher, but when he teaches spiritual truth along with mere secular learning, another and a heavenly teacher bears witness to his truth which is "spir- itually discerned." But this is not all. The Bible re- states authoritatively all the truths of natural religion ; it defines the limits of a mere morality ; it solves every problem of social, civil, and political life ; it exposes such science as is falsely so-called ; it uncovers a false philoso- phy and confirms truth; and it supplies the material for constructing or verifying a sound theology. Every man has a philosophy and a theology, from the ignorant loafer and anarchist to the most cultured man of letters, to the test of which he brings all things human and divine. What if it be inadequate, erroneous, and destructive? Modern education without The Bible is the matrix of nihilism in Russia, socialism in Germany, communism in 156 The Scriptures, France, and the bastard products of all these among the English-speaking peoples. Education and culture with- out Bible truth, gotten and assimilated somewhere or somehow, is like a vessel turned loose in mid-ocean, with- out chart, rudder, compass, or pilot. The conclusion of all this is to put the Bible on the pedestal in education, and require every department and every teacher to make obeisance to it, just as, in the dream, the sheaves of his brethren made obeisance to Joseph's sheaf. Are these views practical as well as theoretically sound ? Pardon me for saying that these views are the matured results of over thirty-seven years' experience in teaching the English Bible to college and university students, placing it in the rank of the severe studies, giving to it practically as much time and attention as to Latin, Greek or Mathematics. The theory was born of the practice, and not of a mere conceit sought to be put into practice. Every teacher who tries it honestly and faithfully will find it so. His expanding vision of the unities and cor- relations of all truth, divine and human, revealed and secular will yield increasing and unceasing delight to him- self and his pupils. But suppose that it were otherwise, irksome, toilsome, disappointing, and repulsive as much secular learning is to many, its real value would not be one whit abated. The most toilsome achievements are sometimes the most valuable, and they often develop the highest relish as the reward of toil. After all, the highest value of such a course of study is in the silent power of daily contact with divine and spiritual truth, aided by the natural conscience and by the unerring Spirit who gave it all. And may I not suggest, that when teacher and pupil seek to unify all truth on the Word of God, that the divine Spirit will recognize all Fundamental Facts and Features. 157 truth as his own one truth, and himself preside and teach the whole ? Here we base our plea for church and Christian educa- tion. Who else but the Christian will attempt to sanctify secular learning? Who else but the church will found and foster schools and colleges for her sons, and provide a comprehensive Biblical training for all? She cannot, she dares not, relinquish the education of her sons to other hands. She has a commission to sanctify secular learning. If she fails of this, she has no place in the school room. She must build her schools as she does her churches, on the "foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." Need we further illustration? In the manufacture of the cordage of the royal British navy, an imperishable red thread is twisted with five white threads to make a strand ; two or more of these strands are twisted together to make a cord; a number of cords are twisted together to make the cordage and ropes for halyards, sails, and rigging; a larger combination makes the great hawser which holds great ships to their moorings. Through and through them all is twisted the imperishable red thread, impossible of eradication without destroying the whole. One may walk along the shore of a desert island and pick up a piece of rope thrown up by the surf, sea-stained and half decayed, it may be, but when he begins to pull it apart and scan it closely, he finds that imperishable red thread, and he knows that he holds in his hand a piece of the cordage of the royal British Navy. The applica- tion is easy. Teach divine truth along with every four or five branches of secular learning, and you have an education unique and singular, with the imperishable red thread so wrought into the whole that no cunningly de- vised fables of human wisdbm can eradicate it, and no 158 The Scriptures. devices of Satan can destroy it. Find you a man educated so, be he poor, and oid, and feeble, and tarrying yet a little while on the brink of the grave ; confer with him a little as he looks across the river, and you recognize the cordage of the royal navy of the "old ship of Zion." Take another illustration. The chemist puts into his crucible four or five substances and applies the heat. When it is all fused together, he pours it out. The pro- duct may be beautiful and useful for many purposes. Let him repeat the experiment, adding another substance which has a controlling affinity for the others, and the product is very unlike the first, and as much superior to it as the added element could contribute in the reactions. We need not make the application, except to say that di- vine truth dominates all other truth, unifies it all, and furnishes the final test of all human wisdom. CHAPTER XVII. God in History. U IJ ISTORY deals with the origin and growth of J_ peoples, the rise and fall of nations, and the progress of the race, either upwards or downwards. Now, the Bible gives the origin of the race and its only history for twenty-five hundred years ; it gives the key to all history by revealing God in history for fifteen hundred years more. History becomes a science when we trace all the causes and forces which make it, whether they be civil, or social, or personal, or political, or moral, or ec- clesiastical, or providential ; and that history is futile which fails to recognize all these. There is no philosophy of history which fails to find the lessons of history. The Bible tells us that Christ is the 'Head over all things to the church,' from Eden to Paradise, and it unfolds the methods and principles of his government." The above paragraph is quoted from the last chapter as a proper introduction to this. We may add that the chief agent and actor in Bible history is God himself in his threefold personality. We value Caesar's "Com- mentaries" because he was not only the chief actor in the conquest of Gaul, but he was also the historian, and certainly knew whereof he wrote. Xenophon's "Ana- basis" will be read and admired for a similar reason, for the literary civilian soldier tells the story of his famous retreat at the head of the ten thousand Greeks with the burning words of a thrilling experience. Such human histories, however excellent and faithful, 160 The Scriptures, and however well-avouched, are liable to error, from partiality, prejudice or pride, and we often need to make allowance for the personal equation. At best, they make scant recognition of the control and direction of an over- ruling Providence, such as is revealed in the Scriptures. Our position, however, is strengthened when we re- member that these pagan actors and historians were led by the unerring instinct of a felt necessity to seek the guidance and help of their gods by sacrifice, augury and prayers ; and the magnificent celebrations of their tri- umphs were, in their very essence and expression, great national thanksgivings to the god of war and their tutelar divinities. In the Divine mind all history is a unity, a single Di- vine plan and scheme. However complex it may appear to human vision, it is simple and intelligible to him, because he is the author of it, the expression of an eternal pur- pose. The Lord says, "I am Alpha and Omega, the be- gining and the end." James says, "Known unto the Lord are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts xv. 18.) Isaiah xli. 4, and xlviii. 12, teach the same doctrine in almost identical terms. Compare Isaiah) xlvi. 9-Ti. Prophecy and its fulfilment, spanning the whole arc of time, make manifest this unity of purpose and control. Prophecy begins at Paradise lost, and ends with Paradise regained, and deals with all the fortunes of the race. The man who studies history and prophecy together may realize the extent of this Divine intelligence and control. The obvious and necessary relations of nations and events were ordained to accomplish His ends. "He doeth according to his will, in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth ; and none may stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou?" God — the Lord — Fundamental Facts and Features. 161 the Christ — is the universal ruler and king, law-giver and judge of the race. "He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords." "He setteth up one and putteth down another." The clue to all history is found in one threefold propo- sition ; the seed of the woman, Abraham's seed, the man Christ Jesus, is "Head over all things to the church." With these postulates, we may now proceed to argue and illustrate the theme of this chapter: God in history, himself the maker of history and the historian. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost " i. He claims to control the greatest and the smallest events alike in supreme wisdom. Imagination cannot go beyond the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, where we read such words as these: "He hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a meas- ure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ;" "Behold the nations are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust in the balance; behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing;" "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabi- tants thereof are as grass-hoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ;" "In wisdom he hath made them all ; and who has been his counsellor and taught him wisdom ?" His providence extends to the minutest details of all things. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them falleth to the ground without your heavenly Father. The very hairs of your heads are all numbered." "He appointeth the winds his circuits, and the sea his bounds, and our breath is in his hands." Great and small events are alike to him and so with measure- ments of time. 162 The Scriptures, Consider the great physical universe, transcending hu- man vision in its outlying expanse ; and consider the great infusorial and animalcule world, which lies below the range of human vision, and stand in awe of his in- finite wisdom and power. 2. Yet he works through second causes, and guides all nature's forces. History is made by the combination of many forces. Leaving out physical causes, forces, and adjustments, which we call environment, with its multi- tudinous changes and variations, these great forces re- main ; forces in history — social, civil, moral, religious, ecclesiastical, personal and providential forces. The his- torian can ignore none of these if he writes history, or reads its lessons. The providential pervades all the others, so that he worketh all things according to the purpose of his own will. We might call the personal element the one dominating force in history, either the limited personality of man or the infinite personality of God; both working together in the divine plan to make history. This doctrine does not put human free-agency in jeopardy. For illustration: Joseph, hated and sold, slandered and imprisoned, grew into a great epoch in history ; Moses, the weeping babe in the ark of bulrushes, stirred the heart yearnings of Egypt's princess, and the pulsations of his own great heart shall be felt by the race to the end of time. David, Daniel, and Paul changed the currents of history. But how? "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." 3. The Scriptures unlock the one great secret of his administration. Some have complained that the Bible gives such a minute account of an insignificant people, and touches the great nations so slightly. This is all right, for as Palestine was central in its geographical location, so the Jews were central in the Divine plan. He Fundamental Facts and Features. 163 was head over all things to his people — and all for his own glory. 4. He directs the destinies of nations and peoples. Egypt had a checkered history and her City of the Sun went down with her into the darkness of long centuries of night. The prophets give the reason. Babylon was prospered and stricken by turns, from Nimrod and Babel to her final overthrow. The clue is found in the Bible. The burden of Moab, and of Nineveh, and of Tyre, and of Amnion, were all proclaimed by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Minor prophets, and they lie to-day in hopeless deso- lation, while Japhet is dwelling blest in the tents of Shem, and Canaan is his servant. God exalts and blesses the righteous, and abases and destroys the wicked, and all for his own glory. 5. Personal agencies are conspicuously under his gov- ernment and control. All great forces are found em- bodied in concrete form. We talk about civil, moral, and religious forces, but we find them all centered in the life and deeds of persons acting separately or in concert. This is true of all the great forces of good, and of evil also. The Lord says that he made the wicked for the day of evil. Moses and Aaron, on the one side, with their ad- herents, and Pharaoh and his magicians on the other side, made history in the land of Ham, in the field of Zoan, and the consequences were momentous. But who was behind it all? They were all raised up for a purpose. David, Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyrus were integral parts of the Divine plan for his people. 6. Individuals are free and voluntary in working out his purposes, and are always held to the strictest account. What strange combinations of forces we find in the work- ing out of God's plans. Let us trace one thread of so- called destiny. The Hebrews in the wilderness were 164 The Scriptures, punished for their sins partly by an attack of the Amale- kites, and the Lord sware that he would have war with Amalek from generation to generation till he should cease to be a people. A few centuries later Saul and his people were pun- ished for sparing them, in part, and Samuel hewed King Agag in pieces. David exterminated the remainder later on, except a few who escaped on camels to foreign parts. Centuries later, one Haman, an Amalekite and a descend- ant of Agag, was prime minister to Ahasuerus in the Medo-Persian Empire, and was immensely powerful. Mordecai, a Jew of the dispersion, sat, a trusted guard, in the King's gate. Esther, the beautiful Jewess, was queen of the empire. You know the story — how Haman was hanged on his own gallows, Mordecai became chief counsellor, and the Jews were greatly enlarged and pros- pered. These all were necessary elements in the problem to exalt God's people and punish their enemies. "He makes the wrath of man to praise him and restrains the residue of wrath." There are strange combinations in the problem which we may not even try to solve. In the life and death of Christ, and in all that has come of it, Peter and Pilate, John and Judas, equally wrought the Divine purpose; and all were free and responsible. 7. Every human action enters into the problem of his- tory, as if woven into a web of most intricate pattern. Not a single force is lost. It is so in the physical uni- verse. A pebble is dropped into the bosom of a lake, and the ripples chase each other in ever widening circles to its farthest shore. A ray of sunlight traverses its ninety- three millions of miles, and falling gently on the pansy, paints its petals with unrivalled hues. Who can measure space so far as it is filled with suns and planets and satellites and comets and nebulae, each and all adjusted Fundamental Facts and Features. 165 to each other in wondrous and intricate unity? Not one is ever jostled out of its place and lost till the heavens be no more. Every wavelet or motion in their oscilla- tions is noted and recorded as part of the plan. We are told by men of science that every spoken word starts vibrations in the atmosphere which communicate them- selves far out into the physical universe with ever return- ing echo, never lost. Is there nothing like this in the moral universe? No word nor deed is ever lost. All the forces of history are adjusted to each other by him who knew the end from the beginning. The late Lieutenant Maury, who was as eminent for his humility and faith as he was for his scientific attain- ments, lectured, some fifty years ago, at the University of Virginia. In closing a wonderful scientific discussion, he put in a plea for the God of the universe, the author of it all. He awed and thrilled us all with a simple and artless story of his own experience. Said he, sometimes in the wee small hours of the night, when I am worn out with labors and computations, and am too tired to sleep, I pass from my office into the observatory. I con- sult the astronomical almanac, and find that a certain fixed star of the first magnitude, whose name I never saw before, is about to pass the zenith. I adjust the great telescope to the exact position and myself also to see it as it passes. Not a sound is heard except the solemn swing of the great pendulum, which seems to be meas- uring off a segment of eternity. In a few moments, at the exact second, that burning sun comes into the field of view and slowly and silently marches across the spider lines at their intersection, and presently is gone. I arise, rested and refreshed, and retire to my couch, and in a moment more I am asleep in the arms of my God. "He giveth his beloved sleep." 166 The Scriptures. Reader, permit the author to indulge his life-long habit as a preacher, and make one application of this dis- cussion — We are all engaged in making history, for weal or for woe, for blessing or for cursing. What sort of history are we making? Why is so much of history marked with disaster? Why are the centuries strewn with so many bleaching bones? 'Tis personal failure. Mordecai said to Esther : "Who knoweth but thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this ?" She did her duty and her people were saved. Eli was a good man, but when he failed in one point, the wreckage of his family was strewn along the centuries. Opportunity may be lost forever. Some shall be saved so as by fire, but they shall suffer loss, for their works shall be burned up. DATE DUE ijaw^rr? -* CAVLORO ► HINTED IN US.». Mi BS511 .S53 The Scriptures, fundamental facts and Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 | 1012 00047 5899 ml