SECOND EDITION. 
 
 .ii.jiiiri 
 
 ANSWER 
 
 
 AMENDED LIBEL 
 
 BY 
 
 W. ROBERTSON SMITH 
 
 WITH APPENDIX, CONTAINING PLEA IN LAW 
 
 EDINBUEGH 
 
 DAVID DOUGLAS, 9 CASTLE STEEET 
 
 1.879 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE. 
 

AN S WEE 
 
 AMENDED LIBEL 
 
 BY 
 
 W. EOBERTSON SMITH 
 
 WITH APPENDIX, CONTAINING PLEA IN hkW 
 
 EDIN-BURGH 
 
 DAVID DOUGLAS, 9 CASTLE STEEET 
 
 1879 
 
This paper was laid before the Free Church Presbytery of Aberdeen 
 on the 1st of July, 1879. The Legal Plea on which I claimed for it to 
 be considered by the Court, before service of the Libel, is added as an 
 Appendix. 
 
 W. E. S. 
 
\ 
 
 rHF.OLOGICAL V 
 
 r^ 
 
 ANSWER TO THE AMENDED LIBEL. 
 
 The charge brought against rae in the amended Libel is, 
 tthat — 
 
 The statements about Deuteronomy, published in the 
 article '^ Bible, ^^ and the explanations of these 
 statements, submitted by me to the College 
 Committee, contradict the Confessions doctrine 
 of the immediate insjnration, infallible truth, 
 and Divine authority of that part of Scripture. 
 
 I. In dealing -with this accusation, I ask it to be observed 
 Sit the outset that I uphold the canonicity and inspiration of 
 the book of Deuteronomy as strenuously as my most de- 
 termined oj^ponent can do. Those who press the Libel 
 against me have never attempted to prove that I disbelieve 
 in the inspiration of Deute)(momy, or of any part of that 
 book. What tliey attempt to show is that in consistency with 
 my opinions as to the origin of the book I ougld to reject its 
 inspiration. 
 
 II. It has often been insinuated, that v/liile I profess to 
 receive tlio book as inspired I mean by inspiration some- 
 thing different from wliat. tlie Confession means. I ask my 
 judges to i-eject this insinuation as injurious. I am willing 
 to have my views of Deuteronomy tested even by the strictest 
 
4 THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH 
 
 doctrine of plenary inspiration, and I am confident that they 
 are able to stand the test. 
 
 And here let me point out that the Libel is quite- 
 needlessly elaborate in its enumeration of a list of 
 characteristics of inspired Scripture — immediate inspiration, 
 infallible truth, Divine authority — which my views are said 
 to contradict. This elaboration was proper enough in the 
 old obsolete libel, in which the question of Deuteronomy 
 made only one of six cumulative charges, designed to show 
 that my whole way of regarding the Old Testament was 
 radically opposed to sound views. This large accusation 
 raised complicated questions of theology, and made it 
 necessary for my accusers and myself to discuss the details 
 of our Confessional doctrine of inspiration. But the 
 question of Deuteronomy taken by itself, after the larger 
 charge has been abandoned, involves no doctrinal niceties. 
 The issue depends on a single plain principle which every 
 one can understand, and no one will dispute. Let me state 
 that principle now, so that the question may at once be re- 
 duced to its simplest form. 
 
 In committing His Revelation to writing, God in His 
 wisdom has made use of the most various forms of literary 
 composition and literary art. He teaches by history and 
 jjarable, by poetry and proverb, by allegory and symboL 
 The Spirit of God is not straitened ; and has not disdained 
 to employ any way of writing, any form of literary art, that 
 could be legitimately used in ordinary human compositions.* 
 But it is impossible to believe that the spirit of inspiration 
 could sanction a way of writing which would be blame- 
 worthy in an uninspired author. For example, it is im- 
 possible that a book can be inspired if it appears that the 
 design of the author was to deceive his readers. And if any 
 ene were to affirm of Deuteronomy that it was written with 
 
 * This principle is recognised by the soundest writers on inspiration, 
 snch as the late Principal Candlish and Dr. Banuerman, and was stated 
 liy Dr. Wilson in the Assembly of 1878. (See the Proceedings, p. 131). 
 
THE CASE TURNS. 5 
 
 -such a purpose of deceit, it would be quite fair to say that 
 his opinion is inconsistent witli belief that the book is 
 inspired. 
 
 Now it appears from the libel that this is the very reason 
 Avhy some persons in our Church accuse me of destroying 
 the inspiration of Deuteronomy. They suppose, and they 
 have put it so in the libel, that I represent Deuteronomy as 
 .a book written to deceive its readers into believing an 
 untruth. This is the only reason given in the libel for 
 sajnng that my opinions are opposed to inspiration. And 
 therefore the accusation will fall to the ground when T show 
 that my opinion about the book is the very opposite of Avhat 
 they make it, and altogether excludes the idea of fraud or 
 deceit on the part of the sacred writer. 
 
 The libel accuses me of teaching " that the book of 
 "Deuteronomy, which is professedly an historical document, 
 " does not possess that character, but was made to assume it 
 " by a writer of a much later age, who therein, in the name 
 " of God, presented in dramatic form instructions and laws 
 ■" as proceeding from the mouth of Moses, though these never 
 " were and never could have been uttered by him." This 
 sentence is not a very lucid one, but the gist of the thing is, 
 that the book of Deuteronomy professes to be something 
 which it is not, and that the writer leads his readers to 
 accept as historical truth what he knew to be vmtrue 
 4ind impossible. In a single word, I am accused of holding 
 the well-known Rationalistic opinion — that the book is a 
 •literary fraud. Well, there are two extracts brought from 
 my writings to support the accusation, and as matter of fact 
 in each of these extracts the idea that the book is a fraud 
 is brought forward and explicitly repudiated. 
 
 This then is how the matter stands. There is no ques- 
 tion that if the book is a fraud, designed to deceive the reader, 
 it cannot be a part of inspired Scripture. According to the 
 libel the book, on my account of its origin, is such a fraud. 
 But this is a reading of my statements which 1 not only 
 
« DOES DEUTERONOMY CLAIM 
 
 repudiate now, but repudiated in the very writings on whicb 
 the charge is based. 
 
 Ill, Now that we have got the question into a simple 
 shape, I shall ask the Court to look in detail at the real 
 natui'e of the difference between my opinions and those 
 currently received. 
 
 1. In the first place I do not think that the book of 
 Deuteronomy, as a whole, professes to be written by Moses, 
 or can reasonably be ascribed to his pen. It is generally 
 admitted that the last chapter, which tells of the death of 
 the lawgiver, must be of later date. In fact it was written 
 sometime after Moses' death, for the cit}^ which is called Dan 
 in Deut. xxxiv. 1 , bore the name of Laish up to the time of 
 the events related in Judg. xviii. 27-29. I think, however, 
 that we are not naturally led to believe that Moses wrote 
 any part of the book in which he is spoken of in the 
 third person. The very first verse of Deuteronomy says, 
 " These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel 
 across the Jordan in the wilderness,"* and this is not a solitary 
 proof that the book as we possess it was written down after 
 the people had entered into possession of Canaan — (see for 
 example Deut. ii. 12 ; iv. 38). We are told indeed in Deut. 
 xxxi. 9, 24, that Moses wrote down in a book the law which 
 he had delivered to the people. He wrote " the words of 
 this law." But hoAV much does that imply ? The answer 
 may be found in Deut. xxvii. 8, where the command is given 
 to write the same thing, " .ill the words of this law," upon 
 the plastered stones on Mount Ebal. It is not reasonable to 
 think that all the historical matter of the Pentateuch, or 
 even of the book of Deuteronomy, was written upon these 
 stones. What stood upon them was doubtless, as Calvin 
 
 * The English version says " on this side Jordan," but it is generally 
 admitted that this is wrong. Thus Dr. Douglas, in his recent pamphlet, 
 p. 30, says that the phrase means simply " across the Jordan," .-us I ha\e 
 translated it above. I know that he does not agree wit!: my c;oiiclu.sion;> 
 from this translation. 
 
TO BE WRITTEN BY MOSES? 7 
 
 expresses it, only " the sum and sanctions of the law." So 
 much it was necessary to have in writing from the first, and 
 so much God ordained first to be written by Moses and de- 
 posited with the priests, and thereafter to be publicly copied 
 out on Mount Ebal. But that is a very different thing from 
 saying that Moses himself wrote down at length all the 
 histories and exhortations which accompany the law in our 
 present book of Deuteronomy. And we should be all the 
 more careful in making sweeping assertions about the Mosaic 
 author.ship of the whole Pentateuch, because the Sacred 
 Record is careful to note particularly that from time to time 
 Moses was commanded by God to record some particular 
 precepts or facts (Exod. xxiv. 4-7 ; xxxiv. 27 ; Exod. xvii. 
 14 ; Num. xxxiii. 2 ; Deut. xxxi. 22). I think that many 
 persons looking at these considerations together will find it 
 more probable that Deuteronomy was written after the 
 Israelites entered Canaan, and with the use of materials left 
 by Moses, than that the whole is from the lawgiver's own 
 pen. At all events this supposition involves nothing fraudu- 
 lent, inasmuch as the book nowhere claims to be written by 
 Moses. And the value of the book depends not on the person 
 of its author, but on the materials that were laid to his hand, 
 and the guidance of inspiration which directed him in the 
 use of them. 
 
 Accordingly the libel does not blame me for denying that 
 Moses wrote Deuteronomy, and in proceeding to explain the 
 things for wliich I am blamed, I ask my judges to bear in 
 mind that thus far I am admittedly within the liberty that 
 belongs to every office-bearer of our Church, 
 
 2. When I look carefully at the book of Deuteronomy, 
 I find that it naturally falls into several sections Mdiich are 
 even marked off" by headings and subscriptions. After a 
 superscription, i. 1-5, we have a long speech of Moses, mainly 
 historical and hortatory, wliich runs on fi'om i. G to iv, 40 
 Then comes a short historical passage iv, 41-43, followed by 
 a second and longer speech (v. 1 to xxvi. 19) with a new 
 
8 DEUTERONOMY AND THE 
 
 title of its own, iv. 44-49. This speech again may be 
 divided into two parts — an exhortation, chaps, v. to xi., and a 
 statement of the law, chaps, xii. to xxvi. From chap, xxvii. 
 to the end the book contains various matters which I need 
 not now analyse, and which, taken as a whole, form the con- 
 clusion of the history of the work of Moses. Now if it is not 
 certain that the whole of Deuteronomy was written by Moses it 
 is not necessary to suppose that all these sections were penned 
 by one writer, or published at one time. We may find reason 
 to think that some parts were actually written down by 
 Moses or by Joshua, and yet hold that other sections which 
 contain allusions to later circumstances — like the reference 
 to Dan in chap, xxxiv. — were added by a subsequent author. 
 In fact, I do not think that any one who does not ascribe the 
 whole to Moses believes the entire book to be from one hand. 
 It is generally held by critics, and it is my own opinion, that 
 the statement of the law in the heart of the book (that is 
 chaps, v. to xxvi., or rather perhaps only chaps, xii. to xxvi.) 
 was once published in a separate form as a practical manual 
 of the law for popular use, and existed in this form for some 
 time before it was incorporated in that great body of mingled 
 history and law which we call the Pentateuch. 
 
 Now I wish it to be clearly understood that the passage 
 from the article " Bible," on which the libel founds, is ex- 
 tracted from a discussion of the legal parts of the Pentateuch 
 as distinct from the Pentateuchal history. If the libellers 
 had begun their quotation a little further back it would have 
 appeared that I was speaking " of the great repetition of the 
 law in a prophetic spirit which occupies the major part of 
 Deuteronomy." And even in the extract as it stands in the 
 libel it will be observed that I am careful to speak of " the 
 legislative part of Deuteronomy," and " the Deuteronomic 
 law."* The article enters into no discussion of the historical 
 
 * The only remark which I make about the book of Deuteronomy 
 as a whole, refers to the style, which I affirm to be no sure criterion of 
 unity of authorship. The libel cites this remark, but it has no bearing 
 on the charge against me. 
 
DEUTERONOMIC CODE. 9 
 
 part of -Deuteronomy. ]\ry remarks appl}^ to the legal part 
 of the book as it once existed apart from the history ; and 
 this separate publication is the book which I speak of as " a 
 prophetic legislative programme," and identify (in a passage 
 which the libel neglects to cite) with the written law-book 
 that guided Josiah in his reformations. 
 
 I am afraid, however, that the statement in my article 
 was too condensed to make this quite clear to ordinary 
 readers. The idea of a separate publication of the Deutero- 
 nomic code, without the history which now accompanies it, 
 is so familiar to scholars that I rather took it for orranted than 
 gave it express statement. And thus, I suppose, it has come 
 about that the authors of the libel mistook my meaning, and 
 extending to the whole book what applies only to the code 
 which now stands in the heart of it, represent me as making 
 an attack on the historical character of a professedly historical 
 document. Now I do not in the least deny that the historical 
 part of Deuteronomy is good history; but the part with 
 which my article deals is not history but a law-book. 
 
 3. I shall have something to say by and by about the 
 union of the Deuteronomic law with the historical context 
 in which it now stands. Meantime, however, I ask my 
 judges to concentrate their attention on the legal part of the 
 book ; to join me in looking at this as originally a separate 
 publication, and to consider in this light whether the views 
 which I have expressed about it can fiiirly be characterized 
 in the language of the libel. 
 
 Here I must offer a preliminary observation. The 
 arguments which lead critics to assume a separate 
 publication of the code of Deuteronomy leave the exact 
 number of chapters, which the code originally included, 
 a matter of doubt. The original book may have begun 
 with the superscription iv. 44, or only with xii. 1. It 
 may have ended with the peroration xxvi. lG-19, or with 
 the subscription xxix. 1. I do not undertake to decide 
 between these views. The matter is still under discussion. 
 
10 LAW OP THE 
 
 and must be settled by determining which view accords best 
 with the indications of the sacred text itself. Strictly 
 speaking, the Deuteronomic code consists of chaps, xii.- 
 xxvi. ; and all that is essential to my view is that these 
 chapters cannot have been published in their present form 
 by Moses, because they contain precepts, which can be proved, 
 from otlici- parts of the Bible, to have been revealed at a later 
 date. It must be remembered that my whole appeal is to 
 the Bible and to the Bible alone, and if my opinion can be 
 refuted from the Bible I am ready to withdraw it at once. 
 But it seems to me, so far as I have been able to take a con- 
 joint view of the whole Bible evidence, that the usual 
 arguments for the Mosaic authorship of the chapters in 
 qiiestion are drawn from the partial examination of a few 
 texts, and are inconsistent with a fair interpretation of other 
 pas.3a,ges ; so that some modification of current views is 
 necessary in order to vindicate the truth and consistency of 
 all parts of Scripture. 
 
 4. The Bible evidence, which has led me to this view of 
 the Deuteronomic code, is of a kind which does not strike 
 the ordinary reader of Scripture. To realise its full force 
 one must gather together all the laws upon a single topic 
 which are scattered through various parts of the Pentateuch, 
 and compare them with one another, and with what is re- 
 corded of the practice of God's servants — of men like 
 Samuel, Da^id, and Elijah — in liter time^ than the days of 
 Moses. Wc find two or three laws on t]ie same subject, one 
 in Exodus, one in Deuteronomy, another perhaps in Leviticus 
 or Numbers ; but the provisions of the several laws do not 
 a})pear to agree. Then we turn, to the history, and we find, 
 let us sa}'', that Samuel aud David conformed their practice 
 to what seems to be the natural sense of the law in Exodus, 
 but habitually broke the law of Deuteronomy, We cannot 
 .sup})ose that these inspired men habitually violated a law of 
 God that was in their hands, and, therefore, it seems probable 
 that they only knew the law as it stands in Exodus. But 
 
ONE SANCTUARY. 11 
 
 we follow the history still further. We find that in the 
 time of Isaiah and Micah corruptions had crept in which 
 the law of Exodus was not strict enough to meet. We find 
 these propliets contending against the corruption, not on the 
 ground of the other stricter law of Deuteronomy, but by 
 direct prophetic revelation. Then we come down to the 
 time of Josiah, and find that he had the law of Deuteronomy 
 in his hand, and put down the evil by appealing to it. Are 
 we to suppose that all this time Deuteronomy had existed, 
 had been copied and re-copied, but never put into practice ? 
 If Moses gave two laws, why was one strict and the other 
 more lax, and why was the laxer one alone known for so many 
 centuries ? Is it not more reasonable to think that the law 
 of Deuteronomy was not revealed till the corruptions arose 
 with which the old law was unfit to cope? There is 
 nothing in such a supposition improbable or unworthy of 
 the Divine wisdom. The whole growth of the Old Testa- 
 ment Church was directed by the continual Prophetic 
 Eevelation. And it is only reasonable to believe that this 
 inspired guidance watched over the law as well as over the 
 other concerns of the people. 
 
 The example which I have just given is not an imaginary 
 one. It is taken from the law of the Sanctuary, which I 
 have carefully discussed in my " Additional Answer," pp. 
 57-77. In this place I shall merely recall the main points of 
 the argument. The law of Exodus xx. 22-26, allows the 
 Israelite to approach God by sacrifice, and encourages him 
 to expect His blessing in all places where — by some act of 
 revelation — Jehovah has recorded his name. Such ])laces 
 were the ancient sanctuaries — Bethel, Shechem, Beersheba, 
 Hebron, where God had accepted the worship of the patri- 
 archs, or newer shrines like Gilgal, consecrated by some 
 mighty deed of the Lord for his people. This law was 
 strictly followed by Samuel, Saul, and David. They sacri- 
 ficed at many shrines, but only at places known of old by 
 some historical record of God's name. Or if they raised a 
 
12 LATE RECOGNITION OF THE LAW 
 
 new altar, it was raised in memorial of some great mercy 
 whereby God associated the record of His name with a new 
 place of worship (1 Sam, xiv, 35 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 25), 
 Not so the law of Deuteronomy (see especially Deutero- 
 nomy xii.) That law knows only one legal sanctuary 
 chosen by the Lord " out of all the tribes " of Israel, 
 and where all sacrifice must be offered. Every other 
 sanctuary is heathenish (xii. 1-4), and all other sacri- 
 fice is willworship, without foundation in Divine law 
 (xii, 8), and not to be tolerated after the people are 
 settled in Canaan (xii. 9, seq.) This law, if it was actually 
 uttered by Moses, would come into force as soon as the ark 
 was settled at Shiloh (compare Deuteronomy xii., 5, 10, 11, 
 with Josh, xviii. 1 ; Jerem. vii. 12), from which time onward 
 no other sanctuary could be other than superstitious, I 
 know that it is argued that Samuel fell back on the 
 sanctuaries of Gilgal, Mizpeh, and the like, because Shiloh 
 had been destroyed. But good men do not fall back on 
 superstition when stated ordinances are interrupted ; and 
 during this period there was still a regular sanctuary at 
 Nob, with priests of the line of Aaron, who kept up the 
 shew-bread and other regular services. There is not a hint 
 in the history of anything exceptional in the worship of 
 Israel, between the fall of Shiloh and the building of the 
 temple. Nay, there was nothing exceptional, for Samuel 
 acted on God's own law, as revealed to Moses and recorded 
 in Exodus xx., and the fact that he did so, proves that in 
 his time that law had not yet been abrogated, and given 
 place to the law in Deuteronomy. Nay, long after his time, 
 and after Mount Zion had taken the place of Shiloh, Elijah, 
 the greatest of prophets after Moses, still guided his life by 
 the law in Exodus, and knew not that of Deuteronomy, 
 What is his complaint against sinful Israel — " The children 
 of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine 
 altars." Not the altar of Jerusalem, but the many altars 
 of God's ancient sanctuaries, are to him the pledge of the 
 
OP THE ONE SANCTUARY. ' 13 
 
 covenant, and he who throws down these altars — all of them 
 sinful seats of will worship by the lavv of Deuteronomy — 
 is guilty in Elijah's eyes of a breach of Jehovah's covenant 
 Now, the book of Deuteronomy itself tells us that God 
 made two covenants with Israel (Deut. xxix. 1) ; the covenant 
 at Horeb (Exodus xxiv. 7), and another covenant based on 
 the law of Deuteronomy. Elijah, it is clear, was still living 
 under the earlier covenant, the law of Exodus. Does not this 
 show that the other covenant was not yet revealed ? But 
 let us go further. In the time of Amos and Hosea, of Isaiah 
 and Micah, the holy places throughout the land had become 
 just what Deut. xii. describes — mere seats of heathenism and 
 idolatry, which the prophets refuse to recognize as sanctuaries 
 of the Lord. Yet these prophets never quote the law of 
 Deuteronomy. But Josiah, as every one admits, had that 
 law in his hand, and thereafter we find it well known to 
 Jeremiah. Does not this seem to show that the new law 
 was revealed sometime between Isaiah and Jeremiah, in order 
 to give practical effect to the teaching of the former pro- 
 phet and his helpers ? 
 
 This is but an example, and an example sketched in the 
 merest outline, of the kind of evidence which has forced 
 me to conclude that the Deuteronomic code was not pub- 
 lished by Moses. I do not say that every one is bound to 
 find this one piece of evidence conclusive, or even to find con- 
 clusive the whole evidence that I can bring together. But I 
 ask the court to look at the method of my argument, to see 
 that it rests on a fair attempt to put Bible facts together ; that 
 there is nothing sceptical or rationalistic about it, and that 
 if there is a flaw in the argument it ought to be easy to re- 
 fute it from the Bible without a libel and menaces of Church 
 censure. 
 
 5. The difference between my view of the Pentateuch 
 and that currently received among those who have not hpd 
 their attention directed to the kind of argument of which we 
 have just had an example, may be put in this way. It is 
 
14 DEUTERONOMY AND THE 
 
 admitted that the Pentateuch contains several bodies of law 
 published and written down at different times, and which 
 to a certain extent overlap each other, so that one sometimes 
 finds in different parts of the books of Moses two, three, or 
 even more laws referring to the same subject. Thus the laws 
 of Exodus xxi. — xxiii. form the first sketch of the theocratic 
 constitution promulgated at Horeb, and written down by 
 Moses in a book called the Book of the Covenant (Exod. 
 XXIV. 4, 7). The laws of Leviticus and Numbers were pub- 
 lished after the Book of the Covenant, and most scholars now 
 admit that they were originally comprised in a distinct book. 
 But be that as it may, it will not be denied that the Deutero- 
 nomic law is more than a supplement to the older legisla- 
 tion. It goes over the same ground with the original Book 
 of the Covenant, sometimes merely repeating but often ex- 
 panding or modifying its provisions. We may call it a new 
 and revised edition of Israel's fundamental law, containing 
 some abridgements and a good deal of new matter, but 
 substantially taking the place of the older book for ordinary 
 purposes.* 
 
 * It is of some importance to realise how completely Deuteronomy 
 covers the same ground with the Book of the Covenant in Exodus, The 
 following table exhibits the facts of the case : — 
 
 Exod. xxi. 1-11 (Hebrew Slaves)— Deut. xv. 12-18. 
 
 „ 12-14 (Murder and Asylum)— Deut. xix, 1-13. 
 
 „ 15, 17 (Offences against parents) — Deut. xxi. 18-21 ; 
 
 compare Deut. xxvii. 16. 
 
 „ 16 (Manstealing) — Deut. xxiv. V. ' 
 
 „ 18 — xxii. 15. Compensations to be paid for various 
 
 injuries. This section is not repeated in Deutero- 
 nomy, except as regards the law of retaliation, 
 Exod. xxi. 23-25, which in Deut. xix. 16-21 is 
 applied to false witnesses. 
 Exod. xxii. 16, 17 (Seduction)— Deut. xxii. 28, 29. 
 
 „ 18 (Witch)— Deut. xviii. 10-12. 
 
 „ 19 — Deut. xxvii 21. 
 
 „ 20 (Idolatry)— Deut. xiii. ; xvii. 2-7. 
 
BOOK OF THE COVENANT. 13 
 
 According to the common view all these laws were 
 given in the wilderness, and such of them as are not mere 
 temporary ordinances for the time of the Wandering were 
 all designed by God to continue in full force as long as the 
 people dwelt in Canaa,n, or till the abolition of the Old 
 Testament dispensation in Christ. Thus, for example, the 
 Book of the Covenant in Exodus, and the parallel code of 
 laws in Deuteronomy, would be current side by side from 
 the time of Joshua downwards, and either might be appealed 
 to for gTiidance by the law-abiding Israelite. Now this view 
 ■would hold water well enough if there never was any 
 variance between the two codes; if Deuteronom}^ added 
 
 Exod, xxii. 21-24 (Humanity to stranger, widow, and orphan) — 
 
 Deut. xxiv. 17-22. 
 
 „ 25 (Usury) — Deut. xxiii. 19. 
 
 „ 26, 27, (Pledge of raiment)— Deut. xxiv. 10-13. 
 
 „ 28 (Treason) — Not in Deuteronomy. 
 
 „ 29, 30 (First fruits and firstlings)— Deut. xxvi. 1-11 ; 
 
 XV. 19-23. 
 
 „ 31 (Unclean food) — Deut. xiv. 2-21. The particular 
 
 precept of Exodus occupies only v. 21 ; but the 
 
 principle of avoiding food inconsistent with 
 
 holiness is expanded. 
 
 Exod. xxiii, 1 (False witness)— Deut. xix. 16-21. 
 
 2 3 ) 
 
 " i:\ o( (J"st judgment)— Deut. xvi. 18-20. 
 
 „ b, 7, ) 
 
 „ 4, 5 (Animals strayed or fallen) — Deut. xxii. 1-4. 
 
 „ 9-11 (Sabbatical year) — Deut. xv. 1-11. 
 
 „ 12 (Sabbath as a provision of humanity) — Deut. 
 
 V. 14, 15. 
 
 „ 13 (Names of other gods) — Deut. vi. 13. 
 
 „ 14-19a (Annual feasts) — Deut. xvi. 1-17. 
 
 „ 19b (Kid in mother's milk) — Deut. xiv. 21. 
 
 A careful comparison of these sections will help Ihe reader to under- 
 stand the relation of the two legislations, and to see that as a popular 
 manual Deuteronomy could take the place of the older law-book. 
 Nothing is omitted — although some things are changed — except the law 
 of treason and that relating to questions of money compensation, which 
 it was not so necessary for all the people as for the regular judges to 
 know. 
 
16 EXPLANATION OP 
 
 details and furnished explanations to Exodus without ever 
 promulgating a change of law. But if we find changes and 
 contradictions in one law as compared wdth the other, and 
 that in ordinances not meant only for the wilderness but 
 expressly applicable to Canaan, no one who believes that 
 both are God's laws can believe that both were given by 
 Moses in the wilderness. God, who changes not, might in 
 "His wisdom, adapting His legislation as we know He did to 
 the hardness of the people's hearts, give different laws for 
 different ages of His Church, to meet changed conditions of 
 social life. But it cannot be thought that He would give a 
 law for Canaan at Mount Sinai only to revoke it in the plains 
 of Moab before it had ever come into force. 
 
 Now it appears to me that we do sometimes find two 
 laws on one subject which are at variance in their provisions, 
 and could not be in force as law at one and the same time. 
 And therefore I think it most likely that the various collec- 
 tions of laws which appear in the different parts of the 
 Pentateuch are, to some extent, so many distinct editions of 
 the original laws of Moses, published at different times in the 
 history of the Church, and embracing, as new editions natur- 
 ally do, such additions and changes to meet new needs, as 
 God in His wisdom had provided to be made by the Prophets 
 who were the successors of Moses. In this sense I think 
 that Deut. xii.-xxvi. is a new edition of Exodus xxi.-xxiii., 
 with some additions and illustrations which Moses himself 
 might give to the people before his death ; but with others 
 which are much later, and make it probable that the new 
 edition was not published before the time of Isaiah. And 
 in this view I am strengthened by the proofs which I find 
 in the Prophets and historical books, that some of the 
 Deuteronomic laws — for example, that of the one sanctuary 
 — were unknown to God's most faithful servants till a date 
 long subsequent to the death of Moses. 
 
 6. I hope that these explanations will go far to meet the 
 idea that what I have written about Deuteronomy is the 
 
DIVERGENT LA WS. 17 
 
 result of a straining after novelty, and a love for out of the 
 way theories. I have sought to adopt the simplest explana- 
 tion which is consistent, on the one hand, with belief that 
 all the laws are God's ordinance to Israel, and, on the other 
 hand, with the persuasion drawn from the study of the 
 Sacred Text that there really are ordinances in the Pentateuch 
 which were not known till long after Moses, and which can 
 only be viewed as abrogating and superseding earlier Divine 
 laws which were given by Moses, and formed the rule of 
 Israel's life for ages thereafter. If the Church came to share 
 this persuasion, my views would certainly be pronounced 
 innocent, but I hope that even those who cannot go so far 
 \vill see that the difficulty in reconciling some of the laws is 
 so great, and that the attempts at reconciliation (offered on 
 the view that all are Mosaic) have hitherto been so unsatis- 
 factory that it is not safe for any Church to make it a 
 matter of faith that all the ordinances are of Mosaic date, 
 and were meant to be in force at one time. K I am con- 
 demned, this will be the meaning of the judgment. It is 
 not any detail in my own explanation of the difficulties in 
 the Pentateuch that makes the gist of the charge against me. 
 My real crime will be that I cannot prop my faith in the 
 Divine Authority of the Old Testament upon any of the 
 strained conjectures that have been adopted to get over real 
 difficulties in harmonizing the Pentateuchal laws. This 
 being so, I think it will not be out of place to ask the court, 
 before deciding that this is a crime, to look at some further 
 examples of the difficulties in question. These may best be 
 drawn from the parallel codes of Exod. xxi.-xxiii., (the Book 
 of the Sinaitic Covenant) and Deut. xii.-xxvi. (the Deutero- 
 nomic code). 
 
 I begin with the very first law in Exod. xxi., the law of 
 manumission. A Hebrew bondsman is to serve six years, 
 and go out free in the seventh (ver. 2). So, too, a woman, 
 who comes into service along with her husband, goes out 
 with him (ver. 3). But if it was a father who sold his 
 
18 EXAMPLES OF 
 
 daughter as a bondwoman, she shall not go out as bondmen 
 do (ver. 7). But in Deut. xv. 12, 17, the law of manumis- 
 sion is made general for bondwomen as for bondmen. Both 
 these laws are designed for Canaan, as appears from the 
 mention of the doorpost in Ex. xxi. 6, which presupposes 
 settled habitation. But Moses cannot have left to the 
 people two opposite laws for the treatment of bondwomen.* 
 Another plain instance of variance between Exodus and 
 Deuteronomy is that the former (xxii. 31) commands the 
 flesh of an animal found torn in the field to be thrown to 
 the dogs. And so in Lev. xvii. 15, it is enacted that anyone 
 who eats such food — be he an Israelite or a protected 
 stranger — must perform a statutory purification, and be un- 
 clean till evening. But in Deut. xiv. 21, the Israelite is al- 
 lowed to present carrion to the stranger who lives under his 
 protection, and he in turn is permitted to eat it.t But the 
 
 * Dr. Douglas (at pp. 18, 19 of his recent pamphlet) says that this is 
 a mistake on my part, and that the law of the male bondservant iu 
 Exodus applies mutatis mutandis to a female bond slave, except in the 
 peculiar case when a father might sell his daughter " with the chance 
 or expectation of becoming a secondary wife, or even a wife properly 
 speaking to her master or his son." But the word " bondwoman " or 
 "maidservant," in ver, 7, is the general word for all female slaves, and 
 not merely for slave wives. It is the word in regular use as the 
 feminine of the term " bondman " in verse 2. So the two words occur 
 together in this same chapter, verses 20, 26, 27, 32, and a dozen other 
 passages. Verses 8-11 give an exception to the general law of verse 7, 
 and not to Dr. Douglas's imaginary extension of the law of bondmen to 
 female slaves. If bondwomen as a rule went free after seven years, 
 why does the law of Exodus specially provide that the wife who came 
 in with her husband shall go out with him % Moreover, it is clear from 
 verses 4, 5, that a master had power to marry his female slave to a 
 bondman, and that even this relation left both her and her children to 
 be servants for ever, so that the husband could keep his wife only by 
 accepting a perpetual service. These two details about the wives of 
 bondmen do not appear in Deuteronomy. They are plainly inapplicable 
 imder the new law. 
 
 t Dr. Douglas (p. 19) explains away the law of Leviticus. He 
 admits a variation between Exodus and Deuteronomy, which he thinks 
 
DIVERGENT LA WS. 1 9 
 
 most interesting discrepancies between Exodus and Deu- 
 teronomy ai-e those connected -with the abolition in 
 Deuteronomy of all altars save that of the one sanctuary. 
 I take these as specimens of the evidence which can be 
 brought together from every side to confirm the general 
 view of this central change in the law which I have already 
 given. In Exod. xxi. 13, 14, God promises to appoint a 
 place of refuge for the innocent manslayer, but ordains that 
 the Avilful murderer shall be " taken from my altar, that he 
 may die." In this law the asylum is a sanctuary, and it is 
 the altar that is the place of protection, though God refuses 
 to extend the protection to murderers. This agrees with the 
 history, for we know, as a fact, that several of the cities of 
 refuge (Hebron, Shechem, and Ramoth Gilead or Mizpeh) 
 were ancient holy places, and Josh. xx. 7 (margin) tells us that 
 they were sanctified. It is impossible to suppose that the altar 
 which the law of Exodus speaks of as an asylum is the 
 brazen altar of the central sanctuary — for that, according to 
 Numb, xviii. 3, was so holy that it was death for any but a 
 son of Aaron to approach it. Accordingly in Deuteronomy, 
 where local sanctuaries are no longer recognised, the altar 
 does not appear as a place of asylum. 
 
 A still clearer case is Exodus xxii. 30, where it is pro- 
 vided that the firstlings of oxen and sheep shall remain 
 
 was made by God to commend the law to the consciences of the people 
 after they had had forty years experience of these strangers and 
 sojourners. (?) I ventiu^ed to suggest in my former publication that the 
 difference of law simply points to a difference in the social condition of 
 the times. In the early times of the nation the " protected stranger " 
 was often no alien but merely a man of another tribe. And so the 
 earliest law of Exodus nowhere treats him as one of another religion 
 (compare Judges xvii. 7 ; xix. 1, 16). Before Deuteronomy was 
 written the nation had become unified, and no Hebrew residing in the 
 land could well hold this lower position. In Leviticus xvii. again the 
 word stranger has possibly the technical sense of a proselyte. Another 
 example of a change in law, conditioned by a change of social custom, 
 will be found in Deut. xxii. 28 compared with Exod. xxii. 16, 17. — 
 Additional Answer, p. 56. 
 
20 DEUTERONOMY AND THE 
 
 seven days with the dam, and be given to God — i.e., offered 
 in sacrifice — on the eighth. This ordinance of course became 
 impracticable when the local altars were abolished, so 
 Deut. XV. 19-23 changes the law, and provides that the 
 firstlings be eaten year by year at the sanctuary.* 
 
 These are sufficient examples to bring out the relation 
 between the codes of Exodus and Deuteronomy. The 
 variations between the two law-books are not so extensive, 
 but that the laws in Deuteronomy, as well as those in 
 Exodus, may with perfect truth be called laws of Moses. 
 But they are the laws of Moses in a new edition, embodying 
 modifications which cannot have proceeded from him, though 
 they are easily understood if we regard them as introduced 
 at a later time, when the state of society had changed, and 
 the spread of heathenism in the local sanctuaries made it 
 necessary to confine sacrifice to one altar. 
 
 Another body of evidence, quite independent and at least 
 as strong, for the publication of new editions of the law in 
 times subsequent to Moses, may be drawn from the laws 
 about the priesthood and sacred offerings as they stand in 
 Deuteronomy on the one hand, and Leviticus and Numbers 
 on the other. The cumulative force of this branch of the 
 evidence is very great ; but to do it justice, I should have to 
 treat the topic in considerable detail, and repeat in extenso 
 the discussion in my Additional Answer to the old Libel 
 (pp. 29-51), where this question came into special prominence 
 in connection with a charge now dropped. I, therefore, re- 
 fer my judges to my former publication, and will in this 
 
 * Dv. Douglas takes the law of Exodus to mean only that the animal 
 (according to the law of Lev. xxii. 27) must not be sacrificed before the 
 eighth day. But this is not the meaning of the words, and the precept 
 to sacrifice on the eighth day is parallel to what is said in the previous 
 verse, where delay in offering the first fruits is forbidden. The law is 
 similar to that of circumcision in Lev. xii. 2, 3, where the mother is 
 unclean for seven days, and on the eighth the child is to be circumcised. 
 Will Dr. Douglas interpret this to mean that cirr"^xcision may take 
 place any time after eight days \ 
 
LEVITICAL LEGISLATION. 21 
 
 place do no more than recall to their recollection two very- 
 clear cases of incompatible laws. The priest's portion of a 
 common sacrifice, what is technically called a peace-offering, 
 was, according to Leviticus vii. 30-34, the breast and the 
 right leg. In Deut. xviii. 3 his portion is the foreshoulder, the 
 cheeks, and the maw. Dr. Douglas admits his inability to 
 reconcile this discrepancy. Again, Deuteronomy (xiv. 23 ; 
 XV. 20) bids the people eat the firstlings in a feast at the 
 sanctuary. Numbers xviii. 18 assigns the firstlings absolutely 
 to the priest. They must be sacrificed, but no part of the 
 flesh goes to the offerer — " their flesh shall be thine [the 
 priest's], like the wave breast and heave shoulder it shall be 
 thine." Dr. Douglas still thinks that this may mean that 
 only the breast and leg are to go to the priest. But the words 
 are plain to the contrary. The practice of the second temple, 
 as we know it from Jewish tradition, is also against him. 
 Moreover his explanation will hardly square with the fact 
 that the firstlinsj of an unclean beast had to be bouGfht back 
 from the priest, or else might be sold by the latter (Lev. 
 xxvii. 27, Num. xviii. 15). And, finally, there is another 
 absolute contradiction in the laws, when Num. xviii. 17 for- 
 bids the redemption of any firstling fit for sacrifice; but 
 Deut. xiv. 24, seq., allows the animal to be turned into 
 money, and the price spent at the sanctuary on any kind of 
 meat or drink. How can such discrepancies as these be got 
 over without the hypothesis of two editions of the law, not 
 both published by Moses ? 
 
 Another line of evidence against the belief that Moses 
 published the Deuteronomic code is found, as I have already 
 observed, in indications that later prophets and righteous 
 men did not know the book. I have spoken of such indica- 
 tions as regards the law of the one sanctuary, which was not 
 known to Samuel and Elijah, apparently not even to Isaiah 
 and Micah. But the same thing holds good of other Deu- 
 teronomic laws. The libel quotes a passage in whicli I point 
 out that the permission to make a kino- (Deut. xvii. 14-Ln), 
 
22 SOLUTION OF THE DIFFICULTIES 
 
 can hardly have been before Gideon (Judges viii. 23). And 
 at a later date God tells the people through Samuel, that to 
 ask for a king is really to refuse Jehovah's sovereignty (1 Sam. 
 viii. 7 ; xii. 12-19). This is certainly not the view of 
 Deuteronomy, which represents a constitutional kingship 
 as a quite fitting thing, though a reign like Solomon's is 
 condemned. Again, Hosea (ix. 3, 4) cannot have known the 
 Deuteronomic permission to kill and eat animals without offer- 
 ing them in sacrifice (Deut. xii. 15), when he says, that in exile 
 the people must eat unclean food, because they cannot 
 present their sacrifices at Jehovah's house. He was still 
 living in a time when all animal food was regularly pre- 
 sented at the altar, according to the law of Leviticus xvii. 
 4-10, 11. Once more, the prohibition in Deuteronomy 
 xvi. 22, of the erection of what is called a ma99eba, that is a 
 sacred pillar or stone, set up like Jacob's pillar, in con- 
 nection with a sanctuary, cannot have been known to 
 Joshua (xxiv. 26), Samuel (1 Sam. vii. 12), Solomon (1 
 Kings vii. 21), or even to Isaiah, who (ch. xix. 19), pro- 
 phecies the erection of such a sacred pillar as a sign of the 
 conversion of Egypt. The reason for the introduction of 
 these two new laws in the Deuteronomic code is easily 
 found in connection with the suppression of corrupt local 
 sanctuaries, as I have explained at length in my Additional 
 Answer, p. 71, seq.* 
 
 7. What I have now written is very far short of a com- 
 plete account of difiiculties, which, as far as I can see, can 
 be met only by supposing, that later prophets re-edited the 
 laws of Moses as was found necessary. But I think I have said 
 enough to show that the interests of the faith and the in- 
 terests of truth should lead our Church to pause and devote 
 deliberate study to the whole question before expressing a 
 
 * My opponents give various excuses for the ignoring in subsequent 
 history of several parts of the law of Deuteronomy. These excuses 
 would have more weight if they could show that pi-ophets and right- 
 eou8 men also ignored the earlier law of Exodus xxi. — xxiii. 
 
IN DEUTERONOMY. 23 
 
 judicial decision. I think too that it will be sqen that I am 
 making no attack on the Book of Deuteronomy. I have 
 only sought to find an account of the book which will agree 
 with all the fixcts of the case, with the unquestionable claim 
 of this part of the law to be received as inspired, as well as 
 with a candid admission of the differences between it and 
 other parts of the Pentateuch. These differences have never 
 yet been satisfactorily explained in consistency with the 
 view that the whole Pentateuchal law was published by 
 Moses as we now have it, and I confess that the discussions 
 of the last two years, which I have followed with a sincere 
 desire to be at one with the Church, have not helped me to 
 return to the old view. Nay, the oftener I go over the 
 argument, and the longer I examine what has been said on 
 the other side, whether by older writers or by scholars like 
 Prof. Curtiss and Dr. Douglas, who write with special refer- 
 ence to the present controversy, the more impossible do I 
 find it to assign all the laws to the time of Israel's wan- 
 dering. But at the same time I am more and more 
 persuaded that there is nothing in this to touch faith, 
 and nothing that entitles any one to insinuate a charge of 
 fraud against the editor of the Deuteronomic Law. Those 
 who put this unfavourable construction on the matter 
 are surely misled by the way they have got into of speaking 
 of the Deuteronomic code as if it were a history book. To us, 
 perhaps, the importance of the laws is mainly historical. 
 But it was not so to the Israelite. He went to Deuteronomy 
 to read the law by which his daily life was guided. This 
 and nothing but this is what the first verse of Deut. xii. 
 promises to set before the reader. " These are the statutes 
 and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land 
 which the Lord God of thy fathers hath given thee to possess 
 it, all the days that ye are alive upon the earth." It is true 
 that the law thus set forth is the law of Moses, but if God 
 had made any changes on a law after Closes and before 
 Deut. xii. — xxvi. was written, the author was bound to give 
 
24 iMOSES AND THE LATER CODE. 
 
 the new ordinance and not the old, on pain of directing his 
 readers in a false path. And surely he was not bound to 
 pause wherever such a new law came in, and explain at 
 leno-th that the orioinal ordinance of Moses, recorded in the 
 older editions of the law, was somewhat different. To expect 
 him to have done this is to transform a prophet into an 
 antiquary. Again, one of the peculiar characters and one 
 of the special charms of Deuteronomy is that the laws are 
 set forth, not in the dry style of an Act of Parliament, but in 
 a warm tone of personal exhortation. But whose voice is it 
 that really speaks those words of exhortation to the people 'i 
 Not the later editor, whose work is merely subordinate, but 
 Moses himself, the first author of the law, whose wisdom and 
 zeal and earnest endeavour to shape this stubborn nation 
 into a worthy people for Jehovah, are stamped on every 
 ordinance. Who then can insinuate that it is any fraud, 
 or that it is other than a beautiful and appropriate expression 
 of the deepest truth, when the editor retires into the back- 
 ground altogether and lets his readers feel that in spite of 
 minor changes it is still Moses himself who is exhorting them 
 to follow the Lord? Of course, the first readers were quite 
 aware that they had before them a new edition of the law. 
 They could tell this by comparing it with the older law- 
 books which had served their fathers ; and the editor himself, 
 who was plainly no mean man among the prophets of his 
 day, was doubtless quite well known. And so it was his 
 duty, which he performed so singly and with such self-denial 
 that his very name has been lost, not to lay stress on his 
 own work and the novelties it contained, but to make the 
 people feel that Moses though dead still spake, that his law 
 was not an obsolete curiosity, but wielded by a prophet's 
 hand could still be Israel's guide to the knowledge and fear 
 of Jehovah.* 
 
 * Dr. Douglas aud others seem to think that they make a point 
 against me when they are able to show that some of the laws in the 
 code of Deuteronomy necessarily lead us back to a much earlier date 
 
DEUTERONOMY A '' PROGRAMME." 2S 
 
 8. There is one expression of mine quoted in the libel 
 which calls for a word of explanation at this point. I call 
 the Deuteronomic law-book a prophetic legislative pro- 
 gramme, a term which I find has been greatly misunder- 
 
 than that to whicli I assign the editing of that book. Thus the favour- 
 able conditions offered to Edomite proselytes in Deut. xxiii. 7, 8, and 
 the provision in xix. 8 for having six cities of refuge when the land ia 
 enlai-ged, are enumerated by Dr. Douglas among his proofs that my 
 theory " will land us in much greater difficulties than have ever been 
 imagined against the traditional view." This is an extraordinary mis- 
 conception of my position. It is an essential part of my theory that the 
 mass of the law is ancient, that the code is merely a readjustment of the 
 old legislation. And thus I can welcome every feature in the book that 
 points us directly back to the days of Moses and vindicates the right of 
 the editor to speak in Moses' name. 
 
 When I am on this subject I may devote a few lines to the other 
 difficulties which Dr. Douglas brings against my view. (1) There is no 
 allusion in Deuteronomy to the schism of Northern Israel. But in a 
 law-book edited after the captivity of the ten tribes, and therefore ad- 
 dressed only to Judah, there was no occasion for such allusion. (2) The 
 command to exterminate the Canaanites, destroy all traces of their 
 worship, and avoid intermarriage with them, is " inapplicable to the 
 <:ase of the feeble remnant left in the age of the Kings, who Tiad, 
 moreover, apparently been received into the Church of Israel as con- 
 verts." I know no evidence for the conversion of the Canaanites in the 
 period of the Kings. It is notorious that the Israelites jn-actised the 
 idolatries of Canaan until the captivity, and never more grossly than 
 in the period to which I assign Deuteronomy (2 Kings xxi. 2). 
 Intermarriages with the heathen races of Palestine were still a serious 
 danger to the true faith in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra ix. 1, 
 Neh. xiii. 23, Mai. ii. 11), and it is very noteworthy that Ezra (ix. 11), 
 quoting the law against such intermarriages in a form which agrees 
 with Deuteronomy in sj^eaking of the conquest of Canaan as still a 
 future thing, assigns the authorship of the precept not to Moses but to 
 the prophets. With regard to the command to exterminate the Canaan- 
 ites, we must distinguish between the code proper (Deut. xii — xxvi.) 
 and the introductory oration. The latter may or may not have been 
 written by the author of the code, and in any case is not direct law, but 
 tells what was the duty of the Israelites contemporary with Moses on 
 the first conquest of the land. In the code itself the precejit to give no 
 ■quarter to the Canaanites appears only as a part of the law of war 
 
26 THE CODE AND ITS 
 
 stood. All that I mean by calling the code a " programme" 
 is this : — The prophets after Samuel were not the rulers of 
 Israel. They revealed God's will, but had no power 
 to enforce it in actual practice, except so far as they could 
 persuade rulers to give it their sanction. Hence a prophetic 
 
 (chap. XX.) As a rule, when a city was taken by storm the women and 
 children were spared as slaves (xx. 14), and the former might become 
 their masters' wives (xxi. 10-14). But in war with their Canaanite 
 neiglibours the people were to leave no survivore who might tempt their 
 captors to idolatry. This precept does not in the least preach a new 
 crusade against the remnant of the Canaanites at a time when all war 
 between them and Israel had ceased. But it was proper to leave it 
 in the statute book as a strong protest against Canaanitish idolatry, 
 and lest the general permission to spare and marry the women 
 of the vanquished might seem inconsistent with the law against 
 intermarriage with the Canaanites. (3) The law of the kingdom 
 (xvii. 14-20) seems to Dr. Douglas to be "unlike anything 
 that would be given for the first time in an age subsequent to 
 Solomon." I cannot see the force of this. The law forbids any king to 
 follow the practices of Solomon in mai'rying many wives, and the like, 
 which was a highly practical precept at any time in the history of the 
 kingdom. And I am not tied up to believe that this precept was given 
 " for the first time " in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy only codifies a 
 warning that had often been given by the prophets. The only point 
 that may at first sight seem not practical in the time of Hezekiah is the 
 ordinance that the king must not be a foreigner. But we learn from 
 Isaiah (vii. 6 ; viii, 6) of intrigues to overthrow the house of David 
 and set up a foreign king, which met with support within Judea. For 
 other arguments from Assyrian sources to show that this warning was 
 not out of season at the time I svippose, see my Additional Answer, 
 p. 82, note. Again, Dr. Douglas thinks Deut. xii. 20 ; xiv. 24, inapplicable 
 t ) the small kingdom of Judah. But surely Judea was large enough to 
 make both these laws highly necessary after all sanctuaries were 
 abolished except that of Jerusalem. (4) I am asked why Deuteronomy 
 makes no mention of temples. Why, I reply, should it mention temples 
 when it does not so much as mention the tabernacle 1 (5) Why is there 
 no mention of Damascus and Assyria 1 Why should there be in a law- 
 book ? These, I think, are all the difficulties enumerated by Dr, 
 Douglas. Can any one candidly say that they are comparable in gravity 
 with those that oppress the traditional view ? Surely if my view were 
 false much stronger arguments would be found against it. 
 
DIVINE AUTHORITY. 27 
 
 new edition of tlie law was only a plan or programme sub- 
 mitted to the nation — a Bill, as it were, not an Act of Parlia- 
 ment. Josiah, perhaps, was the first king who adopted this 
 programme of a code, though it may have been partially in 
 force during the latter years of Hezekiah. 
 
 9. May I not now fairly say that if the legal parts of 
 Deuteronomy — say chapters xii. to xxvi. — stood in our 
 Bibles as a separate book, we should have heard nothing of 
 the present libel ? In that case every one would have ad- 
 mitted that the existence of discrepancies, between that law- 
 book and the laws of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, 
 suggested the probability that the former was a new and 
 revised edition of the oriofinal leaislation of Moses. And 
 no one would then have supposed that this involved fraud, 
 or that the editor was bound to drop the name of Moses 
 altogether, simply because the new edition was largely re- 
 written and brought down to date. Practical handbooks 
 of law and science are re-written in this way eveiy day, 
 and the name of the first author is still retained. The thing 
 is one of the most obvious of literary necessities, with which 
 no suspicion of bad faith is ever associated. The case in- 
 deed would be changed if it appeared that the Deuteronomic 
 writer tried to conceal the fact that there was new matter in 
 his work, if his object was to gain the sanction of Moses' 
 name for the new as well as the old. But the law of 
 Deuteronomy is not published on himian authority. It is 
 the law of God to Israel, coming with the same supreme 
 sanction, whether the human author of any individual 
 precept was Moses or a later prophet. The author, there- 
 fore, could have no motive to conceal the true chai'acter of 
 his work. Nor could he liave hoped to succeed though he 
 had tried ; for in the time of Hezekiah it was well enough 
 known that old law and custom supported the local 
 sanctuaries though newer prophetic revelation condemned 
 them. The theory that the law-book of Deuteronomy is 
 the product of fraud has its basis, not in the acknowledge- 
 
28 INCORPORATION OP THE CODE IN THE 
 
 ment of the fact that some of the hiws are later than 
 Moses, but in the denial of the inspiration of the book. 
 Those who believe that the prophets were not in truth in- 
 spired of God, who refuse to admit that through their 
 instrumentality the Divine King of Israel guided the nation 
 with His own supreme authority, must of course refuse to 
 regard the Deuteronomic code as anything more than a 
 human project, which might be glad to acquire sanction even 
 from a fraudulent use of Moses' name. But we who believe 
 that there was in Israel a living utterance of God's Avill 
 through the mouth of his prophets must at once see that 
 such a book could not be accepted, except it were stamped 
 with prophetic approval, and if it had that approval it was 
 at once sufficiently accredited as an authoritative renewal of 
 the old law. Under such circumstances the writer might 
 well feel himself dispensed from the merely antiquarian 
 task of marking as chang^es all the new things in his work — 
 nor can he be called an impostor because he wrote before the 
 invention of title pages, and so could not announce his book 
 as a " New edition revised up to date, and partly re-written," 
 adding the year of publication at the bottom of the leaf 
 
 10. And now the question comes to be whether the case 
 is changed by the fact that we possess the Deuteronomic 
 code, not in the form of a separate book, but as an integral 
 part of the larger and more complete whole, which we now 
 call the Book of Deuteronomy. I will not deny that this 
 circumstance makes it less easy to recognize the later 
 character of the code. Standing, as it now does, in the 
 midst of a historical context referring to Moses' time, the 
 law-book does not at first sight suggest to us the idea of a 
 later edition. We are naturally disposed to think that the 
 laws which stand amidst the history of Moses' last labours 
 in the land of Moab are set before us in the very shape in 
 which he spoke them. But, though this opinion is natural, 
 I cannot see that it is necessary. For it must be remembered 
 tliat the Pentateuch is not written exclusively or even 
 
PRESENT BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 29 
 
 principally with a historical purpose. To the Jews it was, 
 above all things, not history but law. They called it the 
 Law (Torah), and it is as the law that it is cited in the Xew 
 Testament. No doubt one object of the Pentateuch is to 
 record the history of God's people to the dcatli of Moses, 
 but it lies in the plan that the history should be so told as 
 to include all the laws which God had delivered to be 
 obeyed. And, therefore, if any new laws were revealed, or if 
 in the course of centuries prophets were charged to revise 
 some of the old laws, it was fitting that the new matter 
 should be incorporated in some part of the great work to 
 which the people were wont to refer. According to modern 
 ideas the right way to do this would be by foot notes or an 
 appendix. But these devices were unknown, and so if the 
 law of Deuteronomy was to be taken into the great law-book 
 at all, it was necessary to place it somehow in the actual 
 context of the book. I do not think that it was the writer 
 of the new code who accomplished this task. I believe 
 that the laws of Deut. xii.-xxvi. were originally published 
 either alone or with the introductory address in chaps v.-xi. 
 as a preface, and perhaps some part of xxvii.-xxviii. as a 
 conclusion. The question is whether the person who took 
 up this originally separate book into the account of Moses' 
 last labovu's and final exhortations to Israel was thereby 
 guilty of a fravid upon his readers, such as to destroy the 
 chai'acter of his book and forbid us to accept it as part of 
 Scripture. The present book of Deuteronomy contains in 
 addition to the code of chaps, xii.-xxvi., several long speeches 
 connected by a slender thread of narrative, the substance of 
 which may be given as follows. In the land of Moab, after 
 the slaughter of Sihon and Og, jMoses addressed the people 
 and expounded to them the law (i. 1-5 ; iv. 44-49). He also 
 separated three cities of refuge to the east of Jordan (iv. 41- 
 43). He further commanded the people to write the law on 
 stones upon Mount Ebal, and perform there a solemn service 
 of blessing and cursing (xxvii). Further, he wrote the law 
 
30 HISTORY AND SPEECHES 
 
 and entrusted it to the priests, with a charge to i-ead it 
 publicly once in seven years. He also wrote and recited a 
 prophetic song in connection with his last charge to Joshua. 
 He then blessed the people, and ascending Mount Pisgah, 
 died there lamented by the people. Now it is clear that the 
 historical value of these details is really independent of the 
 question whether the code which comes in in the heart of 
 the book has or has not been re-edited by a prophet later 
 than Moses. The adoption of my view of that code does 
 not in any way forbid one to believe that Moses solemnly 
 set the law before the people previously to his death. It 
 implies only that an editor of tlie Pentateuchal history, 
 having the Deuteronomic code in his hand, and knowing it 
 to be the form of the laws of Moses binding on the people in 
 his own day, felt that it would be useful for his readers to 
 have it inserted in immediate connection with the warm 
 exhortations to follow God's law that occupy the chapters 
 immediately preceding its present place. It is clear that 
 this course, instead of deceiving the people, was a simple 
 and natural guard against misconception. Had this writer 
 followed up the words of xi. 32, " Ye shall observe to do all 
 the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day," 
 by giving the old law exactly as it came from Moses, with 
 all the obsolete provisions which the new law had changed, 
 he would have run a risk of betraying some of his readers 
 into a wrong course of conduct. For after all, as I must 
 again and again point out, the Israelites went to this book 
 not for antiquarian information about old laws but for 
 practical direction in daily life. 
 
 I think that this view of the matter will commend itself 
 to ordinary common sense as reasonable, and by no means 
 inconsistent with veracity. But if any one chooses to insist 
 on an extreme literalism, and to maintain that I'eut. xii.- 
 xxvi. must contain word for word, the very statutes spoken 
 by Moses in the plains of Moab, I ask him to consider 
 whether he can be satisfied even with the common view of 
 
IN DEUTERONOMY. 31 
 
 Deuteronomy. According to chap. v. 31 -vi. 1 the laws in 
 Deuteronomy are those which were spoken to Moses when 
 he stood before the Lord during the theophany at Horeb, 
 when the people were unable to endure the terrors of a 
 direct revelation to themselves. The laws then revealed were 
 those of Exodus xxi.-xxiii., so that if a strict literalism is to 
 be adopted Moses ought simply to have repeated these 
 chapters without any modification. But every one admits 
 some modifications in the laws of Deuteronomy as com- 
 pared with Exodus. If Moses could introduce these while 
 professing to rehearse the law of Horeb, why might not a 
 later prophet introduce subsequent modifications when he in 
 turn came to rehearse the last speech of Moses ? 
 
 It will be objected, however, that the introduction of a 
 revised form of the law into the context of a speech by the 
 first lawgiver implies such a free way of handling the report 
 of his words as to prevent us from looking on the other parts 
 of the speeches in Deuteronomy as anything like a literal 
 reproduction of what Moses actually said. In a certain 
 measure this is no doubt true. I do not think that what we 
 know of the principles on which the Revealer caused the 
 Old Testament Scriptures to be committed to writing entitles 
 us to suppose that any of the speeches in Deuteronomy are 
 necessarily word for word reports. I believe that in many 
 speeches of the Old Testament, as in other speeches which 
 we read in ancient historians, the ideas and situation of the 
 speaker rather than his exact words are reproduced. But 
 this is a principle which is freely admitted for ordinary 
 history without any impeachment of the veracity of the 
 historian. Nothing else was generally possible in ancient 
 histories, where writers had no shorthand reports to fall back 
 on, and readers knew very well that this was what they had 
 to expect. God, no doubt, in giving His people a sacred and 
 inspired histor}^, might have taken a different plan. He 
 might have revealed to the holy penmen the very letter of 
 what ancient orators had spoken. But we have no right to 
 
S2 SPEECHES IN ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 believe that He must have done so, and there are many 
 reasons to believe that as a matter of fact He did not do it. 
 Rather He allowed them to retain the received forms and 
 usages of the literature of their day, forms that were not 
 only legitimate in themselves and thoroughly intelligible to 
 ancient readers, but afforded the best opportunity for enforc- 
 ing and expanding the practical lessons of the history. For 
 by the universal custom of antiquity the historian, while 
 incorporating such memoranda of the speeches of historical 
 characters as had been transmitted to him, was entitled to 
 avail himself of such occasions in order to set before his 
 readers the sentiments and reflections which the historical 
 situation might properly suggest. Ever}'- reader of ancient 
 literature knows what a charm this way of writing lends to 
 the master-pieces of profane history. And it would be a 
 blasphemous presumption to affirm that we cannot recognize 
 the work of the inspiring spirit of God in a book in which 
 the same gTaceful and instructive literarj'- form has been 
 adopted. But in truth it is needless for me to press this 
 argument further, for the Assembh^ of 1878 had the question 
 before them under the third particular of the old libel, and 
 rejected by a crushing majority the motion which proposed 
 to condemn me for stating that an inspired writer " allowed 
 himself the same freedoms as were taken by other ancient 
 historians."* 
 
 * It is wortliy of notice tliat tlie prophets did not aim at a verbal 
 reproduction of their inspired sermons even when they wrote them down 
 themselves. Jeremiah received the command to write his pi'Ophecies in 
 the twenty-third year of his prophetic work (Jer. xxxvi. 1 ; xxv. 3). 
 The roll tlien Avritteii contained tlie record of all God's words to him 
 from the beginning- of his career (xxxvi. 2). When this roll was burned 
 lie dictated another with many additions (xxxvi. 32). Here is a clear case 
 of two editions of the same speeches with variations. And neither roll 
 can have given the prophetic sermons of twenty-three years Avith literal 
 exactness. Why shoidd we claim to have Moses' words more exactly 
 than Jeremiah's ] And here it is iiseless to object that the Pentateuch 
 is in form a history. The book of Jeremiah contains more of historical 
 narrative than the book of Deutei'onomy. 
 
MISCONCEPTION OP MY VIEWS. 33 
 
 IV. The court has now before it the true dimensions of 
 my departure from current views, as embodied in the state- 
 ments about Deuteronomy, quoted against me in the libel. 
 I am sensible that the extreme condensation of the article 
 " Bible " left some room for misconception of the scope of 
 my theory, especially on the part of those wlio are unfamiliar 
 with recent aspects of Pentateuch criticism. I humbly 
 accept my own share of responsibility for such miscon- 
 ception, which once entertained by the public mind could 
 not easily be removed. Throughout the progress of the 
 case I have done my best to clear it away by fuller and 
 simpler statements, and I hope that after the explanations in 
 this paper no one will again misunderstand me so completely 
 as to find a charge of fraud against the Sacred Writer, in 
 sentences from my writings, which contain an explicit re- 
 pudiation of the very idea of such a fraud. I hope it will 
 now be clearly understood how entirely foreign to my 
 position is this whole notion that Deuteronomy pretends to 
 be something which it is not, or that I deny the book to be 
 liistorica], in the sense and to the extent to which it claimed 
 that character in the eyes of its first audience. The 
 historical part of the book is history, the legal part is law, 
 the speeches are historical speeches in the natural sense in 
 which these terms were understood by ancient readers. 
 This is the fair way of testing whether a book is honest and 
 truthful in purpose. A book professes to be what it is not 
 if it is constructed to produce a false impression on the 
 mind of the public directly addressed by it. The Deuterono- 
 mic code, upon my theory of its origin, would fall under 
 this condemnation if it were intended to persuade the 
 Israelites of that time to accept all its provisions as the 
 literal law of Moses. But no writer could have hoped to do 
 this at a time when it was well known that the principle of 
 A single sanctuary was a recent innovation. Nor could any 
 author expect that a fraud like this would pass unex- 
 posed either by the judges of the nation, or by the 
 
3 4 THE TIIEOR Y OF "PIO US FRA UD " 
 
 prophets, a special part of whose work was to detect lying 
 revelations. 
 
 In fact the theory that the law of Deuteronomy is a 
 pious fraud, is invariably associated with the idea that the 
 book was forged in the circle of Hilkiah the priest, and that 
 he made up a story about having found the book, in order 
 to deceive Josiah. The theory assumes that priests and 
 prophets were in the trick which imposed on the whole 
 piety of the nation, including its inspired leaders. Such a 
 theory is utterly incredible to any one who believes in the 
 reality of God's supernatural dealings with His people in the 
 old dispensation ; and I entirely repudiate all sympathy 
 with it, not only because it involves a rationalistic view of 
 the Old Testament history, and because it is impossible that 
 a book of the profound spirituality of Deuteronomy could 
 have originated in a fraud, but because I believe that there 
 are — apart from theological considerations — conclusive his- 
 torical reasons for assuming that the Deuteronomic code was 
 in existence, at least a generation earlier, and had actually 
 been lost in the days of Manasseh (See my Add. Answ. p. 
 78, seq.) Between my view and the rationalistic theory, 
 there is only one point in common, viz., the admission that 
 there are things in Deuteronomy, which were not part of 
 the religious constitution of Israel before the time of Isaiah.. 
 But be it observed, that the necessity of making this admis- 
 sion — a necessity forced upon students, by careful study of 
 the Sacred Text — is what gives to the rationalistic view its 
 whole plausibility, as against the traditional conception of 
 Mosaic authorship. It is not, therefore, in the interests of 
 rationalism, but in the interests of faith, that I have sought 
 a view of the book, which does justice to the facts on which 
 rationalists build, but reconciles them with a full recognition 
 of the supernatural in the Old Testament dispensation, and 
 the inspiration of the Old Testament records. 
 
 V. I have still to notice one line of argument in support 
 of the contention of the libel, to which great weight has 
 
IS UNTENABLE. 35 
 
 been attached, and may probably be attached again. I 
 have given my account of the plan and purpose of Deutero- 
 nomy as I have been able to gather it from a careful study 
 of the book itself. I conclude that the code which it em- 
 bodies was given and taken as a new and revised edition of 
 the laws of Moses, and that the book in which the code 
 was subsequently incorporated, was both given and taken as 
 something more than a bare verbatim report of speeches by 
 Moses, as containing law for the present, as well as the story 
 of the past. It is not denied that if this was the understood 
 purpose of the sacred writers, I have a right to say that 
 they stand acquitted of fraud. But it is maintained that 
 the correct account of the book is different, and that its real 
 object is simply to narrate with exactness the very words 
 and the very laws published by Moses in the plains of 
 Moab. This, say my opponents, appears to us " upon a foir 
 way of reasoning," to be the unquestionable purport and 
 profession of the book and therefore to say that it has a 
 different purport, and a different profession, is to charge 
 deceit upon the author. Now the question as to the real 
 purport of the book is not settled by the Confession, which 
 is silent on the whole subject. It is a matter on which the 
 book must speak for itself; and it so happens that I read 
 twhat it has to say of itself in a different way from my 
 opponents. If I think that the laws are not so absolutely 
 and literally Mosaic as others think them, that is not 
 because I value the book less than they do — not because I 
 doubt its inspiration and veracity, but because I do not 
 find the common opinion to correspond with what I read in 
 the book itself. In forming this conclusion, I am within 
 my rights and liberties as an office-bearer of the Free 
 Church. It is every man's duty to interpret Scripture to 
 the best of his private judgment, and it is his privilege ta 
 do this luithin the Church, unless his judgment leads him to 
 den}'- some doctrine of the Standards. The fact that my 
 opponents form an opposiie opinion of the testimony which 
 
S6 THE CONTROVERSY TURNS 
 
 the book bears to its own design and stfueture, gives them 
 no right to censure me, and no excuse for charging me with 
 imputing deceit to the authors. Let me illustrate this by 
 an hypothesis. Let us suppose that there was a title pre- 
 fixed to the Deuteronomic code, written in very obscure 
 Hebrew, which I interpreted to mean that the book was 
 Avritten seven hundred years after the Israelites entered 
 Canaan, while my opponents thought it to affirm that the 
 date was during the last month of Moses' life. Suppose 
 that the majority of our Church were satisfied that my inter- 
 pretation was wrong — would that justify a libel accusing 
 me of holding that " the Book of Deuteronomy, which is pro- 
 fessedly written in the plains of Moab, was really composed 
 seven hundred years afterwards, and was made to assume an 
 early date by a writer of a much later age;" and proposing on 
 this ground to censure me for an attack on the doctrine of our 
 Standards ? Every one sees that that would be absurd. But 
 is it less absurd to frame an exactly similar charge, where 
 the point of disputed interpretation lies not in one difficult 
 verse, but in the conjoint sense of a vast number of indica- 
 tions gathered from several parts of the book, and from a 
 comparison of other Scriptures ? 
 
 I repeat it with all emphasis, the point of dispute in this 
 case is not a doctrine of the Confession but a question o^ 
 interpretation. The argument of the libel turns on the state- 
 ment that the Book of Deuteronomy is professedly a historical 
 record — a statement which, as it stands in the libel, means 
 that the book professes to give nothing but the very words 
 and laws of Moses exactly as he sjDoke them in the land of 
 j\Ioab. AVhy does this statement stand in the libel ? It is not 
 derived from the Confession, and it is not drawn from my 
 writings ; while it is notorious that a libel has no right to 
 contain any statement that is not either the one or the other. 
 When I raised this objection under the old libel, I was told 
 that the clause in question was put in to express " the view 
 which the libellers took of what was manifest on the face of 
 
ON POINTS OF INTERPRET A TION. 37 
 
 the book," and it wtis admitted to be a necessary part of the 
 case that my prosecutors should satisfy the court liy exegetical 
 reasoning, that this view was correct and the arguments 
 invalid which had led me to an opposite conclusion as to the 
 plan and purport of Deuteronomy. In a word, it was admitted 
 that my opinions are to be condemned, not as inconsistent 
 with the Confession, not as inconsistent with inspiration, but 
 as inconsistent with the libellers' view of the testimony 
 which the book bears to its own purport. This private 
 opinion of certain members of the Church the libel proposes 
 to invest with Confessional authority, by the ingenious argu- 
 ment that I virtually charge the book of Deuteronomy with 
 untruth in making it give a different account of itself from 
 that which the libellers choose to accept as correct. Well, I 
 am not now to argue that I am right and the libellers wrong 
 as to the purport of Deuteronomy. I admit that the view 
 which they uphold is that which naturally occurs to the 
 ordinary reader and that I accepted it as my own view 
 until I had studied the subject for years. But whether the 
 libellers are right or wrong, the Standards of our Church do 
 not pronounce, and therefore I am as free within the Confes- 
 sion to hold my view of the evidence as they are to hold 
 theirs.* 
 
 Nor is the question one which can be settled by first sight 
 appearances, and superficial examination. The professed pur- 
 port of a book means what it naturally was taken for by its 
 first readers, not what it may appear to readers separated 
 from the author by nearly three thousand years in time, and 
 a whole world's breadth in habits of thought, circumstances. 
 
 * An attempt was made in the old libel to bring my opinions into 
 conflict with the Confession by representing me as rejecting the sujjreme 
 authority of our Lord. But the argument that the words of Jesus 
 settle the age of Deuteronomy has now been given up. The count 
 which embodied this argmnent was found irrelevant, and the amended 
 libel does not claim to cite against me the authority of our Lord ; 
 resting wholly ou the professed character of Deuteronomy itself. 
 
38 CONCLUSION. 
 
 and literary usage. To carry ourselves back to the time of 
 the old Hebrews, to realise all the considerations present to 
 their minds, which made things easy and obvious then, which 
 are obscure and perplexing now — in a word to judge of the 
 book as they would judge is not an easy task. It demands 
 all the patience, the wisdom, and the scholarship that all the 
 Churches can bring to bear on the question, and even with 
 these the ultimate and complete solution of every difficulty 
 is probably still remote. But it is impossible to deny that 
 a real problem exists, and must be faced ; nor can our Church 
 contribute her share in this work if she makes all discussion 
 unreal by directing her censures against those that approach 
 the question with no other desire than to let the Bible speak 
 for itself. There is no cause to fear that full and free dis- 
 cussion will imperil the authority of Scripture, or shake men's 
 reverence for the Divine Word. The Word has always been 
 most victorious, when, lilce David before Goliath, it has gone 
 forth to subdue the hearts of men in its own simplicity and 
 power, unencumbered by the clumsy armour of human 
 tradition and ecclesiastical interpretation, which men are too 
 apt to think needful to the victory of truth, because they 
 have been accustomed to wear it with comfort themselves. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The Glasgow Assembly approved on 4th June, 1878, of 
 an amended libel, which was materially different from 
 the Original Draft Libel of 1877, to which the Answer 
 I laid before tlie Presbytery, on 12th February. 1878, and 
 the Additional Answer intended to have been laid before 
 the Presbytery on 16th April, 1878, and published with 
 their consent, were directed. The Form of Libel recom- 
 mended by that Assembly will be found at page 341 of its 
 Proceedingo, and the final deliverance of the Assembly 
 with I'cgard to it was — "That the Assembly approve of p. 318. 
 " the Amendments as now adjusted, and looking to the 
 " amended libel, the Assembly, in consistency with former 
 " judgm(uits, remit to the Presbytery of Aberdeen to proceed 
 " with the c;ise, according to the laws of the Church, and in 
 " conformity with the Assembly's judgment." 
 
 As regards the Deuteronomy charge (the second parti- 
 cular of the fii"st alternative charge of the original libel), 
 whicli is the only charge now remaining against me, the 
 motion of Sir Henry Moncreiff, carried on 28th May, 1878, 
 Avas that this part of the charge was relevant, " to the effect P- US. 
 " that the statements quoted in the minor proposition, as 
 " those of Professor Smith, regardinii^ the Book of Deutero- 
 " nomy, amount to what is expressed in the said particular, 
 " and are opposed in their legitimate results to the supposi- 
 " tion of the book being a thoroughly inspired historical 
 " record, according to the teaching of the Westminster Con- 
 " fession, wliile his declarations on the subject of inspiration 
 " are the reverse of satisfactory, and do not indicate 
 " his reception of the book in that character." 
 
 Tlie E( inburgh Assembly of 1879 h;is re-amended the 
 amended libel of 1878, and the form in which it is now pro- 
 2)osed to serve it, will be found in its proceedings. 
 
40 APPENDIX. 
 
 To the libel in its present form, as confined to the Deu- 
 teronomy charge, the Answer which I formerly addressed 
 to the Presbytery is inappropriate, as it deals largely with 
 matters which have been found irrelevant or dismissed, 
 and I claim, and cannot doubt that I shall receive, the 
 opportunity of stating my defence to the accusation, as it is 
 now to be laid before the Presbytery, as my judges. It 
 is simple justice, obvious to every candid mind, that as my 
 prosecutors have restated their charge, I should be allowed 
 to restate my answer to it. 
 
 The charge in the libel of 1877, " of publishing or 
 " promulgating opinions which contradict, or are opposed to 
 " the doctrine of immediate inspiration, infallible truth, 
 " and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or of any 
 " part or parts thereof," was both in that libel, and in the 
 amended libel of 1878, supported by a series of six subor- 
 dinate charges, and derived its colour from them. The ])resent 
 libel, by omitting all these associated charges, except the 2nd, 
 as well as the charges with reference to the doctrine ot pro- 
 phecy and of angels, materially alters the complexion and 
 character of the charge that remains, so that the Answer 
 formerly given in by nie does not correspond with or apply 
 to the libel as it now stands. It would tend only to 
 confusion and unfair prejudice against me if my judges were 
 to form their opinion of the justice of my defence, not upon 
 consideration of the simple and single issue now before 
 them, but with reference also to the numerous other issues 
 which have been abandoned. 
 
 In what form the opportunity is given me of answering 
 the present libel, is a matter which does not so much con- 
 cern me personally, as it does the constitutional rights of 
 members of our Church. 
 
 I venture, however, to point out how it is provided for 
 by the laws of the Church in conformity with which 
 the Glasgow Assembly directed the Presbytery to act. 
 
 Before doing so, it is right that I should quote the final 
 deliverance of the Edinburgh Assembly, which was to direct 
 " the Presbytery of Aberdeen to meet and take immediate 
 " steps for having the libel, as regards the second particular 
 " of the first alternative charge, served in due form upon 
 " Professor Smith." 
 
 The Edinburgh Assembly pronounced no finding of the 
 relevancy of the libel in its present form, and the finding 
 
APPENDIX. 41 
 
 of the Glasgow Assembly was, not that the libel in its 
 present form, as i-egards the Deuteronomy charge, was 
 relevant, but that it was relevant to a certain elfect only, 
 to wit, that " the legitimate results " of the parts selected 
 fi'om my writings were op[iosed to the supposition of the 
 book being " a thoroughly inspired historical record." The 
 relevancy of the libel in its present form has therefore not 
 yet been sustained by any Court, 
 
 On this ground alone I submit that, under the common 
 or customary constitutional law of the Church, there must 
 be a consideration of the relevancy by the Presbytery, as 
 the Court having in the first instance to judge in the case. 
 No principle of justice is more fundamental than this, that 
 there must be a distinct finding of relevancy before trial 
 of the libel which is sent to trial. In ecclesiastical pro- 
 cedure, in which some of the same persons are virtually both 
 prosecutors and judges, the observance of tliis principle is 
 essential. But the point is in fact regulated by the Rules 
 of Assembly as to Pi'ocess. The Committee on Forms of 
 Process, in their Report in 1855, which is always deemed an 
 authoritative exposition of the law of the Free Church, 
 observes " that if the Presbytery, before serving the libel, Moncreiff, 
 " shall make any chanr/e upon tJie form in Avhich it appeared p* •'■^^• 
 " in the copy with which the Minister had been previously 
 ." furnished, they must before serving it, again furnish him 
 " with a copy, and again summon him in terms of this 
 " enactment." The enactment referred to is Act V., 1853, 
 and the Summons referred to is the Summons to the 
 meeting provided for by that Act, to " carefully consider p. isg. 
 " the question of relevancy." 
 
 The amendment of the libel in the present case has been 
 made, not by the Presbytery, but l^y the Assembly; and I do 
 not for a moment question the competency of the Assembly 
 to make su(;h amendment, in order to aid the Presbytery in 
 its discharge of its function tvs prosecutoi', nor do I doubt 
 that every member of the Presbytery will treat with the 
 greatest respect the amendment the Edinburgh Assembly 
 has made. 
 
 But it humbly appears to me that such an amendmeut 
 cannot absolve the members of Presbytery from their duty 
 as judges, or dcpiive the person accused of his constitutional 
 rights. 
 
 Willi regard to the powers of the As.sembly, as the 
 
42 APPENDIX. 
 
 Supreme Coui-t of the Church, Sir Henry Moncreiff observes, 
 and I desire no more distinct enunciation of the law upon 
 Jioncieiff, this point : — " It (the Assembly) may also send precise orders 
 P" ^^' " to particular Synods, Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions, pre- 
 " scribing the exact course of tlieir procedure in special cases, 
 " and giving instructions or prohibitions at its pleasure, 
 " provided it keep within the ecclesiastical laws and con- 
 " stitution." The Deliverance of the Edinburgh Assembly 
 is accordingly strictly in accordance with the ecclesiastical 
 laws and constitution, in directing the Presbytery of Aber- 
 deen " to take immediate steps for having the libel, as re- 
 " gards the second particular of the first alternative charge 
 " served in due form upon Professor Smith." 
 
 The due form, according to the laws of the Church, in 
 which service is made, is by the form of Summons provided 
 by Act v., of 1853, for no other description of service exists 
 in the case of a libel where the Presbytery are prosecutors. 
 
 Should tlie Presbytery take this course, which I submit 
 is the constitutional one, and in strict compliance witji the 
 directions of the Assembly, I shall do all that is in my 
 power to facilitate an immediate discussion on the whole 
 case. I shall at once state my whole defences to the charge, 
 so that the Presbytery ma}^ be in a position to hold that, 
 as far as I am concerned, they have the whole case before 
 them. 
 

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