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 THE iMAIN ISSUE. 
 
 A Straight Question 
 
 -TO- 
 
 Professor Briggs. 
 

"""THE MAIN ISSUE. 
 
 A Straight Question 
 
 -TO- 
 
 Professor Brings. 
 
 THE SARATOGA NEWS COMPANY, 
 Saratoga Springs, N. Y. 
 
Copyright 
 
 1890, 
 
 By Walden & Crawley. 
 
THE MAIN ISSUE. 
 
 A Straight Question to Professor Briggs. 
 
 While the creed-revision movement will probably not 
 accomplish its conscious aims, it cannot leave the great 
 and scholarly Presbyterian Church as it found it, and its 
 incidental effects v\^ill be the most important. One of these 
 deserves immediate notice. The movement threatens to 
 obscure the main religious issue of the age. It is largel}' 
 the work of a party of whom a representative and leader 
 is Professor Charles A. Briggs, the foremost American 
 Old Testament scholar ; and it has come in the nick of 
 time to divert attention and attack from Professor Briggs' 
 own province of scholarship, by setting the denomination 
 by the ears upon such matters as justification by faith, 
 infant salvation, the middle state, reprobation, and the 
 divine attributes. It could not more certainly have pro- 
 duced this effect if it had been so designed. And, so 
 far, this has been its most important effect. 
 
 For, as Dr. McCosh has wisely observed, the issue in- 
 volved in the new biblical learning must take precedence 
 of all other theological questions. Whether of his own 
 choice or not, Professor Briggs stands, not for creed- 
 revision, nor for the importation into the middle and 
 western states of the nugatory middle-state controversy, 
 which has trivialized and otherwise cursed New Eng- 
 land, — but for the new scholarship. His ambition may be 
 satisfied with the leadership of a party in the Presbyterian 
 
Church ; his fate has made him the leader of the party o? 
 the higher criticism on this continent. His two standard 
 works, ''Biblical Study " and "Messianic Prophecy," lie 
 on the working desks of thousands of young clergymen 
 of all denominations, who are learning therefrom the 
 methods, and imbibing the spii^it, and adjusting them- 
 selves to some of the results of the new criticism. It 
 aRects their preaching and their teaching, if they dare to 
 teach ; for many of them will not teach in their own 
 Sunday schools, explaining privately to one another that 
 they cannot submit to the cross-examination of zealous 
 ignorance. To these men the new criticism has brought 
 questions which throw all those raised by the creed- 
 revision movement into the background. And Professor 
 Briggs has won this constituency by the fact that his fear- 
 less scholarship on the one hand, and his unchallenged 
 occupancy of a chair in a Presbyterian theological sem- 
 inary on the other, seemed to warrant the confidence that 
 he could solve these questions. His books would have 
 been religiously avoided by many who are now under 
 their spell, had they not felt assured that such as he must 
 be able to reconcile the new scholarship with the old 
 theolog}-. Hence, if there is any doubt of his having done 
 so, he owes it to those of his pupils who cannot be led 
 off on a false trail by the hue and cry of creed-revision, 
 to resolve that doubt. Such doubt there is, and to it this 
 essay seeks to give definite expression. 
 
 It is no secret that, outside a small circle of specialists, 
 the considerable interest, both friendly and hostile, which 
 the new biblical scholarship excites in this country, has 
 theological motives behind it. American Christianity is a 
 theological Christianity, at the same time that it honestly 
 
believes and boasts itself to be a Bible Christianity. For 
 it is founded not merely upon the Bible, but upon the 
 Bible regarded with a particular attitude of mind ; which 
 attitude theology has determined. Change or ignore the 
 theology and that attitude is liable to change. Change 
 that attitude, and, for all that ninety-nine persons in a 
 hundred can be made to see, you may as well destroy the 
 Bible itself and Christianity with it. The old scholarship 
 was trusted ; for it seemed to have taken its brief from 
 the old theolog3\ The new scholarship is distrusted ; for 
 it is a department of the new science, with which the old 
 theology has no dealings. 
 
 The reason the old theology has no dealings with the 
 new science is that ^vhile the one depends upon the 
 definite affirmation of the supernatural, the other cannot 
 survive such definite affirmation. Take away the super- 
 natural from the old theology, and it is a bald and non- 
 religious form of metaphysical deism. Impose the super- 
 natural in the same sense upon the new science, and it 
 is paralyzed. Many scientific men, it is true, profess 
 belief in the supernatural. But they are invariably special- 
 ists, whose scientific horizon is bounded by their own 
 departments ; while the supernatural which each believes 
 in is always in some other department, — as though each 
 felt that he could take care of his own province, but 
 " God help the departments that have not our services ! " 
 A renowned jurist writes down Darwinism. A botanist 
 protests against applying the scientific method to ethics. 
 A famous astronomer defends the Bible miracles, — 
 except Joshua's stationary sun and the migratory star of 
 Bethlehem ; here he shifts the supernatural into some 
 department for the integrity of whose natural order !ie 
 
has less personal concern. Of jurists, however, who 
 applied the test of the hot plough shares, of botanists vv^ho 
 patched up apparent breaks in natural sequence with the 
 aid of teleolog}^, of asti-onomers who exjjlained comets as 
 divine messengers not subject to the laws of celestial 
 mechanics, the generation is extinct. No teacher of 
 science to-day puts his finger upon a specific fact and 
 says to his class : " This had no natural cause, and was 
 produced by a direct supernatural intervention." A stor}' 
 is, indeed, being told of a professor of biology who has 
 agi'eed, as a condition of his ajDpointment, to teach super- 
 naturalism in his department. But the story has its chief 
 circulation as a joke among other specialists in the same 
 line. The science of this age may be all wrong ; but its 
 mind is made up. It tolerates or even patronizes the 
 supernatural at a distance. It treats with the indifference 
 of contempt any supernatural claim which proposes to 
 stand in the way of its next step. 
 
 This disagreement between the old theology and the 
 new science is not to be explained away by any double 
 sense of the term. What the one affirms is the same 
 which the other denies. Too zealous peacemakers have 
 been fain to reduce the claims of theology to special 
 design or final cause. This will not satisfy the old 
 theology. It maintains not only special divine purpose 
 but special divine causation. The interest of the old 
 theologian in the discovery of special designs grew out of 
 the inference which he supposed could be drawn there- 
 from as to supernatural causes. Science did not disprove 
 the designs ; she simply brought to light adequate natural 
 causes. And with the discovery of these adequate causes 
 the theologian's interest in the designs vanished, and 
 
his affirmation of divine causation retieatcd from the 
 specific toward the generic. The goal of this retreat is 
 either pure deism or immanent theism, which aHke affirm 
 only a generic relationship of the divine and the human. 
 The old theology dare not retreat as far as that. 
 
 The instinct of American Christianity has made it as 
 shy of immanent theism as of deism. Its practical wis- 
 dom has shown it that the doctrine of a generic divinity 
 is not a sufficient basis for an aggressive jDopular religion. 
 To succeed, such a religion must assume that it has, not 
 only a particular divine revelation, but a pai'ticular divine 
 causal activity. American Christianity therefore believes 
 that its continued existence depends upon its faith in the 
 specific exercise of supernatural power ; and, since it 
 regards the Bible as its foundation, it looks with peculiar 
 horror upon the surrender of the principle of supernatural 
 causation with respect to the Bible. For this reason the 
 old scholarship, instigated by the old theology, with the 
 whole force of poj^ular Christianity at its back, is making 
 a desperate stand against the effort to discover natural 
 causes for the Bible and for the ideas which it embodies. 
 The issue is unmistakable, and concerns the continuity 
 or the discontinuity of the order of natural causes in the 
 case of the origin of the Bible. The old theologv, as the 
 exponent of the religious life of the people, demands the 
 assumption of discontinuity. The new scholarship, as a 
 department of the new science, must assume continuity. 
 
 How has Professor Briggs met this issue in his eflbrt 
 to harmonize the new scholarship and the American 
 type of Christianity ? Has he been able to transplant the 
 scientific scholarship of Wellhausen and Kuenen without 
 their pure naturalism.^ The religious instinct of the 
 
lO 
 
 masses is deepl}' suspicious as to the possibility of it, — 
 that instinct which taught a great Sunday school journal 
 that it had better pay forfeits than continue to print 
 articles bargained for from an Oxford scholar. Dr. Green 
 still ranks as the supreme authority in the Sunday School 
 Times. But Dr. Briggs is cherished in a high position 
 in the Presbyterian Church. And he has with him a 
 powerful, if rather silent, minority of the ministry ; while 
 a majority of the well-informed clergy and laity are pond- 
 ering with great seriousness the question of the relation 
 of the new scholarship and the old theology, the question 
 of the sujjernatural. 
 
 The best way to learn Professor Briggs' attitude on 
 that question is to review his treatise on " Messianic 
 Prophecy," in which he "• traces the Messianic idea in its 
 development in the Old Testament Scriptures." (p ix.) 
 For this work "the author has spent many years in 
 preparation." "It has cost him more labor than all 
 other topics combined. It has been a labor of love and 
 enthusiasm." (p xv.) It "is designed chiefly for the- 
 ological students and ministers." (p xiii.) Yet " the 
 author desires that'it ma}' be of value to the thoughtful 
 layman and to Sabbath school teachers." (p xv.) The 
 book has won its place as a standard work, confirming the 
 verdict of an eminent professor in another Presbyterian 
 theological seminary: "If there still be, as of course 
 there still are, among us any to whom the Higher Criti- 
 cism is identical with unchristian speculation, or nec- 
 essarilly moved by atheistic" (i. e. anti-supernaturalistic) 
 " bias, we commend to them this volume." (Dr. H. P. 
 Smith, in Pres. Rev., Vol. VIII, P35i.) Thus the volume 
 is vouched for, by a friendly yet competent critic, as both 
 
II 
 
 genuine higher criticism, and at the same time not anti- 
 supernaturalistic. This makes it worth while to inquire 
 what disposition it makes of the supernatural. 
 
 The main question will be whether this " development 
 of the Messianic idea in the Old Testament Scriptures" 
 is represented as a true evolution, conforming to the law 
 of continuity. Omitting the difficult problem of the 
 origin of the prophetic germ, the Protevangelium, which 
 appears to be prehistoric, are there adequate causes, in 
 the inherent vitality of this germ, and in historical and 
 individual experience, to account for its growth into the 
 perfect Messianic ideal? Or did other than natural causes 
 intervene at certain points? 
 
 The author approaches the problem of the develop- 
 ment of the Messianic idea through a discussion of Hebrew 
 prophecy in general and of predictive prophecy in par- 
 ticular. In these preliminary chapters his theoretical 
 attitude toward the supernatural should be discovered. 
 In the first chapter we learn that he regards no particular 
 phase of prophecy as peculiar to the Hebrew. Nor is 
 genuine prophecy peculiarly Hebrew; since there is 
 genuine prophecy that is not Hebrew, and Hebrew 
 prophecy that is not genuine. And there is supernatural, 
 or, as he calls it, " divine" prophecy that is not Hebrew, 
 and Hebrew prophecy that is merely instinctive or natural. 
 Neither is supernatural prophecy the same as genuine 
 prophecy ; for there is genuine prophecy, both Hebrew 
 and heathen, which is not supernatural. A test of gen- 
 uineness is given, (p 22.) No test of supernaturalness 
 is given. The only test of supernaturalness is the infal- 
 lible assurance of the soul of his prophet ; but this is 
 subjective, and with no means of making itself objectively 
 
12 
 
 valid. The author attempts to discriminate between 
 theophanies, or objective visions, whereby the greater 
 prophets received their revelations, and the mere internal 
 subjective assurance of the ordinary prophet, (pp 20, 21 .) 
 But these theophanies were objective only to those who 
 saw them ; no way is designated by which they could be 
 made objective to others or distinguished from hallucina- 
 tions. The author admits that "the infallible assurance 
 of the soul of the prophet may be difficult to distinguish 
 from the false assurance of enthusiasts and the confident 
 self assertion of the prophet of lies." (p 23.) If the 
 prophecy does not conform to truth he would not allow 
 that it is supernatural, no matter how infallibly assured 
 the soul of the prophet may have been. That is a lame 
 test, however ; for, although non-conformity to truth- 
 might be held to disprove supernaturalness, (though that 
 has often been disputed), conformity to truth cannot 
 prove supernaturalness. For it is admitted that there 
 are truthful prophecies which are not supernatural, and 
 these may be spoken by deluded enthusiasts or lying 
 pretenders who affirm an infallible subjective assurance 
 of their supernaturalness. 
 
 It thus appears that there is no way to distinguish 
 supernatural prophecy from instinctive or natural proph- 
 ecy, no way to show that the prophet's conviction of a 
 divine impulse is not mistaken. A pupil of Professor 
 Briggs who seeks to explain on natural grounds these 
 assurances of divine impulse on the part of the prophets, 
 need not controvert his teacher. The teacher himself 
 betrays so strong a tendency to minimize the supernatural 
 that he quotes with approval a remark of Riehm that " it 
 is sufficient that we recognize the divine origin of the 
 
^3 
 
 communication as external to the soul of man. There 
 are no sufficient reasons for extending the external origin 
 to the form and the words of the communication. The 
 stimulation of the higher nature of man by a divine im- 
 pulse is all that can be proven with reference to the mass 
 of Hebrew prophecy." (p 14, note.) And even that 
 stimulation has to be inferred from the fact that the man 
 believes that his mind has been not only stimulated but 
 actually informed. If we discount the prophet's convic- 
 tion that the form of the communication is divinely 
 caused, why not also his conviction that the stimulus 
 was of divine origin .'' 
 
 It must be said, therefore, that, so far as the first 
 chapter is concerned. Professor Briggs abandons the al- 
 leged supernatural impulse, providing no test of its reality, 
 and crowding it off into the department of psychology, 
 or that of religious experience, for the integrity of the 
 causal order in neither of which departments is he as a 
 specialist responsible. There is, however, in this chapter 
 a certain kind of supernatural which the author does not 
 depreciate or leave to its fate, seemingly because he 
 has chosen it as a delicacy to gratify his own taste for 
 naturalizing. That wdiich is characteristic of Hebrew^ 
 prophecy is its prophetic organism, embodying an ideal 
 of which he says that "it is higher and grander than any 
 other known to man ; it is so much higher and grander 
 that it separates Hebrew prophecy from all other prophecy . 
 
 It gives it a unique position and importance If 
 
 it be not divine in origin and direction, whence did it 
 originate.'*" (p 29.) Since the Professor's answer is that 
 "it is divine," we naturally expect him to go on and 
 point out whereabouts the divine energy intervenes. In- 
 
H 
 
 stead of doing this he runs into an argument to the etiect 
 that it probably must have intervened somewhere be- 
 cause of the uniqueness of the idea. He is a trifle shaky, 
 however, about this, and concedes that '' we do not claim 
 that such an idea could not be evolved by the human 
 mind, but in fact such an idea has not been evolved in 
 any other religion." (p 29.) It certainly has not ; neither 
 have the Buddhistic nor the Platonic conceptions had 
 more than one development each. Great ideas are likely 
 to be unique in origin. Equally unfortunate is Professor 
 Briggs' argument w^hen he says that "the human soul is 
 capable of this divine knowledge and Hebrew prophecy 
 gives the divine knowledge that satisfies the soul. This 
 is an evidence that prophecy had a divine source." (p 30.) 
 The current scientific notion is that when the soul gets 
 precisely what ideals it has an appetency for, the pre- 
 sumption is strong that it has created them for itself; so 
 that this proof would be claimed in the other direction. 
 , The illuminating thing however about this contention 
 of the Professor for the supernatural origin of the pro- 
 phetic ideal, is the natui'e of this ideal when he comes at 
 last to define and classify it. "The doctrines of the 
 Hebrew prophets," he says, "transcend the powers of 
 human apprehension and conception, and, like the sublime 
 ideas of the reason^ — -fortn and time and space^ — circum- 
 scribe human experience and invoke the Deity to explain 
 them as conceptions of the divine mind." (p 31.) (Italics 
 ours.) It turns out then that the only supernatural the 
 Professor cares to maintain is one that belongs to the 
 same category with form, and time and space ! Does he, 
 as a specialist, concern himself for the integrity of the 
 natural order with respect to the gene«is of the ideas of 
 
15 
 
 time and space ? Science will not quarrel with him about 
 a supernatural of this sort, but will relegate the question 
 of its origin to the proper specialists, and will agree with 
 him when he says that " call this ideal what we please, 
 natural or supernatural, it matters not." (p 39.) 
 
 It does matter though, to the old theology; upon which 
 the attempt is made to palm off this as a legitimate super- 
 natural which can act as a cause to disrupt the natural 
 order. This is a changeling. It is not the supernatural 
 the Professor started out with. He tired of that, and 
 abandoned it to the psychologist to be anatomized, while 
 he was supplied with tliis by the questionable fairy of im- 
 manent theism. That was definable as "a divine im- 
 pulse," and belonged to the class of special causes, and 
 would have broken the line of continuity, and satisfied 
 the old theology. This, charming and provocative of 
 eloquence as it is, is no proper cause at all ; nor is it 
 such an effect as to warrant the inference of a specific 
 cause. 
 
 So far then as concerns the first chapter the author 
 does not actually maintain any position which is incon- 
 sistent with the scientific assumption of continuity, at 
 least in his own special department. His strong asser- 
 tions in behalf of supernaturalism appear upon analysis 
 to be little better than rhetoric, and he is practically on 
 excellent terms with pure naturalism. 
 
 A review of the chapter on "Prediction," yields 
 similar results. A blank cartridge is fired at the arch 
 naturalist Kuenen, and then he is quoted effectively 
 against the scholastics. The prophecies are admitted 
 to be predictive only as to " the essential and ideal" 
 elements, such as belong to the same category with 
 
i6 
 
 "form and time and space." By way of emphasizing' 
 this, attention is called to tl:|e fact that Jesus was simi- 
 larly limited, that it was inevitable that not only the 
 prophets, but Jesus himself, should mistake about the 
 times of fulfilment, (p 53); that predictions ^''cannot 
 transcend the psychological aiid physical features of hicijian 
 nature" (p 55) ; that the prophet only '-'• foresees the fi7ial 
 goal^ but not the intervening conditions or circicmstances" 
 (p 56) ; that "///(? prophet knows not times or seasotis^'^ 
 (p 57) » that " there is an uncertain factor in all prediction^ 
 which depends upon the ever varying relations of God aiid 
 man in the interplay of human freedom and divine law. Tlie 
 variation of forces in the divine mind and in human experience^ 
 and the corresponding variations of forces in history, shorten 
 or prolong^! simplify or make complex and uncertain all 
 preparatory times and events .^{p 58); that '•'• history advances 
 with prophecy toward the same goal" (p 63), (Italics the 
 Professor's); that "thus we ought to expect that the 
 Messianic ideal should be realized in some of its phases 
 ere the ideal itself is attained, and that the later predic- 
 tions should base themselves upon these partial realiza- 
 tions," (p 65). 
 
 In short, the Professor follows the line indicated in 
 his approving quotation from Tholuck, that "it is not 
 prediction of the accidental but of that which is of re- 
 ligious necessity which is the essential thing in Hebrew 
 prophecy." (p 44.) Prediction of that which is "of 
 religious necessity" will satisfy science, but not the old 
 theology, which has always maintained the prediction of 
 the accidental, as a ground for the inference of super- 
 natural intervention. Prediction of that which is of 
 religious necessity ranks with predictions based upon the 
 
17 
 
 law of gravitation. The law itself "■ may be called 
 natural or supernatural, it matters not ; " but there need 
 be nothing supernatural either in the discovery or the 
 application of the law, or in the instinctive (to use the 
 author's word) application of the law in advance of its 
 discovery. 
 
 The answer t6 the main question might now almost be 
 anticipated. What part does Professor Briggs assign to 
 the supernatural in the course of the growth of the 
 Messianic idea from the germ to the perfected form? 
 Does he put his finger upon any spot and say*: " Here 
 intervened a supernatural cause "? His study is summed 
 up in such words as these : " Hebrew prophecy indicates 
 its reality, its accuracy, its comprehensive ideality as a 
 conception of the divine mind, as a deliverance of the 
 divine energy, as a system constructed by holy men who 
 spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (p 498.) 
 "None but God could give such prophecy." (p 499.) A 
 stranger to the book, glancing at the last two pages, 
 would infer that this was an induction, and that many 
 examples of the direct operation of the "divine energy" 
 had been noted in the course of the development of 
 prophecy. He would turn to the chapters that deal with 
 the critical phases of that development, where long steps 
 were taken from lower to higher conceptions, expecting 
 to see the insufficiency of naturalistic explanations set 
 forth, and the points designated wdiere the " divine 
 energy" operated. Would his expectation be fulfilled? 
 
 The two most important steps in the progress from 
 lower to higher and more adequate conceptions are the 
 transition from the idea of retributive to that of disci- 
 plinary suffering, and the further transition from tlie idea 
 
16 
 
 of disciplinary to that of vicarious suffering. Of the in- 
 troduction of the disciplinary idea, (Isa. 4: 2-6), the 
 author says: "This prediction is of great importance. 
 It really opens up two new phases of the Messianic idea." 
 (p 194.) Not a word, however, about supernatural caus- 
 ation. On the contrary, stress is laid upon the greatness 
 and many-sidedness of Isaiah, and the fruitful conditions 
 of the times. In preface to the quoted prediction it is 
 said that he combines " the excellence of all who had 
 gone before him, adapting and building into the system 
 of his prophecy the best thoughts of his contemporaries 
 and predecessors, yet with such an originality and ap- 
 propriateness of setting that no one could regard him as 
 a copyist or plagiarist." (p 190.) His prophecies "spring 
 up out of the circumstances of the historical present in 
 order to leap forth into the most distant future." (p 191.) 
 The failure to affirm the supernaturalness of the pre- 
 diction which "really opens up two new phases of the 
 Messianic idea" becomes the more conspicuous when 
 compared with the treatment, immediately preceding it, 
 of the alleged prediction of the betrayal of Jesus, (Zech. 
 ic: 12, 13), a prediction which Matthew positively 
 claims as applicable to details. This the author sets 
 aside, saying that " the correspondence, in fact, is not 
 owing to the precision of the prophetic tradition, but to 
 the correspondence in situation between the rejected 
 Jahveh of the times of the decay of the northern king- 
 dom of Israel, and the rejected Messiah of the New 
 Testament." (p 190 note.) With equal positiv'eness 
 does the author brush aside that /ecus classicus of a the- 
 ology which rested on the prediction of accidentals, 
 (Isa. 7: 13-17) wherein the birth of the Messiah from a 
 
19 
 
 virgin is supi^osed to have been foretold, another of the 
 predictions quoted by Matthew. The Professor says that 
 '' the significance of the sign is in the child and in his 
 name, and not in the mother. The Hebrew word might 
 mean a virgin, but it does not in itself convey the idea of 
 virginity. If the prophet wished to emphasize virginity 
 he would have doubtless used another and more defuiite 
 term." {p 196.) 
 
 The most important thing in prophecy is the develop- 
 ment of the idea of a sulleri ng Messiah. To this the 
 author devotes many pages, the general tenor of which 
 may be indicated by the following quotations : "The 
 exile was a bitter experience for the pious Israelite . . . 
 . . . The pious were indeed the greatest suflerers, for 
 they shared the persecutions to which Jeremiah and 
 others like minded had been subjected." (p 320.) "Piety 
 was now synonymous with affliction and sorrow. The 
 ideal of the suffering Messiah had its genesis in these 
 circumstances, and yet it was not without connection 
 
 with earlier Messianic prophecies The problem 
 
 of redemption became complicated, owing to the fact 
 that not only did the sinner suffer for his evil deeds, but 
 
 the righteous man He suffered no longer for 
 
 sin but for I'ighteousncss sake This conception is 
 
 found in germ in the Protevangclium It is also 
 
 contained in the covenants with Abraham and David. 
 What Egypt was to the seed of Abraham that the exile 
 became to the seed of David." (p 321.) '* But the cir- 
 cumstances of the exile, and especially the experience 
 of the persecuted Jeremiah and his associates, taught the 
 people of God lessons they had never learned before. It 
 seems probable that Jeremiah was the tyjDc of the great 
 
20 
 
 sufferer, for he was the hero of the exiles, the great his- 
 torical sufterer for God He is the basis of the 
 
 representation, but the divine Spirit guided the psalmists 
 to discern and describe a sufterer whose experience was 
 more bitter than that of Jeremiah, and whose sufterings 
 were rewarded with a redemption which Jeremiah did 
 not gain." Yet, — and it is the next sentence, — "there 
 is a vividness of intense realization of suffering on the 
 pai't of these psalmists. They must have been great 
 sufferers themselves. They describe sufterings in such 
 minute details, and with such an intensity of feeling, that 
 these must be real though extravagant The psalm- 
 ists sink deejD in the apprehension of their own sorrows, 
 but these lead to depths of woe which are apprehended 
 in the imagination and fancy through foreboding and 
 presentiment." (p 332.) "These psalms of the great 
 sufferer prepare the way for the suffering servant of 
 Isaiah 53." (p 336.) This second Isaiah " stands on the 
 loftiest peak of prophecy. He masses more Messianic 
 predictions in his book than any of the prophets that 
 preceded him. He carries the Messianic idea to a much 
 higher stage of development, so that he becomes the 
 evangelical prophet, who seems to be the nearest to the 
 Messiah and the theology of the New Covenant. The 
 circumstances of the exile were favorable to this. It is 
 doubtful whether it was possible for a prophet living in 
 the land of Israel." (p 337.) " But the prophecy of the 
 great unknown reffects the experience of a prophet who 
 had lived .long in exile." (p 33S.) " The pi'ophet now 
 advances to the climax of these sufferings. They culmin- 
 ate in death. This is described as the sacrifice of a 
 sheep, and as the death of a martyr." (p 362.) "The 
 
21 
 
 prophet finally represents that this sufiering has been in 
 
 order to accomplish a plan of redemption When 
 
 this has been accomplished the condition of humiliation 
 has come to an end and the exaltation of the servant be- 
 gins. There is no explicit mention of a resurrection, but 
 this is implicitly involved, for he who has died a martyr's 
 death must rise from the dead in order to receive the 
 rewards of his service This prophecy of the serv- 
 ant who dies and rises from the grave finds its only 
 fulfilment in the death of Jesus Christ, and his resurrec- 
 tion and exaltation to his heavenly throne." (p 363.) 
 
 It is not strange that Professor Briggs could say of 
 such a piece of work as the above that it was "a work 
 of love and enthusiasm." But an outsider can hardly re- 
 sist the impression that the seductions which have won his 
 love, and the charms which have aroused his enthusiasm, 
 are those of modern science, with its fascinating principle, 
 which he has so aptly and faithfully applied, of the con- 
 tinuity of the natural order of development ; and if not a 
 few of the younger clergy have been lured by the same 
 seductions into the embraces of naturalism, Professor 
 Briggs' contagious enthusiasm must share the responsi- 
 bility for it. In but two instances in the whole course of 
 this discussion is any disposition shown to recognize the 
 supernatural. There is a cautious and minimizing state- 
 ment concerning the prediction of a resurrection of the 
 slain prophet. The author does not say that there was 
 any such prediction, but only that the exaltation foretold 
 logically involved a resurrection. It is doubtful whether, 
 if the issue were raised, he would be willing to say that 
 a Jew of that period would have seen it in that light, or 
 that the prophet had in mind anything more than a post- 
 
32 
 
 liuiiioiis vindication. If the prophet had seemed to draw 
 the logical inference of a i-esurrection, would we not find 
 the author explaining it away, as he explained the alleged 
 prediction of the betrayal? 
 
 The other case where the supernatural seems to be 
 invoked, is where it is said that the divine Spirit guided 
 tiie psalmists beyond the experience of Jeremiah. But, 
 as though at once to propitiate frowning science for such 
 a tribute to her rival, he hastens to explain that their own 
 sutTerings must have been intense and that the depths of 
 woe which they described without having fathomed them 
 in experience, "were apprehended in imagination and 
 fancy through foreboding and presentiment." It is not 
 intimated that this foreboding and presentiment con- 
 tained any elements that exceeded the natural powers of 
 the imagination under the stimulus of spiritual influences 
 which are a part of the natural order ; like as, according 
 to immanent theism, the divine Spirit belongs to the 
 natural order, exerting a purely generic influence which 
 does not interfere with causal continuity. 
 
 Professor Briggs, then, seems to have applied, with 
 practical corisistency, to the development of the Messianic 
 idea, the same principles and methods which he em. 
 ployed in the chapters on prophecy in general and on 
 pi"ediction. He has said nothing concerning any alleged 
 supernatural events which he need ever retract should 
 they all be shown to be quite natural. He has turned ofl 
 graceful though elusive phrases in praise of a kind of 
 supernatural, which, when cornered and captured, evades 
 criticism by classifying itself with the "ideas that cir- 
 cumscribe experience," "form and time and space," In 
 short, he banishes miracles, in the sense in which Amer- 
 
23 
 
 ican Christianity understands miracles, from the course 
 of development of Messianic prophecv. 
 
 Will American Christianity stand that? If the leadinfj 
 I^rofessor in one of the two leading schools of the most 
 learned and orthodox of the great denominations, can 
 naturalize away by far the most important miraculous 
 element in the Old Testament, and cooly promise, (p viii), 
 ■JL second volume upon the same subject as found in the 
 New Testament, and a third upon that subject in Christian 
 history, in which presumably the same method will be 
 employed ; what will be left of the supernatural to the 
 American Church, after that promise has been fulfilled, 
 and the other two volumes have won such a place of in- 
 fluence in the minds of the younger clergy as the first 
 already holds? Can American Christianity survive such 
 a revolution as that implies? Is it ready to meet such a 
 crisis? 
 
 "It is incredible," the reader will say on first impulse ; 
 "Professor Briggs cannot have meant any such thing. 
 He could not have continued to hold the leading position 
 he does, if he had meant such a thing." There is some- 
 thing in that ; and the Professor's failure to make his 
 supernaturalism unequivocal is probably because, for some 
 good reason, this issue was not distinctly before his mind. 
 But it is before the mind of the American Church, and it 
 is the purpose of this paper to emphasize it, and to protest 
 against its being obscured by controversy about second- 
 ary questions, however important. It is not claimed that 
 the foregoing criticism warrants a verdict against Profes- 
 sor Briggs of having denied supernatural intervention ; 
 but only that it has convicted him of failure to make his 
 attitude as unmistakable as the public hcs a right to de- 
 
24 
 
 mand of a specialist and author and teacher of teachers, 
 and a champion of a party which is openly accused of 
 naturalism. 
 
 For this reason the attempt is here made to render 
 articulate the questioning attitude of a large and respect- 
 ably well informed public, toward that school of biblical 
 learning to which Professor Briggs belongs, and for 
 which he has, as few others, the right, the ability and 
 the proved courage to speak. If he would trouble him- 
 self to answer the following questions, suggested by a 
 study of his " Messianic Prophecy," he would do much to 
 clear the atmosphere of religious inquiry in this country. 
 
 QUESTIONS. 
 
 Does Professor Briggs think of the divine as holding a 
 specific, and not merely a generic, relationship to the order 
 of nature ? 
 
 Does he think of the divine as acting, at points within 
 the historical period, as a specific genetic cause, deter- 
 mining specific events ? 
 
 In case it seems to him to act as a specific cause within 
 the mind of a prophet, as, for instance, in the region of 
 " the imagination and fancy through foreboding and 
 presentiment," does he deny, concerning any particular 
 and well established case within the range of his special 
 Old Testament studies, that a psychologist might ex- 
 plain it on naturalistic principles? 
 
 If so, will he name one or more such cases, and say 
 whether his denial is made as a specialist in psychology, 
 or as a specialist in Old Testament literature ? 
 
 In case the divine or supernatural element affirmed 
 belongs in the category with " the sublime ideas of the 
 
25 
 
 reason, — form, and time and space," will he point out 
 whereabouts, within the course of history, the super- 
 natural cause intervened in behalf of these ideas? 
 
 Does he regard himself as a specialist uj^on the question 
 of the origin of the ideas " that circumscribe experience?" 
 
 Does he affirm the occurrence of any si)ecific act of 
 su^yernatural intervention^ either of the kinds ahove 
 referred to, or any of any other hind, in the course of 
 the development of the Messianic idea from its germ 
 in the Protevangelium to its comjdeted foi'mf 
 
 If 80, will he, as a specialist in that department, 
 put his finger upon some such specific intervention? 
 
Date Due 
 
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