Ijfiiti''''"'*'!'' t'lr I't 1 11 ' , '" 'ill-" illi :}m'''t'l'iii'i;'7';'Vi'' Riili ¦ I Q 'Y^ILE'^MII^IEI^SIIinf- DIVINITY SCHOOL TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY GIFT OF GEORGE M. MURRAY '17 FROM THE LIBRARY OF WILLIAM D. MURRAY '80 Anti-Higher Criticism TESTIMONY TO THE INFALLIBILITY THE BIBLE Professor Howard Osgood, D.D., LL.D. President W. Henry Green, D.D., LL.D. Professor William G. Moorehead, D.D. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., LL.D. James H. Brookes, D.D. George S. Bishop, D.D. B. B. Tyler, D.D. Professor Ernst F. Stroeter, Ph.D. Professor James M. Stifler, D.D. William Dinwiddie, D.D. EDITED AND COMPILED BV Rev. L. W. MUNHALL, M.A. Author of '-^ Fur-nishing for Workers^^ *' The LoriCs Return and Kindred Truik,^ '" The Highest Critics -vs. The Higher Critics," etc. NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON CINCINNATI : CRANSTON & CURTS 1894 Copyright, 1S93, by HUNT & EATON, New York. CumitOHition, electrotyping, printing, and binding by HUNT & EATON, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO JAMES H. BROOKES, D.D., WHO,^ IN EVERY FIBER OF HIS BIG BODY, EVERY THROB OF HIS KIND HEART, AND EVERY THOUGHT OF HIS GREAT BRAIN, IS LOYAL TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES OF GOD. L. W. MUNHALL. PREFACE. For the past six years I have conducted a Bible Con ference each summer by the seaside. It has been inter denominational in its character. The object has been " the promotion of prayerful, critical, exegetical study of the Holy Scriptures." God has given the Conference most signal tokens of his gracious favor. Because of the audacious and persistent assaults made upon the integrity of the Bible by many pastors, editors, theolog ical professors, and other educators belonging to ortho dox Churches, and because of the impudent assumption of these gentlemen that scholarship is almost wholly with them in their methods, work, and conclusions, I decided that the testimony of the last Conference should be directed against these assaults and assumptions. After careful and protracted consultation with a large number of brethren prominent in the councils and work of the Churches in this country, who without an excep tion approved of my plan, the call was issued over the signatures of the following gentlemen : Presbyterian. — Ex-President Joseph F. Tattle, D.D., LL.D.. Crawfordsville, Ind. ; Charles Augustus Stoddard, D.D., Editor New York Observer; Pastor James H. Brookes, D.D., St. Louis; A. T. Pierson, D.D., Philadelphia, Editor Missionary Review of the World; Pastor Thomas A. Hoyt, D.D., Philadelphia ; S. P. Harbi son, Pittsburg ; William J. Erdman, D.D., Asheville, N. C. Baptist.— Fastor A, J. Gordon, D.D., Boston ; Professor J. M. Stif ler, D.U., Crozer Theological Seminary; Pastor A. C. Dixon, D.D., Brooklyn ; J. C. Foster, D.D., Boston, Associate Editor Watchman; Pastor J. B. Hawlhorn, D.D., Atlanta ; Colonel Levi K. Fuller, Brat- ii PREFACE. tleborough, Vt., Governor of Vermont ; Pastor John T. Beckley, D.D., Philadelphia. Methodist Episcopal, — Professor Luther T. Townsend, D.D., Bos ton University ; Professor E. F. Stroeter, D.D., Denver University ; H. K. Carroll, LL.D., Associate Editor New York Independent; Henry Foster, M.D., Clifton Springs; H. B. Andrews, Syracuse; William Nast, D.D., LL.D., Cincinnati (German M. E.) ; Professor W. P. Cod- dington, D.D., Syracuse University. Congregational. — Pastor Edward P. Goodwin, D.D., Chicago ; Pastor Albert H. Plumb, D.D., Boston ; Joseph Cook, LL.D., Boston ; Major General O. O. Howard, U.S.A., New York city ; Pastor Sam uel H. Virgin, D.D., New York city. Protestant Episcopal. — Very Rev. Dean H. M. Hart, D.D., Den ver ; Rector Julius E. Grammer, D.D., Baltimore ; Robert C. Mat- lack, D.D., Philadelphia, Secretary Evangelical Education Society ; Russell Sturgis, Jr., Boston ; L. W. Bancroft, D.D., Brooklyn. Lutheran. — Professor L. A. Gotwald, D.D., Theological Seminary, Springfield, O. ; Pastor M. Rhodes, D.D., St. Louis ; Professor R. F. Weidner, D.D., Theological Seminary, Chicago ; Pastor J. B. Rem- ensnyder, D.D., New York city. United Brethren. — Bishop John Weaver, D.D., Dayton ; G. A. Funkhouser, D.D., President Theological Seminary, Dayton ; John Dodds, Dayton, O. Southern Presbyterian. — Professor William Dinwiddie, D.D., Char lottesville, Va. ; Pastor W. U. Murkland, D.D., Baltimore ; Pastor J. W. Walden, D.D., New Orleans. Methodist Episcopal, South. — Bishop O. P. Fitzgerald, D.D., LL.D., Atlanta, Ga. ; Pastor John T. Wightman, D.D., Washington City ; Colonel William A. Hemphill, Atlanta. Disciples. — Pastor B. B. Tyler, D.D., New York city ; Professor Amzi Atwater, A.M., Indiana State University. Cumberland Presbyterian. — W. H. Black, D.D., President Mis souri Valley College ; W. J. Darby, D.D., Evansville, Secretary Ed ucation Society. Reformed Episcopal. — Bishop William R. Nicholson, D.D., Phila delphia; Samuel Ashhurst, M.D., Philadelphia. United Presbyteria7i. — Professor W. G. Moorehead, D.D., Theolog ical Seminary, Xenia, O. ; Pastor M. M. Gibson, D.D., San Francisco. Friends. — J. J. Mills, President Earlham College, Richmond, Ind. German Reformed. — Professor James I. Good, D.D., Theological Department, Ursinus College. PREFACE. in Ref ormed Dutch, — Pastor George S. Bishop, D.D., Orange, N. ]. Moravian, — Professor J.Taylor Hamilton, D.D., Theological Sem inary, Bethlehem. Collegiate Reformed, — Pastor David James Burrell, D.D., New York city. The Conference met in Educational Hall, Asbury Park, N. J., August ii, 1893, and continued its sessions ten days. The sessions were attended by from two hundred to two thousand persons. First and last between three and four thousand persons, a large number being clergy men, were present. Many of the addresses were so scholarly, comprehen sive, convincing, and satisfactory to honest and reverent minds that numerous requests were made by those who heard them that they should be published in book form. These requests are gladly heeded, through the kindness of the learned and devoted gentlemen who delivered them ; and all the more so, because the rationalists are pushing their publications upon the attention of pastors, teachers, and students throughout the land in a mo.st energetic fashion. The volume is sent on its way with the sincere desire and earnest prayer that it may be owned of God in con firming many in their belief that the Bible is the infalli ble, life-imparting, hope-inspiring, unfailing word of the living God, and that many wavering and doubting ones may be helped to hereafter speak and teach "as one that had authority, and not as the scribes." L. W. MUNHALL. Germanto-djn, Philadelphia, Pa,, Nov. 14, 1893. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTORY 7 LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. By Howard Osgood, D.D., LL.D., Rochester Theological Seminary - 13 THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. By W. Henry Green, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Princeton Theological Seminaiy 26 MOSAIC ORIGIN OF 1 HE PENTATEUCH. By W. Henry Green, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary 71 THE BOOK OF JOB. By Professor William G. Moorehead, D.D., United Presby. terian Theological Seminary, Xenia, 0 96 THE BOOK OF PSALMS.— (TWO PARTS.) By Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., LL.D., Senior Minister ofthe Collegiate Dutch Church of New York. I. The Nature of the Psalter 115 II. The Authority of the Psalter and its Uses 144 ISAIAH. By Pastor James H. Brookes, D.D., St. Louis 165 THE BOOK OF DANIEL— ITS AUTHORSHIP, INTEG RITY, AND STRUCTURE. By Pastor George S. Bishop, D.D., Orange, N. J 191 THE BOOK OF ESTHER. By Pastor B. B. Tyler, D.D., New York City 218 6 CONTENTS. PAGH MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. By Professor William G. Moorehead, D.D., United Presby terian Theological Seminary, Xenia, 0 236 THE GOSPELS.— (TWO PARTS.) By Professor Ernst F. Stroeter, Ph.D., Denver University. Part 1 253 Part II 270 THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM.— (ACTS XV.) By Professor James M. Stifler, D.D., Crozer Theological Seminary 291 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. By William Dinwiddie, D.D 304 FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. By Professor James M. Stifler, D.D., Crozer Theological Seminaiy 317 THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE TO ITS OWN INTEG RITY. By Pastor James H. Brookes, D.D., St. Louis 331 INTRODUCTORY. The addresses composing this volume were delivered before the Sixth Annual Interdenominational Seaside Bible Conference, in Educational Hall, Asbury Park, N. J., August II-2I, 1893. Upon calling the Conference to order the chairman. Dr. L. W. Munhall, evangelist, Philadelphia, delivered the following address : " Dear Brethren : We are met here to-day in the name of the Lord Jesus. Our obj'ect is not only to vin dicate God's insulted and di.shonored word, but also to exalt it to the extent of our ability. " We know how in times past the enemies of God have done their utmost to bring the Bible into contempt and to destroy it. We know how they utterly failed and were themselves brought into confusion and contempt. In these days we are called upon to contemplate the most extraordinary and astounding spectacle of many pastors, teachers, and editors belonging to orthodox denominations, making the very same fight against the word of God, and using the same weapons as were made and used by Astruc, Voltaire, and Paine. " The destructionists have made no advance, positively no advance, beyond the work of Voltaire, as I think will be made very plain to this Conference by those who are in every way competent to speak. " The work of these critics in America and Great Britain is largely that of threshing old straw,' and thereby throw- 8 INTRODUCTORY. ing dust into the eyes of the spiritually near-sighted, and thus ' darkening sound doctrine.' They seem to be ready to accept, without hesitation, any criticism of the Bible that bears the imprint of rationalistic Germany. The late Professor Christlieb once asked a friend of mine, ' Why do. Americans and Englishmen gather from the gutter so much of the theological rubbish we Germans throw away ? ' And there is no doubt in my own mind but that, as suggested by the great theological professor of Bonn, many of the critics in this country are but theo logical scavengers. " I am quite sure I voice the feelings of all the speak ers who will occupy, this platform when I say we are in favor of all honest and reverent criticism, higher and lower. We surely desire to possess ourselves of all trust worthy information concerning the authors and dates of the various books of the Bible — their grammatical con struction and scientific and historic reliability. Further more, I am very certain that these speakers are ready, any moment, to abandon any traditional views of the sacred volume that may be proved, demonstrably, to be erroneous. We will not continue to believe that which is not true because the fathers believed and taught it, if we knoiv they were in error. And I am equally certain that they are unwilling to abandon traditional views for which the scholarly fathers successfully contended, which God has honored by his favor and blessing, and which have been baptized by the prayers and tears and blood of those ' of whom the world was not worthy,' at the dictation of rationalists, who in a most irrational manner argue from postulates that are subversive of the most holy and venerated things. There are certain things we mo.st respectfully insist upon, namely: " I. That inability to reconcile apparent discrepancies in God's word, or to understand certain philological, INTRODUCTORY. 9 scientific, and historic statements does not prove the presence of inaccuracies and errors. The Assyriologist, Egyptologist, historian, philologist, and scientist are at work. Within the past twenty years many apparent discrepancies and errors have been reconciled and made clear as the result of their labors. The natural and reasonable presumption therefore is that other difficul ties will disappear as they prosecute their work. We, at least, will possess our souls in peace, knowing that it is true, ' Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.' " 2. That any criticism of the word of God based upon mere assumptions or presuppositions is discredit able to honest, comprehensive scholarship. This, I .be lieve, is largely the common method of the rationalistic school. " 3. That the professional critic is more likely to be wrong than right, and is, therefore, an unsafe guide. I mean by professional critic one who spends his time and strength in trying to find some error or discrepancy in the Bible, and, if he thinks he does, re joiceth as ' one that findeth great spoil ; ' who hopes, while he works, that he may succeed, thinking thereby to obtain a name and notoriety for himself. " 4. That any method of biblical criticism that ignores the supernatural and lowers the Bible to the level of other books is deserving of unqualified condemnation, since God's thoughts are as much higher than man's as the heaven is above the earth. " 5. That the criticism which minimizes, ignores, or antagonizes the testimony of the Bible to its own author ship, character, and integrity ; that denies to Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit the right and ability to testify in such matters, is subversive of the very foundation principles of our holy religion and destructive, to the last degree, of the Christian faith. IO INTRODUCTORY. " 6. That any criticism of the Bible that fails to make proper account of its miraculous formation and preserva tion, of its transforming influence upon the hearts and lives of men, and of the silent and irresistible power it has exerted over the nations, is certainly and necessarily faulty. " 7. That any criticism wholly lacking in the elements of common sense should be viewed with suspicion. The E, J, JE, D, P, PE, and R method of composition which the higher critics have invented for the Penta- teuchal books, and which may be properly called the ' crazy quilt ' method, is devoid of every principle of common sense. No other book was so constructed, no book could be so constructed ; and yet, as they argue the case, it must be that every other book, not even ex cepting the Dictionary, was made just in this same fash ion. The argument that, because there appears to be a difference in the literary style of the first thirty-nine and last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, therefore one man could not have written the entire book, is also lacking in this essential element ; for does not common sense tell us that a man may have more than one style of writing, and that one's style of writing may change with the passing years ? " 8. That the claim that all scholars are at one with the rationalistic methods, work, and results of the higher criticism, excepting in the cases of a very few who are so wedded to traditionalism as to be incompetent to arrive at an unbiased and honest conclusion, is audacious in assumption, untruthful in assertion, uncharitable in spirit, and can deceive none but the conceited, weak-minded, and ignorant. "9. That scholarship alone is a very dangerous thing to the cause of truth. ' The mind of the flesh is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, INTRODUCTORY. II neither indeed can it be.' In these days there is an in creasingly great disposition to exalt and magnify human learning, and to forget that the ' foolishness of God is wiser than men,' and that ' the world by wisdom knew not God.' We need constantly to be upon our guard against this peril. " IO. That we recognize our entire dependence upon God for light in order to properly read his holy word. Without his help we shall be unable to make right uses of the great stores of information the scholars have gathered from many sources. We rejoice that the dear Lord has not left us in darkness and ignorance to grope our way. The promises of his word assure us of all needed light and instruction. All he would have us know we may and sometime will know. " Jesus said to his sorrowing disciples, ' But the Com forter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.' And, ' How beit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.' We are also told, ' But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.' And again : ' But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you : but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye .shall abide in him.' " Therefore, brethren, let us look heavenward for help, and in humble dependence upon the Holy Spirit give ourselves to much prayer, that the influence of this Con ference may be salutary and very far-reaching, to the glory of God's grace in Jesus Christ." ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. BY HOWARD OSGOOD, D.D., LL.D., Rochester Theological Seminary. " Say not thou. What is the cause that the former days were better than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." The former days were not better than these. Since the fall of Adam there has ever been the tremendous conflict between faith and un belief. From the death of Abel at the hand of his elder brother, Cain, faith has been heralded as weak and ready to die by those who rest only in the things of sense, who build cities and inherit the earth. As regards the whole world faith has ever been in the apparently weak mi nority, and unbelief has been the popular paean of the vast and powerful majority. It is so now. Our day has its conflict, and some who know little of the many far more terrific battles of past ages tremble for fea,r lest unbelief in this smaller contest shall prevail over the captain of the Lord's host and snatch away the treasure of believers. Better men than ourselves have had their days of fear and trembling for the safety of the ark of God. The p.salmist, when he looked on the tide of un belief and its apparent prosperity, was staggered and knew not what to say, bat found the calmness of assur ance when he went into God's house and learned his 3 14 anti-higher CRITICISM. secret. John the Baptist in prison under the power of unbelief and immorality could find no sufficient answer to the doubt that oppressed his heart until he sent to Christ, and he that made him and loved him gave his faithful witness the supreme visible proof that God was on the field though darkened eyes did not see him. "Go your way and tell John the things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in me." That same proof the omnipotent, loving Saviour gives to-day, in the heat and dust of this conflict, to all who find no occasion of stumbling in him. It is often supposed that only the vulgar and vile, the unlearned and ignorant, deliberately oppose the Bible as the supernaturally inspired word of God ; that no one who studies the Bible year after year can fail to be con vinced of its supernatural character. The vulgar and vile, the unlearned and ignorant opponents of the Bible have never been any serious obstacle in the progress of Christianity. The lowest forms of morality condemn them, and Christianity says with David, Let them alone and let them curse, as it passes by. But when great natural abilities are reinforced by great learning in the Bible, and, with all the power of the highest skill in marshaling their forces and sending them forth in the witchery of attractive style, these highly cultivated abili ties wage war on the Bible, then it seems as if there were really lions in the way, and some Christians think of turning back. Some make a momentary peace by going over to the side of the lions, and others would open the way by feeding the lions on all that they demand. But the simple-hearted believers wJio keep their roll learn that the objects of their fear are tied, and they march boldly learned doubt and the LIVING WORD. 1 5 on past the roar and enter safely with their roll into the home where they would be. If we go back two hundred ye'ars to England we shall find a series of champions against the Bible's being the revealed word of God who, in the prestige of place, of learning, of attractive style, of skill in debate, were the peers of the men of any age of the world. Blount, Tolaud, Shaftesbury, Collins, Woolston, Tindal, Morgan, Bolingbroke, Hume, to name only a few, stood abreast of the foremost men of their day in learning. Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke were masters of lofty and popular style in English. Some of the works of these champions were issued in editions of twenty thousand, and some of their works reached in a few months a twelfth edition. None ofthe answers to these works ever attained a success at all to be compared with the popularity of their oppo nents. Cambridge and Oxford were the schools from which most of these men came. The teaching in both these great universities was very far from a living faith in God and his word. Yea, even many of the answers to these antibiblical writers contained concessions to the deistical arguments that made them weak against the victorious tone of their opponents, and the deists were not slow to prove their arguments against the Bible by the aggregate of these concessions. It seems hard for men to learn that a hungry lion seeking his prey will not be appeased with anything less than their blood and flesh and bones. There is nothing to-day in the ranks of antibiblical writings to compare with the popularity and literary suc cess of their predecessors in England one hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago. Then the Established Church was largely deistical. The Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England were deeply tinctured with rationalism or deism. The Baptists were only half 1 6 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. alive. The Methodists had not yet arisen. It really .seemed as if in .spite of and under cover of an orthodox liturgy and orthodox articles the English Church was fast becoming the home of bold, undisguised rationalism. The most popular poets. Prior, Swift, and Pope, were deists. Pope, though a professed Roman Catholic, in his " Essay on Man " formulates the deistical c"reed Bol ingbroke taught him. The arguments of these able writers were directed against the general credibility of the Old and New Tes taments as tested by their common sense ; against proph ecy, which, they proved to their satisfaction, was myth and legend ; against miracles, which they asserted could not be proved by any human testimony whatever. This was the age when enemies and defenders of the Bible appealed to reason as the final arbiter of the debate. If one wishes to read all that can be said in favor of reason as the judge of revelation he must make himself ac quainted with the best writers of this period from 1700 to 1750, and not rest in the puny irriitations of this day. The rationalism of the eighteenth century was born and nursed and grew great in England before it went over to conquer Germany. Bishop Butler in 1736 says: "It is taken for granted by many persons that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry, but that it is now at length discov ered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it as if in the present age this were an agreed, point among all people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule." The plays, the novels, the biographies, the poets, the papers, the Spectator and Taller, all bear witness to the popularity of antibiblical opinions, to the frequent sepa ration in the clergy and members of churches between doctrines and life, between profession and piety, and to LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. 17 the swollen tide of immorality from the court down to the alehouse. The efforts in the pulpit were essays on virtue, patience, resignation under difficulties, cold and drear, without a note of the ruin of sin or of the infinite love of God, appealing to the heart of man by the free gift of his Son to die for sinners. Nothing called for louder denunciation, nothing aroused and disturbed the rheumatic stiffiiess of mere professional religion so much as a display of zeal. It was in an age like this that the same Bishop Butler, the author of the renowned Analogy, could issue pastoral letters against all enthusiasm in religion, as if there were any need of protesting against enthusiasm in the graves or against vivacity among skeletons. In 1726 a young Frenchman of thirty-two was intro duced by Bolingbroke to this literary society of English atheists, deists, unbelievers, who were on the top wave of popularity. Catholic France under Louis XV would not suffer men to print what they wished to say about the Bible and the Church. Whatever the life might be a certain decorum must be observed in printing. But in England the liberty of infidel printing was a revelation to Voltaire, who returned to France to make known what he had learned in England both of doctrine and of liberty. To his latest day Voltaire is full of the praises af his friend Bolingbroke, and in his view, that a witty lie is always better than a sober truth, he pays the highest compliment possible to Bolingbroke by styling his foulest attack on th6 New Testament " Lord Bolingbroke's Examination," though Bolingbroke died many years be fore it was penned. Those who are familiar with the literature and history of France in the last century are unanimous in the opinion that Voltaire was the most powerful authority in France, as he certainly was the most popular writer. There is no literary success at the 1 8 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. present day at all to be compared to his. His works were published in enormous editions for France, and were immediately translated and were sold by every bookseller in Europe and Russia. Of the literary world of Europe he was the crowned king. Roman Catholics and Protestants, yea, Presbyterian ministers of Geneva and German Protestants, paid abject court to him and professed themselves at one with him in his creed, which was deism pure and simple, as he often says. His was the spirit of all the popular writers of the eighteenth century in France. Taine "has drawn a true picture of the godlessness and the immorality of that age; A few years after Voltaire was crowned on the stage in Paris by king and priests and people, the king was dethroned and murdered ; the guillotine was at work day and night to fill the streets with human blood ; priests and people proclaimed the Christian religion and churches forever renounced, and reason and nature the only objects of rational worship. Long before Voltaire and the encyclopedists had suc ceeded in poisoning every literary stream in France with deism the works of the English deists had been trans lated into German and were read in every university as the avatars of a new freedom and sound logic. The State and Church in Germany had united in imposing the standard of orthodoxy, and held and enforced it with an iron hand. Here, too, there had been a long separation between orthodoxy and a moral life. In great numbers, both of ministers and people, the life was notoriously foul, while the lips taught as doctrines the precepts of men. Then in 1740 there arose on the throne of Prus sia the overshadowing incarnation of the cold, clear, cynical, victorious spirit of the century, who knew no God, who cared for no religion, whose scepter was the sword, whose friends were the deists and the drill ser- LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. I9 geant — Frederick the Great. His conquests in war, his firm, wise rule in peace, his destruction at one blow of all the old tests of orthodoxy, his unceasing effort to plant agnosticism in every school and university, were the powerful allies ofthe teachings of the English writers, and soon in Germany in every university, in numberless pulpits, from the most popular presses, the English argu ments against the Bible were adorned with the treasures of German learning, and in the leadinj literary circles no man was tolerated who believed the Bible was any thing more than a purely human book of legends and myths interspersed with some good moral precepts. In all this dark history of the learned world in Eng land, France, and Germany in the eighteenth century the darkest shade is the entire defection or the agnostic laxity of great numbers of professedly Christian ministers of every name, "a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God ; " they "turned back in the day of battle," and "kept not the covenant of God." They quickly bowed before pop ular literary clamor ; they ceased to teach that the Bible is God's word or inspired ; that Christ is God ; that sin brings eternal ruin ; that Christ is the only Saviour. Instead, they taught that man can never reach certain knowledge; that God is incomprehensible; that Christ was a good man and our exemplar; that morality was the only test and the only passport to a happy eternity. In England, France, and Germany deism and agnos ticism are adorned with numerous names of men who were learned, exceedingly able, and, in many cases, of characters unimpeached. Outside the assertion and defense of their antagonism to the Bible as God's word many of these men have left works, even on the Bible, which have been of the greatest service to all students. None of these deists, rationahsts, or agnostics were more 20 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. set in their views than Gesenius, and yet no man has done more in this or any other century for the grammar and lexicography of the Hebrew Bible. Nothing is ever gained toward a just conclusion by denying or omitting the real merits of others. Looking at this falling away ofthe eighteenth century, and remembering the devotion, the learning, and the im mense progress of spiritual Christianity in the seven teenth century in England and France and Germany, we may feel and ask with the psalmist, " Will the Lord cast off forever? . . . Doth his promise fail for evermore?" Here were the desert and the bare mountains made by man, where all spiritual life would have been smothered but for the power ofthe Spirit of God. When the literary and learned circles were jesting over the Bible" as waste paper, finally discredited, God was making that word life and peace and joy to many souls in London and all over England. Wherever men went with the Bible and urged upon men its loving, tender call to sinners to re pent and believe the Gospel, to rest in the promises of God to the chief of sinners, to follow Jesus and cleave to him in singleness of heart, to accept the Bible " as it is in truth the word of God," these fountains sprang up in the desert and streams broke forth in the bald mountain tops, " the wilderness and the solitary place " were glad, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. Watts in London, Doddridge in Northampton, James Foster in London were types of the best class of Dis senters ; here and there in the Established Church were bright and fertile oases, sometimes in the cities, more frequently in the country. It was in this century of ra tionalism that two of the sweetest singers of the love and grace of God, Watts and Wesley, poured forth their notes of song to be the precious inheritance of all be lievers for all time. The names and numbers of faithful LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. 21 believers and preachers who, despite all rationalism elsewhere, offered with persuasive words the Bible as the water of life and beheld the miracle of the Spirit, the raising of dead souls to life by that word, could no more be counted then than they can be now. Their field of labor was the same in which Jesus wrought, the poor had the Gospel preached ufito them; and among them chiefly the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard. But God, who never hurries, never delays, was preparing his overwhelming answer to learned doubt. In the Bull Inn at Gloucester, iri the west of England, and in the secluded rectory of Epworth, amid the fens of Lincolnshire, God prepared the three flaming heralds of his love and grace, Whitefield and the two Wesleys, who were to do more to answer the deists and rationalists than all the libraries written against them. To all men, rich and poor, but chiefly to the common people, who heard them gladly, they commended the Bible as the word of God with power; they preached the very heart of the Bible's mes sage, the infinite love of God over against the dark back ground of man's sin ; they had "found perfect peace of soul in trusting the finished work of Christ, they believed in what others termed the blood theology, the blood of Christ as their redemption, and they could tell others how they could find rest to their souls, by a whole hearted trust in the word of God, which " cannot be broken." Bibles, long hidden and dusty, were brought out and searched, and to every heart crushed and bleed ing, self-condemned and hopeless, the discredited Bible proved itself to be the power of the living God, until in England and America a host of believers, "who knew no more but knew their Bibles true," rose up through the mighty power of the Spirit of God to accomplish the wonderful works which have continued to this day. The 22 AXTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. absolutely conclusive answer to the deist's learned dis approval of the Bible is a man, who was dead through his sins, made ahve in Christ and sitting with him in heavenly places ; who was blind, but now he sees ; who was lame, but now he walks with Christ ; who was a leper, in his foul sins, but now cleansed ; who was deaf, but now he hears. That man is a living fact, a visible argu ment, a miracle which no human testimony can disprove. He may be reviled and spat upon as his Master was; but he is made ahd maintained as the unbeliever says he cannot be. While Voltaire, in his deistical doctrine and licentious life, was the fit representative of court and literary circles in France, and led the dance of death till it whirled into the blood bath ofthe Revolution, there were in the south of France a few hundred ofthe scattered, crushed, ab jectly poor Huguenots. The edicts administered by dra goons, laws of incredible severity, had driven from France every Huguenot of wealth, name, or position; only the poor were left — charcoal-burners, sheep-herders on the lofty mountains, farmers on the bare mountain sides, weavers, and servants. They read the Bible de spised in Paris, they in the depth of night lapped the water of life and became the small but invincible army of God. Soon there were assemblies of one thousand, four thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand people, gathered at night far away from human habitation, to listen to preachers on whose head a great price was set, and who, if caught, were as sure of torture and the gal lows on earth as they were of heaven afterward. Hun dreds of these poor were caught praying in French or listening to French preaching, and willingly paid the penalty of a lifetime in the torturing galleys or found a more blessed end on the gibbet. All the efforts of the government were in vain to prevent the importation of LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. 23 Bibles from SwitzerPand to feed the increasing numbers of those who knew it to be the bread from heaven. Through unresting persecution of eighty years, sur rounded by a cordon of fire, outside of all law, past the gibbets where their beloved hung, the galleys where the backs of their brothers were lashed till they rotted, the towers and prisons where grandmothers and mothers and babes were shut up for life, whose cry of agony re echoed among the hills, this band of the poor, with the Bible and for the Bible, worked and taught, testifying of the grace that is come unto us, until the few hundred had become more than a million, and the Revolution broke the infamous laws that oppressed them. Never since the apostolic age has the power of the Bible as the living word of God been more gloriously manifested than in the Church of the Desert, the Huguenot revival in the last century. In the midst of the well-nigh universal defection of German learning from the Bible arose another Church of the poor, the Moravians, whose only store was the Bible, relatively the most thoroughly missionary people of all the denominations. While the German universities were proving to their satisfaction that the Bible contained more errors than truths the Moravians were gathering converts to the Bible in Germany, England, Greenland, the West Indies, Asia, and Africa. Life from the dead was the ever-recurring miracle where they carried the Bible to stricken hearts. From the last century to the end of this deism, Socin ianism, agnosticism, unbelief in the Bible, joined with great learning, has marked too many in the greatest cen ters of education in Europe, England, and America, and to-day we are told by those who ought to know better that the victorious criticism of the Bible is learned doubt of the Bible. Victorious where ? victorious over whom ? 24 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Victorious only where human learning, wonderful as it may be, is held to be a greater power than the Holy Spirit of the omniscient and omnipotent God. Victori ous only over those who have either never " tasted of the heavenly gift " nor " were made partakers ofthe Holy Ghost " nor " tasted the good word of God," or, having tasted, " fell away." But for these two hundred years of the vaunted vic tory of learning over the Bible what streams of life have flowed out to the world through this Bible ; what vic tories has it won of hundreds of thousands, of millions of souls, who have been the light and life of the world ! Out of it has come the missionary societies of all Churches, which have carried the Bible and its love and grace to all the quarters of the globe ; the Bible societies, which every year publish more Bibles than there are minutes in the year, and yet the demand is not fully met; the Sunday school societies, which publish more literature on the Bible than was dreamed of a few years ago ; the publication societies of all our Churches ; the tract socie ties ; the Christian Endeavor societies, with a giant's strength in its youth ; the swelling tide of the benevo lence in all its forms of our earnest working Churches. To day there are more men and women in the world telling the story ofthe grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord than ever before. To-day more converts are gathered into our Churches than ever before. America, with its mil lions of Christians, has been won by the Bible since the deists and rationalists proved that the Bible was not trustworthy ; and within the memory of living men three hundred islands of the Pacific, most of them homes of cannibals, have become the homes of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. " For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolish- LEARNED DOUBT AND THE LIVING WORD. 25 ness of the preaching to save them that believe." " The foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." " God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise ; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong ; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are : that no flesh should glory before God. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctifica tion, and redemption : that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." " Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 26 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. BY W. HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. The various objections which have been urged against the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch resolve themselves into two classes, respectively affecting its form or its con tents. In regard to the former it is affirmed that such is the constitution of the Pentateuch as to evince that it is not the continuous composition of any one writer, but that it is compacted of parts of diverse origin, the products of different writers, themselves long posterior to the Mosaic age ; and consequently the Pentateuch, though it may contain some Mosaic elements, cannot in its present form have proceeded from Moses, but must belong to a much later period. In regard to the latter it is asserted that the Pentateuch contains so many anachronisms, contradictions, and inaccuracies that it cannot possibly have been written by Moses. The first class of objections is directed against the unity of the Pentateuch, the second against its authenticity. In order to rende*- intelligible the nature of the par tition hypotheses, with which we shall have to deal, the nomenclature which they employ, and their application to the Pentateuch, it will be necessary first to state pre cisely what is meant by the unity for which we contend and then say a few words about the origin and history of those hypotheses by which it has been impugned, and the several forms which they have successively assumed. By the unity of the Pentateuch is meant that it is, in the unity of the PENTATEUCH. 27 its present form, one continuous work, the product of a single writer. This is not opposed to the idea of his having before him written sources in any number or variety from which he may have drawn his materials, provided the composition was his own. It is of no con sequence, so far as our present inquiry is concerned, whether the facts related were learned from preexisting writings, or from credible tradition, or from his own personal knowledge, or from immediate divine reve lation. From whatever source the materials may have been gathered, if all has been cast into the mold of the writer's own thoughts, presented from his point of view, and arranged upon a plan and method of his own, the work possesses the unity which we maintain. Thus Bancroft's History of the United States rests upon a multitude of authorities which its author consulted in the course of its preparation ; the facts which it records were drawn from a great variety of preexisting written sources ; and yet as we possess it it is the product of one writer, who first made himself thoroughly acquainted with his subject and then elaborated it in his own lan guage and according to his own preconceived plan. It would have been very different if his care had simply been to weave together his authority in the form of a continuous narrative, retaining in all cases their "exact language, but incorporating one into another or supple menting one by another so as to string the several sources together in the form of a continuous narrative. In this case it would not have been Bancroft's History. He would have been merely the compiler of a work consist ing of a series of extracts from various authors. Such a narrative has been made by harmonists of the gospel history. They have framed an account of all the re corded facts by piecing together extracts from the several gospels arranged in what is conceived to be their true 28 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. chronological order. And the result is not a new gospel history based upon the several gospels, nor is it the original gospel either of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John ; but it is a compound of the whole of them, and it can be taken apart paragraph by paragraph, or sentence by sentence, and each portion assigned to the particular gospel from which it was drawn. Now the question respecting the unity of the Penta teuch is whether it is a continuous production from a single pen, whatever may have been the sources from which the materials were taken, or whether it is a com posite production, made up from various writings woven together, the several portions of which are still capable of being distinguished, separated, and assigned to their respective originals. The not improbable conjecture was expressed at an early period that there were ante-Mosaic records to which Moses had access, and of which he made use in preparing the Book of Genesis. The history of such a remote antiquity would seem to be better accredited if it had a written basis to rest upon than if it had been drawn solely from oral tradition. Thus the eminent or thodox theologian and commentator, Vitringa, expressed the opinion in 1707, in the interest pf the credibility of Genesis, that Moses collected, digested, embellished, and supplemented the records left' by the fathers and pre served among the Israelites. The peculiarity of the critical hypothesis, with which we are now concerned, however, is the contention that Genesis was not merely based upon preexisting writings, but that it was framed out of those writings which were incorporated in it and simply pieced together so that each section and para graph and sentence preserved still its original style and texture, indicative of the source from which it came ; and that by means of these criteria the Book of Genesis THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 29 can be taken apart and its original sources reproduced. The first suggestion of this possibility and the first at tempt actually to realize it by decomposing the book into the prior documents which had been embedded in it, was made in 1753 by Astruc, a French physician of considerable learning but of profligate life, in a treatise entitled Conjectures Concerning the Original Memo randa which, it appears, Moses used to Compose the Book of Genesis. This hypothesis was adopted and elaborated with great learning and ingenuity by Eich horn, the distinguished professor of oriental literature at Gottingen, to whose skillful advocacy it owed much of its sudden popularity. I. The primary basis of this extraordinary hypothesis was found in the remarkable manner in which the divine names Elohim (the Hebrew term for God) and Jehovah are used, particularly in the earlier portions of Genesis, whole paragraphs and even long sections making almost exclusive use of one of these names, while the alternate sections make a similarly exclusive use ofthe other. Thus, in Gen. i, i-ii, 3, Elohim occurs in almost every verse, but no other name of God than this. But in ii, 4-iii, 24, God is with few exceptions called Jehovah Elohim, and in chapter iv Jehovah. Then in chapter v we find Elo him again ; in vi, 1-8, Jehovah, and in the rest of chap ter vi Elohim, and so on. This singular alternation was remarked upon by some of the early Christian fathers, who offered an explanation founded upon the Greek and Latin equivalents of these names, but which is not ap plicable to the Hebrew terms themselves. Astruc's assumption was that it was due to the peculiar style of different writers, one of whom was in the habit of using Elohim, and another in the habit of using Jehovah when speaking of God. All those paragraphs and sections, which exclusively or predominantly employ the name 3 30 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Elohim, were accordingly attributed to a writer denomi nated from this circumstance the Elohist ; and when these paragraphs were singled out and put together they constituted what was called the Elohist document. The other writer was known as the Jehovist, and the sections attributed to him made up the Jehovist document. It was accordingly held that Genesis consisted of sections taken alternately from two distinct documents by au thors of known proclivities, so far, at least, as their pre ference for or exclusive use of one or other of the divine names is concerned, and which existed and circulated in their separate state until they were combined as they are at present. This hypothesis is hence known as the documentary hypothesis, since it assumes as the sources of Genesis distinct and continuous documents, which are still traceable in the book from the beginning to the end. And the first argument adduced in its support, as already .stated, is the interchange of divine names, each of which is erected into the criterion of a separate document. 2. A second argument was drawn from the alleged fact that when the Elohim sections are sundered out and put together they form a regularly constructed and continuous narrative without any apparent breaks or chasms, whence it is inferred that they originally con stituted one document distinct from the intercalated Je hovah sections. The same thing was affirmed, though with more hesitation and less appearance of plausibility of the Jehovah sections likewise ; when these are singled out and severed from the passages containing the name Elohim they form a tolerably well connected document likewise. 3. A third argument was drawn from parallel pas sages in the two documents. The same event, it is alleged, is in repeated instances found twice riarrated in successive sections of Genesis, once in an Elohist section, THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 3 1 and again with some modifications or variations in a Jehovah section. This is regarded as proof positive that Genesis is not one continuous narrative, but that it is made up from two different histories. The compiler, in stead of framing a new narrative, which should compre hend all the particulars stated in both accounts, or blend ing the two accounts by incorporating sentences from one in the body of the other, has preserved both entire, each in its integrity and in its own proper form, by first giving the account of the matter as it was to be found in one document, and subsequently inserting the account found in the other. Thus Gen. i, i-ii, 3, contains the ac count ofthe creation as given by the Elohist; but although thisstates how the world was made, and plants and animals and men were formed upon it, the Jehovist section, ii, 4, etc., introduces a fresh account of the making of the man and the woman, the production of trees from the ground, and the formation ofthe inferior animals. This repetition betrays, it is said, that we here have before us not one account of the creation by a single writer, but two separate accounts by different writers. So in the narrative of the flood : there is first an account by the Jehovists, vi, 1-8, of the wickedness of man and of Je hovah's purpose to destroy the earth; then follows vi, 9-22, the Elohist's statement of the wickedness of man and God's purpose to destroy the earth, together with God's command to Noah to build the ark and go into it with his family and take some of all living animals into it; in vii, 1-5, the Jehovist tells that Jehovah com manded Noah to go with his family into the ark, and to take every variety of animals with him. 4. A fourth argument is drawn from the diversity of style, diction, ideas, and aim which characterize these two documents. It is alleged that when these compo nent parts of Genesis are separated and examined apart 32 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. each will be found to be characterized by all the marks which indicate diversity of origin and authorship. It is confidently affirmed that wherever the Elohim sections occur throughout Genesis they have certain peculiarities of diction and style which clearly distinguish them from the Jehovah sections ; and these again have their own distinctive characteristics. The preference for one divine name above another, which has already been spoken of as a criterion, does not stand alone. There are, besides, numerous vv^ords and phrases that are currently used by the Elohist which the Jehovist never employs, and vice versd. Thus, the Elohist, in chapter i, uses the phrase " beast of the earth," and speaks of the earth bringing forth plants, while the Jehovist, in chapter ii, says " beast of the field " and " plant of the field." The Elohist, in chapter i, repeatedly uses the word " create ; " he speaks of God creating the heavens and the earth, creating the whales and creating man. The Elohist, chapter i, speaks of man as male and female ; the Jehovist, chapter ii, says instead, the man and his wife. The style of the two writers is equally marked : that of the Elohist is formal, verbose, and repetitious ; that of the Jehovist is easy and flowing. In chapter i the same stereotyped phrases recur again and again, and particulars are enumerated instead of including all under a general term. Thus, verse 25, " God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after.his kind;" and verse 27, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them." The Elohist gives God's, command to Noah in detail (vi, 18), "Thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee ; " the Jehovist simply says (vii, i), " Come thou and all thy house into the ark," The UNITY OP THE PENTATEUCH. 33 Along with these pecuharities of diction and style, and corroborating the conclusion drawn from them, is the diversity in the ideas and scope of the two writers. Thus the Jehovist makes frequent mention of altars and sacrifices in the pre-Mosaic period ; the Elohist is silent respecting them until their establishment at Sinai. It is the Jehovist who records the primeval sacrifice of Cain and Abel, of which the Elohist says nothing. The Elo hist speaks in chapter v of Enoch walking with God, and (vi, 9) of Noah walking with God ; but, though he gives (chap, ix) a detailed account of God's blessing Noah and his covenant with him after he came out of the ark, he says nothing of Noah's sacrifice, which the Jehovist re cords (viii, 20, etc.). The divine direction to Noah to take animals into the ark is given by the Elohist only in general terms. God bade him to take two of every sort (vi, 19, etc.). But the Jehovist informs us more minutely of the distinction of clean and unclean ani mals which then existed, and that Jehovah bade Noah take two of each species of the latter, but seven of the former. These arguments, derived from the alternate use of the divine names, from the alleged continuity of each docu ment taken separately, from parallel passages, and from the characteristic differences of the two writers, appear to lend so much plausibility to the documentary hypoth esis that it speedily rose to great celebrity, and was very widely adopted ; and many able and distinguished critics became its advocates. As at first propounded it did not conflict with the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Its earliest defenders, so far from impugning the author ship of Moses, were strenuous in maintaining it. So long as the hypothesis was confined to Genesis, to which it was at first applied, there was no difficulty in assum ing that Moses may have incorporated in his history of 34 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. that early period these preexisting documents in any way consistent with his truth and inspiration. It was not long, however, before it was discovered that the hypothesis was capable of being applied, like wise, to the remaining books of the Pentateuch. This extension of the hypothesis brought it for the first time in collision with the traditional belief of the Mosaic authorship ; and this, with its various modifications, has since been one of the favorite and principal weapons of those who deny that it was written by Moses. If the entire Pentateuch is a compilation from preexisting doc uments, it was plausibly inferred that it must be post- Mosaic. For the documents themselves, inasmuch as they contained the record of Moses's own times, could not have been older than the Mosaic age. And if the Pentateuch was subsequent to them and framed out of them, it seemed natural to refer it to a still later period, though it should be observed that this by no means necessarily follows. Even if the composite character of the Pentateuch could be established on purely literary grounds, we might still suppose that the memoranda from which it was prepared were drawn up under Moses's direction and with his approval, and were either put together in their present form by himself, or, at least, that the completed work passed under his eye and received his sanction. So that it would still be possible to vindicate its Mosaic origin and authority, unless, in deed, the primary documents themselves are assigned to a later time than that of Moses. This the critics, who have held this hypothesis, com monly do ; and hence they claim that it affords ocular demonstration that the books traditionally ascribed to Moses are not his. And to corroborate this conclusion they appealed to Exod. vi, 3, where God says to Moses, " I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 35 as God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH I was nbt known to them." They understood this to be a dis tinct declaration that the name of Jehovah was unknown to the patriarchs, being of later date than the time in which they lived, and that it first came into use in the days of Moses. It hence followed as a logical necessity that the Jehovist document, according to the testimony of this passage, was certainly not prior to the time of Moses; for it employs a name which had no existence previously. And it was plausibly urged that this docu ment was probably post-Mosaic, for it is chargeable with the anachronism of putting into the mouths ofthe patri archs the name of Jehovah, which did not then exist. This was thought to be contradictory to the Elohist statement above cited, and to betray a writer belonging to a period when the name of Jehovah had become so familiar and so universal that its recent origin was for gotten, and he unconsciously transfers to patriarchal times a designation current in his own. This anachronism ofthe Jehovist led. to the suspicion of others ; and since, as has already been stated, it is thi&document which makes mention of patriarchal altars and sacrifices, which are never referred to by the Elohist, it was suspected that here again he had improperly trans ferred to the patriarchal age the usages of his own time, while the Elohist gave a more accurate representation of that early period as it really was. This was esteemed, if not a contradiction, yet a contrariety between the two accounts, a diversity in the mode of conceiving the period whose history they are recording, which reflects the diff'erent personality of the two writers, the views which they entertained, and the influences under which they had been trained. These diversities between the Jehovist and the Elohi.'^t took on more and more the character of contradictions 36 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. as the credit of the Jehovist for veracity and accuracy was held in less and less esteem. Every superficial diffi culty was made the pretext for fresh charges of anachro nisms, inaccuracies, and contradictions. The text was tortured to bring forth difficulties where none appeared. An especially fruitful source was found in alleged paral lel passages in the two documents. These were greatly multiplied by pressing into the service narrations of matters quite distinct, but which bore a general resem blance to each other. The points of resemblance were paraded in proof that the matters referred to were iden tical ; and then every diversity in the two accounts was pointed out as so many contradictions between them, which betrayed the legendary and unreliable character of one or both the narratives. Thus because some of the descendants of Cain, whose genealogy is recorded by the Jehovist (Gen. iv, 17-22), bear the same or similar names as the descendants of Seth recorded by the Elohist (chapter v), Enoch, Irad, Methusael, and Lamech of one table corresponding to Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech of the other, it was concluded that these are only variants of the same identical genealogy, which one writer has attached to one ofthe sons of Adam, and the other to another; and that every divergence in the two lists is a discrepancy involving an error on one side or on the other, if not in both. So in chapter xii the Jehovist tells how Abraham, apprehensive that the mon arch of the country in which he was would be attracted by his wife's beauty, prevaricated by saying that she was his sister, what perils thence arose to both, and how they were finally extricated. In chapter xx the Elohist relates a similar story of prevarication, peril, and deliver ance. The same event, it is alleged, must be the basis of both accounts, but there is a hopeless contradiction between them. The former declares that the occurrence THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 37 took place in Egypt, and that Pharaoh was- a party to the transaction : the latter transfers the scene to the land ofthe Philistines and the court of Abimelech. And to complicate the matter still further, the Jehovist gives yet another version of the same story in chapter xxvi, according to which it was not Abraham, but Isaac, who thus declared his wife to be his sister, running an im minent hazard by so doing, but making a fortunate escape. According to the Elohist (xxi, 22-32), Abraham had a difficulty with Abimelech in respect to a well of water, which was amicably settled by a covenant, in memory of which he gave name to Beersheba. The Jehovist (xxvi, 17-33) relates a similar story of strife con cerning wells, a visit by Abimelech, an agreement with him, and the naming of Beersheba in consequence ; but he says that it was not Abraham, but Isaac, who was con cerned in it. Meanwhile a more extreme disintegration found favor with Vater (1805), Hartmann (1831), and others, who advocated what is known as the fragmentary hypothesis. This may be fitly characterized as the documentary hypothesis run mad. It is a reductio ad absurdum fur nished by the more consistent and thoroughgoing appli cation of the principles and methods of its predecessor. Instead of two continuous documents pieced together paragraph by paragraph to constitute the Pentateuch as we now have it, each paragraph or section is now traced to a separate and independent source. The compiler was not limited to two writings covering alike the entire period that he proposed to treat, but had before him all that he could gather of every sort relating to his subject, some of which possibly were mere scraps, others of larger compass, some recording, it maybe, but a single incident, others more comprehensive, and he adopted one passage from one, another from another, and so on throughout. 38 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Sometimes two or more fragments may have been taken from the same original work, but this cannot be posi tively affirmed. And it would be vain to attempt to inquire into the extent, character, and aim of the writ ings from which they were severally extracted. All that we know of them is derived from such portions as the compiler has seen fit to preserve. The arguments adduced in support of the fragmen tary hypothesis were substantially identical with those which had been urged in favor of the documentary hypothesis. And assuming the soundness of those arguments, this is the inevitable consequence. Admit the legitimacy of this disintegrating process, and there is no limit to which it may not be carried at the pleasure of the operator ; and it might be added, there is no work to which it might not be apphed. Any book in the Bible or out of the Bible could be sliced and splintered in the same way and by the same method of argument. Let a similarly minute and searching examination be instituted into the contents of any modern book; let any one page be compared with any other, and every word and form of expression and grammati<:al construction and rhetorical figure in one that does not occur in the other be noted as difference of diction and style ; let every thought in one that has its counterpart in the other be paraded as parallel sections evidencing diversity of ori gin and authorship, and every thought which has not its counterpart in the other as establishing a diversity in the ideas of the authors of the two pages respectively ; let every conclusion arrived at on one page that does not appear on the other argue diff'erent tendencies in the two writers, different aims with which and different influences under which they severally wrote, and nothing would be easier, if this method of proof be allowed, than to demon strate that each successive page came from a different pen. THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 39 The very same process by which the Pentateuch is decomposed into documents can with like facility divide these documents and subdivide them and subdivide them again. Indeed, the advocates of the documentary hy pothesis may here be summoned as witnesses against themselves. They currently admit different Elohists and Jehovists, and successive variant editions of each document, and a whole school of priestly and Deutero- nomic diaskeuasts and redactors, thus rivaling in their refinements the multitudinous array of the fragmentary critics. And, in fact, the extent to which either may go in this direction is determined by purely subjective considerations. The only limitation is that imposed by the taste or fancy of the critic. If the repetitions or parallel sections alleged to be found in the Pentateuch require that assumption of distinct documents, like repe titions occurring in each individual document prove it to be composite. The very same sort of contrarieties or contradictions which are made a pretext for sunder ing the Pentateuch can furnish an equally plausible rea son for sundering each of the documents. And if certain criteria are regarded as characteristic of a given docu ment and their absence from sections attributed to the other is held to prove that they are by a different hand from the former, why does not the same rule apply to the numerous sections of the first named document, from which its own so-called characteristic words and phrases are likewise absent ? The titles and subscriptions attached to genealogies and legal sections supplied an additional argument, of which the advocates of the fragmentary hypothesis sought to avail themselves. Such titles as the following are prefixed to indicate the subject of the section that follows: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth " (Gen. ii, 4). " This is the book of the 40 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. generations of Adam " (v, i). " These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations "(Exod. vi, i6). " This is the law of the trespass offering " (Lev. vii, i). " This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offer ings " (verse 1 1). " These are the journeys of the children of Israel " (Num. xxxiii, i). Or subscriptions are added at the close suggestive ofthe contents of the section that precedes, such as: " These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations " (Gen. X, 32). " These be the sons of Leah " (xlvi, 15). "These are the sons of Zilpah " (verse 18). " These are the sons of Rachel " (verse 22). " This is the law of the burnt offering, of the meat offering, and of the sin offering," etc. (Lev. vii, 37, 38). " This is the law of the plague of leprosy," etc. (xiii, 59)- These indicate divisions in the subject-matter, and mark the beginning or end of paragraphs or sections, and contribute to clearness by brief statements of their general purport ; but they do not prove that these sections ever had a separate and in dependent existence apart from the book in which they are now found, or that diiferent sections proceeded from different authors, any more than like conclusion could be drawn from the books and chapters into which modern works are divided. The extravagance and absurdity of the fragmentary hypothesis could not long escape detec tion. For I. It involves the assumption of a numerous body of writings regarding the Mosaic and ante-Mosaic periods, of which there is no other evidence, and which is all out of proportion to the probabilities of the case. Every several paragraph or section is supposed to represent a distinct work, implying a literary activity and a fertility of authorship, which is not only assumed on slender and inadequate grounds, but of which not another fragment survives, to which no allusion is made, whether in the THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 4I Pentateuch itself or elsewhere, and not a hint or a trace is anywhere preserved of its ever having existed. 2. A congeries of fragments borrowed from diverse quarters could only form a body of disconnected anec dotes or a heterogeneous miscellany. It could not pos sibly result in the production of such a work as the Pentateuch, which is a coherent whole, possessing or derly arrangement in accordance with a well-devised plan, which is consistently carried out, with a continuous and connected narrative, with no abrupt transitions and no such contrasts or discords as would inevitably arise from piecing together what was independently conceived and written by different persons at different times, and with no regard to mutual adjustment. As in oriental writ ings generally, the successive portions are more loosely bound together in outward form than is customary in modern occidental style ; but the matter of the record is throughout continuous, and one constant aim is stead fastly pursued. The breaks and interruptions which are alleged to exist in the narrative, such as the failure to record in full the abode in Egypt, the private life of Moses, or the forty years wandering in the wilderness, are no indications of a lack of unity, but the reverse ; for they show with what tenacity the writer adhered to his proper theme and excluded everything which did not belong to it. 3. Still further, the Pentateuch is not only possessed of a demonstrable unity of structure, which renders its fragmentary origin inconceivable, but there are through out manifest allusions from one part to another, one sec tion either referring in express terms to what is contained in others or implying their existence, being based upon those that precede and unintelligible without them, and presupposing those that follow. The minute examina tions to which this very hypothesis has driven the friends 42 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. of truth have shown that such explicit or tacit allusions are traceable everywhere ; and wherever they occur they make it clear that the writer must have been cognizant of the paragraphs alluded to, and have felt at liberty to assume that his readers were acquainted with them like wise. Of course this is quite inconsistent with the no tion that each of these paragraphs came from a different source and was written independently of the rest. Repelled by the inconsistencies and incongruities of the fragmentary hypothesis, De Wette, Bleek, Tuch, Knobel, and others advocated what is known as the sup plementary hypothesis. This is a modification of the documentary, not on the side of a still further and indefi nite division, but on the opposite side of a closer union. It was consequently a reaction in the right direction"; a confession that what had been sundered without limit, as though its several parts were void of all coherence, really do belong together. It is an admission, so far as it goes, ofthe cogency of the arguments by which the vari ous parts of the Pentateuch can be shown to be linked together. The supplementary hypothesis retained the Elohist and the Jehovist of the older theory, but, instead of making each the author of a distinct and independent document, which were subsequently combined and pieced together by a different hand, it supposed that the Elohist first prepared his treatise, which lies at the basis through out the Pentateuch and constitutes its groundwork. The Jehovist, who lived later, undertook to prepare an en larged edition of this older history. He accordingly re tained all that was in the earlier work, preserving its form and language, only introducing into it and incorporating with it sections of his own, supplying omissions and amplifying what needed to be more fully stated, supple menting it by means of such materials as were within his THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 43 reach, and making such additions as he esteemed impor tant. This form of the hypothesis not only provides, as the old document theory had done, for those evidences of unity which bind the various Elohim passages to one another, and also the various Jehovah pa.ssages, but it accounts still further for the fact, inexplicable on the document theory, that the Jehovah sections are related to the Elohim sections, presuppose them, or contain direct and explicit allusions to them. This is readily explained by the supplementary hypothesis ; for not only would the Elohist and Jehovist be aware of what theyhad respectively written or of what they intended to write in the course of their work, but in addition the Jehovist is supposed to have the treatise of the Elohist in his hands, to which all that he writes himself is merely supplemental. It is quite natural for him, therefore, to make allusions to what the Elohist had written. But it is not so easy to account for the fact, which is also of repeated occurrence, that the Elohim passages allude to or presuppose the contents of Jehovah passages. Here the theory signally breaks down ; for by the hypothesis the Elohist wrote first an independent production without any knowledge of and of course without the possibility of making any reference to the additions which the Jehovist was subsequently to make. Another halting place in this hypothesis was the im possibility of making out any consistent view of the relation in which the Jehovist stood to the antecedent labors of the Elohist. The great proof, which was insisted upon, of the existence of the Jehovist as distinct from the Elohist and supplementing the treatise of the latter, lies in the diversity of style and thought which are alleged to characterize these two classes of sections respectively. Hence it was necessary to assume that the 44 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Jehovist faithfully retained the language of the Elohim document unaltered, and that his own peculiarities were limited to the sections which he introduced himself, and that there they were exhibited freely and without reserve. It is frequently the case, however, that the ideas or dic tion which have been represented to belong to one of these classes of sections are found likewise in the other class. Thus Elohim passages are found to contain words and phrases which have been alleged to characterize the Jehovist, and to contain ideas and statements which are said to be peculiarly Jehovistic. Here it is neces sary to affirm that the Jehovist, instead of faithfully tran scribing the Elohim document, has altered its language and inserted expressions or ideas of his own. Again, Jehovah passages are found in which those characteristics of style and thought appear which are elsewhere claimed as peculiar to the Elohist. This is explained by saying that the Jehovist in such cases has imitated the style or adopted the ideas of the Elohist, and has sought to make bis own additions conform as far as possible to the char acteristic style of the work which he is supplementing. Again, while it is alleged that the Elohim and Jehovah passages are for the most part clearly distinguishable, there are instances in which it is difficult, if not im possible, to draw a sharp line of demarkation between contiguous Elohim and Jehovah passages and to de termine precisely where one ends and the other begins. Here the Jehovist is thought to have used art to cover up his additions. He has fitted them with such care and skill to the work of his predecessor that the point of junction cannot be discerned, and it has been made to look like one continuous composition. In stead of allowing, as in other instances, his insertions to remain visibly distinct from the original document, he has acted as if he desired to confuse his additions THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 45 with the preexisting work and to make their separation impossible. Now, apart from the fact that these attempted expla nations of phenomena at variance with the primary hypothesis are merely shifts and subterfuges to evade the difficulty which they create, and that this is bringing unproved hypotheses to support an hypothesis, every tresh addition making the superstructure weaker instead of confirming it, the view which is thus presented ofthe Jehovist is inconsistent with itself. At one time we must suppose him to allow the most obvious diversity of style and ideas between the Elohist sections and his own without the slightest concern or any attempt at producing conformity ; at others he modifies the language of the Elohist, or carefully copies him in the sections which he adds himself, in order to eff'ect this conformity, though no special motive can be assigned for this difference in his conduct. He sometimes leaves his additions uncon nected with the original work which he is supplementing : at other times he weaves them in so adroitly as to create the appearance of continuity, and this again without any assignable motive. An hypothetical personage, who has to be represented by turns as artless and artful, as an honest reporter and a designing interpolator, as skillful and a bungler, as greatly concerned about a conformity of style and thought in some passages of which he is wholly regardless in others, and of whose existence we have no other evidence than that afibrded by these con tradictory allegations respecting him, can scarcely be said to have his reality established thus. And an hypothesis which is reduced to the necessity of bolstering itself up in this way has not yet reached firm footing. The simplicity of the supplementary hypothesis, which was its chief recommendation, proved inadequate to relieve the complications which beset the path of the 46 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. divisive critics. Attempts to remedy these inconven iences were accordingly made in different lines by Ewald and Hupfeld, both of whom," but particularly the lat ter, contributed to smooth the way for their succes sors. Ewald's maiden publication, in 1822, was directed against the extreme disintegration of the fragmentary hypothesis. His own scheme, proposed twenty years later, has been appropriately called the crystallization hypothesis. This, is a modification of the supplemen tary by increasing the number engaged in supplementing from one to a series successively operating at distinct periods. The nucleus, or most ancient portion, of the Pentateuch, in his opinion, consisted of the remnants of four primitive treatises now existing only in fragments imbedded in the various strata which were subsequently accumulated around them. This was followed in the second place by what he calls the Book ofthe Origins, and this by what he denominates the third, fourth, and fifth prophetic narrators, each of whom in succession added his accretion to what had been previously recorded, and the last of whom worked over all that preceded, together with his own additions and alterations, into one continu ous work. Then the Deuteronomist wrote Deuteron omy, which was first issued as an independent publi cation, but was subsequently incorporated with the work of his predecessors. And thus the Pentateuch, or rather the Hexateuch (for the Pentateuch and Joshua were regarded by him, as by the majority of advanced modern critics generally, as one work) — thus the Hexa teuch slowly grew to its present dimensions, a vast con glomerate, including these various accessions made in the course of many centuries. Hupfeld undertook to remove the obstacles which blocked the way of the supplementary hypothesis in a different manner — not by introducing fresh supplements. THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 47 but by abandoning the supplementing process altogether and falling back upon the documentary hypothesis, of which he proposed an important modification. He aimed chiefly to establish two things: First, that the Jehovist sections were not disconnected additions to a preexisting document. In order to this he attempted to bridge over the breaks and chasms by the aid of scattered clauses arbitrarily sundered from their context in inter vening Elohim sections, and thus made a shift to pre serve a scanty semblance of continuity. In the second place, he maintained the composite character of the Elo hist sections, and that they constituted not one but two documents. The troublesome passages, which corre sponded with the characteristics of neither the Elohist nor the Jehovist, but appeared to combine them both, were alleged to be the product of a third writer, who, while he used the name Elohim, had the diction and other peculiarities of the Jehovist, and whom he accord ingly called the second Elohist. Upon this scheme there were three independent documents, that of the first Elohist, the second Elohist, and the Jehovist. And these were put together in their present form by a redac tor, who allowed himself the liberty of inserting, retrench ing, modifying, transposing, and combining at his own pleasure. All references from one document to the con tents of another, and in general any phenomena that con flict with the requirements ofthe hypothesis, are ascribed to the redactor. There are several halting places in this scheme of Hupfeld : I. One is that the creation of a second Elohist de stroys the continuity and completeness of the first. The second Elohist is supposed to begin abruptly with the twentieth chapter of Genesis. From that point onward to the end of the book, with the exception of 48 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. chapter xxiii, which records the death and burial of Sarah, the great body of the Elohim passages are given to the second Elohist, and nothing reserved for the first but occasional disconnected scraps, which never could have formed a separate and independent record, and which, moreover, are linked with and imply much that is assigned to the other documents. So that it is necessary to assume that this document once contained the very matter which has been sundered from it. 2. It is also a suspicious circumstance that the first Elohist breaks off" almost entirely so near the point where the second Elohist begins. All Elohist passages before Gen. xx are given to the first Elohist ; all after that, with trifling exceptions, to the second Elohist. This looks more like the severance of what was once continur ous than the disentangling of documents once separate, which the redactor had worked together section by sec tion in compiling his history. 3. Another suspicious circumstance is the intricate manner in which the Jehovist and second Elohist are thought to be combined. In many passages they are so intimately blended that they cannot be separated. And in general it is admitted to be impossible tO establish any clearly defined criteria of language, style, or thought be tween them. This has the appearance of a factitious division of what is really the product of a single writer. There is no reason of any moment, whether in the diction or in the matter, for assuming that the Jehovist and the second Elohist were distinct writers. 4. It is indeed claimed that the first Elohist is clearly distinguishable in diction and in matter from the Jehovist and the second Elohist. But there are several consider ations which quite destroy the force of the argument for distinct documents from this source, (a] If the Elohim TIIE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 49 sections prior to Gen. xx are thought to have a diction different from that of the Jehovist, and the great body of the Elohim sections after Gen. xx have a diction con fessedly indistinguishable from that of the Jehovist, the presumption certainly is that the difference alleged in the early chapters rests on too limited an induction ; and when the induction is carried further it appears that the conclusion has been too hasty, and that no real differ ence exists, (b) Again, the great bulk of the narrative of Genesis, so far as it concerns transactions in ordinary life, is divided between the Jehovist and the second Elohist. The first Elohist is Hmited to genealogies, legal sections, extraordinary events, such as the creation and flood, or mere isolated notices, as of births, deaths, migrations, etc. That matter of a different description should call for the use of a diff'erent set of words, while in matter of the same sort like words are used, is just what might be expected ; and there is no need of assuming different documents in order to account for it. (c) Still further, wheri, as in Gen. xxxiv, a narrative is for special reasons assigned in part to the first Elohist, it is as im possible to distinguish its diction from that of the other documents as it elsewhere is to distinguish the diction of the second Elohist from that of the Jehovist ; and other grounds of distinction must be resorted to to effect a separation. All this makes it evident that the variant diction alleged is due to the difference in the matter, and not to diversity of documents. 5. The function assigned to the redactor assumes that he acts in the most capricious and inconsistent manner, more so even than the Jehovist of the supplementary hypothesis. At times he is represented as scrupulously careful to preserve everything contained in his various sources, though it leads to needless and unmeaning rep etition ; at others he omits large and important sections. 50 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. though the document from which they are dropped is thus reduced to a mutilated remnant. Where his sources disagree he sometimes retains the narrative of each unchanged, thus placing the whole case fairly before his readers ; at others he alters them into correspondence, which is hardly consistent with historical honesty. Variant narratives of the same event are some times harmonized by combining them, thus confusing both ; sometimes they are mistaken for distinct and even widely separated events and related as such — an error which reflects upon his intelligence, since critics, with the incomplete data which he has left them, are able to cor rect it. He sometimes reproduces his sources just as he finds them ; at others he alters their whole complexion by freely manipulating the text or making additions of his own. Everything in diction, style, or ideas which is at variance with the requirements of the hypothesis is laid to his account and held to be due to his interference. The present text does not suit the hypothesis ; therefore it must have been altered, and the redactor must have done it. It is evident how convenient it is to have a redactor always at hand to whom every miscarriage ofthe hypoth esis can be attributed. But it is also evident that the frequent necessity for invoking his aid seriously weakens the cause which he is summoned to support. It is fur- ther evident that the suspicions cast upon the accuracy with which theredactorhas transmitted the various texts which he had before him undermines the entire basis of the hypothesis ; for it undertakes to establish the exist ence of so-called documents and to discriminate between them by verbal criteria, which are nullified if the original exits have been tampered with. And it is still further evident that the opposite traits of character impliedly ascribed to the redactor the utterly capricious and irra- THE UNITY OF THE PE.N'TATEUCH. 51 tional conduct imputed to him ; and the wanton and aimless manipulation of his authorities, for which no motive can be assigned, tends to make this most impor tant functionary an impossible conception. Both Ewald and Hupfeld were regarded at the time as having made a retrogradation instead of an advance, b\' falling back from the simplicity of the then dominant supplementary hypothesis into a greater complexity than that of the original document hypothesis. The fact is, however, that the complexity inevitably grows, as the critics aim at greater precision and endeavor to adapt their scheme more exactly to the phenomena with which they have to deal. The multiplication of machinery. which is necessary before all can work smoothly so over loads their apparatus that it is in danger of breaking down by its own weight. They find themselves obliged to pile hypothesis upon hypothesis in order to relieve difficulties and explain diversities, and account for irreg ularities by subdivided document^, and successive re censions, and a series of redactors and unfathered glosses and variegated legal strata and diaskeuasts in unlimited profusion, until the whole thing reaches a stage of confusion worse confounded, almost equivalent to that of the exploded fragmentary hypothesis itself. The next stage of the critical movement, which issued in the present reigning school of divisive criticism, wrought as sudden and complete a revolution in the ideas of scholars of this class as the speculations of Dar win eff'ected in natural history, when the denial of the unity of the human race collapsed on the instant, and it was held instead that all animated being had sprung from a common germ. And the lever which effected the overthrow was in both cases the same; that is, the doctrine of development. This at once exalted the speculations of Ewald and Hupfeld to a prominence 52 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. which they had not previously attained, and made them important factors in the new advance. From Ewald was borrowed the idea that the composition ofthe Pentateuch was not accomplished at a stroke, by one act, whether of supplementing or of combining preexisting documents, but took place in successive stages by a series of enlarg ing combinations. From Hupfeld were derived the two pillars of his scheme, the continuity of the Jehovist doc ument and the composite character ofthe Elohist, or, in other words, that the Jehovist did not merely make addi tions to a preexisting work, but wrote an independent work of his own, and that there were two Elohists in stead of one. Thus both Ewald and Hupfeld, without intending or imagining it, smoothed the way for the rise of a school of criticism with ideas quite diverse from their own. The various attempts to partition the Pentateuch had thus far been based on exclusively literary grounds. Diction, style, ideas, the connection of paragraphs and sentences, supplied the staple arguments for each of the forms which the hypotheses had assumed, and furnished the criteria from which all conclusions were drawn. Numerous efforts had been made to ascertain the dates to which the writers severally belonged. Careful studies were instituted to discover the bias under which they respectively wrote as suggesting the influences by which they might be supposed to be surrounded, and hence their historical situation. They were diligently searched for historical allusions that might afford clew ; but with all the pains that were taken no sure footing could be found, and the critics agreed not together. Conjectures ranged ad libitum through the ages from the time of Moses or his immediate successor, Joshua, to that of Josiah, eight centuries later. And while the internal criteria were so vague there was no external support on THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 53 which the whole hypothesis could rest, no objective proof that the entire fabric was not a sheer figment of the imagination. Amid all the diversities, however, two points were universally agreed upon and regarded as settled beyond contradiction: i. The Elohist was the groundwork of the Pentateuch ; it supplied the scheme or general plan into which the other parts were fitted. And as it was the oldest, so it was historically the most reliable and trustworthy portion. The Jehovist was more legendary, depending, as it was believed to do, upon later and less credible traditions. 2. Deuteronomy was the latest and the crowning porti3n of the Penta teuch, by the addition of which the whole work was ren dered complete. Here the development hypothesis came in with its revolutionary conclusions. It supplied the felt lack of its predecessors by fixing definite dates and offering objective proof of their correctness. The conclusions deduced from the examination of the Pentateuch itself are verified by an appeal to the history. Arguments are drawn, not, as heretofore, from the narratives of the Pentateuch, but from its institutions ; not from its his torical portion, but from its laws. The principle of de velopment is applied. The simplest forms of legislation are to be considered the most primitive. As the Israel ites developed in the course of ages from rude nomadic tribes to a settled and well-organized nation their legis lation naturally grew in complexity and extent. Now the Pentateuch obviously contains three distinct codes or bodies of law : One in Exod. xx, 23, which is called in the original text the book of the covenant. This Moses is said to have written and read to the assembled people at Mount Sinai as the basis of the covenant rela tion there formally ratified between Jehovah and Israel. Another is the Deuteronomic law, which Moses is said 54 AN'II-HIGHER CRITICISM. to have rehearsed to the people in the plains of Moab shortly before his death, and to have delivered in writ ing to the custody of the priests, to be laid up alongside the ark of the covenant. A third is the ritual law, or priest code, contained in the latter chapters of Exodus, the Book of Leviticus, and certain chapters of Numbers. This law is declared in the general and in all its parts to have been communicated by God to Moses. Advocates of this hypothesis, however, take issue with these explicit statements, and affirm that these codes could not have had the origin attributed to them. The book of the covenant, from its simplicity and brevity, must have belonged to an early stage in the history of the people. From this there is a great advance in the Deuteronomic code ; and the ritual law, or priest code, is much the most minute and complicated of all. Long periods must have elapsed and great changes have taken place in the condition of the people to have wrought such changes in their institutions. The book of the covenant, primitive as it is, nevertheless could not have been enacted in the desert ; for it has laws respecting fields and vineyards, and olive yards and standing grain and grain in shocks, and offerings of first fruit and six years of tillage, with a sabbatical year whose spontaneous products should be for the poor and the beast of the field, and harvest feast and feasts of ingathering. All these have no application to a people in the desert. They belonged to a settled people engaged in agricul ture. Such a law could only have been given after the settlement of the people of Canaan. The law of Deuteronomy, while greatly expanded be yond the book of the covenant in its provisions, has one marked and characteristic feature which serves to define the period to which it belongs. The book of the cove nant (Exod. XX, 24) sanctions altars in all places where THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 55 God records his name. Deuteronomy, on the other hand (chapter xii), strictly limits the offering of sacrifice to the one place which Jehovah should choose. Now, it is said, the period of the judges and the early kings is marked by a multiplicity of altars and worship in high places in accordance with the book of the covenant. But in the reign of King Josiah, more than eight hun dred years after the settlement in Canaan, the high places were abolished and sacrifice was -restricted to the altar in Jerusalem. And this was done in obedience to the requirements of a book of the law then found in the tem ple (i Kings xxii, 8). That book was Deuteronomy. It was the soul of the entire movement. And this is the period to which it belongs. This new departure, though successful so long as the pious Josiah lived, spent its force when he was taken away ; and under his ungodly successors the people re lapsed again into the worship on high places, the popu lar attachment to which had not been eradicated. This was effectually broken, however, by the Babylonish captivity, which severed the people from the spots which they had counted sacred, until all the old associations had faded away. The returning exiles, impoverished and few in number, were bent only on restoring the temple in Jerusalem, and had no other place at which to wor ship. It was, then, under these circumstances that Ezra came forth with a fresh book of law adapted to the new state of things and engaged the people to obedience (Neh. viii). This book was the ritual law, or the priest code.- It also limits sacrifice to one place, as was done by Deuteronomy, but in the latter this was regarded as a new departure, which it would be difficult to introduce, and which is, therefore, reiterated and insisted upon with great urgency. In the priest code, on the contrary, it is quietly assumed as a matter of course, as though 56 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. nothing else was thought of, and this had been the established rule from the time of Moses. It had been customary for critics to attribute the priest code to the Elohist, and the book of the covenant to the Jehovist ; so that the former was considered the first and the latter the second legislation. Graf, who in his famous essay on the " Historical Books of the Old Testament," in 1866, undertook to reverse this order in the manner already indicated, felt it necessary to sepa rate the historical from the legal portion of the Elohist document, and to maintain that while the former was the oldest portion of the Pentateuch the latter was the latest. It was promptly shown, however, in opposition to Graf, that such a separation was impossible. The connection between the Elohist histories and the ritual legislation was too intimate to be severed. Kuenen, professor in Leyden, then boldly grasped the situation, accepted the order of the legislation proposed by Graf, and intrepidly contended, against the unanimous voice of all antecedent critics, that the entire Elohist docu ment, history and legislation, was the latest constituent ofthe Pentateuch. This reversal of all former beliefs on this subject, rendered necessary by the development hypothesis, met at first with determined opposition. It was not until 1878, fifteen years ago, that Julius Well- hausen assumed its advocacy in the first volume of his History of Israel. His skillful presentation won for it a sudden popularity, and it has since been all the rage in Germany. Fifteen years of supremacy in that land of speculation is scarcely sufficient, however, to guarantee its permanence even there. The history of the past would rather lead one to expect that in no long time it will be replaced by some fresh novelty. This reversal of the order of the Elohist and the Jehovist at once put an end to the supplemental THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH, 57 hypothesis. For the Jehovist could not have made ad ditions to the Elohist document if that document did not come into existence until centuries after his time. It thus became necessary to assume that the Jehovist passages, however isolated and fragmentary, constituted a separate document ; and the continuity was made out as proposed by Hupfeld, by using scattered clauses torn from their connection to bridge the chasms. The second Elohist of Hupfeld also became a necessity, though now supposed to antedate the first. The passages in the patriarchal history alluded to by Hosea and other early prophets must be eliminated from the Elohi.st document before this can be reckoned postexilic. The great bulk of the history is accordingly made over to the second Elohist, and so this argument of early date is evaded. In this manner the way is smoothed for turning all former conceptions of the critics regarding the formation of the Pentateuch upside down. The Elohim document, from being the oldest and most reliable, becomes the latest and the least trustworthy. It is even charged that its facts are manufactured for a purpose ; that the author makes statements, not because he has evidence of their truth, but because they correspond with his ideas of what ought to have occurred, and which he therefore imagines must have occurred. Instead of representing the Mosaic age as it really was, he gives, as Dr. Driver expressed it (Introduction to Old Testament, p. 120), " an ideal picture " of it. For the sake of brevity the Pentateuchal documents are commonly denoted by symbols. Dr. Dillmann, a strenuous opposer to the Wellhausen hypothesis, though adopting many of his conclusions in detail, employs the first four letters ofthe alphabet, indicating thereby their chronological order. He calls the Elohist A, the second Elohist B, the Jehovist C, and the Deuteronomist D, 58 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. thus emphasizing his adherence to the old critical ar rangement. In the nomenclature that is now most prevalent the term Elohist is applied exclusively to what used to be known as the second Elohist, and it is represented by E, the Jehovist by J. J and E are re garded as the oldest of the documents, and as belonging six or seven centuries after the exodus. They are al leged to have emanated from prophetic circles, J in the southern kingdom of Judah and E in the northern king dom of Israel ; critics are not agreed which preceded the other. 'They were combined by a redactor into the com posite work, JE, prior to the production of Deuteron omy, D, in the reign of Josiah, or shortly before, eight centuries after the exodus. This was then added to the preceding by another redactor, thus forming JED. The second Elohist having been separated from what used to be known as the Elohist document, the remnant was by Wellhausen fancifully called Q, the initial of qua tuor — 4, because ofthe four covenants it contains. Others prefer to designate it as P, the priestly writer, in distinc tion from the prophetic historians, J and E. P was pro duced after the e.xile, and was subsequently added by another redactor to the preexisting JED ; then the Pen tateuch was complete. In this hasty recital of the current critical view of the date ofthe several documents, and of their gradual com bination, no note is taken of subordinate features of the process, such as J', J", E', E", P', P", P""', the sub divisions of the documents, the successive editions, the various strata of the ritual, and the entire comphcated series of subsidiary personages who are supposed to have had a hand in building up the Pentateuch to its present form. A general outline of the course of procedure is all that has been attempted. It has already been remarked, as is indeed obvious THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 59 upon its face, that the development hypothesis flatly contradicts throughout the account which the Penta teuch gives of itself. The laws are all explicitly declared to have been Mosaic, to have been written down by Moses, or to have been communicated to him directly from the Lord. And there is no good reason for discred iting the bibHcal statements on this subject. The three codes belong precisely where the Scripture narrative places them, and they are entirely appropriate in that position. The elementary character of the book of the covenant is explained, not by its superior antiquity, but by its preliminary purpose. It was a brief body of regu lations intended to serve as a basis for the formal ratifica tion of the covenant between Jehovah and the people of Israel. Accordingly, all that was required was a few sim ple and comprehensive rules, framed in the spirit of the religion of Jehovah for the government of the people in their relations to one another and in their relation to God, to which, in a solemn act of worship, they were to pledge assent. After this fundamental act had been duly per formed, and the covenant relation had thus been insti tuted and acknowledged by both the contracting parties, the way was open for a fuller development ofthe duties and obligations involved in this relation. Jehovah, as the covenant God of Israel, would henceforth take up his abode in the midst of his people. This made it neces sary that detailed instructions should be given, for which there was no occasion before, respecting the construc tion of the sacred tabernacle, the services to be per formed in it, the officiating priesthood, the set times for special solemnities, and in general the entire ritual to be observed by a holy people for the expression and perpet uation of their communion with a holy God. All this was embodied in the priest code, in which the scanty general provisions ofthe book of the covenant regarding 6o ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. di^yine worship were replaced by a vastly expanded and minutely specified ceremonial. This was not a develop ment implying the lapse of ages with an altered civiliza tion and a corresponding advance in the popular notion.s of the divine Being and of the homage that should be paid to him. At the close of the forty years' wandering, vvhen the great legislator was about to die, he recapitulated in the audience of the people the laws already gi\en in the book ofthe covenant, with such modifications and addi tions as were suggested by the circumstances in which they were placed, the experience of the past, and the prospect of the future. The Deuteronomic code thus enacted was a development, not as the priest code had been, on the side of the ritual, but considered as a code for popular guidance in civil and religious matters. The enlargement, which we here find, of the simple regula tions of the book of the covenant implies no longer interval and no greater change in the condition or con stitution of the people than is provided for in the Scrip ture narrative. And at the same time the fact that we do not find in Deuteronomy a ritual so elaborate and minutely detailed as in Leviticus is not because Leviti cus is the further development of a still later period, when ceremonies were more multiplied and held in higher esteem, but simply because Leviticus was a pro fessional book and Deuteronomy was a popular book. Leviticus was for the guidance of the priests, who were professionally charged with the oversight and direction of the ceremonial, and Deuteronomy for the guidance of the people in matters more immediately within their province. Medical works for the instruction of phy sicians must necessarily be more minute than sanitary rules for popular use. And if it would be absurd to say that th? sanne eminent physician could not produce both THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 6l a professional and a popular treatise on medicine it is equally so to insist, as the critics do, that Deuteronomy and Leviticus cannot both be from the same age and the same legislator. It is further to be observed that the agricultural allusions in the book of the covenant are not in conflict with its Mosaic origin and its delivery at Sinai. The people were on their way to Canaan. This land had been promised to their fathers, and the Lord had renew edly promised to give it to them. It was with this ex pectation that they left Egypt. For this they were marching through the desert. Canaan was their antici pated home, the goal of their hopes. They confidently trusted that they would soon be settled there in full possession. That there was to be even so much as a delay of forty years, and that the entire adult generation was to pass away before this hope was fulfilled never entered the mind of the leader or the people, since neither could have imagined such an act of gross rebel lion as that for which they were sentenced to perish in the wilderness. It would have been strange indeed if the law given under these circumstances did not look beyond the desert as their abode and took no note of what was in immediate prospect. It was quite appro priate for it to contemplate their expected life in Canaan and to give regulations respecting the fields and vine- y irds and olive yards which they were shortly to pos sess. And there is no such difference as is pretended between the book of the covenant and the other Mosaic codes in respect to the place of legitimate sacrifice. It. is not true that the former sanctioned a multiplicity of altars and that this was the recognized practice of pious worshipers of Jehovah until the reign of Josiah, and that he insti tuted a new departure from all previous law and custom by 5 62 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. restricting sacrifice to one central altar in compliance with a book of the law then for the first time promulgated. The unity of the altar was the law of Israel's life from the beginning, even in the days of the patriarchs, Abra ham, Isaac, and Jacob, coexisting in various parts ofthe land. They built altars and offered sacrifice in whatever part of the land they might be, particularly in places where Jehovah appeared to them. But the patriarchal family was a unit ; and while they worshiped in different places successively, in the course of the migrations, they nevertheless worshiped in but one place at a time. They did not offer sacrifice contemporaneously on different altars. So with Israel in their marches through the wilderness. They set up their altars wherever they encamped, at various places successively, but not in more than one place at the same time. This is the state of things which is recognized and made legitimate in the book of the covenant. In Exod. xx, 24, the Israelites are author ized to erect an altar, not wherever they may please, but in all places where God records his name. The critics in terpret this as a direct sanction given to various sanctu aries in different parts of Palestine. There is no foun dation whatever for such an interpretation. There is not a word here nor anywhere in Scripture from which the legitimacy of the multitudinous sanctuaries of a later time can be inferred. An altar is lawful, and sacri fice upon it acceptable, and God will there meet with his people and bless them only where he records his name ; not where men may utter his name, whether by invocation or proclamation, but where God reveals or manifests himself He manifested himself gloriously on Sinai amidst awful indications of his presence. This was Moses's warrant for building an altar there (Exod. xxiv, 4). When the tabernacle was erected and the ark deposited in it as the abiding symbol of the divine presence, that THE UNITY OF TIIE PENTATEUCH. 63 became the spot where God recorded his name, and to which all sacrifices were to be brought (Lev. xvii, s). So that wherever the tabernacle or the ark was stationed an altar might property be erected and sacrifices offered. And Deut. xii looks forward to the time when Israel should be permanently settled in the land which Jehovah their God was giving them to inherit, and he should have given them rest from all their enemies round about so that they should dwell in safety ; then he would choose a place out of all their tribes to put his name there, and that should thenceforth be his habitation and the sole place of legitimate sacrifice. These conditions were not ful filled until the peaceful reign of Solomon, who by divine direction built the temple as Jehovah's permanent abode. Here the Most High placed his name by filling it with his effulgent glory at its dedication, and thenceforward this was the one place whither the people went up to meet with God and worship him by sacrifice ; thither they directed their prayers, and from his holy hill of Zion God sent forth his help and his salvation. There is thus the most entire concord between the several codes in regard to the place of sacrifice. It was from the beginning limited to the place of divine mani festation. As this manifestation was on all ordinary occa sions restricted first to the Mosaic tabernacle and then to the temple of Solomon, the language of the book of the covenant, no less than that of the Levitical and Deuteronomic codes, demanded that sacrifice should ordi narily be restricted to these sacred edifices. Only the book of the covenant, which lays down the primal and universal law ofthe Hebrew altar, is wider in its scope, inasmuch as it embraces those extraordinary occasions, likewise, for which there was no need to make express provisions in the other codes. If God manifested him self by an immediate and supernatural appearance else- 64 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. where than at the sanctuary, that spot became, not per manently, indeed, but so long as the manifestation lasted, holy ground and a place of legitimate sacrifice. And, on the other hand, if the Most High at any time withdrew his ordinary presence from the sanctuary, as when the ark was captured by the Philistines, the sanctuary ceased to be the place where God recorded his name, the re striction of sacrifice to that spot was ipse facto for the time abolished, and in the absence of any definite pro vision for the regular seat of God's worship the people were left to offer sacrifice as best they might. To the extent of these two exceptional cases the book of the covenant is more comprehensive than the other codes. But it lends no sanction whatever'to that irregular and un regulated worship which the critics would make it cover. After the capture of the ark, and during the period of its seclusion in a private house which followed, the wor ship on high places had a certain sort of legitimacy, as is expressly stated in I Kings iv, 2, as it had also at a later period in the apostate kingdom of Israel, where the pious were denied access to the house of God in Jerusalem. But apart from these exceptional cases worship at other altars than that at the sanctuary was in violation of the express statute. The critics argue the nonexistence of the law of the unity of the altar from its repeated viola tion. They might with equal propriety argue that there was no law forbidding the worship of other gods than Jehovah, because the Israelites so often relapsed into the worship of Baal and other foreign deities. While these various hypotheses which have thus suc cessively arisen, each at the ruin of its predecessor, are, . as has been shown, individually encumbered with the insuperable difficulties peculiar to each, the Canaan argu ments by which their advocates -seek to establish them are insufficient and inconclusive. The alternation of THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 65 divine names can be otherwise explained, and it can only be brought into harmony with the partition hypothesis by a free use of the redactor and the assumption of re peated changes of the text. Exod. vi, 3, has not the meaning that the critics attribute to it. The continuity of the documents is broken by serious chasms, or main tained by very questionable methods ; and it is necessary to assume in numerous instances that the documents originally contained paragraphs and sections similar to those which the critics now sunder from them. The alleged parallel passages are falsely assumed identifica tions of distinct events, and the diversity of diction, style, and ideas is made out by utterly fallacious and inconclu sive methods. The great outstanding evidence of unity, which never can be nullified, is the unbroken continuity of the history, the consistent plan upon which the whole is prepared, and the numerous cross references which bond the whole to gether as the work of one mind. Separate and independent documents, mechanically pieced together, could no more produce such an appearance of unity as reigns throughout the Pentateuch than a faultless statue could be formed out of discordant fragments from different sources. The partition hypotheses have further been elaborated from the beginning in the interest of unbelief. The un friendly criticism of an opponent does not indeed absolve us from patiently and candidly examining his arguments and accepting whatever facts he may adduce, though we are not bound by. his perverted interpretation of them. Nevertheless we cannot intelligently nor safely overlook the palpable bias against the supernatural which has infected the critical theories which we have been review ing from first to last. All the acknowledged leaders of the movement have without exception scouted the reality of miracles and prophecy and immediate divine revelation 66 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. in their genuine and evangelical sense. Their theories are all inwrought with naturalistic presuppositions, which cannot be disentangled from them without their falling to pieces. Evangelical scholars in Germany, as elsewhere, have steadfastly opposed these theories, refuted their ar guments, and exposed malign tendencies. Only recently there has been an attempt at compromise by accepting these critical theories and endeavoring to harmoriize them with the Christian faith. But the inhererit vice in these systems cannot be eradicated. The invariable result has been to lower the Christian faith to the level of these perverted theories, instead of lifting the latter up to the level of a Christian standard. The futility of the methods by which the Pentateuch has been parceled into different documents may further be shown by the readiness, with which it can be applied, and with equal success, to writings the unity of which is indisputable. To illustrate this I have applied it to a couple of passages selected at random, the parables of the Prodigal Son and of the Good Samaritan. The fact that a narrative can be so divided as to form two continuous narratives is reckoned by the critics a dem onstration of its composite character, and that the parts into which it has been severed are the original sources from which it has been compounded. Let us test this by the parables just referred to : The Prodigal Son, Luke xv, 11-32. A B II A certain man had two sons : (A certain man had two sons :) 12 And the younger of them said to .12 And he divided unto them his father, Father, give me the por- his Living. ... 13 And (one of them) tion. . . that faileth to me. ... 13 He took his journey into a far countiy. wasted his substance in riotous liv- ... 14 And when he had spent ing. . . . r4 And he began to be in all, there arose a. mighty famine in want. . . 16 And no man gave that country. ... 15 And he unto him. ... 20 And he arose, went and joined himself to one of THE UNITY OF THE PENTATUECH. 67 and came to his falher ; and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight : I am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet : . . . 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again. . . And they began to be merry. 25 Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and drew nigh to the house, . 28 He was angry and would not go in : and his father came out, and entreated him. 29 But he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and I never transgressed a commandment of thine : and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends : 30 But when this thy son came, which hath devoured thy living with ¦ harlots, thou killedst for him the fatted calf. 31 And he said unto him. Son, thou art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine. 32 But it was meet to make meri-y and be glad : for this tliy brother was dead, and is alive again. There are here two complete narratives agreeing in some points and disagreeing in others, each having its special characteristics. The only deficiencies are inclosed in parentheses, and may be readily explained as omissions by the redactor in effecting the combination. A clause must be supplied at the beginning of B, a subject is wanting in verse 13 and verse 25, and the verb " said " is wanting in verse 23. the citizens of that country ; andhe sent him into his fields to feed swine. i6 And he would fain have been filled with the husks that the swine did eat. . j, . 17 But when he came to himself he said. How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hun ger ! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heav en, and in thy sight : ig I am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hired serv ants. ... 20 But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion : ... 23 And (said), Bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and make merry. ... 25 ( \nd the other son) heard music and dancing. 26 And he called to him one of the servants, and inquired what these tilings might be. 27 And he said unto him. Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. . . 32 He was lost and is found. 68 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. A and B agree that there were two sons, one of whom received a portion of his father's property and by his own fault was reduced to great destitution, in conse quence of which he returned penitently to his father and addressed him in language which is nearly identical in both accounts. The father received him with great tenderness and demonstrations of joy, which attracted the attention of the other son. The differences are quite as striking as the points of agreement. A distinguishes the sons as elder and younger ; B makes no mention of their relative ages. In A the younger obtained his portion by solicitation, and the father retained the remainder in his own possession ; in B the father divided his property between both of his sons of his own motion. In A the prodigal remained in his father's neighborhood and reduced himself to penury by riotous living; in B he went to a distant country and spent all his property, but there is no intimation that he indulged in unseemly excesses. It would rather appear that he was injudicious; and to crown his misfortunes there occurred a severe famine. His fault seems to have consisted in having gone so far away from his father and from the Holy Land and in engaging in the unclean oc cupation of tending swine. In A the destitution seems to have been chiefly want of clothing; in B want of food. Hence in A the father directed the best robe and ring and shoes to be brought for him ; in B the fatted calf was killed. In B the son came from a distant land and the father saw him from afar off; in A he came from the neighborhood, and the father ran at once and fell on his neck and kissed him. In B he had been en gaged in a menial occupation, and so bethought himself of his father's hired servants, and asked to be made a servant himself; in A he had been living luxuriously, and while confessing his unworthiness makes no request THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 69 to be put on the footing of a servant. In A the father speaks of his son having been dead because of his profli gate life ; in B of his having been lost because of his absence in a distant land. In A, but not in B, the other son was displeased at the reception given to the prodi gal. And here it would appear that the redactor has slightly altered the text. The elder son must have said to his father in A, "When this thy son came, which hath de voured thy living with harlots, thou didst put on him the best robe." But thinking that this did not make a good contrast with the " kid " the redactor substituted for it the phrase, " thou killedst for him the fatted calf." The Good Samaritan, Luke x, 29-37. A B 29 But he [that is, the lawyer 30 (A certain man) fell araong (verse25)],desiringtojustifyhimself, robbers, which stripped him . . . said unto Jesus, And who is my neigh- and departed. . . . 32 And (in like bor ? 30 Jesus made answer and manner) a Levite (also), when he said, A certain man was going came to the place (and saw him, down from Jerusalem to Jericho ; passed by on the other side). ... 33 . . . and they beat him, . . . leav- And when he saw him, he was moved ing him half dead. 31 And by chance with compassion. . . 34 And a certain priest was going down he set him on his own beast, and that way : and when he saw him, he brought him to an inn 35 And on passed by on the other side. . . . the morrow he took out two pence, 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he and gave them to the host, and journeyed, came where he was : said. Take care of him ; and what- ... 34 And came to him, and bound soever thou spendest more, I, when up his wounds, pouring on them oil I come back again, will repay and wine, . . . and took care of thee. . . . him. ... 36 Which of these 37 And Jesus said unto him (three), thinkest thou, proved neigh- (that fell among the robbers), Go, bor unto him? ... 37 And he and do thou likewise. said, He that showed mercy on him. Both narratives are complete ; only a subject must be supplied in B, verse 30 the omission of which was rendered necessary by its being combined with A. The redactor has tampered with the text and materially altered the 70 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. sense in verse 32 from his desire to put the Levite on the same plane with the priest (verse 31), the language of which he has borrowed. In other respects the original texts of the two narratives remain unaltered. Both narratives agree that a man greatly abused by certain parties was treated with generous kindness by a stranger, and that Jesus deduced a practical lesson from it. But they diff'er materially in detail. A relates his story as a parable of Jesus in answer to a lawyer's ques tion. B makes no mention ofthe lawyer or his question, but seems to be relating a real history. The spirit of the two is quite different. A is anti- Jewish, B pro-Jewish. In A the aggressors are Jews, people of Jerusalem or Jericho, or both, and a priest pitilessly leaves the sufferer to his fate, while it is a Sa maritan, with whom the Jews were in perpetual feud, who takes pity on him. In Bthe aggressors are robbers, outlaws whose nationality is not defined, and it is a Le vite who shows mercy. The maltreatment is different. In A the sufferer is beaten and half killed, and needs to have his wounds bound up and liniments applied. In B he was stripped of all he had and left destitute, but no personal injury was inflicted. Accordingly he was taken to an inn and his wants provided for at the expense of his benefactor. The lesson inculcated is different. In A it is that the duty of loving his neighbors is not limited to those of the same nation, nor annulled by national antipathies. In B it is that he who has been befriended himself should befriend others. These illustrations may serve to .show how the critics create discrepancies and contradictions where none really exist, by sundering what properly belongs to gether. They also show the inconclusiveness of their method of argument. MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 71 MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. BY W. HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. If the Pentateuch is what it claims to be it is of the greatest interest arid value. It professes to record the origin of the world and of the human race — a primitive state of innocence from which man fell by yielding to temptation, the history of the earliest ages, the relation ship subsisting between the different nations of mankind, and particularly the selection of Abraham and his de scendants tobe the chosen people of God, the depositaries of divine revelation, in whose line the Son of God should in due time become incarnate as the Saviour of the world. It further contains an account ofthe providential events accompanying the development of the seed of Abraham from a family to a nation, their exodus from Egypt, and the civil and religious institutions under which they were organized in the prospect of their entry into and occu pation ofthe land of Canaan. The contents ofthe Pen tateuch stand thus in intimate relations to the problems of physical and ethnological science, to history and archse ology and religious faith. All the subsequent revelations of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ it.self rest upon the foundation of what is contained in the Pen tateuch, as they either presuppose or directly affirm its truth. It is a question of primary importance, therefore, both in itself and in its consequences, whether the Pentateuch is a veritable, trustworthy record, or is a heterogeneous 72 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. mass of legend and fable, from which only a modicum of truth can be doubtfully and with difficulty elicited. Can we lay it at the basis of our investigations and implicitly trust its representations, or must we admit that its un supported word can only be received with caution, and that of itself it carries but little weight? In the settle ment of this matter a consideration of no small conse quence is that of the authorship of the Pentateuch. Its credibility is, of course, not absolutely dependent upon its Mosaic author.ship. It might be all true though it were written by another than Moses and after his time. But if it was written by Moses, then the history of the Mosaic age was recorded by a contemporary and eye witness, one who was himself a participant and a leader in the scenes which he related, and the legislator from whom the enactments proceeded ; and it must be con fessed that there is in this fact the highest possible guar antee ofthe accuracy and truthfulness ofthe whole. It is to the discussion of this point that your attention is now invited. Is the Pentateuch the work of Moses? I. It is universally conceded that this' was the tradi tional opinion among the Jews. To this the New Tes tament bears the most abundant and explicit testimonj'. The Pentateuch is by our Lord called " the book of Moses " (Mark xii, 26) ; when it is read and preached the apostles say that Moses is read (2 Cor. iii, 15) and preached (Acts xv, 21). The Pentateuch and the books of the prophets, which were read in the worship of the synagogue, are called both by our Lord (Luke xvi, 29, 31) and the evangelists (Luke xxiv, 27), "Moses and the prophets," or " the law of Moses and the prophets" (Luke xxiv, 44; Acts xxviii, 23). Of the injunctions of the Pentateuch not only do the Jews say when addressing our Lord, '' Moses commanded " (John viii, 5),- but our Lord repeatedly uses the same form of MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 73 speech (Matt, viii, 4; xix, 7, 8 ; Mark i, 44; x, 3 ; Luke v, 14), as testified by three of the evangelists. Of the law in general he says Moses gave the law (John vii, 19), and the evangelist echoes, " The law was given by Moses " (John i, 17); and that Moses was not only the author of the law, but committed its precepts to writing, is affirmed by the Jews (Mark xii, 19), and also by our Lord (Mark vi, 5), who further speaks of him as writing predictions respecting himself (John v, 46, 47), and also traces a narrative in the Pentateuchal history to him (Mark x, 5). It has been said that our Lord here Speaks not author itatively, but by accommodation to the prevailing senti ment of the Jews, and that it was not his purpose to settle questions in biblical criticism ; but the fact remains that he in varied forms of speech explicitly confirms the cur rent belief that Mcses wrote the books ascribed to him. For those who reverently accept him as an infallible teacher this settles the question. The only alternative is to assume that he was not above the liability to err ; in other words, to adopt what has been called the kenotic view of his sacred person, that he completely emptied hiraself of his divine nature in his incarnation, and dur ing his abode on earth was subject to all the limitations of ordinary men. Such a lowering of view respecting the incarnate person of our Lord may logically affect the acceptance of his instructions in other matters. He him self says (John iii, 12), " Ifl haye told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? " 2. That the Pentateuch was the production of Moses and the laws which it contained were the laws of Moses was the firm faith of Israel from the beginning, and is clearly reflected in every .part of the Old Testament. Tjhe final injunction of the last of the prophets (Mai. iv, 4) is, " Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I 74 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." The regulations adopted by the Jews returned from captivity were not recent enact ments of their leaders, but the old Mosaic institutions restored. Thus (Ezra iii, 2) they built the altar and es tablished the ritual, " as it is written in the law of Moses." After the new temple was finished they set priests and Levites to their respective service, " as it is written in the book of Moses " (Ezra vi, 18). When subsequently Ezra led up a fresh colony from Babylon he is characterized as " a ready scribe in the law of Moses " (Ezra vii, 6). At a formal assembly of the people held for the purpose " the book of the law of Moses " was read and explained to them day by day (Neh. viii, I, 18). Allusions are made to t-he injunctions ofthe Pentateuch in general or in particular as the law which God gave to Moses (Neh. i, 7, 8 ; viii, 14; ix, 14 ; x, 29), or as written in the- law (verses 34, 36), or in the book of Moses (Neh. xiii, i). In the captivity Daniel (ix, 11, 13) refers to matters contained in the Pentateuch as "written in the law of Moses." After the long defection of Manasseh and Amon the neglected " book of the law of the Lord by Moses " (2 Kings xxii, S ; xxiii, 25 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv, 14, 30; xxxv, 6, 12) was found in the temple, and the reformation of Josiah was in obedience to its instructions. The pass- over of Hezekiah was observed according to the pre scriptions of " the law of Moses " (2 Chron. xxx, 16), and in general Hezekiah is commended for having kept the " commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses" (2 Kings xviii, 6). The ten tribes were carried away captive, because they " transgressed " what Moses com manded (2 Kings xviii, 12). King Amaziah did (2 Kings xiv, 6 ; 2 Chron. xxv, 4) " as it is written in the law of the book of Moses," Deut. xxiv, 16, being here quoted in exact terms. The high priest Jehoiada directed the MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 75 ritual " as it is written in the law of Moses " (2 Chron. xxiii, 18), while appointing the singing as it was ordained by David — a discrimination which shows that there was no such legal fiction, as it has sometimes been contended, by which laws in general, even though recent, were attrib uted to Moses. David charged Solomon (i Kings ii, 3 ; I Chron. xxii, 13) to keep what "is written in the law of Moses ; " and a like charge was addressed by the Lord to David himself (2 Kings xxi, 8 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii, 8). Solomon appointed the ritual of his temple in accordance with the "commandment of Moses" (i Chron. vi, 49; 2 Chron. viii, 13). When the ark was taken by David to Zion it was borne " as Moses commanded " (i Chron. ±v, 15). Certain ofthe Canaanites were left in the land in the time of Joshua " to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses " (Judg. iii, 4). Joshua was directed " to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee" (Josh, i, 7), and was told that "this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth " (Josh. i, 8). And in repeated instances it is noted with what exactness he followed the directions given by Moses. It is to be presumed, at least until the contrary is shown, that " the law " and " the book of the law " have the same sense throughout as in the New Testament, as also in Josephus and in the prologue to the Book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, where they are undeniably identical with the Pentateuch. The testimonies which have been reviewed show that this was from the first attributed to Moses. At the least it is plain that the sacred historians of the Old Testament without exception regarded the law of the Pentateuch as. the law of Moses. 3. Let us next inquire what the Pentateuch says of it.self It may be roughly divided for our present purpose 76 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. into two parts: (i) Genesis and Exodus i-xix, historical ; (2) Exodus XX to Deuteronomy, mainly legal. The legal portion consists of three distinct bodies of law, each having its own peculiar character and occasion. The first is de nominated the Book of the Covenant, and embraces Exodus xx-xxiii, the Ten Commandments, with the ac companying judgments or ordinances, which were the stipulations ofthe covenant then formally ratified between the Lord and the people. This Moses is expressly said (Exod. xxiv, 4) to have written and read in the audience ofthe people, who promised obedience; whereupon the covenant was concluded with appropriate sacrificial rites. By this solemn transaction Israel became the Lord's covenant people, and he in consequence established his dwelling in the midst of them and there received their worship. This gave occasion to the second body of laws, which has been called the Priest Code, relating to the sanctuary and the ritual. This is contained in the rest of Exodus, chapters xxv^xl (with the exception of three chapters — xxxii-xxxiv — relating to the sin of the golden calf), the whole of Leviticus, and the regulations found in the Book of Numbers, where they are intermingled with the history which suggests the occasion of the laws and supplies the connecting links. This priest code is expressly declared in all its parts to have been directly communicated by the Lord to Moses, in part on the summit of Mount Sinai, during his forty days' abode there, in part while Israel lay encamped at the base of the mountain, and in part during their subsequent wan derings in the wilderness. The third body of law is known as the Deuteronomic Code, and embraces the legal portion of the Book of Deuteronomy, which was delivered by Moses to the people in the plains of Moab, in immediate prospect of Canaan, in the eleventh month ofthe fortieth year of their wanderings MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. "JJ in the wilderness. This Moses is expressly said to have written and to have committed to the custody of the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant (Deut. xxxi, 24-26). The entire law, therefore, in explicit and positive terms claims to be Mosaic. The Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomic law are expressly affirmed to have been written by Moses. The Priest Code, or the ritual law, was given by the Lord to Moses, and by him to Aaron and his sons, though Moses is not in so many words said to have written it. Turning from the laws of the Pentateuch to its nar ratives, we find two passages expressly attributed to the pen of Moses. After the victory over Amalek at Reph- idim,the Lord said unto Moses (Exod. xvii, 14), "Write this for a memorial in a book." The fact that such an injunction was given to Moses in this particular instance seems to imply that he was the proper person to place on record whatever was memorable and worthy of preserva tion in the events of the time. And it may perhaps be involved in the language used that Moses had already begun or at least contemplated the preparation of a con nected narrative, to which reference is here made, since in the original the direction is not, as in the English ver sion, " write in a book," but in " the book." Again, in Num. xxxiii, 2, a list of the various stations of the children of lyael in their marches or their wanderings in the wilderness is ascribed to Moses, who is said to have written their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord. No explicit statements are made in the Pentateuch it self in regard to any other paragraphs of the history than these two. But it is obvious from the whole plan and constitution of the Pentateuch that the history and the legislation are alike integral parts of one complete work. 6 78 AN'IT-HIGHER CRITICISM. Genesis and the opening chapters of Exodus are plainly preliminary to the legislation that follows. The histor ical chapters of Numbers constitute the framework in which the laws are set, binding them all together and ex hibiting the occasion of each separate enactment. If the legislation in its present form is, as it claims to be. Mosaic, then beyond all controversy the preparatory and connect ing history must be Mosaic likewise. If the laws, as we now have them, came from Moses, by inevitable sequence the history was shaped by the same hand, and the entire Pentateuch, history as well as legislation, must be what we have already seen all after ages steadfastly regarded it, the production of Moses. 4. The style in which the laws of the Pentateuch are framed, and the terms in which they are drawn up, corre spond with the claim which they make for themselves and which all subsequent ages make for them, that they are of Mosaic origin. Their language points unmistaka bly to the sojourn in the wilderness prior to the occupa tion of Canaan as the time when they were produced. They are forbidden alike to do after the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein they had dwelt, or those of the land of Canaan, whither God was bringing them (Lev. xviii, 3). They are reminded (Deut. xii, 9) that they had not yet come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord their God was giving them. The standing designation of Canaan is the land which the Lord giveth them to possess it (Deut. xv, 4, 7). The laws look forward to the time " when thou art come into the land,' ' etc., " and shall possess it" (Deut. xvii, 14; Lev. xiv, 34, etc.), or, " when the Lord hath cut off the nations, and thou suc- ceedest them, and dwellest in their cities " (Deut. xix, i), as the period when they are to go into full operation (Deut. xii, I, 8, 9). The place of sacrifice is not where Jehovah has fixed his habitation, but " the place which Jehovah MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 79 shall choose to put his name there " (Deut. xii, 5, etc.). Israel is contemplated as occupying a camp (Num. v, 2-4, etc.), and living in tents (Lev. xiv, 8) and in the wil derness (Lev. xvi, 21, 22). The bullock of the sin offering was to be burned without the camp (Lev. iv, 12, 21). The ashes from the altar were to be carried without the camp (vi, 11). The leper was to have his habitation without the camp (xiii, 46) ; the priest was to go forth out of the camp to inspect him (xiv, 3) ; ceremonies are pre scribed for his admi.ssion to the camp (verse 8), as well as the interval which must elapse before his return to his own tent. In slaying an animal for food the only possi bilities suggested are that it may be in the camp or out of the camp (xvii, .2). The law of the consecration of priests respects by name Aaron and his sons (viii, 2). Two of these sons, Nadab and Abihu, commit an offense which causes their death, a circumstance which calls forth some special regulations (Lev. x), among others those of the annual day of atonement (Lev. xvi, i), on which Aaron was the celebrant (verse 3), and the camp and the wilderness the locality (verses 21, 22, 26, 27). The tabernacle, the ark, and other sacred vessels were made of shittim wood (Exod. xxxvi, 20), which was peculiar to the wilderness. The sacred structure was made of separate boards, so joined together that it could be readily taken apart, and explicit directions are given for its transportation as Israel journeyed from place to place (Nuni. iv, 5, seq.), and wagons and oxen were contributed for the purpose (Num. vii). Specific instructions are given for the arrangement of the several tribes both in their encampments and their marches (Num. ii). Silver trumpets were made to direct the calling of the assembly and the journeying of the host (Num. X, 2). The ceremonies of the red heifer were to be performed without the camp (Num. xix, 3, 7, 9), and So ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. by Eleazar personally (verses 3, 4). The law of purifica tion provided simply for death in tents and in the open fields (verses 14, 16). The peculiarity of these laws carries with it the evi dence that they were not only enacted during the sojourn in the wilderness, but that they were then committed to writing. Had they been preserved orally the forms of expression would have been changed insensibly, to adapt them to the circumstances of later times. It is only the unvarying permanence of a written code that could have perpetuated these laws in a form which in after ages, when the people were settled in Canaan, and Aaron and his sons were dead, no longer described directly and precisely the thing to be done, but must be mentally adapted to an altered state of affairs before they could be carried into effect. The laws of Deuteronomy are besides prefaced by two farewell addresses delivered by Moses to Israel on the plains of Moab (Deut. i, 5 ; v, i ), which are precisely adapted to the situation, and express those feelings to which the great leader might most appropriately have given utterance under the circumstances. And the most careful scrutiny shows that the diction and style of thought in these addresses are identical with those ofthe laws that follow. Both have emanated from one mind and pen. The laws of Deuteronomy are further followed by a prophetic song (Deut. xxxii), which Moses is said to have written (xxxi, 19), and by a series of blessings upon the several tribes, which he is said to have pro nounced before his death (xxxiii, i), all which are en tirely appropriate in the situation. The genuineness of these laws is further vouched for by the fact that a forged body of statutes could never be successfully imposed upon any people. These laws entered minutely into the affairs of daily life, imposed MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 8 1 burdens that would not have been voluntarily assumed, and could only have been exacted by competent author ity. That they were submitted to and obeyed is evidence that they really were ordained by Moses, in whose name they were issued. If they had first made their appear ance in a later age. the fraud w'ould inevitably have been detected. The people could not have been persuaded that enactments never before heard of had come down from the great legislator and were invested with his ¦ authority. And the circumstance that these laws are said to have been given at Mount Sinai, in the wilderness, or in the plains of Moab is also significant. How came they to be attributed to a district outside of the Holy Land, which had no sacred associations in the present or in the patri archal age, unless they were really enacted there? and if so, this could only have been in the days of Moses. 5. The Pentateuch is either directly alluded to or its existence implied in numerous passages in the subsequent books of the Bible. The Book of Joshua, which records the history immediately succeeding the age of Moses, is full of these allusions. It opens with the children of Israel in the plains of Moab and at the point of cross ing the Jordan, just where Deuteronomy left them. The arrangements forthe conquest and the subsequent division of the land are in preci.se accordance with the directions of Moses, and are executed in professed obedience to his orders. The relationship is so pervading and the corre spondence so exact that those who dispute the genuine ness and authenticity of the Pentateuch are obliged to deny that of Joshua likewise. The testimony rendered to the existence of the Pentateuch by the books of Chronicles at every period of the history which they cover is so explicit and repeated that it can only be set aside by impugning the truth of their statements and 82 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. alleging that the writer has throughout colored the facts which he reports by his own prepossessions, and substi tuted his own imagination for the real state of the case. But the evidence furnished by the remaining historical books, though less abundant and clear, tends in the same direction. And it is the same with the books of the prophets and the Psalms. We find scattered everywhere allusions to the facts recorded in the Pentateuch, to its institutions and sometimes to its very language, which afford cumulative proof that its existence was known and its standard authority recognized by the writers of all the books subsequent to the Mosaic age. 6. Separate mention should here be made, and stress laid upon the fact, which is abundantly attested, that the Pentateuch was known and its authority admitted in the apostate kingdom of the ten tribes from the time ofthe schism of Jeroboam. In order to perpetuate his power and prevent the return of the northern tribes to the sway of the house of David, he established a separate sanctuary and set up an idolatrous worship. Both the rulers and people were under the strongest temptation to disown the Pentateuch, by which both their idolatrous worship and their separate national existence were so severely condemned ; and yet the evidence is varied and abundant that their national life, in spite of its degen eracy, had not wholly emancipated itself from the insti tutions of the Pentateuch, and that even their debased worship was but a perverted form of that purer service which the laws of Moses had ordained. It was at one time thought that the Samaritan Penta teuch supplied a strong argument at this point. The Samaritans, while they recognize no other portion ofthe canon of the Old Testament, are in possession of the Pentateuch in the Hebrew language, but written in a peculiar character, which is a more ancient and primitive MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 83 form of the alphabet than that which is found in any Hebrew manuscript; It was argued that such was the hostility between Jews and Samaritans that neither could have adopted the Pentateuch from the other. It was consequently held that the Samaritan Pentateuch must be traced to copies existing in the kingdom ofthe ten tribes, which further evidence that the Pentateuch must have existed at the time of the revolt of Jeroboam, and have been of such undisputed divine authority then that even in their schism from Judah and their apostasy from the true worship of God they did not venture to discard it. Additional investigation, however, has shown that this argument is unsound. The Samaritans are not descendants ofthe ten tribes, but ofthe heathen colonists introduced into the territory of Samaria by the Assyrian monarchs after the ten tribes had been carried into cap tivity, and the Samaritan Pentateuch does not date back of the Babylonish exile. The mutual hatred of the Jews and the Samaritans originated then. The Samaritans, in spite of their foreign birth, claimed to be the brethren ofthe Jews, and proposed to unite with them in rebuild ing the temple at Jerusalem (Ezra iv, 2, 3); but the Jews repudiated their claim and refused their offered assistance. The Samaritans, thus repulsed, sought in every way to hinder and annoy the Jews and frustrate their enterprise, and finally built a rival temple of their own on the summit of Mount Gerizim. Meanwhile, to substantiate their claim of being sprung from ancient Israel, they eagerly accepted the Pentateuch, which was brought them by a renegade priest. While, therefore, in our present argument no signifi cance can be attached to the Samaritan Pentateuch, we have convincing proof from other sources that the books of Moses were not unknown in the kingdom of the ten tribes. The narrative of the schism in i Kings xii 84 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. describes in detail the measures taken by Jeroboam in evident and avowed antagonism to.the regulations of the Pentateuch previously established. And the books of the prophets Hosea and Amos, who exercised their ministry in the ten tribes, in their rebukes and denunci ations, in their descriptions of the existing state of things and its contrast with former times, draw upon the facts of the Pentateuch, refer to its laws, and make use of its phrases and forms of speech. 7. An additional argument of great force can be drawn from the doctrinal development of the Old Testament. The teaching of the Pentateuch is elementary, and is ex panded in the later Scriptures. This is obviously the case in regard to the Messiah, the future state, angels, providential retribution, ritual and spiritual worship. The necessary conclusion is that the Pentateuch ante dates the rest of the Old Testament, and lies at the basis ofthe scheme of divine instruction more fully unfolded in the books that follow. These, briefly stated, are the principal arguments of a positive nature for Moses's authorship ofthe books which bear his name. They are ascribed to him by unanimous and unbroken tradition from the days of Moses himself through the entire period of the Old Testament, and from that onward. This had the inspired and author itative sanction of the writers of the New Testament and of our Lord himself It corresponds with the claim which these books make for themselves, corroborated as this is by their adaptation in style and character to their alleged origin, and by the evidence offered in all the subsequent Scriptures of their existence and recognized authority from the time of their first promulgation, and that even in the schismatical kingdom of Jeroboam, in spite of all attempts to throw off its control. And this is confirmed by the elementary character of its doctrinal MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 85 contents as compared with those of the other books of the Old Testament and particularly with the teachings of the prophets. The assaults which have been made in modern times upon the Mosaic authorship, of the Pentateuch have been mainly in one or other of three distinct lines or in all combined. It will be necessary for us to take such a cursory view of them as our few remaining moments will permit. I. It is affirmed that, from a literary point of view, the Pentateuch cannot be the work of any one writer, least of all of Moses, but that it is of composite origin, formed by the combination of different writings which were themselves produced long posterior to the Mosaic age. There is a remarkable alternation, as was long ago observed, in the words " God " "and " Lord," in the early chapters of Genesis. In i, i-ii, 3, God occurs in almost every verse; ii, 4-iii, Lord God is the prevailing name ; in chapter iv. Lord ; in chapter v, God ; in chapter vi, 1-8, Lord ; vi, 9-22, God; vii, 1-5, Lord ; and so on in alter nate paragraphs. It has accordingly been conjectured that these different paragraphs represent distinct writers, one of whom was in the habit of saying " God," or, in Hebrew, Elohim, when speaking of the divine Being, and is hence called the Elohist ; and the other, who with like uniformity uses Lord or Jehovah, is called the Jehovist. The prevalent theory with eminent European critics is that there were two Elohists, a Jehovist, and a so-called Deuteronomist, or author of Deuteronomy ; that the earliest of these writers wrote six or seven cen turies after the time of Moses, and the latest perhaps a thousand years after the same date, recording such legends and traditions as had up to that time been orally preserved. Others admit the existence of such distinct writers, but dispute the date assigned to them. 86 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM, It is claimed that each of these writers has his own characteristic style and mode of thought and range of ideas, by which the paragraphs and clauses belonging to him may be recognized ; and when these are singled out and put together they form as many distinct narratives or documents, which are nearly or quite continuous. The original sources can thus be reproduced, which, combined together by some editor or redactor, constitute the Pen tateuch as we now have it. The criteria by which these alleged documents are distinguished are of a subtle and complicated character, and the conclusions based upon them are, in my judg ment, precarious. In the brief space at my disposal it would be impossible to state intelligibly the reasons which are urged in favor of them or against them. But even if it were allowed that the Pentateuch was com piled, as is alleged, from antecedent documents, the age of these documents would still be an open question. The arguments adduced to show that they are post- Mosaic can be successfully rebutted. For all that ap pears, Moses might himself have been the compiler, or the compilation might have been made under his super intendence and direction ; and even though a given paragraph or paragraphs could be proved to be post- Mosaic, this would merely demonstrate that such para graph or paragraphs could not have belonged to the Pentateuch as it came from the pen of Moses, not that the work as a whole did not proceed from him. It is far easier to assume that some slight additions may here and there have been made to the text than to set aside the multiplied proofs that the Pentateuch was the pro duction of Moses. 2. A second ground for contesting the Mosaic author ship of the Pentateuch is found in the relation sub sisting between the three codes of law which it contained. MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 87 It is maintained that these are so diverse in character and so inconsistent with one another in their respective provisions that they cannot have originated at any one time or have proceeded from any one legislator; they must belong to distinct periods and represent successive stages in the growth of the national institutions. The Book of the Covenant, as the briefest and simplest, is the most primitive ; this was followed by the Deutero nomic law, which is more fully developed ; and this in turn by the Priest Code, which is the most complicated and elaborate of all, and hence the latest in the series. The Book of the Covenant makes no mention of a priesthood as a separate order of men alone authorized to perform sacred functions. The Deuteronomic Code speaks of priests who are constantly designated "the priests the Levites," from which it is inferred that the sacerdotal prerogative inhered in the tribe as such, and that any Levite might be a priest. The Priest Code limits the sacerdotal office to the family of Aaron ; other Levites were simply their servants and attendants, per forming menial functions at the sanctuary, but not allowed to offer sacrifice. In the Book of the Covenant sacrifices are not regu lated by statute, but are the free spontaneous gift of the offerer unto God in grateful acknowledgment of the di vine benefits. In Deuteronomy certain kinds of offerings are specified, but with no fixed requisition of number and quality, and these are to be joyously partaken of by the offerer and his family and friends before the Lord. In the Levitical Code additional kinds of sacrifice are re quired, not mentioned elsewhere, and everything is rigorously fixed by statute ; what particular animal is to be offered in each species of sacrifice or on any given oc casion, its sex and age, and sometimes even its color, its accompaniments, and the precise ceremonies to be ob- 88 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. served, are specified. The whole has become a matter of ritual, an affair of the priests, who absorb as their per quisites what had previously fed the devotion of the offerer. All this, and much besides, is urged as indicating the progressive development in the Israelitish institutions as represented in these codes, which are hence regarded as separated by long intervals of time. The fallacy lies in putting asunder what really belongs together. All belong to one comprehensive and harmonious body of law, though each separate portion has its own particular design by which its form and contents are determined. That the Book of the Covenant is so brief and elemen tary in matters of worship is because of its preliminary character. It was intended simply to be the basis of God's covenant with Israel, not to develop in detail the duties growing out of that covenant and relation. That Deuteronomy does not contain the minute ceremonial requirements to be found in Leviticus is no indication that the latter is the subsequent development of a more ritualistic age. It is simply because there was no need of repeating details which had already been sufficiently enlarged upon elsewhere. The Priest Code was for the guidance of the priests in conducting the ritual ; Deu teronomy for the people at large, to whom the great law giver addressed his earnest warnings and exhortations as he was on the point of being taken from them. The differences and discrepancies alleged in these laws are for the most part capable of being satisfactorily harmonized. If a few puzzles remain insoluble by us they are not more than might be expected in matters of so ancient date, so foreign from modern ideas and usages, and in regard to which we are so imperfectly informed. If we had a little more knowledge, in all probability our diffi culties would vanish. MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 89 3. It is further claimed that, as appears from state ments of the history, the laws of the Pentateuch were not in fact obeyed ; whence it is inferred that they could not have been in existence. It is admitted, of course, that there were numerous departures from God and re peated open violations or continued neglect of his laws. The history records such instances again and again, but it brands them in every case as willful transgressions against God and his known law. It does not follow from the perpetration of murder and theft that such acts were not regarded as criminal, rior that the sixth and eighth commandments were unknown. When it is over and over charged that the people forsook the Lord and worshiped Baal and Ashtaroth, this can be explained in no other way than as an apostasy from Jehovah to these foreign deities. For if there is anything that is obvious it is that Jehovah was Israel's God from the beginning. Such open declensions from the true God have no bearing, therefore, on the subject before us. They were plain offenses against known and acknowledged obligation. But it is affirmed that good men at different periods acted habitually at variance with the requirement of the ritual laws without incurring censure, and apparently without being sensible that they were doing wrong or transgressing any commandment. Thus, while the law required that sacrifices should be offered only at the sanctuary and only by priests — the sons of Aaron— repeated mention is made of sacrifices being offered to the Lord, and, so far as appears, with acceptance, though it was elsewhere than at the sanctu ary, and the offerer was not a descendant of Aaron. Thus the children of Israel offered sacrifice at Bochim (Judg. ii, 5) in a penitential spirit when rebuked for their neglect of duty by the angel of the Lord. Gideon built two altars in Ophrah, and offered a bullock upon 90 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. one of them to the Lord (Judg. vi, 24-27); Manoah offered a kid in sacrifice upon a rock to the Lord (Judg. xiii, 19). This, it is said, is in direct violation of the law of Deut. xii, 6, 13, 14; Num. xviii, 7, though it accords with the prescriptions of the Book of the Covenant, which recognizes no separate order of priests and permits sac rifices (Exod. XX, 24) " in all places where the Lord re cords his name." It is hence inferred that the laws of Deuteronomy and the Priest Code were not in existence, but only the Book ofthe Covenant. There was, however, no such difference between these laws as has been alleged. The Book of the Covenant sanctions an altar in every place where God records his name ; that is, wherever he reveals himself and appoints a place of worship ; but this by no means contemplates a multiplicity of altars in different places at once, or that men might offer sacrifice at any place at their own discretion. This law was enacted upon the arrival of Israel at Mount Sinai, and when no sanctuary had yet been instituted. After the tabernacle was built it was the ordinary place where God recorded his name, and hence that became under the terms of this law the cus tomary place of sacrifice. Israel was then in the wil derness, journeying from place to place. Whenever they halted, the sanctuary and the altar were set up and sacri fices were offered. Israel had not various altars at dif ferent sanctuaries, but one sanctuary and one altar transported with them as they pursued their way to the promised land, and Deuteronomy gave direction that when God had given them rest in the land to which they were going the tabernacle should be no longer removed from place to place, but sacrifices should be offered only at the place which the Lord should choose. Accord ingly, when the conquest of Canaan was effected, the tabernacle was set up at Shiloh (Josh, xviii, i), and that MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 9 1 was thenceforth the place of worship for all Israel. The laws are, therefore, in perfect harmony on this point. The altar at the tabernacle was the one appointed spot for sacrifice. How then are the sacrifices at Bochim and the sacri fices offered by Gideon and Manoah to be accounted for? Plainly, by the extraordinary circumstances that called them forth. On all ordinary occasions the sanctuary was the place for sacrificial worship, and this was to be ofifered only. by the priests who were appointed specially for this service. But when God manifested himself in -an extraordinary manner in any place remote from the tabernacle, that place became for the time a sanctuary, and the person to whom he thus manifested himself be came for the time a priest. God must be worshiped wherever he appeared, and by whomsoever he honored by such special manifestation. Accordingly, whenever throughout the Book of Judges the Lord or the angel of the Lord appeared to men they offered sacrifice on the spot, and no sacrifices were offered elsewhere than at the sanctuary or by any other than a priest, except upon the occasion ofsuch a special manifestation of the divine presence. It is further to be observed that sacrifices might be offered anywhere in the presence of the ark of the cove nant. The ark was the symbol of the Lord's presence. It was the ark in the tabernacle which made the latter a holy place, and when the ark was taken from the taber nacle it was still the throne of God, who dwelt between the cherubim. Wherever the ai*k was, there was the symbol of God's presence, and hence when the ark came back from the Philistines to Beth-shemesh (i Sam. vi, 14) sacrifices were offered to the Lord. And so when David was transporting the ark to Zion oxen and fatlings were sacrificed before it (2 Sam. vi, 13). 92 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. But how is it that we find the prophet Samuel offering sacrifice (i Sam. vii, 9, 17) away from the ark and taber nacle, and without any special divine manifestation hav ing been made ? This was, again, because of the peculiar circumstances of the case. In consequence of the sins of Eli's sons, and in general the wickedness of both priests and people, God suffered the sacred ark to be taken captive by the Philistines. Suffering the symbol of his presence to be thus taken away was significant of God's forsaking Shiloh and forsaking his people. The Philis tines were compelled by the heavy plagues sent upon them to return the ark, but the ark was not taken back to Shiloh. It was hid away in the seclusion of a private house ; God had abandoned the sanctuary, and there was no legitimate sanctuary in Israel again until the ark was taken to Zion, and the Lord chose that for his abode. During this period when Israel was without a lawful sanctuary Samuel, as God's prophet and rep resentative by divine authority, assumed the functions of the degenerate priesthood and sacrifices were offered on high places. This state of things continued, as we are told (i Kings iii, 2), until the temple of Solomon was built, when that became God's dwelling place; and as that was the spot which God had chosen to place his name there, it henceforth was the only lawful place of sacrifice. We do indeed read after that of offerings made on high places, but they were illegal and were regarded as such, and pious princes endeavored to sup press them with varying success, until at last Hezekiah and, more effectually still, Josiah succeeded in abolishing them. It is confessed, accordingly, that sacrifices were in re peated instances offered elsewhere than at the sanctuary; but whether these were justified by extraordinary cir cumstances, or whether they were irregular and con- MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 93 demned as such, they cannot disprove the existence of the law restricting sacrifice to one common altar in all ordinary cases. It has been maintained, on such grounds as have now been recited, that the law of Deuteronomy was unknown until the time of King Josiah ; that the worship on high places continued until his reign; that the prophetic and priestly party then became convinced, in consequence of the idolatrous taint which infected the worship on high places, and the abuses and excesses prevalent there, that the purity of religion demanded that they should be abolished and sacrifice restricted to the temple at Jeru salem. Accordingly the Book of Deuteronomy, which strenuously insists upon the overthrow of the high places and the confining of sacrifice to the place which the Lord should choose, was prepared with the view of legal izing this measure and paving the way for its enforce ment. This was attributed to Moses in order to give it a higher sanction. A copy was deposited in the temple, where it was found, as it was intended that it should be, by Hilkiah the high priest, and taken to the king, who carried the projected reform into effect (2 Kings xxii, 8). The Priest Code, it is alleged, is later still. That was the work of Ezra, and was prepared with reference to the needs of the period after the exile and the rituahstic spirit which then prevailed. This is the book of the law produced by Ezra the scribe and read to the people, as recorded in Neh. viii, to which they solemnly engaged to render obedience. This code, however, it is contended, was not complete even in the days of Ezra. Additions were subsequently made to it, and continued to be made for some time thereafter. The day of atonement is not mentioned in either Ezra or Nehemiah, and its peculiar services were introduced at a later date. The altar of incense, with the special sacredness attached to the 7 94 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM,. offering of incense, indicates, it is said, the later strata of the Priest Code, and from some peculiarities in the Greek and Samaritan text of the description of the Mosaic tabernacle it is confidently affirmed that changes and alterations in the Hebrew text continued to be made until after the time when those versions were prepared. This whole theory of the successive origin and gradual growth of the different codes of the Pentateuchal law is not only directly in the face of the explicit statements of the Pentateuch itself, but is utterly inconsistent with the history on which it is professedly based. Both the book found in the temple in the reign of Josiah and that brought forward and read by Ezra after the exile are expressly declared to have been not recent productions, but the law of Moses. The assumption that laws were fraudulently attributed to the great legislator is gratui tous and without foundation. The idea that such a fraud could be successfully perpetrated is preposterous. It is utterly out of the question that a body of laws never before heard of could be imposed upon the people as though they had been given by Moses centuries before, and that they could have been accepted and obeyed by them, notwithstanding* the fact that they imposed new and serious burdens, set aside established usages to which the people were devotedly attached, and conflicted with the interests of numerous and powerful classes of the people. And it further involves the incongruity of as suming that three codes, which were at variance in their provisions, the first having been superseded by the second, and the second, in turn superseded by the third, came subsequently to be regarded as entirely harmonious, and as one body of law which had been united from the beginning and was all alike obligatory. It has been necessary in this rapid survey to condense into a single lecture what would require volumes for its MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 95 full and satisfactory statement. I hope, however, that even by this hasty and imperfect presentation I have suc ceeded in showing you that there are reasons for believing Moses to be the author ofthe Pentateuch which cannot be easily set aside, and that the objections which have been urged against it have not the weight that has sometimes been attributed to them. I shall be gratified if enough has been said to stimulate your interest in the subject and lead you to further reading and study, that you may acquaint yourselves with it more thoroughly. 96 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. THE BOOK OF JOB. BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. -MOOREHEAD, D.D., United Presbyterian Theological Sejninary, Xenia, O. The Book of Job is, in many respects, one of the most attractive that can engage our attention. The person ages introduced into it ; the mysterious problems it dis cusses, such as the cause and intent of human suffering; Satan's place and agency in the divine government ; the Lord's inexplicable ways with the righteous and wicked, all invest it with a peculiar interest. Besides, it is one of the noblest poems in existence. All the qualities that the highest poetry possesses are traceable in it. If poetry be " the natural language of intense feeling, ex pressing itself in forms of corresponding intensity," then Job is entitled to the first rank ; for the action of the poem sweeps through every emotion of the soul, strikes every chord of the heart. As a work of art alone Job is the grandest of human writings. Men to whose judg ment in matters of art all must bow, as Goethe, Carlyle, and Froude, have set this book in the first place of liter ary merit. Like every other book of the Bible, Job has been as sailed by the newer school of criticism. The date so long held by Christians, the historical character, and the integrity of portions of its contents are either called in question or summarily rejected. In the new Bible with which it is proposed to enlighten the world we are told that various colored inks, black, blue, green, and red, will indicate the emendations and interpolations with which THE BOOK OF JOB. 97 it is alleged the book abounds. Accordingly, the un learned Bible reader will be enabled by this convenient plan to tell at a glance " the parallel compositions " in blue, " the polemical interpolations directed against the tendency of the poem " in green, and " the corrected in terpolations conforming the speeches of Job to the spirit of the orthodox doctrine of retribution " in red.* It is not proposed in this paper to enter into a discus sion of the various questions raised by modern criticism respecting this book. The aim, rather, will be to advance some reason why we accept what is almost scornfully called the " traditional view ; " then to ofler some re marks on the structure and design of the book. I. Is Job a Re.\l or Fictitious Character? His actual existence is denied by many. Maimonides, of the twelfth century, was among the first to avow this opinion. MichaelLs, Semler, and others adopted it. In current literature it is very confidently asserted that the book is the work ofthe imagination, and it is argued that fictitious characters do not affect its integrity ; they rather further the writer's purpose. Of course there are weighty names that might be mentioned on the other side, men of first-rate scholarship, who as strongly defend the his- toricarl credibility of the book. Professor Lee dwells on the extreme circumstantiality ofthe details — the descrip tion of Job, his family, his property, his country, his friends, with their names and special designations, the genealogy of Elihu, the exact account of the feasting of his son.s, the particular mention of the plunderers, and justly concludes, " These, all, with a variety of other points of the like nature, mark rather the history than the parable." Furthermore, it is worth while to recall the statement of Ewald, a statement reaffirmed by that great archseologist of the British Museum, George Smith, * Independent, May 25. 1893. g8 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. that the ancient peoples had true historical grounds for all they recorded ; that they never invented pure fiction, in the modern sense of the term. Rawlinson concurs, and adds that a late fictitious writer could not have so accurately reproduced patriarchal times. We have the very best of reasons for receiving the record of the book as historically true, namely. Holy Scripture. The Lord, by Ezekiel, says : " Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God " (Ezek. xiv, 14, 20). The subject is the certainty of national punishment for national sins. So sure is the chastisement to be inflicted, that men eminent for their righteousness cannot avert it. The Lord selects three men from ages far apart and from the greatest diversity of circumstances — Noah, a preacher of righteousness ; Daniel, an exile at Babylon, yet loyal to God and true ; and Job, though bereft of all earthly comforts, smitten of God and afflicted, holding fast his integrity. Obe dient, steadfast, and patient were all the three. Yet, saith the unchangeable God, even these, the best of my servants, could not turn judgment away from a guilty land. Noah's righteousness did not prevent the flood ; Daniel's splendid fidehty did not exempt either Jiimself or his fellow-exiles from suffering, and Job's unswerving integrity did not shield him from unexampled tribula tion. This testimony is conclusive. If Noah and Daniel are historical persons, so is Job. God invests him with the same qualities of righteousness and faithfulness which he ascribes to the other two. If Job is a myth, what are Noah and Daniel ? If all three are fabulous, why not Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David — in short, the whole list of Old Testament worthies? The apostle James (v, 11) bears a still more striking THE BOOK OF JOB. 99 witness to the reality of Job's existence: "Behold, we call them blessed which endured : ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful " (R. V.). He speaks of " the patience of Job ;" that is, of his endurance and steadfastness amid all his fiery trial, and he com memorates " the end of the Lord ; " that is, the aim and outcome of the patriarch's afflictions, namely, the crown ing blessing with which the Lord doubled to his servant his original plenty. Here is an additional attestation to the reality of Job's existence ; but here is much more : here is the indorsement by an inspired apostle of the main facts of his life ; here is the seal set to the truth of Job's endurance through a long course of uncommon sufferings and of his triumphant issue out of them. Job's experience, according to James, is an illustrious proof of the good wrapped up in divinely apj5ointed afflictions and of the Lord's supreme pity and tenderness. Care fully examined, the testimonies of Ezekiel and James point to something more than the mere historical fact that Job really lived. It is absolutely inconceivable that the)' should have referred, in the way they have done, to Job's character and history, if that character were not in its main features genuine, if that history were not essen tially true. The grounds, therefore, for believing in the truthfulness of the record contained in this book are the witness of the prophet Ezekiel and the apostle James. II. The Age in "which Job Lived. Usher's chronology fixes at a period shortly before the exodus from Egypt. If the book were contemporary with that event, or subsequent to it, we would naturally expect to find some reference to it, particularly in a dis cussion in which human suffering and God's providence are the theme. That Job lived in patriarchal times is 100 anti-higher criticism. altogether probable. Only the briefest outline of the evidence in support of this proposition can be given. I. The style is archaic, and finds a parallel only in the oldest poetry of the Bible, as in the Pentateuch, the song of Deborah, and the earliest Psalms. Canon Cook writes : " Firm, compact, sonorous as the ring of a pure metal, severe and at times rugged, yet always dignified and ma jestic, the language belongs to a period when thought was slow but profound and intensely concentrated." 2. The manners, customs, institutions, and general mode of life described in the book are such as belong especially to the times which are commonly called " patri archal." The pastoral descriptions clearly belong to the ancient days, while the city life is exactly that of the earliest settled communities. Rawlinson says : "The civilization, if such it may be called, is of the primitive type, with rock inscriptions, mining such as was practiced by the Egyptians in the Sinaitic peninsula from B. C. 2000, great buildings, ruined sepulchers, tombs watched over by sculptured figures of the dead. The historical allusions touch nothing of a recent date ; they include no mention — not the faintest hint — of any of the great events of Israelite history, nor the Exodus, nor the pas sage of the Red Sea, nor the giving of the law at Sinai, much less ofthe conquest of Canaan, nor of the stirring times of the judges and the first great kings of Israel. " He concludes that the book was written long before any of these events. 3. The sacrifice which Job offered for his children (i, 5), and that of his three friends (xlii, 8), was the patriarchal burnt offering, which combined in it the es sential idea of the sin sacrifice afterward appointed by Moses. 4. The duration of Job's life is proof that he lived in patriarchal times. He survived his sore trial one hun- the book of job. ioi dred and forty years (xlii, i6). He must have been of considerable age when his calamities came upon him, for he was the father of ten children, who seem at the time to have been grown. He could be hardly less than fifty, perhaps sixty or seventy, when his reverses came on him ; and his entire life must have been two hundred years at least. Men had ceased to live to this age long before the time of Moses. Perah lived two hundred and five years, Abraham one hundred and seventy-five, Moses one hundred and twenty. Job lived nearer Abraham, probably, than Moses. 5. An ingenious attempt has been made to fix the date of Job's trial by astronomical calculation, founded on the mention of certain constellations in chapters ix, 9; xxxviii, 31, 32. Three mathematicians, Gouget, Ducou- tant, and Binkley, calculating by the precession of the equinoxes, arrived almost at the same date, there being but forty-six years difference between them, namely, B. C. 2176 and B. C. 2130. There may be error in these cal culations, as it is confessedly difficult to identify the constellations referred to ; still, ^ is remarkable that three independent investigators should reach almost the same results. From the facts now adduced the conclusion of Canon Rawlinson seems legitimate, that the Book of Job is more ancient than any other of the Bible, unless we except that of Genesis. The question of its authorship cannot be settled. It has been ascribed to Job himself, to Elihu, Solomon, Ezra, and Moses. There is something very attractive in the view that while Moses sojourned in Midian he com piled this book as well as Genesis, but it cannot be verified. Its anonymous character, however, does not invalidate it. The authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is likewise unknown, yet no one would venture to cast a doubt on its canonicity. I am strongly inclined 102 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. to the belief that Paul wrote that epistle, yet 1 do not forget that Origen, who lived within two centuries of John, the last survivor of the apostles, said, " The author of Hebrews is known only to God." III. Structure of the Book. It consists of three parts: Part I. Introductory narra tive in prose (i, ii). Part II. The poem (iii-xlii, 6). Part III. Concluding narrative in prose (xlii, 7-17). A broad analysis of the poem is the following: i. Job's mono logue (iii). 2. The great debate (iv-xxxi). It consists of three rounds. Each of the comforters speaks three times, save Zophar, who speaks but twice, and Job re plies to each in turn. 3. The addresses of Elihu (xxxii- xxxvii). 4. The Lord's appearance on the scene, and the blessed result (xxxviii-xlii, 6). It will be observed that in form the poem is quite regular and simple. Its order is natural throughout. And yet it is replete with art. With admirable skill and great force the problem is introduced, the frightful disproportion of happiness and misery in this world. The sad plight of -Job, the losses he sustains, the disease that consumes his flesh and racks his frame, the agonizing wail he at length pours forth, the dark questions that haunt his mind, the black doubts that assail his faith — these in awful language are set before the three comforters with a masterly hand. And the comforters are powerless to solve the problem. The great debate ends in failure. The splendid mono logue of Elihu follows, who, while he does not solve the problem, pours a flood of light on the mystery of suffer ing. God finally intervenes, Job is set right, and rich blessing ensues. IV. The Design of the Book. It appears to us to be threefold: I. To refute the slander of Satan. 2. To discuss the question of suffering, particularly the suffering of the righteous. 3. To reveal THE BOOK OF JOB. I03 Job to himself, and so prepare him for the reception of the blessing which God purposed to bestow upon him. Touching Job's nationality little is known. There is no account of his ancestry, no mention of his parentage. He comes before us in mature manhood, whence no one knows (even the location of Uz is conjectural) ; he dis appears in the grave when his fitful life, with its strange vicissitudes, is over. This is characteristic. It is the problem God keeps before us^the mystery of provi dence, the mahce of Satan, the good inclosed in afflic tions, not so much the man. Job's prosperity for a time was uninterrupted. In his own striking imagery he washed his steps with butter, and the rock poured him out rivers of oil (xxix, 6). His personal character is thus described : " And that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil" (i, 1,8). He was honest and guileless. No duplicity either toward God or man was found in him. He was happy in his relations with God, happy in his family, possessed of princely wealth, loved and trusted by his fellows ; in short, one ofthe most devout and pow erful sheiks in the East. But in a day his prosperity ended, and catastrophes the most appalling in rapid and dread ful succession came upon him. How are we to explain the patriarch's reverses ? This leads us to the contemplation of the first design of the book, namely, to prove once for all that loyalty to God is not founded on the temporal advantages that piety se cures; that selfishness is not the secret ofthe allegiance of God's people to him. Satan s slander against Job, i, 9-1 1 ; ii, 4, 5- The sin gular spectacle is presented of the prince of darkness appearing in the train ofthe Most High. But Satan is there for a definite purpose, namely, to accuse and ma lign (Rev. xii, 10). One question he starts, as full of I04 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. subtlety as of malice: "Doth Job serve for naught?" " Is not the allegiance which receives such direct and tangible rewards only a refined form of selfishness? His fealty is mercenary, his attachment is for hire." " He serveth not God, but himself." And Satan boldly asserts that if those external blessings were with drawn Job's allegiance would be cast off— "he will curse thee to thy face." One main feature of the problem which the book discusses is thus distinctly propounded : Can goodness exist irrespective of reward ? Can the fear of God live when every inducement is withdrawn ? Is allegiance to God based on the love and knowledge of him, or does it exist only for the advantages it secures, the immunities it enjoys ? The problem is one of infi nite moment ; for if the love and grace of God only serve to produce a refined selfishness, then his whole work is abortive, and God is unable to retrieve the ruin of sin. There is no method by which these slanderous accu sations can be more effectively silenced than by the re moval of those things on account of which the adversary asserted Job's fidelity depended. And so the servant of God was tested to the uttermost. The trial was twofold. First, his wealth and his children were suddenly snatched away from him. The book clearly teaches that it was through Satanic agency, in the mysterious government of God, that these dreadful losses were sustained. But out of this furnace Job issues without the smell of fire on his garments (i, 22): "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." In this assault Satan was forbidden to- touch Job's person (i, 12). He next affirms that Job will give up all for his life (ii, 4). That this is also a lie the devil knows perfectly well. Myriads of God's dear people have gone to the worst forms of death for the name and the love of Christ. Permission, how ever, is given up to the point only this side of death, and THE BOOK OF JOB. lOS he is smitten with a loathsome disease — elephantiasis it is thought to have been, a disease believed by many- in the East to be the judgment of God. The patriarch sat down on the ash heap in unspeakable desolation, anguish, and woe, bereft of property, children, health ; his wife advising him to renounce the God whom he had served so long. Will he finally break with God ? Is there any thing left to keep him faithful ? Blessed be God for sus taining and conquering grace ! Out of the final trial Job comes forth triumphantly : " In all this did not Job sin with his lips" (ii, lo). It is proved, therefore, once for all, and never more to be disputed, that Job's loyalty is not grounded in selfish ness, that true piety lives when all external advantages are withdrawn, and that God's grace is more than a match for Satan's malice and the deep-rooted egotism of sin. Thus, one prime object of the book stands disclosed. But God had other and greater ends in the sufferings of his servant, which will appear in the sequel. It was not needful to send Job to such a terrible school of affliction merely to prove the devil a liar. He was that from the beginning (John viii, 44). There must be ulterior designs. Note how prominently Satan is in the earlier chapters of the book. We know that he was the real instigator Of Job's woes. Probably the patriarch himself did not ; and so all the more inexplicable and mysterious his suf ferings must have appeared to him and his friends, the comforters. Now, some things respecting this great evil spirit we gather from this inspired record, i. His per sonality. Satan is no myth. Every attribute, quality, action, mark, and sign which can indicate personality are ascribed to him with a precision of language which refuses to be explained away. If we attempt to interpret this and the like Scripture as only meaning the principle of evil and not a person, then there is an end to all rules of I06 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. fixed thought, and the Bible may mean anything and everything we please. 2. His power. It is simply tre mendous. He brought fire from heaven to consume the sheep (electricity) ; the storm from the desert, which crushed the house where the young people were feast ing; that is, he can, when permitted, wield the forces of nature for the accomplishment of his wicked designs. 3. His enmity is even greater than his povver. He pur sues his evil ends with tireless energy and sleepless vigilance. 4. Still, he is subordinate. He can afflict only so far as and when God for inscrutable purposes permits him. There was " a hedge " about Job through which Satan could not break. No doubt, like the lion he is (i Peter v, 8), he traveled round and round that hedge, but always on the outside. " He can go only the length of his chain." It is noteworthy that nearly all the revelation we have of this great evil spirit is found in the New Testament. Rarely is he mentioned in the Old — in Eden, in Job, David, Joshua the high priest. God delayed the full disclosure of him to later times, and gave him twenty- eight names, which fully describe him. V. Other Features of the Book. The other great features of the poem are now to be pointed out. These are two: the meaning of human suffering, particularly the suffering ofthe righteous; and the revelation of Job to himself The first is the theme of the great debate (chapters iv-xxxi). The second is trace able through the entire poem from chapter iii to chapter xlii, and is this : that the patriarch, with all his pre eminent excellencies, secretly cherished, and probably unwittingly cherished, somewhat of self-righteousness, a kind of religious pride which marred his lovely character and hindered the blessing God would bestow upon him ; and this, cost what it might, must be cut up by the roots. THE BOOK OF JOB. 10/ I. Job's first monologue, iii. It is unexampled for its .expression of anguish and for its pathos. What language is there, and what imagery ! He curses his birthday and hurls anathemas upon his life ; asks that God may ex punge that day from his calendar of time, that it may be frightened with horrible sounds and chased forever by devouring death, that in eternity it may be a sunless day and a starless night. A similar instance of the effect of accumulated sorrows is found in the life of Jeremiah (xx, 14-18). It does not appear that the friends had uttered a word. Job opened the dialogue. They sat in total silence, covered with dust, gazing on a grief too profound for them to reach. It is impossible to read this monologue, touching as it is, and not feel that one who had learned in any measure to say, " Thy will be done," could ever curse his day. He broke down in the very thing for which he was noted, patience. But let us remember that Job did not know himself. He was complacently resting in his " integrity," which is another name for self-righteousness. There was root of bitter ness in him of which he seems to have been ignorant, but which must be eradicated. He had to learn the lesson to which all the saints are set down, namely, that the egotism of nature is offensive to God ; that there is no Confidence to be put in the fle.sh. And so one aim of the book is to reveal Job to himself and thus deliver him from the evil his afflictions were meant to remove. But let it be remembered that he curses his day, not his God, as Satan would have him do. He curses the day of his natural birth, not the day of his new birth. Amid all his doubts and darkness never for a moment does his faith in God waver^ — " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," is his magnificent resolution. 2. The debate. It consists of three rounds. Each of the three philosophers speaks three times, save Zophar, I08 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. who speaks but twice, and Job replies to each in suc cession (chapters iv-xxxi). The first round, chapters iv-xiv. The question is pro pounded by Eliphaz very skillfully and strongly (iv, v). God blesses the just, punishes the unjust. The proposi tion of Eliphaz is this : He that sins must suffer ; as Job is a dreadful sufferer he must be guilty of some grievous sin. Job replies (vi-vii), complaining that theie is no adequate cause for his afflictions ; that God treats him as if an irrational being, a sea or a sea-monster. His plaint resembles that of chapter iii, only more subdued and humble. Bildad follows in the same strain of Eliphaz (viii): "If thou wert pure and upright, surely now he would awake for thee;" and since he does not some thing must be frightfully wrong. Job stoutly resists the imputation and appeals to God, who knows that he is not wicked, as charged (ix, x). Zophar urges that he is certainly guilty, and exhorts him to repentance (xi). Job's reply (xii-xiv) is remarka ble. He shows how the wicked often prosper, how God does as he pleases with great and small, and appeals from them to God. In the second round (chapters xv-xxi) the comforters increase in the severity of their tone and urge with con siderable vehemence that it is the wicked who are scourged, not the righteous, and assail the integrity of Job, intimating broadly that he is guilty of some secret sin, some colossal crime. Zophar, the most impetuous and severe of all, insinuates that there is hypocrisy in the case, that God has at length torn the mask from the false face, and he now stands revealed in his true charac ter. The patriarch refutes the reasoning, proves that the wicked often grow old and prosper, that apparently God treats the good and the bad alike in this life, and the dark doubts which the psalmist felt (Psalm Ixxiii) haunt and THE BOOK OF JOB. 109 harass his mind. With righteous indignation he flings from him the unworthy irinueridos ofthe comforters and accuses them of intensifying his misery. After giving his wonderful confession of faith (xix, 25-27), he points his argument with these telling words: " But ye should say. Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me ? Be ye afraid ofthe sword." In the third round (chapters xxii-xxvi) the comfort ers are turned into headlong accusers. Invective now takes the place of calm reasoning; and Job, instead of getting better, grows worse, and even yearns to appear before the throne of God, declaring that if he could do so he would order his cause before him, and fill his mouth with arguments (xxiii, 3, 4). " Job's disputing with God is as terrible as it is pitiable. It is terrible because he uplifts himself. Titan-like, against God ; and pitiable be cause God, against whom he fights, is not the God he has known, but a phantom which his temptation has pre sented to his dim vision." 3. The cause of the failure of the disputants. Themis- take of the comforters was this : They insisted that God was dealing with Job retributively. They labored to convict him of high-handed wickedness. They hint again and again that if all were told nothing would be too bad to impute to him. " Who ever perished, being innocent ? or where were the righteous cut off"? " is the foundation of their reasoning. They totally failed to discover the true cause for his suffering. They applied many princi ples of the moral government of God to the wrong case ; and hence their argument only served to exasperate him. No wonder he reproached them for their cruelty and in the bitterness of an insulted character and wounded spirit covered them with scorn and contempt. Nor was Job less wrong. He insisted that God acted arbitrarily ; that, having the power to do as he pleased with, him, he 8 lib ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. did so. Because he was not guilty of any crime, of notorious sin, as the philosophers sought to make out, he infers that his affliction is without adequate grounds, that it is altogether disproportionate to his case, and therefore unjust and arbitrary. VI. The Ministry of Elihu. A new section of the book opens with the discourse of Elihu. Here writers who see no more in Job than a soul at war with itself are embarrassed to find an ade quate explanation. Some see no more in his speeches than a repetition of the ideas of Eliphaz and his friends ; and as the patriarch had fully answered them he is now silent. Others hold that Elihu adds nothing to the prog ress of the argument, and betrays " not the faintest conception ofthe real cause of Job's sufferings." Others still hold that this section forms no genuine part of the book, that it is an interpolation of a later date. The last mentioned view encounters the inconvenient fact that the section in question is found in every copy of the extant Hebrew text, and in all the ancient versions, for example, Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, etc. Let us see whether Elihu really adds to the argument of the book or not. I . His -wrath was kindled. We are told his wrath was kindled against Job because he justified himself rather than God ; against his three friends, also; because they found no answer, yet condemned Job (xxxii, 2, 3). There is the whole preceding discussion in a nutshell. If the comforters cannot answer Job why should they con demn him ? If reason and argument are on his side there should be no condemnation. Moreover, Job's justi fying himself is virtually to condemn God. The Lord was dealing with his servant in fatherly chastisement, that his own gracious purposes might be accomplished in him. So long as he resisted and rebelled, and counted the book of job. Ill his treatment as unjust and arbitrary, God's ends were defeated and his ways condemned. This principle is evermore true :' when we justify ourselves we condemn God ; when we justify God we condemn ourselves. 2. Elihu rested his appeal to Job on the revealed truth of God. It is described in terms appropriate to the times : " I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in man, and the breath (or the spiration) of the Almighty giveth them understanding" (xxxii, 7, 8). The friends had spoken many true things, but not the truth. Experience, tradition, observation — such as the comforters had em ployed — were totally inadequate to the case in hand. Gpd alone is competent to settle such a question as this. 3. His argument on sufferings. God's ways of dealing with men are twofold : (i) By mysterious communica tions. " God speaketh once, yea, twice. ... In a dream, in a vision of the night. . . . Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man " (xxxiii, 14-17). The object of such divine communica tions is here announced — to hold men back from sin and pride. (2) Afflictions are employed for the same end. Disease, pain, anguish, loss, misery, visit men, and they seem tp be in the full power of the destroyer. In met ing out sufferings to his people God is not occupied with the penal character of their sin. These are not proof of his judicial wrath. On the contrary, sufferings are de signed to bring back the soul from the pit, to be enlight ened with the light of the living (xxxiii, 24-30). Afflic tions, therefore, are not the expression of divine wrath ; they flow from infinite pity and love. Elihu concludes with these very suggestive word.s, words that might almost have been written by a New Testament apostle : " Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have home 112 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. chastisement, I will not offend any more : that which I see not teach thou me : if I have done iniquity, I will do no more " (xxxiv, 31, 32). The doctrine of Elihu is as distant as pole from pole from that of the comforters. Job recognizes its absolute truth, and is silent. 4. Job's false notions of himself. " I am clean with out transgression, I am innocent ; neither is there in iquity in me " (xxxiii, 9). What words for a poor sinful mortal to utter, for one, especially, on whom God's heavy hand was resting! But more, though so pure and innocent, Job complains that God findeth oc casion against him, counteth him as his enemy. Now here is a palpable discrepancy. Could a holy and just God find fault with an innocent and pure man ? Impos sible. Either Job is self-deceived or God is unrighteous. Elihu drives him into this dilemma, then pronounces judgment: "Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man." What a simple truth ! and yet most appropriate. If God be greater than man, then he must be vindicated in all his ways with his people; he must everlastingly do right. The wrong, therefore, if wrong there be in this case, must lie at Job's door, not at God's. 5. His argument as to Job's animus. It is a most cogent one, a word in season. The main difficulty with the patriarch lay in this, his persistent refusal to allow any reflection upon his character and conduct. His in tegrity must not be questioned, his righteousness he will maintain to the bitter end. The slightest imputation on his uprightness drives him into paroxysms of rage. Self- vindication, and hence judgment on God's ways with him — that is Job's trouble. The key to this book is found in chapter xxxii, i : " So these three men Ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes." True and loyal to God as he was at the core of his heart, THE BOOK OF JOB. 113 yet unwittingly he cherished the deadly secret of self- righteousness ; he thought that the flesh, that thing in which Paul says dwelleth no good thing, might be sanc tified, made pure and holy, and that he had attained it. Not precisely sinless perfection, but perfection in the flesh. So sure he is of his righteousness that he even longs to appear in the presence of God that he may there vindicate himself: "O that I had one to hear me! (Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me ;) and that I had the indictment which mine adversary hath written ! " (xxxi, 35.) What language for a mortal, for one who is crushed before the moth, to use ! As if he said, " Let the Lord draw up his charges against me ; I will march into his presence, head erect, and will answer him." Elihu deals honestly and efficiently with this spirit in the Lord's stricken, half-delirious servant, and Job takes it patiently ; for light is breaking in his troubled soul ; peace, blessed peace, may yet be his. VII. The Lord's Revelation of Himself to Job. The sublime majesty of his appearing ; the solemn, over whelming vindication of his power and glory ; the moral grandeur of the scene, it would be vain to try to describe. All we now wish to do is to call attention to the eff'ect upon Job (xlii, 5, 6), " I have heard of thee by the hearing ofthe ear; but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." What a thorough breakdown ! What profound humiliation follows the dis covery that he has been wrong, all wrong ! It was a self- revelation such as he never had before. It is Jacob hanging limp, his thigh out of joint, about the angel's neck, and crying, " I will not let thee go except thou bless me." A mighty but precious moment that brought him where all the arguments of the philosophers and of Elihu could not ! And full blessing ensues. Property 114 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. doubled, children likewise ; for ten await him yonder, and ten are given him here. And so the oldest book of the world teaches the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. If such be the main design and object of this book of Scripture certain conclusions necessarily follow : I. The book contains the record of individual and personal experiences, the experience of the man Job. 2. It contains absolutely nothing which on any fair principles of interpretation can be ascribed tb a nation, as Israel, or to a body of sufferers, as the Babylonian exiles. 3. There is no hint, even the slightest, that it stands related to the Hebrew people as such in any period of their history. 4. Accordingly, to push its date down to the time of the Babylonian captivity in order to find an adequate motive for its composition is to do violence alike to the whole body of the internal evidence and to the external history. THE BOOK OF PSALMS. I IS THE BOOK OF PSALMS. BY TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, D.D., LL.D. Senior Minister ofthe Collegiate Dutch Church of' New York. I. THE NATURE OF THE PSALTER. I. Poetry. A glance at the Book of Psalms shows that it is other than plain prose, although the way in which it is printed in the Authorized Version has concealed the fact from inobservant readers. It is a book of poetry. The peculiar nature of this kind of composition is a point that has been discussed frorii the days of Plato and Aristotle without reaching an harmonious conclusion. Indeed, it seems to be admitted that the essential spirit of poetry is indefinable, and even its concrete forms have not been characterized in a way which all will admit. Yet we can describe what we cannot define. What is truly called poetic must have thought, imagination, and passion, and these fused into tuneful expression, usually in the shape of rhythm ; and thus it becomes the most vital form of human utterance. Poetical elements are ¦often found in various kinds of prose, but poetry itself must always have the appropriate form, some kind of metrical composition or that which is a substitute for it. Hebrew poetry is entirely destitute of meter. It has often been supposed by scholars that they had detected what could be called rhythm, but however ingenious their theories none ever won general support or even any considerable following. The lack of the vibratory move- Il6 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. ment of syllables and feet in the several words is com pensated by a corresponding arrangement of clauses, called parallelism. Each separate utterance, whether narrative, doctrinal, ethical, or devotional, is thrown into an antithetical form, and thus is made a couplet or a trip let or an integral verse consisting of four, five, or six lines. The second line is often only a repetition of the first in other terms, or an utterance of its contrast, or an illustrative supplement to it, or an exceptive caution. Thus everywhere the poem is built up of members which balance each other; and they do this, not because the logical development of thought requires it, but because this is the established form of poetical composition. The same peculiarity is found in the remains of Egyptian and Assyrian literature, but not so well defined nor so fully developed as among the Hebrews. This pecuHarity, apparently so arbitrary, is an immense advantage to the translator into a different language. The musical rhythm of the classic poets cannot be adequately rendered into other tongues. The sense may be given, but the charm of melody and form evaporates. Not so with the He braic muse. The forms into which it casts its passionate thought can be exactly reproduced even in languages at the furthest remove from kinship to what is oriental, such as our own. The parallelism has been needlessly disregarded in the Authorized Version, but is fairly ex hibited in the Revised Version and in nearly all other modern translations. And it is worthy of careful atten tion, not only as a key to the meaning of what is ambig uous, but also as showirig the salient points of a passage in their true relation, and often greatly enhancing the beauty and force of the thought. " The amplifications of a given point are like the echoes of a solemn melody, the repetitions of it like a landscape reflected in the stream." As Dean Stanley says {Jewish Church, ii, 165), THE BOOK OF PSALMS. Il7 " The rapid stroke as of alternate wings, the heaving and sinking as of the troublefd heart, which have been beautifully described (by Ewald in his Dichter des A. B.) as the essence of the parallel structure of Hebrew verses are exactly suited for the endless play of human feeling and for the understanding of every age and nation." Besides the parallelism there is sometimes an alpha betical arrangement ofthe verses, something of the same nature as the modern acrostic. The initial letters of the . successive lines or couplets follow the order of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There are eight of these alpha betical psalms, and in one, the longest in the collection, all the couplets of each stanza begin with the sarne letter — a peculiarity which cannot, without unnatural forcing, be reproduced in English. This device is reasonably at tributed to a desire to aid the memory, most ofthe lyrics in which it occurs being detached thoughts on one, sub ject. (These are ix, x, xxv, xxxiv, xxxviii, cxi, cxii, cxix, and cxlv.) Objection has often been made to the arti ficial character of these compositions, acrostic verse not being highly esteemed in modern literature ; but the ob jection is met by consideration of the fact that in the East such forms of utterance have always been highly es- teem.ed, and ofthe additional fact that in ancient times it was desirable that the learner should have every possible advantage in getting by heart the sacred oracles. Psalms cxi and cxii form a very interesting pair in form and in subject, both being acrostics and beginning with Halle lujah. The former celebrates the greatness and loving kindness of Jehovah in the circle of "the upright," and the latter the blessings thence resulting to "the upright " themselves. Taken together they set forth cause and effect, the blessed Jehovah and his blessed people. 2. The Poems are Lyrics. It is generally agreed by Il8 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. sober scholars that there is no epic poetry in Scripture and no dramatic. Ewald, indeed, ventured to call Job a tragedy and Canticles a comedy, but without any reason, for the chief element of a drama, namely, action, is con spicuously absent from both. There is, indeed, dialogue, but this is quite devoid of incident, and occurs without change of place or of time. The Psalter is lyrical from end to end. Its Hebrew name is the Book of Praises, or Praise Songs, although many of the poems are rather prayers than praises. Most of the terms prefixed to the psalms have the same bearing, as Shir, something sung, and Mizmor, a song with a musical accompaniment. The same thing is confirmed by the frequent references to stringed, wind, and percussive instruments, such as the harp, psaltery, trumpet, and cymbals, and also by the fact that more than fifty of these inspired compositions bear the inscription, "To the Chief Musician." They were not only regarded as lyrical, but also in tended to be used in public worship, and that notwith standing that they sprang from the domestic or personal relations of the writer and recited his subjective experi ence, or were simply gnomic utterances of theoretical or practical wisdom. No distinction seems to have been made among the psalms on any of these grounds. All were considered worthy vehicles of the vocal worship Israel was trained to offer to the God of their fathers — a fact which may well awaken doubt of the view now so prevalent that only objective hymns, or such as are direct ascriptions of praise and honor, are suited to the common service of the sanctuary. Human nature has not changed, and what was appropriate for worship ages ago may still be suited to express the sense of the godly when they draw near to the Most High. It is certain that many hymns which are nothing but recitals of indi vidual experience have been and are widely acceptable THE BOOK OF tSALMS. 119 and useful among Christians of every name. Nor is it likely that such lyrics will pass out of use. 3. The Poems are Distinctly Religious. This is their chief and most remarkable characteristic. The Hebrews, it is well known, were a people who cultivated song, and with it celebrated all their occasions of joy and of sorrow. The reapers sang as they garnered the golden harvests, the vintagers as they trod the wine press, and the women as they toiled at the mill ; there were love songs and marriage songs ; there were the wail of the mourners wJio go about the streets^ and the dirge of the funeral train bearing the dead to their long home ; the armies return ing from victory were received by processions of singers, and often there were choruses which accompanied the troops to the battle and sang war songs to nerve them to the charge ; their banquets were enlivened by songs and instruments of music. In short, there was no feature of their social and national life that was not mixed up with melodious vocal utterance. But notwithstanding this fact we find no intrusion of any mere secular bursts of song in the Psalter. There are, as there have been, those who maintain the contrary, but we are persuaded that they are mistaken. The compiler of the Psalter did not accept whatever came before him, but rigidly limited himself to sacred and religious lyrics. There are no patriotic psalms. There are none which celebrate the glory of Palestine as the land of Israel. When Jerusaleni or Zion is mentioned it is not as the capital of the land or the home of the monarch, but in variably as the dwelling place of Jehovah. Even the remarkable 137th Psalm is no exception. When the captives in Babylon were required to make mirth for their oppressors they hanged up their harps upon the willows, and the question that rose to their lips was, " How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" 120 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. It was the sense of religious desecration that pierced their souls and brought forth their tears. The people no doubt loved their country, but it was as the land cove- nanted by Jehovah to their forefathers, and the place where " He showed his word unto Jacob, His statutes and his judgments unto Israel." Nor are there any songs in praise of national heroes. There was no lack of such persons in their annals, as the illustrious roll call in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews abundantly shows. But not one of them has a psalm in his honor. The Book of Jasher (or The Upright), several times mentioned in the histories, is commonly supposed to be a record of those elders who had witness borne to them for their notable exploits, but none of these ob tained admission into the Psalter. David's exquisite elegy over Saul and Jonathan and his shorter burst of sorrow over Abner were recorded in the annals of the nation, but neither found a place in the praise songs of Israel. We know not who made the collection as it has come down to us, but surely the compiler was divinely guided. The spirit of the whole is expressed in the opening words of Psalm cxv : " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory." If one desires to see a contrast he may find it in the odes of Pindar, or still more vividly in the several (xliv-xlix) chapters of the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus where the writer gives a detailed list of Israel's great men from Enoch down to Nehemiah, celebrating the praises of each with no small rhetorical skill. " The king " is the subject of the Twentieth Psalm, but the theme is not what he has accomplished, but what God has been pleased to confer upon him. In all cases where it is THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 121 otherwise the royal personage is not any mere human occupant of David's throne, but that exalted Being of the increase of whose government and peace there was to be no end. This is demonstrated by the fact that deeds and excellencies are ascribed to him which cannot, even by the wildest oriental hyperbole, be considered as be longing to any mere son of man. No ; the Psalter is through and through a religious book. It abounds in prayers and praises, but these are always addressed to God. His name, his perfections, his word, his works, are celebrated in every variety of form. There are descriptions of character, but it is always in reference to man's relation to God. There are poetical recapitulations of the national history, but the chief fea ture is what the Most High has done for his people, not what they have done for him. 4. The Oldest Division. While the Psalms form one book and are so referred to by our Lord (Luke xx, 42) and his apostles (Acts i, 20), yet from a very early period they were divided into five distinctive collects, each of which is closed by a doxology, and in the case of the first three by a double Amen. The principle which underlies this division is not certainly known. The ancient rabbins saw in the five books of the Psalter an image of the five books of the Pentateuch. Delitzsch called the Psalter " The congregation's fivefold word to the Lord, even as the Thorah (law) is the Lord's fivefold word to the con gregation." The arrangement, overlooked in the Au thorized Version, is introduced into the Revised Version. Book I comprises Psalms i to xii ; Book II comprises Psalms xlii to Ixxii; Book III comprises Psalms Ixxiii to ixxxix ; Book IV comprises Psalms xc to cvi ; Book V comprises Psalms cvii to cl. It has been conjectured, with considerable show of reason, that these several books were collections made at different times and by 122 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. different persons, and afterward brought together into one and furnished with a common title. As a general rule the oldest psalms stand first, the latest last ; yet there are many exceptions. The curious note added to Psalm Ixxii, " The prayers of David are ended," indicates simply what is true of the foregoing collection, and by no means casts doubts upon the authenticity of subsequent lyrics ascribed to the son of Jesse. The contents of the Psalter are certainly not arranged chronologically, save in the general way already mentioned, but rather in groups distinguished by some common character; that is, the Pilgrim Psalms, the Hallelujah Psalms, etc. Of late much attention has been given to the variant use of the divine names, God (Elohim) and Jehovah (Lord). The facts are these : In Book I Jehovah oc curs 278 times and Elohim only 48 times. In Book II the proportion is reversed, Elohim occurring 198 times and Jehovah 33 times. In Book III there are psalms in which Elohim predominates and others in which Jehovah predominates, the former being used 60 times, the latter 43. In the last two books the name Jehovah is almost exclusively used, the proportion being 379 for it, against 45 for Elohim. The reason of this difference of usage is very hard to see. That there must have been some reason appears from the fact that in several verses of Psalm xiv (3, 4, 6, 7) the name Jehovah occurs, yet in Psalm liii, which is a repetition of it, in all these places Elohim is substituted. The same thing is seen in Psalm Ixx when compared with the closing verses of Psalm xl. A partial help in understanding this usage is gotten by bearing in mind that Elohim is the general name for deity, and is applied by accommodation to angels, magistrates, and the gods of the heathen, while Jehovah is the peculiar name of the Most High as the covenant God of Israel, and is absolutely incommuni- THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 23 cable. One can see very well why the fool's utterance in his heart is, " There is no God" which is atheism pure and simple, whereas to say " There is no Jehovah " is sirnply to deny the existence of Israel's God. But this does not help one to understand why a whole book should contain mainly Elohim psalms. Some have con tended that the usage is a matter of time, Jehovah being a sign of an early date, while Elohim indicates a later period. But this cannot be. Psalm Ixviii, 7, 8, is almost a literal copy of Judg. v, 4, 5 ; yet in the latter, which is beyond question earlier, Jehovah is used, w'nile in the former it is replaced by Elohim. The complete solution of the question as to the cause of the variant usage seems unattainable. Yet this fact does not create any embarrassment in the use of the Psalter. Many ingenious theories have been devised to account for the division into five books and for certain differences between the several books ; but none of these are needed to aid either the critical interpreter or the devotional reader of these sacred songs. Each book contains lyrics of every class, early or late, joyful, mournful, or gnomic, objective or subjective, individual or general ; and the instruction is the same whatever the place of the composition or its date. Perowne, in his Commentary (i, 79), makes a re mark which every faithful and unprejudiced student will acknowledge to be just : "To give a reason for the place of each psalm is as impossible as to give a reason for the order of the different suras (chapters) in the Koran, though there we see a general principle adhered to, the larger suras coming first and the smaller afterward, with out any regard to chronological sequence." Leaving aside all questions as to date, place, and au thorship, I propose to mention and characterize some groupings of these lyrics, either such as have been made in the past or such as suggest themselves to a careful 124 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. reader, simply with a view to gain an insight into the ample. and varied riches of the Psalter. These are not to be taken strictly or exclusively, since the same psalm may for one reason be assigned to one group, and yet for another reason be viewed as belonging to a different class. Thus the 13.0th is a song of ascents and at the same time is one of the Penitential Psalms. (i.) The Pilgrim Psalms. The first class to be men tioned is one that stands out on the face of the book, there being fifteen (cxx-cxxxiv), each of which bears the title " A Song of Degrees," or, as it is more correctly given in the Revised Version, "A Song of Ascents." It was for merly thought that this name arose from the custom of the Levites to chant these psalms while standing on an ascent of fifteen steps between the court of the women and the court of Israel ; but this is now generally given up. Others have referred the name to a peculiarity of structure, a phrase of one sentence being repeated in the next with some addition, so as to form a progression or gradation of thought and language. But although this is quite conspicuous in some of these little songs (cxxi, cxxiv) it does not characterize the whole, and therefore is inadequate. The popular view of the negative critics is that they were sung by the exiles on their return from Babylon"; even as the Lord had promised that his ran somed should " return and come with singing unto Zion " (Isa. xxxv, 10). But it is far more likely that the title denotes the use of these songs by the people at their "goings up " to Jerusalem year by year, at the annual festivals. Hence they have come to be called Pilgrim Psalms. Doubtless they were used by the returning exiles, but that use was only the resumption of an earlier custom. They are for the most part expressions of hope and trust blended with confessions and thanksgiv ings: The whole world has no sweeter ballads. Where THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 25 is there such a setting forth of brotherly love as in the song (cxxxiii),. " Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity?" or such an expression of the joy and unlooked-for de liverance as (cxxvi), " When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, "We were like unto them that dream ? " or such blending of faith and obedience as in the 123d Psalm : " Unto thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that sittest in the heavens. Behoid, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, As the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress. So our eyes look unto Jehovah, our God, Until he have mercy upon us ? " (2.) The Penitential Psalms. These are not clustered together in the Psalter, nor do they bear any distinguish ing title ; yet from the time of Origen these seven lyrics (vi, xxxii, xxxviii, li, cii, cxxx, cxliii) have been regarded as belonging to one class and have borne a common nature, and with great propriety. They set forth in an experimental way the nature, character, and effects of true repentance with a precision not surpassed in the New Testament. In the well-known fifty-first the royal penitent strikes the keynote of scriptural penitence. He goes beyond his outward transgressions, gross as they were, and acknowledges the depraved heart from which all sins proceed, and which, so far from excusing them, only increases their enormity. The expressions of grief and pain are very strong, yet in every age have found believers able sincerely to adopt them as just and appro priate. Moreover, these Old Testament singers, even when crying out of the depths in which they were over- 126 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. whelmed, have an apprehension of the divine mercy which is never felt by the victim of mere remorse. Nor is the compassion which they seek and expect only the forbearance that springs from indifference or insensibility to the evil of sin, but one based upon a far profounder view of things. Even as on assures himself, " But there is forgiveness with thee, That thou mayest be feared " (cxxx, 4), David, in the classic song on the subject, entreats for a new heart and a right spirit, and, these being granted, promises, " Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, And sinners shall be converted unto thee." This combination of grief and hope and a new life is wholly unique in all ancient literature. The penitential hymns of other races mingle violations of ritual with moral offenses, and even when they state the latter fail to go down to the fons malorum, the depraved nature, which is the primal cause of all departures from truth and duty. It is only in the Hebrew lyrics that we find an adequate view of man's fallen condition and a satis factory statement of the means and method of recovery. There is no softening down of the evil of sin, but along with a penetrating view of its deplorable extent and char acter a devout and joyful recognition of the remedy. (3.) Praise to Jehovah as the God of Nature (viii, xxix, civ). Modern poets are never tired of dwelling upon the beauties of nature in heaven and earth, on sea or land, in mountain and plain, amid pathless woods or along flowery streams. The Hebrew poet perceived these things and felt them, but he never speaks of them for their own sake. Nor does he ever show the meditative sympathy with nature's visible forms such as we are wont to see in Wordsworth, Tennyson, and our own THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 27 Bryant. He looks upon the fair variety of things only as illustrating the unsearchable riches of God. Scenes of grandeur or of loveliness have no intrinsic interest, and no charm for the imagination apart from the thought of their Creator. The first and deepest impression upon him is given in the words, " O, Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! " In the Twenty- ninth Psalm there is a powerful description of a storm sweeping over the land, crashing down on the forests, shaking the wilderness, and upheaving even Lebanon and Sirion, but every single startling result is ascribed directly to the Most High- " The God of glory thundereth ; " and it is his voice that breaketh the cedars and heweth out flames of fire. The thrilling incidents are specified, not on their own account, but to show the glory of Him whose kingdom ruleth over all. So in the 104th Psalm the singer follows closely the order of creation given in the opening of Genesis, but, with a poet's touch, sets forth the suc cessive steps of the process as they display the power, wisdom, or goodness of God. The clouds are his chariot, and he moves upon the wings of the wind ; at his voice the mountains rise and the valleys sink down ; he starts the springs that give drink to every beast of the field, and he causeth the grass to grow ; his are the trees where the birds make their nests and sing among the branches ; day and night come at his command ; the earth is full of his riches, and .so is the great and wide sea where go the ships ; all things and all creatures are dependent upon him ; and so the conclusion is, " I will sing unto Jehovah as long as I live : I will sing praise to my God while I have ^ny being." Certainly a very natural conclusion from such traces of order, of thought, and of adaptation, of wise and ten der care, as constrained the exclamation. 128 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. " O, Jehovah, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all." (4.) The Historical Psalms. A fourth class is that which recalls God's dealings of old. These are Ixxviii, cv, cvii, cxiv. They recite the annals of the past with poetical enlargement, but never so as to feed national vanity or exalt any of the chosen leaders of the race. On the contrary, the sins and shortcomings of the people are recounted with unsparing fidelity, and are made conspicuous by contrast with the goodness and mercy of God. The plain object of the singer is to embalm the chief incidents of former times in such strains as will in duce the people to seek the Lord, and " Remember his marvelous works that he hath done ; His wonders, and the judgments of his mouth." The covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the experience of Joseph, the deliverance from Egypt, and the preceding signs, the miracles of the desert, the cross ing of the Jordan, the successive apostasies of the people, and the judgments following, and then God's interposi tions, are all dwelt upon until the establishment of the sanctuary and kingdom upon Mount Zion, with the single purpose to utter the mighty acts of the Lord and to show forth all his praise. Particularly noticeable in this relation are Psalms Ixxvii and cxiv. In the former the singer begins in deep de jection. His eyes are held waking, his soul refuses to be comforted, he is so troubled that he cannot speak; but it occurs to him to remember the years of the Lord's . right hand and to make mention of his doings. So he recalls the wondrous story of the exodus, and tells in poetic form what happened then : " The waters saw thee, O God ; The waters saw thee, they were afraid : The depths also trembled," THE BOOK OF PSALMS. I29 and in consequence God led forth the people like a flock. In the latter the poet celebrates in a very lively manner the power of God over nature in the migration of his people from Egypt, personifying the objects ad dressed. Hence, in reference to the divine appearance, he says : ' The sea saw it, and fled ; Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams. The little hills like young sheep. What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleest ? Thou Jordan, that thou turnest back ? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of Jehovah, At the presence ofthe God of Jacob.'' In this brief, sententious utterance the amazing mir acles wrought at the Red Sea and at the crossing of the Jordan and the intervening wonders are poetically glanced at, but there is no mention of either Moses or Joshua, much less of any inferior believers. The entire reference is to the power and presence of the Most High, and the thought of all readers or singers is lifted at once from earth to heaven, from man to God. There is no elab orate description, and no need of any. The brief state ment, the bold comparison, the vivid question, the closing admonition, bring up at once before the mind the whole series of miraculous interpositions, and give emphasis to the thought of God's hand as the one great ruling cause. This thought filled the mind of the poet, and when it is uttered he ceases, not abruptly, but on pur pose to secure the unity and depth of the one impression. That being secured, all else that is needful will follow of itself. (5.) The Didactic. Usually one does not find else where gnomic poems counted among the lyrics, yet this is certainly the case in the Psalter, as in some cases the 130 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. inscription shows, and in others the general design of the entire collection. {a) Sometimes the aim of these utterances is to set forth the character and destiny of the righteous and the wicked, of which the First Psalm is a conspicuous instance, fitting it to be a suitable preface to the whole body of lyrics, as it sums up in few and well-chosen words, nega tively and positively, in figure and direct speech, all that is to be said on the subject. A similar example is found in Psalm xxxvii, " Fret not thyself because of evildoers," etc., where the phraseology approaches that of the Book of Proverbs, with this considerable difference, however, that many of the sententious apothegms of the Proverbs are simply prudential, and do not imply religious thought ; for example, " It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer : But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth ; " whereas in the lyric the moral or religious reference is always either asserted or necessarily implied. (F) A favorite theme is the excellence of the divine law. The notable examples of this are Psalms xix and cxix. The former begins by declaring with matchless simplicity and beauty the glory of God as it shines in the visible universe, and then by an abrupt transition passes to the better revelation whose merits it sets forth, and finally closes with appropriate prayers founded upon the perfection and blessedness of the law. The evident reference here to a written word teaches us much concerning David's advantages. The latter is a prolonged variation upon the one theme. It is divided into stanzas, each of which begins its eight couplets with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, but the subject is the same throughout. Yet, artificial as the framework is, it is pervaded by a living spirit which THE BOOK OF PSALMS. I3I redeems it from monotony, and not unfrequently there are bursts of genuine passion, as, " Hot indignation hath taken hold upon me. Because of the wicked that forsake thy law " (53) ; or such gracious utterances as, " Thy statutes have been my songs In the house of my pilgrimage " (54). (c) The vanity of human life is another theme for didactic instruction. An instance is found in Psalm xxxix, where the few and evil days of man's life on earth are treated, not in a sentimental way, but strictly in a religious relation. If man's days are ahandbreadth, if at his best estate he is a breath, a passing vapor, surely his hope should be alone in the Lord. Again, in Psalm xlix the affecting contrast between the righteous and the wicked as to the possession of wealth is alleviated, and its bitterness taken away, by the assurance that the rich prodigal can take none of his wealth with him, but must die with the beasts that perish, while the faithful man can say, " God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol : For he shall receive me." Again, in the lofty and melancholy psalm ascribed to Moses (xc) human frailty is set forth in contrast with the eternal years of God, and its relation to sin, secret as well as open, is so presented as to give great point to the petition, " So teach us to number our days, That we may get us an heart of wisdom." (6.) Songs of Thanksgiving. This element pervades the Psalter as a whole, but it is especially conspicuous in certain lyrics. One of these is a psalm of Asaph (Ixxvi), usually supposed to have been first sung on occa- 132 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. sion of the overthrow of Sennacherib when the angel of the Lord smote his whole army : " At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, Both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep. Thou, even thou, art to be feared : And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?" A more complete specimen is found in Psalm ciii, where the singing, beginning with the summons, " Bless the Lord, O my soul," enlarges upon the goodness and mercy of the Lord in a graceful variety of phrase, and then, after calling upon the angels mighty in strength, and all Jehovah's hosts, and all his works in all places of his dominion to join in the ascription, ends as he be gan, with a summons to himself, " Bless the Lord, O my soul." A more artistic and elaborate treatment of the same theme is given in Psalm cvii, where the poet, after the usual call to praise, takes up in succession wanderers in a wilderness ; people in captivity ; men drawn near the gates of death; seamen in a storm, and sufferers in drought and famine ; and after describing their peril and their deliverance adds in each case the joyful refrain, " O that men would praise Jehovah for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men." The several cases of trial and perplexity in each stanza are wrought out with exceeding power and beauty, but none with so much force as that referring to them that do business in great waters, which Mr. Addison said is the finest description of a storm at sea he had ever met with ; " For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind. Which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths, Their soul melteth away because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto Jehovah in their trouble. And he bringeth them out of their distresses." THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 33 (7.) Imprecatory Psalms. There are twenty-five in all, but the chief are xxxv, Iii, lix, Ixix, cix, cxxxvii. It cannot be denied that at first blush these seem in consistent with the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount. Hence various endeavors to explain them away, as, for example, by saying that the verbs may be translated as futures and not imperatives, and therefore are not impre cations but predictions, or by insisting that they are to be spiritualized and considered only as expressing the neces sary results of unbelief and irhpenitence. But these are mere evasions of the difficulty, and are now generally abandoned. There remain two methods of treating these imprecations. One is to view them as illustrating the elementary stage of ethical development peculiar to the Old Testament, and, as the late Bishop Brooks said, " as specimens which God had preserved for mankind's in struction of the horrible wickedness into which even a worshiper of God, a man who tried to be a servant of God, was liable to fall if he did not watch and pray against his besetting temptation." The other regards them as utterances of a mind in full sympathy with God's righteous government, and expressions of this rather than of personal malevolence. Which of these two methods of explanation is to be preferred is a matter of equal importance and difficulty, and the more as there is a wide difference of opinion on the point among men of equal piety, ability, and learning. I defer the expression of my own view, as the question will require to be treated when we come to consider the authority ofthe Psalter. Forthe matter cannot be con sidered apart from the general character and claims of the Old Testament. The Psalter is such a conspicuous and exemplary portion of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the imprecations of evil upon notorious transgressors are so many and so deeply inwoven in the texture of these 134 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. divine lyrics, that the two can with difficulty, if at all, be separated. A definitive judgment on the case must have far-reaching consequences, and should not be rendered without long and careful deliberation. (8.) The Hallel. This is a term applied, according to Jewish tradition, to the six psalms preceding the: 119th (cxiii-cxviii), which the Jews were accustomed to sing at their celebrations of the great yearly feasts. It is gener ally, and I think reasonably, supposed that it was one of these that was sung by our Lord and his disciples, as recorded by Matthew (xxvi, 30), just before they left the paschal chamber to go out to the Mount of Olives. It would be pleasant if we were able to say just what mem ber of the Hallel was chosen on this most interesting occasion. But it is manifest that if our Lord at the first institution of the great commemorative ordinance of the . Christian Church sang one of the praise songs of Israel it is altogether becoming in his followers when, in obe dience to his command, they celebrate the feast, iri like manner to lift their voices in sacred song. (9.) Hallelujah Psalms. The last five in the collection bear this name from the fact that they (in common with the io6th, 113th, 117th, and 135th) begin and end with the word Hallelujah, the anglicized form of the Hebrew , phrase rendered " Praise ye the Lord." This term prop erly expresses the keynote of each composition. All these psalms vary in contents and circumstantials, but they agree in tone. They r.ecite the reasons why men should magnify Jehovah's name. Thus they serve a most important purpose in giving emphasis to the work of praise. The tendency among many otherwise excel lent and useful Christians is to undervalue the vocal utter ance of Jehovah's perfection and grace. This is most unhappy. We are prone to imitate what we sincerely admire and magnify. To repeat on earth the hallelu- THE BOOK OP PSALMS. 1 35 jahs of heaven is appropriate and inspiring. It is well, therefore, that the Psalter should wind up with a series of examples of the most varied and earnest praise, and that its final utterance should be, " Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah.'' The man who once found fault with ariiinister's adora tion in prayer, saying he spent too much tirrie in telling God what he is, muSt bring the same objection against the psalmists of Israel. (10.) Messianic. The last class to be mentioned, and in some respects the most important, is those which refer to the Messiah. Of late the question has been raised, and in some cases eagerly debated, whether there are such psalms. But to devout readers of the New- Testament this is no question at all. Our blessed Lord, Luke tells us (xxiv, 44), said to his disciples that " all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me.'' The Psalter then does refer to him. This it does in two ways. (a) There is repeated reference to the establishment of God's kingdom on earth amid all nations. This is seen everywhere throughout the collection, but especially in a little fasciculus of lyrics preceding the looth Psalm (xcvi-xcix). The Lord reigrieth, and all the earth is summoned to rejoice in the fact. He cometh, he cometh, to judge the earth. All peoples are to see his glory, a.nd all the ends of the earth his salvation. This worldwide sovereignty is evidently different from the lordship Avhich God as God continually and inherently exercises. It means a visible divine administration recognized by men and made by them a theme of joyful praise. This con ception of a widely extended kingdom of God upori the earth is found frequently in the Psalter as an incidental statement. For example, in the Eighty-seventh Psalm, 136 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. where, after the statement that glorious things are written of the city of God, the poet adds this divine utterance : " I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon as among them that know me : Behold Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia ; This one was born there." Here the incorporation of Israel's hereditary enemies with the covenant people is expressly foretold. Jehovah himself shall register the greatest of worldly empires as born in Zion, so that the holy hill becomes the spiritual birthplace of nations. The reason for calling all lyrics of this class Messianic is contained in the fact that the only possible conception the Jews could form of this prospect as a blessed reality was in connection with another and more definite class of predictions pointing to a single personage through whom such results were to be gained. {b) Of this person there are several very spirited utter ances. In the Second Psalm the Israelites were taught to sing of him as the Son of God, anointed King upon Zion's holy hill, against whom the nations rage in vain, for he dashes them in pieces like a potter's vessel ; and therefore it is the interest of all, whatever their station or dignity, to make terms with him. In another psalm (the forty-fifth) the personal excellence as well as the vic torious power of this king is celebrated. Grace is poured into his lips. He is fairer than the children of men. He loves righteousness and hates iniquity, and therefore is crowned with glory above his fellows. In yet another lyric (the seventy-second) he is set forth as a most gracious sovereign who comes down as rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth. He has dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. Kings fall down before him, and far-off tribes bring their presents. And this is to continue so long as the sun and moon endure. The series of psalms of this nature winds THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 37 up with a short song which represents him as at Jehovah's right hand, as going forth at the head of a willing host, numerous and fresh as the drops of the dew, and his enemies are made his footstool; and yet he is a priest upon his throne, a priest of a peculiar order, wholly different from the ordinary occupants of the office, who are mortal, and when death occurs give place to others, while this man, made after the power of an endless life, has no successors, but is a priest forever. These psalms and others like them represent the Mes siah in his exaltation, and speak in the most glowing terms of his personal dignity and boundless empire. They cannot possibly be explained of any mere human or earthly monarch. Oriental splendor of diction will account for much of the language of poets and prophets, but it fails to give a satisfactory reason for the ascription of such excellence, power, and glory as these psalms declare to belong to God's anointed. Besides these there is another class of lyrics which cor respond to the phrase of the apostle Peter (i Peter i, 1 1) when he says that the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets " testified beforehand the sufferings ofChrist, and the glories that should follow them." The Twenty-second Psalm sets forth a " sufferer whose wail is the very voice of desolation and despair, and who yet dares to believe that the tale of his sorrow will be a gospel for the world " (McLaren). The picture of pain and sadness is painted in the liveliest strokes. Desertion, dejection, bodily anguish, reproach, and mockery do their worst, yet at last the sufferer is rescued from the dog's power, the lion's mouth, the wild oxen's horns, and the deliverance is followed by the most striking results. "AM the ends of the earth remember and turn unto Jehovah, And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.'' 138 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. The numerous and minute correspondences between this lyric and the gospel account of our Lord's crucifix ion cannot be accounted for in any other way than by supposing that the singer was guided by the Spirit of Christ, so that, whatever the immediate purpose of his psalm, he did set forth a likeness of the suffering Mes siah. Other psalms (xii, 9; Ixix, 9, 20, 21) exhibit the treachery by which the Saviour should be betrayed, the ferocious taunts he should endure, the complete isolation in which he should be involved, but at the same time clearly indicate that all this should be followed by deliv erance and triumph. In these latter lyrics there are cir cumstances, especially the confessions of sin, which have no sort of application to Him " who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." Hence it is natural to con clude that in the first instance such expressions of moral infirmity applied only to the original human speaker, and that in the other specific portions he uttered what was not only true of his own experience, but also bore a typical reference to Him who was to come. They who deny or doubt the possibility of such a typical reference do not wisely consider the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Thus was set forth before the eyes of the ancient Church a prophetic outline of the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, and that both in his states of humili ation and exaltation. That the voice of prophecy here and elsewhere fulfilled its purpose is plain from the whole history of Israel and from the popular expectation that prevailed in the time of our Lord's personal ministry. The Jews consulted by Herod, the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well, Martha of Bethany, and the ge'neral body ofthe people looked for the coming of Messiah. That they fixed attention more upon his glory than his suffer- THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 39 ings, that they rather expected a mighty conqueror than a wise teacher, is easily explained from the general tend ency of our nature, and does not at all hinder our faith that the songs of Zion nurtured the blessed hope that survived all the sore trials of the ancient Church and held the people intact and unniixed till the fulfillment came. A current modern fad is, in the face of the clear and positive statements of our Lord and his apostles and the well-nigh unanimous opinion of the Christian Church from the beginning, to deny the Messianic character of the psalnis referred to, and to hold that they were uttered in relation to some merely human monarch. Thus the magnificent iioth Psalin, oftener quoted in the New Testament than any other, and made the basis of a strong argument in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is said to have been fulfilled in one of the Maccabees ; and the forty-fifth, with its wondrous delineation of Messiah's personal e;5cellencies and the brilliant description of the Church, is represented as an epithalamium for one ofthe Egyptian Ptolemies. To mention these follies is to refute them. One wonders how any literary man with a spark of taste in his composition, and still more how any Christian man with any reverence in his soul, could for a moment consent to such a degradation ofthe oracles of God. ( II .) Some Exceptionfll Psalms. There are certain lyrics which refuse to be classed, since they have a peculiar and unapproachable excellence of their own. One of these is the Psalm of Faith, the twenty-third, called " the night ingale of the Psalter — small and of a homely feather, but filling the air of the whole world with a melodious joy." It is remarkable for simplicity and beauty of form united with a spirit of heavenly peace and confidence. It appeals with equal force to the most learned and the unlettered. " It is the pure utterance of personal trust in Jehovah, darkened by no fears or complaints, and so I40 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. perfectly at rest that it has nothing more to ask." The strains of Theocritus are considered the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in all the ancient world, but there is a beauty and grace in this utterance of the sweet singer of Israel which the Sicilian poet does not even approach, while the sentiment is as much above Theocritus as the heavens are above the earth. Another, the 139th, has for its theme the exhaustive knowledge of God, which it first asserts in the strongest terms, and then illustrates on one hand by a poetic de lineation ofthe presence of God in all parts ofthe uni verse, and on the other by his personal concern, in the mysterious formation of the human frame in the earliest stages of its being. Before One endowed with such knowledge the singer bows in deep humility, and prays to be led by him in the way of peace. This psalm, con sidered as a mere literary composition, has won universal commendation. No such picture of the divine omni presence has ever been drawn by any human hand : " Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up unto heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, And dwell in the uttermost parts ofthe sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me." But mark how the reach of thought and the flights of imagination are subordinated to a spiritual and practical end. None of these exquisite touches are inserted for their own sake, but to give point and precision to the closing prayer : ' ' Search me, O God, and know my heart : Ti-y me and know my thoughts : And see if there be any way of wickedness in me. And lead me in the way everlasting." THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 141 A third, the sixty-eighth, has generally been considered the highest in poetic merit in the whole collection. The text has apparently suffered in places, and there are por tions of it which it is difficult to understand, but the general sense is so clear as to win for it universal favor. There is no space to give an analysis. It is remarkable for its energy and boldness, its wealth of historic allusion, its rapid movement, its brilliant imagery, its sustained elevation, its far-reaching outlook, its lofty devotion and triumphant faith. Yet here, as elsewhere, the lofty flight of poetical genius by no means interferes with. the flow of pious feeling. The most glowing, the most spirited, the most powerful hymn in the entire Psalter is at the same time the one most alive with faith and conse cration. " The father of orphans, and defender of widows, Is God in his holy dwelling (verse 5). Blessed be God, who daily beareth our burden. The Mighty One who is our salvation (verse ig). Blessed be God " (verse 35). Such, then, is the nature of the Psalter. It is a collec tion of one hundred and fifty poems, some long and others short, written at various times and by various authors, but all lyrical in form and all intensely religious in their tone. They cover a very wide field. Some times they recount the past, and others describe the present, or again foretell the future. Sometimes they are objective, dwelling on the manifestations of God in creation and providence ; at others they are strictly sub jective, unfolding with wondrous acuteness and accuracy the workings of the individual heart. Now we hear jubilant notes sounding Hke an angelic chorus; again there is a pathos of indescribable depth and tenderness. There are delineations of character and destiny which exhaust the possibilities of language. First set . forth 10 142 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. ages ago by men who lived under a Syrian sky and were trained under oriental influences, they bear the ear marks of their origin, and yet are found to meet the wants of every age and race and country. They were the song book ofthe ancient Hebrews; they are equally the song book ofthe modern Christian. Men of aesthetic taste admire them for sublimity, pathos, beauty, or other literary excellence, but believers love them for their spiritual character, for their power to express the var}'- ing states of religious experience, for their revelations of God's nature, for the comfort, the stimulus, the refresh ment which they provide. Nor does it make any differ ence as to the mental grasp or literary culture of the Christian. These divine-human compositions are suited to every grade of intellect or culture. One of the greatest statesmen and orators of our coun try a number of years ago soothed his dying moments with the Twenty-third Psalm ; and not long afterward a poor negro boy, when sinking into the grave, had it read in his hearing. When the verse " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me : Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me,'' was reached he at once cried out, " How sweet ! O, read that again ! " It was read again and yet again, and in its spirit he folded his arms and went to his last earthly sleep. We know nothing about these lyric poems save what their contents or titles may indicate. Beyond these points tradition is absolutely silent. But we need noth ing more. The Psalms tell their own story and do their own work. Rendered into any language, among any people, they arrest attention, they engage interest, they respond to the deepest needs, the strongest feelings, of a soul awakened by divine grace. They are concerned with what is elementary and universal in human nature. THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 143 and therefore are commensurate with the wants of the race. For more than twice a thousand years they have been the companion and the solace of the devout heart, and such they will continue to be while the world stands. 144 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. THE BOOK OF PSALMS. BY TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, D.D., LL.D., Senior Minister of the Collegiate Dutch Church of Ne-m York. II. THE AUTHORITY OF THE PSALTER AND ITS USES. I . The A iithority of the Psalter. The authority of the P.salter depends upon the testimony of the New Testa ment. It is especially named by our Lord as a part of the Scriptures, and it is frequently quoted by him and his apostles as the word of God. At the conclusion of their last paschal meal they sang one of its psalms. When our Lord on the cross gave utterance to his sense of complete isolation and abandonment he used the words of David in the Twenty-second Psalm, and when at the end he yielded up his spirit it was in the words of the sweet singer as recorded in Psalm xxxi, 5. How and when the collection of the one hundred and fifty lyrics into one volume was made we are not in formed. The tradition universally accepted by Jews and Christians until recent times assigns this work to Ezra, " the priest, the scribe, even the scribe of the words of the commandments of Jehovah and his statutes to Israel " (Ezra vii, 1 1). Nor is there any reason to doubt the cor rectness of this tradition. The time, the place, the character of the man, and the needs of the people all concur in its support. It has been vehemently assailed of late on the ground of its inconsistency with the modern view of the date of the Pentateuch. If no part of the THE BOOK OF PSALMS. I45 five books of Moses assumed its present form until after the eighth century B. C, and the whole Pentateuch as it stands was of post-exilic origin, then of course the Psal ter must be supposed to have originated within the same narrow limits. Hence we are told with great confidence that it was the hymn book of the second temple, that it was from time to time enlarged, and was not completed until the days of the Maccabees. But there is as much evidence that the Psalter was used at the dedication of the first temple (2 Chron. vii, 6) as there is that it was used at the dedication ofthe second (Ezra iii, 10, 11). To me this whole theory of the late origin of the Psal ter seems a baseless dream. (i.) It is opposed to the voice of tradition — a tradi tion every way reasonable in itself, and accepted with out demur for hundreds and thousands of years. After Malachi the voice of prophecy ceased. What more natural than that its preexisting utterances should be gathered together and be made accessible as the guide of life and the charter of hope ? And who could have been better able to perform this work, than one who is spoken of as "a ready scribe in the law of Moses" (Ezra vii, 6). Ezra had the requisite learning, ability, and conscientiousness for the work ; nor is there anything in his recorded career which is at all inconsistent with his doing it. The collection cannot have been acciden tal. The perfection of its character, including all that was needed and excluding whatever was unsuited for public or private worship, forbids peremptorily any such opinion. Who but a divinely guided teacher could have done the work, and who so suitable for it as the learned scribe, Ezra ? (2.) It is opposed to the superscriptions of the Psalms. The great majority ofthe lyrics (116) have titles prefixed to them, only thirty-four being "orphans," as the Jews 146 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. called them, that is, without a recognized paternity. Now, of those that are inscribed, seventy-three are given to David, two to Solomon, twelve to Asaph, eleven to the sons of Korah (but whether they were authors or only musicians is not clear), one to Heman the Ezrahite, and one to Ethan the Ezrahite. It is common in our day. to discard all these titles as entirely destitute of authority. But I maintain the contrary for these reasons : {a) The titles are found in all existing manuscripts of the Psalter. There is not a solitary exception to this rule. (b) They are retained in the oldest versions, such as the Septuagint, and are recognized in the Chaldee Para phrase. {c) The instances of David (2 Sam. i, 17, 18), of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii, 9), and of Habakkuk (iii, l) are sufficient to show that it was the custom for authors to prefix their names to their poems. (1^) The chief objection against them is really in their favor, to wit, the apparent difficulty of harmonizing them in some cases with the contents of the psalm to which they are prefixed. For if they had been invented by unauthorized persons would not these inventors have taken pains to give verisimilitude to their inventions by adapting them to the purport of the psalms ? (e) What else than their traditionary origin can ac count for the seemingly capricious manner in which the titles are distributed through the book? If of editorial manufacture how are we to explain the fact that we fail to see them where they might be expected and find them where they are not looked for? Would not self-ap pointed revisers have treated the whole book alike ? It is far more natural and reasonable to suppose that all the psalms were at first inscribed with the names of their authors, and that in the cases where the titles are miss- THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 47 ing that fact is due either to the carelessness of tran scribers or to some mischance. {f) In two cases these titles mention persons and events not recorded in Scripture. Psalm vii is said to have been sung by David " concerning the words of Cush a Benjamite," and Psalm Ix, on the occasion " when he strove with Aram-naharaim and with Aram- zobah, and Joab returned, and smote of Edom in the Valley of Salt twelve thousand." Is it likely that any devout Jew would invent an enemy of David and an ex pedition of Joab, and insert them in a book he was taught to hold sacred ? Is it not far more reasonable to believe that the person and the event were both of them real, and belong to that large portion of Hebrew history which was not recorded ? (3.) The post-exilic origin of the Psalter is opposed to its contents. There are, fis we have seen, historical psalms, but these all stop in their narrative at the acces sion of David. The only reason to be assigned for this fact is that the lyrics were composed at that period. Had they originated at a later period the remarkable interpositions of Jehovah in the time of Asa, or of Elijah and Elisha, or of Hezekiah, would have found a place. Undoubtedly there are psalms of the exile (cxxxvii, Ixxiv, Ixxix), but there seems not the least reason to relegate the entire collection to the post-exilic period, nor even to assign any to the age of the Maccabees, because the previous experience of the people will satisfy the terms of any of the lyrics which seem to be appro priate to what the people suffered under Antiochus Epiphanes. The Maccabean period was remarkable for the valor and the constancy of the Jews, but it does not appear that either literature or piety flourished in any unwonted degree, and in neither respect do the apocry phal books compare with what we have in the canon. 148 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. And one may well ask, If the Psalms as a whole or any of them are of late date, how comes it to pass that they differ so decidedly from the other productions of that period ? The apocryphal books are disowned by all Protestants, not only because they never composed part of the Palestinian canon, but because their internal character is a fatal objection. They bear marks of human infirmity either in subject or treatment or ethical bear ing. Now we require to know how the singers of that period came to escape this contagion. That they did escape it is certain. Not one piece in the entire Psalter deviates from the fixed standard of canonical Scripture. It seems then to be a reasonable conclusion that none of them originated in a period when the voice of prophecy had ceased, and men were left without inspiration alike in their speaking and their writing. Their exalted char acter requires that we should consider them as belonging to that age when "men spake from God, being borne along by the Holy Ghost." The names of persons, places, and events, as found in the Psalter, are all in accordance with the traditional view of its origin, and not at all with the modern opinion so confidently repeated. Neither in the titles nor in the contents of the various psalms is there any reference which indicates a very late period save in the few lyrics which were composed after the capture of city and peo ple by Nebuchadnezzar. Nor is the type of piety other in one portion of the Psalter than it is in another. The religious experience is the same as to joy and sorrow, as to confession and penitence, as to praise and hope. There are individual peculiarities in each lyric, but none which mark off any portion of the collection as showing a modified theology. A devout, earnest, spiritual tone runs through the entire Psalter from beginning to end. It contains the world's deepest, tenderest, and most artis- THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 149 tic poetry, but the poetry of men lifted above themselves by the divine Spirit. (4.) Much of the criticism relied upon to establish the late date of the Psalter is arbitrary and unreasonable. Psalms, it is said, which belong together have been torn apart (xlii and xliii), and others which have no inward connection have been violently made into one. Thus the fine Nineteenth Psalm is said to be made up of two parts wholly different in theme, tone, and style ; whereas a sober criticism maintains that the lyric as it stands is an exquisite, homogeneous, and self-consistent production, celebrating first the glory of God as it speaks out of the heavens to all the earth, then the more excellent revela tion contained in the law, and finally uttering appropri ate reflections and prayers in the case. Not to see and feel this as it lies on the face of the sacred song is to show lack of intellectual insight as well as of pious sensibility. The same is true of the common treatment of the Twenty- fourth Psalm, which is said to be made up of two entirely incongruous portions, one the account of the acceptable worshiper, the other a summons to the old sanctuary to admit the presence of its Lord, the King of glory. What has become of men's taste or imagination, that they devise so monstrous a theory as to affirm that these two parts are fragments which, after floating about a long time separately, were seized and welded together by some senseless poetaster? The usual explanation of the psalm is natural, reasonable, and edifying. David first describes what sort of a man shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and then bursts forth into an exuberant account of Jeho vah's entrance into his house. The two parts, so far from being inconsistent or coritradictory, beautifully comple ment each other and constitute a lyric which has no superior fo.r beauty and sublimity either in or out of the Scripture. So in regard to the close correspondence in 150 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. theme and tone between Psalms xlii and xHii,it is insisted that these originally formed but one lyric, and were vio lently and needlessly sundered. But it is equally reason able to suppose that Psalm xlii was first composed and set forth as a whole, to which afterward the author com posed a pendant in the same -spirit but upon another occasion, and therefore set it forth independently. I maintain that as much can be said in favor of this hy pothesis as of the other, and that it is far more respectful and reverent. The attempt to override all tradition and determine the age of any particular lyric from its contents is neces sarily arbitrary save in a very few well-marked cases, such as those which recite the destruction of the temple or the suffering of the exiles in Babylon. It lies in the very nature of a spiritual composition intended for devotional use that it should be independent of time and place. It seizes upon the broad outlines of the soul's experience, and recites them in such a way as to be fitted for the edification of others at all times and in all places. Ac cordingly, the testimony of eighteen centuries certifies us that the usefulness of a psalm does not depend in the smallest degree upon the ability of the reader or singer to determine when or by whom it was composed. This result, we believe, was contemplated from the beginning. Hence endeavors to settle dates are and must be raere conjectures, and often are injurious rather than helpful. Nor can any reliance be based on linguistic differences. The style of the Psalter corresponds to the period of its alleged composers. No such differences of words or structure can be found in it as occur in, say, Ecclesiastes, and mark it almost necessarily as of late date. It is true that the 139th Psalm, which the title ascribes to David, has numerous Aramaic forms, yet it cannot with any pro priety be said to be written in 2 patois. Its peculiarities THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 151 of verbal and pronominal forms may very reasonably be ascribed to the fashions of copyists, nor in any case is a linguistic difference of this kind a trustworthy index to the date of a composition. Western Aramaic is certainly, as everyone knows, a different dialect from Hebrew, but who can say how long its peculiarities may have existed side by side with the Hebrew and, at times, exerted con siderable influence upon the classic writers of Palestine ? The occurrence of Aramaic forms is anything but a de cisive test of date or origin. (5.) Modern criticism is especially to be deprecated in its treatment of the psalms ascribed to David. To such an extent has this tendency gone that some have denied to him the authorship of any lyric save a portion of the Eighteenth Psalm. This is inexcusable, because we know from unquestionable authority that David was both a poet and a musician. " The sweet psalmist of Israel " (2 Sam. xxiii, i) seems to have been raised up and trained to be an organ of lyric inspiration. His whole being was cultivated by a variety of functions. As Edward Irving tells us, "God brought him up in the sheep pastures that the groundwork of his character might be laid through simple and universal forms of feel ing. He took him to the camp that he might be filled with nobleness of soul and ideas of glory. He placed him in the palace that he might be filled with ideas of maj esty and sovereign might. He carried him to the wilder ness and placed him in solitudes that his soul might dwell alone in the sublime conception of God and his mighty works. And he kept him there for long years that he might be well schooled to trust and depend upon the providence of God. And in none of these varied con ditions did he take from him his Holy Spirit. His trials were but the tuning of the instrument with which the Spirit might express the various melodies which he de- 15^ ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. signed to utter by him for the consolation and edification of spiritual men." These are words of soberness and truth. And they show the fatuity of supposing that this fine instrument, so exquisitely and carefully fash ioned for the purpose, was thrown aside and the songs of Israel left to be sung by men not one of whom had the tenth part of the natural and acquired gifts of the son of Jesse, or the hundredth part of his wide and va ried experience. Far more reasonable every way is the common faith of the Church that David, the man after God's own heart, was molded by his temperament and training to set the example of devotional poetical com position and furnish the pattern to guide the other sing ers whom the Lord would raise up. The Question of the Imprecations. There is, however, another matter touching the authority of the Psalter which has not sprung from modern criticism, but has long divided the opinions of the religious world. This is the morality of the imprecations. Many wise and good men insist that these are expressions of human infirmity, and as such to be unsparingly condemned. Thus Dr. McLaren says (i, 336) of these passages: " However restricted, they express a state of feeling far beneath the Christian, and the attempt to slur over the contrast is in danger of hiding the glory of midday for fear of not doing justice to the beauty of the morning twilight. It is true that the imprecations of the P.salter are not the offspring of passion, and that the psalmists speak as identifying their cause with God's; but when all such considerations are taken into account these prayers against enemies remain distinctly inferior to the code of Christian ethics. The more frankly the fact is recognized the better." To the same effect he says, in remarking on Psalm xxviii, 4 : " The stern tone of this prayer marks it as belonging to the older type of religion, THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 53 and its dissimilarity to the New Testament teaching is not to be slurred over. No doubt the element of per sonal enmity is all but absent, but it is not the prayer which those who have heard ' Father, forgive them,' are to copy" (p. 271). The great difficulty in the way of accepting such a view of these imprecations is the impossibility of ac counting for their formal incorporation into the Songs of Israel, the service book of the Old Testament Church, the devotional manual of all believers. If they are ex pressions of personal hate, the offspring of unhallowed passion, why were they made a constituent part of the divine directory of worship ? And why are they quoted in the New Testament equally with the others as of divine authority? John tells us (ii, 17) that when our Lord cleansed the temple his disciples drew an explana tion of the fact from a verse in one of the strongest of these psalms (Ixix), for they " remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat me up." The same psalm is quoted by the apostle Paul (Rom. xi, 9, 10) to set forth the desert and the doom of obstinate unbelievers : " Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, And a stumbling-block, and a recompense unto them : Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, And bow thou down their back alway.'' From another psalm of the same class the apostle Peter quotes passages (Acts i, 20) designed to justify the choice of a successor in place of Judas : " For it is written in the book of Psalms : Let his habitation be made desolate, And let no man dwell therein : His office let another take." Yet in no one of these cases is there any indication that exception is taken to these imprecatory lyrics as in any 154 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICIS.M. way inconsistent with New Testament ethics, but the im precations themselves, in two of the cases, are cited just as any portion of the Psalter. If these utterances are to be condemned as wrong the way is open to impeach the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures in other directions. Beyond a doubt the Old Testament believers, even the best of them, were imperfect, men, and many of theii* doings and sayings are to be condemned ; but the case is different with their words when under the guidance of the Spirit, as we read in Heb. iii, 8-11, a quotation from the Psalter, preceded by the authoritative statement, " even as the Holy Ghost saith." For our part we prefer not to sit in judgment upon the oracles of God, but rather to seek some way of reconciling their utterances in any one case with the general tenor of the whole. Is there such a way ? We honestly think that there is. The imprecations are to be considered not as ebullitions of human anger excited by a sense of persorial grievance, but as the expressions of a wholesome abhorrence of evil and a deep sense of it's ill desert. The petitioner identifies himself with the holy Being whose law has been grossly violated, and speaks as in his name and under the guidance of his Spirit. The duty of the for giveness of personal injuries was not unknown under the old economy, and illustrations of the fact are not wanting in the Psalter. For example, xxxv, 12, 13, and xxxviii, 12, 13 : They reward me evil for good. To the bereaving of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth : I afflicted my soul with fasting. They that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, And imagine deceits all the day long. But I, as a deaf man, hear not ; And I am as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 155 It seems necessary that the idea of retributive justice should be set forth in this concrete form, and, therefore, the imprecations are not to be regarded as blots upon the fair face of the Psalter, infirmities that are to be ex plained and apologized for, but should be considered a constituent part of its teaching, designed to guard us against underrating the evil of sin or being indiff'erent to its occurrence. This is confirmed by the fact that when confronted with some great outbreak of wickedness even eminent Christians have found that the imprecatory psalms met the circumstances and formed an appropriate expression of the feelings they felt compelled to cher ish. A true man, an intelligent believer, may be per fectly ready to forgive an injury so far as his own inter ests or feelings are concerned, and yet at the same time may long for the vindication of outraged justice. An eminent missionary who had spent a long life in Syria told me that after living among Mohammedans so many years he had no difficulty in accounting for the impre catory psalms. There seemed to be a call for them, and that call still exists. There is a species of rose-water philanthropy which sadly interferes with the mainte nance of righteousness. It is sufficient for a man to be a convicted criminal to have his cell deluged with flow ers, and the more aggravated his offense the greater the manifestations of sympathy. All this strikes at the sta bility of law and the foundations of society. Hence the need of a strong assertion of the claims of eternal justice. The Psalter, as we shall see, sets forth in the most strik ing way the riches of divine grace in the forgiveness of sin, but, lest these blessed offers and promises should be misunderstood and perverted, it also proclaims in thun der tones the wages of sin and the necessary doom of the impenitent. There is a righteous anger which a right-minded man 156 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. ought to feel toward a gross transgressor, and which if he does not feel there is reason to think that he is in different to the claims of justice. Who can witness deeds of atrocious cruelty upon the helpless and unof fending without having his blood boil ? In such a case there is no room for supposing personal malevolence. No injury is done to the righteously angry man. It is the outrage upon justice, decency, and propriety which he feels, and which the moral order of the universe re quires to be fittingly punished. We are to cherish a sympathy with justice and right as well as with our fel lowmen. It is a false humanitarianism that glosses over crime and apologizes for evildoers. It is an unsound civilization that tolerates wrongdoing. We have reason to beware of a philosophy which takes away the back bone of our moral sense and wears off" the keen edge of that detestation of evil which is essential to righteous ness. In the exquisite delineation of the Messiah as King (Psalm xiv) it is said: " Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness : Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee." The hatred of iniquity is the counterpart of the love of righteousness, and the two go together. The love of righteousness includes righteous persons, and the hatred of wickedness includes wicked persons. It is one thing to smart under a sense of personal wrong and cherish a vindictive spirit, and quite another to desire retribu tion upon evildoers as a satisfaction of justice and a vindication ofthe rights of society. The psalmist was like the Messiah whom he praised when he said (Psalm cxxxix, 21, 22), " Do not I hate them, that hate thee, Jehovah ? And am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee ? 1 hate them with a perfect hatred ; I count them my enemies." THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 57 He had no personal grudge against them, but because they were enemies of his Lord they were his enemies. Besides, there will occur occasions when these very psalms will appear the most fitting form of words to be used. During the present year in the State of New Jersey certain legislation was proposed which to all Christian men seemed designed to "frame mischief by statute." Ministers and churches were aroused, and a large meeting of persons from different parts of the State • was held at the capital to protest against the consum mation of the nefarious purpose. Professor Duffield was called upon to open the exercises with prayer. He com plied by reading with emphatic solemnity the Ninety- fourth Psalm, whose opening words are : " O Jehovah, thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, shine forth. Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth : Render to the proud their desert." And I am told there was not a single person in the vast assemblage that did not think that this was the most appropriate prayer that could have been offered. Yet not one of them had any personal wrong which he wished to avenge. The only desire was to avert what they considered to be a grievous injury to society, to prevent legislation that would open the door to every kind of vice and crime. It was the good name of the State, the preservation of morality, the interests oT individuals and families, that moved their souls. To see all these struck at, and that simply for the sordid gains of a few, made them feel that nothing less than the words of the indignant psalmist could adequately express their feel ings; and more than one of them devoutly thanked God that he had been pleased to incorporate in the service book of the Elder Economy a psalm whose fiery energy seemed expressly made for the occasion. 11 158 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICIS.M. It remains to answer the questions. Of what use are these imprecatory psalms to the ordinary reader of the Bible ? Is he to imitate their authors and invoke anath emas upon the heads of those who are at once his enemies and the enemies of God ? Surely not. The plain directions of the Saviour forbid. He is to remem ber that these men were under the direct influence of the Holy Ghost, and therefore in this way put on record their entire agreement with the retributive justice of God, shaping their utterances in accordance with the habits of their time. No modern believer would pray in regard to any enemy of God that his wife should be a widow and his children vagabonds, or pronounce a bless ing upon the man who should dash his little ones against the rock. In this, as in some other features, the Psalter does not furnish a pattern for literal imitation. But the spirit which underlies these utterances, the sympathy with God's character and claims which they exhibit, is of great use and value. It strengthens the moral fiber of the soul and draws the line distinctly between for bearance and indifference. 2. The Uses of the Psalter. Here we enter upon a theme as to which there is little difference of opinion among real believers. However men diverge in their views of the date, authorship, and structure ofthe Hebrew lyr ics, they are at one as to their practical use and applica tion. In every age the Psalter has been dear to the Church as a vade mecum of daily life, and justly, since its treasures of thought, sentiment, and feeling are so rich and varied. It is (i.) A Manual of Praise. Praise is both comely and becoming. When sincere and whole-hearted it is per haps the most acceptable form of worship. Cordially to praise what is praiseworthy.insensibly brings the offerer nearer to the subject of the encomium. Now the Psal- THE BOOK OP PSALMS. 1 59 ter is a constant guide and stimulus in this work. It shows us by precept and example what and how to praise. The name, the perfections, the works, and the ways of God are set forth in a very distinct and attract ive manner, each of them appealing to the devout soul androusing its deepest interest. The diligent and care ful reader of the Psalter can never go astray in this ele ment of devotion. There are some bodies of Christians who confine themselves to the Psalms in public worship. That this is held to be an error appears very clearly from the practice of the great majority of evangelical Churches. Yet it may be said with' the late Donald Fraser that it is a greater error and a deeper injury to supersede the Psalter entirely by hymn books, or to sing it only in diluted paraphrases. One thing is certain : This book is a pattern of public praise, and no theory on the sub ject, however ingenious or attractive, can stand which is opposed to the specimens given us in the Psalms. Here we find subjective as well as objective lyrics, the didactic as well as the emotional, the historical and descriptive as well as the imaginative. Nor is it a strained analogy to say that what was good for the ancient believer must equally answer the needs of our own day. (2.) A Manual of Prayer. On this point the instruction is given incidentally yet very fully. The examples show us that the proper object of prayer is neither saints nor angels, but God alone ; for him alone do the singers ever address. And the appeal is always made to his loving kindness, or his faithfulness to his promise. The wide range of petitions in the book show us that we may come to God for every human interest, and that we should come to him not only for life and health, for food and raiment, for home and friends, but for pardon and grace to do what is right, for our foes, for our country and its rulers, for the prosperity of Zion, and the exten- l6o ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. sion of its truth and privilege to the ends of the earth. Nor are the graces of persistency or importunity with out exemplification in the petitionary psalms. Our Lord, we are told (Luke xviii, i), "spake a parable unto his disciples to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint ;" but they should not have required such an instruction, seeing that they had so many illus trious examples of importunity given in the Psalter in the case of persons in desperate extremity who felt that they had no other help or hope than in God, and therefore called on him day and night. Usually the prayers are answered. And there are mariy psalms which begin with sad complaints and outcries and yet end with notes of thanksgiving and triumph. There is only one excep tion (the eighty-eighth), which begins and ends in sorrow and trouble, and in this respect stands alone in the whole collection. The affecting appeal runs through the entire eighteen couplets, and perhaps was intended to show the propriety of continuing one's entreaty even though no sign of an answer was received. But the fact that this stands alone in the Psalter in its unalleviated gloom is an impressive testimony to the cheerful and buoyant character of the praise and prayer songs of Israel. (3.) Afi Exhibition of Experience. The lyrics of the Psalter furnish a full account of the actual workings of the truth in heart and life. The major part of the book is a recital of religious experience. It sets forth the varied manifestations of sin in word and deed, the ex ercises of the soul in penitence and humiliation, its sub mission under trying dispensations, its joy in God when his face shines upon it. In short, it runs through the whole gamut of pious emotion, so that notwithstanding the book belongs to an early and imperfect dispensation it yet fully meets the wants of those who live under the full blaze of gospel light. One who passed through the THE BOOK OF PSALMS. l6l sad scenes of the Indian mutiny said, " There is not a day in which we do, not find something in the Psalms that appears written specially for our unhappy circumstances, to meet the wants and feelings of the day." The same testimony has been borne by hundreds and thousands in former ages as well as in our own. This character istic of the Psalter is greatly weakened by the tendency of modern critics (and particularly Dr. Cheyne) to deny the personal relation of many of the psalms, and make them utterances ofthe nation personified as an individual. Even the exquisite Twenty-third Psalm has been thus ex plained, to the great loss and damage ofthe reader. But Dr. McLaren well says : " I cannot persuade myself that the voice which comes so straight to the heart did not come from the heart of a brother speaking across the centuries his own personal emotions, which are universal just because they are individual " (Psalms, i, 226). The same may be said of many another psalm. There are national lyrics in which the whole people speak as one man, and there is no need of adopting this chilling refer ence in cases where the entire vitality and usefulness of the utterance depends upon its being the recital of an individual experience. (4.) It Illumines the Old Testament. It is not uncom mon for even good people, e'specially the young among them, to undervalue the older and larger portion of Scrip ture. They misconceive its place and value. They think only of its cumbrous ritual system, of its outward restrictions, its dim intimations of the life to come, its close alliance of the Church and the State ; and they won der if religion could maintain its vitality under such an oppressive burden of externalities. One glance at the Psalter dispels all such wonder. Here is seen the beat ing heart of a true believer; here is found the close intercourse of the soul with God ; here is emancipation 1 62 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. from all forms and ceremonies. The temple, the sacri fice, the offering are not undervalued, much less denied, but it is clearly seen that religion is more than form and that all outward services apart from a spiritual mind are of no account. There is no appearance of a studied effort in this direction, but the result of even a superficial read ing of the Psalter is a conviction that the religion of the ancient people of God was a most real thing, going down to the depths of their being and affecting their whole lives. With faint reference to a future life or a heavenly home these men felt that friendship with God and trust in his favor was alike their present duty and their highest good. When one singfer can say, " I have no good be yond thee, O Lord " (xvi, 2), and another exclaims, ' ' Whom have I in heaven but thee 7 And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth : But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever," we feel that here is a vigor of faith and hope, a dead ness to the world and its prizes, which the most advanced Christian might well envy. The tree is known by its fruits, and if the Old Testament bore such blessed results in the hearts and lives of men it is utterly vain to de nounce it as crude, immature, and barbarous. Prepara tory as it was, it had in it all the life-giving elements of a genuine spirituality, and nourished saints whose soar ing devotion may well be a stimulus and a pattern to u.s. (5 .) It Maintains a High Standard of Integrity. Take, for example, the Twenty-fourth Psalm, and hear.the ques tion, " Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? And who shall stand in his holy place ? " What is the answer? Is it, " The Israelite, the circum cised, the man who has paid all his tithes and offerings?" By no means. Moral and spiritual qualifications are alone THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 1 63 insisted upon. The writer answers his own question : " He that hath clean hands and a pure heart," and mani fests this by corresponding speech and life, as the singer proceeds to set forth ; and so throughout the collection. The emphasis is always laid upon integrity of purpose and uprightness of conduct, for which nothing else can be a substitute. Here the Psalter stands at an immeas urable distance above all other sacred books. These latter often have gleams of highness and of purity, and say many true and striking things; but these are associ ated with others of a very different character, so that the result is a piebald mixture of truth and error, destitute of power to satisfy the reason or awaken the conscience. But the singers of Israel have but one standard, and adhere to that with undeviating fidelity. As David said in the Fifty-first Psalm, " Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: And in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom." Sacrifice and offering are good things, but the best of all sacrifices is a broken and a contrite spirit. There was a constant tendency among the Hebrews to make the observance of ritual the chief thing. But they were vigorously warned of the danger of such a course. Hence we find in the Fiftieth Psalm the indignant remon strance : " Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats ? If I were hungry, I would not tell thee ; For the world is mine, and the fullness thereof." Such a passage is not a repeal of the Levitical dispen sation or a denial of its authority and use, but an earnest warning against the insidious temptation to make sacri fice and offering a substitute for integrity of heart and life. (6.) It Teaches the Forgiveness of Sins. How fully this is done appears not only by the repeated citations of 164 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. God's revelation of himself to Moses (Exod. xxxiv, 6), as " Jehovah, Jehovah, a God full of compassion and gra cious," but also by such sweeping statements and com parisons as occur in the 103d Psalm : " For as the heaven is high above the earth. So great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us." This forgiveness was granted in view of the great pro pitiation on the cross, not then made known, but symbol ized in the Mosaic ritual. Hence David said in the great outpouring of his heart in penitence, " Purge me with hyssop," in allusion to the bunch of hyssop at the end ofthe rod of cedar wood, by means of which the mingled blood and water was sprinkled upon the defiled, and they became ceremonially clean. The humbled king desires to have applied to his heart and conscience that which will take away the burden of guilt and the stain of sin. The true effect of pardon was also set forth in the Psalter, as we read in the 130th Psalm : "But there is forgiveness with thee, That thou mayest be feared." The issue of pardon is not to render the forgiven indif ferent and careless, but just the other way. He now is free to go on in a new course rejoicing ; the intolerable burden has fallen from his back, and the restored rela tions of friendliness between him and his Maker give him a new and abiding impulse in the practice of holy living. Of course he cannot feel the tremendous motive that comes from the cross of our Lord, but he does feel a motive of the same kind when the sense of graciously pardoned sin binds his heart like a fetter to the spiritual service of his Lord. ISAIAH. 165 ISAIAH. BY PASTOR JA-MES H. BROOKES, D.D., St. Louis. He who reads the prophecy with care must perceive the unity of design that pervades the entire book. The first verse of the first chapter gives us the purpose of the revelation : " The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." In the first verse ofthe second chapter, instead of the vision, we read, " The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem." But whether vision or word, it is concerning Judah and Jeru salem. It contains much important truth concerning ourselves and the world. It announces distinctly the humiliation, sufferings, and death, exaltation and coming again in glory and majesty, of the Messiah ; it breathes the sweet invitations of the Gospel ; but beyond question its leading design relates to Judah and Jerusalem ; and this is the key to its proper exposition. The first chapter is the preface and epitome of the book, and includes the whole period of which the prophet treats. It sets forth the persistent rebellion, the more than beastly ingratitude, and the utter depravity of Is rael ; but it reaches on to the time when " Zion shall be redeemed with judgment," a form of expression that could not be applied to the Christian Church. During the long interval heartless forms of worship will be maintained, but they are a grief and trouble and weari- l66 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. ness to Jehovah, who says, " Bring no more vain obla tions ; incense is an abomination unto me ; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calhng of assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." The remainder of the book is divided into seven sec tions. Section I shows the disobedience and punishment of the Jews, but their restoration at the second advent of Christ. Here mention is made more than sixty times of Judah, and Jerusalem, and Israel, and Zion, and Jacob, and David, and Ephraim, and Manasseh, proving how largely the mind of the Holy Spirit is occupied about the literal seed of Abraham, and how foolish it is to spiritualize these names into something they were never intended to represent. In chapter ii, although the land was full of gold and silver, of horses and chariots, judgment falls upon its natural resources, upon the branching cedars of Lebanon and the proud oaks of Bashan, because of its idolatry. In chapters iii and iv God in hot indignation with draws the blessing of government, and the civil and religious heads of society, the warrior, the judge, the prophet, the counselor, the scientific man, and the eloquent orator, are taken away, and babes rule over them ; while the women who had lived to display their showy apparel have their finery turned into mourning, and seven of them take hold upon one man, so great has been the diminution and dearth of those whose admira tion they sought to win by costly attire and showy orna ments. In chapter v, under the emblem of a vineyard, is exhibited the unfaithfulness and unfruitfulness of the in habitants of Jerusalem and of the men of Judah — indeed, of the whole house of Israel ; and this is followed by six ISAIAH. 167 woes, caused by the selfish covetousness of the people, their ungodly revelry, their shameful servitude to iniq uity, their reversal of correct views of good and evil, their self-conceit, and their drunkenness, that called down upon them the fierce anger of the Lord. In chapter vi the prophet is prepared, by a marvel ous manifestation in the temple of the glory and holiness of Christ, as we learn from John xii, 37-41, and by a won drous revelation of divine grace in providing for him an atoning sacrifice, to announce to his countrymen their rejection and banishment from the land of their fathers. But the withered leaf is no evidence that the tree is dead ; and the promise is given in a passage quoted again and again in the New Testament, that, although Israel shall be scattered, they shall not be consumed. Between chapters vi and vii many years passed. The last of the reign of Uzziah, the whole of that of Jotham, and part of that of Ahaz intervened. Syria and the ten tribes of Israel form a compact to destroy Judah and Jerusalem, but the prophet and his son, Shear- jashub (meaning " the remnant shall return)," are sent to Ahaz with assurance of deliverance from the enemy. The Assyrian would soon overrun Israel, leaving utter desolation behind him ; and Isaiah's second son, Maher- shalal-hash-baz (meaning "hasten prey — speed spoil)," became the sign of coming disaster for Judah also, be cause they sought unto familiar spirits, and unto wiz ards that peep and that mutter, and not unto the law and testimony of God. Hence they shall be hardly be stead, and find darkness and trouble. But in chapter ix the gloom is relieved by a shin ing on the hills of Galilee, the bright harbinger of a day without clouds. It ushers in the beautiful prediction of a coming One in whom the human race is interested, for it is written, " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son l68 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. is given : and the government shall be upon his shoul der : and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever." Then the prophet immediately resumes the denunciation qf God's wrath upon the guilty nation, be gun in the fifth chapter and interrupted by the episode of chapters vi, vii, viii, and ix, 1-7. In chapter x the last threat of punishment in this section of the book is called forth by the daring unright eousness of the judges, who robbed and wronged the people. The Assyrian, therefore, is summoned, as the rod of Jehovah's anger, to inflict unsparing blows for all the iniquities committed in the land ; and he is evidently a type and forerunner of the Antichrist of the last days, whose rapid march upon Jerusalem is most graphically described at the close of the chapter. Hence in chapters xi and xii, immediately follow ing his ravages, the true Christ is introduced, and a lovely picture of his reign is seen, when the ferocity of the wild beasts shall be touched and tamed by his gentle scepter ; and the earth shall be flooded with the knowl edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea; and his rest shall be glorious ; and the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah shall be gathered a second time, and from the four corners of the earth, into the land from which they have been exiled so many dreary centuries ; and their song of praise shall ascend to the Holy One of Israel. Thus the entire cycle of Israel's history is completed in Section I as in chapter i, beginning in sin, overhung with storms, and ending in .splendor. All through the ISAIAH. 169 tempestuous voyage of this strange nation, and all through the prophet's predictions of its merited doom, are seen promises of a coming and divine Deliverer, like flashes of sunlight bursting through the dark clouds. It is most important to notice, because of its bearing upon the question of the authorship ofthe book, that the section closes with the prediction of complete restoration and triumph at the second advent of Christ (chapters i-xii). Section II is laden with the burden of seven Gentile nations that stood intimately related to Israel and op pressed her, and consequently they must endure the stroke of God's hand, for he will not permit any people, however powerful, to persecute the Jew with impunity. Here the judgments are heavier and more widely spread, for " the earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away,_the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof. . . . Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O inhabitants of the earth. . . . The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard." But here, also, the close of the cycle of fiery indignation is radiant with the hope of Christ's coming. "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jeru salem, and before his ancients gloriously." A time of feasting in the mountain, and of singing in the land of Judah, succeeds ; and " he shall cauSe them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." Jehovah appears for the deliverance ofthe seed of Abraham, saying, " Ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel." A great trumpet is blown, " and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the out casts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem " (chapters xiii-xxvii). 170 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Section III pronounces woes, first upon Ephraim, or the ten tribes, for their intemperance, pride, self-indul gence, and spiritual stupidity, and then upon Jerusalem, called Ariel, or "lion of God," that shall be brought down, and speak out of the ground, and her voice shall be low out of the dust, and she shall " be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision;" a prophecy which it is needless to say has never been fulfilled, and therefore remains to be fulfilled, as surely as God's word is true. Her rebellious children are severely censured for refusing to take counsel of God's revealed will, and for seeking help of Egypt; but notwithstanding their ingratitude and unbelief, " as birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem ; de fending also he will deliver it ; and passing over he will preserve it." Then, " a King shall reign in righteous ness," and " thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold a far stretching land;" while "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose ; " and "the ransomed of the Lord shall return,- and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sigh ing shall flee away " (chapters xxviii -xxxv). Section IV consists of four historical chapters, quite different in diction from those that precede them, al though their Isaiah authorship has never been ques tioned. The same events are recorded in 2 Kings xviii- XX and 2 Chron. xxxii, and such prominence is given to them by the Holy Ghost because they furnish the his torical basis, and a striking type, of the supernatural ISAIAH. 171 deliverance God's ancient and future people, his cove nanted people, shall surely experience from the perils of the last days. In chapters xxxvi and xxxvii we have their temporal deliverance set forth in the defeat of Sen nacherib, king of Assyria, and in the destruction of his army ; and their spiritual restoration is depicted in the miraculous recovery of Hezekiah, king of Judah, from an apparently fatal illness, followed by his declared pur pose to sing songs all the days of his life in the house of the Lord. Then comes a little chapter foretelHng the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon ; and it is morally certain that Isaiah did not end his prophecy in this man ner (chapters xxxvi-xxxix). But just at this point higher criticism meets us with the astounding statement that the prophet abruptly ter minated his message with the proclamation to Hezekiah, " Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which- thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." In the light of all that precedes it is safe to say that Isaiah did not conclude his ministry with such words. If those who insist that he wrote no more had permitted him to close with chapter xl, " Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," it might not have been so bad ; but they tell us that the prophecy, from the beginning of chapter xl to the end of chapter Ixvi, was composed by another man, who lived one hundred and fifty years later, called the Great Unnamed or Deutero-Isaiah. Let us look a little at this absurd claim. I. It has a suspicious origin. The higher criticism, of which it is part, had its beginning with one Astruc, a French physician, who was a Jesuit when it suited his 172 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. purpose, a contemporary with Voltaire and Bolingbroke, rivaling them both in profanity and obscenity, an ava ricious and licentious scoundrel, the object of derision by drunkards on the streets, who published a deliberate lie on the title-page of the very book in which he brought out what Professor Briggs calls his " real di.scovery," that " Genesis consists of two large memoirs and nine lesser ones." Eichhorn, whom the professor calls "the father of higher criticism," was an avowed infidel, who had no more faith or interest in the Old Testament than in Herodotus ; and it is not at all probable that the Holy Spirit made use of any such unworthy instrumentalities to shed new light upon his word. 2. For eighteen hundred years previous to the fanci ful discovery of a Deutero-Isaiah scholars as able and devout as any found among the higher critics of to-day had carefully and prayerfully and thoroughly studied the prophecy, and not one of them ever discovered the least trace of the existence of such a writer. It is not pre tended that any versions or manuscripts have been found to aid them in their research, or that any historical in formation about the Great Unknown has been obtained ; but the proof that he lived is derived wholly from certain internal evidence which entirely escaped the scrutiny of competent critics for many centuries. However keen the insight of those who hold that Isaiah did not write his prophecy, it is not at all probable that they surpass in intellect and learning all who preceded them. 3. There are scholars now living as well qualified in every respect to decide such a question as the noisy and preten tious heralds of a Deutero-Isaiah. These scholars, who are the peers, to say the least, of the others, have weighed the arguments and examined the evidence of the higher critics, and utterly reject and repudiate the theory. Men who have given thirty, forty, and some of them sixty ISAIAH. 173 years to the study of the book, and are as familiar with the Hebrew as they are with the English alphabet, fail to find the slightest reason for believing that any other but the one Isaiah was the author of the book that bears his name. Why is it that so many who do not possess the slightest knowledge of the subject for themselves eagerly enlist under the banner of higher criticism, unless they are anxious to be assured of errors and mistakes in the Bible, thus illustrating the truth of its testimony, " The mind of the flesh is enmity against God ? " 4. The first advocates of the Deutero-Isaiah specula tion were the rationalists, or, properly speaking, the infidels, of Germany, and from that country it passed over to England, to the delight of a few professors, who began to display it in books and magazine articles, and then it crossed the sea, to be adopted by certain fussy professors and their adherents in the United States. But having read one you have read all. The English and American professors tamely follow in the leading strings of their German masters, so that in reality the opinion of two or three " advanced thinkers," as they are pleased to call themselves, is set up against the best scholarship and the cherished conviction of the Church for eighteen hundred years. The two or three start into a trot away from the Bible, and the rest trot after them. Well does the word of God describe men as sheep, not merely because of their helplessness and silliness, but because of their propensity to run after a leader, and because of their inability to find their way back when lost. 5. It is " unthinkable," as the higher critics say, that a Deutero-Isaiah, living one hundred and fifty years after the real Isaiah, was so wholly unknown to the men among whom he walked, was so entirely unrecognized by those for whom he wrote, that not the faintest vestige of him remains, and that it required about two thousand 13 174 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. four hundred years even to conjecture that he ever existed. Neither the Jewish writers nor the Christian fathers allude to any such person ; and it requires a credulity far greater than that which is necessary to believe that the true Isaiah mentioned Cyrus by name long before his birth, if men can be persuaded that a pseudo-Isaiah succeeded in palming off his forgery as the genuine production of the true prophet, and, having incorporated it with the sacred Scriptures, completely and forever passed out of sight. 6. If there was a Deutero-Isaiah he was totally unlike the other prophets. Isaiah opens his prophecy as " the vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concern ing Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah" (Isa. i, i). Jere miah says, " The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin : to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign" (Jer- i, i, 2). Ezekiel writes, " In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land ofthe Chaldeans by the river Chebar" (Ezek. i, 2, 3). Daniel declares that he prophesied in Babylon in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar ; and again, "In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed ; " and again, " In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed ofthe Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans ; in the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem ;" and again, "In the third year TSATAH. 17s of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel " (Dan. ii, 24; vii, i ; ix, i, 2 ; x, i). Thus it is with the other prophets without exception. They all give us their names, and often the names of their fathers, or the time and place of their ministry, and every one of them asserts that the word of the Lord came to him (Hos. i, i; Joel i, i; Amos i, i, 3; Obad. i; Jonah i, i; Micah i, I; Nahum i, i, 12; Hab. i, i; ii, 2; Zeph. i, i; Hag. i, i; Zech. i, i; Mai. i, i). But it is altogether dif ferent with the Deutero-Isaiah. He pounces upon us unannounced and unintroduced, withholds his name and the name of his father, refrains from any mention of the date of his prophecy, does not assert that the word of the Lord cahie to him, bears none of the credentials of a prophet, and conceals his personality so completely that when he vanishes from human sight even his existence was not'suspected for more than two thousand years. Yet he wrote so wonderfully, he gave utterance to prophecies so sublime and far-reaching in their bearing upon the his tory of Israel and the world at large, he poured forth in strains so enchanting the entreaties of the Gospel, one would suppose that he must have received at least a passing notice from Daniel or Ezekiel or some of his con temporaries ; and the fact that he received no such notice, and that he is nowhere mentioned, is strong presumptive evidence that there was no such man. 7. The decree of Cyrus is conclusive proof that he never existed. " Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth ; and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah " (Ezra i, 2). The work of building was interrupted for a long time under his successors, until in the reign of Darius search into the public records was made, and " there was found at Ach- metha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes 176 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. a roll, and therein was a record thus written : In the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house of God be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices" (Ezra vi, 2, 3). The only source of information from which Cyrus could have learned the will of God with regard to the building of the temple is found in what is called Deutero-Isaiah : " That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him ; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates [of Babylon]. . . . For Jacob my serv ant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me (Isa. xliv, 28; xiv, i, 4). The only way to break the force of this testimony is to assert that the Book of Ezra is also a forgery. But higher criticism is unwilling to do this, for the book is. its mainstay to disprove the Mosaic authorship of the Pen tateuch ; and much of the Old Testament literature is referred to him or to his contemporaries. Even higher criticism reluctantly confesses that there must be historic credibility somewhere, and so far it has not laid its destructive hand upon Ezra. But if Ezra tells the truth Cyrus knew that God had commanded him to build the temple at Jerusalem, and he knew that the command was contained in the prophecy of Isaiah, written long before his birth, and not by some Great Unnamed living during his own reign. 8. Let us suppose that the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah were composed in the period of the Babylo nian captivity and at the time of the ascension of Cyrus ISAIAH. 177 to the throne. If the writer, or any person or persons representing the \Vriter, had gone to the monarch with the announcement that the • sacred books of the Jews contained a prediction of his building the temple, is it not certain that he would have ^instantly discovered the fraud ? Would he not have sent for the priests or scribes, and required them to point out in their prophecies the place where he is predicted by name ? If he ascertained that his name was not written in a book composed a hundred years before his birth, but in a book composed after he had taken the scepter of empire, it is highly probable that he would have properly ordered the head of the forger to be shaved or cut off. The assertion that the last half of Isaiah was not written until the days of Cyrus makes that astute politician and brilliant soldier nothing less than a fool, the credulous dupe of an unscrupulous sharper ; and it is amazing that higher criticism can venture upon such a supposition. 9. Josephus declares in an undisputed passage that the purpose of Jehovah to rebuild the temple " was known to Cyrus by his reading of the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this (the charge given to him by Jehovah), an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written " (Antiquities, book xi, chap. i). It is evi dent, therefore, that Josephus knew of only one Isaiah, and that he never heard of a Deutero-Isaiah, and it is equally evident that this learned Jew, so versed in the history and knowledge of the Old Testament, must have caught a gliiripse of the man if he had really appeared. Not only so, but if the differences in the diction and in the structure of the two parts of the prophecy are so marked, as higher criticism alleges, it is certain that they could not have escaped the notice of an observer so acute and a Hebrew scholar so accurate as the distinguished 178 .VNTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. author of the book that assigns the entire prophecy to the true Isaiah. 10. The mention of Cyrus by name a century before his birth accounts for the imaginary discovery of the Great Unnamed. Of course higher criticism cannot admit that such a thing is possible, for it would cease to live if it could cease to eliminate the supernatural from the Bible. It is a fundamental principle of this school of baptized infidelity that " the prophets were bounded like other men, by the horizon of their own views, and occupied themselves only with that future whose rewards and pun ishments were likely to reach their contemporaries." Or, as Professor Bruce expresses it, " Isaiah prophesied and predicted all he did from loyalty to two simple truths, which he tells us he received from God himself — that sin must be punished, and that the people of God must be saved. This simple faith, acting with a wonder ful knowledge of human nature and ceaseless vigilance of affairs, constituted inspiration for Isaiah. For the exact conditions and forms, both ofthe punishment and its relief, the prophets depended upon their own knowledge of the world." Or, as Professor Briggs repeatedly asserts, "A minute fulfillment of predictive prophecy is impossible." So far is this from the truth it is directly contrary to the truth, and yet multitudes of unthinking mortals will swallow any statement, however absurd, if it comes to them with a show of learning. The Bible is full of examples of predictive prophecy that has met a literal and minute and precise fulfillment, and every well-taught child knows that such is the fact. It is only necessary to allude, by way of illustration, to the seed ofthe woman bruising the "serpent's head (Gen. iii, 15); the prophecy to Noah that there shall not be a flood any more to destroy the earth (Gen. ix, ll); the prophecy to Abraham that in him all the families of the ISAIAH. 179 earth are to be blessed, and that he should have a son in his old age, whose name is mentioned before his birth (Gen. xii, 3 ; xvii, 9) ; the prophecy to Moses concerning the calling of them that were no people (Deut. xxxii, 21; Rom. X, 9) ; the prophecy cursing the man who should rise up to build Jericho (Josh, vi, 26 ; i Kings xvi, 34) ; the prophecy to David relating to his illustrious son, of whom he was seen as the type (i Chron. xvii, 17 ; Rom. i, 3) ; the prophecy that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son (Isa. vii, 14 ; Matt, i, 23) ; the prophecies that pointed out the place of his birth, the date of his appearing, the character of his ministry, his sufferings and death, his resurrection and ascension (Micah v, 2 ; Dan. ix, 24-26 ; Isa. Ixi, 1-3 ; Psa. xxii, 1-18 ; Ixix, 1-2 1 ; Isa. liii, 4-6 ; Psa. xvi, 10; Ixviii, 18); the prophecies concerning Baby lon, Egypt, Edom, Tyre, Nineveh, Jerusalem, and other countries and cities, that stretched far beyond the hori zon of the prophet's view and that have been minutely fulfilled in the eyes of all the world. There are hundreds of such prophecies in detail, and it is too .late a day to claim that they cannot be true. But it is a remarkable fact that the cherished Deutero- Isaiah ofthe higher critics is the very one who makes use of the argument from prophecy to prove the infinite su periority of Jehovah above all gods, and to establish his claim upon human faith. He summons the nations to trial, that the relative merits of the God of Israel and the sense less objects of idolatrous worship may be tested : " Pro duce your cause, saith the Lord ; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the king of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen : let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them ; or declare us thirigs for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods " (xii, 21-23). Then he l8o ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. adds, " I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come : from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name : and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay " (xii, 25). Here the asser tion is distinctly made that Cyrus would be raised up as the deliverer of Jerusalem, and to confirm the confidence of the people appeal is taken to prophecies already ful filled. But if the prophecy was delivered at the close of the captivity all the force of the argument is destroyed, and it becomes ridiculous. It was a venture no man would dare to take to write history and to claim that it was prophecy. II. The second division of Isaiah deals largely with the idolatry of the Israelites, and it is evidently an idolatry of which the people were guilty at the time the prophecy was written. For proof of this sec xl, xii, xlii, xliv, xiv, xlvi. Still later it is said to these idolaters, " Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts ofthe rocks ; . . . even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering" (Ivii, 5, 6); "a people that pro- voketh me to anger continually to my face ; that sacrific- eth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick " (Ixv, 3) ; " they that sanctify themselves, and purify them selves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord " (Ixvi, 17). Thus from chapter xl to Ixvi, including the whole of the sup posed Deutero-Isaiah portion of the book, the folly and wickedness of idolatry are denounced as an actual and pres ent evil, and not merely as a putrid reminiscence. But there is not the slightest reason for saying that idolatry continued during the Babylonian captivity. There is every reason for saying, both from sacred and from profane history, from internal evidence and from the testimony ISAIAH. l8l of the Jews, that it ceased ; and hence the latter part of Isaiah was not written by a Great Unnamed toward tlie close of the captivity, for there would have- been no ap propriateness in his teaching. 12. This latter part was not written from the stand point of an exile, as the higher critics affirm, but from the standpoint of one in the land of his fathers. Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and Zion and Lebanon are often named, as if the prophet stood in their midst ; and if he was in Babylon surely he could not have spoken of Ur of the Chaldees as " the ends of the earth" (xii, 9). It is true that he says, " Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste ;" but they have read the Bible with a very unob- serving eye who have not seen how frequently the future is put in the past, and how it is said of that which is yet to come, " It is done." For example, the Lord said to Gideon, as Dr. Young correctly translates it, "Because I am with thee, thou hast smitten the Midianites as one man " (Judg. vi, 16), although the Midianites were not then smitten. So the supposed Deutero-Isaiah says of our Lord, " He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon him " (Isa. liii, 5) ; but it will not be claimed that he was already crucified. Nothing is more common in the Bible than such forms of expression, show ing how certain of fulfillment are the prophecies, how trustworthy is the word of God ; and the higher critics must be hard pushed for argument when they make the prophet's confidence in the prediction of Jehovah a rea son for believing that Jerusalem was already destroyed. 13. There are verbal evidences of one authorship which are worthy of notice. Thus it is remarkable how fre- l82 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. quently in both divisions of the prophecy the root mean ing of Hezekiah, "strength or help of the Lord," is brought out. We find it in chapters iv, i; xxii, 21; xxvii, 5; xxviii, 22; xxxiii, 23; xxxix, i, of the first thirty-nine chapters, and also in chapters xii, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13 ; xiv, I ; H, 18; liv, 2 ; Ivi, 2, 4, 6; Ixiv, 7, although translated in a variety of ways. The writer of both parts delights, as it were, to play upon the word that sug gests, amid the gathering tempest, the strength of Jeho vah. So the peculiar use oi yah-mar for ah-mar, "saith the Lord," occurring three times in the earlier prophe cies and five times in the later, and nowhere else, shows one authorship of the two parts. The same evidence is found in the title applied to Jehovah, and never applied before Isaiah's ministry by the prophets, " the Holy One of Israel," which occurs fourteen times in the fir.st thirty- nine chapters and fourteen times in the last twenty- seven. Again, we read, " Thou shalt be called Hephzi- bah " (Ixii, 4), the name of Hezekiah's wife, as we learn in 2 Kings xxi, i ; and all these things, taken together, make the probability amount to a demonstration that the latter part of the prophecy was written by the same pen the Holy Ghost employed to write the first part, and during the reign of Hezekiah. 14. The two parts are linked together by the four his torical chapters, and each would be incomplete without the other. The fiist deals largely with that which is out ward, local, and temporary iri Israel's history, and thus lays the sure foundation for the broader revelations that follow in the second part, where God is revealed as mighty, xl; "ever present, xii ; .sending his elect servant, xlii; faithful, xliii ; bestowing his Spirit, xliv; charging Cyrus to deliver his people, xiv ; showing the helpless ness of the gods of Babylon, xlvi ; degrading Babylon, xlvii ; determined not to cast off his people, xlviii ; de- ISAIAH. 183 daring that Christ shall come, xlix ; describing the depth of his humiliation, I ; uttering tender appeals, li ; assur ing his chosen of future deliverance, Hi ; telling of Christ's substitutionary death, liii ; causing Jerusalem to sing, liv ; sending forth urgent invitations to come, Iv ; blessing all who join themselves to him, Ivi ; removing his faithful ones from approaching evils, Ivii ; exposing the source of Israel's ruin, Iviii; showing that judgments must pursue iniquity, lix; exhibiting Israel's glory, Ix; setting forth Messiah's mission, Ixi ; leading to earnest intercessory prayer, Ixii ; portraying his return from executing venge ance, Ixiii ; exciting fervent supplications, Ixiv ; giving a picture of millennial blessedness, Ixv ; and the promise of the Lord's coming, Ixvi. If the fir.st Isaiah ended his prophecy with chapter xxxix his work is like an unfinished or shattered col umn ; and as we lay it down there comes to us a pain ful sense of inappropriateness in the termination and of incompleteness in the whole structure. If the second Isaiah began his work with chapter xl the column which he reared, even into eternity and heaven, has no base whatever for its support. It is an abrupt and fragment ary proclamation of Jehovah's creative power, constant providence, redeeming mercy, and unchangeable purpose, connected with nothing that goes before and containing nothing that explains its origin. Section V reveals God moving for the deliverance of his people, and closing with the coming of the Lord (xl-xlix). Section VI shows God's interposition in their behalf, and closing with the coming ofthe Lord (1-lxi). Section VII is full of inter cessory prayer, and closing with the coming of the Lord (Ixii-lxvi). But these sections are the manifest outgrowth of the four preceding sections, and sustain to them a logical and indissoluble relation. 15. A careful examination of the four historical chap- 184 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. ters shows that there is a designed reversal of the chrono logical events there recorded. The invasion of the land of Judah occurred in the fourteenth year of King Heze kiah (Isa. xxxvi, i; 2 Kings xviii, 13): "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death " (Isa. xxxviii, i). We know that it was the year of the Assyrian invasion, for fifteen years were miraculously added to his life, and he died after a reign of twenty-nine years (2 Kings xviii, 2). But the sickness preceded the destruction of the Assyrian army, for God said to him while he was drawing nigh to the grave, " I will add unto thy days fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria : and I will defend this city " (Isa. xxxviii, 5, 6). Then immediately ensued the sign on the sundial of Ahaz. Hence, according to chronological order, chap ters xxxviii and xxxix ought to have preceded xxxvi and xxxvii ; and why was the historical order reversed ? Because the Spirit of God knew that Assyria would soon be retired from the field of vision, that Babylon was the great foe of Israel in the future, continuing to be the head of all that opposes him and his people until its final overthrow in Rev. xvii, xviii ; and he wishes his servant to face Babylon, as leading on to the prophecies contained in the latter part of the book. The very posi tion of these historical chapters, therefore, forbids the thought of a Deutero-Isaiah. 16. If there was such a person, and he succeeded in passing off his own writings for those of the true Isaiah, he was a forger, and a forger of the meanest kind, be cause he counterfeited the things of God and pretended to be a prophet divinely commissioned. Hence the work of his pen is utterly worthless ; and when the higher critics inform us that it is of no importance whether the Scriptures were written by the men whose names they bear, or by others who assumed these names, they dis- ISAIAH. 185 play a mental or moral obliquity of perception which it is difficult to understand. For example, they insist that Leviticus and Deuteronomy, illuminated with the name of Moses, were composed hundreds of years after the death of Moses, whose name was forged by the authors to secure the sanction and strength of his influence, and yet that they form parts of Holy Scripture. An authentic anecdote is told of Wellhausen, to whom an American spoke of the extensive following he has in this country, and added that his admirers here still maintain the inspi ration of the discredited documents. The German in fidel was silent for a moment, and then exclaimed: "I have undoubtedly proved the books to be forgeries, but it never occurred to me to make God Almighty a party to the fraud." This is precisely what the theory of a Deutero or pseudo Isaiah does for the prophecy ; it makes God a party to the fraud by claiming that a base imposi tion is to be accepted as no less worthy of our reverence than the testimony of the true Isaiah. 17. The supposition that the writings of the Great Un named found their way without fraud into the canon of Scripture is equally inadmissible ; for, apart from the watchful providence of God that guides the flight of a sparrow and counts the hairs of our heads, and that is pledged to guard his living word against such intrusion, that would prove fatal to his revealed will, it is certain that the jealous care of the scribes for every syllable and letter of their sacred Scriptures would have rendered the inadvertence impossible. Besides this it is inconceivable that in the exercise of their incessant, and, as some would call it, superstitious watchfulness, and with multiplied copies of Isaiah's prophecy — which there is every reason to believe were in the synagogues and in the hands of the devout — the supposed addition could have escaped their observation. In any view, therefore, whether the 1 86 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. higher critics believe that the imaginary writings were in corporated with the Bible fraudulently, or ignorantly and innocently, it is necessary to exclude the idea of a Deu tero-Isaiah. 1 8. In another inspired book there is distinct reference made to the prophecy of Isaiah as written in the days of Hezekiah, and therefore before the captivity : " Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz" (2 Chron. xxxii, 32). The prophecy, as such, and as a whole, is attributed to one Isaiah, and by a writer who lived about the period assigned to the Deu tero-Isaiah. In another book, not inspired, but valuable as historical evidence because it sets forth the belief of those who lived a little later than the time of the sup- po.sed Great Unknown, clear testimony is given to the Isaiah authorship of the whole book. " Hezekiah had done the thing that pleased the Lord, and was strong in the ways of David his father, as Isaiah the prophet, who was great and faithful in his vision, had commanded him. In his time the sun went backward, and he lengthened the king's life. He saw by an excellent spirit what should come to pass at the last, and he comforted them that had mourned in Zion. He showed what should come to pass forever, and secret things or ever they came " (Ecclus. xlviii, 22-25). Here, it will be observed, the reference is to the part of the prophecy supposed to be written by the Deutero-Isaiah, but only one Isaiah is known. In the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, also, and in the Greek or Septuagint Version, we have the prophecy of Isaiah precisely as it is in our English Bible, , all under one name, all ascribed to one Isaiah ; and hence higher criticism is mistaken when it fancies the exist ence of another Isaiah. 19. Its favorite argument, which consists in forming a list ISAIAH. 187 of words found in the earlier chapters and not in the later, and in the later chapters and not in the earlier, is exceedingly flimsy, for the same argument will disprove the genuineness of any book whatever. Professor Mead, in his admirable satire, called Romans Dissected, has displayed such lists of words found in the eariier and later portions of that epistle ; and yet such pronounced infidels as Baur, Strauss, and Renan have acknowledged it to be the genuine production ofthe apostle Paul. The principles of higher criticism have been applied to the works of Milton, Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Glad stone, and of Dr. Briggs. Different lists of words have been collected from different parts of their writings; and if the argument is worth anything, as applied to Isaiah, it proves that these gentlemen were not the authors of their own books. A few years ago an attempt was made, along the same line of reasoning, to prove that Homer did not write his poems, but at length the higher critics were forced to beat a sullen retreat with the consolatory remark, " Homer was not written by Homer, but by a per son of the same name who lived at the same time." So it will be soon with regard to the authorship of Isaiah. Indeed, some ofthe higher critics already admit that the later chapters were composed by a man named Isaiah, although they are not ready to confess that the first Isaiah was the author, because they are not ready to confess that he could foretell future events, or, in other words, because they are infidels. 20. The New Testament settles the question decisively and forever against the rash assertions of higher criti cism. Twenty-one times is Isaiah quoted, and eleven of these quotations are taken from the later chapters, and directly referred to one Isaiah as the author. Compare Matt, iii, 3, and Isa. xl, 3 ; Matt, viii, 17, and Isa. liii, 4; Matt, xii, 17, and Isa. xHi, i ; Matt, xv, 8, and Isa. Iviii, 1 88 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. 1-3 ; Luke iii, 4, and Isa. xl, 3 ; Luke iv, 17-19, and Isa. Ixi, I, 2; John i, 23, and Isa. xl, 3; John xii, 38, and Isa. xliii, I ; Acts viii, 28-32, and Isa. liii, 7, 8 ; Rom. x, 16, and Isa. hii, i ; Rom. x, 20, and Isa. Ixv, i, 2. Higher criticism is hardly bestead and helpless to account for the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit by the apostles gave the sanction of divine authority to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the Isaiah authorship of the prophecy that goes by his name. It first asserted that the Saviour knew better, but fell in with the popular and erroneous impression of the people. But this made him countenance what he knew to be false. Then it affirmed that he did not know, or, as Rev. W. Hay Aitken blasphemously expressed it, he was not as good a critic as Wellhausen. But this assailed his divin ity. Its latest dodge is to say, " He condescended not to know;" but, as an old colored man wisely replied, " He would have to know all things so as to know what not to know." If his testimony and that of the Holy Ghost are to be believed it is absolutely certain that there was no Deutero-Isaiah. 21. A final argument against the existence of such a writer may be drawn from the fact that it is maintained by a school of criticism which from the beginning has manifested a prejudiced and unfriendly spirit toward the Holy Scriptures. As already seen, it was conceived in the coarse and vulgar infidelity of Astruc, brought to the birth by the more refined infidelity of Eichhorn, and ever since has been employed to do the work of infidelity. Many young men are throwing up their caps in its praise and proclaiming that it saved them from infidelity; but the question is. Did it save them from infidelity, or con firm th"em in infidelity with a slumbering conscience? An infidel is one who does not believe the Bible, and they show by their talk that they no more believe the ISAIAH. 189 Bible now than they did before ; they retain all their ob jections to the Bible, and still find it consistent even to become preachers. But whether preachers or professors in seminaries, they are exerting all their influence to destroy faith in the truth of God's word, and are scatter ing broadcast the seed of infidelity, as the pastor of almost every church in the land knows to his sorrow. The errors and mistakes which they announce in public and in private as found in the Bible are dug from the graves of Voltaire and Tom Paine, and displayed as their own discoveries ; and yet none of these supposed errors and mistakes are original, but they have been disproved again and again. Dr. Howard Osgood tells us that he discovered in volume vi of Voltaire's Works all the objections to the credibility of the Scriptures that are now paraded before the world by unconverted theo logical professors in German universities, and then re produced by foolish theological professors in Great Britain and America. Wellhausen proclaims that he is a polytheist, and Kuenen, so his biographer assures us, made it his purpose in life to strip Christianity of every shred of supernaturalism ; that is, there is no miracle, no prophecy, no incarnation, no resurrection, no revelation. Remojce the kid glove of learning from the paw of higher criticism, and the tigerish claws of infidelity will always be revealed ; take away the silk mask of profession, and the cunning face of Satan will ever be seen. If the Lord is pleased to tarry longer at the right hand ofthe Father there will surely come an awakening from the delirium of the hour, and real Christians who have been led to dishonor the Lord by profane han dling of his word will, like the Jews in a day that is yet future, look upon him whom they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son. Mean while we can have no fear concerning the final result of 13 190 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. the sharp conflict. " The word of the Lord endureth forever " (i Peter i, 25). " Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven " (Psalm cxix, 89). " Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a ham mer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" (Jer. xxiii, 29.) " The Scripture cannot be broken " (John x, 35). " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt, xxiv, 35). Many and mighty have been the efforts put forth through successive centuries to de stroy the Bible, but all these efforts have returned upon the enemy like the waves of the Red Sea that over whelmed Pharaoh and his host, and left the redeemed ofthe Lord to raise their song of deliverance and victory on the shore looking toward the promised land. " As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and mak eth it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater : so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and prosper in the thing whereto I sent it " (Isa. Iv, 10, 11). THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 191 THE BOOK OF DANIEL -ITS AUTHORSHIP, INTEGRITY, AND STRUCTURE. BY PASTOR GEORGE S. BISHOP, D.D., Orange, N. J. The Book of Daniel comes to us invested with a charm, a freshness, and an interest attaching to no other book of the Old Testament canon. One thing : because of its scope, its tremendous hor izons. The prophecies of Daniel are not limited by either time or space. They relate to the destinies of mighty empires and stretch forward into eras still hidden in the bosom of the future. They start coeval with those pointed obelisks which represent the rays of the primeval light, and with those sphinxlike bulls — head of a man for intelligence, body of a beast for strength, wings of a bird for ubiquity — which have lately risen, hoary from the grave of centuries ; and they unfold their parti-colored and their vivid panorama until it reaches its sublimest consummation in the coming of the Son of man from heaven— the kingdom and dominion and the great ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, and the triumph of the people of the saints of the Most High. The prophecies of Daniel have an added interest be cause the on-rolling of this almost infinite panorama takes in our own affairs — in fact, determines everything, chronological, political, social, temporal, eternal — in a word, supernatural — for us. The Book of Daniel, there fore, with the various theories of its interpretation, has IQ2 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. always been vigorously, often warmly, and sometimes even bitterly discussed. Like the historic plain of Esdraelon, it has been the battlefield of preterist and futurist, of German neologian, French mystic, and Anglo-Saxon common-sense expositor. Each champion has written copiously, boldly, and with intensest personal interest, and the Christian world has read and listened with avidity because aware that these predictions touch sharply home upon our times and to the latest date of our modern political movements. Thus it has come to pass that the most abstruse arguments on Daniel and the dullest and most prolix dissertations have been rendered popular through the burning nature of the Eastern question and through the quickened expecta tion of finding in the pope, the sultan, or the Russian czar the "little horn " — the "willful king" — the Anti christ of the great coming Armageddon. A third and further reason for increasing interest in the Book of Daniel is the position which Daniel himself holds parallel with Noah and with Job as a factor in one of the three great crises which divide the history of re demption, namely, the Deluge, the Exodus, and Pen tecost. As Noah preached and suffered previous to the deluge and the patriarchal world, and as Job preached and suffered previous to the exodus and the establish ment of Israel, so Daniel preached and suffered pre vious to the advent of the Lord Jesus and the call ing of the Christian Church. And as we know that these three great crises — the deluge, the exodus, the Pentecost — were brought in by extraordinary Satanic device to destroy in the antediluvian corruption, in the corruption of Shem's posterity, and finally in the Israelitish captivity and corruption, what was left at each time of God's remnant, so the men made conspicu ous — as it were, in themselves epitomes of these eras — ¦ THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 193 acquire a character most signal and invested with a fascinating and a growing charm. Daniel is both a mystery and a mystic. He is a mystery for the breadth of his view, for the miraculous- ness of his life, and for the world-wide influence of his personality. Like Noah and like Job, he stands re lated, not to a family or tp a part ofthe race, but to the universal man. As no other Hebrew he impressed himself upon the Gentile world. Tradition tells us that Confucius came to Babylon ; that Zoroaster bor rowed from Daniel; that the Indian Vedas, with their teachings upon sin and on atonement, came from Daniel's light. Daniel reformed the religion of the magi from Asia Minor to Japan. To Daniel came Thales, Solon, Pythagoras. All the spiritual light there was from Solon to Jesus was due to this one man. As no other Hebrew, save our Lord Jesus Christ, is he cosmopolitan — Jew, and yet Gentile as it were, among the Gentiles. The mystery of Daniel's life lies, however, in this, that, an astute statesman — more than the Bismarck, the Wal pole, or the Richelieu of his age — he for seventy years held the helm of affairs and steered the policy of world wide kingdoms, and with all this yet lived, as few beside him ever yet have lived, the inner life — the life in God — the Holy Ghost existence, as Calvin says, "like a celestial angel among mortal men." These things among others : the tremendous scope of its horizons ; its human quality and its immediate electric bearing on events and movements ; above all, the mysterious personality and commanding spiritual in fluence of Daniel himself, give to the book which goes by his name a more than superficial, a momentous — a more than transient, an abiding — interest. Let us con sider, then, the Book of Daniel. 194 ANTt-HlGHER CRITICISM. I. Its Authorship and Place in the Canon. II. Its In tegrity. IIL Its Structure and Practical Value. I. Its Authorship and Place in the Canon. The books which go to make up the Old Testament were written at intervals during the ten centuries which stretch from Moses to Malachi. They are thirty-nine in number as we find them in our English Bibles, but twenty-two as they are reckoned in the Hebrew, to correspond with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The latter number is arrived at by grouping several of the books together, as the two books of Samuel, of the Kings, and of Chronicles, the twelve minor prophets, etc. These twenty-two books have from the first been one and invariable. They were all written in the Hebrew character and are the only books extant, from before the time of Christ, written in Hebrew. These books, and these alone, composed the canon at the time of our Lord. They are enumerated and described by Josephus in his book against Apion, where he says, " During so many ages as have already passed no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them." They are equally indorsed by the Talmud and by the apocryphal book "The Wisdom of the Son of Sirach," as well as by the New Testament, in Luke xii, 44. So that it is plain enough what was and is the Old Testament canon ; and of this canon Daniel is and always was a part. Not only this, but Daniel wrote the book. Why do we think so? I. Because he claims to be the writer. " The vision appeared unto me, even unto me, Daniel." " I Daniel alone saw the vision." " And he informed me, and talked with me, and said unto me, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. ... I am come THE Book of dakiel. 195 forth to show thee ; for thou art greatly beloved : there fore understand the matter, and consider the vision." In no book of the Bible is the personality of the writer so distinctly asserted, so sharply made prominent. Not only so, but— 2. Correlative testimony as to the authorship of the book comes from the earliest secular witness, the Apocry pha, as in I Maccabees ii, 29, the Book of Baruch, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, all of which books confirm the fact that Daniel was the principal and only prophet of the time in which he lived, and that the book which claims to be written by him and to which they refer is genuine. Corroborative testimony also comes from Josephus, who gives it as the current belief of his day that the book was written by Daniel, "one of the greatest of the prophets." To this must be added the direct testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matt, xxiv, 15, "When ye therefore .shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet." Objection has been made to this — First, that Daniel, in the Hebrew Bible, does not ap pear among the prophetical books but in the third di vision, called the Psalms or Hagiographa. In order to answer this objection it is necessary to recall the fact that the Hebrew Bible has existed from the first in three great divisions called the Law, Prophets, and Psalms — Ketubim or Hagiographa: i. The Law, which includes the five books of Moses. 2. The Proph ets, former and latter, which includes Joshua, Judges, I and 2 Samuel, l and 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Eze kiel, and the twelve minor prophets. 3. A third di vision, which includes all the rest of tlie books, among them Daniel, which appears in its chronological place be tween Esther and Ezra. In this threefold division of the Law, Prophets, and 196 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Hagiographa or Ketubim, Daniel appears in the latter division, and this is the brunt of the objection — he is not among the prophetical books. The answer to this objection is — I. What difference does it make where Daniel appears in the list provided he is there? 2. There are reasons why Daniel, although one of the four great prophets, should not be reckoned with Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah. One thing: because Daniel was not only a prophet, but first of all an historian ; and his book for this reason differs from that of the other prophets, and the difference requires to be marked. It will not do to put him, there fore, with the other three great prophets, because that is to confound him with, them ; nor will it do to put him with the minor prophets, for he is greater than they. So that no place is left for him but the very place where he appears, namely, between Esther and Ezra. Another thing : Daniel's place in the economy of God, like that of Noah and Job, is altogether unique. The world was then approaching a crisis more violent than any since the exodus or even the deluge. The chief empires of the world were about suddenly to disappear — Assyria, that ancient kingdom which went back to the days of Noah ; proud Tyre, with her ten thousand ships ; even Egypt, that mysterious power so long the terror and the admiration of the nations, and with her Damascus, Ammon, Moab, Edom. In short, Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylon, the more than Napoleon and first empire of that day, were rising to the summit of greatness and to the forefront of command. Capping the political, social, moral situation, stands, as always, the prophet of God. Daniel closes prophecy ; he opens the philosophy of history. He acts the part of a commentator upon what has already been written, and THE BOOK OF DANIEL. I97 of a herald of new, beyond even prophetic, apocalyptic horizons. Daniel is, in fact, the Apocalypse of the Old Testament, the model type of St. John's Revelation. Without it the Revelation would not have been intel ligible, nor could it, indeed, have ever been written. There is a change and a felt change when Daniel comes in, even as there is when Patmos, with its un earthly disclosures, comes in. Daniel is the St. John the greatly beloved ofthe Old Testament, as St. John is the Daniel the beloved sharer of the secrets of Christ in the New. St. John is a prophet, but he transcends the prophet. The prophet is always on earth and sees, even into the future, along the perspective of earthly horizons. It is so with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel — with the greatest of the mere prophets. It is not so with Daniel, nor with St. John. They are lifted out of the body into living, conscious converse and even contact with the things which they see. They are prophets of the heavenly horizons, seeing along a level entirely apart and above. A second objection to the authorship of Daniel is that his name is not found among other names of Old Testa ment worthies in the Wisdom ofthe Son of Sirach, chap ter xlix. In reply to this, it may be said — I. The names of Jewish heroes mentioned in the Wis dom of the Son of Sirach, chapter xlix, are not a list of writers or of books, but only a panegyric upon certain men ; among them, Enoch, Shem, Phineas, Caleb, Zerub babel, and others looked at from the outward or the active side. 2. Ezra, Mordecai, and all the minor prophets are left out of this list, as well as Daniel. 3. The Wisdom ofthe Son of Sirach is a secular history. 198 ANTI-HIGHER CRlTlCtSM. and secular history nowhere mentions Nebuchadnezzar. Herodotus himself says nothing about Nebuchadnezzar. Was there, therefore, no such king ? A third objection made to the authorship of Daniel is that he speaks in the first part of his book in the third person and in the latter part in the first. There must, therefore, be two Daniels, a Daniel of the third and a Daniel of the first person, one who says " he," and one who says " I." A reply to this is : that this use of the personal pronouns is not peculiar to Daniel. It is the cus tom with all the Hebrew prophets. Historical por tions are written in the third person, which turns at tention from the writer to the fact ; but visions and revelations, where is needed the additional weight of the eyewitness, are spoken about in the first. Pre cisely the same objection might be made to the writ ings of St. John, who conceals himself in the narrative under the expressions "that disciple whom Jesus loved," "that disciple who lay on Jesus' breast," " that disciple who was known unto the high priest," but who speaks out boldly, " I John saw these things and heard them," where the revelation needs the personal attestation and moral weight of a witness. These and such like objections show the animus of the school of what is called the higher criticism, in the determination, at all costs, to get rid of as much ofthe divine in the .Scripture as possible. Notice again these objections to the genuineness of the book and to the authorship of Daniel : I. His book is not in the right place in the list. 2. A secular writer, living two or three centuries after him, in mentioning at random certain names of Hebrew heroes, leaves him out. 3. He says " he " and " it was so and so," when re- THE BOOK OF OANlEL. 199 • • cording events, and he says " I " when telling his dreams, revelations, and visions. What nonsense ! Yes, it would be nonsense were it not worse than this, were it not an endeavor to get rid, not only of Daniel, but God ; that is, by discrediting the witness, to prepare the way for the rejection of the con tents of the book as fabulous, irrational, impossible — as Hitzig says, " an aimless and extravagant display of won ders." Thus God from history and miracle from provi dence are banished. II. Its Integrity. We now come to the date and the integrity of Daniel. As to the date, that is fixed by the authorship. Daniel claims to have "continued" from before the time of Nebuchadnezzar to the first year of Cyrus, and to have received a revelation in the third year of Cyrus. He says Nebuchadnezzar promoted him to be ruler over the whole province of Babylon and to be chief of the gov ernors over the wise men that were in Babylon. He says he was employed in matters affecting the kingdom in the third year of Belshazzar, and that, on the last day of his life, that king appointed him the third ruler in the kingdom. During the obscure reign of Darius the Mede, Daniel represents himself still as one of the chief rulers of the kingdom, and he adds that he prospered, or, in other words, that he was eminent, in the days of Cyrus the Persian. Not only so, but Daniel shows that he is intimately acquainted with the very times with which he is dealing, with the many minute detail's of the Babylonian life. He is aware, for instance, of the three classes of wise men mentioned besides the astrologers, namely, the hartumim, the hakamim, and the ashaphim ; these three ranks of magi, modern discoveries prove to have existed 200 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. • in Babylon, although profane history passes them over in silence. Here is a proof, therefore, of the integrity of Daniel, which bridges the chasm of unknown and buried centuries and carries us straight back to Daniel's own day. Daniel accurately describes the customs of Babylon, the freedom of woman in society, exceptional in the Orient and unknown in the later empire of Persia. He describes the Babylonian dress correctly in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He shows that he is acquainted with phrases current at the time, as the " dissolving of knots," the " forfeiting of the head." The punishment of fire, too, lie mentions, which belonged alone to Babylon from the time of Nimrod, and which would have been impossible among the Persians, who worshiped fire, or among the lighter, more poetic Greeks. Daniel, too, wonderfully describes the character of Nebuchadnezzar — that mixture of Napoleon and Alex ander the Great — and the absolute autocracy of his king dom ; a state of things in which a man known to be a maniac rules without the thought of a change, without a regency, without a parliament, and with the abject fear of his subjects for seven long years. None of these things could have been invented or grouped thus to gether by the later forger of a pretended document. Yet this is what is claimed with reference to Daniel. Indeed, to state the general position of the Briggsian or advanced critics, " The great bulk of the Old Testament writings, and even laws, belongs to the exilic or the post-exilic period." No psalms, for example, save one or two, are pre-exilic, that is, before the captivity. The Pentateuch was written about a thousand years after Moses, and none ofthe psalms date back so far as David. This general position of the advanced school, repre sented by Wellhausen, Kuenen, Robertson Smith, and by THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 201 smaller men in this country, decides, of course, for thenij the era of Daniel; that .is, that the book, instead of being written somewhere about five hundred and fifty, was written somewhere about one hundred and fifty years before Christ ; in other words, the book was not written in Daniel's time at all, but is a forgery appearing in the time of the Maccabees, and by some person or persons unknown. The assertion that the Book of Daniel is a "forgery " is not a new one, but is as old as the days of Jerome, who quotes it from Porphyry and triumphantly confutes it. Since that time the old skepticism on this point has now and again reared its head, as at present it does in the German-Anglican neologianism of our day. The only reason Porphyry gives for his barefaced assertion is that in his judgment the prophecies recorded in the eleventh chapter of Daniel are far too minute. " No one could have predicted beforehand a picture so like a photograph. The man who wrote it must have lived afterward, or must have sketched, pen in hand, from the actual picture. No man could possibly be so accurate four hundred years before the events." In other words — think of it ! — the very truthfulness, known truthfulness, conceded truthfulness of Daniel is made an argument against him. Suppose the events had not been accurate, or had been only vaguely hinted at, then they would have said, " It is not prophecy at all, but guesswork, the raving of insane conjecture." Now, look a moment ; see where this puts Daniel. It is said by our advanced critics, " O, we do not so much impugn the book itself; when it was written does not make so much difference. We are willing to accept the writer's statements as on the whole true, only he was not and could not be Daniel." In other words, we are asked in cold blood to believe 202 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. that a true prophet of God can write a book in one age and claim to have written it in another ; that is, when he says, " I Daniel saw these things, and the vision came to me Daniel," he can be a true prophet of the Lord Jehovah and lie, and, lying on the main fact, the rest of his book can yet be reliable. The argument for its integrity rises from the book itself to grand unanswerable and unapproachable cli macteric in the direct assertion of our Lord. Not only does Christ indorse the canon — the exist ing volume of the Holy Scripture — as in his post-ascen sion discourse with the disciples on the way to Emmaus, when he distinctly mentions the threefold division, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms ; and when, " beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" — not only does he indorsethe whole canon, but he indorses this book. In his prophetic discourse in Matt, xxiv he says, " When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand.)" What can be more decisive than this? Our Saviour mingles his own predictions with those of Daniel, refer ring to Daniel by name, and giving him the title of prophet. This is indeed authority higher than any other — altogether peerless and apart ; so that on the solitary ground of this divine assertion we may take our stand, careless of any difficulty or objection which may be sug gested as against the simple declaration of the Son of God. Will it be imagined that difficulty and objection have already been suggested ? that not even the sanctity of God incarnate has been sufficient to shield him from the aspersions of riien who reverence nothing, who do not THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 203 scruple to say that our Lord in citing Daniel the prophet meant nothing more than to echo the false but the popular current opinion around him ? Notice: I. The statement of our Lord is direct — " Spoken of by Daniel the prophet." 2. The Book of Daniel is used by our Lord as author ity ; that is, it is so quoted by him, and in connection with his own prophecy, as to show how Christ himself re garded the book, namely, authentic and genuine. 3. The quoting of Daniel as authority was not to the people at large, where popular sentiment need be con sidered or popular impression regarded, but was to the disciples alone, and in one of our Saviour's last inter views, and when his sole endeavor was to get before them the truth, and in the truest light. 4. If our blessed Lord, for any reason whatever, stated as true what was false, namely, that Daniel wrote Daniel, and that Daniel was a prophet of God, when Daniel did not write Daniel and Daniel was not a prophet of God, where does that put. our Lord ? Does it not convict him, and squarely, of a lie? of a lie told from policy ; that is, the double-shuffle — the meanest and the most contemptible of lies ? Does it not make our Lord Jesus Christ a scoundrel? Christ indorses Daniel — " Spoken of by Daniel." He indorses him as authority especially on thc Apocalypse — " Daniel the prophet." He indorses him by throwing himself back on him — Son of God as he is — in speaking of a point of the Apocalypse, namely, the abomination of desolation — by throwing himself back on him as his sole support and witness. But the testimony of our blessed Lord is even more significant and solemn. Not only does he indorse Dan iel and throw himself back for confirmation upon Dan iel, but he makes the pivotal question of his deity 204 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. turn upon the application of a prophecy of Daniel to himself On what ground did the high priest and the council charge our blessed Lord with blasphemy ? On this ground, that he had answered, " Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Jesus and the Sanhedrim both alike admitted the authority of the Book of Daniel. On the common ground, then, of that authority, in that most solemn hour of his existence, when standing before the high priest for judgment as to his character, credentials, and claim, he throws himself back. And it is on the ground of the integrity of this book, which he cites as a witness for and which they urge as a witness against him — on that ground alone — that the question of his deity is by them settled, and to their own condemnation. Christ is divine and Daniel's book is divine, and the Christ of the judg ment seat of Caiaphas, and of the coming revelation, is that very Son of man whom to claim one's self to be, and claim it falsely, is, as the Sanhedrim charged it, blas phemy, because the " Son of man " of Daniel is indeed the very Son of God. The deity of Christ then is by Christ himself, and in the hour of most momentous crisis, made to hang on Daniel, and the integrity of Revelation itself as an inspired communication from God is sus pended and turns on this book. But while the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ stands all-sufficient and conclusive it does not forbid a regard to certain subordinate facts which are not, indeed, needed, as nothing can be needed to confirm divine au thority, the dictum ofthe Eternal, but only as helpful in showing how absurd are all the theories of vain objectors and how easily they may be refuted even on their own shallow grounds. THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 205 The book speaks for itself. Christ speaks for it. So do contemporary witnesses. Looking back to the age when the author of Daniel professes to have lived, we find independent evidence that such a person and name were then known. Ezekiel (chapter xiv) mentions Daniel along with Noah and Job as equally prominent, and mentions him twice. Again in the same prophet, in chapter xxviii, verse 3, the Lord says to the prince of Tyrus, " Be hold, thou art wiser than Daniel ; there is no secret that they can hide from thee." Thus Ezekiel, a con temporary, recognizes Daniel as preeminent in holiness, and as one to whom secret things were especially made known. The Septuagint, the Greek translation from the Hebrew, made about three hundred years before Christ, contains Daniel. How the book could have gotten into tha't version if not at the time extant and received as authentic, let the objectors make known. Alexander the Great saw the Book of Daniel three hundred and thirty-two years before Christ. When Alexander approached Jerusalem, intending to punish the Jews for their attachment to the Persian Darius, Jaddua, the high priest, met him at the head of a pro cession, so says Josephus, and showed to him the proph ecy of Daniel, where Grecia, the he goat of Macedon, conquers the ram of Persia. Alexander was so pleased with this that he spared Jerusalem — an actual fact — and treated the Jews from that time on — another well known fact — with a peculiar honor. Nehemiah (chapter xii) mentions this Jaddua, and places his date in the reign "of Darius the Persian. The New Testament, also, outside of our Lord's witness, quotes Daniel (Heb. xi, 33, 34). " Stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire," evidentlv 14 2o6 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. refers to Daniel in the den of lions, and to the martyr dom of Shadrach and his companions. The monuments, bricks, and inscriptions within the last century discovered and unearthed upon the ground itself; the history of Assyria and Babylon as it has been disentombed by the labors of Botta and Layard and res cued from the intricacies of the cuneiform or nail-headed inscriptions by Hincks and by Rawlinson ; the Nimroud Obelisk in the British Museum ; the palatial chambers of Khorsabad and Kouyunjik, the winged bull of Persepolis ; the statue of Cyrus at Moorghaub ; the magnificent sculp ture of Darius at Behistun — all are vocal proof, more than audible echoes, from contemporaneous ages of the truth fulness of Daniel's predictions. A visit to the East In dia House in London will make us acquainted with the standard inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, containing a list of all the temples built by the king in the dififerent towns and cities of Babylonia, naming the particular gods and goddesses to whom the shrines were dedicated : a journey from Bagdad to the Birs Nimroud would show us every ruin to be of the age of Nebuchadnezzar. The testimony here is decisive. " I have examined the bricks in situ," says Colonel Rawlinson, "belonging per haps to one hundred towns and cities within this area of about one hundred miles in length and thirty or forty miles in breadth, and I have found on every brick the one inscription, ' Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon.' " In addition to these magnificent arguments, led in by Daniel himself, confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and attested by Ezekiel, by the Septuagint, by contempora neous history, by the NewTestament, and by the bricks, monuments, and inscriptions in situ " — in addition to these stands always unassailable, immovable, that mute but impressive negation on which all hammers are broken, THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 207 the burden of proof shifted on to the critic, the anvil-like onus probandi. Turning to the left at the foot of the Corso, one finds himself at once amid the remains of the forum of Trajan. A beautiful column stands there covered with a spiral band of bas-reliefs, illustrative of the Dacian wars, and exhibiting in various attitudes the figure of the tri umphant emperor. This column, history and tradition tell us, was erected in the year 114 after Christ by the Roman Senate and people to Trajan. Why should I, standing at the base of that column written over with those storied deeds, deny that fact or doubt it ? If I do deny or doubt, must the world go to work and convince me? Must history halt for me? Must tradition wait for me? And, while I lounge there lazily denying and doubting — for nothing is lazier than are denial and doubt — must all the ages get up early in the morning and wear out their energies in the endeavor to' confute my silly doubt ? If I deny the fact let me show why. Is not that hon est ? And until I have shown why, let me, in presence of the venerable, self-affirming past, be modest. Daniel says he wrote Daniel. The inscription itself upon a monument is enough for ingenuous men. Why should I suspect a lie simply for the sake of suspicion, when the honest truth — no doubt of it — stands confronting both me and high heaven ? God help me ! Why should I make myself a gratuitous Satan and echo the question whose badness reveals me, " Yea, hath God said ? " There is a book in the world called Daniel. For two thousand five hundred years that book has been received as part of the revelation of God. For two thousand five hundred years that book has come to us professing to be the work of a certain prophet named Daniel. Daniel is written into the book as no Trajan is written into 2o8 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Trajan's column. There is no name of Trajan on the column ; only a supposed likeness of Trajan. There is a name in Daniel, written along with the personality of the prophet right through the book. It is the name of Daniel himself. Now let the man who challenges the integrity of this book account for its existence outside its own profession; let him account for the opinion which sustains Daniel if that opinion be false ; let him account for a book which carries on its face its own cer tificate by bringing a better certificate, one more legible, one more credible, if he can. The book stands until some one has annihilated the book — the book in every part of it, the book in every fragment — until he has pulverized it, ground all the Daniel out of it as all the Trajan might be ground out of the thirty-four blocks of the column, and into fine dust. But it has been objected to the reliability and integ rity of Daniel — I. That chapter ii states that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed his great dream in the second year of his reign, while chapter i says that three years at least before that Neb uchadnezzar was reigning, and that he carried away Dan iel and others from Jerusalem, captives to Babylon. "A plain contradiction," clamor the critics. It is no con tradiction, for Nebuchadnezzar did reign for some years before, conjointly with Nabopolassar, his father. " The second year of his reign," in the second chapter, dates from the time of his father's death, when he began to reign as sole sovereign. Not before that was he the autocrat, the head of gold. " But why not say so in Daniel? " Yes, and go on to explain and take up three or four chapters in bootless, irrelevant rubbish ? Why not ? Why not better leave us to suppose that Daniel knew what he was talking about and pass on to the practical lesson at hand? THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 209 2. A second objection against the integrity of Daniel is brought from the historians Berosus and Abydenus, who contradict his statement about Belshazzar, and say that Nabonadius, and not Belshazzar, was the last king of Babylon, and that he was not slain, but was spared by Darius, and had an honorable abode iri Caramania assigned him. Our reply to this objection is to ask, Who was Berosus, and who was Abydenus ? All that is known of these men is that they are supposed to have lived two or three hundred years after Daniel's time, and that quotations from their works; or, rather, references to their works, are made by Josephus and by Eusebius. That is positively all we know about them, namely, that they are quoted by men who, notwithstanding the quotations, hold by Daniel as true. The fact as we find it recorded upon cylinder tablets recently discovered in the ruins of Umgheir, the old Ur of the Chaldees, appears to be this : Belshazzar was the son of Nabonadius, and according to the Babylonian custom was associated with his father in the empire. When Cyrus came against Babylon, Nabonadius went out to meet him, bravely fought with him, and was con quered by him at Borsippa. Cyrus then passed on, took Babylon, put the young and profligate Belshazzar to death, but left the old Nabonadius alive, whom he retired to Caramania, where he died. 3. It is objected to the integrity of Daniel that the New Testament does not quote from the first six chap ters, and that these, therefore, are not authentic. The reply is that this is untrue. What are our Saviour's words in Matt, xxi, 44 — " Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken : but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder " — what are these but an allusion of the plainest kind to Nebuchadnezzar's 210 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. dream about the stone? So, too, in Hebrews, what is the reference to quenching the violence of fire, if not to Dan. iii, and what the reference to stopping the mouths of lions, a literal translation from Daniel, if not an allusion to the scene of the den in the sixth chapter? The New Testament as distinctly sanctions chapters ii, iii, and vi of Daniel as it does chapters vii and ix, where it speaks of the abomination of desolation and of the coming of the Son of man. Not another book in the Old Testament is so indorsed through and through, from end to end, by the New Testament as is Daniel. 4. Objection is made from the fact that certain Greek words are found in Daniel, and that therefore a part of Daniel must have been written later or interpolated ; for the Chaldeans knew nothing of the Greeks at all. The reply to this objection is that it is quite too childish for a labored refutation. (i.) The four words supposed to be Greek may not be. The similarity of sound and form- may be but a fancy. (2.) The four Greek words are the names of musical instruments. They are Diri'i?, Kf&apig ; N3ap, aafifivwq ; pniDS, tpaXrripiov ; N^iBb^lD, av/xipuvia. Grant that these are, as indeed they seem to be, Greek words, what in that case more natural — since Greece was the home of music, as Italy is to-day — what more nat ural than that the conquering Nebuchadnezzar should bring back from the siege of Tyre and the desolations wrought in Asia Minor these additions to the orchestra of Babylon? Suppose that after the conquest of Italy by the first Napoleon certain Italian operas and instru ments had become popular in Paris — operas and instru ments which are popular there even now — would the pres ence of that foreign music and of those foreign instru ments in Paris to-day discredit the fact that they had THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 211 been brought there before and were there in the time of Napoleon ? People seem strangely to forget that there was com merce in those days as there is now, intercourse between the nations then as there is now. Would it not readily occur to one from reading these names that such musical instruments as the kitharis, sambuke, etc., were known in Babylon as derived from the Greeks, and that they kept their Greek names? That would seem to be the natural inference ; that, to every one except a higher critic, would seem to be the common sense. A third reply to the objection is that the age of Nebu chadnezzar was the very age of Sappho, Alcaeus, and the Greek lyric poets and musicians also. Some of these, we know, had communication with Babylon. Alcseus him self in one of his poems celebrates his brother Antimo- nidas, who was a soldier in Nebuchadnezzar's army and fought under him and for him at Carchemish, the Aus terlitz of that earlier Napoleon. The critic who can by no means bring himself to trust Daniel will no doubt embark in bulk upon this stray and slender statement ofthe heathen Alcseus, which, singularly enough, however, comes in to corroborate Daniel and God. 5. Objection has been brought against Daniel that part of it is written in Chaldee and part only in Hebrew, therefore it is not authentic. A reply to this is that the same thing is true of Ezra, and does not invalidate that book. Another reply is that when God writes a book he writes for the people and in the vernacular of the people addressed. The apostles were all of them Hebrews, yet they wrote the New Tes tament in Gree'k. Why ? So that Gentiles, to whom it was especially addressed, could read it. Daniel wrote part of his book — that part which was addressed to Jews exclusively — in Hebrew, but the part addressed to Neb- 212 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. uchadnezzar and to the people of Babylon, namely, from chapter ii, 4, to chapter vii, he wrote in their language, the Chaldean. God nowhere approves the use of an un known tongue in his service. He gets right down and he keeps right down to the heart of the common people. He speaks to the Jew in Hebrew, to the Babylonian in Chaldee, and to the Greek in Greek. Nowhere with God can you find one tongue for "the mass," another tongue for the masses. The objection thus returns upon the ob jector, and, like the stone on the image, to grind him to powder. 6. It is said that the Hebrew of Daniel is not so pure as that of Moses and the golden age of Hebrew litera ture, therefore it is not authentic. Precisely. The Eng lish of Macaulay and Carlyle is not the English of Addi son and Chaucer ; therefore Macaulay's history is un reliable, and Carlyle's essays, which have a good many Scotticisms in them — he being a Scotchman — and a good many Germanicisms in them — he having studied in Ger many — .are not Carlyle's, but are a compilation. Suppose the Hebrew of Daniel had not a Chaldee word in it, would that make more evident that Daniel lived, as he says he did, in Chaldea? Suppose the Hebrew of Daniel were precisely the Hebrew of Moses — no new or foreign words, no looser forms of construction, but only the stereotyped archaisms of one thousand years before — what then would the objector have had it to say but that Moses wrote Daniel, not Daniel himself? All the Hebrew books differ in phrase and in style. There is an age change, which is one of the most irrefuta ble arguments for the very order of the books, and that Mo£;s wrote when he did, and Daniel when he did. Daniel's style is his own style, as Moses's was his. Aye, and it would take more of a Hebrew scholar than any higher critic whose name has yet come to light to point THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 213 out where the styles of Moses and Daniel diverge ; the more especially that now it is claimed that Moses wrote after Daniel, or rather that the five books of Moses are later than Daniel. So that it practically comes down to this : that men who are not Hebrews, and whose works betray but a finger's-end grasp of the sweep and the soul, the genius — what the Germans caWgeist — ofthe language, knew more about Hebrew than the Jews for three thou sand years have known their own selves ; that they can give points to these Jews — correct them — open their eyes, and reverse the judgment of sixty generations, none of which had ever yet found out that Daniel was not good Hebrew, and therefore was not authentic. But once more : beaten back in every weapon, speechless in the presence of the book's self-evidence, of its divine indorsement by our Lord, of the consenting attestations of Ezekiel, of the Septuagint, of Josephus, of the New Testament, of the bricks and monuments unearthed in situ — the critic, foiled everywhere else, flies back for shelter behind the shield of that great cloud of dust called " general grounds." " Prophecy, on general grounds," he affirms, with the look of an owl who can see in the dark — " prophecy has only to do with the days and the sphere ofthe prophet himself; no prophet can certainly predict what lies in the future beyond his horizon. A prophet is good as a witness only for what he himself sees, and even then his prophecy can only be established in the very presence ofthe facts. Nothing is of any good as a headlight, as a prediction beforehand." This last and general objection opens, of course, the whole question of inspiration — a point to which what loves to call itself " higher " criticism sooner or later and al ways gets back. The reply is but one, and but simply, " Thus saith the Lord ! " Right through the Bible, from Genesis to Mai- 214 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. achi and from Matthew to the Apocalypse, including Daniel, "holy men, moved by the Holy Ghost," wrote, not in their own name, nor yet in their own words, but as prophets and spokesmen of the Most High. " Thus saith the Lord ! " prefaced every sentence in the Penta teuch, every sentence in Proverbs, every sentence espe cially in prediction. Prophecy comes, then, from God, who calleth things that are not as though they were, who seeth the end from the beginning; and we have not to think of the scope of observation, the horizon before the prophet's eye, but of the extent of God's foreknowledge, un bounded, like himself. God said to Abraham when he showed him the stars of heaven, "So shall thy seed be." He said that before there was an Isaac. He spoke away out of, beyond, Abraham's horizon, and declared that a nation should descend from Ishmael, and he en abled Isaac to foretell the future histories of Israel and of Edom, dealing thus with nations as yet nonexistent. Who then shall limit and confine the Holy One ? Who shall say to God the Eternal, " Thou shalt not see nor say what shall be, a century beforehand?" Who shall say to the dread, the infinite, the mysterious, and the almighty Jehovah, " The proportions of thy visions are too vast, the shapes of thy symbols extravagant ? " The authorship and the integrity of Daniel thus es tablished bring before us — III. Its Structure and Practical Value. The book is divided into three parts, and exhibits re markable symmetry. The first part is the first chapter, the introduction or preface, in which the personality of Daniel appears, and is made to cover the whole. His life-work begins with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and runs into that of Cyrus the Persian. The second part the book of DANIEL. 21 5 of the book, from chapter ii to chapter vii inclusive, the Chaldeari portion, again divides into three parts : I. The great image, outward unity and splendor de void of any true life. It is the course of God-given empire — a metallic and deteriorating colossus — gold run ning down through the inferior metals. Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, into the miry clay. 2. The same thing instinct with life. The obverse of the die, the internal as opposed to the external ; God's view as contrasted with Nebuchadnezzar's; four beasts, the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the behemoth, display their characters in broader and more reckless and de moralizing forms of action. Here, too, the lion runs down into a nondescript creature, half hippopotamus, half serpent. 3. The rock in contrast with the metal ; the Son of man in contrast with the beasts ; the infinite grandeur of the mountain stone — the kingdom of heaven, as op-' posed to the finite proportions of man's art and power of action ; a stone cut out without hands, by miracle displacing all and filling the whole earth. Blended with these national contrasts are two that are personal : Nebuchadnezzar's pride and abasement, Bel- shazzar's pride and abasement. Both are brought down in the presence of God's witnesses : Nebuchadnezzar before Shadrach, and Belshazzar before Daniel. The third section of Daniel is an application of all this to the affairs of God's people. It is a review of the same history, giving us the relation of the succession of the world kingdoms to Israel. In chapters viii and ix of the third part, which are parenthetic, we are told what shall befall the favored nation during the sixty-nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years, down to the crucifixion of Christ, the cutting off of Messiah for the sins of his people. 2l6 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. In chapters x and xi the vision proceeds further, is vastly broadened, and takes in, through telescopic slides, not only the days of Antiochus the Great, but of the Antichrist to come. This central division of the section is of especial importance for a right interpretation of the book, for while we might at first be tempted to think that a detailed view of the history down to the time of the crucifixion would be sufficient, we shall, upon reflec tion, concede that the crucifixion is only the beginning, in reality, of what the Spirit of God, in Daniel, intends to describe, namely, not the commencement but the final and actual establishment of the kingdom of Christ ; since the organic history of salvation can only be com prehended when the details are seen to be in unison with the scope, the scenes of the drama in harmony with its conclusion. What Israel looked for, it must be remembered, was not only a Messiah, but the visible restoration of a for feited kingdom. The first coming of Christ introduced no material change into the system of the world's domin ion. That change is yet to come. A general survey, therefore, of the whole — ofthe mature development and final destiny of the great world powers during " the times of the Gentiles " — the times in which we are living now — and down to the very end of those times and the future rise and overthrow of Antichrist, had to precede any description of the setting up of the millennial kingdom and the falling of the stone. Finally, to close this third part of the book, and as an epilogue to the whole, we have, in chapter xii a vision cor responding to Revelation xx — the first resurrection and inauguration of Messiah's universal and millennial reign. And in all this and through all this stands out, im pressive, salient, the personality of Daniel. It is not only a prophecy, it is a life ; a life without which the THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 217 prophecy, in all these ages, would have fallen on the ages powerless. For nothing said or written by any man can produce much effect unless there go with it the man himself. Saturated he must be with his message; shot through and through with conviction; burning with an energy which makes him — man lost in the message, message compelling the man — a literal holocaust. Daniel in chapter x tells us the whole of Daniel. It is a man emptied of nature, filled with the Holy Ghost ; surcharged himself, saturated, and charging and saturat ing us — oil into the olive, electricity into the wire, steam into the engine, soul into soul, life into life. Daniel's holiness lies back of Daniel in the communi cations of God. What the Spirit speaks he .speaks through the Spirit. Aye, and what the Spirit speaks he interprets to the Spirit. Personal holiness is the measure in all ages of the understanding of God. " If any man will do his will he shall know ofthe doctrine." A man must live like Daniel to understand Daniel. That is what places Luther and Calvin and Owen to-day so infinitely in advance of all modern expositors. They understood the Hebrew better than we do, because it was the language of the Spirit of God and because they themselves were instinct with the Spirit of God who was speaking. " Sneer as men may," says Meyer, " at the mysticism and the pietism of the evangelic reformers, we must still contend that without a spirituality like theirs all comments on the sacred text are essentially barren and profitless." Only life can interpret the life. Only a Spirit common to the book and the man can make the book a communication from God ; we know as much as we have of the Spirit, and other than this, bright reason is a blinking owl. 2l8 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. THE BOOK OF ESTHER. BY PASTOR B. B. T"^LER, D.D., New Vork City. The Book of Esther belongs to an intensely interest ing period of time in the history of our race — to an exceedingly interesting portion of the earth. The time of its incidents is the fifth century before the birth Of our Lord ; the place, the winter capital of the empire of Persia. This empire extended, we are told, from India to Ethiopia, and included no less than one hundred and twenty and seven provinces. The place of the Book of Esther in Bible history is probably the space between the sixth and seventh chapters of the Book of Ezra. It ought to be read as belonging to the time between the dedication of the second temple in Jerusalem and the return of Ezra to the land of his fathers. The Book of Esther must have been written subsequent to the death of Ahasuerus, the Xerxes of secular history, and yet not long after that event, as its minuteness of details im plies. The language, also, in which the narrative was originally presented is said by competent critics to be similar to the language in which the books bearing the names of Nehemiah and Ezra were written, and there is but little room for doubt as to the date of these writings. Canon Rawlinson says that the chronological notices in the Book of Esther fit into the history of Xerxes exactly, that the entire representation of the court and kingdom is suitable to the time and character of this monarch. Had the work been composed by a Jewish romancer, THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 2ig at the distance of a century and a half or two centuries from the events, and been based merely upon traditional recollections of a great danger and a great deliverance, an hypothesis of some rationahstic critics of our time, it is inconceivable that the character of Xerxes, our Ahas uerus, should have been so exactly set before the reader, and that representation of Persian manners should have been at once so vivid and so accurate. No mistakes are made in this book as to dates, circumstances, and forms — such errors as condemn at once as unhistoric the books of Judith and Tobit. The marvelous accuracy of the statements in the Book of Esther as to dates, circum stances, and forms is hardly consistent with the suppo sition that it was written a century and a half or two centuries after the reign of Ahasuerus by some Jewish romancer. The place in which the events registered in the Book of Esther occurred was Shushan, or Susa, the winter capital of the great Persian empire, situated about two hundred miles almost directly east from Babylon, and some one hundred and twenty-five miles north of the Persian Gulf. The site has been explored, and the re mains of the magnificent palace have been found, the palace in which the noble Queen Esther imperiled her life to save the lives of her people. This discovery fur nishes indubitable evidence that the Book of Esther is a record of facts, not a chronicle of fancies passing through the excited brain of some wild romancer probably cen turies after King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther had passed into the unseen. The evidence is that the writer not only placed on record facts — not fancies — but that they were facts with which he must have been personally familiar. The pavement " in the court of the garden of the king's palace " is described in our book as " of red, and blue, and white, and black marble ; " and this " red, 22C ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. and blue, and white, and black marble " has been brought to the light of day in our times, demonstrating the historic accuracy, even in the smallest and most in significant details of the story. There seems to be but a slender — a very slender — foundation for the remark of Walter F. Adeney in the volume of The Expositor s Bible which treats of the Book of Esther, that " the book is not strictly historical." He thinks that " the whole story is so well knit together, its successive incidents arrange themselves so perfectly and lead up to the conclusion with such neat precision, that it is not easy to assign it to the normal course of events. We do not expect," he says, " to meet with this sort of thing outside the realm of fairy tales." But while. Mr. Adeney says this concerning the unhistoric character of the book he is constrained to admit, to use his own words, that " there is another side to the question." He says that " this book is marvelously true to Persian manners. It is redolent of the atmosphere of the court at Susa. Its accuracy in this respect has been traced down to the most minute details. The character of Ahasuerus is drawn to life ; point after point in it may be matched in the Xerxes of Herodotus. . . . The book bears evidence of having been written in the heart of Persia by a man who was intimately acquainted with the scenery he described. There seems to be some reason for believing in the substantial accuracy of a narrative that is so true to life in these respects." The Book of Esther is read through by the Jews in their places of public worship during the annual celebra tion of the feast of Purim, when it was, and is still in some synagogues, the custom, at the mention of the name of Ha'man the Agagite, to hiss and stamp and elevate the fist, and cry, " Let his name be blotted out ; may the name of the wicked rot." It is also said that THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 221 the names of Haman's ten sons are read in one breath, to signify that they all expired at the same instant of time. Even in writing the names of these sons inverses 7, 8, and 9, in chapter ix, the scribes have contrived to express their abhorrence of the race of Haman ; for these names, the names of Haman's sons, are written in three perpendicular columns of three, three, and four, as if the offspring of this very wicked man were hanging upon three parallel cords, three on each of two cords, and four on the third, one above another, to represent the manner in which they were put to death. How are we to account for the feast of Purim if the Book of Esther is not historical? How are we to ex plain the intense feeling and its violent expression at the pronunciation of the name of Haman in the reading of the book at the feast of Purim if such a man never lived, or, if living, he never did the things attributed to him in this book? Why did the learned men among the Jews invent the method of writing the names of Ha man's ten sons in the manner described, if there never was such a man as Haman, or, being such a person, if he never had ten sons? Institutions such as the feast of Purim, and customs such as pertain to the annual celebration of this festival, have an evidential value which is considerable. The Church of God and its ordinances — the Lord's baptism, the Lord's supper, and the Lord's day — are institutions testifying to the great facts in the remedial system in troduced by the Son of God, to wit, his death for our sins, according to predictions contained in the Hebrew Scriptures, his burial in the tomb of the rich man, as had been foretold, and his triumphant resurrection, in which glorious event God declared that the crucified Nazarene was indeed his Son. These great facts are the pillar facts of Christianity ; and that they are facts is witnessed 15 222 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. by the Church and her divinely appointed ordinances, the Lord's day, the Lord's baptism, and the Lord's sup per. These institutions stand as mute but eloquent witnesses to these stupendous facts. Deny these facts, and how can the presence of these institutions be ac counted for ? In our national history, also, we have such, days as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. If there was no such writing drawn up and signed by certain of our patriot fathers July 4, 1776, as the Declaration of Independence, how came it to pass that this day was set apart for the annual commemoration of such an event ? How was this fraud first perpetrated ? By whom ? For what reason ? What character of blindness afflicted the American people, that they permitted themselves to be imposed on in this way? If there was no war of the rebellion in 1861-65 how came it to pass that the 30th day of May in each year has been set apart as sacred to the memory of the men who are popularly supposed to have died in that struggle that this nation might live ? So this feast of Purim, observed by the Jews from time immemorial, testifies to the facts recorded in the Book of Esther. The writer of the article in the Schaff-Herzog Ency clopcedia on the Book of Esther says that " an irrefutable argument for the truth of the narrative is the feast of Purim, which commemorates the facts, and is inexplicable on any other hypothesis than that they occurred." In an article on the Book of Esther in the Encyclo pcedia Britannica by the Rev. J. K. Cheyne, M.A., Hebrew lecturer, Baliol College, Oxford, after mention ing a number of arguments against the historic character of the writing, with evident sympathy, he closes as fol lows : " And we may sum up by the remark that if THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 223 direct historic evidence is deficient for the traditional view of the Book of Esther it is equally deficient for the rival critical theory. Probability is our only guide ; yet even if the book contains a larger or smaller romantic element it is of real historical value as a redord of the Jewish spirit in a little-known age, and is edifying even to Christians from its powerful though indirect inculca tion of the lesson of divine providence." The easiest, the most natural, the most rational treat ment ofthe Book of Esther is to receive it as a faithful record of facts as they transpired in the empire of Per sia under the reign of Xerxes in connection with God's elect people. But if it should turn out to be true that the book is fictitious, with a foundation of fact, an event not at all likely to occur, this would not be a sufficient reason for removing it from its place in the sacred canon. Some one has said that " in these days ofthe theological novel we are scarcely in a position to object to what may be thought to partake of the character of a romance, even if it is found in the Bible. No one asks whether our Lord's parable of the prodigal son was a true story of some Galilean family. The Pilgrim's Progress has its mission, though it is not verified by any authentic annals of Elstow." The learned Canon Rawlinson, however, says, in the Speaker's Commentary, that " Esther is a more purely historical book than any other in Scripture." Luther entertained doubts about the right of the Book of Esther to a place in the canon; but among Protestant evangelical writers he is said to be almost the only one who has done so. The pious descendants of Abraham have always been exceedingly scrupulous about the admission of any doc ument into their canon, but with them, in all ages and places, the Book of Esther has occupied an exalted 224 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. station among the writings which they esteemed sacred. Their treatment of this book adds confirmation to its canonicity. It is placed by them next to the Penta teuch, and is emphatically called Megillah ; that is to say, "the roll." It is said in the opening sentence of this address that the Book of Esther belongs to an interesting period in the history of our race, to an intensely interesting portion of the earth. Treating the Book of Esther as history, let us in imag ination visit the winter capital of Persia and note a few contemporaneous events. Xerxes occupied the throne of Persia about twenty- one years, or from B. C. 486 to B. C. 465. It was in the year 490 that Darius invaded Greece and suffered defeat at Marathon, on the 28th day of September in that year — one of the few decisive battles of the world — a battle in which, in large measure, was decided the civilization of Europe, and consequently America. About ten years later Xerxes attempted to do what Darius was unable to accomplish — he attempted the subjugation of Greece. He invaded Greece with a host said to have numbered more than 5,200,000 men, besides women and other attend ants. A section of this horde of mercenaries was met at the Pass of Thermopylae by Leonidas and his three hun dred Spartan heroes, August 7, 480 B. C. At the hands of this invincible and immortal band, standing for their homes, their wives, their children, and their native land, twenty thousand Persians came to their death. Two months later the Persians suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the Greeks under Themistocles in the great naval battle of Salamis. This defeat was nothing less than disastrous, followed closely by other similar events, so that Xerxes was compelled to abandon his attempt to conquer Greece and return to his home in the East THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 225 with barely five thousand soldiers of the almost count less multitude which in the beginning of the expedition followed his banner. These were some of the events which belong to Greece at this period, events in which the empire of Persia had a keen interest. Herod otus, the future historian, the father of history, to whom we are so largely indebted for information con cerning this time and these oriental lands, was but a boy in the midst of these stirring scenes. Looking in the direction of Rome, there is a contest being waged be tween the patricians and plebeians, which has through centuries affected the history of mankind. If our attention is directed to the land of Palestine we see the Jews returning from their protracted captivity in Babylon, to which they had been condemned because of their continued disregard of God and his word — returning to rebuild their temple and city. But some remained in the land of their captivity, a sufficient number to fill the place to which they are assigned, and to do the things attributed to them in our history. Rawlinson characterizes Xerxes as " proud, self-willed, amorous, careless of contravening Persian customs, reck less of human life, impetuous, facile, changeable." This man, failing to conquer Greece, returns to his own domin ions, his one hundred and twenty-seven provinces con stituting the Persian empire, to seek consolation and surcease from the cares of a disastrous campaign in the pleasures ofthe harem. At about this time, the seventh year of his reign, oc curs the elevation of Esther to the position of queen, an account of which we have in the first and second chapters of the book which bears her name. Esther was young, beautiful, and brave. She had a strength of character which enabled her to preserve her faith in God and the purity of her life even amid the 226 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. spiritual bankruptcy and moral degradation of an orien tal court. She was an orphan. Her great-grandfather was carried a captive from Jerusalem to Babylon proba bly a century and a half previous to this time. Morde cai, her cousin, a man of remarkable character, was her foster father. How Esther came to occupy the position of opportunity and responsibility to which she is assigned in the book which bears her name is an unusually inter esting story as throwing light on how " God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform." According to Herodotus the Persians were addicted to drunkenness, and the incident described in the first chapter of Esther is quite in harmony with the Greek historian's account of the people over whom Xerxes ruled. The emperor himself was an intemperate man, intemperate in almost every conceivable sense of the word. In a. drunken revel the emperor required the beautiful Queen Vashti to exhibit her personal charms to his drunken courtiers. This she refused to do. For this she was put away. No longer was she permitted to ap pear as the wife of the emperor. Then his lords, heated with wine, persuaded the king to make a decree that every man should bear rule in his own house. This conduct is so ridiculous that I must read from the book itself the text, as follows : " But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by the chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. Then the king said to the wise men, . . . What shall we do unto the queen Vashti according to law, because she hath not done the bidding of the king Ahasuerus by the chamber lains? And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 227 king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the peoples that are in all the provinces of the king Ahasue rus. For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, to make their husbands contemptible in their eyes, when it shall be reported, The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. And this day shall the princesses of Persia and Media which have heard of the deed of the queen say the like unto all the king's princes. So shall there arise much contempt and wrath. If it please the king, let there go forth a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered, that Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus ; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she. And when the king's decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his kingdom, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honor, both to great and small. And the saying pleased the king and the princes ; and the king did according to the word of Memucan : for he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house, and should publish it according to the language of his people" (Esth. i, 12, 13 15-22). I am not at all surprised that our good brother, Dr. William M. Taylor, says that " this is undoubtedly one of the most amusing things in all history. One can hardly keep from laughing outright as he reads the words. Truly this was the Xerxes who imagined that he could bind the Hellespont by casting in it a few iron fetters." In the story of the Book of Esther the fall of Vashti is introduced merely to make way for the beautiful Hebrew orphan girl, the ward of Mordecai the Jew, who is hence- 228 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. forth to be known through the ages as the heroic Queen Esther. The story of the elevation of this obscure girl to a place of almost boundless opportunity and responsibihty is so well known to all here present that it will not in this place be recited. There are three principal objections to the Book of Esther which ought to be noticed. I. The name of God is not in the book. In A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, edited by Ly man Abbott, it is said that " the omission of the name of God is not a defect in a book which contains a history full of his actual interpositions and remarkable for its testimony to the value and power of a living faith in him ; to which the Jewsadd that the name was purposely omitted because the book was intended to be read by the heathen, and, for the purpose of producing a greater effect upon them, was largely transcribed, under divine inspiration, from the chronicles of the Medes and Persians ; in short, that the book really testifies more effectually to the greatness and goodness of God by omitting any mention of his name than by containing it." The Rev. J. W. Haley thinks that " a book of the Bible without the divine name may yet have a divine impress, even as the diamond, the most resplendent thing in the mineral kingdom, has that impress, though bearing no inscription telling its author. . . . Consider the rose that blossoms so beautifully at your feet. You cannot spell out in letters the name of God on it ; but is not the witness there? Put it under the microscope ; is not its perfection of parts divine? Are not the tinting and scalloping divine ? Is not the fragrance beyond what human skill can produce ? Is not the Hfe principle in it superhuman ? It would be superfluous to write upon the rose, ' God made me.' . . . THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 229 " In the whole annals of mankind you can find no pas sage of history, profane or sacred, that in its spirit and atmosphere has more of God in it than the Book of Esther. There is no need that the Almighty One should proclaim his name, to be seen and felt in all the fullness of his glory and power. . . . " So when, in this Book of Esther, we see a plot cun ningly devised, having on its side all the power and in fluence of the greatest worldly empire then existing ; when we see the ax lifted over the necks of this people, ready to fall and exterminate them, yet a hand stretched out, mighty enough and pitying enough to deliver them and turn what was intended for their overthrow into the means of their glory, is there any need of saying, ' God did this?' " Will you hsten to a quotation from the Rev. Nehe miah Boynton on this point ? " The latest message to the laymen of the world by one of their own number declares: ' It does not matter how you label a bottle, but if you open the bottle labeled and find it is oil of vitriol, will the label help you ? We have been discussing too much the difference of labels.' That is to say, representation has successfully masqueraded as reality; what is said wears the crown belonging to what is meant. Now, wherever literalism thus asserts itself, truth blushes ; where the writing of the label is supreme the analysis of the chemist is at a dis count. "The largest objection to the place of the Book of Esther in the canon of sacred Scripture has been urged by the admirers of labels. They have read with single ness of purpose this narrative of king and queen, of edict announced and annulled, of ambition outreaching and overreaching, of jealousy recoiling with terrific bound upon itself, of worth at last acknowledged, of a nation 230 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. condemned by personal spite and delivered by personal heroism and faith ; but since in this thrilling narrative the name of God does not once occur ; since worship, so far from being emphasized, is only once suggested, and that in connection with fasting, these label writers have gravely questioned the propriety of cataloguing the Book of Esther among the sacred writings, and of regarding it as containing for men an inspired word from the lip of God. " But would the book be improved if the divine name were inserted? Would such an insertion inspire it? Is the indefinite uninspired? Is not suggestion sometimes stronger than declaration ? Does not light-winged im agination sometimes soar to heights which are inacces sible to heavy-pinioned intelligence ? Is the Gulf Stream, bearing the great greyhounds of the sea on its swift bosom, sending its warm zephyrs to mollify the climate as it sweeps majestically shoreward, any the less a mighty river in the sea because there are not upon its borders signboards declaring, ' This is the Gulf Stream ? ' Is the handiwork of God any the less divine because the frost does not leave his autograph on the windowpane, the sun on the petal of the flower, the glacier on the face of the mountain ? More precious than the mere name is the suggestion, the manifestation ; the contents, not the label, is the standard of value. " So with relation to this rich, rare Book of Esther, with its lessons of Providence abounding, of privilege wres tling with duty, of a noble wife's management of an un ruly husband, of a nation held in the divine clasp of the beauty and bravery of an orphan queen, of the swift judgment which crowds the heels of jealous iniquity, of the triumph of righteousness, we do not need God's name to assure us that this is God's word ; the truth is its own witness ; the meaning of the book is unmistak- THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 23 1 able ; its spirit is both infolded in its speech and un folded in its language. The man who has never heard the ring of the voice of God may not recognize it ; to him the book may be a dispatch in cipher ; but to the discerning, the believing, the open-eyed, it is indeed one of the oracles of God." * 2. The decree of blood. In the collision between the Persians and the Jews seventy-five thousand of the former lost their lives. How many Jews died we do not know ; but this loss of life was a result of the vacillation of Xerxes, a result of his contradictory decrees. Are there no parallels to this on the pages of secular history? and do the men who cannot believe the Bible because of these revolting facts discard all history be cause its chronicles contain facts quite as horrible ? The main fact that Ahasuerus, at Haman's request, resolved to issue an edict which ordered the destruction of all the Jews in the entire Persian empire is not without anal ogy. Mithridates, King of Pontus, in his war against Rome issued secret orders to all the satraps and chief local authorities of his kingdom to murder on a certain day all Romans, without distinction of sex or age, whereby eighty thousand, or, as some estimate, one hundred and fifty thousand, persons lost their lives. Mehmed, a pasha of Zaid, in the sixteenth century surprised the entire nation of the Druses, and caused all that were met with to be killed. A similar thing occurred also in Europe. At the time of the Sicihan vespers there fell eight thousand Frenchmen in Catania alone. Ferdinand the Catholic drove out of Spain over three hundred thousand Jews, and Louis XIV drove out of France several hundred thousand Protestants, after causing thousands more to be * Rev. Nehemiah Boynton, in Sermons on the International Sunday School Lessons for 1893, by the Monday Club, pp. 91-93. 232 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. murdered. The Parisian massacre of St. Bartholomew's night is another specially analogous case. Keil very justly makes prominent the point in reference to these facts that Greek and Roman authors are unanimous in their portrait of Xerxes, and paint him as a very riot ous, licentious monarch, and an extremely cruel tyrant. Xerxes was the despot who, after the wealthy Lydian, Pythius, had most richly entertained the Persian army in its march against Greece, and offered an immense sum of money as a contribution to the cost of the war, on his making a petition to have the oldest of his five sons then in the army given to him as a solace for his old age, became so enraged that he caused the son asked for to be cut in pieces, and laid the pieces on both sides of the way and ordered his army to march through between them ; the tyrant who caused the heads of those to be cut off" who built the pontoon bridge over the Hel lespont because a storm had destroyed the bridge, and who ordered the sea to be lashed with whips and bound with chains sunk under the waves ; the debauchee who, after his return from Greece, sought to drown the vexa tion of his shameful defeat by means of sensuality and revelry. Such a frantic tyrant as he was was capable of all that is related in the Book of Esther of Ahasuerus. Others, again, find it difficult to receive as true what is said about Esther in connection with the ten sons of Haman. When the circumstances are considered it ought not to appear incredible that she desired the execution of these men. To me it seems a rather natural thing on her part to desire to have them put out of the way. Do not forget that this is not the history of a Christian queen, not even, we may well believe, a well-educated, religiously educated Hebrew woman, but one born and bred in the midst of dense heathen darkness, possess ing at best probably only a traditional faith in the God THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 233 of her fathers. " Live with wolves and you will begin to howl," .says a Spanish proverb. 3. How can we account for the fact that in the Book of Esther there is no mention of sacrifices; of prayer; of worship, other than fasting; ofthe Holy Land; of Jerusalem ; or of the temple ? This omission, or these omissions, can be satisfactorily explained by considering the purpose of the writer. What is the lesson in the Book of Esther ? A number of lessons may be gleaned legitimately from this small portion ofthe word, but the question is. What was in the mind of the writer as tl'^ lesson, above all others, to be learned ? Here is a little book entitled The Gospel in the Book of Esther. For aught I know every element ofthe G05 pel of Christ may be illu.strated by facts recorded in the Book of Esther, but none will claim that in this bit of the inspired volume are the facts, the truths, the com mands, principles, promises, and warnings of the Gospel of the Son of God. "The doctrine of substitution," says our dear brother. Dr. Munhall, " is beautifully suggested by Esther's will ingness to die for the people a voluntary and vicarious sacrifice. Esther's communication with the king sug gests the believer's fellowship with the King of Glory (John xiv, 23, and i John i, 7). Esther's marriage sug gests the relations of Christ and his bride — the Church (2 Cor. xi, 2; Eph. v, 22-27; Matt, xxv, 1-12). The answers she received to her supplications are quite in line with the doctrine of acceptable prayer. The un limited and innumerable promises of God are typified in Esth. viii, 8. The final victory over all her foes is what is at last to be gloriously true of the bride of Jesus Christ (Rev. xxi, 7 ; iii, 21)." * * The Highest Critics versus the Higher Critics, p. 172. 234 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. To tbis I have no objection. The word suggested in this quotation is appropriate and necessary. The writer of the Book of Esther did not purpose to teach these truths when he wrote the book. What, then, did he purpose ? This is the question. Professor F. W. Schultz, in Lange, thinks that "it is manifestly the intention of the author to exhibit the reason for the feast of Purim, that is, to narrate the remarkable events to which that feast had reference. He is so engrossed with this festi val of Purim that he declares to us in the ninth chapter how it came that not only the fourteenth but even the fifteenth of Adar was celebrated as a festival ; and in verses 24 and following he again briefly condenses the chief facts ofthe history in order to give them in a definite and comprehensive manner as the ground of the feast ; and finally he makes the name Purim conspicuous as having special reference to these events." " It is the manifest design," says Professor Schultz, " of the book to promote a revival of Jewish faith." I have noted in the reading of some author the words following: "The Book of Esther furnishes not only evi dence that there is a just government in the world, but that he who digs a pit for another will fall into it him self." The lesson taught is a lesson of divine providence. Good old Matthew Henry calls attention to the fact that God's providence was over the Jews who remained in Babylon. Ezra and Nehemiah furnish evidence of this providence in the case of the thousands who returned to the land of their fathers. With this as his purpose there was no reason why the writer of the Book of Esther should speak of sacrifices, of prayer, of worship, of the Holy Land, of Jerusalem, or ofthe temple. There is no time left in which to speak of the author ship of this book. In the ninth chapter and at the twentieth verse we are THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 235 told that "Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to establish this among them, that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yeariy, as the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day : that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of send ing portions one to another, and gifts to the poor " (Esth. ix, 20-22). That Mordecai wrote this much we do not doubt. There is no good reason why he should not have written the entire story of the deliverance of God's elect people in Persia in the reign of Ahasuerus as given in the Book of Esther. While the lesson is, as I have said, one of divine providence, this portion of the Bible is fruitful in homi letical suggestions. The opportunity for interesting and profitable character studies is unusually fine. Ahasuerus, the foolish tyrant ; Vashti, the modest woman ; Haman, the selfish man ; Esther, the diplomatic and self-sacrific ing woman ; Mordecai, the faithful and contented offi cer; Memucan, the man who gives advice, are some of the character studies for pulpit use. There is a rich mine in the Book of Esther to reward any one who has industry and patience and ability to work it. May the blessing of God be on us in our inves tigations of the living word ! 236 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. MOOREHEAD, D.D., United Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Xenia, O. This is a large subject , too large to be treated satis factorily in the time allotted to the discourses of the Conference. Only some features of it will engage our attention. I. Our first duty is to determine as exactly as possible the meaning of the terms prophet and prophecy. We are not compelled to resort to lexicons and commenta ries to ascertain tiieir significance. Happily, the Bible itself furnishes us an authoritative definition of the office and function of the prophet. In Exod. vii, I, we are told, "The Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh ; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet." No statement could be clearer than this. By divine appointment Moses was to be in the place of God to Pharaoh, and Aaron was to act as the prophet of Moses, receiving from him the mes sage and delivering it to the king. This is further illus trated in Exod. iv, 15, 16, where Moses was directed to "speak" to Aaron "and put words into his mouth," the Lord promising at the same time to be with the mouths of both his servants, and to teach them what they should do. Furthermore, Aaron was to be Moses's spokesman unto the people ; that is, he was to act the part of the prophet for Moses, and Moses was to be to him instead of God. Here, then, we have the scrir'""ral definition of the MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 237 prophet. He was one who received a message from God and delivered it to those for whom it was intended. He was God's " spokesman " and " mouth," the bearer and proclaimer of the Lord's will. He was " the man of God," his message the word of God. Through him God spake (Heb. i, i, 2) : " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." In each case, whether by the prophets or by the Son, the speaker is God. Similar is the strong testi mony of the apostle Peter: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man : but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter i, 20, 21). According to the inspired writers, therefore, prophecy is a message from God, a divine communication, wherein the will and purpose of God are revealed to men. A very prominent, an essential element in biblical prophecy is prediction. The word prophecies is to be understood, in this discussion, as equivalent to prediction, the predictions of the Old Testament touching the ad vent, person, offices, work, and glory of the Messiah. But before proceeding with the subject another matter closely allied to it demands attention and must be noticed. II. The prophecies of the Bible, like its miracles, are unique. They stand alone in the field of literature, for they appeal directly to God as their Author. We recite again the words of Peter: " Knowing this first" (that is, we recognize this as primary truth, we settle it definitely in our minds when we sit down to the study of prophecy), " that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpre tation." Three words here require notice: i. The verb "is" is not the ordinary Greek esti, but "¦ ginetai," "be- 238 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. comes, arises, comes into being ; " 2. " Private," that is, special, or, better, " one's own," the sense given it seven times in Peter's epistles and so translated in the Revision (i Peter iii, i, 5 ; ii, 16, 22; iii, 16, 17); 3. "Interpreta tion," that is, origin, origination (so Lillie). " Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture cometh into being from one's own interpretation, origination, and ap plication." It is not the fruit of the prophet's own con jectures and calculations and shrewd guesses as to what is going to happen. And so the apostle immediately adds, " For no prophecy ever came by the will of man." Its origin is divine, its Author is God. It was brought to the prophet, as it is brought to us, from God. The prophets delivered what they received — nothing more, nothing less, and nothing different. The naturalistic theory of prophecy is that it is only a higher kind of divination ; that the prophets of Israel and heathen soothsayers belong to the same class ; both alike are confined to the sphere of the natural. Night and day cannot be more distant and distinct. Let us note some of the differences between the two. Prophecy, from its constitution and aim, cannot give predictions on every sort of subject ; divination attempts to do pre cisely this. Prophecy announces only what stands in organic and internal relation to the plan of redemption ; divination undertakes to disclose the future of persons and empires totally apart from the government of God. Prophecy deals with the course and development of God's kingdom in the world ; divination is satisfied with a puer ile kind of fortune-telling. Prophecy rests on the in spiration of the Spirit of God ; divination on the imagi nary intercourse with an extramundane spirit. The prophet spoke the words of the Lord, the words the Lord put into his mouth (Jer. i, 9; Ezek. ii, 7); the soothsayer and false prophet spoke out of their own M:tSSIANIC PROPHECIES. 239 hearts (Jer. xiv, 14 ; xxiii, 26). The one was object truth, the other subjective presentiment. The prophet received his message from without, from beyond the boundaries of his own intelligence ; but the soothsayer and false prophet evoked their oracles from the depths of their own spirits. In brief, prophecy has for its su preme and ineffable center the Lord Jesus Christ. All its lines converge to him. To him its waiting eyes are lifted ; to glorify and honor him its marvelous lips are opened. His kingdom and its victories; his coming and the transcendent events connected with it ; his name, surrounded with unapproachable splendor; his power, without a superior and without a rival; his. throne the throne of the universe — such are its exalted themes. Divination and necromancy know nothing of Christ and care nothing for him. The prophets put forward a divine claim for their ut terances. And what is not the least proof of the justice of their claim is the crucial fact that they rise to the level of their claim. Their claim and their message square with each other ; there is no disparity between them. There is that in their message which substantiates their claim to divine inspiration. In this respect the prophets stand alone, without parallel in the history ofthe world. There is an immense distance between the supernatural pretensions of augurs and soothsayers and their " re sponses ; " while the " spirits " of modern necromancy chatter nonsense with the volubility of magpies, and with no more sense of responsibility. III. Are there Messianic prophecies in the Old Testa ment? I am almost ashamed to raise this question, a question which to those who hear me must appear su perfluous, if not silly ; and yet it is one asked in our day and answered in the negative by not a few who call themselves Christian teachers. You know full well that 240 ANTI- HIGHER CRITICISM. the postulates, or working rules, of rationalistic criticism are these: I. The message of the prophet springs from the exigencies or circumstances of his contemporaries ; it has its roots in the needs of the people of his own time. 2. His message is addressed to his contemporaries, is in tended for them preeminently, if not exclusively. 3. His message never transcends the horizon of his own age. When he speaks of the distant future his predictions are ideal ; they are not definite, distinct, precise, nor indeed can be. That is, prophecy, according to this miserable theory, never outruns the historical process ; it cannot stretch beyond the stage of realized history reached in his time, save in a vague and indefinite way. If this be true, then we must reconstruct all our interpretations of Old Testament prophecy and all the inspired commen tary on it in the New. We must bind up the predictions to the prophet's own age, and suffer no light to fall on the things to come. Over these an impenetrable veil hangs which God himself cannot — at least, does not — lift ! And so Isa. xl-lxvi becomes Deutero-Isaiah, written by the Great Unknown who lived in exile times and per sonally knew Cyrus. Ezekiel's wheels stop short in the foundations of the second temple, or whirl poetically in heaven. Daniel's visions it confines to the Maccabean war and to Antiochus Epiphanes, and the Olivet proph ecy of the Lord Jesus (Matt, xxiv, xxv) and the Apoca lypse of John it arrests at A. D. 70, the fall of Jerusalem. The hypothesis minimizes everything to the last degree. It practically denies that God has distinctly foretold any thing as disassociated from the past, and then it tries to compensate for so great a loss by a species of spiritual inflation. Such is the principle of the much vaunted "scientific method" of biblical interpretation in these closing years of the nineteenth century. We deny and repudiate the " method," and cite against MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 24 1 it the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles. What answer is made to our denial and our appeal? It is found in the defiant words of Professor Kuenen, as quoted by Professor Bissell : " We must either cast aside as worthless our dearly bought scientific method or must forever cease to acknowledge the authority of the New Testament in the domain of the exegesis of the Old." The New Testament, however, cannot be so summarily set aside in this contention. The New Testament is at least an equal sharer in the glory or the dishonor of the Old. You cannot lay the hand of violence on the Mes sianic predictions of the older volume without robbing the Son of God of his precious dignities, his eternal crown rights. Whatever becomes of this boasted " scien tific method " — and we believe that devout men will yet clap their hands at it and hiss it from its place of bad preeminence — we dare not surrender, because we cannot afford to surrender, the principles of interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies which are sanctioned by Christ and the apostles. There is a true and infalhble scientific method of ex egesis made ready to our hands. The New Testament is the best manual of Old Testament hermeneutics iri existence. Its principles are clear, exact, immutable ; and they are as strictly applicable now as in the six teenth century or the first. Its examples are copious, luminous, and unerring. Its spirit is reverential and profound. To this method, taught us by the Saviour and the apostles, we do well to take heed. But is there evidence that .such a method of exegesis is furnished us in the New Testament Scriptures ? There is, and we proceed to point out only one feature of it, namely, that which relates to the interpretation of the Messianic prophecies. 243 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. In Luke xxiv, 27, we read, "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded " (interpreted, the verb is the foundation for our English hermeneutics) " unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." How wide a range our Lord's exposition took is obvious from this language : Moses, the Pentateuch ; all, not some, of the prophets ; all, not some, of the Scriptures. Like wise in Luke xxiv, 44, we find the risen Redeemer em ploying these far-reaching words : " These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law' of" Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, con cerning me." " Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures " (verse 45). Here is the norm given to the apostles and disciples, given also to all teachers and students of the Bible for all time, for the interpretation of the Old Testament Scrip tures. The Lord Jesus, after his resurrection from the dead, and shortly before his ascension into glory, most solemnly affirmed and testified that he himself is the great center and subject of the Thorah, of the former and latter prophets, and of the Hagiographa ; that is, Christ is in the Old Testament, and in every part of it, its sub stance and its sum. Hear now the testimony of two commentators on this passage : " If the exegete should read the Old Testament Scriptures without knowing to whom and to what they everywhere point, the New Testament clearly directs his understanding, and places him under an obligation, if he would be a sound Christian teacher, to acknowledge its authority and interpret ac cordingly. Doubt as to the validity of our Lord's and of his apostles' method of expounding involves necessarily a renunciation of Christianity" (Meyer). "They who consult the teaching of Jesus and of his apostles with respect to the prophecies concerning the Messiah need MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 243 not grope in uncertainty." He is the " whole tenor of the Old Testament in its typical and symbolical char acter " (Van Oosterzee). That the evangelists and the apostles closely followed the method given them by the Lord himself every in telligent reader of their inspired writings knows. We have time to point but a few of them. I. The Gospels. Matthew again and again employs the suggestive formula in the opening of the first gospel, " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet;" that is, he constantly compares and con fronts events and circumstances connected with the Lord Jesus with Old Testament predictions, and finds their , exact fulfillment in the Son of man, the heavenly king. Matthew's has well been called " The Gospel of the Ful fillment." He finds Christ in Hosea xi, i : " Out of Egypt have I called my Son." Israel is the Messianic nation ; its history has foreshadowings and preintima- tions of the earthly history of Him whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Israel mirrors the Messiah ; Christ is the true Israel. He appeals to the concurrent testimony of the prophets that Jesus should be despised and rejected, " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Naza rene." Mark opens his account of the Lord Jesus with quota tions from Isaiah and Malachi, thus binding up his narra tive with the Messianic predictions, thus giving us a hint at the outset of the character and intent of his writing. For, while the second gospel is not so full of Old Testa ment quotations as the first, it contains, nevertheless, the matchless portrait of the Messiah as the servant of Je hovah, of whom Isaiah so rapturously speaks. Luke records that in the first sermon Jesus preached (that at Nazareth, iv) he quoted Isaiah's prophecy of the 244 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. qualifications and mission of the Messiah (Ixi), and ap plied it directly to himself: " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." And near the close ofthe public ministry Luke tells us Jesus said at the supper, " For I say unto you, that this that is written must be accom plished in me. And he was reckoned among the trans gressors : for the things concerning me have an end " (xxii, 37). Between these two points, the opening and the termination of the ministry, the third gospel shows that he does the work and fulfills the predictions of Messiah, the promised Deliverer. John, after making fifteen most remarkable Messianic quotations, and declaring and proving that these have their ample accomplishment in the Lord Jesus, formu lates his memorable conclusion : " But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name " (xx, 31). 2. The Acts. From this book we select three witnesses in proof that the apostles did pursue to the very letter the method of preaching and teaching indicated to them by the Lord, namely, a confident appeal to the Old Testa ment prophecies concerning Messiah. The second chap ter of Acts contains Peter's address to the multitude on the day of Pentecost. I heartily concur in Professor Stifler's opinion of this address : " As an example of persuasive argument it has no rival. The more it is studied the more its beauty and power are disclosed." The theme is the Messiahship of Jesus, and the evidence he adduces are the Messianic predictions of Joel and David. Peter's exposition and application of these Scrip tures to the events of Pentecost are irresistible : " There fore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." Only by the fulfillment of the word MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 245 of Jesus can we explain this exegetical power of the Galilean fisherman : " Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be wit nesses unto me " (Acts i, 8). A second witness (Acts viii) is Philip the evangelist, who preached Jesus to the perplexed Ethiopian officer out of Isa. liii. His whole instruction seems to be founded on that Messianic Scripture, of the meaning and application of which Philip had not a shadow of a doubt. Fancy, if you can, this servant of God, guided as he was by the Spirit of God, interpreting the chapter to mean Messiah when it means suffering Israel, the godly rem nant of the chosen people, as the critics now tell us. Nothing but the inexorable logic of their false hypothesis will account for the strange spectacle of Christian teach ers (so called) going bodily over to Jewish ground and denying Messiah a place in Isa. liii. By the "scientific method" they have reached the conclusion that no pre diction of the distant future can be other than ideal, vague. But here is one most distinct, particular, and minute. Therefore it must mean suffering Israel of the prophet's own time. That it is Messiah who is meant, he and no other, Matthew, Luke, John, Philip, Paul, and Peter all attest (Matt, viii, 17; Luke xxii, 37; John xii, 37, 38 ; Acts viii, 32, 33 ; Rom. x, 16 ; i Peter ii, 24, 25). The third witness is Paul, whose adherence to the Saviour's method is even more marked than that of tbe other apostles. Soon after his conversion we read that " Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ " (Acts ix, 22). His proof he derived from the Old Testament Scriptures (xviii, 28). At Thessalonica, " as his custom was, he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead; and that 246 AMT-HIGHER CRITICISM. this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ " (xvii, 1-3). In his defense before Agrippa he said : " I con tinue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come : that Christ should suf fer, and that he should be the first tKat should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles " (xxvi, 22, 23). Finally, in his address to the chief men ofthe Hebrew colony at Rome, he "expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them con cerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening" (xxviii, 23). 3. Hebrews. The author of this Scripture has given us an inspired commentary on ancient Judaism. In that system he finds the fruitful seeds of Christianity. Its complex services he describes as " a figure for the time then present," rather, a parable, an acted parable, in which the glories of Messiah and the Messianic age are pictorially disclosed. He finds that Jesus Christ, in the dignity of his person, in the majesty of his offices, and in the perfection of his work, was and is the substance and reality of tabernacle and temple, of altar and priest, of victim and blood-shedding. According to the Hebrews Judaism was a Messianic prophecy; Judaism was a kind of kindergarten school in which God by a splendid series of object lessons taught his people that in due time One would appear \\\\o would make good every promise and prophecy — the prophet of whom Moses was but a faint type; the priest of whom Aaron was but a dim reflec tion ; the offering of which the sacrifices were but thin shadows. In Hebrews the Holy Spirit sets aside the typical and the temporary to make room for the perma nent and the real. Moses, Joshua, Aaron, the old cove nant, the ordinances and sanctuary, the earthly Jerusalem, and the earthly congregation, are all one by one laid MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 247 aside,'that their substance and sum may come in, Jesus the Messiah, and the heavenly assembly, and the heav enly city. Every rite and ceremony of the Mosaic institutions had a voice for Israel ; and their voice was prophetic. Their voice was the_significant word. Wait. Wait, and the true Deliverer will appear ; wait, and the true priest will come ; wait, and the true atonement, the one supreme offering, will be presented — the offering which shall perfect forever them that are sanctified ; the offering that will nevermore need to be supplemented by a sickly little Protestant purgatory in the middle state. Thus we see that the words of Jesus lie at the basis of the New Testament exposition of the Old : " All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." This was the ground of the patristic interpretation. It was the ground of all interpretation esteemed Christian until a very recent period. The consent of Latin, Greek, and Protestant exegesis, the verdict, we may say, of an eighteen hundred years' Christianity, is not to be rashly set aside. If a method so cardinal, so central, so uni versal is given up as false — a method which has back of it the sanction of Christ and the apostles — where is there another that in any proper and adequate sense can take its place ? The newer criticism ? The method that empties the Old Testament of much of its meaning and ties it up to Jewish times ? We repudiate it, because it thrusts a sacrilegious Jehoiakim's penknife between the two Testaments and ruthlessly dismembers them, destroy ing their unity. We accept Kuenen's alternative, and gladly say. We cast aside as worthless the rationalistic scientific method, and adhere now and forever to the holy method of Jesus Christ and his inspired apostles. IV. The four gospels are most intimately related to the Messianic prophecies. ^ 248 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. The prophets have drawn an august portrait of the Messiah : his person, offices, mission, and qualifications for his vast undertaking ; his suffering, death, resurrec tion, and glory are described with a minuteness of detail which ordinarily belongs only to history. They teach that Messiah is to be a king, and that he shall establish a kingdom which shall be world-wide and glorious. They describe him as the servant of Jehovah ; they assure us that he will accomphsh God's will on earth and man's neglected duty ; that he will meet every divine require ment and every human need. They furthermore an nounce that Messiah will be the seed of the woman, the offspring of Abraham, the son of David. A veritable man Messiah is to be, one who shall be incorporated with our race, the Son of man, the Son of mankind, there fore the kinsman Redeemer of all them that believe. Moreover, the prophets witness to the immensely signifi cant fact that Messiah is the Lord of glory, that it is Jehovah himself who is to visit and redeem his people. Now, in these four great features in the portrait of Messiah as drawn by the prophets we have the founda tion ofthe fourfold account ofthe Lord Jesus contained in the New Testament. The evangelists bring the per son and work of Jesus alongside of Messiah's picture in the prophets, the historical by the side of the predictive, and the two are found perfectly to match. The gospels prove that the Deliverer promised to Old Testament saints has appeared in the person of Jesus ; that what was foretold of him is fulfilled in Jesus ; that, therefore, Jesus is worthy to receive the illustrious names of the Deliverer: he is the King of Israel, the Servant of Jeho vah, the Son of man, and the Son of God. V. Progressive element in the Messianic prophecies. What we find respecting the prophecies is also true of the whole Bible. It is a book of growth. Men con- MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 249 struct their theological systems as they build a house, laying beam on beam. God constructs his system of revealed truth as he does the living oak of the forest. He plants the germ among the clods of a wasted Eden, and it grows and expands parallel with the germs of the race till in the fullness of time all nations may find shelter under its mighty boughs. Messiah is the supreme object of all prophecy, as he is of all Scripture and of God's counsels. The little streamlet of prophecy which sprang up in Eden was swelled by continual accessions through the antediluvian, patriarchal, and Hebrew ages until it became a river and a flood. At first the promise of a redeemer was public and promiscuous, the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head (Gen. iii, 15). He might be born anywhere, and might spring from any one of the many branches of the human family. The only certain thing was that he was coming, and that he was to descend from Eve, the mother of us all. But ere long a restricting process began, and by a series of limita tions the promise was rendered more and more definite and precise ; the circle within which the hope of the world was to appear was drawn closer and closer. Abra ham was named the chosen progenitor of Messiah (Gen. xxii, 18). Jacob predicted that in Judah's line must Shiloh, the peace-bringer, appear (Gen. xlix, 10). The exhaustive process narrowed the line to David's royal house : Messiah shall be David's Son and Lord (2 Sam. vii ; Psalm Ixxxix, 3-5, 19-37). Isaiah announced that he should be born of a woman, the son of the Virgin (Isa. vii, 14). Micah foretold that Bethlehem was to be the place of his birth (Micah v, 2). Haggai taught the na tion to look for the promised salvation during the exist ence of the second temple (Hag. ii, 6-9). Daniel dated the time of his coming at the close of the sixty-ninth of 250 ANTI-HTGHER CRITICISM. his seventy mystic weeks (Dan. ix, 26). Thus this long line of predictions, extending over a period of more than three thousand years, grows in brightness and fullness as feature after feature in the life and character of the great Messiah is added, until Malachi introduces him to the waiting people of God as the messenger of the cove nant, with his forerunner preparing his way before him; and the portrait stands complete. From first to last, from Genesis to Malachi, there is progress, movement, growth. But there is much more in the Messianic prophecies. The Old Testament contains a noble succession of "figures of Him that was to come," both of persons and institutions. Foremost stands Adam, who, as head of the race and of the old creation, is the type of Him who is head of the redeemed race and of the new creation. Then Melchizedek, king and priest, is the image of Him who is likewise Priest and King in the power of an endless life. Next David, who in his sufferings and in his glory so marvelously resembles his adorable descendant that the latter is even sometimes designated by the name of David (Ezek. xxxiv, 23, 24). After him is Jonah, who is not so much a predicter as in his own person a predic tion ofthe Messiah. Solemn is the memorial feast of Israel's exodus, or dained by Moses in the paschal supper ; but v/hat is the deepest significance of that paschal Lamb of which not a bone was to be broken ? " Even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us," Paul replies. Beneficial is the uplifting ofthe brazen serpent, by which death is arrested in the camp of Israel. But what significance has this ordinance of Moses, not merely for Israel, but for all following cen turies ? " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder ness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 25 I eternal life," Jesus makes answer. Majestic was the ritual of the great day of atonement when the high priest passed the veil into the most holy place, and, standing before the ark, sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. But has it no higher aim than to calm the conscience of the sinful nation for one year? Romans answers : " Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation " (a mercy seat) "through faith in his blood." Hebrews also makes answer: " But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God." But new and strange features are yet added to the Mes sianic portrait. The music of the prophetic harp emits mournful tones which, tell of suffering, of oppression and wounds and bruises to be inflicted on the coming One. He is to be the holy sin bearer, a silent sufferer, a slaugh tered lamb. In the great Messianic psalm, the twenty- second, the very words he uttered on the cross are found, made ready to his hand. The intensity and awfulness of his sufferings as priest and victim are depicted with graphic power. His patience, humility, benevolence, love, and piety call out the fiercest enmity of wicked men and of Sa tan against him. They rush upon him open-mouthed, like ferocious beasts. They roar about him like savage bulls of Bashan. He stands in the midst of them as though surrounded by baying dogs — he innocent and guileless, like the hunted hind. They part his garments among them, and cast lots upon his vesture. And his pitiful wail, his lonely cry, is, " Be not far from me ; for trouble is near ; for there is none to help." In another psalm, the sixty-ninth, his sorrowful plaint is that every delicacy of feeling is violated by his pitiless foes. Shame covers his face, reproach breaks his heart. He is the song of the drunkards as they reel through the streets, and he is all alone in his sufferings, with none to pity or to help. 252 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. In Isa. liii he is the "man of sorrows." Twelve times over in that chapter it is declared that his suffer ings are vicarious and propitiatory. In Daniel he is to be cut off and to have nothing ; while in Zechariah the sword of justice leaps from its scabbard and is bathed in his blood. But he is to be the conqueror of the grave, the death of death ; and he is to come the second time in the clouds of heaven to punish the wicked and to raise his sleep ing saints from their graves. The words of Herder are no less beautiful than they are true : " Shell and husk, in which the precious kernel is hidden, fall away one after another, until at length this kernel itself, the Christ, appears personally ; and the whole of the Old Testament rests upon the evermore full and complete development of the single early proph ecies and promises of God, which pervade it, in which the unity of the divine plan is fully perceived only when Christ shall have come in his kingdom." What, now, is our conclusion? We may sum it up in one sentence : Jesus Christ is the key of the Old Testa ment Scriptures. Expel him from its pages, and the book becomes meaningless, of no more worth to us than the speculations of Philo or the rhapsodies of blind Homer. Give Christ his proper place, his full place, in the law and in the prophets and in the Psalms — the place the New Testament assigns him — and those ancient Scrip tures glow with a splendor above the brightness of the starry firmament. THE GOSPELS. 253 THE GOSPELS. BY PROFESSOR ERNST F. STROETER, PH.D., Denver University^ I. The four gospels tell us the story of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, the Son of man, the Messiah of Israel, the Word made flesh. They are the only records ever received by the Church generally as giving a full and true account of that wonderful person age. All the Christ-life manifested in the earth for nearly nineteen centuries is based, confessedly, on the state ments made and the picture given of Jesus in these four gospels. No Church, no individual believer, ever claimed that any other than the Christ of the gospels was to them and is to them the Way, the Truth, "and the Life. God has, in all the ages ofthe Church, borne wit ness by revealing his Son in all those who have believed on him, according to the record we have in these gos pels. The Christ-life of self-denying, self-sacrificing love and service, of patient suffering under persecution, of perfect submission to the Father's will ; more than this : the life of the risen Christ, complete victory, over the terrors of death and the grave, of constant triumph over all opposing world powers, of conscious deliverance from the enslavement of sin and lust — all this has, a million times over, been actually lived and experienced through out the entire gospel age, and is the blessed experience of thousands to-day. And who are these? They are those, and only those, who with their hearts believe the 17 254 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. records contained in these four gospels, how that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of a Jewish maid in Bethlehem, baptized of John, anointed by the Holy Spirit, tempted of the devil, followed, doubted, believed in and denied, in turn, by his disciples, rejected -by his nation, betrayed by Judas, delivered to be crucified, died and was buried, on the third day he rose again from the dead, appeared alive to his own for forty days, ate and drank with them, and was then bodily taken up from them into heaven, claiming that all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth. It is quite true that all men do not acknowledge that this same Christ is to-day personally alive and manifest in those that believe on him. But all who have believed on him are of one mind on this point. They declare with Paul, We are crucified with Christ: nevertheless we live ; yet not we, but Christ liveth in us. To them this matter of Christ in us, the hope of glory, is a blessed re ality, a conscious experience, as much, and more so, than the enjoyment of good physical health or the comforts of home and a good bank account. Thus we behold a great cloud of witnesses reaching dawn from apostolic days to this, of men and women of whom the world was not worth}', who are unanimous in declaring, whatever differences may have existed or may still exist between them, that Christ is their life. And they will know of no other pattern or power for their spiritual life with Christ in. God but the Christ of the four gospels. In the nature of things this innumerable host of witnesses out of all ages, nations, tongues, and creeds must be either all telling a conscious falsehood, or the victims of the most stupcndou.s delusion, or they must be speaking the truth. As witnesses in all human affairs their testimony would be unimpeachable. They profess to have full assurance of their vital and eternal union with the glorified Christ THE GOSPELS. 255 simply by believing the record that God gave of hi^ Son. They deny, moreover, on the strength of plain apostolic teaching, the possibility on the part of any un regenerate person, however cultured or learned, to either think or speak of this Christ-life according to truth. They find most convincing, though most painful, evi dence of this in much so-called Christian teaching and preaching of this and former days. They are, accord ingly, not greatly alarmed, neither does it appear why they should be, over anything which unbelieving persons, though ever so highly educated and well informed in all manner of science, may say or write touching the life of the Christ in his believers or their life hid with him in God. Mr. Bierstadt, we imagine, would not be greatly affected by the adverse criticism of the most highly cul tured gentleman upon the coloring in one of his brilliant sunset paintings if he knew that gentleman to be stone blind. Nor would Mr. Paderewski take offense at the remarks of a very learned critic who had merely observed his fingering while absolutely deaf to the matchless har monies produced by his playing. Furthermore, it does not appear to them why those who neither profess nor manifest any part in the real, though hidden, Christ-life, to whom the crucified Jesus is no more a living and life-giving reality than the assas sinated Caesar, or, possibly, the martyred Savonarola — why they should exhibit so much concern or anxiety over the grounds of assurance' for believers in the risen and glorified Redeemer, so long as these latter them selves are quite content to rest their assurance on the witness of God which he has testified of his Son in the word. Let us suppose that all the American residents and travelers in the bounds of the German empire were to constitute themselves a committee of historical crit icism for the avowed purpose of ascertaining whether 256 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. all that is taught the German boys and girls in the schools of the Fatherland about the dates, authorship, and integrity of the reigning Hohenzollern dynasty was trustworthy from the standpoint of the severest historico- dynastical criticism ; whether, for example. Emperor William II was a true lineal descendant of the first King of Prussia or of the first Burggrave of Nuremberg. It is barely possible that those patient Germans would not lose all patience with these meddlesome Yankees ; it is quite likely that, if disposed to submit to the process of inquiry, they would be able to furnish most satisfac tory evidence to their inquisitive friends. But it is more than likely that such a procedure on the part of ahens and strangers would by them be considered a very re markable performance. Still, the evidence brought out from the Prussian crown archives would have the same decisive and convincing power for the most rabid re publican from the United States, or even from Paris, as for the most loyal monarchist of Germany. But would such evidence change the republican into a monarchist ? Would it convert the " revanche " breathing Frenchman into a patriotic German? Let us understand our posi tion clearly, when at this late date, after more than eighteen centuries of gospel preaching and gospel dem onstration, we are, as believers, challenged and warned to inquire closely into the historical accuracy, genuine ness, and credibihty of these old gospel records. It is a remarkable thing, to be sure, that those who know the house they are building, to be founded upon a rock, who have seen the most violent and frightful storms and as saults of persecution, .skepticism, and unbelief, century after century, dashed into foam against this impregnable rock, that they should be arrested in their work of build ing and be called out and sent down the musty avenues of historical research to examine over and over again •THE GOSPELS. 257 whether that foundation was not, after all, in parts, at least, only soft mud, covered with paper and painted to look like rock ! Who is afraid ? What part of that holy temple of the Lord, all glorious within, which is building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone, is in danger of crumbling or falhng? Is it those who have departed to be with Christ? Have they sent back tidings that there is something wrong with the historical foundation ? Or is it those who are to-day living in conscious, blessed fel lowship with him who is Christ Jesus, the same yester day and to-day and forever, the Christ of the gospels ? Are they sounding the alarm because they are feeling the foundations of the apostles giving way under their feet ? What is the meaning of all this scrutiny and in vestigation ? Is it born of an honest purpose to establish their security and impregnability? Or is it a device to delay, or to stop, for a while, at least, the progress and approaching completion of the building? We shall be greatly aided in arriving at a correct estimate of the whole proceeding by recalling a few fundamental truths which we shall consider in the form of propositions. I. The divine way of attesting divinely revealed and divinely inspired truth, as such, is one thing ; and the human way of requiring, first and last, historical proof for the age, authenticity, and integrity ofthe gospels as liter ary documents is quite another thing. We have the declaration of Jehovah himself: " For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts " (Isa. Iv, 9). What is the divine method of giving evidence to the truthfulness of these gospel records? To answer this question we must first ascertain the divine object in giving these revelations. What is the declared purpose 258 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. for which the gospels were inspired and written ? What do they declare of themselves? In Matt, i, i, we read, " The book ofthe generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." In Mark i, i, "The be ginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Luke i, 1-4, is very explicit : " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instruct ed." And in the closing pages of the fourth gospel we read, retrospectively (chapter xx, 31): "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life through his name." Thus we find that these writings claim to give four things: I. The generation of Jesus, the son of David. 2. The Gospel of the Son of God. 3. Certainty concern ing things which had been taught by word of mouth. 4. Means and opportunity for believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and for having life through his name. On their own testimony, then, these records promise to produce in all who believe them a certainty in the knowledge that Jesus, the son of David, is indeed the Christ, the Son of God ; and' this knowledge is de clared to be life eternal (John xvii, 3). The effects prom ised are, however, absolutely confined to them that believe. There is no intimation anywhere within these records that any certainty whatsoever in the knowledge of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and life eternal, is to result from the closest and most thorough research in the domain THE GOSPELS. 259 of history, or archaeology, or philolog)', or any other branch of human science grouped around the historical and literary approaches to these records. They abound with rich promises to the believer that he will be guided into all truth, that the Holy Spirit himself will be his Teacher, that the truth shall make him free, that he shall know ofthe doctrine whether it be of God (John vii, 17; viii, 32; xiv, 26; xvi, 13). But they are utterly barren of promise to any and all who do not approach them as little children, willing to know nothing, to be taught everything, to be guided into the truth, and to simply believe the testimony which the Father hath given of his Son. Jesus himself is here recorded as offering the following prayer : " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent" (understanding), "and hast revealed them unto babes" (Matt, xi, 25). If this prayer means anything it must mean that human wisdom and human understanding are of themselves divinely shut out from ever reaching or affording any certainty in the knowl edge of Christ, a knowledge which these gospel records purpose to give. And now, what is the testimony of believers in these records as to the certainty they have received ? They are willing to seal it with their lives that He who gave these records of his Son, as they be lieve, has made good his promise to them to the fullest extent ; that he has given them to know that Jesus is the Son of God ; that he has given them eternal life. And they firmly, believe, and act on the belief, that wherever these records are faithfully proclaimed and im plicitly accepted in simple obedience of faith these same blessed results will unfailingly follow. The divine way of witnessing to the truthfulness of these records, then, is, to preserve them, somehow, amid the general ruin and corruption of things in the world ; 26o ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. to see to it that, somehow, they are presented to men for believing acceptance, and then to create, somehow, in those who adopt this moral attitude toward them an unwavering assurance, an indisputable certainty, that they know him whom the Father hath sent, and that they have eternal life through his name. This is, we admit, the exact reverse of the demands of scientific criticism, namely, first, the best possible historical (that is, human) a.ssurance that there are no . flaws in the literary constitution of these records ; next, we may see as to believing them. But the divine way above set forth is, after all, not very unlike some very natural human "ways of establish ing and reaching certainty in knowledge. Look, for example, at the way in which a human father secures the knowledge of his fatherhood in his own children. In the first place, he establishes the relationship, not the child. The child is born. This is essential and fun damental. He is now the child's father. He then ex ercises all the precious prerogatives and all the sacred responsibilities of this relation, and thus fosters in the mind of the child the firm conviction which becomes part of its very nature and being. This man is my father. How does the child know this? How did it become assured of this ? Has it first carefully sifted to the bot tom all the existing historical evidence? Has it gone to the sworn official records to make sure? It is true if that father should die the time might come when men through ignorance or wickedness will call upon that son to prove by historical evidence, critically tested, that that dead man was his father. But as long as that father lives the son will never lack a witness to his son- ship. And even if after the father's death the son should be unable to prove to the satisfaction of doubting men that he was the son and heir of that father, his own THE GOSPELS. 26 1 assurance of that fact could not be shaken, no, not by a thousand deaths. We are well aware that we are laying ourselves open to the objection that this argumentation is evading the issue and begging the question. We are told that it is one thing to believe in and be assured of, in a spiritual way, the truths contained in these gospels, and quite another thing to determine by a process of historical criticism whether these documents, as literary produc tions, are genuine, authentic, incorrupted, and thus worthy of our acceptance. We have insisted from the beginning, and still insist, that these are two widely dif ferent things indeed. We have the conviction that the alarm and distress produced in so many minds by the bold attacks of what is self-styled higher criticism are due chiefly to a failure to clearly distinguish between these two radically different things. We believe that the value and importance of the demands of criticism are in inverse ratio to the loudness and urgency with which they are being pressed upon us. We are satisfied that they have received and are still receiving a share of the attention and consideration of believers in the word out of all pro portion with their significancy. We are now simply pointing out the fact that God, whom we believe to be the Giver of these records, avowedly proceeds to give unfailing assurance of the truthfulness of these records on lines radically different from those pursued by man in his critical methods. Bu>t before we proceed with the inquiry into the rela tive value and importance of the critical method let us look the objection squarely in the face that we are taking too much for granted ; that we are assuming that these records are given of God and are therefore, a priori, worthy of all acceptation. We are reminded by the objectors that one of the first if not the first maxim of 262 ANTI-HIGHER CRtTlClSM. true scientific research is to approach the subject under examination with a mind entirely free from all precon ceived judgment or opinion concerning it. We are not disposed to question the sincerity of those who make this demand even upon those who profess to have believed these records as God-given, and by believing to have received the witness of God in themselves that God hath given them eternal life, and that this life is in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as revealed in these gos pels. But if that demand implies that we, as believers, are to divest our minds of all conviction or certainty thus divinely wrought in us, we simply say, " Non possumus." It may as well be understood first as last that no believer ever can, nor ever dare, stultify himself, and in approach ing thequestion of the credibility of these gospel records pretend to act as one who sees not while he knows he has the eyes of his understanding opened to behold the truth of God in the face of Jesus Christ as pictured forth in these records. As well might the Pharisees have demanded of the man who was bprn blind, but had his eyes opened by Jesus — whom they knew not, though they had eyes to see — that he should continue to act like a blind man, to grope his way by the aid of a stick, and to keep his eyes closed. It is one thing for believers in the word to behold without apprehension or alarm, nay, even to invite and welcome, the closest and most searching scrutiny of all the historical proofs for the credibility of these gospel records from a purely literary and critical standpoint. But it is quite another thing for believers to acknowl edge the supreme importance of settling the questions of dates, authorship, and integrity in order to establish the reasonableness of our belief in them. No true believer cares, or would care, even if there were but a tithe of the historical evidence for the truthfulness of THE GOSt>ELS. 263 these gospel records that we have, whether he is consid ered foolisli for believing as he does or not. He knows full well that every natural man, though he were the most learned theologian, will, in his heart, consider him a fool anyhow, and would still consider him such even though the historical evidence would be ten times stronger than it is. If, therefore, the entire absence of any preconceived conviction or judgment as to the authority of these records is the one essential qualification of a higher critic, we are free to confess that a true believer can, ipso facto, never be a genuine higher critic. And we are far from feeling sorry over this. For, to be candid, we have never been capable of a high degree of enthusiastic admiration for the critical spirit which now claims the right of way so loudly in the field of theological science. The very terms critic and criticism (from the Greek KpivoS) imply judgment, and judgment always implies superiority of character. So long as Pilate knows not who is the accused at the bar he may well .sit in judgment over him and ask, "What is truth? " But he who has once known him will henceforth only let the Truth judge him. Be it remembered that historical criticism, or any other form of criticism upon God's word, was not born in the believing division of the household of God. The ques tion, "Yea, hath God spoken?" originated elsewhere. It is, therefore, not very likely that the believer can or will ever meet the nonbeliever on exactly the same ground of entire nonpreoccupancy of mind on this sub ject. But we ask — and the question seems very perti nent — if after eighteen centuries of gospel preaching any intelligent person, much less any scholar or student, could be found in all Christendom whose mind is entirely non- preoccupied by any conviction or judgment or bias as to the truthfulness of these records. He would be as 264 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. great a rarity, and about as valuable, as that " intelligent juror" who, afterreading all about a murder' case in the newspapers, still has " no opinion " on it. Let us now proceed with our inquiry into the relative merits of the historical or scientific method of arriving at a certainty of knowledge concerning these things. We do well to remember that this historical method was not only available, but was undoubtedly acted upon most conscientiously by the official heads of the Jewish nation in determining the rightfulness of the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be the legitimate heir of David's throne. In the days ofthe second temple and of the synagogue the apparatus criticus for determining the, actual lineal descent both of Mary and of Joseph from the royal blood of David was so perfect that that question could be set tled beyond the shadow of a doubt. Jesus was openly and popularly called and appealed to as the son of David. The loyalist party, the Pharisees, who firmly believed in the promised restoration of the Davidic dynasty, under stood perfectly that this meant a claim to the legitimate heirship of David's throne. Had they been able to dis cover the slightest flaw in Jesus's genealogical claim we can be absolutely sure that they would have used this critical discovery with telling effect against him. But there is no record anywhere that the issue ofthe Davidic descent of Jesus was ever raised by them. The results of the most severe and searching historical criticism must have been to them unpleasantly complete and convinc ing, and yet they rejected him. Again, Jesus, in his teaching and daily ministry among the people, never shunned the light of day. Openly he taught in the temple ; not in darkened cabinets, but under the noonday splendor of a Palestinian sky, did he perform his mighty works. He challenges his enemies to their face to convince him of sin. Again and again THE GOSPELS. 265 he invites the keenest criticism to be applied to his works and his teachings. Does anyone pretend to believe those astute and keen-sighted scribes and doctors of the law were too credulous to apply the most rigid critical tests to his life and ministry? But again, the results to them must have been most bitterly disappoint ing; for when confronted with his mighty works their last resort is the blasphemous declaration that they were done through Beelzebub the prince of devils. And when finally confronted with the more perplexing ques tion, what to do with the betrayed and captured Jesus, their only resort is to false witnesses and a trumped-up charge of high treason. Granted only the fact that Jesus lived, that he claimed to be the Messiah, the son of David, that he claimed to be of a spotless character, the results of the intensest criticism on the part of his ene mies do not appear to have been very satisfactory as far as certainty was concerned in the knowledge that Jesus was the son of David, the son of Abraham, the King of Israel. Is it presumption to raise the question whether the results of critical methods are likely to prove more satisfactory in our day than in the days of Caiaphas, and Herod, and Pilate, when applied to these records which claim to be of God, to reveal the Son of God, to give full assurance of their own truth to those who will believe them, but to be a sealed book to mere human wisdom and understanding? May not human principles and systems of ascertaining and handling divine truth be judged by their fruits? If God has been willing for cen turies to rest his case on the results produced by his Spirit in all those who will pursue his way of arriving at a certainty of the truth in Jesus, why should not that be a good test to apply to the scientific or critical method? Or, is historical criticism per se above all criticism ? The impression prevails too largely in religious circles that 266 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. the claims of the scientific method for investigating divine truth are simply paramount. Scientific principles and scientific methods are the great Diana of the present generation. And the idea is carefully cherished and boldly advocated that unless all the demands of scientific criticism can be fully met in a scientific way our faith in these records must be greatly weakened. In other words, believers are given to understand — and too many are inclined to become frightened at it — that unless their position receives the unqualified indorsement of scien tific criticism it must be considered simply untenable. All of which sounds very formidable, but is in reality sublimely ridiculous. There would be more sense in talking about the untenableness of the position of the sun in the solar .system unless he receive the full indorse ment of all the royal and imperial societies of astronomers. Why cannot believers judge the tree by its fruit ? Why do they not rightly estimate the true value of the scientific methods of handling divine truth from the results of their application under the most favorable cir cumstances ? Look at Germany, the land of Luther and the Reformation. German theology in the sixteenth cen tury .started out, both feet planted firmly on the open Bible as the word of God. The revival of classical learn ing had furnished the tools for the work of scientific operation on that word. No one could ever think of asking for greater liberty in the application of scientific principles upon the word on the part of theological teachers. No one doubts that this freedom was used to the fullest extent. For fully two centuries the word of God there has been subjected, without any restraint, to all the tests imaginable of theological and philosophical anatomy and analysis. These gospel records, in particu lar, have been plucked into shreds, pulverized in mortars, put into the crucibles, treated with acids, without let or THE GOSPELS. 267 hindrance. And what have been the results from this almost ideal development of scientific theology for the once warm and flourishing religious life of the Father land? Our question is not after the fate of these gos pels. We know, and never doubted, that these records have come out of that burning fiery furnace, " not a hair of their head singed, nor the smell of fire passed on them." But what has become of the German pulpit, what of the spirituality of the Churches of the Reforma tion? For the most part scorched, blasted, seared, and shriveled. The flame of the fire of that overheated fur nace slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And what are we doing just now for the American Churches? We are eagerly and diligently adjusting and attaching a thousand and one ends of graduated theolog ical hose to that great tank filled with the ultra-refined chemicals of German theological scholarship and scientific criticism ; and through inch nozzles and half-inch nozzles and quarter-inch nozzles and nozzlets we are preparing to treat the spiritual life of the Churches of our land to a most generous sprinkling with that burning, fiery liquid. Do we realize what we are doing ? Do you feel like sing ing, " What shall the harvest be ? " Ah, it may be that in the providence of God this will prove to be only one of those unquenchable fires kindled by God's anger against an adulterous and worldly-minded Church, by which the wood, hay, and stubble of her proud and boasted intel lectual, aesthetical, and philosophical achievements are to be consumed, and the genuine gold, silver, and precious stone, fit for the King's holy temple, are to be revealed by fire. If so it is well. Do you still ask. Are we, then, afraid of historical criticism ? You have our answer. Do you ask, again, Would yon, then, discourage or dis- 268 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. countenance all scientific and philosophical treatment of divine truth ? We would no more think of doing that than of advocating the abolition of all existing forms of human government. We consider the absolutism of the Russian czar or the Turkish sultan vas'Jy better than anarchy. But neither would we run for a political office nor allow a political office to run after us. For, after all, the chief value of all existing forms of government con sists in the fact that they furnish indisputable evidence of their utter incompetency to cure the diseased body of human society and to find a satisfactory and peace-giving solution for the ever-burning questions of the age. Just so, we believe that the value of theological science has been and is to-day greatly overestimated. Its value, likewise, consists chiefly in the fact that it furnishes most palpable evidence of the complete and irremediable im potency of the human mind, however well trained, not only to discover any divine truth whatsoever by its own exertions, but also to apprehend revealed truth cor rectly and to reproduce it harmoniously for the upbuild ing of the true body of Christ, the one blood-bought Church. Theological science may and does keep the bodies of professing Christians, which in their organized capacity are its own children, from complete disintegra tion and corruption, just as human governments do the body politic. But the mo.st perfect and complete .system of scientific theology ever devised would be just as effect ive for revealing and guiding into the unspeakably glorious and precious fellowship with Christ and his holy temple, his bride, his fullness, the Church, as the most faultless system of political economics would be for bringing about a kingdom of righteousness and peace, of general con tentment and happiness, within the borders of this or any other country. No better commentary has ever been written than the history of theological science THE GOSPELS. 269 upon the words of Jesus recorded in these gospels : " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so. Father ; for so it seemed good in thy sight.' ' 18 270 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. THE GOSPELS. BY PROFESSOR ERNST F. STROETER, PH.D., Denver Universityy II. Our second proposition is : The divine estimate of the value of historical evidence for the genuineness, exact age, and authenticity of these gospel records is evidently very much lower than that of man ; especially, man of the genus theologian, and more particularly of the species higher critic. To judge from the extent, magnitude, and thoroughness of the critical investiga tions set on foot in the domain of secular and sacred history, of archaeology, of comparative philology, of geog raphy, of ethnology, and other branches of science, all for the purpose of clearing up every detail of the parent age, the conception, the birth, the native place, the home surroundings, the size, the stature, the complexion, the age, the experiences, and transformations of these four gospels, considered merely as human literary produc tions, one might think that the very life and peace of the Church of Christ depended on the completeness of the returns obtainable in these directions. We have at tempted to show, in our first paper, how wide of the mark such a conclusion would be. We pointed out the eternal contrast between the absolutely infallible, divine way of producing and maintaining soul-satisfying assur ance of the truth as revealed in the gospels in all those who believe them, and the utter hopelessness of merely scientific methods for finding out and laying hold of THE GOSPELS. 27 1 those things to reveal which these gospel records claim to be given. We admit that personal, unwavering assurance of the truths of the Gospel is not the same with proof that these four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John respectively. Neither do we claim that God, in giving witness to the believer that the record of his Son is true at the same time furnishes incontestable evidence that these gospels were all written before the close of the first century of the Christian era. Nor is it contended that the believer has the assurance that the existing manuscripts of these gospel records are verbatim et literatim true copies of the originals as penned by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or that he possesses in his belief an infalhble touchstone by which he is able to detect the slightest error ever made by copyist, transcriber, or translator during more than seventeen centuries. We grant that these are questions which legitimately will find and must find their answer largely through the application of literary and historical criticism. We do not deny the legitimacy, from a purely literary stand point, of careful and. critical research in this direction. Nor can it be truthfully said, on the whole, that believers in these records have been or are unwilling to have the history of the origin, humanly speaking, of these records examined into by reverent and thorough searchers after the truth. God himself opens these records by giving us, in the first chapter of the first gospel, the generation, or gene alogy, of the Word made flesh. In thus presenting his own dear Son to his people as the son of David and the son of Abraham God was evidently not averse to having the genealogical records of the synagogue searched by any son of Jacob for the purpose of ascertaining whether the claims of Jesus to the throne of his father after the 272 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. flesh, David, could be based on the historical fact of his lineal descent from the royal blood ofthe son of Jesse. But it is worthy of note right here that God also, after having raised Christ Jesus from the dead, and after exalt ing him to the right hand of his majesty on high, and after sending down the Holy Spirit upon his disciples at Jeru salem in Judea in visible and audible manifestation — in other words, after having given witness of an infinitely higher character to the rightfulness of Jesus's claim to the Messiahship — God himself has since allowed all other his torical means of verification in the shape of Jewish gene alogies to perish from the earth, or to be completely lost, so far as we know, with the exception of that which the Holy Ghost has preserved in these gospel records. Thus the Jewish nation, for the final settlement of the histor ical question whether Jesus of Nazareth was and is the rightful heir to David's throne, are henceforth confined to the gospel records of Christ's generation. Nor will they hesitate to accept these as the true record of God con cerning his Son when once they have beheld him whom those (their fathers) have pierced, and when they shall fulfill his own prediction (Matt, xxiii, 39), by shouting, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." , Thus it will be again. Scripture itself bearing the final and crowning evidence to its own truth. For God will not give his glory to another, nor will he take witness from man. So much is clear, however, that it does not of itself prove a lack of faith, or real unbelief, if the demand is made of careful inquiry whether the tradition of the Church on all these questions of the dates, the authorship, and the integrity of these gospel records is trustworthy or not. It would be very uncharitable to suspect an unbeliever in every man or scholar who de votes time and talent to a careful examination of the traditions handed down to us from the fathers. God THE GOSPELS. 273 does not want us to build the structure of our faith on the mere traditions of men. The more unwilling we are to let go of mere traditional belief the less prepared we are, in fact, to become assured of the everlasting rock of the truth of God. Let every man be a liar and only God be true. But just because God did not want the faith of his dear children to be resting on mere human evidence, just because God does not want us to be in any wise dependent on mere historical proof, just because he has provided a better witness for us who believe, therefore God has manifested, in giving and preserving these gos pel records for our believing acceptance, a most remark able degree of indifference — we use the term with all reverence and yet with great boldness — toward that entire class of proofs which by all the schools of criticism are made so very much of in approaching and question ing these records for their credibility, thus compelling Christian apologists to wade knee-deep through a kind of argumentation which to a soul rooted and grounded* in the faith of the Son of God must prove exceedingly wearisome and trying. God has, so it seems to us, simply acted on the principle laid down clearly in his own word : " God hath chosen the foolish things ofthe world to con found the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." It is only just like him. All who know God from his word know better than to expect him to pursue a course in har mony with, much less in deference to, human opinion or judgment. Nor will they expect God to place the same estimate upon human means and instrumentalities for reaching or setting forth any truth connected with the revelation of himself in Christ Jesus which men place upon them. Moreover, God knows the deceitfulness and treachery of the heart of man very much better than man 274 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. ever cares to know it, with alLhis boasted desire for exact knowledge. God knew very well that in the end it would make very little if any difference as to man's willingness to accept his record of his Son, whether the historical and literary testimony to their age, authorship, and integrity were absolutely flawless and complete, or less so. Consider the question from either side, the result would be the same. Let us suppose, from the literary standpoint, that it could be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, as solidly and indisputably as the literary fact that James G. Blaine wrote Twenty Years in Congress, that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actu ally did write the gospels traditionally ascribed to them, at the time traditionally accepted ; would that, think you, prevent the critics from asking, " But how do you know that Matthew, for example, correctly reported events in the early life of Jesus, of which he could not have been an eyewitness ? " For a fact, the advanced wing of German critics simply cut out all that is told in the gospels of the infancy of Jesus, on the plea that no apostle could have been an eyewitness to those things. Or, from asking, how do we know that Mark and Luke, not being apostles, did not give a "tendencious coloring " to the reports they heard from others? Or, that John, writing in old age, did not seriously suffer from a failing memory and drew largely upon his imagination for fill ing in whole chapters of discourses and miraculous sto ries of healing the blind and raising the dead ? Again, let us suppose, from the historical standpoint, that we could establish with mathematical certainty the fact that the gospel story given in these four records is his torically exact — that is, to the last letter precisely the same story of Jesus that was preached and believed in by the first apostles and disciples; would that, do you think, pre vent learned men, even theological teachers, from asking, THE GOSPELS. 275 " But how do we know that the apostles themselves were not the subjects of hallucinations engendered by enthusi asm and the absence of critical acumen, and that what they proclaimed as facts, and perhaps themselves be lieved to be facts, are largely visionary and mythical? " If you think that any, even the most absolutely impregna ble, defense of all the historical approaches to these gos pel records would stop men from firing critical shafts and arrows at these books, you have a very inadequate conception of the possibilities of higher or lower criti cism. And we have not insinuated some unheard-of folly or presumption to them ; but questions like the above have actually been asked in our own day by men in theological chairs and in evangelical pulpits, by men set to expound and hold fast the faith once delivered to the saints. Did God foresee this ? We have no doubt that he did. We are, therefore, not in the least surprised, much less alarmed, at the fact that God has manifested, as we said, such a remarkable degree of unconcern as to the completeness, in human opinion, of the historical evi dence sustaining the credibility of these gospel records. On the contrary, we find in his attitude toward this class of evidence only additional confirmation of our belief that this is in truth not man's word, but the very word of God. Mere human authors of a story of such tremen dous import would never have been so sublimely indiffer ent to some, or, rather, to all, of this historical evidence. Let us look at some of the facts. I. All four of the gospels come to us anonymously ; that is, not pne of them contains an explicit statement by the Holy Spirit as to who wrote them. This is dif ferent, as we all know, in the case of most of the other New Testament books. There the names of the human penmen who were moved by the Holy Ghost do appear, 276 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Not SO here. God has not deemed it best to mention by name any of the evangelists employed by him. Even in the fourth gospel the name of the inspired penman, though the evidence to his identity with the apostle John seems conclusive, is not once mentioned. 2. There has not been preserved to us a single original text of any of these gospel records, in fact, of any of the biblical books. There are whole museums full of origi nal inscriptions and historical, biographical, and ethno logical documents on tablets of stone, on obelisks, on tiles of baked clay, on the cloth wrappings of mummies, and other substances that have been kept in a state of per fect preservation for three and four thousand years and more. They all contain records of very interesting things which sometime happened on the earth. But they do not begin to compare in importance with the history of that one man Jesus, who lived in the land of Judea only a little more than eighteen centuries ago. And yet we have not a line of original historical docu ment concerning him. Not a single copy even has thus far been discovered with anything like a certificate of an apostle or an apostle's disciple, or an affidavit given be fore a notary public or corresponding high Roman dig nitary, that such copy was an absolutely exact transcrip tion from the original. There are none accessible to us that were not made more than two hundred years after the death of the last of the apostles. More than this, the fact is undeniable that the original text has been marred and blemished, dotted and spotted, with thou sands of inaccuracies and discrepancies of various kinds. While we may be assured ofthe perfect spot! essness and inerrancy of the original manuscripts as given by the Holy Spirit, we are in no position to affirm or to prove in a large number of places what the original reading was. Probabihty of conjecture is the highest attain- THE GOSPELS. 277 ment within our reach on many of these points. To be sure — and we hasten to state this lest any one become needlessly alarmed, for there is no occasion for alarm — those formidable thousands of "variants," that is, of different readings in the various existing copies of the biblical records, can be easily reduced to a very few hundreds ; and these demonstrably do not seriously affect a single essential doctrine of God's word, nor a single feature in the image of Christ as given in these gospels. How many hundreds of little pimples and freckles on a baby's face, think you, would it require be fore its mother, while keeping it at her bosom, would fail to recognize it as her own ? How many thousands to seriously affect or to destroy its identity ? 3. No external evidence is at our command to silence forever all possible doubts and questionings as to the exact time when these gospel records were penned. There are scores and hundreds of dates, even in very an cient profane history and literature, Greek, Roman, Persian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and other, which may be regarded as scientifically established, or so nearly established that no honest critic would dare to touch or shake them in the face of discovered evidence. We do not doubt for one moment that just as much, and vastly more, absolute historical certainty might have been secured for these records providentially or miraculously. Has the fact that it has not been provided any significance or not ? Are we to take the view that God has simply forgotten or failed to make what, from the standpoint of human argu mentation and demonstration, would be considered the very best and most complete provision for the historical and critical vindication of these gospel records? Does God really care quite as much to be fully vindicated, in his wonderful dealings in revelation, before the critical eyes of scholars and philosophers as we sometimes seem to 278 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. think ? Are we quite sure that our endeavors, continued for centuries, to meet and disarm hostile criticism on criticism's own field of scientific and logical demonstration is not a good deal like fighting Goliath in Saul's armor? Are we quite sure that we can succeed, nay, that we ought to succeed, in our attempts to reduce to a minimum, if not to remove entirely, the reproach cast upon us of be ing fools for believing as we do and what we do ? Are we quite sure that we have fully apprehended the mind of the Lord in thus assuming the defensive for the truthful ness of his word instead of simply and boldly proclaim ing it as true and letting him take care of the demonstra tion with power? Are we quite sure that the mere intellectual apprehension and consent to the credibihty of these records, which is emphasized so greatly in pulpit and press and platform, is not leading thousands into the fatal error of mistaking this for real heart faith in Christ Jesus the Lord ? But let us now, before we reflect further upon these momentous questions, for a few moments stop and con sider, by way of illustration, the real character of some of the evidence at our command for beating off" the at tacks of a destructive criticism, evidence touching the questions of authenticity, dates, authorship, etc., of these gospel records. For we would not, in the present condi tion of affairs in the Church on earth, advocate a com plete abandonment of all activity and preparation for a vigorous defense of these outposts, much less a retreat before the enemy. These questions have been raised, the issue has been made. It can be met. Let it be met. Many hearts and minds are deeply affected and anxiously concerned in this. Whether they have reason to be so concerned is not a question for us, but for them alone, to decide. We would not advocate any measure which might cause one of the weakest of the Lord's THE GOSPELS. 279 children to stumble. At the same time the conviction has grown upon us apace that believers in God's truth and word do not realize as fully as they ought the fact that our faith standeth not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God. We are surely pardonable for not attempting in this limited space to take you over the entire battlefield on which the fierce onslaughts of criticism have been so heroically, so nobly, and, as we think, so successfully met by earnest and scholarly champions of the truth. It would have been an impo.ssibility to give in two papers more than a mere fraction of the vast and varied material. And though you may not agree with the general position taken by the writer of these papers you wilh agree that it is quite sufficient for our present purpose to give a few illustrations only of what can be proven on the field of gospel criticism and what cannot be. Let us take up first the question whether the four gospels as we have them are essentially the same gospels that were circu lated and read in the apostolic Churches of the first and second centuries. At first sight it looks like a gigantic undertaking to span the distance between us and the apostolic age by a bridge of connected evidence. But of the nearly eighteen centuries that separate us from the last days of the apostle John (say A. D. 100), fully seven teen .can be leaped over atone jump. For it is conceded on recognized historical evidence that at the close of the second century our present four gospels, and only these four, were received generally as authentic by the Chris tian Churches throughout the various provinces of the Roman empire; that they were regarded as " sacred Scrip tures," and their human authorship universally ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In other words, it is conceded that for seventeen hundred years back these gospels have unbrokenly occupied the position in the 28o ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Christian Church which they now hold. In the year A. D. 185, just seventeen hundred and eight years ago, Irenaeus, a Christian bishop at Lyons, in the south of France, wrote of the four gospels in a manner which leaves but one natural conclusion, namely, that our gospels had then been in long and general use. They were esteemed so highly that a mystical meaning even was given to their number, four. Back of this date, A. D. 185, the historical and literary evidence becomes rather scant, for the very good reason, in the first place, that but little Christian Hterature could possibly have existed, and then that very httle of that little survived the hurricanes of persecution. But we remember that A. D. 185 is only eighty-five years later than the death of the apostle John. This reduces the time to be spanned between our present gospels and those extant in John's own day to only eighty-five years. This is not so formidable. For let us understand what a doubt or denial ofthe authenticity of our gospels now means. It means not less than the assumption that the genuine and authentic gospel records which did exist and circulate in the days of the apostles not only disappeared, but were supplanted by a set of spurious gospels by unknown and nonapostolical authors, who foisted apostolic names onto their forgeries, and that these forgeries came into such universal favor that they were generally received in Italy, Africa, Asia Minor, Syria, and Gaul, and all this within a period of eighty-five years. We should like very much to see a similar experiment tried by the higher critics. Let them take advantage of the high tide of popular favor in which all the claims of German scholarship are now held. Let them boldly announce that the story ofthe discovery of America by Columbus is spurious, and that not Columbus, but the German Guttenberg, discovered America and set up the first printing press on this conti- THE GOSPELS. 28 1 nent. Such a " tendencious " story ought to prove im mensely popular with the German element not only, but specially with the newspaper press. And possibly not a few native Americans might, from a dislike of Italian immigration, prefer to have their country discovered by a German rather than by a Genoese. We ask. Is it conceiv able that such a substitution of spurious and "tenden cious " gospel records in the place of authentic and genu ine ones could have taken place, and a man, for example, in Irenaeus's position remain ignorant of it, a man who is known to have personally met and conversed with Polycarp, who, in turn, was a disciple of the apostle John himself? But there are a few more pretty solid planks to bridge over that gap of eighty-five years. In A. D. 150 we have testimony from Justin Martyr that when Christians met for worship on the Lord's day it was customary to read what he calls "the memoirs ofthe apostles, drawn up by the apostles and those who followed them, which also were called gospels." This description fits exactly to the traditional authorship of our four gospels, two of them being assigned to apostles and two to those who fol lowed them. From the writings of Justin Martyr, who, not addressing himself to Christian readers, does not quote verbally, but as a man would freely from memory, a story of Christ could be compiled which would present essentially the same features as that contained in our gospels. It is true that the inference drawn from what has been called Justin's quotations is stoutly denied by some critics. They insist that Justin did not give any quotations at all of our gospels, and that consequently his writings cannot be brought in evidence of the exist ence in his day of our gospels in their present form. You see, what to some appears pretty conclusive evi dence does not make the same impression on others. 282 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Another plank : Papias was bishop at Hieropolis in the first half of the second century. We have evidence that he was personally acquainted and had conversed with men who knew the apostles. He had even known two men of great old age who had been immediate dis ciples of the Lord Jesus. This Papias published an Ex position of Oracles of the Lord about A. D. 135, that is, within thirty-five years only of the apostle John's death. He wrote, unmistakably, of gospels then in common use. He, by the way, bears definite witness to the authorship of Matthew and Mark for the first two gospels. Is it at all likely that a man removed but one generation from the apostles themselves, and linked with them through living witnesses that had known and communed with them, should have been made to believe that the first gospel was written by Matthew if this apostle in reality never wrote it? But the question is asked. Are our gospels by Matthew and Mark the same as those that Papias treats of? To us the chain of evidence appears complete. We found our gospels generally received by the Churches as sacred Scriptures in A. D. 185. We have the witness of Justin Martyr in A. D. 150 that these same gospels were read in the churches, just as Old Tes tament Scriptures were read in the synagogues. Fifteen years before that (A. D. 135) we find at least two of these gospels received as trustworthy by men who had known disciples of the Lord, and by two who had known Christ himself.* Let us now take up another illustration of the relative value ofthe evidence arrayed in defense against the at tacks of a destructive criticism upon these gospel records. Some of the heaviest ordnance of the critical army has been directed against John's authorship of the fourth *In the groupings of this argument we have followed largely R. W. Dale's very able book, The Living Christ and the pour Gospels, THE GOSPELS. 283 gospel. We choose this for a second illustration, not only because it takes us, as it were, into the thickest and hot test of the fight, but especially because we, as believers, are convinced that we have in the fourth gospel itself the most conclusive internal evidence of its Johannean authorship, and because the Holy Spirit, while he does not indeed mention John's name once as the writer of that book, does make mention of the author in a most peculiar and significant way, concealing and yet reveal ing- his identity. Thus the question of John's authorship for this gospel becomes more than a mere question of the correctness of human tradition. The external evidence brought forward thus far in sup port of the Johannean authorship is, perhaps, on the whole not quite so strong and satisfactory as that for the authenticity of the s}aioptist gospels. But there is, in the case of the fourth gospel, as indicated, considerable internal evidence — that is, evidence taken from the book it.self — pointing to John as its human author, evidence which is not present in the case ofthe other three; and this we shall briefly consider.* This evidence is grouped in three concentric circles : the first and widest, to show that the fourth gospel was written by a Jew ; the second, that it was written by an eyewitness ; the third and innermost, that it must have been written by the apostle John, who was both Jew and eyewitness. Within the first circle we find very full and detailed evi dence, from the Greek style in which this gospel appears to be written, that its writer must have been a Jew, whose thinking for a lifetime was in Hebrew. We wiU pass this by as appreciable only to Greek and Hebrew scholars. * "We shall here follow in the main the veiy excellent presentation by Light foot of the Internal Evidence for the Authenticity and Genttineness of the Fourth Gospel. 284 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. The second circle contains very remarkable and, to us, very conclusive evidence that the fourth gospel must have been written either by an eyewitness or by the most skiUful and consummate romancer the world ever saw. Ofthe abundant material here collected, we bring out but a few samples. The minuteness of detail in this gospel, as Lightfoot truly remarks, is far greater and more remarkable even than in the three synoptists. This comes out most strikingly in various purely inciden tal ways. When mention is made in the gospels, for ex ample, of the various Jewish sects and the Levitical hierarchy, the usual combination in the three synoptists is the Pharisees and Sadducees. But in the fourth gospel the Sadducees are not once mentioned. Here the con nection is this : the chief priests and the Pharisees. How is this peculiar omission and difference to be explained? By the simple fact that at that time the high priests be longed to the sect of the Sadducees. Could a forger have produced to such perfection what to a contempo rary and eyewitness was perfectly natural ? More striking still is the casual mention of an histor ical detail in John ii, 20: " Forty and six years was this temple in building." This time had actually elapsed be tween the commencement of Herod's building and that point in Christ's ministry. Suppose this gospel was, as the negative critics insist, composed anywhere in or after the middle of the second century, eighty or more years after the complete demolition of that temple, what strong improbabilities it involves ! A writer, a forger, in or der to bring in that historical detail of the forty-six years, must have gone to a tremendous amount of labori ous and difficult research to get his dates. The only remaining available source after the destruction of the Jewish state and sanctuary for anything concerning that temple was Josephus. But he does not give the date THE GOSPELS. 285 of the beginning of Herod's temple building. He must, likewise, have gone through a most careful and critical examination of the chronology of Christ's ministry and of gospel history, which lay more than a hundred years back of his time. And all this trouble only just to drop in this httle notice, which has.no bearing on his story, does not serve any " tendencious " theological purpose, proves nothing, denies nothing, and leads to nothing. And all this shrewdness and inventive genius must have been displayed by a supposed, author in the middle of the second century, an age which, according to the same higher critics, perpetrated the most crude and bungling forgeries, and is denounced unsparingly as utterly inca pable of criticism. The arguments in the third and innermost circle in support of John's authorship run like this: Negatively, it is argued that on the supposition of forgery it would have been of vital moment that the name of the pre tended apostolical author should appear in the book to give it prestige. The omission of the name is wholly unlike the proceeding of a forger. Positively, we find that a certain disciple is mentioned in tb'? opening chapter, and again in the closing scenes ; at length we read, "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things." In full accord with this statement we find that those scenes in which that disciple is recorded as taking part are related with peculiar minuteness and vividness of detail. The ques tion, however, still remains. Who is this unnamed dis ciple? We arrive at identification first by a process of exhaustion. It is quite safe to assume, by comparing the accounts in the other gospels, that this disciple was ofthe inner circle, Peter, James, and John. He cannot have been Peter, because we find Peter by the side of this anonymous disciple in the closing scenes. James 19 286 ANTI-HIGHER CklTICISM. seems excluded, likewise, for James died a martyr as early as A. D. 44, years before this gospel, possibly, was written. This leaves only John. With this result all the particulars agree. He is called among the earlier disciples ; at the close we find him especially associated with Peter. This position suits no one of the apostles better than John, who, in the early days of the Church, is co-champion of the faith with Peter. Moreover, unless this beloved but unnamed disciple is reahy John, that apostle who, according to other historical evidence, was so prominent among the pillars of the early Church does not once appear in the fourth gospel — a supposition most strange and unaccountable in the highest degree. Finally, that earlier John, the forerunner of the Lord, is in the other evangelists generally distinguished by the surname " the Baptist." In this gospel alone he is never so called. The only rational explanation for this seems to be that the apostle John did not stand before the mind of the writer of this gospel in a line with John the Baptist as a third person spoken of; hence no occa sion for distinguishing the latter by any surname from John the writer. This exhibit of the various kinds of evidence used in refuting the aspersions of a destructive criticism is quite sufficient for our present purpose. All who have gone over this ground will agree, we are sure, that these are fair specimens of our present apparatus to defend the his torical and literary trustworthiness of our gospel records. And now there remains to be said three things concern ing this evidence: First is the confident claim that to any one whose heart and mind are at all inclined to a belief in the gospels this evidence is, or ought to be, quite conclusive and sufficient to lend to the position taken a very high, if not the highest, degree of probability. Compared with THE GOSPELS. 287 the historical and literary proof, for example, for the genuineness of almost all the classical writings of Greek and Roman authors, the evidence for the genuineness and authenticity of our four gospels is vastly superior, both in character and volume. Second is the candid admission that this evidence, while to a willing and open mind quite satisfactory and conclusive, is not of such a character as to exclude for ever all possible doubt and uncertainty from a critical and scientific standpoint. It is altogether neither com plete nor incontestable nor all-sufficient. Its convinc ing power is largely determined by the subjective attitude of the mind to which it is presented. To illustrate the last mentioned point of insufficiency, take, for example, the evidence to support the claim that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, which, in the case of the fourth gospel especially, amounts almost to logical demonstra tion. What would be proven even if we could establish every evangelist an eyewitness? Can we thereby save the story of the infancy of Jesus from the critic's knife ? Can we meet the plausible objection that almost uni formly men's memories fail them in later years ? We are, after all, bound to fall back on the only reliable proof of the absolute infahibility of these penmen, namely, on the promise of the Lord, " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all. things, and bring air things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you " (John xiv, 26). What we want is not eyewitnesses merely, un less we are assured that they did not have to depend on their own eyes and memory alone for what they wrote down. Can we establish infallible, inspired eyewitnesses by the highest grade of historical evidence? Never. We miust fall back on the divine word itself for the one essen tial thing. 288 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. Third is the grave charge that by far the greater and most valuable (from a scientific standpoint) part of all this evidence is accessible only to scholars and men of high intellectual culture. This, in the eyes of the natural man, is probably its highest commendation. For it is extremely gratifying to the pride of man to think him self capable and qualified to do the word of God a very great service by defending it intellectually and scientific ally against hostile attacks. To the spiritual man, how ever, that fact is quite enough to justify the verdict, "Weighed in the balances, and found wanting." He will never admit that those who have not learning must wait until the battle of the scholars has been decided before they can be fully assured ofthe credibility of these records. He will never admit that the truthfulness of God's word depends, even in the slightest degree, on the outcome of human investigations. He is absolutely and forever as sured that our faith standeth not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God. What, then, shall we say to these things? Let us see. Here is the Word of God made flesh. The Father sent him into the world. He was holy, blameless, undefiled. Was he above human criticism ? What was his appear ance ? We must rid ourselves of the ideally beautiful representations of Jesus, a golden halo around his head, majestic beauty on his brow, such as painters have created out of 'their own fancy, to make him agreeable to the aesthetic taste of man. One speaks of him through the Spirit of God, " He hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." What was his education, general culture, and so cial standing? He never had what is called a liberal education, never went to college, never joined a Chautau qua circle, never wrote a book nor a magazine article, never traveled in foreign countries, except when his THE GOSPELS. 289 mother carried him to Egypt and back as a babe ; his mental and social horizon limited by that narrow little strip of land, Judea, and by the narrower social condi tions of a petty Jewish tradesman. Ah, well, wait, wait ! Soon another shall appear, who comes in his own name. He will be the very cynosure of scientific, intellectual, literary, and aesthetic culture and refinement, the culmi nation of human progress and development. Him they will hear. Was not the word Incarnate made rejectable, O, so easily rejectable, by Him who sent him ? Again, look at his body, the Church, the continuation of that great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, Christ in us and we in him. Here she is, in the world, who by faith knows herself to be the chosen and blood-bought bride of God's own dear Son, seated with him in the heavenly places, the very fullness of him that filleth all and in all, and here she is, absolutely powerless to make her true character known to the world ; all at tempts at self-revelation on the part of the Church, all endeavors to make the world recognize and acknowledge her standing, her dignity, her glory, invariably resulting in the most frightful caricatures and producing the most wretched corruptions in the Church. Did the world, nay, could the world see all there was of grace and truth even in the mortal Christ ? We know it did not. We know it could not. We also know the world never yet has had a glimpse even of the risen and glorified Christ. Did the world, nay, can the world ever see that pre cious pearl, the true Church, as we know her by the word and by the Spirit? Never yet. Do we think that God's written word enjoys the dis tinction above his own dear Son, and above the Son's own chosen spouse, to be more easily recognizable by the world ? Do we think it is divinely intended to be 290 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. less rejectable ? Do we imagine it an easier task to dem onstrate to the gaze of the world the beauties and the charms, the power and the glory, of the God-breathed Scriptures, where it sees nothing but blemishes and de fects, weakness and foolishness? Have we not "this treasure also in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us? " Yea, verily. " God hath chosen the foolish things ofthe world to con found the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are : that no flesh should glory in his presence." Amen. THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 29I THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. (Acts xv.) BY PROFESSOR JAMES M. STIFLER, D.D., Crozer Theological Seminary. It is necessary to an understanding of the council in Jerusalem that the course of events from the beginning be considered. The first chapter of Acts is preliminary. It shows us a small company of Jews not yet delivered from the carnal hope of Israel. They say, " Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? " They are ignorant of Christ's design of mercy for the world, but believe in him without question, and so prayfully await in the upper room for the promise of the Father. The second chapter (1-41) shows how marvelously that promise was fulfilled. The wonders that attended the fulfillment, and the character of the speech made by Peter, show that here is something new in the history of God's people. The gift of the Spirit was a new, a mighty, a holy energy. It did not for one minute take the thou sands of believers out of Judaism, but it drew them to gether in a community distinctly new. This newness is seen in three particulars : First, the community accepts the fishermen as teachers, to the rejection of the recog nized instructors in Israel. Secondly, the community accepts new ordinances, and, thirdly, it parts with its possessions. The latter is most striking. How long this community existed undisturbed, a body of believing Jews filled with the Holy Spirit, how long they remained unmolested among their unbeheving brethren, can only 292 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. be guessed. A miracle (chapters iii, iv) wrought within the precincts of the temple called the attention ofthe au thorities to the believers, and the result is that the apos tles are forbidden to preach. They do not obey the injunction of the great council, but declare the truth with more power than ever, and still maintain the community of goods. It was but natural that the new work should not be understood, not even by those who were in it and of it. It must have been looked upon as fanatical, if not fantas tic. That God dwelt in this community as he had dwelt in the tabernacle of old had not yet dawned upon any but the leaders in the new movement, and certainly not on the unbelieving mass about them. But the lesson was learned when Ananias and his equally guilty wife were smitten down for profaning the church (chapter v). " Great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard of these things." They all learned that the " church," now so called for the first time, was God's house (Heb. iii, 6), and he that entered it must be holy. Up to this time the Church had not gone outside of Jerusalem;^ and the commission to preach to all the world had not yet begun to be obeyed. The disturbance which arose about the care of the widows brought a great change. It put the foreign-born Jews in the front. These were men with broader views than those of Jerusalem. Stephen was the leader. His speech (chapter vii), which not only strongly hinted at the re jection of the nation as such but foreshadowed the entrance of the Gentiles, precipitated a persecution of the Church that scattered it. They went everywhere preaching the Gospel. Samaria is brought to the Lord. The Ethiopian is converted. And now the Lord finds his great leader, and Saul of Tarsus beheves that Jesus is the Messiah (chapter ix). But in all this time a-nd with THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 293 all this expansion no one strictly outside the pale of Juda ism has had the Gospel offered them. How was the Gos pel to break its narrow bounds? For the difference be tween Jew and Gentile seemed to be an impassable gulf. To a son of Israel the Gentile's religion was blasphemy, his food an abomination, his politics sacrilege. The law strictly forbade all intercourse with him. How was the Gospel to reach him ? God taught Peter how on the house top. Cornelius is admitted, not to the Church, but to the blessing of the Gospel. Peter is taken sharply to task for his act (chapter xi) when he returns to Jerusalem, but when he rehearses the story of his vision and subse quent experience the home church must admit that God has granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life (chap ter xi, 1 8). And now we have a strictly Jewish church and a Gentile church in the house of Cornelius, but no union, no social union, and none seemed possible yet. But about this same time away in the north some of the scattered flock ventured to offer the Gospel to the Gentiles (chap ter xi, 19-21). The result was a mighty Church of mixed character sprang up in Antioch, on the Orontes. This is a new thing, and hence here arose a new name. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. This city became a new center, and from it there went forth the men who evangelized the world of that day (Col. i, 6, 23). We must now have reached a date twelve or fifteen years after Pentecost. By the direct impulse ofthe Holy Spirit (chapter xiii) the Gospel goes forth formally and deliberately to the heathen world. In the years A. D. 46-48 Paul and Barnabas accomplish the first missionaiy journey (chapters xiii, xiv). On their return to Antioch the old question comes up in a new form. It has been freely admitted in the case of Cornelius that God had "ranted the Gentiles hfe. But 294 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. that was, in Peter's own language, a great while ago (xv, 7). A new generation has sprung up. New conditions have arisen. Jews and Gentiles have come together as broth ers, and on the same social level in the Church. Some men felt this must not be. The Gentiles could be saved but not without becoming Jews. They must be circum cised. These zealots boldly taught this in the church in Antioch. Of course this would greatly disturb the peace of the Church. The question arose at an opportune time. Paul and Barnabas had returned from the marvelous work which God did with them on their first missionary tour. They were in Antioch of Syria, and confronted the men who had come down from Judea to teach in the Church that circumcision was necessary to salvation. That Paul and Barnaba.s, after long disputation, were unable to silence these teachers shows that the question at issue was neither obvious nor absurd. The foreign missionaries could not silence their Judean opponents. The reason is jjlain, the Scriptures were all on the side of the lat ter. To be sure, these Scriptures everywhere promised salvation to the heathen. No one disputed this. But these same Scriptures were just as explicit in making circumcision the condition of God's favor toward man. If Paul could plead that Abraham was justified before he was circumcised his antagonist could say yes, but after justification the rite was divinely imposed. The inference would be that the justified Gentiles now in the Church should follow Abraham as an example and receive the same sign. The covenant with the patriarch as it stands in our seventeenth chapter of Genesis was pos itive, concluding with the solemn words : " The uncir cumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not cir cumcised, that soul shall be cut off" from his people ; he hath broken my covenant " (Gen, xvii, 14). It was an THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 295 ordinance " forever." The patriarch administered it to his whole household, including Ishmael, to " every male among the men of Abraham's house." And on what Scripture ground could the Gentiles whom Paul had led to Christ refuse the token ofthe covenant? Moreover, without this token they were coming into the Church with a decided advantage over the Jew. They were under no ceremonial restraint. And yet while the Old Testament unequivocally held out the hope of Messi anic benefit to the heathen it invariably teaches that when that hope came to fruition they were to occupy a subordinate place in the kingdom. Isaiah predicted to the Jew that the sons of the alien should be his plow men and vinedressers, " but ye shall be named the priests ofthe Lord" (Ixi, 5, 6). Zechariah prophesied that in the coming time " the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles " (xiv, 18). They must be subject to this Jewish feast. So con stantly is the superiority of the Jew promised in the Old Testament that Paul, in writing to the Romans, must carefully defend the church order in which the Gentile is on a par with the Jew, if not his superior. If the Gos pel is to rub out all ceremonial distinctions and establish a universal religious level the question, "What advantage then hath the Jew ? " was inevitable. In writing to Rome Paul argues through three chapters (ix, x, xi) to answer it. And looked at from this point of view this is the question now before the meeting in Jerusalem, and it is answered, at least, in James's speech, substantially as Paul replies to it in the Epistle to the Romans (xi, 25-27). The problem was to save both the liberty of the Gospel and the authority ofthe Scriptures. Antioch stood for the former, the teachers who came down from Jerusalem for the latter. God's Spirit harmonized the two. Since unanimity of sentiment could not be reached on 296 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. the Orontes, " they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up unto the apostles and elders about this question." Mark, it is not said that they were sent to the apostles and elders that these officers might settle the question. The Lord had not committed the guidance of the church affairs to men. The delegates traveled through the heathen country Phenicia, and the semi-heathen country Samaria ; for had they journeyed on Jewish soil their report from heathendom might not have been so acceptable. On arriving at the Jewish capital they are formally received by the Church and its leaders. Paul and Silas report their work among the heathen. A number of Jewish believers who were Pharisees at once threw down the gauntlet in declaring " that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Whether these were genuine believers we need not in quire. They were certainly sincere and conscientious. The question about their faith would not arise were it not that Paul, in all probability writing afterward about this very meeting, calls some of its members " false brethren " (Gal. ii, 1-5). To all appearance, too, the men who precipitated the question now in Jerusalem were not the men who started the strife at Antioch. At this stage, as it would seem, the meeting adjourned to come together subsequently. Of this second session it is said the apostles and elders came together. The Church is not mentioned ; but the leaders include the followers, for the subsequent acts of this second meeting make it certain that the whole body of believers partici pated in them. The session opens with a long debate. There was much disputing. The Pharisees had abun dant arguments, and they found full liberty to present them. They were in no official position, but they had a voice in the deliberations, and so far an equal stand- THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 297 ing with everyone else present. Peter arose. Will he decide by his apostolic authority? No, he also resorts to argument. And it is very simple. He recalls the fact of his visit to Cornelius, but with the direct assertion that God sent him, that by his mouth the Gentiles might hear the word of the Gospel and believe (v, 7). Then comes the proof. God bore witness to his accept ance of the Gentiles as Gentiles in that he gave them the Holy Spirit. This bestowal was sunlight evidence of the divine will. To deny it was to tempt God. The outpouring of the Spirit in the house of Cornelius blotted out the distinctive mark between Jew and Gentile so that there was no " difference." This gift settled the question so that it was no longer a matter of debate. God had shown' his mind. But Peter makes two points further, which show how reasonable God's decree in the case is : first, why ask the Gentiles to submit to a sys tem which the Jew in all history was unable to endure, "which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" Such a demand upon the heathen was certainly inde fensible, not to say cruel. Again, Peter shows that the very Jews who had the system comprehended under cir cumcision had to abandon it as an inadequate means of justification, and believe in order to be saved. Virtually they had to become Gentiles so far themselves, and trust to the grace of the Lord, even as the Gentiles. Circumcision was inadequate as a condition of eternal life. Peter's argument must have stopped every mouth. His question, " Why tempt ye God ? " after he had so clearly shown his will in his gift to Cornelius, must have tied every tongue. Peter's speech is worthy of note in what it does not say. He never once mentions the vision ofthe sheet let down from heaven, and the thrice repeated voice which he heard, " What God hath cleansed, 298 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. that call not thou common or unclean." The reason for his silence here is clear enough. His personal vision was primarily for himself. It was intended to convince him. But what God did publicly in the effusion ofthe spirit in Caesarea was for the public. It could not be denied. It was an argument so mighty that no other was needed. Again, Peter does not stop to harmonize the stand which he had taken with what the Scriptures promised the Jew. His position plainly is that what God's word says must be learned in the light of what God does. The divine act is a higher court than the divine record ; for while God, when understood, is never contrary to his word, he is before his word, and above his word, and the ultimate interpreter of that word. In all this Peter was not without the very highest precedent. The wily Pharisees had laid a cunning snare for Jesus in the ques tion, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?" (Mark x, 2.) If he says yes, in agreement with Moses (Deut. xxiv, I, 2), he will be in conflict not only with his own forerunner, who lost his head for his reproof of Herod on this point, but in conflict also with the best sentiment of his own times, the sentiment which John reflected. If Jesus says, " No, do not put away a wife," the Pharisees are sure to retort, " Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" (Matt, xix, 7.) But the way out of this dilemma lay open before the divine Teacher. He appeals to God's act in the beginning, who made one man and one woman, and thereby indicated his will. Moses's law of divorce was not in conflict with -this, did not annul the legisla tion indicated in creation, but served only as a restraint on men who would not accept the monogamous rela tion. Peter followed this method effectively before the Pharisees, who, we may be sure, pleaded God's word as a proof that the Gentiles must be circumcised. The THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 299 office of circumcision was not shown in this meeting. Paul's epistles first make it plain (Rom. iv, 10). And here we see now clearer than ever why Peter did not refer to his wonderful vision in which he heard the command, " Rise, Peter; kill, and eat;" "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." All this was out side the scope of the argument from God's act, the argu ment which he used. It would have been no proof at all to place what God said in the vision against what he said in his word about circumcision. Both statements must be explained by the ultimate revelation of his will in the gift of his Spirit to Cornelius. Peter's speech induced silence, and gave the ears of the assembly to Barnabas and Paul. The Pharisees could object no longer. If they were not convinced, Peter had at least stopped their mouths. The mission aries' speech is of precisely the same character as that ofthe chief of the apostles. They did not "communi cate that gospel which they had preached among the Gentiles" (Gal. ii, 2). They did not say they had gone to^ the heathen by the direct command of the Holy Spirit. Their argument is of the same sort as Peter's, and exactly in the sarne line. "They declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gen tiles by them." That God attended their work with supernatural manifestations of his power was his unmis takable approval of that work. His acts indicated his will. James follows Barnabas and Saul. His speech pre sents the first difficulty found in studying the minutes of this meeting. It is a double difficulty. In the first place he resorts to what the Scriptures say after Peter's superior argument from what God has done in the mat ter in question. Must we then say the weaker arguinent came in last ? But worse than all, when James's quota- 300 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. tion from Amos is considered it does not appear to bear on the subject of debate. It predicts the salvation ofthe heathen, which no one in this meeting denied, but says not one word about the condition on which that salva tion was to be offered, which was the very matter in dis pute. Furthermore, its leaning is toward the Phari saic side, in that it at least implies that the Gentiles are to be saved in subordination to the Jews. The house of David is to be reared up that the residue of men might seek the Lord. But restoring the house of David in volved the restoration of Israel along with it, and so the Gentiles would come in second to Israel. But why should it be assumed that James is support ing Peter's speech, that was in itself conclusive, and that carried the day? " All the multitude kept silence." And how does James support Peter's speech with a passage of Scripture that does not touch the debated point ? All difficulties vanish when it is seen what James is after. The Pharisees were silenced ; they needed to be soothed. The Scripture was still on their side, and though they could not reply to Peter, what should they do with that Scripture ? It is not the way of the New Testament to leave earnest, honest men in such a state of perplexity ? James proposes to show that all Scripture which the Pharisees might cite in favor of Jewish superiority and supremacy was relevant, but not relevant at this time, not relevant in the state of things which God's Spirit had now surely brought about in which Jew and Gentile were on the same level. He begins by a startling interpreta tion of Peter's words: " Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles." For what ? To take the whole of them, as is everywhere contemplated in the Old Testament ? No ; but to " take out of them a people for his name," a selected number, a discrimination of which the Old Testament gave no hint. The hardest THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 3OI thing for a patriotic but half-enlightened Jewish believer to accept was this prediction of Jesus now surely coming to pass, " The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matt, xxi, 43). Israel's sun was setting in darkness. Theyhad rejected the Messiah, who, now enthroned, was saving neither the nation of Israel nor any other nation. He was creating a new nation composed of individual believers from all nations. Peter, in his first epistle, ex pands this very idea. He addresses the saints as " elect according to the foreknowledge of God," as a "chosen generation," as a "holy nation." He is not interpreting the idea of the Old Testament. The Old Testament does not contain this idea — an elect body of believers composed of Jews and Gentiles on an equality, or, in other words, a Church. This conception was first given to Paul by revelation. He must have got it before he ever set out to evangelize the heathen. He declares that " in other ages it was not made known to the sons of men " that " the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel " (Eph. iii, 5, 6). Now the former ages knew very well that the Gentiles should be saved, and the prophets of those ages clearly predicted the fact. But they did not know of the birth of a Church meanwhile in which Israel was to have no distinction. James says that Peter is declaring this new and unpredicted thing. And since the Old Testament did not contemplate it how could quotations from the Old Testament be found to bear on it ? When Peter's speech is understood and its significance shown James brings in his quotation : " After these things I will return," etc. After what things? (forthe original is plural.) After God's elective visit to the na tions and his creation of a Church. It is not after thc 30 302 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. days of Amos, but after the days of Israel's desolation and a completed Church ; for the prophet did not use the words "after these things;" they belong to James. They are his explanation of the prediction in so far as they show to what period it applies. The time had not yet come for its fulfillment. When the Church has reached its complement, then the Lord will return and rear up the fallen house of David, when not an elect number, but "all of the Gentiles," shall seek the Lord. Now this would satisfy the Pharisees. They were satis fied, for the meeting came to a unanimous verdict. They could see how James's interpretation of Peter's speech " agreed " with the words of the prophets, of whom, how ever, he quoted but one. The agreement consisted in this, that there was no conflict when all was properly re ferred. If the quotation from Amos said nothing about circumcision, the very thing which had caused the pres ent dissension, why, no matter. Amos was not speaking of the present, and that is all that James set out to show. When the time foretold by Amos dawns it will bring the light in which to solve the discussions which such a period may awaken. The words of Amos conclude with the assertion that the Lord does these things. The readings vary, but this is the sense of any of them. Now, for James to quote such words in the sense that the Lord would save the Gentiles is pointless. But to quote them as indi cating that the Lord was making a Church was to claim a divine foundation for it, and to put the passage in accord with James's interpretation of Peter. Scripture was not needed to prove Gentile salvation, but it was helpful to say that the Lord was the author of such a state of things as had arisen among the believers, in which Jew and Gentile were not distinguished. James now proposes the resolution which carries. His THE COUNCIL IN JERUSALEM. 303 language is consistent with his insight into Peter's speech. He does not say, "Let us not trouble the Gentiles," but, " Let us not trouble them which from among the Gentiles are turning to God." And the principle being now settled James proposes as a matter of policy that the Gentile believers be instructed to abstain from meat that had been used in idol worship, from blood, and from for nication. This inhibition was made in deference to the Jews. Moses, read every Sabbath day iri the synagogue, forbade such things ; and the conscience of those who followed him must not be offended by those who fol lowed Christ. 304 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. BY WILLIAM DINWIDDIE, D.D. The best answer possible to be given to the assaults on the Scriptures in our day, or in any day, is simple, holy living according to the teachings of the Scriptures. For a study in this line the Epistles to the Thessalo nians furnish a unique example. They are the earliest in date of all the epistles of Paul ; they bring before us ex amples of believers in the first freshness and bloom of Christianity, but who are expressly commended to us by the Holy Spirit himself as models " to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia" (i Thess. i, 7). At the date of the ' first epistle they had not been brought into the Church more than a month, perhaps, and all their teach ing had been received from Paul himself, the chief of the apostles, and those who accompanied him. Here, then, we see believers in the first freshness and simplicity and purity of the Christian life. And the apostle in address ing them makes no assertion of his apostolic authority, as in later epistles, when evils had become rife in the Church es, but associates himself simply with Silvanus and Timo theus as fellow-laborers. The Thessalonians needed not authoritative control, because they were walking in sim ple-hearted obedience. It might be startling to find them addressed in both epistles as " the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ," a form of address used only in these two epistles, if we did not see in this, too, an illustration of the primitive simplicity THE EPISTLES- TO THE THESSALONIANS. 305 of their faith. The Lord himself, in John xiv, 15-23, had held up obedience as an essential of the Christian life, and had promised, as he was himself to leave the dis ciples, to have the Father send them another helper to stay with them forever — the Spirit of truth, whose pres ence dwelling with them was to be in them after he came, and was to mark them off in complete separation from the world. This coming of the Spirit at Pentecost marked a new day, and " at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." This was accepted in simple faith by " the Church of the Thes salonians which is in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ." I Thess. i, 2-4. These simple-hearted believers were always calling forth thanksgivings from the apostle in his prayers as he remembered their work of faith and labor of love and patience, of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father. It is striking how the faith and love and hope of these believers are brought before us in this portraiture by the Holy Ghost, and how often in Paul's writings these same. fruits ofthe Spirit are presented in their close relation to each other. In the noble eulogy of them in i Cor. xiii the force of the truth is obscured to readers of the English Bible by the substitution of " charity " for " love." i Cor. xiii, 13, ought to read, " And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of these is love." With what a shock would we hear one read in i John iv, 8 or 16, " God is charity ! " But it is identically the same word translated " charity" in i Cor. xiii. There is the closest connection between faith, love, and hope. As the sin of man began in unbelief in the garden, so his restoration begins with reversing the dis honor done to God by the doubt of his kindness and his truth suggested by the tempter. So everywhere faith is 3o6 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. the condition of salvation. Preach the word, the Gospel of God. He that believeth is saved ; he that believeth not is condemned. But faith works by love. Knowing and believing the love that God hath to us, we love be cause he first loved us. But when the Spirit sheds abroad this love of God in our hearts he not only shows us the things freely given to us of God here— our sonship, near ness, and acceptance in the beloved — but he also shows us " things to come," and makes us to exult in hope of the glory of God. Here it is our hope comes into play (Rom. V, 1-5). Look at the same graces in the Ephesians, another Church of model believers, and perhaps the Church of highest spiritual attainment of all mentioned in the epis tles, because the most exalted truth is written to them. Ephesians is the very highest mountain peak of Scripture teaching. In chapter i, 15-18, we see that their faith was not, as when Paul first visited them (Acts xix, 1-7), faith in Christ Jesus who was yet to come, according to the teaching of John the Baptist, but faith in the Lord Jesus who has come and has completed the work the Father gave him to do here, and now " God hath made him both Lord and Christ" (Acts ii, 36). Full Christian faith is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This faith in the Ephesians called forth Paul's unceasing thanks, as did also the love it wrought in them, embracing " all the saints." But he goes on to pray for them that their Christian character may grow unto perfection, through the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God given unto them, that they may also know the hope of their calling (Eph. i, 15-18). Again, in Heb. x, 19-24, brethren are exhorted, in view ofthe perfect provision made for it in Christ, to use their boldness of access into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 307 (verse 22); to hold fast the profession of their hope without wavering, because God, on whose promise it rests, is faith ful (verse 23) ; and to consider one another, to provoke unto love and good works. Our English Bibles, in verse 23, say " the profession of our faith," but any reason for the putting of " faith " here in the place of " hope," which the word always means, I have never been able to dis cover. The blunder is inexcusable. But no man can tell how much this blunder has done to obscure the. hope of the Church to all English-speaking people. These examples of the collocation by the spirit of faith, love, and hope are sufficient to show us that they are the great essentials of Christian character. In the natural order of their development they come, first faith, then love, then hope. And it is most instructive to see that the enemy, in his assault on the Thessalonians, at tacked the latest and least developed, their hope. Thus, when Paul in his great anxiety for them in the persecutions through which they were passing, sent Timo thy to comfort and sustain them, he says he was com forted (chapter iii, I-7) by the good tidings which Timo thy brought of their faith and love. But why does he say nothing here of their hope ? Because their hope had become obscured through their ignorance, which he sets himself to remove in chapters iv and v. In these days the professing body has so far departed from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. xi, 3) that it requires an effort to comprehend the trouble into which the Thessalonians had fallen. At the beginning their faith set them to work, their love set them to work hard, to labor in the service of Christ ; and their hope was so simple and bright that they met all their trials in par tience of hope (chapter i, 3). For the Gospel came not to them in word only, as to so many now, but also in power, yet not the power of human eloquence or dispaly 308 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. in any way, but in the Holy Ghost using his own word. And so they received it in much assurance. They re ceived the word of God which they heard from Paul not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God (i Thess. ii, 13). Here we enter an atmosphere en tirely unknown to the so-called higher criticism. When the word of God is so received it must be in much as surance. It is the word of God, and the simple receiving • of that word admits no degree of faith. Everything short of assurance mixes unbelief with faith, so to speak, and is so far a dishonor to God as it fails to give glory to God (Rom. iv, 20). How could they know 1;hat Paul's preaching was the word of God and not of man? Paul says it was (i Cor. ii, 13). But how could the Thessalonians know it ? Let Jesus answer. " I am the light of the world : he that foUoweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." " If God were your Father, ye would love me." "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word." " He that is of God heareth God's words " (John viii, 12, 42, 43, 47). Surely God's way is better than man's. "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes " (Matt, xi, 25). -"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein " (Luke xviii, 17). The Thessalonians having received God's word in this simple, childlike faith, at once identified themselves with those who were believers before them. " Ye became followers of us and of the Lord," like the Philippians, Lydia, and the jailer, and others concerning whom Paul thanked God on every remembrance of them for their fellowship with the Gospel from the first day till now (Phil, i, 3-5). And this was no easy-going acceptance of the Gospel, as with so many now, but " ye received the THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 309 word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost," who made it so plain and powerful to them. Such a simple faith commands attention in this un believing world, and no limit can be set to its influence over others. Not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place, the faith of the Thessalonians toward God was spread abroad. The results of that faith in their livesthe Spirit sums up in a few graphic touches: "Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God ; and to wait for his Son from heaven, . . . even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come " (l Thess. i, 9, 10). Here we have the character of true primitive, apostolic, model Christianity traced by the Spirit for the guidance of God's children for all time. They turned to God from idols. Any turning that stops short of this fails, as with many phases of temperance and other reforms. Jesus died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God (i Peter iii, 18). In view of Christ's perfect offer ing of himself once, we have (all believers have) boldness to enter into the holiest, God's very presence, by his blood (Heb. x, 19). But some one may say we have no idols to turn from. But God says covetousness is idol atry (Col. iii, 5), idolatry the most subtle and well-nigh ' universal. ^ In what spirit are we thus to turn to God ? To serve him, the living and true God, to give our will entirely up to his, as slaves to their master. And who is he that I am to serve ? Let Psalm cxxxix, and Heb. xii, 29, answer. And how can I, a sinner, serve an omnipresent and omnis cient God, from whom nothing can be hid, and who in his holiness is a consuming fire to.sin ? Only as I believe in Jesus, who died for me, whom God made to be sin for me, who bore my sins in his own body on the tree, but who then finished the work God gave him to do, glorified 310 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. God even in regard to my sins, in proof of which God hath raised him from the dead, our Deliverer, who has delivered us from the wrath to come. This deliverance is so complete that twice in the second chapter of Ephe sians it is said to us, " By grace ye are saved " (Eph. ii, 5, 8) ; not going to be saved, but the saving is a com pleted work, in the strongest and most unambiguous way in which it could possibly be expressed in the Greek language. What is the attitude of these model Christians toward this Saviour ? An essential part of their religion was " to wait for God's Son from heaven." All believers did this at the beginning. The Lord's own word compels us to do so when we simply believe him. " Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning ; and ye your selves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately." " For the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not " (Luke xii, 35,40). At the beginning they all took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. But while the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept, according to the Lord's prediction (Matt, xxv, I- 1 3). So universal was this slumber in the region in which the writer was brought up that, though a student in one of our oldest Christian colleges, and living under the shadow of a theological seminary, he was twenty-five years old before he ever saw a rnan, woman, or child who was waiting for the Son of God to come from heaven, and that, too, though the last paragraph of their Confes sion of Faith asserts that Christ would have us always watchful, for we know not at what hour he will come. But it is at the Christian's hope that the enemy, the devil, strikes first. When he can obscure or pervert this the way is then easy to undermine the love and the faith THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 311 also. So he sought to do with the Thessalonians, and it is most instructive to see how, again and again, in every chapter of both epistles, the Spirit recalls them to the hope of the Lord's coming. This hope is an essential part of Christian life. " Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven " (i Thess. i, 9, 10). • After the fervent and loving exhortation of the second chapter that they should walk worthy of God, who had called them unto his kingdom and glory, he says, " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoic ing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming ? " Feel the glow of the great apostle's heart reproducing the very love of Christ for his saints in the third chapter, and see how it all culminates in the prayer at the end, " And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you : to the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints " (i Thess. iii, 12, 13). What more glorious scene in the future before us than this " coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints?" But ask the first dozen Christians you meet about it, and you will see that the scene does not enter their thought. They may be looking for death, or for the conversion of the Jews, or ofthe whole world, or for great political changes, but not for the coming of the Lord, or, if for his coming, not for his coming with ah his saints. And the hope being obscured, the love is also. They may be trying to love their neighbors as themselves, but the " new commandment," " my com mandment " (John xiii, 34, and xv, 12), to love one an other, the brethren, as Christ has loved us, hardly enters 312 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. as an element in their love. Legal bondage has sup planted Christian liberty and love. This deep and all-embracing brotherly love is carefully guarded in the fourth chapter against the impurity to which it might lead through the temptation of Satan and the vileness of the flesh. And it is a simple, beautiful picture of a model church sketched in verses 9 to I2 of this fourth chapter. After which the apostle sets himself to restore their hope. Why were they grieving for those whom Jesus had put to sleep ? It was ignorance. Does not God with Christ also freely give us all things ? " All things are yours ; . . . whether . . . life, or death." But in their ignorance they supposed that their departed brethren would be shut out from the glory of the Lord's coming, for which they had all been waiting. Far from it, as the apostle now shows in an express revelation the Lord now gives hirn for the Church : " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord." Briefly, when the Lord comes he will descend into the air, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. We that are alive and remain unto his coming shall not precede them ; but we shall be caught up together with the risen dead to meet the Lord in the air. " And so shall we ever be with the Lord." i Cor. xv adds that it will occur in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And it will be with our glorified bodies. For we shall be like him, seeing him as he is. This for believers only, to comfort them. For unbe lievers there is nothing but sudden, unexpected, and overwhelming destruction. "They shall not escape." Let us, then, who are of the day be always awake, wait ing, watching, as the Lord himself commands, in the light as he is in the light, having on " the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 313 " And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be pre served blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here, as in i John iii, 3, the mighty motive to holy living is the hope of the Lord's coming. In the second epistle another assault is made by Satan on their hope. Here, still, " your faith groweth exceed ingly, and the love " (not charity) " of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth," but there is no word of praise about their hope. Their hope was obscured again, not from ignorance now of the details of the Lord's coming given to com fort them in the fourth and fifth chapters of the first epistle. But the assault comes from a new direction. They were tempted to be shaken in mind and troubled upon pretended revelations claiming to be by the Spirit, or by some word of the Lord given, or by a forged let ter from Paul himself, that the day of the Lord was al ready present, not at hand, as in the common English version. The error is inexcusable, and has been cor rected in the Revised Version ; but it has been long used by Satan to put Scripture in seeming contradiction with itself, and to obscure the whole doctrine of the Lord's coming. There is a clear distinction in Scripture between the Lord's coming and the day of the Lord. His coming is the blessed hope of the Church, its pole star, bringing comfort, and nothing but comfort, to believers. The day of the Lord, as seen in Isa. ii, Zech. xiv, and other Scrip tures, is the close of man's day, when God deals in judg ment with him. Paul says, in i Cor. iv, 3, " But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's day." It is " day," and not judgment, as in the common version. Man is judged in the day of the Lord. " For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon 314 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up ; and he shall be brought low : . . . and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day (Isa. ii, 12, 17). The Thessalonians were falsely taught to believe that the day of the Lord had already come, and that they were consequently in the midst of judgment. They had forgotten the assurance of the first epistle, " For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ " (i Thess. v, 9). Or, as it is stated in the seventy-seventh answer of the Westminster Larger Catechism, " Justification doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condem nation." The error is corrected to the foundation by a simple and clear statement of the complete deliverance of be lievers from judgment and wrath (2 Thess. i, 4-12). Paul gloried in their patience and faith in all their tribulations, which were that to which we are called — not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for his sake. These sufferings of the Christian are the measure of his reward : " If so be that we suffer with him, that v/e may be also glorified together " (Rom. viii, 17). The believer shall not come " into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life" (John v, 24). So when the Lord comes to judge he will bring rest to believers who are troubled, and will recompense tribulation to those who trouble them, because he is a righteous God. His grace reigns through righteousness in forgiving our sins ; Jesus inter cedes for believers when they sin, as their righteous ad vocate (i John ii, i), and God will righteously punish his enemies, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can a believer, in view of these things, suffer THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 315 himself to be dislodged from the blessed hope of the Lord's coming? " All things are yours ; . . . things pres ent, or things to come." So their hope is brought back clear and bright to their view, and the entreaty follows, " Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him " (2 Thess. iv), do not be troubled. The apostle then concludes with important instruction for the last days. All the second epistles give truth for the last days. Not before the Lord's coming is it said, for that has no date given to man, but before the day ofthe Lord, there shall come the apostasy (not a falling away). In 2 Tim. iii is drawn the terrible picture of that apostasy in one stage, when men shall have the form of godliness but deny the power thereof. But the apostasy culminates here in Satan's counterfeit Christ, the embodiment of the mystery of iniquity which was already at work as both John and Paul teach, and was to continue till the Lord himself should consume him with the breath of his mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of his com ing. All manner of false teachings should be rife in those days in teachings devised with Satanic ingenu ity and successful in God's righteous judgment to de ceive those who received not the love of thc truth that they might be saved. Such is the fate that hangs over a worldly Church and a godless world. Believers shall be kept from all this. Their safety is in holding fast the truth handed down to them steadfast in their hearts and established in very good word and work. They must withdraw from association with those who cast discredit on God's word (2 Thess. ii, 15; iii, 3, 4, 6, 14, 17). "And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an 3l6 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. enemy, but admonish him as a brother." And that they might be sure they had his very epistle, thus bound with divine authority on their con.science, he appends a salutation in his own handwriting, " which is the token in every epistle: so I write." It needs but a word to point out how directly and to tally opposite to such a life as is here pictured of model believers are the whole tone and spirit and results of the so-called higher criticism, as demonstrated in the papers before this Conference. Blessed be God for such a bright example of simple, childlike faith and holy living shown us by the Spirit in the Epistles to the Thessalonians ; and blessed be his holy name that in these simple letters, which reveal to us also the very heart of the chiefest of the apostles, we have imbedded the truth that we have the very word of God in the Scriptures, and we can know that we have his word. " He that is of God heareth God's words " (John viii, 47). " And a .stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him ; for they know not the voice of strangers " (John X, v). " Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things " (i John ii, 20). The Holy Spirit reveals the truth to even the babes in Christ, so that they need not that any man teach them (i John ii, 27) ; and this, too, in the face of the final culmination of antichristian apostasy, to which the pride of man, hur ried on by the confusion of Church and world in Chris tendom, is fast rushing (i John ii, 18-28). FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 3 17 FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. BY PROFESSOR JAMES M. STIFLER, D.D., Crozer Theological Seminary. The epistle is one of the most difficult in the New Testament. But it is a matter of profound gratitude that in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit it is so written that it can be read with great profit even when its aim a,nd its analysis are unknown. Most of its statements are complete in themselves. Its verses, one after another, stand like independent aphorisms, complete in them selves. " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." We need nothing from the context to understand this. Again the comforting words, "And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father ; " and the inspiring utterance, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, ahd it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." These sen tences, and scores of others in the book, are" each like a brilliant stone, that has its light within itself and needs no setting to enhance its value. And yet gems in a heap, while each is intrinsically precious, gain a far higher value when skillfully set in proper order in some design, a crescent, a star, a crown, or even a string. John's aphorisms are not given haphazard. Each one is part of a beautiful design, and each holds its own logical place. It adds immensely to the power and glory of this book to discover this logical place of each part. And this is what I am in quest of to-day. 21 3l8 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. In studying this epistle three classes of difficulties con front us at the outset. First, there are frequent repetitions, not only of the same thought, but in the same words. We have two sim ilar passages on the Antichrist, one in the second chapter and one in the beginning of the fourth. In the second chapter we have three classes addressed each twice, and one of them, the fathers, in precisely the same words: " I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning." We have three passages on love, and in these love of the brother is enjoined over and over. In one of these passages we have twice the pregnant little sentence, " God is love." And finally the epistle, as a whole, is so much like the gospel of John that some have been bold enough to say that it is a neat imitation ofthe gospel by another and much later hand. But this appearance of uniformity and repetition is only on the surface. As Alford says (Proleg., p. 164, vol. iv), it is " produced by want of deep enough exegesis to dis cover the real differences in passages which seem to ex press the same " thing. Without such study the book loses much in quantity, nothing being gained by what is supposed to be a second statement of the same thing. It loses also immeasurably in quality. A second difficulty lies in the meaning of John's terms. What was his idea of the word light — " God is light ?" What is his idea of " hfe ; " of world — " love not the world;" of" fellowship;" of "born of God;" even of" sin?" All these terms must be studied, and their significance ascertained, if we are to understand the epistle. The third class of difficulties belongs to interpretation. There are passages which seem to defy exegesis : " His seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin." Who or what is the seed ? And why cannot such sin ? What is it to come " by water and blood, not in the water only. FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 3I9 but in the water and in the blood ? " What is the sin unto death ? " If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death." Who shall give the life to, them not guilty of mortal sin — the man who prays or God ? A rigid analysis does something, does much toward clearing up these difficulties. It will dissipate the repeti tions and aid in an understanding of the terms. To analyze the epistle is no easy task. It was not at tempted before the days of Calvin, who himself did not believe that there was any contextual connection in the book. Bengel was among the first to attempt an analysis, and his cannot be accepted. Liicke, Dusterdieck, and Alford have done the first eff'ective work in tracing out the continuity of Jolin's thought. And he is sure to fail here who applies to John the methods so useful in Paul. The two reach the same conclusions, but by very different means.. Paul and John are remarkably alike, so much so that it is easier to reconcile Paul with John than to reconcile Paul with himself. But their mode of thinking is different. Paul is analytical. John is ana tomical. Paul's reasoning is like building a house which may be put up in any architectural form. John's is the construction of a human body which can have but one form. Or rather Paul looks at things in their logical re lation, John in their vital natural relation. There is some sort of relation between wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, precious stones, but it is not natural and neces sary. This is Paul. There is an intrinsic relation be tween light and life, between birth and character, between love and conduct; and this is John. But before we even attempt an outline analysis we must ask. What was John's aim in writing this epistle? What did he wish to effect ? 320 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. The aim of almost all the epistles in the New Testa ment is the same — steadfastness. The salvation of men depends on two things, first, to get them into Christ, and, secondly, to have them stay there. The Galatians accepted the Gospel, but very soon were in. danger of adding the law, and Paul writes to induce them to con tinue in their simple faith. The Hebrews accepted Christ, but were in danger of relapsing to Judaism again, and they receive a letter showing them how Judaism, or, more properly, Mosaism, received its completion and perfec tion in Christ, and was therefore out of date. But while steadfastness is the aim of the epistles in general the danger is not always the same. The evils with which Paul had to contend in the churches came mostly from Judaism. John's first epistle was written many years after the latest of Paul's. It is substantially proved that it belongs to the last decade of the first century. Juda ism had received a terrible blow in the destruction of Jerusalem, and lay paralyzed. It troubled the Churches no more. But a new foe had arisen, that which John calls the world. In Paul's day the churches were in little danger from the world which was at war with them. They were in the condition of Israel in the days of Joshua. They were conquering the enemy and were in little danger of corrupting alliances. But later in Israel's history, when the land of Canaan became theirs, and wars were over, Israel began to intermarry with the de scendants of their former foes and to adopt their wor ship and ways. In Paul's day the world opposed, but in John's it began to seduce. Paul's enemies were religionists; John's were philosophers. Paul told the Ephesian elders in the spring of A. D. 58 that from among themselves should " men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." In John's day this prediction had come to pass. Jewish perverts FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 32 1 had yielded their place to Christian perverts ; and John writes to these churches in Asia Minor, possibly to this very church at Ephesus, to stand by the Gospel as it had been given^ to them at the beginning, and not yield to the world and its seducing teachers. I need not say that in the Epistle to the Colossian.s, and in that to Timothy, Paul Clearly notes the beginning of these gnostic errors with which John had to contend. The Epistle of John shows a much higher order of Christian development than the epistles of Paul. The latter must write to the Thessalonians not to violate the seventh commandment. He reproaches the Corinthi ans for this very sin and others as gross. He must ex hort others not to lie and not to steal. All this is wholly absent from this First Epistle of John. There is no hint of any immorality. John's readers are in fellowship with God, and are urged only to one grace, the highest, to practice a love like God's. They may have been guilty of immoralities, for there is mention often enough of sin, and of that one deadly sin, but their danger was greater, that of abandoning Christ, the Son of God, for some speculations about hini. It is interesting, too, to note the differences between Paul and John as to their premises or sources of author ity to induce steadfastness. Paul has three of these on which he mainly relies, the covenants, the law, and his own apostohc office. John uses none of these. He never mentions the covenants, does not quote a word from the Bible, and never urges his apostolic authority. Paul ex plains the significance of the covenants, he expounds the Old Testament, and he stands for his authority as an apos tle. "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Christ? " In John's day a false philosophy was overlaying these, and men were claiming a knowledge and a wisdom supe rior to that of an apostle. Hence John depends for his 322 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. argument on the righteous character of God, who is light, on the believer's relation to such a God, and the charac ter and knowledge which necessarily flow from such a relation. Jesus said, " At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you " (John xiv, 20). That knowledge is definite and trustworthy. The word "know" is a favorite one with John throughout the epistle. His climax is, " We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true " (i John v, 20). It is not his own individual knowledge, but that of the whole believing community, that he insists upon. He opposes the false gnosis by the real true gnosis. Some men decry reli gious experience. What is practical Christianity but an experience ofChrist, a heart that is filled with his presence and is more certain of him than of itself? " I have writ ten unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father." A man who knows Christ and knows the Father has a knowledge to which one can appeal, and John's appeal is directly to it. This knowledge is knowledge. It is not scholarship, it is not learning ; it is absolutely certain and direct ; it is like the sunlight ; it is its own evidence ; the believer knows that he knows. Again, it is like the sunhght in that it is pure and exclusive. Darkness is impossible be fore light, and ignorance and doubt are expelled by a true knowledge of God. Paul speaks about some who are ensnared by false teachers because the captives are " ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. iii, 7). This was the gnostic's field. The errorist found his following among those whose FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 323 learning did not lead to light. Hence John's appeal to the knowledge that is certain, and the assertion that it is certain. " This is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ " (John xvii, 3). John's epistle contains four main divisions : I. The Introduction, i, 1-4. Here are four profound statements : I. The life was manifested. The idea here is not metaphysical. He means just that concrete exhibition seen in the walk and character of Him who said, " I am the life," Jesus Christ. 2. We have the evidence of this manifestation. The gnostic in John's day denied that Jesus Christ was a re ality. The gnostic of to-day (only now he sometimes calls himself an agnostic) does the same thing in dis puting his resurrection. John meets this by the evidence of three of the five natural senses, hearing, sight, touch. We have heard his word, seen his works, yea, scanned them, and we have touched, handled his body. It is in teresting to note that when John says we have handled him he employs an unusual word, and the very word used by Jesus after the resurrection when he said, " Handle me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see [behold] me have" (Luke xxiv, 39). By this word John recalls that event after. the resurrection. The evi dence that the life was manifested is not that of a dream or of a vision, it is not that deduced from reason or philosophic speculation. It is the evidence of hearing, sight, touch. It is more certain than the evidence for the law of gravitation or that the world is a globe. Could twelve men during an intercourse of three years with Jesus — could they possibly mistake in the things they heard, saw, and handled ? Could they possibly mistake as to the events of the last forty days when these twelve 324 anti-higher criticism. men "ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead?" (Acts x, 41.) The prime fact of the Gospel is founded on the best of evidence, that of the senses, what men saw and heard and handled, not once or twice, but for days and years. But now while John's introduction means this it means much more than this. There is a use of tenses in this introduction that our King James Version obscures and that the Revision does not fully indicate. John teaches here, not only that they have seen and have heard Jesus Christ, but that that hearing and seeing con tinue in the present experience. The former is historic and literal, the latter is present and spiritual, an inward permanent experience ofthe historic Christ. And so Jesus taught, and John records the words (John xiv, 19): " Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more ; but ye see me : because I live, ye shall live also." " A little while, and ye shall not see me : and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father " (xvi, 16). " He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him "(xiv, 21). This constitutes a clear promise that Jesus would dwell with and in his people. Salvation begins with the historic facts about Jesus; he lived, he died, he rose again, he taught such and such things. But thousands kpow all this without salvation, for that does not occur until these facts, or, what is the same thing, until Christ becomes a present fact to the soul — until he manifests himself to the soul. John combines these two, for the former with out the latter makes Christ only a memory and leads to barrenness. The latter, the spiritual without the his toric, leads to religious extravagance and fanaticism such as was seen in the Corinthian Church and sometimes to day. The letter leads to the spirit, but the spirit is never beyond the letter, and, so to speak, is subject to it. first epistle of JOHN. 325 In other words, Jesus is more than a memory. Follow ing him is more than an imitation of that blessed life of his as it is recorded in the gospels. Following him is a reproduction of that life by its own present power — a living branch in a living vine. 3. We declare this reality to you that ye also may have fellowship with us. He that shares his knowledge with his neighbor brings his neighbor into a possession common with himself To declare the truth is to strike up a light that embraces in its beams not only him who has it, but him also who stands near. 4. This fellowship is with the Father and with his Son. Note. — It must be observed that the apostle does not lead his read ers from the historic Christ to their present vital relation with hira, but just the reverse — from these relations to the historic Christ. And this is the order of the epistle. II. The Fellowship in Light, i, 5-ii, 28. I. The character of him with whom the fellowship exists — light, verse 5. 2. The false claim of this fellowship easily detected, verse 6. Note. — He who is continually stumbling over everything in the path and constantly losing the path has either no eyes or no light. Such a walli would be a slander (" we lie ") on light. 3. How this fellowship is maintained by a sinner, (a) because ofthe blood of Christ, i, 7-10, and {b) because of his person, ii, i, 2. 4. The requirement or test of this fellowship — a walk like Christ's, ii, 3-6. Note. — In this little section we raust observe the rapid change but the exact equivalence of the terms. They are : Fellowship=knowing God ; knowing God=loving him ; loving him=being in him ; being in him=:abiding in hira. This is John's analysis of the fellowship which is hereby shown to be a perraanent union with God in Christ, like that in John xv. The terms on the other side vary also. Keeping his commandments (verses 3, 4), keeping his' word (verse 5), and walk ing as he wallced (verse 5) are all equivalent. 326 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. 5. The principle of Christ's walk — love (ii, 7-1 1), old, as it was in him, new as it is in him and in you. 6. At this point (verse 12) argument stops to take a nearer view of the community, (a) to assure them of what they certainly possess in virtue of their union with Christ, and (b) to point out their two great sources of danger, the world and the Antichrist, ii, 12-28. He divides the community into three character-class es : fathers, young men, babes ; and addresses each class twice. In the second address to the young men he warns them against the world, and in the second to the babes he warns them against the Antichrist. The Antichrist, (a) He belongs to the last time, ii, 18. (U) His origin — went out from us, verse 19. (c) Why ? — he was not of us, not anointed, verse 19. ( 23). In four of these passages the preposition is dia, " through, by means of," and in the other it is upo, " under, by the agency of, at the hands of" In every instance the Lord is represented as the speaker, and the prophets are the mouthpieces communicating his words. The quotations also prove that what was historically true of Israel called out of Egypt, and Rachel weeping for her children, is prophetically true of our Lord Jesus Christ, and hence that all Scripture is concerning him, and leads to him if wisely read. If the truth of ver bal inspiration had been seen the commentators must have recognized the difference between prophet and prophets, and they could not have floundered around in the dark trying to find where it is written in the Old Testament, " He shall be called a Nazarene." It is writ ten in no one place, but the drift of the prophets is, He shall be called a despised and separated One. The preposition dia is nearly always used in Matthew when a quotation is given from an Old Testament prophet byname. " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet " (Matt, iv, 14). " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet " (Matt, viii, 17), ascribing to Isaiah words which the higher critics tell us were written by the Great Unknown. " That it might be fulfilled which was spo ken through Isaiah the prophet " (Matt, xii, 17 ; Isa. xlii, i). " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet " (Matt, xiii, 35). " All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet " (Matt, xxi, 4). " When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of through Daniel the prophet" (Matt, xxiv, 15). " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet " (Matt. THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 34I xxvii, 9). It is evident that there is One back of the prophet, whose mouth or pen is used to make known the divine will or prediction. So we read in the inspired song of Zacharias, inspired because he " was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophe sied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel ; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ; as he [God] spake by [through] the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began " (Luke i, 67-70). Peter stood up just before the day of Pentecost and said, "Men, brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by [through] the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas " (Acts i, 16). The assembled apostles prayed and said, " O Lord, thou that didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is : who by the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of our father David thy servant, didst say" (Actsiv, 24, 25, Revised Version). The apostle Paul separated from the unbelieving Jews after he " had spoken one word. Well spake the Holy Ghost by [through] Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers " (Acts xxviii, 25). Opening the epistles, we read at the very beginning, " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, which he [God] had promised afore by [through] his prophets in the holy Scriptures " (Rom. i, i, 2). If the Scriptures are full of errors and mistakes, it is certain that they cannot be holy. " The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh " (Rom. ix, 17), and eighteen times in the Epistle to the Romans do we find the words, " It is written," as the end of contro versy. " The Scripture, foreseeing that God would jus tify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gos pel unto Abraham. . . . The Scripture hath concluded 342 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. all under sin " (Gal. iii, 8, 22). How can Scripture say, and foresee, and preach, and shut up all together as in a prison ? Only because it is instinct with the presence of God's Spirit, imparting to it his own divine attributes. Hence every word of Scripture is important, and every mode, and tense, and case, and gender, and number, and inflection should be reverently studied, because it is all from God. Paul writes, " Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not. And to seeds, as of many ; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ " (Gal. iii, 16). The other day a paper was received from a young jackanapes of a higher critic stating that the apostle was a poor grammarian, because he did not know that the word seed admits no plural form. The mother of the conceited youth, if she is living, ought to turn him over her knee and teach him more sense and less impudence. Yes, there is a difference between seed and seeds, and upon this difference, slight as it is, the apostle who wrote in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth established a great and vital truth. " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in his Son " (Heb. i, I, 2). Whether it was by the prophets or his Son, it was God who spoke, and still speaks in " the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (i Peter i, 23). " Where fore as the Holy Ghost saith" (Heb. iii, 7), and although there is not a word about the Holy Ghost in the psalm which is quoted it was the Holy Ghost who spake. " This word. Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken " (Heb. xii, 27) ; and again does the apostle rest an important doctrine upon a single word of the Bible. If such a use of the Old Testament in the New does not prove that the very words of Scrip ture are given by inspiration of God there is no signifi- THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 343 cance in language, and the testimony ofthe sacred writers ceases to be of value in any respect. HOW OUR LORD USED THE OLD TESTAMENT. At the beginning of his ministry " was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Three times was the assault made, covering the whole ground of human temptation, and three times it was repelled, not by the display of divine power, but by quotations from Scripture. " It is written," " It is writ ten," " It is written," said our Lord to Satan, and in each citation he brings his weapon of defense from the Book of Deuteronomy, as if foreseeing the contempt that is cast upon this portion of the inspired writings by the higher criticism of our days. Although hungry, after a fast of forty days, he gives an illustration of the great truth which he hurled at the devil, " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God " (Matt, iv, i-io). As the late .Dr. Howard Crosby well said, " Imagine, if you can, the Messiah, in selecting the fittest words to meet Satan's assaults, taking up a fragment of a forged book, a book which was a stupendous lie, framed by priestcraft." " Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt, v, 17, 18). The jot or yod\?. the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet ; the tittle is a single stroke or turn or twist of a Hebrew letter ; and heaven and earth shall pass away before one of these can be set aside. In another place our Lord says, " It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle ofthe law to fail" (Luke xvi, 17) ; and thus he links the small est particle of a Hebrew letter, however trivial it may 344 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. seem to be, with his own immutable testimony, of which he declares, " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt, xxiv, 35). How pro found the reverence of our Saviour for the least portion of the sacred oracles, and how unlike the profane treat ment with which they are handled now by men set for their defense in theological seminaries ! In accordance with these teachings he asserts that "the Scripture cannot be broken," or loosened, infringed, made void, nullified (John x, 35). Every chapter, verse, line, word, and syllable he regarded as the word of God, and therefore in whole and in the minutest part as irref ragable. In the light of this plain statement it is as tonishing that so many preachers and professors break the Scripture to pieces as if it were a vessel of clay, and talk about the inspiration of the concept, apparently forgetful of the fact that it is the writing which cannot be broken. Hengstenberg has truly said, " It cannot be doubted that the Scripture is broken by those who assert that the Psalms breathe a spirit of revenge, that Solomon's Song is a common oriental love song, that there are in the prophets predictions never to be fulfilled, or by those who deny the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch." This able scholar might have added that Scripture" is broken by all who deny its plenary and verbal inspiration. Our Lord was in Gethsemane praying, when a mob led by Judas appeared to seize him, and Peter, awaking out of sleep, " drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest, and smote off his ear." Jesus rebuked him, saying, " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" (Matt. xxvi, 53, 54.) One angel swept down upon the camp ofthe THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 345 Assyrians, slaying one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers in a single night (Isa. xxxvii, 36) ; and here many thousand angels stood ready to defend and deliver the Son of God. He had but to raise one cry to the Father, and legions would have rushed gladly to his rescue ; but he bowed at once to the authority of Scrip ture, although he knew that it would cost him his life. On his way to the cross he said to the Father, " Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition ; that the Scripture might be fulfilled " (John xvii, 12). While hanging on the fatal tree as our sin-bearer the soldiers gambled for his seamless coat, " that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith. They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things there fore the soldiers did." A little later "Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." It seems that he was scanning the wide field of ancient prophecy to see if any minute prediction remained to be accomplished, and, although he was suffering intolerable agony, he refused to bow his head in death until all was fulfilled. The soldiers brake not his legs, " that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken " (John xix, 24, 28, 36). When we find this apparently trivial prediction hid away, as it were, in a chapter about the paschal lamb, written fifteen hundred years before the crucifixion, we must be impressed with the importance and verbal accuracy ofthe least line of Scripture (Exod. xii, 46). Nothing is more certain than the respect which our Lord Jesus Christ manifested for the Old Testament in every particular, 'and it is equally obvious that he knew nothing of the silly conceits of men who have invented "the inspiration of suggestion," of "superintendence," 346 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. of "elevation," "dynamic inspiration," and the "inspira tion ofthe concept." With him there was but one kind of inspiration, extending equally to every part of the Old Testament, for it was all from God. Hence his rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees, " God commanded, saying. Honor thy father and mother. . . . Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradi tion," a rebuke he might well repeat to those who deny the inerrant inspiration of his word (Matt, xv, 4, 6). NEW TESTAMENT WORDS ARE INSPIRED. On one occasion our Lord told his apostles that they should be brought before councils and governors and kings for his sake. "They were unlearned and igno rant men," and how were they to defend themselves? "Take no thought how or what ye shaU speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you " (Matt, x, 19, 20). On another occasion he said to them, " Take no thought before hand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye : for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost " (Mark xiii, 11). At another time he commanded them, " Take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall an swer, or what ye shall say : for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say " (Luke xii, 11, 12). Here then at three different periods of our Lord's min istry he positively forbids the apostles to arrange their plan of defense, to think of what they should say, to premeditate for one moment on the best way of present ing their cause, or on the strongest arguments to be ad vanced; for they were to give themselves no more con cern about their speeches than children three years old. THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 347 Why ? " It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaketh in you." Why ? " It is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." Why ? " The Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say." If this is not the promise of an inspiration that should extend to the very words, and dictate the very words, it is impossible to express any concept whatever in human language. It is not surprising, therefore, to find at the first oppor tunity for testimony given to the apostles after the death of the Saviour, " They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave then utterance" (Acts ii, 4). There were people in Jerusalem that day from sixteen different countries and provinces, speaking various dialects, and they exclaimed with amazement, " How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" If this is not verbal inspiration no such thing is possible ; for men who knew nothing of foreign languages instan taneously preached the Gospel in these languages, the very words being given to them without the slightest previous education. There is ho way to account for it except by believing that they " began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." But did the inspiration, extending to the words, con tinue with them ? Let us see. The apostle Paul, who was a.n enemy of Christ on the day of Pentecost, says of himself, " Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth " (i Cor. ii, 13). The very words, there fore, were communicated to him by the Holy Ghost. Hence he places his words on the same high plane of au thority with the words of the Lord Jesus : " Unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord. . . . But to the rest speak I, not the Lord ; " and they were under 348 ANTI-HIGIIER CRITICISM. equal obligation to obey both. A man came running up the other day, thinking that he had a strong argument against the apostle's claim of inspiration, and saying, " Paul wrote, ' I speak this by permission, and not of com mandment.'" He was flattened out with a single question : " From whom did he obtain permission ? " So it is with the oft-quoted text, " I think also that I have the Spirit of God." Read it as the Revised Version properly gives the translation, and notice the immense difference in the meaning: " I think that I also have the Spirit of God." Do the Judaizing teachers who deny my apostolic au thority claim that they speak by the Spirit ? "I think that I also have the Spirit of God ; " and thus he reproves their insolence with a biting sarcasm. But what he afterward says sets the question com pletely at rest. " If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord " (i Cor. xiv, 37). Again he writes : " For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe" (i Thess. ii, 13). The conclusion he draws from this is logical and inevitable : " He therefore that de spiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit " (i Thess. iv, 8). So it is with the other writers of the New Testament. James writes, " Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain. The spirit that he placed in us jealously desireth us ? " (James iv, 5.) Peter writes a second epistle, that we " may be mindful of the words which were spoken be fore by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour " (2 Peter iii, 2), putting the commandment of the apostles side by side TriE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 349 with the authority of the words spoken by holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. John says, " We are of God : he that knoweth God heareth us ; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error " (i John iv, 6). Jude says, " Remember ye the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 17). Everywhere the exhorta tion is, " Hold fast the form of sound words " (2 Tim. i, 13); "Preach the word" (2 Tim. iv, 2); "Holding fast the faithful word " (Titus i, 9). " For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two- edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents ofthe heart " (Heb. iv, 12). Then in the last book we come to the same ad monition in substance that is found in the last book of the Pentateuch : " I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyman shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book : and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book" (Rev. xxii, 18, 19). UNWILLING WITNESSES. The ass on which Balaam rode with a desire to curse Israel rebuked the madness of the prophet, for " the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? " (Num. xxii, 28.) Even the higher critics must admit that this is a clear case of verbal inspiration, and it will not do for them to say that no such event ever occurred, for this wouljd make the 23 350 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. apostle Peter a liar, and perhaps they are not yet pre pared to go to such lengths (2 Peter ii, 16). Balaam himself said to Balak, " Lo, I am come unto thee : have I now any power at all to say anything ? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak." Accordingly, " The Lord met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said. Go again unto Balak, and say thus." The king was greatly grieved because the curse was turned into a blessing; but Balaam an swered and said unto Balak, " Told not I thee, saying. All that the Lord speaketh, that I must do?" Once more the king complained, and Balaam said, " If Balak vifould give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind ; but what the Lord saith, that wiU I speak" (Num. xxiii, 16, 26; xxiv, 13). Here, then, we have a man who was willing to do Balak's bidding, but was compelled to speak the very words which God put into his mouth, giving another illustra tion of verbal inspiration. So it was with Saul, to whom Samuel said, " The Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man " (i Sam. x, 6). This occurred twice in the history of Saul ; and even of his messengers, whom he sent to take David, we are told that " when they saw the com pany of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them, the Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied " (i Sam. xix, 20). There is no way of accounting for such a scene unless we acknowledge that the Spirit of God forced these men to give expression to words they were unwill ing to utter. " Behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel." He was sent to THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 35 1 proclaim the wrath of Jehovah upon Jeroboam for the idolatrous worship which the king had there established, and he was forbidden to eat bread or to drink water in the place. " Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel," and hearing from his sons of all that had occurred he hastened after the other prophet and informed him that an angel commanded him to be the guest of the prophet of Bethel. " And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back : and he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the Lord did say to thee. Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulcher of thy fathers. And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him : and his carcass was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcass " (i Kings xiii, 1-24). The poor, foolish, slain prophet did not know what the apostle knew when he wrote, " Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed " (Gal. i, 8). The prophet who brought him back, under the pretense that an angel had reversed the divine com mand, "lied unto him," and was obliged most unwill ingly to pronounce the doom of his guest; while the lion may stand for the devil, as he is so represented in Scripture (r Peter v, 8), and the ass for the theological professor who denies the authority and inerrancy of the 352 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. word of God, and looks down with feeble rumination on the dead body of the disobedient servant of the Lord. "One of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them. Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself" (John xi, 49-51). If he did not speak this of himself it is obvious that the Spirit of God put the words in his mouth, making him an unwilling witness of the purpose and results of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can those who deny verbal inspiration explain the facts here mentioned ? Men were forced by supernatural power to bear testimony which they never would have given if left to themselves ; and it is easier to disbelieve the entire Bible than to deny that both holy men of God, and sometimes even wicked men, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. An old Christian, who told a higher critic that he believed everything in the Bible, was asked by the learned gentleman whether it was not at least a strange narrative which informs us that an ass opened its mouth and spake like a man ? "No," he quietly replied, "it does not seem half so strange as when a man opens his mouth and speaks like an ass." All the difficulties that gather about miracles and about verbal in.spiration instantly disappear when faith brings God upon the scene. ^ THE NAMES OF SCRIPTURE. These are sufficient to show that the Bible is not only unlike any other book, and above all other books, but that the charge brought against it by the higher critics, that it is full of errors and mistakes — a charge refuted a thousand times — is without a shadow of foundation. Again and again it is called by our Lord " the word of THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE. 353 God " (Mark vii, 13 ; Luke viii, 11 ; xi, 28 ; John x, 35). He says of it in his great intercessory prayer, " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth " (John xvii, 17). It is named "the oracles of God " (Rom. iii, 2). It is " the word of this salvation" (Acts xiii, 26) ; "the word of his grace" (Acts xiv, 3); "the word of the Gospel" (Acts XV, 7); "the word of the Lord" (Acts xv, 35); " the word of reconciliation " (2 Cor. v, 19) ; " the word of truth " (Eph. i, 13) ; " the word of life " (Phil, ii, 16) ; " the word of Christ " (Col, iii, 16) ; " the faithful word " (Titus i, 9) ; ," the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (i Peter i, 23). At least forty times in the New Testament do we read of " the word of God ; " and the Lord Jesus plainly declares, " He that is of God heareth God's words " (John viii, 47). It is impossible that such a book can contain errors and mistakes, as it came from the hands of men to whom and through whom God was pleased to reveal his truth and will. WHAT THE BIBLE DOES FOR US. By it we are begotten. " Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth " (James i, 18). By it we are born again. " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God " ( t Peter i, 23). By it we grow. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby " (i Peter ii, 2.) By it we are built up. " And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up " (Acts xx, 32). By it we are sanctified. " Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word " (Eph. v, 25, 26). By it we are defended. " Take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God " (Eph. vi, 17). By it the secrets of the heart are laid bare. " The word of 354 ANTI-HIGHER CRITICISM. God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two- edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart " (Heb. iv, 12). A book of which these things are truth fully affirmed cannot contain historic, or scientific, or any other kind of error or mistake. But why seek to enumerate its manifold excellences and virtues ? Speaking of these the translators of our common version well say, " And what marvel ? the origi nal thereof being from heaven, not from the earth ; the author being God, not man ; the inditer, the Holy Spirit, not the wit of the apostles and prophets ; the penmen such as were sanctified from the womb, and endued with a principal portion of God's Spirit ; the matter, verity, piety, purity, uprightness; the form, God's word, God's testimony, God's oracles, the word of truth, the word of salvation, etc. ; the effects, light of understanding, stable- ness of persuasion, repentance from dead works, newness of life, holiness, peace, joy in the Holy Gho.st ; lastly, the end and reward thereof, fellowship with the saints, par ticipation of the heavenly nature, fruition of an inherit ance immortal, undefiled, and that shall never fade away. Happy is the man that delighteth in the Scripture, and thrice happy that meditateth in it day and night." THE END. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 05047 7109