Chapter IX
A T the time when Mr. Gladstone’s” Impreg-
/ nable Rock of Holy Scripture” appeared, he Jl Aused language which seemed to imply that the Old Testament controversy was no exception to the general rule that we ought to keep an open mind on every question. I wrote to ask him if such was his meaning, as it seemed inconsistent with his book. And the following is an extract from his reply: —
“I do not recommend an open mind on the Old Testament, otherwise than as on all questions we ought according to our opportunities and the circumstances of the case to have an open mind.”
In my letter to Mr. Gladstone I urged that even in human affairs there were some questions about which no man worthy of respect would keep an open mind.
This characteristic letter seems worth preserving, apart from the special question at issue. It reminds me of an Irish story. A peasant refused to vote for his priest’s candidate at an election. “I don’t say I’ll do it,” said the priest, “and I don’t say I won’t, but take care I don’t turn you into a rat when you’re crossing your door going home.” The man had a bad time with his wife on the road: “What was to become of her and the farm if he was turned into a rat?” But “he wasn’t afraid: not all the priests in Ireland could turn him into a rat.” This lasted till he got home, when he stopped dead and whispered to his wife, “Sure you might just slip in in front of me, Biddy darlint, and tie up the dog!”
What a scoundrel a man would be, for example, who treated in this way the question of his wife’s honour! Inquiry may be needed; and if facts confront him he must act on them. But he makes no delay in deciding the matter one way or other; and if he finds the accusation to be false, he clings to her with deepened confidence.
And to the Christian the honour of his Lord is as dear as the honour of his wife. We accept the Hebrew Scriptures, not by grace of the Critics, but in virtue of the imprimatur of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let this fact be kept steadily in view, unembarrassed by either sophistry or clamour.
That imprimatur is no bar, I again repeat, to the most free and searching inquiry and criticism, provided it be intelligent, and honest, and reverent. For “the Mosaic Books,” in their outward form, have survived the vicissitudes of five-and-thirty centuries, and they may have suffered at the hands of copyists, and possibly, too, of pious editors. ,But to raise the issue whether they are God-breathed Scriptures is to bring into question the authority of Christ. “If ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me, for he wrote of Me.” By the Master’s acceptance of them, all questions about their origin and character are set at rest.
When theologians quarrel over questions of another kind, such, for example, as whether certain Divine prophecies contained in the book of Isaiah were uttered by that prophet or by some other, “A plague on both your houses” describes the attitude of ordinary men of the world. But no honest-minded man will dismiss the present issue in this way. For the question involved is whether writings which our Divine Lord reverenced as God-breathed, to be acted on and fulfilled in His life and ministry and death, are not in fact forgeries and frauds.
The book of Leviticus opens thus: “And the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation.” And as we open the book of Numbers we read: “And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt.” And throughout these two books this formula is repeated more than a hundred times; and the occurrences of “the great and terrible name” of Jehovah are nearer a thousand than a hundred — a name held in such supreme reverence by the Jews that they never utter it, even in reading the Scriptures.
But according to “the critical hypothesis” these books are a mere romance. There never was a “tabernacle of the congregation “; and all the words thus put into the mouth of Jehovah are the invention of priests.
The characteristic honesty of the Anglo-Saxon mind shows itself in antipathy to priestcraft. But in fairness we must admit that the evil records of priestcraft contain nothing quite so bad as this. If the Critics’ theory is right, there is a thorough wantonness about the profanity of the “Mosaic Books.” Some of the chapters indeed might compare in this respect with the utterances of that sort of blasphemer who cannot put two sentences together without dragging in the Sacred Name.
And He whom Christians own as their Divine Lord and Saviour was deceived and duped by this fraud! And it is owing to His baneful teaching that these books are still read in every Christian Church and every Christian home!
I make no apology for again recurring to this, for it cannot be repeated too often or kept too prominently in view. There was no reserve in the Lord’s claim to Divine authority for all His teaching. “The Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak.” “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself “; “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” These are but specimens of His frequent utterances to the same effect. But if the Critics are right, all this was bombast, worthy of a new “Elijah” from Chicago. They tell us that He was duped by error so transparent that any one of us who has honesty and brains can detect it; and that when afterwards He came to discover it was error He adhered to it on grounds of policy.
Carefully veiled or entirely ignored by some of the Critics, this is essential to their scheme, and without it their whole position is untenable.
If immorality can induce its intended victims to listen to its vile overtures, its triumph is almost assured. And the pseudo-Criticism has practically “won its war” when Christians are betrayed into a discussion of this blasphemy. My purpose is not to discuss it, but to denounce it. These pages are not written to prove that the Lord Jesus Christ has not
*John xii. 49. John xiv. 10. Luke xxi. ZZmisled and deceived His people by His teaching about the Hebrew Scriptures: their aim is to impress on men that this is the real issue in this controversy.
Surely the time must come when men of intelligence and common-sense will awake from this nightmare, and, coming out into the open light of truth and reason, will boldly take sides and choose between Christianity and RationaHsm. For the one position is as impregnable as the other. More than this, while they who own the authority of the Bible are consistent and logical in their faith, they who take refuge in the authority of the Church are consistent and logical in their superstition. But the man who has neither a Divinely accredited Bible nor a Divinely accredited Church, and yet believes in Christianity, is intellectually contemptible. The great elephant of his transcendental creed has not even a great tortoise to rest upon!
A clear and fearless thinker like Dr. Harnack takes his stand firmly on the bedrock of Rationalism. And the Christian rests with confidence upon the sure Word of his Divine Lord. But (to parody the poet’s words) this sort of man has too much ‘’ scholarship “for the one side, and too much Christianity for the other, and so he helplessly “hangs between.”
There are many who, by some evil instinct, delight in every attack upon the Bible, just as there are some who have a ready ear for what tends to a wife’s discredit. For such we have nothing but contempt. But I appeal to the mass of men, who reverence the Scriptures, and Him of whom the Scriptures speak, not to allow themselves to be coerced or cajoled into accepting the decrees of the pseudo-Criticism by the blatant boast that all intelligence and all scholarship are upon its side.^
By a certain social coterie the term “Society ‘’ is limited to those who are within its ranks; and with the pseudo-Critics the test of scholarship is acceptance of their position. But even if the boast were as well founded as it is false, it would weigh nothing with the Christian, for he would remember the Master’s words, “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.” ’
Nineteen centuries have passed since Christ was born in Bethlehem, and yet His name is still unknown to half the population of the world. In comparatively recent years the Church has been aroused to its responsibilities in this respect; and, as the result, the Gospel has achieved successes unparalleled since Apostolic days. But it is not “the Christian religion” of the Critics which has won these triumphs. Faith in the Bible as the Word of God has forced men out; and God, whose Word it is, has placed His seal upon their
As I write my eye falls on the Times obituary notice of the late Provost of Trinity College, Dublin (23d January 1904). It justly says that “It is given to few men to attain to the first rank in two distinct provinces,” but Dr. Salmon’s world-wide fame as a mathematician was equalled by his fame as a theologian. He was deemed “the most learned of Irish theologians since Ussher’s time.” In view of the attitude maintained by such men, the sceptic’s claim to have all the scholarship is absolutely intolerable.
‘Matt. xi. 25.
testimony. But this sceptical crusade against the Bible must tend to kill all enthusiasm in missionary work.
And more than this, in countries like China and India, where missionaries come face to face with educated men who are in touch with the religious thought of Christendom, their efforts are embarrassed, if not paralysed, by this evil influence. A Bible permeated by romance and superstition and error may satisfy the pseudo-Critics, but it is rejected with scorn by those who revere the sacred books of the East.
The following extracts from an article which lately appeared in a Mahometan Review will show how this leaven is working in India. After quoting some of the standard works of the pseudo-Critics, the writer proceeds: —
*’ Thus has the Bible been swept away as a straw before the mighty current of modern criticism, and such was the fate it deserved. It is not the unmixed Word of God, it is not unerring.... But if the Bible is erroneous in certain parts, while other parts of it contain some truth, what tests do the Christians have in their hands for distinguishing truth from error? If it is reason, then the Christian faith must openly avow itself to be based on reason and not on revelation. But if their test is revelation, surely some pure and trustworthy revelation free from error is required to sift the truth from the falsehood contained in the Bible. This revelation is found in the Holy Qoran, for it is the only book on the face of the earth which claims to be the true and unmixed Word of God, and hence its own necessity as the pure Divine Word. We are glad to see that the view which the Holy Qoran took of the Bible has at last been admitted by even the missionaries.
“The truth of the Higher Criticism and the error of the
Bible being once recognised, it is difficult to see how the Christian religion can stand for one moment,... We hope that the Christian missionaries will plainly avow these truths and condemn the false belief of the Divinity of Jesus.”
The critics are too much infatuated with their criticisms to care for these things; but they will not be ignored by intelligent and thoughtful men of the world.
To such I commend the following words from the pen of a great scholar and theologian. Written more than half a century ago, they betokened almost prophetic insight. In his commentary on the passage in the Sermon on the Mount, which I have cited on a preceding page. Dean Alford writes: —
“It is important to observe in these days how the Lord here includes the Old Testament and all its unfolding of the Divine purposes regarding Himself in His teaching of the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. I say this, because it is always in contempt and setting aside of the Old Testament that Rationalism has begun. First, its historical truth — then its theocratic dispensation and the types and prophecies connected with it, are swept away; so that Christ came to fulfil nothing, and becomes only a teacher or a martyr; and thus the way is paved for a similar rejection of the New Testa-
The Review of Religions, Punjab, May, 1903. I have taken this from the Record of 26th June. Since the above was written, a letter received from a relative — one of the oldest and most trusted of the Church Missionary Society missionaries in North-West India — mentions a visit paid him by a leading Mahometan, and says: “He talked much about the Higher Criticism, saying that everybody knew now that the Christian’s Bible was not inspired, and therefore not the Word of God at all, and so of course very inferior to the Qoran.”
ment — beginning with the narratives of the birth and infancy as theocratic myths — advancing to the denial of His miracles — then attacking the truthfulness of His own sayings which are grounded on the Old Testament as a revelation from God — and so finally leaving us nothing in the Scriptures but, as a German writer of this school has expressed it, * a mythology not so attractive as that of Greece.’ That this is the course which unbelief has run in Germany, should be a pregnant warning to the decriers of the Old Testament among ourselves. It should be a maxim for every expositor and every student that Scripture is a whole, and stands or falls together.” ’
Dean Alford was no stranger to the “Higher Criticism.” Not even the “Essays and Reviews” had appeared when he wrote these words; but he was well versed in the German literature upon the subject. And has anything since transpired to weaken their force? Archaeological research has been rewarded by unprecedented success, but every discovery tends to confirm the truth of the Bible. Can anyone point to a single exception?
But with the Critics, as Professor Sayce indignantly declares —
“Baseless assumptions have been placed on a level with ascertained facts, hasty conclusions have been put forward as principles of science, and we have been called upon to accept the prepossessions and fancies’ of the individual critic as the revelation of a new gospel. If the archaeologist ventured to suggest that the facts he had discovered did not support the views of the Critic, he was told that he was no philologist. The opinion of a modern German theologian was worth more, at all events in the eyes of his ’ school,’ than the most positive testimony of the monuments of antiquity.”’
Greek Test. (Matt. v. 18). The italics are in the original *” Higher Criticism and the Monuments,” p. 5.
In this, indeed, lies the strength of “the critical position.” Arguments can be refuted, and allegations of fact can be challenged. But a system which rests on assumptions and theories eludes us. It baffles every effort to grapple with it.
The pseudo-Critic, like the Roman Catholic, professes to accept the Bible. But what the Church is to the one, “Modern Criticism” is to the other — a sort of inaccessible Grand Lama whose decrees (unlike the sacred writings) are authoritative and must not be questioned. And by those decrees the Bible must be interpreted. Let the reader study any one of the characteristic articles in Hastings’ “Dictionary” or Cheyne’s “Encyclopedia,” and he will understand my meaning.
Some heresy is started by one of the Critics — generally a German sceptic; others join in a chorus of approval, and their united voice is impersonated as “the best and latest scholarship.” To illustrate this I need not go beyond the Pentateuch heresy. The one and only fact on which the whole superstructure rests is that in the eighteenth year of Josiah “the Book of the Law” was found in the sanctuary (a fact which is explained by the further fact that it had been placed there by Divine command!).^ But the pseudo-Criticism has decided against the genuineness of “the Mosaic Books,” and therefore, of course, Josiah’s “find” must have been a forgery. That decision, as we now know, was based on an ignorant blunder. The testimony of true Higher Criticism is against it, and it is vetoed by the authoritative teaching of the Lord
^2 Kings xxii. 8. Deut. xxxi. 26 (R. V.).
Jesus Christ. But that counts for nothing; for the decrees of the Critics are irreversible. And so this baseless theory, backed up by a plausible parade of the difficulties which beset the “orthodox belief,” is put forward as an “assured result of modern criticism.”
I am not addressing Sunday-school children, but intelligent men of the world, who are competent to refer to the books I mention, and to judge for themselves whether my statement of the matter is not fair and true.