Chapter VI

Hifting the burden of proof is one of the commonest tricks of casuistry. By this artifice Infidelity would inveigle us into allowing a presumption against the existence of a written revelation. But, as has been well said, ‘Agnosticism assumes a double incompetence — the incompetence not only of man to know God, but of God to make Himself known. But the denial of competence is the negation of Deity. For the God who could not speak would not be rational, and the God who would not speak would not be moral.” And the author of these words! sums up his argument by declaring that “the idea of a written revelation may be said to be logically involved in the notion of a living God.” This might be stated much more strongly. What should we think of a man who, living in wealth in some distant colony, never communi-

* Principal Fairbairn, of Oxford.
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Cu. VI.] THE TESTIMONY OF LAWYERS 65

cated with his family in England, even though aware of their being in perplexity and trouble and want?! It seems inconceivable that a good and loving God could leave His offspring without a revelation during their sojourn in a world so full of doubt and care and sorrow and sin. But these pages are- addressed to Christians, and every Christian believes that we have a revelation. In spite of all that has been said about it, indeed, some of us believe that the Bible is the Word of God. But this only proves our want of intelligence. For, we are assured, no one believes it nowadays unless he is ‘a brainless idiot.” 2 The study of the law, Edmund Burke declares, “does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than all other kinds of learning put together.” Here then is the mature and deliberate testimony of a great lawyer: ‘‘ Frequent perusals of the Old and New Testament have satisfied him that each is an inspired work, such as no wisdom of man could have framed; and further, that the earlier Revelation is inseparably connected with the later, as the acorn is connected

x Even among criminals it is only the most degraded of men who forget their families.

2 If the author I quote were living I should pillory him by giving his name. But as he has gong to his account, I abstain

from doing so. 6 with the oak which springs from it.”! This ‘brainless idiot” was Lord Chancellor of England.

Among the other “brainless idiots” who have in the full blaze of modern “culture” cherished this despised belief in the Bible, may be reckoned his immediate successor, Lord Cairns, the greatest Lord Chancellor of modern times. I am assured that Lord Selborne may be classed in the same category. And to them may be added two other very eminent lawyers and judges, Lord Justice Lush and Mr. Justice Archibald. In such company no one need be ashamed of belonging to the guild of the “brainless idiots.” And if the faith of the Christian rested on such a basis, it might be shown that that guild includes not a few of the greatest of living scholars and thinkers.

But it is not because the Bible is accredited by the faith of eminent and saintly men that the Christian reverences it as the Word of God. And it is for the Christian I am writing. Were it otherwise, my argument would run on wholly different lines. And if any one demands my definition of a Christian, I may answer, for my present purpose, every one who accepts the

* Lord Hatherley’s Continuity of Scripture.

Cu. VI.] CHRIST ACCREDITS THE BIBLE 67

«‘ Apostles’ Creed”; every one who believes that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Only-begotten Son of God. Now the only rational basis for such a belief is a Divine revelation. The man who denies the inspiration of the Gospels, and yet believes in the Incarnation, is, J repeat, a credulous person who would believe anything. With the honest agnostic or infidel I should wish to discuss this question in a patient and sympathetic spirit; but with fools I have neither sympathy nor patience. Here, however, I am addressing neither honest infidels nor credulous fools, but Christians whose faith is being undermined by both.

And the moment we accept the Gospels as a Divine revelation, we have done with that protégé of the critics, the ‘“‘ historic Jesus,” and we stand in the presence of our Divine Lord and Saviour. And from His hands it is that we receive the Hebrew Scriptures. Three times over in the Temptation He appealed to the Book of Deuteronomy as the Word of God — His only defence and answer to the. Devil’s arguments and claims. And in the Sermon on the Mount He says: «Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 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.” The “jot” is the smallest letter in the alphabet; the “tittle” is one of the smallest strokes — minute points and projections, by which certain letters are distinguished. No language could express more unequivocally the Divine authority of every detail of ‘the law and the prophets.”! —

And in His teaching after the resurrection, we are told, ‘“‘ Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”2 Dean Alford’s note upon this is so admirable and so apt, that I cannot refrain from quoting it. The “things concerning Himself,” he says, ‘mean something very different from mere prophetical passages. The whole Scriptures are a testimony to flim: the whole history of the chosen people,. with its types, and its law, and its prophecies, is: a shewing forth of Flim. And it was here ¢he whole that He laid out before them... the

* “A book partly legend, partly dishonest legend, fabrications for a purpose, with history which is not history, with a Levitical code made 1000 years after the time of Moses,... — can such a book as this be one to which the Son of God puts the solemn declaration above given?” — Higher Criticism, What is it? By Rev. Robert Sinker, D.D., of Cambridge, p. 170.

? Luke xxiv. 27.

Cu. VI.] THE CRITICS DISCREDIT CHRIST 69

meaning of the whole, as a whode, fulfilled in Him.”

That this was the Lord’s estimate of the Hebrew Scriptures I need not delay to prove. For it is not disputed. The Higher Critics acknowledge it, and as it bars advance in their sceptical crusade against the Bible,they give it prominent notice. To avoid risk of misrepresentation, I always like to state the views of opponents in their own words. So I turn again to the most up-to-date and accredited text-book of the Higher Criticism. And here I read: ‘“Both Christ and the apostles or writers of the New Testament held the current Jewish notions respecting the Divine authority and revelation of the Old Testament.”!

How inferior the Christ of these critics is to themselves, both in spiritual and natural intelligence! But the profanity of the words, and the folly and conceit which they betoken, will be plain to every Christian. What the decoy is to the libertine, these men are, though unwittingly, to the avowed infidel. Just as a pure woman is insidiously trained to hear language and to tolerate suggestions which in time prepare the way for

* Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, article “Old Testament,” p. 601.

advances of a kind that at first would have excited disgust and anger; so the holy and healthy spiritual instincts of the Christian are gradually deadened by his becoming accustomed to hear his Divine Lord thus patronised and disparaged.

“Writings of this character are far more dangerous to the simple-minded Christian than any direct attack on his Master. They are very shockingly irreverent. A patronising tone is assumed, which exhibits the critic as presuming to judge Him who, we believe, will be our Judge.” These weighty words, which the Christian will do well to ponder, are from the pen of one of the Lord Chancellors whom I have already quoted.

If the subject were not too sad and too solemn for ridicule, I would illustrate this teaching by applying it in another sphere. Why should not a man have two wives?

The question will provoke a wild scream of indignation: in view of the teaching of the New Testament, how can any one dare to raise it? Yes, the teaching of the New Testament is explicit, but “both Christ and the apostles or writers of the New Testament held the current Jewish notions respecting” marriage. The importance of the question of marriage is absolutely trivial in comparison with that of the character and authority of Holy Scripture. And if the testimony of the Gospels and Epistles on the one question may be thus evaded, it is mere trifling to appeal to it on the other. If the Higher Critics’ estimate of the Bible be a just one, then, in view of the history of the Patriarchs, the position of woman and the sacredness of marriage must be classed with the superstitions which the Christian religion has borrowed from a degenerate Judaism.

Most true it is that the Lord Jesus Christ was man, and that “being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself.” Within certain limits therefore, Kenoszs! theories have their place. But not upon the question here at issue. To assert that His teaching had no higher authority than that of man, is a perilous position for a Christian to assume. But even if we could for the sake of argument concede this, it would not touch the fact that the same Holy Spirit who inspired mere men to speak from God, was given to Him without measure; and on that Divine fact He based His claim to speak “the words of God.”?

What mean such statements as these, ‘‘ He that rejecteth Me and receiveth not My words hath

A Greek word, the noun of the verb used in Phil. ii. 7. (“He emptied Himself,” R.V.) 2 John iii. 34.

one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.”! And again, “Believest thou not that Iam in the Father, and the Father in Me? Zhe words that I speak unto you, 1 speak not of Myself.”2 In view of such language, we can understand His solemn declaration, ‘“‘ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but JLy words shall not pass away.” 3

“The Word was made flesh and dweltamong us, full of grace and truth” — not grace only, but TRUTH; for “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” 4 Hence His testimony to Himself, “I am the light of the world;”5 “TI am the way, the truth, and the life.”® And yet we are told deliberately by men who claim to be Christians and Christian ministers, that His whole teaching respecting matters of vital importance in relation to faith and morals, was steeped in ignorance and superstition. For let the facts be kept clearly in view: we are called “brainless idiots” for believing that the Old Testament is the Word of God; and yet in this we are merely following our Divine Lord.

* John xii. 48, 49.? Ibid. xiv. ro. 3 Luke xxi. 33. SSfohnias TA). 17: 5 Ibid viii. 12. Ibid xiv. 6.

It is not easy to write calmly upon this subject, but I will maintain a studied reserve. Let the plain facts speak. I claim the utmost attention to them, for their importance is immense. The Higher Critics admit that ‘the Divine authority and revelation of the Old Testament” was expressly taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. But to avoid the consequences of this admission, they represent that in this matter the Lord was the dupe of “a current Jewish notion,” or in other words, of an ignoranterror. And this, remember, is not the position or language of the extreme section represented by Professor Cheyne, but of the “cautious” and “conservative” English critics of Professor Driver’s school.

To raise the question, as some do, whether the Lord was versed in higher mathematics or the discoveries of modern science, would be a mere quibble were it not for its profanity. And the objection that in childhood He must have been subject to the limitations of childhood is wholly irrelevant. For it is with the Christ of the Ministry that we have to do. And the question does not relate to limitations upon knowledge in matters as to which He was silent, but to ignorance leading to teaching which the critics allege to be false and mischievous, on subjects of vital moment to His disciples and to the Church for all time. But even this is not all. When He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, not only did He not revise the teaching of the days of His humiliation, but He repeated it with increased definiteness.!

Counsel in a lawsuit has sometimes to advise that unless some adverse witness can be discredited, the case must collapse. In this Higher Criticism campaign, the witness who must be discredited is our Divine Lord. No straining of the doctrine of the Kenoszs will cover this: it brings us within sight of the great Anti-christian apostasy of the latter days.?

As we proceed, then, let us keep these two facts clearly in view. First, that the Lord Jesus Christ regarded the Old Testament as Divinely inspired in the very sense in which all these critics repudiate inspiration; and secondly, that

* The “Jesus” of Matthew Arnold, the agnostic, is “manifestly above the heads of his reporters” (Lit. and Dogma, Pref. 1888); the “Jesus” of these writers who claim to be Christians, is manifestly on a level with them.

2 There lies before meas IJ write, the current number of a weekly religious paper which has done yeoman’s service in the Higher Criticism crusade. It contains a fierce attack upon Prof. Cheyne and the third volume of his Encyclopzdia. I turn the page to find a notice of an able and valuable little book of the Rev. David M’Intyre, of Glasgow, entitled The Divine Authority of the Scriptures of the Old Testament; and here I read, “All this citation the only escape from that conclusion is to disparage either His teaching or the record of it. And this is to destroy Christianity altogether. Even Professor Cheyne and his school accept the personality of ‘‘the historic Jesus.” He was they tell us, ‘‘undoubtedly a devout Jew;” and as the traditional teaching of this traditional Jesus is superior to that of Mahomet or Gautama, “the Christian religion” would no doubt survive the collapse of Christianity. But that is not what concerns us here. The Christian is not the votary of the best of all human religions. He is the recipient of a Divine revelation which has brought Him the knowledge of salvation in a personal Saviour, and has made him the redeemed disciple of a personal Lord and Master. We are followers, not of the historic Jesus of the critics — the dead Buddha of nineteen centuries ago — but of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son

of passages is useless, unless it first be made good that our Lord’s knowledge of critical questions was different from that of his contemporaries.” This suggests Dr. Pusey’s words, “I know not whether the open blasphemy of the eighteenth century is more offensive than the cold-blooded patronising ways of the nineteenth.” Can anything well go further than this — that in His apprehension of the very Scriptures which testified of Himself, our Lord was less intelligent than the editor and staff of this newspaper! I would wish to believe that the words were written hurriedly and thoughtlessly.

of God, who “died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” 3

Now any clear thinker can see that if, in the words I have just quoted, ‘the Scriptures” mean mere human records, this whole system rests upon a foundation of sand. The death of “the historic Jesus” is a fact so well accredited that no transcendental proof of it is needed. But that “Christ died for our sizs” is a fact which nothing but a Divine revelation could possibly accredit. Therefore it is that those who give up inspiration generally end in giving up the atonement, —

But Christ ‘rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.” Nhat Scriptures? The reference is to the Old Testament, of course. But where does the Old Testament tell us that Christ would die for our sins and rise again the third day? Here comes in the force of Dean Alford’s words: “The whole Scriptures are a testimony to Him; the whole history of the chosen people, with its types, its law, and its prophecies.”

But just as the unbelieving Jews were entirely taken up with the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He was nothing to them but “the

* 1 Cor. xv. 3.

Cu. VI.] TWO SIDES TO THE TAPESTRY 77

carpenter’s son,” so these critics are engrossed with the human side of Scripture. Its deep spiritual significance they ignore. They study the tapestry upon the wrong side, and write ponderous tomes replete with important and useful information of every kind about the materials used in the making of it, and the men who wove it, and the marvellous way it was put together at different periods and how it has been preserved to our own day. But its chief defect — natural enough, having regard to its history — is the utter want of design or pattern of any kind. We, however, who look at the fabric upon the upper side are filled with admiration at its symmetry and beauty. And as we think of the Master mind that planned it, and mark the way in which every detail of His plan has been realised, all that those who are busy plodding at the other side of it can tell us serves only to deepen our wonder and to increase our delight.