Bible claim to be a canon? Does the word " canon ever occur in the Bible? And by what authority does the writer speak of “sacred Scripture"? How often does the word "sacred" occur in the Bible? in the Bible at all? Is it not

Is the word "sacred
an ecclesiastical word?
form a priest's word?
lenged" as to the ground on which I describe the
Bible as "the Word of God," I in my turn may
"boldly challenge" the challenger to give me his
biblical authority for calling the Bible a canon, or
calling the Bible "sacred Scripture."

Is it not in its very face and
When I am "boldly chal-

The Christian Church should welcome all the light and aid of the best scholarship in the elucidation of the Bible. There is no orthodoxy so despicable as that which sneers at scholarship. I want all the help I can get in endeavoring to make out the purpose and meaning of the Bible. If the Bible as a whole is not the Word of God, I wish to know it. Superstition is mischievous. Prejudice hurts the soul. Do let us encourage reverent and competent scholars to dig deeply and speak fearlessly. It is in this spirit that I am about to make a revolutionary suggestion.

Why not re-edit and reconstruct the canon in the light of present-day knowledge? The form might be changed; the substance would remain. The formation of the canon was a human work. The Bible as we have it was never seen either by the prophets or the apostles. If the best scholarship of the Church is prepared to prove that there are literal, historical, chronological errors in the Bible, why not cut them out? Why not publish a revised canon as well as a revised version? If you meddle with the human side of the Bible at all, why not meddle with it thoroughly? I venture to think that this would be turning orthodox scholarship to the best use. It is high time we got rid of all false traditions. I would not spare them on the ground of their age, I would abolish them on the ground of their unfaithfulness. Do let us, I repeat, get down as far as possible to the rock of reality. If "the early Fathers took over from the rabbis a collection of baseless theories," let us get rid of them. If "the only evidence in support of their claims is found in the traditions themselves," let us plainly denominate them false witnesses. If "Canticles and Ecclesiastes are not Solomonic but post-exilic," reconstruct the canon

accordingly. We may correct a date without disturbing a morality. Scholars will, of course, be very sure of their ground before they rearrange the canon, but being sure of it they should take a definite course, stopping at the point where their knowledge ceases. If we know the errors before sending out the Book, why not keep back the Book until we have corrected the errors? I press the inquiry. If we cannot re-edit the whole, why not re-edit a part? Why not undertake the work within the lines of the Hexateuch? Why shrink from re-dating and resigning the Psalms? I press the inquiry in the hope that the answer will be that the task is in the main impossible. Probably the answer will be that the truth and the error, the factual and the moral, the local and the universal, are so intermixed that useful separation cannot be effected. That would be an important admission, because

First: It would help to show that Revelation is given within the only setting or framework which is possible-faulty

because of human infirmity: incomplete because of human imperfection— and

Secondly: That, therefore, we now have in the Bible the only framework of revelation that can substantially represent the many centuries of evolution and growth through which biblical history has passed.

What if the canon itself cannot be substantially amended? Who knows how far divine inspiration may have directed its contents and construction? If there is a perpetual inspiration, who can say with definiteness and authority that when wise and holy men undertook to build the temple of the Bible they were forsaken of God?

II.

THE PERMANENT QUANTITY.

HERE is a permanent quantity in the Bible

THE

about whose inspiration the Christian Church is substantially agreed. Probably we shall never have a definition of inspiration which does not itself need to be defined. By inspiration I mean a statement, doctrine, message, or discipline, which separates itself from all ordinary thinking, which so far separates itself as to throw ordinary thinking into obvious contrast, and which associates itself with such a quality of moral discipline as to exclude the idea that itself can be the fantasy of a wanton imagination. I lay much stress upon the quality of the discipline; it is not mere pain; it is not a trick of vanity; it is not a sordid spectacle set up for sordid uses: on the contrary, it searches the heart; it purifies the motive; it abases and chastens the imagina