III. THE ORIGINS. HAT are some of the main results, in reference WHA to biblical criticism, from a popular point of view, which recent inquiry has for the moment accepted? The inquirers are, I cannot too clearly and impressively repeat, our friends and companions in the kingdom and patience of Jesus, and their supreme object is not negative but positive, not destructive but constructive. They are not excelled by any of us in their ardent love of those which they believe to be inspired. parts of the Bible Less and less, as life advances, am I disposed to wrangle with antichristian or infidel critics, even though they come from a foreign country and overbear us with rugged names. I am not afraid of them. They come and go like epidemics. It is infinitely otherwise with brethren whom we love and honor, and whose holy example is amongst us like a light from heaven. What, then, are some of the main positions which our friends invite us to accept? In a popular and general form they may be stated thus: I. Some biblical books are either anonymous or pseudonymous. 2. Inspiration does not guarantee historical accuracy. 3. Some biblical books are wrong in date, wrong in numbers, wrong in chronology, and misplaced in canonical order. 4. Biblical authorship, or editorship, is composite: Bible representations of some great events are dual and even conflicting, as, for example, the two accounts of the Creation and the two genealogies of Christ. 5. The Bible is "the inspired record of the Word of God." If we had to deal with experts only, no difficulty of an insurmountable kind need arise in connection with these positions; but as preachers we have to deal largely with novices whose instinctive judgments ought to be regarded, lést in treading them down we do violence even to some rude form and expression of the kingdom of God. These judgments may be generally indicated thus: If the Bible is wrong in history, what guarantee is there that it is right in morals? If the Bible is not a reliable guide in facts, how do we know that it is a trustworthy guide in doctrines? If there are two creations, why may there not be two resurrections? If there are two genealogies, why not two Christs? If the Bible is untrustworthy upon points which we can definitely test, how do we know that it is to be depended upon in matters we cannot prove? These inquiries may be crudely put as to form, yet they are neither unreasonable nor unnatural, nor are they to be treated with professional haughtiness or contempt. Pedantry may sneer at them, but scholarship never sneers; scholarship often pities, and always helps. Scholarship is patient. To patience scholarship owes its riches. The inquiries, then, are popular, perhaps rude, perhaps shallow, but not, therefore, insincere. In view of such in quiries, and in the very degree in which they express an excitement which may cool into unbelief, may not popery claim to have a good defense when it insists upon revelation passing to the people only through the channel of the priest? Popery says, in effect, "The Bible is literature; only scholars can understand it; it is written in many languages absolutely locked against the populace; let the priest deal it out discreetly; do not throw pearls before swine; let the Church keep all the keys." And does not Protestantism pass the Bible to the people, in some instances, through a kind of popery of its own, even through a kind of monastic uniqueness of learning, which can only be understood by experts and specialists? I ask the question in the hope that it can be answered in the negative. I am jealous lest the Bible should in any sense be made a priest's book. Even Baur or Colenso may, contrary to his own wishes, be almost unconsciously elevated into a literary deity under whose approving nod alone we can read the Bible with any edification. It is no secret that when Baur rejected the Epistle to the Philippians as un-Pauline Christian Europe became partially paralyzed, and that when Hilgenfeld pro nounced it Pauline Christian Europe resumed its prayers. Have we to await a communication from Tübingen, or a telegram from Oxford, before we can read the Bible? The Bible is not the Bible to me because Herr Baur countersigns it, but because it reveals, as no other book has yet revealed, the almightiness and the all-love of the Eternal God. We are cautioned, however, against calling the Bible the Word of God. It is said to be so mixed up with human error that such a designation might give a false impression. But is not a false impression of exactly the same kind given about the earth when we say "THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S"? We may not, according to some teachers, say the Bible is the Word of God, but we may say the earth How do we know that the earth is is the Lord's. We ought to produce our authority for the bold assertion. Astute ob servers have not hesitated to say that whoever made the world, whatever else he might be he certainly was not almighty. John Stuart Mill ("Theism") says |