defending? Many will turn to the more practical doctrines of social and physical science. Others will find themselves faced by the question which agitated the churchmen of fifty years ago. The controversy will have changed, but the same practical question will once more arise, Can we safely abide in a Church which has so far departed from the ancient standards of Catholic doctrine? To foretell this issue is not to utter the cry of despair, as some would contemptuously describe it. At least this review shall give no encouragement to faintheartedness. We are persuaded that the truth is on our side. We regret that Professor Cheyne should trouble the faith of many; but we know that the Bible has survived a great deal already, and future generations of the faithful will yet find in it something more divine than traditions and myths, illusions and developed germs. But there is a large class who need some sure basis of belief, and who cannot or will not wait. To them Rome will appeal, and not unsuccessfully, when she offers them dogmatic certainties in the place of historical imaginations. For one whom the Professor rescues from the "spiritual revolt" by his religion made easy, he will land ten in the arms of the Papacy.2 The author of the Bampton Lectures for 1889 has more than once declared that the time for reserve has passed away, and that free utterance must be given to opinions about the Old Testament. We admire his outspoken courage in declaring his convictions, the more so as we do not doubt that it has cost him much to be obliged to run counter to the cherished tenets of many whom he respects. But we cannot concede a monopoly of plain speaking to the side which he represents. The Professor's width of reading demands our admiration; his industry in work and research afford an example to all Biblical scholars. It is natural that as the father of novel opinions he should be fondly blind to the defects of his offspring. We who take an independent view can note the real issue of the course he has adopted. The Bampton Lectures for 1889 must be described as antiChristian in their tendency, albeit this is indeed far from the intention of their author. He honestly believes that his method of exegesis will best promote the cause of real religion. It is right that he should declare his convictions; the Anglican communion has long been wont to shelter many and various opinions within her comprehensive borders. But we do most strongly object to the way in which tentative results have been converted If we did not believe the sincerity of the lecturer, we should be inclined to doubt the honesty of the appeal on p. xxvi. f. to the Evangelicals. Does he not know that confidence in divinely inspired Scriptures is essential to their position? The idea that such men should take part in rationalizing the Bible provokes a smile by its very simplicity. 2 I am far from saying that such souls will find what they seek in Rome. If Mr. Mivart's anecdote is true to fact, and is not a caricature (Nineteenth Century, July, 1887), how that a certain layman, who regarded the Flood as a local inundation in which a priest and his poultry were saved from drowning, was reckoned a very devout [Roman] Catholic, then certainly there is in that body enough scepticism about the Old Testament to satisfy even Professor Cheyne. However, it is fair to add that a very different view of Roman teaching on the inspiration of the Bible was given by the late Cardinal Newman in Nineteenth Century, 1884. into a system to the disturbance of the faith of many. We think we have reason to complain when, under pretence of fortifying the citadel of religion, this congeries of conjectures and hypotheses is built up under the shelter of John Bampton's flag. My old teacher will pardon me if I show that I have learned the lesson he gave, and am "not afraid to express my opinions about the interpretation of the Bible." REPLY TO MR. GWILLIAM. BY REV. PROF. T. K. CHEYNE, D.D. To Mr. Gwilliam (whose work on the Syriac New Testament one esteems so highly) I need only reply that you cannot separate an individual in this way from the movement to which historically he belongs. Not only the scholar whom he incriminates, but all those who at all co-operate with him in the English-speaking countries, have their roots deep down in the Reformation. Those of them who belong to the Anglican Church have as their charter the sixth and the eleventh of the Thirty-nine Articles; they are not, however, primarily Anglicans, but Protestant Christian scholars, and servants of the Churches, and for Christ's sake of many who at present stand outside the Churches. They have a better right to regard themselves as continuators of the Reformation than those who defame them. Evangelical theology sorely needs both purifying and deepening, and this can only be done by having recourse to the fountains of living water contained in and conveyed by the Scriptures. The highest object of the literary and historical criticism of the Scriptures is to facilitate the attainment of this great end. It is a sad misapprehension, which reflects no credit on those theologians who fall into it, when critics of the school to which I have the privilege to belong are accused of watering down inspiration, or explaining away miracles. Their complaint is precisely this-that the theologians who oppose them have a too shallow doctrine of inspiration, and do great injustice to the Biblical narratives. With much reluctance (for the advice should be superfluous) I venture to refer Mr. Gwilliam (whose paper is thoroughly misleading) to Dorner's History of Protestant Theology, vol. ii., and Allen's Continuity of Christian Thought, as books which may help to correct some of his misapprehensions. He is at present at the very beginning of his study of modern theology, and it would be easy to treat his diatribe too seriously. I for my part have no desire to do so, but it is well that he should know that neither I nor my fellow-workers sue, cap in hand, for toleration. We do not wish to see the Churches steered on to the rocks, and this is the fate to which they would be exposed by the policy recommended, as it would seem, by Mr. Gwilliam. May he be guided to a deeper view of faith and of inspiration, and more fully learn the lessons of Christian humility and charity! I venture to add, to prevent, if possible, such needless criticisms (1), that if the reader of the Bampton Lectures is interested in the opinion which I maintain on the subject of Deuteronomy, he will find it in the work on the times of Jeremiah, repeatedly referred to in B. L.; and (2), that what I mean by evangelical theology and inspiration is indicated, however imperfectly, in my numerous sermon-studies in the Expositor (also referred to in B. L.), and somewhat more completely in my forthcoming work, Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism (T. Fisher Unwin). Cf. also The Ninetieth Psalm, which will appear in THE THINKER for May and June, 1892. I ask Mr. Gwilliam's pardon for seeming to attach importance to such popular works, which may, nevertheless, relieve some of his doubts. I would also call his attention to Mr. G. A. Smith's volumes on Isaiah in the Expositor's Bible, which in general exemplify what I mean by a sound evangelical theology. FRIENDLY REPLIES TO CRITICS. BY REV. PROF. T. K. CHEYNE, D.D. CHRISTIAN England is, as yet, so unaccustomed to the frank discussion of the problems of historical theology that, not only those who write, but those who review books ought, perhaps, to be very careful how they express themselves. This is the apology of the author of the Bampton Lectures for 1889 for presuming to take exception to some not unimportant points in the two reviews to which the editor of THE THINKER has, with great fairness, recently given insertion. He must confess that, in spite of Professor Davison's remark at the outset, he is surprised that any leading theological teachers should have met him with "some suspicion and questioning" when he told them of the necessity under which he had lain of sometimes withholding solutions which he believed to be true, and of the danger to which he had once or twice succumbed of sympathizing with readers whom he desired to help more than was good for his critical judgment. He holds, for his own part, a very strong opinion on the duty of all teachers to consider very carefully, both from their own personal point of view and from that of their pupils, what they say and how they say it. If any one maintains that a teacher is bound to say all that he knows, whether his pupil can understand it or not, such a view appears to this writer to violate the first conditions of educational usefulness. What was done by the author of a certain review, which appears to the writer whom he lacerated equally ungenerous and unintelligent, was to put upon frank and simple words, which ought to have been read in the light of the whole book, and of a career which no one had previously called self-seeking, which may indeed be an interpretation natural to partisan theologians, but scarcely intelligible in a higher stratum of the theological atmosphere. It seems to the writer to concern the honour of English teachers of historical theology that one who suffers in their cause should be defended by them in no half-hearted way. Another friendly objection which this writer has to make relates to Professor Davison's treatment of his religious position. Professor Davison is, as all men may know, a Methodist that is to say, his religion is, above all things, a religion, not of dogma, but of conscious personal experience. Such, too, is, and always has been, the religion of this writer; and it is one of his ideas that those who write on the Scriptures ought not rigorously to exclude all references to religious experience. It would seem that Professor Davison has done but scanty justice to the spiritual affinities between his own and this writer's religion which appear on not a few pages of the Bampton Lectures. It was the aim of this writer to think and write in a far loftier sphere than that of traditional and non-traditional views on the subject of Revelation. He sought to "hallow criticism" by pursuing it in a holy spirit, and so "to prepare the way for the acceptance of critical theories" (rather, principles); not "on the part of those who hold traditional theories concerning Revelation" (Prof. Davison, p. 114), but on the part of those who have "tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious," and who can say, with a very imperfect but a very deep theologian, well known to Professor Davison "Now I have found the ground wherein Professor Davison need not be surprised at this. All theologians of a Johannean type know and love Wesley's hymn-book. It gives expression to what all true Christians feel; but not always as fully and as clearly as the Wesleys. And if this writer may be allowed, he would remonstrate with Professor Davison on his inadvertent support of a too intellectualistic conception of religion. "In season and out of season it seems necessary to advocate the claims of spiritual faith; the preacher should preach it; and the critic, in so far as he reasonably may, should not omit to show that he values it himself above all things, and that his conclusions are friendly and not adverse to its existence. Let Professor Davison examine this writer's various works, critical and homiletical, on the Psalms, and see if they do not, to a considerable extent, satisfy this requirement. But is apologetic theology, other than that which presents the argument from experience, to be ignored? Certainly not. This writer has done something, well or ill, for apologetic theology in this very volume which he fears that Professor Davison has overlooked. The more permanent elements in the religion of the Old Testament have been again and again brought into clearer view, and one incidental (though altogether separable) result of criticism has a certain novelty which justified this writer in commending it with unfeigned modesty to notice. The "result" in question is (like all results) only provisional and subject to modification, but it deserved a more comprehending treatment than even Professor Kennedy has given to it. What has struck Professor Davison is, this writer ventures to say, a partly mistaken observation, and in these matters half-truths are almost as dangerous as complete errors. Let it then be frankly stated here that Professor Davison gives a half-truth (p. 114) respecting his author's view of the religious development in Israel. That view is different from pure evolutionism in that it leaves room for those great and mysteriously gifted persons whom we call prophets. The phenemona of prophetic revelation are, as this writer has said elsewhere, no illusions. Nor is there a complete break either between David and Isaiah, or between the pre-Exilic and the post-Exilic age. Those who attack this writer on this development question are under a misapprehension. He is not, as they seem to imply, a disciple of Kuenen in criticism, much less in theology. He is ashamed to have to defend himself as a theologian against so disparaging an imputation. To Professor Davison's remark "The real reason for assigning so late a date to the Psalter is to be found elsewhere; it is almost necessary for the consistent maintenance of the ideas of religious development in Israel, as held by Wellhausen and his school," he offers an indignant though perfectly friendly contradiction. And when the reviewer says that "he does not in so many words assume, say, the postExilic date of the Priestly Code," the author remarks that he has "in so many words" deliberately refused to argue as a critic upon this assumption (Introduction, p. xxx). Later on, Professor Davison states that the author "Frankly accepts the naturalistic or 'psychologic' hypothesis, and then illustrates with great skill (for the task is a difficult one) how the facts can be reconciled with the later date if the earlier be shown to be historically or 'psychologically' impossible." This is, perhaps, hardly worthy of Professor Davison's obviously candid mind. If the word "naturalistic" is being redeemed from disparaging connotation, it may indeed pass. But until it has been shown that this writer's theological position agrees with that of less fervently religious critics, the word, as hitherto used, would seem to be unfair. As has been said above, the author who is reviewed does not accept any purely naturalistic hypothesis. He has, indeed, said that, like all historical critics and exegetes, he employs the psychological key wherever he can, but this is not equivalent to denying the mysteries of personality and revelation, and pretending to explain everything. Professor Davison, in conclusion, draws a contrast between this writer and his colleague, Professor Driver. It is, unconsciously to himself, a somewhat unfair one, and ought perhaps to have been omitted. Dr. Driver is this writer's junior, and has not devoted himself with the same completeness to critical as to linguistic studies. Professor Davison had better not be too sure that he knows Dr. Driver's full and mature personal conclusions on so complicated a question as the origin of the Psalter. And the more so, as Dr. Driver was precluded by the plan of his work from adopting the method proper to investigation. Without researches such as those in the volume now reviewed, where would Dr. Driver's book have been? Under its limitations, it is, as has been said by this writer elsewhere, a fine piece of work, but written as it is for novices, it could not help displaying a greater reserve than was proper to a fresh investigation. It is not, of course, intended to deny that some difference in mental attitude is suggested |