CHAPTER VI.
INSPIRATION AND THE "HIGHER CRITICISM"
I. The Higher Criticism.
The "Higher Criticism," as it is called, means the scientific investigation into the authorship, dates, sources, and composition of the books of the Bible, and into the special circumstances, if any, which called them forth. It is a comparatively new branch of Biblical study. It is called the Higher or Newer Criticism to distinguish it from the lower and older textual criticism, which occupies itself with the accuracy of the "text" and the means by which errors in it may be discovered and corrected.
The reader may remember a rather foolish discussion a few years ago as to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, in which it was sought to be shown that not Shakespeare but Bacon was really the author. This may serve as an illustration of "higher criticism run wild." But there is a legitimate and valuable higher criticism applied to Shakespeare, which to Shakespearian scholars is full of interest. Certain plays, such as Titus Andronicus, bound up with his works, are, for one reason or another, suspected not to be from the pen of Shakespeare at all. Their style and language and ideas are critically examined, and their difference from his acknowledged works is pointed out. Then in other cases most interesting discussions are carried on as to the original sources from which he drew certain of his plots and characters. References to contemporary writers, too, explain many an obscure saying and many a local reference, and thus give new meaning and vividness to the author's work. No doubt there are often very foolish guesses and considerable amusement over certain "mares' nests "discovered by enthusiastic students. But, on the whole, it is a valuable instrument of knowledge, and has added considerably to the interest and enjoyment of Shakespeare.
Now, something like this is what in the theological world Higher Criticism proposes to do for the Bible. Its students, if questioned about the aim and object of their work, would say that there are certain books of the Bible which bear on the face of them marks of having been compiled, or at least founded on earlier lost documents; that others which have no such mark, yet, in their opinion, show traces of having at least passed through the hands of literary "editors" or "redactors," who have either collected them in certain groups or completed their unfinished narratives, or in some other way modified the original work. They say, also, that the careful study of some books gives reason to doubt that they were written by the author whose name they bear.
Their reason for so examining Scripture is, they would tell you, reverence for the books of God, and the desire to throw all the light they can upon them. They consider that the books gain largely by being placed in their right "historical setting," and by the knowledge of the time and the circumstances and the reasons which, humanly speaking, called them forth.
But, the reader will ask, how can they possibly learn anything about the matter now, especially in the Old Testament, on which their chief attention is directed, when so many centuries have passed by and ancient history is silent on the subject? They learn, they would reply, much in the same way as our Shakespearian or other literary critics do. By a close study of the language in its different periods they can distinguish a late writer from an earlier, as we would distinguish an English writer of the nineteenth century from one of the fourteenth. By accurate study of a writer's style and phrases and mannerisms, they can notice if the hand of a different writer occurs in the book, as our literary scholars would if they found the works of Burns with some of Tennyson's poems bound up amongst them. Then, again, an author often helps them by his local coloring, or by his mention of things or customs which belonged to a particular age or country, or by any passing references to contemporary history. All these things assist them in forming their judgment about a psalm or history or other literary production in the Bible.
II. Illustrations of the Higher Criticism.
Perhaps I had better illustrate by a simple specimen. The reader has probably heard of this science chiefly in connection with the discussion about the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, one of the most widely known of critical questions. It will serve as an example as well as any other. Of course, I have no intention of taking any side in it here, or entering into it any farther than is necessary to illustrate what is meant by the Higher Criticism.
The Pentateuch, which is held by the Jews as superior to and more sacred than any other part of the Old Testament, was always considered by them too sacred to be the subject of critical inquiries. No one thought of raising questions as to its authorship or composition, or when it was written. It was commonly believed that Moses wrote it in the very form in which it appears to-day. However, it struck some people as strange that it should have mentioned Moses' death, and that he was "very meek," and say that "no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day," and "there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses." Also, that the writer should seem to be continually looking back to the time "while the children of Israel were in the wilderness" or "the Canaanite was still in the land;" that the eastern countries should be described as "beyond Jordan," showing that the writer lived in Palestine, west of Jordan; that to establish a question of Geography, it should quote, as from some ancient authority, the "Book of the Wars of the Lord," which certainly could not have been earlier than the days of Moses; and other difficulties of a similar hind. So in the infancy of Biblical criticism the question was started, "On what authority does this belief rest, that Moses is the author of these books in their present finished form?" And it appeared that no answer could be given except that the Jewish Church seemed to have always believed it. Therefore critics thought themselves at liberty to question the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, or at least to suggest that the writings of hoses might have been only the rough material, or part of the material, which was worked up by later authors or "editors" into "The Five Books."
It was clear enough that Moses lad written a Lawbook, however large or small it might be; (see Joshua 8:32) that he had been directed to "write in the book" the account of the war with Amalek; that he recorded the journeyings of the children of Israel; that after he had written this Law he delivered it to the custody of the priests, directing that it should be read before all the people every seven years on the Feast of Tabernacles, and that it should be placed in the side of the ark that it might be preserved as a witness against the people. But, clearly, it does not necessarily follow from all this that Moses wrote the whole Pentateuch in its present form.
This, then, is one of the questions about the Pentateuch on which the Higher Criticism has been spending much of its force. Was Moses the author of every line of the Pentateuch, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy? But there is another question which gives a better and more interesting illustration of the working of the new science. It is a question not of authorship but of composition. Were any or all of the books of the Pentateuch composed partly of documents existing before the time of Moses?
It was about the middle of the last century that this question first received any serious attention. A French physician named Astruc called attention to the fact that Genesis i, to ii. 3 is a connected account of the Creation, and, according to his opinion, at the very next verse another separate account of it begins, as if the writer had bodily incorporated two separate narratives. These narratives, he considered, were distinguished by certain differences of style, by difference in the order of events, and especially by the peculiarity which first called his attention to the matter, that in the one account the name for God is uniformly Elohim, and in the other uniformly Jehovah Elohim. This difference (God and LORD God) is quite evident in the English Bible. A fuller investigation seemed to many to confirm the notion thus started that right through the Pentateuch there was a mingling of "Jehovistic" and "Elohistic" documents, together with certain genealogies and lists, all which had been copied into his work bodily by the author or editor. This idea has been run to an absurd extreme since by German critics, but it is in the main accepted by the most prominent Biblical scholars. However, we have nothing to do here with its merits or demerits. We only give it as a very simple illustration of the questions of the "Higher Criticism."
III. An Unreasonable Panic.
However we may object to the positions sometimes taken by its votaries, it is only fair to admit that a good many foolish and unjust things have been said against this Higher Criticism. It is not very flattering to men's faith in their Bible or their God, but it is true, all the same, that there was as great a panic over the Mosaic authorship of Genesis as if the foundation of the kingdom of God depended upon it. The work of the Higher Criticism is but to try to find out the truth about the books of the Bible, and men are only asked to believe what is fairly established. They are not bound to accept every extravagance and every unproved theory that foolish students of criticism may bring forward - only to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.
It is, therefore, unfair and uncharitable to speak of it as "an attack on the Bible," "an assault on our faith," etc. The fact really is, that there are certain difficulties in the generally received literary beliefs about the Bible, such, for example, as I have just referred to in the case of the Pentateuch. It is not necessarily an attack on the Bible to suggest explanations of these, nor is it necessarily a praiseworthy position to refuse to think about them at all.
It is a striking illustration of the power of traditional beliefs that earnest holy men - men, too, of high intellectual attainments - should have branded this new study as "destructive criticism," "dangerous," and "subversive of all belief in the Scriptures." No doubt such epithets would apply to the reckless speculations of some of its students, but that is a different matter altogether. We are concerned, not with the reckless speculations, but with the residuum of proved truth that its investigations may bring to us.
It is the old story of unreasoning panic whenever a traditional belief must be disturbed, no matter how slender the foundation on which it rests. We have seen it already in the questions about Verbal Inspiration and Infallibility, and Progressive Revelation, and the Human Element in Scripture. To overthrow the traditional beliefs was to overthrow inspiration itself. By degrees men began to see that God had nowhere guaranteed the truth of these traditional beliefs, and that inspiration was not at all affected by such matters. But it seems that that lesson needs to be learned afresh on every new occasion. People think now that it is subversive of belief to question the received date and authorship of certain Old Testament books. True, it is subversive of belief, but for the most part only of the traditional belief that the titles of the books are inspired of God, and that the books are to be received on the authority of certain writers' names. Who told us that Moses wrote Genesis, or that Joshua and Samuel wrote tile books called by their names? Does the Bible tell us they wrote them? Does it matter very much whether they did or not, except, perhaps, as a help towards settling the date?
Even if they did write them, it is at least worth notice that they kept that fact to themselves. They did not tell us; they did not claim our credence for the books on the ground that they had written them. Indeed, they intimated plainly by their silence that the authorship was a matter of little consequence to us. Ought we not to take that lesson to heart?
This does not mean that we must give up the traditional beliefs as to the authorship of certain books. The question is not, Are we right in our belief about the author's name? but, Is the author's name of any serious importance? Is the author's name, in the Old Testament at least, a matter of very serious moment to us.? Quite possibly criticism may ultimately but confirm our present beliefs as to the authors' names. But why should such vital importance be attached to them? Look, for example, at the "Book of the Minor Prophets." In the Jewish canon it is one single book in which these short prophetic utterances are gathered together. We know nothing about these men. The scribe or council who gathered them together seems to have known little more than their fathers' names or the reigns in which they lived. Surely their names give no authority to the writing - rather the other way. Suppose that the book had been merely, entitled "A Collection of Prophets," what odds would it have made to us? Should we have been told that it was dangerous to our faith not to know their names? (Is any one, for instance, foolish enough to think that in the Homeric controversy the value of the poems would be altered if they were proved not to have been written by Homer? The poems are his only claim to greatness. We know nothing about him apart from them. The reader will perhaps remember Lewis Carroll's satirical conclusion, "that the Iliad was not really written by Homer, but by another man of the same name!")
We are told that it would be dangerous to our faith not to believe that Moses himself wrote the whole Pentateuch as it stands to-day. Why would it be dangerous not to believe that Moses wrote it, if we had reason to think that whoever wrote it had access to the necessary information? Is it dangerous to our faith to believe that the greater number of the Psalms of David were never written by the "sweet singer of Israel," and that we cannot be at all sure which of them are his? Is it dangerous to our faith to know that the "Proverbs of Solomon "include those of Agur the son of Jakeh, and also those taught by King Lemuel's mother, whoever she maybe? Why can we not learn the lesson that is so patent in the Bible itself, that the books do not depend on the authority of their writers, but on the fact that they are inspired of God, and that His Church was providentially guided in preserving those most profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness?
IV. Dangers of the Higher Criticism.
The reader may with some reason justify his distrust of the Higher Criticism by pointing to the rash speculations of some of its most advanced students within the past few years. I do not want in the smallest degree to minimize this objection. "From these critics we are aware," says an irate writer, "that Bibliolatry is possible; but so also, we think, are flippancy and self-sufficiency." And his rebuke. is justified. Amongst the men who sneer most contemptuously at the foolish a priori assumptions about verbal inspiration and infallible accuracy, there are many who come to the study of the Bible phenomena with just as strong a priori assumptions of their own. There are those who start with the theory that because supernatural interference is easily believed in the uneducated infancy of nations, therefore the supernatural in the early histories in the Bible must be set down to myth and legend, and be explained away somehow on natural grounds. There are hasty, impetuous men whose tendency is to jump to rapid conclusions, and, without waiting for the slow testing of time, to announce these as "established results of criticism." There are those whose confidence in their individual critical instinct leads them to decide most important questions of date and authorship and structure of books merely by their own judgment of probability and style and character of an author's mind.
Fancy such a critic, a few centuries hence, examining the works of (let us say) Tennyson. How scornfully he would reject the opinion that the Northern Cobbler was written by the author of In Memoriam!
It seems to the critic that certain passages are not quite in the author's style of thought or expression, and therefore, without waiting for the judgment of other men quite as capable as himself, he calmly brackets these as "probable additions" or "interpolations by a later hand."
But this sort of work is not really scientific criticism at all, and scientific criticism should not bear the blame of it, however it may commend itself to some for its "boldness and freedom." Boldness and freedom are admirable in their place, but they may be very dangerous merits in dealing with the Bible if not held in check by caution and modesty and deep reverence for the Word of God. It is very easy in rooting up some tares to root up with them a good deal of wheat; and men need to be very careful in dealing with so complex and delicate a feeling as that veneration which has been growing for centuries around the Bible.
V. The True Position of "Criticism."
Our fear of over-boldness must not, however, land us in the opposite extreme. Our dislike of dangerous and baseless theories must not lead us to anathematize the Higher Criticism or judge uncharitably 'its thoughtful students. Rashness and hasty theorizing and crude guesses are dangers in every young speculative science, and, like all other dangers peculiar to youth, will probably lessen considerably as it grows older. We must remember that all the students of criticism are not rash and hasty. We must remember that its object is to find out for us the truth, and only the truth, about our Bible. Surely in so far as it succeeds in this it deserves all encouragement, even if it overthrow many of the old strongholds of traditionalism which have become very dear to us. Truth can never overthrow anything but what deserves to be overthrown; and, in any case, God's will for us is to follow truth, wherever it lead and with whatever results.
But this does not by any means imply that we are to accept as truth the decisions of specialists in Biblical criticism merely because they are their decisions. Let us bow with all deference to their learning and skill. Let us give them full credit for wishing to be candid and fair. But let us remember too that the decision of such difficult questions demands more than an accurate knowledge of Hebrew literature and history. It demands the possession of a well-balanced mind, and a broad judicial spirit. It demands the recognition of all the evidence of every kind, not merely of the special evidence with which experts are most conversant. It is therefore quite possible that a man should be deeply versed in Hebrew and philology and history, and well accustomed to the investigations of criticism, and yet that he should be by no means competent to pronounce judicially on questions relating to the age and authorship and composition of the Old Testament books.
With all respect for the knowledge and ability of the critics, they should be reminded that their true position is in the witness-box, and not on the judicial bench. In our law courts it is often necessary to call in on both sides the aid of specialists in medicine, or engineering, or farming, or such like, and we know how conflicting their evidence frequently is. Their evidence may form the most important part of the material for a decision. But yet the decision is not intrusted to them. It is recognized that while the expert is best fitted to produce the evidence, he may not be best fitted to use it for forming a decision. Common-sense and freedom from bias, and a judicial spirit and experience of men's motives and actions, and many other elements, come into the decision, which is consequently left to the jury or the judge.
Now, it is most important that this should be kept in mind. Whatever it may show as to their candor and fairness, it does not speak well for men's steadiness and common-sense that they should so frequently accept extreme conclusions on little more than the ipse dixit of specialists. The very fact of their being specialists, it must be remembered, tends to a certain narrowness and partisanship, and over-belief in the powers of their critical faculty. It tends to exaggerating the importance of their own special evidence, and not giving sufficient weight to the many other considerations, such as the reality of the supernatural, the appeal to the spiritual nature, the uniqueness of Jewish history, the testimony of Christ and His apostles, and the tradition of the Jewish and Christian Churches for three thousand years.
Let this fact be kept well before us, and we need have no fear for the result. Already there are signs of a more reasonable attitude on both sides, more modesty in the critics in formulating their judgments, more fairness in the public in listening to them. The most important recent contribution to the subject is Professor Driver's "Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament," and in it he tries most carefully to give the grounds of his decisions, and to distinguish between what seem conclusive and what only probable proofs. This is the true way to conduct such inquiries. We may accept all the facts on which his judgments are founded. Many of these judgments we may entirely reject. The critic's superiority consists in his knowledge of the facts. In judging of their force, he can claim but little superiority over any intelligent scholar who is able to understand them.
But, with these restrictions, let us welcome gladly all that the critics can teach us. "When criticism is reverent, when it does not assume that the supernatural is unhistorical, when it does not ignore the possibility that God can reveal Himself to man, and when it proceeds on the fair principles of historical investigation, it does not appear why Christian men should object to it." It is a pitiful spirit that would try to muzzle criticism of the Bible by an outcry about the dangerous results that may follow. It is a sorry figure that Christians have cut over and over again in the past, opposing every new knowledge in the supposed interests of religious truth, and then in nine cases out of ten trying to cover their retreat as best they could. Let us not be content to cut that figure to-day. He who has real faith in God will never be afraid of truth. Remember that God is able to take care of His truth, and which of us will venture to say that this Criticism may not be part of the method of doing so? "If this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."
VI. Are its Results to be Feared?
This is an important question. "Advanced thinkers" sometimes seem to argue as if almost any admission might be made about the Bible without in the least affecting its credit or its inspiration. This is by no means so. There are clearly marked limits beyond which we cannot go. There are admissions which, if forced on us by evidence, would destroy the general credit of the Bible, and therefore its claim to inspiration in any sense. Is any such danger to be apprehended?
I think it is important first to remind ourselves of the probability that the ultimate results of these investigations in the Old Testament will be very much less important than we, in the midst of them, are now inclined to expect. We can look back on the similar investigations in the New Testament, which caused very widespread disquiet some years ago. We have the works of Colenso, and "Essays and Reviews," and "Supernatural Religion" to remind us of the other "disquiets" through which our age has passed already. And now that the din of those controversies has ceased, we can see that all their loud positive statements and counter-statements have left behind them but a comparatively little residuum of established fact, and a comparatively slight modification, and that for the better, of the views of men about God and the Bible.
Doubtless the present investigations in the Old Testament will have more important results than those, but I think experience justifies us in expecting that many of the positions confidently held today will be abandoned and forgotten before the next generation.
But even if it be not so - even if all but the most extreme of these critical theories should be established - there would still be nothing to fear for the position of the Bible.
Let us take first the most advanced positions on which there is anything approaching to agreement amongst the students of criticism.
Suppose it should be satisfactorily proved that Moses left but a large nucleus of the Pentateuch legislation, and that this was afterwards, like other codes of law, by duly accredited men, expanded and adapted to the altered circumstances of the people in Canaan. Suppose, even, that the final touches were not given to it until the days of the exile. I am not at all suggesting that this can be established. But what if it should be? Could not God teach the nation gradually, and through many men, just as effectively as He could teach it all at once and by one man? And He has nowhere told us that He has chosen one of these ways rather than the other.
Suppose it should be proved that some writer in the Bible wrote under an assumed name, made someone appear to be the author of a book who was not the real author, as is believed to be the case in the Book of Ecclesiastes? This is a serious question to face. Impatient people have scouted it angrily as a charging of forgery and fraud on the Holy Spirit. But impatient people cannot judge these questions. No doubt wilful deceit is incompatible with inspiration; a forgery or fraud could not be inspired. If that should be proved of any book, I do not see how it could retain its place in the Bible. But it must be pointed out that forgery or fraud is not the theory suggested. It is asserted that the custom of putting certain teaching into the mouth of some prominent person was quite in accord with the literary customs and ethics of the day. If this be so, there would be little cause of disturbance in the fact of a writer using another man's name.
I hesitate to speak of the other extreme position, that our Lord's referring to an Old Testament writing by the name of its author does not necessarily close for ever the question of its authorship. It seems rather to savour of irreverence to meddle with such a question on a mere supposition. And up to the present nothing even approaching to evidence has been put forward. But if one ask whether, in the event of such being proved, there would be a serious danger to religious belief, the answer is that it is held by men about whose faith and devotion to Christ there can be no question. Some think that the Lord merely spoke of the books by their commonly known names, with no intention of pronouncing a verdict as to their age and authorship; others, that in His stooping to take human nature He "emptied Himself" of His omniscience as regards mere literary and intellectual questions. At any rate, they find no serious difficulty in the matter.
If, then, even these, the most extreme theories put forward, are not destructive of religious beliefs, how much less those more moderate positions which seem to have some likelihood of being finally established. If only the popular mechanical notions of inspiration be given up, we may receive such results of criticism with perfect equanimity.
If, for example, it teach us that the early inspired historians, instead of taking down the history of Israel with infallible correctness from the lips of God, had to use laboriously older histories and annals and records and chronologies, like any modern historian, and with the risk, too, that inaccuracies of detail might creep in from these materials into their work; if it teach us that this sort of composition comes under the head of inspired, as well as that in which an enrapt prophet records his vision' or the thoughts directly given to his soul by God, what is there about all this to alarm or disturb us? If we did not know before how the books were composed, ought we not to be thankful that somebody should teach us? If our previous notions about inspiration were wrong, is it not a very good thing for us to have them corrected?
If it show good reason to believe that some of the traditional theories are incorrect as to the authors of certain books, even if it leave us in utter uncertainty as to who the authors really were, may it not be a good thing for us to learn that we had no business to believe in the inspiration of the titles of the books anymore than in that of the marginal dates, and that the authorship of these books is in most cases a matter that is quite unimportant?
If it should prove to us that the Pentateuch is an editing of old Mosaic records, that it is of composite authorship, not all the work of a single writer; or if it should establish satisfactorily that what we call Isaiah 40-46 is really the prophecy of a "Great Unknown," whose work was by ancient scribes appended to that of Isaiah, as the proverbs of Agur and Lemuel are appended to those of Solomon, - What if it should? How is the real value of the Bible affected?
Or, again, if we are shown that some Old Testament book was not really written within a century or two of the time we are accustomed to assign to it, what have we got to be alarmed about? When God touches our hearts and rouses our consciences by the record of words which He inspired of old, what difference does it make whether they were written a few generations earlier or later?
Or if there be pointed out to us the dramatic setting of the Book of Job, the imaginative picture of Satan amid the sons of God holding converse with Jehovah, the poetry in which Job and his friends discuss the mysteries of life; and if we are told that the study of Eastern poetry forces the belief that this is not all to be taken as literal fact, but as a poetical play founded on the patriarch's life, a dramatic setting for "The Mystery of Evil," does it not give a beautiful reasonableness to the book? Could the Holy Spirit not teach men then by fiction and drama as our Saviour did later by the fiction of the Prodigal Son and the dramatic presentation of Dives and Lazarus?
VII. A Reasonable Attitude.
This, then, is the attitude we must adopt towards the Higher Criticism. Every fact that it can reasonably establish - mark the word establish, not merely assert or conjecture - must be loyally, nay, gratefully received. For all truth is from God, and can never ultimately lead to anything but good. We must not "presumptuously stake the inspiration of the Divine authority of the Old Testament on any foregone conclusion as to the method and shape in which the records have come down to us." We must be willing to listen candidly to all the evidence brought before us, but not be in too great a hurry in coming to a decision. We must have our candor and boldness tempered by reverence for the book we are dealing with, by modesty and caution in judging of. evidence, by honest desire not to disturb without cause the treasured convictions of others.
And we must be willing to give other men credit for being as honest as ourselves, and for caring as much for their God and their Bible. There must be no more of this uncharitable doubting of a man's personal piety and honesty of purpose merely because he argues that Moses did not write the whole of the Pentateuch or that the human element in Scripture is larger than we will admit.
And, finally, there must be more faith in God and truth, and in the free workings of the Holy Spirit, and also, there must be more prayerful study of the Bible. The more a man "enters into the secret" of the Bible, the more convinced he will be of its Divine light and power, and the more certain that any critical theory inconsistent with its inspiration must be false. It is a poor, pitiful thing, this constant fright and uneasiness of good people about the foundations of the kingdom of God whenever some new fact comes to light disturbing their old traditional beliefs. A change of our notions about the methods of God's working cannot alter the fact that the working is there; a revolution in our beliefs about the mode of inspiration cannot, surely, take away inspiration itself, any more than a correction in botanical systems could take away the beauty and perfume of the flowers.
Thus calmly and confidently, without rashness on the one hand or prejudice on the other, we must use this science of Higher Criticism as one of God's good gifts to our generation to win for us larger views of truth. And thus using it, we shall have more reason to rejoice in our gains than to be frightened about our losses.
There is a story of an ancient land where a fire once swept over the hills, destroying the flowers and the foliage and changing the familiar aspect of the scene. But as the people were grieving for their loss they suddenly discovered that the lire which had destroyed the flowers and the foliage had opened by its heat deep fissures in the rocks, disclosing to their view rich veins of silver. "Which things are an allegory." For if by this searching fire of criticism we lose some cherished traditional notions, we shall gain in a deeper knowledge of truth. We shall gain in knowledge of the nature and limits of inspiration and in understanding God's methods of communication with men. We shall be guarded from many errors and misapprehensions that are turning men away from the Bible to-day. We shall learn more of the conditions under which the Bible was written, the moral and intellectual attitude of the writers, and the special circumstances, if any, which caused them to write. We shall better appreciate the modes of thought and expression, and judge better the moral and social condition of the times. We shall be able to "put ourselves in the place" of the ancient writer and his readers, and enter more easily into the feelings of both. And thus new life and color will pass into the picture, the history will gain enormously in freshness and reality and vivid human interest, and the truths expressed will have a meaning for us such as they never had before.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUSION.
I.
Now, reader, we have come to the close of these "thoughts for the present disquiet." They have been but poor, imperfect thoughts. As so often happens with one's most enthusiastic projects, the fulfillment has fallen far short of the design. But let that pass. Let us glance back for a moment at the results of our study.
We have examined the difficulties of our "disquieted thinker," and found that many of them resulted from prejudice and mistake, from his having accepted without investigation many of the popular assumptions about the Bible. We have seen that the right way to make a theory of Inspiration is not by deciding beforehand what God must have done, but by carefully examining the Bible to find out what he has done. In following this method we have been forced to modify some of our commonly held notions about the Bible. But I have tried to show you that there is nothing new and need be nothing disturbing in this, since these "popular notions," which we have found untenable, are repudiated by all educated theologians, and have no warrant or authority from the Bible or the Church.
I trust that the insisting on this fact may be helpful not only to the disquieted Christians for whom I write, but also to some honest infidels who may meet with this book, and find that after all they have been infidels by mistake; that what they had been opposing and refuting as the Bible was only some unwarranted notion about it.
II.
Possibly to some reader the thoughts here presented may be somewhat disturbing at first. There is always a certain disturbance in the readjustment of one's beliefs in a matter of such vital importance as this. We cannot in a moment accustom ourselves to a new point of view. But a little consideration will show that there is no reason for such feeling. The foundation of the Bible is no less firm than before; nay, rather, it should be far more firm than when every new suggestion of the higher criticism, and every new fact that seemed in conflict with the infant sciences of ancient Israel, was sufficient to make men fear for the foundations of the kingdom of God. The authority of the Bible is no less. Its claims on our reverence and belief are no less. We have not found it to be less Divine. We have only got to understand better the nature and method of the Divine operation upon it.
III.
It is quite true that the view here presented will necessitate more trouble and more care in the study of the Bible. We can no longer take each verse as in itself a complete and definite proof-text on the matter it refers to. We must consider the context and the time in which the writer lived, and the circumstances under which he wrote. We must balance one part of Scripture with another. We must recognize that the Old Testament teaching is in parts lower than that of the New. We must build our beliefs less on isolated phrases or texts, and more on the general spirit of the Bible. And for all this there will be needed more thoughtfulness, more suspension of judgment, more modesty, more study, more prayer.
But the outlay of these will be repaid a hundredfold. The Bible, relieved from its incubus of human traditions, will shine forth for us more real, more natural, more Divine. Our beliefs will rest on a firmer foundation. The old quakings about the moral and intellectual difficulties will be over. And though there may still be things that puzzle and perplex us, we shall learn that our Christian life does not depend on the understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge, but on the humble childlike obedience to the will of God, which for all practical purposes is clearly revealed.
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy Holy word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which Thou has given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
THE END.
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