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ART. II.-Strictures on the Article " Bible," in the recent edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica.

GENERALISATION upon the basis of questionable or

imperfect data is one of the most fertile sources of error in the fields of Science and Philosophy. The author of this article has caught this spirit of the age, and has carried it into the department of Biblical Criticism. The first manifestation of its influence is seen in the opening of the second paragraph :"The pre-Christian age of the Biblical religion falls into a period of religious productivity, and a subsequent period of stagnation and merely conservative traditions." This generalisation, besides being entirely too sweeping, proceeds upon a false assumption regarding the relation between religion and revelation, making piety the basis and condition of revelation, and thus, in accordance with one of the rationalistic schools, assuming that the religious consciousness is the source of theology. So far is this representation from being in harmony with the fact, the reverse relation is the one taught in the Bible. Both under the Old Testament and the New, religion was originated and maintained by supernatural interpositions occurring at sundry times and in divers manners. ledge communicated was not the offspring of the religion, but the religion was the offspring of the knowledge. The order has ever been, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. It was just as true of Isaiah as it was of Balaam, that it was not by reading the record of his religious consciousness that he discovered the glories of the coming Messiah.

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Nor was the Biblical religion left to depend upon one impulse which operated during a period of productivity, and then vanished away, leaving the Church to spiritual stagnation and conservative traditions. The diverse estates of action and stagnation have alternated throughout the history of the Church, divine communications always preceding religious revival. This fact forbids the generalisation with which Professor Smith has opened the discussion. The Biblical religion, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, cannot be classified under the two heads specified in this article. A glance at the history as given in the Bible itself is sufficient to justify this

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stricture. Entering on life in the image of God, with knowledge and holiness supernaturally communicated, and not left to acquisition or development, man lapsed and lost both. By a supernatural and gracious interposition he was brought again into covenant relation. Under this covenant the seed of the woman, whilst having his own heel bruised, was to bruise the head of the serpent. In the one family the enmity is revealed, and the apparent triumph of the serpent's seed terminates the first period of the covenant of grace. God interposes again, and by the gift of Seth in the room of Abel renews the conflict. The next great epoch is marked by the deluge, by which God avenges Himself upon an ungodly race, and delivers the only family in which the true religion was found. But as there was a Cain in the family of Adam, so was there a Canaan in the family of Noah. And even the descendants of Shem became so corrupt that God, to preserve His truth, found it necessary to call out and separate Abram from amongst them. To illustrate this point fully would be to rewrite the Bible. The true religion was maintained, if we are to accept the testimony of Scripture, by a series of supernatural impulses given at different epochs, and distributed all along the history of the covenant people, and not by an impulse operating for a period continuously, and then waning into feebleness and spiritual stagnation.

Professor Smith is aware of this, and hence represents the period of productivity as also a period of contest. This is true. It is true of the life of the body taken as a whole, and true of the spiritual life of its individual members. There cannot, therefore, be any warrant for a generalisation which assigns religious productivity a place at the beginning and religious stagnation a place at the end. The fact is, these estates have alternated from the beginning, and, if we are to credit the New Testament, will alternate to the end.

The period assigned for the beginning of the struggle between the spiritual principles of the religion of revelation and polytheistic nature-worship, and unspiritual conceptions of Jehovah, is singularly inconsistent with the facts. Professor Smith says the struggle began with the foundation of the Theocracy by Moses. We are to infer, therefore, that there was no polytheistic nature-worship or unspiritual con

ceptions of Jehovah among the covenant people prior to the foundation of the Theocracy by Moses! This is a very questionable position. That polytheism had prevailed among the descendants of Shem before the call of Abraham is put beyond question by the express testimony of Joshua (chap. xxiv.), and that they continued to serve false deities is proved by the fact that Rachel, on leaving Padanaram, took her country's gods with her. Surely we are not to assume, with Kuenen, the alternative that at that stage there was no monotheistic religion.

In this same paragraph Professor Smith states, as a matter of course, that "it was only the deliverance from Egypt and the theocratic covenant of Sinai that bound the Hebrew tribes into national unity." What warrant is there for this statement? None whatever. During the lifetime of Jacob his sons were under his government, and recognised his authority. After his death till the time of Moses, there is little known of their tribal relationship. It is evident, however, that Moses was divinely commissioned to them as one people; for when he and Aaron went into Egypt they gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel, and when the people heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that He had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. They were visited as being already Israel; they were redeemed as one people. It was neither the deliverance from Egypt nor the theocratic covenant that bound them into one nationality. On the contrary, it was as the one seed of Abraham that they were delivered, and their deliverance as a nation was in pursuance of the previously existing Abrahamic covenant. From the fact that Moses and Aaron gathered all the elders together, it is manifest that they were governed by an eldership which represented the whole nation.

Professor Smith speaks of the gradual development of the religious ideas of the Old Testament as if it were a discovery of criticism, while the fact is that the doctrine of development is expressly taught in the New, and has been held by the people of God under both Testaments.

Separating the sacred ordinances from the religious idea-a most unwarrantable procedure-he alleges that their subjection to variation was less readily admitted. The passages cited prove, notwithstanding, that from the very inception of

in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

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the Mosaic economy, the position taken was that variation was contemplated and, within certain limits, was to be allowed. How this should affect our views in regard to the authorship of the Pentateuch one is at a loss to determine. Does it prove that Moses was, or was not, the author, to cite passages extending as far back as the 20th chapter of Exodus, which prove that sacrifices might, so far as the legislation of the Pentateuch is concerned, be offered elsewhere than at the centre of worship, and then prove that Deuteronomy limits sacrifices to one centre? Well, the argument advanced is: that we find a practice of sacrificing in other places sanctioned by Exodus, xx. 24 ff, followed by Samuel, and fully approved of by Elijah, forbidden by a written law-book found in the temple in the days of Josiah (2 Kings xxii. xxiii.), and it is assumed that the legislation of this book does not correspond with the old law in Exodus, but with the book of Deuteronomy. The answer is obvious:-1. The book found is not described as "a written law-book," but as the book of the Law. It is true the article is wanting before book, but it is before the noun "law" with which it is in construction, where it ought to be, and the phrase is properly rendered "the book of the Law.” This usage is in harmony with the rule that "the article is not prefixed to a noun in construction with a definite noun." 2. There is no need for the new hypothesis that Deuteronomy alone was found, because the old hypothesis assumes that it was embraced in the Torah along with the other books. 3. It is as easy to reconcile Deuteronomy with Exodus, on the old assumption that both were written by Moses at different stages in the development of the Revelation, as on the new assumption that they were composed by different writers living at different epochs. The question is not how Moses could consistently write one law in Exodus and another law in Deuteronomy; but how God could authorise one, whether Moses or any other, to write diverse laws? It only enhances the difficulty to sever Deuteronomy from its historic position, and ascribe it to a date as late as the days of Elijah or Josiah. If God, by whose inspiration the Scriptures were written, could consistently issue, in the days of Elijah or afterwards, the law as it appears in Deuteronomy, could He not, with equal consistency, after a period of nearly forty years, and when His people were about to enter upon Canaan, authorise His servant

Moses, whom He was about to remove from among them, to issue a more restrictive law? The force of this consideration is all the more manifest when one examines the book of Deuteronomy, which contains the alleged diverse law, and finds that it indorses Exodus, from which it is said to differ. 4. The book of Deuteronomy itself professes that the things written therein were spoken by Moses before the Israelites crossed the Jordan: "on this side Jordan, in the land of Moab," chap. i. 5. No theory of the time of the issuing of the law in question, inconsistent with this claim, can be accepted by any man who believes in the inspiration of the book of Deuteronomy.

And, finally, the assumption on which the whole argument proceeds is utterly destitute of foundation. Professor Smith alleges that "the legislation of the book" (found in the temple) "corresponds not with the old law in Exodus, but with the book of Deuteronomy." His reason for this statement is that the reformation inaugurated by Josiah finds its sanction and authority, not in Exodus, but in Deuteronomy. Now, here two questions arise, (1) "What was the character of Josiah's reformation?" and, (2) "Is the authority for it to be found in the book of Deuteronomy alone, and not in Exodus, or elsewhere in the Pentateuch?" As to the former of these questions the answer is furnished by the narrative of what the good king did as given, 2 Kings xxii., xxiii. From beginning to end the work of reformation was an overthrow of the instruments and symbols of idolatry, and the abolition of idolatrous practices both within and without the temple, and the reinauguration of the pure worship of Jehovah. With regard to the second, which is the vital question in this controversy, both elements of the reformation have their full sanction and authority in the book of Exodus: "Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold" (Ex. xx. 23). And this is, of course, but a reiteration of the second commandment: "Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images" (Ex. xxiii. 24). "Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to

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