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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PRINCETON, N. J.
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THE NEWER CRITICISM
AND '
THE ANALOGY OF THE FAITH.
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Rev. xiii. 8.
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Heb. ix. 22.
THE NEWER CRITICISM
AND THE
ANALOGY OF THE FAITH,
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* MAH 6 1922
A REPLY \
TO LECTURES BY W. ROBERTSON SMITH, mLtm THE "
OLD TESTAMENT IN THE JEWISH CHURCH.
ROBERT WATTS, D.D.,
PROFESSOR or SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY'
COLLEGE, BELFAST.
EDINBUKGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
1881.
MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
En JHemorianu
To the Memmij of DR. THOMAS CHALMERS, DR. WILLIAM
Cunningham, and Dr. Charles Hodge, this Contribution
to the Defence of the Faith for which they so mightily contended, is
affectionately inscribed, by
THE A UTHOR.
PREFACE.
THE present volume owes its origin to a course of
lectures on Biblical Criticism by W. Eobertson
Smith, M.A., delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow in
the beginning of the current year, before audiences, as
the author informs us, of not less than eighteen
hundred, and given to the public afterwards in a
volume of 446 pages. The object aimed at in the
course, was to give the Scottish public " an opportunity
of understanding the position of the newer criticism,
in order that they might not condemn it unheard."
Stated otherwise, the delivery of these lectures was
simply an appeal from the decision of the Eree Church
Commission, in the previous October, suspending the
author " from the ordinary work of his chair in
Aberdeen," to the general tribunal of " the Scottish
public," who, of course, are presumed by the lecturer
to be more competent than the Eree Church Commis-
sion to sit in judgment on the claims of " the newer
criticism."
The course professes to give " an outline of the
problems, the methods, and the results of Old Testa-
Vlll PEEFACE.
ment criticism," and the lecturer claims that ''the
sustained interest with which his large audience
followed his attempt is sufficient proof that they did
not find modern Biblical science the repulsive and
unreal thing wliich it is often represented to be."
Other, and different, representations have been made
regarding the sustained interest and the dimensions
of the audiences ; but neither the sustained nor the
waning interest of the audience can be accepted as a
proof or disproof of the science, or the soundness, of the
doctrines propounded. Large audiences, in large cities,
may be gathered and kept together to hear discussions
much less complimentary to the Bible than the course
in question. It is not by such tests as such gatherings
furnish that systems of criticism are to be adjudged.
These gatherings are now dispersed, and have, it would
seem, given no verdict, so that the court appealed to
has not pronounced judgment in the case. If we are
to judge of the impression made, by the very decided
action of the late Free Church Assembly, we cannot
conclude that the appeal to the public has been a
success. Either the six hundred requisitionists, at
whose request the course was undertaken, have not
proved true representatives of the estimate in which
" the newer criticism " is held by the Free Church of
Scotland, or else " the attempt to lay its problems,
methods, and results before the public," has been
made in such a way as to open the eyes of Christian
men to its bearings upon the claims of the Old Testa-
ment to be any longer regarded as the word of God.
PREFACE. IX
It is true the author of these lectures claims it as
" the great value of historical criticism that it makes
the Old Testament more real to us ; " but if the reality
be as it is represented in this " outline," we are brought
face to face with the fearful alternative of accepting
as the word of God a palpable forgery claiming to be
divinely inspired, or of rejecting it as a mockery and a
fraud. To use the language of the author (p. 309) in
reference to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch,
" if we are shut up to choose between " such a theory
of the origin and composition of the books of the
Bible, " and the sceptical opinion that the Bible is a
forgery, the sceptics must gain their case." The fact
is, the theory leaves no room for choice ; for, as it is
set forth in these lectures, it is simply an elaborate
and detailed account of the way in which a guild of
men availed themselves of a meagre historical outline
to give an air of antiquity and authority to practices
and doctrines which were either unknown and unheard
of within the historical limits to which they have been
fraudulently referred, or were, in ruder forms, denounced
by the prophets of Jehovah, who, after authorizing
His prophets to utter the denunciation, reversed His
judgment, and gave his sanction to the doctrines and
practices previously denounced !
It is needless to say that there is no room for
choice here. One cannot choose between such a
theory and scepticism, for the simple reason that there
is no difference between the two things. The fact
that the theory has been espoused and advocated by a
X PREFACE.
professor in a Christian Seminary does not alter its
character. Whether it come from the pen of a
Kuenen, or a Wellhausen, or a Smith, it is still the
same faith-subverting theory, which no ingenuity of
man can reconcile with the history or character of the
Old Testament revelation ; and no one can accept it and
continue long to regard the sacred Scriptures as the
word of God, or hold the system of doctrine exhibited
in the Symbols of the Eeformed faith. Under the
deep and painful conviction that the principles, criti-
cal and theological, advocated by the lecturer are
subversive of all confidence in the Old Testament
as a divine revelation, as well as of all faith in the
fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the present reply
has been prepared. The ever-recurring principle, in
obedience to which the whole Old Testament record is
to be not only revised, but recast, is that the non-
observance of a law proves its non-existence ! Re-
versing the apostolic maxim, that " where there is no
law there is no transgression," our critic proceeds
throughout upon the assumption that where there is
transgression there is no law. It were no exaggeration
to say that, if the portions of his volume which rest
on this assumption w^ere removed, the book would
be reduced to one-third of its present dimensions.
Indeed, so all-pervading and regulative is this prin-
ciple, from the beginning to the close, it soon becomes
manifest that, without it, the author could not have
given the faintest colour of plausibility to his theory
of the post-exilic origin of the Levitical system, or of
PREFACE. XI
the all but exilic origin of the Deuteronomic code —
in other words, could not have written his course
of lectures at all. With regard to the other critical
principles laid down by the author, suffice it to say
that where valid they are either inapplicable altogether,
or, if strictly applied, would only serve to embarrass
and confute the theory he has sought to establish.
For confirmation of this representation and estimate
of a work which evinces extensive reading and the
possession of literary ability, which, if regulated by
sound judgment and a spirit of reverence toward the
Holy Scriptures, might have contributed largely to the
defence of the faith, the reader is referred, without
further preface, to the volume herewith given to the
public, and committed to the providence and grace of the
Eternal Logos, who is the only Eevealer of the Father
under the Old Testament or the New.
ROBERT WxVTTS.
Assembly's College, Belfast,
Oct. 14, 1881.
THE NEWER CRITICISM,
CHAPTEE I.
The Author's First Princi'pU of Criticism.
IN examining and estimating a system of Biblical
criticism, it is but due to the system and its
author to ascertain and consider carefully the prin-
ciples on which the system depends, and by which
the author is guided in his investigation of the Sacred
Eecord. The first principle laid down in this course
of lectures — a principle which our author must regard
as vital to his theory, as he gives it precedence of all
others, and builds a very large portion of his argument
upon it — is thus stated on p. 23 : "The first principle
of criticism is that every book bears the stamp of the
time and circumstances in which it was produced.
An ancient book is, so to speak, a fragment of ancient
life ; and to understand it aright we must treat it as a
living thing, as a bit of the life of the author and his
time, which we shall not fully understand without
putting ourselves back into the age in which it was
written."
A
2 THE NEWEE CEITICISM.
Applicability of this Principle.
As a general rule, tliis canon of criticism is perfectly
fair, but only as a general rule can it be accepted. It
is obvious that there may be books written in an age
so remote from the time of the critic that he cannot
"put himself back into it." This is pre-eminently
true of most of the books composing the volume
which our author has undertaken to criticise. They
were written at dates so remote, that there is nothing
that can be called literature wherewith to compare
them. Indeed, the author himself, who on page 23
lays down the foregoing rule for the guidance of
historical interpretation, has admitted a state of
matters which should have made him very modest
and backward in the application of it to Old
Testament literature. On page 1 7 he writes : " In
the study of the New Testament we are assisted in
the work of historical interpretation by a large con-
temporary literature of profane origin, whereas we
have almost no contemporary helps for the study of
Hebrew antiquity beyond the books which were
received into the Jewish Canon." In note 3 to
Lecture I. the absence of the literary requisites for
the application of this rule is still more explicitly
acknowledged. " The Old Testament writers," he con-
fesses, "possessed Hebrew sources now lost, such as
the Book of the Wars of the Lord, the Book of Jasher,
and the Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah. But
Josephus, and other profane historians whose writings
APPLICABILITY OF THIS PRINCIPLE. 3
are still extant, had no authentic Hebrew sources for
the canonical history except those preserved in the
Bible." Under such literary conditions it is difficult
to see how the author can find his way back into the
age in which each of the books of the Bible was
written, and report to the Scottish public the literary
canons by which the writers were guided, what docu-
ments the writer of a particular book had before him,
how much he took from one and how much he took
from another, and how he shaped and modified their
contents by additions or omissions. One would think
that the confession of the critic should have greatly
moderated the tone of his criticisms, and have led him
to speak with less confidence of the use and wont of
pre-exilic times. Nor is the fact to be overlooked
that the recent discoveries, mentioned by our author
in the note referred to, do but serve to prove the
trustworthiness of those historical writers whom he
has assailed. In those instances in which their
writings synchronize with the public records or
chronicles of Nineveh, or Babylon, or Egypt, or with the
cuneiform inscription on the Moabite Stone, the result
of a comparison has been such as to confirm our
confidence in the trustworthiness and superiority of
the sacred narratives, and in the inspiration of the
sacred writers.
Now, while admitting this chronological literary
difficulty, the author has overlooked it, and proceeded
in his treatment of these most ancient records as if no
such difficulty existed. He has acted throughout upon
4 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
the assumption that he is in possession of materials
for the construction of a literary critical viaduct, by
which he has actually bridged the vast gulf of the
intervening centuries ; and that he has passed over it
himself, and is now ready to convey all who will
accept his guidance into the midst of the temporal
circumstances, literary culture, and customs of the age,
however remote, in which each portion of the sacred
record was produced.
How the Bridge has been huilt
We are furnished with an account of the building
of this bridge, and of the material employed in its
construction. In the first place, the old structure,
consisting, in the main, of Jewish traditions, had to
be cleared away. The learning of the Eabbins was
untrustworthy, and as " scholarship moved onwards,
and as research was carried farther, it gradually
became plain that it was possible for Biblical students,
with the material still preserved to them, to get behind
the Jewish Eabbins, upon whom our translators were
still dependent, and to draw from the sacred stream at
a point nearer its source," p. 47. A large portion of
the lectures is spent in depreciating the scholarship
of the Eabbins, and magnifying the ignorance and
untrustworthiness of the scribes in the copying and
transmission of the original records, whilst the most
extravagant claims are set up for modern critical
scholarship. The object of all this depreciation of
ITS CONSTRUCTION INSPECTED. 5
Jewish scholarship is to shake confidence in Jewish
testimony to the authorship and age of the books of
the Bible, and especially to the authorship and age
of the Pentateuch. Take the following as a speci-
men: "This, then, is what the scribes did. They
chose for us the Hebrew text which we have now got.
Were they in a position to choose the very best text,
to produce a critical edition which could justly be
accepted as the standard, so that w^e lose nothing by
the suppression of all divergent copies ? Now, this
at least we can say, — that if they fixed for us a
satisfactory text, the scribes did not do so in virtue of
any great critical skill which they possessed in com-
paring MSS. and selecting the best readings. They
worked from a false point of view. Their objects
were legal, not philological. Their defective philology,
their bad system of interpretation, made them bad
critics ; for it is the first rule of criticism, that a good
critic must be a good interpreter of the thoughts of
the author," pp. 76, 77.
Its Construction inspected.
On this estimate of the scribes and their work it
may be remarked, that they had not, at the outset,
to choose, as modern critics have to do, either for
themselves or for us a Hebrew text in the exercise of
their own unaided powers as philologists. The chief
object of our author is to disprove the traditional
view of the age and authorship of the Pentateuch ; and
6 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
if it can be shown that he has failed in this, we may
condude that his book is a failure. 'Now, so far as
the Pentateuch is concerned, he admits that " there
can be no doubt that the law which was in Ezra's
hands was practically identical with our present
Hebrew Pentateuch," and that this "Pentateuch or
Torah, as we now have it, became the religious and
municipal code of Israel," pp. 56, 57. On page 158,
the author ascribes the establishment of this Canon to
Ezra, and says that he led " his people to accept a
written and sacred code as the absolute rule of faith
and life," and affirms that " this Canon of Ezra was
the Pentateuch." Eeference is here made to this
representation of Ezra's relation to our Pentateuch,
simply to show that, even on the author's own
showing, Ezra's book is our Hebrew Pentateuch. We
are thus, so far as the Pentateuch is concerned, carried
beyond the scribes to "their father" Ezra, who imposed
upon his successors, not the task of choosing a " text,"
but the task of a faithful transmission of the recognised
text to posterity. If, then, there was any such thing
as a choosing of a "text" to be transmitted, that choice
was made by Ezra.
Origin of the Esdrine Torali.
The question, then, is, did Ezra find this Torah, or
Pentateuch, in existence, or did he invent or develop
it out of certain principles of a brief Mosaic legislation ?
As our author holds and argues that this complete
ORIGIN OF THE ESDRINE TORAH. 7
Levitical system, given by Ezra, dates from the Exile,
it must follow that Ezra or others are the authors of
it ; and that, as he or they could not have extempo-
rized it amid the confusion and excitement connected
with the execution of his mission in Jerusalem, the
work must have been composed in the land of their
captivity. If originated at all by Ezra or his brethren,
it must have been produced in Babylon, for he is
represented (Ezra vii. 14) as having the law of his
God in his hand before he left Babylon. This law,
which he had in his hand before he left Babylon, is
the law he came to Jerusalem to establish — the law
in which he read from day to day in the hearing of the
people, and the law according to which he carried
forward in conjunction with Nehemiah the reformation
in Judah. To say that this law was hitherto unknown
to the people, to their princes or priests, is not only to
assert without proof, but it is to afiSrm what the narra-
tives of Ezra and Nehemiah disprove. For example,
when Ezra and his company came to Jerusalem, we
find that the princes were not ignorant of some enact-
ments of this Torah before he had read a word of it in
their hearing ; for they approached him saying, " The
people of Israel, and the priests, and [the ' and ' is in
the LXX. as well as in the Hebrew] the Levites "
(showing that they were aware of the distinction
between priests and Levites) " have not separated them-
selves from the peoples of the lands, ... for they have
taken (contrary to the law of Moses, Ex. xxxiv. 1 6 ;
Deut. vii. 3) of their daughters for themselves and for
8 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
tlieir sons," etc. etc. (Ezra ix. 1, 2). And long before
Ezra had left Babylon or come to Jerusalem, in the
sixth year of the reign of Darius, it would seem from
Ezra's narrative that the children of the captivity were
not unacquainted with this Esdrine Torah, for at the
dedication of their new temple they " stationed the
priests in their orders, and the Levites in their divi-
sions for the service of God, which is in Jerusalem, as
it is written in the Book of Moses " (Ezra vi. 18;
Num. iii., iv., and viii.).
A reference to these passages and their contexts
will show that the men who came out of Babylon,
" who were minded " (as the decree of Artaxerxes puts
it) " of their own free will to go up to Jerusalem," or
(as it is put by Ezra, chap. i. 5) " whose spirit God
had raised to go up to build the house of the Lord
which is in Jerusalem," were fully aware of the
Levitical system or ever they left Babylon. They had
sufficient knowledge of the use and wont of the pre-
exilic period to enable them to build the house of the
Lord, to arrange the service of the house according to
the Book of Moses, making the distinction between the
priests and the Levites, and to observe the feast of the
Passover. Knowledge of these things did not grow up
in an hour. These God-fearing men, who, for the faith
of their fathers and the love of the God of Israel,
exposed themselves to the peril and privation neces-
sarily attendant upon the execution of their high com-
mission, were surely not the dupes of a sacerdotal
conspiracy. The men who laid the foundations of the
ORIGIN OF THE ESDRINE TORAH. 9
house were no novices. There were old men among
them ; " many of the priests and Levites, and chief of
the fathers who were ancient men, had seen the first
house " (Ezra iii. 12). These men, who wept because
of the memories of the former house, were not the men
to give countenance to a newly devised ritual. Every
act of the restoration programme shows that these
pioneers were moved out of regard to the ancient
Mosaic Torah, and that they were thoroughly conver-
sant with its most minute provisions. " Joshua, the
son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, Zerubbabel
the son of Shealtiel and his brethren," knew how to
build " the altar of the God of Israel, and to offer
burnt-offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of
Moses, the man of God." They knew how " to set
the altar upon his bases," and " to offer burnt-offerings
morning and evening;" and they knew how to "keep
the feast of Tabernacles, as it is written," and to offer
" the daily burnt-offerings by number according to the
custom as the duty of every day required," and to offer
" the continual burnt-offering, both of the new moons
and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were conse-
crated, and of every one that willingly offered a free-
will offering unto the Lord." " But," it is added, '' the
foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid"
(Ezra iii.).
Any one who will weigh these historic statements
(and they are but specimens of the Esdrine narrative),
will read these lectures with feelings of surprise if not
of astonishment. He will naturally ask the question,-
10 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
How could any critic, who believed the narrative of
these things as given by Ezra, represent Ezra as estab-
lishing, ninety years afterwards, " the Pentateuch as
the canonical and authoritative book of the Jews," and
giving it '' the position which it holds ever afterwards " !
p. 158. This is simply saying, that ninety years after
" the children of the captivity " had re-instituted the
Mosaic economy in the minutiae of its details, and had
done this by the counsel and in the presence of
" ancient men who had seen the first house," and had
mingled in its services, Ezra came, fresh from Babylon,
and "led them to accept a written and sacred code,"
hitherto unheard of, " as the absolute rule of faith and
life," and '' this Canon of Ezra was the Pentateuch ! "
He will likely ask still further. How can the Levitical
legislation, which our author restricts to the second
temple, have found its way to these fathers or ever
a stone was laid in its foundations ?
Author s Counsel accepted.
The author cannot object to the principle of this
argument from the narratives of Ezra and Nehemiah,
for he blames the traditionists (p. 158) for not opening
their eyes, and for not simply looking at the Bible
itself for a plain and categorical account of what Ezra
and Nehemiah actually did for the Canon of Scripture.
Now, when we accept this counsel and open our eyes,
and " simply look at the Bible itself," and not at
Kuenen, or Wellhausen, or other representatives of this
AUTHOR S COUNSEL ACCEPTED. 1 1
" newer criticism," we find, if we are to give credit to
Ezra and Nehemiah, as we are advised to do, that tlie
children of the captivity knew the very portions of this
Pentateuchal Torah, which " the newer criticism "
alleges was brought in and established by Ezra, full
ninety years before Ezra came to establish it. Nor had
the lapse of these ninety years extinguished the know-
ledge of this Torah, for before Ezra had read a single
line of it the princes informed him that the people of
Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, had not been
observing it in one of its most imperative injunctions.
They do not await the action of Ezra, but come to him
beforehand, complaining of the transgression of the
law by the people, the priests, and the Levites. This
transgression is recognised both by the people and Ezra
as a transgression of the commandments of God, and is
acknowledged as a part of that course of sin which
had brought down the judgments of God upon them
and their fathers, — a confession which assumes that the
Torah was known to their fathers.
Confirmatory of the position that the law read by
Ezra, in the hearing of the people, was not unknown,
is the account given of their assembling together at
Jerusalem on the occasion on which he read it. They
came together in the seventh month, a notable month
in Israel's year, and came together manifestly in
accordance with an established custom, for there is no
mention made of any command to that effect having
been issued by Ezra or Nehemiah. This fact seems to
warrant the inference that these children of the
12 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
captivity were aware of the law of Leviticus regarding
the feasts of the Lord (Lev. xxiii.-xxv.). And further,
it would seem that they were aware of the special
command of Moses regarding the reading of the law in
the hearing of all Israel, at the end of every seven
years, at the feast of Tabernacles, for it was at their
request that Ezra brought " the book of the law of
Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel "
(Neh. viii. 1), before the congregation, and read it in
their hearing. Surely it is not unwarrantable to con-
clude from their coming together at the time prescribed
in this Mosaic Torah, and their asking Ezra to bring
it forth, that they knew of its existence and its laws.
Even ninety years before this memorable event, " the
people gathered themselves together as one man to
Jerusalem, when the seventh month was come." "Erom
the first day of the seventh month began they to offer
burnt-offerings unto the Lord" (Ezra iii. 1, 6).
When, therefore, Ezra and his associates read from
this book, they proclaimed to Israel no new law for
their endorsement. Ezra did not read it to establish
or authenticate it, but read it as the recognised and
authentic law of God.
We are thus carried back behind the days of the
restoration to the days of the exile ; for the men of
the restoration, at all its stages, prove themselves well
acquainted with the Mosaic Torah in all its essential
features. This, of course, is all one with saying that
the so-called Esdrine Canon was known before Ezra
was born, and was the recoofnised law of Israel in the
EZEKIELIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE LEVITICAL TORAH. 13
days of their sojourn in Babylon. In view of this
result, we may recommend the lecturer's aforesaid
counsel to the traditionists, to himself, and the school
he represents, viz., " Scholars have sometimes been so
busy trying to gather a grain of truth out of these
fabulous traditions " (of critics from Maimonides and
Spinoza to Kuenen and Wellhausen), " that they have
forgotten to open their eyes, and simply look at the
Bible itself for a plain and categorical account of what
Ezra and Nehemiah actually did for the Canon of
Scripture," p. 158. Their own action and the attitude
and action of the people, as described by them, prove
that whatever else Ezra and Nehemiah did for Israel,
they did not compose or compile for them a new
Torah, unknown to them or their fathers.
The Ezekielian Ry;pothesis of the Origin of the Leviticcd
Torah,
But here we are brought face to face with the
hypothesis that " a written priestly Torah " originated
with Ezekiel., Our author finds no difficulty, such as
other writers have found, in dealing with the mar-
vellous imagery of this most figurative of all the
prophets. To him the last nine chapters, taken
literaUy, exhibit, at least in germ and principle, the
essence and outline of the Levitical legislation. " Its
distinctive features," we are told, "are all found in
Ezekiel's Torah," p. 382. The proof of this assertion
is to be found in " the care with which the Temple
14 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
and its vicinity are preserved from the approach of
unclean things and persons, the corresponding institu-
tion of a class of holy ministers in the person of the
Levites, the greater distance thus interposed between
the people and the altar, the concentration of sacrifice
in the two forms of stated representative offerings
(the tamid) and atoning sacrifices." " In all these
points," it is alleged, "the usage of the law is in
distinct contrast to that of the first Temple, where the
temple plateau was polluted by the royal sepulchres,
where the servants of the sanctuary were uncircum-
cised foreigners, the stated service the affair of the
king, regulated at will by him (2 Kings xvi.), and the
atoning offerings essentially fines paid to the priests
of the sanctuary (2 Kings xii. 16). That Ezekiel in
these matters speaks not merely as a priest recording
old usage, but as a prophet ordaining new Torah with
divine authority," the author affirms, "is his own
express claim, and appears in the clearest way in the
degradation of the non-Zadokite priests, which is
actually carried out in the Levitical legislation, with
the natural consequence that, on the return from the
captivity, very few Levites in comparison with the
full priests cared to attach themselves to the Temple "
(Neh. vii. 39 seq.), pp. 382, 383.
It would be difficult to crowd into the same space
a larger number of historical inaccuracies, reckless
conjectures, and doctrinal errors than have been put
on record in these few sentences. The principle
underlying the author's argument is, that the religious
EZEKIELIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE LEVITICAL TORAH. 15
practice of a people is always in harmony with their
doctrinal system as exhibited in their sacred books.
As he does not find the religious practice under the
first Temple conformable to the Levitical system
sketched in the prophecies of Ezekiel, he concludes
that the Torah of Ezekiel " was in distinct contrast to
that of the first Temple." To such fallacious reasoning it
would be sufficient to reply, that his premises simply
warrant the conclusion that the Torah of Ezekiel was
in distinct contrast, not to the Torah, but to the
practice under the first Temple. This is the only con-
clusion warranted by the author's premises, and it is
difficult to see how it helps his argument. His object
is to prove that the distinctions above specified were
not recognised (or recognised with such care) in the
Torah of the first Temple as the Torah of Ezekiel
demands ; and his proof is, that there is not so much
care displayed in the religious practice of that period !
In a word, the fundamental canon of the author
and the school he represents, the canon of criticism
whereby they would disprove the existence of the
Levitical system, as a perfected scheme, prior to the
days of the exile, when its leading principles were
sketched by Ezekiel, and wrought out by Ezra or
somebody else, is the palpably false principle, that
men do not " hold the truth in unrighteousness," but,
despite the testimony of all history, sacred or profane,
live up to the full measure of the light they possess !
It is sometimes said that a man is better than his
creed, but history proves that men are oftener worse
16 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
than their creeds ; and this is specially true of Israel.
It was certainly Christ's view of the Jewish practice
in His time. " Did not Moses give you the law, and
yet none of you doeth the law ?" John vii. 19. On
this principle of " the newer criticism," there was no
ground for such rebuke.
But the unfairness of our author's line of argumenta-
tion, and of the critical principles and methods he
represents, is still further manifest from the section of
Israel's history to which he appeals as an index to the
character of the pre-exilic Torah. His appeal is to
the history of the first Temple as given in the Books
of the Kings, and indeed, practically, as given in
2 Kings, chapters xii. and xvi. Is this fair ? Is it
scientific criticism ? It is surely neither fair nor
scientific to adduce, as evidence of the laws of Jehovah
made known to Israel, the conduct of Israel and
Israel's kings at any period of Israel's history ; but it
confounds all reason, and sets all criticism at defiance,
to select, for this purpose, those sections of Israel's
history in which the laws of Jehovah were set at
naught. His sanctuary profaned, and idolatry made an
institution of state. This, however, is what our
author, in the name of criticism, has done. A refer-
ence to the principal passage cited, will show that this
is no misrepresentation of his critical method. His
proof that the stated service of the sanctuary " was
the affair of the king, regulated at will by him," is
taken from the 16th chapter of 2 Kings, which gives
an account, not of the Torah of the time, but of the
EZEKIELIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE LEVITICAL TOEAH. l7
violation of the Torah by Ahaz, who, enamoured by a
Damascene altar, had one made " according to all the
workmanship thereof," which he set up in the fore-
front of the house of the Lord, displacing the great
brazen altar of Solomon. There is no doubt that the
service of the house, as thus arranged, was " the affair
of the king." He commanded Urijah the priest to
build the altar, to transfer the brazen altar from be-
tween the new altar and the house to the north side
of the new altar, and to substitute this new altar for
the altar of Jehovah in all the stated services of the
house of the Lord for the king and all the people.
So did the king command, and so did the pliant Urijah,
who, however faithful to record a transaction for
Isaiah, was recreant to the trust reposed in him as
the high priest of Jehovah. And this is one of the
proofs that the Torah of Ezekiel is in distinct contrast
to that of the first Temple ! This is simply saying,
that the idolatrous innovations of Ahaz, copied after
the heathen rites of Damascus, are the standard by
which w^e are to judge the Torah by which the ser-
vice of the first Temple, from Solomon to Ahaz, was
regulated ; and that the sinful compliance of Urijah
with the king's command, is proof, not of Urijah's
sin, but of the rights of the king under the pre-exilic
Torah 1 This may be the science of "the newer
criticism," but it were an abuse of language to call it
scientific criticism.
Turning to the other passage submitted in proof
of the contrast between the Torah of Ezekiel and
B
18 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the Torah of the first Temple, 2 Kings xii. 16 (Heb.
17), we find another illustration of the scientific
methods of this critical school. Our author alleges
that " the atoning offerings were essentially fines paid
to the priests of the sanctuary," and the proof given
is, that " the trespass money and sin money was not
brought into the house of the Lord: it was the
priests'." Here is certainly a sweeping generalization
from very slender premises. Indeed, it is not saying
all to speak of the premises as slender ; the fact is,
they are, to say the least, exceedingly questionable.
The Hebrew warrants the following rendering : " The
money of the trespass-offering (asham), and the money
of the sin-offerings (chataoth), was not brought into the
house of the Lord ; they were the priests'." Such a
translation is perfectly grammatical, and, so far as the
principal terms are concerned, is confirmed by the
Septuagint. That version renders the phrase, kesejoh
asham, money of the sin-offering, and the phrase
hcse'ph chataoth, money of the trespass-offering, differ-
ing from the translation here given only in the order
of these expressions. Although the order is changed,
the version gives the correct idea of the object aimed
at in giving the money to the priest. This is mani-
fest from the law of the trespass- offering, as given
Lev. V. 15, 16 : " If a soul commit a trespass, and
sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord ;
then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a
ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy
estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the
EZEKIELIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE LEVITICAL TORAH. 19
sanctuary, for a trespass-offering (asham) : and he
shall make amends for the harm that he hath done
in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto,
and give it unto the priest : and the priest shall make
atonement for him " (not with the money, but) " with
the ram of the trespass-offering (asham), and it shall
be forgiven him." The money, therefore, was not
given as the sole atonement. It was one of the con-
ditions of reconciliation, that restitution, or, as the
Hebrew has it, recompense for the wrong done in the
case, should be made ; but there was needed, besides,
a veritable atoning sacrifice.
In Num. V. 8 we have a similar instance of money
paid to the priest, in addition to the ram of atonement :
" But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the
trespass unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto the
Lord, even to the priest, besides the ram of the atone-
ment whereby the atonement shall be made for him."
This is the law of the asham, the trespass-offering, as
is shown both by the Hebrew text and the Septuagint
version, and its provisions are obviously implied in
the very passage (2 Kings xii. 16) relied on by our
author to prove that, under the first Temple, " the
atoning offerings were essentially fines paid to the
priests ! " The money paid to the priest was regarded
as a recompense for the harm done, and the ram was
offered as the atonement for the trespass. In passing,
it may not be out of place to note the singular fact,
that a critic who would have us correct the Hebrew
text by the Septuagint, and who is so ready to quote
20 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
its arrangement, or its renderings, wherever it seems
to aid him in his strictures on the sacred text, did
not think of looking into its rendering of this 16 th
verse before making it the basis of so comprehensive
a generalization.
But while this passage, fairly rendered and inter-
preted, does not serve the cause in whose interests it
has been appealed to, it renders eminent service to the
other side. It proves that the law of the trespass-
offering, one of the characteristic laws of the Levitical
system, was known as an old law in the days of
Jehoash the king, and Jehoiada the priest, at least 280
years before the prophecy of Ezekiel, in which, if we
are to credit " the newer criticism," the principles of
the Levitical system were first made known to Israel.
Acting, then, on our author's recommendation to
open our eyes and ascertain from Ezra and Nehemiah
themselves, and not from any outside source, such as
tradition, whether ecclesiastic or rationalistic, what
they have done for the Canon of Scripture, and accept-
ing the proof texts he has brought forward in support
of the exilic or post-exilic origin of the Levitical Torah,
we are compelled to reject his conclusion, and must hold
that the priestly Torah was known, and departures from
its enactments treated as sins, under the first Temple.
Arguments from the History of the first Temple.
This conclusion is confirmed by the entire history of
that Temple from its erection by Solomon. The fact
ARGUMENTS FEOM HISTORY OF THE FIRST TEMPLE. 21
is, it were just as reasonable to challenge the existence
of the Temple itself, as to challenge the existence of a
law for the regulation of its service, to all intents and
purposes the same as the Levitical Torah. The dedi-
cation service implies a very minute Levitical Torah.
The month chosen, the seventh month, was the chief
month in the priestly Torah. It is the priests who
bring up the ark from the city of David. "They
brought up the ark of the Lord, and the tabernacle
of the congregation, and all the holy vessels that were
in the tabernacle, even those did the priests and the
Levites bring up. And King Solomon, and all the
concfrecration of Israel that were assembled unto him,
were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and
oxen, that could not be told nor numbered for multi-
tude. And the priests brought in the ark of the
covenant of the Lord unto his place, into the oracle of
the house, to the most holy place, even under the
wings of the cherubims. . . . There was nothing in
the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put
there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with
the children of Israel, when they came out of the land
of Egypt. And it came to pass, when the priests were
come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the
house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand
to minister because of the cloud : for the glory of the
Lord had filled the house of the Lord. ... And
the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before
the Lord. And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace-
offerings, which he offered unto the Lord, two and
22 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty
thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of
Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. The same day
did the king hallow the middle of the court that was
before the house of the Lord : for there he offered
burnt-offerings, and meat-offerings, and the fat of the
peace-offerings, because the brazen altar that was
before the Lord was too little to receive the burnt-
offerings, and meat-offerings, and the fat of the peace-
offerings," 1 Kings viii.
Here, then, at the very outset, we have a service in
which the priests are distinguished not only from their
brethren of the children of Israel, but also, ver. 4, from
their kinsmen of the tribe of Levi. " The newer
criticism," it is true, is puzzled to find this alleged
post-exilic distinction occurring more than 430 years
before the vision of the house vouchsafed to Ezekiel,
and resorts even to the Chronicles for a correction. It
is, however, difficult to see how the phrase : " priests
and Levites," of 1 Kings viii. 4, is in conflict with the
phrase : " the priests, the Levites," of 2 Chron. v. 5.
If the chronicler, whose credibility is impugned by
Graf, and Kuenen, and Colenso, etc., for making
the distinction between priests and Levites, can use
this phrase, surely it cannot be argued that the use
of it is inconsistent with the distinction. It is
remarkable that whilst the Septuagint, on which
the lecturer places such reliance, omits all reference
to the Levites in the passage in Kings, it not only
mentions them in Chronicles, but distinguishes them
ARGUMENTS FROM HISTORY OF THE FIRST TEMPLE. 23
from the priests, as the Hebrew does in 1 Kings
viii. 4. ,
But in addition to its recognition of the distinc-
tion between the priests and other Levites, this
passage proves the existence of an extensive Torah,
embracing all the essential features of the Levitical
system. The things done were very numerous.
They embraced the transfer of the ark and the
sacred vessels from the Tabernacle which David
had pitched for it in Zion, to the new edifice erected
for it by Solomon ; the setting of the ark in the
prescribed place, and after the manner described,
which was manifestly a matter of divine appointment ;
the offering of burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings, and
meat-offerings, and the fat of the peace-offerings ; and
the hallowing of the middle of the court that was
before the Lord. These are the great outstanding
features of that great dedication service, and any one
who will carefully weigh the facts as given in this
graphic sketch, will wonder how any one who regards
it as veritable history can accept the theory of " the
newer criticism," which denies that the Levitical
system was known or sanctioned before the days of
Ezekiel or Ezra, and teaches that "the usage of the
law was in distinct contrast to that of the second
Temple." Almost every point of the alleged contrast
specified as known to the Torah of Ezekiel, and un-
known under the first Temple, comes out in this dedi-
cation service. 1. "The care with which the Temple
and its vicinity are preserved from the approach of
24 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
unclean things and persons," is manifest in the hallow-
ing of the middle court, a ceremonial action by which
it was rendered as sacred as the brazen altar itself,
which none but the priests dare approach. 2. We
have " the corresponding institution" (not then made,
but actually existing) " of a class of holy ministers,"
who approach unto, and take charge of the holy things
which others might not touch. 3. We find also the chief
" forms of stated representative offerings and atoning
sacrifices " in the 'olah, or burnt-offering ; the minchah,
or meat-offering ; and the shelamim, or peace-offerings.
The Torah of these offerings is given, Lev. i.— iii.,
and, whatever exception may be taken to the mincJiaJi,
there can be no doubt regarding the atoning character
of the ^olali and the shelamim. All the elements
which enter into and characterize a ritual of atone-
ment are found connected with the latter. 1. There
is the laying on of hands, by which the sins of the
offerer are imputed to the victim, and the victim con-
stituted his substitute. 2. There are the expiatory
actions of blood-shedding, and of blood-sprinkling upon
the altar round about. 3. There is the burning of the
victim upon the altar. These actions are common to
both the ^olah and the shelamim, and where these are,
there is atonement. Indeed, it is because of its aton-
ing character that the 'olah is chosen as the designa-
tion for the morning and evening sacrifice, which was
certainly both a stated representative offering, repre-
senting all Israel, and a perpetual atonement for their
sins — an 'olah tamid — ever burning on the altar before
ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY OF THE FIRST TEMPLE. 25
the Lord. However these offerings may have differed
in other respects, they agreed in all that is essential to
the idea of mediatorial expiation.
Now that which in this narrative is fatal to the
theory that the Levitical Torah was unknown under
the first Temple, is the manifest fact, that priestly
functions are executed in connection with a round of
sacrificial and other acts of a most extensive range,
without the slightest hint of the existence of a sacri-
ficial or other Torah. It is this absence of all reference
to rule or ritual that bespeaks the knowledge of
their work as possessed by the priests and Levites of
the day. They set to their sacred work as men who
are accustomed to it. They know that it is they alone
who may take charge of the Tabernacle or its furniture,
or transfer the ark and the holy vessels to their place
in the newly-erected house of the Lord. They know
that if the middle of the court is to be used for sacri-
fice, it must be hallowed, as by implication the brazen
altar was — a hallowing which afterwards precluded
the approach of any one save the priests, and their
assistants the Levites. They know how to prepare and
offer the ^olahy and the sJielamim, and the minchah.
None of these offerings, each of which, w^e know, had
and must have had its own distinctive ritual, both of
preparation and presentation, appears the least strange
to either Solomon, or the priests, or the Levites, or the
people. It is sciolists, and not the masters of an art,
who are wont to be ever referring to its rules.
26 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Argument from the Sin of Jeroboam.
But while there is no account of a full ritualistic
programme given under the first Temple, there are inci-
dental references which prove that the Levitical system
was not unknown. We find among the other sins which
are laid to the account of Jeroboam, that he " ordained
a feast on the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of
the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah ; and
he offered upon the altar ... on the fifteenth day of
the eighth month, even in the month ivhich he had
devised of his own heart'' (1 Kings xii. 32, 33). Here
there is manifestly allusion to Jeroboam's departure
from the Levitical calendar. Lev. xxiii., in which the
fifteenth day of the seventh month (not the eighth
month) was appointed by divine authority as a day
of holy convocation, ushering in the seven days of the
Feast of Tabernacles. He is also charged with a
breach of the law of the priesthood, in making priests
of the lowest of the people which were not of the sons
of Levi.
Argument from Elijah's Sacrifice on CarmeL
In like manner there is revealed, even in the brief
account of Elijah's sacrifice on Carmel (1 Kings xviii.),
a knowledge of the Levitical ritual ; for there are two
references in it to the Levitical institute (Ex. xxix.) of
" the evening sacrifice." The priests of Baal cried and
prophesied from morning till noon, and from noon till
A EEFORMATION IMPLIES A TORAH. 27
''the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice''
(vv. 26-29). "And it came to pass, at the time of the
offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet
came near," etc., ver. 36. Notwithstanding the brevity
of this wondrously graphic narrative, it shows plainly
that Elijah at least, and the narrator as well, were
acquainted with one of the chief of the institutions of
the Levitical Torah — the evening sacrifice. Without
delaying to enter upon the details of the evidence,
suffice it to say, what a candid examination of the
facts will confirm, that the history given in the two
books of the Kings implies the existence of a Torah
which must have contained all the characteristic pro-
visions and ordinances of the priestly Torah. The
sins of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, for
which they are rebuked by prophets and chastised by
God, and the temporary and the partial reformations
wrought by good kings, alike imply the existence of a
central sanctuary and a divinely ordained priesthood,
with an authoritative ritual and calendar, from whose
instructions neither kings nor priests might deviate
without incurring the displeasure of Jehovah.
A Reformation im][)lies a Torah.
A reformation in its very conception implies a
Torah whose commandments have been violated. If
a reforming king took away the high places, and was
approved of God for doing so ; or if he carried on his
reformation but in part, as Jehoash did (2 Kings xii.),
28 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
or as Amaziali did (2 Kings xiv.), or as Azariali
(2 Kings XV.), stopping short of their abolition, and
was condemned for doing so, there must have been an
existing law against such local sanctuaries. To this
class of reformations there is always a ''hut'' appended,
— " but the high places were not taken away," mani-
festly implying that they were allowed to remain,
contrary to the divine law. The history of the last-
named king, who was smitten with leprosy (2 Kings
XV. 5 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 19) for invading the office of
the priesthood, and attempting to burn incense upon
the altar of incense in the Temple of the Lord, is
peculiarly instructive, proving, as it does, the existence
of a Levitical Torah, recognised and enforced by God
Himself, according to which none save the priests,
" the sons of Aaron, who were consecrated to burn
incense," might arrogate to themselves the right to
execute that sacred function. Azariah, doubtless, had
views of the king's relations to the Temple very much
akin to those held by our author, and very likely
regarded the house as his own private chapel, and its
" stated service as his own affair ; " but the leprosy
wherewith Jehovah rebuked his arrogance proclaims
the folly and the profanity of those whose critical
principles would justify his irreverent usurpation of
the priestly office. It is because the Chronicles
abound in testimonies of this kind to the existence
of the priestly Torah, that these books are placed
under ban by " the newer criticism."
CHAPTEE 11.
Argument from the Reformation of Josiali.
THE principle that a reformation implies an exist-
ing Torah, is very clearly brought out in the
reformation effected by Josiah (2 Kings xxii., xxiii.).
Josiah's reformation owes its inauguration to the dis-
covery of the book of the law by Hilkiah the priest.
It is when the king hears " the words of the book of
the law" [rendered law-book most unwarrantably in
the article " Bible "] that he rends his clothes, sends
to consult the prophetess Huldah, and enters upon the
work of reforming abuses. That book was called "the
book of the covenant" (2 Kings xxiii. 2), and contained
an account of the original covenanting of Israel under
Moses (Ex. xxiv.); and in conformity with that ancient
august transaction at the foot of Sinai, the king, and
the priests, and the prophets, and all the people,
renewed the covenant before the Lord. In pursuance
of this covenant engagement, the work of reformation
is entered upon and carried forward. " The king
commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests
of the second order, and the keepers of the door
(undoubtedly the Levites), to bring forth out of the
temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for
29
30 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of
heaven : and he burned them without Jerusalem. . . .
And he put down the idolatrous priests whom the
kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the
high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places
round about Jerusalem. . . . Moreover, the altar that
was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made,
both that altar and the high place he brake down,
and burned the high place, and stamped it small to
powder, and burned the grove. . . . And all the
liouses also of the high places that were in the cities
of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to
provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did
to them according to all the acts that he had done in
Bethel. And he slew all the priests of the high
places that were there upon the altars, and burned
men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem."
The Bearing of these Facts on the Author's Theory.
This reformation is itself a sufficient reply to all
that part of this singular book in which the author
endeavours to prove that it was not on the basis of
the Pentateuchal theory of worship that God's grace
ruled in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and that
it was not on that basis the prophets taught prior to
the exile. The portion of his book formally occupied
with this endeavour extends over a large number of
pages; but the fact is, his mind is so set upon the
BEAEING OF THESE FACTS ON AUTHOR'S THEORY. 31
establishment of this most erroneous and unhistorical
theory of the pre-exilic administration of the covenant
of grace, that he is ever referring to it, and shaping his
treatment of the sacred record so as to give to it
countenance and support. It rules his conception of
the history of Israel under judges, kings, and prophets,
and all that is adverse to this theory is to be regarded
as the work of some blundering editor, or of a self-
interested priestly guild.
Now all these speculations of "the newer criticism"
are proved utterly baseless by this reformation of King
Josiah. It extends over the whole area covered by
the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and deals with and
abolishes all the forms of worship practised in both
which were inconsistent with the book of the law,
overthrowing, and that on "the basis of the Penta-
teuchal theory of worship," those very institutions
which our author has adduced as evidence that
the Levitical Torah was not in existence, or its
observances obligatory, during the pre-exilic period of
the history of Israel and Judah. It assumes that the
covenant read out of that book of the covenant, then
renewed by the reforming king, and priests, and
prophets, and people, was a covenant whose laws not
only they but their fathers had violated, and for the
violation of which the great wrath of Jehovah was
kindled against them. It assumes, therefore, that the
laws of that book of the covenant had been in exist-
ence in the days of their fathers, for where there is no
law there is no transgression. This rule is especially
32 THE NEWER CKITICISM.
applicable to 'positive laws which have their reason
simply in the divine will, and have not their founda-
tion in the constitution of man. The moral law,
whose works are written in the hearts of men, is
binding upon men who have never read or heard the
precepts of the Decalogue as delivered to Israel, and
the ground of the obligation is the self-evident, con-
stitutionally revealed character of its moral principles.
Very different, however, is it in the case of a positive
law such as that on which our author chiefly relies —
the law of the single central sanctuary. From its
very nature, resting, as it does, upon the divine will
alone, it can bind none save those to whom it is made
known. There could therefore be no wrath of the
Lord entertained toward the king, or his people, or
their fathers for the violation of a positive law of
whose commandments and ordinances the Lord had
kept them in ignorance.
This reformation did not abolish the distinction
between the high priest and " the priests of the
second order," or the distinction between these latter
and "the keepers of the door." These distinctions
are recognised as of divine appointment, and are not
looked upon as among the causes which have kindled
the wrath of the Lord against Judah. Whatever else
might be wrong in connection with the arrangements
and services of the first Temple, the distinction in
question was not regarded as among the procuring
causes of the divine displeasure, and must have been
regarded by the king as a distinction authorized by
BEARING OF THESE FACTS ON AUTHOR'S THEORY. 33
the very book which had so moved him by the revela-
tion it made of Israel's sins.
There is manifest recognition of the law of the
central sanctuary in the destruction of the high places
throughout the bounds of the entire kingdom, while
the Temple at Jerusalem is spared. These places were
not abolished, as " the newer criticisni " alleges,
simply because " they were a constant temptation
to practical heathenism," p. 265, or simply because
" the worship there was in later times of a heathenish
character," p. 267. This had been a reason for abolish-
ing not only the worship of the high places, but the
worship of the Temple as well, for the state of the
Temple worship in this respect was as bad as anything
known in the high places. The worship of Baal, and
of Ashtaroth, and of all the host of heaven, was
practised in the sanctuary itself, as well as in the high
places; and if Josiah had proceeded in his reforma-
tion-work on the principle suggested in this book, he
should certainly have begun with the Temple and its
idolatrous environments, and have done with the
central seat of the abounding corruption, " according
to all the acts that he had done at Bethel." The fact
that he did not abolish the Temple as a seat of divine
worship, while he abolished other seats of worship
which were no worse than it was, proves that his
action must have been regulated by other considera-
tions besides the heathenish character of the worship
practised in those local centres. As the alleged ground
of their destruction was common to both them and the
c
34 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
Temple, there must have been a special reason for
their destruction while the Temple was spared. The
simple and all-sufficient reason for the discrimination
in their doom was the law of the central sanctuary,
which, from the time of its dedication, rendered all
other seats of worship illegal save those places which
God, during the separate existence of the kingdoms of
Israel and Judah, had sanctioned by His manifested
presence, or by the mouth of His prophets.
Autlior's Method of meetmg the Argument from Josiah's
Beformation.
All that " the newer criticism " has to say in reply
to this argument from Josiah's reformation is, that the
law by which it was regulated is found in Deutero-
nomy. " In truth," it is alleged, " when we compare
the reformation of Josiah, as set forth in 2 Kings,
with what is written in the Pentateuch, we observe
that everything that Josiah acted upon is found
written in one or other part of Deuteronomy " (p. 246).
In confirmation of this statement our author gives a
list of references to 2 Kings xxiii., specifying some of
Josiah's acts, with parallel references to Deuteronomy,
in which alone, we are to understand, the law author-
izing such acts is to be found. The chief acts men-
tioned in 2 Kings xxiii. are the overthrow of the
worship of Baal, and of the sun and moon and planets,
and all the host of heaven ; the destruction of the grove
that was in the house of the Lord ; the breaking down
author's method of meeting the argument. 35
of the high places ; the defiling of Tophet, and the
abolition of the worship of Molech ; the restoration of
the feast of the Passover ; and the putting away of the
Sodomites, and of the workers with familiar spirits,
and the wizards. Because there is a Torah against all
these abominations "found in one or other part of
Deuteronomy," and because Josiah acted in accord-
ance with it, we are asked to believe that no such
Torah was previously known, or obligatory upon
Israel ! Now, even though there were not a syllable
of a Torah in existence, as a thing of record, is it
possible to believe that the idolatrous practices, bar-
barous rites, divinations, orgies, and abominable pollu-
tions enumerated above, were not violations of the
law of God, and breaches of His covenant with Israel ?
Are we to give heed to a system of criticism which
requires for its support the assumption, that up to the
time of Josiah there was no Torah of God or man
against these abominations ? How can such a system
adjust itself to the teaching of the Apostle Paid
(Eom. i. 23-32), in which he speaks of the chief sins
here enumerated as dealt with by Josiah, as sins
against the Light of nature ? Is it within the possi-
bilities even of the unscientific imagination of this
critical school, to conceive of the God of Israel giving
no Torah against such sins until the days of Josiah,
and that even then He sent His Torah to His people
by methods which the subtlest casuistry cannot defend ?
That such reticence on the part of Israel's God regard-
ing such sins is not possible, aU men having right
"36 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
conceptions of His holiness and truth will agree ; and
that it was not actual, is proved by this same book of
Kings. A reference to chapter seventeenth will satisfy
any candid mind that the sins for which God banished
the kingdom of the ten tribes from their land for ever,
were the very same sins for which He was about to
visit Judah, and for which He would have also carried
her into captivity had it not been for the reformation
effected by King Josiah, which for a time stayed
execution of sentence. It is charged against the king-
dom of Israel as the reason of their banishment,
" that the children of Israel did secretly those things
that were not right against the Lord their God, and
they built them high places in all their cities, from
the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And
they set them up images and groves in every high
hill, and under every green tree. And there they
burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen
whom the Lord carried away before them ; and wrought
wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger ; " that
" they went after the heathen that were round about
them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them,
that they should not do like them." (Was not this
very comprehensive charge a Torah ?) " And they
left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and
made them molten images, even two calves, and made
a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and
served Baal. And they caused their sons and their
daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination
and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in
author's method of meeting the argument. 37
the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel"
(although, according to " the newer criticism," He had
given them no Torah condemnatory of these sins, as
He had not as yet given the Book of Deuteronomy
either to Israel or Judah !), " and removed them out
of His sight : there was none left but the tribe of
Judah."
The reader is requested to compare these two
chapters of 2 Kings (xvii. and xxiii.) for him-
self, and then judge of the science of the criticism
which concludes from the latter that the sins there
enumerated prove that the Torah condemning them
had just then come into existence, or was just then
published, while it declines to draw a similar inference
from the fact that the same sins are enumerated in
the former chapter, or to conclude from the identity
of the transgressions that Deuteronomy must have
been known to the kingdom of the ten tribes almost
one hundred years before the reformation of Josiah.
If the sins of Judah dealt with by Josiah find their
condemning Torah in Deuteronomy, surely the same
sins charged against Israel and dealt with by Jehovah
Himself, must also find their condemnation written in
the same book. In a word, if the Torah whereby
Josiah wrought reformation in Judah was the Book of
Deuteronomy, the Torah whereby Jehovah condemned
Israel, and for the violation of whose laws He carried
her into captivity, must have been this same Deutero-
nomic code. Where there is no law there is no
38 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
transgression ; and identity of sin proves identity of
Torah.
And at a still earlier date, even in the days of the
Judges, we find evidence of the existence of the lead-
ing points of this reformatory Deuteronomic Torah.
As soon as Joshua and the elders who overlived him
passed away, the children of Israel forsook the Lord
God of their fathers, and served Baalim, provoking the
Lord to anger by worshipping Baal and Ashtaroth.
An attentive reader will find, on a comparison of
Judges ii., iii., vi., x., with the chapters of 2 Kings
already cited, that while there is more minuteness of
detail in the latter than in the former, the sins
enumerated for which Jehovah was ever delivering
Israel into the hands of their enemies round about,
were substantially the same sins as those taken
cognizance of in the days of Hoshea, king of Israel,
and in the days of Josiah, king of Judah. The
parallel is sufficiently close to justify the conclusion
that the Torah of the Judges must have contained the
essential elements of the Torah carried into execution
against the kingdom of the ten tribes, and applied by
Josiah in the reformation of Judah.
Our author, therefore, cannot assign as a reason for
the sparing of the Temple, while the local centres of
worship and the high places were abolished, that
the Deuteronomic law respecting the single central
sanctuary had just then been published. He has
enumerated too many points of relation between the
reformation and the Deuteronomic Torah to have re-
author's method of meeting the argument. 30
course to this argument. He has made the identifica-
tion of the law regulating the reform effected by
Josiah with the Deuteronomic Torah to depend upon a
long catalogue of sins which, by reference [see author's
list of passages, p. 425], he has specified, and therefore
cannot now argue as if he had based the whole issue
upon this one point regarding the central sanctuary —
a point, by the way, which is not one whit more
prominently presented in the reformation services of
Josiah than it is in the dedication services of Solomon,
as may be seen on a comparison of 1 Kings viii.
16, 29; ix. 3 (and, indeed, the whole dedication
prayer offered by Solomon), with 2 Kings xxiii. 27.
The fact is, that this point is much more prominent
in Solomon's prayer than it is in Josiah's reformation.
The law of the one single central sanctuary underlies
every utterance of it from beginning to end ; and the
reader is requested to ask himself the question, as he
reads that greatest of all Old Testament prayers,
whether the royal suppliant could have been ignorant
of the existence of the Deuteronomic Torah of the
single central sanctuary ?
To conclude then, if the Torah of Josiah's book
embraced the sins specified by our author, it must
have been in existence before the captivity of the ten
tribes ; and if its characteristic was the law of the
single central sanctuary, it must have been known to
Solomon when he dedicated the Temple.
Such, then, is the conclusion to which we are con-
ducted by the history of the first Temple from its
40 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
inauguration to its close. That history assumes the
existence of a Torah which, in all its essential elements
and features, coincides with the Pentateuchal system.
That such a coincidence does exist, our author is
constrained partially to confess. " Although many
individual points of ritual resembled the ordinances of
the law," he says, " the Levitical tradition as a whole
had as little force in the central sanctuary as with the
mass of the people," p. 266. To this it is very easy
to reply, that it is just as true of positive laws as of
moral, that the non-observance of them does not prove
their non-existence. In Josiah's estimation, the sin of
Judah consisted in the non-observance of a law which
should have had force in the central sanctuary. In
the estimation of " the newer criticism," the fact that
it had no force in the central sanctuary proves that
no such law was in existence !
The position now established is, that there is no
ground for the allegation that, in its leading features,
the Torah of Ezekiel " is in distinct contrast to that of
the first Templet So far is it from being true that
there is such a contrast, the fact is, that in all its
essential features the worship as inaugurated by
Solomon, and restored in whole or in part by his suc-
cessors, is in perfect accord with that Torah. Whether
the kings and priests are praised or blamed, there is
assumed the existence of a Torah which in all its
essential elements coincides with the Torah of Ezekiel.
This, of course, is all one with saying that there is no
scriptural warrant for the dogma of " the newer criti-
DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF DEUTERONOMIC THEORY. 41
cism," that " the law in its finished system and funda-
mental theories was never the rule of Israel's worship,
and (that) its observance was never the condition of
the experience of Jehovah's grace" (p. 266) prior to
the days of Ezekiel or Ezra.
The force of this historical fact will be all the more
manifest, when it is considered that the design of the
historical books, after the Mosaic legislation, is not to
give details of existing Torahs, but to narrate God's
dealings with Israel as a people whose chief advantage
consisted in their possessing these divine oracles.
Assume that Israel possessed the Pentateuchal system,
and the history of God's dealings with them, not only
under the first Temple, but throughout their residence
in Canaan, is explained ; assume that they came to the
knowledge of that system after the exile, and that
history becomes an unsolvable riddle.
Ethical and Historical Difficulties in the way of this
Deuteronomic Theory.
Nor is the mystery of the divine administration
cleared up by the device of an intermediate Torah,
discovered in the days of Josiah ; for, prior to the
alleged discovery, its leading enactments (as, for
example, the law of the central sanctuary, Deut.
xii. 10) are the rule according to which the kings,
and priests, and people are judged, while some of
its special ordinances are meaningless after the in-
auguration of the kingdom in the days of Saul or
42 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
David. Why blame kings prior to the days of Josiah
for not taking away the high places, when the law
of the central sanctuary, rendering them illegal,
was not, according to "the newer criticism," made
known before the eighteenth year of that good king's
reign ? And how reconcile with the wisdom of the
divine Lawgiver the law of Deut. xvii. respecting the
appointment of a king — the first Israelitish king —
470 years after the king had been chosen and
crowned, and 100 years after the kingdom of the
ten tribes had been carried into captivity ? The
difficulties which this device has been devised to
obviate are as mole-hills before this impassable moun-
tain of "the newer criticism." If the Lawgiver of
Israel be, as our author admits, "all-wise," p. 39, He
can no more issue laws for the guidance of men
hundreds of years after the men for whose guidance
they were written are dead, than He can " contradict
Himself." Folly is just as impossible to an all- wise
Being as contradiction is ; and it is just as irreverent
to impute to the omniscient Jehovah the former, as it
is to impute the latter. This "the newer criticism" does
by its intermediate Deuteronomic Code, and in doing
so writes its own condemnation. The ex post facto legis-
lation it assumes, in the case of Deuteronomy, is
impossible in a divine legislator, and, consistently, its
rationalistic authors and advocates openly and avowedly
pronounce it a premeditated fraud. "The newer
criticism " in Scotland is on the search for an ethical
principle which will enable them to hold the rational-
DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF DEUTERONOMIC THEORY. 43
istic theory regarding this literary imposture, and the
author of the article " Bible " in the Encyclopcedia
Britannica thinks he has found it in the peculiar
notions which prevailed among ancient writers regard-
ing copyright — a solution repeated in these lectures,
pp. 106, 107. But Kuenen has anticipated him in
this, for, by way of apology for the manifest fraud
which the author of Deuteronomy must, on his theory,
have perpetrated, he says, " At a time when notions
about literary property were yet in their infancy, an
action of this kind was not regarded as unlawful.
Men used to perpetrate such fictions as these without
any qualms of conscience " {Religion of Israel, vol. ii.
pp. 18, 19). It does not occasion surprise that a
German rationalist could frame such an apology, but it
certainly does seem strange that there should be found
in the bosom of the Free Church of Scotland, a pro-
fessor or a minister who could " without any qualms
of conscience " accept it, and, notwithstanding the
acceptance of it, still profess to regard the book in
which the alleged fiction was perpetrated as part and
parcel of the word of God, thus making God Himself
a jparticeps criminis in the perpetration.
Our author's argument, then, against the existence
of the Pentateuchal Torah before the days of Ezekiel,
drawn from the history of the first Temple, proves to
be a failure. He has adduced nothing from that his-
tory save transactions condemned by the Pentateuch,
this very condemnation itself proceeding upon the
assumption of the existence of the law whose non-
44 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
existence it is adduced to prove. The principle under-
lying this argument is the palpably false one, that the
non-observance of a law implies its non-existence, — a
principle which may hold good among the unf alien
angels or the spirits of the just made perfect, but
which, among the fallen sons of men, and especially
among a race who could be fairly charged with always
resisting the Holy Ghost, cannot be recognised.
Argument from Ezehiel against a pre-exilic priestly
Torali.
But apart from the history of the first Temple, our
author thinks he can find in the Book of Ezekiel
evidence of the non-existence of the Levitical law
prior to his day. His first proof is, that Ezekiel places
his new ordinances in contrast with the actual corrupt
usage of the first Temxple. One of the passages adduced
in illustration of this contrast is as follows : " Thou
shalt say to the rebellious house of Israel, Thus saith
the Lord God ; 0 ye house of Israel, let it sufi&ce you
of all your abominations, in that ye have brought into
my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and
uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to
pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread,
the fat and the blood, and they have broken my
covenant because of all your abominations. And ye
have not kept the charge of my holy things : but ye
have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for
yourselves " (chap. xliv. 6-8). Such was their conduct
ARGUMENT AGAINST A PRE-EXILIC PRIESTLY TORAH. 45
in the past for which they are rebuked : now let us
hear Ezekiel's " new ordinances," which he " places in
contrast with this corrupt usage of the first Temple."
" Thus saith the Lord God ; No stranger, uncircumcised
in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into
my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the chil-
dren of Israel. And the Levites that are gone away
far from me, when Israel went astray, which went
astray away from me after their idols ; they shall even
bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in
my sanctuary, having charge at the gates of the house,
and ministering to the house : they shall slay the
burnt-offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they
shall stand before them to minister unto them. Because
they ministered unto them before their idols, and
caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity ; there-
fore have I lifted up my hand against them, saith the
Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity. . . . But
the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept
the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel
went astray from me, they shall come near to me to
minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to
offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord
God" (vv. 9-15). The passage is given with sufficient
fulness to enable the reader, without the trouble of
reference, and at a glance, to judge of the alleged con-
trast between the usage of the first Temple (as our
author puts it) and the " new ordinances " of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is instructed to rebuke the house of Israel for
what our author styles "the usage" of the first Temple ;
46 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
a usage by which, as we are told in ver. 7, they had
broken Jehovah's covenant. Is there any room for a
second opinion here, as to whether that usage was in
accordance with the ordinances of the first Temple ?
Could the house of Israel have been condemned for a
usage by which they had broken the Lord's covenant,
if there had been no covenant with laws annexed
which had been violated by that usage ? !N'o logic,
save the logic of " the newer criticism," could infer
from a usage rebuked by the Lord's prophet as a viola-
tion of the covenant, the non-existence of a Torah
condemning such usage.
EzehieVs New Ordinances.
But let us look at Ezekiel's " new ordinances " " for
the period of the restoration," which, we are informed,
he so often " places in contrast with the actual corrupt
usage of the first Temple." In the first place, the chief
of these ordinances are not " new ordinances " at all.
They are simply old ordinances of which the con-
demned usage was a violation, as has been already
shown by the fact that, before the prophet proclaims
them, Israel is rebuked for the usage they condemn.
A comparison of the seventh verse with the eighth
and ninth will put this point out of the pale of
dispute. Nor is the ordinance against the "non-
Zadokite priests" an exception. It is true their
status subsequent to its enactment became different
from what it was before, but this proves that they
ezekiel's new ordinances. 47
Jiad a status under the first Temple established by a
Torah whose laws they had violated. For the sons of
Zadok the old Torah remains ; for the non-Zadokite
priests the new ordinance is simply a penal enact-
ment, which is designed not to abolish, but to fortify
the pre-exilic priestly Torah. How any one, with
these facts before him, could say, as our author
does, p. 374, that Ezekiel "makes no appeal to a
previous ritual," or that "the whole scheme of the
house is new," is hard to be understood. Surely, if
Israel was rebuked by this prophet for allowing
" strangers uncircumcised in heart and flesh " to come
into the house of the Lord, he must have assumed
that there was a " previous law of ritual " forbidding
such intrusion ; and surely, if the non-Zadokite priests
were degraded from the special functions of the priest-
hood for not keeping the charge of the house, as the
sons of Zadok did, and for ministering before idols,
there must have been a law requiring them to do the
one and to abstain from the other. The first con-
clusion which the author draws from this degradation
of the non-Zadokite priests is, that the ministers of
the old temple were uncircumcised foreigners ! He
alleges that Ezekiel tells us this ! Ezekiel, however,
tells us no such thing. He tells us that there was
such a usage, but he does not tell us that such men
were the recognised ministers of the first Temple.
They did come into the sanctuary, but in allowing
them to come in, and in setting them as keepers of
the charge, the house of Israel broke the covenant of
48 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the Lord. So far is Ezekiel from representing these
nncircumcised strangers as the ministers of the
sanctuary, that he speaks of their admission to the
charge of the house as a violation of the Torah,
degrades the non-Zadokite priests for abandoning the
charge of the holy things of the house for the shrines
of the idols of Israel, and commends and rewards the
sons of Zadok for their loyalty to the temple Torah.
So far as the status of the non-Zadokite priests is
concerned, they were dealt with as their sinning
brethren had been in the reformation of Josiah. Our
author sees this, and tries to parry its force, and
actually affirms that the treatment of these erring
priests, prescribed in the ordinance of Ezekiel, differs
from that dealt out to their brethren of Josiah's time.
A reference to 2 Kings xxiii. 9 will show that the
treatment is precisely similar in the two instances.
The penalty inflicted under Josiah was, that " the
priests of the high places came not up to the altar of
the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the
unleavened bread amonsj their brethren." It is
difficult to see how the penalty inflicted under the
Torah of Ezekiel differs from this. The priests of the
high places are prohibited by his Torah, as well as by
the Torah of Josiah, from coming up to the altar of
the Lord at Jerusalem, and are permitted simply to
be ministers in the house, having charge at the gates
of the house, slaying the burnt - offering and the
sacrifice for the people, and standing before the people
and ministering unto them, but not taking the place of
ezekiel's new ordinances. 4^
priests before the Lord at His altar. The two reforma-
tions agree in the reduction of men who were once
priests from the strictly priestly status, the offering of
burnt-offerings, etc., at the altar of the Lord, and they
agree in making a provision for the support of those
who were thus degraded. Ezekiel's sketch tells u^
what service the degraded priests rendered for their
living ; while the narrative of Josiah's reformation
simply informs us that provision was made for their
support, without mentioning what service they
rendered in return. How it is that our author, in
view of these coincidences of the two reformations,
can say that "under Josiah's reformation the Levite
priests of the high places received a modified priestly
status at Jerusalem," while he affirms that "Ezekiel
knows this, but declares that it shall be otherwise in
the future, as a punishment for the offence of minis-
tering at the idolatrous altars" (p. 375), is hard to be
conceived. There is no ground for the "otherwise"
of this statement. Ezekiel's reformation, so far as the
degradation and punishment of the idolatrous priests
are concerned, is precisely similar to that of Josiah.
Our author admits that the prophet knew how Josiah
had dealt with the erring priests ; and well he may,
for he deals with their erring brethren exactly as
Josiah did. The only reason for this denial of the
coincidence of Josiah's reformation with that of
Ezekiel, is that it upsets the theory that Ezekiel's
Torah "is in distinct contrast to that of the first
Temple."
D
50 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
The Tlieory brings Jeremiah and Ezehiel into Conflict.
To help out this argument, our author alleges that
" Ezekiel only confirms Jeremiah, who knew no divine
law of sacrifice under the first Temple," p. 374. This
statement is made again and again with all the con-
fidence of an unchallengeable fact (see pp. 117, 2G3,
288, 297, 304, 311, 370). Thus, on p. 372, it is
affirmed that " Jeremiah denies in express terms that
a law of sacrifice forms any part of the divine com-
mands to Israel. The priestly and prophetic Torahs
are not yet " (in Jeremiah's day) " absorbed into one
divine system." Or, to put this latter statement more
plainly, God had not yet ceased rebuking Israel for
observing the unauthorized Torah of the priests,
which, through Jeremiah's contemporary, Ezekiel, he
was already sanctioning and absorbing. Jeremiah, in
the meantime (p. 307), recognises no "necessity for
such a scheme of ritual as Ezekiel maps out 1 " In
fact, " the difference between Jehovah and the gods of
the nations is, that He does not require sacrifice, but
only to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly
with God" (p. 298). This difference was, it is true,
in process of being bridged over in the land of the
captivity, or on a mountain in Israel, through com-
munications made to Ezekiel; but of this change in
the methods of God's grace Jeremiah knew nothing.
The chief passage cited from Jeremiah in support of
this marvellous doctrine of the pre-exilic way of salva-
tion is Jer. vii. 21-23: "Put your burnt - offerings
JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL BROUGHT INTO CONFLICT. 51
unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not
to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that
I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt - offerings or sacrifices : but this thing com-
manded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be
your God, and ye shall be my people," etc. One
reads such a reference made for such a purpose with
feelings of astonishment. Such a feeling is not un-
natural when the context of this passage is examined,
and the institution of the Passover is brought to
remembrance. In the context the prophet is com-
manded to rebuke Judah for their sins, among which
there are specified their idolatrous worship and their
fatalistic imputation of it to God's foreordination of
their sin, in the house of the Lord, which was called
by His name, but which had become a den of robbers
in their eyes. While their sins are rebuked, the house
is recognised as the Lord's house ; and this one fact
ought to have prevented the citation of the passage in
question as a proof that God had not, in Jeremiah's
day, or under the first Temple, sanctioned sacrifice.
In this divine recognition of the Temple there is
implied, beyond all reasonable challenge, the recogni-
tion of its historically established contents — the altar
of burnt-offerings, and the altar of incense, and the
table of shewbread, and the candlestick, and the
mercy-seat over the ark of the covenant. What was
the Temple, or its predecessor, the Tabernacle, without
these ? And what were these without the priesthood
and their attendants — without the high priest to
52 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
enter within the vail (which he did even in the days
of the Tabernacle, and prior to the Temple, if we are
to credit the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews),
and without the priests of the second order, and their
attendants, the Levites, needed for the heavy task of
such a ritual as such a house for the whole nation
implies ? Take away the furniture of that house, which
Jeremiah proclaims to be the house of Jehovah, and
the history of the first Temple, including its solemn
dedication, becomes a historical puzzle ; but he who
recognises the furniture of that house and its court,
must recognise the entire Levitical system, with its
priesthood and its sacrifices.
Consequences of denying a Levitical Torali under the
first Temple.
Let us pause here, and consider for a moment what
the denial of the divine authentication of the Levitical
system under the first Temple carries with it. There
can be no doubt that it carries with it, of necessity, the
denial of all that we are told, not only of the Tabernacle,
which " the newer criticism" regards as a device to give
a Mosaic cast to the priestly legislation, but of all we
read of the revelation of the plan of the house to
David, and of the provision he made for the execution
of the work, and of all we find recorded respecting the
actual carrying out of the work under Solomon, and
the dedication of the house when the cloud of the
divine glory filled it, and the Most High God sanctioned
THE THEORY IN CONFLICT WITH THE PASSOVER. 53
by His manifested presence the entire work, and set
His seal to the whole ceremonial of burnt-offerings,
and meat-offerings, and the fat of the peace-offerings,
which were presented before Him, not only on the
brazen altar, but also in the middle of the court,
hallowed especially for the occasion. He who says
that " the theology of the prophets before Ezekiel has
no place for the system of priestly sacrifice and ritual,"
as our author does, p. 288, is pledged to the denial of
all this, and much more. He must, in fact, eliminate
from his Bible all pre-exilic passages which prescribe
or sanction sacrifice as a method of worship or a con-
dition of pardon. His index expurgatorius must begin
with the protevangelion. Gen. iii. 15, which fore-
shadows a sacrificial economy of redemption, and delete
from the record every sacrificial incident from the
offering of Abel to the first post-exilic victim. A
theory demanding such a reduction of the extant Old
Testament revelation bears its condemnation upon its
own forehead.
The Theory in Conflict vjith the Institution of the
Passover.
But the passage cited from Jer. vii. suggests another
context, for it speaks of the attitude of God toward
burnt-offerings and sacrifices on the day in which He
brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, ver. 22. The
language, taken by itself, as will be seen by referring
to this verse, seems to teach that the Lord at least did
54: THE NEWER CRITICISM.
not command such modes of worship. But it is only
by taking the passage by itself, and leaving out of view
the institution of the Passover, that such an interpreta-
tion can be given to the language of Jeremiah. The
paschal lamb was sacrificially slain, and was, 1 Cor.
V. 7, a type of Christ as sacrificed for us. As this
sacrifice was slain on the very day in which the Lord
brought His people out of the land of Egypt, it cannot
be true that God was then averse to sacrifice as a
mode of worship. He had commanded that paschal
service, and fixed its observance with a most minute
ritual, the violation of which was to incur death, for
that very night on which Israel's bondage in Egypt
was to be broken for ever. However the passage in
Jeremiah is to be interpreted, it must not be repre-
sented as teaching an absolute abnegation of sacrifice
on the part of Him who ordained the Passover. The
only reasonable view of the passage, when considered
in the light of the history of the exodus and the
giving of the Law from Sinai, is, that God, at that
stage of Israel's history, had not introduced the Mosaic
economy with its elaborate sacrificial system and its
tribal priesthood. This is simply stating a historical
fact, and the fact stated is a sufficient justification of
the language of Jeremiah. It is a historical fact, that
for three months after the slaying of the Passover,
there is no mention of burnt- offering or sacrifice, but
simply a command to obey the voice of the Lord, and
to walk in all the ways that He had commanded,
Ex. XV. 26 and xix. 5, 6. The reference to this
PLACES JEREMIAH IN CONFLICT WITH THE PASSOVER. 55
silence about sacrifice by Jeremiali was not intended
to teach the Israel of his day that God disapproved of
sacrifice, or stood toward it in a negative attitude ;
but to remind them, by one of the most remarkable
incidents in their history, that He attached more im-
portance to obedience than to their round of burnt-
offerings and sacrifices, which they were evidently sub-
stituting for that obedience without which all sacrifice
is vain. Could any argument be of more point or
pertinence to such a generation as Jeremiah was
addressing, than to refer to the historical fact, that
at the time when God was manifesting His favour
towards their fathers, by signs and wonders in the
land of Egypt and on their march to Sinai, the great
theme on which He dwelt was not burnt-offerings
or sacrifice, but obedience ? Such an explanation i«
natural and historical, while the inference drawn from
the language of Jeremiah by " the newer criticism," is
irreconcilable with the divinely-ordained institution of
the Passover.
Its Exegesis of Jeremiah places Mm in Conflict with
the Institution of the Passover.
Here, then, is a grave dilemma for " the newer
criticism." By citing the testimony of Jeremiah to.
prove that sacrifice was not sanctioned prior to the'
restoration from the Babylonish captivity, it brings
Jeremiah into conflict with the institution of the
Passover, an institution whose historic verity it were
56 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
nothing short of critical wantonness to challenge. If
the observance of an institution by a whole nation
throughout its entire history, in commemoration of
an event which, from its very nature, must have been
attested by all its families at the time of its occur-
rence, do not place the event beyond the pale of his-
torical doubt, there can be no reliance placed upon any
history whether sacred or profane. Assuming, then,
that the event commemorated in the Passover occurred,
" the newer criticism" has placed itself in this dilemma,
that either their interpretation of Jeremiah is erroneous,
or Jeremiah's prophecy contradicts the history of the
exodus from Egypt. If the Passover occurred (and it
is impossible otherwise to account for the sudden and
hasty release of Israel from bondage, or for the com-
memoration of the event in the mode in which it has
ever been observed), — if the Passover occurred, sacrifice
was sanctioned and ordained of God, and that, too,
with a minute ritual, nearly 900 years before the
utterance of Jeremiah in question, and more than
1000 years before the day in which our author alleges
Ezra, in presence of the congregation, established the
Pentateuch as the law of Israel. It is true, a dilemma
of this kind may not severely tax either the ingenuity
or the reverence of " the newer criticism," as one of its
favourite methods is to bring the sacred writers into
conflict with one another ; but those who respect the
Scriptures as the word of God will regard all interpre-
tations originating such dilemmas as i;pso facto con-
demned, and will have no hesitation in accepting that
WAS THE PASCHAL LAMB BOILED ? 5 7
horn which attributes misinterpretation to the anti-
sacrificial critics.
But it is not by denying the historical fact that
there was such an institution as the Passover ordained
of God for Israel, that " the newer criticism " tries to
work its way out of this dilemma. Instead of denying
the historical fact, it tries to neutralize it by denying
its strictly sacrificial character. The proof that " the
paschal victim " was not a sacrifice for sin is, " that it
might be chosen indifferently from the flock or the
herd, and is presumed to be boiled, not roasted, as is
the case in all old sacrifices of which the history
speaks," p. 371. As to the former point, it is mani-
festly pointless. The 'olali of the morning and evening
sacrifice was a lamb, and the sin-offering on the great
day of atonement was a goat, and Aaron's sin-offering,
which was to make an atonement for himself on that
day, was a buUock. As to the latter, wliile it is true
that, according to one meaning of the Hebrew word
hashal in Dent. xvi. 7, " (the paschal victim) might be
presumed to be boiled," it is also true that, according
to the Hebrew of Ex. xii. 8 and 2 Chron. xxxv. 13,
the lamb was roasted with fire, and that it was not to
be eaten raw, or sodden at all with water. In view of
this apparent contradiction, a friendly critic would seek
a solution, rather than fasten on the former passage a
meaning which our translators have avoided to prevent
the appearance of contradiction. As the Hebrew
hashal may mean to cook, without reference to the mode,
it is certainly allowable to regard it as used in Deutero-
58 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
nomy in this general sense, and to regard the other
passages, which affirm that the paschal victim was
roasted and not boiled, or sodden at all with water,
as specifying the mode in which it was cooked. That
bashal is used in this general sense, the latter passage,
2 Chron. xxxv. 13, puts beyond all doubt: "And they
roasted (yehashshaloo) the Passover with fire, according
to the ordinance : but the other holy offerings sod they
(hishsheloo) in pots, and in caldrons, and in pans," etc.
This passage certainly proves, to say the least, that
bashal does not necessarily mean to hoil. The paschal
victim was cooked with fire, that is, by naked exposure
to the flame ; the other holy offerings were cooked in
pots, and caldrons, and pans. There were vessels used
in the latter instances, there were none used in the
former instance. It is, therefore, only in the general
sense of cooking that the term bashal can be used to
designate the two distinct and diverse processes or
modes of preparation.
Boiling not inconsistent loith Sacrifice.
Our author, however, gains nothing by his new
translation. He has by his rendering, through which
he has made Deuteronomy contradict Exodus and
Chronicles, rendered a seeming service to " the newer
criticism," which delights in arraying Scripture against
Scripture ; but he has gained nothing that will help
his argument against sacrifice by translating bashal to
boil. Even though the paschal victim were boiled and
BOILING NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SACRIFICE. 59
not roasted (or cooked) with fire, it would not follow
that it was not a veritable sacrificial victim. The
character of the victim, as sacrificial or otherwise, does
not depend upon such sacrificial accessories as roast-
ing or boiling. The primary, essential, fundamental
sacrificial actions were the shedding and sprinkling of
the victim's blood. Other important and necessary-
actions there were, but these proclaimed the transaction
sacrificial. Whether the victim were ox, or sheep, or
goat, or fowl, its blood was shed and sprinkled, for
" without shedding of blood there is no remission."
This is the apostolic account of the method of God's
grace under the first Tabernacle (which certainly ante-
dates the first Temple), whether Jeremiah knew of it
or not, or whether " the newer criticism " will allow it
or not; and in the Passover these fundamental elements
of a sacrifice are found. The blood of the paschal
victim was shed, and, when shed, was sprinkled upon
the lintel and door-posts of the houses of the Israelites.
These actions proclaimed the paschal lamb a sacrifice.
They showed that its blood was shed on behalf of the
household, that it was slain as their substitute, and
that the design of the shedding and sprinkling was to
avert from them the divine wrath, due to them as well
as to the Egyptians. Eeduce the Passover to the rank
of a farewell feast, and what would be the import of
that sprinkling ? Such reduction is rendered impos-
sible, not only by the use made of the blood, but by
the very ordinance by which it was instituted, and by
Jehovah's own explanation. It was the Lord's Pass-
60 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
over, and it was so called because He " passed over the
houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He
smote the Egyptians."
That such was the view of the nature and the
category of the " paschal victim " entertained by Josiah,
and his princes, and the priests, at the great Passover
connected with his reformation, is manifest from the
account given of the service, 2 Chron. xxxv., '• They
killed the Passover, and the priests sprinkled (the
hlood) from their hands, and the Levites flayed them "
(ver. 11). If this action of sprinkling the blood by
the priests does not bespeak the sacrificial character of
the victim, then it is impossible to prove that any
truly sacrificial victim was ever slain either under the
first Temple or the second. The action implies an
expiatory death, the acceptance of that death in the
room of the death to which the offerer was justly
exposed (as is shown by the sprinkling of the blood
upon and before the mercy-seat on the great day of the
atonement), and the consequent propitiation of God
toward those in whose stead the victim died.
But is the principle assumed by our author in his
argument against the sacrificial character of the feast
of the Passover one that can be accepted ? Is it true,
is it a Biblical doctrine of the law of sacrifice, that the
flesh of the victim is not, at any stage of the ceremony,
to be boiled ? The ram of the consecration was sacri-
ficial, and by shedding of its blood atonement was
made for Aaron and his sons, and yet the Torah of the
consecration embraces seething, and the seething is
BOILING NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SACRIFICE. 61
expressed by this same verb "bashal,'' which our author
alleges means to boil : " And thou shalt take the ram
of the consecration, and seethe his flesh in the holy
place," etc. etc. (Ex. xxix. 31). In Lev. viii. there is
a detailed account of the actual execution of this
consecration Torah by Moses, and in the 31st verse
we read : " And Moses said unto Aaron and to his sons,
Boil (hashsheloo) the flesh at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation, and there eat it with the bread
that is in the basket of consecration," etc. Still more
conclusive, if possible, is the Torah of the sin-offering
{cJiattath), as given in Lev. vi. This Torah also gives
instructions regarding the boiling of the flesh of the
sacrifice : " But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden
(tehushshal) shall be broken ; and if it be sodden (biisJi-
shalah) in a brazen pot, it shall be both scoured and
rinsed in water."
It were not much of a compliment to the reader's
intelligence, to proceed by formal argument to prove
that these Torahs forbid the acceptance of the principle
of the author's argument against the sacrificial character
of the Passover from the Hebrew term hashal, even
though it always meant to boil, which we have seen it
does not.
No ingenuity, therefore, can deliver "the newer
criticism" out of this dilemma. Either Jeremiah's
language has been misinterpreted by it, or Jeremiah
was ignorant of the existence of such an institution as
the Passover under the first Temple, and of its memor-
able celebration by the good King Josiah, which had
62 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
taken place, as his own note of time, chap. i. 2, informs
us, in his own day ! As this prophet may be presumed
to have known something of the history of the Exodus,
and something of the history of his own times, it
would seem to be safer, as it is certainly more reverent,
to conclude that his interpreters have mistaken his
meaning, than to charge him with ignorance.
But the erroneousness of such an interpretation of
this prophecy is manifest from the language of this same
prophet Jeremiah, in chap. xvii. 25, 26, where he pre-
dicts the restoration of the regal, and civic, and priestly
glory of Jerusalem. After enjoining a strict observ-
ance of the Sabbath in all its sanctity, the prophet
proceeds : " Then shall there enter into the gates of this
city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of
David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their
princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem : and this city shall remain for ever. And
they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the
places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of
Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains,
and from the south, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacri-
fices, and meat-offerings, and incense, and bringing
sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord."
" The newer criticism " may say of Jeremiah here,
as it says of Ezekiel, p. 383, that he is "not speaking
as a priest recording old usage, but as a prophet
ordaining new Torah with divine authority." It is true
that he is speaking as a prophet, and is speaking of
what shall be when Judah shall be restored. But his
PRIESTHOOD INSEPARABLE FROM JEREMIAH's PROPHECY. 63
prophecy speaks of the restoration of institutions
already known to those he is addressing. Accepting
the critical canon, that a prophet always speaks to his
own time, it must he conceded, by those who insist
upon this canon, that the men to whom Jeremiah spoke
knew what he referred to when he enumerated the
blessings of the coming restoration. They must, there-
fore, have known what he meant when he spoke of the
burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-offerings, and
incense, and sacrifices of praise, and of the gathering of
the people to Jerusalem to offer them, as well as what
he meant when he spoke of the kings and princes
sitting on the throne of David ; and there is no more
reason for thinking that in the latter case the prophet
meant a restoration of an ancient well-known institu-
tion, viz. the kingdom of David, than there is for
believing that in the former he meant the restoration
of services with which the people were perfectly
familiar, whose loss he regarded as proof of God's
displeasure, and whose restoration he proclaimed as
a token of His returning favour. It is true there is
no mention made in this passage of a priesthood as
among the blessings of the promised restoration ; but
no counter argument can be based on this omission,
as a priesthood is obviously implied in the reference
to burnt-offerings, and thank-offerings, and incense.
64 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Our Author cannot exorcise the Priesthood out of
Jeremiah.
We are, however, not left to inference or conjecture
in this case ; for, referring to this same prophecy, and
renewing the promise, this same prophet, chap,
xxxiii. 18, says: "And unto the priests, the Levites,
there shall not be wanting a man before me to offer
burnt-offerings, and to burn meat-offerings, and to do
(or to prepare) sacrifices at all times." If it be objected,
as it is by " the newer criticism," that the passage is
omitted by the LXX., and that it should not, therefore,
be adduced as proof in this controversy, the answer is
obvious. " The newer criticism " cannot exorcise the
priesthood, and that, too, as an ancient pre-exilic
institution, or the sacrifice, from the writings of this
prophet by the excision of this passage ; for this
prophet was himself a priest, " of the priests which
were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin," a city
^vhich, with her suburbs, as we find from Josh. xxi. 18,
belonged to " the children of Aaron the priest." He
is commissioned to rebuke the priests, but he is not
commissioned to rebuke them for the exercise of
priestly functions. His rebukes are so administered as
to show that it is not for their holding or executing
priestly functions they are condemned, but for their
impiety and immorality. This is manifest — 1. Because
he connects his rebukes of them with his rebukes of
kings and prophets. ISTow it must be conceded that
the kingly and prophetic offices were divinely sane-
jeeemiah's eestoeation assumes a peiestly toeah. 6 5
tioned. The argument which would conclude from the
rebuke of the priests that the priesthood and the
sacrifices were destitute of divine sanction, must war-
rant the conclusion that the prophetic and kingly
offices were also displeasing to God, for kings and
prophets, as well as priests, were subjected to Jeremiah's
rebukes. 2. Because, as the former of the two passao-es
just cited proves, the blessings promised under the
restoration embrace burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and
meat-offerings, and incense, brought from all quarters
of the land to the house of the Lord, the one central
sanctuary at Jerusalem. This fact implies two thino-s.
It implies that the men of Judah addressed by Jeremiah
(for a prophet, we are told, always speaks to his own
times) were familiar with burnt-offerings, and sacrifices,
and incense, and with the concentration of the people
at Jerusalem to offer them ; and it also implies that, in
the divine estimation, the restoration of these at the
central seat of worship would be among the chief of
the blessings in store for the children of the captivity.
Language of this kind would certainly be strangely
out of place if priesthood, and sacrifice, and a central
seat of worship, were disowned by the God of Jeremiah
in pre-exilic times.
And this style of representation is not exceptional.
It is, in fact, the use and wont of Jeremiah when
speaking of the returning favour of God in store for
the restored Israel. Thus in chap, xxxi., in the midst
of a most glowing and eloquent description of the
blessings wherewith the heart of the children of the
66 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
captivity would be gladdened, the prophet does not
lose sight of the priesthood. There are blessings of
wheat, and wine, and oil, and flocks, and herds for the
people, which shall make "their soul as a watered
garden," and fill their mouths with songs of rejoicing ;
but there are also blessings for the priests, and
blessings, too, appropriate to and inseparable from
their exercise of priestly functions : " I will satiate
the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people
shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord."
Such language were impossible if the things promised
had been unknown to Israel, or unapproved by Israel's
God. In a word, the prophecies of Jeremiah, fairly
interpreted, prove that there is no warrant for the
assumption of our author (p. 370), that this prophet
declares "that a law of sacrifice is no part of the
original covenant with Israel."
CHAPTEE III.
Becognition of Deuteronomic Code in Josialis day
creates a Difficidty.
IT is interesting to note the difficulties wherewith
" the newer criticism " encompasses its path as
it tries to thread its way among the prophets. Having
taken np the position (p. 374) that Jeremiah "knew
no divine law of sacrifice under the first Temple," the
question has to be met, ' How reconcile that theory
with the alleged discovery of the Deuteronomic Code
in the days of Josiah ? ' This Code, " the newer
criticism " itself admits, was authoritative, and
divinely authoritative, from the time of its discovery,
624 B.C., till the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah
and the destruction of the Temple. But in this
authoritative Code, which was the rule under the
first Temple for about forty years, we find the
following law respecting Israel's sacrifices and central
sanctuary : " Unto the place which the Lord your
God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His
name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek,
and thither shalt thou come : and thither ye shall
bring your burnt - offerings, and your sacrifices, and
your tithes, and heave - offerings of your hand, and
67
68 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
your vows, and your freewill - offerings, and the
firstlings of your herds and of your flocks," Deut.
xii. 5, 6. We have already seen how "the newer
criticism " has brought Jeremiah into conflict with
the historic national institute of the Passover, and we
see here how it has brought this same prophet into
collision with the Deuteronomic Code. That Code,
according to the admission, and even the contention,
of " the newer criticism," had sway throughout, and
actually determined the whole enterprise of Josiah's
reformation, which certainly occurred under the first
Temple, and yet this same " newer criticism " tells us
" that Jeremiah knew no divine law of sacrifice under
the first Temple ! "
Attempted Solution of this Difficulty.
But " the newer criticism " has a solution ; let us
see what it is. " Jeremiah," we are told, " in speaking
thus, does not separate himself from the Deuteronomic
law ; for the moral precepts of that Code — as, for
example, the Deuteronomic form of the law of manu-
mission (Jer. xxxiv. 13-16) — he accepts as part of
the covenant of the exodus. To Jeremiah, therefore,
the Code of Deuteronomy does not appear in the light
of a positive law of sacrifice; and this judgment"
{i.e. Jeremiah's, it is presumed !) " is undoubtedly
correct. The ritual details of Deuteronomy are
directed against heathen worship ; they are negative,
not positive. In the matter of sacrifice and festal
EXAMINATION OF THE FOREGOING SOLUTION. 69
observances, the new Code simply directs the old
homage of Israel from the local sanctuaries to the
central shrine, and all material offerings are summed
up under the principles of gladness before Jehovah at
the great agricultural feasts, and of homage paid to
Him in acknowledgment that the good things of the
land of Canaan are His gift (xxvi. 10). The firstlings
and the first-fruits and tithes remain on their old
footing, as natural expressions of devotion, which did
not begin with the exodus, and are not peculiar to
Israel," etc. etc. And so the sweeping conclusion is
reached, that "Deuteronomy knows nothing of a
sacrificial priestly Torah, though it refers the people
to the Torah of the priests on the subject of leprosy
(xxiv. 8), and acknowledges their authority as judges
in lawsuits," pp. 370, 371.
Examination of the foregoing Solution.
Now it would seem quite enough, as an exposure of
the weakness and unprofitableness of this solution, to
refer the reader to the two verses already quoted from
Deut. xii. What " the newer criticism " affirms,
these verses deny ; and what they affirm, " the newer
criticism " denies. They affirm, contrary to " the
newer criticism," that sacrifices, etc., are to be
brought to the central shrine by a divine ordinance.
Deuteronomy therefore knows something of at least a
sacrificial Torah. This sacrificial Torah, however, is
priestly as well as sacrificial; for Israel is to bring
70 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
their tithes as well as their sacrifices to the central
shrine. For what purpose or for whom were these
tithes ? Were they not for the sons of Levi, who, if
we are to credit the Epistle to the Hebrews (vii. 5),
had a Torah giving them authority to receive tithes of
their brethren, " though these have come out of the
loins of Abraham." This point would seem to be
put beyond doubt by the frequent reference made in
this Deuteronomic Code to the duty of providing for
the Levite, and to the priests the Levites, and all the
tribe of Levi, and to the fact that "they have no
part nor inheritance" with the other tribes (Deut.
xii. 12, 19, xiv. 27, 29, xvi. 14, xviii. 1-8). The
latter of these passages puts the priestly status of the
sons of Levi beyond question. " For the Lord thy
God hath chosen him (Levi) out of all thy tribes, to
stand to minister in the name of the Lord, him and
his sons for ever " (ver. 5).
Here, then, we have not only a sacrificial, but a
" sacrificial priestly Torah," with all the conditions
thereof, and with provision annexed for the support
of the priests and their attendants. We have, in
fact, a whole tribe set apart for doing, as their chief
business, a work for the regulation of which, we are told
by "the newer criticism," there was no Torah enacted!
Deuteronomic Code pronounced UnsacrificiaL
Of course "the newer criticism," as it denies the
existence of any sacrificial priestly Torah in Deutero-
THEORY OF RELIGION IN PRE-EXILIC TIMES. 71
nomy, may be expected to lind no place therein for
sacrifice or offerings of an expiatory character for sin.
A reference to the passage quoted above will show
that such is the doctrine, so far as Deuteronomy is
concerned, laid down in these lectures ! " All material
offerings are summed up under the principles of glad-
ness before Jehovah at the great agricultural feasts,
and of homage paid to Him in acknowledgment that
the good things of the land of Canaan are His gifts,"
etc. etc. (pp. 370, 371). Such is the sum and
substance of all that " the newer criticism " can find
in this Deuteronomic Code about sacrifice, or burnt-
offerings, or offerings for sin ! In the same context
this advocate of this monstrous summation, as we
have already seen, tries to get rid of the sacrificial
element in the paschal victim, and here the wide,
sweeping generalization is reached, " that all the
material offerings " described in this Deuteronomic
Code are not hilastic or expiatory, but simply
eucharistic, and designed to give no indication of
Israel's sense of sin before Jehovah, or of the way of
acceptance with Him, but simply to express Israel's
recognition of His sovereignty, and their devotion to
His rule !
Theory of Religion in Pre-exilic Times,
Such was the character of Israel's worship in the
days of Josiah, even after that good king had
inaugurated the newly-discovered Deuteronomic Code.
72 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
As might be expected, it was, to say tlie least, no
better in earlier times. The religion of Israel, as
sketched on pp. 343, 344, is as follows: "Jehovah
alone is Israel's God. It is a crime analogous to
treason to depart from Him and sacrifice to other
gods. As the Lord of Israel and Israel's land, the
giver of all good gifts to His people, He has a
manifest claim on Israel's homage, and receives at
their hands such dues as their neighbours paid to
their gods, such dues as a king receives from his
people (comp. 1 Sam. viii. 15-17). The occasions of
homage are those seasons of natural gladness which
an agricultural life suggests. The joy of harvest and
vintage is a rejoicing before Jehovah, when the
worshipper brings a gift in his hand, as he would do
in approaching an earthly sovereign, and presents the
choicest first-fruits at the altar, just as his Canaanitish
neighbour does in the house of Baal (Judg. ix. 27).
The whole worship is spontaneous and natural. It
has hardly the character of a positive legislation, and
its distinction from heathen rites lies less in the out-
ward form than in the different conception of Jehovah
which the true worshipper should bear in his heart.
To a people which 'knows Jehovah' this unambitious
service, in which the expression of grateful homage to
Him runs through all the simple joys of a placid
agricultural life, was sufficient to form the basis of a
pure and earnest piety. But its forms gave no protec-
tion against deflection into heathenism and immorality
when Jehovah's spiritual nature and moral precepts
ELEMENTS OF RELIGION" KNOWN IN PRE-EXILIC TIMES. 73
were forgotten. The feasts and sacrifices might still
run their accustomed round when Jehovah was
practically confounded with the Baalim, and there
was no more truth, or mercy, or knowledge of God in
the land (Hos. iv. 1). Such, in fact, was the state ot
things in the eighth century, the age of the earliest
prophetic books. The declensions of Israel had not
checked the outward zeal with which Jehovah was
worshipped. Never had the national sanctuaries been
more sedulously frequented, never had the feasts been
more splendid or the offerings more copious. But the
foundations of the old life were breaking up. The
external prosperity of the State covered an abyss of
social disorder."
Essential Eleme^its of Religion as known in Pre-exilic
Times.
This section has been given at some length, as it
gives us an instructive insight into the author's theory
of the essential elements of religion. It will be seen
at once that this theory of Israel's pre-exilic worship
assumes an entirely sinless estate on the part of the
worshipper. Israel stands out before us as a pious
people, rejoicing in a placid agricultural life, and
giving expression to their rural joys before Jehovah
with accompanying tokens of grateful homage. This
unambitious service, consisting exclusively of gifts
presented to Jehovah as their Lord and the Lord of
their land, " was sufficient to form the basis of a pure
74 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
and earnest piety." There can be no mistaking of
this language. It means simply what our author
says, p. 379, that " the sense of God's favour, not the
sense of sin, is what rules at the sanctuary ; " and it
means what he insists on, p. 288, that "worship by
sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no part of the
divine Torah to Israel ; " and what he affirms with
increasing emphasis on p. 303, that " according to the
prophets this law of chastisement and forgiveness
works directly, without the intervention of any ritual
sacrament." During all the pre-exilic period under
Moses, under the Judges, under Samuel, under the
kings, there was nothing in the religion of Israel, nor in
their forms of worship, to indicate the existence of sin.
The last-mentioned passage gives intimation of sin, as
it speaks of chastisement; but chastisement was an
act of Jehovah, and not an act, or element, of Israel's
worship. Its design was subjective, to work penitence.
Our author gives his theory on this point, p. 302:
" Jehovah's anger " (according to his account of the
teaching of the prophets) " is not caprice, but a just
indignation, — a necessary side of His moral kingship
in Israel " (as Grotius would say). " He chastises to
work penitence " (as Socinus would say) ; " and it is
only to the penitent that He can extend forgiveness.
By returning to obedience the people regain the marks
of Jehovah's love, and again experience His goodness
in deliverance from calamity and happy possession of
a fruitful land."
It is true then, beyond doubt, that the doctrine
ELEMENTS OF RELIGION KNOWN IN PRE-EXILIC TIMES. 75
taught by our author in the extract given above from
pp. 343, 344, and in the confirmatory references, is,
that Israel's worship was destitute of any rite by
which they gave expression to their sense of sin, and,
further, that God required no element in their forms
of approach to Him beyond what a good king would
require at the hands of his subjects. If they sinned
against Him as their Lord paramount, His remedy was
chastisement ; but, so far as they were concerned, the
only thing required in order to regain His favour
was penitence and a return to obedience. As this
theory of Israel's worship can consist only with most
defective views of the relation of fallen, guilty moral
agents to a holy and righteous God, it will be neces-
sary to examine it more fully at a subsequent point in
this review. At present let it suffice to call attention
to the fact that this book teaches, that for more than
three thousand years of the history of the covenant of
redemption, God's own chosen people, whether they
lived in antediluvian or postdiluvian times, or in the
pre-exilic times of Israel's history, were permitted, in
their acts of worship, to proceed upon the assumption
that there was no need of an atonement for sin ! It
is true they did, during all this vast period, practise
sacrifice, — a practice which it is difficult not to
associate with the idea of sin and the felt need of an
atonement, — but this practice was destitute of any
positive divine sanction, and was common to the
heathen nations around them !
THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Israel's Ignorance of the Doctrine of Atonement in
Pre-exilic Times.
In a word, up to the time of tlie return from
Babylon, Israel had no idea that there was needed any
such thing as an atonement for sin in the sense of an
expiatory sacrifice in which the life of ox, or sheep, or
other atoning substitute was given in the stead of the
transgressor !
With the wider generalization we are not, however,
dealing at present. The only point now before us is
the dilemma arising out of the historical position which
" the newer criticism " has assigned to Deuteronomy.
By admitting it to a pre-exilic date at all, even
though it should antedate the exile only by one
generation, this critical school have involved them-
selves in inextricable confusion, and do not know what
to do with its priesthood, and sacrifices, and Torahs.
They would fondly rid themselves of the difficulties
wherewith their own theory has beset them ; but there
is no help from new renderings or from new modifica-
tions of their ever changing theories ; and even the
LXX. but confirms the old-fashioned doctrine which
their theory was designed to supplant. When all is
done, it still remains true that Deuteronomy in the
days of Josiah presents as veritable an obstacle to
the post-exilic theory of a sacrificial priestly Torah, as
Deuteronomy in the days of Moses can do. So patent
is this fact, that our author, after all, has to acknow-
ledge, p. 372, that "there was at this time (Jeremiah's)
ADMITS A QUASI-PRIESTLY TORAH. 77
a ritual Torah in the hands of the priests containing
elements which the prophets and the old codes pass
by." Tracing the ritual backward, he finds that there
was, even in the time of Ahaz, " a dailv burnt-offerino:
in the morning, a stated meat-offering in the evening "
(2 Kings xvi. 15). But further, he actually discovers
" an atoning ritual." In the time of Jehoash there
were, he admits, atonements ; but this admission is
accompanied by the saving clause, that these " atone-
ments were paid to the priests," and were simply
" pecuniary," — a common enough thing in ancient
times. There were, however, he confesses, " also
atoning sacrifices " in ancient times ; for he observes
that " the guilt of the house of Eli was not to be
wiped away by sacrifice or oblation for ever." " The
idea of atonement in the sacrificial blood," he is con-
strained to say, " must be very ancient ; and a trace (!)
of it is found even in the Book of Deuteronomy in the
curious ordinance " {curious, indeed, such an ordinance
must be to "the newer criticism") "which provides for
the atonement (wiping out) of the blood of untraced
homicide by the slaughter of a heifer." This is a
pretty large confession to follow on an elaborate
excursus whose chief object was to prove, that during
the whole period covered by this confession no sacri-
ficial priestly Torah had place or recognition, and
designed, especially, to prove that such Torah was
unknown under the first Temple. Such a confession
required a word of explanation from the chief repre-
sentative of " the newer criticism " in Scotland ; and
78 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
sensible of the necessity, he immediately subjoins the
following : " Only, we have already seen that the
details still preserved to us of the Temple ritual are
not identical with the full Levitical system. They
contained many germs of that system, but they also
contained much that was radically different."
Such is our author's explanation, or raison d'etre,
of his elaborate excursus put forth as an argument
against the existence of priestly sacrificial Torah under
the first Temple. Let us see the evidence he adduces
as his warrant for such a statement. " In particular,"
he adds, " the temple worship itself was not stringently
differentiated from everything heathenish." His proof
of this lack of differentiation of the divinely ordained,
from the heathenish and profane, is taken from the
state of the Temple service during the reign of the
idolatrous King Ahaz and the priesthood of the pliant
high priest Urijah (whose character as the alleged
" friend of Isaiah " he would have us infer from the
fact that Isaiah employed him as a witness), and from
the patronage, in connection with the Temple, of
prophets who were simply heathen diviners ! (Pp.
372, 373.)
On this explanation it may be observed, — 1. That
it is not the design of the Books of the ICings and
Chronicles, or of the prophets, to give the full details
of the Levitical system. The knowledge of that
system is assumed throughout. If Jeremiah, in whose
time " the newer criticism " contends the Book of
Deuteronomy first saw the light (for he lived in the
INFERS NON-EXISTENCE FROM NON-OBSERVANCE. 79
reign of Josiah), rebukes Israel without giving a full
detail of the miniature priestly Torah of that book,
surely the other prophets may have rebuked the kings
and priests of their day without giving full details of
existing Torahs. 2. The argument from what was the
use and wont of the Temple services under wicked
kings and pliant priests, merits rebuke rather than
serious argument in reply. One might as well cite
the services of the Church of Eome as proof of the
New Testament Torah of the present day, or the
temporary prevalence of " the newer criticism " in
some of the Theological Halls of Scotland as proof of
the non-existence of the Torah of the Westminster
Divines in the Free Church. 3. As to the points of
identity and dissimilarity between the Temple ritual
and the full Levitical system within the periods
specified, the answer, if an answer were necessary, is
obvious. The points of agreement bespeak a common
Torah whose leading elements have survived all
attempts of kings or priests to abolish them, and the
points of disagreement are simply evidence of the
measure of the success of the royal and priestly
innovators. 4. Finally, it may be remarked that a
theory of the structure of the Old Testament revela-
tion and the relation of its several parts which has to
resort to such critical methods — methods which are
ever bringing their authors into conflict with manifest
historical facts which they are constantly under the
necessity of explaining away, or actually exscinding
from the record — cannot long hold sway among an
80 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
intelligent Christian people. When the Christian
people of Scotland come to know how utterly un-
historical, illogical, and, to speak mildly, how unethical
" the newer criticism" is, they will soon discard it and
avenge themselves, and our common Christianity, of
such irreverent speculations.
In view of the inconvenience, and of the critical, his-
torical, and doctrinal difficulties of the theory, it is not to
be wondered at that some of the ablest of its advocates
in the earlier stages of its Scottish development have,
since the publication of these lectures, publicly declared
that they cannot endorse the Deuteronomic element of
it. This is a hopeful sign ; but it is just as well that
these brethren should know, that they cannot hold
with the author of these lectures in part without
holding with him altogether. The critical methods
which dismiss from the Pentateuch the extra-Deutero-
nomic Levitical Torah, are equally available for the
dismissal of Deuteronomy itself.
The Theory arrays the Pre-exilic Prophets against the
Post-exilic Prophets.
But this post-exilic theory not only brings the pre-
exilic prophets into conflict with some of the most
eminent of the divinely-appointed institutions of Israel,
such as the Passover, and priesthood, and Tabernacle,
and Temple, and, as in the case of Jeremiah, with
Deuteronomy itself ; it also arrays the prophets of the
post-exilic period against the prophets of the pre-
PRE-EXILIC PROPHETS AGAINST POST-EXILIC PROPHETS. 8 1
exilic. Our author actually institutes the comparison,
and brings out the contrast himself : " Spiritual pro-
phecy, in the hands of Amos, Isaiah, and their suc-
cessors, has no such alliance with the sanctuary and
its ritual " (as " that which co-operates with the
priests"). This latter "is a kind of prophecy which
the Old Testament calls divination, which traffics in
dreams in place of Jehovah's word," etc. The former
" develops and enforces its own doctrine of the inter-
course of Jehovah with Israel, and the conditions of
His grace, without assigning the slightest value to
priests and sacrifices. The sum of religion, according
to the prophets, is to know Jehovah, and obey His
precepts." Such was the doctrine of the pre-exilic
prophets ; mark the contrast when the post-exilic
prophets enter upon their office. " Under the system
of the law enforced from the days of Ezra onwards, an
important part of tliese precepts are ritual. Malachi,
prophesying in or after the days of Ezra, accepts this
position as the basis of his prophetic exhortations." In
a word, the post-exilic prophets teach the doctrine of
the pre-exilic diviners ! ! " The first proof of Israel's sin
is to him neglect of the sacrificial ritual. The language
of the older prophets up to Jeremiah is quite different."
Then follows a passage from Isa. i. 11 seq., and
another from Amos v. 2 1 seq., in support of this latter
statement. Then, rejecting the ordinary explanation
of the apparent discrepancy, viz. " that such passages
mean only that Jehovah will not accept the sacrifice
of the wicked/' the unqualified dogma is enunciated,
F
82 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
that the teaching of these and other texts is, that
" sacrifice is not necessary to acceptable religion."
This position is avowed and backed up with quotations
from, or references to, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and
Isaiah, pp. 286, 287.
Having taken this ground, our author immediately
proceeds to distinguish it from that of an absolute
prohibition of sacrifice and ritual. The prophets' con-
demnation " of the worship of their contemporaries,"
was pronounced " because it is associated with im-
morality, and because by it Israel hopes to gain God's
favour without moral obedience. This does not prove
that they have any objection to sacrifice and ritual in
the abstract," p. 288.
The lecturer lays it down (p. 77) as the first rule
of criticism, " that a good critic must be a good inter-
preter of the thoughts of another." This is a good
rule, and judged by it " the newer criticism " must
fare badly. Can he be regarded as a good interpreter
of the thoughts of one wliom he admits to be " an all-
wise Author, and who cannot contradict Himself," p.
39, who thus sets the prophets of that all- wise Author
in array against one another ? Wherein lies the differ-
ence between the doctrine that makes Ezekiel and
Malachi contradict Amos and Isaiah, and the
doctrine that makes the God of these men contradict
Himself ?
author's solution suicidal and inconsistent. 83
The Authors Solution Suicidal and Inconsistent.
But the superfluity and critical wantonness of tlie
procedure become utterly amazing, when one finds
that the very principle by which good interpreters
have sousjht to harmonize the lancmasje of condemna-
tion in which these older prophets speak of the cere-
monial observances of Israel with the historic fact of
their divine institution, rejected by our author on p.
287, is quietly appropriated on p. 288, where it is
made to do service to help to sustain the doctrine of
will-worship as acceptable to God. On this latter
page we are told that this condemnation of the worship
of their contemporaries by the prophets, because of its
being associated with immorality, etc., " does not prove
that they have any objection to sacrifice and ritual in
the abstract. But they deny that these things are of
positive divine institution, or have any part in the
scheme on which Jehovah's grace is administered in
Israel. Jehovah, they say, has not enjoined sacrifice.
This does not imply that He has never accepted
sacrifice, or that ritual service is absolutely wrong "
(p. 288).
Now, it is not unreasonable to ask. If the principle
of this apology for an unauthorized sacrificial system
be valid, why object to it when applied to a sacrificial
system divinely sanctioned ? If it can be said that
the prophets, in rebuking Israel for an unauthorized
service, " because it is associated with immorality, and
because by it Israel hopes to gain God's favour with-
84 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
out moral obedience," did not thereby wish Israel to
understand that God had any objection to the sacrifice
or the ritual of that unauthorized service, how is it
that, in rebuking Israel for an authorized service " be-
cause it is associated with immorality, and because by
it Israel hopes to gain God's favour without moral
obedience," the prophets are to be regarded as teaching
that God had objection to the sacrifice and the ritual
of that authorized service ? If the explanation be
valid in the case of the unauthorized, why should it
not be valid in the case of the authorized ? If " the
newer criticism " can assume that the ground of the
rebuke in the case of the uncommanded is the im-
morality, etc., of '' them that drew nigh," why may we
not assume that the ground of the rebuke in the case
of the commanded was the immorality, etc., of the
worshippers ? Thrown into form, the explanation of
the rebuke, as given by " the newer criticism," is as
follows : —
Major. — The rebuke of the worshipper because of
his immorality, etc., does not imply the
condemnation of the matter, or the form, of
his worship.
Minor. — The rebuke of the worshippers, in the case
of Israel, was administered by the prophets
because of their immorality, etc.
Conclusion. — The rebuke of these worshippers does
not imply the condemnation of the matter
(sacrifice) or the form (ritual) of their
worship.
RULE FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF SUCH PASSAGES. 85
Such, beyond challenge, is the syllogism lying be-
hind the explanation by which " the newer criticism "
would reconcile the prophetic rebuke of the wor-
shippers with the non-condemnation of the matter or
the form of the uncommanded worship ; and it is our
syllogism as well as theirs. Those who regard the
worship as uncommanded, have no warrant for assum-
ing that the ground of the rebuke was the immorality
of the worshippers, and not the matter or the form of
the service, which we have not for assuming the same
ground of rebuke in the case of the worship, viewed
as commanded. Why, then, it is asked again, reject
this explanation of these prophetic rebukes in the
latter case and accept it in the former ? No reason
can be assigned for adopting it in the former case
which is not manifestly available in the latter.
Rule for the Interpretation of such Passages.
The question of the right of applying the principle
in question, in either case, must be determined by the
prophetic record. The question is simply this : Does
the prophetic record assign as a reason of the rebuke
administered to Israel's worship, the immorality and
spirit, etc., of Israel's worshippers ? Isa. i. 1 3 settles
this question : " Ye shall not add to bring a vain
offering ; incense is an abomination to me ; new
moon and sabbath, the calling of the convocation : I
cannot bear iniquity and holy day." Is there any
room for doubt here about the ground of the prophet's
86 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
rebuke ? It is not all offerings that God prohibits,
but offerings of vanity — vain offerings, offerings pre-
sented in the same spirit as the prayers of the
Pharisees, which Christ condemned as vain repetitions.
It is not all holy days that the passage condemns ;
for surely the Sabbath at least was pre-exiHc. What
God cannot bear, is " iniquity and holy day." The
latter combined with the former is intolerable to God.
In harmony with this exegesis of the 13th verse is
the language of the next verse. Eepeating for the
sake of emphasis some of the institutions mentioned
in the 13th, the prophet adds : "Your new moons and
your convocations my soul hateth ; they have become
a burden upon me ; I am weary of bearing " (or have
wearied myself in bearing them). The idea here is
manifest. Eites and institutions ordained of God
Himself, and acceptable to Him, had, because of the
impiety and hypocrisy of Israel, hecome hateful in His
eyes. What the Lord hates, and loathes, and com-
mands His prophets to condemn, is just what our
author alleges when he is off his guard, viz. the
immorality of the worshippers, and the vain hope that
by such services they should gain acceptance with
God.
Argument from such Passages proves too much.
The argument of " the newer criticism " from this
condemnation of Israel's worship by Isaiah, in this
passage, proves entirely too much ; for Isaiah not only
rebukes Israel for their approaching God by sacrifices and
ARGUMENT FROM PASSAGES PROVES TOO MUCH. 87
burnt-offerings, and further observance of new moons
and appointed feasts, etc., but he actually rebukes
them for coming into the courts of the Temple at all.
JSTow, on the principle on which this argument pro-
ceeds, the Temple and its courts must, in the days of
Isaiah, which were certainly pre-exilic, have been
regarded as at least unauthorized institutions. If the
rebuke of Israel for bringing sacrifices, etc., implies
the condemnation of sacrifices, or warrants the con-
clusion that God stood toward such worship in a
negative attitude, surely it must follow from His
rebuke of Israel for treading His courts, that these
courts had not as yet received any positive divine sanc-
tion. This conclusion is inevitable if the principle of
this critical argumentation be valid. But as soon as
the principle is accepted, mark the difficulty it creates
when applied. The conclusion to which it inevitably
leads is simply a flat contradiction of the claim
advanced by God Himself, who, in the administration
of this rebuke, designates the courts as His courts.
When ye come to appear before me, who hath required
this at your hand, to tread my courts ? ver. 1 2. Surely
this claim, put forth on the very back of the rebuke,
demonstrates the unwarrantableness of the inference of
" the newer criticism," that the rebuke of the woi^
shipper necessarily implies the non-recognition of the
matter or the forr,i of the worship. If God could
rebuke Israel for treading the Temple courts, and
yet claim the courts as His, thus giving both Temple
and courts His sanction, it cannot be true that His
88 THE NEWEK CRITICISM.
rebuke of Israel for their sacrifices and feasts implies
the non-recognition of these institutions. This con-
clusion is placed beyond challenge, as has been already
shown, by the very structure and furniture of the
Temple itself, which can have no meaning apart from
priesthood, sacrifice, and ritual. To claim the courts
was to claim both altar and sacrifice.
And what is true of this classic passage — classic in
this controversy — is true of all the kindred passages
cited by our author from the other pre-exilic prophets.
They all admit of the same explanation. There is not
a single passage adduced, or adducible, from Amos, or
Hosea, or Micah, condemnatory of Israel's worship, in
which stronger language is employed than that which
occurs in this denunciation of it by Isaiah. All that
is necessary to the solution of the problem presented
by any one of these passages, or by all combined, is
simply the application of the principle which our
author has rejected on page 287, and adopted on page
288. If these denunciations do not imply the con-
demnation of the worship as not enjoined, it is clear
that they cannot imply the condemnation of it viewed
as a divinely authorized institution.
The 7161067' C7nticis7n and the Fifty-first Psalm.
The fifty-first Psalm furnishes a striking confirma-
tion of this view of passages which seem to be con-
demnatory of worship by sacrifice. No language could
be more explicit, and there is no language in any of
ARGUMENT GOOD THOUGH THE PSALM WERE EXILIC. 89
the passages cited from the prophets, more explicit
on this point than the language of the psalmist.
" Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it Thee ;
Thou delightest not in burnt-offering (^olah). The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a
contrite heart, 0 God, Thou wilt not despise." Here
the psalmist describes both negatively and positively
the sacrifices of God (zivche Elohim). They are not
burnt-offerings (the 'olah being taken as a repre-
sentative of all) ; they are immaterial and spiritual —
a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. But
no sooner has he to all appearance excluded literal
sacrifices, than he expresses his approval of them, and
promises that God shall be pleased with the sacrifices
of righteousness, with burnt-offerings and whole burnt-
offerings; and that bullocks shall be offered upon
God's altar.
Now, if such statements as these — one of them
defining the sacrifices of God as purely spiritual and
an affair of the heart, and the other specifying the
material of them as embracing bullocks — can be placed
side by side without any feeling of incongruity or in-
consistency, it would seem that, to the Jewish mind
at least, there was neither inconsistency nor contra-
diction in such forms of representation.
Argument not met hy proving the Psalm Exilic.
Nor would it at all weaken the argument from this
psalm, but, on the contrary, rather strengthen it, as
90 THE NEWER CRITICISM^
against " tlie newer criticism/' were it true, as our
author argues, citing Hitzig and Delitzscli, that the
XDsalm is Exilic, and expresses the experience of a
prophet of the Exile, who gives utterance to the
experience of " the true Israel of the Exile." For,
according to our author, the key-note of the Levitical
system was struck by Ezekiel during the exile.
Certainly Ezekiel may be taken as a true representa-
tive of " the true Israel of the Exile ; " and no less
certainly must it be held that a true psalmist of " the
true Israel of the Exile," speaking the experience of
those he represented, would express himself in harmony
with the Ezekielian Torah. This view is still further
strengthened by the contention of " the newer criti-
cism," that the Deuteronomic Torah (whose spirit is so
thoroughly Levitical) was introduced before the Jews
were carried into Babylon. Their own principles and
arguments here again rise to confute themselves.
Contending that this is Exilic, they are simply proving
that a psalmist who was in harmony with the spirit of
the Levitical Torah, which they assign to the days
of Ezekiel, could say, and that without any feeling of
inconsistency, that God does not desire sacrifice, that
His sacrifices are a broken spirit, and a broken and a
contrite heart, and that nevertheless He was pleased
with and accepted burnt-offerings and bullocks upon
His altar.
HIS DOCTRINE ANTI-CONFESSIONAL. 91
Author's Views of the Status of GocVs People in
Pre-exilic Times.
Before passing from the consideration of this fifty-
first Psalm, notice must be taken of the teaching of
our author upon a question vitally affecting the status
of the people of God under the Old Testament.
Commenting on ver. 11, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit
from me," he makes the following statement as if it
were the current doctrine of the Church of God :
" Under the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is not given
to every believer, but to Israel as a nation (Isa. Ixiii.
10, 11), residing in chosen organs, especially in the
prophets, who are par excellence ' men of the Spirit '
(Hos. ix. 7). But the Spirit of Jehovah was also
given to David (1 Sam. xvi. 13 ; 2 Sam. xxiii. 2).
The psalm, then, so far as this phrase goes, may be a
psalm of Israel collectively, of a prophet, or of David "
(p. 417).
His Doctrine Anti-confessional.
This is certainly singular doctrine to be avowed by
any genuine Protestant, but its singularity is all the
more surprising when it is remembered that the author
of it, in the present instance, has subscribed the West-
minster Confession of Faith. That Confession teaches
(chap. vii. § v.) that the ordinances of the law " were
for that time sufficient and efficacious, through the
operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the
92 THE net\t:r criticism.
elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they
had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation."
There is manifestly diversity of doctrine here. If, as
our Confession teaches, and as all Christians, save
Eomanists, Anabaptists, and Socinians, hold, the
means of grace were efficacious under the Old Testa-
ment unto salvation, and efficacious only through the
operation of the Spirit, it must follow that none, under
that dispensation, were saved except those in whom
the Spirit operated efficaciously, working faith and
leading them to exercise it in the promised Messiah.
Such is the common faith of the Church of God,
Vith the exceptions mentioned ; but such is not the
faith avowed in our author's comment. The Old
Testament, according to his teaching, is distinguished
from the New by this among other things, that the
Holy Spirit was " not given to every believer, but to
Israel as a nation," whilst, under the New, He is given
to all believers ! There were, then, " believers " under
the Old Testament to whom the Spirit was not given,
and, consequently, " believers " whose faith was not a
fruit of the Spirit. It is not unnatural to ask, was
this faith of these Old Testament " believers " saving
faith ? If it was, whence did it arise ? "Was the
natural estate of man, or the estate of the natural
man, under that dispensation so widely diverse from
^vhat it is under the present dispensation, that there
was no need for the regenerating agency of the Holy
Ghost ? The question put by our Saviour to Nico-
demus does not seem to be out of place here : " Art
COLLECTIVE ORGANIC SPIRITUAL INHABITATION. 93
thou a master (o BtBd(TKa\o<;), a teacher of Israel, and
knowest not these things ? " If Mcoclemus, as a
teacher of Israel, should have known these things, —
should have known that a man can neither see
nor enter the kingdom of God except he be born
again, except he be born of the Holy Spirit —
then it must have been true of every individual
of that nation of which Nicodemus was a teacher,
of every man in Israel, that without the new birtli
he could not be saved. To say, then, as our author
does, that " the Holy Spirit was not given to every
believer in Israel," is simply to say that the private
membership of the nation were not born again, which
is all one with saying that such were not saved, as
the Scriptures count salvation. How closely this view
of the status of the people of God under the Old
Testament is related to the Eomish doctrine of a
Limhus Patriim, it is unnecessary to inquire.
Doctrine of a Collective Organic Spiritual Inhahitation.
But the author, whilst denying that the Holy Spirit
was given to believers individually, in Old Testament
times, teaches that He was given "to Israel as a
nation" and that instead of residing in each He
resided " in chosen organs, especially in the prophets,
who are, par excellence, 'men of the Spirit,' and He
' was also given to David.' "
The following passages are cited to prove this
collective inhabitation through a chosen organ : " But
94 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit : therefore
He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought
against them. Then He remembered the days of old,
Moses, and His people, saying. Where is He that
brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of
His flock ? where is He that put His Holy Spirit
within him ?" (Isa. Ixiii. 10, 11). "The days of visi-
tation are come, the days of recompense are come;
Israel shall know it : the prophet is a fool, the spiritual
man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and
great hatred " (Hos. ix. 7). " Then Samuel took the
horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his
brethren ; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David
from that day forward" (1 Sam. xvi. 13). "The
Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in
my tongue " (2 Sam. xxiii. 2).
This Doctrine examined, and proved unscriptural,
Now it will be observed that the instances given of
this national inhabitation through chosen organs are
instances, without exception, of the supernatural gifts
of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon men to qualify them
for the execution of extraordinary functions as leaders
and instructors of Israel. The first passage refers to
the gift of the Spirit to Moses, the last two to the gift
of the Spirit to David, and the second passage to the
prophets in general. As it is a clearly revealed
doctrine of Scripture that these supernatural gifts,
given for such purposes, do not necessarily imply a
ROMISH CAST OF THE DOCTRINE. 95
gracious saving operation of the Holy Ghost, either
upon the immediate subjects of them or upon others
through their agency, it is manifest that if this were
all that the Holy Ghost effected for Israel, by this
mediate national inhabitation. His people whom He
redeemed from the bondage of Egypt were never made
the subjects of His saving grace. If it was as true of
Moses and the prophets as it was of Paul and ApoUos,
that "neither he that planteth is anything; neither
he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase,"
then if the Holy Ghost did not Himself give, by His
own immediate agency, the increase, the Mosaic plant-
ing and the prophetic watering must have been in
vain. Surely the critical theory that leads to such
conclusions respecting the salvation of Israel cannot
be Biblical.
Bomish Cast of the Doctrine.
But there is another feature of this doctrine of the
mediate inhabitation of the Holy Spirit which cannot
but strike any one who is at all acquainted with the
Eomish controversy. The doctrine here avowed regard-
ing the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Church under
the Old Dispensation, bears a very close resemblance to
the doctrine of Eome regarding His relation to the
Church under the New. The Eomish doctrine is, that
the Holy Spirit dwells in the external organization and
operates through chosen organs, especially the bishops
or chief pastors ; the doctrine of our author is, that He
dwelt in Israel as a nation, residing in chosen organs,
96 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
especially the prophets. The Eomish doctrine, how-
ever, ascribes to the Spirit, as the efficient cause, the
efficacy of the " intervening ritual sacrament;" while
our author's views regarding the result, upon the Old
Testament worshippers, of the indwelling of the Spirit
in the prophets and others appointed over them as
administrators, are exceedingly obscure and indefinite.
The fact is, that when his note on p. 417 is read in
connection with what he says respecting the worship
of Israel and the subject of prayer, noticed elsewhere
in this review, the impression produced is very painful.
One feels that it must be all but impossible to accept
the theory, and continue to believe that the people of
God under the Old Testament, the true Israel, — Israel
Kara irvevfjua, and not Israel Kara adpKa, — were in
possession of spiritual life or had fellowship with God.
The Difficulty of " the newer criticism " is not met hj
leaving off the last tivo verses of this Psalm.
ISTor would " the newer criticism " get rid of the
apparent incongruity by referring the last two verses
of the fifty-first Psalm, as some do, to another period,
and ascribing them to another psalmist than David.
For David's language in the preceding verses has still
to be harmonized with David's acts of public worship
in connection with the bringing up of the ark to his
own city, and with the propitiation of God on the
threshing-place of Araunah the Jebusite. We are told
(2 Sam. xxiv. 25) that "David built there an altar
rOST-EXILIC AUTHENTICATION VIOLATES HISTORY. 97
unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-
offerings. So the Lord was entreated for the land, and
the plague was stayed from Israel." If David believed
that the only sacrifices of God were a broken spirit, and
that a broken and a contrite heart was the only offering
which He would not despise, how is it that we find
him passing beyond the limits of this spiritual Torah
at the threshing-place of Araunah, and erecting an
altar to Jehovah, and offering thereon burnt-offerings
and peace-offerings ? And if the purely spiritual are
the only sacrifices of Jehovah, how is it that the Lord
accepts these material offerings at the hands of the
king, and is entreated for the land, and stays the plague
from Israel ?
In fact, this post-exilic theory of the authentication
of sacrifice has compelled its advocates to take up a
position of antagonism to the historical facts of the
Biblical record. Its sole reliance is placed upon a few
statements such as those already examined, while the
concurrent Torahs of all pre-exilic times, so far as they
allude to Israel's worship and her immemorial practice,
and the institutions of the wilderness and of the resi-
dence in Canaan, proclaim, with one united voice, its
condemnation, and leave its advocates without the
shadow of an excuse.
The position, therefore, that the Pentateuchal Torah
did not originate with Ezra or his contemporaries, and
that the law he brought from Babylon was, from times
immemorial, the "religious and municipal code" of
Israel, is established by historical evidence which
G
98 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
nothing save absolute historical scepticism will venture
to call in question. The species of criticism by which
it is sought to disprove the pre-exilic existence of this
Torah would, if applied to the history of Scotland,
shake the confidence of the people of jSTorth Britain in
the history of the Scottish Eeformation. It were just
as easy to prove that John Knox never spoke what he
is said to have spoken before the Queen and the
nobility of Scotland, as to prove that Moses never
uttered what the Pentateuch credits him with uttering,
in presence of the elders and before the whole congre-
gation of Israel. The criticism that can rifle Moses of
all ascribed to him in the Pentateuch save the two
tables of the law, could as easily prove that while John
Knox was, in sentiment and principle, a reformer, he
nevertheless did not give to Scotland her Presbyterian
constitution.
CHAPTEE IV.
The Question of the Transmission of the Pentateuchal
Torah.
PASSING from the question of the origin of the
Pentateuchal Torah, then, there remains for
examination the question of the transmission of it by
the scribes. Granting that they received an accurate
text, did they faithfully transmit it ?
Author summoned as a Witness to the Faithfulness
of the Scribes.
In proof of the faithfulness with which they
executed this task of transmission, it is peculiarly
gratifying to be able to place our author himself in the
witness-box. After admitting "that the text of the
Hebrew Old Testament which we now have is the
same as lay before Jerome 400 years after Christ;
the same as underlies certain translations into Chaldee
called Targums, which were made in Babylon in the
third century after Christ ; indeed, the same text as
was received by the Jewish doctors of the second
century, when the Mishna was being formed, and when
the Jewish proselyte Aquila made his translation into
99
100 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Greek," — our witness testifies, tliat " the Jews, in fact,
from the time wlien their national life was extinguished
and their whole soul concentrated upon the preserva-
tion of the monuments of the past, devoted the most
strict and punctilious attention to the exact trans-
mission of the received text, down to the smallest
peculiarity of spelling, and even to certain irregularities
of writing." So punctilious were these transcribers,
as is well known, and as our author testifies, that
" when the standard manuscript had a letter too big,
or a letter too small, the copies made from it imitated
even this, so that letters of an unusual size appear in
the same place in every Hebrew Bible. Nay," he
adds, " the scrupulousness of the transcribers went still
further. In old MSS., when a copyist had omitted a
letter, . . . and when the error was detected, as the
copy was revised, the reviser inserted the missing
letter above the line, as we should now do with a carat.
If, on the other hand, the reviser found that any super-
fluous letter had been inserted, he cancelled it by
pricking a dot above it." All this, our witness admits,
" shows with what punctilious accuracy the one
standard copy was followed." This carefulness is still
further evinced " in the few cases in which it was
thought necessary to suggest a correction on the read-
inc? of the text." In such cases " the rule was laid
down, that you must not on that account change the
text itself." The course adopted was, " the reader
simply learned to pronounce, in reading certain pas-
sages, a different word from that which he found
DATE OF THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH. 101
written ; and in many MSS. a note to this effect was
placed on the margin. These notes are called Keris,
the word Keri being the imperative ' read ! ' while the
expression actually written in the text, but not uttered,
is called Kethih (written)." The author admits still
further, " that such a system of mechanical transmis-
sion could not have been carried out with precision
if copying had been left to uninstructed persons."
Hence he tells his readers that it became the speciality
of a guild of technically trained scholars, called
Massorets, or " possessors of tradition, that is, of tradi-
tion as to the proper way of writing the Bible." . . .
^' The final result of this labour," which extended over
centuries, " was a system of vowel points and musical
accents, which enable the trained reader to give
exactly the correct pronunciation, and even the correct
chanting tone, of every word of the Hebrew Old Testa-
ment" (pp. 69-72).
Date of the Samaritan Pentateuch inconsistent with a
Post-exilic Torah.
Our witness still further admits (p. 73), that " all
the evidence of variations and quotations later than
the first Christian century points to the received text
as already existing practically as we have it, but (that)
we cannot follow its history beyond that time." Not-
withstanding this confession, our author tries to pass
" beyond that time," and to prove, or conjecture, various
readings in earlier Hebrew MSS. The chief sources of
102 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
proof on which he relies are the Samaritan Pentateuch
and the Septuagint. With regard to the former, to
help out the theory of the post-exilic origin of the
Levitical system, he makes it bear date 430 B.C., and
tries to support this view by an argument, in the
Notes, p. 398, which simply contradicts the account
given (2 Kings xvii.) of the instruction of the Sama-
ritans by a priest sent back from Assyria at their
request, " in the law and commandment which the Lord
commanded the children of Jacob," even " the statutes
and the ordinances, and the law, and the command-
ment which He wrote for you." On referring to the
argument advanced in this note, the reader will not be
surprised to find that it is the author's chief argument
when he wishes to prove the non-existence of a law,
viz. the fact that the law in question was not observed.
The argument is simply this : " the Samaritans wor-
shipped images, and did not observe the laws of the
Pentateuch (2 Kings xvii. 34, 41) ! The Pentateuch,
therefore, was introduced as their religious code at a later
date; and it could not be accepted except in connection
with the ritual and priesthood which they received
from Jerusalem through the fugitive priest banished
by Nehemiah." This conjecture is backed up by an
interpretation of a passage in Josephus (Antiq. xi. 8),
in which it is related that Manasseh, the son-in-law of
Sanballat, fled from Jerusalem to Samaria, and founded
the schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim, with a rival
hierarchy and ritual. Suffice it to say, that the pre-
mises do not warrant the conclusion. Even though it
author's faculty of generalization. 103
were proved that the Samaritan temple dates from the
advent of the fugitive priest, it would not follow that
the Samaritans had not previously received the Penta-
teuch. " Their persistent efforts to establish relations
with the Jewish priesthood, and secure admission to
the Temple at Jerusalem," which our author admits in
this note, would seem to point to a very different con-
clusion. These " persistent efforts " may have arisen
from their knowledge of the Pentateuch, and its laws
respecting the priesthood and the central sanctuary.
So far as the chief aim of the author is concerned,
this reference to the Samaritan Pentateuch has proved
a mistake. The passage in 2 Kings xvii. proves
that the laws of the Pentateuch were known to
the Samaritans, for they were blamed for the non-
observance of them, more than 240 years before the
date of their reception of it as given by our author.
If the Samaritans had the Pentateuch, Israel of the
ten tribes must have had it 300 years before Ezra
read it to the children of the captivity " in the street
that was before the water-gate " in Jerusalem.
AiUlior's Faculty of Generalization.
The witness adds a partial modification of this
testimony to the punctilious accuracy of the tran-
scribers, and their reverential treatment of the sacred
text : " In earlier times, according to the statement of
the Eabbinical books, a certain small number of altera-
tions, chiefly on dogmatical grounds, was made even
104 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
upon the writing of Scripture. These changes are
called the 13 Tikkune Sopherim (corrections or deter-
minations of the scribes)." These instances the author
makes the basis of the generalization, "that the early
guardians of the text did not hesitate to make small
changes in order to remove expressions which they
thought unedifying ; " and adds, that " no doubt such
changes were made in a good many cases of which no
record has been retained ; " and then proceeds to make
out an instance on his own account from the variation
in the name of Saul's son and successor as given
in the Books of Samuel and in 1 Chron. viii. 33.
(Pp. 78, 79.)
Our author has the unhappy faculty of adducing
evidence and then exaggerating it, and then neutraliz-
ing the evidence even in its exaggerated dimensions.
The eighteen corrections of the scribes in his hands
become the evidence of a very general correctional habit,
of whose operation he can discern other instances than
those pointed out by the Eabbins, which are sufficient
to prove that these guardians of the text were not
sound critics ; but when he has stated these formidable
premises, he abandons them, and tells us " that the
standard copy which they ultimately selected, to the
exclusion of all others, owed this distinction not to
any critical labour which had been spent upon it, but
to some external circumstance that gave it a special
reputation. Indeed," he continues, ''the fact which
we have already referred to, that the very errors and
corrections and accidental peculiarities of the MS. were
TEXT TEANSMITTED WAS WITHOUT VOWEL-POINTS. 105
kept just as they stood, shows that it must have been
invested with a peculiar sanctity ; if, indeed, the
meaning of the so-called extraordinary points — that is,
of those suspended and dotted letters, and the like —
had not already been forgotten when it was chosen to
be the archetype of all future copies" (p. 80).
Aitthors Accusations of the Scribes met hy himself.
Tt would seem difficult to find even among the
oddities of Talmudic argumentation anything to match
this. The scribes who were the guardians of the text
are to be proved incompetent or untrustworthy ; and
the proof is, that only in eighteen instances have they
ventured to touch, by change, the sacred text 1 Our
logician, it is true, conjectures other instances besides
these ; but as soon as this conjecture is advanced, it is
met and neutralized by the admission of a reverence
for the sacred text, cherished by these same tran-
scribers, which led them to transmit, "just as they
stood, the very errors and corrections and accidental
peculiarities of the MS." from which they copied !
Text to he transmitted v:as without Vowel-Points.
To enhance our conceptions of the difficulty of the
task of these scribes, and to shake our confidence in
the correctness of the resultant record, our attention is
called by this representative of " the newer criticism,"
to the character of the text with which they had to
106 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
deal. " They had," he says, " nothing before them but
the bare text denuded of its vowels, so that the same
words might often be read and interpreted in two
different ways." What the lecturer meant to say here
was, that the vowel sounds were not represented in
the text at that time, an idea which the word
" denuded " would scarcely convey, as that term neces-
sarily implies their presence in the text at a previous
time. As an example of the equivocal character of
such a text, he mentions the historic reference in Heb.
xi. 21, to Jacob leaning upon the top of his " staff,"
and points out the fact, that " when we turn to our
Hebrew Bible, as it is now printed (Gen. xlvii. 31),
we there find nothing about the ' staff ' — we find the
' bed.' Well/' he proceeds, " the Hebrew for ' the
bed' is 'HaMMiTTaH,' while the Hebrew for 'the
staff ' is ' HaMaTTeH.' The consonants in these two
words are the same, the vowels are different ; but the
consonants only were written, and therefore it was
quite possible for one person to read the word as
' bed,' as is now the case in our English Bible, follow-
ing the reading of the Hebrew scribes, and for the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, on the other
hand, to understand it as a ' staff,' following the inter-
pretation of the Greek Septuagint" (pp. 50, 51).
Vovjelless Text cdl the easier of Transmissio7i.
This critique on the " ambiguous " character of the
text, as it is designated p. 51, with this illustration
VOWELLESS TEXT EASIER OF TRANSMISSIOX. 107
annexed, is fitted to shake confidence in the text
transmitted to us, bub only in the case of those who
will not take pains to weigh the facts in the scales of
common sense. The question raised by the facts sub-
mitted is simply this, Which is the more difficult of
accurate transmission, a text consisting exclusively of
consonants, or a text consisting of both consonants
and vowels ? Take as our example the one selected
by our critic himself, this word which may mean
either " the bed " or " the staff," according to the
pronunciation given to it by the reader. A reference
to the word as given above will settle the question at
once ; for it will be seen that while the word with-
out the vowel -points embraces only six characters,
the same word with the vowel -points embraces
nine characters. The question, then, comes to this.
Which is easier of accurate transcription and trans-
mission,— a word of nine letters or a word of six ?
This question is one to be settled by actual experi-
ment ; and if the auditors who listened to this critique
upon " the bare text denuded of its vowels " — and
who, if they caught the spirit of the criticism, must
have all but concluded that " the bed," which had
proved to be a bed of death to the patriarch Jacob,
was likely to become the death-bed of our present
Hebrew text — had but taken the trouble of writing
out the word commented on, with and without the
vowels, even in our own current English characters,
they would have reached the very opposite conclusion
to that aimed at by the orator of the hour. It might
108 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
be put down as a canon of transcription, that the
fewer the characters to be transcribed, the less liable
is the scribe to make mistakes.
But our critic is ready with another difficulty in
the way of accurate transcription and transmission :
" Beyond the bare text, which in this way was often
ambiguous, the scribe had no guide but oral teaching.
They had no rules of grammar to go by. The kind of
Hebrew which they themselves wrote often admitted
grammatical constructions which the old language
forbade ; and when they came to an obsolete form or
idiom, they had no guide to its meaning, unless their
masters had told them that the pronunciation and
sense were so and so" (p. 51).
Ignorance of Lnport not a Foe to accurate
Transmission.
The question here is. What effect would this alleged
unacquaintance of the scribes with the meaning of the
words they were transcribing have upon the accuracy
of the transcription ? This also is a question not very
difficult of settlement. It may be laid down as a
canon applicable to such a case, that the transcription
would be affected only when a scribe attempted to
give a meaning to a word of whose meaning he was
ignorant. Even ignorance requires conditions for its
operation ; and the scribe's ignorance of the meaning
of a word could affect his transcription of it only
when, instead of simply copying the symbols of the
IGNORANCE NO FOE TO ACCURATE TRANSMISSION. 109
unknown term, he tried to indicate his interpretation
of it by other signs than those presented in the MS.
he was copying. Eecurring to the example abeady
given, — Jacob's bed, — and assuming that the scribe
found before him " the bare text denuded " (as our
author expresses it) "of its vowels," and could see
nothing save HMMTTH, and did not know whether it
meant " the bed " or " the staff," would the ambiguity
of the expression, or even his utter ignorance of its
meaning, prevent him from transcribing it correctly ?
Beyond intelligent challenge, neither in the one case nor
in the other could error in transcription arise save when
the scribe would attempt the execution of a function
which did not belong to him as a scribe, arrogating to
himself the prerogatives of an interpreter. While he
kept by the textual characters of that " bare text
denuded of its vowels," he could work no mischief on
the record. Only when, in order to interpret, a thing
which his task as a transcriber did not embrace, he
betook himself to the insertion of those vowels of
which, according to the expression employed by our
author, the text had been " denuded" could he by any
possibility fall into error, except he substituted another
word for the one before him. But, according to the
representation made by the lecturer, the system of
vowel -points was the final result of the labours of
a guild of technically -trained scholars, called the
Massorets, or " possessors of tradition, — that is, of
tradition as to the proper way of writing the Bible.
These Massorets laboured for centuries, and their task
110 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
was not completed till at least 800 years after
Christ" (p. 72). This is strong testimony in favour
of the position already mentioned, viz., that during the
intermediate period between the time of Ezra and the
rise of the Massorets, the sacred text was not very
likely to be changed by the introduction of the chief
disturbing element — to wit, the vowel-points. During
all that period HMMTTH was most likely to remain
HMMTTH, unmodified by an " a," or an "^," or an "g."
Hence our author concedes (p. 73) that "all the
evidence of variations and quotations later than the
first Christian century points to the received text as
already existing practically as we have it, but we
cannot follow its history beyond that time."
Competency of the Massorets to vocalize the Record.
But the question remains, and it is one of deep
interest. Were these Massoretic doctors competent to
the task of giving voice to the bare consonantal text
transmitted by their predecessors ? Are we sure that
the vowel-points introduced by them, not only above
and below the consonants, as this book alleges, but
also in their bosom betimes, fairly enunciate the words
of the sacred text, or rather, do they give a true
grammatical interpretation of it ? As we have already
seen from the illustration given by the author, to
vocalize HMMTTH is neither more nor less than to
give a meaning to it. By inserting " a" " z," " ^/' these
signs become " the bed; " and by inserting " «," "a," " e,"
COMPETENCY OF THE MASSORETS. Ill
they are transformed into " the staff." A process by
which such changes can be wrought in the meaning
of a word, may work vast transformations on a record.
How, then, are we to determine whether the Massorets
have employed their science of punctuation with in-
telligence and fidelity in the discharge of the sacred
trust reposed in them ? This, after all, is not a very
difQcult question. It is not very different from the
question, How are we to determine whether King
James's translators, or the recent revisionists of their
labours, have translated the New Testament intelli-
gently and with fidelity ? The cases are not widely
different, for it is just as true of a Greek word, that it
may stand for more than one thing, as it is of a
particular combination of Hebrew consonants. On
turning to a Greek Lexicon, one may find that the
word he is about to translate ha$ half a dozen or more
meanings; how is he to ascertain which of all these
he is to select as the representative of that word in
his translation ? The only guide he has is his own
common sense, and the effect of the selected meaning
upon the sentence taken as a whole and upon the
context. If the selected meaning be necessary to the
sense, and makes the sentence read well, and does not
place it at war with its immediate environment, the
presumption is that the selected meaning is the true
one. And as it is with translation, so is it with
Massoretic vocalization. The Massorets have vocalized
the Hebrew text so as to make it read well, and the
vowel-points they have inserted are necessary to the
112 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
enunciation and interpretation of its consonantal com-
binations. It is true Hebrew has been read, and may
still be read, without these points ; but only by the
use of certain Hebrew letters called, in consequence
of their quasi vocal nature, and the help they afford
in enunciation, matres ledionis, and with the aid of
vowel sounds which the reader has been instructed to
employ where the matres ledionis are not available.
It is also true, as our author states, that the synagogue
rolls are unpunctuated to this day. But, nevertheless,
it still holds good that these Massorets have proved
themselves such masters of their language, that the
ablest Hebraists of our day rarely find it necessary to
change the punctuation they have adopted and trans-
mitted to us.^ So unquestionable are the results of
their labours, that, as we have already seen, our author
1 DelitzscKs Confidence in the Accuracy of the Vowel-Points. — This
estimate of the knowledge possessed by these old Hebraists is in
accordance with that entertained by the best Hebrew scholarship in
Europe. In his Commentary on Habakkuk, Delitzsch speaks of it
as follows : — " How is the enigma to be resolved, that the punctuator
shows (as always elsewhere) the deepest insight into the relation of
these words to the preceding, as well as into their meaning, whilst
the Targums, Talmud, and IVIidrash have wholly lost the key and
vent the silliest stuff ? The tradition which the Targumist had at his
command reaches back certainly beyond the Christian era, and yet we
are to believe the punctuation of the text to be the work of the school
at Tiberias ! One, who is acquainted with the expositions of Scripture
in the Targums and Talmud, will scarcely think possible such a fixing
of its sense by written signs at a time when scriptural interpretation
had long been converted by the Midrash into the plaything of a
capricious fancy " {Der Prophet Hahahuh ausgelegt von Franz
Delitzsch, p. 202). Without giving any opinion regarding the
antiquity of the vowel-points, this verdict respecting their accuracy
may be accepted.
god's attitude towards sacrifice. llo
has to confess, despite all his criticisms, that "the
final result of their labour was a system of vowel-
points and musical accents which enable the trained
reader to give exactly the correct pronunciation, and
even the correct chanting tone, of every word of the
Hebrew Old Testament" (p. 72).
God's Attitude towards Sacrifice in Pre-exilic Times.
As we have already seen again and again, "the
newer criticism," as developed in these lectures,
" denies that these things (sacrifice and ritual) are of
positive divine institution, or have any part in the
scheme on which Jehovah's grace is administered in
Israel," prior to the exile. This is the interpretation
which our author puts upon the language of the pre-
exilic prophets referred to above. We are to under-
stand the prophets as teaching by such language, that
Jehovah has not enjoined sacrifice. " This," however,
we are told, " does not imply that He never accepted
sacrifice, or that ritual service is absolutely wrong.
But it is at best mere form, which does not purchase
any favour from Jehovah, and might be given up
without offence. It is," he says, " impossible to give a
flatter contradiction to the traditional theory that the
Levitical system was enacted in the wilderness. The
theology of the prophets before Ezekiel has no place
for the system of priestly sacrifice and ritual" (p. 288).
It is not necessary to discuss over again the import
of those utterances of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Amos,
H
114 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
and Hosea, and Micah, on which this negative doctrine
of God's attitude toward sacrifice and ritual, in pre-
exilic times, is so confidently based. The interpreta-
tion on which its advocates proceed is contradicted by
the spirit, and in some instances by the language, of
the context, while it arrays the prophets before the
exile against the prophets of post-exilic times, and
against the divinely appointed institutions of their
own times, and makes some of these pre-exilic pro-
phets contradict themselves. So long as it is admitted
that the first Temple, with its characteristic furniture,
was a divinely authorized and authenticated institution,
there would seem to be no possibility of denying, at
least with any show of reason, that sacrifice and ritual
had, during its continuance, positive divine sanction.
WorsJiip l)y Sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, uncovi-
manded 'prior to the Exile,
What we have to consider at present, however, is
not the import of these texts, but the import of this
theory of uncommanded yet accepted sacrifice and
ritual. The doctrine is, that the notion that God's
favour may be secured by sacrifice and ritual service
is of natural, and not of supernatural, origin. " What
is quite certain is that, according to the prophets, the
Torah of Moses did not embrace a law of ritual.
Worship by sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no
part of the divine Torah to Israel. It forms, if you
will, part of natural religion, which other nations
WORSHIP BY SACRIFICE. 115
share with Israel, and which is no feature in the dis-
tinctive precepts given at the exodus. There is no
doubt/' our author continues, "that this view is in
accordance with the Bible history, and with what we
know from other sources. Jacob is represented as
paying tithes ; all the patriarchs build altars and do
sacrifice ; the law of blood is as old as Noah ; the
consecration of firstlings is known to the Arabs ; the
autumn feast of the vintage is Canaanite as well as
Hebrew ; and these are but examples which might be
largely multiplied. The true distinction of Israel's
religion lies in the character of the Deity who has made
Himself personally known to His people, and demands
of them a life conformed to His spiritual character as a
righteous and forgiving God. The difference between
Jehovah and the gods of the nations is that He does
not require sacrifice, but only to do justly, and love
mercy, and walk humbly with God. This standpoint
is not confined to the prophetic books ; it is the
standpoint of the ten commandments, which contain
no precept of positive worship. But, according to
many testimonies of the pre-exilic books, it is the
ten commandments, the laws written on the tables
of stone, that are Jehovah's covenant with Israel. In
1 Kings viii. 9, 21, these tables are identified with
the covenant deposited in the sanctuary. And with
this the Book of Deuteronomy agrees (Deut. v. 2, 22) "
(pp. 298, 299).
This extract puts our author's doctrine beyond
doubt. During the whole pre-exilic period, or at least
116 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
up to the discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy,
which was made within a few years of the exile,
'■ worship by sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no
part of the divine Torah to Israel." Sacrifice, it is
true, was offered, and there is nothing in the language
of the prophets implying that it was never accepted
(p. 288) ; but it was never enjoined during all that
vast period of Israel's history. During all this time,
God's dealings with them, so far as there was any
express or positive indication of His will, were upon
the basis of the ten commandments. In other words,
salvation, or, to use a more appropriate expression (as
salvation on such a basis is out of the question),
acceptance with God, w^as, during that period, by the
works of the law and not through the righteousness
of faith ! This system, too, is very old. It pervades
the Bible history, running back through the whole
patriarchal age even to Noah. The basis of the cove-
nant with Israel is the ten commandments ; and God's
acceptance of Israel depended not upon the expiation
of their sins through " the blood of bulls, or of goats,
or the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean," but
upon their doing justly, loving mercy, and walking
humbly with Him ! In a word, the way of acceptance
(for it were a perversion of language to call it salva-
tion) prior to Josiah's day, or prior to the exile, w^as
purely Socinian !
To make this sketch absolutely correct, the only
modification necessary is that (in all likelihood) God
w^as moved to the acceptance of these pre - exilic
THEORY ASSUMES HUMAN ORIGIN OF SACRIFICE. 117
worshippers, despite their legal shortcomings, by a
sacrifice and ritual which He had never enjoined !
The Theory assumes the Hitman Origin of Sacrifice.
The first question raised by this series of assertions
is the question respecting the origin of sacrifices.
Our author does not formally raise it or discuss it.
He simply assumes that sacrifices belong to the
religion of nature. The question, however, is one
which he was under special obligation to raise, and
under very special obligation to discuss and settle
before proceeding one step with his argument in
support of the post-exilic theory of the divine authen-
tication of sacrifice. That theory stands or falls with
the theory that sacrifice is of human and not of
divine origin. It is only by assuming that men
devised this mode of worship, and practised it from
Adam to Ezra, without any intimation from God that
sacrifice was an essential element in worship, that
the advocates of its post-exilic origin, as a divinely
authenticated institution, can even claim to be heard.
As they do not deny that both Israel and the nations
practised sacrifice, and regarded it as an important
element, and indeed a fundamental element, in
worship, it must follow that if this mode of worship
was not of human origin, it must have been originated
by God, and therefore must have had pre-exilic and
ante -patriarchal sanction — a sanction antecedent to
all sacrificial worship, and coeval with the first
118 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
sacrifice. It was therefore a question which " the
newer criticism " should have placed in the forefront
of its appeal to " the Scottish public." Our author, in
making his appeal, should have said to the Christian
element of " the Scottish public : " " Brethren, I
belong to a school of criticism whose views of the
way of acceptance with God differ somewhat from
the use-and-wont of Scottish theology. Holding with
this school, I do not regard sacrifice as an essential
condition of the acceptance of the worshipper with
God. Consistently with this view, I look upon all
sacrifices presented in patriarchal times, and ante-
cedently to the close of the Babylonish exile, as
unauthorized and destitute of divine sanction. I
admit and teach that from the days of Ezra this mode
of worship was formally adopted by Jehovah, but prior
to that epoch in the history of Israel I hold that His
attitude toward sacrifice, although I do not say that
He never accepted it, or that ritual service is absolutely
wrong, was simply negative, and I deny that * sacrifice
or ritual had any part in the scheme on which Jehovah's
grace was administered in Israel.' This, of course,
implies that sacrifice is the offspring of man's reason,
and this I hold myself bound to establish at the outset."
This Assumption regarding the Origin of Sacrifice
not proved.
Some such avowal of the doctrine of sacrifice held
by the school in whose name our author claims to
THE ORIGIN OF SACRIFICE. 119
speak, was about as little as the Christian portion of
the Scottish public could have expected. Instead of
this, however, the appellant passes by this question as
if it did not merit formal discussion, and merely tries
to sustain the theory of the human origin of sacrifice
by hints which imply it. To these hints attention is
requested.
The fii'st hint is, that " it forms, if you will, part
of natural religion, which other nations share with
Israel" (p. 298). This hint amounts simply to this,
that the fact of the universal prevalence of sacrifice
among the nations proves that sacrifice was of human
and not of divine origin ! This assertion, of course,
rests upon the assumption that the universality of a
doctrine or practice can be accounted for only by
assuming that it has its foundation in the constitution
of man, or is so clearly revealed in external nature
that all men have, of necessity, come to see its
appropriateness, and been led to adopt it. On the
former of these assumptions, the doctrine of sacrifice
must belong to the category of primary beliefs, or
beliefs which are the necessary outcome or offspring
of the nature of man ; on the latter, there must be
such a revelation of it in external nature that no
nation has failed to make the discovery. Consistently
with these alternative hypotheses, it may be held that
sacrifice, discovered in one or other of these ways by
our first father, who lived nearly one thousand years
to establish this form of worship, may have been to
his posterity a matter of tradition, confirmed by the
120 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
findings of tlieir religious consciousness, or by external
nature.
Universal Prevalence of Bacrifice consistent ivitli a
Divine Origin.
At the outset, it must be manifest that this theory
of the universal prevalence of sacrifice is purely
gratuitous. It is just as easy to account for the
universal prevalence of this mode of worship among
the nations by referring it to a divine revelation, as
by referring it to a constitutional prompting, or to
indications of it given in the constitution of external
nature. An original revelation to Adam on this sub-
ject would be as likely to gain universal acceptance,
and pass into universal practice, as an original Adamic
discovery. The theory, therefore, has no advantage
over the ordinary doctrine. So far as the universal
prevalence of this mode of worship is concerned, it
would be as readily accounted for by assuming a
divine as by assuming a human origin of sacrifice.
The posterity of Adam would be as likely to hold fast
the tradition in the one case as in the other.
Human Origin of Sacrifice not reasonahle.
But passing from these merely a 'priori considerations,
let us look at the two theories in the light of reason.
Is it reasonable to suppose that the human mind would
ever devise a sacrificial system as a mode of divine
SACRIFICE PRECEDED THE USE OF ANIMAL FOOD. 121
worship ? Could it ever occur to any rational being that
he could render himself acceptable to God by taking
away the life of His creatures ? Would the very oppo-
site conclusion not be much more reasonable? Might
he not more reasonably conclude, that by slaughtering
God's innocent creatures, and rending them in pieces,
and pouring out their life's blood, and burning them
upon an altar, he would incur the divine displeasure ?
Eeason reveals itself in the adoption of means which
have a natural tendency to secure the end aimed at ;
but here the means adopted have no connection,
discernible by human reason, with the end proposed,
while, on the other hand, so far as reason can judge,
the means adopted are fitted to expose the worshipper
to the divine rebuke.
Argument from the fact that Sacrifice preceded the Use
of Animal Food.
This consideration gains force when account is
taken of the fact that worship by sacrifice prevailed
before man had been authorized to slaughter animals
for food. At the time Abel brought of the firstlings
of his flock, and of the fat thereof, this permission had
not been given, and man had therefore no authority to
destroy animal life. As the dominion over the animal
creation given to man, at that stage of his history, did
not embrace the power of life and death, it is much
more reasonable to assume that a pious man, such as
Abel was, would conclude that he had no right to put
122 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the sheep that God had given him to death in any
form, or for any purpose. This, at least, would seem
to be beyond dispute, that the reasonableness of
approaching God by means of sacrifice, in the days
of Abel, is not so clear as to warrant the conclusion
that this mode of worship was a device of human
reason. The whole circumstances point to the
opposite conclusion. The natural conclusion is, that
Abel "brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of
the fat thereof," in accordance with a divine com-
mand.
Argument for Divine Origin from AbeVs Offering.
Indeed, this conclusion would seem to follow, of
necessity, from the fact that Abel's offering was made
in faith and met with divine acceptance. Faith is
correlative to faithfulness, and, in this case, to the
faithfulness of God, and hence implies a divine
promise. But the faith that comes to God through
sacrifice must be correlative to a faithfulness pledged
in a promise connected with sacrifice ; and this is all
one with saying that God had, at that time, revealed
His purpose of mercy in connection with a sacrificial
system, and had promised to accept those who came
before Him in that appointed way. The faith that is
acceptable to God is not a blind faith. It is a faith
that believes God; and a faith that believes God
must have hold of a word which God has spoken.
Between this conclusion and the doctrine that Abel's
ARGUMENT FROM NOAH'S SACRIFICE. 123
sacrifice was an act of will-worsliip there is no middle
ground. Nor is it unworthy of note that the acute
Dr. Priestley, who at one time attributed the rise of
sacrificial offerings to anthropomorphic conceptions of
God, was led to change his views, because of the
unlikelihood of Cain and Abel being influenced by
such considerations, and to give it as his opinion, in
treating of their offerings, that, "on the whole, it
seems most probable that men were instructed by
the Divine Being Himself in this mode of worship."
Now, one thing which adds great force and signifi-
cance to this case of Abel's offering is, that it is the
only instance of public worship mentioned in the
history of the entire antediluvian age, a period of
over sixteen hundred years. So far as Scripture
sheds light on the subject of the mode of public
worship during that period, there is every reason to
believe, and no reason to doubt, that there was no
other mode of puUic worship known to man or
acceptable to God. The way in which the solemn
transaction is introduced, implying a previous use-
and-wont of the same kind, the mention of the divine
acceptance of the offering, and the subsequent refer-
ence to it in the New Testament, bespeak a ceremony
divinely instituted and devoutly observed.
Argument from Noalis Sacrifice.
The case of Noah seems to confirm this conclusion.
Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and was singled
124 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
out by God as a singular monument of His grace. He
was warned of God to prepare an ark to the saving of
his house, and was admitted into His secret counsel
respecting the impending doom of a guilty world. Are
we to suppose that God would be careful to reveal to
him with such minuteness of detail everything about
the mode of the temporal deliverance, while at the
same time He was careful to conceal from him the
mode in which the great spiritual redemption promised
through the bruising of the woman's seed was to be
achieved ? The whole history of God's dealings with
him and his family, and the whole transaction on
Ararat, are irreconcilable with such a view. It seems
inconceivable how any one can read the account of
ISToah's first act of worship on coming out of the ark,
and yet hold, as our author does, that God's attitude
toward his burnt-offerings was simply negative or
neutral. God was manifestly pleased with Noah's
offerings, for we are told by the sacred historian, who
tells us so little about antediluvian worship, that " the
Lord smelled a sweet savour ; and the Lord said in
His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more
for man's sake, . . . neither will I again smite any more
every thing living as I have done. While the earth
remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat,
and summer and winter, and day and night shall not
cease. And God blessed Noah and his sons," etc.
(Gen. viii. 21-ix. 1). Surely this is no mere negative
attitude. Could an act of worship, as to its mode, be
more emphatically sanctioned ? It is not simply that
AEGUMENT FKOM NOAH's SACRIFICE. 125
God accepts Noah, and blesses the earth, and blesses
both Noah and his sons, but that He does so on
smelling his burnt-offerings. The Lord, we are told,
" smelled a sweet savour," and the mention of this fact
must be intended to teach us that the Lord took
cognizance of the mode as well as of the spirit of the
worship, and that the mode had His sanction. Now,
as it cannot be for a moment imagined that the odour
of burning flesh is acceptable to God, who is a Spirit,
or that the reason of man, or the promptings of his
religious consciousness, would ever lead him to invent
such a means of rendering himself or his worship
acceptable to his Creator, the only inference which
seems at all in consonance with reason or common
sense is, that the smell of the burnt-offering was
acceptable to God because of the relation which that
burnt-offering, as a type, sustained to the great Anti-
type of all the sacrifices offered by God's people
throughout all dispensations, whether pre-exilic or
post-exilic.
With the second argument, or assertion rather, viz.
" that sacrifice and its accompanying ritual formed no
part of the distinctive precepts of the exodus," it is
unnecessary to deal further than has been done
already. The argument or assertion, as has been
shown before, overlooks the fact that " the distinctive
precepts of the exodus " embrace the commandments
connected with the institution of the Passover,
which was a truly sacrificial ordinance. This base-
less assertion is surely sufficiently met by this counter
126 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
assertion, which is based on the Scripture account of
the exodus.
The Tlieory reduces the Sinaitic Covenant to a Covenant
of Works.
The third argument, or assertion, or hint, reduces
God's covenant with Israel at Sinai to a covenant of
works, representing, as it does, that covenant as consist-
incr of the ten commandments written on the two
tables of stone. This account of the transaction at
Mount Sinai is, of course, a direct contradiction of the
account given, Ex. xxiv., which informs us that the
covenant at Mount Sinai was sealed with sacrificial
blood, which was sprinkled on the altar and on the
people, as the blood of the covenant, before the ten
commandments were written on the tables of stone,
Moses proclaiming the connection of the blood with
the covenant in words that cannot be mistaken,
" Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord
hath made with you concerning all these words."
Argument confirmed hy the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Of course this argument from Ex. xxiv. will not
have much weight with " the newer criticism," as this
chapter, according to that school, belongs to the priests'
codex, and is of post-exilic origin. It is, however,
a codex recognised by the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, chap. ix. 18-22, whether "the newer
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 127
criticism " will recognise it or not ; and its testimony
sets aside the doctrine of our author's third assertion as
utterly out of harmony with the nature of the covenant
into which God entered with Israel, and with the
spirit of the whole economy inaugurated with burnt-
offerings, and peace-offerings, and sprinkling of blood
at Sinai.
Stripped, then, of all rhetorical garniture, the doc-
trine underlying this account of the Sinaitic covenant
is simply this, that it was a covenant of works. Our
author does not come out candidly and tell the Chris-
tian public of Scotland that this is the view of that
covenant held by " the newer criticism," but that such
is the doctrine here taught in this reduction of that
covenant to the ten commandments set forth as the
basis of God's intercourse with Israel is beyond ques-
tion. The motto of the whole period is, " This do and
thou shalt live." Such were the terms of the only
covenant of God with Israel.
To Abraham's seed, then, but not to himself ! were
the promises of this covenant made ; for we find that
God made a very different covenant with Abraham, and
that, too, a covenant which the law referred to by our
author, as the sole covenant of God with Israel, could
not disannul so as to make the promise of none effect,
" For if the inheritance is of the law," as our author
alleges, " it is no more of promise ; but (and this is
the condemnation of his naturalistic theory) God hath
granted it to Abraham by promise."
12 8 THE NEWEE CRITICISM.
TVJiercfore theoi serveth the Laiu ?
But our author may ask, "What then is the law ?"
He may say, " Did not God covenant with Israel at
Sinai on the basis of these ten commandments ? and am
I to be told that God's intercourse with Israel and His
acceptance of them did not turn upon their fulfilling
the terms of that covenant enshrined in the ark?"
" Wherefore then serveth the law ? " is a very natural
question, and merits an answer ; and the best answer
is that given by the apostle, who seems to have anti-
cipated the difficulties of the Scottish school of " the
newer criticism." His answer is, " It was added
because of transgressions, till the seed should come to
whom the promise was made ; and it was ordained by
angels by the hand of a mediator."
Such is the apostle's account of the relation of the
law to the covenant ; but it is very different from the
account of this relationship given in these lectures.
According to the apostle, the law was added to the
covenant ; according to " the newer criticism," the law
is itself the covenant.
It w^ould be difficult to frame a theory of Old Testa-
ment history, or of God's revelation of the way of life,
more antagonistic to the economy of redemption, or
evincing less acquaintance with the relation of the
economy of grace to the economy of law, than our
author has revealed in these lectures. In dealing with
such anti-evangelical dogmatism, one is at a loss to
know where to bes^in. The author is right in alleging
WHEREFORE THEN SERVETH THE LAW ? 129
that the ten commandments " are identified with the
covenant" (p. 299). Identified with it they are,
beyond all doubt. They exhibit the terms on which
alone God will hold intercourse with Israel. Such are
the terms of the covenant, but, as our author himself
confesses, they " contain no precept of positive wor-
ship" (p. 299). It is not the business of the law to
reveal the way of escape from the condemnation it
utters, or the way in which the transgressors of it (and
all are transgressors of it, for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God) may find forgiveness and
acceptance with God. " By the law is the knowledge
of sin," not the knowledge of salvation. By its verdict,
reiterated by conscience, every mouth is stopped, and
all the world brought in guilty before God. By deeds
done by fallen man in satisfaction of its claims, there
shall no flesh be justified in His sight. This is a
truth not simply for the Eomans, or for Paul's
day, or for post - exilic times. " No flesh " must
be taken in its widest scriptural comprehension, as
embracing the whole posterity of Adam, and Adam
himself.
These are among the A, B, C of the truths of the
Bible, and are we to be told that the revelation of them
was reserved for post-exilic times ? Is it to be pro-
claimed from the bosom of the Free Church of Scot-
land, that it was by doing justly, loving mercy, and
walking humbly with God, that the men of pre-exilic
times were justified ? Are we to be told, in the face
of the apostle's express declaration, that Abraham was
I
130 THE NEWEE CEITICISM.
justified by faith and not by works, that he was saved
by works of justice, and mercy, and humility ? Is
this the gospel that was preached before unto
Abraham ? Is it come to this, that it is necessary to
sound in the ears of the men of the present genera-
tion, what Paul uttered in the ears of the Romans
eighteen hiindred years ago, that if Abraham were
justified by works he had whereof to glory, but not
before God ? Must the generation next after Chalmers
and Cunningham be told that " as many as are of the
works of the law are under the curse " ? It is surely
not possible that well-nigh one-half of the ministers
and elders of the Free Church of Scotland claim for
those who hold such views of the history of redemp-
tion, as given in the Bible, the right to proclaim them
from her Theological Halls ?
CHAPTEE V.
Uncommanded Worship Unconfessional Doctrine.
T)UT let us look at this theory of uncommanded yet
-^ accepted pre-exilic sacrifice, in the light of the
Sinaitic covenant as sketched by "the newer criticism"
itself. This covenant consisted, we are informed, of
the laws written on the two tables of stone, and it is
alleged that these " contain no precept of positive
worship" (p. 299). These ten commandments, never-
theless, do contain a very important precept about
worship. As interpreted by the Westminster divines,
whose doctrinal formularies our author has subscribed,
one of these commandments " forbiddeth the worship
of God by images, or in any way not appointed in
His word." According to this interpretation of the
second commandment (and it must be regarded as the
interpretation of all who have subscribed our Con-
fession of Faith and Catechisms), it is a breach of it
to worship even the true God in a way which He has
not appointed in His word. This is, of course, all one
with saying that it was a breach of the Sinaitic
covenant, as held by " the newer criticism," to worship
God by sacrifice prior to the days of Ezra, for " the
newer criticism" teaches that this mode of worship
131
132 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
was uncommanded, and therefore not appointed, in
pre- exilic times.
Uncommanded WorshijJ a Bi^eacli of the Sinaitic
Covenant.
Here, then, " the newer criticism " has prepared for
itself another dilemma. Either worship by sacrifice
was appointed by God in pre-exilic times, or it was
not. If it was not appointed in pre-exilic times (and
'' the newer criticism " says that it was not), then
worship by sacrifice during that entire period, at least
from the inauguration of the Mosaic economy, must
have been a breach of the Sinaitic covenant, and all
such acts of worship must have been regarded by God
as idolatrous. This, of course, is the only horn of the
dilemma which the advocates of the post-exilic theory
can lay hold of, and it is manifestly, in the case of
those who have subscribed our standards, a dernier
ressort. They must, when they reflect on their own
recognised interpretation of the second commandment,
feel when they take hold of this horn very much as
Joab did, when, holding by the horns of the altar
(for altars were sacred in Joab's section of the pre-
exilic period), he saw Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada,
approaching him the second time.
Nor is it open to our author to reply, " I see another
horn, a very little one, it is true, but still a horn,
where the sword of Benaiah cannot reach me. It is
the horn of * non-injunction,' or, to speak plainly, if
UNCOMMANDED WORSHIP A BREACH OF COVENANT. 133
not reverently, the horn of non-committal, for my
doctrine is that ' Jehovah has not enjoined sacrifice.'
I have never said, nor does my school hold, that ' He
has never accepted sacrifice, or that ritaal service is
absolutely wrong' " (p. 288). This reply, however, is
not available, nor can this little horn prove a refuge
from the Westminster Benaiah. This messenger of
the king is not up in the distinctions of " the newer
criticism," and cannot discriminate between " has not
enjoined " and " has not appointed," and is as sure to
slay the refugee at the little horn of non-injunction
as at the other horn, which yet is not another, of non-
prohibition. In a word, the doctrine of the Sinaitic
covenant, as held by " the newer criticism," cannot be
reconciled with their doctrine of the non-injunction
of sacrifice during the pre-exilic period of the history
of God's covenant people. A covenant embracing the
second commandment must have precluded the pos-
sibility of God's standing towards the sacrifices of
Israel in an attitude of indifference. According to
that commandment. He must have approved or con-
demned, and if we are to accept the interpretation of
it given in our standards, He could not have accepted
Israel's sacrifices unless He had commanded them.
To say, as our author does (p. 288), that a service
never enjoined by God may nevertheless be some-
times " accepted of Him," and that a service uncom-
manded is nevertheless " not absolutely wrong," is
simply to contradict the interpretation already referred
to, which makes the divine appointment essential to
134 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
acceptance. This, it will be observed, is not a question
about a " circumstance " of an established ordinance
of worship ; for it is readily admitted, and our stan-
dards and common sense teach, that " there are some
circumstances concerning the worship of God, and
government of the Church, common to human actions
and societies, which are to be ordered by the light
of nature and Christian prudence, according to the
general rules of the word, which are always to be
observed " {Conf. of Faith, chap. i. § vi.). The service
of praise is commanded, but the tunes, etc., are left to
be ordered by the light of nature. Preaching is a
divine ordinance, but the Scriptures do not reveal a
science of homiletics. The fact that the circumstances
are left to man, under the aforesaid conditions, however,
does not warrant the conclusion that men may frame
distinct ordinances of worship, or devise modes of ap-
proach unto God, independently of His appointment.
This latter, however, is the doctrine of this book ; and
this one feature of it strips it of all claim to Con-
fessional authority, so far as one of the fundamental
questions of divine worship is concerned.
Author's Theory of Forgiveness of Sin in Pre-exilic
Times,
It is no marvel that our author, after such a sketch
of Old Testament pre-exilic theology, should feel that
his position creates a difficulty. " If it is true," he
asks, " that they (the prophets) exclude the sacrificial
FORGIVENESS OF SIN IN PEE-EXILIC TIMES. 135
worship from the positive elements of Israel's religion,
what becomes of the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins,
which we are accustomed to regard as mainly ex-
pressed in the typical ordinances of atonement ? "
(p. 301). This is a very natural question, and our
author thinks it " necessary, in conclusion, to say a
word on this head," and on a question of such interest
it is but proper that he should speak for himself
He has reached the crucial test of his system, for, as
he says (p. 305), " it is more important to understand
the method of God's grace in Israel than to settle
when a particular book was written." Having taken
the ground that, whatever the age of the Pentateuch
as a written code, the Levitical system of communion
with God, the Levitical sacraments of atonement, were
not the forms under which God's grace worked, and to
which His revelation accommodated itself, in Israel
before the exile, it has become imperative to show
that by taking away the doctrine of atonement he has
not with it abolished the doctrine of the forgiveness
of sins. He feels that " the newer criticism " is on
its trial, and here is his defence : " When Micah, for
example, says that Jehovah requires nothing of man but
to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
God, we are apt to take this utterance as an expression
of Old Testament legalism. According to the law
of works, these things are of course sufficient. But
sinful man, sinful Israel, cannot perform them per-
fectly. Is it not therefore necessary for the law to
come in with its atonement to supply the imperfection
136 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of Israel's obedience 1 I ask you," he says, " to observe
that such a view of the prophetic teaching is the
purest rationahsm, necessarily allied with the false
idea that the prophets are advocates of natural
morality. The prophetic theory of religion has nothing
to do with the law of works. Eeligion, they teach,
is the personal fellowship of Jehovah with Israel, in
which He shapes His people to His own ends, im-
presses His own likeness upon them by a continual
moral guidance. Such a religion cannot exist under
a bare law of works. Jehovah did not find Israel a
holy and righteous people ; He has to make it so by
wise discipline and loving guidance, which refuses to
be frustrated by the people's shortcomings and sins.
The continuance of Jehovah's love in spite of Israel's
transgressions, which is set forth with so much force in
the opening chapters of Hosea, is the forgiveness of sin.
" Under the Old Testament the forgiveness of sins
is not an abstract doctrine, but a thing of actual experi-
ence. The proof, nay, the substance, of forgiveness is
the continued enjoyment of those practical marks of
Jehovah's favour which are experienced in peaceful
occupation of Canaan and deliverance from all trouble.
This practical way of estimating forgiveness is common
to the prophets with their contemporaries. Jehovah's
anger is felt in national calamity; forgiveness is realized
in the removal of chastisement. The proof that
Jehovah is a forgiving God is that He does not retain
His anger for ever, but turns, and has compassion on
His people (Micah vii. 1 8 seq. ; Isa. xii. 1 ). There is
EXPOSITION OF THEORY OF FORGIVENESS. 137
no metaphysic in this conception, it simply accepts the
analogy of anger and forgiveness in human life.
" In the popular religion the people hoped to influ-
ence Jehovah's disposition towards them by gifts and
sacrifices (Micah vi. 4 seq.), by outward tokens of
penitence. It is against this view that the prophets
set forth the true doctrine of forgiveness. Jehovah's
anger is not caprice, but a just indignation, a necessary
side of His moral kingship in Israel. He chastises to
work penitence, and it is only to the penitent that He
can extend forgiveness. By returning to obedience the
people regain the marks of Jehovah's love, and again
experience His goodness in deliverance from calamity
and happy possession of a fruitful land. According
to the prophets, this law of chastisement and forgive-
ness works directly, without the intervention of any
ritual sacrament. . . . According to the prophets,
Jehovah asks only a penitent heart, and desires no
sacrifice ; according to the ritual law. He desires a
penitent heart approaching Him in certain sacrificial
sacraments. . . . And so the conclusion is inevitable,
that the ritual element which the law adds to the
prophetic doctrine of forgiveness became part of the
system of God's grace only after the prophets had
spoken" (pp. 301-304).
Exposition of the Author's Theory of Forgiveness.
Such is our author's answer to the question which
he sees arises inevitably out of his doctrine respecting
138 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
" the forgiveness of sins, which we are accustomed to
regard as mainly expressed in the typical ordinances
of atonement." The prophets, he tells us, know of
no such condition of forgiveness as we have been
accustomed to assume. The law is not, '' the priest
shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be for-
given him ; " but Jehovah shall chastise him, and
thus work penitence in him, and his sins shall be
forgiven him. The sole condition of forgiveness is
penitence and a return to obedience.
Then, again, forgiveness is not what we have been
accustomed to think it is. It is not an abstract
doctrine, but a thing of actual experience ; and the
proof, nay, the substance, of it is the continued enjoy-
ment of those practical marks of Jehovah's favour,
such as Israel enjoyed in Canaan ! As regards the
difficulties in the way of God's extending forgiveness
to the transgressor, there does not seem to be any.
There are no difficulties in its pathway which " this in-
alienable divine love," which is the ground of forgive-
ness, cannot overcome. The analogue of the divine
forgiveness is found in the forgiveness which men ex-
tend to one another in the intercourse of life. As one
man can forgive another, and should forgive another,
upon the manifestation of penitence for an offence,
" without the intervention of any ritual sacrament,"
so can God forgive sinners, without conditioning His
forgiveness on the shedding or sprinkling of the blood
of bulls or of goats.
ESTIMATE OF THEORY OF FORGIVENESS. 139
Estimate and Classification of the Author s Theory
of Forgiveness.
"These results," as our author says (p. 305), "have
much larger interest than the question of the date of
the Pentateuch." They raise, as he acknowledges, the
question of " the method of God's grace in Israel."
They raise, in fact, the questions discussed by Socinus
and Grotius, questions involving the discussion of the
fundamental principles of the economy of redemption.
According to Socinus, there is nothing in the nature of
sin, nothing in the nature or attributes of God, and
nothing in the nature of the divine government, requir-
ing the punishment of sin. According to Grotius,
there is nothing in the nature of sin, and nothing in
the nature or attributes of God, requiring the punish-
ment of sin ; but there is something in the nature of the
divine government which requires that sin be punished.
This something is the justice of God, not regarded as
an essential attribute, but as a rectoral quality. Accord-
ing to our author, there is nothing in the nature of sin,
nothing in the nature of God, requiring the punishment
of sin ; but there is something in the relation of Jehovah
as the Moral Governor of Israel, requiring, not punish-
ment, but chastisement.
On first sight, this theory of the method of God's
grace seems to resemble the Grotian, or governmental
theory, as it finds a reason for the infliction of suffering
on sinners in God's relation as a Moral Governor. On
closer inspection, however, this is seen to be a mistaken
140 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
view of our author's doctrine. Grotius found in God's
rectoral relation a necessity, not simply for chastise-
ment, but for punishment ; and held that the punish-
ment demanded was demanded by the law and rectoral
justice of God, and was regarded as a solutio pcena7mm,
serving the twofold purpose of a satisfaction of law and
a deterrent from further acts of rebellion against the
divine government. Our author's theory is widely
diverse from this. It differs from it both in regard to
the thing demanded, and the ground of the necessity
for demanding it. The thing demanded, in our author's
view, is not, as with Grotius, punishment, but chastise-
ment; and the ground of the necessity of such a
demand is not the claims of law or justice, but the
relation of chastisement to forgiveness, the chastise-
ment being inflicted simply to bring the sinner to the
tender, regretful estate of penitence, which is repre-
sented as the sole condition of pardon and the return-
ing favour of God.
This representation of the method of God's grace, in
one of its fundamental points, is simply that given by
Socinus. The only obstacle in the way of forgiveness,
according to both, is subjective — the subjective obstacle
existing not in God, but in man, and consisting in
the hardness and impenitence of man's heart. The
character of this obstacle determines the character of
the economy of grace. According to Socinus, the
means adopted are, such an exhibition of divine love
as shall melt down and conquer all enmity, and bring
the sinner to repent of his sin and sue for pardon.
ESTIMATE OF THEORY OF FORGIVENESS. 141
This estate of soul is the sole requisite for the exercise
of the divine prerogative of pardon. The means
adopted for the exhibition of this all-mastering, all-
constraining love, are the gift of God's own Son, and
the sufferings He endured in life and in death. When
the sinner apprehends the love of God thus displayed,
so as to feel its power, he turns with penitential
sorrow to a forgiving God, and finds himself in the
embrace of the divine forgiveness. The means where-
by the same, or at least a similar, estate of soul is
reached, according to our author, are the varied castitory
instrumentalities and agencies employed by God in
the exercise of " a just indignation, a necessary side of
His moral kingship in Israel. He chastises to work
penitence, and it is only to the penitent that He can
extend forgiveness. By returning to obedience the
people regain the marks of Jehovah's love, and again
experience His goodness in deliverance from calamity
and happy possession of a fruitful land. According to
the prophets, this law of chastisement and forgiveness
works directly, without the intervention of any ritual
sacrament."
While the theory of our author very closely re-
sembles that of Socinus, it differs from it in a very
important particular, and that, too, in a particular
which places the Socinian immensely above it. While
both agree that God's love to sinners is revealed
through suffering, and that the design of the suffering
is to remove the subjective obduracy of the sinner's
heart, and bring him to a proper subjective estate for
142 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the reception of the meditated forgiveness, they differ
widely in regard to the subject on whom the suffering
is inflicted. According to Socinus, the suffering is
inflicted upon the Father's beloved Son ; according to
our author, it is inflicted upon the sinner himself.
According to Socinus, there is a Mediator ; according
to our author, there is none. According to Socinus,
there is at least the mediation of a suffering inter-
nuntius ; according to our author, " this law of
chastisement and forgiveness works directly, without
the intervention of any ritual sacrament," either typi-
cal or symbolical — foreshadowing a Mediator, or indi-
cating a mediation. According to Socinus, there is
need for the agency of Christ to produce the requisite
subjective estate ; according to " the newer criticism,"
the same result was brought about, at least in pre-
exilic times, by Philistia, or Syria, or Babylon. What
is wrought through the agency of the Son of God,
according to Socinus, was wrought, according to our
author, through the agency of Benhadad, or Eabshakeh,
or Nebuchadnezzar.
Simply one of the many Suhjective Theories of Salvation.
Our author's theory is, after all, but one of the
modern subjective theories of the atonement with
Christ left out, the special providence of God toward
Israel in pre-exilic times answering all the ends served
by the Levitical system from Ezra to Christ ; and if
this theory of forgiveness be true, all that is effected
GRAVITY OF THE QUESTION THUS RAISED. 143
even by the death of Christ Himself. Here, then,
according to " the newer criticism," is the result of
critical scholarship, so far as the theology of pre- exilic
times is concerned. " Whatever the age of the Penta-
teuch as a written code, the Levitical system of
communion with God, the Levitical sacraments of
atonement, were not forms under which God's grace
worked, and to which His revelation accommodated
itself before the exile " (p. 306).
Gravity of the Question thus raised.
In weighing this theological result, one cannot
wonder, as has been already observed, at the author's
conclusion, that " these results have a much wider
interest than the question about the date of the Penta-
teuch," as "it is more important to understand the
method of God's grace in Israel than to settle when a
particular book was written" (p. 305). There can be
no second opinion about the gravity of the conclusion
reached. It must be a matter of no ordinary interest
to the Church of Christ, whether in Scotland or else-
where, whether Presbyterian or not, whether God's
grace from Adam to Ezra worked on the assumption
that the sole obstacle in the way of forgiveness was to
be found in the subjective state of the sinner himself ;
or, in other words, whether, during the whole history
of our world prior to the Babylonish exile, the grace
of God was administered upon Socinian principles as
modified by " the newer criticism."
144 THE NEWEE CRITICISM.
Authors Theory of Pre-exilic Grace seems to determine
his Theory of the Date of the Pentateuch.
Still it is difficult to avoid the impression that the
author's theory of the pre-exilic economy of God's
grace has determined his theory regarding the date of
every book which associates that grace with sacrifice,
or " Levitical sacraments of atonement ; " and it is
equally difficult to see any other reason for referring
those sacrifices, whose pre-exilic occurrence cannot be
challenged, to the religion of nature. The critical
method pursued throughout is to relegate all books, or
parts of books, which ordain sacrifice or prescribe
ritual, to post-exilic times, and to treat such sections as
cannot, with any show of reason, be thus proscribed
and postponed, as the offspring of natural religion.
But whatever may be the relation of his critical theory
to his theory of the pre-exilic method of grace, the
fact is, as has been already shown, that his views on
this momentous question are neither more nor less
than a modification of the doctrine of Faustus Socinus
the elder, and that, too, a modification immensely
inferior to the original Socinian scheme, as it dispenses
with all mediatorial intervention between the sinner
and an offended God, while the Socinian scheme gives
to Christ the ^wasz-mediatorial position of an inter-
nuntius.
As our author claims, at the opening of Lecture xi.,
that these results " are not critical, but historical, and,
if you will, theological," he cannot well object to their
THEORY OF DATE OF PENTATEUCH. 145
being subjected to historical and theological tests. To
begin with the historical ; it is manifest that, in the
view of the Westminster divines, the covenant of grace,
though " differently administered in the time of the
law and in the time of the gospel," is nevertheless
the same identical covenant under all dispensations.
" Under the law it was administered by promises, pro-
phecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and
other types and ordinances delivered to the people of
the Jews, all fore -signifying Christ to come, which
were for that time sufficient and efficacious, through
the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up
the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom
they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation ;
and is called the Old Testament " {Conf. chap. viii.
§ v.). This statement is at once historical and theo-
logical. Its theology is federal, and the claim it
advances for this federal theology is, that it covers the
whole historic ground of the Old Testament dispensa-
tion. It proclaims a covenant of grace as the form in
which the divine purpose of mercy was revealed, and
it teaches that the method in which this covenant was
administered embraced the very elements which our
author's history and theology leave out for more than
three thousand years, or relegate to the religion of
nature. According to the Westminster divines, this
covenant " was administered by promises, prophecies,
sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other
types and ordinances ; " according to our author, the
covenant had nothing to do with sacrifice or anything
K
146 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
belonging to it. " What is quite certain is, that,
according to the prophets, the Torah of Moses did not
embrace a law of ritual. Worship by sacrifice, and all
that belongs to it, is no part of the divine Torah to
Israel. It forms, if you will, part of natural religion,
which other nations share with Israel, and which is no
feature in the distinctive precepts given at the exodus.
There is no doubt that this view is in accordance with
the Bible history, and with what we know from other
sources" (p. 298).
The Theory contradicts the Confession of Faith.
Now to say, as our author says here, that " the law
of Moses did not embrace a law of ritual," and " that
worship by sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no
part of the divine law to Israel," is about as flat a con-
tradiction of the foregoing statement of the Confession
of Faith as can be framed. The two statements are
manifestly contradictory and irreconcilable. The very
method of administration which the Confession says
was in operation under the law given to the Jews, is
the method which, if we are to accept the teaching of
this book, was no part of the divine law to Israel.
" The standpoint of the prophetic books," in which
alone we are to look for the method of the divine
administration in pre-exilic times, " is the standpoint
of the ten commandments, which contain no positive
precept of worship, and these ten commandments
written on the two tables of stone are Jehovah's cove-
THE THEORY CONTRADICTS CONFESSION OF FAITH. 147
nant with Israel" (p. 299). In the one statement,
the covenant is indissolubly joined to positive ordi-
nances of worship, including sacrifices ; in the other, all
positive precepts of worship are discarded and repudi-
ated, that the grace of God may work directly through
chastisement, " without the intervention of any ritual
sacrament" (p. 303).
So far, then, as our author's historico-theological
theory, in its chief positive feature, is concerned, there
can be no doubt that it is not only destitute of Con-
fessional authority, but that it is directly contradictory
of the doctrine of the Westminster divines.
But besides, his theory differs from the Westminster
doctrine of the method of the divine administration
under the pre-exilic period in what it omits, and this,
too, in regard to the vital question of an administrator.
It finds no place, as has been already shown, for the
mediator of the covenant, while the Westminster
divines teach that all the blessings enjoyed, embracing
the remission of sins and eternal salvation, were con-
ditioned upon faith in the promised Messiah, through
whom alone these blessings were conferred.
The justice of this charge of departure from the
Westminster doctrine of the covenant of grace, and the
method of its administration under the law, is still
further confirmed by the next section of the same
chapter (§ vi.) : " Under the gospel, when Christ the
substance was exhibited, the ordinances in which this
covenant is dispensed are, the preaching of the word,
and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism
148 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
and the Lord's Supper; which, though fewer in
number, and administered with more simplicity and
less outward glory, yet in them it is held forth in more
fulness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations,
both Jews and Gentiles ; and is called the New Testa-
ment. There are not, therefore, two covenants of grace
differing in substance, but one and the same under
various dispensations."
The doctrine here is, that there is but one Testa-
ment or Covenant, and that this one Covenant has been
administered differently under various dispensations,
Baptism and the Lord's Supper taking, under the New
Dispensation, the place of circumcision, sacrifices, and
the paschal lamb, mentioned in the preceding section
as the administrative ordinances of the Old. This, of
course, is all one with saying that " the ritual sacra-
ments" of the Old Testament sustained to the covenant
of grace under that dispensation the same relation that
the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
sustain to it under the New. As the language em-
ployed leaves no room for doubt on this point, it must
be obvious that the Westminster divines did not hold
the doctrine avowed in these lectures, viz. that during
the pre-exilic period " Jehovah asks only a penitent
heart and desires no sacrifice" (p. 304). The men
who penned the seventh chapter of our Confession
"would have listened with astonishment to a member of
that venerable assembly who, rising in his place, would
have given forth such utterances as the following :
" The difference between Jehovah and the gods of the
THE THEORY CONTRADICTS CONFESSION OF FAITH. 149
nations is, that He does not require sacrifice, but only
to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with
God" (pp. 288, 289). "According to the prophets,
this law of chastisement and forgiveness works directly,
without the intervention of any ritual sacrament "
(p. 303). "The prophets altogether deny to the law
of sacrifice the character of positive revelation ; their
attitude to questions of ritual is the negative attitude
of the ten commandments, content to forbid what is
inconsistent with the true nature of Jehovah, and for
the rest to leave matters to their own course" (p. 305).
Statements of this kind would certainly have excited
surprise among the theologians assembled at West-
minster, and their surprise would have been nothing
the less when informed that they were the sentiments
of a countryman of the learned and accomplished
theologian, George Gillespie, and of the heavenly-
minded, reverential Samuel Eutherford. Had they
reached that stage of their proceedings, they would
very likely have referred such an anti-sacrificial theo-
logian to their interpretation of the second command-
ment, and read him a lecture on the subject of
wiU- worship, if, indeed, they did not demand his
immediate expulsion from their counsels. As the
result of an historical investigation (and our author
claims that it is historical), there could be no theory
of the covenant, and the method of its administration
during the pre-exilic period, more palpably antagonistic
to the Westminster account of the history of the
covenant of crrace.
150 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
The Confession does not admit the Authors Distinction
of the Economy into Pre-Exilic and Post-Exilic.
ISTor can our author exculpate himself from this very
grave charge, by alleging that he holds with the West-
minster divines that the grace of God ran in the
sacramental channel of sacrifice and ritual from the
time the law entered, the sole point in dispute between
him and them being as to the time at which the law
came in, or, as he says St. Paul puts it in Eom. v. 20,
the time at which " the law came in from the side
(vo/jlo^ Be irapecarjXOev)" This will not serve as an
exculpation, nor does it at all make the divergence
charged one whit the less, for the Confession recognises
no pre-exilic period, long or short, during which the
covenant of grace was not sacramentally administered.
This is clear from the fact that it represents the
covenant as Abrahamic, and teaches that it was
administered by promises, prophecies, and circumcision,
as well as by sacrifices, etc. And our Saviour tells the
Jews that circumcision was not of Mosaic origin, but
of the fathers (John vii. 22).
Meaning of the term Law in the Epistle to the Romans.
It is noteworthy, in passing, that the meaning our
author has attached to the term law in the passage
he cites from Paul, Piom. v. 20, is not the meaning
attached to it by the apostle himself. Throughout
this Epistle the law is pre-eminently the moral law.
MEANING OF THE TERM LAW IN ROMANS. 151
and not the ceremonial as a distinct institution. It
is the law that reveals itself by its works written
in the heart, the law to which conscience bears wit-
ness, the law which is not made void through lack
of circumcision, and whose claims are not met by
circumcision alone, apart from obedience ; it is the
law by which every mouth is stopped, whether of Jew
or Gentile, and whereby all the world becomes guilty
before God. It is the law by which we have the
knowledge of sin, the law whose claims were met by
the propitiation made by Christ, the standard in
accordance with which God acts when He justifies
him that believeth in Jesus ; it is the law that is not
made void but established by faith. It is the law
that worketh wrath; it is the commandment which
was ordained unto life, and which the apostle found to
be unto death ; it is the law which is holy, and just,
and good; it is the law of sin and death, the law
whose righteousness is fulfilled in the justified, who
walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit ; it is the
law to which the carnal mind neither is, nor can be,
subject. It is therefore not alone " the law of com-
mandments contained in ordinances," which our author
alleges " came in from the side," and whose entrance
marks the inauguration of the Levitical system, but
the Mosaic economy as a whole, embracing both the
moral and the ceremonial law.
This interpretation of the term law in this passage
is all the more singular, as the context shows that it
was given by Moses, i.e. given with a fulness and
152 THE KEWER CEITICISM.
explicitness previously unknown in the history of
God's dealings with men. If this be true (and if our
author's argument has any intelligible meaning, this
law, which he says came in from the side, must have
been given by Moses), then it is manifest that our
author has completely circumvented himself, for his
position in these lectures, and elsewhere, is that
Moses left no written law save the ten command^
ments. If so, it would seem that this law must have
been not the ceremonial but the moral law.
If Moses gave no Priestly Torah, how can the Levitical
System he developed from Mosaic Principles ?
Nor can it be said in reply, that the law given by
Ezra, or some one else, at the end of the exile, may
still be said to have been given by Moses, as it is but
a development of the principles of the Mosaic legisla-
tion ; for if Moses simply gave the ten command-
ments, the ceremonial law cannot be regarded as a
development of Mosaic principles. If, as our author
states (p. 298), "the Torah of Moses did not embrace
a law of ritual;" and if, as he says in the next sentence,
" worship by sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no
part of the divine Torah to Israel ; " and if, as he tells
us on the next page, the ten commandments contain
no precept of positive worship, by what process of
development can there be evolved, from such a Torah,
a law of ritual, embracing every detail of priestly
orders, and priestly attire, and priestly actions; and
DEDUCTIONS FROM THE TEN WORDS OF MOSES. 153
every detail of sacrificial Torah, embracing the most
minute particulars respecting the species, qualities,
age, etc., of the victims ? In his article " Bible " in
the Encyclopcedia Britannica, our author's account of
the process is that ancient writers were not wont to
distinguish between historical data and historical
deductions ; but the problem to be solved does not
admit of such extempore solutions. It is not : given
the necessary historical data, to deduce therefrom a
given historical system. On the contrary, it is :
given, in a particular historical legislative system,
nothing save exclusively moral data (and of set
purpose exclusively moral), to deduce therefrom a
given historical legislative system which shall be
absolutely ceremonial ! Such is the problem which
" the newer criticism " has to face, and compared with
it the problem submitted to the science of the age by
Darwin and his coadjutors is simplicity itself.
Historical Deductions from the Ten Words of Moses.
That the dimensions of this problem, and the
magnitude of the difficulties involved in the solution
of it, may be estimated, let us look at some of the
historical deductions which we are informed were
drawn forth from the ten words of Moses in the days
of Josiah, and, at a later stage, in the days of Ezekiel
or Ezra : —
"Unto the place which the Lord your God shall
choose out of all your tribes to put His name there,
154 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither
thou shalt come : and thither ye shall bring your
burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes,
and heave-offerings of your hand, and your vows, and
your free - will offerings, and the firstlings of your
herds and of your flocks. . . . Take heed to thyself
that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest
upon the earth. . . . Thou shalt offer thy burnt-
offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of
the Lord thy God : and the blood of thy sacrifices
shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord
thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh" (Deut. xii.).
Such is one phase of the evolutionary process as
exhibited in one of the arches of that Deuteronomic
bridge by which the Mosaic Torah is connected with
the Levitical system. How the pre - exilic side of
the arch is made to rest on the two tables of
stone is not as yet explained. As modern masonry,
in obedience to modern engineering, has succeeded in
transforming sand into stone, and by this means has
laid substantial foundations even in quicksands, so
it may be that " the newer criticism " has been able
to devise, through its knowledge of arts lost for ages,
some material whereby it has managed to fill up the
chasm which, up to the days of Josiah, separated the
Mosaic tables from the Levitical Torah.
Tlie Arches of the Ceremonial Viaduct
But let us look at the Ezekielian and Esdrine arches
THE BRIDGE DOES NOT REACH ALL THE WAY ACROSS. 155
of this ceremonial viaduct. In Ezekiel we have the
following description of a section of it as seen by him
in vision in one of the mountains of Israel : " And it
shall come to pass that when they (the priests) enter
in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed
with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon
them whiles they minister in the gates of the inner
court and within. They shall have linen bonnets
upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon
their loins. . . . Neither shall they shave their heads,
nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only
poU their heads " (Ezek. xliv.). Next in order is the
Esdrine arch, the pattern of which he brought from
Babylon : " And Moses brought Aaron and his sons
and washed them with water. And he put upon him
the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed
him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and
he girded him with the curious girdle of the ephod,
and bound it upon him therewith. And he put the
breastplate upon him : also he put in the breastplate
the Urim and the Thummim. And he put the mitre
upon his head ; also upon the mitre, even upon his
forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown;
as the Lord commanded Moses " (Lev. viii).
The Bridge does not reach cdl the Way across.
It will be seen at once that there is no difficulty in
connecting the Ezekielian arch with the Deuteronomic
on the one hand, or in connectinsj it with the Esdrine
156 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
on the other. The sole difficulty, as has been already
seen, lies on the other side of the bridge. The problem
is, " How the traveller, when he has got as far as the
Mosaic side of the Deuteronomic arch, is to effect a
landing on the tables of the Mosaic Torah." When
he has reached that point, let it be observed, he is
still standing on the Levitical Torah, surrounded by
altars, and priests, and sacrificial offerings, and carnal
ordinances. Thus he stands, and as he looks toward
the terminus to which "the newer criticism" told
him the bridge would without fail conduct him, he
discovers, to his amazement, a vast chasm digged by
" the newer criticism " itself, and can hear, with still
increasing astonishment, the Scottish herald of the
school proclaiming, " You cannot get across ; Moses
spake no precept of positive worship. That Levitical
structure on which you have made your way so far is
no part of the divine Torah to Israel, and you must
just abide where you are."
CHAPTEE VI.
Can a Ceremonial Law he developed from a purely
Moral Torah .?
TO return to the figure of development, as the
bridge must be abandoned, the problem pro-
pounded by " the newer criticism " is no ordinary-
one. It is neither more nor less than to trace the
development of ceremonial results out of purely moral
data. There is manifestly no other way of connecting
this so-called post- exilic ceremonial legislation with
the Mosaic Torah ; and if the process of development
cannot be shown, it ought not to be assumed ; and if
it cannot be shown nor assumed, "the newer criticism"
cannot justify itself in claiming that the Levitical
system has been historically, or otherwise, deduced
from the principles of the Mosaic Torah. The question
of historical development, therefore, is for " the newer
criticism " a question of life and death. It has staked
upon it not only its own character, but the character
of aU the sacred writers who have had anything to do
with the alleged post-exilic legislation, so far as it is
fathered by them upon Moses. The principle of the
solution, as given in the article " Bible," has been
already stated. At that time, however, the author
157
158 THE NEWEE CRITICISM.
seems not to have availed himself of all the adminicles
furnished by "the newer criticism" for smoothing
down and mitigating the charge of fraud which is
implied in the claim of Mosaic authorship for post-
Mosaic compositions. In these lectures he has
returned to the subject, and placed before the Scottish
public what, it is to be presumed, he regards as a
more satisfactory vindication of these writers for the
liberties which they have apparently taken with the
name of the great lawgiver of Israel. As the theory
is here at one of the gravest of the many crises which
it is called upon to pass, even at the risk of tedious-
ness, our author's newer or fuller explanation of this
nice ethical point must be given at sufficient length
to place it fairly before the reader. It runs as
follows : —
" That the whole law is the law of Moses does not
necessarily imply that every precept was developed in
detail in his days, but only that the distinctive law of
Israel owes to him the origin and principles " (original
principles, probably ?) " in which all detailed precepts
are implicitly contained. The development into
explicitness of what Moses gave in principle is the
work of divine teaching in connection with new
historical situations.
" This way of looking at the law of Moses is not
an invention of modern critics : it actually existed
among the Jews. I do not say that they made good
use of it ; on the contrary, in the period of the scribes
it led to a great overgrowth of traditions, which almost
CEREMONIAL LAW DEVELOPED FROM MORAL TORAH. 159
buried the written word. But the principle is older
than its abuse, and it seems to offer a key for the
solution of the serious difficulties in which we are
involved by the apparent contradictions between the
Pentateuch on the one hand and the historical books
and the Prophets on the other.
" If the word Mosaic was sometimes understood as
meaning no more than Mosaic in principle, it is easy
to see how the fusion of priestly and prophetic Torah
in our present Pentateuch may be called Mosaic,
though many things in its system were unknown to
the history and the prophets before the exile. For
Moses was priest as well as prophet, and both priests
and prophets referred the origin of their Torah to him.
In the age of the prophetic writings the two Torahs
had fallen apart. The prophets do not acknowledge
the priestly ordinances of their day as a part of
Jehovah's commandments to Israel. The priests, they
say, have forgotten or perverted the Torah. To recon-
cile the prophets and the priesthood, to re-establish
conformity between the practice of Israel's worship
and the spiritual teaching of the prophets, was to
return to the standpoint of Moses, and bring back the
Torah to its original oneness. Whether this was done
by bringing to light a forgotten Mosaic book, or by
recasting the traditional consuetudinary law in accord-
ance with Mosaic principles, is a question purely
historical, which does not at all affect the legitimacy
of the work" (pp. 310, 311).
160 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
The Import of all this.
Here, then, is our author's solution of the problem of
ritualistic development out of purely ethical legislation,
a legislation which uttered no precept of positive wor-
ship (p. 299), and which knew nothing of worship by
sacrifice or anything belonging thereto (p. 298). Such
were the author's views when he penned these latter
pages; but when he reaches pages 310, 311, he has
forgotten all this, and tells us that " Moses was priest
as well as prophet, and both priests and prophets
referred the origin of their Torahs to him." ISTor is
this all; for these two Torahs were once blended
together, as appears from our author's statement on
the last-mentioned page, where he says " that in the
age of the prophetic writings the two Torahs had
fallen apart." To an ordinary person not skilled in
the methods of " the newer criticism," it would appear
from this account of the matter that Moses did give
something more than the purely moral Torah exhibited
in the ten commandments. It would, indeed, be very
singular that one who combined in his own person the
two offices of prophet and priest should repress and
hold in abeyance the priestly (which, if we are to
credit " the newer criticism," is ever coming to the
front and asserting itself to the repression of the pro-
phetic), and content himself with executing the less
illustrious functions of a prophet. It would appear,
then, that originally there was but one Torah, which
was both priestly and prophetic, and somehow or other
HOW DOES THE AUTHOR KNOW MOSES WAS A PRIEST ? 161
(as it would seem, through priestly forge tfulness or
priestly perversion, p. 311) the two elements of this
one Mosaic Torah were divorced, and the Deuteronomic
or the post-exilic reformation did but return to the
standpoint of Moses, and bring back the Torah to its
original oneness !
To our author this may seem explanation : to all
men, save himself and the school he represents, it is
more likely to seem self-contradiction. It amounts
simply to this, that while the post-exilic Torah, with
its Levitical priestly system, cannot be traced to
Moses as a prophet, it can be traced to him as a
priest. Now, as the thing to be traced back is pre-
eminently priestly, it is obvious that its priestly
elements must have existed in the priestly department
of the one original undivided Mosaic Torah. If this
be so, and so it must be, on our author's own showing,
then how can it be said, as our author has taught
throughout this book, that " the Torah of Moses did
not embrace a law of ritual," and that " worship by
sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no part of the
divine Torah to Israel" (p. 298) ?
How does the Author knoiv that Moses vms a Priest,
or that his Torah had Priestly Elements ?
But the question now arises. How does our author
know that Moses was a priest, and that this original
Mosaic Torah contained priestly elements ? Whatever
sources of information in regard to these two points
L
162 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
" the newer criticism " may profess to have discovered,
the sole reliable source, available or accessible, is the
books of the Bible. With regard to external sources,
two things may be said : first, that they are not con-
temporaneous, and therefore not of equal historical
authority ; and, secondly, that in no instance do they
contradict the testimony of the Bible itself on the
question at issue. Now these Biblical records, even
when our author, under the guidance of Noldeke and
Wellhausen (see note 4, Lect. xi.), has eliminated from
them all traces of a Levitical Torah on which he can
venture to lay his hand, still exhibit traces of a priestly
Torah which he finds it impossible to delete, and
traces, too, on which he has ultimately to rely for
evidence when he is claiming for the post-exilic
Levitical Torah an embryonic existence in the Mosaic
legislation. Apart from these persistent, irrepressible
testimonies, which bid defiance to the instruments and
methods of " the newer criticism," he finds that there
are no Mosaic priestly data from which to draw" his-
torical priestly deductions, and that without them he
cannot trace to a Mosaic Torah the post-exilic priestly
Levitical system. But when, in palpable contravention
of the whole spirit and aim of the school with which
he would fondly identify Biblical criticism in Scotland,
he recognises these sections as authentic and genuine
parts of the historic record, he brings his school into
fatal collision with their own original thesis, — that the
Torah of Moses was purely ethical, and " that a law of
sacrifice is no part of the original covenant with Israel "
EXSCINDS AND REMANDS AT PLEASURE. 163
(p. 370). Verily Noldeke and Wellhausen, and the
" other recent " analyzers of " the Levitical legislation,"
have brought our author into deep waters. Genuine
Biblical scholarship, however, will not allow the advo-
cates of " the newer criticism " thus to play fast and
loose with the sacred record, as Noldeke or Wellhausen
or others may list, now ignoring, now adoring, now ex-
scinding, now remanding, selected sections of it, accord-
ing to the exigencies of their shiftless and ever-shifting
theories. That scholarship, sustained by common sense
and common honesty, will compel these critics to give
a reason for accepting so much of these sections as will
serve to prove that Moses was a priest, and delivered
to Israel an elemental priestly Torah, while they
reject other sections historically blended with these
accepted ones ; and except they can give more cogent
reasons than those furnished by our author in these
lectures and elsewhere, the friends of true Biblical
science, whether theological, historical, or critical, will
reject their critical conjectures as the offspring of an
unbridled unscientific imagination.
In justification of this verdict upon our author's
attempt, it is but necessary to refer the reader to the
book itself. The chief and ever-recurring reason for
his sectional evisceration of the priestly portions of the
Pentateuch, as has been already shown, is that the priests,
and judges, and kings, and prophets, could not have
known of the existence of these parts ; and the proof of
this, again, is that they did not live, or act, or speak, in
accordance with the fully developed Torah they reveal !
164 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
It is unnecessary to say anything in addition to what
has been already said in refutation of this argument.
To arsue from the action of Eli and his sons, or from
the action of Ahaz and Urijah, that the fully developed
Levitical Torah did not exist in their days, is about as
reasonable as to argue that Eli did not know the fifth
commandment, and that his sons knew neither the
fifth nor the seventh, and that neither Ahaz nor Urijah
was aware of the existence of the second. And to
argue from the utterances of the prophets the non-
existence of the Levitical system, is as much against
" the newer criticism," in its final stand upon an
elemental pre-exilic Mosaic Torah, as it is against
a fully developed Mosaic Levitical Torah, as the
language of the prophets relied on to prove the non-
existence of the latter, is equally available to prove
the non-existence of the former. The reader will be
surprised to find, as he may on examination, that when
these two classes of arguments, with their collateral
supports, are eliminated from these lectures and the
appendix, the book is reduced to an absolute chaos,
and left in about as hopeless a state of disorgani-
zation as its author has sought to inflict upon the
Pentateuch.
The Theory of Development demands what our Author
cannot admit save at the Sacrifice of his Fundamental.
Let it be observed, then, that to preserve and retain
in the Pentateuch a pre-exilic Mosaic priestly nucleus,
DEMANDS OF THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 165
out of which it may be possible to develop the so-
called post-exilic Levitical Torah, " the newer criticism"
is compelled to confess that Moses was a priest, and
was the author of at least an elemental priestly Torah ;
and all this after having laid it down as a clearly
established position, by the laws of an unquestionably
scientific criticism, that " what is quite certain is that,
according to the prophets, the Torah of Moses did not
embrace a law of ritual," and that " worship by sacri-
fice, and all that belongs to it, is no part of the divine
Torah to Israel" (p. 298). Is it possible to retain the
priestly nucleus, and accept this result of this so-caUed
scientific criticism ? If it be " quite certain," and the
thing which " is quite certain," that " the Torah of
Moses did not embrace a law of ritual," and equally
certain that " worship by sacrifice, and all that belongs
to it, is no part of the divine Torah to Israel," it must
also be " quite certain," not simply that " the Torah of
Moses " and " the divine Torah to Israel " did not
contain a fully developed Levitical system, but that
neither the one Torah nor the other, neither the
Torah as Mosaic nor the Torah as divine, contained
even the nucleus of the Levitical system. The Leviti-
cal system, as fully developed, reveals two things, viz.
sacrifice and ritual, and if these were not in the nucleus,
the system cannot claim to have been developed from
it. But, if we are to credit " the newer criticism," no
such elements are to be found in the original elemental
Mosaic Torah, and consequently the post-exilic Leviti-
cal legislation, themselves being judges, can have no
166 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
connection, either historical, or logical, or otherwise,
with the Mosaic Torah.
The Charge of Fraud still remains.
Neither the article " Bible," therefore, nor the
present series of lectures, can be regarded as freeing
the author from the grave charge of ascribing fraud to
the author or authors of the post-exilic legislation. In
fact, this recent attempt at explanation has but served
to make the justice of the charge all the more mani-
fest. The only possible vindication Avould have been
that which has been here advanced, had the theory,
taken as a whole, admitted of it. The credit of the
sacred writers, on our author's theory, might perhaps
have been saved could he have shown, what he has
asserted without proof, viz. that they developed the
Torah of the post -exilic times out of a pre -exilic
Mosaic nucleus; but by denying the existence of
sacrifice or law of ritual in this Mosaic Torah, they
have stripped themselves and the sacred writers of
even this defence, and left these holy men of God,
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,
to lie under the grievous charge of a fraud, which their
proposed explanation only renders the more palpable.
Our author's theory of the pre-exilic unpriestly,
unsacrificial Torah therefore remains, and refuses any
righteous adjustment, and, thus abiding, carries with it,
as an inevitable consequence, the rejection of our Con-
fessional doctrine of " the scheme on which Jehovah's
PRINCIPLES AT STAKE IN THIS DISCUSSION. 167
grace was administered in Israel " during the pre-exilic
period. It is impossible to reconcile the two schemes.
If the Westminster divines are right in teaching that
the covenant of grace, under the law, was administered
by circumcision, sacrifice, and the paschal lamb, etc.,
the doctrine of this book, which excludes " the inter-
vention of any ritual sacrament " from the economy of
grace during the same period, must be wrong ; and the
wrongness of it becomes all the more patent when its
inventors try to eke it out by asserting, in apology for
the sacred writers, what the theory at the very outset
denies, and what the great body of this book aims at
disproving, — to wit, that Moses was the author of a
priestly as well as of a prophetic Torah, and that it is
only when the prophetic and the priestly Torahs are
reconciled that the worship of Israel " returns to the
standpoint of Moses" (p. 311).
Principles at Stake in this Discussion.
As has been already shown, the scheme propounded
as the one " on which Jehovah's grace was administered
in Israel " in pre-exilic times, is simply a modification
of the subjective scheme of Socinus. The arguments
against the one, therefore, are equally available against
the other. The fundamental questions for settlement
in dealing with both are the same, and are the
fundamental questions raised in connection with the
constitution and administration of the economy of
redemption. One's estimate of the scheme will be
168 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
determined by his views of the nature, attributes, and
prerogatives of God, and of His relations to finite
moral agents ; also by his views of the nature of sin
and holiness ; also by his views in regard to free
agency, and the ability of a man, simply under the
influence of chastisement, to come to a truly penitent
estate, and render an obedience such as the holy,
omniscient, omnipresent, righteous Jehovah could
accept. In connection with the questions which at
once spring up around these determining points, it
will be found impossible to avoid the question of media-
tion. In the very forefront stands the momentous
question : " How shall One possessing the attributes of
vindicatory justice, and holiness, and truth, take Abel,
or Enoch, or Noah, or Abraham into fellowship with
Himself, and sustain toward them, or any of the
fallen, guilty, unholy sons of men, the relations which
God is represented in the Scriptures as sustaining to
Israel ? " To this question the human mind, con-
stituted as it is, must demand an answer ; and it is
the question of all times, — exilic, or pre-exilic, or post-
exilic. It is simply the question put by the man of
Uz, " How should man be just with God ? " (Job ix. 2).
Job could see the necessity for a Goel ; but we are told
that Job lived in post-exilic times. It is, however,
not unlikely that if the book that bears his name had
not laid such stress on piacular sacrifices for his sons
and for his friends, there would have been no hint
given of a post-exilic date. At any rate. Job's question
has its well-spring in man's heart ; and it insists on
PEINCIPLES AT STAKE IN THIS DISCUSSION. 169
an answer, and will accept of none which does not
proclaim the Goel apprehended by the patriarch of
Uz. If sin from its inherent nature merits punish-
ment, and if God, because of His own unchangeable
nature, as an infinitely holy and righteous Being, must
punish it, then the pardon of sin, and the acceptance
of the sinner as righteous, must be impossible apart
from the intervention of a Goel, who shall meet, for
the transgressor, the claims of the law and justice of
God. Penitential tears, even though the unregenerate
heart of man could shed them, cannot erase the
dreadful record of past transgression; and no future
acts of obedience, even though the natural man could
perform them, can atone for previous disobedience, or
justify God in justifying the penitent. If God must
be just in justifying, and if His law is not to be made
void in accepting the ungodly as righteous, then there
must be an atonement for sin, and a perfect obedience
rendered by one who is competent and authorized to do
both.
These are among the primary, fundamental principles
of the economy of redemption, and cannot be regarded
as peculiar to any one dispensation. They are prin-
ciples for all times, whether pre-exilic or post-exilic.
The economy is based upon them, and is based upon
them because of the nature of sin and the character of
God. If, therefore, sin was forgiven under the Old
Testament, or, to put it otherwise, if Abel, and Enoch,
and Noah, and Abraham, and David were justified,
then justification must have proceeded upon these prin-
170 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
ciples. If these men were justified, their iniquities
must have been assumed by a Daysman, and laid upon
him by Jehovah Himself; and this Daysman must
have taken their place before the law, and undertaken
to meet all its demands upon them, whether preceptive
or penal. As the latter class of its claims demanded
satisfaction made to the divine justice, the Daysman
must suffer in their room.
The Theory Unreasonahle.
Now, it seems most unreasonable, if such were the
character of the economy of redemption, to be dis-
closed in all its glory and matchless grace in the
fulness of the times, that no hint at all of this, its
fundamental feature and chief glory, as an expression
at once of the love and the justice of " a redeeming
God," should have been given, with divine sanction,
through all the vast period of our world's history
covered by the term " pre-exilic times." Yet, if we
are to credit "the newer criticism," such is the fact.
Abel was saved under this economy, and worshipped
by sacrifices foreshadowing mediatorial sufferings, and
yet he knew it not. Enoch walked with God, and
prophesied about the advent of his Lord and the doom
of the ungodly, and never obtained a hint of his
indebtedness to the Mediator for his acceptance and
the fellowship he enjoyed. Noah was chosen from
the midst of an ungodly generation as a subject of the
sovereign grace of God, and was delivered from the
THE THEORY UNREASONABLE. l7l
doom of his wicked contemporaries, and, at the close
of that fearful outpouring of the divine vengeance,
worshipped, as Abel did, by sacrifice, and yet had no
knowledge of the import of these sacrificial acts
enacted by himself on Ararat. Abraham, too, walked
with God, and was justified by faith and not by works,
and was informed that in his seed, who was to descend
not from Ishmael, but from Isaac, all the families of the
earth should be blessed; but if the theory that the
grace of God in pre-exilic times wrought not through
the intervention of any ritual sacrament, but directly
through the law of chastisement and forgiveness, he
must have lived and died in ignorance of the doctrine
of salvation through the sufferings or merits of the
promised seed. And this Abrahamic ignorance will
appear all the more strange when it is borne in mind
that Abraham was in the habit of worshipping by
sacrifice, and was actually taken formally into covenant
relation with God by sacrifice. The conversation
between Abraham and his son Isaac, as they drew
near to Mount Moriah on that awful errand, proves
conclusively that worship by sacrifice was no strange
thing to father or son. How natural, how simple, and
yet how instructive, on this point, is that affecting
dialogue ! " And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father,
and said. My father: and he said. Here am I, my son.
And he said, Behold the fire and the wood ; but where
is the lamb for a burnt-ofPering ? And Abraham said.
My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-
offering: and so they went both of them together."
172 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
This incident carries us into the family history of
Abraham at Beer-sheba. Isaac knew what the fire and
the wood meant, but was at a loss to know where his
father should find a lamb for a burnt-offering. He
could not have known the import of the preparatory
elements, or have asked about the missing element,
had he not been accustomed to sacrificial ceremonies
at home. And when the son is released from that
awful agony of expected sacrificial doom, and the
father's heart relieved from the no less poignant
anguish of inflicting it, by the direct interposition of
God, Abraham knows how to proceed with the sacrifice
of the divinely-provided substitute, and offers up the
ram " for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son."
Verily these men of the pre- exilic times knew a little
more about the way of access to God than " the newer
criticism " gives them credit for. The child Isaac
connected sacrifice with worship because he had been
accustomed to that mode of worship at home.
This incident sheds great light not only on Abra-
hamic, but on patriarchal and early pre-exilic worship,
and warrants the conclusion that the grace of God in
Abraham's day did not, as our author would have the
Tree Church of Scotland believe, work directly by
" the law of chastisement and forgiveness, without
the intervention of any ritual sacrament," but, on the
contrary, that it revealed itself through the medium
of atoning sacrifices, which kept before God's people
their own personal unworthiness, and the conditions of
pardon and acceptance, as embracing expiation by the
THE THEORY UNKEASONABLE. 173
blood of an atoning substitute. If our author had
been as careful to generalize such incidental references
to pre-exilic custom in the matter of sacrificial wor-
ship, as he shows himself to be in every instance
where, by sheer straining of the record, it can be made
to teach that the Pentateuchal Torah was unknown in
pre-exilic times, he would never have written or pub-
lished these lectures.
There is one instance of this spirit of adverse
generalization which merits special notice. Speak-
ing of the covenant into which the children of
the captivity entered in the reformation of Ezra, he
says : " It was not merely a covenant to amend certain
abuses in detailed points of legal observance ; for
the people, in their confession, very distinctly state
that the law had not been observed by their ances-
tors, their rulers, or their priests up to that time
(Neh. ix. 34); and in particular it is mentioned that
the Feast of Tabernacles had never been observed
according to the law from the time that the Israelites
occupied Canaan under Joshua, — that is, of course,
never at all (Neh. viii. 17)" (p. 56). There is a
generalization worthy of a scientific critic ! " Since
the days of Joshua the son of iN'un unto that day," in
which Israel under Ezra kept the Feast of Tabernacles,
means " never " ! The time covered by the one ex-
pression is the time covered by the other ! As Israel
had not kept the Feast of Tabernacles since the days
of Joshua as they did at this time, they had never
kept that feast according to the law at all ! A
174 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
more unwarrantable inference, a more unjustifiable
generalization, could scarcely be imagined. It might
be true that from the days of Joshua they had not
observed that feast in any shape or form, and yet it
would not follow that they had never observed it at
all. It may have been that the feast was duly and
legally observed till Joshua the son of Nun died ; and
that after his death, and the death of the elders who
overlived him, the children of Israel, ever prone to
backslide and forget both God and His law, neglected
to give due attention to the prescribed ceremonies in
their observance of this great annual feast. This
interpretation is in harmony with the character of
Israel ; but there is nothing in the history of Israel,
and nothing in the language of Nehemiah, that will
warrant the sweeping generalization of our author, — a
generalization of the expression, since the days of Joshua
the son of Nun, into a period comprehending the whole
history of Israel !
This Adverse Generalization hecomes eventually adverse
to the Author.
But when he has achieved this scientific feat, what
is the fruit of it ? How does it help him in establish-
ing his doctrine of the Esdrine or post-exilic doctrine
of the origin of the Pentateuchal Torah ? Instead of
aiding or abetting his theory, it furnishes a flat con-
tradiction of it. If this Torah did not come into ex-
istence till the days of Ezra, or till post-exilic times.
ADVERSE GENERALIZATION. 175
it is not very wonderful that the Feast of Tabernacles
had not been kept in accordance with it since the
days of Joshua, even though we give that expression
the all-comprehending import of " never at all." The
only wonderful thing about the whole transaction is,
that Ezra, and Nehemiah, and the people, and their
princes, should have taken the matter so much to
heart, and that they should have blamed not only
themselves, but their fathers also, for the imperfect
observance of a Torah which had only then come into
being, and of which neither they nor their fathers had
ever before heard. So wonderful, indeed, is this thing,
that no one outside the circle of "the newer criticism"
will believe it. All men of common sense will con-
clude that if Israel, moved by Ezra and N"ehemiah,
confessed their trespass, and the trespass of their
fathers, in this matter of the observance of the law,
the law must have existed during the lives of their
fathers, and been obligatory at least since the days of
Joshua.
On the assumption of the Torah, through which
these reformers evoked this confession from their
brethren of the captivity, being a new Torah, a very
grave question regarding the morality of the pro-
cedure is raised. This question has been raised and
discussed already, but it is ever cropping up because
of its inseparable connection with a theory which is,
at all its distinctive points, in antagonism with the
history of the covenant and the mutual relations of its
several parts. The question is simply this : " How
17G THE NEWER CEITICISM.
could Ezra and Xehemiali stand up before the God of
Israel, as His commissioners, and call upon His people
to make confession of their sins, and the sins of their
fathers, for their transgression of a Torah which they
knew in their hearts neither the men then before
them nor their fathers had ever heard of ? " As there .
is no room for a second opinion regarding the morality,
or rather the immorality, of this procedure, on the
theory of " the newer criticism," it is better to raise a
cognate question, and ask. How can one who has read
these books of Ezra and Nehemiah stand up before
audiences of Bible-reading Scotland, in its chief centres
of intelligence, and affirm that the Torah which
evoked such confession was then for the first time
made known to Israel ? As this cognate question
also admits of but one answer, it were a work of
supererogation to discuss it. Silence is sometimes
charitable as well as golden.
It is not without good grounds, therefore, that the
charge of a proclivity for adverse generalization, coupled
wdth the opposite propensity of extreme frugality in
the exercise of this faculty where the material would
warrant a favourable generalization, has been preferred
against the author of these lectures. Like the school
he represents, the sole basis of his theory is small
points and petty criticisms. So accustomed has he
become to the use of the microscope of " the newer
criticism," that he cannot any longer use both his eyes,
or take in a horizon of wider diameter than the nether
field of this narrowest of all critical instruments.
CHAPTEE VI I.
The Author's Theory of the Notion of Worship under
the Old Testament Dispensation.
OUE author's views on this subject merit special
notice. On pp. 223, 224, he gives the follow-
ing account of this deeply interesting and vital matter :
— " To us worship is a spiritual thing. We lift up our
hearts and voices to God in the closet, the family, or
the church, persuaded that God, who is spirit, will
receive in every place the worship of spirit and truth.
But this is strictly a New Testament conception,
announced as a new thing by Jesus to the Samaritan
woman, who raised a question as to the disputed pre-
rogative of Zion or Gerizim as the place of acceptable
worship. Under the New Covenant, neither Zion nor
Gerizim is the Mount of God. Under the Old Testa-
ment it was otherwise. Access to God — even to the
spiritual God — was limited by local conditions. There
is no worship without access to the deity, before whom
the worshipper draws nigh to express his homage.
We can draw near to God in every act of prayer in
the heavenly sanctuary, through the new and living
way which Jesus has consecrated in His blood. But
the Old Testament worshipper sought access to God in
M
178 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
an earthly sanctuary, which was for him, as it were,
the meeting-place of heaven and earth. Such holy
points of contact with the divine presence were locally
fixed, and their mark was the altar, where the wor-
shipper presented his homage, not in purely spiritual
utterance, but in the material form of the altar-gift.
The promise of blessing, or, as we should now call it,
of answer to prayer, is in the Old Testament strictly
attached to the local sanctuary. ' In every place
where I set the memorial of my name ' (literally,
rather, where I cause my name to be remembered or
praised) 'I will come unto thee and bless thee.'
Every visible act of worship is subjected to this con-
dition. In the mouth of Saul, ' to make supplication
to Jehovah ' is a synonym for doing sacrifice (1 Sam.
xiii. 12). To David, banishment from the land of
Israel and its sanctuaries is a command to serve other
gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19 ; compare Deut. xxviii. 36, 64).
And the worship of the sanctuary imperatively demands
the tokens of material homage, the gift without which
no Oriental would approach even an earthly court.
'None shall appear before me empty' (Ex. xxiii. 15).
Prayer without approach to the sanctuary is not re-
cognised as part of the ' service of Jehovah ; ' and for
him who is at a distance from the holy place, a vow,
such as Absalom made at Geshur in Syria (2 Sam.
XV. 8), is the, natural surrogate for the interrupted
service of the altar. The essence of a vow is a
promise to do sacrifice or other offering at the
sanctuary (Deut. xxvii. ; 1 Sam. i. 21; compare
THE THEORY TESTED BY HISTORICAL FACTS. 179
Gen. XXV iii. 20 seq.). This conception of the nature
of divine worship," we are told, " is the basis alike of
the Pentateuchal law and of the popular religion of
Israel, described in the historical books and condemned
by the prophets."
The Theory tested hy Historical Facts.
If such were the conception of the nature of divine
worship, it is no wonder the prophets rebuked the
worshippers and condemned the worship. But the
question is, Was this the conception of divine worship
which is the basis alike of the Pentateuchal law and
of what this book describes as the popular religion of
Israel ? Are we to believe that the saints of God
under the Old Testament had no access to God save
at some local sanctuary ? Is it true that David, when
he was banished from the land of Israel, and was
living with Achish at Gath, in the land of the
Philistines, or at Ziklag, had no access to Jehovah ?
It is true he used the ephod, but we are not told that
he approached a local sanctuary, or offered sacrifice ;
and yet he had remarkable access, and received a
remarkable answer, and had proof of Jehovah's accept-
ance in the direction of his band to the rendezvous of
the Amalekites, and in the signal victory by which he
smote and scattered their forces, and recovered both
the captives and the spoil. David's inquiry by the
ephod was worship, and it was made on the assump-
tion that God would hear him at Ziklag in Philistia,
180 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
as well as in Israel, and that He would hear him
where he was, as well as at a local sanctuary, for he
sent to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech's son, to bring
the ephod to him, and it was made on the assumption
that He would hear him without his approaching, on
all occasions, by sacrifice. David's view of the con-
sequences of banishment from the land of Israel and
from its sanctuaries, therefore, however those who
drove him out might regard it, or whatever inter-
pretation " the newer criticism " may put upon his
language to Saul in the passage quoted above, evi-
dently does not imply that during the term of his
banishment he might not approach God as an inquirer,
or seek counsel and guidance at his hands, except at
some local sanctuary, and invariably through the shed-
ding of sacrificial blood. With regard to the employ-
ment of the ephod in the inquiry, all that can be said
is, that very little is revealed respecting the mode in
which the request for information was made, or regard-
ing the way in which the answer was returned. What
is known in connection with the case is sufficient to
prove that God could be worshipped (for inquiry was
a form of worship) outside the land of Israel, apart
from local sanctuaries, and apart from sacrificial rites
performed in connection with every prayer, or other
act of worship.
The argument based on the language of Saul
(1 Sam. xiii. 12) simply furnishes another proof of our
author's proclivity for adverse generalization. In his
apology to Samuel for offering sacrifice before his
BASIS OF ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THEORY. 181
arrival at the camp, " Saul said, Because I saw that
the people were scattered from me, and that thou
camest not within the days appointed, and that the
Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash ;
therefore said I, the Philistines will come down upon
me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto
(before) the Lord ; I forced myself, therefore, and
offered a burnt-offering." Surely it must be manifest
that Saul does not here refer to an ordinary act of
supplication. The Philistines are preparing to attack
Israel, and Israel and their king are waiting for
Samuel that he may intercede for them by sacrifice
before they engage in battle with their foe. Wearied
with waiting, Saul orders the sacrificial rite to proceed ;
and this form of approach he calls supplication ; and
so it was. No doubt, if ever Saul prayed, he prayed
as the smoke of his burnt-offering ascended before
God. But to infer from this transaction that Saul
regarded the expression " to make supplication " as " a
synonym for doing sacrifice," is altogether unjustifiable.
Every act of sacrifice is an act of supplication, but
every act of supplication is not therefore a sacrificial
act.
Arguments in support of the Theory hased upon Erroneous
Inter "pretations of Scripture.
Nor is this theory of worship sustained by the
reference made to the conditions of worship at the
sanctuary. It does not follow because Israel, in
182 THE XEWER CRITICISM.
approaching God in His sanctuary, were required not
to *'" a2opcar hefore Him erti'pty'' that is, without a gift,
that God's people in their homes, or in their closets,
might not draw near without gift or sacrifice. Espe-
cially out of place does this quotation appear when the
context of this command is considered. This command
(Ex. xxiii. 15) has reference to Israel's appearing
before the Lord three times in the year, on the occa-
sions of the great appointed feasts of the Lord.
Nothing but an irrepressible proneness to generaliza-
tion could impel any one to translate a command of
such manifest speciality into a universal law, designed
to regulate and condition all acts of worship, whether
in public or in private. It is simply doing violence
to all righteous exegesis to represent such special
restrictions (intended, beyond all question, to apply
only to stated occasions), as liturgical canons, to be
observed in all acts of family worship, and in all the
private devotions of every member of the household.
This, however, is what is taught in these lectures.
The generalization reached is, that " prayer without
approach to the sanctuary is not recognised as part of
the service of Jehovah ! " The provision made (by the
author) " for him who is at a distance from the holy
place," is "a vow such as Absalom made at Geshur
in Syria " (2 Sam. xv. 8). Absalom never offered a
prayer during the three years he was at Geshur, and
the proof is, that he vowed a vow, or at least told his
father that he had done so I Two obstacles, accordins
to this generous science of criticism, were in his way.
THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER INCREDIBLE. 183
He was outside the land of Israel, and he was at a
distance from the sanctuary. Gifts he could have pre-
sented, but he was too far off to give them in. What
was true of Absalom, we are to believe, was true of
the thousands of Israel under like circumstances ;
however they might multiply their vows while at a
distance from the sanctuary, even though they might
not be at Geshur, or elsewhere in other lands than
Israel, there was one thing they might not do — they
might not pray ! As the great mass of the nation,
save when they were present at the great feasts of the
Lord, were at a distance from the sanctuary, the con-
clusion, of course, is that, except on these occasions,
prayer must have all but ceased throughout the nation.
This conclusion would be modified on the theory of
interim approaches at local centres of worship, but
only somewhat modified ; for even were it true that
these local centres could be visited by all Israel once
a week, which few will be apt to regard as a probable
or a possible custom for a whole nation, still there
remains an interim of the restraining and suspension
of prayer, in fact, an embargo laid upon its exercise
which cannot be brooked by any one who knows that the
life ingenerated by the Spirit of God, when a man is
born again, is a life manifested and sustained by prayer.
As a Theory of Prayer the Doctrine is incredible.
Such, according to our author, was the worship
which is " the basis alike of the Pentateuchal law and
184 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of the popular religion of Israel, described in the his-
torical books and condemned by the prophets " (p. 225).
If such it was, one cannot wonder that the prophets
condemned it; nor does it seem strange that it was
popular with Saul or Absalom; but it is certainly
puzzling to think that it was popular with the others
indicated in the textual references submitted in
evidence. It is difficult to believe that such " a con-
ception of the nature of divine worship " could have
found favour with Jacob, or Hannah, or David. It
taxes one's credulity rather much to accept a theory
which carries with it the implication that none of these
ever prayed to the God of their fathers except when
they visited some local sanctuary, — that Jacob never
prayed during his twenty - one years' residence in
Padanaram, save when he was in the neighbourhood of
some extemporized Bethel ; that Hannah never prayed
at home ; and that David never prayed at Ziklag, or
during all his fugitive wanderings, w^hen driven out
from the reach of all local sanctuaries by the cruel
jealousy of Saul !
Argument from the Book of Jonah.
The Book of Jonah, although not rankinc^ with our
author as veritable history, may nevertheless be
accepted by him as shedding some light upon the
views entertained by ancient mariners in relation to
the connection between sacrifice and prayer. The men
who sailed with Jonah evidently did not hold the
ARGUMENT FEOM PSALM CVII. 185
views on this subject charged upon the men of their
day by " the newer criticism." They did not wait to
sacrifice before "they cried every man to his god."
They held the doctrine of sacrifice, as is shown by
their subsequent conduct ; for when the sea, according
to the prediction of Jonah, " ceased from her raging "
after he was thrown overboard, " they feared the Lord
exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and
made vows." And Jonah seems to have held similar
views, for we are told that he " prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly," believing, as the
mariners did, that sacrifice would be as legitimate after
prayer as before it.
If it be alleged in palliation or mitigation that it
would have been impossible for Jonah to sacrifice
under the circumstances, the impossibility is readily
admitted; but the concession lends no relief to our
author's theory, for we find Jonah engaging very
earnestly in prayer without sacrifice at Mneveh,
where there was no hindrance to his adopting such
a mode of approach.
Argument from Psalm cvii.
The doctrine of Jonah and of the men who sailed
with him finds eloquent expression in Ps. cvii. : " They
that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in
great waters ; these see the works of the Lord, and
His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth, and
raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves
186 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
thereof. They mount up to heaven, they go down to
the depths : their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,
and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the
Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of
their distresses." Here, again, we have prayer without
the contemporaneous offering of sacrifice. Neither
these mariners nor the psalmist held the doctrine that
men might not pray to God save when their prayers
were mingling with the smoke of their sacrifices.
But when the theory is placed in the light of the
history of the captivity in Babylon, it stands out, not
only as an indefensible, but as an utterly inexcusable,
conception of the religion of Israel. It is unneces-
sary to go into any detail of the historic facts and
circumstances. Suffice it to say that, according to
" the newer criticism," prayer in Israel must have
ceased for seventy years !
Vietvs of the Ancient Heathen on this Theory of Prayer.
This school of criticism must have strange con-
ceptions of the nature of religion, to imagine that it
could be sustained in the soul of any man, whether in
pre-exilic or post-exilic times, by such infrequent
approaches to God as this theory demands. The fact
is, that the natural religion, which they aUege was
common to the surrounding nations, and practised by
them as well as by Israel, should teach them better.
Our author, especially, is fond of ruling our conceptions
VIEWS OF THE ANCIENT HEATHEN. 187
of everything Biblical, whether historical, or doctrinal,
or critical, by the use and wont of ancient times.
With such regard for ancient usage, it is singular that
he has not consulted it on the subject of the connec-
tion between sacrifice and prayer. The doctrine
current among the Greeks in Homer's day is indicated
in the prayer addressed to the Sminthian Apollo by
the old disconsolate priest Chryses, whom Agamemnon
had dishonoured, and to whom he had refused to restore
his beloved daughter. The prayer, as recorded by the
poet, is very brief, but it covers the question at
issue :
*•' KKvOI /JL6V, apyvp6T0^\ oa Xpvcrrjv afJb(pt^el37]Ka^
KlXkav T6 ^aOirjv TeveBoLO re 1<^l avdaaei^,
^fjLCvdev, etTTore rot ')(aplevT eirl vrjov kpe^lra,
7] el Sy irore tol fcara irlova fii^pT eKrja
Tavpcov -^8' alycov, roBe /jlol Kpijrjvov ieXBcop'
rlaeiav Aavaol ifxa BaKpva crolai ^ekeaatv."
" Hear me, 0 thou of the silver bow, who hast pro-
tected Chrusa and the sacred Killa, and dost rule
mightily over Tenedos ; 0 Smintheus, if at any time
I have roofed for thee a beautiful temple, or if at any
time I have burnt to thee fat thigh-pieces of bulls or
of goats (that is, have offered to thee burnt-offerings),
grant me this request : let the Greeks atone for my
tears through thy weapons."
As the old priest, heart-stricken because of the dis-
honour done him by the son of Atreus, and oppressed
with grief for the loss of his beloved child, went
musing over the insult and bereavement along the
188 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
shore of the loud-roaring sea, he did not think it
necessary there and then to offer a sacrifice to his god
before calling upon him in prayer. Enough for him
that he was one of Apollo's worshippers, who was in the
habit of honouring him with burnt-offerings of bulls
and of goats, and erecting temples to his name. Such
was the conception of Chryses, and if our views of the
current " natural religion of ancient times " are to be
regulated by the testimony of ancient writers, here we
have it. The heathen of whom Homer sung did not
regard their prayers as restricted to the times when
they were standing by their altars and watching the
smoke of their sacrifices ascending to their gods. In
the interval of sacrifice, whether longer or shorter, the
worshipper could, at any time, and in any place,
whether by the shore of the barren sea or elsewhere,
approach his god in prayer.
Origin of this Conception.
And this conception which ruled the heathen mind
and regulated their acts of worship was doubtless a
lingering ray of the Noachian revelation. This Homeric
incident, fairly interpreted, brings out distinctly the
Scripture doctrine, that prayer, for acceptance, depends
upon sacrifice ; but it teaches also the scriptural
doctrine that those who have made their peace by
sacrifice, can pray at all times, and in all places.
Our critic's appeal to natural religion, as he terms it,
therefore, is not sustained by the history of that religion
THEORY IMPLIES CHANGEABLENESS IN JEHOVAH. 189
as practised by other nations than Israel. The heroes
of Homer, as well as the priest of Apollo, are found
calling upon their gods in every emergency. Achilles
addresses Thetis, his goddess mother, without the
intervention of sacrifice, and is heard by her. But it
is unnecessary to multiply instances. Tried by his
own critical canon, our author's theory of the necessity
of the synchronism of the acts of prayer and sacrifice,
must be rejected ; while it cannot for a moment
bear the test of its chosen Scripture references, or
approve itself to the understanding and heart of any
man who knows by experience what prayer is.
The Theory implies Chang eableness in Jehovah.
Nor does it relieve one's perplexity very much to
be told that this conception of prayer, and its resultant
or concomitant religion, condemned by the prophets
up to the very hour of Israel's deliverance from
Babylon, was then accepted by Jehovah, and enjoined
upon the nation as the religion of priest, and prophet,
and people, to be enforced with all the rigid exactitude
of the perfected Levitical system, for a period of more
than four hundred years ! In fact, it is this latter ele-
ment of the theory that ensures its condemnation not only
in the court of Christian criticism, but in the court of
conscience itself. Where conscience has not been per-
verted, it will be found impossible to believe that the
holy, just, and true Jehovah, who is as unchangeable as
He is holy, and just, and true, should, by the mouth
190 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of His propliets speaking in His name, continue to
condemn a form of worship during all pre-exilic times,
and that then, abandoning the attitude of antagonism
and condemnation, He should frame a most elaborate
system, embodying the entire scheme which for ages
His prophets had been commissioned to denounce !
It is not inconsistent with the revealed character of
Jehovah to abrogate a system of positive enactments,
issued under His own authority, in the exercise of His
unquestionable sovereignty. Indeed, such abrogation
is necessarily implied in the very nature and manifest
design of such a system. But the case is very different
where a system of human origin, which, as in the
present instance, has, we are taught by "the newer
criticism," been placed under ban by Jehovah Himself
for centuries, is afterwards taken under His protection,
and fortified by specific enactments, accompanied by
sanctions involving, in some instances, the forfeiture of
life itself. The difficulty of accepting such a theory
is enhanced beyond solution, when we are asked to
believe that this human system is not only sanctioned,
but adopted as a typical economy to overshadow the
economy of redemption, with its one great High Priest
and His one all-atoning sacrifice, and that its very
tabernacle is adopted as a figure of "a greater and
more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands."
One would think that the man who can accept such
a theory of Old Testament worship, with its pre-exilic
condemnation and its post- exilic ex jpost facto divine
appropriation and endorsement, and its extraordinary
A CRUCIAL QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED. 191
parsimony of prayer, might be able to believe that
Moses left on record more than the ten command-
ments, and might even believe that he was the author
of the Pentateuch itself, including not only its " his-
torical data'' but even its " historical deductions."
A Crucial Question to he answered hy our Author.
But there is another collateral question arising out
of this theory, to which those who are asked to accept
it are entitled to demand a reply. As it appears from
the Epistle to the Hebrews that this pre-exilic popular
worship, with its tabernacle and priesthood, its ritual
and calendar, afterwards appropriated and endorsed by
the God of Israel, was the shadow of which Christ is
the substance, its priesthood the shadow of Christ's
priesthood, its sacrifice the type of Christ's sacrifice,
its atonements the type of His all-expiating death, its
very tabernacle with its mercy-seat a type of heaven
itself with its throne of grace, into which our great
High Priest has entered, not with the blood of others,
but with His own blood, having obtained eternal
redemption for us — as such typical relations subsist
between the Levitical system and the economy of
grace on earth and the estate of glory in heaven, the
question necessarily arises, and must be answered,
How comes it that there is such a correspondence —
such a correspondence as can exist only between type
and antitype — in all these detailed elements of the
economy of redemption ? Such correspondence can be
192 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
accounted for only on one or other of the following
hypotheses : — 1. That the so-called natural system, as
a typical system, was devised by God, and revealed at
first to mankind. Or, 2. That the nations, including
Israel, independently of supernatural instruction, fore-
cast the whole constitution of the economy of redemp-
tion, with its priestly sacrificial Torah, and had such
insight into its mysteries, that their vision outran its
earthly manifestations, and penetrated into the arcana
of the sanctuary in the heavens. Or, 3. That
Jehovah, in devising the economy of grace, adapted
its constituent elements, both in the sphere of the
terrestrial and the celestial, to the preconceptions of
mankind, making the earthly and human not simply
the types, but the archetypes of the heavenly and
divine. Or, 4. That the coincidence and wonderful
concurrence of the human preconception and the
divine counsel were purely fortuitous, and unde-
signed by either God or man. These hypotheses seem
to exhaust the possibilities of the case, and there
cannot be much difficulty in judging of their respec-
tive claims to acceptance. As regards the second, if,
as we are informed in the New Testament, the redemp-
tion of the Church by Christ Jesus is designed, among
other ends, to make known to the principalities and
powers in heavenly places the manifold wisdom of
God, it cannot be true that such a scheme was fore-
seen in all its essential elements by human wisdom.
A scheme which human wisdom could devise, cannot,
by any possibility, be set forth as revealing, not simply
A CRUCIAL QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED. 193
human wisdom, but divine wisdom in all its fulness
and manifoldness.
Turning to the third hypothesis, it is found
equally objectionable. Like the doctrine of con-
ditional decrees, it makes the divine purposes and
plans contingent upon the determinations of finite
moral agents; and such a conception of the relation
of the divine will to the human cannot be accepted,
either in the economy of nature or of grace. Espe-
cially objectionable is such a conception when the
economy foreshadowed by the rites and ceremonies of
this so-called natural religion, is an economy whose
mysteries have been hid in God before all worlds,
mysteries which angels desire to look into, mysteries
which even the prophets, who prophesied of the grace
that should come unto us, sought and searched dili-
gently to understand, and failed to fathom. Indeed,
this latter fact is peculiarly pertinent to this case, for
one of the things of which' these prophets testified was
the sufferings of Christ, the very thing which the sacrifices
of this so-called natural religion came, by the divine
ex post facto endorsement, to typify. Is it possible
that any one, yea, that even the author of these
lectures, can believe that an economy, which the very
men who aforetime were inspired to predict it did
not understand, could have been conditioned upon
an economy which men, without divine instruction,
were able to devise ? So far are men in their natural
estate from being able to devise such an economy, that
we are told, on the authority of an apostle, that they
N
194 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
cannot receive or know its mysteries even when tliey
are revealed, and are informed by Christ Himself that
except a man be born again he cannot see, or enter,
the kingdom to which these mysteries pertain.
The mere statement of the fourth, and only other
possibly conceivable hypothesis, is all that is needed
to warrant and secure its rejection. 'No one can
accept, even as a hypothesis, the conception that the
coincidence between the sacrificial system of Jew and
Gentile and the economy of redemption as presented
in the New Testament, is fortuitous and undesigned,
either on the part of God or man. Not until men
have come to believe that the universe, with all its
accurately balanced mechanical adjustments, and all
its marvellous organic and inorganic interdependencies
and mutual adaptations, has sprung into being through
the fortuitous concurrence of atoms destitute of intelli-
gence or life, can they be induced to entertain the
belief that the coincidence, or the harmony of that
ancient sacrificial system with the economy of
redemption, is the offspring of chance.
The only Theory of the Coincidence in Harmony with
God's Attributes.
These, then, are all the possible views of this
unquestionable coincidence that can be taken ; and
the only view that any one who entertains Biblical
views of Jehovah, or of the economy of grace, can
possibly accept, is the first. It is the only one that
COINCIDENCE IN HAEMONY WITH GOD'S ATTRIBUTES. 195
can be reconciled with the attributes and prerogatives
of One who is infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His
being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and
truth. But with the failure of the other hypotheses
there is connected — inevitably connected — the failure
of the central theory of this book, viz. that access to
God by the intervention of sacrifice, or " ritual sacra-
ment," as a mode of approach positively sanctioned by
Him, was unknown prior to the return of the Jews
from Babylon. This conclusion necessarily follows ;
for if man's wisdom could not devise a scheme which
is the highest manifestation of the wisdom of God that
has ever been made even to the principalities and the
powers in the heavenly places, then the typical system
which so accurately foreshadowed it cannot have
been a thing of human device. As this so-called
naturalistic system did exist in pre-exilic times, and
did, beyond all question, embrace the types and
symbols of the divine economy afterwards, in the
fulness of time, so gloriously revealed, there is no
alternative left, to any intelligent mind, but to hold
that these types and symbols were of divine devising,
and were divinely revealed and authenticated to man.
If so, then there never was a time in the history of
sacrifice in Israel when it could be said, as " the
newer criticism " says, that the divine attitude toward
sacrifice or ritual was merely negative ; for, as we
have seen, apart from a divine revelation of such a
scheme, it never could have come into existence at all.
In a word, a book which relegates those parts of the
196 THE NEWER CEITJCISM.
Pentateuch in which the economy of redemption is
prefigured, by sacrificial types and symbols, to post-
exilic times, is, ipso facto, condemned as inconsistent
with the divine origin, structure, and design of the
economy of grace.
CHAP TEE VIII.
The Design of the Mosaic Economy.
THE fundamental error of the critical system repre-
sented in these lectures, arises from an utter mis-
apprehension of the central idea of the Mosaic economy.
No one having right conceptions of the design of that
economy could speak of it as if the chief object of
the mission of Moses, after the deliverance of Israel
from bondage, was to put them in possession of the
ten commandments. That economy, it is true, was
intended to proclaim authoritatively and emphasize
the moral law ; but this in connection with a clearer
revelation than had hitherto been made of the way in
which the claims of that law were, in the fulness of
time, to be met. The keynote of the economy is
struck at the very hour in which Moses receives his
commission. That interview at Horeb is a fair type
of the whole dispensation which he is to introduce.
At the very outset he is reminded of the holiness of
Israel's God. The salutation, " Draw not nigh hither :
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground," precedes the
gracious announcement of His covenant relation to
father Abraham, and, through him, to Moses himself :
197
198 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
" I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Ex. iii. 5, 6).
Thus spake the angel of the covenant from the midst
of the burninsf bush to the future lawe^iver of Israel,
and in the spirit of this interview the whole economy
proceeds. If Israel is to be delivered, the deliverance
must not be achieved at the sacrifice of the claims of
the Holy One who had taken her into covenant rela-
tion four hundred years before, and who, remembering
His covenant, had now come down to fulfil His
promise made to Abraham and his seed. (Compare
Ex. ii. 24 with Gen. xv. 13-21 and Luke i. 68-79.)
It is to assert and vindicate these claims that the
ceremonial law is instituted. The Passover is not a
casual incident, or a mere family feast or national
festival, as our author would have us believe. It is
instituted to teach Israel, in the very hour of their
emancipation, that they owed their deliverance from
bondage not to their own moral pre-eminence over
their Egyptian oppressors, but to the sovereign grace
of their covenant God. Hence, and for this reason,
the stroke that humbled the haughty Pharaoh was
averted from the first-born of Israel by the interposition
of sacrificial blood. The Passover was the ordained
memorial not simply of their departure out of Egypt,
and the breaking of the bonds wherewith their cruel
taskmasters had bound them, but it was the memorial
of the passing of the Angel of the Lord over their
houses when he slew the first-born of Egypt. Through-
out their generations the children of Israel were to
SYMBOLIC IMPOET OF THE PASSOVER. 199
be reminded that they had been shielded from the
vengeful sword of the divine justice by the blood of
the heaven-appointed victim. The memorial of their
deliverance would impress them with the love of their
redeeming covenant God ; but it was such a memorial
as must, at the same time, impress them with His
holiness and wrath, and make them sensible of their
just exposure to His righteous vengeance, which, if
unaverted and unappeased by the blood of any inter-
posing sacrifice, must have fallen upon them as well as
upon their oppressors. The moral impression theory
of God's dealinsjs with Israel advocated in this book
will not bear the test furnished by this unquestionably
typical redemption of Israel out of Egypt ; and it is
no wonder that our author tries, by an unwarrantable
limitation of the Hebrew word " hashaV,' to represent
the paschal victim as non-sacrificial, although he has
to do so in contravention of the history of the institu-
tion itself, and of the express teaching of our Saviour
and His apostles.
Syiribolic Import of the Passover.
It is true that the ceremony connected with the
Passover was fitted to impress Israel with a sense of
the love of their Eedeemer, who made such a dis-
tinction between them and the Egyptians ; but surely
it must have been impossible for any Israelite to
witness that ceremony without being deeply impressed
with the momentous truth, which lies at the basis of
200 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the whole Mosaic dispensation, viz. that there was
wrath to be averted as well as love to be revealed.
The command was, " None of you shall go out at the
door of his house until the morning ; " and the reason
assigned was, " For the Lord will pass through to smite
the Egyptians ; and when He seeth the blood upon
the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will
pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to
come in unto your houses to smite you." No Israelite
could hear that strict command uttered, or obey it,
without receiving the impression — (1) that there was
wrath to be manifested that night in Egypt ; (2) that it
was a wrath to which Israel was exposed in common
with their neighbours ; (3) that the exemption of Israel
was due to the sovereign grace of their covenant God ;
and (4) that their exemption was connected with the
interposition of sacrificial blood.
Sacrificial Character of Paschal Zamh recognised by
Christ and His Apostles.
As already intimated, the sacrificial character of the
paschal victim, although denied by our author (and
his denial of it is essential to his whole theory of
the purely moral and anti- sacrificial character of the
Mosaic economy), is clearly established not only by
the fact that Christ ordained, as the antitype of the
Passover, an institution commemorative of His own
death, but by the express declaration of the Apostle
Paul (1 Cor. V. 7), in which he affirms that " Christ our
SACRIFICIAL CHARACTER OF PASCHAL LAMB. 201
Passover is sacrificed for us." By the institution of
His Supper in connection with that ancient sacra-
mental feast of Israel, our Lord would have His
Church to know that His blood alone averts from His
people the merited wrath of a righteous God, and con-
sequently that what His death is to His people was
prefigured by the death of the paschal lamb. This
relation of Christ's death to the death of that victim
were out of the question if that victim had not been
regarded by Christ as sacrificially slain. If Christ's
death was sacrificial, so must the death of the paschal
lamb have been ; and if the paschal lamb was not a
sacrificial victim, Christ cannot be regarded as teach-
ing, by the institution of His Supper, that His body,
given and broken for many, was given and broken for
the remission of sins, or that the cup which He gave
to His disciples in that solemn hour was the symbol
of sacrificial blood shed in ratification of the covenant
of redemption. In like manner, if the paschal lamb
did not die as a sacrifice dieth, Christ in His death —
which it is to be hoped our author still holds to have
been sacrificial — could not have been designated our
Passover. If Christ, as sacrificed, is called our Pass-
over, as He is by Paul in the passage cited above,
then the Passover must have been a true and proper
sacrifice ; and as that sacrifice is the first efficient, or
rather meritorious cause in the redemption of Israel,
and gives character to the entire economy which it
triumphantly inaugurates, there must be great lack of
theological and economic balance among the advocates
202 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of " the newer criticism," who deny to it a sacrificial
character, and who would strip the entire economy, of
which it is the primary exemplar, of all sacrificial or
ritual elements throughout the whole pre-exilic history
of its administration.
Anti-economic Separation of the Ceremonial from the
Moral Law.
This separation of the ceremonial from the moral is
one of the worst features of this book, and betrays great
unacquaintance with that true doctrine of economic
development which teaches, that throughout the whole
process, from the delivery of the protevangelion (Gen.
iii. 15), and in every stage of its history, all the
essential elements of the redemptive work of the
promised Seed are to be found. It were unwarrant-
able to say that in every type of the Mosaic economy
we have a full exhibition of all that is found in
the great Antitype, or that in every symbol or
symbolical act we have a full exhibition of the corre-
sponding gospel truth. The truth is this, that in the
economy, taken in its entirety, we have an outline —
an outline and shadow, however, and not a full delinea-
tion— of the Messiah and His redemptive work. Of
such an outline or shadow, as a positively authenticated
scheme, " the newer criticism " knows or recognises
nothing before the close of the Babylonish exile !
And this one fact ought to ensure its rejection not
only by every scientific investigator of the Biblical
A FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC QUESTION. 20
revelation, but by every Christian, however moderate
his literary qualifications.
A Fundamental Economic Question.
Let us then look intelligently at this fundamental
question : " Does the Mosaic economy exhibit the
ceremonial law in correlation with the moral law as
oiven from Sinai in the ten commandments ? " The
Mosaic legislation teaches that the moral law, as
contained in the Decalogue, was the test and standard
of all righteousness, and the centre around which the
whole economy revolved. The doctrine held on this
subject is not simply that the moral law was the
standard by which a man who sought justification by
his works (or, as our author puts it, " by doing justly,
loving mercy, and walking humbly with God ") was to
be judged ; but also that it was the standard by which
the remedial system, through which those who are
unable for themselves to meet the claims of that law,
was itself to be judged. The Mosaic economy, as
given in the Bible, and not as it is eviscerated by a
superficial carping criticism, teaches — (1) that the law
sits in judgment upon the work of the sinner himself;
and (2) that it sits in judgment on the work of his
substitute. The sinner himself is adjudged and con-
demned by the law ; and the work whereby he is,
notwithstanding this condemnation, pronounced right-
eous, i.e. pardoned and accepted as righteous, is also
subjected to the scrutiny of this same law, and
presented before it for approval or rejection.
204 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
The Moral Load states the Conditio7is of Life under all
Dispensations.
As to the former of these points, it is scarcely
necessary to enter upon any formal proof. The law
written and engraven on tables of stone was written
there for Israel. Its commandments were obligatory
on the chosen people, and the transgressor was ex-
posed to its penalty. In the days of our Saviour the
Jews acknowledged that the law was the standard of
righteousness, and that in order to gain life it was
necessary to love the Lord our God with all our heart,
and soul, and strength, and mind, and our neighbour
as ourselves. To this standard our Saviour always
referred the self-righteous, who were acting in His
day on our author's theory of the way of life for pre-
exilic times. " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments," was a statement of the conditions of
life from which no Jew did, or could, dissent. Trained
under a system whose sanctions found expression in
that all-comprehending anathema, " Cursed is every
one which continueth not in all things which are
written in the book of the law to do them," he could
recognise no other standard of righteousness or rule
of obedience. What the law whose works are written
in the heart is to the Gentile, such was that same
law, as fully proclaimed from Sinai, and written and
engraven on stone, to Israel. To both it announced
of old, as it announces now, the rule of righteousness
and the condition of life.
THE CEREMONIAL LAW CORRELATIVE TO THE MORAL. 205
The Moral Law ap^plies to the Substitute as ivell as to
the Principal.
Equally manifest is the second proposition mentioned
above. It is just as clear that the moral law took
cognizance of the substitute and its work, as it is that
it took cognizance of the principal and his. It is
evident that the standard by which the righteous-
ness of the Israelite was judged was the moral law,
and it is no less evident that this same moral law
was the standard by which the satisfaction rendered
by his substitute was measured. The law which
pronounced sentence of death upon the transgressor,
was the very law which demanded the life's blood of
his substitute as the condition of his release and
pardon, and the ground of his acceptance.
The Ceremonial Law correlative to the Moral.
It is important that this reference of the sacrificial
system of the Mosaic economy to the moral law
(a reference for which " the newer criticism " has no
place in pre -exilic times) should be clearly appre-
hended ; for even apart from the theory which has no
place for the ceremonial elements of the Mosaic
economy before the return from Babylon, there
seems to be a vague indefinite notion, very widely
prevalent, that the sacrifices which were under the
law were correlative to the ceremonial law, and
were necessary only as demanded by it. In a word,
206 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
they are not unfrequently regarded as required under
an arbitrary arrangement, typical, it is true, but
typical merely as foreshadowing the general truth
that the sufferings of Christ were to be of the nature
of an expiation. This representation is true, but it is
indefinite and defective. It does not express the one
great central truth of that typical economy, viz. the
reference of the ceremonial system to the moral law.
To this point attention is earnestly asked. The
position to be established is, that the whole cere-
monial system by which, under the Mosaic economy,
provision was made for the reconciliation of a
transgressor to God, had reference to the moral law.
Arguments in Support of this Position.
1. This relation of the ceremonial to the moral is
implied in the order observed in the original institu-
tion of the Mosaic dispensation. "When God descended
on Sinai to inaugurate that dispensation. He, at the
very outset, proclaimed the moral law. By asserting
the claims of this law, whilst at the same time He
revealed Himself as the covenant God of Israel, who
had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of bondage, He would have them under-
stand that in entering into covenant with them He
was not acting inconsistently with His character as a
righteous God, or ignoring that standard of righteous-
ness which has its ultimate foundation in His own
all-perfect and immutable nature. He would, in fact,
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THIS POSITION. 207
teach them that the only way in which they could
hold fellowship with Him, or He with them, was
by satisfying the demands of His holy law. The
announcement of such a law, on such an occasion,
involved of necessity, and implied, the doctrine that
the economy about to be inaugurated must have
respect to the moral law.
2. This reference of the ceremonial to the moral
law is implied in the place assigned to the two tables
of stone on which the Decalogue was written. That
position certainly gives no countenance to the idea
that there was no relation or bond of connection
between the moral law and the economy instituted
by Moses. The ark of the covenant, or ark of the
testimony, as it was also called, containing the moral
law, written by the finger of God, had the singular
pre-eminence of being the first article connected with
the tabernacle which Moses was commanded to make.
Of all the sacred things, there was nothing which, in
point of sacredness, could be compared with the ark.
The chamber in which it was deposited was the holy
of holies, and over it hung the august symbol of the
divine presence. Everything in that chamber pointed
to the ark as the central object of regard. The
cherubim stretched their wings as a canopy over it,
and gazed upon the mercy-seat which covered it. It
sat not in the most holy place as in a place of safety,
but it was there as, under God, the chief object of
interest, toward which all the symbols even of the
holy of holies pointed, itself the pledge and symbol
2 08 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of the safety of the chosen race. And on the most
solemn of all the ceremonies of the year, on the great
day of atonement, when the offerings of sacrifice and
of incense for the year were completed, the highest
function of the high priest was to sprinkle the blood
of the atonement upon and before the mercy-seat, that
covered it, seven times, and to offer incense, which
ascending might cover the mercy-seat.
Reason of the Sacredness of the Ark
As the sacredness of the ark is manifest, so also
is the cause of that sacredness. This is found not
simply in the fact that God manifested Himself over
it, and from its cover, as a mercy - seat, held com-
munion with Moses and His people Israel, but in the
fact that it was the ordained receptacle of the moral
law. All else was correlative to the ark, and the
ark was correlative to the law. After instructing^
Moses regarding the dimensions and form of the ark,
God indicates the design of it : " And thou shalt put
into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee "
(Ex. XXV. 16). "Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above
upon the ark ; and in the ark thou shalt put the
testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will
meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from
above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim
which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things
which I shall give thee in commandment unto the
children of Israel" (Ex. xxv. 21, 22).
THE ARK THE SEAT OF DIVINE ADMINISTRATION. 209
Reason of the Aiopointraent of the Ark as the Seat of the
Divine A chninistra tio7i.
There can, therefore, be no doubt that the sacred-
ness of the ark arose from its relation to the law;
nor can there be any doubt that God appointed the
place in which the ark rested as the place where He
would meet with His servant Moses, in order that He
might teach Israel that fellowship with Him could be
maintained only on the basis of that holy law. As
He was revealing Himself as the covenant God of
those who were confessedly transgressors of that law,
it was most fitting and most necessary that its claims
upon such should be recognised, and the satisfaction
of its claims symbolized, by the sprinkling of atonin^^
blood upon and before the ark which contained it.
Even under the typical economy God would teach
men that in justifying the ungodly He was not unjust,
and that in holding intercourse with the violators of
His most holy law. He was not unmindful of its
claims.
Whatever subordinate ends, therefore, the cere-
monial law served, it is manifest that, in its <^rand
fundamental idea, its object was to impress men with
the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and to shadow forth
the way of reconciliation. If, as we have seen,
the economy annually reached its culmination on
the great day of atonement, when the high priest
sprinkled the mercy-seat with the atoning blood, it
must have been the design of God, in the institution
0
210 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of the economy, to keep Israel mindful of the claims
of His most holy law. In a word, then, the Mosaic
economy, in its great fundamental idea, was designed
to assert the majesty of the moral law, and to reveal,
by types and symbols, the way in which its claims
were afterwards to be met by Him who is the great
Antitype of all.
Bearing of these Facts upon the Character of the Nevj
Testament Dispensation.
The bearing of these unquestionable facts upon the
subject of the nature of the atonement made by
Christ is obvious. If the Mosaic economy, in its
great central institution and fundamental idea, was
correlative to the moral law, i.e. was designed to
set forth its claims upon transgressors, and at the
same time to foreshadow the way in which these
momentous claims were to be met and satisfied, then
it must follow, if the Mosaic economy was typical of
the gospel, that the work of Christ must be correla-
tive to the moral law, and designed to meet its claims
upon those with whom God enters into covenant
relationship. There is, and there can be, no way of
escape from this conclusion except by denying one or
both of the premises. He who admits that the Mosaic
economy was correlative to the moral law, and that
it was the shadow of which the gospel is the substance,
must also admit that the gospel was correlative to the
moral law. As the former of these -oositions has
TYPOLOGY OF THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION. 211
been established, it only remains necessary to establish
(and this merely with somewhat more fulness than has
been done already) the latter, viz. that the Mosaic
economy was typical of the work of Christ.
Extent of the Typology of the Mosaic
Dispensation.
On this point a few specimen passages may suffice.
In his Epistle to the Colossians, chap. ii. 17, the
Apostle Paul teaches that even the distinctions of
meats and drinks, and holy days, and new moons, and
sabbath days, were a shadow of good things to come,
the body or substance of which is Christ. He makes
a similar statement in regard to the whole Mosaic
economy, Heb. x. 1,2: " For the law having a shadow
of good things to come, and not the very image of the
things, can never with those sacrifices which they
off'ered year by year continually make the comers
thereunto perfect. Else would they not have ceased
to be off'ered ? because the worshippers, having been
once cleansed, w^ould have had no more conscience of
sins." Speaking of the tabernacle (chap, ix.), he
represents it as being " a figure, /or the, time then present''
(not for post-exilic times simply, but for the time of
its continuance), " in which were offered both gifts and
sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service
perfect as pertaining to the conscience ; " and in the
11th and following verses of the same chapter, to the
14th verse, he introduces Christ and His tabernacle
212 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
and sacrifice as the substance foreshadowed by tliese
temporary institutions.
Thus we are taught that the tabernacle, the high
priest, and all the transactions which took place in
connection with the sanctuary, were typical of Christ
and His work. It is true that our Saviour is con-
trasted with the priests that were under the law, in
regard to His priesthood, His sacrifice, and the
sanctuary in which He officiates ; but the points of
contrast are those which obtain between the shadow
and the substance. He differs from the Aaronic
priests (even Aaron himself, who, it is to be presumed,
lived in pre-exilic times, being a type), but the differ-
ence consists not in this, that whilst Aaron and his
successors were priests, Christ was not a priest, or only
a priest in a figurative sense ; but herein consists the
difference, that their priesthood was but the figure of
which His was the reality and substance. Their
sacrifices could never take away sin, whilst by His
one sacrifice He has perfected for ever them that are
sanctified. His tabernacle differs from theirs (and it
is not too much to presume that their tabernacle was
pitched in pre-exilic times) as the antitype differs from
its types, as the heavenly and enduring differs from
the earthly and temporal, as that which was pitched
by the Lord Himself differs from that which was con-
structed by the hands of man — by Aholiab and
Bezaleel, or by Hiram and Solomon.
CONCLUSION FROM THE FOREGOING FACTS. 213
Conclusion from the foregoing Facts.
As the premises are now established, the conclusion
is inevitable. As the Mosaic economy, with its
" sacrificial system, and all that belongs to it," was on
the one hand correlative to the moral law, and was
on the other typical of Christ and His redemptive
work, it must follow that the work of Christ was
correlative to the moral law, and designed to meet
and satisfy its claims upon His people. This is no
strained inference, but a conclusion flowing inevitably
from the very central idea of the entire Mosaic dis-
pensation. A work claiming to be the antitype of
that economy, taken in its entirety, which did not
recognise and satisfy the claims of the moral law,
would certainly fail to establish its claims. No such
work could be regarded, by any one who entered into
the spirit of that typical economy, as meeting or pre-
senting the great essential features of the dispensa-
tion so elaborately prefigured.
The bearing of the facts now brought out, upon the
post-exilic theory of the Levitical system, is manifest.
The current and constant representation of that theory
is, that in pre-exilic times the intercourse of God with
Israel was direct, i.e., as we have seen again and again,
" without the intervention of any ritual sacrament " (p.
303), or, as it is put (p. 288), " Worship by sacrifice,
and all that belongs to it, is no part of the divine Torah
to Israel." According to this theory, God and Israel
stood face to face, and held intercourse independent
214 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of any " sacrifice/' or ceremony, or " ritual sacrament."
The sole condition of this intercourse was "to do
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him "
(pp. 288, 289). In other words, as the last reference
covers the whole decalogue, the condition of accept-
ance in those anti-sacrificial, anti-ritual, anti-sacra-
mental pre-exilic times, was observance of the ten
commandments ! To sustain this conception of the
worship and religion of Israel, it is, of course, necessary
to keep the moral law as widely separate from the
ceremonial law as possible, and hence the latter is
projected into the indefinite future, finding no place
till some fragments of it are allowed entrance in the
days of Josiah, and this, too, in a place whose very
structure and furniture and office-bearers implied its
pre-existence and regulative authority. Thus separated
from the ceremonial, the moral law, in all its inexor-
able nakedness, engraven on stone, without the inter-
vention of any mediatorial agency, is left behind to
regulate God's intercourse with Israel throughout the
whole pre-exilic period, the only remedy for Israel's
delinquencies being the law of chastisement ! Such
is the pre-exilic gospel of " the newer criticism ! "
Bearing of these Facts upon the Post-Exilic Theory of
''the Newer Criticism^
In view of the positions now established, — positions
which a man cannot challenge and yet claim to accept
the express teaching of the ISTew Testament, — one may
BEARING OF FACTS UPON POST-EXILIC THEORY. 215
say to such theorists, " What Gocl has jomed together,
let not man put asunder." The Sinaitic legislation
proclaimed two things which are in direct antagonism
with this post-exilic theory: 1. That, on the basis of
that fiery law which went out from God, Israel could
hold no direct intercourse with Him. 2. That Israel's
covenant God would hold intercourse with Israel
through the typical mediator, whose intervention the
proclamation of that law had led them to invoke.
This, of course, is all one with saying that the Sinaitic
arrangement for intercourse was not the one sketched
in this book. Place beside it the arrans^ement of
" the newer criticism," " to do justly, love mercy, and
walk humbly with God," and the contrast is itself
sufficient refutation. In a word, the very circum-
stances connected with the giving of the only pre-
exilic Torah which " the newer criticism " will allow
as the life Torah to Israel, prove that the intercourse
of God with Israel is not "direct''' but mediatoricd.
Even that moral Torah " was ordained through angels
by the hand of a mediator" (Gal. iii. 19). The fact
is, it fares with " the newer criticism " as it fares with
those who deny the deity of our Saviour ; no matter
how ruthlessly they deal with the record, there still
remains, after they have done their worst, enough to
prove that the doctrine they wish to get rid of is still
interwoven with those portions over which they have
not dared to invert their critical stylus. When they
have reduced the Pentateuch to a minimum, the
sacrificial typical Torah is still there.
216 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Mediation in Pre-Exilic Times is still found even in
the Minimum of Record acknowledged hy " the Neiver
Criticism!'
It appears plainly enough, then, that even though
there were nothing left of Exodus save the 20th
chapter, which represents Israel as so terrified in the
presence of God proclaiming the fiery Torah of the
decalogue, that they withdrew and stood afar ofiP, and
besought Moses to act as mediator between them and
God, there would still remain quite enough to over-
throw the doctrine of a direct non-mediatorial inter-
course between Himself and Israel. So long as the
fact of the mediation of Moses abides, so long as it
remains on record that " the people stood afar off, and
Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God
was/' the theory which makes the intercourse direct
cannot be entertained. That moral law, be it ever
remembered, was, when engraven on stone, given into
the hand of a mediator. Our author therefore gains
nothing, even though he were able to prove that the
Torah of Moses did not embrace a law of ritual, so
long as he must confess that Moses, through whom the
alleged purely moral Torah was delivered to Israel,
was constituted a mediator between them and God.
He may tell us that whatever is more than the words
spoken at Horeb (meaning thereby the ten command-
ments) "is not strictly covenant " (p. 299); but he
has to face the contextual statement (Deut. v. 22-28),
which reveals this mediatorial arrangement, and thereby
subverts the theory of direct intercourse between
MEDIATION IN PEE-EXILIC TIMES. 217
Israel and Israel's God. The subsequent history
shows that the mediatorial office held by Moses was
part of the economy, and that its functions were
executed by him with fidelity and great unselfishness.
He is ever ready to interpose between an offended
God and a stiff-necked, stubborn race. One of the
most affecting incidents in the wondrous history of
that man of God is his intercession for Israel when
they had sinned in the matter of the golden calf.
" And Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a
great sin : and now I will go up unto the Loed ;
peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said. Oh, this
people have sinned a great sin, and have made them
gods of gold. Yet, now, if thou wilt forgive their
sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy
book which Thou hast written " (Ex. xxxii. 30-32).
Here is veritable mediation, conducted by a veritable
mediator, ordained by God to mediate, and so long as
the history of it abides as an unchallengeable part of
the sacred record, it must continue to testify against
the purely legal doctrine of the pre-exilic way of life
taught in these lectures. Moses, the mediator, is con-
nected with the moral law ; it is placed in his hands,
and his mediation is correlative to it. Israel has
broken its second commandment by making to them-
selves gods of gold, and Moses, in the spirit of his
mediatorial office, intercedes for them, specifying this
particular breach, and confessing it as a great sin
before their covenant God.
218 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Tltc Theory needs to rid the Pentateuch not only of
Mosaic Authorship, hut of Moses himself and his
Mediation.
" The newer criticism," therefore, has not as yet
completed its task. It cannot afford to leave un-
touched by its instruments of mutilation, or relegation,
the first twenty-one verses of this 20th chapter of
Exodus. It must get rid even of this section of this
chapter with its ordinance of Mosaic mediation, or all
its labour is in vain. It is not enough that it rid
itself of his Pentateuchal authorship ; it must get rid
of Moses himself, for so long as he is recognised as a
historical verity, by whomsoever the history has been
written, his official relations to Israel and the divine
Sinaitic Torah, must thwart the counsels of all men,
whether of the school of Socinus or of " the newer
criticism," with its Scottish modifications, who would
place any section of the human race under the covenant
of works, whether in pre-exilic or post-exilic times.
He being dead yet speaketh, and his words, as has
been shown before, are reiterated by an apostle in
order to dissuade men from adopting the very same
doctrine regarding the way of life as is taught in this
book as the gospel of pre-exilic times. That reitera-
tion is as authoritative to-day in North Britain as it
was in Paul's day in Galatia : " As many as are of
the works of the law are under the curse ; for it is
written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in
all thinc^s which are written in the book of the law to
THE THEORY AND THE PENTATEUCH. 219
do them " (Gal. iii. 10). And the context shows that
it was not a doctrine peculiar to New Testament
times, for the apostle confirms it by a quotation from
a pre-exilic prophet (Hab. ii. 4), which, according to
his interpretation both in Galatians and Eomans,
proves that salvation by works is impossible, and that
righteousness is by faith alone.
CHAPTEE IX.
The Arh of the Covenant.
AS another obstacle in the way of this post-exilic
theory, stands the ark of the covenant. Even
though our theorists could succeed in disposing of the
great lawgiver of Israel, their scheme must be regarded
as very far from being established or fortified, so long
as the ark and its history remain. This task our
author can scarcely be said to have formally essayed
in these lectures. His references to the ark are
exceedingly rare, and generally not very explicit. On
page 357 he remarks : " It is very noteworthy, and,
on the traditional view, quite inexplicable, that the
Mosaic sanctuary of the ark is never mentioned in the
Deuteronomic code. The author of this law occupies
the standpoint of Isaiah, to whom the whole plateau
of Zion is holy ; or of Jeremiah, who forbids men to
search for the ark or re-make it, because Jerusalem is
the throne of Jehovah (Jer. iii. 16, 17)." On this
remark it might be remarked, with a little more
propriety, that it is very noteworthy, and, on the
post-exilic view, quite inexplicable, that this Mosaic
sanctuary of the ark, which, we are told by the author,
220
THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. 221
is never mentioned in the Deuteronomic code (although
it is expressly stated (Dent. xxxi. 2) that " Moses
commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the
covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the
law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness
against thee "), and which, according to our author,
Jeremiah enjoins Israel neither to search for nor
re-make, was, within a few years after Jeremiah's
decease, about to become the divinely sanctioned centre
of that Israelitish worship inaugurated in the Levitical
Torah ! If prophetic denunciation of Israel's sacrifices
in pre-exilic times proves that sacrifice in pre-exilic
times was without positive divine sanction, surely
prophetic prohibition of the ark in post-exilic times
should prove that the ark was not divinely authorized
after the exile. If Jeremiah can be quoted again and
again, as he is by our author (see pp. 117, 225, etc.
etc.), against the pre-exilic sanction of " the altar and
the altar gifts, and the solemn feasts, and the tithes,
and the free-will offerings," there certainly can be no
show of reason for holding that when Jeremiah speaks
in similar strains against the sanctuary of the ark, and
against the ark itself, in reference to post-exilic times,
his language has not the same significance, and that it
was not intended to convey the idea that the ark, after
the exile, was an institution of will- worship, unsanc-
tioned and unapproved by Jehovah. It confounds all
one's ideas of consistent exesjesis to find a critic, who
claims to interpret the Bible on the most strictly
222 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
scientific principles, drawing conclusions diametrically
opposite from identical premises.
Ceremonies conceded with the Arh unsanctioned until
the Ark was lost !
Xor is one's confusion or surprise diminished when
he takes into consideration the fact intimated by our
author in his quotation from Jeremiah (p. 117), that
this ark of the covenant which, notwithstanding the
prohibition of one of the Lord's prophets, is about to
become the very sanctuary and centre of Israel's
worship, and that, too, by express divine appointment,
has disappeared, and is not to be sought for or re-made !
While the ark existed, the ark received no sanction —
no divine sanction, for one thousand years ; but when
the ark is lost, and a prophetic prohibition issued
acjainst the re-makinf:j of it, then the Levitical Torah,
which turns on the ark as its hinge and centre, is to
come into operation with all the authority wherewith
the divinely commissioned post-exilic prophets can
invest it ! In the history of critical speculation, save
in the oddities of " the newer criticism " itself, it would
be difficult to find anything to match this. Within
the latter, the only thing like to it, which occurs just
now, is tliat point in its theory of the all-but-post-
exilic origin of the Deuteronomic code, according to
which rules are laid down for the election of the first
king in Israel, and for his guidance in the administration
of his kingdom, one hundred years after the kingdom
REFERENCES TO THE ARK IN HEBREWS. 223
of the ten tribes was carried into captivity, and the
kingdom had absolutely ceased for ever to exist !
The Theory in conflict with the References to the Ark
in the Einstle to the Hebreivs.
But this theory of the post-exilic sanction of the ark
and its accompaniments is not only embarrassed with
such manifest contradictions and absurdities as the
foregoing ; it has to face and deal with the solemn
fact that it contradicts the express teaching of the
New Testament. While it teaches that the Levitical
system, which unquestionably revolved around the ark,
was not divinely authorized until the return of Israel
from Babylon, the Epistle to the Hebrews (addressed
to men who knew as much about their own institutions
as the author of these lectures does) teaches that
" even the first covenant had ordinances of divine
service, and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a
Tabernacle prepared, the first, wherein were the candle-
stick, and the table, and the shew-bread ; which is
called the Holy Place. And after the second veil, the
Tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies ; having
the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant over-
laid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot
that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the
tables of the covenant, and above it the cherubim of
glory overshadowing the mercy - seat," etc. (Heb.
ix. 1-5). It will be difficult to reconcile the post-
exilic theory of the authentication of that system, in
224 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
which the ark was absolutely enshrined, and from
which it was inseparable, with the teaching of this
epistle. The exegetical critic who alleges that the
passage now quoted is descriptive of the worship of
Israel after the exile, and under the second Temple,
and denies that it was intended to apply to the wor-
ship of pre- exilic times, or the ordinances of the Taber-
nacle or first Temple, simply sets all laws of righteous
interpretation at defiance. The language employed in
this great epistle leaves no room for a second opinion.
The sanctuary described is neither the first nor the
second Temple, but the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle
was not a post-exilic structure. This one fact settles
the whole controversy ; for in this confessedly pre-
exilic sanctuary, as the passage affirms, there was a
service conducted, which is described as a divine
service, and whose parts, as the eighth verse shows,
were designed by the Holy Ghost to shadow forth the
great leading doctrines of the New Dispensation, and
in the midst of all the types and symbols of the
coming economy, the ark of the covenant holds pre-
eminence as the seat whence God administers, as from
a throne, the blessings of His grace.
The Ark necessary from the time the Moral Laiv was
giveri.
Indeed, were we left without the light of the New
Testament, we might be led to the conclusion that the
ark, from the outset, must have been divinely sane-
THE ARK NECESSARY. 225
tioned. Once it is admitted that Moses received the
sacred deposit of the law engraven by the finger of
God, the conclusion seems to be inevitable, that pro-
vision would be made for its safe keeping. The
estimate of its importance, which led to its being so
engraven, and engraven on such material, would, one
might think, lead to the institution of special arrange-
ments for its preservation. It is hard to conceive of
those two tables, prepared by express divine instruc-
tion, and engraven by the immediate act of God Him-
self, being left without somxO such repository as Moses
was directed to make (Ex. xxv.). If there was an
ark at all, there would seem to be no reason for believ-
ing that it was not ordained from the very time at
which, we are told in Exodus, Moses was commissioned
to make it ; nor is there any reason for doubting that,
with its sacred contents, it was made from the first
the centre of the worship of Israel, and its cover the
mercy-seat from which God held communion with the
typical mediator of His covenant people. This view,
which the very nature of the case would seem to
demand, is just the view given in the Pentateuch ; and,
as has been already shown, the position, both economic
and chronological, or historical, thus assigned to the
ark of the covenant is essential to a right apprehension
of the Mosaic dispensation in its relations to the moral
law on the one hand, and to the JSTew Testament
dispensation on the other.
226 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Question of Fraud raised again hj the Post-Exilic Theory.
But these facts and principles being premised, a
question of very grave interest arises. If the Levitical
system, with its ark of the covenant, — which was
professedly of Mosaic origin, and which, both in the
Pentateuch and the New Testament, is represented as
inaugurated in the Tabernacle, the Holy Ghost, as we
are informed, thereby signifying that the way into the
holy place was not yet made manifest, while as the
first Tabernacle was yet standing, — was notwithstand-
ing not divinely sanctioned till after the return from
Babylon, the question cannot be repressed. How are
Ezra and his companions, who introduced that system
as a divine institution, to be defended against the
charge of perpetrating a fraud upon their brethren of
the captivity ? and how is the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews to be defended against the charge of
endorsing and perpetrating the Esdrine deception ?
" The newer criticism " has had to encounter a pre-
cisely similar difficulty in connection with their theory
of the origin of the Deuteronomic code, and to that
difficulty this other must now be added. Our author's
solution of the ethical problem in the case of Deutero-
nomy was, that in ancient times men did not distin-
guish between historical data and historical deductions,
and it is likely some such solution would be tendered
in the present case. But the Epistle to the Hebrews
was not written in those ancient times, w^hen men had
such confused notions, as our author alleges, on the
SPECIAL INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTIES. 227
subject of historical composition ; nor can tlie position
be successfully challenged by any one who, without any
theoretic bias, will read those portions of the Penta-
teuch in which the Levitical system is fully developed,
that if such a system was first introduced in post-exilic
times, the introducers of it must have deceived the
children of the captivity. Indeed, it is difficult to
believe that it was possible to make the very next
generation after the men who built and dedicated the
second Temple accept this Esdrine Torah, as has been
shown already, if it were not the Torah under which
their fathers erected the house of the Lord and ordered
its service. On the assumption that the Torah which
Ezra brought with him from Babylon was a new Torah,
we must conclude that the Jews, whom he induced to
make confession of their own sins and the sins of their
fathers for violating its statutes and judgments, were
ignorant of the laws under which their fathers had
lived, or that they had joined in a transaction which it
is impossible to vindicate.
Special Insuperable Difficulties of the Theory arising from
the acknowledged Loss of the Ark during the Exile.
However viewed, then, whether under the light of
the Old Testament or the New, or of the circumstances
under which the moral law was given, the ark must
be regarded as inseparable from the Mosaic economy.
The Levitical economy, which " the newer criticism '*
alleges was not introduced before the close of the
228 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Babylonish exile, implies and proclaims its existence ;
and if that system was then for the first time estab-
lished, as the author of this book teaches, it was not
introduced, even on his own confession, till after the
ark, which was the very centre of it, was lost ! Can
any reader of the Old Testament or the New believe
this ? Is it possible for any one who accepts the Bible
as a revelation from an " All- wise Author " to believe
that the mercy-seat, before and upon which the aton-
ing blood was to be sprinkled, was lost before God
sanctioned the sprinkling ? He who accepts the
teaching of this book must believe that in the days
of Josiah, the Lord, referring to the restoration, spake
unto Jeremiah as follows : " And it shall come to pass,
when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in
those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more,
The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall
it come to mind : neither shall they remember it ;
neither shall they visit it ; neither shall that be done
any more," or, as it is sometimes rendered, " neither
shall it be made any more," or, as our author renders
it, " re-made ; " and he who accepts its teaching must
also believe that in the days of Ezra, when the restora-
tion was an accomplished fact, and not till then, the
whole Levitical system, with the ark as its centre,
was inaugurated in Israel by the express command of
Jehovah ! That is, what God promises through His
servant Jeremiah, immediately before the captivity of
Judah, as in store for her on her restoration to her
own land, He takes special pains, through His servant
I
AAEON AND HIS SONS. 229
Ezra, to render impossible, by the institution of an
elaborate system of sacrifice and ritual, having as its
chief symbol that which was not to be named, or
thought of, or visited, or re-made ! Such is one of
the grand generalizations of the scientific criticism
over which handkerchiefs are waved by young ladies,
and in honour of which public breakfasts are given by
men affecting to represent the culture and the Biblical
scholarship of the Free Church of Scotland! With
such, the system which arrays prophet against prophet,
and, as in this case, priest against priest, and even
the Jehovah of pre-exilic times against the Jehovah
of post-exilic times, may pass for Biblical science ; but
in the estimation of the true representatives of that
grand old church, and in that of the genuine piety and
culture of Christendom, it will be regarded as neither
more nor less than the science of Biblical disparage-
ment. Like the men of Ashdod, its worshippers may
set the ark before it, but they will find, as they did,
that in its presence their Dagon cannot stand. The
only hope for the idol is to send back the ark of the
covenant to pre-exilic times, and even this alternative
is perilous unto theoretic death.
Aaron and his Sons.
But even though the ark of the covenant were
dismissed, " the newer criticism " would not be freed
from all embarrassment. There is no difficulty arising
from the inauguration of the Levitical system after
230 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the loss of the ark, which does not necessarily arise
from the inauguration of it after the death of Aaron
and his sons. Under his third group of laws our
author ranges the Levitical legislation (p. 317); and
this legislation contains a law for " the consecration of
Aaron and his sons" (p. 318). Turning to Exodus
xxviii. 1— xxix. 35, we find this law, which is intro-
duced as follows: "And take thou unto thee Aaron
thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the
children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in
the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu,
Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons. And thou shalt
make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory
and for beauty." Then follows a most minute de-
scription of the garments of Aaron and of his sons,
with a detailed consecration ritual. Now, it will be
seen at once that in these two chapters we have the
foundation and top-stone of the whole Levitical legis-
lation. We have the distinctive priesthood of Aaron
and his sons, by which he and his sons are separated
from the children of Israel, of whatsoever tribe ; and
we have the high-priesthood of Aaron, by which he is
distinguished from, and raised above, the other priests,
his sons. In the fortieth chapter we have an account
of the actual consecration of Aaron to his ofi&ce and of
his sons to theirs, and of the rearing up of the taber-
nacle, and of the descent upon it of the cloudy symbol
of the divine presence.
CONSECRATION OF AARON AND HIS SONS. 23 1
Account of the Consecration of Aaron and his Sons
pronounced not Historical.
Such, in brief, is the apparently historical, and, as
will be seen on reference to these closing chapters of
Exodus, most graphic account of the inauguration of
the Tabernacle and of the consecration of the Aaronic
priesthood. But, in the estimation of " the newer
criticism," this is not history at all, or at least is not
all history. In fact, its characteristic factors are not
historic. All that signalizes this part of the sacred
record pertains to a period separated from the days of
Aaron and his sons by more than one thousand years !
"The law for the consecration of priests," says our
author, " is given in a narrative of the consecration of
Aaron and his sons. The form is historical, but the
essential object is legal. The law takes the form of
recorded precedent. There is nothing," he remarks,
"surprising in this. Among the Arabs, to this day,
traditional precedents are the essence of law, and the
kadhi of the Arabs is he who has inherited a know-
ledge of them. Among early nations, precedent is
particularly regarded in matters of ritual, and the
oral Torah of the priests doubtless consisted in great
measure of case law. But law of this kind is not
history. It is preserved, not as a record of the past,
but as a guide for the present and future. The Penta-
teuch itself shows clearly that this law, in historical
form, is not an integral part of the continuous history
of Israel's movements in the wilderness, but a separate
thing" (pp. 318, 319).
232 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
The reader is now in a position to judge of the
author's theory, and of the style of argument by which
he endeavours to sustain it. This story of the conse-
cration of Aaron and his sons is not veritable history ;
for if it were, Graf and Kuenen, and their brethren of
the Scottish school of " the newer criticism," must
abandon their theory. No one who believes that
Aaron and his sons were called of God, and separated
from their brethren of the children of Israel, and even
from their brethren of the tribe of Levi, as this narrative
seems to teach, can believe, with these critics, that the
Aaronitic priesthood was a thing of gradual develop-
ment, reaching its culmination at the close of the
Babylonish captivity, and formally inaugurated by
Ezra. According to the narrative in Exodus, and
according to the interpretation of all men whose
minds have not been warped and biassed by the prin-
ciples of this rationalistic school, the Aaronic orders
were instituted by the express command of God,
through His servant Moses, and their commission
bears date from the institution of the Tabernacle
itself. Hence the necessity of proving that the clos-
ing chapters of Exodus should not be interpreted in a
historical sense, but that they should be regarded, as
the Arabs are wont to regard such narratives, as mere
traditional precedents. This, however, is assertion, not
proof; nor does it obviate the difficulty which this
narrative of the consecration of Aaron and his sons
casts in the pathway of this post-exilic theory of the
Levitical legislation. It is true that the legal pre-
REGULATIVE PEECEDENTS. 233
cedents of a nation do not make up the whole national
history. It is true, however, that without history there
can be no precedent. If, as our author states in the
passage quoted above, "the oral law of the priests
consisted in great measure of case law," it must be
manifest that the cases of this case law must have
occurred. Given no case, there can never arise a
law of cases ; and given no precedent, there can never
be a precedent to quote. But apart from an actual
historical incident there can be neither case to adjudi-
cate, nor judgment thereon, to abide as a precedent to
guide either the present or the future.
The Theory assumes that there may he Regulative Pre-
cedents destitute of any Historical Basis.
Applying this, the author's own analogy, to the case
in hand, how, it may be asked, can the narrative of
the consecration of Aaron and his sons be regarded as
furnishing precedents to regulate future consecrations,
if no such consecration of Aaron and his sons ever
took place ? If it did not take place, it cannot be
regarded as a precedent ; and if it did take place at
aU, it must have taken place in Aaron's day ; and if so,
then the theory of " the newer criticism " is subverted;
for while that theory contends that the Aaronic dis-
tinctions of the Levitical Torah were of gradual
development, attaining their perfection under Ezra,
this narrative, which is represented as furnishing ritual
precedents, presents the system as complete at the very
234 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
outset, as it came from the hand of Israel's lawgiver.
If, then, the consecration of Aaron as high priest, and
of his sons as priests, with their respective distinctive
dress and functions, be regarded as a precedent, it
must be regarded as a precedent from the hour in
which it occurred ; and if high priests and other priests
were ordained in conformity with it in the days of
Ezra, their ordination but serves to prove the pre-exilic
origin of the Aaronitic priestly distinctions, which " the
newer criticism" would have us believe came into
existence, or at least reached its full development
only in post-exilic times. It is manifestly impossible
to reconcile this theory with the narrative of the con-
secration of Aaron and his sons, and therefore the
only hope of the so-caUed critical school is to shake
confidence in its veritable historical character. One
or two examples of the way in which this is attempted
by our author are very instructive. The first instance
given is Ex. xxxiii. 7, "which is non-Levitical."
Here "we read," he says, "that Moses took the
Tabernacle and pitched it outside the camp, and
called it the tent of meeting. But the Levitical
account of the setting up of the Tabernacle, with
the similar circumstance of the descent of the cloud
upon it, does not occur till chap. xl. (comp. Num.
ix. 15)."
THE WEITER OF EXODUS. 235
The Theory does not credit the Writer of Exodus with
Common Sense or any degree of Intelligence.
Now, in the first place, it would seem impossible
for any writer of any goodly measure of intelligence,
and certainly impossible for any writer possessing the
intelligence exhibited in this Book of Exodus, to make
the historical mistake attributed to him by our author,
for at the time Moses is said to have pitched the
Tabernacle outside the camp, the Tabernacle had not
yet been made. At the time referred to, Bezaleel and
Aholiab, and their fellow-workmen, had not yet entered
upon their work, nor had the people as yet begun to
bring the ordained material for its construction. One
would conclude, if he were not a hostile critic, that
there must be an explanation by which the two
apparently contradictory passages may be reconciled.
This explanation is not far to seek. Moses was Israel's
judge, and it was necessary that he should have a
judgment - seat, or place for the administration of
justice. It was also necessary that one who sought
counsel in difficult cases immediately from Israel's
Lord and Lawgiver, should have his judgment-seat
near to the manifested presence of Jehovah. These
considerations indicate the solution of the apparent
discrepancy between Ex. xxxiii. 7, which speaks of
Moses pitching the Tabernacle before it was made, and
Ex. xl., which speaks of his pitching it after it was
made. The solution is simply this, that the Taber-
nacle of chap, xxxiii. is not the Tabernacle of chap. xl.
236 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
The former is the magisterial tent of Moses, where
God met with him to counsel and guide him in the
government of Israel ; the latter is the Tabernacle of
Jehovah, erected for His own dwelling-place in the midst
of the congregation of Israel. Such an explanation is
perfectly legitimate ; for one occupying the position of
Israel's lawgiver, and meeting publicly with God before
the congregation, must have had a tent for that specific
purpose, distinguished above all the tents, even of the
chief of the fathers and princes of the people. And
it is a noteworthy fact that the Septuagint translation
proceeds upon this assumption ; for its version of the
passage is : " And Moses took Ms tent {rr^v aKrjvr^v
avTov), and pitched it outside the camp, afar off from
the camp, and called it the tent of testimony." Here,
then, the version by which our author would correct
the Hebrew text itself, teaches that the tent pitched
by Moses, on the occasion referred to, was the tent of
Moses himself, and consequently must be regarded as
distinguishing it from the Tabernacle properly or
strictly so called.
The Tent pitched hy Moses was not the Tahernacle.
Besides, it is obvious from the context that this
tent was different from the historic Tabernacle of
Israel; for the sole minister of it is Moses, who is
attended within its precincts, not by Aaron or his sons,
but by Joshua, " who departed not out of the taber-
nacle." The contrast between this arrangement and
THE TENT PITCHED BY MOSES NOT THE TABERNACLE. 237
that of the tent in which Aaron and his sons
ministered with such glory, and in which Joshua held
no office, bespeaks an entirely different structure.
Nor does the reference to Num. ix. 15 confirm the
view of the author. That passage simply states over
again in brief what is stated in extenso in Ex. xL,
that " on the day that the Tabernacle was reared up,
the cloud covered the Tabernacle." This statement is
perfectly consistent with the explanation now given,
for the Mosaic tent of judgment was the provisional
place of meeting with Jehovah until the Tabernacle
proper was reared. And as the divine presence and
sanction of the Mosaic administration were indicated
by the pillar of cloud, it was to be expected that the
cloud should mark out and signalize the tent in which
the lawgiver of Israel was holding communion with
Israel's covenant God. The argument based upon
this reference to the passage in Numbers seems to
assume that the pillar of cloud could not descend at
one time upon the provisional tent, and descend also,
at a different time, upon a different tent, erected for
a different or more comprehensive purpose.
But, reverting to the fact mentioned at the outset,
the whole context in Exodus proves that the Mosaic
economy, at the time in which Moses pitched this
tent outside the camp, was simply in process of
institution, and as yet in the earlier stages of its
development. The historical statement is, that Moses
had been up in the mount with God receiving the
law written on tables of stone and the ceremonial
238 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
law, embracing a pattern of the Tabernacle, with minute
instructions respecting the material and style of its
several parts, together with a detailed ritual for the
consecration of Aaron and his sons to the office of the
priesthood. Whilst Moses is thus engaged with God,
the people become weary with waiting, imagine that
their leader is lost, and commit the dreadful trespass
of " making for themselves gods of gold." God in-
forms him of their sin, threatens to consume them, and
to make of Moses himself a great nation. True to
his mediatorial office, he loses sight of himself, and
intercedes for his rebellious brethren, and averts the
threatened doom.
On nearing the camp, and witnessing their idolatry
before the golden calf, he casts the tables of the law
out of his hands, and breaks them beneath the mount.
After chastising them for their sin, he returns to the
mount, and intercedes for them again. His appeal is
only partially successful, and under a deep sense of
the impending wrath entertained toward Israel by their
offended God, he returns to the camp and reports the
" evil tidings." Now, it is just at this juncture we
are told that "Moses took the tent and pitched it
without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called
it the tabernacle (or tent) of the congregation." If
ever there was history written, this seems to be
history ; and if we are to accept it as being what it
professes to be, it is impossible to regard this tent as
the Levitical Tabernacle. The lawgiver had received
instructions to make the latter, but he had not as yet
THE TENT PITCHED BY MOSES NOT THE TABERNACLE. 239
had an opportunity of putting his instructions into
execution. The very tables of stone, which are to be
its most sacred deposit, lie broken beneath the mount,
and have not as yet been replaced by God ; and the
congregation of the children of Israel have not as yet
been called upon to contribute the " gold and silver and
brass, and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen, and
goats' hair," etc. etc., for its construction, and Bezaleel
and Aholiab have not as yet begun to work. How,
it may well be asked again, could any intelligent
writer, especially any writer of the intelligence dis-
played in this narrative, or even any " final redactor,"
if you will, who possessed any common sense at all,
without the slightest break in the continuity of the
narration, pitch the Levitical Tabernacle into the midst
of such a context ? God, with whom all duration is
present, can call the things that are not as though
they were, but it is not so with man. It is not
within the compass of the possible to take, as an
actually existing thing, a tent not yet in existence,
and pitch it elsewhere. It is surely not too much
to claim that the theory which requires for its support
the assumption of such historical incapacity, or inten-
tional historical inversion, effected by a Levitical
conspiracy one thousand years after the history was
written, and imposed as true history upon a whole
nation, merits unqualified and instantaneous condem-
nation, by all men who have any regard for the Bible
as an authentic record of the history of redemption.
240 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
The Charge of Falsifying the Record preferred again.
As an additional proof of this Levitical tampering
with the original history, we have the following : —
" Again in Num. x. we have first the Levitical account
of the fixed order of march of the Israelites from
Sinai, with the ark in the midst of the host (vv.
11—28), and immediately afterwards the historical
statement that when the Israelites left Sinai the ark
was not in their midst, but went before them a distance
of three days' journey (vv. 33—36). It is plain that
though the formal order of march with the ark in the
centre, which the author sets forth as a standing
pattern, is here described in the historical guise of a
record of the departure of Israel from Sinai, the actual
order of march on that occasion was different. The
same author cannot have written both accounts. One
is a law in narrative form ; the other is actual history.
These examples," it is added, " are forcible enough,
but they form only a fragment of a great chain of
evidence which critics have collected. By many
marks, and particularly by extremely well-defined
peculiarities of language, a Levitical document can be
separated out of the Pentateuch, containing the whole
mass of priestly legislation and precedents, and leav-
ing untouched the essentially historical part of the
Pentateuch, all that has for its direct aim to tell us
what befell the Israelites in the wilderness, and not
what precedents the wilderness offered for subsequent
ritual observances. As the Pentateuch now stands,
EXTRAVAGANT CLAIM ADVANCED. 241
the two elements of law and history are interspersed,
not only in the same book, but often in the same
chapter. But originally they were quite distinct "
(pp. 319, 320).
Extravagant Claim advanced in heJialf of " the Newer
Criticism"
This passage has been given at length because of
the light it sheds upon the author's estimate of
Pentateuchal history, and the means by which alone
he can hope to subvert its testimony against his post-
exilic theory of the origin or final development of the
Levitical system. It will be seen that the charge
here preferred against the integrity of this portion of
the Pentateuchal record is a very serious one. If it is
true, the Church of God is at the mercy of the critics ;
for we are told that it is by certain marks and
peculiarities of language that the Levitical document
can be separated out of the Pentateuch, and discrimi-
nated from the essentially historical parts. As these
marks are of an order of which none save critics can
take cognizance, it is out of the question for ordinary
people, such as Christ addressed (John v. 39), to
" search the Scriptures " until the critics have made
the necessary Pentateuchal revision. When this
revision shall be accomplished it were difficult to con-
jecture, as no two of the critics are agreed, all along
the line, as to what is historical and what is Levitical
post-exilic interpolation. In the meantime, the whole
Q
242 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
racord is before the public, arraigned on a charge
which, from its generality, may be applied, as its
accusers list, to almost any part of it.
The alleged Historical Discrepancy examined.
But let us look at the grounds advanced in proof
in the present instance. In one section of JSTum. x.,
which gives an account of the march from Sinai, we
are to understand that the ark is represented as carried
in the midst of the host, while in the section imrRc-
diately folloiving, it is represented as not in the midst
of the host at all, but as preceding them " a distance
of three days' journey."
In the first place, in the former section the ark
is never mentioned. After the camp of Judah set
forward, the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari
followed bearing the Tabernacle ; and after the camp of
Eeuben set forward, the Kohathites followed bearing
the sanctuary. This is all that is said in the former
section which can have any bearing on the point at
issue. In the section immediately folloiving, we are
informed that " the ark of the covenant went before
them in the three days' journey " (not a distance of
three days' journey, as our author absurdly translates,
an arrangement which would put their guide out of
sight of the camp altogether), " to search out for them
a resting-place." Where is there any ground for the
alleged discrepancy between these two narratives ?
What is there in the former, as distinguished from the
ALLEGED HISTORICAL DISCREPANCY EXAMINED. 243
latter, to create the suspicion that it was concocted by
the Levites and inserted in the actual history? Is
there such evidence of Levitical tampering with the
actual history as warrants any man, much less a critic,
to say that " it is plain that though the formal order of
march, with the ark in the centre, which the author
sets forth as a standing pattern, is here described in
the historical guise of a record of the departure of
Israel from Sinai, the actual order of march on that
occasion was different," or to say that "the same
author cannot have written both accounts " ? There
is no real discrepancy between the two sections of the
narrative. The former, like the first chapter of Genesis,
gives the general statement ; and the latter, like the
second chapter, furnishes information in detail regard-
ing the most important item in the previous general
historical sketch. The ark was in the history of
Israel's march what man was in the history of creation,
and is therefore singled out, as man is, for special notice.
It appears from the sequel of the order of march, that
when all was ready the ark set forward first, and that
there was a formal, though a very brief, liturgy
observed, both when it set forward and when it rested.
" When the ark set forward, Moses said, Eise up, Lord,
and let Thine enemies be scattered, and let them that
hate Thee flee before Thee. And when it rested, he
said, Eeturn, 0 Lord, unto the many thousands of
Israel" (Num. x. 35, 36). All, therefore, that any
critic can fairly deduce from the second section, which
our author represents as being irreconcilable with the
244 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
first, is that it gives an item of information respecting
the position of the ark in the order of march which is
not furnished in the general account given in the first
section ; and it is only on the principle that additional
information is necessarily contradictory, that anything
bordering upon contradiction or discrepancy can be
made out.
The Assumption necessary to make out the Charge of
Discrepancy.
The only ground on which any plausible case against
the historical integrity and harmony of the narrative,
as given in the two sections, can rest, must be the
assumption that the ark was inseparable from the
other portions of the furniture of the sanctuary. If
this were true, then, as we are told in the former
section that the sanctuary was in the midst of the
host, it might seem reasonable that, in a strictly
accurate narration, the ark, which was inseparably
connected with the sanctuary, could not be represented
as moving in advance of the whole line of march.
But is this assumption itself historical ? Is it in
accordance with the history of the ark that it was
never separated from the sanctuary, and carried
separately in advance of the host of Israel ? A refer-
ence to the closing march of their desert journey ings
will decide this question. When the children of Israel
removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, we are
told that after lodging there for three days, the officers
ASSUMPTION NECESSARY TO PROVE DISCREPANCY. 245
went through the host and commanded the people,
saying, " When ye see the ark of the covenant of the
Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it,
then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it.
Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about
two thousand cubits by measure : come not near unto
it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go ;
for ye have not passed this way heretofore. . . . And
Joshua spake unto the priests, saying. Take up the ark
of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And
they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before
the people " (Josh. iii. 1-1 7). This passage proves
two things : first, that the ark was sometimes separated
from the sanctuary, and borne before the host of Israel ;
and, second, that one of the objects of such an arrange-
ment was to show Israel " the way they must go."
Now, all that is necessary to the solution of the
apparent discrepancy which our author is so careful to
point out to '' the Scottish public," is simply to assume
that the arrangement made by Joshua on the plains
of Moab over against Jericho, was also made in the
wilderness, whenever the way had to be pointed out
for the guidance of the host. This separation of the
ark from the sanctuary, which we know as a historical
fact, from this and other instances, w^as sometimes
made, proves that the sanctuary might remain in its
position next in order after the camp of Keuben, and
yet the ark of the covenant not remain with it. Where
an explanation, at once reasonable and in accordance
with historic fact, can be OTen, there is no warrant for
246 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
such critical impeachment of the sacred record. Nor
is it unworthy of notice, that the cloud which accom-
panied and guided Israel abode upon that part of the
tabernacle which took' its designation from the sacred
law contained in the ark, and which was, for that
reason, called " the tent of the testimony." Is it too
much to assume that when this symbol of the divine
presence moved to the front of the host as they were
about to march, the ark, with which it was so closely
associated, moved along with it ? It would thus, as it
moved along their wilderness pathway, illumined or
shaded by the cloud of the divine glory, become a
most expressive symbolic embodiment of the sentiment
of the psalmist, " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path."
Conseqiience of the Failure of this Impeachment of the
Record.
The historic integrity of the impugned record, there-
fore, abides despite the allegations of its adversaries ;
and the consecration of Aaron and his sons must be
regarded as an unquestionable historical fact. There
is no possibility of getting rid of this fact, except by
denying the truthfulness of the record ; and there is
no way by wliich its truthfulness can be successfully
challenged, save by proving that its parts are incon-
gruous or contradictory. This " the newer criticism "
has tried, at every point in which it could cherish any
hope of success, but it has failed. Aaron and his sons
THE NEW TESTAMENT ENDORSES THE EECORD. 247
still hold their place on the pages of the pre-exilic
record as consecrated priests, — as priests consecrated
by divine ordination to minister in the priest's office
before the covenant God of Israel. From these first-
born of the Aaronic order the Levitical system, in all
its perfection, is inseparable ; and the critical system
which teaches that it was a thing of gradual develop-
ment, reaching its maturity only in post-exilic times,
must be regarded as irreconcilable with the central
institution of the Mosaic economy.
The Nevj Testament endorses this Impugned Reeord.
But this is not all. It is not saying all, to say that
this post-exilic theory is inconsistent with what is
taught in the Pentateuch regarding the Aaronic or
Levitical priesthood and its sacrificial system ; for
besides doing, or threatening to do, violence to the
plainest and most unquestionably established facts of
the Pentateuchal history, — in fact, endeavouring abso-
lutely to disintegrate and invalidate the entire record,
a record which is unreadable when despoiled of its
priestly Torah, — it must, if it hopes to succeed, deal in
the same spirit of irreverence with the New Testament,
which is correlative to this same Pentateuch, and espe-
cially to those very portions of it which " the newer
criticism " has singled out as the object of its most
determined onslaughts and its deadliest hostility. The
New Testament not only recognises the Levitical
system, but it recognises that system as Aaronic. In
248 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
proving that Christ was duly called to His office as our
High Priest, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
argues from the appointment of Aaron. " No man
taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called
of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not Him-
self to be made an High Priest ; but He that said unto
Him, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee"
(chap. V. 5, 6). Could there be a stronger testimony
to the divine authentication of the Aaronic priesthood
than this ? The call of Aaron is the norm and pattern
of the appointment of Christ Himself to the mediatorial
function of His own glorious high-priesthood. The
doctrine of this epistle, therefore, gives no countenance
to the theory that would relegate the Torah by which
a high priest is distinguished from other priests to the
days of the Babylonish exile. The high priest it fixes
upon, as furnishing, in his appointment, the type and
pattern of Christ's vocation, is Aaron himself; and
this selection of Aaron, for this purpose, proves that
the Levitical priesthood, with its priestly distinctions,
was, from the days of Aaron, an institution as truly
sanctioned of God as was the priesthood of our
Eedeemer. Aaron's priesthood has been challenged
before now. " Korah and his company " held the very
same views respecting the eligibility of all Israelites to
the office of the priesthood as are advocated by Kuenen
and his company, and were opposed, as these men are,
to the Aaronic monopoly of priestly functions. They
thought, as these newer critics do, that all the congre-
gation were holy, every man of them entitled to act as
PEIESTHOOD INSEPARABLE FEOM SACRIFICE. 249
a priest. The gainsaying of the latter is as ambitious
and irreverent as the gainsaying of Korah ; and as it
is impossible to separate irreverent treatment of the
type from irreverence done to the Antitype, the theory
which would strip the priesthood of Aaron and his
sons of the authority of a positive divine institution,
striking, as it must, if carried to its logical issues, at
the divine authentication of the priesthood of Christ,
cannot but be exceedingly offensive to Him who called
Him to suffer, and raised Him to intercede.
Friesthood inseparable from Sacrifice,
Now, one of the things which gives peculiar force
to this argument from the divine authentication of the
high-priesthood of Aaron, as distinguished from, and
yet carrying along with it, pari passu, the priestly
status of his sons, is the fact, so clearly revealed in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, that priesthood is correla-
tive to sacrifice, and that they are not priests at all
who have no sacrifice to offer. Its doctrine is, that
" every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacri-
fices ;" and the argument is, that inasmuch as every
high priest is set apart to this, as the leading function
of his office, it is of " necessity that this man " (the
Lord Jesus Christ, who was called to this office) " have
somewhat also to offer" (Heb. viii. 3). It is therefore
a fundamental, that a high priest be a sacrificing priest.
A priest without a sacrifice were a misnomer. Such
is the doctrine which lies at the basis of the argument
250 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
in this epistle in exposition and defence of Christ's
Messianic claims, and it is manifest that it links
sacrifice to the priesthood of Aaron and his sons from
the very hour of their consecration. In other words,
the Levitical system, with its grades of priests, its
exclusive priesthood, and its sacrifices, is as old as the
Mosaic economy, under which it was introduced by
the typical mediator of that economy himself. All,
therefore, that is advanced by these lectures in support
of the position that the sacrifices and ritual of the
Levitical system were not, in pre-exilic times, " of
positive divine institution," or that "the Levitical
system was not enacted in the wilderness" (p. 288),
turns out to be, not simply contradictory of the so-
called " traditional theory," but of the Pentateuchal
theory itself, as interpreted by the Holy Spirit in the
Epistle to the Hebrews. As our author says, in
speaking of the views of the prophets on the relation
of Jehovah to the Levitical system, so may the friends
of " this traditional theory " say of the views of the
author of this epistle regarding his theory — " it is im-
possible to give a flatter contradiction " to the theory
which denies that the Levitical system was enacted
in the wilderness. He may say that "the theology
of the prophets before Ezekiel has no place for the
system of priestly sacrifice and ritual," but the Epistle
to the Hebrews places both the sacrifice and the ritual
under the shelter of the Tabernacle erected by Moses
after the pattern given him in the mount.
CHAPTEE X.
The Relation of the Priestly to the Projphetic Office.
ONE of tlie gravest errors of " the newer criticism,"
as set forth in this book, is the doctrine it incul-
cates respecting the relation of prophecy to priesthood
in pre-exilic times. As the author himself says (p.
284), "the account of prophecy given," as he interprets
them, " by the prophets themselves involves, you per-
ceive, a whole theory of religion, pointing in the most
necessary way to a New Testament fulfilment." A
whole theory of religion is undoubtedly involved in
his views of prophetic teaching on the subject of
priesthood and sacrifice. The prophetic doctrine, he
alleges, "moves in an altogether different plane from the
Levitical ordinances, and in no sense can it be viewed
as a spiritual commentary on them. For under the
Levitical system Jehovah's grace is conveyed to Israel
through the priest; according to the prophets, it comes
in the prophetic word. The systems are not identical ;
but may they at least be regarded as mutually supple-
mentary ? " (p. 285).
Authors View of the Belation of Priesthood to Proidhecy.
Having raised this last question, the author proceeds
251
252 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
to supply an answer ; and to this answer attention is
now directed. " In their origin, priest and prophet are
doubtless closely connected ideas. Moses is not only
a prophet but a priest (Deut. xviii. 1 5 ; Hos. xii. 1 3 ;
Deut. xxxiii. 8 ; Ps. xcix. 6). Samuel also unites
both functions ; and there is a priestly as well as a
prophetic oracle. In early times, the sacred lot of the
priest appears to have been more looked to than the
prophetic word. David ceases to consult God when
Abiathar the priest joins him with the ephod. (Com-
pare 1 Sam. xiv. 18, xxii. 10, xxiii. 9, xxviii. 6 with
xxii. 5.) Indeed, so long as sacrificial acts were
freely performed by laymen, the chief distinction of a
priest doubtless lay in his qualification to give an
oracle. The word which in Hebrew means a priest
is in old Arabic the term for a soothsayer (Kolien,
Kdliin), and in this, as in other points, the popular
religion of Israel was closely modelled on the forms of
Semitic heathenism, as we see from the oracle in the
shrine of Micah (Judg. xviii. 5 ; comp. 1 Sam. vi. 2 ;
2 Kings X. 19). The official prophets of Judah appear
to have been connected with the priesthood and the
sanctuary until the close of the kingdom (Isa. xviii. 7 ;
Jer. xxiii. 11, xxvi. 11; comp. Hos. iv. 5). They
were in fact part of the establishment of the temple,
subject to priestly discipline (Jer. xxix. 26,xx. 1 seq.).
They played into the priests' hands (Jer. v. 31), had a
special interest in the aff"airs of worship (Jer. xxvii.
16 : sii^ra, p. 114 seq.), and appear in all their con-
flicts with Jeremiah as the partisans of the theory that
ANALYSIS OF THE FOREGOING ASSERTIONS. 25 3
Jehovah's help is absolutely secured by the Temple
and its services.
" But the prophecy which thus co-operates with the
priests is not spiritual prophecy. It is a kind of
prophecy which the Old Testament calls divination,
which traffics in dreams in place of Jehovah's word
(Jer. xxiii. 28), and which, like heathen divination,
presents features akin to insanity, that require to be
repressed by physical constraint (Jer. xxix. 26).
Spiritual prophecy, in the hands of Amos, Isaiah,
and their successors, has no such alliance with the
sanctuary and its ritual. It develops and enforces
its own doctrine of the intercourse of Jehovah with
Israel, and the conditions of His grace, without assign-
ing the slightest value to priests and sacrifices. The
sum of religion, according to the prophets, is to know
Jehovah, and obey His precepts. Under the system
of the law enforced from the days of Ezra onwards,
an important part of these precepts are ritual " (pp.
285, 286).
Analysis of the foregoing Assertions.
On so important a question it is but due to the
author that he should be permitted to speak for him-
self at full length. The passage just quoted, beyond
all doubt, places his views fairly before the reader.
The doctrine avowed is : 1. That prior to the days of
Ezekiel or Ezra, during what is generally designated
by " the newer criticism " pre-exilic times, Jehovah's
254 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
grace was conveyed in the prophetic word, and not
through the priest. 2. That from Ezra and onwards,
and not earlier, an important part of Jehovah's pre-
cepts, which it is necessary to obey, are ritual, or, as
it is put (p. 304), where the conclusion on this point
from the whole argument is stated, " The ritual element
which the law adds to the prophetic doctrine of for-
giveness became part of the system of God's grace
only after the prophets had spoken." That is, before
the exile God's grace was administered through the
prophets ; after the exile it was administered through
priests. Enough has been said already upon the in-
congruities of the economies as thus sketched, and of
the marvellous wisdom ascribed to what is here called
Semitic heathenism, which, according to this theory,
must be credited with a full pre-exilic forecast of the
essential features of the economy of redemption — a fore-
cast so accurate and so instructive, both in regard to the
earthly and the heavenly manifestations of an economy
which reveals to the principalities and powers in the
heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God Himself,
that God, who had previously stood aloof from it, and
often through His prophets denounced it, eventually
changed His entire attitude towards it, and adopted it
as the type and shadow of the gospel of His Son, as
administered by Him both in the estate of humiliation
and the estate of exaltation. It does not seem to be
too much to assume that this feature of the theory
needs no further exposure to enable any one, who is at
all acquainted with the nature and design of the
THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF A PRIEST. 255
economy of redemption, to see that it is altogether at
variance with both.
Is the Primary Function of a Priest Oracular .?
Passing from this aspect of the subject, therefore,
the point now to be considered is. How does priesthood
stand related to prophecy ? Is it true that the pri-
mary function of a priest is oracular ? This seems to
be what our author wishes to teach when he dwells so
much on the fact that the priests delivered oracles,
and that " in early times " (he always knows exactly
what took place in early times) " the sacred lot of the
priest appears to have been more looked to than the
prophetic word;" and when he alleges that "so long as
sacrificial acts were freely performed by laymen, the
chief distinction of a priest doubtless lay in his quali-
fication to give an oracle." It is for this reason he
argues from the etymological kinship between the
Hebrew word [KoJun) for a priest, and the old Arabic
w^ord {Kdhin) for a soothsayer. Such, unquestionably,
is the doctrine taught in this extract ; but such is not
the doctrine of either Jew or Gentile, or of the Church
of God, either in pre-exilic or post-exilic times, in
regard to the leading function of a priest or of the
relation of the priestly to the prophetic office. Revert-
ing to the etymology, it becomes the ablest scholars to
speak with modesty on this point. Lexicographers who
rank among the foremost Hebraists tell us that the
etymology of Kohen is doubtful. Hitzig, quoted in
256 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
Eobinson's Gesenius, supposes Kalian is equivalent
to Kun, to stand, whence Kohen properly one who
stands by, an assistant. The same author also cites
Mauer as in favour of deriving it from gdclian, to in-
cline, to bend, i.e. to bow down, as is done in worship,
Kolien thus signifying one bowing down, making pros-
trations. Where the etymology of a word is so
dubious, we must rely upon the usage of the best
writers ; and in this case chiefly upon the usage of the
sacred writers ; and in the interpretation of the Old
Testament writers, in this as in all other cases, we must
be guided by the teaching of Christ and His apostles.
Taking this ground, — ground which must commend
itself to all Christian people, as well as to all sound
scholarship, — whatever collateral aid we may derive
from the use of terms of like or kindred radicals in
other cognate languages, we must take our departure
from the New Testament definitions, wherever these
are given. In the present case, as we have already
seen, we have a definition. The Epistle to the
Hebrews defines a high priest as one " taken from
among men, and ordained for men in things pertaining
to God to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins."
Eeferring to the high - priestly office of Christ, the
same epistle (chap. ii. 17) embraces, in its description
of its functions, " the making of a propitiation for the
sins of the people." Contrasting Christ as a High
Priest with the high priests that were under the law
(chap. vii. 26, 27), the author of the same epistle says :
'For such an High Priest became us, who is holy,
THE TRUE IDEAL OF A PRIEST. 257
harmless, imdefiled, separated from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens ; who needeth not daily, like
those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his
own sins, and then for the sins of the people : for this
He did once for all, when He offered up Himself."
So also again (chap. viii. 3) : " Every high priest is
appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices : wherefore
it is necessary that this high priest (as the new version
gives it) also have somewhat to offer."
The True Ideal of a Priest
Now, if our views regarding the Scriptural ideal of
a liigh priest are to be ruled by the express teaching
of the New Testament revelation, there can be no
difference of opinion regarding its fundamental,
essential conception. A high priest must be what
he is appointed to be and to do, and he is appointed
to act on behalf of men before God, and to offer on
their behalf "both gifts and sacrifices for sins."
Whatever else may pertain to his office, or, rather,
whatever other functions he may have been called
upon to execute from his acquaintance with the law
of his God, which others could not know as he did,
his business, as a high priest, did not consist in the
performance of these, but in the presentation before
God of "gifts and sacrifices for sins." He differed
from a prophet in two respects : 1. While a prophet
represented God, and dealt with men on behalf of
God, a priest represented men, and dealt with God on
R
258 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
their behalf. 2. While a prophet had to do with the
divine word, and was the ordained messenger of God
to bear it to men, a priest had to do with the gifts
and sacrificial offerings of men, and was the ordained
medium through whom these gifts and offerings wert
presented before God. A prophet, as a prophet, could
bear to men a message of peace or a message of wrath,
could utter a promise or proclaim a threatening ; but
to the office of the priest alone it pertained to avert,
by atonement, the threatened vengeance, and to open
up the way for the message of peace. The keynote
of the Mosaic economy is, " The priest shall make an
atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him."
The doctrine of that economy, as stated in the Epistle
to the Hebrews (chap. ix. 22), is that "apart from
shedding of blood there is no remission." The
priestly function, therefore, lies at the foundation of
the prophetic, and conditions it.
Definitio7i not to he determined hy 7nere Etymology.
It is not therefore by mere etymology the functions
of the priest, as distinguished from those of the
prophet, are to be discovered. What though the
Kohen of the Hebrew were not only of kindred but
of identical meaning with the Kdhin of the Arabic,
and that the latter meant a soothsayer and not a
priest ? Would it follow from this, that when these
terms became the vehicle for the communication of
a divine revelation, they retained, unmitigated and
DEFINITION BY ETYMOLOGY. 259
unmodified, their heathenish import ? To take this
ground were to inaugurate a new era in Biblical
criticism, and to sacrifice to the merciless Molech of
a rationalistic theory some of the most unchallengeable
facts in the history of classic literature. While the
radical meaning of a word makes itself felt throughout
the various meanings it assumes in the course of its
history, it is scarcely necessary to remark that the
naked root import of a word is largely overborne and
lost sight of in the wear and tear of social change
and human progress. Especially true is this when a
language employed by heathen is made the vehicle
for the communication of a divine revelation. The
transfusion of such ideas into any such language
renders a new lexicon of that language an absolute
necessity. For example, when the Septuagint trans-
lators proceeded to transfuse into the language of the
Greeks the religious conceptions of the Jews, as given
in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, they had no
alternative but to select such religious terms as were
in use among the Greeks, limiting and explaining such
terms by other terms so as to prevent misapprehension.
This, of course, is a matter of necessity in all such
cases. It is just what our missionaries to the heathen
are compelled to do, when they endeavour to com-
municate the truths of Christianity through the
medium of languages which have never before been
made the vehicle of such ideas. They seize upon
such terms as the heathen employ to express their
ideas in regard to religious subjects, and so expand, or
260 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
limit and modify them as to express the truths of the
gospel. This fact determines the rule of interpreta-
tion in all such cases, whether the new vehicle be the
language of Natal or of Greece, of TJr of the Chaldees
or of the sons of Araby. The old term, consecrated
to the new service, is never to be interpreted
exclusively by the meaning attached to it prior to its
consecration. In a word, a purely classical lexicon of
any language, prior to its impregnation with the truths
of the Old Testament or the New, however valuable it
may be as an aid, can never serve as the sole standard
of interpretation after that language has been leavened
with these new ideas.
Special Illustration from the Practice of our Missionaries
in India.
The bearing of these facts upon a large portion of
this book is obvious. If these facts be unchallengeable,
as they are beyond all doubt, then it must follow that
it is not by an exclusive reference to the root of
KShen, or of any other term, that we are to ascertain
its actual historical import. It is not by referring to
the roots of the Gujarati terms for the Supreme Being,
Ishwar, Parameshwar, Prdbhu, or of the corresponding
Hindustani and Persian term KJiuda, or to the root of
the terms D6v, D4vi, employed to designate an object
of worship, that we are to learn what meaning these
termis have as used by our missionaries as vehicles of
Christian thought. These terms in the mouth of an
RELATION OF PRIESTLY FUNCTION TO PROPHETIC. 261
unevangelized native have a very different meaning
from what they have as employed by a native who
has learned to associate with them what the sacred
Scriptures reveal concerning the attributes, pre-
rogatives, and relations of the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The missionaries have set these
terms in a context which renders it impossible to
attach to them those degrading conceptions with
which they were wont to be associated in the heathen
mind. And so it is with the Hebrew term Kolun ;
it is not by referring to its root, or to the import of
the cognate Arabic term Kdhin, that we are to find
out the idea it was employed by the great lawgiver of
Israel, or the sacred penmen, to convey. They have
placed it in such an environment as to render its
meaning, irrespective of its etymology, clear and
unmistakeable. In its technical sense, it is always
used to designate one who offers on behalf of men
" both gifts and sacrifices for sins."
The Nature of the Priestly Function determines its
Relation to the Prophetic.
Such is the strictly technical sense of the term Kohen,
and this fact must, to the minds of all men acquainted
with the relations subsisting between men in their
fallen, sinful, guilty estate, and a holy, righteous God,
determine the relation which the priestly office
sustains to the prophetic. If it be the great function
of a priest to make atonement for sin, and if there
262 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
stand between God and men such an obstacle to
intercourse as the guilt of sin implies, then before the
prophet can bear a message of peace, the channel of
communication, closed up by sin, must be reopened
by an act of expiation, which pertains to the office of
the priest alone. And if such be the natural estate
of man, and such his relations Godward, it would
follow that, whether the oracular function were
exercised by the priest himself, or by the prophet,
it must always have been a subordinate function to
that of expiation. It is very likely that it was owing
to this dependence of the prophetic upon the piacular
function that the heathen sought to ascertain the
mind of their gods by the inspection of the entrails
of animals. But however this may be, the Scriptures
plainly teach that the priestly is the primary,
fundamental function, and that on it the prophetic
as well as the kingly rests. Our author may say, as
he does (p. 285), that prophecy can in no sense be
viewed as a spiritual commentary upon the Levitical
ordinances, and may further represent the priestly and
the prophetic functions as not even mutually supple-
mentary ; but the Scriptures give a very different
account of the relation subsisting among these great
functions of the one great mediatorial office of our
Eedeemer, as shadowed forth under the Old Testament,
and realized and executed under the New.
Christ's functions. 263
Relation of Christ's Priestly Functions to His ProjpTietic
and Kingly Functions.
Both in the word of God and in the estimation of
God's people, the work performed by Christ as priest
underlies and sustains all He had done, does now, or
shall yet do as a prophet or king. It was on the
ground and condition that He should bear the
iniquities of His people as a priest that He was to
have the right of teaching them as a prophet, or of
exercising toward them, and on their behalf, the
prerogatives of a king. " Through His knowledge (as
a prophet) shall my righteous servant justify many;"
but He shall do so only on the condition that as a
priest "He shall bear their iniquities." As a victorious
king He was to obtain a portion with the great, and
divide the spoil with the strong ; but this spoiling of
principalities and powers is ascribed to the pouring
out of His soul unto death, His being numbered with
the transgressors, and His bearing the sins of many
(Isa. liii. 11, 12). He comes as a prophet preaching
peace both to Jews and Gentiles, to those who were
afar off, and to those who were nigh ; but He has the
right to execute this prophetic function because He
has made peace by the blood of His cross (Eph. iii.
15-18). And as He takes His mediatorial stand
upon the basis of His priestly work, so do His
servants in the execution of their prophetic functions.
They receive commission from Him as prophets,
messengers, ambassadors, but it is Christ in His
264 THE NEWER CKITICISM.
priestly office they pre-eminently proclaim. Christ
and Him crucified is the great theme of Moses and
all the prophets. " Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into His glory ? "
Relation of these Functions as foreshadowed in the
Mosaic Legislation.
Fully to elucidate this relation of the priestly to
the prophetic and the kingly offices would require a
treatise of no ordinary dimensions. It may be
sufficient to refer to the fact, very pertinent in the
present case, — a fact which must be patent to almost all
who have read the Old Testament, — that the prophetic
and kingly offices, in their leading functions, were cor-
relative to the Mosaic legislation, which centred in the
work of the Aaronic priesthood, whose work culmi-
nated in those priestly acts which characterized the
great day of atonement, when by typical sacrifices the
ceremonial guilt of Israel was expiated, and the true
Israel pointed forward to a higher priest and a
nobler sacrifice — a priest by whose mediation the guilt
arising from the transgression of the moral law should
be fully and truly expiated. In a word, the Mosaic
economy, with its sacerdotal system, as illustrated by
prophets and maintained by kings, points to the all-
important truth that the priestly office of the Messiah
is the basis of all His other mediatorial functions, as
it is the anchor of faith and the foundation of hope.
ARGUMENT FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 265
Argument from the Ex'perience of GocVs People.
In accordance with this representation is the ex-
perience of the Church of God. From the hour in
which the sinner is convinced of sin, until he is finally
delivered from it, he cleaves to Christ, especially in
His priestly character. He looks to Him as a prophet
to instruct him, and to Him as a Idng to subdue,
deliver, and defend him ; but the look of faith that
brings peace is turned on Christ as an atoning and
interceding high priest. The message which inspires
confidence, and awakens hope in the tempest-tossed
soul, is the message in which Christ is proclaimed as
the crucified. It was this that the apostles preached
— Christ and Him crucified ; and of it the Apostle
Paul affirms that it is the power of God unto salva-
tion— the power of God and the wisdom of God. On
this great truth, pre-eminently, the Church of God is
sustained here, and on it she shall ever feed. Her
Shepherd feeds her and leads her now, and will ever
feed and lead her as her prophet and king ; but in
what character soever He acts, and under whatsoever
guise He appears. He will stand forth pre-eminently
as a priest. The horns symbolical of His kingly office,
and the eyes symbolical of His qualifications for His
prophetic office, we must not forget, belong to Him as
the Lamb that was slain. It is because He was slain
that He occupies the throne, and it is for the same
reason He is entitled to receive power, and riches,
and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and
266 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
blessing, and has the right to feed His redeemed,
leading them ever to fresh fountains of the waters of
life.
Importance and Gravity of this Question.
These sayings are faithful and true, and the great
truth they inculcate is fundamental to the economy of
redemption. If, as we have now seen, the priesthood
of Christ is the fundamental function of His media-
torial office, — the function on whose exercise all other
functions depend, and to which all others are
correlative ; the function for whose illustration and
foreshadowing the Mosaic economy was instituted;
the function to which the convicted sinner and the
entire Church, both in her militant career and
triumphant estate, ever turns, — it must be a serious
matter to treat it as the author of this book has done.
If such be the relation of Christ's priesthood to the
economy of grace, there must be a grave responsibility
attaching to any man, whether he occupy the position
of a minister, or a professor, or a private member of
the Church, who gives to the public a course of lectures
professedly prepared and published in the interests of
the science of Biblical criticism, but whose chief object,
as well as entire scope, is to remove from the Old
Testament every trace of this essential priestly
function, as a function divinely authenticated prior to
the captivity of Judah in Babylon ; while, at the same
time, the author gives to a system of unauthorized
popular religion, common to the heathen as well as to
" THE NEWER CRITICISM " AND DEVELOPMENT. 267
Israel, the credit of having embodied the essential
elements of this same function, and represents God as
accepting and perfecting this offspring of the religion
of nature, as the type and pattern of an economy
which is to make known to the principalities and
powers in the heavenly places His own manifold
wisdom ! The difference between putting Christ out
of the Old Testament for over three thousand years,
and putting out of it, for the same period, the funda-
mental function of His mediatorial office, is so difficult
of estimation, that very few of God's people will
believe that there is between these two things any
difference at all. It will be difficult to bring evan-
gelical Christendom to believe that for more than
three thousand years men were saved, if they were
saved at all, on quasi Socinian principles, and that
from the time of the return from Babylon the way of
life was changed from the Socinian to the evan.cjelical.
" The Newer Criticism " and Development.
" The newer criticism," as represented by our
author, claims to hold by a scientific doctrine of
economic development ; but the science of the theory,
as it is set forth in this book, seems to be very
questionable. Scientists, even of the Darwinian
school, are wont to hold that the essential elements of
the existing organism of the present day were con-
tained in the original primordial germ, ere the process
of development began. According to this theory of
268 THE NEWER CKITICISM.
the development of the economy of redemption, how-
ever, the redemptive element, which is of the very
essence of the economy, — an element without which
there can be no remission of sin or deliverance from
its thrall and bondage, — was not to be found in it
during the first three thousand years of its history !
But the old doctrine of the economy, which our author
discards as merely a tradition, and as an unscientific
conception, claims that at every stage of its history,
from the hour of its annunciation to our first parents,
the redemptive element has had its place. We find
it in the primordial germ of the economy as given in
Gen. iii. 1 5, in the bruising of the heel of the woman's
seed as he triumphs over and crushes the head of the
adversary. We find it in the offerings of Abel, and
Noah, and Abraham ; and, in strict accordance with
the development of the redemptive purpose of Jehovah,
on the theatre of its actual enactment, we find those
essential elements, which gave character to the economy
in antediluvian and patriarchal times, gathered up and
organized in an economy, for whose exhibition in pre-
exilic times a whole nation was called into existence,
and kept and guarded by special interpositions of
Jehovah, in signs and wonders wrought in the land of
Egypt, and in the field of Zoan, and at the Eed Sea,
and in the wilderness, the whole process culminating
in their settlement in the promised land, and in the
erection of a Temple, in which the redemptive element
from day to day, and feast to feast, and year to year,
was ever kept before the covenant people by typical
"THE NEWER CRITICISM" AND DEVELOPMENT. 269
atoning victims offered by a typical priesthood. Such
is the so-called traditional theory ; and the reader is
asked to look upon this picture and then on that, and
say which of the two accounts of the history of
redemption has the higher claims to rank as scientific.
According to the theory which our author rejects, the
slain Lamb, whose blood alone can wash men from
their sins, whether in pre-exilic or post-exilic times,
appears in the typical sacrificial victims which bled
and burned before God until He Himself took up the
mighty burthen of our guilt, and blotted out the hand-
writing that was against us, nailing it to His cross.
According to the theory which he has advocated in
this book, and for which he claims scientific rank, the
Messiah, as the sinner's atoning substitute, is unre-
presented to the mind of the Church by any type or
symbol, for which divine sanction could be claimed,
for more than three thousand years ! Of such a view
of the Messiah's office, as the Saviour of men, the pre-
exilic prophets knew nothing, and of it Israel never
heard until Ezekiel, during the exile, had a vision of
the Levitical system on a mountain in the land of
Israel, or, perhaps, until Ezra brought to the children
of the captivity at Jerusalem a copy of the law of his
God ! If any one who makes this comparison of the
two sketches of the economy of grace, even on the
scofe of their respective scientific claims, decides in
favour of " the newer critical " theory, all that needs
be said is, that he must have strange notions of what
constitutes a science. The proper analogue of such
270 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
an attempt at a scientific exhibition of the economy
of redemption would be a scientific exhibition of the
solar system with the sun left out, or a sketch of the
theory of La Place with the central generative in-
candescent sphere introduced into the system after all
the planets and their satellites had been developed
and arrayed in their respective orbits. What the sun
is to our solar system, what the central incandescent
sphere is to the La Placean theory, such are the
priestly functions of Christ to the economy of re-
demption. They are indispensable to it now, and
have been essential to it throughout all the stages of
its wondrous evolution.
" The newer criticism " may call this view of the
economy of redemption a tradition ; but it is not the
less Scriptural for being traditional. There are tradi-
tions which we have apostolic authority for holding
fast ; and if there be a tradition to be held with all
tenacity, it is the tradition which makes Christ, and
Him crucified, its Alpha and its Omega. Such is the
tradition assailed in this book — assailed, it is to be
hoped, unwittingly ; but it is the tradition of apostles
and prophets, of martyrs and confessors, of the whole
brotherhood of the Preformation, and of all that is
truly evangelical in Christendom in whatsoever Church.
With this tradition, in its essential priestly element,
the mysterious drama of man's redemption opens, and
with it, as fully developed in the exaltation of the
Lamb that was slain to the throne of the Father to
preside over the fountain of the water of life, which is
"THE NEWEK CRITICISM" AND DEVELOPMENT. 271
to gladden eternally the city of God, the mystery of
the cross is finished. It is a tradition for which, on
many a moor and in many a glen, our Scottish fore-
fathers laid down their lives ; and the prayer of the
author of this present vindication is, that the sons of
these heroic sires may refuse all compromise with its
rationalistic rival, and contend for its every jot and
tittle as for the citadel of our common Christianity.
CHAPTEE XL
Strictures on the Article " Bible" in the recent edition of
the " Encyclopcedia Britannica." ^
GENEEALIZATION 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 generalization, besides being entirely too sweep-
ing, 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, assum-
ing that the religious consciousness is the source of
theology. So far is this representation from being in
harmony wdth the fact, the reverse relation is the one
taught in the Bible. Both under the Old Testament
^ Slightly altered from an article by the author of this Reply in the
British and Forehjn Evangelical Review for April 1880.
272
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 273
and the New, religion was originated and maintained
by supernatural interpositions occurring at sundry
times and in divers manners. The knowledge com-
municated 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 hear-
ing 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.
Nor was the Biblical religion left to depend upon
one impulse which operated during a period of pro-
ductivity, 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 generalization with which the
writer has opened the discussion. The Biblical reli-
gion, 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 stricture. Entering on
life in the image of God, with knowledge and holiness
supernaturally communicated, and not left to acquisi-
tion 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
s
274 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
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 main-
tained, 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.
The writer 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 generalization 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.
STEICTUEES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 275
The period assigned for the beginning of the struggle
between the spiritual principles of the religion of
revelation and polytheistic nature-worship, and un-
spiritual conceptions of Jehovah, is singularly incon-
sistent with the facts. It is alleged that the struggle
began with the foundation of the theocracy by Moses.
We are to infer, therefore, that there was no poly-
theistic nature-worship or unspiritual conceptions of
Jehovah among the covenant people prior to the
foundation of the theocracy by Moses ! This is a
very questionable position. That polytheism had pre-
vailed 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 con-
tinued to serve false deities is proved by the fact that
Eachel, 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 mono-
theistic religion.
In this same paragraph it is stated, 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
o
the lifetime of Jacob his sons were under his govern-
ment, 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
276 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
together ail 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 deliver-
ance 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 cove-
nant. 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.
The gradual development of the religious ideas of
the Old Testament is spoken of as if it were a dis-
covery 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 Testa-
ments.
Separating the sacred ordinances from the religious
idea, — a most unwarrantable procedure, — the writer
alleges that their subjection to variation was less
readily admitted. The passages cited prove, notwith-
standing, that from the very inception of 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
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE " BIBLE." 277
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 sacri-
fices 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 sacri-
fices to one centre ? Well, the argument advanced is :
that we find a practice of sacrificing in other places
sanctioned by Ex. 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 tTosiah
(2 Kings xxii., xxiii.), and it is assumed that the legis-
lation 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 hypo-
thesis 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
278 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
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
authorize 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 Deutero-
nomy, could He not, with equal consistency, after a
period of nearly forty years, and when His people were
about to enter upon Canaan, authorize 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.
It is alleged that " the legislation of the book " (found
in the Temple) " corresponds not with the old law in
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 279
Exodus, but with the Book of Deuteronomy." The
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
tind 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 bow down unto it : for I am the
Lord your God " (Lev. xxvi. 1). These prohibitions of
idolatry, both in Exodus and Leviticus, are followed by
280 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
threateuings as severe as are to be found in Deutero-
nomy. (See the reason annexed to the second com-
mandment, and the outburst of the divine vengeance
against Israel for their sin in the matter of the calf
which they importuned Aaron to make, and the whole
of Lev. xxvi., and the wrath revealed against Israel in
the matter of Baal-peor, Num. xxv.) So far, therefore,
as the questions raised by the reformation of Josiah
are concerned, there is no need for seeking a new
book diverse from Exodus, or a new law diverse from
anything found in the Pentateuch outside the Book
of Deuteronomy. All that Josiah wrought has full
warrant in and was demanded by the law as given in
the decalogue itself, and as reiterated and illustrated
by terrible judgments in Exodus, Leviticus, and
Numbers.
If, however, the position taken is that the reformation
consisted not merely in the overthrow of idolatrous
shrines and practices, but also in the abolition of other
places of sacrificing to Jehovah than the central single
one at Jerusalem, the reply is: (1) Granting this to
be true, the doctrine of "a single sanctuary" can
claim the support not only of the Book of Deuteronomy,
but of the whole tenor of the Mosaic legislation. The
doctrine is interwoven with the whole Mosaic economy.
It is inseparable from the structure of the sacerdotal
system, which restricted the priesthood to Aaron and his
sons, and their successors. The invasion of the office
by Korah and his company was visited by a fearful
manifestation of the divine displeasure, and the record
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 281
of it is found in Numbers, and not in Deuteronomy.
As there was but one priesthood, so also there was but
" a single sanctuary." Moses was not enjoined to make
several tabernacles, but one, and David did not receive
the plan of several temples, but of one. The rule from
the inauguration of the priesthood and Tabernacle in
the wilderness, throughout the history of Israel, was a
single sanctuary for all Israel. But (2) the assump-
tion that the reformation effected by Josiah had ex-
clusive or even chief reference to the erection of other
sanctuaries or places of sacrificing to the true God
cannot be granted. As already shown, the leading
characteristic of the great revival of religion by the
hand of the good king was the destruction of idolatrous
instruments and practices. According to the words of
Huldah the prophetess, the reason assigned for the
wrath of God threatened against Judah was their
forsaking of Jehovah and their burning incense unto
other gods (2 Kings xxii. 17). These words were
the keynote of both the wrath and the reformation,
and it is only incidentally that reference is made to
the characteristic which has been singled out as dis-
tinguishing the national reform.
However viewed, therefore, the generalization is
both groundless and gratuitous, and there is no need
for the assumption of a book of law so peculiar as to
demand at the hands of a Biblical critic a theory such
as is here advanced. There is no need for assuming
that Deuteronomy alone was found, for there was
nothing done that was not fully authorized in other
282 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
parts of the Pentateuch, and there is no need for the
assumption that Deuteronomy is anything else than
what its name implies — a reiteration of the law. Hence
the author of the narrative of this reformation, in wind-
ing up the history of king Josiah, sums up his character
as follows : " And like unto him was there no king
before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart,
and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to
all the law of Moses ; neither after him arose there any
like him" (2 Kings xxiii. 25). He who penned these
words took a broader view of the characteristics of
both Josiah and his reformation than the author of
the article in question has done. He represents his
standard of action as the whole law of Moses, and does
so in such connection and in such terms as to leave
no room for doubt that he attributes the thoroughness
of the reformation to the fact that the king ordered it
according to the whole law.
It is not, then, " an obvious fact," as our author
alleges, " that the law-book [the reader will mark that
'law-book' is a translation in the interest of the
theory] found at the time of Josiah contained pro-
visions which were not up to that time an acknow-
ledged part of the law of the land." Could any theory
be more absurd ? On such a theory, how account for
the wrath threatened against Judah by Huldah the
prophetess, speaking in the name of Jehovah ? What
ground could there be for wrath against a people for
not obeying a book hitherto unknown ? The wrath of
God, we are told, has its law, and is revealed against
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 283
those " who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; " but
here, if we are to credit the author, the wrath of God is
revealed against Judah for not obeying a book of which
they had never heard before ! If the provisions of the
book in question w^ere not, up to that time, a part of
the law of the land, Judah could not be held as guilty
of any sin respecting it, and the discovery of it could
jiot have awakened in the heart of Josiah such con-
viction of sin as caused him to rend his clothes. So
far is Josiah from regarding this book as containing
provisions hitherto unknown to Judah, that he recog-
nises it as containing an old law which had been
neglected ly their fathers. His words on hearing it
read are : " Great is the wrath of the Lord that is
kindled against us, because our fathers have not
hearkened unto the words of this book, to do accord-
ing unto all that which is written concerning us " (2
Kings xxii. 13). Surely such language implies the
existence of this book in the days of the fathers, and
assumes their knowledge of it, and their refusal to
obey it. The penalty dreaded by Josiah was the
penalty incurred by the sin of departed fathers, which,
according to the law, not only as given in Deuteronomy,
but in Exodus, a jealous God was about to visit upon
that generation. This reference to the fathers stamps
the book with an antiquity which negatives the theory
of its novelty, for the innovations abolished in purging
the sin of these fathers embrace idolatries dating as
far back as the days of Solomon and Jeroboam the
son of Nebat. In fact, the good king purges the land
284 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
of Judah and Israel of the symbols of idolatry intro-
duced by the kings of Israel and Judah, tliroughout
their whole history from the time of the degeneracy
of David's successor — a period of about 380 years.
'Not is it to be overlooked in this discussion, that
the law according to which the reformation was con-
ducted, as stated in the article " Bible," — the law of a
single sanctuary, — was a " positive " enactment. For
the violation of laws founded in our moral nature, or
in the nature of things, we may be justly held respon-
sible, and visited with punishment, without any revela-
tion beyond the light of nature ; but it is not so in the
case of laws founded simply on the will of God. In
such cases, those alone are responsible to whom the
divine will has been made known. Tested by this
rule, the theory is disproved, for according to it the
special sin condemned in the newly-discovered book —
the sin for which the wrath of God was kindled against
Judah — was the multiplication of sanctuaries and wor-
shipping elsewhere than at the single sanctuary. Now
the law prohibiting this was obviously a positive law.
No one could have discovered it by the light of nature,
whether internal or external. It rested simply and
solely on the divine will, and was a mere temporary
provision, to be abolished for ever on the introduction
of that coming dispensation when the true worshippers
should worship the Father neither at " Jerusalem, nor
in this mount," but anywhere in spirit and in truth.
In order that Judah should have been held responsible
for this law, it was absolutely necessary that they
STRICTUEES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 285
should have been made acquainted with it. This,
however, if we are to credit the Enmjclopcedia Bri-
tannica, was not done ; and thus we are conducted to
the fearfully immoral conclusion, that for breach of an
unknown positive enactment the descendants of the
breakers of it are constituted the objects of the great
wrath of Jehovah 1 Any theory leading to such a
conclusion is, ipso facto, condemned (Kom. v. 13).
As additional arguments in support of this theory,
there are adduced (p. 637) the refusal of Gideon
(Judg. xiii. 23) to rule over Israel, and the answer
of the Lord to Samuel (1 Sam. vii. 7), when he prayed
to Him respecting the request of Israel to have a king.
On these passages the writer remarks that, " if the law
of the kingdom in Deut. xvii. was known in the time
of the Judges, it is impossible to comprehend" these
texts. To this it were sufficient to reply, that if the law
in Deuteronomy was not in existence till, as the author
teaches, after the days of Elijah, it is impossible to
comprehend it. Let us glance at the preface to this
law of the kingdom. It is as foUows : " When thou
art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and
shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the
nations that are about me ; thou shalt in any wise set
him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall
choose" (Deut. xvii. 14, 15). Now, according to our
author, this law was issued after the days of Elijah,
and therefore issued at least 550 years after Israel
had come into the land, nearly 200 years after the
286 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
kingdom had been set up, after it had been rent
in sunder, and after the two kingdoms had been ruled
over by several kings ! If the book dates from the
days of Josiah, when it w^as discovered, these figures
must be greatly enlarged, and the theory become all
the more manifestly absurd. If it is difficult to com-
prehend Samuel's hesitation and Gideon's refusal, on
the assumption that these men knew of the existence
of the law of Deut. xvii., it is absolutely impossible to
comprehend this law viewed as an ex 'post facto enact-
ment. What could be the object of issuing a law to
regulate the election of the first king of Israel after
the days of Elijah, yea, after the kingdom of the ten
tribes had been carried into captivity ? Biblical criti-
cism does not demand from any man the sacrifice of
his common sense, and common sense pronounces such
projection of a law five or six centuries beyond the
events it was designed to regulate an utter absurdity.
Besides, if Samuel did not know of this law respecting
the rise of the king, he must have known less than
his own mother (1 Sam. ii. 10), and less than Eli
(1 Sam. ii. 35), and less than the elders who, in
their request for a king, quote the very words of
Deuteronomy (1 Sam. viii. 5).
But this theory is embarrassed with something
worse than anachronism and absurdity : it involves a
charge of gross immorality against the author of the
Book of Deuteronomy. Our author felt that it was
not unnatural to raise this objection, for on p. 638 he
anticipates it, and tries to fortify the theory against it :
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 287
" If the author/' he says, " put his work in the mouth
of Moses, instead of giving it, with Ezekiel, a directly
prophetic form, he did so, not in pious fraud, but
simply because his object was not to give a new law,
but to expound and develop Mosaic principles in
relation to new needs. And as ancient writers are
not accustomed to distinguish historical data from
historical deductions, he naturally presents his views
in dramatic form in the mouth of Moses." One, on
reading this attempt to disembarrass the theory of the
charge of immorality which it necessarily involves,
instinctively reads it over again to ascertain whether
he has not made a mistake in his interpretation of the
language which the author has here put in print.
But beyond question there it is. The defence is, that
although Moses did not use the words put into his
mouth by the author of Deuteronomy, he taught the
principles which that author has simply expounded
and developed in relation to new needs.
On this defence it may be remarked : 1. That the
slight degree of plausibility attaching to it arises from
its abstractness. It is perfectly true that any rule of
action deduced by just and necessary inference from
Mosaic principles may be represented as a part of the
Mosaic legislation. This, however, is a very different
thing from what the author of Deuteronomy has done.
He has not deduced principles from the teaching of
Moses, and put these principles in the mouth of Moses,
but he has formally given us discourses uttered by
Moses, and has told us when and where Moses uttered
288 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
tliem. The moment one passes from the abstract
defence to the concrete work for which it has been
devised, all its plausibility vanishes. The actual work
with which the theory professes to deal, and which it
pronounces a drama, professes to be a resume of the
history of Israel throughout their wanderings from
Horeb to the plains of Moab. The words recorded,
and not the mere principles of the Mosaic legislation
in their relation to new needs, the author represents
as the words spoken by Moses. He tells us when
they were spoken, for the events recorded in the third
chapter fix the time, viz. "after he had slain Sihon
the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon,
and Og the king of Bashan, which dwelt at Astaroth
in Edrei ; " and he tells us where the words were
spoken, viz. " on this side the Jordan, in the land of
Moab." The preface is manifestly historical, and it
pledges the truthfulness of the author, not for the
accuracy of historical deductions about to be drawn,
but for the accuracy of the historical representation of
words uttered and deeds performed. There is no
more reason for regarding the book thus introduced
as a post-Mosaic drama than there is for regarding
Genesis, or Exodus, or Leviticus, or Numbers, as post-
Mosaic romances. It were just as plausible to say
that the previous books of the Pentateuch were ex post
facto compositions written after the settlement in
Canaan, for the purpose of justifying the Israelites
for taking possession of other people's property, and
instituting a peculiar system of national worship. It
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 289
could be urged, as our author has pointed out, and as
has often been pointed out by others, that even in
Genesis, as in the other books, there are names of
places which were not in use till after Israel had
possessed the land. If the fact that Samuel and
Gideon and Elijah seem to have been unaware of the
existence of the law respecting the king and the
kingdom, found in Deut. xvii., necessitates the device
of a theory which transforms Deuteronomy into a legal
or ceremonial drama, and strips it of perhaps more
than eight centuries of its antiquity, surely the refer-
ence to places under names which they did not bear
till after the Israelitish occupation of the land must
necessitate, not only the transference of the com-
position of these parts of the Pentateuch to a cor-
responding date, but, for the reason assigned by our
author in the case of Deuteronomy, the transportation
of them from their traditional character of veritable
histories into historical dramas, in which we are pre-
sented with historical deductions instead of historical
facts.
2. These considerations acquire additional force in
view of the principle avowed by our author, to wit,
that " ancient writers are not accustomed to distinguish
historical data from historical deductions." If this
principle be applied to Deuteronomy, who will forbid
its application to Genesis, or Exodus, or Leviticus, or
Numbers ? May we not, indeed, regard the argument
for such application a fortiori, as these books are on
the hypothesis in question much more ancient ? In
T
290 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
his recent lectures this extension of the principle has
been formally carried out.
3. If a composition couched in historical terms, and
cast in historical form, as Deuteronomy is, without a
single hint given to put the reader on his guard, and with-
out a single expression from which one could infer that
the writer was not putting on record actual historical
occurrences, can, by the magic wand of criticism, be
converted into a delusive drama, there is not only an
end to all history, but a suicidal termination of all
criticism. On such critical principles one must be-
come not only a historical sceptic, but sceptical of all
historical criticism, and find himself unable to deter-
mine whether the critic is in earnest, or whether he
is not, as in Whately's Historical Doubts respecting
l^apoleon Bonaparte, turning a particular school of
criticism into ridicule. There is no more reason for
regarding Deuteronomy as belonging to the class of
compositions to which our author has assigned it, than
there is for assigning his article " Bible " to the class
of the witty archbishop's famous critical Jeu d' esprit. .
4. But it is surely but fair to inform us what is
meant by the expression " ancient writers." Without
some temporal hmitation, such phraseology must set our
author's disciples completely adrift. Are we to under-
stand, as he says, that it is customary with ancient
writers not to distinguish historical data from historical
deductions ? If this be the common usage — the use
and wont — of ancient writers, how are we to draw
the line between the dramatic presentation of principles
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE " BIBLE." 291
under the garb of history and actual veritable historical
compositions ? On such an hypothesis, how much of
ancient history, whether sacred or profane, will remain
history, one is at a loss to determine. If the rule laid
down by our critic be valid, it is questionable whether
we have any ancient history at all, either inside the
Bible or outside it. The critical genius that can turn
Deuteronomy into a drama, can, with equal facility,
turn any ancient composition, indeed any composition,
whether ancient or modern, into anything embraced
within the domain of literary composition.
5. Nor are we to overlook the fact that what is
said of " ancient writers " is true only of writers of the
fabulous period. Only of such writers can it be said
that they were " not accustomed to distinguish historical
data from historical deductions." Are we to under-
stand him as teaching, by this reference to the use
and wont of ancient writers, that writers such as the
author of Deuteronomy and his predecessors (for if
the expression embraces the one it must embrace the
others) belonged to the fabulous period and to the
class of fabulous writers ? If he does not mean to
place these ancient Biblical writers in this class, he
has certainly been most unhappy in the selection of
his terms ; for he assigns this custom, which belongs
to the period referred to, as a reason for stripping
Deuteronomy of its historical character. If so, then
it must follow that the author of Deuteronomy, and,
at least, all his predecessors and contemporaries, belong
to a period whose use and wont was unhistorical !
292 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
As this period embraces not only the Pentateuch, but
all the books of the Bible as far as the Books of the
Kings and the Chronicles, and probably (for he refers
Deuteronomy to the eighth and seven centuries B.C.)
the larger portions of these national records, we
have no guarantee that the first half of the Old
Testament (for fully that amount of it must, accord-
ing to our author, be assigned to this undiscriminating
period) is veritable history ! Surely a criticism
leading to such conclusions is self-condemned. It is
reckless beyond all apology. Let its verdict be
accepted, and the Scriptures are divested of all claim
to be treated as the word of God. Men will not long
regard a book as composed under the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost, which represents a man as speaking
what he never uttered, and doing so wdth every detail
of time, and place, and occasion, and this in order to
acquire for it an authority to which it is entitled only
on the assumption that these representations are true.
6. And this leads to the very obvious remark, that
from this wholesale reference to the use and wont of
ancient writers, it is natural to infer that our author
does not distinguish ancient writers into inspired and
uninspired. He who infers from the literary usage of
the age in which a book of Scripture was composed,
what the character of the composition must be, does,
iioso facto, treat the writer as an ordinary litterateur,
and overlooks the grand fact that the writers are
represented in th^ Bible itself as moved by the Holy
Ghost. However others may deal with the sacred
STRICTUKES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 293
record, no Christian critic can thus treat it. Christian
criticism can admit of no theory which classes the
sacred writers of any period with profane writers of
the same period, and treats their compositions as if
they were the products of mere uninspired genius,
determined, as to form, and style, and phrase, not by
the indwelling Spirit, but by the use and wont of the
age. The Apostle Peter places the writers of the Old
Testament beyond the pale of any such classification,
for he affirms that they " spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost," and not as they were moved by
the Zeit-Geist or spirit of the age in which they lived.
The fact that they spake in the language of their
country and age, and availed themselves of existing
modes of presentation, such as the parable and other
literary devices, as vehicles for the communication of
the truths they were commissioned to proclaim, is far
from warranting the sweeping conclusion that they
were so ruled by the literary use and wont as to con-
found historical deductions with historical data. The
principle laid down by the Apostle Peter (and it is a
principle which holds true of all " the ancient " sacred
" writers ") excludes any such conclusion. To say that
men, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, writing
seven or eight centuries after the entrance of Israel on
the land of Canaan, and after the captivity of the
kingdom of the ten tribes, drew up rules to be observed
by Israel respecting the election of a king, is nothing
short of imputing folly to the Most High. The sacred
writers are not to be so confounded with their profane
294 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
contemporaries as to ignore their relation to the Holy
Ghost, under whose all-determining agency they were
borne along and guided, and by which they needed to
be infallibly directed even to the words they employed
in communicating truths of whose signification they
themselves had very imperfect conceptions.
Besides, what evidence have we, so far as the great
body of the sacred writers are concerned, that they
were so familiar with their profane contemporaries as
to adopt them as literary models ? Christian apolo-
gists have been in the habit of saying that it was
largely the reverse — that the Gentile sages were largely
indebted to the Jews. The author is much nearer the
truth when he says that " the way in which a prophet,
like Amos, could arise untrained from among the
herdsmen of the wilderness of Judah, shows how deep
and pure a current of spiritual faith flowed among the
more thoughtful of the laity." Even here, however,
there lurks a false theory of inspiration, by which the
religious consciousness is made the source or medium
of revelation. Well, it would seem that Amos at
least was independent of the use and wont of ancient
writers outside the wilderness of Judah, for it is not
very likely that there was a circulating library embrac-
ing works of profane authors established among the
herdsmen of Tekoa. To the same effect is the sentence
which immediately follows. " Prophecy itself," says
our author, " may from one point of view be regarded
simply as the brightest efflorescence of the lay element
in the religion of Israel, the same element which in
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 295
subjective form underlies many of the Psalms, and in
a shape less highly developed tinged the whole pro-
verbial and popular literature of the nation ; for in the
Hebrew commonwealth popular literature had not yet
sunk to represent the lowest impulses of national life."
Assuming that the last remark was not intended to
apply to anything embraced within the canon of the
Old Testament, the passage may be accepted as a much
more reasonable account of the literary influences
which were ever at work on the Hebrew mind, than
that which represents the sacred writers as subject to
a certain ah extra influence, which may be designated
the use and wont of ancient writers. If it were allow-
able to assume such familiarity with the actual pro-
cedure as characterizes this article, one might say that
it was just in the way described that the Old Testa-
ment writers were raised up and endowed, so far as
their literary culture was isoncerned, for the agency
with which they were honoured as the instruments
and vehicles of the Holy Ghost. It is more than
likely that even Moses himself was more indebted to
his home training by his Hebrew mother than he was
to the culture received at the hands of the sages of
Egypt. It is eminently true of all the sacred writers
— with, perhaps, the exception of the author of the
Book of Job — that they were nursed in the lap of
Israel's piety, and nurtured on the word of Jehovah as
it existed in their day. Thus trained at home, and by
the very spirit and genius of their religion separated
from the Gentiles and their literature, they acquired
296 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the national style — a style Hebraic in every instance,
and ntterly removed from anything that can be pointed
out in the literature of any other nation under heaven,
except those nations which have become acquainted
with the sacred treasures of the chosen race. It is
therefore difficult to imagine a more thoroughly base-
less argument than that which infers the alleged
dramatic form of Deuteronomy from the literary usage
of ancient writers.
But we have now a very grave question to raise, and
one which is peculiarly grave on the writer's theory.
How came this unpublished book — for unpublished it
must have been, if we are to credit our author, — how
came this hitherto unpublished book to be in the house
of the Lord ? Is there a single instance in the pre-
vious history of the Mosaic economy of " a written
law-book," with its legal prescriptions all formally
written out, being employed as the medium for com-
municating the will of God to His people, prior to the
oral communication of its contents from time to time,
as the providence of Jehovah furnished the occasion ?
It was in this way the contents of Exodus and Levi-
ticus and Numbers were introduced to Israel. The
record containing the Mosaic legislation is so charac-
terized by this peculiarity, that it has been called a
legislative journal. The order of procedure is set forth
in the opening words of Leviticus : " And the Lord
called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the
tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the
children of Israel, and say unto them," etc. etc. Very
STRICTUEES ON THE ARTICLE " BIBLE." 297
different, however, if we are to accept the theory of
our author, was the procedure in the case before us.
Here is a book unheard of by priest or Levite, prophet,
scribe, or king, until the days of Josiah, when some
peculiar incident brings its existence to the knowledge
of Hilkiah the priest, who gives it into the hands of
Shaphan the scribe, who reads it before the king.
Neither Hilkiah, nor Shaphan, nor the king seems to
have doubted its divine origin or authority. It is at
once recognised as the law of God, and its w^ords pro-
duce in the mind of the king such a sense of Israel's
sin and danger that he rends his clothes. Why should
a book thus introduced produce such effects ? How
came it to pass that no one ever doubted its claims
to the obedience of the king and his people ? If our
author's theory be true, it was destitute of the wonted
authentication, for what he regards as its central doc-
trine was never heard of before, and yet as soon as it
is read its claims are recognised ! There is no possi-
bility of accounting for its recognition and effects
except on the assumption of its being a copy of the
law given by Moses, or perhaps the autograph itself,
which Moses after writing had commanded the Levites
to put in the side of the ark of the covenant, for a
witness against Israel (Deut. xxxi. 26). If it be asked.
How could so sacred a book as this, and one so care-
fully laid up, pass out of sight and memory ? the
answer is to be found in the same chapter in which
the account of the discovery of it is found. The cor-
ruptions of which Josiah had purged Judah and Jeru-
298 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
salem could never have been introduced had not the
book of the law been neglected and cast aside. If
Judah and her priests could permit the house of the
Lord to become a partial ruin, if they could introduce
idolatry, not only into the high places, but into the
very precincts of the temple itself, it is not to be
wondered at that they permitted the sacred book of
the law to share in the o-eneral neglect, and to be
hidden among the rubbish until it was unearthed by
the workmen who repaired the breaches of the house.
Why, the marvel is that any one acquainted with the
narrative of the universal decay of religion, and
cognizant of the desecration of the temple, and the
state of dilapidation to which it had been reduced,
should think any theory necessary to account for the
effects produced by the discovery of the book, much
less the extraordinary theory that the book could not
have been the Book of Exodus, as its characteristic
laws are not found therein ! The state of religion and
of the house accounts for the loss of the law of Moses
laid up there, and the revival of religion and the repair
of the house account for the finding of it ; and there
is no need for the hypothesis of a hitherto unknown
book, which, if brought in at all, must have been
introduced surreptitiously. His critical canon, that
the non-observance of a law implies its non-existence,
is the sprite which has allured our author into all this
critical blundering.
Passing to the general question respecting the date
and authorship of the Pentateuch and the earlier
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE ''BIBLE." 299
prophetical books, we find the old objections, raised
by Spinoza and others his successors, urged once
more by our author. The facts enumerated are, the
fact that "the limits of the individual books are
certainly not the limits of authorship;" the fact
"that the Pentateuch as a law-book is complete
without Joshua, but as a history is so planned that
the latter book is its necessary complement ; " the fact
"that the Pentateuch uses geographical names which
were not known till after the occupation ; " the fact
that in one place it even " presupposes the existence
of a kingship in Israel ; " the fact that " the last
chapters of Judges cannot be separated from the Book
of Samuel, and the earlier chapters of Kings are
obviously one with the foregoing narrative." " Such
phenomena," it is alleged, "not only prove the utter
futility of any attempt to base a theory of authorship
on the present division into books, but suggest that
the history as we have it is not one carried on from
age to age by successive additions, but a fusion of
several narratives, which partly covered the same
ground, and were combined into unity by an editor " !
In reply to these old objections, it were sufficient to
copy out of Home's Introduction the conclusive
answers so well summarised by that able apologist
more than forty years ago. The resurrection of them
in the present day, however, may serve as a partial
apology for a fresh examination of their claims.
And first of all, it may be asked, " On what
authority is it assumed that the traditional theory of
300 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
Biblical authorship is based upon the present division
into books ? " The contrary is the fact. The theory
was the cause of the division, and not the division the
cause of the theory. It was owing to the fact that
both Jews and Gentiles, friends and foes, regarded
Moses as the author of the Pentateuch that it has been
regarded as a distinct book, the work of one author.
In the next place, it may be asked, " What is there
in the systematic and orderly consecution of the books
in question to necessitate the theory of one editor to
combine them into unity ? " Suppose it to be true
that God had a plan of redemption, and that the
history of His people was intended and designed,
before its actual enactment on the stage of time, to be
a systematic unfolding of that plan — suppose this to
be the fact, would it not follow that the incidents,
when placed on record, would fall iu as consecutive,
orderly arranged parts of the one plan devised and
administered by the One Mind ? And, on the other
hand, to take the instance mentioned, would it not
awaken suspicion, and lead us to conclude that the
history could not be a history of the administration
of such a plan, if it were found that Joshua was not
" the necessary complement of the Pentateuch " ?
And would not this fact preclude the possibility of
interjecting Deuteronomy after the history of the
kingdom of the ten tribes, or at any point later
than the death of Moses, and prior to the history of
Israel under Joshua ? Our author not only admits
the existence of such a plan, but argues from it, and
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 301
claims for Biblical criticism the discovery of its
development. Granting, which we do not, that this
discovery was never made till the Deborah of
criticism arose in Israel, and holding, as we do, that
the plan is developed in the history of the chosen
race, does it not inevitably follow that the historical
facts recorded do, by their character as a revelation,
and the progressive development of this plan,
determine their own position in the inspired nar-
rative ? In a word, does not the development theory
held, as we have already seen, throughout the history
of the Church, forbid the resurrection of Moses from
his undiscovered tomb in the land of Moab, to
deliver his farewell address to an Israel which must
have been raised from the dead to hear it, 250
years after Elijah himself had gone to heaven, and
100 years after Israel had ceased to exist as a nation ?
Whensoever Deuteronomy was written, there is no
place for it but that given it by both Jew and
Gentile. ISTo where else can it be placed without
marring the history of the development of the
economy of redemption. And if this be the only
place, the time is ipso facto determined, for it were
truly preposterous to suppose that, after the economy
had been developed to the point reached in the days
of the kingdom of Judah, an inspired writer should
write a book of wliich Joshua is the necessary com-
plement. Let any one make the experiment suggested
by the theory, and transfer Deuteronomy to the position
assigned to it by this novel criticism, and if we have
302 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
not overrated his claims to intellisjence, he will feel
shocked at the work of his own hands. Indeed, the
principle of development itself furnishes a safe guide
in all questions pertaining to the time and place of
any part of the revelation. If, despite the lapses of
the chosen seed, there is no lapse or retrogression
in the revelation of which they were the ordained
channel, if their very sins become the occasion for
fresh disclosure of the plan, and its iniinite resources
of pardoning grace, we have in this fact a rule to
which our Biblical critics would do well to take heed.
If this be a law of the economy, then the books
naturally arrange themselves along the pathway of the
divine Logos, as He has unfolded, in His sovereign
wisdom, the mystery which, from the beginning of the
world, was hid in God. On this principle it would
be just as preposterous to place Deuteronomy after
Joshua, or after Judges, or after Samuel, or the Kings',
as it would be to transfer Joshua to any of these
places.
'Nov are we to lose sight of the confession made by
the author, to wit, that " a good deal may be said in
favour of the view that the Deuteronomic style, which
is very capable of imitation, was adopted by writers of
different periods." This is a considerable abatement of
the pretensions of Biblical criticism as an instrument
by which the age of a given composition may be
determined. If the style of a book may be imitated,
and that " by writers of different periods," may not
" a good deal be said in favour of the view " that the
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE ''BIBLE." 303
style of a book is not an absolute criterion of its
authorship, and that genuine criticism implies much
more on the part of a critic than a knowledge of the
language in which the book has been written, or of
the literature in which that language has been
developed ? In saying this, there is no intention to
disparage such acquirements. On the contrary, it is
held that they are among the most important of the
many qualifications which the high functions of
criticism demand. All that is here contended for is,
that, on the author's own confession, a Biblical critic
cannot determine the time or canonical place of a
book by virtue of his linguistic or literary lore. In
addition to all this, it is indispensable that the critic
have a thorough acquaintance with the structure of
the economy whose closely correlated provisions have
been revealed through the agency of the sacred
penmen, whose writings furnish, not merely gram-
matical exercises, but theological problems, which are
immensely the profoundest with which the human
mind has to deal. As already seen, the economy
admits of no retrogression, and therefore, in this the
norm of its evolution, furnishes one of the most
reliable of all criteria for the determination of the
times and canonical loci of the accumulating increments
of a predetermined revelation.
But whilst the ordinary apparatus criticus furnishes,
and can furnish, no safeguard against literary imposture,
and is confessedly incompetent to detect an existing
literary fraud, there are in the character of the
304 THE XEWER CRITICISM.
economy and its author the highest of all guarantees
against any such procedure. " Let God be true, but
every man a liar." No man, whether learned or
unlearned, can, without incurring great guilt, attempt
to make the truth of God abound through his lie.
And certainly no man, speaking by the Spirit of God,
would put into the mouth of a well-known historical
character words never uttered by him, and this, too,
in constructing a book of law, whose whole drift and
tenor render it altogether impossible to regard it in
any other light than that of a veritable historical
sketch, with additional legal enactments or expositions,
suggested by experience, or demanded by the approach-
ing demise of the legislator, and the settlement of those
he had been appointed to lead in the inheritance
promised to their fathers.
On p. 638 the author neutralizes, to a very large
extent, all that he had previously advanced in support
of the late date of the composition of Deuteronomy: —
"The Levitical laws/' he says, "give a graduated hierarchy
of priests and Levites ; Deuteronomy regards aU Levites as
at least possible priests. Round this difference, and points
alHed to it, the whole discussion turns. We know, mainly
from Ezek. xliv., that before the exile the strict hierarchical
law was not in force, apparently had never been in force.
But can we suppose that the very idea of such a hierarchy
is the latest point of liturgical development? If so, the
Levitical element is the latest thing in the Pentateuch, or,
in truth, in the historical series to which the Pentateuch
belongs ; or, on the opposite view, the hierarchic theory
existed as a legal programme long before the exile, though
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE.*' 305
it was fully carried out only after Ezra. As all the more
elaborate symbolic observances of the law are bound up
with the hierarchical ordinances, the solution of this
problem has issues of the greatest importance for the
theology, as well as for the literary history, of the Old
Testament."
On reading this passage it is difficult to resist the
conclusion that the writer has taken alarm at his
former critical deliverances, and is here endeavouring
to tone them down by pointing out the weakness of
the grounds on which they mainly rest, and the lack
of unanimity among the critics regarding the date of
the Pentateuch — the question on which he has already
delivered a final authoritative judgment. If the ques-
tion be as here stated, and if, in the determination of
it, we are dependent " mainly " on Ezek. xliv., which
teaches that " before the exile the strict hierarchical
law was not in force, and apparently had never been
in force," it is no wonder his confidence should give
signs of abatement. Leaving the contending critics to
counterbalance one another, is there any one who has
any regard for his reputation as a reader of the Bible,
who will venture to base any theory in regard to
'' liturgical development," before the exile or after it,
upon Ezekiel's vision of the Temple and its priesthood ?
Erom that vision it is impossible to find out what the
liturgical law was either before the exile or after the
restoration. The house seen by Ezekiel, and the
priesthood which was to take part in its services, have
never had, and were never intended to have, a literal
realization. Whilst the vision was vouchsafed in order
u
306 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
to cheer the hearts of his fellow-exiles, by the assur-
ance of the restoration of the Temple, and city, and
land, its chief object was to foreshadow the spiritual
temple, by which all local centres of worship were to
be superseded, and a dispensation under which the
waters of the sanctuary were to flow forth to regenerate
and fertilize the moral wastes outside the bounds of
the land of Israel. If the vision is to be taken
literally — and it is only on the assumption that it is
to be so taken that it can serve the end to which the
author has turned it, — if it is to be taken literally,
there is no possibility of stopping short of the con-
clusion reached by the advanced premillennial school,
who, on the ground that it has never been fulfilled,
look for the restoration of the Jews to the land of
Palestine, the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and
the Temple, the restoration of the priesthood, and the
reinauguration of animal sacrifices — who, in fact,
make Christianity a sort of interlude in the Mosaic
economy. It is difficult to see how any one can seek
for the law of liturgical development in this marvellous
vision, and stop short of the singular theory which
looks forward to a time when the waters which Ezekiel
saw issuing from under the threshold of the house
shall burst forth in reality, and continue to flow as a
symbol of the Holy Ghost !
Equally manifest must it be that no theory in
regard to the relative positions of Leviticus and
Deuteronomy in the sacred canon can be based upon
the alleged diversity of their laws respecting the
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 307
position of the Levites. The facts alleged may be
accepted, while the theory may be rejected. The
Levites may be regarded as excluded from the priest-
hood by the law as given in Leviticus, and as possible
priests according to the Deuteronomic legislation, and
yet our views as to which of these books should have
the precedence remain unaffected, and the question
be undetermined. In order that the alleged diversity
of legislation should have any weight in the deter-
mination of the question of chronological precedence,
it is necessary to assume that a graduated hierarchy
bespeaks an earlier or a later stage in the process of
liturgical development.
But are we in a position to say which of these
assumptions is true ? Might not a good deal be said
in favour of the view that the law of Deuteronomy
on this point, which, it is alleged, regards all Levites
" as possible priests," denotes an earlier stage ? This
much might be advanced with considerable force in
its favour, viz. that a law limiting the priesthood
to a tribe would naturally precede a law limiting
it to a family. Prior to the Mosaic economy, and
during an unquestionably earlier stage, there were
no tribal distinctions in regard to the priestly office.
All the tribes and all the families of Israel exercised
the functions of the priesthood. Now, it would
surely seem more reasonable, if we are to make
assumptions at all, to assume that the first limitation
in a process of development would be from the
nation to a tribe, rather than from the nation to
308 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
one of the families of a single tribe. As the goal
of the economy was the typifying of the one priest-
hood as held by the one Priest, would it not seem as
if the first step towards the attainment of it should
be less definite than the subsequent ones, and that
the graduated hierarchy, of which the Aaronic priest-
hood is the crown and consummation, should mark the
close of the whole typical evolution ? And, on the
other hand, might it not be urged with equal force, in
favour of the view that the law of Leviticus indicates
an earlier stage, that in an economy which was not
only to prefigure the Christian dispensation, but give
way to it, and wax old and give signs of vanishing
away, it might be expected that all along the track of
its administration there would be introduced changes
premonitory of a final dissolution ? On general
principles, therefore, it is very questionable whether
any rule can be arrived at by which a critic may
determine what is or what is not an earlier or a later
stage in this 'particular element of the liturgical
development. This much, at least, may be assumed,
that this point, around which the author alleges " the
whole discussion turns," is one on which there is no
warrant for critical dogmatism, and one which can
give no key for the solution of questions of priority
between the sacred books.
Under the head of "Fusion of Several Elements
into One Narrative," the writer gives us his views
respecting the composition of the sacred books — if
anything composed in the way alleged deserves to
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 309
be styled sacred. The substance of the whole matter
is this : —
" The Semitic genius does not at all lie in the direction
of organic structure. In architecture, in poetry, in history,
the Hebrew adds part to part instead of developing a single
notion. The temple was an aggregation of small cells, the
longest Psalm is an acrostic, and so the longest Biblical
history is a stratification and not an organism. This pro-
cess was facilitated by the habit of anonymous writing, and
the accompanying lack of all notion of anything like copy-
right. If a man copied a book, it was his to add and
modify as he pleased, and he was not in the least bound to
distinguish the old from the new. If he had two books
before him to which he attached equal worth, he took large
extracts from both, and harmonized them by such additions
or modifications as he felt to be necessary. But in default
of a keen sense for organic unity, very little harmony was
sought in points of internal structure, though great skill
was often shown, as in the Book of Genesis, in throwing
the whole material into a balanced scheme of external
arrangement. On such principles minor narratives were
fused together one after the other, and at length in exile
a final redactor completed the great work, on the first part
of which Ezra based his reformation, while the latter part
was thrown into the second canon. The curious com-
bination of the functions of copyist and author, which is
here presupposed, did not wholly disappear till a pretty
late date ; and where, as in the Books of Samuel, we have
two recensions of the text, one in the Hebrew and one in
the Septuagint translation, the discrepancies are of such a
kind that criticism of the text and analysis of its sources
are separated by a scarcely perceptible line.*'
Here, then, is our author's account of the way in
which those books which Christians have been wont
310 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
to style the word of God have come into existence !
In the first place, it is laid down as an unquestion-
able axiom, that the sacred writers had no genius for
anything bat literary patchwork. In proof of this
assertion reference is made to the architecture of the
Temple, to the acrostic structure of the 119tli Psalm,
and to the longest Biblical history ! From the first of
these references we are, of course, to infer that the
architecture of the Temple was simply the offspring
of Semitic genius. The Bible itself gives a somewhat
different account of the authorship of the temple
architecture. If we are to credit the book itself, God
Himself was the architect of both the Tabernacle and
the Temple. It was not left either to Moses or to
David, as representatives of Semitic genius, to deter-
mine what the fashion of the dwelling-place of Jehovah
should be. The great symbol and type of Messiah's
body, personal and mystical, was far too important a
matter to be marred by the untowardness of any order
or class of human genius, whether of the Gentile or
the Jew. Speaking on this point, David says : " AU
this the Lord made me understand in luriting by his
hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern"
(1 Chron. xxviii. 19). The Chronicles will not be
accepted as authentic history by " the newer criticism,"
but we have the authority of the Epistle to the
Hebrews (chap. ix. 8) for regarding the Tabernacle,
which was the Temple in miniature, as designed by
the Holy Ghost. The charge therefore of incapacity to
develop a single notion, or to achieve an organic struc-
STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLE " BIBLE." 311
ture, if it lie at all against any one concerned in the
authorship of the Temple, must lie against God Himself.
Equally irreverent and inconclusive is the second
reference. It is not true that because the 119th
Psalm is an acrostic its structure is not organic. It
is not an impossible achievement to write an acrostic
in which " a single notion " is developed. And cer-
tainly it is one of the slenderest and most partial of
inductions, to infer what Semitic genius could achieve
in poetry from the fact that the 119th Psalm is an
acrostic.
What our author means when he says that " the
longest Biblical history is a stratification and not an
organism," we do not clearly comprehend; for the dis-
tinction between " stratification " and " organism," in
such connection, is not very transparent. But taking
his own account of the distinction, to wdt, that in
stratification " part is added to part," while in organi-
zation " a simple notion is developed," there is no
ground for the assumption that the one is exclusive of
the other. There is such a thing as organization by
stratification, and that too as a mode of development.
Teleologists have been in the habit of arguing that our
earth is an organized whole, and have cited in support
of their position the correlated strata composing its
crust. These strata are not haphazard deposits, but,
on the contrary, reveal in their mutual relations, and
in their common subordination to the wants and pur-
poses of man, the presence and control of an infinitely
wise and beneficent Mind.
312 THE NEWER CEITICISM.
In like manner, we are told by physiologists and
biologists that whilst the architecture of the body is
of the cellular order, it is none the less an organism.
Whilst "part has been added to part," as if outlined
by some '' Semitic genius," there is nevertheless a
common consciousness in this wonderful " aggregation
of small cells," which bespeaks an organic unity and
demonstrates " the development of a single notion."
And surely it is not necessary to refer to the flora of
our world to confirm the position that stratification is
not the antithesis of organic structure. What are the
rings disclosed when a tree of the forest is felled, but
so many elements of a stratification which is con-
fessedly organic ? In a word, it is not " the adding
of part to part " that determines the character of the
resultant aggregate, but the presence or the absence of
a determining purpose to the achievement of which
the parts are made, or are not made, to contribute.
Wherever parts are so added to parts as to contribute
to the attainment of an end, we pronounce the arrange-
ment an organization. This judgment we pronounce
instinctively, whether the parts be the cells of the
human body, or the rooms of a house, or the rings of
a tree, or the companies, or regiments, or columns, of
an army moved on the battlefield by the commander-
in-chief, or the paragraphs, or chapters, or " books," of
a work.
But not only is the distinction groundless, it is
peculiarly inapplicable to the actual products of
" Semitic genius " given us in the Bible. Christian
STRICTUKES ON THE ARTICLE "BIBLE." 313
apologists have been wont to argue the divine authen-
ticity of the Bible from its organic unity. Of course,
if it be a stratification, as the writer would have us
believe, and if, as he tells us, stratification is the very
antithesis of organic structure, the doctrine of organic
unity, and with it this apologetic position, must be
given up. Besides, Biblical criticism itself must lose
one of the tests by which it judges of the claim of any
of the sacred books to a place in the sacred canon.
If, as critics say, in addition to all other proofs, " the
organic function " of a book must be taken into account,
that is, the manifested fitness of the book to fill its
place as a part of one organism, it must be clear that
no book of the Bible could, on the principle of our
author, stand the trial. If the author were within
reach he would foreclose the inquisition, and dismiss
the inquisitors, teUing them that no men of intelli-
gence would sit down to test the fitness of a stratum,
or any number of strata combined, to perform organic
functions, as the ideas of stratification and organization
were mutually exclusive.
It is true " the Semitic genius " sometimes all but
shook itself loose from the trammels of stratification,
and somehow or other managed, as in the Book of
Genesis, " to throw the material into a balanced scheme
of external arrangement ; " but, of course, a balanced
scheme of external arrangement is not an organic struc-
ture ; at least a writer, by using this nicely-balanced
phrase, can, for the moment, avoid the appearance of
self-contradiction, while, at the same time, he admits a
314 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
fact subversive of his theory. As a matter of fact,
the Book of Genesis reveals a " scheme " balanced both
externally and internally. It contains a brief but
most comprehensive history of the development of the
protevangelion as displayed in the conflicts of the two
seeds — the seed of the woman and the seed of the
serpent — for a period of more than two thousand
years. Our author may, if it please him, deny that
the development of the first promise is "the develop-
ment of a single notion," but most people will regard
the denial as an additional illustration of the way in
which a pet theory may blind the intellect and warp
the judgment. What our author styles " a balanced
scheme of external arrangement," is a living organiza-
tion— an organization of living men brought into
existence in order that through them the promise of
the Messiah might be developed towards its fulfilment.
To speak of the history of this organization as if it con-
sisted of a congeries of incongruous elements, brought
into a sort of external harmony by some ex post facto
copyist, or final redactor, who, from the untowardness
of the materials, felt it necessary " to add and modify,"
and not to be too precise about distinguishing the old
from the new, is as unfair and as unphilosophical as
it is irreverent. Of " the curious combination of the
functions of copyist and author which is here ^:>?'e-
supposed,'' and which, we are told, " did not wholly
disappear till a pretty late date," it is difficult to speak
with calmness, or to think without feelings bordering
on indignation. Here is a young man talking about
CONCLUSION. 315
the way in which one of the most ancient of books was
composed, with as much confidence as if he had lived
throughout the 1500 years occupied in the writing of
it, and had looked over the shoulders of the writers
as from age to age they plied their marvellous task ;
and when he has told us just how the work was
done, turns round and tells us that he was merely
presupposing it had been composed in this way !
Presupposing ! and presupposing all this about the
genesis of the word of God, that cannot be broken,
and which abideth for ever ! Let rationalistic, destruc-
tive critics utter and give currency to such hypotheses
regarding the origin of our Bible, but, " 0 my soul,
come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly,
mine honour, be not thou united."
Conclusion.
Notwithstanding the extravagant claims put forth
on behalf of the scholarship of " the newer criticism,"
the fact is, it has failed in its assault upon the tradi-
tional theory of the gospel of pre-exilic times. When
it has done its worst, the remnant record, on which it
has not as yet ventured to lay its hand, rises up to
witness against it, and presents each of the cherished
doctrines of the analogy of the faith, against which it
has directed its attacks, in its immemorial historical
position. Despite its irreverent, ruthless attempts,
the citadel of Truth stands secure, presenting on its
foundation, and on every course of its superstructure,
316 THE NEWER CRITICISM.
the hope - inspiring inscription, " Christ and Him
crucified." This inscription, and the stones which
bear it, " the newer criticism " has tried to efface,
or remove, from all that part of the building which
precedes the Babylonish exile, but, like the name of
the sculptor inwrought in the shield of Minerva, it
resists deletion so long as any part of the structure
remains. When the analytic instruments of Noldeke
are laid down, and the battering-rams of Kuenen and
Wellhausen are withdrawn, the inscription, to apviov
icrcpajiJievou cltto Kara^oXrj^ Koaiiov, — the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world, — still abides, irradi-
ating the building from basement to battlement, and
assuring its inmates that the fortress in which they
have taken refuge is impregnable.
INDEX
Aaron and his sons ; their con-
secration historical, 231-233 ;
history of, endorsed in New
Testament, 247-249.
Abel's offering commanded of
God, 122, 123.
Achilles prays without sacrifice,
189.
Agamemnon, 187.
Ahaz, 16, 17.
Altar of the God of Israel, 9 ;
Damascene, 16.
Ancient writers ; comprehension
of term, 290-293.
Annals of the kings of Israel and
Judah, 2.
Apollo, 187, 188.
Ark ; reason of its sacredness,
208-210 ; ceremonies connected
with, unsanctioned until it was
lost, 222, 223 ; references to, in
Epistle to Hebrews, 223 ; neces-
sary from time the law was
given, 224 ; special difficulties
owing to loss of, in the exile,
227-229.
Artaxerxes ; his decree, 8.
Article " Bible," 272-314.
Asham, 18, 19.
Ashtaroth, 33, 38.
Atonement ; ignorance of, in pre-
exilic times, 76 ; difficulties of
this theory, 76-79.
Atreus, 187.
Azariah, argument from his re-
buke, 28.
Babylon, 3.
Balaam, 273.
Bridge ; how the critical, was
built, 4, 5 ; Deuteronomic and
Esdrine arches do not furnish
a complete bridge, 154-156.
Captivity ; children of, 10.
Carmel ; Elijah's sacrifice on, 26,
27.
Chataoth, 18.
Chronological difficulty, 3, 4.
Chryses, the priest's prayer to
Apollo, 187, 188.
Confession of Faith ; author's
doctrine contrary to, 91, 93, 167.
Covenant of Sinai reduced to a
covenant of works, 125-130.
Darius, 8.
Deuteronomic theory ; difficulties
in the way of, 41-44, 67 ; solu-
tion unsatisfactory, 68 - 70 ;
code pronounced unsacrificial,
70, 71 ; Deuteronomy not pro-
perly delineated by the author,
318
INDEX.
71 ; style easily imitated, 302,
303 ; argument for late date
from change of laws, 306-308.
Development ; theory of, demands
what author cannot admit, 164,
165; "the newer criticism"
and, 267-271 ; not a discovery
of "the newer criticism," 276 ;
Deuteronomy not the sole stan-
dard of Josiah's reformation,
278-298 ; consequences of dat-
ing Deuteronomy from a post-
Mosaic period, 287-298 ; how
came this book to be accepted ?
302, 303.
Discrepancy, alleged, 240 ; ex-
amined, 242-244 ; assumption
necessary to make out charge
of, 244-246 ; alleged, between
Exodus and Deuteronomy,
278-282.
Egypt, 3.
Elijah, argument from his sacri-
fice on Carmel, 26, 27.
Exodus, had the writer of, common
sense ? 235, 236.
Ezekiel and Jeremiah brought
into conflict, 50 - 52 ; Ezek.
xliv. main reliance for argu-
ment in support of late date of
Pentateuch, 304-306.
Ezekielian hypothesis of the origin
of Levitical Torah, 13 seq.,
44 - 46 ; Ezekiel's new ordi-
nances, 46-48 seq.
Ezra, his law and the Pentateuch,
6-13 ; knowledge of its con-
tents before Ezra's visit to
Jerusalem, 7 seq.
Forgiveness of sin, author's
theory of, in pre- exilic times,
134-142.
Fraud ; charge of, 166, 226, 227,
286-293.
Generalization, author's faculty
of, 103 - 105 ; adverse, 174,
175; from imperfect data, 111,
Gideon, his refusal to rule over
Israel, 285, 286.
God's attitude toward sacrifice,
112, 113.
Grace ; author's theory of, in
pre-exilic times, determines the
date of the Pentateuch, 144-
1 46 ; contradicts the Confession
of Faith, 146-150.
Heathen ; views of ancient, on
prayer, 186-189.
Hebrew ; sacred writers Hebra-
istic, 294, 295.
Holy Spirit ; doctrine of His rela-
tion to God's ancient people,
91- 95 ; Romish cast of doc-
trine, 94 seq.
Homer ; prayer and sacrifice in
his day, 187-189.
Home's Introduction answers
author's objections, 299.
Hypotheses respecting the origin
of sacrifice, 192-196.
Impeachment of record a failure,
246.
Index Expurgatorius ; author's,
52, 53.
Isaiah, 17 ; his denunciation of
sacrifice, etc., explained, 81-88.
Jasher, Book of, 2.
Jehoash, 20.
Jehovah ; theory charges Him
with changeableness, 189-191.
Jeremiah's restoration implies a
priestly Torah, 65, QQ.
Jeroboam ; argument from the sin
of, 25, 26.
Jeshua, 9.
Jonah ; argument from book of,
184, 185.
INDEX.
319
Josephus, 2.
Josiah ; argument from his refor-
mation, 29 seq., 34-41.
Jozadak, 9.
KUENEN, 10, 13, 315.
Lamb ; slain from the foundation
of the world, 315.
Law ; argument from distinction
between moral and positive,
32, 284 ; meaning of term law
in Eomans, 150-152 ; case-law
needs cases — precedents imply
history, 232-234.
Levites, 7.
Literature, Old Testament, 2, 3 ;
New Testament, 2.
Maimonides, 13.
Massorets ; their competency,
110-112.
Mediation, still found in record,
however reduced, 216-218.
Minchah, 24, 25.
Minerva, 315.
Moabite stone, 3.
Moral law ; anti-economic separa-
tion of, from ceremonial, 202,
203 ; states condition of life under
all dispensations, 204 ; cere-
monial correlative to, 205, 206 ;
bearing of this fact on character
of Christian dispensation, 210 ;
on post-exilic theory, 214, 215.
Mosaic economy ; design of, 197-
199 ; typology of, 211, 212.
Moses, 8, 9, 12, 16 ; how known
to have been a priest, 161,
162; "the newer criticism"
must get rid of Moses as well
as of his authorship, 218, 219 ;
what he owed to his mother's
training, 295 ; according to the
author's theory, addresses an
audience in wilderness in the
days of Josiah, 301.
National unification of Israel ;
when effected, 275, 276.
Nineveh, 3.
Noah's sacrifice ; argument from,
123-125 ; Noachian revelation,
188.
Noldeke, 163.
'Olah, 24, 25.
'Olah tamid, 24.
Organization and stratification,
310-314.
Passover ; theory in conflict with,
53-55 ; places Jeremiah in con-
flict with, 55, 56 ; was passover
boiled ? 57, 58 ; symbolic im-
port of, 199, 200; sacrificial
character of, 200-202.
Pentateuch; date of Samaritan,
101-103.
Peter the Apostle and the Zeit-
Geist, 293.
Polytheism, origin of, in Israel,
274, 275.
Prayer ; author's views of, under
Old Testament, 183-191.
Priesthood, inseparable from Jere-
miah's prophecy, 64 seq. ; a
sign of God's favour, its loss a
sign of His displeasure, 62, 63 ;
inseparable from sacrifice, 249,
250 ; priestly office related to
the prophetic, 251 ; author's
views of this relation, 251-256 ;
true ideal of a priest, 257 ; not
derived from mere etymology,
258-261 ; nature of, determines
its relation to prophecy, 261-
262 ; relation of Christ's priestly
to His prophetic and kingly
functions, 263, 266.
Principles, first critical, 1 ; ap-
plicability of, 2 ; gravity of, at
stake in this discussion, 167-
170.
320
INDEX.
Prophets, pre - exilic, arrayed
against post-exilic, 80 seq.
Psalm, argument from 51st, 88,
91 ; difficulties of "the newer
criticism " remain even when
last two verses are left out,
96 seq.
Question, a crucial one for the
author, 191-193.
Eabbixs ; the Jewish, and their
learning, 4, 5.
Reformation ; argument from re-
lation of, to a Torah, 27 seq. ;
argument from Josiah's, 29 seq.
Eeligioninpre-exilic times, 71-75 ;
how related to revelation, 272,
273 ; Biblical, not left to one
impulse, 273, 274.
Romish cast of author's doctrine
of the relation of the Holy
Spirit to the Church, 93, 94.
Sacrifice ; boiling not incon-
sistent with, 58-61 ; origin of,
116-125.
Salvation ; author's theory of, in
pre-exilic times, 142, 143.
Samuel ; his hesitation to appoint
a king, 286.
Scholarship ; extravagant claim in
behalf of, 241.
Scribes, the, and the selection and
transmission of the Hebrew
text, 4-6 ; author's accusations
of, met by himself, 105-112.
Semitic genius not organic, SOS-
SI 4 ; plan of Tabernacle and
Temple not dependent on, 309,
310.
Shealtiel, 9.
Shelamim, 24, 25.
Solomon, 17 seq.
Spinoza, 13 ; author's theory
traced to, 298, 299.
Stratification not inconsistent
with organization, 310-314.
Syllogism, author's, retorted, 83,
84.
Tabernacle ; the tent pitched
by Moses (Ex, xxxiii.) not the
Tabernacle of chap, xl., 235-239.
Tekoa ; its herdsmen not ac-
quainted with the use and wont
of ancient writers outside Israel,
294.
Temple ; argument from history
of the first, 20 seq.
Text ; a vowelless, easier of trans-
mission, 106-110.
Theory, author's, unreasonable,
170-174.
Thetis, mother of Achilles, 189.
Torah ; origin of the Esdrine, 6-13 ;
deductions from the Mosaic
Torah, 151-155 ; can a cere-
monial Torah be developed from
a moral Torah ? 158-160.
Transmission of Pentateuch ; have
Scribes acted faithfully in 1
100-112.
Typology of sacrifices, how ac-
counted for, 194-196.
Urijah, 17.
Variation ; contemplated in the
Mosaic economy, 276-278.
Wars of the Lord, 2.
Wellhausen, 10, 13, 163, 315.
Whately ; his Historical Doubts,
290.
"Worship by sacrifice, uncom-
manded before the exile, 114-
116 ; uncommanded worship
unconfessional, 131-136; a
breach of the Sinaitic covenant,
132-134 ; author's theory of,
under Old Testament, 177-182.
Zerubbabel, 9.
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The work, wherever known, must be appreciated.' — Baptist Magazine.
T. anil T. Clark's PuUications.
WORKS BY DR. J. A. DORNER,
lu Three Yolumes, 8vo, price 10s. 6d. each.
{Vols. I. and II. nov: ready),
A SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
'A monument of thoughtfuluess and labour.' — Literary Clmrchman.
'Dorner's "System of Christian Doctrine" is likely to prove, when com-
pleted, his most masterly and profound work. . . . Great thanks are due
to Mr. Cave for the pains and the skill he has so conscientiouslj" expended on
this magnificent work.' — Bajjtist Magazine.
In Five Volumes, 8vo, price £2, 12s. 6d.,
HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
' So great a mass of learning and thought so ably set forth has never before
been presented to English readers, at least on this subject.' — Journal of Sacred
Literature.
In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s.,
HISTORY OF PROTESTANT THEOLOGY,
PARTICULARLY IN GERMANY,
VIEWED ACCOEDING TO ITS FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT,
AND IN CONNECTION WITH THE EELIGIOUS,
MOKAL, AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE.
With a Preface to the Translation hy the Author.
' This masterly work of Dr. Dorner, so successfully rendered into English
by the present translators, will more than sustain the reputation he has already
achieved by his exhaustive, and, as it seems to us, conclusive History of tJic
Development of Doctrine respecting the Person of Christ.''— Spectator.
T. and T. Clark's Puhlications.
Professor LUTHARDT'S WORKS.
In tlu-ee handsome crown 8vo volumes, price 6s. each.
• We do not know any volumes so suitable in these times for young
men entering on life, or, let us say, even for the library of a pastor called
to deal with such, than the three volumes of this series. We commend
the whole of them with the utmost cordial satisfaction. They are alto-
gether quite a specialty in our literature.' — Weekly Review.
Apologetic Lectures on the Funda-
mental Truths of Christianity. Fifth Edition. By C. E.
'LuTHARDT, D.D., I.eipzig.
Apologetic Lectures on the Saving
Truths of Christianity. Fourth Edition.
Apologetic Lectures on the Moral
Truths of Christianity. Third Edition.
Ill demy 8vo, price 9s.,
St. John the Author of the Fourth
Gospel. Translated and the Literature enlarged by C. R.
Gregory, Leipzig.
' A work of thoroughness and value. The translator has added a lengthy
Appendix, containing a very complete account of the literature bearing on the
controversy respecting tliis Gospel. The Indices which close the volume are
well ordered, and add greatly to its Ydlxxe.''— Guardian.
(.^rown 8vo, 5s.,
Luthardt, Kahnis, and Briickner.
The Church. : Its Origin, its History, and its Present Position.
'A comprehensive review of this sort, done by able hands, is both in-
structive and suggestive.' — Record.
T. and T. Clark's Publications.
Just published, Second Edition, demy 8vo, 10s. 6d.,
THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE;
oil,
EXPOSITION OF PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS EXHIBITING
THE TWELVE DISCIPLES OF JESUS UNDER
DISCIPLINE FOR THE APOSTLESHIP.
BY
A. B. BRUCE, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW.
' Here we have a really great book on an important, large, and attractive
subject — a book full of loving, wholesome, profound thoughts about the
fundamentals of Christian faith and practice.' — British and Foreign Evangeli-
cal Review.
' It is some five or six years since this work first made its appearance, and
now that a second edition has been called for, the author has taken the oppor-
tunity to make some alterations which are likely to render it still more accept-
able. Substantially, however, the book remains the same, and the hearty
commendation with which we noted its first issue applies to it at least as much
now.' — Rock.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Just published, in demy 8vo, Second Edition, price 10s. 6d.,
THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST,
IN ITS PHYSICAL, ETHICAL, AND OFFICIAL ASPECTS.
SIXTH SERIES OF CUNNINGHAM LECTURES.
' These lectures are able and deep-reaching to a degree not often found in
the religious literature of the day; withal, they are fresh and suggestive. . . .
The leai'ning and the deep and sweet spirituality of this discussion will com-
mend it to many faithful students of the truth as it is in Jesus.' — Conrjrega-
tionalist.
' "We have not for a long time met with a work so fresh and suggestive as
this of Professor Bruce. . . . We do not know where to look at our English
Universities for a treatise so calm, logical, and scholarly.' — English Independent
BS1160.S66W3
The newer criticism and the analogy of
Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library
1 1012 00041 1480
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