naturalism; they have often been dictated by disbelief in the possibility of miracle. Further, distrust has naturally been excited by the arrogance, the patronizing temper, the dogmatism, the overweening confidence of tone, displayed by some critics. These faults are noticed by a brilliant French writer in a noteworthy passage which many Old Testament students would endorse. Speaking specially of German criticism, M. Darmesteter says, 'It has generally been wanting in flexibility and moderation. It has insisted upon knowing everything, explaining everything, precisely determining everything. It has claimed to arrive at the primal elements of formations which have been repeatedly modified and of which we have only the remains. It has introduced into the work of reconstruction, which ought to sacrifice facts that are indifferent or devoid of historical significance, the scruples of an analytic method which has no right to ignore or neglect anything. Hence complicated and obscure theories, provided with odd corners in which all the details may be sheltered, and which leave the mind little opening or leisure to observe the tendency of facts and the general currents of history'.' Indeed, a conspicuous fault of the critical temper is its disinclination to make allowance for the immense range of our ignorance, and for the consequent difficulty of attaining completeness and precision beyond a limited sphere 2. Further, we cannot fail to notice a certain want of spiritual sympathy with the age and writers of the documents which are from time to time under discussion, yet such sympathy is absolutely necessary if we are to avoid shallowness and presumption in estimating the evidence 3. It is

1 Les Prophètes d'Israël, pp. 4, 5. The same writer speaks severely of rationalism in the sphere of criticism. Le rationalisme, cet épouvantail de l'orthodoxie, est une chose bien différente de l'esprit historique qui seul est fécond, et auquel il est peut-être plus contraire que la critique croyante.' 2 Cp. Sanday, Oracles of God, p. 74.

3 Cp. Sayce, op. cit. pp. 5, 15. Girdlestone, op. cit. pp. 195, 196, says: 'They (critics) write as if they expect everything to be brought up to the critical style of the present century, regardless alike of the age of the books,

the want of it which formerly led some critics to cast imputations on the moral probity of the Old Testament

writers.

While however we allow that there was much which seemed to justify the uncompromising hostility with which Christian men of the last generation met the advance of criticism, we must in fairness acknowledge much fault on our own side1: much slowness of heart, much want of faith and undue timidity, much unreasoning prejudice, much disproportioned and misdirected zeal, much unwillingness to take trouble, much readiness to explain away unwelcome facts, whereas explaining away is a process which has no place in historical inquiry 2.' We have failed to do justice to the laborious and patient thoroughness, the exact and profound erudition, the sagacious insight of the great scholars of Germany. We have seldom made due allowance for the immense difficulties of their selfimposed task, we have exaggerated the deficiencies of their method and the insecurity of its results 3. If however in the past suspicion and dislike have been carried too far, there are welcome indications that such a temper is gradually disappearing, and that Christians are learning to distinguish more accurately between what is essential and what is non-essential to their faith 4. And if it should be objected that we of this

of the genius of the people, and of the spiritual intent of the writers.' Cp. Robertson Smith, O. T. in J. C. p. 329.

1 For a frank admission of faults on the traditional side see Girdlestone, op. cit. p. 196.

Robertson Smith, O. T. in J. C. p. 421.

3 As Darmesteter justly remarks (Les Prophètes d'Israël, p. 232): 'Inégalités d'érudition et témérités de méthode sont le prix nécessaire dont se paye toute synthèse surtout au début de la science. Ces synthèses prématurées. . . n'en sont pas moins d'incomparables instruments de progrès,' &c.

The following passage from one of Professor Freeman's letters is interesting in this connexion :—

'It seems to me that the Old Testament history falls into the hands of two sets of people. There is one that thinks itself bound to defend everything at all hazards—or, what is worse, to put something out of their own heads instead of what is really in the book. And there is another set who take a nasty pleasure in picking every hole they can : the small German critic,

There

generation are unfaithful to the traditions of those venerated teachers in whose place we are allowed to stand, we can but reply that wisdom is justified of all her children. We whose training has been in many respects diverse from theirs, whose difficulties and responsibilities are altogether different, cannot fairly plead their example as an excuse for evading the task specially assigned to us, or for refusing to consider the claims of that which presents itself to us in the name of truth. It is not impatience, or love of novelty, or self-confidence, or a mere wish to be abreast of recent thought that has led to the changed attitude of younger men; it is the desire to follow humbly and honestly the guidance of the Spirit of Truth. comes a time when suspense of judgment, indefinitely prolonged, may become a breach of trust or at least a failure in courage. We should be untrue to the high traditions of Christian theology were we simply to reject the conclusions of criticism on the ground either that they conflict with private preconceptions, or that they occasionally emanate from quarters hostile to the Christian Faith. For while it is scarcely necessary to point out that a believer in the Incarnation will not share those antecedent objections to the supernatural, or those a priori theories in regard to the origin and growth of religious ideas, which have doubtless biassed some continental critics in their discussion of Old Testament problems, it is reassuring to remind ourselves of at least one conspicuous instance in which a great conception bearing vitally on religion reached. us from a non-Christian source, I mean the idea of evolution. Christians have welcomed that idea; it has profoundly modified and enriched our knowledge of the creative methods employed by Almighty God, and of His present relation to the universe. Yet this idea at first sight appeared to threaten cherished

or rather guesser, grown smaller and nastier because he thinks it fine. From neither of them will you ever get truth.' (Life and Letters, &c., vol. ii. p. 412.)

Christian beliefs. Accordingly we have abundant reason for anticipating that the critical sagacity which for nearly a century and a half has been devoted to the literature of the Old Testament, will in the long run enlarge our knowledge of the ways of God, and promote His glory; we may therefore appropriate all that true criticism has to teach us with the confidence and trustfulness of those who believe that All things are theirs. Since Christian faith has welcomed the theory of development in nature, it has no reason to fear an evolutionary account of Hebrew religion1.

Once more, if we are told that the time has not really arrived for a verdict on the results of the critical movement and that nothing can be more foolish and short-sighted than premature concessions, we can only be guided by the opinion of experts in regard to the actual point which Old Testament inquiries have reached. Many competent authorities think that we have now entered on the period of reconstruction 2. This does not mean that the time has arrived for pronouncing a comprehensive and final judgment on the labours of criticism. We must decline altogether to be deeply committed on critical questions; we may even hold that some points which are now confidently assumed to be settled beyond dispute are either insoluble, or still highly uncertain. But it is maintained, and as it seems to me with justice, that certain critical conclusions are practically established which, even on the lowest estimate of them, profoundly modify the traditional view of the Old Testament. Although in the matter of minor details we may regard these conclusions as tentative and provisional, we must not exaggerate the importance of such divergences of 1 Cp. Bruce, Apologetics, p. 173.

2

e.g. Prof. Sayce, The Higher Criticism, &c., p. 24. Robertson Smith, O. T. in J. C. p. 16: 'The true critic has for his business, not to destroy but to build up. The critic is an interpreter, but one who has a larger view of his task than the man of mere grammars and dictionaries—one who is not content to reproduce the words of his author, but strives to enter into sympathy with his thoughts, and to understand the thoughts as part of the life of the thinker and his time.'

opinion on minor points as may exist among critics at the present time. The question is whether there is not a solid body of ascertained facts on which they are substantially agreed1. Even if we maintain that some critical verdicts need to be revised or altogether rejected, or that the preconceptions on which they are based are arbitrary and untenable, yet the right and duty of scholars to inquire into the history of the Old Testament literature cannot be gainsaid. Erroneous criticism cannot be corrected by dogmatic theology, but only by a better, more searching, and less prejudiced criticism 2. We must be careful not to give occasion for the reproach that the maintenance of a tradition is of more consequence to us than the acceptance of the results of scientific inquiry. Attempts to dispute the importance, or minimize the significance of the higher criticism are no longer of any avail, but rather do injury to the cause of Christian truth, inasmuch as they excite the justifiable suspicion that we Churchmen have not the courage or the moral force to look facts fairly in the face. It is right to raise the question whether our general unwillingness to accept critical conclusions is due to an honest disbelief in their validity, or whether it results from indolent dislike of taking trouble, from a narrow and inadequate theory of inspiration, or from a tendency to force the Bible into a false and untenable position a position perilous to its authority, unwarranted by its own statements, and, worst of all, in a great measure obscuring the real power and beauty of its teaching 3.'

1

Sanday, Bampton Lectures, p. 120: 'We may reasonably say that what they [the results of criticism] offer to us is a minimum which under no circumstances is capable of being reduced much further, and that the future is likely to yield data which are more, and not less, favourable to conclusions such as those adopted in these lectures.' Cp. Cheyne, Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism, p. 172.

2

6

Cp. Köhler, op. cit. p. 68. Delitzsch, New Commentary on Genesis, vol. i. p. 54, observes: Believing investigation of Scripture will not subdue this nuisance of critical analysis unless it wrests the weapon from its adversary's hand, and actually shows that analysis can be exercised without thereby trampling under foot respect for Holy Scripture.'

3

J. Paterson Smyth, How God Inspired the Bible, pp. 15, 16.