W^^^^!^^Mii^^!^^:^^^i^^^f^^^^i^^^
 
 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Carle ton Shay
 
 p^ 
 
 THE 
 
 IMPREGNAll 
 
 ROCK OF 
 
 r 
 
 HOLY SCRIPTURIi
 
 THE 
 
 IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 OF 
 
 HOLY SCRIPTURE.
 
 WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, M. P.
 
 THE 
 
 IMPRCGNSBLC 
 
 ROCK 
 
 HOLY 
 
 SCPIPTIIRK 
 
 
 HON. W. C. fiLSIXSTONia 
 
 PHILHDCLPHIA 
 HCKRV SLTCMUS
 
 ( \i(H'rI" 1 il I S!nfi liv T-TF^fl'^ 
 
 ■ INKY ALTIMUt, MANUrACTUKKk, PB I LADKLfU I A.
 
 
 ' PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The additions, which in the course of 
 revision have been made to these Essays, are 
 in the nature of amphfied or newly suppHed 
 argument, and do not affect their general 
 tenor. 
 
 In the jfezvisli Chronicle of September 12, 
 1890, I find a paragraph which appears to 
 approve the general argument of my article 
 on "The Mosaic Legislation," but impugns 
 the statement that the Massorites were a 
 body without a parallel in history, and that 
 the Hebrews were alone in building up a 
 regularly scientific method of handling the 
 material forms of their sacred oracles. I 
 have not the slightest pretension to speak 
 with authority upon this subject, and I did 
 no more than endeavor to report faithfully 
 what I gathered from trustworthy sources. 
 But I have no reason to believe that my 
 readers have been misled. As regards the 
 Hindus, I understand it is stated that they 
 . counted verses, words, syllables, and letters; 
 but it does not appear that this statement is 
 
 (5)
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 one historically authenticated. Even if it 
 were so, and if we add that the Samaritans 
 imitated the proceedings of their Jewish 
 brethren, and that similar enumeration was 
 made by Syrians or others, yet the answer 
 remains that such a computation is a very \ 
 small component part of the Massorah, and 
 can no more be called an equivalent to it ' 
 than a human limb can be called a human 
 body. To the Massorah, so far as I can 
 learn, there is nothing approaching an equiv- 
 alent. As respects the Greeks, they had no 
 sacred writings at all; and I am unaware of 
 their having used, in any case, any such 
 method as is here in question.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 I. FIRST VIEW OF THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE .... 9 
 
 II. THE CREATION STORY 39 
 
 III. THE OFFICE AND WORK OF THE OLD TES- 
 TAMENT IN OUTLINE .... 95 
 
 IV. THE PSALMS ^4^ 
 
 V. THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION .... 189 
 
 VI. ON THE RECENT CORROBORATIONS OF SCRIPT- 
 URE FROM THE REGIONS OF HISTORY 
 
 AND NATURAL SCIENCE . . . 239 
 
 VII. CONCLUSION 279 
 
 (7)
 
 First View of the Impregnable Rock 
 of Holy Scripture.
 
 First View of the Impregnable Rock 
 of Holy Scripture. 
 
 IT is a serious question how far one igno- 
 rant, like myself, of Hebrew, and hav- 
 ing no regular practice in the study and 
 explanation of the text of the Old Testa- 
 ment, is entitled to attempt representations 
 concerning it, which must present more or 
 less the character of advice, to any portion 
 of his fellow-countrymen. It is clear that 
 he can draw no sufficient warrant for such 
 a course from the mere warmth of his de- 
 sire to arrest a prevailing mischief, or from 
 his fear lest any portion of the public 
 should lose or relax unawares their hold 
 upon tlie Book which Christendom regards 
 as an inestimable treasure, and thereby bring 
 upon themselves, as well as others, an'ih- 
 expressible calamity. But, on the other 
 hand, he has some better pleas to urge. 
 The first is, that there is a very large sec- 
 tion of the community whose opportunities 
 or judgment have been materially smaller 
 than his own. The second is, that though
 
 12 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 he is greatly wanting in the valuable quali- 
 fications which grow out of special study- 
 in this field, he has, for more than forty 
 years (believing that change of labor is to a 
 great extent the healthiest form of recrea- 
 tion), devoted the larger part of all such 
 time as he could properly withdraw from 
 political duties to another, and in several 
 respects a similar, field of specialism ; 
 namely, the earnest study of prehistoric 
 antiquity and of its documents in regard to 
 the Greek race, whose destinies have been, 
 after those of the Hebrews, the most won- 
 derful in themselves, and the most fertile of 
 results for us, among all the races of man- 
 kind. As between this field, which has for 
 its central point the study of Homer, and 
 that of the early Scriptures, which may in 
 tlie mass be roughly called contemporary 
 with the Homeric period, much light is, 
 and with the progress of research more can 
 liardly fail to be, given and received. More- 
 over, I have there had the opportunity of 
 perceiving how, among specialists as with 
 other men, there may be fashions of the 
 time and school, which Lord Bacon called 
 idols of the market-place, and currents of 
 prejudice below the surface, such as to de- 
 tract somewhat from the authority which 
 each inquirer might justly claim in his 
 own field, and from their title to impose
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 13 
 
 their conclusions upon mankind. As a ju- 
 dicious artist likes to know the opinion even 
 of one not an expert on his picture, and 
 sometimes derives benefit from it, so in all 
 studies lisfhts may be thrown inwards from 
 without ; and this in far the largest degree 
 where the special branch deals with a sub- 
 ject-matter that both takes deep root in our 
 nature, and is the source of profoundly in- 
 teresting controversies for mankind at large. 
 Yet I do not feel sure that these consid- 
 erations would have led me to make the 
 present attempt, were they not capped with 
 another of great importance. It appears to 
 me that we may grant, for argument's sake, 
 to the negative or destructive specialist in 
 the field of the ancient Scriptures all w^hich 
 as a specialist he can by possibility be en- 
 titled to ask, respecting the age, text, and 
 authorship of the books, and yet may hold 
 firmly, as firmly as of old, to the ideas justly 
 conveyed by the title I have adopted for 
 these papers, and may invite our fellow-men 
 to stand along with us on " the impregnable 
 rock of Holy Scripture." 
 
 These words sound like a challenge. 
 And they are a challenge to some extent, 
 but not in the sense that might be supposed. 
 They are a challenge to accept the Scrip- 
 tures on the moral and spiritual and histori- 
 cal ground of their character in themselves.
 
 14 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 and of the work which they, and the agen- 
 cies associated with them, have done in the 
 world for some thousands of years, and are 
 doing still. We may, without touching the 
 domain of the critic, contend for them as 
 corresponding by their contents to the idea 
 of a Divine revelation to man. We are 
 entitled to attempt to show that they afford 
 that kind of proof of such a revelation, 
 which is analogous to the known divine 
 operations in other spheres ; which binds us 
 as to conduct ; and which in other matters, 
 from the simple fact that we are rational 
 beings, we recognize as entitled so to bind 
 us. And again, we may legitimately ask 
 whether they do not differ in such a manner 
 from the other documents of historic and 
 prehistoric religions, while these too are 
 precious in various ways, as to make them 
 witnesses and buttresses to the office of 
 Holy Scripture, rather than sharers in it, al- 
 though in their degree they may be this also. 
 But all these assertions lie within the 
 moral and spiritual precinct. No one of 
 them begs any literary question of Old 
 Testament criticism. They leave absolutely 
 open every issue that has been or can be 
 raised respecting the origin, date, authorship 
 and text of the sacred books, which for the 
 present purpose we do not require even to call 
 sacred. Indeed it maybe that this destruc-
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 15 
 
 tive criticism, if entirely made good, would, 
 in the view of an inquiry really searching, 
 comprehensive, and philosophical, leave as 
 its result not less but greater reason for 
 admiring the hidden modes by which the 
 great Artificer works out His designs. For, 
 in proportion as the means are feeble, per- 
 plexed, and to all appearance confused, is 
 the marvel of the results that are made to 
 stand before our eyes. And the upshot may 
 come to be, that, on this very ground we 
 may have to cry out with the Psalmist* 
 absorbed in worshipping admiration, " Oh, 
 that men would therefore praise the Lord 
 for His goodness, and declare the wonders 
 that He doeth for the children of men ! " 
 For " How unsearchable are His judgments, 
 and His ways past finding out." For the 
 memories of men, and the art of writing, 
 and the care of the copyist, and the tablet 
 and the rolls of parchment, are but the 
 secondary or mechanical means by which 
 the Word has been carried down to us 
 along the river of the ages; and the natural 
 and inherent weakness of these means is 
 but a special tribute to the grandeur and 
 vastness of the end, and of Him that 
 wrought it out. 
 
 So, then, these high-sounding words have 
 been placed in the foreground of the present 
 * Ps. cvii. 8.
 
 j6 the impregnable rock 
 
 observations, because they convey in a posi- 
 tive and definite manner the conclusion which 
 the observations themselves aim at sustain- 
 ing, at least in outline, on general grounds 
 of reason, and at enforcing as a commanding 
 rule of thought and life. They lead up- < 
 wards and onwards to the idea that the j; 
 Scriptures are well called Holy Scriptures ; i 
 and that, though assailed by camp, b\^ bat- 
 tery, and by mine, they are nevertheless a 
 house builded upon a rock, and that rock 
 impregnable ; that the weapon of offence, 
 which shall impair their efficiency for aiding 
 in the redemption of mankind, has not yet 
 been forged ; that the Sacred Canon, which 
 it took (perhaps) two thousand years from 
 the accumulations of Moses down to the 
 acceptance of the Apocalypse to construct, 
 is like to wear out the storms and the sun- 
 shine of the world, and all the wayward 
 aberrations of humanity, not merely for a 
 term as long, but until time shall be no 
 more. 
 
 And yet, upon the very threshold, I em- 
 brace, in what I think a substantial sense, 
 one of the great canons of modern criticism, 
 which teaches us that the Scriptures are to 
 be treated like any other book in the trial of 
 their title. The volume, which is put into 
 our hands when young under that venerated 
 name, is, like any other volume, made with
 
 OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 
 
 17 
 
 paper, types and ink, and has been put to- 
 gether as a material object by human hands. 
 The many and diversified utterances it con- 
 tains proceeded from the mouth or pen of 
 men ; and the question, whether and in what 
 degree, through supernatural guidance, they 
 were, for this purpose, more than men, is to 
 be determined, like other disputable ques- 
 tions, by the evidence. Tlie books have 
 been transmitted to us from their formation 
 onwards in perishable materials, and from 
 remote dates. They were so transmitted, 
 until four hundred years ago, by the agency 
 of copyists, as in the case of other literary 
 productions, and presumably with a like 
 liability to casual error or to fraudulent hand- 
 ling. That in some sense the Holy Script- 
 ures contain something of a human element 
 is clear, as to the New Testament, from di- 
 versities of reading, from slight conflicts in 
 the narrative, and from an insignificant 
 number of controverted cases as to the 
 authenticity of the text. We have also the 
 Latin Vulgate partially competing with the 
 Greek original, on the ground tiiat it has 
 been more or less founded on manuscripts 
 older than any we now possess. As regards 
 the Old Testament, we find the established 
 Hebrew Text to be founded on MSS. of a 
 date not earlier than (I believe) the tenth 
 century of our era. It is, moreover, at vari- 
 2
 
 1 8 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 ance in many points with the Greek version, 
 commonly termed the Septuagint ; which is 
 considered to date wholly or in the main 
 from the third century before the Advent of 
 our Saviour, and the framers of which had 
 before them copies older by more than a 
 thousand years. Thus the accuracy of the 
 text, the age and authorship of the books,, 
 open up a vast field of purely literary 
 controversy; and such a question as whether 
 the closing verses of St. Mark's Gospel* 
 have the authority of Scripture must be 
 determined by literary evidence, as much 
 as the genuineness of the pretended pre- 
 face to the ^neid, or of a particular 
 stanza which appears in an ode of Ca- 
 tullus.t 
 
 Towards summing up these observations, 
 I will remind the reader that those who be- 
 lieve in a Divine Revelation, as pervading 
 or as contained in the Scriptures, and es- 
 pecially those who accept the full doctrine 
 of literalism as to the vehicle of that inspi- 
 ration, have to lay their account with the 
 following (among other) considerations, 
 which it is hard for them to repudiate as 
 
 * I have never seen a confutation of the reasonings 
 of Dean Burgon in his Irentise on this subject. He sup- 
 ports the text as it stands. The marginal note in the 
 Revised Version is surely unsatisfactory, for it does not 
 tell the whole case, but only a part, about the manuscripts. 
 
 \ Carm. LII. 13-16.
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 19 
 
 inadmissible. There may possibly have 
 been — 
 
 1. Imperfect comprehension of that which 
 was divinely communicated : 
 
 2. Imperfect expression of what had once 
 been comprehended : 
 
 3. Lapse of memory in oral transmission : 
 
 4. Errors of copyists in written trans- 
 mission : 
 
 5. Changes with the lapse of time in the 
 sense of words : 
 
 6. Variations arising from renderings into 
 different tongues, especially as between the 
 Hebrew text and the Septuagint : 
 
 7. The inspired writers of the New Testa- 
 ment varied in the text they used for cita- 
 tions from the Old Testament, and did not 
 regard either the Hebrew or the Greek as 
 of exclusive authority: 
 
 8. There are three variant chronologies 
 of the Old Testament, according to the 
 Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan 
 Pentateuch respectively ; and it would be 
 unwarrantable to claim for any one of them, 
 as against the others, the absolute sanction 
 of a Divine revelation : while an historical 
 argument of some importance may be 
 deducible, on the other hand, from the fact 
 that their variations lie within certain limits. 
 
 No doubt there will be those who will 
 resent any association between the idea of a
 
 20 
 
 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 Divine revelation and the possibility of even 
 the smallest intrusion of error into its vehicle. 
 This idea, however, is by no means alto- 
 gether a novelty. It is manifestly included 
 as a likelihood, if not a certaint\', in the fact 
 of continuous transmission by human means, 
 without continuous miracle to guarantee it. 
 But further, ought they not to bear in mind 
 that we are bound by the rule of reason to 
 look for the same method of procedure in 
 this great matter of a written provision of 
 Divine knowledge for our needs, as in the 
 other parts of the manifold dispensation 
 under which Providence has placed us. 
 Now that method or principle is one of 
 sufficiency, not of perfection; of sufficiency 
 for the attainment of practical ends, not of 
 conformity to ideal standards; and the 
 question what constitutes that sufficiency is 
 a matter no more to be judged of by us in 
 relation to the Scriptures, than in relation 
 to any other part of the Divine dispensations, 
 on all of which the Almighty appears to 
 have reserved His judgment to Himself. 
 Bishop Butler, I think, would wisely tell us 
 that we are not the judges, and that we are 
 quite unfit to be the judges, what may be the 
 proper amount and the just conditions of 
 any of the aids to be afforded us in passing 
 through the discipline of life. I will onl}'- 
 remark that this default of ideal perfection,
 
 OF //oLy SCRIPTURE. 2 1 
 
 'i 
 
 this use of twilight instead of a noonday 
 blaze, may be adapted to our weakness, and 
 may be among the appointed means of 
 exercising-, and by exercise of strengthening 
 our faith. But what properly belongs to 
 the present occasion is to point out that if 
 probability, and not demonstration, marks 
 the Divine guidance of our paths in life as 
 a whole, we are not entitled to require that 
 when the Almighty, in His inercy, makes a 
 special addition by revelation to what He 
 has already given to us of knowledge in 
 Nature and in Providence, that special gift 
 should be unlike His other gifts, and should 
 have all its lines and limits drawn out with 
 mathematical precision. 
 
 I have then admitted, I hope in terms of 
 sufficient fulness, that my aim in no way 
 embraces a controversy with the moderate, 
 or even with the extreme, developments of 
 textual criticism. Dr. Driver, the Regius 
 Professor of Hebrew at Oxford,* personally 
 as well as officially a champion of the doc- 
 trine that there is a Divine revelation, has 
 recently shown with great clearness and 
 ability that the basis of such criticism is 
 sound and undeniable, whatever be its lia- 
 bility to aberration either in method or in 
 details. It compares consistencies and in- 
 consistencies of text, not simply as would 
 
 * Contemporary Review, YthxvLdiry, 1S90, pp. 215-231.
 
 22 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 be done by an ordinary reader, but with all 
 the lights of collateral knowledge. It pro- 
 nounces on the meaning of terms with the 
 authority derived from thorough acquaint- 
 ance with a given tongue, or with language 
 at large. It investigates and applies those 
 laws of growth, which operate upon lan- 
 guage as they operate in regard to a physical 
 organism. 
 
 It has long been known, for example, that 
 portions of the historical books of the Old 
 Testament, such as the Books of Chronicles, 
 were of a date very far later than most of 
 the events which they record, and it is widely 
 believed * that a portion of the prophecies 
 included in the Book of Isaiah, were later 
 than his time. It is now pressed upon us 
 that, according to the prevailing judgment 
 of the learned, the form in which the older 
 books of the Old Testament have come 
 down to us does not correspond as a rule 
 with their titles, and is due to later though 
 still, as is largely held, to remote periods; 
 and that the law presented to us in the 
 Pentateuch is not an enactment of a single 
 date, but has been enlarged by a process of 
 growth, and by gradual accretions. To us 
 
 * I am not aware, however, what is the reply to the 
 arguments of Mr. Urwick, who contends for the unity of 
 authorship. ("The Servant of Jehovah." Edinburgh: 
 Clark. 1877.)
 
 OF HOL V SCRIPTURE. 23 
 
 who are without original means of judgment 
 these are, at first hearing, without doubt, 
 disturbing announcements. Yet common 
 sense requires us to say, let them be fought 
 out by the competent, but let not us who 
 are incompetent interfere. I utterly, then, 
 eschew for myself the responsibility of con- 
 flict with these properly critical conclusions. 
 But this acquiescence is subject to the 
 following remarks. First, the acceptance 
 of the conclusions of the critics has reference 
 to the present literary form of the works, 
 and leaves entirely open every question 
 relating to the substance. Any one who 
 reads the books of the Pentateuch, from the 
 second to the fifth, must observe how little 
 they present the appearance of consecutive, 
 coherent, and digested record. But their 
 several portions must be considered on the 
 evidence applicable to them respectively. 
 And the main facts of the history they con- 
 tain have received strong confirmation from 
 Egyptian and Eastern research. With re- 
 gard to the Book of Genesis, the admission 
 which has been made implies nothing adverse 
 to the truth of the traditions it embodies, 
 nothing adverse to their antiquity, nothing 
 which excludes or discredits, as to the older 
 among them, the idea of their having origi- 
 nally formed part of a primitive revelation, 
 simultaneous or successive. The forms of
 
 24 
 
 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 expression may have changed, yet the sub- 
 stance may remain with an altered hterary 
 form; as some scholars have thought (not, 
 I believe, rightly) that the diction and 
 modelling of the Homeric Poems is com- 
 paratively modern, and yet the matter they 
 embody may belong to a remote antiquity. 
 It is also conceivable that the diction of 
 Chaucer, for example, might be altered so 
 as to conform to the usage of the nineteenth 
 century, and to leave little apparent resem- 
 blance to the original, and yet the whole 
 substance of Chaucer might remain. 
 
 Further, our assent to the conclusions of 
 the critics ought to be strictlv limited to a 
 provisional and revocable assent ; and this 
 on practical grounds of stringent obligation. 
 For, firstly, these conclusions appear to be 
 in a great measure floating and uncertain, 
 to be the subject of manifold controversy. 
 Secondly, they seem to shift and vary with 
 rapidity in the minds of those who hold 
 them. In editing and revising the work of 
 Bleek,* Wellhausen accepts in a great degree 
 
 * "Einleitung in das Alte Testament," Haupttheil I., 
 C. Die Psalmen. [The edition published and adopted 
 by Wellhausen, to which I refer, is dated 1878; but the 
 book had been published in i860.] So recently as in 
 the fifth edition (Berlin, 1886), the Bleek-Wellhausen 
 work assigns much weight to ihe Davidic titles; gives 
 
 too ' t> 
 
 to David nearly fifty Psalms ; and holds that there is no 
 Psalm Inter than Nehemiah. few so late. (Sections 220- 
 22, pages, 457-464, of the Einleitung.')
 
 OF HOL V SCRIPTURE. 
 
 25 
 
 the genuineness of those Davidic Psalms 
 which are contained in the First Book of 
 the Psalter. But I have been told that this 
 position has been abandoned, and that, 
 standing as he appears to do, at the head of 
 the nesfative critics, he now brinofs down 
 the general body of the Psalms to a date 
 very greatly below that of the Babylonia 
 exile. It is certainly unreasonable to hold 
 a critic to his conclusions without exception. 
 But, on the other hand, it may be asked 
 whether, in order to warrant confidence, 
 they ought not to exhibit some element of 
 stability ? The opening of new sources of 
 information may justify all changes fairly 
 referable to them ; and in minor matters the 
 finer touches of the destructive, as well as 
 the constructive, artist may be needed to 
 complete his work. But if reasonable 
 grounds for change do not determine its 
 bounds, there must be limits on the other 
 hand to the duty of deference and submis- 
 sion on the part of the outer and uninstructed 
 world, with respect to these literary con- 
 clusions. It seems doubtful how far they 
 present to us that aggregate continuity and 
 progression, which the whole world recog- 
 nizes in the case of the physical sciences; 
 and the most liberal estimate can hardh^ 
 carr}' them firtlier than this, that we should 
 keep an open mind till the cycle of change
 
 26 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 has been run through, and till time has been 
 given for the detection of flaws, and for the 
 hearing of those whose researches may 
 have led them to different results. 
 
 In the present instance we have an ex- 
 ample, which may not be without force, in 
 support of this warning. Mr. Margoliouth, 
 the Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, 
 and a gentleman of early academical dis- 
 tinctions altogether extraordinary, has pub- 
 lished his Inaugural Lecture,* in which he 
 states his belief that, from materials and by 
 means which he lucidly explains, it will be 
 found possible to reconstruct the Semitic 
 original, hitherto unknown, of the Book of 
 Ecclesiasticus. It was written, as he states, 
 by Ben Sira, not in the Hebrew of the Pro- 
 phets, but in the later Hebrew of the Rabbis 
 (p. 6). I understand that there are three 
 great stages, or states, of the Hebrew to;igue : 
 the Ancient, the Middle, and the New ; and 
 that of these the earlier or classical Script- 
 ures belong to the first, and the Book of Ne- 
 hemiah (for example) to the second. The 
 third is the Rabbinical stage. The passage 
 from one to another of these stages is held, 
 under the laws which determine the move- 
 ment of that language, to require a very 
 long time. Professor Margoliouth finds 
 
 * " On tlie place of Ecclesiasticus in Semitic Litera- 
 ture." Clarendon Press, 1890.
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 27 
 
 that Ben Sira wrote in Rabbinical Hebrew, 
 and the earHer we find Rabbinical Hebrew 
 in use, the farther we drive into antiquity the 
 dates of books written in middle and in an- 
 cient Hebrew. Suppose, by way of illus- 
 tration, that Professor Margoliouth shows 
 Rabbinical Hebrew to have come into use 
 two hundred years earlier than had been 
 supposed, the effect is to throw back by two 
 hundred years the latest date to which a 
 book in middle or in ancient Hebrew could 
 be assigned. No wonder, then, that Pro- 
 fessor Margoliouth observes (p. 22) — 
 
 "Some students are engaged in bringing 
 down the date of every chapter in the Bible 
 so late as to leave no room for prophecy 
 and revelation." 
 
 But he goes on to add that if, by the task 
 which he has undertaken, and by those who 
 may follow and improve upon him, this 
 Book shall be properly restored, 
 
 " Others will endeavor to find out how 
 early the professedly post-exilian books can 
 be put back, so as to account for the diver- 
 gence between their awkward Middle-He- 
 brew and the rich and eloquent New-Hebrew 
 of Ben Sira. However this may be, hypoth- 
 eses, which place any portion of the clas- 
 sical or Old-Hebrew Scriptures between the 
 Middle-Hebrew of Nehemiah and the New- 
 Hebrew of Ben Sira, will surely require
 
 28 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 some reconsideration, or at least have to be 
 harmonized in some way with the history 
 of the language, before they can be uncon- 
 ditionally accepted." 
 
 Hence the spectator from without, per- 
 ceiving that there is war, waged on critical 
 grounds, in the critical camp itself, may 
 surmise that what has been wittily called the 
 order of disorder is more or less menaced 
 in its central seat; and he maybe the more 
 hardened in his determination not to rush 
 prematurely to final conclusions on the 
 serious, though not as I suppose vital, ques- 
 tion respecting the age and authenticity of 
 the early books of the Old Testament in 
 their present literary form. 
 
 There is such a thing as mistaking the 
 indifferent for the essential, and as a slavish 
 adherence to traditions insufficiently exam- 
 ined. But the liabilities of human nature 
 to error do not all lie on one side. It may 
 on the contrary be stated with some confi- 
 dence that, when error in a certain direction 
 after a long precedence is effectively called 
 to account, it is generally apt, and in some 
 cases certain, to be followed by a reign of 
 prejudices, or biassed judgments, more or 
 less extended, and in a contrary direction. 
 There is such a thing as a warping of the 
 mind in favor of disintegration. Often does 
 a critic brine: to the book he examines the
 
 OF HOL V SCRIPTURE. 
 
 29 
 
 conclusion which he believes that he has 
 drawn from it. Often when he has not thus 
 imported it, yet the first view, in remote 
 perspective, of the proposition to which he 
 leans will induce him to rush at the most 
 formidable fences that lie straight ahead of 
 him, instead of taking his chances of arriv- 
 ing at it by the common road of reason. 
 And often, even when he has attained his 
 conclusion without prejudice, he will after 
 adopting defend it against objectors, not 
 with argument only, but with all the pride 
 and pain of wounded self-love. And every 
 one of these dangers is commonly enhanced 
 in something like the same proportion, in 
 which the particular subject-matter em- 
 braces the highest interests of mankind. 
 
 What I would specially press upon those 
 to whom I write is, that they should look 
 broadly and largely at the subject of Holy 
 Scripture, especially of the Scriptures of the 
 older dispensation, which are, so to speak, 
 farther from the eye, and should never allow 
 themselves to be won away from that broad 
 and large contemplation into discussions 
 which, though in their own place legitimate, 
 nay, needful, yet are secondary, and there- 
 fore, when substituted for the primary, are 
 worse than frivolous. I do not ask this from 
 them as philosophers or as Christians, but 
 as men of sense. I ask them to look at the
 
 30 
 
 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 subject as they would look at the British 
 Constitution, or at the poetry of Shake- 
 speare. If we were pressed by the apparent 
 absurdity that any one branch of the British 
 Legislature can stop the proceedings of the 
 W'hole, or that the House of Commons can 
 reduce to beggary the whole Army, Navy, 
 and Civil Service of the country, and that 
 neither law nor usage makes any provision 
 for meeting the case, and this although there 
 would ensue from it nothing less than a 
 frustration of the purposes for which men 
 join together in society, still there are prob- 
 ably not ten men in the country whose esti- 
 mate of the Constitution they live under 
 would be affected by these supererogatory 
 objections. And if we are in anj^ measure 
 to grasp the office, dignity and authority of 
 the Scriptures, we must not suppose we are 
 dealing adequately with that lofty subject 
 by exhausting thought and time in exam- 
 ining whether Moses either edited or wrote 
 the Pentateuch just as it stands, or what was 
 the book of the law found in the temple in 
 the time of Josiah, or whether it is possible 
 or likely that any changes of addition or 
 omission may have crept into the text. If 
 the most sjreedilv destructive among all the 
 theories of the modern critics (rather seri- 
 ousI\' at variance with one another) were 
 established as true, it would not avail to im-
 
 OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 
 
 31 
 
 pair the great facts of the history of man 
 with respect to the Jews, and to the nations 
 of the world ; nor to disguise the Hght 
 which those facts throw upon the pages of 
 the Sacred Volume ; nor to abate the com- 
 manding force with which, bathed, so to 
 speak, in the flood of that light, the Bible 
 invites, attracts, and commands the adhesion 
 of mankind. Even the moral problems, 
 which may be raised as to particular por- 
 tions of the volume, and which may not 
 have found any absolute and certain solu- 
 tion, are surely lost in the comprehensive 
 contemplation of its general strain, its im- 
 measurable loftiness of aim, and the vast- 
 ness of the results which it, and its imme- 
 diate accompaniments in institution and 
 event, have wrought for our predecessors in 
 the journey of life, for ourselves, and for 
 the most forward, dominant, and responsible 
 portions of our race. 
 
 In a passage which rises to the very high- 
 est level of British eloquence, Dr. Liddon,* 
 exhausting all the resources of our language, 
 has described, so far as man may describe 
 it, the ineffable and unapproachable position 
 held by the Sacred Volume. It is too long 
 
 * Sermon preached at St. Paul's on the Second Sun- 
 day in Advent, December 1889, pp. 28--31. [Sirjce this 
 was written, death has extinguished in Dr. Liddon a 
 light of the Enghsh Church, singularly bright and pure, j
 
 32 THE IMrREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 to quote, too special to appropriate ; and to 
 make extracts would only mangle it. The 
 commanding- eminence of the great preacher 
 of our metropolitan Cathedral will fasten 
 the public attention on tlie subject, and pow- 
 erfully serve to show that the Scriptures, in 
 their substantial tissue, rise far above the 
 region of criticism, which shows no sign of 
 being about to do anything permanent or 
 effectual to lower their moral and spiritual 
 grandeur, or to disguise or intercept their 
 gigantic work. 
 
 I turn to a cognate topic. The impres- 
 sion prevails that, in this and other coun- 
 tries, the operative classes, as they are 
 termed, have at the great centres of popu- 
 lation, here and elsewhere, largely lost their 
 hold upon the Christian creed. There 
 may be exaggeration in this belief ; but, all 
 things taken together, there is evidently a 
 degree of foundation for it. It does not 
 mean, at least among us, that they have 
 lost respect for the Christian religion, or 
 for its ministers ; or that they desire their 
 children to be brought up otherwise than 
 in the knowledge and practice of it ; or that 
 the}^ themselves have snapped the last ties 
 Avhich, on the cardinal occasions of exist- 
 ence, associate them with its ordinances; or 
 that they have renounced or modified the 
 moral standards of conduct, which its con-
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 33 
 
 spicuous victory after an obstinate contest 
 of many centuries, and its lon<T possession of 
 the social field, have established. It means 
 no more, but also no less, than this, that 
 their positive distinct acceptance of the ar- 
 ticles of the Creed, and their sense of the 
 dignity and value of the Sacred Record, are 
 blunted, or in some cases even effaced.* 
 
 In passing I may be permitted to observe 
 that if assent be more or less largely with- 
 held bv the less well-to-do segment of so- 
 ciety, it is still, notwithstanding the scep- 
 tical movement of the day, very generally 
 yielded in this country by the leisured and 
 better provided classes in most, though not 
 all, of their branches. I simply state this 
 as fact, without drawing, in this case, any 
 inference. 
 
 There seems thus to be, within certain 
 limits, an approach to a reversal of the re- 
 spective attitudes which prevailed in the in- 
 fancy of our religion. Then the " poor " 
 were the principal objects of the personal 
 ministry of Christ Our Lord, and it was 
 
 * As I write in the general interests of belief, and on 
 no narrower ground, it is with deep regret that I extract 
 the following statement from the excellent compilation 
 of Messrs. Macmillan, termed the Statesman' s Yiar-Book, 
 for 1890. In France account is taken at the census of 
 religious lielief, and in 1881, for the first time, a column 
 was provided for those who declined to make any dec- 
 laration of belief. The number of persons returned 
 under this head is no less than 7,684,906. 
 
 3
 
 34 
 
 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 their glory to be the readiest receivers of 
 the Gospel. They were then, " the poor of 
 this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the 
 kingdom which He hath promised to them 
 that love Him." * They had fewer ob- 
 stacles, especially within themselves^ to 
 prevent their accepting the new religion. 
 It was less hard for them to become " as 
 little children." They had, to all appear- 
 ance, more palpable interests in the prom- 
 ise of the life to come, as compared with 
 the possession of the life that now is. The 
 seeming change in their comparative fa- 
 cility of access to the Saviour, as respects 
 belief, is one to afford much matter for 
 meditation. The present purpose is to 
 deal, in slight outline at least, with one of 
 its causes. For one such cause certainly 
 is the wide, though more or less vague dis- 
 paragement of the Holy Scriptures recently 
 observable in the surface currents of preva- 
 lent opinion, as regards their title to supply 
 in a supreme degree food for the religious 
 thought of man, and authoritative guidance 
 for his life. 
 
 Amongst the suppositions, I believe er- 
 roneous, which tend to produce this dis- 
 paragement are the following. 
 
 I. That the conclusions of science as to 
 natural objects have shaken or destroyed 
 * James ii. 5.
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 35 
 
 the assertions of the early Scriptures with 
 respect to the origin and history of the 
 world, and of man, its principal inhabitant. 
 
 II. That their contents are in many cases 
 offensive to the moral sense, and unworthy 
 of an enlightened age. 
 
 III. That our race made its appearance 
 in the world in a condition but one degree 
 above that of the brute creation, and only 
 by slow and painful but continual progress 
 has brought itself up to the present level of 
 its existence. 
 
 IV. That men have accomplished this by 
 the exercise of their natural powers ; and 
 have never received the special teaching 
 and authoritative guidance, which is signi- 
 fied under the name of Divine Revelation. 
 
 V. That the more considerable among 
 the different races and nations of the world 
 have devised, and established from time to 
 time, their respective religions ; and have in 
 many cases accepted the promulgation of 
 sacred books, which are to be considered 
 as essentially of the same character with 
 the Bible. 
 
 VI. That the books of the Bible, in 
 many most important instances, and es- 
 pecially those books of the Old Testament 
 which purport to be the earliest, so far from 
 being contemporary with the events which 
 they record, or with the authors to whom
 
 36 
 
 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK 
 
 they are ascribed, are comparatively recent 
 compilations from uncertain sources, and 
 are therefore without authority. 
 
 Most of the foregoing remarks relate to 
 the last of these assumptions ; and I shall 
 proceed to observe upon others among 
 them. 
 
 There are propositions wider still, but 
 wholly foreign to the present purpose ; such 
 as that God is essentially unknowable, that 
 we have no reasonable evidence of a life 
 beyond the grave, and that rational cer- 
 tainty is confined to material objects and to 
 the testimony of the senses. Passing by 
 these propositions, I confine myself wholly 
 to what preceded them ; and I shall en- 
 deavor, from some points of view, to pre- 
 sent an opposing view of the spiritual field. 
 Moreover, as each of these is the subject of 
 a literature of its own which may be 
 termed scientific, I here premise that what 
 I have to say will, though I hope rational 
 and true, be not systematic or complete, 
 but popular and partial only ; and will have 
 for its immediate aim to show that there 
 are grave reasons for questioning every 
 really destructive proposition that has been 
 advanced, and for withholding our assent 
 from them until these reasons (and, as I 
 conceive, many others) shall be confuted 
 and set aside.
 
 OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 
 
 37 
 
 I shall, however, as being in duty bound 
 to follow the truth so far as I can discern it^ 
 have to make many confessions in the 
 course of my argument to the prejudice, 
 not as I trust of Christian belief or of the 
 Sacred Volume, but only of us, who as its 
 students have failed gravely, and at many 
 points, in the duty of a temperate and cau- 
 tious treatment of it ; as unhappily we have 
 also failed, and often more grossly failed, in 
 every other duty. But, as the lines and 
 laws of duty at large remain unobscured, 
 notwithstanding the imperfections every- 
 where diffused, so we may trust that suffi- 
 cient light yet remains for us, if duly fol- 
 lowed, whereby to establish the authority 
 and sufficiency of Holy Scripture for its 
 high moral and spiritual purposes. For 
 the present, I have endeavored to point out 
 that the operations of criticism properly so 
 called, affecting as they do the literary form 
 of the books, leave the questions of sub- 
 stance, namely, those of history, miracle, 
 and revelation, substantially where they 
 found them. I shall, in several succeeding 
 papers, strive to show, at least by speci- 
 mens, that science and research have done 
 much to sustain the historical credit of the 
 Old Testament: that in doing this they 
 have added strength to the argument 
 which contends that in them we find a
 
 38 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK. 
 
 Divine revelation : and that the evidence, 
 rationally viewed, both of contents and of 
 results, binds us to stand where our fore- 
 fathers have stood, upon the impregnable 
 rock of Holy Scripture.
 
 The Creation Story.
 
 The Creation Story. 
 
 "The rising birth 
 Of Nature from the unappareiit deep." 
 
 Par. Lost. B. vii. 
 
 IN recent controversies on the trust- 
 worthiness of the Scripture record, 
 much has been thought to turn on the 
 Creation Story ; and the special and separate 
 importance thus attached to it has given it 
 a separate and prominent position in the 
 pubhc view. This constitutes in itself a 
 reason for addressing ourselves at once to 
 the consideration of it, apart from any- 
 more general investigation touching either 
 the older Scriptures at large, or any of the 
 books which collectively compose them. 
 
 But there are broader and deeper reasons 
 for this separate consideration. It is sug- 
 gested, first, by the form which has been 
 given to the relation itself The narrative, 
 given with wonderful succinctness in the 
 first chapter of the Book of Genesis, and 
 in the first three verses of the second 
 chapter, stands distinct, in essential points, 
 
 (4U
 
 42 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 from all that follows in the Scriptures, It 
 is a solitary and striking example of the 
 detailed exposition of physical facts. For 
 such an example we must suppose a pur- 
 pose ; and we have to inquire what that 
 purpose was. Next, it seems as it were to 
 trespass on the ground of science, and, 
 independently of investigation and of evi- 
 dence, to assert a rival authority. And 
 further, forming no part, unless towards its 
 close, of the history of man, and nowhere 
 touching directly on human action, it 
 severs itself from the rest of the Sacred 
 Volume, and appears more as a preface to 
 the history, than as a part of it. 
 
 And yet there are signs, in subsequent 
 portions of the Volume, that this tale of 
 the Creation was regarded by the Hebrews 
 as both authoritative and important. For 
 it gave form and shape to portions of their 
 literature, in the central department of its 
 devotions. Nay, traces of it may, perhaps, 
 be found in the Book of Job (xxxviii.), 
 where the Almighty challenges the patriarch 
 on the primordial works of creation. More 
 clearly in Psalm civ., where we have light, 
 the firmament, the waters and their sever- 
 ance and confinement within bounds ; a suc- 
 cession the same as in Genesis. Then fol- 
 low mixedly the animal and vegetable crea- 
 tions, and man as the climax crowns the
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 43 
 
 series in ver. 23. So in Psalm cxlviii. we 
 have first (1-6) the heavens, the heavenly 
 bodies, and the atmosphere; then, again 
 mixedly, the earth and the agents affecting 
 it, with the animate population (7-10), and 
 lastly man. If there be some variation in 
 the order of the details, still the idea of 
 consecutive development, or evolution^ 
 which struck so forcibly the intelligence of 
 Haeckel, is clearly impressed upon the 
 whole. At a later date, and only (so far as 
 is known) in the Greek tongue, we find a 
 more nearly exact resemblance in the Song 
 of the Three Children. The heavenly 
 bodies and phenomena occupy the first 
 division of the Song ; then the earth is 
 invoked to bless the Lord, with its moun- 
 tains, vegetation, and waters ; then the 
 animate population of water, air, and land, 
 in the order pursued in the first chapter of 
 Genesis, and with the same remarkable 
 omission of the great kingdom of the Rep- 
 tiles at their proper place. Then follow the 
 children of Men ; and these fill the closing 
 portion of the Song. The most noteworthy 
 differences (which, however, are quite sec- 
 ondary, seem to be that there is no mention 
 of the first beginnings of vegetation, and 
 no supplemental notice, as in Gen. i. 24-30, 
 of the reptiles. 
 
 But also the sun, moon, and stars, which
 
 44 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 are categorically placed later in Genesis 
 than vegetation, precede in the Song any 
 notice of the earth. Let not this difference 
 be hastily called a discrepancy. Each mode 
 is to be explained by considering the 
 character and purpose of the composition. 
 In Genesis, it is a narrative of the action ; 
 in the Song, it is a panorama of the spec- 
 tacle. Genesis, as a rule, refers each of the 
 great factors of the visible world to its due 
 ■order of origin in time ; the Song enumer- 
 ates the particulars as they are presented to 
 the eye in a picture, where the transcendent 
 eminence of the heavenly bodies as they 
 are, and especially of the sun, gives to this 
 group a proper priority. 
 
 But this Creation Story may have an 
 importance for us even greater than it had 
 for the Hebrews, or than it could have in 
 any of those ages when all men believed, 
 perhaps even too freely, in special modes of 
 communication from the Deity to man, and 
 had not a stock of courage or of audacity 
 sufficient to question the possibility of a 
 divine revelation. For we have now to 
 bear in mind that the Book of Genesis 
 generally contains a portion of human his- 
 tory, and that all human history is a record 
 of human experience. It is not so with the 
 introductory recital ; for the contents of it 
 lie outside of, and anterior to, the very
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 45 
 
 earliest human experience. How came^ 
 then, this recital into the possession of a 
 portion of mankind ? 
 
 It is conceivable that, a theory of Creation 
 and of the ordering of the world might be 
 bodied forth in poetry, or might under givea 
 circumstances be, as now, based on the re- 
 searches of natural science. 
 
 But, in the first place, this recital cannot 
 be due to the mere imagination of a poet. 
 It is in a high degree, as we shall see^ 
 methodical and elaborate. And there is 
 nothing either equalling or within many 
 degrees approaching it, which can be set 
 down to the account of poetry in other 
 spheres of primitive antiquity, whatever 
 their poetical opulence may have been. 
 Further, the early Hebrews do not appear 
 to have cultivated or developed any poetical 
 faculty at all, except that which was exhib- 
 ited in strictly religious work, such as the 
 devotions of the Psalms, and (principally) 
 the discourses and addresses of the 
 Prophets. 
 
 As they were not, in a general sense, 
 poetical, so neither were they in any sense 
 scientific. By tradition, and by positive 
 records, we know pretty well what kinds 
 - of knowledge were pursued in very early 
 ages. They were most strictly practical. 
 Take, for example, astronomy among the
 
 46 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 Chaldees, or medicine among the Egyp- 
 tians. The necessities of Hfe then, as now, 
 pressed upon man. We may say with 
 much confidence that in remote antiquity 
 there existed no science hke geology, 
 aiming to give a history of the earth. 
 So, again, there was no cosmogony, pro- 
 fessing to convey a history of the kosuios 
 as then understood ; which would have in- 
 cluded, togetjier with the earth, the sun, 
 moon, planets, and atmosphere. 
 
 When, at a later date, speculation on 
 physical origins began, it was rather on the 
 primary idea than on any systematic ar- 
 rangement or succession. With the Ionic, 
 which was the earliest school of philosophy, 
 the human intelligence was mainly busied 
 in contending for one or other of the known 
 material elements, as entitled to the hon- 
 ors of the primordial cause. Nor had even 
 the Greeks or Romans formulated any 
 scheme in any degree approaching that of 
 Genesis for order and method, so late as 
 the time when they became acquainted with 
 the Hebrew Scriptures through their trans- 
 lation into Greek. The opening statement 
 of Ovid in the " Metamorphoses " is re- 
 markable ; but at the time when he wrote, 
 the Book of Genesis had been accessible to 
 educated persons in what was then the chief 
 literary language of the Romans. There is
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 47 
 
 not, then, the smallest ground for treating 
 the Mosaic cosmogony, whether in the way 
 of original or copy, as the offspring of scien- 
 tific inquiry. 
 
 To speak of it as guesswork would be ir- 
 rational. There were no materials for 
 guessing. There was no purpose to be 
 served by guessing. For a record of the 
 formation of the world we find no purpose 
 in connection with the ordinary necessities 
 or conveniences of life. Not to mention 
 that down to this day there exists no cos- 
 mogony which can be called scientific, 
 though there are theories both ingenious 
 and beautiful, which apparently are coming 
 to be more and more accepted ; these, how- 
 ever, being of an origin decidedly late even 
 in the history of modern physics. 
 
 But, further, as the Tale of Creation is 
 not poetry nor is it science, so neither, ac- 
 cording to its own aspect or profession, is it 
 theory at all. The method here pursued is 
 that of historical recital. The person, who 
 composes or transmits it, seems to believe, 
 and to intend others to believe, that he is 
 dealing with matters of fact. But these mat- 
 ters of fact were, from the nature of the case, 
 altogether inaccessible to inquiry, and im- 
 ' possible to attain by our ordinary mental 
 faculties of perception or reflection, inas- 
 much as they date before the creation of our
 
 48 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 race. If it is, as it surely professes to be, a 
 serious conveyance of truth, it can only be 
 a communication from the Most High ; a 
 communication to man and for the use of 
 man, therefore in a form adapted to his 
 mind and to his use. If, thus considered, it 
 is true, then it carries stamped upon it the 
 proof of a Divine revelation ; an asser- 
 tion which cannot commonly be sustained 
 from the nature of the contents as to this or 
 that minute portion of Scripture at large. 
 
 If, when thus considered, it proves not to 
 be true, we then have to consider what ac- 
 count of it we are in a condition to give. I 
 cannot say that to me this appears an easy 
 undertaking. " If," says Professor Dana 
 with much reason, " it be true that the nar- 
 ration in Genesis has no support in natural 
 science, it would have been better for its re- 
 ligious character that all the verses between 
 the first and those on the creation of man 
 had been omitted." * 
 
 But the truth, or trueness, of which I 
 speak, is truth or trueness as conveyed to 
 and comprehended by the mind of man ; 
 and, further, by the mind of man in a com- 
 paratively untrained and infant state. I can- 
 not, indeed, wholly shut out from view the 
 possibility that casual imperfections may 
 
 * " Creation. " By Professor Dana. Oberlin, O., 
 1885 ; p. 202.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. aq 
 
 have crept into the record. Setting aside^ 
 however, that possibiHty, let us consider the 
 conditions of the case as they are exhibited 
 to us by reasonable likelihood; for, if the 
 communication were divine, we maybe cer- 
 tain that it would on that account be all the 
 more strictly governed by the laws of the 
 reasonable 
 
 In an address * of singular ability on 
 " The Discord and Harmony between Sci- 
 ence and the Bible," Dr. Smith, of the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia, has drawn some very 
 important distmctions. In the department 
 of natural science, and in the department 
 of Scriptural record, the question lies "be- 
 tween the present interpretation of certain 
 parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the 
 present interpretation of certain parts of 
 nature." f " We must not too hastily assume 
 that either of these interpretations is abso- 
 lute and final." " The science of one epoch 
 is to a large extent a help, which the sci- 
 ence of the next uses and abandons." Dr. 
 Smith points out as an example that, down 
 to the early part of the present century, 
 Newton's projectile theory of light seemed 
 to be firmly established, but that it has 
 given place to the theory of undulation, 
 " which has now for fifty years reigned in its 
 
 * New York : Hatcham. The Address is dated July 
 27. 1882. t /dtii. p, 3. 
 
 4
 
 CO THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 stead." Hence, he observes, we should not 
 be too much elated by the discovery of har- 
 monies, nor should we receive with im- 
 patience the assertion of contradictions. 
 Throughout, it is probable, and not demon- 
 strative, evidence with which we are deal- 
 ing. There should always be a certain ele- 
 ment of reserve in our judgments on par- 
 ticulars ; yet probable evidence may come 
 indefinitely near to demonstration ; and, 
 even as, while falling greatly short of it, it 
 may morally bind us to action, so may it, 
 on precisely the same principles, bind us to 
 belief. What we have to do is, to deal with 
 the evidence before us according to a ra- 
 tional appreciation of its force. It may 
 show on this or that particular question the 
 concord, or it may show the discord, be- 
 tween alleged facts of nature and alleged 
 interpretations of Scripture ; or it may leave 
 the question open, for want of sufficient evi- 
 dence, either way, on which to ground a 
 conclusion. 
 
 It is by these principles, and under these 
 limitations, that I desire to see the question 
 tried in the terms in which I think it ought 
 to be stated ; namely, not whether the reci- 
 tals in Genesis at each and every point have 
 an accurately scientific form, but, Whether 
 the statements of the Creation Story, as a 
 whole, appear to stand in such a relation to
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 51 
 
 the facts of natural science, so far as they 
 have been ascertained, as to warrant or re- 
 quire our concluding that the statements 
 have proceeded, in a manner above the or- 
 dinary manner, from the Author of the cre- 
 ation itself* 
 
 Those, who maintain the affirmative of \ 
 this proposition, have by opponents been 
 termed Reconcilers ; and it is convenient, ' 
 in a controverted matter, to have the power 
 of reference by a single word to the pro- 
 posers of any given opinion. The same 
 rule of convenience may perhaps justify me 
 in designating those who would assert tlje 
 negative by the name of Contradictionists. 
 The recorder of the Creation Story in Gen- 
 esis I may designate by the name of Moses 
 himself, or the Mosaist, or the Mosaic 
 writer. This would not be reasonable, if 
 there were anything extravagant in the sup- 
 position that there is a groundwork of fact 
 for the tradition which treats Moses as the 
 author of the Pentateuch. But such a sup- 
 position, in whole or in part, is sustained by 
 
 * See the attractive paper of Professor Pritchard, in 
 his " Occasional Thoughts," Murray, 1889. lie says on 
 p. 261, "I cannot accept the Proem as being, or even as 
 intended to be, an exact and scientific account of Crea- j 
 tion," but adds that it " contains within it elements of 
 that same sort of st{perhu?>ian aid or superintendence, 
 •which is generally understood by the undefined term of 
 inspiration.''^
 
 52 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 many and strong presumptions, and I bear 
 in mind that Wellhausen, in giving Bleek's- 
 *' Introduction " to the world, stated it as his- 
 opinion that there is a strong Mosaic ele- 
 ment in the Pentateuch. 
 
 It does not seem too much to say, that 
 the conveyance of scientific instruction as 
 such would not, under the circumstances of 
 the case, be a reasonable object for the Mo- 
 saic writer to pursue ; for the condition of 
 primitive man, as it is portrayed in the Book 
 of Genesis, did not require, perhaps did not 
 admit of, scientific instruction. On the other 
 hand, it could not but be a reasonable ob- 
 ject then to convey to the mind of man, 
 such as he actually was, a moral lesson 
 drawn from and founded on that picture, 
 that assemblage of created objects, which 
 was before his eyes, and with which he lived 
 in perpetual contact. We have, indeed, to 
 consider both what lesson it would be most 
 rational to convey, and by what method it 
 would be most rational to stamp it, as a 
 living lesson, on the mind by which it was 
 to be. received. And the question finall}' to 
 be decided is not, whether according to the 
 present state of knowledge the recital in 
 the Book of Genesis is at each several point 
 either precise or complete. It may here be 
 general, there particular; it may here de- 
 scribe a continuous process, and it may there
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 53 
 
 make large omissions, if the things omitted 
 were either absolutely or comparatively im- 
 material to its purpose ; it may be careful 
 of the actual succession in time, or may 
 deviate from it, according as the one or the 
 other best subserved the general and prin- 
 cipal aim ; so that the true question, I must 
 repeat, is no more than this : Do the prop- 
 ositions of the Creation Story in Genesis 
 appear to stand in such a relation to the 
 facts of natural science, so far as they are 
 ascertained, as to warrant or require our con- 
 cluding that these propositions proceeded, 
 in a manner above the ordinary manner, 
 from the Author of the visible creation? 
 
 What, then, may we conceive to have 
 been the moral and spiritual lessons which 
 the Mosaist had to communicate, and nott. 
 only to communicate but to infuse or to im- 
 press ? I do not presume to attempt an 
 exhaustive enumeration. But it is not dif- 
 ficult to specify a variety of purposes which 
 the narrative was calculated to promote, 
 and which were of great and obvious value 
 for the education of manlcind. 
 
 First, it was fitted to teach man his 
 proper place in creation in relation to its 
 several orders, and thereby to prepare at 
 least for the formation of the idea of rela- 
 tive duty, as between man and other created 
 beings.
 
 54 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 Secondly, it presented to his mind, and by- 
 means of detail made him know and feel 
 what was the beautiful and noble home that 
 he inhabited, and with what a fatherly and 
 tender care Providence had prepared it for 
 him to dwell in. There was a picture be- 
 fore his eyes. That picture was filled with 
 objects of nature, animate and inanimate, 
 I say, one of its great aims may have been 
 to make him know and feel by means of 
 detail ; for wholesale teaching, teaching in 
 the lump, or abstract teaching, mostly 
 ineffective even now, would have been 
 wholly futile then. It was needful to use 
 the simplest phrases, that the primitive man 
 might receive a conception, thoroughly 
 faithful in broad outline, of what his Maker 
 Jiad been about on his behalf So the 
 Maker condescends to partition and set out 
 His work, in making it a picture. 
 
 But He proceeds further (and this is the 
 climax) to represent Himself as resting 
 after it. This declaration is in no conflict 
 with any scientific record. It, however, 
 implies a license in the use of language, 
 which for its boldness was never exceeded in 
 any interpretation, reconciling or other, 
 whicii has been applied to any part of the 
 text of Genesis. But it draws its ample 
 warrant from the strong educative lesson 
 that is to be learned from it ; for it invests
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 55 
 
 both with majesty and authority the 
 doctrine of a day of rest, which was of the 
 highest importance to the higher and inner 
 hfe of man, and which the daily cares of 
 his existence were but too hkely, as ex- 
 perience proved, to efface from his recollec- 
 tion. 
 
 I contend then, thirdly, that the Creation 
 Story was intended to have a special bear- 
 ing on the great institution of the day of 
 rest, or Sabbath, by exhibiting it in the 
 manner of an object lesson. Paley, indeed, 
 has said that God blessed the seventh day 
 and sanctified it (Gen. ii. 3), not at that time 
 but for that reason. He is a writer much 
 to be respected, for many reasons ; but, in 
 dealing with Holy Scripture, he was some- 
 what apt to rest upon the surface. And 
 now we have learned from Assyrian re- 
 searches how many and how sharply traced 
 are the vestiges, long anterior to the de- 
 livery of the law, of some early institution 
 or command, which in that region evidently 
 had given a special sanctity to the number 
 seven, and, in particular, to the seventh day. 
 
 Man then, childlike and sinless, had to 
 receive a lesson which was capable of 
 gradual development, and which spoke to 
 something like the following effect. It has 
 not been by a slight or single effort that 
 the nature, in which you are moulded, has
 
 56 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 been lifted to its present level ; you have 
 reached it by steps and degrees, and by a 
 plan which, stated in rough outline, may 
 stir your faculties, and help them onwards 
 to the truth through the genial action of 
 wonder, delight, and gratitude. This was 
 a lesson, as it seems to me, perhaps quite 
 large enough for the primitive man on the 
 facts of creation, and one which, when he 
 had heard and had begun to digest it, might 
 well be followed by a rest for generations. 
 And it further seems to have been vital 
 to the efficiency of this lesson, from such a 
 point of view, that it should have been 
 sharply broken up into parts, although 
 there might be in nature nothing, at any 
 precise points of breakage or transition, to 
 correspond physically with those divisions. 
 They would become intelligible, significant,, 
 and useful on a comparison of the several 
 processes in their developed state, and of 
 the vast and measureless differences, which 
 in that state they severally present to con- 
 templation. As, when a series of scenes 
 are now made to move along before the 
 eye of a spectator, his attention is not fixed 
 upon the joints which divide them, but on 
 the scenes themselves, yet the joints con- 
 stitute a framework as it were for each, and 
 the idea of each is made more distinct and 
 lively than it would have been if, without
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 57 
 
 any note of division, they had run into one 
 another. 
 
 There is, however, another purpose, not 
 yet named, and more remote yet perhaps 
 even more vital, which appears to be power- 
 fully served by the Creation Story of the 
 Bible. In the prehistoric time, poh'theism 
 was very largely engendered by national 
 distinctions, rivalries, and amalgamations. 
 By a ready and ingenious compromise each 
 people became habituated to recognize a 
 deity all-sufficient for its own wants, but 
 unconcerned with those of others. In the 
 course of time and of successive change, 
 many of these deities might find themselves 
 inducted into one and the same thearchy, or 
 mythological system, such as that of Assyria 
 or of Olympus, and sitting there side by 
 side. When this happened, the polytheistic 
 idea had reached its full development. But 
 the road to it lay principally through the 
 erection of separate thrones each for its 
 particular national organization, and through 
 the limits thus imposed upon the earlier 
 and more proper conception of a Divine 
 Governor. But where the Creation Story 
 of Genesis was received, the door was effect- 
 ually closed for all thinking men against 
 these coequal and purely national gods. 
 And how ? Because the God of Israel 
 was the Maker of the world, and of all the
 
 58 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 nations in it. It was His creation ; and its 
 inhabitants, whether terrestrial or celestial, 
 were His creatures. Thus the narrative in 
 this great chapter was nothing less than a 
 charter of monotheism; and though, in 
 Israelitish practice, Baal and Ashtoreth 
 might find their way into popular worship, 
 and spread around them an infinity of cor- 
 ruption, the lines of the dogma never were 
 obscured, and the standard of authoritative 
 reform still lifted up its head to heaven 
 from the first day of idolatry to the last, 
 when, in the Exile, it was finally sub- 
 merged.* 
 
 How effectually and vividly this great 
 idea of creation, lost or dilapidated else- 
 where, was impressed upon the Hebrew 
 mind we may perceive from an usage in the 
 Psalms, to which I do not remember a 
 parallel in the classical literature. The 
 lower orders of animated creatures are 
 themselves placed in a living relation to the 
 Almighty. " The lions roaring after their 
 
 prey, do seek their meat from God 
 
 These all wait upon thee ; that thou mayest 
 give them meat in due season." f Nor is 
 the boldness of Hebrew devotion arrested 
 at this point. It extends to the inanimate 
 
 * For the further elucidation of the subject of this par- 
 agraph see the Postscript to " The Creation Story." 
 j- Ps. civ. 21, 27.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 59 
 
 world. " The heavens declare the glory of 
 God ; and the firmament showeth His 
 
 handiwork Their sound is gone out 
 
 into all lands, and their words into the ends 
 
 of the world The sun cometh forth 
 
 as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and 
 rejoiceth as a giant to run his course." * 
 This is without doubt noble poetry, but it 
 is also nobler than any poetry. Mute Na- 
 ture is instinct and vocal with worship, and 
 Creation in its humblest orders, giving a 
 lesson to its loftiest, ministers to the glory 
 of the Most High. 
 
 In order, then, to approach any attempt 
 at comparison between the record of Script- 
 ure and the record of Natural Science, we 
 must consider first, as far as reasonable 
 presumption carries us, what is the proper 
 object of the scientist, and what was the 
 proper object of Moses, or of the Mosaic 
 writer, in the first chapter of Genesis. 
 
 The object of the scientist is simply to 
 state the facts of nature in the cosmogony 
 as and so far as he can find them. The 
 object of the Mosaic writer is broadly 
 distinct; it is, surely, to convey moral and 
 spiritual training. This training was to be 
 conveyed to human beings of childlike tem- 
 perament and of unimproved understanding. 
 It was his business to use those words which 
 * Ps. xix. 1-5.
 
 6o THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 would best convey the lessons he had to 
 teach ; which would carry most initJi into 
 the minds of those he taught. This ob- 
 servation has not the honors of originality. 
 " He emphasized," says Rabbi Grossmann,* 
 in his interesting tract on Maimonides, "as 
 very proper and wise, the Talmudic maxim, 
 that the Torah employs such diction as is 
 likely to be most communicative." 
 
 In speaking of the Mosaic writer, I would, 
 without presumption, seek to include any 
 divine impulse which may have prompted 
 him, or may have dictated any communica- 
 tion from God to man, in whatever form it 
 may have been conve}'ed. With this aim 
 in view, words of figure, though literally 
 untrue, might carry more truth home than 
 words of fact; and words less exact will 
 even now often carry more truth than 
 words superior in exactness. The truth to 
 be conveyed was, indeed, in its basis phys- 
 ical ; but it was to serve moral and spiritual 
 ends, and accordingly by these ends the 
 method of its conveyance behoved to be 
 shaped and pictured. 
 
 I submit, then, that the days of creation 
 are neither the solar days of twenty-four 
 hours, nor are they the geological periods 
 which the geologist himself is compelled 
 popularly, and in a manner utterly remote 
 * P. 12. Putnam, New York and London, 1890.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. gi 
 
 from precision, to describe as millions upon 
 millions of years. To use such language as 
 this is simply to tell us, that we have no 
 means of forming a determinate idea upon 
 the subject of the geologic periods. I set 
 aside both these interpretations, as I do not 
 think the Mosaist intended to convey an 
 idea like the first, which was false, or like 
 the second, which for his auditory would 
 have been barren and unmeaning. Un- 
 meaning, and even confusing in the highest 
 degree ; for large statements in figures are 
 well known to be utterly be}'ond compre- 
 hension for man at an early intellectual 
 stage; and I have myself, I think, shown* 
 that, even among the Achaian or Homeric 
 Greeks, the limits of numerical comprehen- 
 sion were extremely narrow, and all large 
 numbers were used, so to speak, at a ven- 
 ture. 
 
 It seems to me that the " days " of the 
 Mosaist are more properly to be described 
 
 as CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CREA- 
 TION. That is to say, the purpose of the 
 writer, in speaking of the days, was the 
 same as the purpose of the historian is, 
 when he divides his Vvork into chapters. 
 His object is to give clear and sound in- 
 struction. So that he can do this, and in 
 
 *" Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age," vol. 
 iii., Section on Number.
 
 62 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 order that he may do it, the periods of time 
 assigned to each chapter are longer or 
 shorter, according as the one or the other 
 may minister to better comprehension of 
 his subject by his readers. Further, in 
 point of chronology, his chapters often 
 overlap. He finds it needful, always keep- 
 ing his end in view, to pursue some narra- 
 tive to its close, and then, stepping back- 
 wards, to take up some other series of facts, 
 although their exordium dated at a period 
 of time which he has already traversed. 
 The resources of the literary art, aided for 
 the last four centuries by printing, enable 
 the modern writer to confront more easily 
 these difficulties of arrangement, and so to 
 present the material to his reader's eye, in 
 text or margin, as to place the texture of 
 his chronology in harmony with the texture 
 of the action he has to relate. The Mosaist, 
 in his endeavor to expound the ordinary 
 development of the visible world, had no 
 such resources. His expedient was to lay 
 hold on that which, to the mind of his time, 
 was the best example of complete and or- 
 derly division. Tliis was the day ; an idea 
 at once simple, definite, and familiar. As 
 one day is divided from another, not by any 
 change visible to the eye at a given moment, 
 yet effectually, by the broad chasm of the 
 intervening night, so were the stages of the
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 63 
 
 creative work several and distinct, even if, 
 like the lapse of time, they were without 
 breach of continuity. Each had its work, 
 each had the beginning and the completion 
 of that work, even as the day is begun by 
 its morning, and completed and concluded 
 by its evening. 
 
 And now to sum up. In order that the 
 narrative might be intelligible, it was useful 
 to subdivide the work. This could most 
 effectively be done by subdividing it into 
 periods of time. And further, it was well 
 to choose that particular circumscription or 
 period of time which is the most definite 
 and best understood. Of all these, the day 
 is clearly the best, as compared with the 
 month or the year — first, because of its 
 small and familiar compass ; and, secondly, 
 because of the strong and marked division 
 which separates one day from another. 
 
 Hence, we may reasonably argue, it is 
 that not here only, but throughout the 
 Scripture, and even down to the present 
 time in familiar human speech, the day is 
 figuratively used to describe periods of time, 
 perfectly undefined as such, but defined, for 
 practical purposes, by the lives or events to 
 which reference is made. And if it be said 
 there was a danger of its being misun- 
 derstood in this particular case, the answer 
 is that such danger of misapprehension at-
 
 64 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 taches in various degrees to all use of fig- 
 urative language : but fio^urative lanfjuaee 
 is still used. And with reason because the 
 mischiefs arising from such danger are rare 
 and trivial, in comparison with the force and 
 clearness which it lends to truth on its pas- 
 sage, through a clouded atmosphere of folly, 
 indifference, and prejudice, into the mind of 
 man. In this particular case, the danger 
 and inconvenience are at their minimum, 
 the benefit at its zenith; for no moral mis- 
 chief ensues because some have supposed 
 the days of the creation to be pure solar 
 days of twenty-four hours, while the bene- 
 fit has been that the grand conception of 
 orderly development, and ascent from chaos 
 to man, became among the Hebrew people 
 an universal and f;imiliar truth, of which 
 other races appear to have lost sight. 
 
 I may now part from the important and 
 long-vexed discussion on the Mosiac days. 
 But I shall further examine the general 
 question, what is the true method, what the 
 reasonable spirit, of interpretation to be ap- 
 plied to the words of the Creation Story ? I 
 will state frankly my opinion that, in this im- 
 portant matter, too much has sometimes 
 been conceded in modern days to the Scien- 
 tist and to the Hebraist, just as in former 
 days too much was allowed to the unproved 
 assumptions of the Theologian. Now it is
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 65 
 
 evident that the proper ground of the Scien- 
 tist and of the Hebraist respectively is un- 
 assailable, as against those who are neither 
 Scientists nor Hebraists. On the meaning 
 of the words used in the Creation Story I, 
 as an igiior-anms, have only to accept the 
 statements of Hebrew scholars, with grati- 
 tude for the aid received ; and in like man- 
 ner those of men skilled in natural sci- 
 ence on the nature and succession of the 
 orders of being, and the transitions from 
 one to the other. Not that their statements 
 are inerrable ; but they constitute the best 
 working material in our possession. Still 
 they are the statements of men whose title 
 to speak with authority is confined to their 
 special province ; and if we allow them 
 without protest to go beyond it, and still 
 to claim that authority when they are 
 what is called at school " out of bounds," 
 we are much to blame, and may suffer for 
 our carelessness. 
 
 I will now endeavor to illustrate and 
 apply what has been said. The Hebraist 
 says, I will conduct you safely (as far as 
 the case allows) to the meaning of the 
 Hebrew words. And the Scientist makes 
 the same promise in regard to the facts 
 of the created orders, so far as they are 
 exhibited by geological investigations into 
 the crust of the earth. At first sight it 
 
 5
 
 56 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 may seem as if these two authoritative wit- 
 nesses must cover the whole ground, each 
 setting out from his own point of depart- 
 ure, the two then meeting in the midst, 
 and leaving no unoccupied space between 
 them. But my contention is that there is 
 a ground which neither of them is entitled 
 to occupy in his character as a special- 
 ist, and on which he has no warrant for 
 entering, except in so far as he is a just 
 observer and reasoner in a much wider 
 field. And what is the residuary subject- 
 matter still to be disposed of? Not the 
 meaning of the Hebrew words. The He- 
 braist has already given us their true equiv- 
 alents in English. We now learn, for ex- 
 ample, that the " whales " of Gen. i. 21 are 
 not whales at all, but that they are aquatic 
 monsters * or great creatures ; while we 
 learn from the biologist that the whale is 
 a late mammal. So geology has acquainted 
 us what are the relative dates of the water 
 and of the land populations, and has sup- 
 plied much information as to reptiles, birds, 
 
 * R. v., the great sea-monsters. " It seems, on the 
 whole, most probable, that the creatures here said to have 
 been created were serpents, crocodiles, and other huge 
 saurians, though possibly any large monsters of sea or 
 river may be included" (Bp. Browne in /or., " Speak- 
 er's Commentary "). Possibly a word meaning, whether 
 wholly or inter alia, crocodiles would convey a pretty 
 clear idea to the mind of the Hebrews, after their sojourn 
 in Egypt.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 ^7 
 
 and beasts. But there remains a great un- 
 covered ground, and a great unsolved 
 question. It is this. Given the facts as 
 the geologist is led to state them, given 
 the Hebrew tongue as the instrument 
 through which the relator has to work, 
 what are the terms, and what is the order 
 and adjustment of terms, througli which 
 he can convey most of truth and force, 
 with least of incumbrance and of im- 
 pediment, to the mind of man, in the con- 
 dition in which he had to deal with it? 
 Let me be permitted to say that the only 
 specialism, which can be of the smallest 
 value here, is that of the close observer 
 of human nature; of the student of human 
 action, and of the methods which Divine 
 Providence employs in the conduct of its 
 dealings with men. Certainly I can lay no 
 claim to be heard here more than any other 
 person. Yet will I say, that any man whose 
 labor and duty for several scores of years 
 has included as their central point the study 
 of the means of making himself intelligible 
 to the mass of men, is pro tanto perhaps in 
 a better position to judge what would be 
 the forms and methods of speech proper for 
 the Mosaic writer to adopt, than the 
 most perfect Hebraist as such, or the most 
 consummate votary of natural sciences as 
 such.
 
 68 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 I will now endeavor to try some portions 
 
 of the case which turn upon verbal difficulty. 
 At the outset of the narrative the relator 
 says, that " the earth was without form and 
 void " (Gen. i. 2) and that " the spirit of God 
 moved upon the face of the waters." Nay, 
 how is this, says the Hebraist ? The He- 
 brew word for earth means earth, and the 
 word used for water never means anything 
 except water. But according to the beauti- 
 ful theory, which has during the last half- 
 century won so largely the adhesibn of the 
 scientific world, and which seems to be 
 mainly called the nebular theory, at the 
 commencement of the process which Gene- 
 sis describes, and in its early stages, there 
 was no eartii, and there were no waters. Is 
 the relator here really at fault ? It seems 
 to me that it miglit be quite as easy to cavil 
 at the phrase nebular theory, though it be 
 one in use among scientific men, as it is to 
 find fault with these words of Genesis. For 
 nothing can be more different than a 
 nebula or cloud from a vast expanse of 
 incandescent gaseous matter. In truth, we 
 seem to have for our point of departure a 
 time when all the elements and all the 
 forces of the visible universe were in cha- 
 otic mixture, whereas there could hardly be 
 any sort of nebula until they had begun 
 to be disengaged from one another. How
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 69 
 
 then are we to judge of the use of the word 
 " earth " by the Mosaic writer ? Is it not 
 thus? He is deahng with an Adam, or 
 with a primitive race of men. who have 
 the earth under their eyes. He wants to 
 give them an idea of its coming into exist- 
 ence. And he says what we may fairly 
 paraphrase in this way : that which has 
 now become earth, and was then becoming 
 earth, the sohd well-defined form }-ou see, 
 was as yet without form and void; epithets 
 which I am told might be improved upon,, 
 but this is a matter by the way. 
 
 So again with respect to water. The 
 men for whom the relator wrote knew, per- 
 haps, of no fluid except water, at any rate 
 of none vast and practically measureless in 
 volume. What was the idea he had to 
 convey? It was not the special and dis- 
 tinctive character of the liquid called 
 water ; it was the broad separation between 
 solid as such, familiar, firm, imniovable 
 under his feet, and fluid as such, movable 
 and fluctuating at large in space. No 
 doubt the idea conveyed by the word 
 waters is an imperfect idea, although waters 
 are still waters at times when they may be 
 holding vast quantities of solid in solution. 
 But it was an idea easy, clear, and familiar 
 , up to the point of expressing forcibly the 
 contrast between the ancient state of things.
 
 70 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 with its weltering waste, and tiie recent and 
 defined conditions of the habitable earth. 
 Could we ask of the relator more than that 
 he should employ, among the words at his 
 disposal, that which would come nearest to 
 conveying a true idea? And had he any 
 word so good as water for his purpose, 
 though it was but an approximation to the 
 actual fact? Dr. Driver describes the 
 scene as that of a " surging chaos." An 
 admirable phrase, I make no doubt, for our 
 modern and cultivated minds; but a phrase 
 which, in my judgment, would have left the 
 pupils of the Mosaic writer exactly in the 
 condition out of which it was his purpose 
 to bring them ; namely, a state of utter 
 ignorance and total darkness, with possibly 
 a little ruffle of bewilderment to boot. An- 
 other description claiming high authority 
 is, an " uncompounded, homogeneous, 
 gaseous condition " of matter; to which the 
 same observation will apply. Even now, 
 it is only by rude and bald approximations 
 that the practised intellects of our scientists 
 can bring home to us a conception of the 
 actual process by which chaos passed into 
 kosmos, or, in other words, confusion 
 became order, medley became sequence, 
 seeming anarchy became majestic law, and 
 horror softened into beauty. Before cen- 
 suring the Mosaist, who had to deal with
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 71 
 
 grown children, let the adverse critic try 
 his hand upon some little child. I believe 
 he will find that the method and language 
 of this relator are not only good, but super- 
 latively good, for the aim he had in view, if 
 once for all we get rid of standards of in- 
 terpretation other than the genuine and 
 just one, which tests the means employed 
 by their relation to the end contemplated 
 and sought. 
 
 I now approach a larger head of objec- 
 tion, which :s usually handled by the Con- 
 tradictionists in a tone of confidence rising 
 into the paean of triumph. But let me, be- 
 fore presuming to touch on objections to 
 particulars of the Creation Story, guard 
 myself against being supposed to put for- 
 ward any portion of what follows as un- 
 conditional assertion, or final comment on 
 the text. The general situation is this. 
 Objectors do not hesitate to declare dog- 
 matically that the Great Chapter is in con- 
 tradiction with the laws and facts of nature, 
 and that attempts to reconcile them are 
 futile and irrational. It is thus sought to 
 close the question. My aim is to show 
 that the question is not closed, and that the 
 condemnation pronounced upon the Mosa- 
 ist is premature. For this purpose I offer 
 conjecturally, and in absolute submission 
 to all that biology and geology, or other
 
 7^ 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 forms of science, have established, repHes 
 which are strictly provisional ; but replies 
 which I consider that the Contradictionist 
 ought, together with other and weightier 
 replies, to confute, or legitimately to con- 
 sider, before he can be warranted in assert- 
 ing the contradiction. But I proceed. 
 
 How hopeless, is the cry, to reconcile 
 Genesis with fact, when, as a fact, the sun 
 is the source of light, and yet in Genesis, 
 light is the work of the first day, and vege- 
 tation of the third, while sun, moon, and 
 stars appear only on the fourth ! Nay, 
 worse still. Whereas the morning and the 
 evening depend wholly on the rotation of 
 the earth upon its own axis as it travels 
 round the sun, the Mosaist is so ignorant 
 that he gives us not days only, but the 
 mornings and the evenings of days before 
 the sun is created. And so his narration 
 explodes, not by blows aimed at it from 
 without, but by its own internal self-contra- 
 dictions. It is hissed, like a blundering 
 witness, out of court. Not that this is the 
 opinion of astronomers in general. Mr. 
 Lockyer,* for example, cites with appar- 
 ent approval a passage from his very dis- 
 tinguished predecessor in the science, Hal- 
 ley, who says that the diffused lucid me- 
 dium he had found disposed of the diffi- 
 * Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1889, p. 788.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 73 
 
 culty which some have moved against the 
 description Moses gives of the Creation, al- 
 leoring that hght could not be created with- 
 out the sun. 
 
 The first triad of days, says Professor 
 Dana,* sets forth the events connected with 
 the inorganic history of the earth. The 
 second triad, from the fourth day to the 
 sixth, is occupied with the events of the 
 organic history, from the creation of the 
 first animal to man. He finds in the gen- 
 eral structure of the narrative a consider- 
 able degree of elaboration, an arrangement 
 full of art. The passage from ver. 14 to 
 ver. 19 is, in one sense, a qualification of 
 the order he thinks to have been laid down, 
 inasmuch as the heavenly bodies belong to 
 the inorganic division of the history. From 
 another point of view, however, this arrange- 
 ment contributes in a marked manner to the 
 symmetry of the narrative. The first triad 
 of days begins with the first and gradual 
 detachment of light from the " surging 
 chaos"; the second, at the stage in which 
 lieht has reached its final distribution. The 
 central mass had now assumed with a cer- 
 tain amount of regularity (for according to 
 heliologists the process does not even yet 
 appear to be absolutely completed) its spher- 
 ical and luminous figure, after shedding off 
 * Dana's " Creation," p. 207.
 
 74 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 from itself the minor masses, each to find 
 for itself its own orbit of rotation. Or, if 
 we are to assume that the photosphere or 
 vapor-envelope of the earth itself had ob- 
 structed the vision of the sun. we have, 
 further, to assume * that this obstacle had 
 now disappeared, and the visibility of the 
 sun was established. So that light, or the 
 light-power, while diffused, ushers in the 
 first division of the mighty process ; the 
 same light-power, concentrated by the 
 operation of the rotatory principle, and for 
 practical purposes become such as we now 
 know it, is placed at the head of the second 
 division, the division that deals with organic 
 life. 
 
 It is remarkable, that the subject of light 
 is the only one which is dealt with in two 
 separate sections of the narrative. The 
 gradual severance, or disengagement, of the 
 earth from its present vesture, the atmos- 
 phere, and of the solid land from the ocean, 
 are continuously handled in verses 6-10. 
 Each of the processes is summed up into 
 its grand result, as if it had been a violent, 
 convulsive, instantaneous act. The avoid- 
 ance of all attempt to explain the process 
 seems to me only a proof of the wisdom 
 which guided the formation of the tale. To 
 the primitive man it would have become a 
 * Guyot, " Creation," ch. xi. p. 92.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 75 
 
 barren puzzle; the wood must have been 
 lost in the trees. As it now stands, mental 
 confusion is avoided, and definite ideas are 
 conveyed. 
 
 There seems, however, to be a special 
 reason for the introduction of the heavenly 
 bodies at this particular place. It was evi- 
 dently needful at some place or other to 
 give a specific account of the day, or com- 
 partment of time, which is employed to 
 mark the severance of the different stages 
 of creation from each other. At what point 
 of* the narrative could this account be most 
 properly and most accurately introduced? 
 In order to answer this question, let us con- 
 sider the situation rather more at large. 
 
 The supposition is, that we set out with 
 a seething mass that contains all the ele- 
 ments which are to become the solids and 
 liquids, the moist and dry, the heat and the 
 non-heat or cold, the light and the non-light 
 or darkness, that so largely determine the 
 external conditions of our present existence. 
 By degrees, as, according to the rarity or 
 density of parts, the centripetal or the cen- 
 trifugal force prevails, the huge bulk of the 
 sun consolidates itself in the centre, and 
 aggregations of matter (rings, according to 
 Guyot,* which afterwards become, or may 
 become, spheres), are detached from it to 
 
 * " Creation," pp, 67, 73.
 
 1^ 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 form the planets, under the agency of the 
 same meclianical forces ; all or some of 
 them, in their turn, dismissing from their 
 as yet ill-compacted surfaces other subaltern 
 masses to revolve around them as satellites, 
 or otherwise, according to the balance of 
 forces, to take tlieir course in space. Mean- 
 time, the great cooling process, which is 
 still in progress at this day, has begun. It 
 proceeds at a rate determined for it by its 
 particular conditions, among which mass 
 and motion are of essential consequence; 
 for, other things being equal, a small bo'dy 
 will cool faster and a large body will cool 
 slower ; and a body moving more rapidly 
 through space of a lower temperature than 
 its own will cool more rapidly; while one 
 which is stationary, or more nearly station- 
 ary, or which diffuses heat less rapidly from 
 its surface into the colder space, will retain 
 a high temperature longer. Owing to these 
 perhaps with other causes, the temperature 
 of the earth-surface has been adapted to 
 the conditions of human life, and of the 
 more recent animal life, for a very longtime; 
 to those of the earlier animals, and of vege- 
 tation in its different orders, for we know 
 not how much longer ; while the sun, though 
 gradually losing some part of his stock of 
 caloric, still remains at a temperature inordi-
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 77 
 
 nately high, and with a formation compara- 
 tively incomplete. 
 
 Considering, then, what are the relations 
 between the conditions of heat and those 
 of moisture, and how the coatings of vapor, 
 "the swaddling-band of cloud,"* might 
 affect the visibility of bodies, may it not be 
 rash to affirm that the sun is, as a definite 
 and compact body, older than the earth ? or 
 that it is so old ? or that the Mosaist might 
 not properly treat the visibility of the sun, 
 in its present form, as best marking for man 
 the practical inception of his existence? or 
 that, with heat, light, soil, and moisture 
 ready to its service, primordial vegetation 
 might not exist on the surface of a planet 
 like the earth, before the sun had fully 
 reached his matured condition of sufficiently 
 compact, material, and well-defined figure, 
 and of visibility to the eye ? May not, once 
 for all, the establishment of the relation of 
 visibility between earth and sun be the most 
 suitable point for the relator in Genesis to- 
 bring the two into connection? And here 
 again I would remind the reader that the 
 Mosaic days may be chapters in a history ;; 
 and that, not in despite of the law of series,, 
 but with a view to its best practicable applica- 
 tion, the chapters of a history may overlap.. 
 
 The priority of Earth to Sun, as given in 
 
 * Dana, p. 210.
 
 78 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 the narrative, carries us so far as this, that 
 vegetative work (of what kind I shall pres- 
 ently inquire) is stated to be proceeding on 
 the surface of the earth before any relation 
 of earth with sun is declared. It is then 
 declared in the terms, "and God made two 
 great lights" (ver. i6). Now the making o^ 
 earth is nowhere declared, but only im- 
 plied. And who shall say that there is 
 some one exact point of time in the con- 
 tinuous process which (according to the 
 nebular theory) reaches from the first begin- 
 ning of rotation down to the present condi- 
 tion of the solar system, to which point, 
 and to which alone, the term making must 
 belong? But, unless there be such a point, 
 it seems verv^ difficult to convict the Mo- 
 saic writer of error in the choice he has 
 made of an opportunity for introducing the 
 heavenly bodies into his narrative. 
 
 I suppose that no apology is needed for 
 his mentioning the moon and the stars as 
 accessories in the train of the sun, and com- 
 bining them all without note of time, 
 although their several " makings " may have 
 proceeded at different speeds. But here 
 again we find exhibited that principle of 
 relativity to man and his uses, by which the 
 writer in Genesis appears so wisely to steer 
 his course throughout. We are told of 
 "two great lights" (ver. i6); and one of
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 79 
 
 them is the moon. The formation of the 
 stars is interjected soon after, as if compara- 
 tively insignificant. But the planet-stars 
 individually are in themselves far greater 
 and more significant than the moon, which 
 is denominated a great light. In what sense 
 is the moon a great light ? Only in virtue 
 of its relation to us. For its magnitude, a.s. 
 it is represented on the human retina, is far 
 larger than that of the stars, approaching 
 that of the sun ; and its office also makes it 
 the queen of the nocturnal heaven. So, 
 then, the general upshot is, that the mention 
 of the sun is introduced at that point in the 
 cosmogonic process when, from the condi- 
 tion of our form and atmosphere, or of his, 
 or of both, he had become so definite and 
 visible as to be finally efficient for his office 
 of dividing day from day, and year from 
 year ; that the planets, being of an altogether 
 secondary importance to us, simply appear 
 as his attendant company ; and that to the 
 moon, a body in itself comparatively insig- 
 nificant, is awarded a rather conspicuous 
 place, which, if objectively considered, is 
 out of proportion, but which at once falls 
 into line when we acknowledge relativity as 
 the basis of the narrative, by reason of the 
 great importance of the functions, which 
 this satellite discharges on behalf of the 
 inhabitants of the earth.
 
 8o THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 Next, it is alleged that we have days with 
 an evening and a morning before we have a 
 sun to supply a measure of time for them. 
 Doubtless there could be no approach to 
 anything like an evening and a morning, so 
 long as light was uniformly diffused. But 
 under the nebular theory, the work of the 
 first day implies an initial concentration of 
 hght ; and, from the time when light began 
 to be thus powerfully concentrated, would 
 there not be an evening and a morning, 
 though imperfect, for any revolving solid 
 of the system, according as it might be 
 turned towards, or from, the centre of the 
 highest luminosity? 
 
 But we have not yet emerged from the 
 net of the Contradictionist, who lays hold 
 on the vegetation verses fii, 12) to im- 
 peach the credit of the Creation Story. 
 The objection here becomes twofold. First, 
 "we have vegetation anterior to the sun; and 
 secondly, this is not merely an aquatic 
 vegetation for the support of aquatic life, 
 nor merely a rude and primordial vegeta- 
 tion, such as that of and before the coal- 
 measures, but a vegetation complete and 
 absolute, including fern-grass, then the herb 
 yielding seed, and lastly the fruit-tree, yield- 
 ing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in 
 itself. Here is the food of mammals and 
 even of man provided, when neither of them
 
 THE CREATION STORY. gl 
 
 was created, or was even about to exist 
 until after many a long antecedent stage of 
 lower life had found its way into creation 
 and undertaken its office there. 
 
 First, as regards vegetation before the 
 sun's performance of his present function in 
 the heavens is announced. There were 
 light and heat, atmosphere with its con- 
 ditions of moist and dry, soil prepared to do 
 its work in nutrition. Can there be ground 
 for sayinCT that, with such provision made, 
 vegetation could not, would not, take place? 
 Let us, for argument's sake, suppose that 
 the sun could now recede into an earlier 
 condition, could go back by some few stages 
 of that process through which he became 
 our sun ; his material less compact, his form 
 less defined, his rays more intercepted by 
 the " swaddling-band " of cloud and vapor. 
 Vegetation might be modified in character, 
 but must it therefore cease? May we not 
 say that a far more violent paradox would 
 have been hazarded, and a sounder objec- 
 tion would have lain, had the Mosaic writer 
 failed to present to us at least aa initial 
 vegetation before the era at which the sun 
 had obtained his present degree of defimte- 
 ness in spherical form, and the conditions 
 for the transmission of his rays to us had 
 reached substantially their present state? 
 But, then, it is fairly observed that the 
 6
 
 82 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 vegetation as described is not preparatory 
 and initial, but full-formed ; also, that any 
 tracingr of vegetation anterior to animal 
 life in the strata is ambiguous and obscure. 
 In the age of Protozoa, the earliest living 
 creatures, the indications of plants are not 
 determinable, according to the high author- 
 ity of Sir J. W. Dawson. It is observed by 
 Canon Driver " that the proof from science 
 of the existence of plants before animals is 
 inferential and cl priori.'" * Guyot,.however, 
 holds a directly contrary opinion, and says 
 the present remains indicate a large pres- 
 ence of infusorial protophytes in the early 
 seas.f But suppose the point to be con- 
 ceded. Undoubtedly, all ci priori assump- 
 tions ought in inquiries of this kind to be 
 watched with the utmost vigilance and jeal- 
 ousy. Still there are limits, beyond which 
 vigilance and jealousy cannot push their 
 claims. Is there anything strange in the 
 supposition that the comparatively delicate 
 composition of the first vegetable structures 
 should have given way, and become indis- 
 cernible to us, amidst the sbock and pres- 
 sure of firmer and more durable material? 
 The flesh of the mammoth has, indeed, 
 been preserved to us, and eaten by dogs 
 
 * " The Cosmogony of Genesis," in 77^1? Expositor ^ 
 January 1886, p. 29. 
 t " Creation," x. p. 90.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 83 
 
 in our own time, though coming down 
 from ages which we have no means of 
 measuring; but then it was not exposed 
 to the same pressure, and it subsisted 
 under conditions of temperature which 
 ■were adequately antiseptic. But has all 
 palaeozoic life been ascertained by its 
 flesh, or do we not owe our knowledge of 
 many among the earlier forms of animated 
 life altogether to their osseous structures? 
 And, in cases where only bone remains, is 
 it an extravagant use of argument a priori 
 to hold that there must have been flesh 
 also ? And, if flesh, why should not vege- 
 table matter have subsisted, and have dis- 
 appeared ? Canon Driver, indeed, observes * 
 that from a very early date animals preyed 
 upon animals. Still the first animal could 
 not prey upon himself; there must have 
 been vegetable pabuhnn, out of which an 
 animal body was first developed. " Before 
 the beasts," says Sir George Stokes, " came 
 the plants, plants which are necessary for 
 
 their sustenance. "f 
 
 Next, with respect to the objection that 
 the vegetation of the eleventh and twelfth 
 verses is a perfected vegetation, and that 
 there existed no such vegetation before 
 animal life began. But why are we to sup- 
 
 * The Expositor. January, 1886, p. 29. 
 f Letter to Mr. Elflein, Aug. 14. 1883.
 
 84 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 pose that the Mosaic writer intended to say 
 that such a vegetation did exist before 
 animal hfe began ? For no other reason 
 than this : having mentioned the first intro- 
 duction of vegetable life, he carries it on, 
 without breaking his narrative, to its com- 
 pletion. In so proceeding, he does ex- 
 actly what the historian does when, for the 
 sake of clearer comprehension, he brings 
 one series of events from its inception to 
 its close, although in order of time the be- 
 ginning only, and not the completion, be- 
 longs to the epoch at which he introduces 
 it. What I have called the rule of relativ- 
 ity, the intention, namely, to be intelligible 
 to man, seems to show the reason of his 
 arrangement. If his meaning was, " The 
 beautiful order of trees, plants, and grasses 
 which you see around you had its first be- 
 ginnings in the era when living creatures 
 were about to commence their movements 
 in the waters and on the earth, and all this 
 was part of the fatherly work of God on your 
 behalf" — such meaning was surely well ex- 
 pressed, expressed after a sound and work- 
 manlike fashion, in the text of the Creation 
 Story as it stands. 
 
 I will next notice the objection that the 
 Mosaic writer takes (according to the re- 
 ceived version) no notice of the great age 
 of reptiles, but proceeds at once from the
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 85 
 
 creation of marine animals (ver. 20) to the 
 fowl that may " fly above the earth in the 
 open firmament of heaven." He thus 
 passes over without notice the amphibians, 
 the reptiles proper, the insects, and the 
 marsupial or early mammals, on his way to 
 the birds. It is added that he brackets the 
 birds with the fishes, and thus makes them 
 of the same date. 
 
 It is requisite here to observe, with re- 
 spect to birds, that Professor Dana * writes 
 of the narrative in Genesis as follows : 
 speaking of the relation between the Mo- 
 saic narrative and the ascertained facts of 
 science, he uses these words : " The accord- 
 ance is exact with the succession made out 
 for the earliest species of these grand di- 
 visions, if we except the division of birds, 
 about which there is doubt." 
 
 Owen, however, in his " Palaeontology," f 
 places animal life in six classes, according 
 to the following order, namely — 
 
 1. Invertebrates. 4. Birds. 
 
 2. Ushes. 5. Mammals. 
 
 3. Reptiles. 6. Man. 
 
 In the more recent " Manual " of Profes- 
 
 * "Creation," as before, p. 215. 
 + Second edition, 1861, p. 5.
 
 86 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 sor Prestvvich (1886) the order of seniority 
 stands as follows : — 
 
 1. Cryptogamous Plants. 4. Mammals. 
 
 2. Fishes. 5. Man. 
 
 3. Birds. 
 
 In the " Manual " * of Etheridge we are 
 supplied with the following series, after 
 fishes: i. Fossil reptiles. 2. Ornithosauria ; 
 ''''flying aiiiuials, ivhicli combine d the charac- 
 ter of reptiles with those of birds.'" 3. The 
 first birds of the secondary rocks, with 
 " feathers in all respects similar to those of 
 existing birds." 4. Mammals. 
 
 It thus appears that much turns on the 
 definition of a bird, and that, in this point 
 as in others, it is hard, on the evidence 
 thus presented, seriously to impeach the 
 character of the Creation Story. Largely 
 viewed, the place of birds, as an order in 
 creation, is given us by our scientific teach- 
 ers, or, as I have shown, by many and rec- 
 ognized authorities among them, between 
 fishes and the class of mammals. It is a 
 gratuitous assumption that the Mosaist in- 
 tends to assign to them the same date as 
 fishes ; he places them in the same day, but 
 then we have to bear in mind that he more 
 than once gives several actions to the same 
 
 * Phillips's " Manual of Geology," part ii., by R. 
 Etheridge, F. R. S., chap. xxv. pp. 511-520.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 87 
 
 day. He sets them after the fishes ; and the 
 fairer construction surely is, not that they 
 were contemporaneous, but that they were 
 subsequent. He forbears, it is true, to 
 notice amphibious reptiles, insects, and 
 marsupials. And why ? All these, va- 
 riously important in themselves, fill no 
 large place, some of them no place at all, 
 in the view and in the concerns of primitiv^e 
 man ; and, having man for his object, he 
 forbears, on his guiding principle of rela- 
 tivity, to incumber his narrative with them. 
 
 If it be true that the demarcation of the 
 order of birds in creation is less sharply 
 drawn than that (for example) of fishes and 
 of mammals, may we not be permitted to 
 trace a singular propriety in the diminution, 
 so to speak, of emphasis with which the 
 Mosaist gives to their introduction a more 
 qualified distinctness of outline, by simply 
 subjoining them (ver. 20) to the aquatic 
 creation. 
 
 I have now made bold to touch on 
 the principal objections popularly known. 
 They run into details which it has not been 
 possible fully to notice, but which seem to 
 be without force, except such as they de- 
 rive from the illegitimate process of hold- 
 ing down the Mosaic writer in his narra- 
 tion, so short, so simple, so sublime, by 
 .restraints which the ordinary historian,
 
 88 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 though he has plenty of auxiUary expedi- 
 ents, and is under no restraint of space^ 
 finds himself obliged to shake off if he 
 wishes to be understood. On the intro- 
 duction of the great or recent mammals, 
 and of man, as the objector is silent, I re- 
 main silent also. 
 
 It would be uncandid, however, not to 
 notice the " creeping thing" of verses 24, 25, 
 and 26. In these verses the "creeping 
 thing" is distinguished from cattle, and un- 
 doubtedly appears upon the scene as if it 
 were a formation wholly new. If the 
 Mosaist really intended to convey that this 
 was the first appearance of the creeping 
 thing in creation, there is I suppose no 
 doubt that he is at war with the firmly 
 established witness of natural science. 
 Guyot, indeed, says* that these creeping 
 things are not reptiles, but are the smaller 
 mammals, rats, mice, and the like. If, how- 
 ever, the common rendering be maintained, 
 it may be just worth while to suggest a 
 possible explanation. It is as follows. 
 These creeping things were a very minor 
 fact in the scheme of creation ; so that the 
 purpose of the relator, and the comparative 
 importance of the facts may here, as else- 
 where, govern his mode of handling them. 
 It is fit to be observed that he never men- 
 *" Creation," p. 120.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 89 
 
 tions insects at all, as if they were too insig- 
 nificant to find a place among the larger 
 items of his account; as if he advisedly 
 selected his materials, and sifted off the less 
 important among them. And there does 
 seem to be some license or looseness in his 
 method of treating these creeping things; 
 for while he severs them from fish, fowl, and 
 beast, in the verses I have named, and again 
 in verse 30 from fowl and from beast, yet in 
 verse 28, when the great charter of dominion 
 is granted to man, he sums up in three 
 divisions only, and makes man the lord 
 *' over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
 of the air, and over every living thing that 
 moveth upon the earth." Reptiles appear 
 to have passed out of his view, either wholly, 
 or so far as not to deserve separate mention, 
 and it may seem likely that he did not think 
 their importance such as to call for a par- 
 ticular and defined place, and, while accord- 
 ing to them incidental mention, did not 
 mean to give them such a place, in the chron- 
 ological order of creation. Let the Contra- 
 dictionist make the most he can out of this 
 secondary matter: it will not greatly avail. 
 If, on the whole, such be a fair statement 
 of arguments and results, we may justly 
 render our thanks to Dana, Guyot,* Daw- 
 
 * In the preface to Guyot's " Creation " will be found 
 some account of the recent literature of this subject. I
 
 go 
 
 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 son, Stokes, and other scientific authorities, 
 who seem to find no cause for supporting 
 the broad theory of contradiction. I am 
 well aware of my inability to add an atom 
 of weight to their judgments. Yet I have 
 ventured to attempt applying to this great 
 case what I hold to be the just laws of a 
 narrative intended to instruct and to per- 
 suade, and thus finding a key to the true 
 construction of the Chapter. For myself, 
 I cannot but at present remain before and 
 above all things impressed with the profound 
 and marvellous wisdom, that has guided 
 the human instrument, whether it were pen 
 or tongue, which was first commissioned 
 from on high, to hand onwards for our ad- 
 miration and instruction this wonderful, this 
 unparalleled relation. If I am a " recon- 
 ciler," I shall not call myself a mere apolo- 
 gist, for I aim at a positive, not merely a 
 defensive result, and claim that my reader 
 should feel how true it is that in this brief 
 relation he possesses an inestimable treasure. 
 And I submit to those, who vc\2.y have 
 closely followed my remarks, that my words 
 
 must also mention a valuable pamphlet entitled " The 
 Higher Criticism," by Mr. Rust, Rector of VVesterfield, 
 Suffolk. It sets forth the scope of the negative criticism 
 at large, and recommends (p. 30) to " have patience for 
 a while, and wait to see the issue." Similar advice has, 
 I understand, been given in the recent Charge of the 
 learned Bishop of Oxford.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. ^j 
 
 were not wholly idle words, when, without 
 presuming to lay down any universal and 
 inflexible proposition, and without question- 
 ing any single contention of persons specially 
 qualified, I said that the true question was 
 whether the words of the Mosaic writer, in 
 his opening chapter, taken as a whole, do 
 not stand, according to our present knowl- 
 edge, in such a relation to the facts of nature 
 as to warrant and require, thus far, the con- 
 clusion that theOrdainer of Nature, and the 
 Giver or Guide of the Creation Story, are 
 One and the Same. 
 
 Postscript to the Creation Story. 
 
 [Mankind have travelled not by one but 
 by several roads into polytheism. It took 
 a thousand years from the institution of the 
 Mosaic legislation to place the chosen peo- 
 ple in a state of security from this insidious 
 mischief. But all along a powerful appara- 
 tus of means had been at work, which was 
 strengthened from time to time as Divine 
 Providence saw fit. The foundation, how- 
 ever, had been laid in the Creation Story. 
 It was impossible for those who received it 
 either to travel or to glide into polytheism 
 by either of the widest roads then open, the
 
 Q2 THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 system of Nature-worship, and the deifica- 
 tion of heroes. No one could make the 
 Sun his God, who really believed that there 
 was a God who created the Sun. Even 
 more perhaps was it needful that the line 
 should be clearly and sharply drawn between 
 Deity and humanity, and that a barrier not 
 capable of being surmounted should exclude 
 kings and heroes from deification. In the 
 Homeric or Olympian system, the worship 
 of inanimate nature was studiously shut 
 out; but the beginnings of deification are 
 visible in the case of Heracles,* whose very 
 self (auT-os) sits at the banquets of the Im- 
 mortals, and of the twin brothers. Castor 
 and Pollux, who live and die on alternate 
 days, and who, when they live, receive 
 honors like the gods. In the height of 
 their civilization the Romans set up their 
 living Emperors as divinities. But neither 
 they nor the Greeks believed in the creation 
 of man by the Almighty. The old cosmog- 
 onies of the heathen placed matter and 
 other impersonal entities in a position of 
 priority to their gods, who merely take 
 their turn to come upon the scene. Only 
 (I believe) in the Hebrew story is the Deity 
 anterior, without which condition He cannot 
 be supreme. 
 
 Besides being anterior, He is separate. 
 * Od. xi. 302-5.
 
 THE CREATION STORY. q^ 
 
 Did we find in the pages of the Old Testa- 
 ment a story of deification, we should at 
 once know it to be spurious, because in 
 contradiction, alike as to letter and as to 
 spirit, of the entire context. 
 
 It is, I hope, not presumptuous to proceed 
 a step further and to say that this broad and 
 effectual severance was necessary not only 
 for the Old dispensation, but for the New : 
 not only for the exclusion of idolatry in all 
 its forms, but for the establishment of the 
 Incarnation. A marriage would be no 
 marriage, unless the individuality of the 
 parties to it were determinate and inefface- 
 able. • The Christian dogma of the two 
 natures in one Person would be in no sense 
 distinctive, if it had been habitual in the 
 preparatory dispensation, as in some of the 
 religions outside it, for man properly so- 
 called to pass into proper deity. Reunion 
 was to be effected between the Almighty 
 and His prime earthly creature by the bridge 
 to be constructed over that flood, the flood 
 of sin, which parted them ; and, to sustain 
 that bridge, it was needful that the natures 
 to be brought into union should stand apart 
 like piers perfectly defined, each on its own 
 separate and solid foundation. And the 
 firm foundations of those piers were laid, to 
 endure tiiroughout all time, by the great 
 Creation Story.]
 
 The Office and Work of the Old 
 Testament in Outline.
 
 The Office and Work of the Old 
 Testament in Outline. 
 
 WE may often hear it said, that the Old 
 Testament is an introduction to the 
 New. Much more is contained in these 
 words, than an irreflective recital may per- 
 mit us to grasp. Yet they do not seem to 
 cover the whole ground. It seems neces- 
 sary to glance first at the conjoint function 
 of the two Testaments, in order to measure 
 fully the exalted mission of the earlier. As 
 the heavens cover the earth from east to 
 west, so the Scripture covers and compre- 
 hends the whole field of the destiny of man. 
 The whole field is possessed by its moral 
 and potential energy, as a provision endur- 
 ing to the end of time. But it is marvellous 
 to consider how large a portion of it lies 
 directly within the domain of the Old Tes- 
 tament. The interval to be bridged over 
 between the prophet Malachi and the 
 Advent is not one of such breadth as wholly 
 to abolish a continuity, which was also 
 upheld by visible institutions divinely or- 
 7 (97)
 
 98 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 dained, and by the production of certain 
 of the Psahns themselves. It is further 
 narrowed in so far as something of a divine 
 afflatus is to be found in the books which 
 form the Apocrypha, which are esteemed 
 by a large division of Christendom to be 
 actually a part of the Sacred Canon, and 
 which in the Church of England have a 
 place of special, though secondary, honor. 
 At the more remote end of the scale, it is 
 difficult to name a date for the beginning 
 of the Sacred Scriptures. The corroborative 
 legends of Assyria,* ascertained by modern 
 research, concerning the Creation and the 
 Flood, to which we know not what further 
 additions may still progressively be made> 
 carry us up,t it may be roughly said, 
 
 " To the first syllable of recorded time." 
 
 Historic evidence does not at present 
 warrant our carrying backwards the prob- 
 able existence of the Adamic race for more 
 than some such epoch as from 4000 to 6000 
 years before the Advent of Christ. And if, 
 as appears likely, the Creation Story has 
 come down from the beginning, and the 
 Flood legend is also contemporary, the 
 
 * These legends will be separately noticed later in the 
 present series of essays. 
 
 f See No. VI. of this series for the ground of the 
 argument, which, as here presented, can only have in a 
 certain measure the character of an assumption.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 99 
 
 Christian may feel a lively interest in 
 observing that, during by far the larger 
 portion of human history, the refreshing 
 • rain of Divine inspiration has descended, 
 •■^ with comparatively short intervals, from 
 heaven upon earth, and the records of it 
 have been collected and transmitted in the 
 ■ Sacred Volume. Apart from every ques- 
 tion of literary form and detail, we now 
 trace the probable origins of our Sacred 
 Books far back bevond Moses and his time. 
 And so we have a marvellous picture pre- 
 sented to us, not only all-prevailing for the 
 imagination, the heart, and the conscience, 
 of man, but also, as I suppose, quite unex- 
 ampled in its historical appeal to the human 
 intelligence. The whole human record is 
 covered and bound together in that same 
 unwearied and inviolable continuity, which 
 weaves into a tissue the six Mosaic days of 
 gradually developed creation, and fastens 
 them on at the hither end to the gradually 
 advancing stages of Adamic, and in due 
 course, of subsequent history. 
 
 We find then that, apart from the ques- 
 tion of moral purity and elevation, the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament appear to 
 be distinfjuished from the sacred books 
 possessed by various nations in several vital 
 particulars. They deal with the Adamic 
 race as a whole. They begin with the
 
 100 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 preparation of the earth for the habitation 
 and use of man. They then, from his first 
 origin, draw downwards a thread of properly- 
 personal history, with notices, most remark- 
 able in their character, but contracted in 
 space, of divergent families of men. This 
 thread is enlarged into a web, as from being 
 personal the narrative becomes national, 
 from the Exodus onwards ; and eventually 
 it includes the whole race of man. Our 
 Scriptures are not given once for all, as by 
 Confucius or Zoroaster in their respective 
 spheres. They do not deliver a mere code 
 of morals or of legislation, but their 
 character is pre-eminently historical, while 
 they purport to disclose a close and con- 
 tinuing superintendence from on High over 
 human affairs. And the whole is doubly 
 woven into one formation. First, by a 
 chain of Divine action, and of human in- 
 structors acting under Divine authority, 
 which is sustained and represented by 
 national institutions, and is never broken 
 until the time when political servitude, like 
 another Egyptian captivity, has become the 
 appointed destiny of the nation. Secondly, 
 by the Messianic bond, by the light of 
 prophecy shining in a dark place, and direct- 
 ing onwards the minds of devout men to 
 the " fulness of time " and the birth of the 
 wondrous Child, so as effectually to link
 
 OLD TES TAME NT IN O UTL INE. i q j 
 
 the older sacred books to the dispensatiort 
 of the Advent, and to carry forward their 
 office through an action both of and in the 
 Church, until the final day of doom. May 
 it not boldly be asked, what parallel to such 
 an outline as this can be supplied by any 
 of the sacred books preserved among any 
 other of the races of the world ? So far, 
 then, the office and work of the Old Tes- 
 tament, as presented to us by its own con- 
 tents, is without a compeer among the old 
 religions. It deals with the case of man as 
 a whole. It covers all time. It is alike 
 adapted to every race and region of the 
 earth. And how, according to the purport 
 of the Old Testament, may that case best 
 be summed up ? In these words : it is a 
 history first of sin, and next of redemption. 
 
 Our Lord has emphatically said, " They 
 that be whole need not a physician, but they 
 that are sick ; " * and this saying goes to the 
 root of the whole matter. Is there or is 
 there not a deep disease in the world, which 
 overflows it like a deluge, and submerges in 
 a great degree the fruit-bearing capacities 
 of our nature? Are we as a race whole, or 
 are we sick, and profoundly sick ? 
 
 I think that to an impartial eye, and to a 
 thoughtful mind, it must seem strange that 
 there should be a doubt as to the answer to 
 
 * Matthew ix. 12.
 
 I02 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 be given to this question. It seems more 
 easy to comprehend the mental action of 
 those whom the picture of the actual world, 
 as it is unrolled before them, tempts, by its 
 misery, guilt, and shame, into doubt of the 
 being of God, than of persons who can 
 view that picture, and who cannot but ob- 
 serve the dominant part borne by man in 
 determining its character, and yet can make 
 it a subject of question whether man is 
 morally diseased. Veils may have been cast 
 between our vision and the truth of the 
 case by the relative excellence of some se- 
 lect human spirits ; by the infinitely varied 
 degrees and forms of the universal malady; 
 by the exaggerations and the narrownesses 
 of outlying schools of theology ; and lastly 
 'by the remarkable circumstance, that races, 
 above all the extraordinarily gifted race of 
 the ancient Greeks, have lived on into large 
 developments of art, of intellect, and of ma- 
 terial power, without creating or retaining 
 any strong conception of moral evil, under 
 the only aspect which reveals its deeper 
 features; that aspect, namely, which pre- 
 sents it to the mind as a departure from the 
 supreme and perfect standard, the will of 
 God. But these disguises are pierced 
 through and through by ever so little of 
 calm reflection. We can conceive how gen- 
 erations, blinded by long abuse to the char-
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 103 
 
 acter of moral evil, could well contrive to 
 blink and pass by the question. But we, 
 who inherit the Christian tradition, ethical 
 as well as dogmatic, cannot, I think, deny 
 the prevalence, perhaps not even the pre- 
 ponderance, of moral evil in the world, 
 without some subtle and preliminary proc- 
 ess of degeneracy in our own habit of 
 mind. We shall find that, in renouncing 
 that tradition, we return to a conception 
 which admitted to be evil only that, which 
 was so violently in conflict with the com- 
 fort of human society as to require condem- 
 nation and repression by its self-preserving 
 laws. The gap between these two concep- 
 tions, the one of disordered nature, the other 
 of Divine grace, is immeasurable. 
 
 And I think it will not be denied that, in 
 describing vividly the fact of sin in the 
 world, the Scriptures of the Old Testament 
 proceed upon lines, which have also been 
 clearly drawn in the general consciousness 
 at least of the Christian ages. This sense of 
 sin, which lies like a black pall over the entire 
 face of humanity, has been all along the point 
 of departure for every preacher, writer, and 
 thinker within the Hebrew or the Christian 
 fold ; and it is the gradual and palpable de- 
 cline of it, in the literature and society of to- 
 day, that is the darkest among all the sign.s 
 now overshadowing what is in some re-
 
 104 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 spects the bright and hopeful promise of 
 the future. 
 
 Nor can any one, who beHeves in the ex- 
 istence of God, wonder that sin is described 
 as a deviation from the order of nature, 
 as a foreign element, not belonging to the 
 original creation of Divine design, but in- 
 troduced into it by special causes. At this 
 point we come to what is known as the fall 
 of man, and to the narration of that fall as 
 it is given in the Book of Genesis. 
 
 Against this narration the negative criti- 
 cism has been actively employed. The ac- 
 tion ascribed to the serpent is declared to 
 be incredible ; the punishment of Adam, 
 disproportioned to the offence, which con- 
 sisted only in an action not essentially im- 
 moral ; the punishment of all mankind, for 
 the fault of one, intolerably unjust. 
 
 Now let us set entirely aside, for the mo- 
 ment, the form of this narrative, and con- 
 sider only its substance. Let us deal with 
 it as if it were a parable ; in which the sev- 
 erance between the form and the substance 
 is acknowledged and familiar. In propos- 
 ing this, I do not mean to make on my own 
 part any definitive surrender of the form as 
 it stands, or any admission adverse to it. 
 There is, it may be, high and early Chris- 
 tian authority even for surrendering the 
 form. I only seek to pass within it, and to
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 105 
 
 put the meaning and substance of it upon 
 their trial. 
 
 In this relation, we find a certain aggre- 
 gate of objects, which we are now to treat 
 as if they were simply significant figures. 
 There are presented to us the man, with the 
 woman, in a garden; the serpent, with its 
 faculty of speech ; the two trees, of knowl- 
 edge and of life respectively ; a fruit forbid- 
 den b}' Divine command, but eaten in 
 defiance of it; and, after certain reproofs 
 and intimations, ejectment from the garden 
 in consequence. In this ejectment is involved 
 a crreat deterioration of outward state. But 
 it is not a matter of outward state alone. 
 A deterioration of inward nature is also 
 exhibited, in the derangement of its func- 
 tions. A new sense of shame bears witness 
 to the revolt * of its lower against its higher 
 elements ; and, for the first time, exhibits it 
 to us as a disordered, and therefore a dishon- 
 ored thing. Together with all this, there 
 is the outline of a promise that, from among 
 the progeny of the fallen pair a Deliverer, 
 
 * See Delitzsch, who, in accordance with patristic au- 
 thorities, writes as follows : "Thefir.-.t consequence of 
 the fall was shame. The nakedness of mankind is no 
 longer the appearance of their innocence. Their cor- 
 poreity has fallen from the dominion of the spirit. Their 
 beholding has liecome a sensuous imagining, and the 
 flesh excites their fleshly passions "{" Old Testament 
 History of Redemption," p. 23. Edinburgh: Clark. 
 1881).
 
 I06 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 born of woman, shall arise, who, at the cost 
 of personal suffering, shall strike at the 
 very seat of life in the living emblem of 
 evil, and so shall destroy its power. In 
 this relation, on the one hand, many modern 
 objectors have discovered an intolerable 
 folly, and, on the other, the Christian 
 tradition of eighteen centuries has acknowl- 
 edged a profound philosophy, and a pain- 
 ful and faithful delineation of an indis- 
 putable truth. 
 
 Now what is the substance conveyed 
 under this form ? The Almighty has 
 brought into existence a pair of human 
 beings. He has laid upon them a law of 
 obedience, not to a Decalogue or code, set- 
 ting forth things essentially good, and the 
 reverse of them, but simply to a rule of 
 feeding and not feeding. The point, at 
 which this representation first brings into 
 view an independent or objective law, lies 
 in the prohibition to feed upon a tree which 
 imparts the knowledge of good and evil. 
 That is to say, the pair, as they then were, 
 were forbidden to aspire to the possession 
 of that knowledge. It was a dispensation 
 of pure obedience. 
 
 The question whether this was reasonable 
 or unreasonable cannot be answered upon 
 abstract grounds, but resolves itself into 
 another question, whether it was appro-
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 107 
 
 priate or inappropriate to the state of the 
 beings thus addressed, and to their relation 
 towards Him who gave the command. 
 Some may assume that Adam was what so 
 great a writer as Milton has represented 
 him to be — 
 
 " For contemplation he and valor formed,"* 
 
 and not for contemplation only, but for 
 intricate inquiry and debate on subjects 
 such as tax all the powers of a cultivated 
 intellect. And indeed, if we take the de- 
 veloped man, such as we know him in 
 Christian and civilized society, it seems 
 plain that to lay down for him a law of life 
 which did not include the consideration of 
 essential good and evil, would not only 
 stunt and starve his faculties, but would 
 shock his moral sense. 
 
 It may be said that a single act of dis- 
 obedience, even after full warning, could 
 not so deprave a character as reasonably to 
 entail upon the offender a total change of 
 condition. But I would observe that the 
 school of critics which is apt to take this 
 objection is the very school which, utterly 
 rejecting the literal form of the narrative, 
 is bound to look at it as parable. When so 
 contemplated, its lesson is that rebellion, de- 
 liberate and wilful (and this is nothing less), 
 * "Paradise Lost" (iv. 297).
 
 I08 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 against just and sovereign authority, funda- 
 mentally changes for the worse the charac- 
 ter of the rebel. It places him in a new- 
 category of motive and action, in which the 
 repetition of the temptation ordinarily be- 
 gets the repetition of the sin ; and it is 
 inercy, not cruelty, which meets this deteri- 
 oration of character, not with a final and 
 judicial abandonment, but with a deteriora- 
 tion .and reduction of state, such as to 
 teach the lesson of retribution, and to serve 
 as an emphatic warning against further 
 sin. 
 
 Scripture will lie before us in a true per- 
 spective when we come to understand that 
 ■everywhere the will of God is in accord 
 with the righteousness of God, and that 
 •what is promised or inflicted by command 
 is also promised or inflicted by self-acting 
 •consequence, according to the constitution 
 •of the nature we have received. Religion 
 and philosophy thus join hands, and never 
 part them. When, therefore, we are told 
 that Adam after his sin was shut out from 
 Eden, we are not entitled to say, how hard 
 that he could not be allowed to return, and 
 then perhaps to amend. What is inflicted 
 as penalty from without is acted and suf- 
 fered in character within. Repentance is not 
 innocence ; there must be a remedial proc- 
 ess •, and, until that process has been faith-
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 109 
 
 fully accomplished, the anterior state and 
 habit of mind cannot be resumed. 
 
 I do not argue with those who say this is 
 a bad constitution of things, under which 
 sin engenders sinfulness ; some better one 
 might surely have been devised. This is 
 to say, " had I been in the Creator's place, 
 I would have managed the business of 
 creation better." It is for us not merely as 
 Christians, but as men of sense, to eschew 
 speculations which even their authors must 
 see to be wholly devoid of practical effect^ 
 and to assume the great moral laws and 
 constitution of our nature as ultimate facts, 
 as boundaries which it is futile to attempt to 
 overstep. 
 
 To my mind, then, the narrative of the 
 Fall is in accordance with the laws of a 
 gwand and comprehensive philosophy, and 
 the objections taken to it are the product of 
 narrower and shallower modes of thought. 
 Introducing us to Adamic man in his first 
 stage of existence — a stage not of savagery 
 but of childhood — it exhibits to us the 
 gigantic drama of his evolution in its open- 
 ing. In the Paradise of the Book of Genesis, 
 it reduces to a practical form the noble 
 legend of the Golden Age, cherished es- 
 pecially in prehistoric Greece. It wisely 
 teaches us to look to misused free-will as 
 the source of all the sin, and mainly of the
 
 I lo OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 accompanying misery, which still overflow 
 the world, and environ human life like a 
 moral deluge. It shows us man in his 
 childhood, no less responsible for disobe- 
 dience to simple command, than man in his 
 manhood for contravention of those laws 
 of essential right and wrong, which remain 
 now and for ever clothed with the majesty 
 of Divine command. It teaches us how sin 
 begets sin ; how the rebellion of the creature 
 against the Creator was at once followed by 
 the rebellion of the creature's lower appetites 
 against his higher mind and will. It im- 
 presses upon us that sin is not like the bird 
 lightly flying past us in the air, which closes 
 on it as it goes, and carries no trace behind 
 it. It alters for the worse the very being 
 of the man that acts it, and leaves to him a 
 deteriorated essence. This he in turn, by 
 the inexorable laws of his constitution, 
 transmits to his descendants ; and this again 
 in them exhibits, variably, yet on the whole 
 with clear and even glaring demonstration, 
 the evil bias, which it has received ; and 
 which it retains until it shall be happily 
 corrected and renewed by those remedial 
 means, which it was the office of the Old Tes- 
 tament to foreshadow, and of the New to es- 
 tablish. Everywhere, then, in this narrative 
 we find that it is instinct with the highest 
 principles of the moral and judicial order.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 1 1 1 
 
 For the present I pass by the Flood * 
 and the Dispersion, f which may be most 
 conveniently considered in connection with 
 what is termed profane history ; and I touch 
 next upon the call of Abraham. This call 
 imports the selection of a peculiar and 
 separate family, which was afterwards to 
 grow into a people. They were to be in a 
 special degree the subjects of God's care, 
 the guardians of His Word, and the vehicles 
 of His promises. Of all great and distinc- 
 tive chapters in the Biblical history of the 
 human race since Paradise, we have here 
 perhaps the greatest and the most distinctive. 
 
 The selection of a family may be regarded 
 from many points of view. 
 
 When sin had come into the world, it de- 
 veloped itself in the forms of infirmity, and of 
 apostasy : if it be allowed to describe rudely 
 by their general terms the form of character 
 which distinguished the race of Cain from the 
 raceofSeth. What we see of the former is, as 
 described in Gen. iv. 16-24, •t'' I'^pid advance, 
 and apparently its marked precedence, in 
 arts and powers. It disappears entirely 
 with the story of the Flood ; and we are 
 left to infer that it may have had a principal 
 share in calling down that great retribution 
 inflicted upon revolt from God. 
 
 After the Deluge, in the time of Peleg, 
 * Genesis vi.-viii. f Genesis x.
 
 112 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 fifth from Noah, selection again appears, 
 and is carried down in Gen. xi. to Abraham, 
 from whom an unbroken thread runs on- 
 ward into the period when the chosen family- 
 had become a chosen nation. 
 
 This choice of a particular family or race 
 may be advantageously contrasted with the 
 heathen method of selection or preference, 
 by the deification of individuals. Of the 
 ■first, it is obvious that it reached over all 
 time ; that in this way it tended to assert 
 the unity of the human race ; and that it 
 was never exclusive, as it always (not to 
 -mention other proofs) invited to partake of 
 its benefits the " stranger " with whom it 
 had come into contact. The rival method 
 of deification broke communion rather than 
 established it, and was based on no rational 
 principle of choice. It was corrupt as well 
 as arbitrary, for the deified were not the 
 best. But what I would here chiefly press 
 is, that the continuous selection of a family 
 was a bar to deification, because deification 
 was essentiallv founded on individualities: 
 instead of that headship in series, which 
 presented to humanity as its chiefs a line- 
 age. Of this every member had his destiny 
 as it were locked into that of the rest by an 
 •essential parity. This kind of selection did 
 not favor idolatry, like the other, but built 
 up a wall against it. And so it came about,
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 113 
 
 as we have seen, that, even when idolatry- 
 invaded and possessed the people, it never 
 tainted the religion. 
 
 This selection of Abraham and his prog- 
 eny, if we speak after the manner of men, 
 we might perhaps describe as follows. The 
 original attempt to plant a species upon our 
 planet, which should be endowed with the 
 faculty of free-will, but should al\va\'s di- • 
 rect that will to good, had been frustrated 
 through sin ; and the tainted progeny had, 
 after a trial of many generations, been 
 destroyed by the Deluge. In the descend- 
 ants of Noah, man was renewed upon a far 
 larger scale. Different branches of the 
 race* were sent, or were allowed to go 
 forth, and to people different portions of the 
 earth, each carrying with them different 
 gifts, and different vocations according to 
 those gifts; the notes of which, in various 
 prominent cases, we cannot fail to discern 
 written large upon the page of history. After 
 a brief period, choice was made not of a 
 nation, but of a person, namely, Abraham, 
 who with his descendants became the sub- 
 ject of a special training. They lived, ac- 
 cording to the record in the Bible, not like 
 other men generally, dependent upon the 
 exercise of their natural faculties alone, 
 but with the advantage from time to time, 
 
 * Genesis x. 
 
 8
 
 114 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 and with the continuing responsibiHty, of 
 supernatural command and visitation. But 
 this remarkable promotion to a higher 
 form of life did not invest them with any 
 arbitrary or selfish prerogative. On the 
 contrary, as the legislation of Moses was 
 distinguished from other ancient codes by its 
 hberal and likewise elaborate care for the 
 stranger; so also, from the very outset, and 
 before the family could blossom into the 
 nation, nay, even in the very person of Abra- 
 ham, the gift imparted to him was declared 
 to be given for the behoof of mankind at 
 large. " In thee and in thy seed shall all 
 the families of the earth be blessed." * The 
 prerogative of the Jew was, from its very 
 inception, bound up with the future eleva- 
 tion of the Gentile. 
 
 This divine election doubtless carried 
 with it the duty and the means of reaching 
 a higher level of moral life than prevailed 
 amonof the surroundinsf Asiatic nations. 
 These nations, sharing with the chosen race 
 the infirmity and deterioration of nature, 
 differed in this, that they at once carried the 
 reflection of their own sinfulness into their 
 creed respecting the unseen, and made re- 
 ligion itself a direct instrument of corrup- 
 tion. Yet those, whom we call the patri- 
 archs, were not exempted from the general 
 
 * Genesis xxviii. 14.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE, nc 
 
 degeneracy of morals; and even Abraham, 
 the general strain of whose life appears to 
 have been so simple and devout, on going 
 down into Egypt to escape from famine, ex- 
 posed his wife to the risk of an adulterous 
 connection with the king of the country, 
 lest, if she were known to be his wife, his .' 
 personal safety should be compromised. On 
 the moral standing of the nation sprung 
 from Abraham, as compared with that of 
 contemporary races, there will be more to 
 say hereafter. Meantime, it may be ob- 
 served that the sins and follies of the favored 
 race, as well as of their priests and rulers, 
 are told in the narrative frankly, and with- 
 out attempting to excuse them. This frank- 
 ness of narration extends also to the calam- 
 ities which befell the Israelites ; and, as an 
 evidence of the integrity of the Hebrew pen- 
 men, it suggests a presumption that such 
 plain speaking, in the face of national and 
 ancestral self-love, is, to say the least, highly 
 in accordance with the belief that the record 
 generally was framed under special guidance 
 from above. 
 
 The selection of Abraham and his pos- 
 terity was at the least a boon to some, a pri- 
 vation to none. In its immediate effect, it 
 •withdrew nothing from the nations outside 
 the Hebrew pale. It bestowed, indeed, 
 upon the parallel line of Ishmael a prefer-
 
 Il6 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 ential but inferior blessing, which, however^ 
 it is no part of the present purpose to ex- 
 amine, further than to say that the Moham- 
 medan reh'gion may be regarded, in its 
 conflict with the idolatry which it first 
 confronted, and in the present day among^ 
 the tribes of Western Africa, as having been, 
 if not permanently yet for a time, the com- 
 munication of a relative good. And the 
 Old Testament abounds with passages 
 which demonstrate the care, and even the 
 special care, of the Almighty for nations 
 other than the Jews.* 
 
 But the object, which now demands our 
 attention, is the promise of a blessing in and 
 by the seed of Abraham to all the nations- 
 of the earth. The first-fruits of this bless- 
 ing maybe said to have been perceived in- 
 the translation of the books of the Old Tes- 
 tament into Greek during the third century 
 before the Advent. At the time when the 
 language of the Greeks was maturing its 
 supremacy, in the East through the con- 
 quests of Alexander the Great, and in the 
 West through appreciation by the Roman 
 and Italian genius, in some respects allied 
 to their own, the Greek race itself was on 
 its decline, both as to its intellect and as to 
 its practical energy. This decline may, per- 
 
 * See, fcr example, the two first chapters of Amos> 
 and the whole book of Jonah.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE, nj 
 
 haps, have rendered the world more recep- 
 tive of the influences, which the substance 
 of the Hebrew books was calculated to 
 ■exercise. 
 
 There can hardly be a doubt that, among 
 all the forms of Hellenic thought exhibited 
 in the different schools of philosophy, that 
 of the Stoics was the highest in respect of 
 its conception of the Deity, of its emancipa- 
 tion from idolatry, and of its capacity of 
 moral elevation. In the hands of Seneca, 
 ■of Epictetus, and of Marcus Aurelius, Stoic 
 ideas attained so high a level as to have 
 been used by some in disparagement of the 
 •exclusive claim of the Gospel to the pro- 
 mulgation of truths powerful enough to re- 
 generate the world. Without asserting 
 that the early Stoics derived their inspira- 
 tion through the Greek version, called the 
 Septuagint, from the Hebrew Scriptures, it 
 may be observed that, as a matter of fact, 
 philosophy rose to its highest level through 
 the Stoics at a time when the Greek mind 
 was declining ; and further, that Stoicism 
 made its first appearance, and began its ad- 
 vance, at the epoch when those Scriptures 
 had become accessible. Also it arose and 
 flourished not in Greece itself, but at points 
 such as Citium, in countries such as Pontus, 
 in schools of learning such as Alexandria,
 
 Il8 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 which were seats of Jewish resort and in- 
 fluence. * 
 
 It was an advance of a different order 
 towards the fulfihiient of the Abrahamic 
 promises, when the Apostles, charged with 
 the commission of our Lord, went forth 
 into all the world, and preached the gospel 
 to every creature. f Then, indeed, an 
 enginery was set at work, capable of coping 
 with the whole range of the mischiefs 
 brought into the world by sin, and of com- 
 pletely redeeming the human being from 
 its effects, and consecrating our nature to 
 duty and to God. It is impossible here to 
 do so much as even to skirt this vast sub- 
 ject. But at once these three things may 
 be said as to the development, through the 
 Gospel, of the Abrahamic promise. First, 
 that in the vast aggregate of genuine be- 
 lievers, the recovery of the Divine image 
 has been effectual, and the mainspring of 
 their being has been set right before their 
 
 * See " Encycl. Britann."' gth ed. Art. Stoics. It 
 states that " the school is mainly to be considered as the 
 first-fruits of that interaction between West and East, 
 which folfowed the conquests of Alexander. Zeno was 
 of Phcenician descent; Cypius, Silicia, Syria, the main 
 countries of its origin. Ciiiuni, Alexandria, Heraclea, 
 Pontus, were prominent among the places furnishing and 
 rearing its teachers. Most of the Stoics were from lands 
 of Hellenistic (as distinct from Hellenic) civilization. It 
 was the growth of the Hellenized East." 
 t Mark xvi, 15.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 119 
 
 quitting the world, by the dedication of the 
 will to God. Secondly, that the social 
 results of the change have been beneficial 
 and immense, in the restriction of wars, in 
 the abolition of horrible practices publicly 
 sanctioned; in the recognition of essential 
 rights ; in the elevation of woman (whose 
 case most and best of all represents the case 
 of right as against force); in the mitigation 
 of selfish and cruel laws; in the refinement 
 of manners; in the utter proscription of all 
 extreme forms of sin ; and in the public 
 acknowledgment of standards of action 
 nearer to the true. Thirdly, that Christen- 
 dom is at this moment undeniably the 
 prime and central power of the world, and 
 still bears, written upon its front, the mis- 
 sion to subdue it. In point of force and 
 onward impulsion, it stands without a rival, 
 while every other widely sj^read religion is 
 in decline. Critical, indeed, are the move- 
 ments which affect it from within. Vast 
 are the deductions which on every side are 
 to be made from the fulness of the Divine 
 promises, when we try to measure their 
 results in the world of facts. Indefinitely 
 slow, and hard to trace in detail, as may be, 
 like a glacier in descent, the march of the 
 times, the Christianity of to-day has, in 
 relation to the world non-Christian, an 
 amount of ascendency such as it has never
 
 120 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 before possessed ; and, if only it can suffi- 
 ciently retain its inward consistency, the 
 sole remaining question seems to be as to 
 the time, the circumstances, and the rate of 
 its further, perhaps of its final, conquests. 
 
 I know that it is far beyond the scope of 
 a few pages such as these to make good in 
 detail the claims of the Abrahamic promise. 
 Still, I think that even what has been said 
 may in some measure suffice for the pur- 
 pose which I have immediately in view. 
 That purpose is to establish in outline the 
 strictly exceptional character of the books 
 of the Old Testament ; and with this aim 
 to show that they bear upon them the stamp 
 of a comprehensiveness which concerns, 
 which penetrates, nay, which envelops the 
 history of the world as a whole. The 
 promise, given to Abraham nearly two 
 thousand years before the Advent, finds its 
 correlative marks in the general train of 
 subsequent history. These marks demon- 
 strate that it was given by a Divine fore- 
 knowledge. And if so, then the venerable 
 record in which it is enshrined surely seems 
 here, at least, to carry the seal and signature 
 of a Divine authorship. 
 
 Now let us consider from another point 
 of view the selection of the Hebrew race, 
 and the peculiar standing of the Mosaic 
 legislation, so intimately allied with the
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 121 
 
 whole of its singularly chequered fortunes. 
 And in order to effect something towards 
 ascertaining what was probably the cause 
 determining the Divine selection and pro- 
 cedure, we may do well first to refer to 
 some aims which might at first sight have 
 been thought probable ; such as, to provide 
 a complete theology ; or such as, to reward 
 with honor, wealth, and power a peculiarly 
 virtuous people, whose moral conduct was 
 to be of a nature likely to make them an 
 edifying and attractive example to the 
 nations of the earth. Human speculation 
 might have been forward to anticipate that 
 one or both of these aims might have been 
 contemplated by a plan so exceptional, as 
 the selection and isolation of one particular 
 line and people. But the facts appear to 
 show that any such anticipation would have 
 been entirely mistaken. 
 
 By a complete theology, I mean simply 
 such a theology as would confront and 
 make provision for all the leading facts of 
 the moral situation. Among these a promi 
 nent place had from the date of the first 
 traditions been given to the entrance of sin 
 into the world, and to the promise of 
 redemption from its power. Now it is evi- 
 dent that there was no attempt, in the legis- 
 lation of the Pentateuch, at this theological 
 completeness. Its theology is summed up
 
 122 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 in clear declarations of the being of God 
 and of duty and love to Him, with which 
 are directly associated, in the Decalogue, 
 the main items of man's duty to his neigh- 
 bor, and, both there and elsewhere, the 
 doctrines of rewards and punishments. The 
 race also inherited the narrative of what is 
 termed in Christian theology the Fall of 
 Man. This, however, was part of the 
 anterior tradition ; and, though implied in 
 the Mosaic system, was neither directly set 
 forth in its terms, nor made a common sub- 
 ject of allusion in the historic books, how- 
 ever it may have been involved in the sac- 
 rificial system. 
 
 But these rewards and punishments are 
 of a temporal nature ; and the Mosaic legis- 
 lation is thought to give no indication of a 
 future state or of an Underworld. This is 
 the more remarkable, because the early 
 chapters of Genesis, although they usually 
 contain but the merest outline of history, 
 are not without such indication.* Enoch, 
 at the end of his 365 years, " was not, for 
 God took him." These remarkable words 
 are substituted for the formula given in the 
 cases of the other patriarchs, whose record 
 closes with the phrase, "and he died."t 
 Here there seems to be a clear manifesta- 
 tion of the state into which Enoch is de- 
 * Genesis v. 24. f Ibid. v. 5, and passim.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 123 
 
 clared to have entered, without passing 
 through the gate of death. 
 
 Again, we now know, from the Egyptian 
 Book of the Dead and otherwise, that the 
 rehgious system of that country not only 
 included, but was greatly based upon, the 
 conception of a future life. It seems ab- " 
 solutely impossible that the Israelites, even 
 had they not been aware of it already, 
 could have dwelt for many generations in 
 the land of Egypt without coming to know 
 of it. Our Lord Himself affirms that they 
 knew it in His time.* And we have it ex- 
 hibited to us in the Psalms, f which exhibit 
 the interior and spiritual life of chosen 
 souls. 
 
 It has, perhaps, been too much the prac- 
 tice to assume that the Mosaic law is to be 
 regarded as an enlargement of the patri- 
 archal religion. Without doubt it is at 
 least a very large and important supple- 
 ment to that religion. But a supplement 
 differs from an enlarged and reconstructed 
 edition : it is less, as well as more. It need 
 not contain everything contained in that to 
 which it is a supplement. Here is a great 
 and vital particular, in which the Mosaic 
 law cannot be said even to have republished 
 the patriarchal religion ; and which both 
 
 * Matthew xxii. 32; Mark xii. 27. 
 
 •}• For example, Psalms xvi. 10; xlix. 15.
 
 124 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 preceded and survived the law, but did not 
 find a place in it. Accordingly, among the 
 Jews of the Advent, the school which most 
 rigidly adhered to the letter of the law, 
 namely, that of the Sadducees,* denied the 
 future state, and held "that there is no res- 
 urrection, neither angel nor spirit." 
 
 We are not, therefore, to suppose that 
 Israel was without the hope of a future 
 life, which St. Peter on the Day of Pente- 
 cost himself demonstrated out of the Six- 
 teenth Psalm ; f but only to perceive that 
 the Mosaic legislation was limited to its 
 proper purpose; that, namely, of setting 
 apart a nation from the rest of mankind, 
 and providing it with peculiar means and 
 guarantees for the fulfilment of its mission 
 as a nation. It erected a walled precinct, 
 within which the ancient belief of the 
 fathers was to find shelter and to thrive, 
 while it was wofully dwindling and perish- 
 ing among all the kindred nations of the 
 Avorld. It supplied an impregnable home 
 for personal religion. But personal religion, 
 taken by itself, is conspicuously weak in the 
 m-eans of transmission from age to age. The 
 sons of Eli were wicked persons, and the evil 
 Manasseh succeeds the pious Hezekiah. 
 It is not without the aid of fixed and solid 
 institutions, which take hold upon masses of 
 
 * Acts xxiii. 8. f Acts ii. 25.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 125 
 
 men collectively, that the sacred fire is kept 
 alive among us. Hence our Lord did not 
 merely teach His holy precepts, and fulfil 
 His Divine career in His own person, but 
 founded His Church on earth, to carry His 
 work onwards even to the day of doom. 
 And hence, under the guidance of the Most 
 Hish, Moses was commissioned to establish 
 a system which, without being m itself 
 complete, provided for the double purpose, 
 first, of building up a fortress (so to call it) 
 within whose wall true spiritual religion 
 might in singular fulness liourish and 
 abound ; and, secondly, of establishing a 
 firmly knit national system of doctrine and 
 worship, intended to secure the permanent 
 purity of belief in the one self-existent God, 
 and the continuing practice of a ritual 
 which set forth in act the existence of sin, 
 and made intelligible and familiar to the 
 people at large some need of deliverance 
 from it by reconciliation. And so, through 
 the long ages from the Exodus to the Ad- 
 vent, there lived on the two systems to- 
 gether, distinct but accordant. The one 
 was the religion of interior devotion, 
 powerfully upheld and stimulated, as occa- 
 sion offered, by the Prophets, and continu- 
 ally exercised and developed in the public 
 ritual by the Psalms. The other was the 
 religion of exterior worship. This was full
 
 126 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 of significance. It had a command over 
 the entire people. It was incorporated in 
 public laws and institutions, and was asso- 
 ciated at every point with the national life. 
 These outer means so operated as to ex- 
 empt the higher and interior treasure from 
 the risks of dependence on short-lived in- 
 dividual fervor, and provided secure means 
 for its transmission from age to age. 
 
 We have in the institution of the pro- 
 phetic school the setting forth of a pro- 
 found lesson, which reminds us that the 
 Mosaic system was alike in itself necessary, 
 and of itself insufficient. 
 
 From another, and possibly even more 
 commanding, point of view, we perceive the 
 insufficiency of Mosaism to fill up fully the 
 outlines of the Divine dispensations. Sin, 
 in the form of disobedience to Divine com- 
 mand, had entered into the world, and had 
 utterly marred the fair order which, at the 
 outset, the Almighty had noted in His 
 Creation. The mischief was not left to 
 stand alone ; and the promise of a Re- 
 deemer from it was immediately delivered. 
 Thus far, the Mosaic system helps us ; yet, 
 in helping us, tells us to look beyond itself. 
 By its system of sacrifice it threw into dis- 
 tinct relief the idea that offence had been 
 committed, and that our standing was not 
 upright before God. Now with this were
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 127 
 
 associated in Genesis the further ideas that 
 from this offence there would be a way of 
 reconcihation and recovery, and that this 
 way would be found in a member of the 
 human race, a portion of the seed of the 
 woman. On these further ideas Mosaism 
 so far threw light, that it pointed through 
 sacrifice to pardon ; but it added nothing of 
 force or clearness to the original promise 
 that this recovery should be wrought out 
 in and through a Redeemer having the 
 form and the nature of man. This proph- 
 ecy of the Incarnation, though a vital por- 
 tion of the ancient tradition of the patri- 
 archs, did not derive any supplement or 
 new enforcement from the construction of 
 the Hebrew laws and institutions. It re- 
 mained, and it propagated itself, mainly in 
 the Psalms and in the Prophets, while its 
 root was pre-Mosaic. Some rays of the light 
 of that promise may perhaps be traced, out- 
 side the Hebrew precinct, in particular tra- 
 ditions of the heathen world. There may 
 be vestiges of it in that close vital associa- 
 tion between Deity and humanity, which 
 marked the Greek or Olympian religion ; 
 but which, as the fundamental conception 
 of sin more and more faded away, lost all 
 its moral force. Mosaism did essential and 
 infinite service in deeply sculpturing (so to 
 speak) the idea of sin in the human con-
 
 128 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 sciousness ; but it was not favorable to that 
 theanthropy, or union of the Divine and 
 human, of which the human side had been 
 so strongly foreshadowed in the original 
 charter. Perhaps by the rigid prohibition 
 of images, which was so necessary for its 
 direct purpose, it rather tended to widen 
 the distance, at which man stood as a being 
 worshipping his Maker. Already idolatry, 
 such as prevailed in the East, was asso- 
 ciated with the human form, and the neces- 
 sity of shutting out that idolatry may have 
 carried with it, in this respect, a certain re- 
 ligious incompleteness as a consequence. 
 
 I now come to the second supposition ; 
 and I ask whether the selection of the He- 
 brew race was grounded on their moral 
 superiority. Within narrow limits, the an- 
 swer would be affirmative. They were ap- 
 pointed to purge and to possess the land of 
 Canaan on account of the terrible and 
 loathsome iniquities of its inhabitants. The 
 nations whom they were to subdue had 
 reached that latest stage of sensual iniquity, 
 which respects neither God nor nature. 
 The sensual power within man, which re- 
 belled against him when he had rebelled 
 against God, had in Canaan enthroned its 
 lawlessness as law, and its bestial indul- 
 gences had become recognized, normal, nay 
 more, even religious and obligatory. And
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 129 
 
 there are those in the present day who, ad- 
 mitting the facts, find in them a subject of 
 pleasurable contemplation, as if they simply 
 exhibited an innocent and free exercise of 
 natural propensities. The propensities were 
 due indeed to nature; but only to nature in 
 a condition of disorder and disease. 
 
 The vicious practices of these nations, 
 indicated rather than described in the Old 
 Testament, and veiled, apparently for de- 
 cency's sake, in the translations, are too 
 sadly attested by the character of the re- 
 mains, which, in later times, archaeology 
 has recovered from their hiding-places. 
 They are also attested by the poems of 
 Homer. In these poems, the Phoenicians 
 represent Syrian religion, and we find the 
 goddess Aphrodite, whose debased worship 
 it seems plain that they were gradually im- 
 porting into Greece, to have stood for little 
 more than a symbol of lawless lust. This 
 is "Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zido- 
 mans. * 
 
 I find it much more difficult to answer 
 the question, whether the Hebrew race were 
 planted in the land of promise, which flowed 
 with milk and honey, by reason of, or in 
 connection with, their moral superiority to 
 the nations of the world taken universally. 
 It is, down to the present day, extremely 
 * I Kings xi. 5-33. 
 9
 
 I30 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 difficult to make any trustworthy estimate 
 of the comparative moral standing even of 
 any two contemporary peoples. It may be 
 admitted that the form of human nature has 
 with the modern conditions grown far more 
 manifold and complex. But, on the other 
 hand, in answering the question I have just 
 put, we have the difficulty not only of re- 
 moteness in time, but of extreme scantiness 
 of information. 
 
 I shall assume that the mass of the chil- 
 dren of Israel at large were trained mainly 
 by Mosaism, and little in comparison by the 
 more highly spiritual tradition conserved 
 and enshrined within it. Speaking of these, 
 we may consider that the Old Testament 
 gives us more than a sketch, if less than a 
 picture, of their social and moral state. I 
 am aware of only one other race, with 
 respect to which we have any account pos- 
 sessing a tolerable fulness. That is the race 
 of the Achaian Greeks, painted with mar- 
 vellous force as well as completeness by 
 Homer. The poet describes the manners 
 of one generation ; the books of the Old 
 Testament, say from Abraham to the Cap- 
 tivity, range over many. Still, numerous 
 as these are, they present a considerable 
 unity of color. I carefully reserve the case 
 of that inner and elect circle among the 
 Hebrews, to whom we owe the possession
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 131 
 
 down to this day of inestimable spiritual 
 treasures. But comparing, as well as I am 
 able, ordinary or average life among the 
 ordinary Hebrews on the one side, and the 
 ordinary Greeks of Homer (whom I take 
 to have lived long after Moses, but consid- 
 erably before the age of David) on the other, 
 I cannot discern that these last were in a 
 moral sense inferior. 
 
 I am sensible, however, that in such a 
 proposition as has just been uttered there 
 must be, to the general reader, some appear- 
 ance of paradox ; and likewise that such an 
 appearance will not be effectually removed 
 by reference to the Scriptural complaints of 
 the stiff neck, or the hard heart, of the 
 Israelites. I must therefore make further 
 endeavors to get at the truth of the case 
 before us. 
 
 I do not feel that even the patriarchal 
 history is designed to convey to us the idea 
 that the privileged race stood uniformly at 
 a great moral elevation, as compared with 
 other and ordinary portions of mankind. 
 
 The subject is a painful one, and I shall 
 not dilate upon its details. But it seems 
 undeniable that, in the history of the selected 
 line, we find from time to time the develop- 
 ment of wickedness in its extreme forms. 
 Such are the sin of Onan,* the incest of 
 * Genesis xxxviii. 8, 9.
 
 1^2 OFFICE AND IVOR A' OF THE 
 
 the daughters of Lot,* and the brutal insen* 
 sibility of Ham, the son of Noah, to the 
 claims of natural decency. f Nor are the 
 women exempt, as we learn from the incest 
 devised and effected by Tamar.J And the 
 wife of Lot cast a yearning look on the hell 
 of Sodom. § The first three cases, and the 
 last, are not in the line of the ultimate suc- 
 cession ; but Pharez, the son of Tamar, is 
 the recorded ancestor of King David and 
 his descendants.il Now, among the Acha- 
 ian Greeks of Homer we find a sensitive 
 delicacy, altogether peculiar, as to all ex- 
 posure of the person. There is nowhere 
 any extreme form of sensual indulgence. 
 Among the Boeotian immigrants from the 
 East, that is from the Syrian coast, there 
 occurred at an early stage of their history 
 in the Peninsula, a case of incest ; T[ but it 
 was always regarded by the indigenous tra- 
 dition as involuntary, and what is more, a 
 curse clave on this account to the race of 
 Kadmos, and brought about its early extinc- 
 tion. 
 
 While incest is thus regarded as a mon- 
 strous perversion of nature among the 
 Greeks, there are in the Homeric poems, 
 as I think, sufficiently clear indications that 
 
 * Genesis xix. 32. f Genesis ix. 22. 
 
 J Genesis xxxviii. 6-30. | Genesis xix. 26. 
 
 Ij Matthew i. 3-5. f Od. xi. 271-4.
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 133 
 
 it was practised without shame anion c^ the 
 Phoenicians,* the coast-neighbors of Syria, 
 and partners with it in manners, if not also 
 
 ^ probably in race. 
 
 Let us now turn to two others among the 
 great moral constituents of human charac- 
 ter, and consider the case of humanity as 
 against cruelty, and of truth as against 
 fraud. 
 
 Let us take the two cases first of the de- 
 ceit practised by Jacob upon his brother 
 Esau and his father Isaac; secondly, of the 
 base and unnatural conduct of the sons of 
 Jacob towards their brother Joseph. As 
 there is nothing recorded in favor of the 
 Homeric or Achaian Greeks which ap- 
 proaches in moral beauty to the forgiveness 
 freely accorded by Joseph, so there is 
 nothincf recorded against them which so 
 wickedly tramples down the laws of nature, 
 as the flagrant iniquities to which attention 
 has just been called. The conduct of the 
 suitors of Penelope in the Odyssey, and the 
 actions of Parir. (a foreigner), supply the 
 worst exhibitions of human nature which 
 come before us in the Poems. Both there 
 and in the Old Testament retribution follows 
 guilt, but what I now speak of is the depth 
 of guilt, not its treatment. There is nowhere 
 
 . in Homer a case, between relatives, of deceit 
 *0d. X. 7, and less flagrantly, vii. 64-8.
 
 134 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 like that of Jacob, or of cruelty like that of 
 his sons. 
 
 When we come to the Palestinian period, 
 it would appear that the Israelites were sub- 
 jected to a force and diversity of tempta- 
 tions, such as perhaps no people ever had 
 to encounter. Successful war had stimu- 
 lated their vindictive passions. Triumph 
 everywhere had waited on their arms. 
 They were entitled to esteem themselves 
 the directly chosen ministers of God. They 
 were likely to regard the heathen, among 
 whom they came, with hatred and contempt. 
 They passed from a life, wandering, uncer- 
 tain and ill supplied, to settlement and to 
 abundance. The temples or emblems of 
 seductive lust everywhere met their eyes; 
 and the vile example, by which they were 
 solicited in the mass and in detail, pretended 
 plausibly to hallow itself by close associa- 
 tion with religion. There is scarcely an 
 evil passion that finds entrance into the 
 human breast which was not powerfully 
 stirred by the circumstances of the Israel- 
 itish conquest. We find in the sacred text 
 indications of the severity of some of their 
 temptations. Take, for instance, Deut. vi. 
 IO-16; and again in xxxi. 20 it is written, 
 
 " For when I sliall have brought them into the land 
 which I sware unto their fathers, that flovveth with milk 
 and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled them-
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 135 
 
 selves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other 
 gods and serve them, and provoke me, and break my 
 covenant." 
 
 The general indication seenis to be first 
 the perpetuation of a chosen seed, at the 
 very heart of the nation, high in the knowl- 
 edge of interior religion ; secondly, a decided 
 ethical superiority of the Hebrew line over 
 the Asiatic nations in their neighborhood, 
 as indeed it was from Asia that the extremes 
 of corruption flowed into the Greek Penin- 
 sula in the earliest historic times. Yet the 
 loveliest picture of womanhood in all the 
 early sacred books is that of Ruth ; and 
 Ruth was of the children of Moab, who was 
 the incestuous offspring of one of the 
 daughters of Lot.* 
 
 Humanit}', or mercy, is certainly not the 
 strong point of the Achaian Greeks. With 
 them not only no sacredness, but little value, 
 attached to human life ; and the loss of it 
 stirs no sympathy unless it be associated 
 with beauty, valor, patriotism, or other 
 esteemed characteristics. Yet here, again, 
 the forms of evil are less extreme. We do 
 not find, even in the stern, relentless ven- 
 geance of Odysseus on his enemies, or in 
 the passionate wish of Achilles that nature 
 would permit what it forbade, namely, to 
 devour his hated foe, a form of cruelty and 
 * Genesis xix. 36-7.
 
 136 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 brutality so savage as is recorded in the 
 case of the Levite with his wife and concu- 
 bine at Gibeah, and of the war which fol- 
 lowed it.* 
 
 The temptations of lust were even more 
 formidable, than those of cruelty and re- 
 venge. According to the sacred text, this 
 danger was foreseen from the first ; and the 
 very earliest Mosaic legislation, f after that 
 of the Commandments, begins to denounce 
 a portion of the indescribable practices which 
 were rife among the older occupiers of the 
 promised land. It was subsequently carried 
 into further particulars, and we know that, 
 down the whole course of the historic period 
 before the Captivity, the filthy idolatry not 
 only encircled the chosen people, but at 
 times so invaded it, as to reduce to a rem- 
 nant the untainted portion of the community, 
 the true worshippers of God. Even pious 
 monarchs were sometimes afraid to destroy 
 its constituted, and in a perverse sense, con- 
 secrated emblems. 
 
 On the other hand, we must not view the 
 case of the earliest Greeks in the spirit of 
 optimism. War and its devastations were 
 with them habitual and almost normal ; 
 property was little respected; cunning, as 
 well as skill, was sometimes held in honor. 
 Yet it remains a broad and indisputable 
 * Judges xix.-xxi. -j- Exodus xxii. 16,
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 
 
 137 
 
 truth that honor and truth, as well as valor, 
 were prevailingly respected, that family ties 
 were very sacred, that the law of nature was 
 simply and profoundly revered, and that the 
 extreme forms of vice and sin, the widest 
 and most hopeless departures from the law 
 of God, are nowhere to be found in any of 
 their forms. 
 
 Enough has perhaps been said to show 
 that we cannot claim as a thing demonstra- 
 ble a great moral superiority for the Hebrew 
 line generally over the whole of the histor- 
 ically known contemporary races. This, 
 however, leaves ample room for the belief 
 that there was an interior circle, known to 
 us by its fruits in the Psalter and the pro- 
 phetic books, of a morality and sanctity 
 altogether superior to what was to be found 
 elsewhere, and due rather to the pre-Mosaic, 
 than to the Mosaic, religion of the race. 
 But it remains to answer with reverence the 
 question, Why, if not for a distinctly superior 
 morality, nor as a full religious provision 
 for the whole wants of man, zvJiy was the 
 race chosen, as a race, to receive the prom- 
 ises, to guard the oracles, and eventually, 
 to fulfil the hopes, of the great Redemption ? 
 
 The ansvv'er may, I believe, be conveyed 
 in moderate compass. The design of the 
 Almighty, as we everywhere find, was to 
 prepare the human race, by a varied and a
 
 138 
 
 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE 
 
 prolonged education, for the arrival of the 
 greatest epoch of history. The immediate 
 purposes of the Abrahamic selection may- 
 have been to appoint, for the task of pre- 
 serving in the world the fundamental bases 
 of religion, a race, which possessed qualifi- 
 cations for that end decisively surpassing 
 those of all other races. We may easily 
 indicate two of these fundamental bases. 
 The first was the belief in one God. The 
 second was the knowledge that mankind at 
 large had departed from His laws ; without 
 which knowledge how should they welcome 
 a Deliverer, whose object it was to bring 
 them back ? It may be stated with confi- 
 dence that among the dominant races of the 
 world the belief in one God was speedily 
 destroyed by polytheism, and the idea of 
 sin faded gradually but utterly away. Is it 
 audacious to say that what was wanted was 
 a race so endowed with the qualities of 
 masculine tenacity and persistency, as to 
 hold over in safe custody these all-impor- 
 tant truths until that fulness of time, when, 
 by and with them, the complete design of 
 the Almighty would be revealed to the 
 world ? A long experience of trials beyond 
 all example has proved since the Advent 
 how the Jews, in this one essential quality, 
 have all along surpassed every other people 
 upon earth. A marvellous and glorious
 
 OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE, i^o 
 
 experience has shown how among their 
 ancestors before the Advent were kept 
 ahve and in full vigor the doctrine of belief 
 in one God, and the true idea of sin. These 
 our Lord, when He came, found ready to 
 .His hand, essential pre-conditions of His 
 teaching. And, in the exhibition of this 
 great and unparalleled result of a most 
 elaborate and peculiar discipline, we may 
 perhaps recognize, sufficiently for the pres- 
 ent purpose, something of the Office and 
 Work of the Old Testament.
 
 The Psalms.
 
 The Psalms. 
 
 I. — THEIR HISTORIC PLACE IN THE DEVOTION 
 OF ALL AGES. 
 
 JOHN BRIGHT has told me that he 
 would be content to stake upon the 
 Book of Psalms, as it stands, the great 
 question whether there is or is not a Divine 
 Revelation. It was not to him conceivable 
 how a work so widely severed from all the 
 known productions of antiquity, and stand- 
 ing upon a level so much higher, could be 
 accounted for except by a special and ex- 
 traordinary aid calculated to produce special 
 and extraordinary results ; for it is reason- 
 able, nay needful, to presume a due corre- 
 spondence between the cause and the effect. 
 Nor does this opinion appear to be unrea- 
 sonable. If Bright did not possess the spe- 
 cial qualifications of the scholar or the 
 critic, he was, I conceive, a very capable 
 judge of the moral and religious elements 
 in any case that had been brought before 
 him by his personal experience. 
 
 (143)
 
 144 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 It was in truth a noble distinction of the 
 Hebrew race to have produced persons im- 
 bued with such quahties and gifts, as were 
 capable of composing the Book of Psalms. 
 
 Twice in his Epistles (Eph. v. 19 ; Col. iii. 
 16) does St. Paul admonish Christians upon j 
 musical services as a fitting vent for the de- \ 
 vout mind and heart. In both cases he ^ 
 employs the same phraseology, and enjoins 
 the use of " psalms and hymns and spiritual 
 songs," each time giving the first place in 
 the enumeration to Psalms. I find it diffi- 
 cult to dismiss the idea that in this word 
 the use of the Psalter was either intended 
 or included ; especially as there are early 
 testimonies to the effect that antiphonal 
 singing was in use from the origin of the 
 Church.* 
 
 Upon the most superficial survey of the 
 Psalms in their general aspect, it seems dif- 
 ficult or impossible to regard them as simply 
 owing their parentage to the Mosaic system. 
 Some, indeed, of their features may well be 
 referred to it ; especially the strong sense 
 of national unity which they display, and 
 the concentration ofthat sense upon a single 
 centre, the city of Jerusalem and the temple. 
 
 It may also be noted that the Mosaic law 
 inculcated in its utmost breadth the princi- 
 
 * As to the last-named point, see Wordsworth and 
 Alford, in loco.
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 145 
 
 pie of love to God. "Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy might." * Yet 
 may it not be said, from the place in which 
 it occurs, that this is rather exhortation than 
 statute? Further, it is not unfolded in the 
 detail of the legislative Torah ; and, even 
 in the Decalogue, service is enjoined with- 
 out the mention of love. The early books 
 do not exhibit, like the Psalter, the close, 
 inner contact of the individual soul with the 
 Deity ; and, as water does not rise above 
 the source, it is hard to ascribe to them 
 alone the wonderful development of that 
 principle which pervades the body of this 
 unparalleled collection. We seem com- 
 pelled to assume for them some loftier 
 fountain-head of instruction. This, I would 
 submit, is in part supplied, and in part sug- 
 gested, by the Book of Genesis. I say 
 suggested, inasmuch as the outlines of a 
 primeval religion drawn in that book are 
 not less slight than they are significant. So 
 slight, indeed,- that I have been unable to 
 resist the impression that there were sup- 
 plementary communications of Divine truth, 
 •over and above those contained in Holy 
 Writ, and perhaps traceable, here and there, 
 in later portions of the Old Testament and 
 of the Apocryphal Books. And I also say 
 * Deut. vi. 4, s. 
 10
 
 146 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 supplied, inasmuch as the story of the Fall 
 involves in full the idea of our restoration, 
 in character as well as condition, which is 
 nowhere enunciated in the Law ; and 
 further, inasmuch as it sets forth, at least 
 down to the time of Abraham, a personal 
 intercourse, habitual and direct, with the 
 Deity, and one pointing onwards to the 
 great Redemption. 
 
 In a preceding essay I have represented 
 that the Mosaic law was not the promulga- 
 tion of a new and complete religion, but a 
 code of provisions intended for the particu- 
 lar purpose (i) of building up a wall of 
 effectual separation between the Jewish com- 
 munity, and the corruption of the nations 
 whose land they were to conquer and to 
 possess ; and (2) of preserving in vitality 
 and freshness, within that precinct, the fun- 
 damental conceptions of the Divine unity and 
 righteousness, and of the duty and the sin- 
 fulness of man. These all-important propo- 
 sitions were the necessary pre-conditions of 
 any plan for the restoration of peace in a 
 disordered world. But thev were, never- 
 theless, in process of extirpation from the 
 general and public religion of all those 
 Gentile races, whose history is given us in 
 Scripture, or in the classical books of pro- 
 fane antiquity. 
 
 Thus the Mosaic system, while it was
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 147 
 
 defensive against the surrounding iniquity, 
 was also something more, and something 
 higher. That system, both institutional and 
 doctrinal, fenced in, as it were, a clear space, 
 a free and secure domain, for the fuller 
 development of a religion, inward and per- 
 sonal, devotional and spiritual, the materials 
 for which it could hardly have supplied by 
 presenting, as it did, God as ruler and judge, 
 and man as a servant who continually either 
 sinned, or was on the brink of falling into 
 sin. 
 
 In the inner sanctuary, thus provided for 
 the most capable human souls, was reared 
 the strong spiritual life, which appears to 
 have developed itself pre-eminently in the 
 depth, richness, tenderness, and comprehen- 
 siveness of the Psalms. To the work they 
 have here accomplished, there is no parallel 
 upon earth. For the present I put aside all 
 details, and am content to stand upon this 
 fact — that a compilation, which began (at 
 the latest) with a shepherd of Palestine, 
 three thousand years ago, has been the 
 prime and paramount manual of devotion 
 from that day to this ; first for the Hebrew 
 race, both in its isolation, and after it was 
 brought, by the translation of its sacred 
 books, into relations with the Gentile world ; 
 and then for all the Christian races, in all 
 their diversities of character and circum-
 
 148 THE PSALMS. 
 
 stance. Further, that there is now, if pos- 
 sible, less chance than ever of the displace- 
 ment of these marvellous compositions from 
 their supremacy in the worship of the 
 Christian church. And beyond doubt it 
 may be also said that their function has not 
 been one of ritual pomp and outward power 
 alone. They have dwelt in the Christian 
 heart, and at the very centre of that heart ; 
 and wherever the pursuits of the inner life 
 have been most largely conceived and culti- 
 vated, there, and in the same proportion, the 
 Psalms have towered over every other vehi- 
 cle of general devotion. We have a con- 
 spicuous illustration of their office in the 
 fact that of two hundred and forty-three 
 actual citations from the Old Testament 
 found in the pages of the New, no less than 
 one hundred and sixteen are from the single 
 Book of Psalms ; and that a similar propor- 
 tion holds with most of the early Fathers.* 
 Bishop Alexander has published the result 
 of a careful examination made by himself 
 It is, that reference is made to the Psalms^ 
 
 * Canon Cook, in the Speaker's Bible, vol. iv. p. 146. 
 There is a minor, but still not unmeaning, indication to 
 the same effect, which it would be unseemly to couple 
 with that given in the te.xt, but which I venture to name 
 for its recency, and because it is eminently associated 
 ■with the general course of modern life. In a manual, 
 not of hymns, hut of devotions prepared for public use in 
 the mixed congregations on board a great line of packet
 
 THE PSALMS. j^q 
 
 either by quotation or otherwise, in no 
 fewer than two hundred and eighty-six pas- 
 sages of the New Testament.* 
 
 We have thus before us the fact that the 
 Psalms, composed for the pubhc worship 
 of the Hebrews from two to three thousand 
 years ago, constitute down to the present 
 day for Christians the best and highest book 
 of devotion. A noteworthy fact even on 
 the surface of it; more noteworthy still, 
 when we go below the surface into the 
 meaning. The Hebrews were Semitic, 
 Christendom is (chiefly) Aryan ; the He- 
 brews were local, Christendom is world- 
 wide ; the Hebrews were often tributary, and 
 finally lost their liberties and place among 
 the nations ; Christianity has mounted over 
 every obstacle, and has long been the 
 dominating power of the world. The He- 
 brews had no literature outside their re- 
 ligion, nor any Fine Art ; Christendom has 
 appropriated, and even rivalled, both the 
 literature and the art of the greatest among 
 the ancients. This strange book of Hebrew 
 devotions had no attraction outside Hebrew- 
 ism, except for Christians ; and Christians 
 
 ships from Great Britain to North America, I find that, 
 out of 254 pages, 137 are occupied by selections from the 
 Psalms; the chief part of the remainder being a collec- 
 tion of hymns. 
 
 * " The Witness of the Psalms." Note A, p. 291.
 
 ISO 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 have found nothing to gather, in the same 
 kind, from any of the other rehgions in the 
 world. The stamp of continuity and 
 identity has been set upon one, and one 
 only, historic series ; one and one only, 
 thread runs down through the whole suc- 
 cession of the ages ; and, among many 
 witnesses to this continuity, the Psalms are 
 probably among the most conspicuous. 
 This stamp purports to be, and to have 
 been all along. Divine ; and the unparalleled 
 evidence of results all goes to show that it 
 is not a forgery. 
 
 The wonderful phenomenon thus present- 
 ed to us can hardly be said to admit of en- 
 hancement ; and yet it is, perhaps, enhanced, 
 when we bear in mind that the long period 
 of this perpetual youth, exhibited by the 
 Psalms, has been one broken by the promul- 
 gation of a new religion, together with all 
 the changes of fact, and developments of 
 principle, which transformed the heathen 
 world. 
 
 Moreover, we should remember that the 
 shapings of all language merely human 
 are essentially shortlived, and forms of 
 speech succeed one another as wave follows 
 upon wave. But herein seems probably to 
 lie one of the ways in which the Divine 
 revelation asserts itself It appears to have 
 the faculty of giving to things mutable the
 
 THE PSALMS. 151 
 
 privilege and the power of the immutable, 
 and to endow fashions of speech, when 
 they belong to the heart's core of human 
 nature, with a charter that is to endure 
 throughout all time. 
 
 I submit, then, that the fact of so won- 
 derful a power as was thus exercised by the 
 Psalms, in such diversities of time, race, and 
 circumstances, is not only without parallel, 
 but is removed by such a breadth of space 
 from all other facts of human experience in 
 the same province, as to constitute in itself a 
 strong presumption that the cause also is 
 one lying beyond the range of ordinary 
 human action, and may most reasonably be 
 set down as consisting in that specialty of 
 Divine suggestion and guidance, which we 
 term revelation. 
 
 II. THEIR ANTIQUITY. 
 
 The antiquity of the Book of Psalms, like 
 that of the other books of Scripture, does not 
 directly or necessarily involve the essence of 
 the case concerning them, which I appre- 
 hend is more dependent upon their character 
 and their results. Yet it counts, for im- 
 portance, in the next order of considerations, 
 since the form and substance are here more 
 intimately allied than in the terms used for 
 the rdcital of events in an historical book.
 
 152 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 It is also to be assumed that the inces- 
 sant use of the Psahiis in the service of 
 the temple, and the comparatively wide 
 knowledge of them thus conveyed to the 
 people, were in the nature of special se- 
 curities for their faithful and exact trans- 
 mission. 
 
 When we speak of the Psalms of David, 
 we use a popular and general form of ex- 
 pression, which names the whole from the 
 largest or most weighty, and, originally, 
 most conspicuous, of the parts. The phrase 
 is sufficiently shown not to be absolute and 
 precise by the beautiful 137th Psalm, which 
 describes the condition of the Hebrews in 
 Babylon, five centuries after the death of 
 the minstrel King. Seventy-three Psalms* 
 in all are ascribed to him. This is not 
 the assumption or opinion of conservative 
 writers only. Bleek, whose work is- re- 
 vised and sanctioned by VVeyiiausen, admits 
 it to be a matter of the highest probability 
 that no inconsiderable number of the Psalms 
 are due to his authorship. f He also, with 
 others, largely accepts the inscriptions 
 which are prefixed to them. According 
 to Canon Cook, a judicious and able writer, 
 it was never held that the entire Psalter 
 
 * Cook's Introduction, p. 150. 
 
 f " Einleitung in das alte Testament . . . besorgt 
 von J. Wellhausen." Sect. 221. Berlin, 18S6.'
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 153 
 
 was the work of the King ; and he says 
 that, in the time of the Maccabees, the 
 completion of the Book was ascribed to 
 Nehemiah. He thinks that a large propor- 
 tion of the two closing books (out of the 
 five Books composing the Psalter) belong 
 to the period of or following the Exile.* 
 But of the three Psalms most pointedly 
 referable to the Messiah, two (xxii., ex.) are 
 Davidic. He shows how the conclusive 
 objections to the theory which refers the 
 Psalms to the Maccabean age are sustained 
 by various advanced German writers, and 
 Bleek holds that no Psalm can be shown to 
 be later than Nehemiah. But the master 
 idea of the whole argument is not so much 
 that such and such Psalms were produced 
 at such and such an era, as that the Book 
 at large is the product of that influence 
 which stamps it, like the other books of 
 Holy Scripture, as embodying a Divine 
 revelation. 
 
 On this point of antiquit}^ it is more than 
 enough if a large portion of the Psalms 
 are ascribable to King David. I venture, 
 however, to offer two suggestions. First, 
 the Psalms come to us through a channel 
 supplied by the kingdom of Judah, not the 
 kingdom of Israel. If they had been largely 
 
 * Cook's Introduction, p. 156. The Books are Psalms 
 i.-xli.. xlii.-lxxii., Ixxiii.-lxxxix., xc.-cvi., cvii.-cl.
 
 154 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 composed after the severance of the ten 
 tribes from the two, would they not have 
 presented some more definite indication of 
 that severance ? Now, the name of Israel 
 is the name, under which in the Psalms the 
 chosen people are described. We have 
 this name repeated twenty-six times. The 
 name of Judah was likely, it may be sup- 
 posed, after the schism, to become the pre- 
 vailing and distinctive name. It would so 
 continue after the captivity and dispersion 
 of the ten tribes, and as long as their rem- 
 nants continued to maintain any serious and 
 systematic rivalry with the southern king- 
 dom. Yet, throughout the Psalter, we 
 never find the name of Judah mentioned in 
 this paramount sense. Jerusalem is men- 
 tioned seventeen times, and Sion thirty- 
 eight, together fifty-five times. But the 
 name of Judah only occurs ten times, and 
 never with this paramount significance. It 
 is mentioned either together with Israel 
 (Ps. Ixxvi. I ; cxiv. 2), or in conjunction 
 with other tribes, as with Ephraim and 
 Manasseh in Ps. Ix. 7, and cviii. 8, or with 
 Sion ; but always locally or tribally. Could 
 this have been so, if the Psalms had mainly 
 been composed when Judah was the only 
 acknowledged name for the elect people, 
 and Israel was a stranger, often an enemy, 
 always the symbol of a rival and apparently,
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 155 
 
 from the character of its priesthood,* a de- 
 graded worship ? 
 
 Secondly : the one great dehverance com- 
 memorated in the Psalms (as also, I under- 
 stand, in the later Jewish Liturgies), is the 
 deliverance from Egypt. See, for example, 
 Psalms Ixviii., Ixxii., Ixxx., Ixxxi., cv., cvi., 
 cxiv., cxxxv., cxxxvi. Could this have 
 been the case, if the Book was unknown 
 until the time when, between the people and 
 their earlier past, there arose up a frightful 
 spectre ? I refer to the terrible experience 
 of the Captivity in Babylon. 
 
 And yet, surely, there were incidents 
 attendant upon that Captivity, which might 
 have carved upon the Jewish mind recollec- 
 tions yet deeper in some respects than those 
 of Egypt. In that country, if their treatment 
 had been cruel and degrading, yet they 
 must upon the whole have flourished, inas- 
 much as they grew there from a family into 
 a people. But the Babylonish captivity 
 entailed, firstly, the loss of what was not 
 only an ancestral home, but the local seat 
 of the Divine promise to their race; sec- 
 ondly, the loss of the worship divinely or- 
 dained, and attached to the temple of Jeru- 
 salem ; thirdly, the loss of the kingly line, 
 and of that prized nationality, in and by 
 which they were preferred before all the 
 
 * I Kings xii. 31 ; xiii. 33.
 
 156 THE PSALMS. 
 
 nations of the earth. Is it then conceivable, 
 if the Psalms in general owed their origin 
 to the time of the Captivity, that the com- 
 posers of them should, in numerous and 
 conspicuous cases, have dwelt so long and 
 so often on the details of the Egyptian 
 bondage, and should never but once and 
 briefly have made reference, specific indeed 
 but narrow, to the one recent catastrophe, 
 choosing rather to go back to the centuries 
 dimmed, in comparison, by the interval of a 
 thousand years ? 
 
 It seems more than possible that this argu- 
 ment may be decisively supported by that 
 portion of the Book of Jeremiah, which dis- 
 tinctly prophesies, not long before the Cap- 
 tivity, that a time is coming when the servi- 
 tude in Egypt shall cease to be the one com- 
 manding recollection of the Hebrews, and its 
 place shall be taken by the Exile in Babylon. 
 
 " Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, 
 that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that 
 brought up the children of Israel out of the land of 
 Egypt ; 
 
 " But, the Lord liveth, that brought up the children 
 of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the 
 lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them 
 again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." * 
 
 The arguments, drawn from general 
 features and from historical probability, 
 * Jer. xvi. 14, 15.
 
 THE PSALMS. 157 
 
 respecting the antiquity of the Books of the 
 Old Testament, are in some degree common 
 to the Torah, or Books of Moses, and the 
 Psahiis. The Psahiis have, however, the 
 benefit of the admission I have cited from 
 the leader of the negative school in our own 
 day, that a considerable number are prob- 
 ably from the pen of David. And there are 
 also points in which reasoning, available to 
 show the antiquity of the Torah, has an 
 enhanced force for the Psalms. 
 
 We see, for example, that the history of 
 the Israelites, from the conquest of Canaan 
 to the Captivity, is upon the whole a history 
 of a decaying faith. This is exhibited in 
 the original demand for the change to a 
 monarchy from that earlier form of govern- 
 ment by Judges, which powerfully sug- 
 gested the presence and providence of the 
 Almighty, by leaving unoccupied the place 
 upon earth most symbolical of Him. It 
 ■was shown by the increased wickedness of 
 the kings, and by the enlarged and devel- 
 oped office of the Prophets. For these 
 ■were like an army of reserve in support of 
 the Divine dispensation, which takes its posi- 
 tion on the field of battle in the hour of need. 
 It is also observed by Sack,* that in the 
 
 * " Die altjiidische Religion im iibergange vom Bibel- 
 thume zum Talmudismus, von Israel Sack." Berlin, 
 1889. Einleitung, pp. 13, seqq.
 
 158 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 period succeeding the exile the original 
 creative force of the Hebrew spirit died out, 
 and that, as formahsni advanced, the secta- 
 rian hues of party were sharpened and 
 deepened. In both these tracts of history, 
 the spirit and voice of the Book of Psalms 
 throw us back upon antiquity, and even 
 upon a distant antiquity. They seem to be 
 manifestly the product as of a school, so 
 probably of an age, of living, energetic faith. 
 And they are not less eminently notable 
 for the harmony which pervades the religious 
 community. "Jerusalem is built as a city, 
 that is at unity in itself" * 
 
 III. — THEIR CONTENTS. 
 
 Let us now look for a moment at the 
 contents of this Book, which are such as to 
 fasten our wonder upon them, and to leave 
 httle room for any surprise that they should 
 have established for themselves, in collective 
 worship and in personal devotion, the place 
 to which no parallel is elsewhere to be 
 found in the experience of the human race. 
 And, on the other hand, I shall not fail to 
 notice in their proper place the objections 
 which some have urged against the Book 
 of Psalms. 
 
 * Psalm cxxii. 3.
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 159 
 
 The multiplication of divinities under the 
 system which we term polytheism, had 
 tended to establish everywhere a system of 
 what are termed national gods. These act 
 within the sphere of a particular race or 
 country: they are open to the competition 
 of other deities, when through migration or 
 conquest these spheres happen to overlap. 
 They do not claim the allegiance of other 
 races, or show care or, so to speak, respon- 
 sibility, for their welfare. 
 
 I do not indeed deny, but should be 
 forward to assert, that while, in the early 
 stages of historic antiquity, this nationalizing 
 process seems to harden more and more 
 with the gradual accretions of legendary tra- 
 dition, we can trace among the mythologies, 
 in various degrees of faintness or clearness, 
 the older idea of a supreme God; of a belief 
 in one Ruler of the universe, anterior and 
 superior to these multiform powers. We 
 find in many cases disguised resemblances 
 of that original belief; but it is most com- 
 monly with such dislocation of its elements, 
 such exaggerations, such intrusion of ideas 
 foreign to it, as to defy all attempts, at least 
 in the present state of knowledge, to ascend 
 the channel upwards to the source. The 
 schemes become so complex, as to defy any 
 rational account of the original deviation: 
 even when their basis is found to lie in the
 
 l6o 1'^^ PSALMS. 
 
 several powers of external nature, which 
 were not known to be connected by any- 
 common tie, but which received the names 
 of gods, and were combined into religious 
 systems. These popular gods became reali- 
 ties in two senses; first, subjectively, be- 
 cause as they were accepted in the minds of 
 men, the associations connected with them 
 became a source and spring of human action; 
 secondly, because the images, under which 
 they came to be represented, gave them a 
 real existence at least in the material sphere. 
 It is, therefore, natural that the Psalms, in 
 phrases concerning deity, should not be con- 
 fined to the One God, but should say, for ex- 
 ample, that among the gods there is none 
 like Him, or should exhort the worshippers 
 to give thanks unto the God of gods.* 
 
 Yet no reader of the Psalms can fail to 
 see that they are strictly, unconditionally, 
 and exclusively monotheistic. God is un- 
 doubtedly the God of Israel, and the wor- 
 shippers properly describe Him in the terms, 
 which most closely correspond with His 
 relation to themselves. There seems to be 
 a great mixture of the terms of Elohim and 
 Jehovah, and in none of the five Books is 
 the use of the properly Hebrew name exclu- 
 sive.f But, without drawing any argument 
 
 * Ps. Ixxxvi. 8 ; cxxxvi. 2. See Exodus xv. II. 
 •j- Cook's Introd., p 149.
 
 THE PSALMS. i6r 
 
 from this intermixture, the Psahns make it 
 plain that the God whom they adore is from 
 everlasting, and is the God, not of Palestine, 
 but of the whole world: "Sing unto God, 
 O ye kingdoms of the earth ; O sing praises 
 unto the Lord ; who sitteth in the heavens 
 over all from the beginning." * And His 
 eye and care are over all men. " O praise 
 the Lord all ye heathen: praise Him all ye 
 nations. For His merciful kindness is ever 
 more and more towards us; and the truth 
 of the Lord endureth for ever." f 
 
 No doubt the " Lord" is represented as 
 having special relations with and special 
 care for Israel. But these are relations of 
 affection, not of exclusion. A Psalm de- 
 clares indeed — 
 
 " He shall choose out an heritage for us ; even the 
 worship of Jacob, whom he loved." 
 
 But the very same Psalm had already 
 sounded the trumpet note — 
 
 "O clap your hands together, all ye people; O sing 
 unto God with the voice of melody : for the Lord is 
 high, and to be feared; He is the great king upon all the 
 earth." % 
 
 Among the notes, then, of the supreme 
 position of the Psalms, and of the religion 
 to which they belonged, we find this idea 
 of the one God, who is also the universal 
 
 * Ps. Ixviii. 32-3. f Ps. cxvii. % Ps. xlvii. 4, and 1-2. 
 II
 
 1 52 THE PSALMS. 
 
 God, and the universal Governor of men, and 
 who thereby stands broadly distinguished 
 from what we find to be the character of 
 the polytheistic systems and of their heads; 
 namely, divinity restrained by limits of the 
 races or countries of antiquity. 
 
 But the form of the Almighty, thus di- 
 vested of the limitations of mere nationality, 
 and exhibited in the majesty of perfect 
 Oneness and Omnipotence, revealed itself 
 through the Psalms in other and more tender 
 aspects. His care for the poor and for the 
 stranger might be learned from the books 
 of the law, and may be traced in other re- 
 ligions among the remnants of true Theism, 
 Still, that is a function of government only, 
 though of benevolent government, and it is 
 compatible with the idea of immeasurable 
 remoteness. But in the Psalms is developed 
 with singular force and beauty the idea of 
 Omnipotence in the attitude of nearness to 
 man : and, more conspicuously still, of near- 
 ness to the individual man. In Heaven, 
 and in the Underworld, and at the extremi- 
 ties of earth, " even there also shall Thy 
 hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall 
 hold me." * 
 
 The presence thus brought near is not, as 
 
 in Exodus.t a consuming, but a soothing 
 
 and sustaining presence. | When thus 
 
 *Ps. cxxxix. 6-9. f Chap. xix. 12, 13, 21. J Ps. xxiii.
 
 THE PSALMS. 163 
 
 brought near, the Almighty is invested in 
 relation to us with all those capacities of 
 action and of sympathy, which fill inhuman 
 1 nature the department of the affections. In 
 ' the mouth of the objector, this is termed 
 anthropomorphism. I do not presume to 
 say that there is not in it some prefig- 
 uration of the Messiah, made in all such 
 things like as we are. But that there is no 
 deflection from the loftiness of the mono- 
 theistic idea we know from this, that the 
 same people, who gave utterance to the 
 Psalms, have been the most, rigid and lofty 
 in their definitions of the Godhead. As 
 when it is said by Maimonides that with 
 God "there is neither folly nor wisdom, 
 like the wisdom of a wise man ; neither 
 sleep nor waking ; neither anger nor 
 laughter; neither joy nor sorrow; neither 
 silence nor speech, like the speech of the 
 sons of men." * Yet it is He that is not 
 only the guardian of His people, but as it 
 were their sentinel ; and not of His people 
 only, but of every one among them, as truly 
 and as much as of the whole. In truth, the 
 two threads of national and of personal 
 
 * Maimonides, " Yad Hachazakah." Transl. Ber- 
 nard, Camhridije, 1832, p. 39. Declarations not less re- 
 markable are to be found in the More Ne/utc/iim, or 
 " Guide of the Perplexed." See also ihe work of Dr. 
 Ginsburg on the Kabbala, pp. 87-9 (London, Longmans, 
 1864).
 
 164 THE PSALMS. 
 
 Providence are so intertwined in the Psalms 
 that they scarcely can be severed. " He 
 will not suffer thy foot to be moved, and 
 He that helpeth thee will not sleep;" and 
 then in the very next verse, by a transition 
 not less gentle than complete, " Behold, He, 
 that keepeth Israel, shall neither slumber 
 nor sleep." There is no detail too minute 
 for describing the closeness of this protec- 
 tion : " He is thy defence upon thy right 
 hand ; " " The Lord shall preserve thy go- 
 ing out and thy coming in : from this time 
 forth for evermore." * But no mere selec- 
 tion can rightly convey a picture of the 
 close and intimate care, which this and so 
 many others of the Psalms describe in set- 
 ting forth the attitude of the Almighty to- 
 wards His worshippers. 
 
 I will not quit this portion of the subject 
 without quoting a remarkable testimony to 
 the elevation of the Psalter from a recent 
 critic generally negative, but one who 
 makes his affirmative declarations with an 
 exemplary sincerity and fervor. He speaks 
 of the Psalter as follows : " It is, as a 
 whole, the expression and fruit of the prin- 
 ciples of the Jewish religion, as they existed 
 in the minds of pious Israelites. Its one 
 great theme is the clinging of* the human 
 spirit to God. In joy and sorrow, in victory 
 * Ps. cxxi. 3, 4, 5, 8.
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 165 
 
 and defeat, in moods of saintliness or sin, 
 the spirit of the poor earthly wayfarer here 
 pours out its plaint and prayer to the God 
 
 of its life What exultation is here,, 
 
 for high days of victory and joy ! What . 
 touching moans of penitence ! VVhat child- 
 like cries for help ! What entreaties from 
 the soul that can only say, ' out of the 
 depths I have cried unto Thee ! ' What 
 deligrhtful confidences between the trustful 
 spirit, and the Shepherd who leadeth by 
 the green pastures and the still waters ! " * 
 I must not altogether pass by the Mes- 
 sianic Psalms. These are the songs which 
 show, by the adaptation of their language 
 to Him and to His office, either that their 
 composers had a prevision of His com- 
 ing, or that such prevision was conveyed 
 into their strain by the higher influence 
 which prompted it. It is not necessary here 
 to debate their number. Suffice it to specify 
 Psalms ii., xxi., xxii., xlv., Ixxii., ex. And it 
 is sufficiently plain that the principle of pro- 
 phecy, which is involved in them, whether 
 conscious or unconscious to the composer, 
 is the same which belongs to the other pre- 
 dictions and prcfigurations in the books of 
 the Old Testament. But they differ from, 
 and go beyond, the rest in this important 
 particular. The primitive religion descends 
 
 * Seven Lectures by the Rev. J. P. IIopps; vii. p. 33.
 
 J 56 THE PSALMS. 
 
 through them, as it were by an inner con- 
 duit. The great and cardinal facts of the 
 lapse of man from righteousness, and of the 
 need and promise of a Redeemer, were em- 
 bodied by the Psahiis in the perpetual public 
 worship of the Temple ; they thus became 
 part of the open, common inheritance of all ; 
 and were systematically forced, so to speak, 
 upon the attention of the people, that they 
 might come into personal and conscious 
 appropriation of this most precious and ab- 
 solutely central part of their covenanted 
 privileges. 
 
 When the foot of the Greek first, and 
 afterwards of the Roman, trod the streets 
 of Jerusalem; when the treasures of the 
 Hebrew books were unlocked to the Gen- 
 tile world through the Septuagint ; then 
 there happened, we may justly assume, one 
 of two things. There was, as we know 
 upon strong heathen testimony, before the 
 advent of our Lord, an universal and tradi- 
 tional expectation in the East that a great 
 power was to arise in Judsea and to subdue 
 the world. How came it that so remark- 
 able a conception, foreign to' the cultivated 
 communities of the Greek and the Italian 
 peninsulas, and apparently menacing the 
 continuance of the Roman dominion, should 
 at this time have been prevalent in the East ? 
 The East had, indeed, through a long series
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 167 
 
 of centuries, supposed itself entitled to the 
 mastery of the world : hence the wild expe- 
 dition of Darius into Scythia, and the re- 
 peated conflicts of Persia with the Greeks. 
 It is not strange that this heritage should 
 in some shape or other be reclaimed, for 
 ideas of this kind are tenacious of life, and 
 easy of revival. But what is at first sight 
 most strange is, the choice of the spot from 
 which deliverance was to proceed. It was 
 not from any of the seats of ancient power, 
 the fame of which was still on record ; 
 but from among the small, isolated, and un- 
 distinguished people who inhabited Pales- 
 tine, and whose brief appearance on the 
 stage of human affairs as conquerors, in 
 the time of King David, was so slight in 
 limit and in duration, as to have inscribed 
 no mark upon the page of general history. 
 It had passed away, like the old empire of 
 the Hittites. The Jews were also a people, 
 whose manners and institutions repelled 
 rather than attracted the sympathy of the 
 world. One supposition, explanatory of 
 this remarkable expectation, might be that 
 it had lived on from prehistoric times in 
 feebleness and obscurity, but had come to 
 the front when the East felt the hard hand 
 of power pressing on it from Rome, and 
 welding it for the first time by a permanent 
 system into uniformity of servitude or in-
 
 1 68 THE PSALMS. 
 
 feriority, from which it panted for deHver- 
 ance. But it seems more probable that the 
 Jewish Scriptures, which had for two cen- 
 turies become known by translation into 
 Greek, were themselves the fountain-head 
 of this most remarkable anticipation ; and 
 in that case its popular promulgation would 
 seem most probably to have been due, in 
 an eminent degree, to the Messianic Psalms, 
 which were, of all the available evidence, 
 the part most in the eye and mind of the 
 people. 
 
 Such being, in outline, the presentation 
 of God to man in the Book of Psalms, let 
 us consider in its turn the manner in which 
 they present man to God. Now this may 
 be set forth in a multitude of particulars, 
 but they are all capable of being summed 
 into one. For we have seen that the Psalms 
 are a book of spiritual communion, not only 
 between God and man, not only between 
 God and His Church, or especially chosen 
 people, but also, and even pre-eminently, 
 between God and the individual man. 
 
 As it is the fashion of the day to assert 
 for the sacred books of other religions a 
 kind of parity with the Old Testament, I ask 
 the reader to spend a few moments on this 
 subject. 
 
 No doubt there are points at which re- 
 semblance may be traced between the He-
 
 THE PSALMS. 169 
 
 brew devotions and those of the outer world : 
 not those of the outer world generally, for 
 from the Greek mind, as represented by the 
 Greek literature, devotion, properly so 
 called, has disappeared ; the rise of intellect, 
 sad and strange as this may sound, was the 
 fall of piety. But let it be granted that in 
 the Vedas, for example, and in the Baby- 
 lonian Hymns, there are points of contact 
 with the Psalms. Do those points of con- 
 tact run along the whole line ? are they con- 
 tinuous, or are they isolated ? Is it 
 coincidence, or is it a sort of tangential con- 
 tact only, or one which reminds us of the 
 definition of a point as that which has posi- 
 tion but not magnitude in space ? 
 
 May not those hymns be described as be- 
 longing only to the idea of dependence upon 
 the Deity — to the power and grandeur 
 which exists on one side, the misery and 
 weakness on the other? This is perhaps 
 what is called the religious sentiment, the 
 religion of which we have a subjective need, 
 and which we are now constantly (and 
 doubtless in good faith) assured is not to 
 disappear on the submergence of positive 
 religion and its institutions. But does this 
 give us anything near a true conception of 
 the Psalms ? They are based upon the 
 idea, not of dependence only, but of .sym- 
 pathy and conniiunion. Yes, for the work
 
 I/O 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 of spiritual discipline, the human soul is 
 there almost lifted upwards, as St. Paul was, 
 into the third heaven, and meets the Creator 
 as son meets father, face to face. It is not 
 possible, perhaps, to carry this idea farther, 
 than it is carried in the Psalms. It is cer- 
 tainly not woven into a closer tissue in 
 Thomas a Kempis, after fourteen centuries 
 of Christian ideas and practices. We ap- 
 proach to it in the Prophets, when, through 
 Isaiah, the Almighty invites us to a plead- 
 ing (Is. i. 1 8), " Come now, and let us rea- 
 son together." * But can we, even in idea, 
 press it further or lift it higher than in that 
 marvellous expostulation of the forty-fourth 
 Psalm. It defies the test of extract or quo- 
 tation. From the fifth verse to the end it 
 is a sustained note of moving, sorrowing 
 appeal, lifted as far above the level of any 
 merely human effort known to us as the 
 flight of the lark, " hard by the sun," is 
 lifted above the swallow, when it foresees 
 the storm and skims the surface of the 
 ground. Such, as set forth in the Psalms are 
 the inward exercises of the individual soul. 
 Not that the stamp set upon the Psalms 
 is uniform : it is highly diversified. Take 
 the noble first Psalm, which opens the 
 Book. It sets forth in one part (verses 3 
 and 4) with a tender beauty, in another 
 * See also Ezek. xviii. 25, 29.
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 171 
 
 with strong and stern denunciation, the 
 positions of the righteous and of the wicked 
 before God. But it sets them forth, as it 
 were, from the outside. So, again, many 
 of the Psahns, deahng with the IsraeUtes as 
 a whole, have for their theme national de- 
 liverance and glory. But let us turn to the 
 penitential Psalms, and most of all to the 
 fifty-first, in which King David * sounds the 
 lowest depths of sorrow and shame for sin,, 
 and has provided for the penitent of every 
 age and every character the medicine that 
 his case required. On these Psalms as a 
 whole, on this Psalm in particular, and, 
 again on the thirty-eighth Psalm, most of 
 all in its first moiety, let us fasten our atten- 
 tion for a moment. Have modern learning 
 and research succeeded in extracting from 
 all the sacred books of all the ancient relig- 
 ions of the world anything like, I do not 
 say a parallel, but an ever so remote ap- 
 proach to them ? The great discourse of 
 our Lord to Nicodemus, in the third chapter 
 of St, John, might find in these composi- 
 tions a basis broad enough to sustain the 
 whole of His startling doctrine, " except a 
 man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
 dom of God." f 
 
 * Some critics argue, not without some reason on their 
 side, that the two last verses are an exilic addition, 
 f John iii. 3.
 
 172 THE PSALMS. 
 
 Penitence thus lying at the door of the 
 process by which man is appointed to 
 ascend to hohness, this golden book sup- 
 plies, beyond all others, the types and aids 
 for attaining it in all its stages. All that 
 special class of virtues, which were unknown 
 to the civilized world at the time when the 
 Apostles preached them, had been here set 
 forth in act a thousand years before, and 
 stored up for use, first within the narrow 
 circle of the Jewish worship, and then in 
 the Church, which claims, and which may 
 yet possess, the wide world for its inher- 
 itance. Another standard of virtue indeed, 
 and in itself a glorious one, the Greek and 
 the Roman world possessed. They had 
 their code of Justice, Fortitude, Temper- 
 ance, and Wisdom. But this list of virtues 
 contained no recognition of the terrible and 
 world-wide fact of sin, and opened no road 
 to the acquisition of powers capable of con- 
 tending against it, and of casting down its 
 strongholds to the ground. That road was 
 to be opened by the Beatitudes of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, and by the Faith, Hope, 
 and Charity of St. Paul. Now, is there one 
 of those Beatitudes which has not been, in 
 its blossom or its germ, anticipated by the 
 Psalms ? Take the sanctification of sorrow 
 in verse 4 : so the Psalm instructs us, " Thy 
 loving correction shall make me great"*
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 173 
 
 (Ps. xviii. 35). Take the blessing of the 
 meek (verse 5). So says the Psalmist: 
 " Lord, I am not high-minded. I have no 
 proud looks, I refrain my soul and keep it 
 low. My soul is even as a weaned child." 
 (Ps. cxxxi. I, 3.) These are principles, not 
 only which the ancient philosophies did not 
 contain, but which they would have repu- 
 diated and contemned. Take again that 
 blessing of satiety which is promised ta 
 "hunger and thirst" after righteousness; 
 words which indicate such an adult age, 
 such a fulness of growth and stature in the 
 new man of the Christian system, that what 
 was at first lesson from without has come 
 to be appetite from within, and part of the 
 untaught spontaneous working of a renewed 
 humanity. But this idea is full}' developed 
 in the Psalms (xlii. I, 2), " Like as the hart 
 desireth the water brooks, so longeth my 
 soul after Thee, O God. My soul is athirst 
 for God, yea, even for the living God: when 
 shall I come to appear before the presence of 
 God." Even the doctrine of forgiveness, of 
 doing good to enemies, to the growth of 
 which the conditions of Hebrew life were 
 less favorable, finds expression in the Psalms. 
 Take xxxv. 12, 13: "They rewarded me 
 evil for good. Nevertheless, when they 
 were sick I put on sackcloth, and humbled 
 my soul with fasting." And again, " If I
 
 174 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 have rewarded evil unto him that dealt 
 friendly with me : yea, I have delivered him 
 that without any cause is mine enemy" 
 (Ps. vii. 4). It is, I submit, the general strain 
 of the Psalms to which we should look. 
 And who will deny that they habitually 
 abound in humility, in penitential abase- 
 ment, in the strong faith which is the evi- 
 dence of things not seen, in fervor, self- 
 mistrust, filial confidence towards God? 
 These and all kindred qualities they de- 
 velop in what, for want of a better word, I 
 will term their innerness. Their tones 
 come from the inmost heart, and, not with 
 a rude familiarity, yet with a wonderful 
 nearness, they seem to seek the response, 
 if the phrase may be used without irrev- 
 erence, from the inner heart of God Him- 
 self 
 
 All this is severed, as a whole, by an im- 
 measurable distance from the language, 
 ideas, and mental habits of pagan antiquity. 
 What we find there of religion associated 
 with intellectual culture turns upon the ex- 
 ternal relations between God and man, as 
 between sovereign and subject, or master 
 and dependent. The prehistoric verse of 
 Homer abounds in prayers. They are not 
 such commonly as we should use, yet they 
 indicate fully these external relations. But 
 in the life of later, of classical, Greece^
 
 THE PSALMS. 175 
 
 prayer seems wholly to have lost its force 
 and place as a factor in human life. 
 
 Again, in the " Odyssey " of Homer we 
 have remaining traces of the personal rela- 
 tion between man and God. In the in- 
 tercourse of Athene with Odysseus, and 
 reversely in her action on the minds of the 
 guilty suitors, there are distinct traces of 
 the working of a Divine force within the 
 soul of man. I do not remember to have 
 found anything like this in the later classical 
 h'terature. But the development of the 
 principle and idea of a communion with 
 God, operative on human feeling, thought, 
 and action, is the standing and central 
 thought of the Psalms. And it is probable 
 that, the more fixedly we regard them, the 
 more of their distinctive marks we shall per- 
 ceive, even as the stars in heaven multiply 
 to the gazing eye. The pervading idea of 
 a living communion with the Most High, 
 the communion which both gives and takes, 
 exhibits and fulfils itself in many ways. 
 One of them is the use of intercessory 
 prayer ; a trait conspicuously absent from 
 the numerous and interesting prayers of 
 Homer. Another is that, while full of 
 warm personal interests they persistently 
 • hold up the banner of a righteousness apart 
 from and above all personal interests what- 
 ever. Another is that the affections, alien-
 
 176 
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 ated by sin, have returned to their alle- 
 giance, and are arrayed on the side of the 
 Most High. The testimonies of God are 
 the " very joy " of the Psahiiist's heart. It 
 is all his desire that the Divine will should 
 have free course and be glorified upon earth. 
 The glory of God has become to him a 
 profound personal interest. " Set up thy- 
 self, O God, above the heavens ; and thy 
 glory above all the earth," Sentiments of 
 this type are, I apprehend, hardly to be 
 found outside the precinct of the Hebrew 
 race. 
 
 I will only note, in passing, before quitting 
 this subject, two remaining characteristics ;, 
 the height of that sacredness which the 
 Psalms attach to the claims of the poor ; 
 and their sense of the utter worthlessness 
 of all ceremonial observances, though com- 
 manded, except in connection with the 
 service of the will, and purification of the 
 heart. 
 
 IV. — THE OBJECTIONS TAKEN TO THEM. 
 
 Referring to what has been said else- 
 where on the presence of a human element 
 in Holy Scripture, I will now say a few 
 words on the special objection which is 
 lodged against the Psalms. 
 
 Let me first endeavor to reduce the ques-
 
 THE PSALMS lyy 
 
 tion to its true dimensions. The criticism 
 is not here, as it might be in some cases of 
 books claiming to be sacred, that they are 
 feeble, or fanciful, or remote from human 
 interests, or that large veins of clay run 
 through such true metal as they contain. 
 The Psalms, in their sublimity and in their 
 sympathy, so immeasurably divine and so 
 intensely human, are proof against all such 
 criticism, which would be only cavil. The 
 only dart which really rings upon their 
 coat of mail, is the dart which carries the 
 reproach of their severe and unmeasured 
 denunciation of enemies. 
 
 And first, in order to disembarrass the 
 question of matter which appears to be 
 extreme and exceptional, I will refer to the 
 verse which represents the ne plus jiltra of 
 the difficulty, as it stands in the Prayer- 
 book Version of the Psalms ; in respect to 
 which we pay a certain price for its incom- 
 parable majesty and beauty, in the shape of 
 occasional though rare shortcomings as to 
 accuracy. The Prayer-book gives verses 
 21, 22, of Psalm cxxxix., as follows: — 
 
 " Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee : and 
 am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee ? 
 
 " Yea, 1 hate them right sore : even as though they 
 were mine enemies." 
 
 Which seems to say, " I have a reserved 
 
 12
 
 J 78 THE PSALMS. 
 
 stock of special and superlative hatred for 
 those who have not only sinned in general, 
 but have sinned against me in particular." 
 But this notion is completely put aside in 
 the translation direct from the Hebrew as 
 it stands in the Authorized, and also in the 
 Revised Version, where the second of the 
 two verses runs : — 
 
 " I hate them with a perfect hatred ; I count them mine 
 enemies." 
 
 This seems not to set up the selfish feel- 
 ing, about offence personally received^ 
 above the sentiment of indignation and re- 
 sentment against wickedness ; but to say 
 only, "All that I might feel against a 
 personal enemy, all that natural exaspera- 
 tion would suggest. I discharge upon the 
 enemies of God." But the sentiment con- 
 cerning them has already been expressed 
 in terms not admitting of enlargement. 
 " I hate them with a perfect hatred." And 
 this brings the objection to a point. It is 
 that this unmeasured detestation and in- 
 vocation of wrath by man even upon God's 
 enemies cannot be justified, and is not to be 
 referred to divine inspiration. 
 
 Now let us notice, in the first place, that 
 the general tone of the Psalms concerning 
 enemies is not aggressive, but defensive. A 
 sense of trouble and danger from the might
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 179 
 
 <of experienced or impending assault, and 
 an appeal to God for protection, furnish the 
 staple sentiment of the Book. I quote a 
 single instance, which is a fair sample of 
 the whole of this class of passages, from 
 Psalm Ivi. i, 2 : — 
 
 •i 
 
 » 
 
 "Be merciful unto me, O God, for man goeth about 
 to devour me : he is daily fighting and troubling me. ; 
 
 " Mine enemies are daily in hand to swallow me up : 
 for they be many that fight against me, O thou Most 
 High." 
 
 Let those who question the assertion I 
 have made, that this passage has a charac- 
 ter typical of the whole, refer (among other 
 places) to Psalms v. 8 ; vi. 7 ; vii. 5 ; xviii. 
 .27, passim; Ivi. 9; lix. i ; Ixix. 4; cxviii. 
 II. 12; cxxxviii. 7; cxliii. 9. 
 
 But undoubtedl}^ a certain number of 
 passages are not defensive, they are denun- 
 ciatory; such as liv. 5, 7; lix. 10; xcii. ii ; 
 -cxliii. 12. I will recite this last verse in 
 full, for it brings into view the sentiment 
 ■which forms the base of all these pas- 
 sages: "And of thy goodness slay mine ene- 
 mies, and destroy all them that vex my 
 son\, for I am tliy servant!' If we put these 
 words into paraphrase, the Psalmist pleads • 
 that he is engaged in the service of God ; • 
 that in this service he is assailed and hin- 
 dered ; that, powerless in himself, he appeals
 
 l8o THE PSALMS. 
 
 to the source of power ; and that he invokes 
 upon the assailants and hinderers of the 
 Divine work the Divine vengeance, even to 
 their extinction. 
 
 We have, then, to consider these denun- 
 
 I; ciatory passages, first, as they were em- 
 
 5 ployed by their authors ; secondly, as they 
 
 ' are now presented to us for our own use in 
 
 the services of the Church, or in private 
 
 devotion. 
 
 Under the first head, let me observe as 
 follows. There is not one of these pas- 
 sages which tampers with truth or justice; 
 they are aimed only at sin, to blast and 
 wither it. " Lead me, O Lord, in Thy 
 righteousness, because of mine enemies "" 
 (Ps. V. 8). This is the universal strain. All 
 these passages are strokes delivered witlr 
 the sword of righteousness, in its unending 
 warfare with iniquity. Nor is there one 
 among them, of which it can be shown that 
 it refers to any personal feud, passion, or 
 desire. Everywhere the Psalmist speaks in 
 the name of God, on behalf of His word 
 and will. 
 
 But it may still be urged, that such de- 
 
 ' nunciations are excessive in degree, that 
 
 ' they are too severe and savage, and that 
 
 , they are not suitable for the mouth of man. 
 
 With respect to their severity I suggest, 
 
 and if need be contend, that we, in our igno-
 
 THE PSALMS. igi 
 
 ranee and weakness, are no fit judges of the 
 extent to which the wisdom of the Almighty 
 may justly carry the denunciation, even by 
 the mouth of man, and the punishment of 
 guilt. 
 
 Man, and even civilized man, contem- 
 plates with much equanimity the taking of 
 human life for the occasions which he deems 
 sufficient. He knows that in all wars one 
 party must be guilty, and that in most or 
 many wars neither have had a justification 
 for the wholesale bloodshed, which floods 
 the path of destruction that they necessarily 
 follow. Life, which man did not give and 
 cannot restore, he takes away, for the repres- 
 sion of crime, with general, though not 
 unanimous, approval. It is also taken, even 
 now, in most Christian countries, through 
 duels for private injury or insult; and it is 
 but recently that public opinion in our own 
 •country has become repugnant to the prac- 
 tice. But the scruples, which for ourselves 
 we so easily thrust aside, become active, 
 feverish, and even violent, when, in a world 
 to the abundant wickedness of which our 
 own practice witnesses, the Ruler of that 
 world, who gave life for use, and who sees 
 and judges its abuse, is to be arraigned be- 
 fore our mock tribunal ; and we, who cannot 
 and do not rightly guide, each of us, our 
 own action, are to undertake to determine
 
 1 82 THE PSALMS. 
 
 His. And this, when we have not fully- 
 learned, and cannot measure, either the 
 deep and frightful depravity of the Canaanit- 
 ish nations, or the purposes with which 
 Penalty descends from on high. We know 
 not whether it comes in mercy to correct 
 the growth of evil before it shall become 
 incurable, and whether, or how far, when 
 opportunity has been exhausted here, re- 
 sources may still have been held in reserve 
 on behalf of persons placed as they were, 
 to be expended for good in the great Else- 
 where. To pronounce verdicts upon these 
 terrible denunciations may be impious; and 
 is surely, at the least, unreasonable. 
 
 " And who art thou, that on the bench would sit, 
 To judge what is a thousand miles removed, 
 "With the brief vision of a single span ? " * 
 
 There is certainly more claim to sub- 
 stance in the objection, which urges that 
 these denunciations are unsuitable for man. 
 But here I should interpose the question. To 
 what man ? The wonderful nature, in which 
 we have been created, is in nothing more 
 wonderful than in the diversity of the con- 
 ditions under which it has to subsist and 
 work, on its road from embryo to perfec- 
 tion. As those stages accumulate, the 
 moral code becomes multiform and involved. 
 
 * Dante, " Parad." xix. Si. Pollock's translation.
 
 THE PSALMS. 183 
 
 In simpler forms of life, and in earlier stages 
 of society, the roads between right and 
 wrong were short, broad, and clear; like 
 as were then the dividing spaces of the bat- 
 tle-field, whereas contending hosts are now 
 severed by miles, and almost leagues, from 
 one another. 
 
 But, further, the Psalmists, and the nation 
 to which they belonged, lived under a dif- 
 ferent dispensation from ours. If we ac- 
 cept the Scriptures, that nation held a divine 
 commission to establish the right and to 
 put down the wrong, in a sense in which 
 no such commission is now given. For us 
 it is enough to hope that at any given junc- 
 ture we may be doing the will of God ; but 
 what we hope, they knew ; and sight for. 
 them was mixed with faith in a degree and 
 mode remote from the spirit of our later, 
 and in this respect, perhaps, higher training. 
 They were accustomed to what may be 
 termed short accounts with the Divine Jus- 
 tice ; and to reward or suffering as the im- 
 mediate consequences, and, therefore, as 
 the direct attestations, of the judgment of 
 God upon the moral conduct of man. The 
 responsibility, which is for us diffused and 
 indefinite, was for them concentrated and 
 palpable. But, besides this, they had the 
 great standing institution of prophecy ; and 
 the king in whose ears Nathan's words had
 
 1 84 THE PSALMS. 
 
 thundered, "Thou art the man," might well 
 feel that his own contact was a close one 
 with the mind of the Almighty, and that 
 he might upon occasion speak his very 
 strongest words under guidance from on 
 High. 
 
 I do not pursue farther these remarks, 
 which are no more than tentative and ap- 
 proximate. But I do not find myself justi- 
 fied in the assumption that we are in all 
 cases to have a complete cognizance of the 
 conditions under which the Psalms give 
 judgment upon the unrighteous, or are in- 
 tended to arrive at final judgments on the 
 question what the Jews might, and what 
 they might not, suitably be commissioned 
 by the Almighty to denounce. 
 
 More immediately are we concerned in 
 the question as to the place held in Chris- 
 tian devotion, and especially in public ritual, 
 by the denunciatory passages of the Psalms. 
 It is one question what these denunciations 
 were for the Jew; it is another, and entirely 
 distinct, what they are for us. But the an- 
 swer to this objection, I apprehend, lies 
 near to hand. All scruple, at least all 
 rational or plausible scruple in this matter, 
 seems to rest upon the supposition that the 
 passages are aimed at creatures, who have 
 characters mixed between good and evil, 
 and who therefore are not presumptively fit
 
 THE PSALMS. 185 
 
 subjects for our unmixed, undiscriminating 
 denunciation. But can any one reasonably 
 suppose that these declarations are, in the 
 mind and sense of the Christian Church, 
 directed against any human enemy? Our 
 human enemies, if we are so unhappy as to 
 have any, are not the most watchful, the 
 most subtle, the most destructive of our 
 foes. " For we wrestle not against flesh 
 and blood, but against .... the rulers of 
 the darkness of this world.* But the Holy 
 Scripture and the Christian religion teach, 
 and our human experience largely testifies, 
 that there are spirits whose meat and drink, 
 so to speak, it is to extend the domain of 
 evil, to deepen corruption, to destroy happi- 
 ness by destroying innocence, which is its 
 base ; to add both in range and in intensity 
 to the misery and the sin which have made 
 the world so sad. If this be so, then I con- 
 tend that to pray for the abolition or paraly- 
 sis of their work and of its agents, and this 
 especially when we meet as Christians to 
 set forth solemnly the collective needs and 
 aspirations of mankind, is a practice which 
 speaks for itself, and requires neither justifi- 
 cation nor apology. 
 
 Apart altogether from the question, what 
 • may be the value or completeness of the 
 foregoing defensive suggestions, I would 
 * Eph. vi. 12.
 
 1 86 THE PSALMS. 
 
 remind my readers that they relate not to 
 the main body of the question respecting 
 the Psahiis, but to a portion of it which is 
 hmited and exceptional. The Psalms, like 
 other productions, are to be judged by their 
 general character, I do not perceive how, 
 if we approach this question on the grounds 
 and in the spirit of reason, it is possible for 
 a person so approaching it to set aside the 
 mass of evidence, which establishes the un- 
 paralleled and unapproached position of the 
 Book in its antiquity and use, in its pure 
 and noble theology, and in a moral and 
 spiritual character witnessed afresh by the 
 judgment and practice of each succeeding 
 age. And, if the several parts of this evi- 
 dence link themselves into a compact and 
 harmonious whole, it is not reason, but un- 
 reason in the mask of reason, which declines 
 or omits to acknowledge the presumption 
 thence arising, that the Book is at a level 
 indefinitely higher than has been reached 
 by the unassisted faculties of man, and that 
 the power which raised it to that level can 
 only be Divine. Such a conclusion will 
 survive even the approving reference in Ps. 
 cxxxvii. 9, to a practice of savage warfare. 
 Were it true that the image of gold had feet 
 of clay, we might indeed be perplexed by 
 the combination ; but would not this be just, 
 as we often are perplexed by other combina-
 
 THE PSALMS. 
 
 187 
 
 tions, presented to us in the providential 
 government of the world ? And not only 
 in the providential government of the world, 
 but in the fulfilment of our personal rela- 
 tions with other men. Yet we do not put 
 an end on that account to such relations: 
 nor do we cease to believe in God because 
 we, such as we are — God save the mark — 
 cannot comprehend the reason, or even dis- 
 cern the rightfulness, of all He does. In 
 like manner, so neither can we refuse to 
 admit sufficient evidence of an origin more 
 than human for the Psalms on the ground 
 that we see only through a glass darkly, 
 and that they present incidental features 
 analogous in principle to those which in 
 other departments our experience brings 
 before us.
 
 « 
 
 The Mosaic Legislation.
 
 The Mosaic Legislation. 
 
 THE legislative Books of the Penta- 
 teuch, from Exodus to Deuteronomy, 
 may be contemplated in the light, either (i) 
 of their credentials, or (2) of their character 
 and contents. 
 
 The Christian Church, which had here- 
 tofore regarded them as an integral and in- 
 structive part of the Divine Revelation, is 
 now challenged by the voices of numerous 
 critics to defend them. Champions in this 
 cause are not wanting ; and it is not to be 
 supposed that the learned in linguistic 
 studies have arrived at unanimous and final 
 conclusions in these grave matters. If we 
 compare their studies, as to unanimity, con- 
 tinuity, and ascertained progress, with that 
 of the natural sciences, the comparison will 
 be not at all to their advantage. Their ser- 
 vices are not, however, to be unduly dis- 
 paraged. What is understood to be at issue 
 is, the date and authorship of the Books in 
 the form in which we now have them. 
 These are contested by the negative school
 
 192 
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 on grounds of language and style, upon 
 which none can properly attempt to follow 
 or to judge them, unless when equipped with 
 the same special knowledge. They also 
 allege, as parts of the destructive argument, 
 that the Books contain anachronisms, con- 
 tradictions, statements disproved by history. 
 
 They have recently been challenged by 
 Dr. Cave * to set forth a plain and distinct 
 statement of these difficulties, such as might 
 bring the allegations in some degree within 
 the circles of knowledge and of judgment, 
 for us who are not experts but are supposed 
 to be endued with ordinary intelligence. 
 They are also invited to state what meaning 
 they assign to the standing phrase, " And 
 the Lord spake unto Moses," which with 
 its variants occurs, it may be observed, no 
 less than thirty times in the twenty-seven 
 chapters of Leviticus. And, finally, they 
 are invited by Dr. Cave to show in plain 
 terms the reasons why it is unreasonable 
 to suppose that the Books (either in their 
 present state or otherwise) were contem- 
 poraneous with the events described and 
 grew up one by one along with those events. 
 
 It seems but common equity that we, 
 who stand outside the learned world, and 
 who find operations are in progress, which 
 are often declared to have destroyed the 
 
 * Contemporary Review, April 1S90, pp. 537-551.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 193 
 
 authority of these ancient iBooks, should be 
 supphed, as far as may be, with available 
 means of rationally judging the nature and 
 grounds of the impeachment. And it is 
 unfortunate that this has been little thought 
 of; and that, while we are, it may almost 
 be said, drenched with the deductions and 
 conclusions of the negative critics, it is still 
 so difficult, in multitudes of instances, to 
 come at any clear view of the grounds on 
 which they build. The matters of style and 
 language we must contentedly take upon 
 trust ; but anachronism, contradiction of 
 history, contradiction in the Books them- 
 selves, ought to be more or less within our 
 cognizance. And there are many argu- 
 ments of historical verisimilitude and likeli- 
 hood, which are in no sense the exclusive 
 property of specialism. 
 
 Even within the compass of the Torah, a 
 distinction has been drawn by some eminent 
 critics (by Eichhorn, for example), in their 
 writings on the canon of the Old Testa- 
 ment ; * who have assigned the legislative 
 portions to Moses himself, and the histor- 
 ical parts to scribes acting under his direc- 
 tion, or at a later time. It does not appear 
 
 * A mo?t convenient summary of the history of critical 
 opinion on the Pentateuch is supplied by Bleek cum 
 Wellhausen in the Eiuleitiing (Ed. 1886), sects. 13-17. 
 Wellhausen adds another review at the close of the vol- 
 ume in this edition. 
 
 13
 
 194 
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 easy to show why this singular intermixture 
 of the two should have been made, unless 
 by or under the direction of the lawgiver 
 himself. The tangled occupations of his 
 evidently hard-pressed life would account 
 for a form of authorship, which is not in 
 itself at all convenient. But the ordinary 
 reader will not fail to observe that it is the 
 legislation, for which in the sacred text it- 
 self the claim is constantly made of being 
 due to direct communication from above,* 
 while no corresponding assertion in general 
 accompanies the historical recitals. Speak- 
 ing at large, every imaginable difference has 
 prevailed among the critics themselves as to 
 the source, date, and authorship of the 
 Books. But on the whole, the negative 
 movement has become bolder in its asser- 
 tions as it proceeded, and has brought them 
 gradually towards later epochs : to Samuel, 
 to the age of David, to the severance of the 
 kingdoms, to Josiah, to the Captivity, and 
 even to those who followed it. The affirm- 
 ative side has been also stoutly maintained, f 
 not without the admission of particular ad- 
 ditions and interpolations in the received 
 text. The distinction between substantial 
 authorship, and final editorship, has been 
 largely recognized by writers of celebrity 
 
 * So Wellhausen in the Einleitung, sect. 1 8, p. 40. 
 f Ibid. s&ci. 15.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 195 
 
 and weight. Bleek himself, sustained by 
 Wellhausen as late as 1886, held that 
 Moses had a hand {cinoi antJicil) in the 
 Legislative Books. Many of the laws, they 
 say at that date, are without sense or pur- 
 pose, except in regard to circumstances 
 which disappeared with the Mosaic period.* 
 Several sections of this important work f 
 are given to the indication of portions of 
 the Books which must have been Mosaic. 
 Further, we have this remarkable declara- 
 tion. Though the entire Pentateuch in its 
 present form should not have been the 
 work of Moses, and though many laws are 
 the product of a later age, still the legisla- 
 tion, in its spirit and character as a whole, is 
 genuinely Mosaic;]; and that, in dealing 
 with the Pentateuch, we stand, at least as 
 to the three middle Books, upon historical 
 ground, § evidently meaning upon historical 
 ground as opposed to that which is unau- 
 thenticated or legendary, p'urther, what is 
 thus generally asserted of the spirit and 
 character of the Pentateuchal laws, is as- 
 serted tor an important share of them || as 
 to both the contents and even the form. 
 These statements — it would not be fair to 
 
 * Ibid. sect. II. f 13-24. 
 
 \ " So vniss dock die dmin oithalteue gesetzgebung 
 ihreiii gameti gtiste und c/taracter nach echt titosaisch 
 seyn." — Ibid., sect. 22, p. 45. 
 
 I Ibid. |[ Sect. 23, p. 46.
 
 196 
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 call them admissions — go to the root of the 
 whole matter, and seem to leave us in pos- 
 session of that for which alone I contend ; 
 namely, that the heart and substance of the 
 legislative and institutional system delivered 
 to us in the Pentateuch is historically trust- 
 worthy. If this be so, it still remains highly 
 important to distinguish by critical examina- 
 tion what, if any, particular portions of the 
 work in their actual form may be open to 
 question, either as secondary errors, or as 
 developments appended to the original for- 
 mation ; but the citadel, so long victoriously 
 held by faith and reason, both through 
 Hebrew and through Christian ages, 
 remains unassailed, and the documents of 
 Holy Writ emerge substantially unhurt 
 from the inquisitive and searching analysis 
 of the modern time. 
 
 There is a later work of Wellhausen's 
 (" Die composition des Hexateuch's und der 
 Historischen Biicher : " Berlin, 1889) which 
 minutely subdivides the Books into smaller 
 portions, and refers these to their different 
 authors, with a self-reliance which appears 
 to be remarkable, but of which I am not a 
 fit judge. I may observe, however, that 
 this work has neither introduction nor con- 
 clusion, neither index nor table of contents, 
 and that it resembles rather the promiscuous 
 gatherings of a note-book, or rather, of two
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 197 
 
 note-books crossing one another, discharged 
 bodily into a printing-office, than a work of 
 regular or scientific criticism. I must add 
 that in certain cases, where the unity of the 
 ' text is disputed upon grounds alike cogniz- 
 able by us all. I find the conclusions of 
 the author as disputable as they are confi- 
 dent. In other instances, numerous enough, 
 assertions are made, as if they were oracles, 
 without the slightest explanation, or any in- 
 dication of their grounds. Examples of 
 these methods may be found in the criti- 
 cisms * on Genesis, and in the contradiction 
 alleged to exist in the several accounts of 
 Caleb and Joshua (Num. xxxii. 5, and Deut. 
 i. 32-8). 
 
 A still more negative utterance, if I under- 
 stand it rightly, is found in the " Prole- 
 gomena to the History of Israel," translated 
 under the author's supervision, and accom- 
 panied with his article on Israel from 
 \.\\Q Encyclopccdia Britannica.'\ This book, 
 published since the edition of Rleek C7iiii 
 Wellhausen from which I have quoted, 
 appears in a singular manner to contradict 
 it, and announces that " the Mosaic history 
 is not the starting-point for the history of 
 ancient Israel, but for the history of 
 Judaism." % The distinction may not be 
 
 * Page 7. t Edinburgh : A. & C. Black, 1S85. 
 X Preface by Professor Robertson Smith, p. v.
 
 1^8 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 familiar to English readers, but the mean- 
 ing seems to be that the Pentateuch had 
 not, either in form or substance, any opera- 
 tive existence until after the Exile, when 
 the ancient Israel is held to end, and Ju- 
 daism to begin. A " Mosaic germ " only 
 is admitted ; and a germ is that which, like 
 an unborn child, has no operative existence, 
 but only the promise of producing one. 
 According, then, to the showing of those 
 who tender themselves as our guides, Israel 
 lived on for nine hundred years, from the 
 Exodus, and transmitted a peculiar faith, 
 law, ritual, and nationality, without any 
 legislative and constitutional system to up- 
 hold anyone of them. This very startling 
 proposition appears to me to do violence to 
 reason not less glaringly, than any of the 
 assertions ventured by the theologians in 
 the days of their pride and power. Those 
 writers are doubtless perfectly sincere, who 
 represent this as a method of progressive 
 revelation. But there are also persons who 
 think that such a progressive revelation as 
 this would for over two thousand years 
 have palmed upon the whole Jewish and 
 Christian world not only a heartless, but an 
 impossible imposture. It is more imme- 
 diately necessary to observe that the hy- 
 pothesis is one reaching far beyond the 
 province of specialism, and requiring to be
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 199 
 
 tested at a number of points by considera- 
 tions more broadly historical. Nor can I 
 quit the subject without observing that it is 
 extremely difficult to learn whether there 
 exists any real standing ground, which the 
 present negative writers mean not only to 
 occupy but to hold. Almost any repre- 
 sentation of their views may be either sup- 
 ported or contradicted by citing particular 
 expressions from their works. All we can 
 do is to dive as best we may into their con- 
 ception of what Wellhausen rather singu- 
 larly calls " the secrets " of his art.* Upon 
 the whole, and taking the article on Israel 
 in the Encyclopedia Britannica as the 
 fairest exposition of his views, I infer that 
 the present fashion is to believe in Moses, 
 but to question even his connection with the 
 Decalogue ; f to allow him to have given 
 or suggested a something, totally indefinite 
 in its character, to the Israelites ; and to 
 hold that the materials of the legislative 
 books gradually grew up out of material 
 supplied upon occasion by the priests (like 
 the " Answers of Experts," J which sup- 
 plied a contribution to the Code of Justinian) 
 into a state which enabled editors, generally 
 post-exilic, to reduce them to their present 
 
 * Einkitiing, Ed. 1886, Vorwort. 
 
 f Wellhausen, Hist. Israel (Black), pp. 436, 509. 
 
 j Gibbon (Milmau's ed.), iv. 193.
 
 200 ^-^^ MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 form. This scheme seems to be admirably 
 represented by the words which Mr. Rob- 
 bertson Smith quotes, on his own very high 
 authority, as its gist. And this is the 
 scheme to which I desire, on historical 
 grounds, to demur. 
 
 At the same time it is undeniable that, 
 even if the outside negative conclusions 
 were still such as they were stated to be so 
 lately as in 1886, yet the impression they 
 had created was not of a similarly limited 
 character. Whether owing to the predis- 
 positions of the time, or to a spirit latent in 
 some of the critics, or to the reaction which 
 is usually perceptible when certain ideas 
 long cherished on one side have been found 
 to require modification, there have been, as 
 it were, exhalations from the recent in- 
 quiries, extending outwards in their effect 
 much beyond the positive conclusions. An 
 atmosphere has been diffused around us, 
 and we habitually inhale it, which inspires 
 a general uncertainty, leading to negation, 
 with respect to the Mosaic Books. This 
 causes us, not, perhaps, to believe (for this 
 would imply and demand a rational process), 
 but to feel towards these great foundation- 
 books as if we believed, that, instead of 
 being as to the heart and pith of them trust- 
 worth\% they were in the main untrust- 
 worthy; that they were compounded or
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 2OI 
 
 composed at uncertain times, by uncertain 
 authors, from uncertain materials ; that even 
 bad faith is to be traced in them ; and that 
 the question is not so much what particu- 
 lars can be convicted of unauthenticity, as 
 whether any particulars can be rescued from 
 the general discredit of a mythical or legen- 
 dary inception. It is against this vague, 
 irrational, unscientific method of proceed- 
 ing, that I would enter not a protest only, 
 but a pleading. Whatever is to happen, 
 let not Christians lose unawares either their 
 faith, or that pillar of their faith which the 
 great Books of the Old Testament always 
 have supplied. 
 
 I have already made it clear that I yield, 
 as matter of course, to the conclusions of 
 linguists in their own domain, not only 
 respectful attention, but provisional assent. 
 That domain includes not only criticism 
 strictly textual, but all that relates to style, 
 and, in a word, whatever properties of any 
 given writings are developed through the 
 medium of the particular tongue in which 
 they are composed. On the mere form of 
 the Books they speak with a force which, 
 as against us, the unlearned, is overwhelm- 
 ing. But, in the examinations directed to 
 the matter as opposed to the form, their 
 authority is of a less stringent character, and 
 may even decline to zero. The historical
 
 202 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 aspects and relations which open out this 
 field are not theirs exclusively, and we may 
 canvass and question their conclusions, just 
 as it is open to us to proceed with the con- 
 clusions of Macaulay or of Grote. 
 
 When it is attempted to bring down the 
 date of the Pentateuch from the time of 
 Moses, by whom the Books in various forms 
 purport * to have been composed, to the 
 period of the Babylonian captivity, and this 
 not only as to their literary form, but as to 
 their substance, the evident meaning and 
 effect of the attempt is to divest them of an 
 historical, and to invest them with a legen- 
 dary character. 
 
 At the same time, it should be borne in 
 mind that those w^ho have not seen reason 
 to adopt the negative theory above de- 
 scribed, leave entirely open numerous ques- 
 tions belonging to the institutions of the 
 Israelites. It is not extravagant to assume 
 that laws given to them as a nomad people, 
 and then subjected to the varying contin- 
 
 * For instance, as by the proem to Deuteronomy (i. i) : 
 the recited orders of the Almighty to Moses that he 
 should speak, followed by the speeches, e.g.. Lev. i. I, 
 Num. i. I : the constant verbal report of words spoken 
 to Moses when no other person (or in some cases Aaron 
 only) was present : and the remarkable and high-toned 
 injunctions in the later chapters of Deuteronomy which 
 all through seem to have reference to a code of legisla- 
 tion preceding them.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 203 
 
 gencies of history during many centuries, 
 may or even must have required and re- 
 ceived adaptation by supplement, develop- 
 ment, or change in detail, which the 
 appointed guides of the people were author- 
 ized and qualified to supply, not in deroga- 
 tion, but rather in completion and in fur- 
 therance of the work of Moses, which might 
 still remain his in essence from first to last. 
 
 It is admitted, however, that the whole 
 question must be tried on historical and 
 hterary grounds. On such grounds I seek 
 to approach it, and to throw light upon it 
 from some considerations of reason and 
 probability, which appear to me to be of 
 not inconsiderable cogency. By testing the 
 subject in this wa}', we may come, in part 
 at least, to learn by testing what in the main 
 is fact, what in the main is speculation, and 
 to a great extent fluctuating and changeful 
 speculation. 
 
 First, it is never to be forgotten, that our 
 point of departure is from the ground of 
 established historic fact. The existence of 
 Moses is even better and far better estab- 
 hshed than that (for example} of L}-curgus: 
 We know Lycurgus in the main from the 
 one great fact of his very peculiar institu- 
 tions. They, such as we find them in his- 
 toric times, compel us to presume his 
 existence in a prehistoric time. Not only
 
 204 
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 their high and elaborate organization, but 
 their practical efficacy in separating and 
 fencing ofif from the rest of Greece the 
 Spartan community, reduces to something 
 near absurdity any such supposition as that 
 they were essentially no more than a late 
 growth reached by imperceptible degrees. 
 We know Moses as well from his institu- 
 tions, which are by no means less peculiar, 
 and which, as experience has shown, have 
 been very far more durable. In the case of 
 Moses, it happens that we have much evi- 
 dence independent of, and anterior to, the 
 institutions themselves in their historic form. 
 Yet no one doubts either the existence of 
 the Spartan lawgiver, or the general char- 
 acter of his personal work. If the form of 
 the Books in which the Mosaic legislation 
 reaches us be open to the suspicion of 
 manipulation by scribes or editors, or if it 
 suggest some suspicion of developments, 
 how does this compare with the case of 
 Lycurgus? About or from him we have 
 no books at all ; and yet it would be deemed 
 irrational to doubt either the existence of 
 the man, or the substance of the work per- 
 formed by him. 
 
 The exodus from Egypt, the settlement 
 in Palestine, the foundation there of institu- 
 tions, civil and religious, which were en- 
 dowed with a tenacity of life and a peculi-
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 205 
 
 arity of character beyond all example : these 
 thing's are established by Scripture, but they 
 are also established independent of Scripture, 
 They constitute a trinoda necessitas, a three- 
 fold combination of fact, which, in order to 
 make them intelligible and coherent, in 
 order to supply a rational connection be- 
 tween cause and effect, require not only a 
 Moses, but such a Moses as the Scripture 
 supplies. They build up a niche, which 
 the Scripture fills. At all times of history, 
 and specially in those primitive times, when * 
 the men made the governments, not the 
 governments the men, these great inde- 
 pendent historic facts absolutely carry with 
 them the assumption of a leader, a governor, 
 a legislator. All this simply means a 
 Moses, and a Moses such as we know him 
 from the Pentateuch. 
 
 And this leads us, I do not say to, but 
 towards, the conclusion that whatever be 
 the disparaging allegations of the critics,, 
 they may after all according to likelihood 
 be found reasonable as to matters of form 
 or of detail, but that the substance of the 
 history is in thorough accordance with the 
 historic bases that are laid for us in profane 
 as well as in sacred testimony. If this be 
 so, then we have also to bear in mind that 
 
 * So Montesquieu, " Grandeur et decadence des Re- 
 mains," chap. i.
 
 2o6 ^^^^ MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 the phenomenon, which we have before us, 
 is one so peculiar tliat it could only have 
 been exhibited to the world as the off- 
 spring of a peculiar generating cause. A 
 people of limited numbers, of no marked 
 political genius, negative and stationary as 
 to literature and art, maintain their abso- 
 lutely separate existence for near a thousand 
 years, down to the Captivity. They are 
 placed in the immediate neighborhood, and 
 subject to the frequent attacks, of the great 
 Eastern monarchies, as well as of some very 
 warlike neighbors. These attacks compro- 
 mise their political independence, but do 
 not prevent it from being recovered. They 
 receive the impress of a character so marked 
 that not even the Captivity can efface it; 
 but, on the contrary, that searching trial 
 helps to give a harder and sharper projec- 
 tion to its features. It retains its solidity 
 and substance while everything else, includ- 
 ing great political aggregations, such as the 
 Hittite monarchy, becomes gradually fused 
 in the surrounding masses ; and this even 
 when it has been subjected to conditions 
 such as at Babylon, apparently sufficient to 
 beat down and destroy the most obstinate 
 nationalism. Can it be denied that this 
 great historic fact, nowhere to be matched, 
 is in thorough accordance with, and almost 
 of itself compels us to presuppose, the exist-
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 207 
 
 ence from the outset of an elaborately de- 
 tailed and firmly compacted system of laws 
 and institutions, under which this peculiar 
 discipline might subsist and work, so as 
 gradually to shape, determine, and mature 
 the character of the people ? 
 
 If, apart from all questions of form and 
 expression, the substance of the Mosaic law 
 was given to the Israelites on their settle- 
 ment in Palestine, such a provision, it may 
 fearlessly be said, was in full accordance 
 with the moral exigency of the case, and 
 with the laws of historical probability. If 
 on the other hand there was no Moses, or 
 only a Moses who left nothing behind him» 
 and who does not rank among the lawgivers 
 of the world, if the Legislative Books 
 represent a gradual and mythical accretion 
 due mainly either to class interests or to the 
 magnifying effect of distance, turned to 
 account by invention either interested or 
 credulous, then the hypothesis presented to 
 us is, it may surely be contended, in violent 
 discord with what, on principles of Provi- 
 dential government or of human good sense, 
 the case would usually be held to have 
 required. 
 
 In estimating the claim of the Old Testa- 
 ment to a divine origin, it is important to 
 compare the legislation given by Moses 
 with that of other ancient lawgivers, such,
 
 2o8 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 for example, as Solon, who enjoyed the 
 light of a far more advanced civilization. 
 Still, this comparison, if alone, would not 
 fully bring out the reason of the case ; we 
 •must also match the Hebrew intellect, as 
 measured by knowledge, art and manners, 
 with the corresponding conditions among 
 the other nations whose laws may be brought 
 into the comparison. For if, with inferior 
 tools and materials, a superior work was 
 produced, it must surely be admitted that 
 such a result suggests, even perhaps of 
 itself requires, the supposition of some hid- 
 den aid which rectified the disproportion, 
 and placed the means in a due relation to the 
 end. Now, among the Hebrews of the period 
 there is no sign as yet of intellectual pre- 
 dominance or advancement; and that such a 
 man as Moses should have been raised up 
 amongst them is a fact which of itself sug- 
 gests and sustains the idea of some altogether 
 special and peculiar guidance exercised by 
 the Almighty over the selected people. 
 
 I cannot but think that, wherever we 
 turn, we seem to find the broad and lucid 
 principles of historic likelihood asserting 
 themselves in favor of the substance of the 
 Legislative Books, apart from questions of 
 detail and literary form. 
 
 In its great stages, we are entitled to treat 
 the matter of the narrative books as history
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 209 
 
 entitled to credit. An elaborate organiza- 
 tion, with a visible head and an hereditary- 
 succession, is, after a long lapse of time, 
 substituted for a regimen over Israel, of 
 which the mainsprings had been personal 
 eminence and moral force. It is repre- 
 sented in the Scripture, and it seems ob- 
 vious, that the transition from this patri- 
 archal republicanism to monarchy was in the 
 nature of a religious retrogression. It showed 
 an increasing incapacity to walk by faith, 
 and a craving for an object of sight, as a 
 substitute for the Divine Majesty appre- 
 hended by spiritual insight, and habitually 
 conceived of by the people as the head of 
 the civil community. This view of the rel- 
 ative condition of republican and of regal 
 Israel is confirmed by the fact, on which I 
 have already observed, that with the mon- 
 archy came in another regular organization, 
 that of the schools of the prophets. Proph- 
 ecy, which for the present purpose we may 
 consider as preaching, instead of appearing 
 from time to time as occasion required, be- 
 came a system, with provision for perpetual 
 succession. That is to say, the people could 
 not be kept up to the primitive, or even the 
 necessary, level in belief and life, without 
 the provision of more elaborate and direct 
 means of instruction, exhortation, and re- 
 proof, than had at first been requisite. 
 H
 
 2IO THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 Notwithstanding the existence of those 
 means, and the singular and noble energy 
 of the prophets, the proofs of the decline are 
 not less abundant than painful, in the 
 wickedness of most of the sovereigns, and 
 in the almost wholesale and too constant 
 lapse of the Israelites into the filthy idolatry 
 which was rooted in the country. And 
 again, it is not a little remarkable that the 
 enumeration by name of the great historic 
 heroes of faith, in the Epistle to the He- 
 brews, ends in tlie person of King David,* 
 with the first youth of the monarch}^ The 
 only later instances referred to are the 
 prophets, named as a class, who stood apart 
 and alone, and were not as a rule leaders 
 of the people, but rather witnesses in sack- 
 cloth against their iniquities. Taking the 
 history from the Exodus to the Exile as a 
 whole, the latter end was worse than the 
 beginning, the cup of iniquity was full; it 
 had been filled by a gradual process : and 
 one of the marks of that process was a low- 
 ering of the method, in which the chosen 
 people were governed ; it became more hu- 
 man and less divine. 
 
 Under these circumstances, does it not 
 
 appear like a paradox, and even a rather 
 
 wanton paradox, to refer the production of 
 
 those sacred Mosaic Books, which consti- 
 
 * Heb. xi. 32.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 211 
 
 tuted the charter, and formed the character, 
 of the Hebrews as a separate and peculiar 
 people, to the epochs of a lowered and de- 
 caying spiritual life ? They surely formed 
 the base on which the entire structure 
 rested. It is hardly possible to separate 
 the fabric from its foundation. Had they 
 not been recorded and transmitted, it would 
 have been reasonable, perhaps necessary, 
 for us to presume their existence. They 
 could only spring from a plant full of vig- 
 orous life, not from one comparatively sickly 
 and exhausted. 
 
 Again, we are taught by the negative 
 school that the portion of the Pentateuch, 
 which specially describes the work of the 
 Priest, and which they term the Priest-Code, 
 is of late composition, probably the latest 
 of all, and has been devised in the interest 
 of the priestly order. 
 
 Now I think that there are ready means 
 of applying the touchstone to this allega- 
 tion. It seems the great aim of the as- 
 sailants to bring down the date of the main 
 contents of the Legislative Books to the 
 Exile and the period which follows it. Now 
 we have to remember that the schools of 
 the prophets established a caste which was 
 in professional rivalry with the priesthood, 
 and which presented every likelihood of 
 being its effective censor. We have the
 
 212 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 written and, I believe, unquestioned pro- 
 ductions of this school of prophets, reach- 
 ing back into the ninth century (in the 
 Book of Amos), above two hundred years 
 before the Exile. The relation of the 
 prophet to the priest, somewhat accentuated 
 so to speak by competing interests, was in 
 certain respects one of superiority ; for, 
 while the priest only administered in a hu- 
 man way a system originally of Divine ap- 
 pointment, the prophet believed himself to 
 speak under direct inspiration and com- 
 mand from the Most High. The supposi- 
 tion pressed upon us is that, during the 
 period when the Books of the Prophets were 
 being produced, the priests foisted upon the 
 nation adulterated, nay, rather forged, 
 works, which they audaciously ascribed to 
 Moses, and which they shaped in the inter- 
 ests of the sacerdotal order. Is it not quite 
 plain that, if this had been true, nay, if it 
 had been so much as an approach to the 
 truth, the prophets would, in the interests 
 of righteousness even more than in their 
 own, have made use of the advantages of 
 their position, and would have held up 
 such a flagrant iniquity of the rival class to 
 infamy or rebuke ? Yet they do nothing 
 of the sort. And it is not even open to us 
 to refer this to some hidden cause, as it 
 would have been if we could have alleged
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 213 
 
 that, for some undeclared reason, it is their 
 habit to pass by the conduct of the priests 
 in silence. For, on the contrary, they do 
 exercise the office of reprimand most 
 freely. They do reprove and denounce 
 neglect of duty and abuse of power by 
 the priests ; but they do this exactly in 
 the same way for the priestly order and 
 for their own ; and, though they could not 
 have been biassed against their own schools, 
 there is no sign that priests were more 
 faulty than prophets. By way of specimen 
 of their usual manner, I may quote the 
 prophet Zephaniah, who in the following 
 passage appears to administer justice im- 
 partially all round : 
 
 " Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges 
 are evening wolves ; they gnaw not the bones till the 
 morrow. 
 
 " Her prophets are light and treacherous persons : her 
 priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done vio- 
 lence to the law." * 
 
 All were human, all were alike. There 
 is nowhere a tittle of evidence to show the 
 gross and very special offences with which 
 the priesthood are now charged. In such 
 a case the negative evidence carries positive 
 force. It is evident, first, that the prophets 
 knew nothing of such delinquencies : and 
 
 * Zeph. iii. 3, 4.
 
 214 
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 secondly, that, if they were unknown to the 
 prophets through this long lapse of time, it 
 was because they were not committed. 
 
 We have, then, in the historic Moses a 
 great and powerful genius, an organizing 
 and constructing mind. Degenerate ages 
 cannot equip and furnish forth illustrious 
 founders, only at the most the names and 
 shadows of them. Moses belongs to the 
 class of nation-makers ; to a class of men, 
 who have a place by themselves in the 
 history of politics, and who are among the 
 rarest of the great phenomena of our race. 
 And he stands in historic harmony with his 
 work. But we are now sometimes asked 
 to sever the work from the worker, and to 
 refer it to some doubtful and nameless per- 
 son ; whereas it is surely obvious or prob- 
 able that the author of a work so wonderful 
 and so far beyond example, so elaborate in 
 its essential structure, and so designed for 
 public use, could hardly fail to associate his 
 name with it as if written upon a rock, and 
 with a pen of iron. For, be it recollected, 
 that name was the seal and stamp of the 
 work itself According to its own testi- 
 mony he was the apostolos^^' the messenger, 
 who broufjht it from God, and sjave it to 
 the people. If the use of his name was a 
 fiction, it was one of those fictions which 
 * Exod. xix. 16-25, 3.nd /lassim.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 215 
 
 are falselioods ; for it altered essentially the 
 character of the writings to which it was 
 attached. 
 
 Supposing it to be granted that this or 
 that portion of the Legislative Books may- 
 have been an addition in the way of devel- 
 opment, of an appendage and supplement to 
 a scheme already existing, how and why 
 came it to be placed under the shelter of 
 the great name of Moses, but because that 
 name had already acquired and consolidated 
 its authority, from its being inseparably 
 attached to the original gift of the law ? 
 
 Even so it was that, when the great and 
 wonderful poems known as the Iliad and 
 Odyssey had given to the name of Homer 
 a surpassing celebrity, and other works of 
 less exalted rank sought for fame bv claim- 
 ing him as their author, the simple fact that 
 they so claimed him of itself supplied the 
 proof that Homer was traditionally, and 
 from immemorial time, taken to be the 
 author of those greater works at the time 
 when the lesser ones were imputed to him. 
 If the title of Mosaic authorship was ever in 
 any case attached to what Moses did not 
 produce, the ascription was made in order 
 to gain credit for the new supplemental 
 matter, and of itself proved that, at the date 
 when it was made, there was an older and 
 immemorial belief in his being the author
 
 2i6 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 of the work whereto the supplement was 
 appended. 
 
 As we stand on historical ground in 
 assuming that Moses was a great man, and 
 a powerful agent in the Hebrew history, so 
 we stand on a like basis in pointing to the 
 fact that, from the Captivity onwards (I say 
 nothing of the prior period, as it would beg 
 the question), the Jewish nation paid to the 
 Five Books of the Pentateuch a special and 
 extraordinary regard, even beyond the rest 
 of their sacred books. These were known 
 as the Torah ; and the fact of this special 
 reverence is one so generally acknowledged, 
 that it may without discussion be safely 
 assumed as a point of departure. 
 
 Before, then, any sort of acceptance or 
 acquiescence is accorded to notions which 
 virtually consign to insignificance the most 
 ancient of our Sacred Books, let us well 
 weigh the fact that the devout regard of the 
 Hebrews for the Torah took the form, at or 
 very soon after the Exile, of an extreme 
 vigilance on behalf of these particular Books 
 as distinct from all others. This vigilance, 
 which at a later epoch reached its climax 
 under the Massoretes, very naturally began, 
 or greatly advanced, at the time when the 
 nation, or its leading classes, having for the 
 time lost their temple and their visible 
 home, clung more closely than ever to the
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 217 
 
 ■written word in their Sacred Books ; to its 
 body either more, or not less, than to its 
 spirit. 
 
 So early as in the days of Hezekiah, there 
 is said to have been a restorative process of 
 some kind performed upon the text of the 
 law, as well as upon the temple and its 
 doors.* That clinging affection to the 
 Word, which the Captivity could not fail to 
 stimulate in pious minds, took effect, after 
 the Return, in the establishment of positive 
 institutions for its care ; which, indeed, had 
 become a necessity, in consequence of the 
 change in the spoken language, unless it 
 were to be wholly lost to the people. Hence 
 we have the Jewish tradition of a Great 
 Synagogue, founded with this view. A guild 
 of scribes was appointed to copy, preserve, 
 and expound the Divine Word,t and the 
 Canon of the Old Testament appears during 
 the same period to have assumed some- 
 thing of a regular form. Soon grew up the 
 Massorah, or body of traditions concerning 
 the texts of the Torah, which is supposed 
 to have become noticeable from about 
 300 B. c.,J and which in after ages gave a 
 name to the Massoretes, official students 
 and guardians of the text. This body is 
 
 * Paterson Smyth, "The Old Documents," p. 42. 
 2 Chron. xxix. 3. 
 
 f Paterson Smyth, p. 66. \ Ibid. p. 90.
 
 2i8 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 one without a parallel in the history of the 
 world. Its existence not only afforded 
 strong securities of a special nature for the 
 faithful custody of the text from the date 
 when its operations commenced, but it also 
 bears witness to a profound and exacting 
 veneration for the Ancient Books as such, 
 which seems to presuppose an unquestion- 
 ing traditional belief in their antiquity and 
 authenticity. 
 
 The Jews, perhaps exclusively among the 
 early peoples, distinguished broadly be- 
 tween the matter and the corporeal form of 
 a book, between its soul and its body. 
 They alone conceived the idea of using the 
 material form of the words and letters as an 
 instrument for ensuring the conservation of 
 the contents. If (such was their conception) 
 we secure the absolute identity of the manu- 
 scripts, and reckon up the actual numbers 
 of the words they contain, and of the letters 
 which compose the words, then we shall 
 render change in them impossible, and con- 
 servation certain. Thus, for example, the 
 words in the Book of Psalms were counted, 
 and the middle word of the book was known. 
 The letters in each word were also counted, 
 and the middle letter was known. Rules 
 for writing, placing, and arranging were laid 
 down ; readings were noted as kJictibh and 
 keri ; as what was in the text, and as what
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 219 
 
 ought to be in the text but, from a reverent 
 unwiUingness to alter, only took its place 
 upon the margin. The Hebrews were the 
 only people who built up by degrees a reg- 
 ular scientific method of handling the mate- 
 rial forms in which the substance of their 
 Sacred Books was clothed, and this system 
 had begun to grow from the time when a 
 special reverence is known to have been 
 concentrated upon the Torah. I will not 
 dwell upon the topic that this peculiarity 
 of handling supplies of itself a certain 
 amount of presumption for peculiarity of 
 origin. It may have commenced before the 
 Captivity. It may have preceded, and may 
 in that case probably have been enhanced 
 by, the division of the kingdoms. It must 
 have been in great force when, soon after 
 the Captivity, schools of scribes were en- 
 trusted with the custody of the text of the 
 law as a study apart from that of its mean- 
 ing. Now, in our time, we are asked or 
 tempted by the negative criticism to believe 
 that all this reverence for the Books of the 
 Pentateuch, having primarily the sense for 
 its object, but so abounding and overflow- 
 ing as to embrace even the corporeal 
 vehicle, was felt towards a set of books not 
 substantially genuine, but compounded and 
 made up by operators, and these recent 
 operators, who may be mildly called editors.
 
 220 ^-^^ MOSAIC legislation: 
 
 but who were rather clandestine authors. 
 Is this a probable or reasonable hypothesis? 
 Is it even possible that these books of recent 
 concoction, standing by the side of some 
 among the prophetical books possessing a 
 much greater antiquity, should nevertheless 
 have attracted to themselves, and have per- 
 manently retained, an exceptional and 
 superlative veneration, much exceeding that 
 paid to the oldest among the Books of the 
 Prophets, and such as surely presumes a 
 belief in the remoteness of their date, the 
 genuineness of their character, and their 
 title to stand as the base, both doctrinal and 
 historic, of the entire Hebrew system ? 
 
 The result of this negative criticism ought 
 to be viewed -m its extreme form, and this 
 for several reasons : such as, that, with the 
 lapse of time, it continually adopts new 
 negations ; that the more conservative of 
 the latest schools exhibit to us no principle, 
 which separates them in the mass from the 
 bolder disintegration ; and that what is now 
 the Jtltivia tJude of the system may, a short 
 time hence, appear only to have been a 
 stage on the way to positions as yet un- 
 dreamt of. So viewing the subject, do we 
 not find that it comes to this : not merely 
 that the Mosaic laws received secondary 
 supplements or amendments from time to 
 time, but that the entire fabric had grown
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 221 
 
 up anonymously as well as recently, and 
 that it rests upon no guarantee whatever, 
 either of time, or of place, or of personal 
 authority ? 
 
 I have already endeavored to show the 
 historic improbability that an upstart pro- 
 duction could have leaped into an estima- 
 tion such as belongs to a firm tradition and 
 a general credit of antiquity. And now let 
 us look for a moment at the rather crude 
 and irregular form of the Mosaic Books 
 from Exodus to Deuteronomy. Taken as 
 a whole, they have not that kind of con- 
 sistency which belongs to consecutiveness 
 of the parts, and which almost uniformly 
 marks both historical and legal documents.* 
 They mix narrative and legislation : they 
 pass from one to the other without any 
 obvious reason. They repeat themselves 
 
 * " As to this want of order (which seems to me to 
 favor the idea of contemporaneity), a later codifier would 
 have been more artificial in his arrangement" (Milman's 
 " History of the Jews," 3rd Edition, 1863), Writing of 
 the delivery of the law, the learned and very liberal- 
 minded Dean Milman had before him the works of the 
 critical school down to Bleek; and in the admirable note 
 (i. 131) from which I have just quoted a few words, he 
 expresses a firm and reasoned dissent from the negative 
 conclusions as to the Pentateuch in its substance, while 
 he strongly urges the likelihood of minor changes in the 
 text with anachronism and inaccuracy here and there as 
 the consequence. This note is in effect a succinct but 
 highly pregnant treatise, and will well repay those who 
 carefully peruse it.
 
 222 ^-^-^ MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 in a manner which seems to exclude the 
 idea that they had undergone the careful 
 and reflected reviews, the comparison of 
 part with part, which is generally bestowed 
 upon works of great importance, completed 
 with comparative leisure, and intended for 
 the guidance not only of an individual but 
 of a people. They are even accused of 
 contradiction. They appear to omit adjust- 
 ments, necessary in the light of the subse- 
 quent history : such, for instance, as we 
 might desire between the sweeping proscrip- 
 tion not only of image worship, but of 
 images or shapen corporeal forms, in the 
 Second Commandment, and the use actually 
 made of them in the temple, and in the 
 singular case of the serpent destroyed by 
 Hezekiah.* It seems not difficult to account 
 for this roughness and crudeness of author- 
 ship in the case of Moses, under the circum- 
 stances of changeful nomad life, and the 
 constant pressure of anxious executive or 
 judicial functions, combined with the effort 
 of constructing a weighty legislative code, 
 which required a totally different attitude 
 of nund. The life of Moses, as it stands ia 
 the sacred text, must have been habitually 
 a life of extraordinary, unintermitted strain, 
 and one without remission of that strain 
 even during its closing period. As some 
 
 *2 Kings xviii. 4.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 223 
 
 anomalies in the composition of the Koran 
 may be referable to the circumstances of 
 the life of Mahomet,* so we may apply a 
 like idea to the configuration of the Legis- 
 lative Books. It is not difficult to refer the 
 anomalies of such authorship to the inci- 
 dents of such a life, and to conceive that 
 any changes, which have found their way 
 into the text, may yet have been such as to 
 leave unimpaired what may be called the 
 originality, as well as the integrity, of its 
 character. But how do these considerations 
 hold, if we are to assume as our point of 
 departure the hypothesis of the negative 
 extremists ? Under that supposition, the 
 Legislative Books were principally not ad- 
 justed but composed, and this not only in 
 a manner which totally falsifies their own 
 solemn and often repeated declarations, but 
 which supposes something like hallucina- 
 tion on the part of a people that could have 
 
 * See Rodwell's Preface to the Koran respecting the 
 Suras. A critic in the Magazine ami Book Review has 
 cited against me tlie fourteenth chapter of Esdras ii., 
 and the strange story it contains of the burning of the 
 law and the rewriting of it by Ezra. This story dates at 
 the earliest from the time of Ceesar, according to others 
 from Domitian. Thus a tale which first appears five 
 centuries after the alleged fact at once becomes authori- 
 tative, if it serves a purpose of negation. But even this 
 story supports the argument in the text, for the law is 
 continuously and miraculously reproduced by dictation 
 to a body of five scribes.
 
 224 
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 accepted such novelties, and almost wor- 
 shipped them, as ancient. In addition to 
 all this, they assumed their existing shape, 
 so wanting as to series and method, in a 
 settled state of things, in an old historic 
 land, with an unbounded freedom of ma- 
 nipulation, at any rate with no restraint im- 
 posed by respect for original form, and with 
 every condition in favor of the final editors, 
 which could favor the production of a 
 thoroughly system.atic and orderly work. 
 Does it not seem that if the preparation 
 and presentation of the Hebrew code took 
 place at the time and in the way imposed 
 on us by the doctrine of the thorough dis- 
 integrationist, then we stand entirely at a 
 loss to account for the somewhat loose and 
 irregular form of the work before us ? And 
 conversely do not the peculiarities of that 
 form constitute an objection to the negative 
 hypothesis, which it is an absolute necessity 
 for its promoters to get rid of as best they 
 can ? 
 
 Let me again illustrate the case by refer- 
 ring to the Iliad. Those who have referred 
 that work to a variety of authors, have been 
 driv^en to very subtle and questionable argu- 
 ments in order to exhibit some semblance 
 of anomalv in the text, and have alwavs 
 been allowed to assume that the final 
 editors under Pericles, or at whatever epoch.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 225 
 
 wrought with energy and purpose to weld 
 the fragmentary material into a seemly 
 whole. Is it conceivable that an operation 
 such as we are now required to believe in 
 could have been carried on without the 
 sense of a similar necessity, or could so 
 absolutely have failed in literary aim and 
 effort ? 
 
 I subjoin one further topic of the same 
 class, as fit to be taken into view. The 
 absence from the Legislative Books of all 
 assertion of a future state, and of all motive 
 derived from it with a \'iew to conduct, has 
 been already noticed. The probable reason 
 of that absence from a code of laws framed 
 by Moses under divine command or guid- 
 ance, is a subject alike of interest and diffi- 
 culty. It has sometimes occurred to me as 
 possible that the close connection of the 
 doctrine with public religion in the Eg\'ptian 
 system might have supplied a reason for its 
 disconnection from the Mosaic laws * even 
 as I suppose we might, from other features 
 of those laws, draw proof or strong pre- 
 sumption that, among the purposes of the 
 legislator, there was included a determina- 
 tion to draw a broad and deep line, or even 
 trench of demarcation, between the foreign 
 religions in the neighborhood and the relig- 
 
 *This topic is touched by Bishop Alexander in his 
 Bampton Lectures. 
 
 15
 
 226 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION: 
 
 ious system of the Hebrews. The connec- 
 tion established by Moses between conduct 
 and earthly retribution or reward, must of 
 itself have tended to depress, if not the idea 
 of a future state, yet the expression of that 
 idea in public documents. Especially we 
 should remember that the work of Moses 
 was national rather than theological.* His 
 theology is a means of conserving the 
 nationality, which was itself a forerunner 
 and a means of preparation for the Advent. 
 It is enough for my present purpose, that 
 the absence of the doctrine of a future state 
 from the work cannot be held to discredit 
 the Mosaic authorship. But does not that 
 absence help discredit the idea of a post- 
 exilic authorship? Is it conceivable that 
 Hebrews, proceeding to frame their Legis- 
 lative Books, after the Captivity, and long 
 after the Dispersion of the Ten Tribes, and 
 after the light which these events had 
 thrown upon the familiar ideas of a future life 
 and an Underworld, as held both in the 
 East and in Egypt, could have excluded all 
 notice of it from their system of laws ? We 
 see something of this influence, in the noble 
 passage on the dead, Wisdom iii. i-8, to 
 which there is no parallel in any of the pre- 
 exilic books. If it was an influence impos- 
 
 * See Zincke, " Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the 
 Khedive," p. 202,
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 22/ 
 
 sible to exclude at the later date, then the 
 fact of the exclusion becomes another diffi- 
 culty in the way of our accepting any such 
 . date concerning the substance of the Legis- 
 
 ■ lative Books. 
 
 It seems, then, that it is difficult to recon- 
 
 ■ cile the results of the negative criticism on 
 * the Pentateuch with the known reverence 
 
 of the Jews for their Torah, which appears 
 absolutely to presuppose a tradition of im- 
 memorial age on its behalf, as a precondi- 
 tion of such universal and undoubting vene- 
 ration. But if this be necessary in the case 
 of the Jew, how much more peremptorily is 
 it required by the Samaritan contribution to 
 the present argument, and what light does 
 that case throw upon the general question? 
 It seems certain that in mediaeval times, 
 and until the seventeenth century, Christen- 
 dom knew nothing of a Samaritan testimony 
 to the authenticity of the Mosaic Books, 
 excepting from certain slight references in 
 the works of the Fathers to " the ancient 
 Hebrew according to the Samaritans." 
 But, early in the seventeenth century, a 
 traveller found, among the Samaritans of 
 Damascus, a copy of the Pentateuch in the 
 ancient Hebrew letters, and we are told 
 that there are now about sixteen of these 
 manuscripts in the various European libra- 
 ries. The chief one in existence is guarded
 
 228 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 with sacred care at Nablous, the ancient 
 Shechem, by a congregation still surviving 
 of a few hundred Samaritans.* For ques- 
 tions of textual accuracy, this work is 
 esteemed inferior to the Hebrew, though it 
 is not wholly without a claim to more 
 archaic forms. 
 
 The Samaritan Pentateuch is one of the 
 most remarkable monuments of antiquity. 
 Its testimony, of course, cannot be adduced 
 to show that the Books following the Penta- 
 teuch have been clothed from a very ancient 
 date with the reverence due to the Divine 
 Word ; indeed, it is even capable of being 
 employed, in a limited measure, the other 
 way. But as respects the Samaritan Penta- 
 teuch itself, how is it possible to conceive 
 that it should have held as a Divine work 
 the supreme place in the regard of the 
 Samaritans, if, about or near the year 
 500 B. c.t or, still more, if at the time of 
 Manasseh the seceder| it had as matter 
 of fact, been a recent compilation of their 
 enemies the Jews ? or if it had been re- 
 garded as anything less than a record of a 
 great revelation from God, historically 
 known, or at the least universally believed, 
 
 * See Paterson Smyth, p. 1 18. 
 f Paterson Smyth, p. 49. 
 
 X Placed by Wellhausen at about 375 B. c. " Hist. 
 Israel," (Black), p. 498.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 229. 
 
 to have come down to them in the shape it 
 then held from antiquity ? Be it remem- 
 bered that this work itself, and an approxi- 
 mate date for its known existence, are not 
 matters of mere speculation, but are ac- 
 cepted results of historical research. And 
 it is in this as in other cases a matter for 
 serious consideration, whether we can 
 accept the ingenious conclusions of critics 
 before we know whether they are to be 
 shattered and shivered when flung against 
 the face of the strong rock of history. 
 
 The Samaritan Pentateuch, then, forms 
 in itself a remarkable indication, nay, even 
 a proof, that, at the date from which we 
 know it to have been received, the Penta- 
 teuch was no novelty among the Jews. 
 But may we not state the argument in 
 broader terms ? Surely the reverence of 
 the Samaritans for the Torah could not 
 have begun at this period ; hardly could 
 have had its first beginning at any period 
 posterior to the schism. If these Books 
 grew by gradual accretion, still that must 
 have been an accretion gathering round the 
 work within a single channel. A double 
 process could not have been carried on in 
 harmony. Nor can we easily suppose that, 
 when the Ten tribes separated from the 
 Two, they did not carry with them the law, 
 on which their competing worship was to
 
 230 ^"-^^ MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 be founded. In effect, is there any rational 
 supposition except that the kingdom of 
 Israel had possessed at the time of Reho- 
 boam some code corresponding in substance, 
 in all except pure detail, with that which 
 was subsequently written out in the famous 
 manuscripts we now possess? 
 
 I have not attempted in these essays to 
 discuss the general credit of the Historic 
 Books ; yet, in connection with the Samar- 
 itans, I must here touch briefly on a single 
 point. The negative critics are fairly chal- 
 lenged to explain to us how it is that priestly 
 fabricators, writing at a late date in the inter- 
 est of their order, have so notably abstained 
 from endeavors to glorify its virtues and 
 honors, or to conceal its lapses from right. 
 In a yet wider view we may ask how it has 
 come about, that they have entirely avoided 
 attempts to magnify the religious responsi- 
 bilities of the schism which divided Israel, 
 It seems indeed strange that if these Books 
 were in substance framed after the Exile, 
 and in times when a spirit of rigorous uni- 
 formity prevailed, a more emphatic and dis- 
 tinct censure should not have passed upon 
 Jeroboam, on the simple ground of his 
 having established a separate and rival 
 worship. 
 
 The man of God, who came from Judah, 
 did indeed testify against the altar in Bethel;
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 231 
 
 but that altar was associated with the golden 
 calf established and worshipped there (as 
 well as in Dan) by Jeroboam ; and the testi- 
 mony of the prophet, or man of God, against 
 this altar, embraced " all the houses of the 
 high places which are in the cities of Sama- 
 ria," and was therefore a testimony against 
 idolatry, not against mere schism.* The 
 special sin of Jeroboam, which caused his 
 house to be cut off, was not that he divided 
 Israel, but that he degraded its religion by 
 making priests of the lowest of the people. f 
 Nay, the Books present to us the two illus- 
 trious prophets, Elijah and Elisha, as having 
 Israel for their field, and as working there 
 not on behalf of the Levitical priesthood, 
 but on behalf of righteousness as against 
 sin, and of God as against Baal ; in com- 
 plete conformity with the spirit of the pro- 
 phetic Books, which so largely concern the 
 ten tribes. How is it conceivable that men 
 wicked enough to forge should so carefully 
 have eschewed gathering any fruits from 
 their forgery ? 
 
 Let us close this portion of the subject 
 with a plea of a different order, one which, 
 admitting probable imperfection in the text, 
 deprecates, as opposed to the principles of 
 sound criticism, any conclusion therefrom 
 adverse to its general fidelity. It has caused 
 * I Kings xii. 28, 29, 32 ; xiii. 32. f i Kings xiii. ^t^.
 
 232 
 
 THE MOSAIC legislation: 
 
 me some surprise to notice (i) that some 
 negative writers lay considerable stress upon 
 what they deem to be numerical errors in 
 the Books of the Old Testament ; and (2) 
 that, so far as I have seen, they do not advert 
 to the increased risks of mistake in the 
 transmission of numbers as compared with 
 other literary matter, whether it be by copy- 
 ing, or by word of mouth. 
 
 The increased risk, which accompanies 
 all recording of numbers, extends likewise 
 to enumerations, such as genealogical or 
 other recitals of names in lists ; subject, 
 however, to the remark that, where metre 
 is used, inasmuch as it supplies a frame- 
 work for particular words which would 
 not apply to other words, the danger is 
 proportionably less ; and also that, where 
 the record is by writing and not by simple 
 hearing, the eye has the opportunity of 
 traversing again and again the names, as 
 the mechanical process is carried on; and 
 these names will in many cases stand in 
 connection with, and so be seen to check, 
 one another. 
 
 Bishop Colenso, for example, lays very 
 great stress on the numbers assigned by the 
 Old Testament to the children of Israel on 
 their passage through the desert, and ob- 
 serv^ing on the practical difficulties which 
 such a multitude must encounter on a
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 233 
 
 march treats the case as one which ma- 
 terially impugns the general credit of the 
 history.* 
 
 I suppose that those who are practically 
 conversant with the movement of men in 
 large bodies may be much inclined to fol- 
 low Colenso in questioning the statements 
 of numbers, both at that point of their 
 history,, and in many other places of the 
 narrative. It is quite another question 
 whether, because errors may have crept 
 into the numbers, the recitals of facts gen- 
 erally are therefore untrustworthy. 
 
 There is a broad and clear difference, of 
 which note ought to be taken. Both in 
 coyping and in original composition, as a 
 general rule, the structure of the sentence, 
 or what is called the context, is mentally 
 carried onwards, and the general drift con- 
 fines within narrow limits the possibility of 
 error in the particular words. Mistake in 
 the form would very commonly betray 
 itself by inconsistency in the sense, and this 
 inconsistency would not fail to be detected, 
 because the' relation between the parts of 
 the sentence is ordinarily perceived as the 
 process is carried on. But the relation be- 
 tween numerical amounts is not at once de- 
 termined for the copyist by the context, and 
 
 * See Colenso on the Pentateuch and Joshua, part 
 I, ch. xii., et alibi.
 
 234 '^^^ MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 usually requires a distinct and careful ex- 
 amination to detect it. 
 
 I will give two practical illustrations of 
 this statement, the one very old and the 
 other very modern; the one touching oral, 
 and the other written transmission. 
 
 The most elaborate invocation of the 
 Muse, or appeal for divine assistance, in the 
 whole of the Poems of Homer, is the 
 Preface* to the Catalogue of the Greek 
 troops and ships ; and this, although in no 
 part of the poems could less of effort 
 properly poetic be required. But the Cata- 
 logue consists partly of numerical state- 
 ments of the strength of the contingents 
 which made up the fleet, partly of geograph- 
 ical detail of the names of towns and dis- 
 tricts ; and here we find the rationale of the 
 poet's call for special aid from heaven, and 
 for his care with a view to accuracy, and 
 this although he had metre to assist him. 
 
 I now turn to very modern practice. In 
 the year 1853, it was my duty for the first 
 time to submit to Parliament one of the 
 large and complex statements of the public 
 accounts for the year, which are associated 
 in our country with the familiar name of 
 the Budget. The speeches, in which these 
 statements were contained, were made 
 known to the country by reporting in the 
 * II. ii. 484-93.
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 235 
 
 usual manner. But the art of the reporters 
 could not be trusted to convey the figures 
 with accuracy by the ear. A practice had 
 consequently grown up of supplying them 
 from the proper official source in carefully 
 written statements for their guidance, which 
 were sent to them during the delivery of 
 the speech. It has now been found more 
 convenient not to trust at all to the ear, and 
 the Minister is understood to speak from 
 printed figures: but this in no way weakens 
 the illustration I have used. 
 
 My position amounts to but does not go 
 beyond this, that the same care, which 
 ensures general fidelity of statement in or- 
 dinary recitals of fact, does not suffice to 
 secure numerical precision; and conversely 
 that the want of such precision, which may 
 sometimes be suspected in the Old Testa- 
 ment, does not raise presumptions adverse 
 to general correctness. 
 
 The necessary limits of this essay do not 
 permit of my entering on the contents of 
 the Mosaic legislation. It is, I apprehend, 
 both far more complex and far deeper than 
 the other systems of ancient law known to 
 us, as well as far higher in its moral aims. 
 I humbly recommend that those who read 
 it should fix their minds upon the skill with 
 which it is addressed to the attainment of 
 ends of such a nature as to render them, in
 
 236 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATIOiV. 
 
 their ordinary aspects, hardly reconcilable 
 with one another. Severely proscriptive 
 of the stranger, namely, the nations whom 
 it found in possession of Canaan, it is as 
 singularly liberal and generous towards him 
 when he has made his peace with Hebrew- 
 ism. Again, the Pentateuchal code differs 
 from (I believe) all others in the extraordi- 
 nary amount of its sanitary legislation, and 
 in investing it with a quasi-moral character. 
 But a sense of some strangeness in this 
 respect alters into a profound admiration 
 of the sagacity which includes in its far- 
 reaching view provisions for giving an 
 exceptionally high character even to the 
 physical constitution of a people that was 
 meant to remain socially separate from the 
 nations of the world. Again: while aiming 
 much at equality, simplicity, and industry, 
 as fountains of order and of strength, it 
 embodies most peculiar regulations for the 
 purpose of restraining within the narrowest 
 limits both that growth of wealth, which is 
 their natural result ; and also the spirit of 
 enterprise, which would have burst pre- 
 maturely the narrow bounds of Palestine, 
 and destroyed the seclusion of the chosen 
 people by untimely contact with the nations 
 of the world. The design seemingly was 
 to repress the latent powers of human 
 nature, and to secure a conservative, even a
 
 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. 
 
 237 
 
 stationary community, changeless as the 
 truths of which it was the guardian. The 
 completeness of the severance was not im- 
 paired by the Captivity and Dispersion of 
 Israel, or by the Exile of the Jews in 
 Babylon, or by the creation of Jewish fac- 
 tories abroad, or by the final destruction of 
 the political independence of the country, 
 or by the invasion and supremacy of the 
 Greek language. The Jew, when our Lord 
 came, was still, and was even more than 
 ever, the Jew; and so, though it may have 
 been despite of himself, the purpose of his 
 great stewardship was accomplished.
 
 On the Recent Corroborations of 
 
 Scripture from tlie Regions of 
 
 History and Natural 
 
 Science.
 
 On the Recent Corroborations of 
 
 Scripture from the Regions of 
 
 History and Natural 
 
 Science. 
 
 I. preliminary; ii. as to the creation 
 story; hi. as to the flood story; 
 IV. AS to the great dispersion; v. 
 AS to the sinaitic journey. 
 
 IT is to be observed, that many of the 
 favorite subjects of scientific or sys- 
 tematic thought in the present day are of a 
 nature powerfully tending to reinforce or 
 illustrate the arguments available for the 
 proof of religion, and for the authority of 
 Scripture. If it had been actually proved, 
 as it is largely argued and seriously held, 
 that the vast and diversified scheme of 
 organic life throughout the world has been 
 evolved from a few simple types or possibly 
 from one, such a demonstration would both 
 enlarge and confirm the great argument of 
 i6 (241)
 
 242 
 
 RECENT CORR OB ORA TIO NS 
 
 design. For this argument, instead of be- 
 ing drawn from particular and separate con- 
 structions, would then be drawn from the 
 entire scheme of creation, and from the 
 relation of all its parts to one another, inas- 
 much as every earlier portion of it would 
 be an indication, and therefore a prediction, 
 of all those which were to succeed ; the seed 
 of a long series of harvests to come. *' Day 
 unto day uttereth speech, and night unto 
 night showeth knowledge." * 
 
 Again, the formal treatment in recent 
 years of the subject of heredity not only 
 tends to link the generations of mankind in 
 one, but, in proving that our nature under- 
 goes incessant modification through the 
 influence of progenitors, enlarges our con- 
 ception of the width of its range, and the 
 varieties of those forms which it is capable 
 of assuming. It shows us, for example, how 
 the nature, as well as the environment, of 
 descendants is deteriorated by the fault of 
 ancestors, and how there may have been an 
 education of the race from childhood to 
 maturity, or some converse process of de- 
 cay. Thus the doctrine of birth-sin, as it 
 is sometimes called, is simply the recog- 
 nition of the hereditary disorder and de- 
 generacy of our natures; and, of all men, 
 the evolutionist would find it most difficult 
 
 * Ps. xix. 2.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 243 
 
 to establish a title to object to it in prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 On these grounds, and on others more 
 specific which it will be the aim of this 
 essay to set forth in given instances, we 
 should dispel wholly from our minds those* 
 spectral notions of antagonism between re- j' 
 lieion and science, which have been raised 
 tip by the action of prejudice on the one • 
 side, and perhaps by the occasional practice 
 of bragging on the other. Of religion and 
 of science, as of man and wife, let us boldly 
 say, "What God hath joined, let not man 
 put asunder." But I proceed to particular 
 illustrations. 
 
 II. — ■k'S> TO THE CREATION STORY. 
 
 A double confirmation has, I conceive, ii% 
 ■our time been supplied to the Creation 
 Story of Genesis ; the first by natural, and 
 the second by historic science. 
 
 Perhaps we have been too readily satis- 
 fied with assuming, in regard to this narra- 
 tive, a defensive position ; whereas it may 
 be found to contain within its own brief 
 compass, when rightly considered, the 
 guarantee of a Divine communication to , 
 man strictly corresponding with what in 
 familiar speech is termed Revelation. 
 
 We have here inf outline a primordial
 
 244 KE.CEi\T CORROBORATIOXS 
 
 history of the planet which we inhabit, and 
 of the celestial system to which it belongs. 
 Of the planet, and of the first appearance 
 and early developments of life upon it, an- 
 , terior to the creation of man, in many of 
 f;' the principal stages which have been ascer- 
 ( tained by geology. Of the celestial organ- 
 '\ ization to which our earth belongs, whether 
 . in all its vastness or only within the limits 
 of the solar system we may be unable to 
 say ; but, at the least, a sketch of the forma- 
 tion of that system from a prior and unad- 
 justed or chaotic state. Upon such a docu- 
 ment a sharp issue is at once raised, at least 
 as to the latter or strictly terrestrial part of 
 it, the earth-history, for all those who hold 
 it -to be in its substance a true account. 
 We accept from Science, as demonstrated, 
 a series of geological conclusions. We 
 have found the geology of Genesis to stand 
 in such a relation to these conclusions, as 
 could not have been exhibited in a record 
 framed by faculties merely human, at any 
 date to which the origin of the Creation 
 Story can now reasonably be referred. 
 Starting from this premise, we have no 
 '; means of avoiding or holding back from 
 % the conclusion that the materials of the 
 r story could not have been had without 
 preterhuman aid ; and such preterhuman 
 aid is what we term Divine Revelation,
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 245 
 
 And if the time shall ever come when as- 
 tronomers shall be in a condition to apply 
 to the earlier portion of the chapter the 
 demonstrative methods, which geology has 
 found for the latter part, it may happen that 
 we shall owe a debt of the same kind, and 
 of as great amount, to astronomy, as we 
 now owe to geologic science. My present 
 purpose is to call particular attention to the 
 exact nature and extraordinary amount of 
 that debt. 
 
 There was nothing necessarily unreason- 
 able in accepting as worthy of belief this 
 portion of the Book of Genesis, along with 
 the rest of the Book, and with other books 
 of Holy Scripture, on general proofs of 
 their inspiration, if sufficient, apart from 
 any independent buttress furnished either 
 by science or by history for the Creation 
 Story. In a court of justice, the evidence 
 of a witness is to be accepted on matters 
 within his cognizance, when it is consistent 
 with itself, and when neither his character 
 nor his intelligence are questioned ; or again, 
 when the main part of a continuous narra- 
 tive is sufficiently verified, it may be right 
 to accept the rest without separate verifica- 
 tion. If, however, a new witness comes 
 into court, and pretends to give us fresh 
 and scientific proof of the Creation Story, 
 this may be true or may be false. If false,
 
 246 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 the story is not disproved ; it stands where 
 it stood before. Bad arguments are often 
 made for a good cause. But if true, the 
 event is one of vast importance. 
 
 Now the present position is as follows. 
 Apart altogether from faith, and from the 
 general evidences of Revelation, a new wit- 
 ness has come into the court, in the shape 
 of Natural Science. She builds up her sys- 
 tem on the observation of facts, and upon 
 inferences from them, which at length attain 
 to a completeness and security such as, if 
 not presenting us with a demonstration in 
 the strictest sense, yet constrain us, as in- 
 telligent beings, to belief 
 
 The Creation Story divides itself into the 
 cosmological portion, occupying the first 
 nineteen verses of the Chapter, and the 
 geological portion, which is given in the 
 last twelve. The former part has less, and 
 the latter part has more, to do with the 
 direct evidence of fact, and the stringency 
 of the authority which the two may severally 
 claim varies accordingly; but in both the 
 narrative seems to demand, upon the evi- 
 dence as it stands, rational assent. In regard 
 to both, it is held on the affirmative side 
 that the statements of Genesis have a certain 
 relation both to the ascertained facts and ta 
 the best accepted reasonings; and that this 
 relation is of such a nature as to require us.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 247 
 
 in the character of rational investigators, to 
 acknowledge in the written record the 
 presence of elements which must be referred 
 to a superhuman origin. If this be so, then 
 be it observed that natural science is now 
 rendering a new and enormous service to 
 the great cause of belief in the unseen; and 
 is underpinning, so to speak, the structure 
 of that divine revelation, which was con- 
 tained in the Book of Genesis, by a new 
 and solid pillar, built up, on a foundation 
 of its own, from beneath. 
 
 It is, then, to be borne in mind that, as 
 against those who by arbitrary or irrational 
 interpretation, place Genesis and science at 
 essential variance, our position is not one 
 merely defensive. We are not mere recon- 
 cilers, as some call us, searching out expedi- 
 ents to escape a difficulty, to repel an assault. 
 We seek to show, and we may claim to have 
 shown, that the account recorded in the 
 Creation Story for the instruction of all 
 ages has been framed on the principles 
 which, for such an account, reason recom- 
 mends ; and that, interpreted in this view, 
 its entry into the argument is at this juncture 
 like the arrival of a new auxiliary army in 
 the field while the battle is in progress ; like 
 the arrival, to choose an historical instance, 
 of the Prussians at Waterloo. 
 
 Such is the confirmatory argument
 
 248 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 founded upon the contents. But now, yet 
 another ally has come to join our ranks, un- 
 der the title of Archaeologic and Historic 
 Science. It has deciphered the cuneiform 
 inscriptions, and has read among them a 
 Creation Story inscribed on the tablets found 
 at Nineveh. Here we have a new witness 
 to the very early existence, among civilized 
 or partly civilized men, of records of crea- 
 tion corresponding in very essential partic- 
 ulars with the Hebrew narrative. Such a 
 witness plainly to some extent offers to it 
 confirmation ; but also stands in competi- 
 tion with it. The competition is in those 
 particulars where the accounts are not in 
 harmony. As to these, standing on the 
 character of its contents, the Hebrew tradi- 
 tion lays claim to superior antiquity and 
 authority. But in proving the vast antiquity 
 of certain fundamental ideas, the two are 
 concurrent, and not competitive. 
 
 The Babylonian Creation Story is given by 
 Mr. Smith in his "Assyrian Discoveries,"* 
 so far as its mutilated state permits. It runs 
 as follows, and we cannot, I think, but 
 cherish the hope that it may hereafter re- 
 ceive extension or elucidation. " When the 
 gods in their assembly made the universe, 
 there was confusion, and the gods sent out 
 the spirit of life. They then create the 
 
 * P. 397-
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 249 
 
 beast of the field, the animal of the field, 
 and the^eptile or the creeping thing of the 
 field, and fix in them the spirit of life. Next 
 comes the creation of domestic animals, 
 and the creeping things of the city." Here 
 we have, i, creation by the gods; 2, chaos; 
 3, life, and only by inference, order ; 4, wide 
 extension of this life in beasts and reptiles ; 
 5, after this the domesticated animals. Thus 
 there is before us a real, though rude and 
 imperfect, structural resemblance to the 
 Hebrew narrative, together with the lower- 
 ing interpolation of polytheism. 
 
 From the works of Schrader * on the 
 cuneiform inscriptions, some further par- 
 ticulars may be gathered. He observes 
 that in Berosus, as in Genesis, we begin 
 with water and darkness. On which I 
 would only observe that Berosus, who 
 wrote in Greek, may not improbabl\- have 
 known the Mosaic writings, t and, as I have 
 already stated, that water, in the text of 
 Genesis, may be equivalent to fluid. The 
 marked points of correspondence appear to 
 be these : that the heavenly bodies are 
 created after the heavens, which last ex- 
 pression, I presume, may be meant to in- 
 clude the light. That the land population 
 
 * Schrader, " The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old 
 Testament." Translated by Whitehouse. Vol. i. pp.4, 
 seqq. f Smith, Biogr. Diet.
 
 250 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 follows that of the water, and appears when 
 vegetation has already begun. That the 
 monuments name a Babylonian week, with 
 the seventh day as a day of consecration, 
 called also an evil day,* perhaps because 
 evil for any work done on it. The inscrip- 
 tion says : — 
 
 " To redeem them, created mankind 
 The merciful one, in whom is the power 
 thai summons to life." 
 
 which is faintly comparable with the words 
 of Gen. ii. 7, and the Jehovistic account, 
 " and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
 of life," What seems to disappear from the 
 Babylonian account is that evident inten- 
 tion of series and orderly development, or 
 evolution, which is so wonderful a feature in 
 the Mosaic narrative. 
 
 Dawson, in a recent work, observes that 
 the polytheistic element is the distinctive 
 feature of the Chaldean record, and that 
 the originals of the tablets from Nineveh 
 may have been very ancient, but that they 
 are so mixed up with the history of the 
 Chaldean hero, named Izdubar, as to sug- 
 gest that there may have existed before it 
 still older creation legends. He compares 
 this record with the corresponding account 
 in Genesis, which is as broadly marked with 
 * Schrader, p. 19.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 251 
 
 the idea of the Divine unity as the Chal- 
 dean legend is pervaded by the conception 
 of polytheism. And he adds, " Is it not 
 likely that the simpler belief is older than 
 the more complex; that which required no 
 priests, ritual, or temple, older than that 
 with which all these things were necessarily 
 associated ? " He naturally assigns a marked 
 superiority to the " Hebrew Genesis." * In 
 truth, that superiority seems to be not great 
 only, but immeasurable. In one point only 
 do the tablets go beyond the narrative of 
 Genesis ; they record the great struggle of 
 Deity with rebellion, the war in heaven be- 
 tween Merodach and Tiamat. But, upon 
 the whole, our Bible narrative is a regular 
 structure ; it is orderly, progressive, and 
 rational ; that of the tablets is dark and 
 confused. This may, however, be referable 
 in part to the imperfection of the tablets, 
 the third of which, Mr. Sayce thinks, may 
 probably have recounted the formation of 
 the earth. t The one is charged in a mar- 
 vellous way with instruction and moral pur- 
 pose ; from the other they have almost dis- 
 appeared. The first has, as we believe, 
 been receiving marked confirmation in the 
 most vital particulars from cosmic and geo- 
 logic science ; on the second they can 
 
 * " Modern Science in Bible Lands," p. 32. 
 f " Hibbert Lectures," p. 394.
 
 252 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 hardly be said to cast more than the faint- 
 est Hght. And yet this inferior document 
 is itself of very great confirmatory value ; 
 for the Izdubar legends, says Mr. Smith,* 
 appear to have been composed more than 
 2000 years B. c. There is no late date to 
 which the Mosaic narrative can with a 
 shadow of probability be referred. It could 
 not have been formed without a miracle 
 from the tablets as they stand. The two 
 are evidently accounts proceeding from a 
 common source, but derived through 
 channels, partly or wholly independent. 
 The one comes through a powerful and 
 civilized empire, the other through an ob- 
 scure nomad family. In the relative superi- 
 ority of the Mosaic narrative, all the rules 
 of merely human likelihoods are reversed ; 
 and the presumption of a Divine illumina- 
 tion is proportionably augmented. But 
 the unsuspected antiquity of the inferior 
 legend attests by an independent witness, if 
 not the truth, yet at least the presumable 
 origin, of its transcendent rival. 
 
 So far as scientific opinion is concerned, 
 another remarkable confirmation seems to 
 have been given to the cosmical portion of 
 the Creation Story in Genesis by the course 
 which it has taken of late years. Writing 
 in 1839, Dr. Whewell devoted a chapter of 
 * "Assyrian Discoveries," p. 166,
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 253 
 
 his " Bridgewater Treatises on Astronomy 
 and Physics " * to the Nebular or, as it is 
 often called, Rotatory hypothesis. He 
 described it in outline, as it had been con- 
 ceived by Laplace. The idea of it was 
 that the mass, which eventually centred in 
 the sun, had revolved in a state of exces- 
 sive heat; that, as it gradually cooled, the 
 rapidity of its motion was increased ; that, 
 as the centrifugal force thus grew, the mass 
 detached from itself exterior zones or rings 
 of gas or vapor, which most commonly 
 broke up into several minor masses, and so 
 gradually formed the planetary system. Dr. 
 Whewell's object in this earh' notice of a 
 subject, which has since attracted, I believe, 
 very general attention in the world of astro- 
 nomical science, was to sustain and illus- 
 trate his general argument, by showing 
 how this theory did nothing whatever to 
 explain the origin of the system, or to 
 weaken the statement of Newton, that its 
 admirable arrangement must be " the work 
 of an intelligent and most powerful be- 
 ing." The origin of this rotation, said Dr. 
 Whewell, remains unexplained, and still as 
 powerfully as ever cries aloud for, and pro- 
 claims an Author. My purpose in here 
 naming the subject is to point out that Dr. 
 Whewell then found himself dealing with a 
 * Ch. vii. p. 181.
 
 254 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 theory which had not yet obtained any 
 wide currency or authority, and he then 
 " left to other persons and to future ages to 
 decide upon the merits of the nebular hy- 
 pothesis."* But, during the half century 
 which has elapsed since he produced his 
 Treatise, the hypothesis is understood to 
 have gained very general, if not indeed 
 unanimous, acceptance from astronomers. 
 I refer to this result of the most modern 
 studies as a new and remarkable establish- 
 ment of accord between natural science on 
 the one hand (so far as its reasonings have 
 proceeded), and the Book of Genesis on the 
 other. Often has it been endeavored to 
 place the Mosaic geology in conflict with 
 ascertained results, but less, though even 
 here something, of the same kind has been 
 attempted, so far as I know, by persons of 
 scientific authority, with regard to the 
 cosmogony which occupies the earlier por- 
 tion of tiie Chapter. On the other hand, it 
 has been shown, with what seems to me 
 conclusive clearness, that, without the use 
 of scientific language, that very process has 
 been described in slight outline, but in 
 singular correspondence with the hypothesis 
 now so largely accepted. That hypothesis 
 may not indeed have reached the point of 
 demonstration, and this the subject-matter 
 * P. 190.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 255 
 
 itself may be found not to permit ; yet it 
 has attained to so much of authorit}' from 
 consent that Dr. Whewell, were he writ- 
 ing now, would not have had simply to 
 hand it over to the future for consideration, 
 but would more probably have declared 
 that it holds the field, and seems little 
 likely to be displaced from it. 
 
 With the creation of the world or the 
 solar system, the question of its termina- 
 tion is naturally associated. On this sub- 
 ject, however, I will not dwell at length, 
 because the support here afforded by scien- 
 tific opinion is given to the Scriptures of the 
 New Testament, rather than the Old. To 
 refer again to Dr. Whewell. In a passage 
 of extraordinary grandeur, he delivered (I 
 think it was in a sermon) his opinion that 
 the world would end with a catastrophe, in- 
 stead of dying what is termed a natural 
 death. Such, as we know, is the emphatic 
 declaration of the inspired Word. " The 
 day of the Lord will come as a thief in the 
 night: in the which the heavens shall pass 
 away with a great noise, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also, 
 and the works that are therein shall be 
 burned up."* And again, "Looking for 
 and hasting unto the coming of the day of 
 God, wherein the heavens being on fire 
 * 2 Peter iii. 10, 12.
 
 256 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 shall be dissolved, and the elements shall 
 melt with fervent heat." Such was the 
 judgment of Dr. Whewell nearly half a 
 century ago. His words were delivered 
 rather as by one uttering his own firm 
 opinion, than as expressing the conviction 
 of astronomers at large. Nevertheless, as 
 I have been informed on high authority, it 
 is now the established conclusion of astron- 
 omers, based upon reasoning from ascer- 
 tained facts, that the Galilean fishermen 
 knew what all the genius and learning of 
 the world for thousands of yearS failed to 
 discover, and that — 
 
 " The great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inheiit, shall dissolve." * 
 
 III. — AS TO THE FLOOD STORY. 
 
 I pass now to the Flood-Legend, one 
 form of which has come down through 
 Berosus and Josephus, but which acquires 
 much more certain antiquity, and greater 
 grandeur, from the Inscriptions. Their 
 account, says Schrader, whose bias cannot, 
 I think, be considered as friendly towards 
 the Hebrew record, " brings the Biblical 
 narrative into much closer relation with the 
 Chaldean flood-legend than could be as- 
 * Shakespeare, Te?n/>esi, iv. i.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 257 
 
 sumed on the basis of the tradition in 
 Berosus."* It forms part of the Izdubar 
 legends discovered by Mr. George Smith, 
 who pubHshed his account of them in 1872, 
 and who assigns to them a date anterior to 
 2000 years b. c. under the early Babylonian 
 empire. t The hero of the legends is be- 
 lieved by Mr. Smith to be the same as the 
 Nimrod of Genesis. Like the Creation 
 Story of Genesis, I that of the Flood 
 derives corroboration from the Babylonian 
 record, inasmuch as it is thus carried back 
 by an independent testimony to a very 
 great antiquity. That record, composed, as 
 Mr. Smith thinks, not long after the time of 
 Izdubar or Nimrod, gives us the tradition 
 of a flood which was a Divine punishment 
 for the wickedness of the world, and of a 
 holy man, who built an ark, and escaped the 
 general destruction. § The particulars are 
 set out in Mr. Smith's volume. They differ, 
 in many respects, from those of Genesis, 
 but the essential features are in the highest 
 degree marked, and, together with certain 
 of the details, are singularly accordant. || 
 As in the case of the Creation Story, so 
 here there is stamped upon them the note 
 of a common source, and of channels of 
 
 * Schrader, as above, p. 47. 
 
 ■j- "Assyrian Discoveries," p. 166. % Ibid, and 204. 
 
 \ Pp. 205-6, seqq. \ Pp. 184, seqq. 
 
 17
 
 258 
 
 RE CENT CORROBORA TIO NS 
 
 descent which separate at some later date. 
 In this case, however, the Babylonian nar- 
 rative holds a higher position, relatively to 
 the scriptural record, than in the case of 
 the Creation. 
 
 The hero of the deluge is Hasisadra, a 
 name which has been Hellenized into 
 Xisuthrus ; who, on the eleventh tablet, 
 relates to Izdubar (the supposed Nimrod) 
 the story of the deluge. I shall only at- 
 tempt an outline presenting the main points.* 
 In the ancient city of Surippah, where 
 Anu and other great gods were worshipped, 
 Hasisadra was divinely warned by Hea, the 
 great water-god, to construct a ship, of 
 which the size is named, and commit to it 
 " the seed of life, all of it," as " the sinner 
 and life " were about to be destroyed by a 
 flood. Food, furniture, wealth, servants, 
 and animals were all to be embarked. The 
 building and loading of the ship are then 
 described, and the part taken by the several 
 gods in bringing about the catastrophe. 
 But " the gods " themselves feared the tem- 
 pest, and " ascended to the heaven of Anu." 
 This deluge lasted for six days: on the 
 seventh all was quiet. There is sight of 
 land from within the vessel. It is arrested 
 by the mountain of Nizir. A dove is sent 
 forth, and returns. A swallow is sent, and 
 * Smith, pp. 184-194.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 259 
 
 does the like. A raven goes, feeds on the 
 corpses that are afloat, and returns not. 
 Then comes landing, sacrifice, the sending 
 forth of animals. Ninip and Hea then re- 
 monstrate with Bel, and suggest other more 
 usual means of chastising men, in which 
 there seems to be some affinity to the prom- 
 ise of Gen. viii. 21-2, and ix. 11-17, that 
 there should never again be a flood upon 
 the earth. And " then dwelt Hasisadra in 
 a remote place at the mouth of the rivers." 
 
 The resemblances between this narrative 
 of the flood and that in Genesis are such as 
 clearly to betoken a relationship at or near 
 the source. The most peculiar, and at the 
 same time purely incidental, among all the 
 details of the narrative, appears to be the 
 threefold experiment with birds upon the 
 decline of the waters ; but this appears alike 
 in the three narratives of Chaldaea, the 
 Bible, and Berosus. No other nations have 
 accounts so full and precise as these.* 
 
 Mr. Smith has some judicious and im- 
 partial observations on the two accounts. f 
 The Chaldean account indicates the nature 
 of the countr\- in which the flood took place. 
 Surippah is near the mouth of the Euphrates, 
 and there Hea was worshipped as the god 
 of the deluge. The Hebrew account has 
 no local confirmations of the story. When 
 
 * Smith, p. 212. f Ibid.
 
 26o RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 Surippah was conquered, in the sixteenth 
 century B. c. or earlier, it is called in the 
 record, " the city of the ark." Hasisadra is, 
 like Noah, a devout man ; and the Chaldean 
 deluge is, like the Hebrew, a punishment 
 for gross and widespread sin. Schrader 
 argrues with a view to attenuate this state- 
 ment, but, as it appears to me, in the spirit 
 of a partisan rather than a judge.* The 
 dimensions of the ark vary in the three 
 accounts ; and on the variations of numerals 
 I observe elsewhere. It may, however, be 
 observed that the Babylonian account, which 
 presumably was written down from a very 
 early date, and in a durable form, has in 
 this respect a great advantage over oral 
 transmission, which is most of all dangerous 
 for numerical statements. The inscription 
 describes a regular vessel with boatmen, 
 another incident of local color. The ac- 
 counts curiously coincide in the minute 
 point that, both inside and out, the ark is 
 coated with bitumen. The tablet tells us 
 that not eight only, but a comparatively 
 large number of persons went on board. 
 The Bible gives forty days as the duration 
 of the flood, meaning apparently at the 
 height. After 150 days the waters all 
 abated. The whole duration before disap- 
 pearance is a year and ten days.f The 
 * Vol. i. p. 49. f Gen. vii. 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 24.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 26 1 
 
 tablet allows only seven days for the fulness 
 of the flood. On the seventh day all storm 
 has ceased. Hasisadra then sends out the 
 bird. The ship is stranded for seven days 
 more on the mountains of Nizir, so that the 
 total term mentioned is one of only fourteen 
 days. Nizir lies away to the east, far from 
 the site of Ararat mentioned in Genesis; on 
 the other hand,* the present tradition of the 
 country lands the ark at a site farther to the 
 north, and nearer Ararat. Again as to the 
 birds. In Genesis Noah sends out a raven, 
 which does not return ; then a dove three 
 times, at intervals of seven days ; on the 
 third occasion the dove does not return. 
 The inscription sends, first, a dove, which 
 returns, then a swallow, which returns, and 
 then a raven, which does not return. Lastly, 
 in the Bible, Noah lives after the flood for 
 350 years ; the tablet and Bcrosus both 
 assign to him, associated (rather strangely) 
 with his daughter and the helmsman, f that 
 translation to heaven for his piety, which 
 Genesis gives to Enoch. Before translation, 
 he was visited by Izdubar, and the region 
 was deemed a sacred region. 
 
 On a general comparison of these two 
 profoundly interesting records, the result 
 appears to be that in what is circumstantial 
 only there is much difference along with 
 
 ■* Smith, p. 217. f Schrader, i. 60.
 
 262 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 some curious resemblance ; but in the out- 
 line of the fundamental facts, and in the 
 moral considerations applicable, they are 
 radically at one. The wickedness of the 
 antediluvian world, the Divine anger, the 
 command to build, the use of this vehicle 
 of escape, and the erection of an altar of . 
 thanksgiving, are recorded alike in both. 
 We have no absolute right to assume 
 that either of the accounts, as it stands, 
 is contemporary with the period of the 
 flood. The points in which the Bible ac- 
 count may seem inferior, are the absence 
 of local coloring, and the probable relation 
 of the numerical statements to actual fact. 
 Yet this, so far from impairing its claim to 
 our acceptance, appears on the contrary to 
 accredit it, because it is a feature which, 
 given the circumstances of the case, there 
 was reason to expect. If, indeed, we ride 
 the hobby of the negative criticism, the 
 Bible account bristles everywhere with diffi- 
 culty. It is inconceivable that the framers 
 should have in that case departed so widely 
 from the inscription in points so palpable to 
 all the world, or should have let slip the 
 local color, with which a fabricator or late 
 relator would have been forward to dress 
 up his narrative. But, if we take Abraham, 
 with his ancestors and his posterity, as a 
 nomad people, religious and of simple life
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 263 
 
 such as the Bible represents them ; at an 
 earher period hanging on the outskirts of 
 the Babylonian power, at a later one migra- 
 tory towards the West ; it was natural for 
 them to drop the local coloring of a region 
 with which all their relations had come to 
 an end, and to drop somewhat behind in the 
 exactitude of some among the particulars ; 
 and this is perhaps observable, as to the 
 point of local color, not in the case of the 
 flood only, but throughout the Abrahamic 
 narrative down to the entry into the prom- 
 ised land. 
 
 The most significant difference of all 
 between the two records is that the inscrip- 
 tion is based upon polytheism, while in the 
 Bible, here as elsewhere, all is based upon 
 the doctrine of one God. That is to say, 
 the simpler form is the groundwork of the 
 Bible narrative, and the simpler form, ac- 
 cording to the generally recognized princi- 
 ple, is that nearest the source, most closely 
 akin to the occurrence or the original record. 
 The religion of Noah agrees with that of 
 the common father, Adam ; the religion of 
 Hasisadra has departed from the primitive 
 belief, and exhibits to us those multiplied 
 and deteriorated images of the Deity, which 
 human infirmity and sin had introduced or 
 allowed. 
 
 While Schrader glances at the period
 
 264 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 when the Babylonian flood-legend reached 
 the Hebrews as that of " the prophetic nar- 
 rator of early Biblical history," he candidly 
 adds, " I am led to the obvious conclusion 
 that the Hebrews were acquainted with this 
 legend at a much earlier period, and that it is 
 far from impossible that they acquired a 
 knowledge of these and the other primitive 
 myths now under investigation as far back 
 as in the time of their earlier settlements in 
 Babylonia, and that they carried these 
 stories with them from Ur of the Chaldees." 
 For him they are all myths; the original in- 
 vention is in Babylonia, and the Hebrews 
 are early copyists. For others, however, 
 they are in the nature of primitive tradi- 
 tions, founded on histories ; and the twin 
 versions bear testimony by their concur- 
 rence, and even in some respects by their 
 discrepancies, to their historical character. 
 If there was remoulding, it may be the 
 more detailed and circumstantial narration 
 which is presumptively entitled to the credit 
 of it ; and the Bible story, more sparing in 
 its details, but far broader and more direct 
 in the terrible lesson it conveys, may reason- 
 ably be judged to have come down from 
 the source with the smallest amount of 
 variation in essentials from the original. 
 It is here as elsewhere. " The wisdom of 
 this world," the race favored with stable
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 265 
 
 institutions, and with intellectual develop- 
 ment, yet fails in the firmness of its hold, 
 and the clearness of its view, where the 
 appreciation of the tremendous moral lesson 
 is concerned ; while the race of wandering- 
 shepherds, who are but the " babes and 
 sucklings " of intelligence, yet transmit that 
 lesson in a type so fresh and clear that our 
 Lord has only to quote and enlarge without 
 correcting it, and so to launch it anew into 
 the world as a solemn chapter of His gospel 
 teaching. 
 
 It may be noticed that the translation to 
 heaven of Hasisadra, the Noah of the tablets,, 
 is in curious accordance with that far larger 
 development both of the Underworld and 
 of the future state, which marks alike the 
 Babylonian and the Egyptian systems in 
 comparison with that of the Old Testament^ 
 and forms an interesting but separate sub- 
 ject of discussion. 
 
 The Hebrew story of the Deluge has long 
 been supported by a diversity of traditions 
 among nations and races of the world, but 
 never before with such particularity, or such 
 corroboration in the sense and to the extent 
 before described. But though we have 
 now a new and important witness in court 
 on our behalf, yet undoubtedly, if the nar- 
 rative be provably untrue the testimony of
 
 266 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 both, or of any number of traditional wit- 
 nesses, must fall to the ground. 
 
 The voice of natural science has not 
 been, and probably is not at present, uniform 
 on this subject. The negative has just been 
 presented to the world, of course with great 
 ability, and also in a sufficiently magisterial 
 form, by Professor Huxley. He conceives 
 that Christian theology must stand or fall 
 with the historical trustworthiness of the 
 Jewish Scriptures ; * and, as these are not 
 trustworthy, the consequence is that it must 
 not stand but fall. With this general propo- 
 sition I have here nothing to do. 
 
 Mr. Huxley selects the flood-story for the 
 capital article of his indictment. But he 
 treats it as little worthy of serious notice. 
 " It is difficult to persuade serious scientific 
 inquirers to occupy themselves in any way 
 with the Noachian deluge." f He finds, 
 indeed, a sort of historic nucleus for a par- 
 tial deluge in the occasional desolating 
 floods of the Euphrates and Tigris. | But, 
 be it a partial or be it a general flood, he ap- 
 plies the same contemptuous negative doc- 
 trine to the deluge : perhaps most of all to 
 what he terms a particularly absurd attempt 
 at reconciliation, which places it " at the 
 end of the glacial epoch." § I am far from 
 
 * Nineteenth Century, July, 1S90, p. 8. 
 fP. 12. J P.' 14- § P. 13-
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 267 
 
 intending to enter upon a controversy, 
 which I have no capacity to handle. Yet 
 I may be bold enough to mention, that, 
 while Mr. Huxley is speaking in the name 
 of science at large, some votaries of science 
 hold an entirely different language. More- 
 over, that the idea of a flood was not thu.s 
 summarily dismissed by the luminaries of 
 the scientific world anterior to the present 
 day; and that the grounds of this dismissal 
 are not of recent discovery, but were fully 
 open to the geologists of the last generation. 
 Quite recently, the doctrine of a deluge has 
 been maintained by Sir J. Dawson,* by Mr. 
 Howorth, and by the Duke of Argyll (if I 
 interpret him aright), f all of whom are, I 
 suppose, to be considered as " serious 
 scientific inquirers." 
 
 Mr. Howorth, in his learned and laborious 
 work on " The Mammoth and the Flood," 
 is certainly not bound by any superstitious 
 reverence for the mere text of the Book of 
 Genesis ; for, in his preface,;]; he seems to 
 cast aside as null its traditions respecting 
 all that preceded the creation of man. His 
 treatise collects largelv not onlv the diluvial 
 traditions of so many races and countries, 
 but an immense mass of paljeontological 
 
 * "Modern Science in Bible Lands," p. 252. 
 
 fin The Scottish Geographical Alagaziue, h\ix\\ 1 890. 
 
 X Pp. ix., X.
 
 268 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 evidence ; and, having laid this wide ground 
 for his induction, he declares that, in his 
 judgment, the whole points unmistakably 
 
 " To a widespread calamity, involving a flood on a 
 great scale. I do not see how the historian, the archae- 
 ologist, and the palaeontologist can avoid making this 
 conclusion in future a prime factor in their discussions, 
 and I venture to think that before long it will be ac- 
 cepted as unanswerable." * 
 
 Moreover, I am free to consider history 
 no less a science, though a less determinate 
 science, than geology or biology ; and I 
 quote in conclusion the following passage 
 from Lenormant, which follows a copious 
 collection of testimonies to the tradition of 
 a deluge in almost all lands : — 
 
 «' La longue revue, a laquelle nous venons de nous 
 livrer, nous permit d'affirmer que le r^cit du deluge est 
 une tradition universale dans tous les rameaux de I'hu- 
 inanit6, a I'exception toutefois de la race noire. Mais un 
 souvenir partout, aussi precis et aussi concordant, ne 
 saurait etre celui d'un mythe invente a plaisir; aucun 
 mythe religieux ou cosmogonique ne preseiite ce carac- 
 t^re d'universalile. C'est necessairement le souvenir 
 d'un evenement reel et terrible, qui frappa assez puis- 
 samment 1' imagination des ancetres de notre esp^ce 
 pour n'elre jamais oublie de leurs descendants. Ce cala- 
 clysme se produit prds du berceaux primitif de I'hu- 
 inanit6."t 
 
 * P- 463- ^ , 
 
 f " Les Origines de I'Histoire," pp. 489,490. Second 
 
 Edition 1880. "The long review, to which we have 
 
 just applied ourselves, warrants our afiirming that the 
 
 tale of the Deluge is an universal tradition among all
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 269 
 
 IV. — AS TO THE GREAT DISPERSION. 
 
 The contents of the Tenth chapter of 
 Genesis constitute a document of a character 
 altogether extraordinary : for example, in 
 the two following particulars. First, it is 
 without parallel in the world. Nowhere 
 else is there known to us a distinct and de- 
 tailed endeavor to draw downwards from 
 a single source the multiplication of men in 
 the earth by families, and the distribution of 
 them over the face of the earth. Secondly, 
 this account, containing seventy-two names 
 of men (to which more are added in con- 
 nection with the descent of Abram when we 
 reach chap, xii.j, is so particular, that the 
 notion of its correct transmission bv ordi- 
 nary means may appear to present much 
 difficulty. Abram, when he migrated west- 
 ward, came from a country which we now 
 know to have possessed in his time means 
 of durable record ; but, as the head of a 
 nomad family, he could hardly have carried 
 
 the branches of the human family ; excepting, however, 
 the blacks. But a remembrance prevailing everywhere, 
 so precise and so concordant, cannot belong to a myth 
 arbitrarily invented. No religious or cosmogonic myth 
 presents such a character of universality. It must of 
 necessity be a recollection of a great and terrible occur- 
 rence, which impressed the imagination of the ancestors 
 of our race so powerfully as never to have been forgotten 
 by their descendants. That cataclysm took place at a 
 spot near the primeval cradle of humanity."
 
 270 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 with him written traditions: and a specific 
 narrative of this kind, hke the Greek Cata- 
 logue in the " Ihad," presented great diffi- 
 culties in the way of oral transmission 
 through several, perhaps many, generations, 
 down to the time when we may reasonably 
 suppose the children of Israel to have 
 acquired the art of writing during their 
 sojourn in Egypt. The assisting Provi- 
 dence of God may suggest itself to the be- 
 heving mind as having supplied the needful 
 measure of that aid, which Homer * be- 
 sought, in a kindred case, from the Muses. 
 But the document, if thus considered, lays 
 a certain weight upon our faculty of belief, 
 and even offers a tempting invitation to as- 
 sault from those who are adversely minded. 
 This weight, however, is converted at once 
 into a prop, into a buttress which well and 
 stoutly supports the wall, when we find that 
 this singular and, so to speak, exposed tra- 
 dition has received in the most fundamental 
 and vital points, from the researches of 
 philological and of historical science, strik- 
 ing and, we may suppose; conclusive con- 
 firmation. 
 
 The foundation of the arrangement is the 
 threefold division of the human race from a 
 certain period of its history. If such a divi- 
 sion actually took place, we might expect 
 
 *Il.ii. 484.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 27 E 
 
 to find the traces of it in a threefold division 
 of language, which has an unquestionable 
 relation to race ; and, conversely, such a 
 divarication in language proves an early 
 distribution of races or families, from which 
 it took its origin. Without entering into 
 details, it may be observed that the Book 
 of Genesis associates the first distinctions 
 of language with the local dispersion of 
 man ; and it is now known that, in days an- 
 tecedent to the permanent bond of literature, 
 such an association is agreeable not only to 
 probability, but to the ascertained laws of 
 experience. And now we find that com- 
 parative philology, dealing at large with the 
 languages of the world, has resolved them 
 into that very threefold division, which the 
 distribution of man according to Gen. x. 
 into three great branches anticipates and 
 requires. Here is again an important ser- 
 vice, rendered by modern science to belief 
 
 It is true that the Bible (Gen. xi. i) speaks 
 of language as originally one, and that this 
 proposition has not yet been generally af- 
 firmed by philology. Yet the way to it has 
 been opened, and it need excite no surprise 
 should the goal be soon attained. Professor 
 Max MuUer, I believe, says there is no 
 proof that the Aryan, Semitic, and Turan- 
 ian families of language had independent 
 beginnings ; that radicals existing in all the
 
 272 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 three can be traced to the common source, 
 and that even the grammars may have been 
 originally one. But this subject still awaits 
 its scientific elucidation or decision. 
 
 The Table of Peoples presents on its 
 surface some apparent anomalies ; of which, 
 however, a rational account can be given, 
 and one which for the most part converts 
 them into evidences in its favor. For 
 instance, the Hamitic portion presents to us 
 out of a total of thirty names no less than 
 eighteen which are plural words, and which 
 are therefore national or tribal, while only 
 two of the same class are found in the rest 
 of the account. But this seems upon con- 
 sideration to illustrate what we know from 
 history ; namely, that the Hamitic races 
 exhibited the most precocious development, 
 and set up the earliest known civilizations 
 of the world, those of Babylonia and of 
 Egypt. 
 
 Again : the Cushite stock, after its regu- 
 lar order is arrested in ver. 7 of the chapter, 
 jumps as it were down to Nimrod in 8-10. 
 But we must bear in mind the greatness as- 
 signed to his individual position. He is the 
 only person in the Table who is described 
 as founding a kingdom, and the account of 
 him has a great resemblance to that of Iz- 
 dubar in the Assyrian Tablets, with whom 
 he is identified by Mr. George Smith.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 273 
 
 Again, as Shem, Ham, and Japheth are 
 four times mentioned together, and invari- 
 ably in this order, it seems to follow natu- 
 rally that this is the order of their ages. 
 In ch. X., however, their descendants are set 
 out in the inverse order, and Japheth takes 
 precedence. But this also, upon reflection, 
 we may find to be quite natural. Migra- 
 tion was largely connected with consid- 
 erations of space and food. It may be 
 that the younger had to give place to the 
 elder, and that the children of Japheth had 
 on this account to be the first in moving 
 from the common centre. 
 
 Further: in the Japhetic line the geneal- 
 ogy wholly stops with the next generation 
 but one, whereas, it is continued farther, not 
 only in the Semitic line, which had to be 
 connected with Abram, but also in the 
 Hamitic, by the mention of Nimrod and of 
 the Philistines. This, however, seems per- 
 fectly natural if the line of Japheth, as is 
 probable, moved the first, and, as is mani- 
 fest, went the farthest, so as to be out of 
 sight of the narrator, while descendants of 
 Shem and Ham remained locally in contact 
 with each other. Knobel* has observed, that 
 in each of the three branches the enumera- 
 tion begins with those who travelled to the 
 greatest distance from the common centre 
 
 * " Volkertafel der Genesis," Giessen, 1850, p. 14.
 
 274 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 (which is taken by him to be near Mount 
 Ararat), and accordingly the Japhetites 
 are reckoned from the north-west, the 
 Semites from the south-east, and Ham- 
 ites from the south-west. Just as in the 
 case of the Homeric Catalogue,* this 
 methodical arrangement probably gave great 
 assistance to the memory of the first re- 
 corder. 
 
 Knobel has discussed with great minute- 
 ness and care the particular names of the 
 recital, and he traces them to their historic 
 seats. Bishop Browne, in the " Speaker's 
 Commentary," has entered on the same field. 
 Some examples may be given. The Japhet- 
 ites are those (Japhah) of fair complexion. 
 They take to the isles or coast-lands, t the 
 seaward countries of the north and west. 
 Here we meet the name of Gomer repro- 
 duced in the Cimmerians, Cimbri, and 
 Cwmry. Ashkenaz, the son of Gomer, is 
 found in Scandinavia, J the Scangia of Jor- 
 nandus, the chief seat of the German stock. 
 Another route is marked in the same direc- 
 tion by Ascania,§ in Asia Minor, a name 
 found at various points of that region. 
 Knobel thinks there is a trace of the Teu- 
 tonic race in Teuthras, a name found on 
 
 * " Juventus Mundi," p. 467. 
 
 •}• See Revised Version, Gen. x. 5- 
 
 X Kncbel, Ibid. pp. 35-7. \ P. 39.
 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 275 
 
 both sides in the war of the Iliad.* He 
 proceeds with the hst of Japhetites as fol- 
 lows. Riphath, he thinks, is traced in the 
 Carpathian country, f Togarma in Armenia, 
 Magog in the Slavs, Madai in the Medes, 
 Javan in the laones or lonians, Elisa in 
 Cohans, Tarshish in the Tursenoi, Kittini 
 in the Chilians of Cyprus, Dodanim in the 
 Dardanians, Tubal in the Iberians, Meshech 
 in the Meschi or Moschi, Tiras in the 
 Thracians (Thrax or Thras).J Some among 
 these particular interpretations — for instance, 
 that given to Elisa — may be untenable. 
 Bishop Browne § sets out the various 
 opinions that have been held, mostly with- 
 out declaring a preference. It is not, how- 
 ever, the accuracy of each particular identi- 
 fication, nor even of every particular item 
 of the text, but the principles of the general 
 arransfement, and the large number of cases 
 reasonably clear, which give the subject its 
 importance. 
 
 The Semitic and Hamitic branches offer 
 less difficulty to the investigator. No part 
 of the tracking is more satisfactory than that 
 which relates to the nations of Palestine, and 
 to the names of Canaan, Sidon and Heth, 
 where every particular, known to us from 
 
 * V. 705, and vi. 13. -j- Knobel, Ibid. p. 44. 
 
 X Pp. 53, 60, 71, 77, 81, 95, 117, 123. 
 \ " Speaker's Comm.," Genesis in loc.
 
 276 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 independent history or tradition, supports, 
 so far as I can judge, in a most remarkable 
 manner the trustworthiness of the record. 
 Speaking generally, perhaps no one can go 
 farther than Knobel in the work of identifi- 
 cation. His treatise has become a consider- 
 able authority, and is of the greater value be- 
 cause he does not belong to the conserva- 
 tive school of criticism on the Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 V. — AS TO THE SINAITIC JOURNEY. 
 
 In his " Modern Science in Bible Lands," 
 Sir J. Dawson has examined, with elaborate 
 care, first the dwelling-place of the Israel- 
 ites in Egypt, and their probable route from 
 it until they cross the Yam Suph ; and 
 then, still more particularly, the account of 
 their journeyings beyond the Red Sea. His 
 conclusion is that they crossed at a point,* 
 now forming part of the Bitter Lakes of the 
 Isthmus, but then a part of the Red Sea 
 itself, which was fed in ancient times by a 
 branch of the Nile flowing eastwards.f 
 Yam Suph, or sea of weeds, is the name 
 given to it in the Bible. | 
 
 Beyond the Red Sea, and onwards to the 
 Sinaitic region, the country has been sur- 
 veyed by officers of the British Ordnance. 
 * P. 389. t r. 392. X p. 404-
 
 OF SCRIPIURE. 277 
 
 All the instruments of modern science have 
 been employed ; the results have been pub- 
 lished on a large scale ; and the effect, as 
 reported by Sir J. Dawson, has been " entire 
 agreement of the members of the party on 
 essential points " ; * and the ascertainment 
 of such complete coincidence of the actual 
 features of the country with the require- 
 ments of the Mosaic narrative, as to prove 
 it to be a contemporary record of the 
 events to which it relates. f 
 
 The route pursued by the Israelites 
 down the coast of the Red Sea, and then 
 to the eastward, was peculiar, as it seems to 
 have been dictated by a combination of 
 strategical considerations with those which 
 concerned the subsistence of the people, and 
 especially the supply of water. The local 
 indications are on this account all the more 
 remarkable. It is not possible, without ex- 
 ceeding the limits proper for the present 
 observations, to convey the full force of 
 the evidence which shows how the stamp 
 of Egypt was impressed both upon the 
 Israelites themselves, and upon the narrative 
 in Exodus of their escape ; inasnmch as it 
 depends on the details of measurement, 
 atmosphere, water-supply, and other physi- 
 cal circumstances, and upon their relation 
 to the Mosaic narrative. The conclusions 
 * Pp. 371,406 tP-407-
 
 278 
 
 RECENT CORROBORATIONS 
 
 reached have no direct bearing upon the 
 proofs of a Divine revelation through the 
 Scriptures, but they are of great historical 
 importance in establishing the credit of the 
 Book, and its contemporaneous character as 
 to the substance of its contents.
 
 Conclusion.
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 IN closing this series of papers, it is right 
 to record the admission that they can 
 lay no claim to anything more than touch- 
 ing, and that but slight!}', certain parts of a 
 great subject. They omit many things 
 important, perhaps some things essential. 
 The essay on the Creation Story, indeed, 
 aims at bringing out, in lieu of simple 
 apology, what seems to me a distinct and 
 specific argument in proof of a Divine Rev- 
 elation. Except in tliat instance, their main 
 design is to draw out, so far as they go, the 
 force of that cumulative evidence witnessing 
 to such a Revelation, which has been so 
 wisely summed up by Bishop Butler ; * and 
 also to disembarrass belief in it from those 
 difficulties which properly belong not to 
 itself, but to exaggerations and excrescences 
 against which it can carry no absolute 
 guarantee. They form the testimony of an 
 old man, in the closing period of his life. 
 
 * "Analogy," part ii. chap. vii. 
 
 (281)
 
 282 CONCLUSION. 
 
 It is rendered with no special qualification 
 but possibly this one. Few persons of our 
 British race have lived through a longer 
 period of incessant argumentative conten- 
 tion, or have had a more diversified experi- 
 ence in trying to ascertain, for purposes 
 immediately practical, the difference between 
 tenable and untenable positions. Such ex- 
 perience is directly conversant with the 
 nature of man and his varied relations ; 
 and I own my inclination to suppose that it 
 is more germane to the treatment of subjects 
 that lie directly between collective man and 
 the Author of his being, more calculated to 
 neutralize deficiencies, though not to impart 
 capacity, than a familiarity with those ma- 
 terial sciences which have supplied an arena 
 for, perhaps, the most splendid triumphs of 
 the century now far advanced in its decline. 
 On this subject has been recorded the nobly 
 candid admission of Mr. Darwin,* respect- 
 ing the possible atrophy, through disuse, of 
 the mental organs on which our higher 
 tastes depend. Among those organs I can- 
 not but include the organ of belief On 
 this subject, however, I am a biassed wit- 
 ness. It is for others to judge. I only 
 offer a plea, not in proof of ability, but 
 only in extenuation of defect. 
 
 There is in certain circles a very confi- 
 * " Life and Letters," vol. i. pp. loi, I02.
 
 CONCL US I ON. 
 
 283 
 
 dent disposition to assert that, as regards 
 belief in supernaturalism, the intellectual 
 battle has been fought and won, and that 
 victory is on the side of negation. It ought 
 to be observed, before proceeding further, 
 that supernaturalism is a term which in- 
 cludes the idea of God. A sense may be, 
 indeed, loosely given to it, which confines it 
 to the mode of His manifestations. But, 
 essentially, if God be there, the super- 
 natural is there; and the developments 
 which proceed from that idea, even if they 
 had been crushed and stamped out, might 
 germinate again. It is not, then, a ques- 
 tion of excrescences or of details ; the life 
 and essence of religion are at stake. It is 
 the question of belief in what is not perhaps 
 scientifically, but yet intelligibly, termed a 
 personal God. 
 
 I shall presently enter on the moral causes 
 which may have contributed, and even 
 mainly contributed, to stimulate the nega- 
 tive tendencies of the day. I am now only 
 endeavoring partially to test the justice of a 
 Paean, which is not warranted even by the 
 established fact of a victory. The Pjean of 
 the victor is the epitaph of the vanquished: 
 and the victory, which is to warrant it, must 
 be a victory belonging to that class of vic- 
 tories, which end the war. 
 
 That such a song of triumph is raised
 
 284 CONCLUSION. 
 
 there can be little doubt. It seems to have 
 inspired the recent Articles of that very dis- 
 tinguished and not less upright writer, Pro- 
 fessor Huxley, in the NinctceiitJi CenUiry. 
 But I have never seen a better example of 
 the plenary satisfaction which possesses the 
 mind of many among the negative athletes 
 than in the following passage, taken from a 
 writer of ability : 
 
 " I set out from the standpoint that the mission of 
 Freethought is no longer to hatter down oUl faiths. That 
 has been long ago effectively accomplished; and I, for 
 one, am ready to put a railing round the ruins, that they 
 may be preserved from desecration, and serve as a land- 
 mark ! Indeed, I confess to having yawned over a recent 
 vigorous indictment of Christianity." * 
 
 This purports to be a description of a 
 certain state of facts. f Now, it is not the 
 first time that we have heard description of 
 the kind. Such a description was supplied 
 in an earlier time by no less a person than 
 Bishop Butler, who, I apprehend, was not 
 among those given to exaggeration. His 
 words are these : % 
 
 * Karl Pearson, " Ethics of Freethought," Preface, 
 p. 5. The dramatic character of this declaration is brought 
 to its climax by the fact that the work is dedicated to the 
 members of King's College, Cambridge. 
 
 f It is far from being isolated. The same ideas 
 are expressed vi'ith greater vehemence by Dr. Hard- 
 wicke, of Sheffield, in a preface to " Evolution," Lon- 
 don, 1890. 
 
 \ From the Advertisement to the "Analogy."
 
 CONCLUSION. 285 
 
 «'It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted 
 by many persons that Christianity is not so much as a 
 subject of inquiry; but that it is now at length discovered 
 to be fictitious. And, accordingly, they treat it as if, in 
 the present age, this were an agreed point among all 
 people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set 
 it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule; as it 
 were by way of reprisals, for its having so long inter- 
 rupted the pleasures of the world." 
 
 It seems pretty plain that at the time 
 when the Bishop published the "Analogy " * 
 a wave of unbelief was passing over the 
 land. The spiritual declension of the Han- 
 overian period had set in ; and the standard 
 of life, and of the ideas current concerning 
 life, was sinking almost from day to day. 
 The negative movement of the period may 
 have been quite as vigorous, as widespread, 
 and as self-confident, as that of which we 
 now feel the pressure. Yet it dwindled, and 
 almost disappeared ; and we may even say 
 that, at the time of Johnson's social pre- 
 dominance it left hardly a trace behind. f 
 Nor was this either the first or the last of 
 
 * In 1736. 
 
 f In 1797, when Wilberforce published his " Practical 
 View," he spoke of "absolute unbelievers" as a class 
 which he feared was an increasing one (chap. vii. sect. 3). 
 Perhaps the great war of the years 1793-1 81 5 tended 
 to debilitate the religious mind of the country by 
 drawing off mental force in another direction. I have, 
 however, heard from persons of high authority, who were 
 old when I was young, that the French Revohition gen- 
 erated a distinctly religious reaction on this side of the 
 Channel.
 
 286 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the reverses which negation has suffered. 
 At the time of the great Renascence of 
 ancient learning in the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries, the cultivated mind of 
 Europe sank far back into Paganism ; but 
 that ebb was succeeded by a flowing tide. 
 Again, in my own earher days, say in the 
 second quarter of the present century, there 
 was a great revival, both of the dogmatic 
 sense and of the religious life in England ; 
 and the temper of the time, in the thinking 
 world, was strongly adverse alike to world- 
 liness, to indifference, and to unbelief No 
 man, perhaps, was better qualified to pass a 
 judgment on this subject than the late Dr. 
 Whewell ; and he, writing in November 
 1853, and referring to an opinion expressed 
 by a contemporary of smaller calibre than 
 himself, says, " As to his assertion that 
 scepticism is increasing, it is contrary to all 
 my knowledge of the cultivated classes." * 
 But as the third quarter proceeded, the 
 sceptical movement set in with a wide and 
 subtle power. History, then, seems to prove 
 that these negative movenients are subject 
 not onlv to a hazard, but even to a law, of 
 mutation ; and that every one of them, 
 when it has done its work, may cease to be. 
 Of one thing we may be assured: such a 
 movement derives no real strength, no true 
 * " Life of Whewell," p. 431.
 
 CONCLUSION. 287 
 
 promise of permanence, from an overween- 
 ing self-assertion. The question is not what 
 negation thinks of itself and of the oppos- 
 ing forces, but what is the intrinsic strength 
 of the reasoning on which it rests. 
 
 I have said that, when it has done its 
 work, it may cease to be. For doubtless it 
 has a work to do. The wave that breaks 
 and foams upon the rock exhibits to us not 
 merely, as it might seem, a picture of 
 violence and a source of danger, but a frac- 
 tion of the vast oceanic movement, which is 
 the indispensable condition of health and 
 purity both to the water and the air, and to 
 the populations by which they are respec- 
 tively inhabited. If we believe in Providen- 
 tial government we might rationally believe, 
 even where we did not see, that those boast- 
 ful, and even powerful, agencies are not with- 
 out their purposes prefigured, and bounded 
 too, in the counsels of God. It seems, how- 
 ever, not difficult to discern a portion of 
 those purposes ; which may have been, first, 
 to dispel the lethargy and stimulate the zeal 
 of believers ; and, secondly, to admonish 
 their faith to keep terms with reason, by 
 testing it at all its points ; lest fancy, or pride, 
 or indolence, or the intolerant spirit of sect 
 or party, should have imported into their 
 beliefs merely human elements that it may 
 be very needful to eject.
 
 288 CONCLUSION. 
 
 While leaving to the champions of nega- 
 tion their title, whatever it may be, to insist 
 on the utter blindness of belief, this at least 
 I urge upon them : they ought to under- 
 stand that it remains just as possible now as 
 it was in the early or middle ages, to uphold 
 belief in perfect good faith and with immov- 
 able conviction. In the advance of scien- 
 tific knowledge, and of the critical art, I for 
 one see much that corrects and chastens 
 what was temporary or accidental in our 
 persuasions concerning the subjects of be- 
 lief, but nothing that disintegrates or under- 
 mines the basis of belief itself; much, on 
 the contrary, that confirms it. 
 
 It is sometimes taken for granted or al- 
 leged, that religion or its champions are re- 
 duced to the necessity of defending their 
 cause only with arms which have been 
 superseded, either by the introduction of 
 forces previously unknown, or by new forms 
 of construction better adapted to their ends. 
 In a spirit which seems to fluctuate between 
 pity and a good-natured contempt, Professor 
 Huxley describes "the old-fashioned artil- 
 lery of the Churches," on the one side, and 
 " the weapons of precision," used by the 
 advancing forces of science on the other. * 
 Now let it be remembered that we have not 
 here to do with the masses of mankind, to 
 * A-ineteenth Century, July 1890, p. 22,
 
 CONCLUSION. 289 
 
 whom historical and scientific arguments, 
 whether negative or affirmative, are, and 
 probably must remain, inaccessible. We are 
 speaking of that standing army, so to call 
 it, of more or less instructed persons, who, 
 on the one side and the other, execute all 
 the fighting on behalf of the community at 
 large. Writing, then, of those within the 
 palisades of the lists, and not appealing to 
 mere numbers, I demur entirely to the state- 
 ment of Professor Huxley. I deny that the 
 weapons of belief are antiquated : I pause 
 even before admitting that those of scien- 
 tific men are always, except in their own 
 particular sciences, weapons of precision. 
 When we decline the appeal to the estab- 
 lished facts of science, or to the conclusions 
 upheld or reasonably sustained by human 
 experience through history, or when we fall 
 into the trap laid for us by Hume, and treat 
 the acceptance of our " holy religion " as a 
 matter in no way amenable to the view of 
 reason; then we may be justly charged 
 with the use of weapons never worthy, and 
 no longer serviceable. But until then, we 
 may quietly endeavor to proceed as rational 
 beings upon rational considerations. If 
 these principles have not uniformly guided 
 me in the composition of the essays I am 
 now bringing to a close (on which it is not 
 for me to judge), at least I can say that 
 19
 
 290 
 
 CONCL USION. 
 
 there has not been in any instance, even by 
 a hair's-breadth, an intentional deviation 
 from them. 
 
 The fact, however, of a strong and wide- 
 spread negative movement among impor- 
 tant and active sections of our countrymen 
 during the latter portion of this century is 
 admitted ; and now I propose to offer some 
 remarks upon its alleged or probable 
 causes. 
 
 I shall speak, first, of the detriment which 
 religion is supposed to have suffered through 
 the great and wonderful advance both of 
 science and of rational speculation, mostly 
 physical, but also critical, archaeological, and 
 historical. 
 
 Secondly, of the detriment it has suffered 
 through the exposure to the world of er- 
 roneous notions about religion, which are 
 due to believers themselves : a detriment 
 attending, in different manners and degrees, 
 either the retention, or even the abandon- 
 ment of these opinions. Such detriment 
 seems to me certain to ensue, when we up- 
 lift into the region of dogmatic truth (for 
 example) such propositions as the following. 
 I. That the material volume of the Holy 
 Scriptures, translated into our tongue, with 
 every fact and sentiment it contains, must 
 be received under the same (so to call it) 
 materialized conception, as that under which
 
 CONCL USION. 
 
 291 
 
 Mahometans are supposed to receive the 
 
 Koran, and held absolutely true ; or 2. that 
 
 there is no progression or distinction in the 
 
 ^_ inspiration to which it is to be referred ; or 
 
 ' 3, that the Adam portrayed in Scripture was 
 
 the exclusive source of the race ; or 4, that 
 
 he was furnished with large intellectual de- 
 
 * velopment and endowment. 
 
 Thirdly, I shall speak of the strength 
 which the negative movement has in my 
 opinion derived from causes greatly and 
 subtly effective, yet wholly extrinsic to 
 itself; causes, which I take to constitute its 
 principal strength. 
 
 Of the first head I might dispose very 
 briefly. I have enumerated some of the 
 great services which science has rendered, 
 and is rendering, to religion. Of the 
 damage it has inflicted I have heard much ; 
 but the allegations commonly appear to me 
 upon examination to be found untrue : in 
 some cases, like that of the first Chapter of 
 Genesis, to be not only untrue but contra- 
 dictory of the truth, inasmuch as science, 
 when just principles of interpretation are 
 called in, is found to have established what 
 it has been charged with destroying. 
 
 The nearest semblance, that has attracted 
 my notice, to palpable contradiction between 
 modern science and Holy Writ is upon the 
 statement that sin brought death into the
 
 292 
 
 COACL USION. 
 
 ivorld, whereas we now know that death was 
 antecedent to the introduction of man, and 
 therefore of sin. But in Scripture, be3'ond 
 all dispute, the word death has many senses. 
 For example, it means habitually, severance 
 of spirit from body. It means separation * 
 from God, and domination of body over 
 spirit.* It means reunion with God, and 
 domination of spirit over bod\'. f As it 
 means the soul's disease, severance from 
 God, so also it means the final consumma- 
 tion of that disease in the second death. 
 These are various senses of the term, dis- 
 persed about the Bible. How do we know 
 that St. Paul used the words in the first of 
 these and not in the second? And if he 
 had used it in the first sense, and had in- 
 tended to declare that there was no physical 
 death before the sin of Adam, how much 
 would this prove ? Only that the apostle 
 was ignorant of any pre-Adamite history 
 of the planet, and that we should have to 
 ask whether such ignorance, when proved, 
 would destroy or impair the overflowing 
 proofs that he was commissioned of God to 
 speak, and was taught of God how to speak, 
 for the salvation of the world ? 
 
 It remains, however a vital portion of our 
 duty, on the one hand, to estimate and to 
 
 * Luke i. 79; John viii. 51 ; Eph. ii. I. 
 f Col. ii. 20; iii. 3; 2 Tim. ii. II.
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 293 
 
 measure aright the differences between the 
 Divine Revelation in itself, and the subjec- 
 tive conceptions entertained and propagated 
 concerning it ; and on the other to inquire 
 pretty strictly whether the professors of 
 science are sometimes apt to push their 
 legitimate authority beyond their own 
 bounds into provinces where it becomes an 
 usurpation, and whether the weapons which 
 they hurl, are then always " weapons of 
 precision " ? 
 
 On the first of these two points, I will 
 give an illustration of my meaning from the 
 latest writings of the Achilles of the op- 
 posing army. In a very recent article^ 
 which deals chiefly with the Deluge,* Mr. 
 Huxley, in a succinct but decided way, ad- 
 ministers capital punishment also to the 
 Creation Story of Genesis. He does not 
 enter much into particulars, but he says the 
 Israelites were like all other men, curious 
 to know their origin. Now, so far as the 
 records of the past go, the cosmological 
 curiosity of the ancients appears to have 
 been comparatively small. The cosmol- 
 ogies of Babylon and Egypt hold an utterly 
 insignificant place in their systems of 
 knowledge. The Greeks, perhaps the most 
 inquisitive of men, cared little or nothing 
 for these things, through many centuries 
 
 * Nineteenth Century, July 1890, p. 21.
 
 2Q4 CONCLUSION. 
 
 after they had felt the passion of high 
 poetry and of the legends associated with it ; 
 and when their schools of philosophy arose, 
 they dealt, and this only in outline, with 
 the origin of material things, rather than 
 of men. There was no nation, I believe, ex- 
 cept the Israelites, whose cosmology held a 
 classical place in their memory and in their 
 devotions. But I am perhaps wrong in 
 arguing the question. What I ought rather 
 to point out is that while Professor Huxley is 
 fond, as he well may be, of claiming to rep- 
 resent science, his dichivi is entirely out- 
 side the sciences he represents. 
 
 Again, in the same short space he proceeds 
 to lay it down that an opinion given by Dr. 
 Riehm on the subject of the seven Mosaic 
 days (/. t\, that they are natural days) should 
 be final. We claim, however, to be, if not 
 Freethinkers, yet free thinkers. Why are 
 we to renounce the faculty of discourse, to 
 square our minds to those of Dr. Riehm, 
 to let him do the thinking for us, and to 
 accept his words as " final " ? Simply 
 because Mr. Huxley has said so. What 
 right has Professor Huxley to close this 
 question ? For the question whether the 
 Creation Story of Genesis describes solar 
 days or not, is no more a scientific question, 
 than whether Parliament should or should 
 not meet in November, or whether Shake-
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 295 
 
 speare wrote or did not write the whole of 
 " Henry the Eighth." 
 
 But I have now to ask whether the 
 weapons used by this most distinguished 
 scientist are always " weapons of precision " ? 
 On scientific grounds he condemns, as we 
 have seen, the narrative of the Deluge, and 
 pronounces it to be fabulous. One of his 
 reasons is this. The Mosaic account assigns 
 a period of one hundred and fifty days (the 
 Tablets give only seven) for the subsidence 
 of the waters. Against this statement Mr. 
 Huxley advances a dictum, of which the 
 subject-matter is unquestionably scientific. 
 He gives the length of the Mesopotamian 
 plain * at three to four hundred miles, and 
 the elevation of the higher end at five to 
 six hundred feet. Had this plain been so 
 covered with water, says Mr. Huxley, a 
 ** furious torrent " would have rushed down- 
 wards, and instead of an hundred and fifty 
 days the plain generally (this word no doubt 
 is meant to except particular hollows of the 
 ground) would have been left bare in a very 
 few hours. 
 
 Let us try this question a little more 
 nearly. If the length of the plain be 350 
 miles, and the fall 525 feet, we have a descent 
 of one foot and a half per mile ; and this 
 descent, says the Professor, would cause a 
 * Ibid. p. 15.
 
 2q6 conclusion. 
 
 furious torrent, such as would dear the 
 plain in a very few hours. Let us assume 
 twenty miles an hour as the rate of the 
 " furious torrent " ; on which assumption, 
 the plain would be bare in seventeen and a 
 half hours. I take these rates and figures 
 so as to translate approximately into definite 
 quantities Mr. Huxley's more general ex- 
 pressions. 
 
 One foot and a half per mile represents a 
 gradient of siVo. I have sought informa- 
 tion on this subject from an engineer, who 
 is in charge of a portion of one of our rivers. 
 I understand from him that a fall of one in 
 three thousand four hundred and twenty 
 would probably produce a current of about 
 two miles an hour. It may require all Pro- 
 fessor Huxley's resources to show that a 
 current of two miles an hour is a " furious 
 torrent"; or that to represent as a furious 
 torrent what is in truth an extremely slow 
 stream is to use a " weapon of precision." 
 
 My informant, indeed, adds that each 
 case has modifying circumstances of its 
 own, and must be judged by itself; but he 
 likewise tells me that if, instead of taking 
 an ordinary English river we remove the 
 banks, and suppose the stream indefinitely 
 widened, the fall remaining the same, the 
 rate of the current would be not increased 
 but slackened. Thus we seem to get farther
 
 CONCLUSION. 297 
 
 and farther from the " weapons of precision." 
 And it seems j ust possible that, after all , these 
 weapons may, like our monster guns, some- 
 times damage those who handle them, or 
 may fail to batter down so soon as is ex- 
 pected the undoubtedly ancient walls of the 
 fortress of belief* 
 
 The case to which I have last referred is 
 one of elementary hydraulics. The obliga- 
 tion to be precise may be thought to rise 
 with the elevation of the subject. If we 
 may not ask from the scientific man that 
 when he touches questions of the innermost 
 feelings of believers, and of the highest 
 destinies of man, he should be reverent, yet 
 surely we are entitled to require of him that 
 he should be circumspect; that he should 
 take reasonable care to include in his survey 
 of a case all elements which are obviously 
 essential to a right judgment upon it. 
 
 In another recent article,t Mr. Huxley 
 has touched very lofty ground indeed. He 
 selects as a crucial instance for the trial of 
 the Gospels, and with them of the character 
 of our Lord, the miracle which happened in 
 the country of the Gergesenes, or Gadarenes. 
 It is narrated, with certain variations, by 
 
 * It is not without interest to remark that, on the data 
 before us, the time required for clearing the plain would 
 be about 162 hours, or nearly seven days, the actual time 
 mentioned in the Babylonian account. 
 
 f Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1889, pp. 171, 1 72.
 
 298 CONCLUSION. 
 
 three Evangelists ; the essential point being, 
 that evil spirits, cast out from the body of a 
 demoniac, are permitted to enter into a herd 
 of swine, and that the animals rush furiously 
 into the sea. Mr. Huxley, as a physiologist, 
 disbelieves in demoniacal possession, and 
 that is the point that has commonly attracted 
 the chief share of attention in connection 
 with this miracle. Such a physiological 
 judgment it is not for me to discuss. But 
 he also very properly touches the question 
 of the injury inflicted by the destruction of 
 the swine, which was due to our Lord's per- 
 mission. Mr. Huxley observes that the 
 Evangelist has no "inkling of the legal and 
 moral difficulties of the case," and adds, the 
 devils entered into the swine " to the great 
 loss and damage of the innocent Gerasene 
 or Gadarcne pig-owners." Further, " Every- 
 thing that I know of law and justice con- 
 vinces me that the wanton destruction of 
 other people's property is a misdemeanor 
 of evil example." 
 
 So then, after eighteen centuries of wor- 
 ship offered to our Lord by the most culti- 
 vated, the most developed, and the most 
 progressive portion of the human race, it 
 has been reserved to a scientific inquirer to 
 discover that He was no better than a law- 
 breaker and an evil-doer. It is sometimes 
 said that the greatest discoveries are the
 
 CONCL USION. 
 
 299 
 
 most simple. And this, if really a dis- 
 covery, is the simplest of them all. So sim- 
 ple that he who runs may read, for it lies- 
 on the very surface of the page. The ordi- 
 nary reader can only put the wondering- 
 question, how, in such a matter, came the 
 honors of originality to be reserved to our 
 time and to Professor Huxley? 
 
 Simple as it has been from his point of 
 view, the case * is to a reflective mind a very 
 peculiar one. It offers the only occasion 
 on which our Lord exercised, or co-operated 
 in the exercise, of preternatural power for 
 the destruction of life. 
 
 It is observable that in certain instances, 
 such as that of the fig-tree, and of the ass 
 with her colt. He seems to assert Himself 
 as the universal owner. He is the Lord to 
 kill, as well as to make alive, according to 
 His wisdom. But this consideration, to 
 whatever conclusion it might lead, is of 
 what may be termed an esoteric nature, and 
 is hardly suited to an argument against the 
 negative school, who are plainly entitled to 
 raise the question of the swine as it affects 
 the rights of property. Why, then, does 
 our Lord in this instance see cause to vary 
 from the philanthropic and beneficent ten- 
 dencies, which usually mark His miraculous 
 agency ? It has been observed that the 
 * Malt. viii. 30; Mark v. 2 ; Luke viii. 31.
 
 300 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 entrance into the swine may have been per- 
 mitted, in order to certify the man or men 
 reheved of the reahtv of the crreat and 
 hardly credible deliverance vouchsafed to 
 him. And again, that the willing departure 
 of the demons may have spared the victim 
 or victims from the tortures, which it is 
 natural to suppose would have attended 
 their violent ejection. Yet something more 
 seems to be desirable in order to meet the 
 question that has just been raised. I find 
 the answer to it in the reasonable, and (as 
 it seems to me) almost necessary supposi- 
 tion, that the possession of the swine was 
 unlawful, and, therefore, was justly punish- 
 able by the ensuing loss. 
 
 The scene is described by different Evan- 
 gelists in different terms. It is the country 
 of the Gergesenes, or the country of the 
 Gadarenes. The distinction is immaterial 
 to the present purpose. It was apparently 
 part of the land of the Girgashites,* one of 
 the seven Canaanitish nations, and was sub- 
 ject, therefore, as a matter of religious obli- 
 gation, to the Mosaic law. Now that law 
 contained a prohibition to use various meats, 
 among which pork was included. But in 
 the case of swine the law went farther than 
 in other cases, and it was forbidden even to 
 to touch the carcass, f Such a prohibition 
 * Deut. vii. i. f Lev. xi. 7, 8.
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 3or 
 
 of course precluded all use whatever of the 
 animals when dead ; and it was only for use- 
 when dead that there could be any object ia 
 keeping them at all. Nor was this prohibi- 
 tion merely ceremonial. It was immediately 
 related to the health of the people, as the 
 use of pork (I am informed) produces the 
 disease called trichinosis, and I understand 
 that the veto is down to this day regarded 
 by well-informed Jews as of a serious im- 
 portance ; and is directly connected with a. 
 high sanitary condition. 
 
 It may be that the deeper counsels of 
 Providence are more implicated in tliis pro- 
 hibition, than even a less superficial reader 
 of the Gospels than Professor Huxley might 
 at first sight suppose. That calling of the 
 Hebrew people, which is set before us in 
 the Old Testament, demanded in them 
 above and beyond all other qualities the 
 quality of persistence. It may be that this 
 purpose required the constitution of the 
 race in body as well as in many points of 
 character to be raised to a point unusually 
 high. We know that man is a compound 
 being, and we know that the Mosaic code 
 took cognizance of bodily health to an ex- 
 tent quite unknown in other schemes of 
 legislation. In the Book of Exodus,* 
 reference was made to the superior forma- 
 * Ch. i. 19.
 
 302 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 tion of the Hebrew women for the great 
 office of a mother, and I am informed that 
 the modern researches of anatomists, sup- 
 porting the text, refer the fact to a physical 
 cause. I have learned enough from some 
 high medical authorities to be warranted in 
 saying that the sanitary qualities of the 
 Jewish race, even in our own time, and their 
 superior longevity, appear in no small man- 
 ner to be due to the strict observance of 
 the Mosaic law. These remarks may be 
 justifiable in connection with what I have 
 said of the description of authority, which 
 they attach to a particular prohibition. Yet 
 for the immediate purpose of the argument 
 it may suffice to have pointed out the il- 
 legality of keeping swine. 
 
 Mr. Huxley, exercising his rapid judg- 
 ment on the text, does not appear to have 
 encumbered himself with the labor of in- 
 quiring what anybody else had known or 
 said about it. He has thus missed a point 
 which might have been set up in support of 
 his accusation against our Lord, Some 
 •commentators have alleged the authority 
 of Josephus for stating that Gadara was 
 a cit}^ of Greeks rather than of Jews, from 
 "whence it might be inferred that to keep 
 swine was innocent and lawful. This is not 
 quite the place for a critical examination of 
 the matter; but I have examined it, and
 
 CONCLUSION. 303 
 
 have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no 
 reason whatever to suppose that the popu- 
 lation of Gadara, still less (if less may be) 
 the population of the neighborhood, and 
 least of all the swine-herding or lower* 
 portion of that population, were other than 
 Hebrews, bound by the Mosaic law. Now, 
 this being the case, the punishment inflicted 
 upon the owners of the swine by the per- 
 mission of our Lord, did not constitute a 
 breach, but rather a vindication of the law; 
 as a law would be vindicated if casks of 
 smuggled spirits were caught and broken 
 open after landing, and their contents wasted 
 on the ground. t 
 
 Surely if these were only possibilities, in- 
 stead of rather cogent likelihoods, they 
 should have been examined and weighed 
 before pronouncing sentence on One who, 
 apart from all other claims, must be supposed 
 •to have had some considerable reason for 
 deviating from His usually beneficent and 
 gentle methods. And, again, such hand- 
 over-head reasoning is hard to reconcile 
 
 * It is clear thnt such people could not be the owners 
 of 2000 swine. But (i) this is stated in St. Mark only \. 
 (2) it is stated in a parenthesis, whereas it would natu- 
 rally appear in the direct narrative; (3) so large a num- 
 ber suggests the error of a copyist or very possibly a 
 marginal gloss. 
 
 f For the further elucidation of this important case, I 
 have added a note at the end.
 
 304 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 either with the judicial temper, or with the 
 claim, nay the exclusive claim, to the honor 
 of using " weapons of precision." 
 
 There is yet another point of great im- 
 portance, in regard to which I desire to 
 challenge the methods pursued by some 
 critics of the Holy Scriptures ; and I can- 
 not do better than again proceed on the re- 
 cent article of Professor Huxley. He finds, 
 on the one hand, a vast mass of diversified 
 tradition, which agrees in reportinga Flood. 
 He finds that, as we draw near to that cen- 
 tral seat of civilization in Chaldaea, from 
 Avhich Abraham probably carried the He- 
 brew narrative, it unfolds largely into de- 
 tail, and that the tradition, which thus emi- 
 grated, is supported in many very remark- 
 able particulars by the history which has 
 been recorded in the Tablets. Findinsf, 
 however, in the Mosaic story various state- 
 ments which he deems to be irreconcilable- 
 with natural laws, he protests, not against 
 those particular statements, but against the 
 entire relation ; and he casts aside without 
 more ado, not only the whole tale as it is 
 given in Genesis, but the large mass of col- 
 lateral testimony, from every quarter of the 
 globe, which supports it. Is this a scientific, 
 is it a philosophical, is it altogether a 
 rational method of proceeding ? 
 
 Errors, and even great errors, may creep
 
 CONCLUSION. 305 
 
 into a true narration. This is a case where 
 the tale had, according to all appearances, 
 been carried orally for ages, perhaps for 
 very many ages, before the race that have 
 transmitted it to us had the means of giving 
 it a written form. Was it not likely that 
 some, perhaps even that much, variation of 
 particulars would creep in ? Could they be 
 shut out except by miracle, and has the 
 Christian Church ever taught us to believe in 
 such a miracle ? Is it not the fact that, as be- 
 tween the Chaldee and the Hebrew reports, 
 the essence of the story remains in absolute 
 integrity ? A divine warning, a woful preva- 
 lence of sin, a terrible inundation or deluge 
 as a punishment, the rescue of a small and 
 righteous remnant ; not only do these things 
 remain, but traditions supporting them in 
 several or in all points have descended to 
 us independently through a hundred chan- 
 nels ; and we are now asked to believe that, 
 in each of these, imagination, and imagina- 
 tion only, has been at work, and that in 
 each of them it has worked with an essen- 
 tially (though not circumstantially) identical 
 result? May not this be to substitute for a 
 great physical a greater moral miracle, and 
 are we not even in some danger of exchang- 
 ing the unaccountable for the absurd? 
 
 My conclusion, then, upon this part of 
 the subject, be it worth much or little, is 
 
 20
 
 3o6 
 
 CONCL USION. 
 
 threefold. I am grateful to science, both 
 physical and historical, for the noble services 
 it has rendered to belief by the establish- 
 ment of truths, or by the rational accept- 
 ance of propositions, in its own domain. 
 I feel that science is not responsible for 
 any errors of scientists, either in the mis- 
 construction of the Bible, or in offences 
 which their share of human frailty may 
 have led them occasionally to commit 
 against the known laws of rational discus- 
 sion. And, lastly, I am grateful both to 
 science and to scientists for having assisted, 
 or for having compelled, those who believe 
 to correct errors which, in the wantonness 
 of power, they may too long have cherished, 
 and to submit all their claims to free and 
 critical investigation. 
 
 The retreat from an untenable to a ten- 
 able position is in itself an unmixed good. 
 We feel that we have redressed a wrong 
 which had been done to Truth ; and we 
 breathe the more freely for the act. Still 
 there is a retribution in store for error ; and, 
 given all the conditions of human feeling, 
 thought, and action, this recession is an 
 operation of invariable danger, and, for the 
 time at least, of mixed result. Happy 
 they who accurately know, and who exactly 
 realize to themselves, in the practical part 
 of their being, what it is that they ought to
 
 CONCL US I ON. 
 
 307 
 
 abandon and what to retain, nor only to re- 
 tain, but to uphold with a determination en- 
 hanced in proportion to the difficulties of 
 the day. But in the minds of many, per- 
 haps of the greater part, the dominant sense, 
 at least for a time, will be that they have ! 
 passed trom a ground old and familiar to jf 
 one new and strange ; that they have parted 
 with something, they do not quite know • 
 how much ; that if they have been wrong 
 ■once, they may, perhaps, be wrong again. 
 And then it is so much easier to believe in 
 a volume, which the hand could grasp, than 
 to hold fast the mental conception of a 
 Revelation conveyed in that volume. True, 
 such a conception of God in the Bible, 
 which may be, but ought not to have been, 
 a new one, is strictly and solidh^ analogous 
 to the familiar, and equally indispensable, 
 conceptions of God in Nature, God in 
 Providence, God in the Christian Church 
 But these we had from our cradles; they 
 were thoroughly congenial through use- 
 To apply the same rule to the Bible is 
 really to integrate, rather than to disinte- 
 grate, the idea of our knowledge of God. 
 But there is something like the discomfort 
 •of a new habiliment to be got over ; and '■■ 
 there are the ready, sometimes, perhaps, f 
 the too ready, taunts of the adversary to be 
 endured.
 
 308 
 
 CONCL USION. 
 
 I will not dwell at large upon other diffi- 
 culties springing from errors or the incau- 
 tion of believers ; but they are grave in 
 their nature. Whenever, under the idea of 
 magnifying the grace or favor of God, we- 
 derogate from His inmiutable righteousness 
 and justice ; and whenever, in exalting the 
 unspeakable mercy of His pardon, we un- 
 hinge its inseparable alliance with a pro- 
 found and penetrating moral work in the 
 creature pardoned : then we draw down- 
 dangers upon the Christian system greater 
 far than can ever be entailed upon it by its 
 enemies. But there may be worse still than 
 this. Worse there will be, if the believer 
 in Christ holds the doctrine without giving- 
 effect to it in his life; and worst of all, if 
 while he holds it he not only is betrayed 
 into the ordinary weaknesses or excesses of 
 human nature, but forgets also, and derides 
 or disregards those primal sanctions of 
 natural morality, which vice itself is not 
 always hardened enough to discard. The 
 constitution of the family, the ties between its 
 members, the nature of the woman and of the 
 man, and the relation of each one of them to 
 himself, to that self, which is entrusted by 
 God to every one of us to study and to re- 
 vere, as well as to cleanse, to cherish, and ta 
 sanctify ; all these are regulated by laws the 
 oldest, holiest, and most profound of all..
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 309 
 
 Progress may be traced and tested by its re- 
 gard for these sacrosanct, though unwritten, 
 ordinances. According as such regard is paid 
 or not paid, we. shall know whether such 
 progress be a realty or an imposture ; and 
 Christianity itself would lose all its titles were 
 it capable of an attempt to disturb them. 
 
 In the class of difficulties thus roughly 
 suggested has been, as I believe, not, indeed, 
 a legitimate, but a powerfully operative, 
 cause for the increase of scepticism. 
 
 But the gravest portion of the case re- 
 mains. Negation is in part, and it professes 
 and believes itself to be altogether, an affair 
 of the intellect. It proclaims, for example, 
 that the reason why unbelief has (at the 
 moment) so much advanced, is that dogmas 
 like those of the Trinity, the Incarnation, 
 the Sacraments, and the future judgment 
 have become insufferable to the cultivated 
 human understanding. The conviction 
 which possesses my mind, and which I may 
 find it difficult to express in an unexcep- 
 tionable manner, is that the main operative 
 cause, which has stimulated the growth of 
 modern negation, is not intellectual but 
 moral ; and is to be found in the increased 
 and increasing dominion of the things seen 
 over the things unseen.* 
 
 * In a work of great ability just issued, and termed 
 "Scientific Theology," Mr. Barber, a civil engineer.
 
 2IO CONCLUSION. 
 
 Such a proposition may at first sight ap- 
 pear to carry an odious meaning, pharisaical 
 in the worst sense of the word ; a meaning- 
 which would provoke and might justify, an 
 angry reply. It might be interpreted as- 
 implying that the elevation of moral char- 
 acter in individuals varied with and accord- 
 ing to the amount of their dogmatic belief; 
 a proposition which in my view is untrue, 
 offensive, and even absurd. Had I ever 
 been inclined to such a conception, the ex- 
 perience of my life would long ago have 
 undeceived me. My meaning is a very dif- 
 ferent one. I speak of that which touches 
 not this or that man only, but us all. We 
 have altered the standard of wants ; we have 
 multiplied the demands of appetite ; we have 
 established a new state of social tradition, 
 of that tradition which forms and guides us, 
 apart from and antecedently to thought or 
 choice of our own. We have created a new 
 atmosphere, which we breathe into ourselves 
 and by breathing which our composition is 
 modified unawares, according to the ingre- 
 dients which that atmosphere contains. I do 
 not say that we are the creatures of what 
 
 treats (chap. iii. p. 41) the question, "Why does not re- 
 ligion reach the masses?" His conclusion is stated 
 thus : " The weak point is clearly the loss of spiritual 
 motive, and increased strength of natural motives as 
 springs of action and thought."
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 311 
 
 surrounds us, for we have power to reflect 
 upon and to control it. Yet, reflection and 
 control are exercised but little, in comparison 
 with the need for them ; and, in the absence 
 of such exercise, it is the surrounding at- 
 mosphere, it is the ordinary standard, ac- 
 cepted, and to a great extent necessarily- 
 accepted, without examination, that both 
 supplies the stock wherewith we individually 
 begin the great adventure of the world, and 
 that guides our life, except in the rare cases 
 where depravity on one side, or Christian 
 heroism on the other, causes us to adopt 
 a separate standard for ourselves. Where 
 both range only within the zone marked out 
 by fashionable opinion, it is sadly easy to 
 point out men of high virtue with little creed, 
 and men of low virtue with much creed, in 
 the discipline and conduct of their personal 
 lives respectively. And, in the region of 
 opinion, it often seems as if liberty and 
 justice among men fared quite as well with 
 the heterodox, as with the orthodox. 
 
 A large part of these grave and even ter- 
 rible anomalies is no doubt due to the fact, 
 that to each of us personally our creed has 
 come, not with the throes of struggle, sacri- 
 fice, and strong conviction, but rather, like 
 most of what we hold — an easy tenure! — 
 by descent, through others, not from our- 
 selves ; as matter of course, not of choice
 
 312 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 and effort ; so that it sits upon us like an 
 outward badge, rather than pervades us as a 
 principle and a power. 
 
 But, on the other hand, how true it will 
 be found that the sovereign tradition which 
 has filled the air is the Christian tradition. 
 This it is, which has made possible what 
 without it would have been wholly beyond 
 reach. This it is, which carries noiselessly 
 into many minds and characters those opin- 
 ions on behalf of virtue, of self-denial, and 
 of philanthropy, together with the power 
 of acting upon them, which are often found 
 so honorably to distinguish creedless men. 
 Just as many, who do not reject Christian- 
 ity, know not why or how they came to hold 
 it, so many, who have abjured Christianity, 
 know not that, in the best of their thought, 
 their nature, and their practice, they are ap- 
 propriating its fruits. What is the modern 
 word altruism ? As to its meaning, it is 
 simply the second great commandment of 
 the Christian law, which was " like unto the 
 first." As to its form, it is merely a dis- 
 guise which has been put upon a borrowed 
 idea, so that it often fails to be traced to its 
 true original. And this not by a conscious, 
 but, if the phrase may be pardoned, by an 
 unconscious fraud. We find ourselves in 
 possession of the code of Christian ethics, 
 which has gradually pervaded life, institu-
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 313 
 
 tions, manners, and has become so blended 
 with our ordinary hfe that the memory of 
 its divine origin has faded away, as though 
 it were hke the title-deed of some inherit- 
 ance which we hold by unquestioned use. 
 If we wish to know what the Christian tra- 
 dition has done for us, we must examine the 
 moral standard of nations who have differed 
 from us mainly in not having it. For ex- 
 ample, we must look to the Greeks of the 
 fifth century before Christ, or the Romans 
 at. and after .the period of the Advent, whose 
 moral degradation was not less conspicuous 
 than the intellectual splendor of the one, 
 or the constructive political genius of the 
 other. 
 
 My twofold proposition is that we have 
 before us an increased power of things seen, 
 and that this increased power implies a 
 diminishing hold upon us of things unseen. 
 The question is no new one. Throughout 
 the history of mankind, the invisible, and the 
 future which is part of the invisible, have 
 been in standing competition with what may 
 be termed the tilings of this world. 
 
 "Two ma<^nets, lieaveii and earth, allure to bliss; 
 The larger loadstone that, the nearer tliis; 
 The weak attraction of the greater fails, 
 We nod awhile, but neighborhood prevails." * 
 
 There has never been a time in human 
 * Dryden, " Hind and Panther," part iii.
 
 3H 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 history to compare with the last half century 
 in two vital respects ; the multiplication of 
 wealth, and the multiplication of the enjoy- 
 ments which wealth procures ; two things 
 separate, yet concurrent, and morally allied. 
 To take a familiar example : men (and the 
 commodities they depend on) now travel at 
 (say) one-fourth of the former cost, just 
 when they have also an enlargement of their 
 means to bear the cost of travelling. True, 
 this pervading change has gone, to an im- 
 mense extent, towards the cure of actual 
 want, and towards extending the sphere of 
 that sufficiency, that modest and humble 
 comfort, which do not at all come within the 
 scope of the present argument. But it has 
 also extended largely to the spheres of 
 leisure and of comparative affluence; and in 
 those spheres it is generally true that the 
 apparatus of enjoyment has been immensely 
 developed in small things and great, that 
 wants and appetites have grown along with 
 it, and that if " the world was too much 
 with us " when Wordsworth wrote his noble 
 sonnet, it is more with us now than it was 
 then. Obviously, almost mathematically, 
 the increased powers of worldly attraction 
 disturb the balance of our condition, unless 
 and until they are compensated by increased 
 powers of unworldly attraction and eleva- 
 tion. Whence are such compensating powers
 
 conclusion: 
 
 315 
 
 to be had ? I am afraid we can hardly say- 
 that, in the spheres now under view, there 
 has been such a growth in unworldly 
 motives and ideas, as to countervail the 
 augmented strength of worldly attachment. 
 And I apprehend that, if the unseen world 
 and the ideas belonging to it operate upon 
 us with a proportionately diminished force, 
 it follows, almost as a matter of course, that 
 creeds, which belong to that circle of unseen 
 associations, will be more dimly and there- 
 fore more feebly appreciated. Materialism 
 as a formulated system is probably not upon 
 the increase. Those who think, as I am 
 compelled to think, about the intellectual 
 calibre and capabilities of such a system, 
 will hardly include such a growth among 
 the objects of their apprehension. But the 
 power of a silent, unavowed, unconscious 
 materialism is a very different matter. I 
 think Professor Max Miiller has said that 
 without language there cannot be thought. 
 And this I suppose is true of all organized 
 and conscious thought. But there are in 
 human nature a multitude of undeveloped 
 (so to speak) embryonic forces, of impres- 
 sions receiv^ed from without, and finding a 
 congenial soil within, which never ripen to 
 maturity, or make their way into articulate 
 speech, or obtain a defined place in our 
 consciousness.
 
 3i6 CONCLUSION. 
 
 My belief is that at this moment these 
 unspoken and untested movements, not so 
 much of mind, as of appetite, or, to use a 
 milder word, propensity, pressing upon 
 mind, these not thoughts, but rudiments of 
 thought, are at work among us, and within 
 us ; and that, were they translated or ex- 
 panded into words, their sense would be no 
 more nor less than the old vulgar sense of 
 those, who in every age have held that after 
 all this world is the only world we securely 
 know ; and that the only labor that is worth 
 laboring, the only care worth caring, the 
 only joy worth enjoying, are the labor, the 
 care, the joy that begin and end with it. 
 What can be more natural (in the lower 
 sense of nature) than that among those on 
 whom this world really smiles, together 
 with the increasing gravitation towards a 
 terrestrial centre, too often a creeping palsy 
 should silently come over the inward life ? 
 And how easy it is to understand that, 
 when such a palsy has set in, a new and 
 less ungenial color is imparted to whatever 
 undermines the written Word, or the great 
 Christian tradition, or in whatever other 
 way repels, or blinds and deadens, the 
 sense of the presence of God, and silences 
 the reproaches of the voice within. So 
 that it is not either real or pretended science, 
 nor is it even the errors and excesses of
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 317 
 
 believers, illegitimately charged upon belief, 
 that form the root of the mischief. It is 
 the increased force within us of all which 
 is sensuous and worldly that furnishes 
 every sceptical argument, good, bad, or 
 indifferent, with an unseen ally, and that 
 recruits many and many a disciple of the 
 negative teaching. He indeed dreams that 
 by the free admission of doubt he is paying 
 homage to truth, when in reality he is only 
 pampering the inferior life; for he allows 
 fresh coadjutors, with unexamined creden- 
 tials, to enter and to reinforce its already 
 overweening power. Ideas in themselves 
 weak are backed by propension, which is 
 ever strong. A latent conspiracy is estab- 
 lished, and two knights ride forth together 
 to the war, one of them fairly exhibiting 
 his countenance, but the other with his 
 vizor down. 
 
 And the chain of cause and consequence 
 is something like this. The Cliristian Creed 
 generates a Christian tradition of idea and 
 conduct. Of this tradition men do not 
 disown the precepts ; they only deny the 
 parentage. And then there appears some 
 great thinker, some really venerable man, 
 who has learned to cherish piety, while he 
 discards dogma. The next order of oper- 
 ators in the field carry the worl-c a stage 
 further, and cherish morality, while they
 
 3i8 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 discard piety. And the anti-moral, anti- 
 spiritual force, that is strong even if it be 
 hidden in us all, using what is substantive 
 in the work as a cover for what is destruc- 
 tive, looks on with complacency, and swells 
 the chorus of applause. The sceptical 
 argument is in reality little more than a 
 graft, set into, and deriving its life and 
 energy mainly from, a tree stronger and 
 more enduring than itself 
 
 In thus stating my conviction that it is 
 the great world-power within us and around 
 us, which at the present time gives to scep- 
 ticism the chief part of its breadth and its 
 impetus, it will be seen that my remarks 
 have little application to the officers or the 
 soldiers of the army ; to those who really, 
 and it may be laboriously, think out subjects 
 admitted to be arduous for themselves. 
 They apply more to the camp-followers, 
 who largely outnumber both, and whose 
 voices are not less good than others to 
 swell an acclamation, as Falstaff's recruits 
 were not less good than others to fill a pit. 
 The opinions of a man are due partly to 
 himself, partly to his environment ; in the 
 thinking man mainly to himself, though 
 even he may be affected by latent influences 
 never consciously present to his thoughts; 
 mainly, sometimes wholly, to environment 
 in those who do not think ; and environ-
 
 CONCL US I ON. 
 
 319 
 
 ment, I need hardly say, includes the idols 
 and the fancies, the shadows and the phan- 
 toms, of the passing day. 
 
 I must, however, in drawing these obser- 
 vations to a close, for a moment change my 
 tone. In their nature apologetic, they 
 themselves require an apology ; and an 
 apology, too, which is also in the nature 
 of protest. They are intended to meet, so 
 far as they go, a state of things peculiar 
 and perhaps without example, in which 
 multitudes of men call into question the 
 foundations of our religion and the pre- 
 rogatives of our sacred books, without any 
 reference to either their capacity or their 
 opportunities for so grave an undertaking. 
 In other matters, qualification must be 
 known or shown ; in religion, it is taken for 
 granted. 
 
 We have to bring equally into view, on 
 the one side and on the other, two great 
 propositions. On the one hand, the Chris- 
 tian religion stands on the foundation of free 
 and intelligent assent. On the other hand 
 every man, whatever be his position, founds, 
 and reasonably, nay, necessarily founds, the 
 actions and experiences of his life principally 
 upon trust. Upon trust, no doubt, which is 
 both intelligent and free; but still upon 
 trust. Upon trust, sometimes in particular 
 individuals, sometimes upon traditions which
 
 320 CONCLUSION. 
 
 are, in a narrower or wider sphere, the tra- 
 ditions of his race. Every one acting a re- 
 sponsible part in the world, be it great or 
 small, and be it acted with or without con- 
 sciousness of its character, is continually 
 working for others as well as for himself; 
 is establishin<j and verif\-in<7 on behalf of 
 others, and in lieu of others, intellectual 
 conclusions or material facts, which are 
 needful for human life, but which the con- 
 ditions of human life do not permit men in 
 each case to establish and verify for them- 
 selves. Still, to establish and verif)' for our- 
 selves is best. Independent knowledge is 
 to be preferred where, and as, it can be had. 
 The limiting law is found in capacity and 
 in opportunity. Where we cannot, and this 
 is often, let us refuse to seek refuge in the 
 falsehood of a pretended or supposed ex- 
 amination. 
 
 But it seems to be beyond doubt that, 
 more perhaps in these days than of old, 
 numbers both of women and of men ques- 
 tion the religion delivered to them from of 
 old without, or in excess of, both capacit}' 
 and opportunity. The turn and training of 
 the mind, the nature of callings and pur- 
 suits, make it for some of us reasonable and 
 necessary to put the great historic revela- 
 tion on its trial as to its evidences of fact 
 and doctrine, and its relation to the char-
 
 CONCLUSION. 321 
 
 acter and condition of man. This search- 
 ing process is in itself thoroughly normal ; 
 and its application to the subject-matter, 
 and the commonly affirmative results of such 
 application, through so many ages and in 
 minds so many and so great, have continu- 
 ally added force to the authority with which 
 the Gospel lays claim to our assent and our 
 obedience. 
 
 As to the mass of mankind, however, 
 reason teaches that the presumption is for 
 each man in favor of that which he has re- 
 ceived, until he has found solid cause to 
 question it. This is the rule taught by 
 common sense, and established in common 
 life. It is doubt, and not belief, of the 
 things received, which ought in all cases to be 
 put upon its defence, and to show its creden- 
 tials : credentials, not necessarily in terms of 
 demonstration, but of rational likelihood. 
 But untested doubt, which often makes a 
 lodgment in our minds, is a tenant without 
 a title, a dangerous and in the main an un- 
 lawful guest. It assumes unawares, and in 
 default of examination, the attitude of dem- 
 onstrated negation. It paralyzes action ; it 
 casts into the shade the sense of duty, and 
 of the Divine presence encompassing us in 
 all our ways ; and it reduces the pulse of 
 our moral health. Doubt may emancipate 
 us. Or it may enslave us. But it must be 
 
 21
 
 222 CONCLUSION. 
 
 either a friend or an enemy : it cannot be a 
 neutral. And those doubts, which cannot 
 be tested, ought not to be entertained as 
 having a title to affect conduct or belief. 
 And such inquiries as, from being inade= 
 quate, are illusor)^ are but fresh forms of 
 temptation from the path of dut}". Inquiry 
 should be undertaken as a solemn duty, 
 when it can be made the subject of effect- 
 ive prosecution. But if we have not the 
 means of effective prosecution, the so-called 
 inquiry is a pretence and an imposture; 
 and, under its name, we become the mere 
 victims of assumptions due to prejudice, 
 to fashion, to propensity, to appetite, to 
 the insidious pressure of the world-power, 
 to temptation in every one of its Pro- 
 tean shapes. The universal vocation of man 
 is for each to regulate his own proper 
 conduct in his own proper sphere. A noble 
 task for all, but even this an arduous task ; 
 a task so arduous, that none can perform it 
 in perfection. Duty does not require us to 
 arrive at conclusions on 
 
 "Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," 
 
 much less on the yet deeper and darker 
 speculations which lie bc}-ond, and wliicl), so 
 far as they are formidable, all run up into 
 one single, one perhaps impenetrable prob- 
 lem, the presence and action of evil in
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 323 
 
 the world. The Christian faith and the 
 Holy Scriptures arm us with the means of 
 neutralizing and repelHng the assaults of 
 evil in and from ourselves. That is a prac- 
 tical answer. Mist may rest upon the sur- 
 rounding landscape, but our own path is 
 visible from hour to hour, from day to day. 
 
 " I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me." 
 
 Speculation, which is purposeless, becomes 
 irreverent; and irreverent speculation on 
 the doings and designs of God, by those 
 who believe in Him, is itself a sin. To 
 leave the duty of governing conduct, to 
 which every one of us is called, for other 
 functions to which we are not called, unless 
 the power of following them reasonably 
 guarantees our vocation for the work, is 
 morally to pass from food to famine. It is 
 as if one who possesses a piece or two of 
 crockery full of cracks, should announce 
 that he desires to give a sumptuous banquet 
 to the neighborhood. 
 
 But besides acknowledging that the 
 proper pre-conditions of legitimate inquiry 
 are adequate capacity and adequate oppor- 
 tunity, and deploring the course of those 
 who treat naked and unreasoned doubt 
 as casting a burden of proof upon belief, 
 we must bear in mind that religious inquiry.
 
 324 
 
 CONCL US/ON. 
 
 thougli it may raise conflicting issues, is not 
 like a suit between parties who meet upon 
 equal terms, or the conflict of Emperors 
 warring for a territory in dispute. Our 
 Saviour astonished tlie people because, in- 
 stead of being lost in the mazes of arbitrary 
 and vicious excrescences, that darkened the 
 face of religion. He taught them " with 
 authority, and not -as the scribes." Taught 
 them with authority, that is to say, with the 
 title to command, and with the force of 
 command. If God has : ' ^en us a revela- 
 tion of His will, whether i the laws of our 
 nature, or in a kingdom of grace, that revela- 
 tion not only illuminates, but binds. Like 
 the credentials of an earthly ambassador, it 
 is just and necessary that the credentials of 
 that revelation should be tested. But if it 
 be found genuine, if we have proofs of its 
 being genuine equal to those of which, in the 
 ordinary concerns of life, reason acknowl- 
 edges the obligatory character, then we find 
 ourselves to be not independent beings 
 engaged in an optional inquiry, but the ser- 
 vants of a Master, the pupils of a Teacher, 
 the children of a Father, and each of us 
 already bound with the bonds which those 
 relations imply. Then head and knee must 
 bow before the Eternal, and the Divine will 
 must be embraced and followed by man
 
 CONCLUSIOX. 
 
 325 
 
 witli all his heart, with all his mind, with all 
 his soul, and with all his strength. 
 
 I have yet one more closing word. I 
 have desired to make this humble offering 
 at the shrine of Christian belief in general, 
 and have sought wholly to avoid the ques- 
 tions which concern this or that particular 
 form of it. For there is a common cause, 
 which warrants and requires common 
 efforts. Far be from me the intention here- 
 by to undervalue particular beliefs. I have 
 not intentionally said a word to disparage 
 an)' of them. It will in my view be an 
 evil day, and a day of calamity, when men 
 are tempted, even by the vision of a holy 
 object, to abate, in any region or in the 
 smallest fraction, the authority of conscience, 
 or to forget that the supreme title and the 
 supreme efficacy of truth lie in its integrity. 
 
 Note on the Gadarene Miracle. 
 
 [The miracle of the possessed Gadarene, 
 or Gergesene, raises in so pointed a form 
 the question of demoniacal possession gen- 
 erally, that it has supplied the central point 
 in the discussion of the case, and that other 
 points, less salient on the surface, have 
 received a smaller share of attention than 
 they deserve.
 
 2 26 conclusion: 
 
 The question may of course fairly be 
 put, whether the movement of the devils by 
 permission into the swine involved an in- 
 justice to an innocent owner, which would 
 not be at all in harmony with the usually 
 beneficent character of our Lord's ministry, 
 and especially of His miracles. 
 
 Both Bishop Wordsworth * in his Com- 
 mentary and Archbishop Trench refer to 
 Joseph us. The Bishop says, " Gadara is 
 mentioned by Josephus as a Greek city, and 
 hence the swine." I am, however, under 
 the impression that both these excellent 
 authors may have insufficiently examined 
 the effect of the passages in Josephus, which 
 relate to the subject. These, so far as I 
 know, are three in number, and are found 
 in the "Antiq. Jud.," xvii. 13, 4, and the 
 " De Bello Jud.," iii. 7. I, and iv. 7, 3. In 
 the first-named of these Jo.sephus un- 
 doubtedly says that Gadara was, like Gaza 
 and Hippos, a Greek c\X.y, HcUciiis polls ; 
 but he explains his meaning by adding, that 
 these cities had been taken by the Roman 
 authority out of the Diocese of Jerusalem, 
 and added to that of Syria. The sense 
 seems to be not that these cities were in^ 
 habited by a Greek population, but that 
 they had politically been taken out of Judaea 
 and added to Syria, which I presume 
 
 * In W., and Trench on Ihe Miracles, p. 185.
 
 CONCLUSION. 327 
 
 was classified as simply Hellenic, a portion 
 of the great Greek Empire erected by 
 Alexander. As to the population of Gadara, 
 the passage " De Bello Jud.," iii. 7, i, ap- 
 pears absolutely to prove that it was a 
 Jewish and not a Greek population ; while 
 Josephus also specifies, in " De Bello Jud.," 
 iv. 7, 3, that many of the inhabitants were 
 wealthy. For he mentions, in iii. 7, I, that 
 when Vespasian took the city he caused all 
 the adult males to be put to death, and that 
 he did this partly on account of a particular 
 misdeed, but partly {jnisei ton ethnous) out 
 of hatred towards the nation or race, evi- 
 dently the Jewish nation, not possibly the 
 Greek. The testimony of Josephus, there- 
 fore, does nothing to cast a doubt upon the 
 natural, and in the absence of counter- 
 evidence necessary, supposition that our 
 Lord in this case had to deal with Hebrews, 
 the ordinary subjects of His ministry, bound 
 to the law of Moses, and on this occasion, 
 as it would seem, justly punished for in- 
 fringing it. 
 
 Hudson, in his commentary on Josephus, 
 "Antiq. Jud.," xvii. 13, 4, gives a strong 
 opinion, with his reasons, that Gadara is a 
 wrong reading, and that we ought to read 
 Gerasa. If he is right, the presumption 
 founded on the phrase Hellenis polls at once 
 disappears.]
 
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