LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIKT OF" 
 
 Qultf. JAlJ, &>. /3tJsrbi 
 
 Received , 190 
 
 Accession No. o/wbt) / . Class No. 
 
HISTORICAL EVIDENCES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
* 
 
 V 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Witness of Ancient Monuments to the Old Testament 
 
 Scriptures. By A. H. Sayce, M. A 5 
 
 The Vitality of the Bible. By Rev. W. G. Blaikie, D. D., LL. D. 57 
 
 Present State of the Christian Argument from Prophecy. By 
 
 Principal Cairns, D. D., LL. D in 
 
 The Origin of the Hebrew Religion. An Inquiry and an 
 
 Argument. By Rev. Eustace R. Conder, D. D. 179 
 
 The Bible Tested ; or, Is it the Book for To-day and for the 
 
 World? By Jacob Chamberlain, M. D., D. D 235 
 
 The Old Testament Vindicated. By Rev. T. W. Chambers, 
 
 D. D 283 
 
 8269 
 
 .-.. 
 
THE WITNESS 
 
 OF 
 
 ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. H. SAYCE, M. A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FRESH LIGHT FROM THE MONUMENTS," "ASSYRIAN 
 GRAMMAR," ETC. 
 
ARGUMENT OF THE TRACT. 
 
 THE credibility of Scripture has been assailed since the 
 beginning of the present century on the ground that the narra- 
 tives contained in it are not contemporaneous with the events 
 they profess to record, i, because they represent an incredi- 
 ble amount of civilization as existing in the ancient Eastern 
 world, and are inconsistent with the accounts of classical wri- 
 ters ; and, 2, because writing was little known or practised by 
 the Jews at so early a period. It is shown that both these ar- 
 guments are overthrown by the discovery and decipherment 
 of the ancient monuments of Egypt and Western Asia, which 
 prove the minute accuracy of the Biblical accounts and the 
 prevalence of books and readers in early times. 
 
 Wherever the Biblical history comes into contact with that 
 of its powerful neighbors, and can thus be tested by the con- 
 temporaneous monuments of Egypt and Assyro-Babylonia, 
 it is confirmed and illustrated even in the smallest details. 
 Typical examples of this are taken from the monuments of 
 Babylonia, Egypt, and Assyria. The extraordinary fidelity 
 of the Biblical narrative to facts which had been utterly for- 
 gotten long before the classical era is further illustrated by 
 the recovery of the great Hittite Empire, to which there are 
 hitherto unsuspected allusions in the Old Testament. 
 
 The discovery of the Moabite Stone, and more especially 
 the Siloam inscription, prove that the Jews in the age of the 
 Kings were well acquainted with the art of writing on parch- 
 ment or papyrus. And since the Babylonians possessed libra- 
 ries, and were a literary people, there is no reason why Abra- 
 ham and his descendants should not also have been able to 
 read or write. 
 
 Modern exploration and research, consequently, have 
 shown, i, that the picture of Oriental history presented in the 
 Old Testament is strictly consonant with the facts wherever 
 it can be tested by contemporaneous monuments ; and, 2, that 
 the art of writing was practised by the Israelites at an early 
 date. Hence the argument against the contemporary char- 
 acter of the Old Testament records falls to the ground, and 
 with it the argument against their historical credibility. This, 
 on the other hand, is confirmed by their agreement in details 
 with the contents of the inscriptions. 
 
WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 
 
 EVER since the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury the historical credibility of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures has been bitterly assailed. The 
 methods that have been employed for resolving 
 the earlier history of Greece and Rome into myth 
 and legend have been turned against the ancient 
 history of the Jewish race. Every effort has been 
 made to show that the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment are a farrago of documents and interpola- 
 tions of various ages, few of which, however, are 
 contemporaneous with the events they profess to 
 record. The events themselves have been treated 
 as the products of distorted tradition or romance, 
 or else assigned a purely mythical origin. Che- 
 dorlaomer and his allies have been transformed 
 into solar heroes, the twelve sons of Jacob into 
 
8 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 the twelve zodiacal signs, and the conquest of 
 Canaan by Joshua into the daily struggle of night 
 and dawn. This skeptical criticism has rested on 
 two main assumptions: firstly, that writing was 
 unknown or but little used in Palestine until 
 shortly before the Babylonish Exile ; and, sec- 
 ondly, that the notices of foreign countries in the 
 Old Testament implied an inconceivable amount 
 of civilization in the ancient Hast, and were in- 
 consistent with the accounts handed down by 
 classical historians. 
 
 The same half-century, however, which has 
 witnessed these assaults on the Old Testament 
 has also witnessed the discovery and decipher- 
 ment of monuments which belong to Old Testa- 
 ment times. At the very moment when the as- 
 sailants of Scripture had adopted new methods of 
 attack which could no longer be met by the old 
 modes of defence, God \vas raising up unexpected 
 testimonies to the truth of Biblical history. The 
 ancient civilizations of Egypt, of Babylonia, and 
 of Assyria now lie outspread before us as fully 
 and clearly as the civilization of imperial Rome. 
 Sennacherib and Tiglath-pileser, Nebuchadnez- 
 zar and Cyrus, speak to us, as it w r ere, face to face, 
 and tell us in their own words the story of the 
 deeds in which they themselves took part ; and 
 we can trace the very forms of the letters in which 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 9 
 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah recorded their prophecies. 
 The stones have cried out on behalf of the "ora- 
 cles of God," and have shown that the pictures 
 of ancient history given in the old Testament are 
 such as only contemporaries could have drawn, 
 and that books and the art of writing were almost 
 as well known to the age of He^ekiah as they are 
 to the England of to-day. 
 
 To prove this we will first take a few typical 
 examples from the monuments of the chief na- 
 tions of the ancient Bast which illustrate the lead- 
 ing periods of Old Testament history, and then 
 point out how utterly mistaken is the idea that 
 the people over whom David and Hezekiah ruled 
 were illiterate. 
 
 The fourteenth chapter of Genesis contains an 
 account of an expedition against Palestine made 
 by Chedorlaonier, king of Elam, and his allies, 
 one of whom was Amraphel, king of Shinar, or 
 Southern Babylonia. The account has been con- 
 demned as unhistorical, partly because a Babylo- 
 nian campaign against a distant country like 
 Palestine was held to be incredible at so early a 
 period, partly because a king of Blam appears as 
 leader of the invading army. But recent discov- 
 eries have shown that the whole account is in 
 strict accordance with the actual fact. lyong be- 
 fore the days of Abraham we find from the nion- 
 
10 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 uments that the Babylonian kings carried their 
 arms as far as Palestine, and even crossed over 
 into the island of Cyprus, while one of them 
 claims to have conquered the Sinaitic Peninsula. 
 At the period, moreover, to which we must refer 
 the life of Abraham, Babylonia was in subjection 
 to Blam, and was divided into two States, the 
 southern of which was called Sumer or Shinar. 
 The very name of Chedorlaomer can be shown to 
 be of Elamite origin. Lagamar was an Blamite 
 deity, and Kudur (or chedor\ in the language of 
 Elam, meant "servant." Bricks are now in the 
 British Museum stamped with the inscriptions of 
 another Klamite prince, Kudur-Mabuk, u the ser- 
 vant of Mabuk," whose name is formed precisely 
 the same way as that of Chedor-laomer. From 
 these we learn that he had conquered Babylonia, 
 and that his son Eri-Aku ruled at Larsa. Now 
 Eri-Aku is letter for letter the same name as Ari- 
 och, and L,arsa may be identified with Ellasar, 
 the city of which we are told in Genesis that Ari- 
 och was king. Here, therefore, where the book 
 of Genesis touches upon Babylonian history, con- 
 temporaneous monuments prove that its state- 
 ments are faithful to the most minute details. 
 
 Just as the life of Abraham touches upon Bab- 
 ylonian history, so the Exodus brings us into con- 
 tact with Egyptian history. The expulsion of 
 
TO THE) OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. II 
 
 the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, in whose time the 
 children of Israel had come into Egypt, brought 
 with it the rise of a new king, u who knew not 
 Joseph," and of a dynasty hostile to all those who 
 had been favored by the Hyksos princes, or were 
 of Asiatic origin. The oppression culminated in 
 the long reign of Rameses II. , for whom the Israel- 
 ites built the cities of Raamses and Pithom. Dr. 
 Brugsch has shown that the city of Rameses, or 
 Raamses, was the name given to Zoan or Tanis, 
 the old capital of the Hyksos, after its reconstruc- 
 tion by Rameses II., and the city of Pithom was 
 discovered only two years ago in the mounds of 
 Tel el-Maskhuta. Tel el-Maskhuta is near the 
 now famous site of Tel el-Kebir, and was called 
 Pa-Turn, the city of " the Setting Sun," by the 
 Egyptians. Inscriptions found on the spot prove 
 that it was built by Rameses II., and was intend- 
 ed for a " storehouse ' ' of corn or treasure. The 
 store-chambers themselves have been laid bare. 
 They are very strongly constructed, and are di- 
 vided by partitions from eight to ten feet thick. 
 The bricks, like most of those found in Egypt, 
 have been baked in the sun, some of them being 
 mixed with straw, and others not. As the dis- 
 coverer, M. Naville, has observed, we may see in 
 these strawless bricks the work of the oppressed 
 people when the order came: "Thus saith the 
 
12 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 Pharaoh, I -will not give you straw." The Pha- 
 raoh of the Exodus, however, must have been the 
 son of Rameses, Meneptah II. , whose reign lasted 
 but a short time. It was full of trouble and dis- 
 aster. In his fifth year Northern Egypt was over- 
 run and devastated by a great invasion of the 
 Libyans, which was with difficulty repulsed ; 
 while three years later a body of Bedouins made 
 its way from Edom to the land of Goshen along 
 part of the very road which the Israelites must 
 have traversed. The official report of the migra- 
 tion states that they had passed ' ' through the 
 fortress of Khetam, which is situated in Thuku 
 (or Succoth), to the lakes of the city of Pithom, 
 which are in the land of Succoth, in order that 
 they might feed themselves and their herds on 
 the possessions of the Pharaoh." Khetam seems 
 to be the Etham of Scripture. Exod. 13 : 20. 
 
 As Egypt declined, the kingdom of Assyria 
 grew in power ; and it was with Assyria rather 
 than with Egypt that later Israelitish history had 
 to do. Illustrations and confirmations of Holy 
 Writ have poured in abundantly upon us during 
 the last few years from the mounds and ruins of 
 Assyria, and more especially from the sculptured 
 stones and clay books of the Assyrian capital, 
 Nineveh. At first it was objected that the system 
 of interpreting the Assyrian monuments could 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 13 
 
 not be correct, since "they would never have so 
 largely concerned themselves, as they were rep- 
 resented as doing, with a petty and obscure king- 
 dom like that of Judah;" but now that no doubt 
 any longer hangs over the decipherment of the 
 inscriptions, it is found that they "concerned 
 themselves" with Judah and Israel even more 
 than was originally suspected. From the time of 
 Jehu downwards the Assyrian kings were brought 
 into frequent contact and intercourse with the 
 people of Samaria and Jerusalem ; and the records 
 they have left us not only confirm the statements 
 of the Old Testament, but also throw light on 
 many passages which have hitherto been ob- 
 scure. 
 
 " Akhabbu of Sirla," or Ahab of Israel, is the 
 first king of Samaria mentioned in the Assyrian 
 texts. He brought 2,000 chariots and 10,000 
 men to the help of Hadadezer, or Ben-hadad II., 
 of Damascus, and his allies, in a great battle 
 against the Assyrians at Karkar or Aroer. This 
 battle must have taken place shortly before his 
 death and after the conclusion of the alliance be- 
 tween Ahab and Ben-hadad which is recorded in 
 i Kings 20:34. Hadadezer's successor was Kha- 
 zail, or Ha^ael, according to the Bible as well as 
 the Assyrian monuments. Hazael was defeated 
 by the Assyrian monarch, who, after a vain at- 
 
14 WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 tempt to capture Damascus, marched to the 
 shores of the Mediterranean and there received 
 the tribute of u Yahua, the son of Khumri." 
 Yahua is Jehu, and Khumri Omri, though in 
 calling Jehu his son the Assyrians were misin- 
 formed, as he was only Omri's successor. Omri, 
 however, had been the founder of Samaria, which 
 is frequently termed Beth-omri, or "House of 
 Omri," in the inscriptions, and any prince who 
 came after him might well be supposed by a 
 stranger to have been his descendant. The trib- 
 ute-bearers of Jehu can still be seen sculptured 
 on a small black obelisk brought from the ruins 
 of Calah by Sir A. H. Layard, and now in the 
 British Museum. They carry with them bars of 
 gold and silver, a golden vase and a golden spoon, 
 besides cups and goblets of gold, pieces of lead, a 
 sceptre, and precious woods. Their features are 
 those which even now characterize the Jewish 
 race, and their fringed robes descend to their an- 
 kles. 
 
 After the time of Jehu the Assyrian monu- 
 ments are silent for some time about affairs in 
 the West. Rimmon-nirari, however, a king who 
 reigned from B. C. 810 to 781, reduced Damascus 
 to a condition of vassalage, and thus prevented it 
 for a time from being dangerous to its neighbors. 
 This explains the successes of Jeroboam II. 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 15 
 
 against the Syrians. He was a contemporary of 
 Rimmon-nirari, and "restored the coast of Israel 
 from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the 
 plain, according to the word of the Lord God of 
 Israel, which he spake by the hand of his ser- 
 vant Jonah, which was of Gath-hepher. " 3 
 Kings 14:25. 
 
 The dynasty to which 'Rimmon-nirari be- 
 longed was overthrown by a rebellion at the head 
 of which was a military adventurer named Pul, 
 who usurped the throne under the name of Tig- 
 lath-pileser II., in April, B. C. 745. He founded 
 the second Assyrian Empire, and introduced a 
 new system of policy into the East. He and his 
 successors aimed at uniting the whole of Western 
 Asia into a single State. For this purpose they 
 not only made extensive conquests, but also or- 
 ganized and consolidated them under governors 
 appointed by the Assyrian king. Hence it is 
 that from this time forward Palestine was ex- 
 posed to continual attacks on the part of Assyria. 
 Its princes were made tributary, and when they 
 attempted to rebel were punished with death or 
 exile and the captivity of their people. Tiglath- 
 pileser is the first Assyrian monarch mentioned 
 in the Old Testament, because, as we now learn 
 from the monuments, he was the first who led his 
 armies against the Israelites. 
 
l6 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 According to 2 Kings 15:29, "In the days of 
 Pekah, king of Israel, came Tiglath-pileser, king 
 of Assyria, and took Ijon and Abel-beth-maachah 
 and Janoah and Kedesh and Hazor and Gilead 
 and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried 
 them captive to Assyria." 
 
 Tiglath-pileser, on his side, tells us in an in- 
 scription, which is unfortunately much mutilated, 
 that in his eleventh year, B. C. 734, he marched 
 against the West; and, after overrunning some of 
 the Phoenician States, captured the towns of Gil- 
 ead and Abel-beth-maachah, "which belonged to 
 the land of Beth-omri," and annexed the whole 
 district to Assyria, setting Assyrian governors 
 over it. He then goes on to describe his con- 
 quest of Gaza, and adds, ' ' Some of the inhabi- 
 tants of the land of Beth-omri, with their goods, I 
 carried to Assyria. Pekah, their king,' I put to 
 death; I raised Hosea to the sovereignty over 
 them." This shows that the conspiracy against 
 Pekah described in 2 Kings 15:30 was carried 
 out under the protection and with the help of the 
 Assyrian king. 
 
 Tiglath-pileser, under his original name of 
 Pul, had already made himself known to the 
 Israelites. Menahem had become his tributary 
 and had given him ".a thousand talents of silver, 
 that his hand might be with him to confirm the 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. \J 
 
 kingdom in his hand." 2 Kings 15:19. This 
 event also is referred to by Tiglath-pileser in his 
 annals, where he states that in B. C. 739 he re- 
 ceived tribute from "Menahem of Samaria" and 
 "Rezin of Damascus." 
 
 Resin was the last king of Damascus. Isaiah 
 had prophesied that Damascus and its sovereign 
 should speedily fall, and in 2 Kings 16 we are 
 told how this came about. Aim, attacked by the 
 confederate armies of Pekah and Resin, called in 
 the powerful aid of Tiglath-pileser, and purchased 
 his assistance with the gold and silver of the tem- 
 ple and the royal palace. Then u the king of 
 Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, 
 and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and 
 slew Resin." We can now read the history of 
 the campaign at greater length on the monuments 
 of the Assyrian king himself. After receiving 
 the Jewish bribe, we learn that he marched into 
 Syria in B. C. 734. Resin was defeated in bat- 
 tle, his chariots destroyed, his officers captured 
 and impaled, while he himself escaped to Damas- 
 cus, where he was closely besieged. The Syrian 
 territory was swept with fire and sword, the six- 
 teen districts into which it was divided were 
 "overwhelmed as with a flood," and the beauti- 
 ful trees and gardens surrounding the town were 
 cut down and destroyed. Damascus, however, 
 
1 8 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 proved too strong to be taken by assault; so leav- 
 ing a force before it to reduce it by famine, 
 Tiglath-pileser overran the northern part of Isra- 
 el, and, as we have seen, carried away the inhab- 
 itants of Gilead and Naphtali. He then entered 
 Samaria, and placed Hosea on the throne; and 
 subsequently returned to Damascus, which fell in 
 B. C. 732, after a siege of two years. Rezin was 
 put to death and a great court held, at which the 
 subject princes of the neighboring countries pre- 
 sented themselves with gifts. Among them was 
 Jehoahaz of Judah, whom the Biblical writers 
 call Ahas, omitting the sacred name of the God 
 of Israel from the name of a king who was un- 
 worthy to bear it. It was when Ahaz was at 
 Damascus that he saw the altar the pattern of 
 which he sent to Urijah the priest. 
 
 Not the least of the services rendered to stu- 
 dents of the Old Testament by the decipherment 
 of the Assyrian inscriptions is the restoration of 
 the true chronology of the Israelite and Jewish 
 kings. As is well known, this chronology has 
 long been the despair of historians, and the most 
 contradictory schemes for reducing it to order 
 have been confidently put forward. The Assyri- 
 ans reckoned time by the names of certain officers 
 w4io were changed from year to year, and corre- 
 sponded with the eponymous archons of ancient 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. IQ 
 
 Athens. Lists of these Assyrian officers have 
 been preserved, extending from B. C. 909 to the 
 closing days of the monarchy, and we can thus 
 accurately fix the dates of the various events 
 which marked the terms of office of the successive 
 eponymes. In this way some difficulties which 
 formerly obscured the chronology of the books of 
 Kings may be cleared away. 
 
 Tiglath-pileser died, it appears, B. C. 727, and 
 the crown was usurped by Elulseos, who took the 
 name of Shalmaneser IV. He carried Hosea 
 into captivity and laid siege to Samaria, as we 
 are told in the Bible. "The king of Assyria, " 
 however, who actually captured Samaria was 
 not Shalmaneser, but his successor Sargon, who 
 seized the throne after Shalmaneser' s death, ap- 
 parently B. C. 722. Immediately afterwards 
 Samaria fell; and Sargon informs us that 27,280 
 of its inhabitants were sent into exile, and an 
 Assyrian governor set over it who was ordered 
 to raise each year the same amount of tribute as 
 that which had been paid by Hosea. The small 
 number of persons carried captive shows that 
 only the upper classes were transported from 
 their homes, as was the case with the Jews who 
 were carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar along 
 with Jehoiachin; the poorer portion of the popu- 
 lation, who were not considered responsible for 
 
20 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 the revolt from Assyria, being allowed to remain. 
 The exiles were settled on the banks of the Habor 
 or Khabur, a river which falls into the Euphra- 
 tes, and flows from a country called Gozan by the 
 Assyrians, as well as in the cities of the Medes. 
 These had been conquered by Sargon, and their 
 old inhabitants sent elsewhere. 
 
 Sargon' s name occurs but once in the Old 
 Testament, Isa. 20:1, and as no trace of it could 
 be found in classical writers it was objected to as 
 fictitious. Now, however, we find that Sargon, 
 the father of Sennacherib, was one of the greatest 
 monarchs who ever ruled over Assyria, and that 
 his reign lasted as long as seventeen years. The 
 event referred to by Isaiah, when the Tartan or 
 commander-in-chief was ordered to invest Ash- 
 dod, is recorded in Sargon' s annals, and formed 
 part of the history of a campaign which has 
 thrown new and unexpected light upon certain 
 passages of Scripture. 
 
 The prophecy contained in the tenth chapter 
 of Isaiah has been alleged to be contrary to fact 
 and to have never been fulfilled. When Sen- 
 nacherib invaded Judaea he did not march upon 
 Jerusalem from the northeast, as Isaiah describes 
 the Assyrians as doing, but from the southwest; 
 while Jerusalem was not captured, as Isaiah im- 
 plies would be the case. Indeed the whole spirit 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 21 
 
 of the prophecy delivered by Isaiah when Sen- 
 nacherib threatened the city, Isa. 37, is in stri- 
 king contrast to that contained in the tenth chap- 
 ter. If we turn to another prophecy, Isa. 22, we 
 shall find a picture placed before our eyes which 
 is even more inconsistent with what we know 
 about the campaign of Sennacherib. Here Jeru- 
 salem is described as being worn out with a long 
 siege; its defenders are dying of famine; the As- 
 syrians are at its gates; and the prophet declares 
 that it is about to fall. As long as it was thought 
 necessary to refer these prophecies to the invasion 
 of Sennacherib, they were hopelessly irreconcila- 
 ble with the real facts. 
 
 But all difficulties have now been removed 
 and the accuracy of Scripture thoroughly vindi- 
 cated. We gather from the Assyrian monuments 
 that ten years before the invasion of Judah by 
 Sennacherib there had been a previous invasion 
 by his father Sargon. A Chaldaean chief named 
 Merodach-baladan had made himself king of 
 Babylon on the death of Shalmaneser, and suc- 
 ceeded for some years in maintaining himself 
 against his dangerous neighbor, the Assyrian 
 king. As Sargon, however, became more and 
 more powerful, Merodach-baladan began to make 
 endeavors to form a vast league against him. 
 Ambassadors were sent for the purpose to Elam 
 
22 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 on the east, and to Egypt, Judah, and other Syr- 
 ian States on the west. We learn from the Bible 
 that Hezekiah's recent recovery from illness 
 formed the pretext for their visit to him. The 
 league was formed; but before its members had 
 time to act in concert Sargon became aware of 
 it, and at once inarched against Palestine. * ' Tlie 
 widespreading land of Judah ;) was overrun and 
 its capital taken ; Ashdod, which had been a cen- 
 tre of disaffection, was razed to the ground, the 
 Moabites and Edomites were punished, and the 
 Egyptian king was prevented from coming to the 
 help of his allies. It was this invasion of Judah 
 and this capture of Jerusalem to which Isaiah re- 
 fers in the tenth and twenty-second chapters of 
 his prophecies; and the Biblical statements are 
 thr;s shown to be an exact representation of the 
 actual facts. In the following year (B. C. 710) 
 Sargon turned upon Merodach - baladan. The 
 Elamites were defeated, Babylon was taken, and 
 the Chaldaean prince driven to the marshes at the 
 head of the Persian Gulf, while Sargon pro- 
 claimed himself king of Babylonia. 
 
 Sargon was murdered by his soldiers, and suc- 
 ceeded by his son Sennacherib, who mounted 
 the throne on the i2th of Ab or July, B. C. 705. 
 Trusting to the support of Tirhakah, the Ethio- 
 pian king of Egypt, Hezekiah threw off his alle- 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 23 
 
 giance to Assyria, and was followed in this act 
 by the Phoenicians and other neighboring States. 
 It was not until B. C. 701, the fourth year of his 
 reign, that Sennacherib found himself free to 
 punish the rebels. Then came that memorable 
 campaign the latter part of which is described in 
 such detail by Isaiah and in the second book of 
 Kings, and which ended so disastrously for the 
 vainglorious Assyrian king. An account of it is 
 given with almost equal detail by Sennacherib 
 himself, though the final disaster is naturally 
 glossed over, and only the earlier successes of the 
 expedition recorded. More than one version of 
 the account has been found among the clay books 
 of Nineveh, Here is the translation of one of 
 them : 
 
 " In my third campaign I went to the land of 
 the Hittites. The fear of the greatness of my 
 majesty overwhelmed Klulseos, king of Sidon, 
 and he fled afar in the middle of the sea (i. e., to 
 Cyprus), and his land I subjected. As for Great 
 Sidon and L,ittle Sidon, Beth-Zeth, Sarepta, 
 Makhallib, Usu, Ekdippa, and Akko (Acre), his 
 strong cities, the fenced-in fortresses and villages, 
 the barracks of his troops, the fear of the weapons 
 of Assur, my lord, overwhelmed them, and they 
 knelt at my feet. I set Ethbaal on the royal 
 throne over them, and laid upon him the tribute 
 
24 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 and taxes due to my majesty each year for ever. 
 Menahem of Samsi-mnrun, Ethbaal of Sidon, 
 Abdilihti of Arvad, Uru-melech of Gebal, Me- 
 tinti of Ashdod, Fedael of Ammon, Chemosh-na- 
 dab of Moab, Melech-ram of Edom, all the kings 
 of the west, brought the full amount of their rich 
 gifts and treasures to my presence and kissed my 
 feet. But Zedekiah, king of Ashkelon, who had 
 not submitted to my yoke, himself, the gods of 
 the house of his fathers, his wife, his sons, his 
 daughters, and his brothers, the seed of the house 
 of his fathers, I removed, and I sent him to As- 
 syria. I set over the men of Ashkelon, Sarludari, 
 the son of Rukipti, their former king, and I im- 
 posed upon him the payment of tribute and the 
 homage due to my majesty, and he became a vas- 
 sal. In the course of my campaign I approached 
 and captured Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and 
 Azur, the cities of Zedekiah which did not submit 
 at once to my yoke, and I carried away their 
 spoil. The priests, the chief men, and the com- 
 mon people of Ekron, who had thrown into chains 
 their king Padi (Pedaiah) because he was faithful 
 to his oaths to Assyria, and had given him up to 
 Hezekiah the Jew, who imprisoned him like an 
 enemy in a dark dungeon, feared in their hearts. 
 The king of Egypt, the bowmen, the chariots, 
 and the horses of the king of Ethiopia, had gath- 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 25 
 
 ered together innumerable forces and gone to their 
 assistance. In sight of the town of Bltekeh was 
 their order of battle drawn up; they summoned 
 their troops (to the fight). Trusting in Assur, my 
 lord, I fought with them and overthrew them. 
 My hands took the captains of the chariots and 
 the sons of the king of Egypt, as well as the cap- 
 tains of the chariots of the king of Ethiopia, alive 
 in the midst of the battle. I approached and 
 captured the towns of Eltekeh and Timnath, and 
 I carried away their spoil. I marched against the 
 city of Ekron, and put to death the priests and 
 the chief men who had committed the sin (of re- 
 bellion), and I hung up their bodies on stakes all 
 round the city. The citizens who had done 
 wrong and wickedness I counted as a spoil ; as for 
 the rest of them who had done no sin or crime, in 
 whom no fault was found, I proclaimed their free- 
 dom (from punishment). I had Padi, their king, 
 brought out from the midst of Jerusalem, and I 
 seated him on the throne of royalty over them, 
 and I laid upon him the tribute due to my maj- 
 esty. But as for Hezekiah of Judah, who- had 
 not submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong 
 cities, together with innumerable fortresses and 
 small towns which depended on them, by over- 
 throwing the walls and open attack, by battle, 
 engines, and battering-rams, I besieged, I cap- 
 
26 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 tured; I brought out from the midst of them and 
 counted as a spoil 200,150 persons, great and 
 small, male and female, besides mules, asses, 
 camels, oxen, and sheep without number. Heze- 
 kiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in 
 Jerusalem, his royal city. I built a line of forts 
 against him, and I kept back his heel from going 
 forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off 
 his cities which I had spoiled from the midst of 
 his land, and gave them to Metinti, king of Ash- 
 dod, Padi, king of Bkron, and Zil-baal, king of 
 Gaza, and I made his country small. In addition 
 to their former tribute and yearly gifts, I added 
 other tribute and the homage due to my majesty, 
 and I laid it upon them. The fear of the great- 
 ness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even Hes- 
 ekiah, and he sent after me to Nineveh, my royal 
 city, by way of gift and tribute, the Arabs and his 
 body-guard whom he had brought for the defence 
 of Jerusalem, his royal city, and had furnished 
 with pay, along with thirty talents, eight hundred 
 talents of pure silver, carbuncles and other pre- 
 cious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, an 
 elephant's hide, an elephant's tusk, rare woods of 
 all kinds, a vast treasure, as well as the eunuchs of 
 his palace, and dancing-men and dancing- women; 
 and he sent his ambassador to offer homage." 
 In this account Sennacherib discreetly omits 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 27 
 
 to mention why it was that he never captured 
 Jerusalem itself, after all the preparations he had 
 made for doing so, or why he did not succeed in 
 punishing Hezekiah as he was accustomed to 
 punish other rebellious princes. His silence on 
 this point, and the fact that he never again ven- 
 tured to invade Palestine, are the strongest pos- 
 sible confirmations of the truth of the Biblical 
 story. In order to cover the disastrous ending of 
 his campaign he has transposed the period at 
 which He^ekiah's embassy was sent to him, and 
 made it follow the despatch of the rab-shakeh or 
 chamberlain to Jerusalem. It really preceded the 
 latter event, and was a vain attempt on the part 
 of Hezekiah to buy off the punishment threat- 
 ened him by the Assyrian king. The embassy 
 reached Sennacherib just after his capture of 
 Lachish in the south of Judah, and there is now 
 a bas-relief in the British Museum which repre- 
 sents him seated on his throne, with the inhab- 
 itants of the unfortunate city kneeling before him. 
 An inscription in front of the king reads: " Sen- 
 nacherib, the king of multitudes, the king of 
 Assyria, sat on an upright throne, and the spoil 
 of the city of Lachish passed before him. ' ' 
 
 Before we leave the Assyrian records we must 
 notice a statement of Scripture which has been 
 the subject of much hostile criticism, but has now 
 
28 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 been curiously verified by modern research. In 
 2 Chron. 33 : ii it is said that the king of Assyria, 
 after crushing the revolt of Manasseh, carried him 
 away captive to Babylon. The fact is not men- 
 tioned in the books of Kings, and it has been 
 asked, How could a king of Assyria carry his 
 prisoners to Babylon ? Had the fact been an in- 
 vention of a later age, when the history of Assyria 
 had been forgotten, we may feel quite sure that 
 Nineveh and not Babylon would have been as- 
 signed as the place of Manasseh' s imprisonment. 
 But the supposed error turns out to be a strong 
 verification of the Scriptural narrative. Manas- 
 seh was the contemporary of Sennacherib's son 
 and successor, Bsar-haddon, who alludes to him 
 by name in more than one inscription; and Esar- 
 haddon not only rebuilt Babylon, which had been 
 destroyed by his father, but held his court there 
 during half the year. That Manasseh should 
 afterwards have been pardoned and restored to 
 his throne is also in full accordance with the evi- 
 dence of the monuments. Rebel princes w r ere so 
 treated not unfrequently. Thus, Assur-bani-pal, 
 the successor of Esar-haddon, tells us that, after 
 sending a revolted Egyptian prince to Nineveh, 
 bound hand and foot with iron fetters, he forgave 
 the prisoner and allowed him to return to his 
 kingdom. 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 2Q 
 
 Jerusalem was destined to fall by the hand, 
 not of an Assyrian, but of a Babylonian monarch. 
 The Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar rose 
 on the ruins of that of Assyria; but though we 
 have many inscriptions of the great Babylonian 
 king relating to his buildings, only a small frag- 
 ment of his annals has as yet been found. This, 
 however, disposes of the doubts that have been 
 expressed as to the fulfilment of Jeremiah's proph- 
 ecy of the Babylonian conquest of Egypt. It tells 
 us that, in his thirty-seventh year (B. C. 568), 
 Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt and defeated the 
 Egyptian king Amasis. Egyptian monuments 
 supplement this mutilated record. We learn 
 from them that the invading forces penetrated 
 the country as far as the extreme south, and that 
 it was not until they had reached Assouan that 
 they were driven back again by the Egyptian 
 general, Hor. Only a year ago an interesting 
 discovery was made in the mounds of Tel Defen- 
 neh, the ancient Daphne, on the western side of 
 the Suez Canal. This consisted of small clay 
 cylinders covered with Babylonian writing, which 
 enumerated the titles and building operations of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. They must have been buried 
 in this frontier town of Egypt as a token of the 
 Babylonian conquest of the country. 
 
 The history of the overthrow of Nebuchad- 
 
30 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 ne^^ar's empire has now been told to us by Cyrus 
 himself. Two long inscriptions of his have been 
 discovered in the ruins of Babylon, one of which 
 gives, in chronological order, the events which 
 marked the reign of Nabonnidus, the father of Bel- 
 shaz^ar, and the last Babylonian king, as well as 
 the history of the final conquest of Babylon; while 
 the other is a proclamation put forth by Cyrus not 
 long after the defeat and death of Nabonnidus. In 
 this he declares that u Bel-merodach, the great 
 lord, the restorer of his people, beheld with joy 
 the deeds of his vicegerent (Cyrus), who was 
 righteous in hand and heart. To his city of Bab- 
 ylon he summoned his march, and bade him take 
 the road to Babylon ; like a friend and a comrade 
 he went to his side." 
 
 When the conquest was completed Cyrus as- 
 sembled the various peoples whom the Babylo- 
 nian kings had carried into captivity, and restored 
 them and their gods to their own lands. Among 
 these peoples were, as the Bible teaches us, the 
 Jews, who returned, not with the images of false 
 gods, but with the sacred vessels of the ruined 
 temple. 
 
 Such, then, are some of the most striking veri- 
 fications of the truth of the old Testament record 
 where it refers to the great kingdoms and empires 
 that surrounded the chosen people. In every case 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 31 
 
 where we can test it by contemporaneous monu- 
 ments, the authenticity of which is doubted by no 
 one, we find it confirmed and explained even in 
 the minutest points. Such accuracy would be 
 impossible if the Biblical narratives had been com- 
 posed at a later period than that to which the 
 events belong. L,egend soon takes the place of 
 history in the Bast, and the classical writers show 
 how quickly the real annals of Egypt and Assyria 
 were forgotten. Monumental research has not 
 only proved the truth of the events recorded in 
 Scripture, it also proves that the account of these 
 events must have been written by contempora- 
 ries. On no other hypothesis is the minute accu- 
 racy which distinguishes it to be explained. 
 
 This accuracy has lately been illustrated by a 
 startling and unexpected discovery. Besides the 
 small Hittite tribe settled in the south of Judah, 
 of whom we hear so much in connection with the 
 lives of the patriarchs, reference is more than once 
 made in the books of Kings to Hittites living in 
 the north of Syria. Solomon, we are told, im- 
 ported horses from Egypt, which were sold again 
 to "all the kings of the Hittites n and the kings 
 of Aram or Syria, i Kin. 10 : 29. Again, when 
 God had sent a panic upon the Syrian army which 
 was besieging Samaria, the soldiers of Ben-hadad 
 supposed that ( * the king of Israel hath hired 
 
32 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings 
 of the Egyptians. ' ' 2 Kings 7 : 6. 
 
 Objectors to the historical truth of the Old 
 Testament narrative, Hke Prof. F. Newman, de- 
 clared that these allusions to northern Hittites 
 destroyed its credibility. No Hittites in the north 
 of Syria were known to classical writers; and the 
 Hittites of Genesis lived in the southern part of 
 Judaea. But first the Egyptian and then the As- 
 syrian monuments proved that not only did Hit- 
 tite tribes inhabit the very district to which the 
 notices in the books of Kings would assign them, 
 but also that they were once a very powerful and 
 important people. In the time of the great Egyp- 
 tian monarch, Rameses II., the oppressor of the 
 children of Israel, they contended on equal terms 
 with the Egyptians themselves ; the Egyptian 
 king was glad finally to secure a peace by marry- 
 ing a Hittite princess. For several centuries they 
 successfully withstood the power of Assyria; and 
 it was not until the reign of Sargon that their 
 capital, Carchemish, was at last taken by storm, 
 and the last Hittite sovereign replaced by an As- 
 syrian governor. In the age of the Exodus they 
 had carried their arms across Asia Minor as far 
 as the shores of the ^Egean, and the empire they 
 founded in Asia Minor has left remains in the 
 neighborhood of the river Halys, as well as on the 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 33 
 
 sculptured rocks of L/ydia. They had invented a 
 peculiar system of pictorial writing, and their art, 
 though based on Babylonian models, was also of 
 a peculiar kind. The early art of Greece \vas 
 indebted to it, and through the art of Greece the 
 art of modern Europe as well. The site of their 
 northern capital, Carchemish, was discovered at 
 a place now called Jerablus, on the Euphrates, by 
 Mr. George Smith, during the ill-fated expedition 
 which eventually cost him his life. Since then 
 the ruins of Carchemish have been partially ex- 
 plored, and some of the Hittite monuments disin- 
 terred among them are now in the British Muse- 
 um. Carchemish, however, was not the only 
 capital the Hittites possessed. The Bible speaks 
 of their "kings" in the plural, and in agreement 
 with this we find from the Egyptian inscriptions 
 that they had also a southern capital on the Oron- 
 tes, called Kadesh. A recent discovery has shown 
 that Kadesh as well as Carchemish is mentioned 
 in the Old Testament. Manuscripts make it clear 
 that the Septuagint text of 2 Sam. 24 : 6 reads 
 "Kadesh of the Hittites," instead of the "Tah- 
 tim-hodshi" of the Hebrew text. David's cen- 
 sus, according to this, \vas taken throughout the 
 whole extent of his empire, which then included 
 Damascus, and consequently bordered on the Hit- 
 tite Kadesh in the north. Here again, therefore, 
 
34 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 modern research has proved the accuracy of the 
 Old Testament record in a point so minute as to 
 have escaped the notice of the most eagle-eyed 
 critic. Indeed, the very existence of the Hittite 
 Kadesh had been forgotten since its destruction 
 by the Syrian kings, shortly after the age of Da- 
 vid, until it was again brought to light by the 
 decipherment of the Egyptian texts. 
 
 The recovery of the long- forgotten Hittite 
 empire has also revealed some more "undesigned 
 coincidences," as they may be called, between 
 the statements of the sacred writers and the dis- 
 coveries of modern research. While making war 
 upon the Syrians, David is represented as being 
 on friendly terms with Hamath. Toi, king of 
 Hamath, in fact, sent his son Joram to David 
 with presents, "because he had fought against 
 Hadadezer and smitten him; for Hadadezer had 
 wars with Toi." 2 Sam. 8:10. Now Hamath 
 turns out to have been a Hittite kingdom, and 
 the Hittites and their Syrian neighbors belonged 
 to different races, and were continually engaged 
 in war. It was therefore natural that Toi should 
 have made alliance with David, who had broken 
 the power of the common enemy. This alliance 
 between Hamath and Judah must have lasted 
 down to the time when Hamath was reduced by 
 Sargon and became an Assyrian dependency. 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 35 
 
 Tiglath-pileser II. informs us that Uzziah of Ju- 
 dah was the ally of Yahu-bihdi or Jeho-bihad, 
 king of Hamath. This explains a passage of 
 Scripture, 2 Kin. 14:28, which has long present- 
 ed a difficulty, though the difficulty is now seen 
 to have been due to our own ignorance, and to be 
 really a striking confirmation of the truth of the 
 inspired record. When it is said that Jeroboam 
 II. recovered "Hamath, which was (allied) with 
 Judah, for Israel," we are supplied with the mid- 
 dle link of a chain which begins with the em- 
 bassy of Toi to David, and ends with the alliance 
 between Uzziah and Yahu-bihdi. It is noticea- 
 ble that Yahu-bihdi and Joram, the son of Toi, 
 are the only Gentiles known to us whose names 
 are compounded with that of the God of Israel. 
 
 It now only remains to point out how recent 
 discoveries have shown that writing was known 
 and practised in Judah at the time to which the 
 larger part of the Old Testament Scriptures pro- 
 fesses to belong. There have been two discov- 
 eries which more especially make this clear. 
 These are the discoveries of the Moabite Stone 
 and the Siloam Inscription. The Moabite Stone 
 was a monument erected by Mesha, the contem- 
 porary of Ahab, who is called u a sheepmaster" 
 in 2 Kin. 3:4. It is consequently as old as the 
 ninth century before the Christian era, and was 
 
36 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 discovered in 1869 by Mr. Klein, a German mis- 
 sionary, among the ruins of Dhiban, the ancient 
 Dibon. Owing to an unfortunate dispute for the 
 possession of the stone, it was broken into pieces 
 by the Arabs, though not until after some imper- 
 fect squeezes of it had been made. Most of the 
 fragments have since been recovered and fitted 
 together, but the concluding lines are still miss- 
 ing. A translation of the text will show how his- 
 torically important it is: 
 
 "I, Mesha, am the son of Chemosh-gad, king 
 of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over 
 Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father. 
 And I erected this stone to Chemosh at Kirkha, a 
 (stone of) salvation, for he saved me from all 
 despoilers, and made me see my desire upon all 
 my enemies, even upon Omri, king of Israel. 
 Now they afflicted Moab many days, for Chemosh 
 was angry with his land. His son succeeded him; 
 and he also said, I will afflict M.oab. In my 
 days (Chemosh) said, (Let us go) and I will see 
 my desire upon him and his house, and I will 
 destroy Israel with an everlasting destruction. 
 Now Omri took the land of Medeba, and (the en- 
 emy) occupied it in (his days and in) the days of 
 his son, forty years. And Chemosh (had mercy) 
 on it in my days; and I fortified Baal-meon, and 
 I made therein the tank, and I fortified Kiriatha- 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 37 
 
 im. For the men of Gad dwelt in the land of 
 (Atar)oth from of old, and the king (of) Israel for- 
 tified for himself Ataroth, and I assaulted the wall 
 and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the 
 wall for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and Moab; 
 and I removed from it all the spoil, and (offered) 
 it before Chemosh in Kirjath; and I placed there- 
 in the men of Siran and the men of Mochrath. 
 And Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against 
 Israel. (And I) went in the night, and I fought 
 against it from the break of dawn till noon, and I 
 took it and slew in all 7,000 (men, but I did not 
 kill) the women (and) maidens, for (I) devoted 
 them to Ashtar-chemosh ; and I took from it the 
 vessels of Yahveh [Jehovah], and offered them 
 before Chemosh. And the king of Israel fortified 
 Jahaz, and occupied it, when he made war against 
 me; and Chemosh drove him out before (me, and) 
 I took from Moab 200 men, all its poor, and placed 
 them in Jahaz, and took it to annex it to Dibon. 
 I built Kirkha, the wall of the forest, and the wall 
 of the city, and I built the gates thereof, and I 
 built the towers thereof, and I built the palace, 
 and I made the prisons for the criminals within 
 the \valls. And there was no cistern in the wall 
 at Kirkha, and I said to all the people, Make for 
 yourselves, every man, a cistern in his house. 
 And I dug the ditch for Kirkha by means of the 
 
38 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 (captive) men of Israel. I built Aroer, and I 
 made the road across the Arnon. I built Beth- 
 bamoth, for it was destroyed; I built Bezer, for it 
 had been cut (down) by the armed men of Dibon, 
 for all Dibon was now loyal; and I reigned from 
 Bikran, which I added to my land, and I built 
 (Beth-gamul) and Beth-diblathaim and Beth-baal- 
 meon, and I placed there the poor (people) of the 
 land. And as to Horonaim, (the men of Edom) 
 dwelt therein (from of old). And Chemosh said 
 to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, 
 and take (it. And I assaulted it and I took it, and) 
 Chemosh (restored it) in my days. Wherefore I 
 made. . ."' 
 
 The story told by Mesha and the account given 
 in the Bible supplement one another. Mesha de- 
 livered Moab from the yoke of the Israelites dur- 
 ing the reign of Ahaxiah, the successor of Ahab, 
 and Joram, Ahaziah's successor, was subsequently 
 driven out of Jahaz. It was at this moment of 
 national victory that Mesha erected the monu- 
 ment recording his success. Then, however, the 
 tide of fortune turned, Joram summoned his allies 
 from Judali and Edom, Moab was ravaged, and 
 Mesha besieged in his capital of Kirkha. In his 
 despair he sacrificed his eldest son; "and there 
 was great indignation against Israel; and they de- 
 parted from him and returned to their own land." 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 39 
 
 The chief interest attaching to the inscription 
 in our eyes lies perhaps in the language and 
 characters in which it is written. The language 
 is almost exactly the same as that of the Old Tes- 
 tament, and shows that the dialect of Moab dif- 
 fered much less from Hebrew than does one Eng- 
 lish dialect from another. The very phrases 
 recur which the Old Testament has made famil- 
 iar to us, and at times we might fancy that we 
 were listening to a chapter of the Bible. The 
 characters, too, in which the text is written be- 
 long to a form of the Phoenician alphabet which 
 must have resembled very closely that used by 
 the Jews. We may thus see in them the mode of 
 writing employed by the earlier prophets, and 
 correct by their means the corrupt readings which 
 the carelessness of copyists has allowed to creep 
 into the sacred text. 
 
 Since the discovery of the Moabite Stone, an- 
 other early inscription has been found in Jerusa- 
 lem itself, which shows us precisely how the 
 books of the Old Testament, which were com- 
 posed between the time of David and the Babylo- 
 nian Captivity, must have been originally writ- 
 ten. This is the Siloam inscription, engraved in 
 the rock-cut tunnel which conveys the water of 
 the Virgin's Spring the only natural spring in 
 or about Jerusalem to the Pool of Siloam. Its 
 
40 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 strange position in a dark underground conduit, 
 through which the water was perpetually flowing, 
 caused it to remain unnoticed until three or four 
 years ago. Even after the discovery the water 
 had to be lowered, and the calcareous deposit 
 with which the characters were filled to be re- 
 moved, before the inscription could be satisfac- 
 torily read. It runs as follows: 
 
 "(Behold) the excavation! Now this is the 
 history of the excavation. While the excavators 
 were still lifting up the pick, each towards his 
 neighbor, and while there were yet three cubits to 
 (excavate, there was heard) the voice of one man 
 calling to his neighbor, for there was an excess 
 in the rock on the right hand (and on the left). 
 And after that on the day of excavating the exca- 
 vators had struck pick against pick, one against 
 the other, the waters flowed from the spring to 
 the pool for a distance of 1,200 cubits. And 
 (part) of a cubit was the height of the rock over 
 the head of the excavators. ' ' 
 
 It will be observed that even at so early a pe- 
 riod as that to which the inscription belongs the 
 art of engineering was sufficiently advanced to 
 allow the workmen of the Jewish king to com- 
 mence tunnelling the hill simultaneously at its 
 two opposite ends, and to calculate upon meeting 
 in the middle. What makes the work the more 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 41 
 
 astonishing is that the distance from the mouth 
 of the tunnel to its exit is 1,708 yards, and that 
 the tunnel itself winds about a good deal. The 
 exact date at which the work was executed is 
 disputed, since while there are several reasons 
 which would make us assign it to the age of Sol- 
 omon, there are others which have led the major- 
 ity of scholars to place it in the reign of Heze- 
 kiah. In this case it will be the conduit made 
 by Hezekiah which is mentioned in 2 Kin. 20:20 
 and 2 Chron. 32:30. Now the forms of the let- 
 ters used in the inscription make it quite clear 
 that the engraver was accustomed to write on 
 parchment or papyrus and not on stone. They 
 are rounded, and not angular like the characters 
 on the Moabite Stone. It is plain, therefore, that 
 the alphabet employed in Judah was that of a 
 people who were in the habit of writing and read- 
 ing books. Another noticeable peculiarity about 
 the inscription is that it is not a public document; 
 even the name of the reigning king is not men- 
 tioned. It must have been engraved by one of 
 the workmen in his delight at the successful com- 
 pletion of the work. The careful way in which 
 the letters are formed, and the labor involved in 
 cutting them in a place where they were never 
 likely to be seen, prove that writing was as famil- 
 iar to him as tunnelling 1 the rock. The 
 
 U^iU; . | 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
42 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 sion from this fact is ob\ 7 ious; if an ordinary work- 
 man was thus familiar with the art of writing, 
 the professional scribes and priests and members 
 of the prophetical schools must have been much 
 more so. There is no reason for thinking that 
 the art was not as much known and practised as 
 it is in our own day. 
 
 This conclusion is confirmed by the monu- 
 ments of Egypt and Assyria. Books were com- 
 mon in Egypt from the very earliest times ; the 
 profession of the scribe was held in high honor; 
 and both public and private monuments were 
 covered with characters which it was presumed 
 could be read by every one. Among the frag- 
 ments of ancient Egyptian literature that have 
 come down to us is a collection of letters, intend- 
 ed to serve as a model for this particular kind of 
 composition. The great library of Nineveh has 
 already been alluded to. This was formed in 
 imitation of the libraries that had existed in all 
 the Babylonian cities from a most remote period. 
 Long before the age of Abraham there were not 
 only libraries well stocked with books on clay 
 and papyrus, but there were numerous readers 
 also. The libraries were public, and the extent 
 to which their contents were increased by the 
 addition of new works and the multiplication of 
 copies of old ones shows how well frequented they 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 43 
 
 were. The books were arranged and catalogued 
 as in a modern library, and they treated of every 
 department of knowledge and represented every 
 class of literature which was known at the time. 
 If the Israelites had been illiterate, living mid- 
 way, as they did, between Assyria and Egypt, 
 and bordering on the highly -civilized cities of 
 Phoenicia, it would have been nothing short of a 
 miracle. That they were not so has now been 
 put beyond the reach of cavil by the discovery of 
 the Siloam inscription. It bears out the testi- 
 mony afforded by a passage in Proverbs (25 : i), 
 where it is said that Hezekiah's scribes made a 
 new edition of the proverbs of Solomon, doubt- 
 less for a library similar to those of Assyria and 
 Babylon. 
 
 The recovery of the ancient civilizations of 
 the Bast during the last half- century has thus 
 made it clear (i) that the narratives of the Old 
 Testament, wherever they can be tested by con- 
 fessedly contemporaneous documents, are accurate 
 even to the most minute details; (2) that the Jews 
 before the exile were a literary people, possessing 
 at least one library, and well acquainted with the 
 art of writing. Consequently, no arguments can 
 be drawn against the credibility of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures on the ground that their histor- 
 ical statements are false or mythical, or that they 
 
44 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 could not have been written at the early date to 
 which they lay claim. There is no reason why 
 Abraham himself should not have been able to 
 write; his contemporaries in Ur of the Chaldees 
 could most of them do so; there is still less reason 
 why his descendants who had been brought into 
 contact with the literature of Egypt should not 
 have written too. If the Biblical books were 
 composed at the time to which the events de- 
 scribed in them belong, the accounts they give of 
 those events would have all the authority and 
 weight of contemporary evidence. A writer does 
 not give a false account of things which are well 
 known to his readers, or imagine events \Vhich 
 his contemporaries can show have never hap- 
 pened. We have seen that what we now know 
 about the history of writing in the Bast not only 
 makes it possible that the Biblical books were 
 written at the time to which tradition assigns 
 them, but also makes it probable that they were. 
 It is not likely that the Israelites would have ab- 
 stained from composing books when they were 
 acquainted with the art of writing, and when the 
 nations by whom they were surrounded had long 
 been in the possession of libraries. And that the 
 Biblical books actually belong to the time to 
 which tradition assigns them is evidenced by the 
 confirmation their contents have received from 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT, SCRIPTURES. 45 
 
 the decipherment of the Egyptian and Assyrian 
 monuments. The accuracy they display in small 
 points is only explicable, as we have seen, on the 
 hypothesis that the histories contained in them 
 were related by contemporaries. 
 
 The Old Testament is the preparation for the 
 New. The divine authority of the one is inti- 
 mately bound up with that of the other. The 
 history of the Jewish Church finds its explanation 
 only in the advent of Christ; the message deliv- 
 ered by the prophets cannot be understood except 
 in the light of the gospel. If the history is a 
 medley of myths and legends, where are the foun- 
 dations upon which Christianity was to build? If 
 the prophecies were the composition of a later age 
 than that to which they profess to refer, what be- 
 comes of the testimony to which our Lord himself 
 appealed? Happily we are not called upon to 
 answer these questions; the long -buried stones 
 have been disinterred to cry out against the as- 
 sailants of our faith, the long-forgotten empires of 
 the ancient Bast have arisen out of the grave of 
 centuries to testify to the truth of " the oracles of 
 God." 
 
 It will be seen that the argument of this tract 
 has so far been a positive one. We have endeav- 
 ored to show by the aid of contemporaneous mon- 
 uments that the Jews and their neighbors were 
 
46 THE WITNESS OK ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 not the barbarous and illiterate people objectors 
 to the truth of the Biblical narrative have tacitly 
 assumed them to be, and we have further pointed 
 out the agreement between the Biblical narrative 
 and these contemporaneous monuments wherever 
 they come into contact with one another. But 
 the argument would not be complete unless we 
 add to it a negative one. We have to show that 
 the statements contained in books later in date 
 than the events which they profess to record are 
 not only inconsistent with the evidence of the 
 monuments, but are frequently contradicted by it. 
 Books like those of Tobit and Judith, on the one 
 hand, or the history of the ancient East preserved 
 in classical writers, on the other hand, will not 
 bear the test of an appeal to the native inscrip- 
 tions. Their statements are frequently irrecon- 
 cilable with the facts obtained by modern Egyp- 
 tian and Assyrian research, and they betray their 
 late origin in various small inaccuracies. 
 
 Let us take, for example, the book of Tobit. 
 Tobit is said to have been carried captive to Nin- 
 eveh, along with his brethren of the tribe of 
 Naphtali, by the Assyrian king Enemessar, whose 
 son and successor was Sennacherib. But Naph- 
 tali, as we have seen, was really carried into cap- 
 tivity by Tiglath-pileser, who was in no way 
 related to Sennacherib, and between whom and 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 47 
 
 Sennacherib there was an interval of two reigns 
 and twenty-two years. Knemessar is evidently 
 intended for Shalmaneser, the Assyrian Sallima- 
 nu-esir "Solomon (i. e., the god of peace) di- 
 rects." Shalmaneser, however, did not even 
 belong to the same family as Sennacherib. Sen- 
 nacherib's father was Sargon, who had seized the 
 throne on the death or murder of Shalmaneser. 
 But the author of the book of Tobit knew nothing 
 of Sargon. A misinterpretation of the passage in 
 the book of Kings relating to the fall of Samaria 
 had led him to imagine that it had been captured 
 by Shalmaneser ; and as Sennacherib was the 
 next king of Assyria whose name appeared in the 
 historical books of the Old Testament, he jumped 
 to the conclusion that Shalmaneser had been his 
 father and immediate predecessor. 
 
 Tobit is further made to assert that Sennache- 
 rib's murder took place only fifty-five days after 
 his return from his disastrous campaign in Pales- 
 tine. Here again the author of the apocryphal 
 book has misinterpreted the Old Testament rec- 
 ord, and has accordingly been led into a grave 
 historical error. The campaign in Palestine oc- 
 curred in B. C. 701, and Sennacherib's death in 
 B. C. 681, so that there was really an interval of 
 twenty years between the two events. During 
 this interval Sennacherib engaged in several 
 
48 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 wars, though he did not again venture to attack 
 Hezekiah, and we possess inscriptions of his in 
 which he describes them. 
 
 The geography of Tobit is as irreconcilable 
 with the monumental evidence as is the history. 
 Rages, the city of Media which Tobit is said to 
 have visited, probably had no existence in the 
 time of Sennacherib. At any rate, it was un- 
 known to the Assyrians, and consequently could 
 not have been one of the Median cities in which 
 the Israel itish captives were settled by the Assyr- 
 ian king. The same was also the case with Ecba- 
 tana. No mention is made of it in the Assyrian 
 inscriptions before the fall of Nineveh; and since 
 the district in which it was situated was overrun 
 by Sargon, it would seem that it was founded 
 subsequently to his reign. At all events, in the 
 age of Sargon and Sennacherib, the district of 
 which it was afterwards the capital did not form 
 part of Media at all. It was called Bllip, the 
 Medes living to the north and the east of it. Like 
 Rages, therefore, it could, not have received an 
 Israelitish population from the Assyrians. The 
 anachronism is only equalled by the historical 
 anachronism in the last verse of the book, where 
 it is stated that Nineveh was overthrown by Neb- 
 uchadnezzar and Assuerus. The real destroyers 
 of Nineveh were Cyaxares, the Median monarch, 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 49 
 
 and Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 Assuerus is the Hebrew form of Xerxes, and Xer- 
 xes was a Persian prince, who did not reign until 
 a century and a half after the fall of the Assyrian 
 Empire. 
 
 If we pass from the book of Tobit to the book 
 of Judith, and test its statements by the monu- 
 ments, we shall find them equally false. It be- 
 gins by alleging that Nebuchadnezzar ruled in 
 Nineveh, and Arphaxad "reigned over the Medes 
 in Ecbatana." But Nineveh had become a "ru- 
 inous heap" before Nebuchadnezzar had begun 
 to rule anywhere; and he ruled, not over Assyria, 
 but over Babylon. The contemporary king who 
 reigned in Ecbatana was Cyaxares. Arphaxad is 
 taken from the genealogy of Shem in Genesis 10, 
 and is a name compounded with the word Che- 
 sed, or " Chaldaean." It need hardly be added 
 that the Chaldsean and Median languages were 
 widely different from each other, and that conse- 
 quently a Median prince was not likely to bear a 
 name which contained the Babylonian form of 
 the word "Chaldsean." 
 
 The wars carried on by Nebuchadnezzar, as 
 described in the book of Judith, are mere fictions 
 of the imagination. His conquest of Ecbatana, 
 and capture of its ruler, had as little foundation 
 in fact as the assertion that he returned to " Nin- 
 
 4 
 
50 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 eveh" after doing so. The eighteenth year of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's reign, in which his army is 
 said to have overrun Syria and Palestine and to 
 have threatened Jerusalem, was two years after 
 the destruction of the Jewish capital and the 
 murder of Gedaliah. The name of the general 
 who is supposed to have commanded the expedi- 
 tion, Holofernes, is Persian, and not Babylonian; 
 and the geographical details of the campaign only 
 prove the ignorance of the writer. Cilicia is stated 
 to be little more than three days' journey dis- 
 tant from Nineveh, Mesopotamia is placed on 
 the western instead of on the eastern side of the 
 Euphrates, and the nations of Phut, Lud, and 
 Rosh, together with the children of Ishmael, are 
 all grouped together in the neighborhood of As- 
 syria. It is scarcely necessary to observe that 
 lyiid or Lydia lay in the extreme west of Asia 
 Minor, that Phut or Punt was the Somali coast 
 of East Africa, that Rosh is a misinterpretation 
 of Ezekiel 38 : 2, where the Hebrew word is right- 
 ly rendered, "chief" in the Authorized Ver- 
 sion, and that the descendants of Ishmael inhab- 
 ited the deserts of Northern and Central Arabia. 
 Similarly "Joakim, the high priest which was in 
 those days in Jerusalem," really lived in the time 
 of the Persian king Darius, a century after the 
 age of Nebuchadnezzar; and the very existence 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 5 I 
 
 of Bethulia, the supposed city of Judith, is a 
 matter of doubt. The book of Judith, in fact, is 
 a tissue of historical and geographical confusions 
 and impossibilities; in almost every particular it 
 is contradicted by the testimony of the ancient 
 monuments. 
 
 Let us now turn to the classical writers who 
 have left accounts of the ancient history of the 
 Bast. Among these Herodotus and Ctesias of 
 Cnidus naturally claim our first attention. Herod- 
 otus has been termed the Father of History, since 
 the later classical conceptions of Oriental history 
 were in great measure based upon his work. 
 Ctesias was the physician of the Persian king, Ar- 
 taxerxes, and thus had access to the State archives 
 of Persia; on the strength of these he maintained 
 that Herodotus had "lied," and he wrote a work 
 with the object of contradicting most of the older 
 historian's statements. But when confronted with 
 contemporaneous monuments Herodotus and Cte- 
 sias alike turn out to be false guides. In Egypt, 
 Herodotus placed the pyramid-builders after the 
 time of Rameses or Sesostris, and but shortly be- 
 fore the age of the Ethiopians Sabaco and Tirha- 
 kah, although in reality they preceded them by 
 centuries. Among the Egyptian kings a Greek 
 demi-god, and Lake Moeris in the Fayum, are 
 made to figure, and the work of Herodotus abounds 
 
52 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 with small inaccuracies in the explanations of 
 Egyptian words and customs and in the descrip- 
 tion of. the products of the country. His account 
 of Assyria and Babylonia is still more misleading. 
 The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires are con- 
 founded together, just as they are in the book of 
 Judith; Sennacherib is called king of the Ara- 
 bians, and Nebuchadnezzar is transformed into 
 Labynetos I. (or Nabonnidus), and made the father 
 of the real Nabonnidus. The fortifications of 
 Babylonia are ascribed to a Queen Nitocris, who 
 bears an Egyptian name, and is placed five gen- 
 erations after Semiramis, a title of the Babylonian 
 goddess Istar or Ashtoreth; while Ninus, that is 
 Nineveh, is supposed to be an Assyrian monarch, 
 and termed the son of Belus or Baal. 
 
 In the fragments of Ctesias, Assyrian history 
 fares no better. Here, too, we find Belus, Ninus, 
 and Semiramis, registered among the Assyrian 
 monarchs, along with Zames or Samas, the Sun- 
 god, and Arios or Nergal. The fall of the As- 
 syrian Empire is placed two centuries too early, 
 and its last king (Sardanapalus,) is imagined to 
 have burnt himself in his palace, to save himself 
 from falling into the hands of his enemies. As a 
 matter of fact, Sardanapalus is the Assur-bani- 
 pal of the inscriptions, who probably appears in 
 Ezra 4: 10 under the Persianized form of Asnap- 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 53 
 
 per, and who was the son and successor of Esar- 
 haddon. He was not the last king of Assyria; 
 and the legend of his burning himself to death 
 seems to have originated in the punishment of 
 death by fire which he inflicted on his brother, 
 the viceroy of Babylonia, after an unsuccessful 
 rebellion. Equally apocryphal is the statement 
 that the overthrow of Nineveh was brought about 
 by Arbaces the Mede and Belesus the Babylonian. 
 As has already been observed, Cyaxares and Nab- 
 opolassar were the princes whose armies brought 
 the doom threatened by Nahum upon the great 
 oppressing city of Western Asia. 
 
 Further examples are not needed to prove 
 how quickly the true history of the ancient East 
 was forgotten, and how hopelessly irreconcilable 
 with the evidence of the monuments are the 
 legends which were substituted for it in the pages 
 of later writers. Where the accounts are not 
 contemporaneous with the events, or derived from 
 contemporaneous sources, we now know that they 
 are untrustworthy, and to a large extent fictitious. 
 The contemporaneous sources are of course those 
 very monuments which the industry and research 
 of modern scholars have brought to light and in- 
 terpreted. They were, however, speaking gen- 
 erally, inaccessible to those who, like the Jews 
 and Greeks, did not belong to the nations that 
 
54 THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 
 
 produced them. The languages and complicated 
 systems of writing of Egypt and Babylonia were 
 not likely to be studied by foreigners, and stran- 
 gers were seldom allowed to examine the royal 
 archives of the two countries. Indeed, in the 
 case of Assyria it was impossible to do so; the 
 great library of Nineveh lay buried under the 
 ruins of the city, from which it has been disin- 
 terred during the lifetime of the present genera- 
 tion. 
 
 Jewish writers, therefore, who lived after the 
 fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, or 
 in the days of Persian and Greek supremacy in 
 Egypt, had little chance of consulting the con- 
 temporaneous monuments of an earlier period. 
 Their information had to be obtained from the 
 scanty and often misunderstood notices of Assyr- 
 ian and Egyptian history in the books of the Old 
 Testament, eked out by their own imagination 
 and the fictions current in the works of Greek 
 authors. Hence it is that apocryphal books, like 
 those of Tobit and Judith, are so full of errors 
 and anachronisms, and thus show plainly the 
 lateness of their composition and the unhistorical 
 character of their contents. 
 
 What a contrast this is to the accuracy which, 
 as we have seen, pervades the canonical books of 
 the Old Testament Scriptures! While, on the 
 
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 55 
 
 one side, the progress of modern discovery has 
 tended to destroy the credit once attached to the 
 works of Alexandrine Jews or Greek compilers, 
 it has, on the other side, confirmed and verified, 
 illustrated and explained, the statements and allu- 
 sions in the historical and prophetical books of 
 Holy Writ. The one are shown to belong to a 
 later age than that of which they profess to give 
 an account, the other to be contemporaneous 
 with the events which they record. We may 
 turn to them with increased confidence and faith ; 
 confidence in the historical picture they set before 
 our eyes, and faith in the divine message which 
 they were commissioned to deliver. 
 
 To sum up. The witness of ancient monu- 
 ments to the Old Testament Scriptures is of a 
 twofold nature. It is positive, inasmuch as it 
 proves that they are in agreement with actual 
 facts; and negative, inasmuch as it shows how 
 far this is from being the case with documents 
 which lay claim to the same amount of credibil- 
 ity and deal with the same subject-matter, but 
 which really belong to a later age. The witness 
 is therefore complete. Difficulties, no doubt, may 
 still exist here and there, since as long as our 
 knowledge is imperfect there are things which 
 cannot be satisfactorily explained ; but difficulties 
 enough have been already cleared away, confir- 
 
56 WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 
 
 illations sufficient of the truth of the Biblical rec- 
 ord have been produced, to banish such doubts as 
 may have found place in our minds, and to in- 
 spire us with a calm confidence that with the 
 increase of knowledge and the discovery of fresh 
 monuments the difficulties which still remain 
 will be diminished and the great body of verify- 
 ing facts continually enlarged. The critical ob- 
 jections to the truth of the Old Testament once 
 drawn from the armory of Greek and Latin wri- 
 ters can never be urged again; they have been 
 met and overthrown once for all. The answers 
 to them have come from papyrus and clay and 
 stone; from the tombs of Ancient Egypt, from 
 the mounds of Babylonia, and from the ruined 
 palaces of the Assyrian kings. 
 
THE 
 
 VITALITY OF THE 
 
 BY 
 
 REY. W. G. BLAIKIE, D. D., Lit. D. 
 
ARGUMENT OF THE TRACT. 
 
 SOME facts are adduced to show the falsity of Vol- 
 taire's prophecy that in a hundred years the Bible would 
 be a forgotten book, and how utterly he and others 
 failed to apprehend its wonderful vitality. In inquiring 
 into this vitality the origin and history of the book are 
 first examined, with a view to bring out that a volume 
 of such manifold authorship could have no unity or co- 
 herence had its composition not been guided by a divine 
 power. The next inquiry is, What does the Bible say 
 what is the principle of unity in its contents ? In answer 
 to this, the view dwelt on is, that from first to last the 
 Bible reveals God drawing near to sinful man in the way 
 of grace, and encourages him to hope in His mercy. It 
 is further shown that this mercy comes through a Me- 
 diator, and the plan and work of Christ in Scripture are 
 shown to be one of the great means of its influence. 
 Next it is inquired what the Bible does ? The effects 
 on individuals and society are touched on. But are 
 there not difficulties that interfere with the conclusion 
 that the Bible is from God ? There are difficulties, but 
 they do not weaken this conclusion. Is, then, the great 
 power of the Bible simply in the book as a book ? It 
 has power as a book, but its great power is derived 
 from its being used as the medium by which the Holy 
 Spirit works. "To recognize this gives confidence and 
 strength; to forget it plunges into error and weakness. 
 Finally, reference is made to some other elements of the 
 vitality of the Bible, and in the end to its remarkable 
 hopefulness, especially with a view to the winding up of 
 the church's history. 
 
THE 
 
 VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 EIGHTEEN hundred years ago the apostle Pe- 
 ter spoke of ' ' the Word of God which li veth and 
 abideth for ever." Seventeen hundred years 
 passed away, and the book which we call * ' the 
 Word of God" still retained the vitality of which 
 the apostle spoke. About that time the cleverest 
 man in Europe determined to strip it of its an- 
 cient character. Voltaire boasted that it had 
 taken twelve men to set up Christianity, but he 
 would show that a single man was enough to 
 overthrow it. He ventured too on a prophecy. 
 He said that in a hundred years the Bible would 
 be a forgotten book. About the time when we 
 now write it should have been laid up in the col- 
 lections of antiquarians, and taken from its musty 
 shelf only as we take Chinese or Indian idols to 
 show our Sunday-school children the absurdities 
 of superstition. Which of the two prophecies is 
 
60 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 it that stands fulfilled to-day the simple-minded 
 apostle's or the brilliant Frenchman's? 
 
 L,et us answer by reference to a single scene. 
 About the time when the Bible should have be- 
 come a forgotten book two companies of distin- 
 guished scholars were holding frequent meetings 
 in the chief city of the world, and often spending 
 hours in considering the best rendering of a Greek 
 or a Hebrew phrase. For years upon years they 
 were giving many of their best days to such work, 
 straining their faculties to their utmost, exchan- 
 ging views, weighing arguments,* praying for 
 light, hesitating, reconsidering, delaying, resu- 
 ming, and finally deciding on the points that 
 gave them so much anxiety. What was it all 
 about ? About the book which Voltaire had said 
 would be forgotten in a century. They felt it of 
 infinite moment that every word of that book 
 should have the most exact rendering in English 
 that the resources of our language could afford. 
 They were overwhelmed at the thought of the 
 consequences of error or failure in the task they 
 had undertaken. In this attitude of laborious 
 carefulness they were sustained by the cordial 
 approval of the whole community. And when a 
 portion of their labors was finished, the swiftest 
 engines that skill could frame were kept at work 
 day and night multiplying copies of what, after 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 6l 
 
 all, was but a revision of a former translation. 
 The demand for the work was so great that about 
 two million copies were absorbed in Great Britain 
 alone. 
 
 The Bible is a unique phenomenon. It holds 
 and has held in this world a place never equalled, 
 never even approached, by any other book. Its 
 position cannot reasonably be ascribed to artificial 
 causes. Under peculiar circumstances, indeed, 
 certain books may have a popularity utterly be- 
 yond their intrinsic worth. Their authors may 
 have obtained distinction in other fields. Persons 
 of great influence may take a fancy to them and 
 create a demand for them, or their sale may be 
 bolstered up by those who have a money interest 
 in their success. But the popularity of such books 
 is but the wonder of a day. No book can retain 
 permanent power and popularity through artifi- 
 cial causes. It is silliness to speak of the Bible 
 as the mere offspring of superstition, maintained 
 in its place from age to age through the mere force 
 of tradition the dead weight of conservatism. A 
 book that for eighteen centuries has run the 
 gauntlet of every variety both of rude assault and 
 of subtle criticism ; a book that has thrown its 
 pages open to every eye, that has challenged the 
 reverence of the highest, and defied the scorn of 
 the proudest ; a book that has not hesitated to 
 
62 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 assert its claim as the record of God's revelation 
 for man's redemption and the expression of what 
 God requires of man on pain of everlasting 
 death such a book, retaining its high place for 
 eighteen centuries, cannot but possess intrinsic 
 qualities of the highest order. It is undeniable 
 that it has an extraordinary vitality. It never 
 becomes antiquated, never survives its usefulness, 
 never acquires a decrepit look: "Time writes no 
 wrinkles on its brow;" it nourishes in the vigor 
 of immortal youth. In the spirit of Voltaire, infi- 
 dels may boast that erelong its day will be over; 
 they may foretell that the time is coming when 
 Bible beliefs and Bible worship will have been 
 laid aside by the people of this country as thor- 
 oughly as the worship of Jupiter and Apollo by 
 the old pagans, and the rites of Druidism by our 
 distant ancestors, have been abandoned. But even 
 on the ordinary principles of human nature these 
 prophecies are worthless. The vitality that has 
 survived eighteen centuries must be vitality of no 
 common type. There may be ups and downs in 
 the history of the Bible: Amalek may prevail to- 
 day, and Israel to-morrow; the tide is subject to 
 ebbs and flows ; but Christians may rest in full 
 assurance of one thing, that when the end of all 
 comes the Bible will be found on no lower level 
 than it occupies to-day: new proof will be given 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 63 
 
 of its unexampled quality as " the Word of God 
 that liveth and abideth for ever. ' ' 
 
 Our purpose in this tract is to inquire into the 
 nature and causes of this remarkable phenome- 
 non. The simple fact that the Bible has pos- 
 sessed such vitality is in itself striking ; but the 
 more the subject is investigated in all its rela- 
 tions and circumstances, the more remarkable 
 will it appear, and the more conclusive will be 
 the proof that "the Word of God liveth and abi- 
 deth for ever." 
 
 I. 
 
 In the first place, let us turn our attention to 
 the past and consider the origin and structure of 
 the Bible. What is this book commonly called 
 par excellence, "the Book" the Bible? What is 
 its past history? How did it come*into exist- 
 ence? And what has been its fortune in the 
 world during the time that it has existed here ? 
 
 Nothing can be more striking than its external 
 history. Without going into any disputed ques- 
 tion, we may say that in the history of books the' 
 Bible stands unexampled for the time over which 
 its composition extended and the variety and 
 number of its authors. It is not a single book, 
 but a collection of sixty -six books, longer or 
 shorter. These were not written at one time, but 
 
64 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 during a period of fifteen or sixteen hundred 
 years not very much less than the duration of 
 the Christian era. They were not written by 
 members of any single caste or class ; not, like 
 the sacred books of the Egyptians, for example, 
 by members of the priestly caste, living by them- 
 selves, understanding each other's plans and proj- 
 ects, and handing down from age to age the tra- 
 ditions that gave unity to their policy. They 
 were written by all sorts of persons and in all 
 sorts of places ; by prophets, priests, kings, gov- 
 ernors, prime ministers, herdmen, fishermen, pub- 
 licans, physicians, pharisees. They were written 
 in different languages, most in Hebrew, many in 
 Greek, and a few portions in Chaldee. Some of 
 the books are in the form of history, some of biog- 
 raphy; some are poems, songs, visions, allegories; 
 some are didactic treatises, some are familiar let- 
 ters, some theological treatises, and some pro- 
 phetic forecasts. In the desert of Sinai and the 
 wilderness of Judaea; in the cave of Adullam, in 
 the public prison of Rome, and in the island of 
 Patmos; in the palaces of Mount Zion and Shu- 
 shan; by the rivers of Babylon, with harps hang- 
 ing on the willows, and on the banks of the Che- 
 bar, under shadow of the great fortress of Carche- 
 mish; in the streets of Jerusalem, built up again 
 from its ruins, and amid the music of boys and 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 65 
 
 girls playing in the streets thereof in such a vast 
 variety of places and circumstances were the vari- 
 ous bits of this strange mosaic constructed. No 
 other literary phenomenon in all the world can be 
 compared to this. 
 
 Yet the sixty-six pieces do form one book; the 
 mosaic *is a connected whole. But how was the 
 connection secured ? If we should conceive that 
 in England, from the fourth century to the nine- 
 teenth, sixty-six pieces of writing had been pre- 
 pared by about half that number of men, by kings, 
 priests, scholars, peasants, fishermen, and the like, 
 having no special connection with each other, can 
 it be supposed that they would now form a homo- 
 geneous whole, a volume that might be bound 
 together, and that we could read right on in our 
 closets, in our families, and in our churches, with- 
 out any sense of abrupt transition or of positive 
 contradiction ? Yet this has been the history of 
 the Bible. Must not an unseen Power have moved 
 so various a band of writers ? 
 
 And, what is still more remarkable, the au- 
 thors of the Bible, though so diverse as we have 
 seen, were all connected with one small country, 
 and were much bound up in it and in the people 
 that dwelt in it; their thoughts gathered round its 
 history, and their writings are crowded with allu- 
 sions to its hills and valleys, its streams and lakes 
 
 5 
 
65 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 and little brooks, its towns and villages even its 
 individual trees, rocks, caves, and gardens. In a 
 sense it is a very local book, provincial, nay, pa- 
 rochial in its details; yet it has been accepted and 
 adopted by all civilized nations; it is our book in 
 this land as much as it ever was the Jews' book in 
 Palestine; by some marvellous process of adapta- 
 tion it has become by far the most catholic book 
 in the world. 
 
 Let us dwell for a moment on this world-wide 
 repute which the book has attained. Though 
 eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the 
 last parts of it were written, it is reverenced to- 
 day as profoundly as it ever was in Judaea, and it 
 is found as useful for practical purposes as it was 
 by those who first listened to its message. It has 
 been welcomed and honored by Jew and Greek, 
 barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. It has been 
 translated into some two hundred languages of 
 the globe. Great societies exist for the sole pur- 
 pose of multiplying versions and copies, which 
 are produced in millions year after year. In most 
 cases the translation of the Bible has been an era 
 in the history of the language into which it has 
 been rendered, fixing its grammar, enlarging its 
 scope, and refining its quality. In the more civil- 
 ised countries where it is received it is not enough 
 to have a single version of it; scholar after scholar 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 67 
 
 tries to improve the rendering, and, as we have 
 said, companies of revisers sit and labor for years 
 in the endeavor to give a more exact meaning of 
 the original phrase. Other scholars, like Tisch- 
 endorf, wander hither and thither, rummaging 
 among the driest parchments, the most time-worn 
 fragments of ancient writings; and if they chance 
 to discover some very old and musty manuscript 
 of a part of the Bible, words cannot tell their de- 
 light, nor can figures express the value of the dis- 
 covery. If, by some rare concurrence of circum- 
 stances, there should be discovered the original 
 manuscript of any book of the Bible, it would be 
 welcomed like a treasure direct from heaven it 
 would be by far the most sacred possession that 
 earth contains. 
 
 Of the sixty-six books there is hardly one on 
 which commentaries have not been written that 
 would fill a library. Were we to set about com- 
 puting all the literature that has sprung from the 
 Bible, we should be more baffled than in trying 
 to count the stars of heaven. Were we to glance 
 at the history of art, to try to reckon all the paint- 
 ings of the first quality that have been founded 
 on Bible scenes, or the music that has been in- 
 spired by Bible truths, or the poetry that has 
 owed its soul to Bible influence, or the civiliza- 
 tions it has moulded, or the legislations it has 
 
68 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE.. 
 
 controlled, or the institutions it has created, we 
 should hardly be less perplexed. 
 
 And what a power the Bible is in individual 
 and family life ! Usually it is the first book a 
 child is taught to know; it is the last on the 
 pillow of the dying. The young man beginning 
 life reads it to arm himself against temptation; 
 the old man ending life reads it to comfort him- 
 self under sorrow, to stave off the desolation of 
 bereavement, and to create anew that charm of 
 hope which keeps the heart young when all else 
 is old. 
 
 Can all this be the result of sheer superstition 
 and misguided imagination ? Have so many 
 generations of men been the dupes of one gigan- 
 tic fraud, dancing after a will-o'-the-wisp, imag- 
 ining that they had found a treasure, in reality 
 as baseless as any child's dream of fairyland ? Is 
 there not something more than remarkable, some- 
 thing quite unexampled, in the past history of 
 this book ? Such a history and such an influence, 
 must it not -possess a far more than human vitali- 
 ty; must it not really be "the Word of God that 
 liveth and abideth for ever"? 
 
 II. 
 
 From its past history let us proceed to exam- 
 ine the book itself, to search out its contents and 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 69 
 
 investigate its distinctive character. What is 
 the great burden of its message? What consti- 
 tutes its vital unity, giving a common character 
 to Genesis and revelation, to Joshua and the 
 Acts, to Chronicles and Corinthians, to Isaiah and 
 Paul ? The answer to these questions opens a wide 
 door, and to be given fully would need a treatise. 
 And yet there is one short answer to them, one 
 that is well adapted to throw light on our present 
 inquiry into the vitality of the book. If we were 
 asked to say in a single word, What is the great 
 burden of the Bible message to man? What is 
 the aspect of God's character, or his attitude to- 
 wards man, that dominates the whole Bible? our 
 reply would be: "GoD DRAWING NEAR TO MAN 
 
 IN THE WAY OF GRACE, AND ENCOURAGING HIM 
 TO HOPE IN HIS MERCY THROUGH A MEDIATOR. 
 
 To illustrate this, let us take the first scene 
 after the fall in Paradise. "The L'ord God called 
 unto Adam and said, Where art thou?" Gen. 
 3:9. This may be regarded as the germ of the 
 whole Bible. Man has fallen, and, afraid of God, 
 has hid himself; but God comes to look for him, 
 and hold out the hope of mercy to him after all. 
 In this passage we have God seeking after guilty, 
 ruined man. He might have left him to his fate, 
 but he does not He comes down to the garden 
 which man has desecrated by sin, and he calls to 
 
70 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 him, trembling in his hiding-place. No doubt 
 he pronounces on Adam the sentence of the crimi- 
 nal, and he drives him out of Paradise. But this 
 is not all. A door of hope is opened in the sen- 
 tence inflicted on the tempter: " The seed of the 
 woman shall bruise thy head." Man is not to 
 be abandoned to this enemy; deliverance is to 
 come to him through his own seed. We shall 
 speak afterwards of this promise; meanwhile what 
 we dwell on is the fact that after he has fallen 
 God approaches him, no doubt with a word of 
 judgment, but also with a word of cheer and 
 hope. This, we say, is the essence of the whole 
 Bible. 
 
 From Genesis to Revelation we find the same 
 thing God looking down on man while strug- 
 gling in the billows of sin and guilt, and stretch- 
 ing out His hand to save him. From first to last 
 the Shepherd goes among the mountains to seek 
 for the sheep that was lost. One of the wonder- 
 ful felicities of the three parables of our Lord 
 the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, and the 
 lost son was that they at once summed up the 
 whole history of the past, indicated the great 
 transaction of the present, and foretold the history 
 of the future. They brought into a focus the 
 whole story of God's dealings with man. In 
 another sense these dealings were brought to a 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. J\ 
 
 focus in the cross of Christ. Jesus was the subject 
 of his own parables. The history of the past, 
 and particularly the history of Israel, showed that 
 God had never abandoned man that he had 
 gone after him, through all his wanderings and all 
 his wickedness, in order to recover him and lead 
 him back to the true fountain of living waters. 
 The incarnation and the crucifixion showed the 
 climax of the divine solicitude for the restoration 
 of man. Not only did God dwell among men 
 in the person of his Son, not only did he become 
 one with the race, but he bore the penalty of 
 their transgression, in order that he might save 
 them. "God commendeth his love towards us, 
 in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for 
 us." The greatest event in Bible history is just 
 the summing up of all that preceded it. The 
 Good Shepherd who had all along been following 
 the sheep came nearer to them than ever, and 
 suffered in their room that their sins might be 
 forgiven, and that they might be led to the green 
 pastures and still waters of eternal life. 
 
 Let us glance along the Old Testament his- 
 tory, and see whether this was not God's attitude 
 from the beginning. We have seen that when he 
 sent man out of Paradise he did not leave him to 
 fall constantly more and more under the power of 
 his enemy till he should be hopelessly ruined, but 
 
72 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 gave him a door of hope, gave him reason to trust 
 in his mercy. Notwithstanding all God did, how- 
 ever, corruption increased among men ; they came 
 to the very verge of extinction, the water of the 
 flood seemed to threaten universal death ; but God 
 drew near to Noah in the way of grace, and en- 
 couraged him, as he had encouraged Adam, to 
 hope in his mercy. Again, however, after the 
 flood, the process of corruption set in; idolatry 
 became rampant, even in the plains of Mesopota- 
 mia; but God again interposed in the way of grace, 
 rescued Abraham from the idolatry of his breth- 
 ren, and made a covenant with him, promising 
 that in him and in his seed all the nations of the 
 earth should be blessed. The covenant was re- 
 newed to the patriarchs,, and under its protection 
 the family of Israel went to sojourn in Egypt 
 But the trouble now did not set in from within ; 
 persecution came from without : and again God 
 drew near in the way of grace, delivering his peo- 
 ple from Hgypt, and giving them encouragement 
 in ways without 'number to hope in his' mercy. 
 Ages rolled on; after they were settled in Canaan 
 new revelations of the divine mercy were given; 
 songs of redemption, calling on Israel to hope in 
 the Lord, for with the Lord there was mercy and 
 with him was plenteous redemption, became na- 
 tional songs for the people, and in their sacred 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE) BIBLE. 73 
 
 books revelations of the coming redemption be- 
 came brighter and clearer. But if God was reveal- 
 ing himself more clearly, the force of corruption 
 was working more intensely ; chastisement fol- 
 lowed, till the whole head was sick and the whole 
 heart faint; the mighty Nebuchadnezzar dragged 
 into captivity to Babylon nearly all who had been 
 spared by the sword, pestilence, and famine. 
 
 But the same God who came to seek for Adam 
 among the trees of the garden came to seek for 
 Israel beside the rivers of Babylon. He drew near 
 to them again in the way of grace, and invited 
 them anew to hope in his mercy. He turned 
 back the captivity of Zion and restored the holy 
 city. Yet new forms of corruption came in like 
 a flood, the heart and soul declined from God's 
 service, and the foremost professors of religion 
 became like whited sepulchres full of dead men's 
 bones. Once more God drew nigh, and, as we 
 have said, in a form unexampled and complete: 
 God was manifest in the flesh, and proved the in- 
 finite riches of His grace by dying for men, the 
 Just for the unjust, that he might bring them to 
 God. 
 
 This was the final lesson. Nothing plainer, 
 nothing higher, nothing fuller, could ever be 
 shown. The cross was the climax of all the past, 
 as it was the fountain-head of all the future. 
 
74 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 After Christ, every member of his kingdom was 
 charged in a measure to proclaim the grace of 
 God and invite men to hope in his mercy. u L,et 
 him that heareth say, Come," was the rule of the 
 kingdom; while men were set apart as ambassa- 
 dors of the great King, to go into all the world 
 and proclaim the good news to every creature, to 
 proclaim God in Christ reconciling the world to 
 himself, and not imputing unto men their tres- 
 passes, and to beseech them, in Christ's stead, to 
 be reconciled to God. 
 
 This, we say, is the great feature of the whole 
 Bible. If we read what may be called the u ret- 
 rospective psalms" those in which the poet re- 
 hearses the past history of the nation, we find 
 them quite in this strain. In a long series of al- 
 ternating clauses he contrasts the ever-returning 
 backslidings of the people with the ever-enduring 
 mercy of Jehovah. " Many times did he deliver 
 them; but they provoked him with their counsel, 
 and were brought low for their iniquity. Never- 
 theless he regarded their affliction when he heard 
 their cry: and he remembered for them his cove- 
 nant, and repented according to the multitude of 
 his mercies." What fonder or more attractive 
 attitude could God be seen in? Ever yearning 
 after his foolish children; grieved for their folly 
 and wickedness, and grieved for the misery that 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE- 75 
 
 they drew upon themselves; watching his oppor- 
 tunity to speak kindly and comfortably to them, 
 and eager above all things to get a welcome from 
 them when with plaintive voice he should make 
 his appeal, "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil 
 ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel ?' ' 
 
 It was the remark of an eminent man that "in 
 other religions we see man seeking after God; in 
 the Bible we see God seeking after man." Is it 
 not a most interesting and blessed feature? Sure- 
 ly our hearts may well cling to the book that 
 shows the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eter- 
 nity, and whose name is holy, humbling himself 
 to behold the earth, and drawing near in grace 
 and mercy to save, to cleanse, and to bless. And 
 well may we cling to that part of the book which 
 is emphatically named "the Gospel" the good 
 news that not only tells us of grace abounding, 
 but shows us God's eternal Son as the messenger 
 of that grace; ay, and shows him pouring out his 
 soul unto death, that the channel might be opened 
 in which that grace should flow. 
 
 But how are we to account for this feature of 
 the Bible ? How comes it that from Genesis to 
 Revelation we have such a disclosure of the divine 
 heart, such a view of the divine Being bending 
 over his erring children in order to arrest and save 
 them ? How did this conception of God come into 
 
76 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBI.E. 
 
 the hearts of the writers? And how did it come 
 to be associated with the idea of a God most right- 
 eous and holy, in whose eyes evil cannot dwell 
 and fools cannot stand ? 
 
 Certainly it is not man's natural conception of 
 God. It is not the conception furnished in any 
 other religion or in any other so-called sacred 
 book. How, then, came it into the heart of so 
 many writers in succession, and how came they, 
 at the last stage of development, to hit on the idea 
 of the incarnation and the cross? The natural 
 idea of man is that God is irritated; that he is not 
 merely vexed at his sin, bjit that he feels bitter 
 towards the sinner, and that he is eager to punish 
 him. Even with the Bible in our hands it is often 
 very difficult to uproot the feeling that God feels 
 bitter towards us. The deeper our sense of sin, 
 the more are we disposed to think that God has a 
 personal aversion to us. We think that he must 
 regard us as so many sources of annoyance and 
 trouble, and we shrink from meeting him as we 
 shrink from meeting any man of power and im- 
 portance whom we know that we have injured 
 and provoked. 
 
 Now, the question is, How came the writers 
 of the Bible to have so different a conception of 
 God ? How came they at once to intensify God's 
 righteousness, God's hatred of sin, and yet to strip 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 77 
 
 his feeling towards the sinner of all bitterness 
 nay, more, to bathe it, as it were, in love ? How 
 came they all, more or less, to have this feeling, 
 so that, as we have seen, God is presented through- 
 out as drawing near to the sinner in the way of 
 grace, and encouraging him, unworthy though he 
 is, to hope in his mercy ? How came they to see 
 what, outside the Bible, men have never been 
 able to see with any clearness, mercy and truth 
 met together, righteousness and peace embracing 
 each other? And how came they to bring all 
 these lines of teaching to a focus in the person, 
 the life, the parables, the miracles, the death and 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ ? Is it not plain that 
 behind and beneath the human authorship of the 
 Bible it is pervaded throughout by an unseen 
 influence from heaven? that it does not stand, 
 like other books, on the mere gifts and attain- 
 ments of its human authors, but was designed to 
 be, what it ever has been and ever will be, the 
 organ of the Holy Ghost for enlightening and 
 saving men "the Word of God, which liveth 
 and abideth for ever. ' ' 
 
 But even the most cursory view of the great 
 purport of the Bible would be essentially deficient 
 if we did not take into account what it says of the 
 particular way of mercy God has appointed for 
 sinful men. For it is not the lesson of the Bible 
 
78 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 that God's mercy comes to men directly and im- 
 mediately; it comes by a channel of its own. It 
 is not the teaching of the Bible that to forgive sin 
 costs God nothing more than an act of forbearance 
 and forgiveness costs us when we have sustained 
 an injury. Mercy to the guilty comes from God 
 through the mediation of another. There is al- 
 ways a third party in the transaction. To make 
 our view more complete, therefore, of the chief 
 feature of the Bible, we must add another clause 
 its object, as we have said, is to show God draw- 
 ing near to man in the way of grace, and encour- 
 aging him to hope in his mercy but always 
 
 THROUGH A MEDIATOR. 
 
 It is not the doctrine of Scripture that through 
 .mere efforts of his own man is to reinstate him- 
 self in all that he has lost. Nor is it the doctrine 
 of Scripture that by some general law of develop- 
 ment and improvement things are to come round 
 and all is to be well again. Nor, still further, is 
 it the doctrine of Scripture that God is to restore 
 all things in the same way in which in nature he 
 restores the stripped tree or the trodden grass or 
 the fever-stricken body. There was to be a special 
 agent of restoration a man, yet more than man, 
 having the very attributes and properties of God. 
 The serpent was to be crushed by the seed of the 
 woman. All nations were to be blessed in Abra- 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE) BIBLE. 79 
 
 ham and his seed. Judah was to become some- 
 how a praise among his brethren. A son of David 
 was to reign from sea to sea, and from the river 
 to the ends of the earth. One who is termed va- 
 riously the L,ord's Servant, the Lord's Messenger, 
 the Lord's Angel, the Lord's Anointed, was to be- 
 come the great Fountain of benediction. What- 
 ever instalments of blessing might come earlier, 
 the great ocean of blessing was to be revealed only 
 when He should come to dwell with men. 
 
 Hence that feature pf the Old Testament which 
 attracts every eye its prophetic Messianic strain, 
 its wistful looking forward, its testimony to Him 
 who was to come. No other book is marked by 
 any such feature. Whatever knowledge of the ] 
 future might be claimed under other religious 
 systems, prophecy had no such place in any of 
 them as it has in the Hebrew Scriptures. Pagan 
 religions might claim to possess a certain knowl- 
 edge of the future; the soothsayer might pretend 
 to divine the course of things, or the mysterious 
 voice from the shrine of Delphi might utter some 
 forecast of a coming event. But in no ancient 
 book or ancient religion do we find any parallel 
 to that stream of Messianic prediction which runs 
 through the whole Old Testament. Nowhere 
 else is there such a looking forward to a definite 
 event in the future that was to constitute the 
 
8o THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 turning-point in the world's history, or to the 
 coming of One who, while a man, \vas to be much 
 more than a man, who was to complete the econ- 
 omy of redemption and bring to perfection God's 
 dispensation of grace. 
 
 The figure of this great Mediator of blessing is 
 conspicuous through all Scripture. The Old Tes- 
 tament looks forward to him; in the Gospels he is 
 present; while the Epistles look back on him, and 
 at the same time present the hope of another ad- 
 vent, yet to be realized. In the Bible the history 
 of the world thus acquires a unity which it never 
 attains in any other way. Men of great intellect 
 struggle hard to unravel the tangled web of hu- 
 man events, and to find amid all their diversities 
 and vicissitudes something like a beginning, a 
 middle, and an end. The problem that baffles 
 the human intellect is solved with ease in the 
 Bible. The .first long and often dark chapters of 
 history prepare the way for the coming of Christ, 
 and after his advent history describes the progress 
 of his kingdom, which is one day to be coexten- 
 sive with the habitable earth. There is no doubt 
 what constitutes the centre of things in Scripture. 
 All eyes look in one direction, and find in the ad- 
 vent of Jesus the central fact in the world's his- 
 tory. 
 
 The prominence of Christ in the Bible, in the 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 8 1 
 
 Old Testament as well as the New, and the sig- 
 nificance of his function as the divine agent of 
 grace and blessing, the great Restorer and Re- 
 deemer, the Way and the Truth and- the Life, 
 go far to account for its vitality and vindicate its 
 claims as the inspired Word of God. It comforts 
 men to think of God as drawing near to them in 
 an attitude of grace and mercy; but it more than 
 comforts them, it satisfies them, to dwell on the 
 thought of Christ, in whom divine grace was so 
 gloriously revealed, not merely in the words he 
 spoke, the promises he made, and the life of love 
 and sympathy he led, but preeminently in the 
 death he died "the Just for the unjust, to bring 
 them to God." Studying the revelation of the 
 Father in the Son, they are not only assured that 
 they have rightly understood the divine attitude 
 as seen in the fainter light of the Old Testament, 
 but they see the harmony of God's attributes in 
 the whole transaction ; the entire plan of grace 
 reflects his high perfections, and glows with the 
 lustre of heaven. So long as men who feel that 
 they have wandered from God can appreciate the 
 love that has followed them with outstretched 
 arms and a father's yearning heart; and so long 
 as they find this to be His attitude in every part 
 of the Bible, and preeminently in those parts 
 where either directly or symbolically Jesus Christ 
 
 6 
 
82 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 is set forth as the channel of divine grace and 
 blessing, the Bible cannot but retain its vitality, 
 cannot but vindicate its character as the Word of 
 God that kveth and abideth for ever. As explain- 
 ing, too, in some measure, the history of the 
 world, and showing the development of the di- 
 vine plan for gathering together in Christ the 
 shattered fragments of humanity, building up the 
 ruined temple upon Christ as the chief corner- 
 stone, and giving something of unity and dignity 
 to the history of the world, it must be felt that 
 the Bible has preeminent claims to the respect 
 and the confidence of men. 
 
 No doubt it is denied by rationalists that Jesus 
 Christ occupies in the whole Bible that place of 
 preeminence which we have claimed for him. 
 What are called the Messianic prophecies, it is 
 maintained are not such really, but acquire that 
 character by men reading into them what they 
 find in the Gospels. The idea of a Messianic 
 age, they say, so far as the Old Testament pre- 
 sents it, is merely the expression of that hope in 
 a good time coming which is natural to the heart 
 of man. It is natural for the oppressed to look 
 forward to deliverance. It is natural for the sick 
 to hope for health. In stormy weather it is natu- 
 ral to look for the return of calm and sunshine. 
 The Messianic prophecies, so called, were just the 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 83 
 
 embodiment of these hopes cast in a more vivid 
 form than the common. The Hebrew nation had 
 more hopefulness than most, and these prophetic 
 dreams of Paradise regained were simply the out- 
 come of sanguine temperaments fashioning their 
 fond imaginings of the future in forms of unusual 
 beauty. 
 
 But were the Hebrews a particularly hopeful 
 people ? Hopefulness is not a usual characteristic 
 of Eastern nations, which are remarkable for their 
 tendency to live in the present and their compar- 
 ative unconcern for the future. And as for the 
 Hebrews, it cannot be said that as a nation it was 
 their habit, under the pressure of present trouble, 
 to dwell hopefully on a brighter future. Was it 
 a hopeful spirit they showed after Moses and Aa- 
 ron came to them from the burning bush and an- 
 nounced God's purpose of deliverance? Was it a 
 hopeful spirit they showed when they remem- 
 bered the leeks and the garlic and the onions, and 
 their soul loathed the light bread of the desert? 
 Did the cry, " Make us a captain, that we may 
 return to Egypt," indicate a hopeful spirit? or 
 the report of the ten spies after their return from 
 searching out the land? Or was there much hope- 
 fulness shown, far on in their history, when, after 
 the proclamation of Cyrus at Babylon, a mere frac- 
 tion of the exiles availed themselves of the offer to 
 
84 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 return to their land? Not only is there no ground 
 to say that the Hebrews as a nation were remark- 
 able for their hopefulness, but the opposite is 
 nearer the truth. Where a spirit of hopefulness 
 in the future did triumph over present trouble, it 
 was on the part of a few, and as the result of faith 
 in the word of God. It was faith in God's word 
 that made Abraham hopeful u who against hope 
 believed in hope." It was this, too, that led Mo- 
 ses to believe in the coming deliverance of the 
 people from Egypt, and to rouse them to suitable 
 action. It was this that made the faithful spies 
 despise the gigantic Anakim, and urge the people 
 to go up and take possession of the land. It was 
 this that inspired the bright visions of Isaiah of 
 the glory of the latter day. The temper of the 
 people leaned to despondency, and it was from 
 the men that believed God and hoped in his word 
 that the glorious visions of the future came. To 
 account for the stream of Messianic prophecy in 
 the Hebrew Scriptures by saying that the people 
 had a hopeful temperament, would be like ac- 
 counting for the recent reformation in the Fiji 
 Islands by saying that the natives had a benevo- 
 lent and peaceful turn. It would be to mistake 
 the effect for the cause, and in both cases alike 
 to overlook the special action of the Spirit of 
 God. 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 85 
 
 The efforts of modern rationalism to put Christ 
 out of the Old Testament are not more successful 
 when attention is turned to particular passages for 
 which a Messianic character is claimed. It is 
 often said ^now that there are hardly any texts in 
 the Old Testament that have a distinct reference 
 to Christ. Bven the fifty- third chapter of Isaiah 
 is the subject of a vehement struggle, almost lu- 
 dicrous from the variety of opinion as to who is 
 the subject of the grophet's discourse. But if the 
 Messianic references in the Old Testament are so 
 few and far between, how comes it that that arch- 
 rationalist, David Strauss, in trying to account for 
 the rapidity with which belief in Christ's mira- 
 cles grew up in the early church, laid so much 
 stress on the Messianic predictions of the Old Tes- 
 tament? He maintained that in ordinary circum- 
 stances it would have taken far longer time for 
 the mythical dream that Christ wrought miracles 
 to establish itself as a fact in the popular mind, 
 but that the process was greatly helped and quick- 
 ened by the Old Testament predictions, which 
 ascribed to the Messiah the performance of defi- 
 nite miracles. Since these miracles were ascribed 
 to him in the -Old Testament since it was said 
 that the ears of the deaf would be unstopped and 
 the eyes of the blind would see, that the lame man 
 would leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb 
 
86 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 would sing, his early followers, said Strauss, at 
 once inferred that such things must have been 
 done by him. Now, it were well for rationalism 
 to hold to one position or another; it only exposes 
 itself to contempt by maintaining at one time that 
 the so-called Messianic prophecies amount to noth- 
 ing, and at another time saying, with Strauss, 
 that they were so clear, full, and explicit as to ac- 
 count for the early prevalence of the belief that 
 numberless miracles were performed by Christ. 
 
 But besides all this, is it not certain that even 
 in heathen nations there prevailed a belief, as 
 Tacitus and Suetonius testify, that a great Deliv- 
 erer was to come from Judaea a belief that must 
 have sprung from the Hebrew prophecies, spread 
 over the world as they were through the Septua- 
 gint translation ? Did not our Lord and his apos- 
 tles refer often and openly to the prophetic parts 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures as verifying his claims? 
 Did not the Jews themselves, for long centuries 
 after the birth of Christ, cling to the belief that 
 their prophets foretold a personal Messiah, who 
 should fulfil all their pictures of peace and pros- 
 perity ? And were not the early Christians in the 
 habit of referring triumphantly to the fulfilment 
 in Christ of the prophetic announcements as an 
 ample warrant of their faith in him ? In view of 
 such considerations, Christians in our time need 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 8/ 
 
 not be moved from the sure conviction that Jesus 
 Christ is revealed to them in the Old Testament 
 as well as in the New; that all through the Old 
 Testament he is represented as the channel 
 through whom God's grace was to flow to men, 
 and that their visions, often so glorious, of 
 abounding blessing and joy were due to the in- 
 comparable merit and infinite love of him in 
 whom it had been promised to Abraham all the 
 families of the earth were to be blessed. 
 
 L,et us suppose now that before knowing any- 
 thing of the Gospels we had fully gathered from 
 the Old Testament these two ideas that God had 
 all along been drawing near to man in the way of 
 , grace, and that it was foretold that in the fulness 
 of time there was to appear on earth that glorious 
 Being through whom his grace was to be con- 
 veyed to men; with what a strange interest should 
 we not now open the New Testament and devour 
 its contents to ascertain what manner of person 
 this great Deliverer actually was ! We could not 
 fail to have very high expectations of him ; one 
 that should embody the yearning love of the great 
 Father longing for his children ; one that should 
 have power to atone for the children's guilt and to 
 make it possible for their Father to receive them ; 
 one that should combine the sympathies of hu- 
 manity with the glory of divinity; one that should 
 
88 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 be able to win them back from all the vanities 
 that had fascinated them and all the masters that 
 had enslaved them, to infuse into them a heav- 
 enly temper and make them meet for a heavenly 
 home what an exalted, what a wonderful Being 
 this must be ! No mere child of Adam, however 
 gifted and however good, could fulfil the condi- 
 tions demanded of one who was to embody the 
 love of the Father and to convey his grace to 
 men. 
 
 But how far are any conceptions or expecta- 
 tions that we might have formed beforehand ex- 
 ceeded by the reality ! When the time came for 
 the manifestation of the Messiah there appeared 
 One who stands without peer or parallel in the 
 history of the world. A true brother of humani- 
 ty, yet the Son of God ; separate from sinners, yet 
 the Friend of sinners; pure, spotless in his whole 
 spirit and life, and breathing forth an influence 
 that bore men up to the gate of heaven; diffusing 
 on every side health and benediction, and at last 
 laying down his life as a sacrifice for his people's 
 sins ; rising from the grave and ascending into 
 heaven, yet ruling his church from the skies, and 
 promising to come again to receive them to him- 
 self, that where he was there they might also be 
 this is he whom the evangelists present to us as 
 the fulfilment of all the promises, as the divine 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 89 
 
 channel of grace and peace, the gift of God to the 
 children of men ! 
 
 With what unerring certainty and full assu- 
 rance of faith the early disciples apprehended the 
 glorious quality of this gift of God ! Of all the 
 tasks that rationalism has to grapple with, none 
 is so utterly desperate as to account for the rela- 
 tion that sprang up between Jesus and his first 
 disciples on the supposition that there was nothing 
 supernatural in his person. For that relation 
 was not merely the relation between scholar and 
 teacher. It was not merely the relation between 
 servant and Master, or between friend and friend. 
 It was preeminently the relation between sinner 
 and Saviour. They knew that he embodied the 
 Father's love and that he was the channel of the 
 Father's grace. They knew that he was the Good 
 Shepherd who had come to the bleak, storm- 
 tossed mountains to search for his lost sheep. 
 They felt the tender touch, the fond embrace of 
 the Shepherd, they heard his soothing voice, they 
 were folded in his loving arms. No words could 
 have been more charged with the love and grace 
 of heaven than such words as his u Be of good 
 cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." "Verily I 
 say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in 
 paradise." To suffer for him was a privilege, to 
 die for him the height of honor. They were 
 
9O THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 "persuaded that neither death nor life, nor an- 
 gels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things 
 present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, 
 nor any other creature," would be able to separate 
 them from "the love of God which is in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord. ' ' 
 
 What the living Jesus was to those who lived 
 in his days, the four Gospels and the other books 
 of the New Testament convey in some measure to 
 those who have lived in later times. Seen through 
 such a medium, the glory is less dazzling and the 
 impression less overwhelming: but on the other 
 hand w r e have the benefit of being able to search, 
 compare, and ponder the various records, to learn 
 more by thus searching of the depths of the riches 
 of the grace and love of Christ, to discover from 
 time to time new themes for wonder, and new 
 grounds for reverence, trust, and affection. The 
 book whose open page brings us into this gracious 
 presence, whence comes to us all that is fitted to 
 quell our fears, soothe our sorrows, purify our 
 hearts, and transform our lives, is surely not des- 
 tined to be forgotten: while men live needing the 
 grace and love of heaven, it must prove to be 
 "the Word of God that liveth and abideth for 
 ever. ' ' 
 
 And further, when the light of the New Tes- 
 tament is thrown back on the Old, new beauties 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 91 
 
 are found in nearly every page. Glimpses are 
 seen of Him who is by far the most glorious, as he 
 is also by far the most precious, personage that 
 sinners of mankind can have to do with. Nor is 
 this the result of mere sentiment or fancy. If 
 God inspired the prophets to write of Christ, even 
 though it was often dimly and indefinitely, now 
 that we know more of him we may trace his 
 features, we may get glimpses of his face, in many 
 an Old Testament page. And this is not a mere 
 work of supererogation. We ought not to say 
 that, inasmuch as the New Testament presents 
 Christ manifest in the flesh, it is but wasting our 
 time to look for him in the types and shadows of 
 the old economy. The remark is shallow, and 
 very untrue to our nature. When objects are 
 dear to us, and much more living persons, we 
 delight to find resemblances to them even in 
 reflections and shadows. The clouds of the morn- 
 ing are beautiful, but not less interesting are the 
 shadows they cast on the mountains, now swath- 
 ing them in solemn, motionless folds, now scud- 
 ding along their bosoms one after another, as the 
 birds in playful glee chase each other in the air. 
 It is delightful on the calm autumn evening to 
 gaze on the stately crag, clothed and crowned 
 with its feathery foliage, rising abrupt from the 
 edge of the placid lake; is it less so to gaze on its 
 
Q2 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 marvellous reflection beneath the surface, and see 
 how not a twig or leaf wants its counterpart 
 there? 
 
 " The swan on still St. Mary's lake 
 Floats double swan and shadow." 
 
 Who does not like to trace the faint resem- 
 blance of a beloved parent or child, whether in 
 some dim ancestral portrait of a former genera- 
 tion, or in the youthful face of a living descend- 
 ant? What man of science does not delight 
 to find in the less perfect forms of animated na- 
 ture analogies however faint to the more perfect? 
 How can the poet better fulfil his vocation than 
 when in the dim voices of nature he finds articu- 
 late echoes of the voice of God ? Tell us not that 
 when we find in the Old Testament the shadows 
 of the New we are wasting our time and allow- 
 ing our fancy to drag us whither it will. That 
 there has been a great amount of fantastic spir- 
 itualizing of the Old Testament, from Origen even 
 to Jonathan Edwards, cannot, we think, be dis- 
 puted. But it is equally true that there has been 
 a vast amount of failure in poetry failure to 
 bring out in song the real relations of God and 
 nature, or of nature and man. Man's blunders 
 in reading nature's record no more prove the 
 record to be unworthy of study than the blunders 
 of a child in reading "Paradise Lost" prove that 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 93 
 
 Milton was not a poet. It is beyond reasonable 
 doubt that the Old Testament swarms with hints 
 and glimpses, shadows and analogies, * that are 
 more fully brought to light in the New. It is 
 equally beyond doubt that on this account it is 
 full of profound and genuine interest to all who 
 are concerned about the attitude of God to sin- 
 ners, and the revelation of his grace; and it is 
 certain that this feature will never cease to give 
 vitality to the whole book, that it will ever tend 
 to confirm and multiply the proof that it is u the 
 Word of God that liveth and abideth for ever." 
 
 III. 
 
 After considering what the Bible is, it is a 
 natural question to ask what the Bible does. 
 What is its effect? The spiritual experience of 
 some men as to what they find in the Bible is not 
 the experience of all men. It is desirable to find 
 a more palpable test of the claims of the Book 
 something to prove more incontrovertibly that it 
 is the Word of God, and thus possesses a vitality 
 that can never be destroyed. 
 
 What, then, are the effects of the Bible ? The 
 question is not capable of a single answer because 
 the effects of the Bible depend on how men re- 
 ceive it and apply it. Some even in Christian 
 countries formally deny its authority; and some, 
 
94 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 admitting its authority in words, pay little or no 
 heed to it in their lives. In judging of the effects 
 of the Bible, we must lay down a canon applica- 
 ble to all cases of a professed remedy for any dis- 
 order. If the question be whether the remedy be 
 an efficient one, an indispensable condition is that 
 it be applied to the disorder in the proper way. If 
 vaccination claims to be an antidote to smallpox, 
 its effects can be judged of only from the cases of 
 those who have ' been duly and properly vacci- 
 nated. If the practice of vaccination were merely 
 general but not universal in a community, it 
 would be unfair to proclaim it a failure because 
 many cases of smallpox occurred. Applying this 
 canon of common sense to the case of the Bible, 
 it is plain that the true effects of the Bible can be 
 judged of only from the cases of those who accept 
 it as the Word of God and strive to conform in all 
 things to its requirements. If these constitute 
 but a fraction of a community; if the greater num- 
 ber adopt some other rule of life in whole or in 
 part, it is no wonder if the result, as apparent in 
 the character of the community, is unsatisfactory. 
 In such a community the question is not fairly 
 tested, although even there the indirect influence 
 of the Bible may be seen in a higher tone and a 
 purer life than could have been found where the 
 Bible was wholly unknown. 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. Q5 
 
 Taking those, therefore, by whom the Bible 
 has been cordially accepted, what has been the 
 result ? It has been found a light to them that sit 
 in darkness and in the region and shadow of death, 
 to guide their feet into the way of peace. It has 
 brought to them the balm of Gilead and the Phy- 
 sician who is there. It has taught them songs of 
 forgiveness and thanksgiving through the grace 
 of Him who died for them and who rose again. 
 It has given them a home and a Father, a charac- 
 ter, a life, and a hope. It has made the drunkard 
 sober, the scoffer devout, the miser generous, the 
 timid brave, the selfish self-denying. It has fur- 
 nished the young with noble plans of life and 
 noble principles to guide them through it, and it 
 has given them strength and decision to stand to 
 their colors. It has furnished the afflicted with 
 comfort in every sorrow, kept hope burning in the 
 deepest gloom, and taught them to hurl defiance 
 at the last enemy "O death, where is thy sting? 
 O grave, where is thy victory ?' ' 
 
 It has nerved men and women too with won- 
 derful strength to do and to suffer. It has made 
 poor, weak, quivering flesh equal to the tortures 
 of the Inquisition, equal to the dreary dungeon 
 and the stake and the gallows and the wheel and 
 the red-hot pincers and the flaying knife, and 
 I 'know not what other instruments of cruelty. 
 
g6 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Grander still, it has inspired them with a mar- 
 vellous love for their fellows, and with a fervent 
 sympathy with Jesus in his grand enterprise to 
 seek and to save the lost. It has turned the deli- 
 cate lady into the laborious nurse \vho toils day 
 and night to soothe the sorrows and heal the dis- 
 eases of the sick ; it has sent the accomplished 
 scholar to the haunts of savages to try to win 
 them to the blessed life, no matter though in re- 
 turn the tomahawk may shatter his skull or the 
 poisoned arrow pierce his bosom. It has given 
 power to the Christian explorer to bury himself 
 for long and weary years among degraded tribes, 
 and while dreaming sadly of his children far away, 
 or dreaming of luxurious feasts during the gnaw- 
 ings of hunger, to work on resolutely by a fixed 
 plan of persevering love in spite of pain and wea- 
 riness and peril and opposition and disappoint- 
 ment and harrowing scenes that make him fancy 
 he is living in hell.* 
 
 But not to dwell on extraordinary cases, the 
 effect of the Bible on individuals, and these 
 numberless as the sand, is that through it they 
 are brought into fellowship with God God in 
 Christ; they have been restored to their lost place 
 in the great divine orbit, and have recovered that 
 holy communion from which sin had driven them. 
 
 * See Livingstone's Last Journals, II. 135. 
 
yX\3 R A ft y 
 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 97 
 
 Words cannot express what it is to have gained 
 a God, and to be living in loving fellowship with 
 him. To have God as a Father and a Friend, 
 forgiving all our iniquities, healing all our dis- 
 eases, guiding our perplexities, soothing our sor- 
 rows, and sanctifying our mercies, and to know 
 that these are but the firstfruits, and that God 
 will be the strength of our heart and our portion 
 for evermore, is surely the most heavenly experi- 
 ence that man can have in this world. If the 
 Bible in all ages has been the instrument of this 
 experience, it may well be called "the Word of 
 God that li veth and abideth for ever. ' ' 
 
 But beyond the effects of the Bible on the 
 individual, let us glance at its effects on society 
 wherever a sufficient number of persons have 
 yielded themselves to it to give a tone to tlie 
 whole community. It can hardly be denied that 
 it has proved the most powerful agent of civilisa- 
 tion the world has ever known. We have but to 
 look at what takes place in Fiji or Madagascar or 
 the New Hebrides or Lovedale or Livingstonia, 
 when the Bible becomes a living power. Who is 
 there who, if told that some community of can- 
 nibals had taken to the Bible, that they were lis- 
 tening in crowds to its message, that they were 
 fervently singing its Psalms and hymns, and that 
 their children had learned to revere the name of 
 
 7 
 
98 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Jesus, would not expect with the firmest assu- 
 rance to hear next that they were abandoning 
 their ferocious habits, building houses, cloth- 
 ing themselves with decent apparel, cultivating 
 their fields, beginning to trade, enacting righteous 
 laws, and observing the rules of truth and right- 
 eousness ? And as the ages rolled on, should we 
 not reckon with absolute certainty that among 
 these nations, as in older countries, the Bible 
 would continue to exert its influence and to ele- 
 vate the community still further ? 
 
 But if you should burn the Bible and abolish 
 it for ever, what would be the prospects of the 
 world as to order and real progress ? What skep- 
 tic who thinks of the passions that lie in the hu- 
 man breast, of the fearful height to which these 
 passions may rise, of the schemes of Nihilism and 
 Socialism, of the societies for vengeance and as- 
 sassination, of daggers and revolvers, nitro-glyce- 
 rine and dynamite, and the readiness of reckless 
 men for their nefarious ends to plunge society 
 into chaos, could look forward without misgiving 
 to a state of things in which neither Bible nor 
 Saviour, law nor gospel, should have the slightest 
 influence, or be so much as known? On the other 
 hand, there is hardly a Christian man or woman 
 whose hope for the world in future ages is not 
 bound up with the fate of the Bible. His ground 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 99 
 
 would be the same, alike for despair if the Bible 
 should perish, and for hope if the Bible should be 
 sustained; inasmuch as all experience shows that 
 its influence extends alike to the life that now is 
 and to that which is to come. Even on this lower 
 ground, as an instrument of temporal benefit, its 
 vitality never fails ; it is " the Word of God that 
 liveth and abideth for ever." 
 
 IV. 
 
 But are there hot difficulties in the Bible? 
 Are there not passages which it is hard to recon- 
 cile with our highest ideas of the character of 
 God? Is he not sometimes introduced as requi- 
 ring things to be done which it is hard to believe 
 that he could have done ? Are not men and wo- 
 men sometimes commended for acts which we 
 cannot read of without a shudder? Is there noth- 
 ing in the Bible to hurt the sense of modesty, the 
 instinct of purity ? If it be the Word of God that 
 liveth and abideth for ever, why should it contain 
 a single statement or a single word fitted to raise 
 a doubt whether it has really come from him ? 
 
 Let us frankly admit that there are difficulties 
 in the Bible. In fact, there are difficulties in con- 
 nection with* all God's works. There are diffi- 
 culties in nature, raising doubts in some minds 
 whether it is really the product of an infinitely 
 
ICO THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 benevolent Creator. We have storms, volcanoes, 
 earthquakes, poisonous winds, destructive floods, 
 and deadly malaria. We have famine and pesti- 
 lence, we have animals devouring each other, we 
 have ferocious monsters of the deep and of the 
 land, a terror to all who are near them. There 
 are great difficulties in providence in the moral 
 government of God. Why did God permit sin to 
 enter his world and spread desolation and misery 
 on every side? Why are the wicked often so 
 prosperous? why is the just man so often trodden 
 down ? why is the godly man so often persecuted ? 
 Why did not God protect his fair creation, natu- 
 ral and moral, from being invaded and desolated 
 by such agencies of disorder and death ? l ' My 
 ways are not your ways, neither are your thoughts 
 my thoughts, saith the Lord. ' ' There are so many 
 ways in which God follows a different course from 
 what we should have expected that we cannot 
 wonder that we find apparent anomalies in his 
 Word. The wonder in fact would be if there 
 were no such anomalies. An analogy runs through 
 all God's works ; and that analogy would have 
 failed us if we had met with difficulties in nature, 
 difficulties, yes, tremendous difficulties, in provi- 
 dence, and no difficulties whatever in the Word. 
 
 Let us remember, too, that while the whole 
 Bible is the record of God's revelation, it is a rev- 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. IOI 
 
 elation made in a peculiar way. It was a gradual 
 revelation, beginning dimly, and shining more 
 and more unto the perfect day. It was an edu- 
 cating revelation, for the natural man receiveth 
 not the things of the Spirit of God; and the fac- 
 ulty of spiritual discernment had to be imparted , 
 and enlarged, had to be made gradually capable j 
 of more and more clear apprehension, not only to j 
 individuals, but to the race itself, from age to age. 
 In the record of this revelation, moreover, in ad- 
 dition to the unchangeable divine truth which is 
 its essence, we often find the reflection of man's 
 imperfect apprehension of that truth, and imper- 
 fect moral and spiritual application of it. We 
 find the unchangeable truth of God so often pre- 
 sented in immediate connection with man's im- 
 perfect apprehension of it that what really be- 
 longs to man may at times appear as if it be- 
 longed to God. 
 
 The difficulty in respect of such things would 
 be much greater if it occurred in connection with 
 the closing portions of the revelation. But the 
 case is quite different. The moral difficulties of 
 revelation are connected with the Old Testament, 
 and chiefly with the earlier parts of the Old Tes- 
 tament, when the complications to which we have 
 referred were in full force, and the difficulty of 
 separating what is purely divine from man's way 
 
IO2 THE VITALITY OF THE 
 
 of apprehending it is by far the greatest. With 
 the closing portion of the book there is no such 
 difficulty. A spiritual and moral level has been 
 reached, the highest ever known or conceived by 
 man. The character of Jesus Christ presents the 
 most complete ideal of excellence that has ever 
 been imagined. The moral tone of the Gospels 
 and the Epistles is so pure as to constitute one of 
 the chief arguments for the divinity of the Chris- 
 tian religion. In the earlier parts of the Bible we 
 seem to see the sun struggling through clouds 
 sometimes so dense as to hide him from our view. 
 In the Gospels and the Epistles the clouds have 
 scattered, the sun shines forth in all his splendor 
 and in all his strength, and the earth, bright, 
 warm, and fruitful, bears witness to his beneficent 
 power. 
 
 Another consideration is of great practical 
 weight in dealing with the moral difficulties of 
 the Bible. In all cases where difficulties present 
 themselves on one side of a question it is useful 
 to ask whether on the other side the difficulties 
 are not equal, perhaps even greater. We have 
 allowed that there are difficulties in connection 
 with the position that the Bible is the inspired 
 Word of God. But we affirm with the utmost 
 confidence that there are far greater difficulties 
 in connection with the position that it is merely 
 
THE VITALITY OP THE BIBLE: IC3 
 
 the product of man. ' ' The Bible, ' ' an old min- 
 ister once remarked to his flock, u is a wonderful 
 book, if it be true. ' ' The surprise of his people at 
 the qualification was quickly removed when he 
 added, "but it is ten times more wonderful if it 
 be not true. ' ' To those who ponder the Bible in 
 all its aspects its far-distant commencement, its 
 unexampled chain of authorship, its unity of pur- 
 pose, ever showing God drawing near to man in 
 the way of grace, its prophetic announcements of 
 Christ, its glorious portrait of the great Mediator, 
 its scheme of grace, its sanctifying efficacy it is 
 simply inconceivable that such a book should 
 have been the product of mere human reason. 
 Whoever ponders the main contents and features 
 of the book and drinks in its great message feels 
 that there is such a surpassing glory about it that 
 any difficulties there may be in some parts of it 
 do not affect him these parts are, as it were, 
 transfigured through their neighborhood to the 
 rest. In a great chandelier of a thousand lights 
 a few dark jets are nothing; they are swallowed 
 up in the blaze. If .the body be well clad on a 
 winter day, the nake4 v face suffers no inconveni- 
 ence; it receives its heat from the protected body. 
 We know that here we see through a glass, dark- 
 ly, and are ignorant of much of the ways of God. 
 All that the loyal heart needs is such evidence 
 
104 TH ^ VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 A that as a whole the Bible is the Word of God as 
 1 to lead it to wait with patience for light on the 
 ( difficulties it cannot resolve. There is such pow- 
 er, as it were, in the leading nerves and arteries 
 that local numbness here and there makes no dif- 
 ference to the vitality of the whole frame. 
 
 V. 
 
 But does the whole vitality that we have spo- 
 ken of reside in the book itself? Is there a sort 
 of charm in it, so that it cannot but influence 
 men for good? If such were our doctrine \ve 
 might justly be called bibliolaters worshippers 
 of a book. If one were to extol the wires along 
 which the electric fluid runs as the source of all 
 they convey, one would be laying one's self open 
 to a charge of ignorance and folly. If, in like 
 manner, we were to ascribe to the Bible as a book 
 all its power over man's spirit, \ve should be lay- 
 ing ourselves open to a similar charge. No doubt 
 the Bible, even as a book, has far more moral 
 power than any other book. There is a measure 
 of moral power in the maxims of Seneca, in the 
 precepts of Confucius, and in the requirements of 
 Buddha; so also there is moral power in the very 
 contents of the Bible. But it is not our doctrine 
 that it is here that the great strength of the Bible 
 lies. We maintain, further, that the Bible is the 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. IO5 
 
 medium through which the Holy Ghost works in 
 the soul of man, enlightening, renewing, and 
 transforming it. In this point of view the Bible 
 is like the electric wire, and its great power is 
 derived from the fact that it is the channel of a 
 divine agent. Being the product of the inspira- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit, the Bible from the first 
 has been adapted to his use. It is when used by 
 him that it becomes "profitable for doctrine, for 
 reproof, for correction and instruction in right- 
 eousness. " It is called ' ' the sword of the Spirit. ' ' 
 As his weapon, his instrument, it does its greatest 
 work. If we would know the Word in its highest 
 efficacy, w r e must depend on the Spirit's power. 
 There is all the difference between the Bible in 
 itself and the Bible as the instrument of the Spirit 
 that there was between the strength of Samson 
 with his locks shorn and the same Samson before 
 the scissors or razor came upon his head. 
 
 Neglecting this, we fall into fatal errors, and 
 great evils result. The Word quickened by the 
 Spirit is God's great power for the regeneration 
 of the world. Through this agency the greatest 
 strongholds fall, as did the walls of Jericho. 
 Through the Word read and preached God has 
 provided for the reclamation of the darkest moral 
 wastes, for turning the wifderness into a fruitful 
 field, and for giving the glory of Carmel and the 
 
106 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 excellency of Sharon to regions cursed with spir- 
 itual death and desolation. Going forth with 
 this weapon against giants, many a David has 
 achieved victories that seemed unreasonable and 
 impossible. Cannibal islands have come to re- 
 sound with the melody of psalms and hymns and 
 spiritual songs; idols have been cast to the bats 
 and to the moles ; before this Zerubbabel great 
 mountains have become plains, and the walls 
 of Jerusalem have been built up even in troub- 
 lous times. 
 
 But it has often happened that men, anxious 
 to do good, have failed to see how the Bible can 
 exert more than its natural power as a book over 
 the hearts and lives of men. Believing this to 
 be insufficient for the great moral warfare that 
 has to be waged, they have looked about them 
 for more likely artillery for ways of influencing 
 the heart more apparently adapted to the end. 
 One very common device has been to make 
 great use of the senses in conveying spiritual 
 truth. Such things as music, architecture, pic- 
 tures, and religious rites that appeal to the senses, 
 have been thought much more likely to attract 
 the thoughtless and impress the careless than the 
 contents of a serious book. But still it remains 
 true, as in the days of the apostles, that men are 
 born again through the Word of God that liveth 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. IO/ 
 
 for ever, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the 
 power of God unto salvation, and that it has 
 pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to 
 save them that believe. Want of confidence in 
 the divine method of 4 ' Word and Spirit ' ' leads 
 to devices that promise much but perform little. 
 The more trust we repose in the Word as the 
 channel and the Holy Spirit as the power, the 
 more glorious are the results sure to follow. 
 This holds true alike of our private reading of 
 the Bible and of the use that is made of it in 
 public. A Biblical Christian is the best fur- 
 nished of all Christians, and a Biblical pulpit is 
 the most powerful of all pulpits. But in either 
 case the power of the Spirit is the energizing 
 force that makes the Word effectual ; and the 
 words of the apostle are as applicable to this as 
 to any other form of spiritual labor "I have 
 planted, Apollos watered ; but God gave the in- 
 
 VI. 
 
 We have confined ourselves in this tract to 
 the chief elements of the vitality of the Bible. 
 We have dwelt on its chief element of unity 
 its view from first to last of God drawing near 
 to men in the way of grace, encouraging them 
 to hope in his mercy through a Mediator. We 
 
IO8 THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 have seen him carrying forward his scheme from 
 age to age, till at last, in the end of the Apoca- 
 lypse, the gulf, which opened between them at 
 the beginning of Genesis, is completely bridged 
 over, and a voice is heard proclaiming, " Be- 
 hold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he 
 will dwell with them, and they shall be his peo- 
 ple, and God himself shall be with them and 
 shall be their God." 
 
 It is hardly possible, in a closing sentence, 
 even to glance at other elements of unity or other 
 features of vitality in the Scriptures. We may 
 simply notice how, all through, the two great 
 elements of practical goodness duty to God and 
 duty to man go hand and hand together ; how 
 the service of God constantly includes all moral 
 duty, all faithfulness in the social relations of 
 men, so that you never find religion viewed as a 
 separate concern that may be duly attended to, 
 even -when other duties are neglected; how uni- 
 form is the view presented in Scripture of the 
 aw r fulness of sin, its deadly virus, and its awful 
 doom when the day of retribution comes at last; 
 how constant is the encouragement to man to 
 seek communion with God ; what a lofty place 
 prayer holds alike in the Old Testament and the 
 New ; and how beautiful the Bible pictures are 
 of the intercourse of redeemed man with God, 
 
THE VITALITY OF THE BIBI^E. ICX) 
 
 whether seen in the converse of Moses on the 
 Mount, or David in his Psalms, or the beloved 
 disciple leaning on his Master's bosom! 
 
 Let us mention but one other feature the 
 hopeful spirit that pervades the whole Bible. The 
 Old Testament was full of hope in the prospect 
 of the first coming of Christ ; the New Testa- 
 ment is full of hope in the prospect of the sec- 
 ond. Admitting, while the Bible does, that 
 earth is laboring under a frightful disorder, it 
 looks forward with serene confidence to a time 
 when all tokens of the disorder shall be removed. 
 Not certainly wholly remedied, in the sense of 
 all men being saved, for there is neither conceal- 
 ment nor ambiguity as to the fact that a portion 
 of mankind will be lost. This is the solemn and 
 mysterious truth which is never allowed in the 
 Bible to pass from our view. But in other re- 
 spects, the winding up of the world's history, or, 
 rather, of the church's history, exemplifies the 
 tendency of Scripture to carry on our minds to 
 bright conclusions. We are encouraged to think 
 much of God's power of bringing good out of 
 evil. Our individual troubles have their sol- 
 ace ; and on a large scale all things work to- 
 gether for our good. The power of the Bible to 
 cheer the afflicted is one of its chiefest glories. 
 It is the Bible only that can assure us that "our 
 
IIO THE VITALITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 light affliction, which is but for a moment, work- 
 eth for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal, 
 weight of glory; while we look not at the things 
 which are seen, but at the things which are not 
 seen ; for the things which are seen are tempo- 
 ral, but the things which are not seen are eter- 
 nal." 
 
PRESENT STATE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT 
 
 FROM 
 
 ; PROPHECY. 
 
 BY 
 
 REY. PRINCIPAL CAIRNS, D. D., LL. D. 
 
ARGUMENT OF THE TRACT. 
 
 THE conditions which must meet in any utterance or wri- 
 ting to warrant its being regarded as a prophecy are stated. 
 While other great ends are served by prophetic teaching, the 
 predictive element is shown to be the chief one apologetic- 
 ally. 
 
 The Messianic element in the Old Testament is traced 
 from its earliest appearance down to the latest book ; and it 
 is shown that the Christian is justified in regarding the first 
 promise as the prediction of a personal Saviour ; that the 
 promises to Abraham, the blessing of Judah by Jacob, the 
 words of Balaam, the promise to Moses of the rise of a 
 prophet like unto himself, can only be adequately interpreted 
 by regarding them as referring to a personal Messiah. The 
 rise of the Davidic kingdom, the relation of David's career 
 and experiences to a great King and Sufferer who was to de- 
 scend from him, the Messianic references in the Psalms, and 
 the frequent references to the Davidic descent of the Messiah 
 in the various prophets down to Malachi are traced. The 
 Davidic element in the prophecies is shown to be strength- 
 ened by the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. The cycle of pre- 
 dictions bearing on Christ's life and ministry and the won- 
 derful ones relating to his death are noticed. The conflicting 
 views of unbelieving critics and the concessions of Strauss 
 on important points areexposed. The widespread expecta- 
 tion of the rise of a great kingdom in the East produced by 
 the prophecies closes the first branch of the argument. 
 
 The prophecies relating to the Christian church are then 
 examined. The relation of Judaism to Christianity and the 
 superiority of the latter are shown. The predicted spread 
 and universal prevalence of Christianity when there was no 
 likelihood of fulfilment, and the ideal of a universal religion 
 in the prophecies, are inexplicable on any natural theory. 
 Objections are anticipated and refuted by the prediction of 
 failure, delay, reaction, and corruption. 
 
 The . predictions of the captivities and dispersions of the 
 Jews, the New Testament prophecies of the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, and the predictions concerning the Arabs, Egypt, 
 Nineveh, Babylon, and Tyre, are examined, and the conclu- 
 sions are drawn that they have not the characteristics of con- 
 fessedly human predictions, that ordinary explanations are 
 inadequate, and that the Christian view accounts for all the 
 facts. 
 
PRESENT STATE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHEISTIAN AEGDMENT FROM PBOPHECY. 
 
 IT has been commonly and justly held that 
 three conditions must meet in an utterance or 
 writing to warrant its being regarded as a proph- 
 ecy or used as the seal of a revelation. First, 
 it must lie beyond human sagacity or conjecture. A 
 prophecy requires to be as truly supernatural as a 
 miracle of power. If the death of Christ could 
 by any natural means have been foretold in the 
 days of David or Isaiah, the notice would cease to 
 be a prediction, being reduced to such an antici- 
 pation of the rejection of the Just One as occurs 
 in the * ' Republic ' ' of Plato; and on the same prin- 
 ciple, the Bible threat of the downfall of Jerusalem 
 would only rank with Macaulay's picture of the 
 New Zealander amid the ruins of London. 
 
 Secondly, the prophecy must precede the fulfil- 
 ment. It must not be history disguised as proph- 
 ecy; and hence the Christian writer must meet 
 
 the frequent allegations that the dates of Scrip- 
 
 8 
 
114 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 ture books are placed too early, or that passages 
 now look prophetic because they have received 
 sharpening touches after the event. 
 
 The third condition of prophecy is, that a 
 real fulfilment has taken place. The rationalist 
 will grant in the Bible many bright anticipations 
 of a golden age which according to him have 
 missed the mark. We must be prepared, there- 
 fore, to show in history definite and specific fulfil- 
 ments. It is not necessary that the full accom- 
 plishment gf a prophecy should be exhibited; for 
 surely God may accomplish a great scheme, or 
 even a part of it, gradually. 
 
 It is a mistake, however, to treat prophecy as 
 a purely evidential arrangement, or to lose sight 
 of other great ends and uses served by propheti- 
 cal teaching. There were all along, in the Jew- 
 ish and Christian church, men who, under the 
 name of u prophets," or some kindred one, were 
 the great teachers of the people, not only in re- 
 gard to the future but in regard to the present, 
 expounding and enforcing all spiritual truth and 
 moral duty, and shining out with peculiar splen- 
 dor as national guides in every field of religious 
 thought and action. They were necessary to the 
 system called the theocracy in all its parts; and 
 it was in virtue of this general mission that they 
 carried out in God's name plans and measures 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 115 
 
 where the knowledge of the future was the very 
 condition of the enterprise and of its success. As 
 it was theirs to work this peculiar element into 
 the frame of the divine government of Israel and 
 of the scheme of redemption, they could not but 
 derive from it special authority. Prophecy, con- 
 sidered as prediction, both lent to and borrowed 
 from the mighty moral scheme into which it was 
 introduced. It prepared the way and shaped the 
 work of all divine heralds, including the last and 
 greatest, as well as attested their claims. It rilled 
 men with the knowledge of coming events, and 
 thus with interest and hope in regard to them; 
 and thus it not only made development possible, 
 but when this seemed to be defeated or delayed, 
 it brightened the sky and revealed again its day- 
 star in men's hearts. This broad and comprehen- 
 sive view of prophecy, as embracing moral and 
 religious leadership, with needful infallibility on 
 other points and, so to speak, constitutional rec- 
 ognition as thus endowed, must not be surrendered ; 
 but it is evident that as an argument for the gos- 
 pel we must mainly draw from its superhuman 
 intimations of the future, and fix attention on the 
 prophet as the organ of the omniscience of Him 
 who "declares the end from the beginning." 
 
 The predictive element in the religion of 
 ancient Israel, which reappears in Christianity, 
 
Il6 PRESENT STATE OE THE 
 
 though but another form of the supernatural, 
 will be found to have a singular interest and 
 value as completing and fortifying what is com- 
 monly called miracle. One great objection to 
 miracle urged by Hume and others entirely dis- 
 appears. There is no longer here a dependence 
 on testimony for events entirely past. If not the 
 oracles, the fulfilments in multitudes of cases 
 belong to our own time. Ordinary history makes 
 good the announcement, which is not by itself a 
 miracle; and ordinary history or observation 
 makes good the accomplishment, which must 
 equally be a matter of fact; and all can judge 
 whether the miracle is begotten between them. 
 Besides, prophecy forms a chain even more than 
 other miracle. Every part supports every other, 
 binding also the doctrine together, as for exam- 
 ple in type and antitype, by its cohesion; and 
 every fresh confirmation, even in the smallest 
 point, supports the whole. 
 
 In this tract I shall consider prophecy as it 
 bears first, on the Messiah ; secondly, on the Chris- 
 tian church; thirdly, on the Jewish people; and 
 fourthly, on the other nations of the world. 
 
 I. MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 
 
 With reference to the Messiah, we must main- 
 ly draw here from the Old Testament. It is 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 117 
 
 indeed striking that the predictive element in 
 regard to Him also reappears in the New, not 
 only in the utterances of others regarding His 
 future, but in His own. Still it is to the earlier 
 utterances, as farthest separated from the event 
 and woven most into a scheme, that attention 
 has been most directed. It cannot be denied by 
 any candid mind that these do not admit of any 
 explanation in harmony with mere ordinary 
 laws. 
 
 In the earliest parts of tjie old Testament this 
 mysterious element already appears. Jews and 
 Christians have alike found such references in 
 the writings generally ascribed to Moses. Nor 
 do they disappear if the Mosaic authorship of 
 the Pentateuch be broken up, or its date, in whole 
 or in part, carried as far down as any of the theo- 
 ries which have been started on the subject may 
 demand. The most advanced- theory still places 
 the utterances centuries before the birth of Jesus 
 of Nazareth. The development of prophecy may 
 not in the more novel scheme be so visible; 
 but prophecy, or what looks like it, remains. 
 
 This applies to what has been called the first 
 Gospel, in Gen. 3:15. It is possible so to allego- 
 rize the temptation and fall as to bring out of 
 this verse nothing more than that the human 
 race, apparently for ever defeated, should still for 
 
Il8 PRESENT STATE OK THE 
 
 ever overcome, even by that very defeat and 
 suffering. It is possible to see in the words 
 only the announcement of a destructive conflict 
 between men and serpents. But the ordinary 
 Christian does not put any violence upon this 
 language when he regards it as foretelling a 
 great and decisive deliverance for the race of 
 man from the dark and evil power that had pre- 
 vailed over it; nay, its terms support him when 
 he goes farther, and believes it to refer to a 
 single Deliverer, who should be in a peculiar 
 sense the seed of the woman, and who should 
 only crush his great antagonist by being himself 
 bruised. 
 
 Everything in the context supports this deep 
 interpretation of the oracle. We have on the 
 one hand the exclusion of the race from the tree 
 of life, and on the other, the name, expressive of 
 returning hope, given to the woman, Havah 
 the living. We have the origin of sacrifice, and 
 the fulfilment of a strife between the seed of the 
 woman and of the serpent, in the Cainite and 
 Sethite races begun, with the nursing of hope in 
 the latter through the translation of Enoch and 
 the birth of Noah. The deluge follows, confirmed 
 so much by the Chaldsean discoveries, but still 
 more by the moral grandeur of the Bible record, 
 with its entire exclusion of idolatry, its clear 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 119 
 
 doctrine of judgment tempered by mercy, and its 
 ratification of the earlier covenant by a fresh 
 symbol prophesying the continuance of the race. 
 There is also, in connection with the children of 
 Noah, taken with the following chapter, the 
 great ethnological forecast of the history of the 
 world, so unlike everything in the earliest litera- 
 ture; for as Jehovah is the "God of Shem," the 
 leading place of the Shemite stock in religion is 
 indicated, with the comparative degradation of 
 the Hamite and the passing over of the knowl- 
 edge of. God to the Japhetic, in a way which the 
 whole relations of Asia to Europe and reactions 
 of Europe on Asia more and more confirm. A 
 writer so little given to prophetic fancies as the 
 late Baron Bunsen has been struck with this, and 
 in his u Bibelwerk " has seen in this dwelling of 
 Japhet in the tents of Shem what "in the highest 
 sense is fulfilled in Christianity."* 
 
 The next step in prophetic literature brings 
 us into contact with the name of Abraham. His 
 call, as it is known in Jewish and Christian the- 
 ology, designed in connection with his migration 
 to save the world from growing idolatry, has had 
 light recently cast upon it, showing that u Ur" of 
 the Chaldees was in the midst of moon and sun 
 worship; and even his residence in Canaan, and 
 * " Bibelwerk," I. p. 23. 
 
120 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 war with the kings of the East, has been con- 
 firmed by the evidence of an Elamite dynasty of 
 that age reaching westward to the Mediterranean. 
 The first utterance of an apparently prophetic 
 character made to Abraham is in Gen. 12:2, 3: 
 
 ( ' I will make of thee a great nation, and I 
 will bless thee and make thy name great : and 
 thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them 
 that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, 
 and in thee shall all the families of the earth be 
 blessed." 
 
 With regard to this we would notice that 
 First, the greatest stress is laid on it. It 
 stands at the head of a visibly new development 
 in the history. It is in one way or other re- 
 peated more frequently than anything else in 
 the book of Genesis. The temporal part of the 
 promise, that Abraham should have a son, or that 
 he should be the father of nations, or many na- 
 tions, or that kings should be his offspring, is 
 reiterated too often to be here stated; while the 
 spiritual side of the promise, as to all nations 
 being blessed in him, is repeated twice again in 
 his own lifetime, once (Gen. 18:18) when inter- 
 ceding for Sodom, and again (Gen. 22:18) after 
 offering up his son. This last time it is with the 
 variation that the families are to be blessed in his 
 seed. In like manner the promise is renewed to 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 121 
 
 Isaac (Gen. 26:4) and to Jacob (Gen. 28:14). On 
 this last occasion the blessing of all the nations 
 has the formulas united with it, u in thee and in 
 thy seed." This universality of blessing is car- 
 ried over into the seventy-second Psalm, ver. 17. 
 It cannot be doubted that we have here a turn- 
 ing-point, which is held to affect henceforth all 
 Jewish and all human history. 
 
 Secondly, the sense of the words cannot be 
 less than Messianic. I do not argue this chiefly 
 from the creation of a separate people and the 
 securing of a separate territory through which 
 the work of redemption was to be accomplished. 
 The context of Scripture would draw this passage 
 thus indirectly to a Messianic significance. But 
 this is only the smallest part of the oracle. How 
 are the nations to be blessed in Abraham but in a 
 spiritual manner ? It is explained in connection 
 w r ith circumcision that the covenant with Abra- 
 ham meant that God was his God. Was not this 
 blessing then to be extended, so that the very 
 blessing of Abraham should become that of the 
 nations? It has been held by some that the 
 grammatical form of the original only means that 
 Abraham was to be so prosperous that the nations 
 should wish for themselves the same prosperity. 
 This may be here and there a Hebrew idiom; but 
 unfortunately for this scheme it is said that Abra- 
 
122 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 ham was to u be a blessing," and unless we arbi- 
 trarily limit the sense the nations must have 
 wished this overflow of his deepest prosperity into 
 their souls. The Messiah, therefore, as a Teacher 
 and Saviour was necessary for this. And though 
 we cannot say that the personality of the Messiah 
 is here made prominent or sole, so far as the 
 words go, yet it must be taken into account, in 
 the very nature of things, so that without an Ab- 
 rahamic seed the saying could not have been ful- 
 filled. 
 
 This then leads to a third remark: that the 
 words are not only a Messianic truth, but a real 
 Messianic prophecy. It would not be very easy 
 even on their temporal side to deny to these utter- 
 ances a predictive character; but it might be ob- 
 jected that the bringing into Canaan of a new 
 race from Mesopotamia with a new fpunder, 
 though it involved great changes and race devel- 
 opments, might have been risked as a guess, or 
 written after the event. But from what construc- 
 tion of history, or from what data in time, could 
 the anticipation of a world-wide spiritual blessing 
 in connection with one man have arisen? No 
 mythic greatness of Abraham, no actual influence 
 of his supposed Jewish seed upon the world, could 
 have originated the story. If you take it either 
 in its germinal character, or as expanded in the 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 123 
 
 seventy-second Psalm, the world never saw and 
 never could have conceived a universal religion 
 of righteousness and peace. This defies all post- 
 dating of the Pentateuch and Psalms; for you are 
 little nearer the phenomenon at the end than at 
 the beginning. Is it then a dream, a mere de- 
 vout prophetic craze ? Those are not entitled to 
 say so who think that the whole world has re- 
 ceived some permanent blessing through Abra- 
 ham's seed, least of all those who with Kuenen 
 trace back to them a pure monotheism. Much 
 less those who see the one God not only exalted, 
 but reconciled and made nigh by the incarnation 
 of his own Son as Abraham's great descendant, 
 and his gospel moving on to bless all nations, 
 and who recognize the blessing of Abraham as 
 coming on the Gentiles by Jesus Christ, that we 
 might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith 
 (Gal. 3:14). 
 
 Every condition of prophecy here meets: an 
 anterior oracle, a glimpse beyond mortal ken into 
 the history of religion, and an actual connection 
 of Abraham's name with an influence more and 
 more filling the world. Why is it that nothing 
 equal can be said of any of the shadowy kings 
 dug up in the homes of Abraham's childhood ? 
 
 An interesting step is taken in the develop- 
 ment of this plan, as Christians believe, in the 
 
124 PRESENT STATE OP THE 
 
 blessing of his sons by the dying Jacob. The 
 unanimous tradition of Judaism also, as attested 
 in its earliest translations, targums, and commen- 
 taries has found in the blessing of Judah (Gen. 
 49:10) an anticipation of the Messiah. In rea- 
 soning, however, with those who have forsaken 
 alike the church and the synagogue, I cannot lay 
 quite the same stress on this otherwise remarka- 
 ble verse as on the utterances regarding Abraham. 
 It is, indeed, as helped by the Abrahamic oracles, 
 and still more than in their case by the announce- 
 ments of later ages, that its value to the argu- 
 ment is realized. But value it still has, as the 
 force of many prophecies does not lie so much in 
 their uniform resistless application to Christ as 
 in their manifold and often varying, yet still ap- 
 preciable, applicability. With this qualification 
 the words deserve to be pondered : 
 
 "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
 nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shi- 
 loh come, and unto Him shall the gathering 
 [homage] of the people [peoples] be." 
 
 It needs no force to put on this language a 
 Messianic sense. Though the tribe of Judah is 
 described in its lion-like strength and in other 
 features of temporal prosperity, yet the oracle 
 professes to refer to " the last days;" and the pa- 
 triarch interrupts the whole series of disclosures 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 125 
 
 with the words of lofty spiritual import, "I have 
 waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" The words 
 anyhow suit a voluntary rule far more than a con- 
 quest; and this is indisputable and a striking ad- 
 ditional Messianic feature, if according to Gesen- 
 ius, who did not always adhere to the view, the 
 majority of Hebraists have rightly understood by 
 " Shiloh" a personal name, and one of the same 
 import with Isaiah 9:6, "The Prince of peace. " 
 It is not easy to think that these words were an 
 after-thought, designed to fill up a gap in the 
 genealogy of the Jewish Messiah, which had 
 now been traced through Eve and Noah, down 
 to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and yet are we to 
 ascribe it to accident that they coincide with the 
 tribe of our Lord's birth and prepare for all that 
 is said of him as the Son of David? Nor is it 
 without weight that beyond the commanding 
 place of Judah, which outshone everything in Is- 
 rael, and at length eclipsed its name, the advent 
 of the greater and wider Ruler should have oc- 
 urred at the critical period when the sceptre was 
 departing and had not quite departed. Although 
 this oracle may not have the absolutely incon- 
 testable force (to unbelievers) of the blessing of 
 Abraham, it contains so much both of prophet- 
 like matter and fulfilment that it cannot well be 
 disregarded. 
 
126 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 The same remark applies to the first grand 
 echo of this regal utterance the prophecy of Ba- 
 laam in Numbers 24:17 as to the Star that 
 should come out of Jacob and the Sceptre that 
 should rise out of Israel. Some may regard all 
 this as balanced by what they may think the 
 legend of the ass that spake, but not those who 
 consider how masterly as a moral study the por- 
 trait of Balaam is, and how marvellous as lyrics 
 are his oracles. For the view of this passage 
 which makes it contain a prophecy, and that of 
 one far beyond any ordinary king like David, who 
 subdued Moab and Edom, there is to be consid- 
 ered first the whole current of Jewish interpreta- 
 tion. This was so decisive that when the last 
 great effort of the Jews to shake off the Roman 
 yoke was made under the Emperor Hadrian, the 
 false Messiah who led them, supported by all the 
 influence of one of their greatest Rabbis, Akiba, 
 assumed this emblem, and was known as the son 
 of a star (Bar-Cochebd). As applied to Christ, it 
 denotes a Messiah of a very different order; and 
 there is a peculiar grandeur in making the proph- 
 et, who had been hired to curse, pronounce a 
 blessing on the people of God under this last and 
 greatest of their leaders, and celebrate his endu- 
 ring sway when not only present enemies, like 
 Moab, Edom, and Amalek, but others far in the 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. I2/ 
 
 future, like Assyria and Rome, passed away. It 
 has been justly said that the reference to the 
 "ships from the coast of Chittim " (Cyprus), 
 which can only refer to the eastward movements 
 of the Roman power, excludes every supposition 
 which could make this a late interpolation in the 
 Pentateuch, and constrains an application to the 
 Messianic King, to whom the Old Testament 
 horizon ever stretches. This lesson is independ- 
 ent of the star of the wise men in the Gospel of 
 Matthew. To those who believe in miracles it 
 will be a special confirmation that this particular 
 feature in our Lord's history is thus pre-indicated 
 which brings on the scene men from the east so 
 very different from the seer who first caught sight 
 of the emblem. But the fulfilment would have 
 been true in a great and irresistible Saviour-King, 
 defeating and outlasting all the powers of the 
 world, even had no literal star heralded His birth; 
 and thus attested by friend and foe by the found- 
 er of Israel's line and the diviner called in to ex- 
 tirpate it that royal image starts up in the Bible 
 which never afterwards forsakes it. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, however, that the Pen- 
 tateuch does not end until another figure or shad- 
 ow of this coming Leader is disclosed, viz., that 
 of a Prophet. This takes place in the eighteenth 
 chapter of Deuteronomy, where Moses from the 
 
128 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 fifteenth verse to the end speaks of the Prophet 
 that should be raised up like unto himself. Two 
 views have generally divided interpreters here. 
 The one of these regards the text as making pro- 
 vision for the continuance of a prophetic body in 
 Israel, so that the chosen nation might not be left 
 to envy the heathen, nor on the other hand be 
 visited with such immediate and terrible revela- 
 tions as had almost overwhelmed them at Sinai. 
 This continuous prophecy, real but mediate and 
 human, like that of Moses, is regarded by these 
 interpreters as the thing promised, while the Mes- 
 siah is held to come in as the culmination of the 
 whole. Now, even this view is a wonderful reach 
 into the future, as there was no time for a proph- 
 ecy after the event, and how could Moses, or any 
 one personating him, know that he stood at the 
 head of a continuous body, and that revelation, 
 such as he knew it in himself, was to be prolonged 
 to an indefinite future? But it is impossible to 
 limit the words of Moses to this collective sense; 
 and both what he knew of himself and what the 
 Old Testament literature unanimously accords to 
 him a place altogether preeminent, must have 
 led to a proportionately exalted idea of the coming 
 Prophet. This does not exclude successors in his 
 work, who rather are taken for granted; but the 
 emphasis must have been laid upon a true equal, 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 1 29 
 
 one who should make a new beginning and speak 
 with the commanding authority which he alone 
 possessed. Hence this view impressed itself on 
 the whole Old Testament church as we see in 
 the latest oracle of Malachi, and as is vouched for 
 by the New Testament taken simply as a human 
 document, recording among Jews and Samaritans 
 the expectation of a transcendent Teacher and 
 Reformer, such as the world had but once seen 
 before. Indeed, in the circumstances of the case, 
 to be equal to Moses was to be greater, for if 
 Moses was simply repeated, what need of another 
 lawgiver or founder? How, then, can the denier 
 of revelation account for these facts; first, for the 
 expectation ascribed to Moses, and secondly, for its 
 fulfilment? The very desire and anticipation 
 were singular. Great men do not usually subor- 
 dinate themselves to others, or think of their 
 work as waiting on some greater personality, who 
 is to take up its unfinished issues. The Christian 
 scheme of things accounts for this in Moses, who 
 looked not only for a kindred spirit but for a per- 
 sonal Saviour, whose work was more than the 
 sequel of his own. And still more wonderful is 
 the realization of this hope, which after fifteen 
 centuries arrived; for the prevailing opinion even 
 of the \vorld is that Christ is of the same mould 
 with Moses, only greater and more commanding, 
 
 9 
 
130 PRESENT STATE OK THE 
 
 working in the same element, and making the 
 work of Moses, which seemed exhausted or de- 
 feated, renew and exalt itself in His own. By 
 what mystery, then, did the Christian church in 
 its faint beginning seize on this greatness of 
 Christ, dream if it was a dream that Moses 
 stooped on the Mount to this yet obscure Prophet, 
 and that God had even come nearer in Him than 
 in Moses' days? He who will answer this will 
 find the key to this oracle and a great deal more; 
 he who will, to escape an answer, deny redemp- 
 tion, with prophecy and miracle as its handmaids, 
 must make all history commonplace, and treat 
 Moses and Jesus as alike only in bringing them 
 down from any throne of greatness to share its 
 fall. 
 
 Prophecy takes an extraordinary leap forward, 
 and in another direction, with the rise of the 
 kingdom of Israel in David. There is an inter- 
 mediate figure in Samuel. But the history itself 
 passes on to the regal period, developing what, in 
 spite of failure in Saul, was the true meaning of 
 all -that went before, and bringing upon the scene 
 the grandest emblem and beginning of what, in 
 Messianic days, was to be known as " the king- 
 dom of heaven." The glimpses in the oracles of 
 Jacob and of Balaam, which had once and again 
 been suddenly renewed in the dark and troubled 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 131 
 
 ages of the Judges, now break out into steady and 
 concentrated light, and in connection with the 
 person, the line, and almost more, the Psalms of 
 David, lighten the world to all generations. Da- 
 vid is indeed, like Moses, one of the turning-points 
 in human history, as supreme in gifts, as immeas- 
 urable in grace; if not so awful and gigantic, more 
 tender and captivating, and by his very fall and 
 repentance brought nearer to human sympathy 
 and tears. Fitted by unrivalled military genius 
 and statesmanship to give the chosen people 
 strength and repose, and, as the man after God's 
 own heart, to build up the theocracy as a great 
 national kingdom, and to provide it with a sanc- 
 tuary and a worship that have made Zion the joy 
 of the whole earth, he enriched that sanctuary 
 and every other with the incomparable treasure of 
 a sacred song, which, unlike every other form of 
 lyric, leaves all terrestrial glories and hopes un- 
 sung, and amid the unutterable sin, sorrow, and 
 solitude in the soul of man, is still a perpetual 
 thirsting after God, the living God. This mission 
 of David's, unexhausted and inexhaustible, has 
 made him the bosom friend of all saints in every 
 age and clime; and to this belong the extreme 
 vicissitudes of his experience, and also his kingly 
 elevation and trials, fitting in to the divine plan 
 of the descent from his line of a yet greater King 
 
f 
 
 132 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 and Sufferer. The announcement by the prophet 
 Nathan to David that his line should include the 
 Messiah, and thus last for ever, is, with no reason 
 to dispute the statement, recorded in 2 Sam. 7, in 
 connection with David's purpose to build a tem- 
 ple; and with equal beauty this oracle reappears 
 in the "last words of David," in 2 Sam. 23:1-8, 
 where he recalls his twofold function as one stand- 
 ing in relation to the Messiah and also as the 
 Psalmist of Israel, and where he derives comfort 
 from the covenant thus made as "ordered in all 
 things and sure." It does not follow, indeed, that 
 David had no revelations as to the Messiah before 
 this last and crowning one, or that he did not see 
 in his own checkered and wonderful life prefigura- 
 tions of a yet stranger and more glorious destiny. 
 This is one of the questions of criticism respect- 
 ing which there never will be absolute unity, as 
 to how far at any time David consciously painted 
 his own experience; how far that of the Messiah; 
 and how many of his royal Psalms, such as per- 
 haps the second and the sixteenth, preceded the 
 special promise; how many, like the eighteenth, 
 twenty-second, and one hundred and tenth, fol- 
 lowed it. It is enough that, whether of Davidic 
 or Solomonic or yet later authorship, an ever-re- 
 current echo starts up in the Psalter of the kingly 
 birth and call of the Messiah, and that in grand 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 133 
 
 resonant cadences, as in the seventy-second, the 
 eighty-ninth, and one hundred and thirty-second 
 Psalms, His descent from David fills the Christian 
 ear in every land. 
 
 In perfect harmony with this fixed position of 
 Davidic descent are many announcements in the 
 pages of that written prophecy which commenced 
 about 800 B. C. and ran down till the close of the 
 canon in Malachi. Thus in Isaiah 4:2 mention 
 is made of one who is simply spoken of as the 
 " Branch" (the branch of Jehovah), but this ti- 
 tle is connected expressly in Isaiah 11:1 with the 
 family of David: "There shall come forth a rod 
 out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow 
 out of his roots," with all the usual attributes of 
 the Messianic kingdom. It could hardly be urged 
 by any objector that this might possibly apply to 
 some other descendant of Jesse of Bethlehem than 
 in the line of David ; for the obvious reason of 
 going back to Jesse is the decayed state into 
 which the royal family was to fall; just as in 
 Amos 9:11 we read, "In that day will I raise 
 up the tabernacle of David that is fallen." In 
 like manner the great oracle, Isaiah 9:6, "Unto 
 us a child is born, unto us a son is given " is con- 
 nected with David's line, for in the next verse it 
 is said, "Of the increase of his government and 
 peace there shall be no end upon the throne of Da- 
 
134 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 vicl." While these utterances all seem to claim a 
 higher nature for this ruler, as also in Isaiah 7: 14, 
 "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 
 and shall call his name Immanuel," connection 
 with David's house is more or less clearly in- 
 volved, as even in this last case the sign is given 
 as a pledge that in spite of invasion the royal 
 line should not fail, and the holy land is thus 
 addressed, " Thy land, O Immanuel !" Isaiah 
 8:8. 
 
 In Jeremiah the same notices recur, evidently 
 colored by foregoing anticipations : thus, Jer. 
 2 3 : 5> 33 :I 5> "Behold the days come, saith the 
 L/ord, that I will raise unto David a righteous 
 Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper." 
 ' ' In those days, and at that time, will I cause the 
 Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David. ' ' 
 There is a text in B^ekiel 34:23, "And I will set 
 up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed 
 them, even my servant David," which speaks as 
 if not a descendant of David, but David himself, 
 returning to earth, might be the future king; and 
 the same language is found in 37 : 24, u David my 
 servant shall be king over them." But it can 
 hardly be supposed that this prophet who shows 
 himself everywhere so familiar with Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah meant anything different; and we may 
 well understand also in the same light the utter- 
 
CHRISTI AN^ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 135 
 
 ance in Hosea 3:4, 5, spoken two hundred years 
 before E^ekiel, in which, anticipating a captivity 
 that should lead to the people of Israel being 
 u many days without a king," he adds, "After- 
 ward shall the children of Israel return, and seek 
 the Lord their God and David their king." To 
 this mass of testimony, all pointing forward to a 
 great ruler, who should spring from David, and 
 yet be greater, I would simply add, as the refer- 
 ences are so well known, the two texts, one of 
 which, Micah 5:2, declares that this ruler should 
 be born in Bethlehem, which was David's birth- 
 place ; and another, ech. 9:9, that he should 
 come riding on an ass to Jerusalem, which had 
 been the seat of David's power. We are thus 
 brought face to face with the question, How have 
 the deniers of Christianity as a revelation treat- 
 ed this great amount of striking evidence, and 
 how far have they been able to resolve these ap- 
 parent prophecies into mere natural guesses and 
 coincidences ? 
 
 It is hard to be denied that the Jewish litera- 
 ture, antecedent to and outside of Christianity, 
 now preserved in the Talmud and kindred wri- 
 tings, applied almost all the texts which we have 
 quoted, with others that are to follow, to the Mes- 
 siah. The only noticeable exception, perhaps, is 
 the passage as to Immanuel, where in their inter- 
 
136 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 pretations there is something like silence, though 
 not contradiction. * It was interesting to see how, 
 when the great Deistical controversy of last cen- 
 tury was \vaged against the argument from proph- 
 ecy, as against all other parts of the Christian 
 argument, the leaders of English unbelief would 
 treat these facts in the history of Jewish interpre- 
 tation. Their chief representative, Anthony Col- 
 lins, boldly denied not only that Isaiah and the 
 other prophets referred to any single person or de- 
 scendant of David, who thence came to be looked 
 for as the Messiah, but that any clear or consis- 
 tent expectation of such a person could be found 
 in the line of Jewish tradition for any period 
 worth naming before Christ. 
 
 It was not possible that such a violation of all 
 literary fairness should not be avenged; and hence 
 in our own century, Strauss, in order to build up 
 his own fabric, has run the ploughshare of de- 
 struction over the foundations of that of Collins. 
 It was not necessary in the eighteenth century to 
 account for the origin of Christianity; but this is 
 now the -life-and -death question of unbelief; and 
 Strauss required for this purpose a long and wide 
 currency of expectation of a Messiah among the 
 
 * This statement is borne out by the citations under the 
 different texts from the great work of Schoettgen, " De Mes- 
 sia." Dresden and Leipzic, 1742. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 137 
 
 Jews who was not a mere conqueror and world- 
 monarch, but a teacher also, and even a sufferer, 
 whom the disciples of Jesus, when their Master 
 was crucified, might console themselves by find- 
 ing, and plausibly teach their countrymen to find, 
 in the Old Testament books and in the current 
 interpretations of them. Hence he cannot make 
 too much of the help of those "Jews" whom 
 Collins treated so contemptuously, and has even 
 possibly exaggerated the Messianic element in 
 Hebrew and Talmudical literature. But his con- 
 cessions as to the Old Testament are most impor- 
 tant. Thus in his " Neues L,eben Jesu, 1864 
 (p. 170), he says: 
 
 "In the prophets the tendency to a more 
 spiritual form of religion was accompanied by 
 another. They made, no doubt, the elevation 
 of the people of Israel to true piety the indispen- 
 sable condition of better times. . . But while 
 they painted this better future after the model of 
 the good old times which the people had enjoyed 
 under their king David, there was connected 
 with this hope the expectation of a ruler of 
 David's style, of David's line, who should exalt 
 his people from the depth of their present fall to 
 a height of power and prosperity surpassing the 
 days of the David of old." 
 
 Thus the Christian church, at the very hands 
 
138 PRESENT STATE OK THE 
 
 of its opponents, regains its prophecies, so far as 
 their early origin and spiritual meaning are con- 
 cerned. And now the only question is as to the 
 fulfilment; for if Jesus of Nazareth be really a 
 descendant of the royal family of David, here is 
 a most wonderful reach into the future in the 
 case of one who is confessedly the most remarka- 
 ble figure in history. Hence the royal descent of 
 Jesus is denied by Renan, who charges him with 
 assuming the title ' ' Son of David ' ' not ignorant- 
 ly, but against his own better feelings. "He 
 allowed them to give him a title without which 
 he could not hope for any success. ' ' * 
 
 Renan does not seem to see that if Jesus ac- 
 cepted the title, as is granted, he must have done 
 so not only in good faith, but, considering his 
 means of knowledge, with moral certainty; and 
 that to affirm the opposite is to aggravate all the 
 difficulties and contradictions put by him into 
 what he admits to be the greatest of human 
 characters. Strauss here, though he does not 
 thus degrade the Saviour morally, is involved in 
 equal perplexity. He grants that the Messiah 
 was universally believed among the Jewish peo- 
 ple to be the u Son of David." He grants also 
 that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. And he 
 grants that he applied to himself the prophecies 
 * "ViedeJsus,"p. 238. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 139 
 
 above quoted from Isaiah and Jeremiah which 
 foretold that the Messiah should have this descent. 
 How then can Strauss exclude the inference that 
 Jesus believed himself to be the descendant of 
 David? By the most arbitrary supposition, that 
 Jesus wished to educate his disciples and the peo- 
 ple into the idea that the Messiah was not to be 
 the Son of David, which was a mere worldly name, 
 but something more spiritual. The only shadow 
 of proof that he can adduce for this is that Jesus 
 challenged in the temple the current interpreta- 
 tion of the one hundred and tenth Psalm, and 
 wished to suggest that the Messiah was not to be 
 David's Son, but his Lord, though Strauss, of 
 course, cannot grant that he contended for any 
 higher nature as his prerogative. But what this 
 intermediate something between Davidic descent 
 and a higher nature was which Jesus here sug- 
 gested, Strauss has not explained, and as his in- 
 terpretation had no precursors, so it has had no 
 successors. It is as certain then as anything can 
 be, if we grant the least historic value to the 
 narratives, that Jesus was not- only regarded by 
 his followers, who had the best means of know- 
 ing, but by himself, as the descendant of David; 
 and when we think of the care with which the 
 Jews kept their registers, and even of the security 
 which a great family tradition like this always 
 
140 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 carries with it for being accurately transmitted, 
 we may consider it, in all the circumstances of 
 the case, as truly remarkable that so much evi- 
 dence confirms this lofty claim. There are diffi- 
 culties in the genealogies, but these have not 
 been found insuperable by the ablest scholars; 
 and the fact that the Davidic birth was believed, 
 not only by the evangelists, but by Paul, Rom. 
 i : 3, and by the author of the Apocalypse, whom 
 most rationalists now regard as the apostle John, 
 Rev. 22:16, but above all by the Founder of 
 Christianity himself, and was accepted in an 
 age when the whole evidence was patent, as 
 a foundation-principle of the new religion, must 
 be held far to outweigh these remaining obscuri- 
 ties. 
 
 Far stronger, however, does this Davidic ele- 
 ment become when we take in the actual birth 
 of Jesus in Bethlehem, apparently foretold, as we 
 have seen, in Micah, 5:2. Jewish tradition was 
 here, as far as we know, unanimous; and, accor- 
 ding to the Gospels, it found its accomplishment. 
 Strauss cannot here deny the agreement with 
 Micah; for as the mythical theory demands, the 
 history itself must be moulded by the earlier 
 notice and its Jewish echoes. But can the per- 
 version of history as he holds it be admitted, and 
 a Christ born at Nazareth be turned into one 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 141 
 
 born in Bethlehem ? Strauss has granted how dif- 
 ficult it was to do this when the facts were so 
 widely known. Why, then, are the evangelists 
 to be credited with a tortuous and unhistorical 
 procedure instead of a simple and true one ? Or 
 how can Strauss and Renan find any authority 
 for roundly asserting, against their united testi- 
 mony, that Jesus was born at Nazareth ? There is 
 here nothing like miracle in the fact itself, and 
 now to follow, now to desert, the evangelists in 
 natural events (and it was quite as natural for a 
 subsequently renowned Jew to be born at Beth- 
 lehem as at Nazareth) is mere license. Luke 
 brings Jesus to Bethlehem, they say, to fulfil a 
 prophecy; and do they not remove him to escape 
 one ? The prejudice is at least equal, and unfor- 
 tunately for the modern critics, they are not, and 
 cannot be, themselves authorities in ancient his- 
 tory. 
 
 With regard to the triumphal entry of Jesus 
 into Jerusalem, the city of David, as the forego- 
 ing notices in Zech. 9:9 are so clear as to have 
 drawn after them an immense body of Jewish 
 Messianic tradition, so the historical accounts in 
 the Gospels are less contested. Reimarus in the 
 last century founded on -the incident his attack 
 on Jesus for attempting to set up a temporal king- 
 dom. Renan incorporates the essential facts in 
 
142 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 his own narrative.* Strauss, though he affirms 
 that the tradition was sufficient to have created 
 the history, also grants that the history in itself 
 might well have happened, f The whole tenden- 
 cy of recent Gospel criticism, and especially the 
 failure of objections to the fourth Gospel, which 
 here, in a rare instance, repeats an incident fully 
 stated in the synoptists, confirms the admission. 
 L,et it be remembered also that the tenth verse of 
 the ninth chapter of Zechariah has had a great 
 fulfilment: for he who rode in this lowly triumph 
 into Jerusalem has been a true Davidic king, as 
 elsewhere pictured, and especially in the seventy- 
 second Psalm, cutting off the chariot, the horse, 
 and the battle-bow, and speaking peace to the 
 nations. If any say therefore that Jesus rode into 
 Jerusalem arbitrarily to fulfil the prophecy, they 
 are met by its own terms; for the history of the 
 world has supported him, and "His dominion 
 has been from sea to sea, and from the river even 
 to the ends of the earth." 
 
 At this point a brief notice may be 'given of 
 the large cycle. of apparent predictions bearing on 
 Christ's life and ministry. It seems to be indi- 
 cated that some messenger should go before him, 
 as in Isaiah 40 : 3 and Malachi 4:5, 6 ; and as in 
 'this passage Elijah is mentioned, the prevalent 
 * " Vie de Jesus," p. 375. f " Neues Leben Jesu," p. 526. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 143 
 
 opinion of the Jews has been that Elijah should 
 literally return and do this office for the Messiah. 
 It is equally certain that Jesus claimed to be thus 
 heralded by the Baptist and that John took this 
 position. It is easy to say that there is mistake 
 of prophecy or exaggeration of friendly relations 
 here. But the singularity is that the coincidence 
 in time of two great teachers one of whom, if 
 the narrative be worth anything, thus stooped to 
 the other is an historical fact which could not 
 have been foreseen; and all that is needed to 
 make it a prophecy is the use of a figurative name 
 for a literal, a feature quite common in the pro- 
 phetic style. It is worthy of remark that Riehm, 
 a high authority in these discussions, though ad- 
 verse to detached and sporadic interpretations, 
 regards this as a true prediction, and one which 
 brings out the depth of the Old Testament.* 
 
 The same writer, whose reserve and caution 
 no one will question, accepts as " quite unassail- 
 able, by historical criticism, the surprising ac- 
 cordance of New Testament fulfilment, Matt. 
 4 : 13, with the Old Testament prophecy, Isaiah 
 8 : 23, that to the dwellers by the Lake of Gen- 
 nesaret and Jordan, of the tribes of Zebulun and 
 Naphtali, the light of Messianic salvation should 
 
 * " Messianische Weissagung. Studien and Kritiken," 1869, 
 II. 271. 
 
144 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 first arise;"* where it may be added that, alike 
 in the oracle and the history, the * ' darkness ' ' of 
 a depressed, outcast, and half -paganized state 
 strangely contrasts with Kenan's pictures of Gal- 
 ilee. 
 
 That the Messiah should work miracles, so as 
 at least not to fall below the great names of the 
 Old Testament period, was, as all admit, univer- 
 sally expected by the Jews. The writers who 
 support the mythical or legendary theory appeal 
 to Isaiah 35 : 5, 6, which furnished, according to 
 them, a kind of programme such as Jesus was 
 bound to fulfil. Strauss is here inclined to think 
 that Jesus disclaimed in his reply to the messen- 
 gers of John physical wonders, and applied the 
 text of Isaiah only to His cures on the soul. All 
 the literal cures which he allows to Jesus were 
 due to nervous sympathy and influence of imagi- 
 nation. But Strauss has here unwittingly in- 
 volved himself in great difficulty. He grants 
 that the people were sufficiently cool to credit the 
 Baptist with no miracles. He grants that the 
 class of marvels which were truly miraculous, 
 such as cures of the blind and raisings of the 
 dead, were then, as always, in the nature of 
 things, distinguishable from natural effects on the 
 nervous system, f He also grants that the people 
 
 * Riehm, p. 277. f " Neues Leben Jesu/' p. 267. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 145 
 
 expected from the Messiah the greatest wonders. 
 He has therefore failed to explain how miracles 
 without reality made such an impression, and has 
 thus left the supernatural narratives as necessary 
 as ever. But if so, do not the prophecies also 
 stand ? Had the words of Isaiah been meant for 
 true miracles they could not have been stronger ; 
 and it is one of the infirmities of this scheme that 
 in seeking to generate an ideal miracle from an 
 ideal prophecy it threatens to establish the real- 
 ity of both. 
 
 All ages have admired the exquisite beauty of 
 thought and harmony of numbers with which the 
 Davidic king, in the first half of Isaiah, is brought 
 upon the scene, while all nature is transformed by 
 his sceptre into gentleness and peace. Not less 
 enchanting are the pictures in the second half of 
 the book, where the monarch passes into the 
 teacher, the comforter, the inexhaustibly tender 
 and patient servant of Jehovah, who feeds his 
 flock like a shepherd, who has the tongue of the 
 learned that he may know how to speak a word 
 in season to him that is weary, "who does not 
 cry nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in 
 the street, and who does not quench the smoking 
 flax nor break the bruised reed." 
 
 Is there one being in all history to whom these 
 
 words and many others are so instinctively applied 
 
 10 
 
146 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 as to Jesus Christ? and could he have more sig- 
 nificantly begun his ministry in Nazareth than by 
 quoting and applying to himself the utterance, 
 tc The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because 
 the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings 
 unto the meek," etc.? Isa. 61 : i. Do we not 
 hear already the words of beatitude, ' ' Blessed are 
 the meek," "Blessed are they that mourn," 
 ' ' Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden"? It is vain to speak here of a first and 
 second Isaiah. If there are two, it is still more 
 wonderful than if there is one. Nor is the argu- 
 ment weakened by the various application of the 
 title, " Servant of Jehovah," now to a collective 
 Israel, and now to one individual or u Blect," in 
 whom the idea of service is perfectly realized: for 
 much of prophecy, as in the Psalms, is equally 
 typical, and the unity of Christ and his body is 
 thus revealed. The applicability of these Isaian 
 oracles to the meek and lowly Teacher has im- 
 pressed even recent leaders of unbelief: for Renan 
 has caught something of sympathy with their in- 
 comparable charm, for which Christians may for- 
 give him much that is otherwise alien and de- 
 grading; and Strauss has been softened almost 
 into recognition. He holds that Jesus applied all 
 these features of meekness, patience, and suffering 
 to himself, and formed himself on this wonderful 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 147 
 
 model, instead of the warlike and victorious Mes- 
 siah of popular anticipation; and now that these 
 oracles hundreds of years old even if they 
 pointed only to the better part of a race, should 
 thus at length come true of it, and of one tran- 
 scendent person in it, who is the Teacher of the 
 world, is not this almost as strange as what a 
 Christian believes ? 
 
 Of all the predictions claimed for the Messiah 
 the most wonderful are those which bear upon his 
 death. This is a fresh singularity, that, as Chris- 
 tians attach so much importance to this event, the 
 Old Testament should seem here also to concen- 
 trate its rays. Jewish tradition is here less copi- 
 ous, though not without striking testimonies; and 
 the offence of the cross, either before or after the 
 Christian period, led to the conception of two 
 Messiahs: the one, the Son of -Joseph, who should 
 suffer and die ; the other, the Son of David, who 
 should reign. When the prophecies are now 
 studied in the light of history, much of this dark- 
 ness is cleared away and is seen to have lain 
 mostly in the prejudices of Jewish readers. Mod- 
 ern difficulties are largely of the same character, 
 such as objections to the doctrine of atonement, 
 aggravated by the reluctance to admit what, if 
 true, is so visibly supernatural. How far recent 
 German theology has emerged from these strug- 
 
148 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 gles may be seen in writers whom no one will 
 charge with "blind orthodoxy." Thus Riehm 
 says: "Of this agreement, the most remarkable 
 example is the 22d Psalm, where the image of 
 the crucified Christ, surrounded by his triumphant 
 enemies, comes out unmistakably for every Chris- 
 tian eye." He in the same place also appeals to 
 "the agreement of the picture which the proph- 
 ecy of the ' Servant of Jehovah ' has drawn with 
 that of Christ in many quite special features." 
 Isa. 42 : 2; 50 : 5, etc. ; 53 : 2. To the same effect 
 Delitzsch, in discussing Isaiah 53, says: "Now 
 for the first time the type of sacrifice, which was 
 previously dumb, begins to speak through the 
 idea of the Servant of Jehovah. He pours out 
 his soul in death, and his soul thus brings a satis- 
 factory offering, which atones and makes repara- 
 tion for the sins of the people. He takes the guilt 
 of his people's sins upon himself. .... The Ser- 
 vant of Jehovah dies and is buried, but not in 
 order to remain in death, but that he may live 
 eternally as the priestly and royal head of a great 
 congregation."* Thus also, when he has applied 
 to Christ the two oracles in Zechariah that speak 
 of the pierced One (12 : 10), and of the Fountain 
 opened (13 : i), ,he adds in regard to the smitten 
 Shepherd (13:7), "The New Testament refer- 
 
 * Delitzsch, " Messianic Prophecies," p. 86. Clark, 1880. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 149 
 
 ences, Matt. 26 : 31, etc. ; Mark 14 : 27, are so far 
 fully justified as they apply these utterances to 
 Jesus Christ, to his death and its consequences."* 
 So also Oehler, while granting a starting-point in 
 a collective Israel, says : u Chapter 53 [in Isaiah] 
 can only refer to an individual. Hence Ewald, 
 e. g., regards this portion as interpolated from an 
 older book, in which a single martyr was spoken 
 of. For it is not the heathen who speak, as the 
 utterly erroneous view now so widely dissemi- 
 nated asserts, but the prophet, now in the name 
 of the prophets in general, ver. i, 'Who hath 
 believed our report?' and now in that of the peo- 
 ple, ver. 6, 'All we like sheep have gone astray,' 
 etc. The. sense of guilt is so vivid, even in the 
 case of the prophets, who know themselves to be 
 the servants of God, that they include themselves 
 in the sinful mass of the people, for whom an 
 atonement is needed: 'We are all as the unclean.' 
 Comp. 59 : 12. Hence a valid intercession for the 
 people cannot proceed from them (59 : 16), nor can 
 even the aggregate of God's servants effect an 
 atonement. On the contrary, it is upon the foun- 
 dation of its intuition of those witnesses who have 
 suffered in the cause of truth that prophecy rises 
 to the intuition of One in whom the image of the 
 faithful servant is complete of One who, not for 
 
 * Delitzsch, "Messianic Prophecies," p. 106. Clark, 1880. 
 
PRESENT STATE OK THE 
 
 his own sins, but as the substitute of the people, 
 and for their sins, lays down his life."* 
 
 These testimonies of eminent Christian theo- 
 logians, trained in somewhat different schools, are 
 interesting; but far more striking, to my mind, is 
 the concession here of Strauss, one of the most 
 important in the course of apologetic literature. 
 It is known that in his early editions of his work, 
 from 1835 onward, he denied to Christ any cer- 
 tain knowledge of his own death or announce- 
 ment of it to his disciples. But in 1864 his new 
 life of Jesus discloses that on so serious a question 
 he has changed his ground. He avows his belief 
 that Jesus not only announced his own decease, 
 but did so in terms of such oracles as .Isaiah 53, 
 which had been the model of his life and doctrine. 
 
 "As to the calling of the teacher, patience is 
 indispensable, as the unwearied instructor must 
 take into account ingratitude, and overcome the 
 prejudices of men by long-suffering. As in the his- 
 tory of the Jewish prophets examples were before 
 Him of several who had sealed their fidelity to 
 the religion of Jehovah, as through them pro- 
 claimed and defended, by a martyr's death, there 
 thus arose for him an approximation to those 
 features of the servant of Jehovah which con- 
 
 * Oehler, " Theology of the Old Testament," II. p. 426. Clark, 
 1875. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 151 
 
 tained suffering, torture, and cruelties even unto 
 death. It is possible that from the very begin- 
 ning Jesus kept closer to the features of the first 
 class, and that he wished to be the ^Messiah in the 
 sense of the still and patient Teacher; but the 
 more he encountered among the people a want of 
 receptivity and positive resistance, the more that 
 he saw the hatred of the rulers excited against 
 him, and was convinced of its irreconcilable op- 
 position, the more had he occasion to take up also 
 the strictly suffering features of Isaiah 5Oth, 52d, 
 and 53d into his Messianic conception, to ponder 
 the examples of earlier prophets, whom he alludes 
 to in Matt. 23:37 and L,uke 13:33 and elsewhere, 
 expecting, like them, extreme measures, appre- 
 hension, condemnation, and execution, and to 
 prepare his followers for such an issue. That 
 point of view also which led him to contemplate 
 the devotion of his life as a 'ransom for many/ 
 Matt. 20 : 28, his death as a reconciling sacrifice, 
 he could well have appropriated to himself from 
 Isaiah 53, as this view in general lay near the 
 Jewish circle of ideas."* 
 
 Thus for once there is agreement between the 
 Christian writers and the leader of unbelief as to 
 the long antecedence of the oracles and their his- 
 toric fulfilment, both in the meaning of the 
 
 * " Neucs Lebcn Jcsu," pp. 133, 224. 
 
I5 2 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 prophet and the spirit and aim of the Sufferer. 
 It is not necessary to bring in features of suffering 
 from other Scriptures; the broad general outline 
 of that one chapter is unique in history. Nor can 
 it be said that the dwelling on the prophecy and 
 repeating it led to its fulfilment. Christ had no 
 power to secure his own public condemnation and 
 execution on ordinary principles. Hence this re- 
 strained Strauss so long from admitting that He 
 predicted such a death. But the strength of the 
 Christian position remains and is confessed. The 
 premises are admitted, of which Christianity is 
 the only conclusion, and the name of Jesus stands 
 written upon the greatest phenomenon (we must 
 not call it miracle) in history. 
 
 With regard to the resurrection of the Messiah 
 the light of prophecy is much less distinct and 
 clear. Still, both the twenty-second Psalm and 
 the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which speak of 
 the Messiah's death and follow it up by setting 
 forth his life and victory, thereby imply a resur- 
 rection. In like manner the sixteenth Psalm, v. 
 10, whether we read it in the singular or plural, 
 requires a resurrection; for corruption is escaped 
 only by His people and by himself through his 
 rising from the grave. A typical prophecy was 
 here in place the sign of Jonah, as Christ inter- 
 preted it; and though this may not have been un- 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 153 
 
 derstood in its full meaning before the event, it 
 had in it a true inherent light, and is now added 
 to the impressive list of singularities that by a 
 proved correspondence connect at every point the 
 Old Testament with the New. Those who have 
 regarded Jesus as able to learn from the Old Tes- 
 tament his own death,. but bound to stop there, or 
 only led to hope for a spiritual life in heaven or a 
 victory of his cause on earth, are incoherent; and 
 the gospel narratives, which make his views of 
 prophecy embrace both death and resurrection, 
 are at once grander in their scheme and truer in 
 their history. 
 
 One word in regard to the dates in prophecy 
 that have always been remarked, though some are 
 less secure than others. The sceptre was not to 
 depart from Judah; and in the very time when 
 the last trace of self-government \vas -vanishing, 
 the Messiah came. He was to come to the sec- 
 ond temple, Mai. 3:1, and make its glory great- 
 er than that of the first, Hag. 2 : 7-9. Seventy 
 weeks were to elapse, Dan. 9:24, 25, from the 
 decree to rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah the 
 Prince, which upon the calculation of a day for 
 a year, Ezek. 4: 6, have been plausibly carried 
 down by Dr. Pusey and many others from the 
 edict of Artaxerxes (B. C. 457) to the opening of 
 Christ's ministry. More solid than any of these 
 
154 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 is the coming of the new kingdom, in Dan. 2 and 
 7, after four great world-monarchies, which the 
 same writer has, in its Messianic fulfilment, so 
 ably defended against the shifting schemes of re- 
 cent criticism. Data like these undoubtedly pro- 
 duced a wide-spread expectation of some great 
 kingdom to rise in the Bast, of which we have 
 evidence in the well-known passages of Josephus, 
 of Tacitus and Suetonius, and echoes in the 
 Sibylline books and Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. 
 Even if we had had no other Old Testament indi- 
 cations, the very connection of this great approach- 
 ing change with the Jewish people and with Je- 
 rusalem would have been a chronological land- 
 mark, since on any fair construction the events 
 could not have happened had Israel already be- 
 come a wandering multitude, without a territory 
 and a capital, as they have been for eighteen cen- 
 turies. 
 
 ii. 
 
 In passing over to the branch of the prophetic 
 argument which treats of Christianity as its sub- 
 ject, Christ himself is not left behind. It is Christ 
 in his church, as before in his own person. The 
 prophecies bearing on Christianity may be reduced 
 to three points its succession to Judaism, its vic- 
 tories, and its failures and corruptions. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 155 
 
 i. The succession of Christianity to Judaism is 
 one of its most interesting features. The relation 
 of type and antitype exists nowhere else among 
 religions. No one can say that any of the forms 
 of paganism is the same analogue of the gospel as 
 Judaism is; nor can Judaism be said to be in the 
 same sense an analogue of Mohammedanism, 'for 
 they stand more nearly on the same level, and the 
 one is a plagiarism from the other. Had Moham- 
 med been able to make out in his system an ad- 
 vance in the line of Christianity, or even of Juda- 
 ism (as he wished to do), this would have been 
 more like the voice of Providence than anything 
 he had to show. But Christianity in relation to 
 Judaism, as the Christian understands both, is this 
 visibly higher type; while the same thing cannot 
 be said of Judaism after the Jewish Messiah 
 comes, as compared with what it is before. The 
 Jewish Messiah has little to bring of prophecy, 
 and nothing of priesthood ; and his kingdom is 
 more external than that of Christianity. Even 
 the true Old Testament Judaism was inferior, 
 with youth, immaturity x and restraint; but still 
 there was a vigorous family likeness. There is 
 thus a real foretoken of something to come a cov- 
 enant God, a moral worship, with all its local and 
 ceremonial features, an availing though future 
 propitiation, a high though unrealised practical 
 
156 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 standard, and a mission to the world yet held in 
 abeyance. Was not this, then, a prophecy of the 
 coming religion, as the lower type in nature is a 
 prophecy of the higher? If another system, or 
 rather the old system under new conditions, has 
 redeemed, as the Epistle to the Hebrews explains, 
 the promise of the L,evitical law, given wings to 
 the Decalogue, and bursting its own embank- 
 ments, diffused its blessings among all nations, 
 "shall we not see in those tendencies and capaci- 
 ties the augury of this future ? But the Old Tes- 
 tament is not thus a silent witness: it is a speak- 
 ing one; and besides the testimony as to the 
 Prophet like unto Moses, there is the great an- 
 nouncement of a better priesthood, Psa. 110:4, 
 "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of 
 Melchizedek;" and there is also in Jer. 31:31 
 the clear assertion of a new and better covenant 
 of which the distinction should be its superiority 
 in spiritual influence as seen in laws written on 
 the heart. Now, can any candid unbeliever deny 
 that this is the superiority of Christianity over 
 Judaism, even in its best state, and much more as 
 depraved by Jewish traditions? Is not then this 
 sublimation and consummation of Judaism the 
 fulfilment of prophecy ? And ought it not to be 
 so regarded by all writers who as almost all ra- 
 tionalists do here side with Christ against his 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. I5/ 
 
 Jewish opponents, and concede that relatively to 
 them he has made a great advance in the religion 
 of the world ? It is impressive to an unbeliever, 
 but still more to a Jew, who sees his ancient sanc- 
 tuary in ruin or worse than ruin, and his syna- 
 gogue in all lands confronted by the Christian 
 church, which has transferred to itself all his 
 watchwords and memorials, his patriarchs and 
 his kings, his law and his prophets, his altars and 
 his sacrifices, his circumcision and his passover, 
 his Zion, .his Jerusalem, his Canaan, and has con- 
 nected them with one great Presence which ex- 
 alts and overshadows all ! - Is there not here a 
 great cycle in the spiritual world? Can chance 
 foretell and then achieve such revolutions as these? 
 
 2. The next striking point is the prediction of 
 victories for Christianity in the form not only of 
 development, but of diffusion and universal preva- 
 lence. How great was the unlikelihood of any 
 fulfilment! No one can say that the prophecy 
 here comes after the event; for the prophets feel 
 that they have to contend rather with unbelief in 
 their hearers, and call on the mighty power of 
 Jehovah as alone equal to the extremity. 
 
 "I the Lord have called thee in righteous- 
 ness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep 
 thee and give thee for a covenant of the people 
 and for a light to the Gentiles." Isa. 42:6. 
 
I$8 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 Whence this unwonted faith, even greater 
 than the world-wide sympathy and philanthropy 
 of which it is the minister? There is no progress 
 here either in the range of expectation or in its 
 confidence. Both are as wide and strong in the 
 days of Abraham as of the last of the prophets. 
 Many details are supplied and many astonishing 
 figures employed : as that the Jewish temple 
 should be exalted to the top of the mountains, 
 and be the centre of a universal pilgrimage, Mi- 
 cah 4:1; Isa. 2:1; that wild and savage beasts 
 should be transformed, Isa. 11:6-9; ^ la ^ a mighty 
 river should go forth- towards the Dead Sea, and 
 heal everything in its course, Ezek. 47:1-12; that 
 a Spirit poured out from heaven should inspire a 
 universal gift of prophecy, Joel 2:28, 29. Under 
 these figures such solid realities are conveyed* as 
 the utter abolition of idolatry, Isa. 2:18; the 
 spread of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters 
 cover the sea, Isa. 11:9; the prevalence of a deep 
 holiness, Zech. 14:20; and the practical enjoyment 
 by nations of righteousness and peace, Psa. 67: 12- 
 14. These blessings are invariably represented 
 as going forth from the Jewish people to other 
 nations, and again and again from Jerusalem, Isa. 
 2:3; Zech.i4:8; and while they are always con- 
 nected with a new appearance of Jehovah, they 
 are very often specialised as introduced by the 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 159 
 
 Messiah, and also, in signal instances, Psa. 22; 
 Psa. 53, traced up to his sufferings and death. 
 How, then, was this Jewish enthusiasm for the 
 salvation of the world originated, in a race in 
 many respects so narrow and limited ? How did 
 it survive the dampening effect of decay and cor- 
 ruption in their own religion, flourish in exile, 
 and resist the incrustations of local and national 
 sectarianism, till it found a glorious revival in 
 Jesus and his disciples, who were ready to die for 
 its fulfilment, and who actually did begin the ful- 
 filment of it in a wonderful degree? Whence this 
 magnificent ideal of a universal religion totally 
 wanting in paganism, wanting too in Moham- 
 medanism, except with dependence on brute 
 force and concessions to sinful lust which de- 
 grade and ruin it? The Christian church has 
 been struggling, as yet inadequately, for eighteen 
 centuries to realise it ; but it fires her warriors 
 still with congenial ardor, and the noblest of 
 them, falling in the field, throws the casket which 
 contains it outward into the region which it is yet 
 to conquer. The greater the soul, the more does 
 it, like these martyrs of an illimitable and imper- 
 ishable faith, "move about in worlds not real- 
 ized," "weep by the rivers of Babylon," and 
 " favor. the dust of Zion," the more does it dwell 
 with their spirits and with His who from the re- 
 
l6o PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 jection of the cross looked forth upon a universal 
 empire of truth and love. Is this enthusiasm and 
 the success which has crowned it soluble upon 
 any principles of unbelief? or has unbelief in it- 
 self the moral greatness to suggest an answer ? 
 
 3. The last element of wonder in these proph- 
 ecies of victory is the shade of delay, reaction, and 
 corruption tJiat blends with success. In the proph- 
 ets it is chiefly, if not exclusively, delay and fail- 
 ure. Far from being moved to write their prophe- 
 cies, as some have supposed, only as suggested by 
 the inarch of Assyrian armies or the last rumors 
 from Egypt or Babylon, or from seeing in the 
 next change of the political horizon the birth- 
 pang of the Messianic age, they rise through the 
 grandeur of the events described into something 
 of their own tranquillity, and can make their 
 watchwords, "He that believeth shall not make 
 haste," Isa. 28:16; "I the Lord will hasten it 
 in his time," Isa. 60:22. Hence they can re- 
 peat each other's oracles, and form a chain of 
 expectation stretching through many years; and 
 in the great future they can blend with calmness 
 features of disappointment in the reception of the 
 coming salvation, and most of all, the fall of 
 Israel, which, as in Isaiah 49, mysteriously dark- 
 ens the calling of the Gentiles. They can hard- 
 ly, indeed, anticipate the corruptions of Christian- 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. l6l 
 
 ity: for the prophetic language had hardly lights 
 and shades for the varying features of an Israel 
 beyond Israel. But in the New Testament this 
 generality is resolved; and the strange fortunes 
 of the gospel itself in history, as made up 'of 
 triumph and failure, of purity and corruption, of 
 strength and weakness, and that not only in one 
 age, but as more or less cleaving all through to 
 its career, are most strikingly delineated. Broad- 
 ly there stands out the unbelief of the Jews, and 
 their exclusion from the kingdom, in the utter- 
 ances of Christ himself and the apostle Paul; nor 
 can this be regarded as mere natural revenge, for 
 it is announced with the deepest sadness, and a 
 day of repentance is descried. The history of the 
 world has followed the one set of notices, but has 
 not yet overtaken the other; and how is this fore- 
 sight so far to be explained ? 
 
 Equally striking is the foreshadowing of Chris- 
 tianity in its other miscarriages and reverses. 
 Most of all its corruptions are marvellously pre- 
 indicated. While the great parable of the sower 
 predicts only a partial success for the divine seed, 
 the two kindred parables of the tares and of the 
 net cast into the sea foretell and cover all de- 
 pravations ol doctrine and inconsistencies of prac- 
 tice. It is still the kingdom of heaven, but of 
 heaven tarnished, degraded, almost buried, by 
 ii 
 
l62 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 earth. Nothing gives us a higher idea both of 
 the intellectual reach and moral greatness of the 
 Saviour than these parables ! The kingdom of 
 heaven, with all its sad degeneracy, is worth 
 living for and dying for; and though He comes 
 not to send peace on earth but a sword, he is 
 straitened till his baptism is accomplished. Those 
 who condemn Christianity for its abuses find 
 their objections here foreclosed. A religion so 
 candid, so prescient of its sorest wounds in the 
 house of its friends, might disarm even the preju- 
 dice of its enemies. The very largeness and sad- 
 ness of its confessions might propitiate their dis- 
 like. It is not an outward foe that Paul describes 
 in Second Thessalonians, but one seated in the 
 temple of God, and rather restrained by outward 
 hindrance, as the Christian writers so generally 
 understood the passage of Roman persecution at 
 length withdrawn, and opening the way for the 
 church to generate a worse antichrist from its 
 "own bosom. So the antichrist of the Apocalypse, 
 whatever else it may include, cannot exclude 
 the shapes of heresy, pride, and tyranny under 
 Christian names, which like successive monsters 
 from the abyss have made war upon the Lamb 
 and delayed the peaceful consummation of his 
 reign. These embroiled, entangled, inextricable 
 scenes, only to be interpreted as they are lived 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 163 
 
 through by a sad but ever brightening experi- 
 ence, how could they have been conceived be- 
 forehand by any mortal intelligence? How could 
 they in their grandeur, their terror, their ultimate 
 dramatic unity and outburst of light and praise, 
 be other than the forecastings of One who, above 
 the illusions of superficial strife and sudden vic- 
 tory, suffers *he whole unfathomable powers of 
 evil to disclose themselves, that in one all-inclu- 
 sive conflict they may be defeated and destroyed? 
 
 in. 
 
 The third prophetic topic to be noticed is the 
 bearing which prediction has on the history and 
 circumstances of the Jews. I shall speak first of 
 the captivities and dispersions of the Jewish 
 people, and secondly, of the New Testament 
 prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 i. There is, to begin with, not the slightest 
 doubt that Jeremiah, following Micah, who lived 
 a century before, foretold the destruction and 
 captivity in the Chaldsean period, and added the 
 notice of a return after seventy years. This is 
 recorded in Jer. 25:9-11; and the circumstances 
 are such that if the delivery of this prophecy be 
 denied, no event in the life of the prophets can 
 be accepted. Now this issue could not have been 
 foreseen by any natural means. The return of a 
 
164 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 departed people was against all historical analo- 
 gies, as not only the case of the ten tribes showed, 
 but the existing usage, on which recent discov- 
 eries have thrown so much light, of occupying 
 such conquered lands by an exchange of peoples, 
 that admitted usually of no succeeding break or 
 disturbance. Now the utterance of Jeremiah 
 was fulfilled by the edict of Cyrus, B. C. 536, a 
 fact which is not contested; and all that is re- 
 quired is to suppose that Jeremiah, instead of 
 counting from the last siege and captivity (B. C. 
 588), counts from the first (B. C. 606), as captiv- 
 ity then really began. It is not desirable to lay 
 undue stress on this incident, however remarka- 
 ble; and its chief weight lies in bringing into 
 relief the pre-intimations of another and more 
 terrible captivity and dispersion, from which 
 there has been as yet no return. Without bring- 
 ing in here utterances in the Gospels, there is in 
 the Old Testament alone quite enough to point 
 forward to the present captivity and dispersion of 
 the Jewish people. The leading passages are 
 Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, and these if 
 read over to any number of dispassionate hearers, 
 who should then be asked whether they applied 
 better to Israel in Babylon or to Israel scattered 
 as it has long been throughout the world, would 
 suggest only one interpretation. There is no 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 165 
 
 word more prophetic in all history than this : 
 "Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, 
 and a by-word among all nations, whither the 
 Ivord shall lead thee." Dent. 28:37. 
 
 The marvel is increased by the sense of long- 
 continued endurance which these oracles involve, 
 and also of adherence to their own religion, for 
 though it is foretold that they should serve gods 
 of wood and stone, which has been abundantly 
 fulfilled in their enforced conformities to idolatry 
 or superstitions forbidden by their strict ritual, it 
 is evidently taken for granted that they should 
 still be a nation continuous in their old profes- 
 sion, and should at length by repentance return 
 to favor with their fathers' God. All through 
 the writings of the prophets a wider and longer 
 dispersion seems to be contemplated than was 
 fulfilled in Babylon, and a sorer trial of national 
 vitality ; and thus only a promise like that in 
 Amos 9:9 acquires significance: u For, lo, I will 
 command, and I will sift the house of Israel among 
 all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet 
 shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." 
 
 The centrifugal force of world-wide disper- 
 sion, with the centripetal of national cohesion, 
 could not have been more distinctly expressed. 
 It is not the calamity of national downfall, of 
 expatriation and wandering to the ends of the 
 
1 66 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 earth, of proscription and outrage such as may 
 well make Christians blush, even when it still 
 breaks out in our own century; it is not even the 
 tragic cause, as Christians believe, of this un- 
 matched disaster, and which weighs like a doom 
 not finally exhausted. It is the power of resist- 
 ance the invincible reaction against all forces of 
 change or dissolution, the stubborn identity with 
 his fathers which from the heights of modern 
 commerce or the fair equality of intellectual and 
 political conflict, as from the depression of other 
 days, makes the Jew still retire into solitude to 
 nurse a sad memory or a hope yet unfulfilled. 
 Were the Jews converted, and were Palestine re- 
 stored to them, would unbelief be able to hold its 
 own ? What would unbelief have said had they 
 been converted as easily as the Franks or the 
 Saxons ? or had Palestine been for long centuries 
 the peaceful seat of an unconverted Hebrew peo- 
 ple to whom the Roman conquest had been noth- 
 ing more than the exile in Babylon ? We should 
 then have heard enough of the argument from 
 prophecy on the other side, and should have had 
 reason to fear, as we have not now, for the truth 
 and the success of the gospel of Christ. 
 
 2. With respect to the second chief point bear- 
 ing on the Jews the alleged prophecies by Jesus 
 of the destruction of Jerusalem, as preserved m 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 167 
 
 the first three Gospels it must indeed be frankly 
 granted that we have not the unanimous accord- 
 ance by critics of every school, Christian and non- 
 Christian, as to the existence of these Gospels pre- 
 vious to the year (A. D. 70) when Jerusalem was 
 taken. But we have what may be called a great 
 revolution in criticism going on from the days of 
 Strauss, who would not allow that we had clear 
 evidence of the existence of any of the synoptists 
 till the middle of the second century, down to our 
 own time, when leaders of negative opinion bring 
 up at least one of the Gospels before the Jewish 
 catastrophe. Thus Hilgenfeld brings up Mat- 
 thew, in its supposed Hebrew form, and Keim in 
 its Greek; while HiUig before them had done 
 the same for Mark. A critic so thoroughly un- 
 fettered by tradition though not negative as 
 Bernhard Weiss, places Mark in 69; yet one can 
 easily see how hard it is, even for great scholars 
 who disbelieve in the supernatural, to grant the 
 earlier date, since a real prophecy springs at once 
 into view. The conduct of Strauss here presents 
 one of his remarkable vacillations. Though anx- 
 ious to place Matthew so late, he is constrained 
 in his first editions to grant that Jesus may have 
 uttered the words ascribed to him, drawn from 
 Jewish tradition, as to some overthrow of the 
 temple, and helped perhaps by Daniel 9:26, 27. 
 
1 68 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 He argues against their being put into his mouth 
 after the event, for then Matthew would not have 
 added (24:29) that the speaker announced himself 
 as coming "immediately" in the clouds: since 
 this the event had falsified. On reflection Strauss 
 seems to have thought that even this was a less 
 difficulty than to grant the reality of the utter- 
 ance, which made Jesus and Daniel too like 
 prophets and Matthew too like an early histo- 
 rian. Hence, in his new "L,ife of Jesus," he 
 comes down to the grosser theory of a prophecy 
 so minute and elaborate being an ex post facto cre- 
 ation. No other scheme remains, unless we hold 
 with Renan that Jesus, speaking of the temple 
 buildings, "divined that they would have a short 
 duration, ' ' * and at the same time that such words 
 were "lent" to him by the evangelists. 
 
 But if we must fall back on prophecy after 
 the event, and prophecy so extended, so terrible 
 in its details, so startlingly coincident in its most 
 awful features, as Strauss grants, with Joseph us 
 and contemporary history, then what are we to 
 think of the honesty or intelligence of the evan- 
 gelists who could put all this into the mouth of 
 Christ? Macaulay wrote the "Prophecy of 
 Capys," but he only put it into his "Lays of 
 Ancient Rome," and not into a Roman history; 
 * "Vie de Je"sus," p. 211, and p. 273, note. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 169 
 
 so that the Gospels sink into lays, if not into 
 frauds. This is opposed to the whole evidence 
 of their historic character, and also to the fact 
 that in the very passages in question they go far 
 beyond the fall of Jerusalem, to its long-con- 
 tinued desolation and treading down by the 
 Gentiles, which could not then be suggested by 
 the event. Unquestionably Christ elsewhere an- 
 ticipates a longer career for the' victories and 
 trials of his gospel ; and in these very oracles the 
 so-called "times of the Gentiles," which had to 
 be "fulfilled," cannot be limited to one genera- 
 tion, and that the generation which (as in Matt. 
 16:28; lyuke 21:35) had enjoyed his own pres- 
 ence. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The fourth and last head of prophecy is that 
 bearing upon the other nations of the world. 
 The mere predictive aspect of these manifold no- 
 tices is not that which is chiefly regarded. The 
 main design is to show that the Gentiles are also 
 amenable to moral government, with its laws and 
 retributions, and that a place is preparing for 
 them in the Messianic kingdom, which could 
 only be theirs through the downfall of pride and 
 the turning from idolatry. Some specimens only 
 of prediction from this wide field are selected. If 
 
PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 prophecy has here failed to predict, it is the most 
 splendid failure in all history. 
 
 To begin with the notice of Ishmael in Gen. 
 16:12: "And he will be a wild man [literally, a 
 man like the wild ass of the desert] : his hand 
 will be against every man, and every man's hand 
 against him: and he shall dwell in the presence 
 of all his brethren." No picture could be more 
 complete of the wild liberty and defiant, untame- 
 able independence of the Arab people to this day. 
 Nor will their descent from Abraham's son be 
 denied, which is their own cherished belief, 
 whatever of other and kindred blood, and even of 
 alien, may have mingled with theirs to form the 
 " great nation" predicted in Gen. 17:20, and 
 which has so moulded the history of the world. 
 That this people who have written their name, 
 though in a spurious copy, beside Judaism and 
 Christianity on the monotheistic faith of the 
 world, should have such a notice and prefigura- 
 tion in the history of Abraham, is to say the least 
 singular; and while predictions of great non- 
 Christian writers as to Mohammedanism are now 
 being falsified, the features of the Arab race that 
 framed it, and left even their weakness upon it, 
 stand in the Bible as sharp as ever. 
 
 It is no great transition to pass from Ishmael 
 to Egypt, linked through Hagar with Arabia, 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. I /I 
 
 and itself coming in the Old Testament as early 
 on the scene. Very little of Isaiah, Jeremiah, or 
 Ezekiel bearing on Egypt has been challenged, 
 though accounted for by political sagacity, moral 
 foreboding founded on experience, or where these 
 fail, remodelling after the event. The unex- 
 pected results of Assyrian exploration, even more 
 than of Egyptian, have confirmed the accuracy of 
 the prophetic record. The sagacity of Gesenius 
 rationalist though he was kept him from con- 
 testing the conquest of Ashdod by Sargon, Isa. 20, 
 though that monarch never appears outside the 
 Bible; and now the full inscription, involving 
 also the connection with Egypt, is recovered. So 
 likewise the conquest of No (Thebes) in Nahum 
 3:8-10, is in every point verified, and all the 
 perplexities which had led this to be regarded as 
 an interpolation are at an end. * These verifica- 
 tions also support a fulfilment of Ezek. 29:8-12 
 regarding a desolation of Egypt by Nebuchadnez- 
 zar for forty years. Though we have as yet no 
 mention of this, the humiliations of Egypt by 
 Assyria in the two foregoing cases at so much 
 earlier a date remove the difficulty, and lead us 
 to appreciate at its worth the remark of Mr. F. 
 W. Newman, ( ' Happily the grasp of the Chal- 
 
 * Schrader, " Keilinschriften," pp. 398-9, Second Edition. 
 For "No "(Thebes), p. 450. 
 
172 PRESENT STATE: OF THE 
 
 dsean was more limited than human imagina- 
 tion."* 
 
 It is in the same chapter of Esekiel that what 
 is here called his "human imagination" enabled 
 Esekiel to draw so wonderful a picture of the 
 debasement of Egypt, which notwithstanding the 
 transient splendors of the Ptolemies, remains so 
 true to this day: "It shall be the basest of the 
 kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more 
 above the nations: for I will diminish them, that 
 they shall no more rule over the nation." Ezek. 
 29:15. In connection with the Ptolemies, we 
 have the series in Daniel u respecting their rela- 
 tions as kings of the South with the Syrian 
 monarchs as kings of the North, which Porphyry, 
 the greatest antagonist of Christianity in the 
 third century, found so accurate that he could 
 only explain it as written after the event. 
 
 There are notices even in Hosea of the Assy- 
 rian captivity, Hosea 10:6; 11:5; and the great 
 prophecies of Isaiah respecting the deliverance of 
 Jerusalem in his day received, as all admit, re- 
 markable accomplishment. Even Sennacherib 
 on the Taylor cylinder does not claim to have 
 taken Jerusalem; and we can read between the 
 lines his own defeat. The final downfall of 
 Nineveh is wonderfully foreshadowed in Nahum 
 * " Hebrew Monarchy," p. 326. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 173 
 
 3, where he compares it to the capture of Thebes, 
 indicating the action of fire, which all the Nine- 
 vite remains so illustrate. 
 
 Even more distinct as to a final desolation is 
 Zeph. 2: 15: "This is the rejoicing city that dwelt 
 carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and 
 there is none besides me: how is she become a 
 desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in ! 
 every one that passeth by her shall hiss and wag 
 his hand." The dreary solitude of the mounds 
 from which such precious treasures have been 
 dug could not have been more terribly expressed. 
 Yet these words of Nahum were written about 
 B. C. 660, when the reign of Asur-bani-pal was at 
 its zenith; and those of Zephaniah, who is gener- 
 ally placed some thirty years later, could not 
 possibly be suggested by any long-continued 
 overthrow. 
 
 Of the references to Babylon in the prophets, 
 it is necessary to select only those bearing on its 
 downfall and ruin. Even Gesenius allows here a 
 natural meaning,* but as he honestly admits 
 that he cannot believe in an Isaiah writing this 
 more than a century and a half before, and thus 
 is shut up to a second Isaiah, this gives no solu- 
 tion; for how could this Isaiah, even if living in 
 Babylon, know beforehand that the city was to 
 *"Jessia,"3:33; 3:88. 
 
174 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 fall or what was to be the manner of its capture ? 
 Still less could he know that Cyrus was to restore 
 Jerusalem its temple? Thus we come back to 
 our universal remedy, prophecy after the event: 
 and yet how can this help us as to the desolations 
 of Babylon, continued as they are to this day ? 
 Gesenius refuses here, as generally, the more 
 extreme rationalistic consequence of fictitious 
 prophecy, satisfying himself with portents on the 
 horizon; but what horizon in the sixth century 
 before Christ could suggest this? and ought there 
 not to be a third Isaiah (almost like the " wander- 
 ing Jew") who may receive the fatherhood of it 
 many centuries later ? Mr. Newman grants that, 
 this is one of a series of prophecies against Baby- 
 lon which have received either a most accurate 
 or a very plausible fulfilment.* He seeks, how- 
 ever, to weaken the argument by saying that c ' it 
 is absurd to represent the emptiness of modern 
 Babylon as a punishment for the pride of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar." This, however, is a new style of 
 theology, unless we hold that all sin is punished 
 only in those who commit it; for if the next gen- 
 eration may suffer from a Nebuchadnezzar or a 
 Napoleon, why not a more remote one? and is 
 sin ever exhausted ? 
 
 Another set of monumental prophecies against 
 * " Hebrew Monarchy," p. 315. 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 1 75 
 
 pride, luxury, and impiety is the grand series 
 against Tyre, begun in Isaiah and ended in E^e- 
 kiel. The doom in Ezekiel 26, that Tyre should 
 be u a place to spread nets upon," has, as travel- 
 lers attest, been literally fulfilled. No great 
 emporium has ever had such an elegy; and its 
 echo survives in one of the sublimest chapters of 
 the Apocalypse (18). As an example of prophe- 
 cies said to have failed may be mentioned Da- 
 mascus, of which it is said in Isa. 17:1, u It is 
 taken away from being a city, and it shall be a 
 ruinous heap." But this is explicable by a tem- 
 porary desolation such as was actually inflicted" 
 by Tiglath-pileser on the Syrian capital. We 
 should have known what to think had prophecy 
 attached all its curses to cities as continuously 
 flourishing to this day as Damascus, or had Nine- 
 veh, Babylon, and Tyre been still, in spite of it, 
 the centres of worldly greatness. But these shafts 
 do not fly at random. Unlike the Homeric arrows 
 in not being due to mere anger, their clang is 
 terrible, and they' fix their mark in decay and 
 ruin. 
 
 In closing this tract, one or two conclusions 
 may now be suggested as flowing from the con- 
 sideration of this evidence in all its parts. 
 
 I. These alleged prophecies ivant the characteristics 
 
176 PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 
 of sucJi as are confessedly human. They are not 
 trival or connected with ordinary human interests. 
 They are not mere divinations, designed to amuse, 
 to startle, or to gratify curious prying into the fu- 
 ture. They are not Delphic or studiously ambig- 
 uous; for whatever of obscurity be in them, they 
 bear the stamp of sincerity, and many of them 
 are cheeringly, as others alarmingly, straightfor- 
 ward. They are not connected with any caste 
 pursuing class interests; for though the prophets 
 are a body and succession, their unity is chiefly in 
 suffering; and while their oracles awake to bright 
 hopes, they call to stern duties. 
 
 2. Ordinary explanations art inadequate. ' ' Proph- 
 ecy after the event" is so. It is discredited by the 
 best rationalists. The act or habit is degrading 
 to men who are still looked on as the moral in- 
 structors of the world. Anything like it would 
 not be tolerated in the journalist, the historian, the 
 ethical teacher of modern times, and only in the 
 poet with understanding of his license. Nor is ' ' co- 
 incidence," pure and simple, an adequate cause. 
 This has been seen to be so frequent, so startling, 
 so like to design, that the argument from design 
 applies; and design here involves knowledge more 
 than mortal. Nor, once more, can ' ' sagacious 
 forecast of moral order" suffice. This is the most 
 respectable solution short of inspiration. But it 
 
CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 177 
 
 quite breaks down. What brooding on moral 
 order could attain to such prophetic results? How 
 could Abraham thus know that his call would 
 bless all nations, or David that the Messiah should 
 spring from him, or the prophets that particular 
 kingdoms and cities should be destroyed, or Christ 
 that his religion should fail with the Jews and 
 succeed with the Gentiles? The evidence must 
 be taken in detail; and when it is seen how often 
 the sense of insufficiency returns, this is the mark 
 of a solution radically weak and abortive. 
 
 3. The Christian view of prophecy not only ac- 
 counts for the individual facts, but for the ^vJlole. 
 Prophecy is systematic, progressive, and all-in- 
 clusive. The theory of a revelation of redemp- 
 tion accounts for these features. Christ is then 
 the centre, and hence all is connected in him; 
 and at the same time the Messianic part of revela- 
 tion is largest, most important, most like the 
 heart in the economy of the whole. This ac- 
 counts also for the progress that we have seen, a 
 progress in all directions and towards all issues, 
 but all conditioned by the approach of Christ and 
 by the fulness of the disclosure as to his person 
 and work and its consequences. And this ac- 
 counts for the all-inclusive character of the pre- 
 dictions. The Gentile future must stand in the 
 
 light of the Jewish past and be indebted to it. 
 
 12 
 
1 73 CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 
 
 The Jewish unbelief must serve as a foil to the 
 Gentile faith, and be at length reconciled to it 
 and one with it. The world's kingdoms must go 
 through their crises of trial and judgment, to pre- 
 pare the world as a whole for the Heavenly King. 
 Thus, with prophecy, there is a Redeemer, and 
 with Him a philosophy of history leading upwards; 
 without prophecy, no redemption, but law and 
 sin fastened down by it, and any streaks in the 
 darkness like a prophetic glimmer due to no ri- 
 sing orb, but meteoric, and born of chaos or night. 
 Ought not the Christian then to give heed to this 
 "sure word," which is attested, as it is created, 
 by a power above nature just where it needs to be? 
 and may he not hope as he prays that to others 
 also this day may dawn and this day-star arise ? 
 
THE ORIGIN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HEBREW RELIGION, 
 
 AN INQUIRY AND AN ARGUMENT. 
 
 BY 
 
 EUSTACE R. CONDER, D.D. 
 
ARGUMENT OF THE TRACT. 
 
 WHAT rational explanation can be given of the religion 
 of Ancient Israel ? Characteristic features of the religion of 
 the Old Testament Scriptures, i. Alliance of RELIGION with 
 HISTORY. 2. Organic UNITY. 3. DEVELOPMENT. Critical 
 objections. Evidence against authenticity of the books, nega- 
 tive; in favor, positive. 
 
 I. Bible starts not with dogma, but HISTORY. Yet its 
 whole purpose religious: a history, not of human affairs with 
 supernatural episodes, but of God's dealings with mankind. 
 Peculiarity of the history: annals of one family line from 
 Adam to Christ. Distinguish between " substantial truth" 
 and infallibility or inspiration. Literary merit of Genesis. 
 View of human life. Faith, prayer, providence. Unique 
 character of Hebrew national life. Contrast between Gene- 
 sis and subsequent books of Moses, i. MIRACLES. Origin 
 of religion. Professor Max Miiller's view. Modern repug- 
 nance to miracles. Hence rejection of Mosaic authorship of 
 Pentateuch. Science and miracle. Another form of objec- 
 tion. Adequate purpose of miracles recorded by Moses. 
 2. RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL, including (a) a Sanctuary; (d) 
 
 ^Sacrifice; (c] Priesthood. ^ (a) The Tabernacle; symbol of 
 "Divine Presence, (b] Priesthood; contrast with that of 
 Egypt, (c) Sacrifices. Ewald's erroneous assertion. Con- 
 trast with pagan rites. Mutual connection of the religion 
 and the history. Enormous improbability involved in hy- 
 potheses of modern destructive criticism. 
 
 II. UNITY and DEVELOPMENT. Nature of unity discover- 
 able in Bible. Must have adequate cause. Fundamental 
 religious idea: Being and Character of God. Creation. Man 
 in moral relation to his Maker. Divine authority and mer- 
 cy. Contrast with heathen literature. Divine attributes of 
 "RIGHTEOUSNESS" and "HOLINESS." Transference of this 
 latter idea to God. Hebrew idea of holiness not ceremonial 
 but moral. Hebrew view of SIN. Human interest of Old 
 Testament Scriptures; yet pervaded with underlying thought 
 of man's sin and sinfulness. Hebrew terms. Conception of 
 sin moral, not ceremonial. Central idea which gives unity 
 to religious teaching of Old Testament. Purity. Tender- 
 ness. Needless to discuss the view which ranks the Hebrew 
 with pagan religions, since our whole inquiry refutes it. 
 Science is bound to study and give account of phenomena so 
 abundant and significant. Absurdity of hypothesis that the 
 national genius of the Hebrews produced their national reli- 
 gion. The crucial test. The UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 
 
THE 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION 
 
 UN INQUIRY AND AN ARGUMENT, 
 
 WHAT rational explanation, satisfactory to a 
 thoughtful and candid mind, can be given of the 
 religion of ancient Israel as exhibited in the Old 
 Testament Scriptures? Are its existence and 
 character explicable by the same causes which 
 have produced the other ancient religions of the 
 world ? We may here leave out of view the ques- 
 tion whether in fact those religions sprang simply 
 from the working of the human mind, or had a 
 common root in primeval revelation. Let us take 
 them as we find them in the most ancient records. 
 Would it be a rational theory of the religion of 
 ancient Israel to say that it originally resembled 
 the religions of Assyria and Egypt, Phoenicia and 
 Greece, but that these religions were somehow ar- 
 rested in their development, whereas the religion 
 of Israel reached by gradual development that 
 
1 82 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 form and force which place it in such stern but 
 splendid contrast with the other faiths of man- 
 kind? If so, what was the secret of this unique 
 development ? How came it to pass that a small 
 and despised nation, destitute of philosophy and 
 of art, whose literature outside its sacred books 
 has left no mark of human thought, whose history 
 was a series of failures, culminating in the most 
 tremendous overthrow that ever crushed and broke 
 up a people, should have succeeded, where India, 
 China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, all failed ? How is 
 it that Judaea has produced in Christianity, which 
 claims to be simply the perfect flower and ripe 
 fruit of Judaism, the one religion which has both 
 the ambition and the prospect of conquering the 
 world and furnishing the supreme bond of unity 
 for the human race ? 
 
 These are questions which claim the attention 
 of the thoughtful skeptic as much as of the Chris- 
 tian believer. He cannot afford to put them 
 lightly aside, for doubt ceases to be " honest 
 doubt n if it trifles with evidence. The only 
 skeptic who merits either respect or sympathy is 
 he whose ' ' open eyes desire the truth. ' ' 
 
 Whatever view we adopt of the origin or of 
 the teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures, we 
 must admit that they hold a unique place in lit- 
 erature. The translation into English, by emi- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 183 
 
 nent scholars, of "the Sacred Books of the East" 
 enables the English reader to compare and con- 
 trast the Hebrew Scriptures with all other sacred 
 writings in their structure and contents, as well 
 as in their influence on human thought and his- 
 tory. 
 
 Three characteristic features may be named as 
 deserving special consideration: the manner in 
 which the Hebrew Scriptures connect religion^ 
 with history; their organic unity, -doctrinal and h 
 historical; and their progressive development off) 
 religious teaching.* 
 
 u What do you mean," it may be asked, u by 
 speaking of unity and development in the Old Tes- 
 tament Scriptures ? Do you mean to assume the 
 authenticity of the several books, and that their 
 assigned dates correspond with the real order in 
 which they were produced ? These are the very 
 points on which * the most advanced modern 
 criticism ' claims to have passed its sentence and 
 overset the faith of ages." Of course. But it 
 will not do for modern criticism, while denying 
 the infallibility of the Bible, to claim infallibility 
 for its own conclusions. They too must be criti- 
 cised. No doubt there are points of minute 
 
 * Other characteristics are treated with consummate force 
 and beauty in Henry Rogers' Lectures on " The Superhuman 
 Origin of the Bible." 
 
1 84 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 scholarship in Hebrew as in other ancient lan- 
 guages where the judgment of an expert is en- 
 titled to very great respect. Yet even here, when 
 the point is such as can be made plain to an Eng- 
 lish reader, common sense may put in a claim to 
 a vote. But such capital questions as whether 
 the Pentateuch was really written by Moses, or is 
 a tissue of forgeries and fragments compiled a 
 
 / thousand years after his death, do not hang on 
 such elaborate, niceties. They must be weighed 
 in bigger scales than those in which critics weigh 
 vowel points and various readings. They turn 
 on broad and solid considerations, as to which 
 every thoughtful and educated English reader 
 may qualify himself to form a competent judg- 
 ment. 
 
 The account these ancient documents give of 
 themselves has at all events a presumption in its 
 favor until evidence be produced to prove them 
 unauthentic or spurious. Positive evidence 
 against them there is none, and in the nature of 
 the case can be none, unless a rival history of 
 equal or greater antiquity could be discovered. 
 The arguments against their veracity and anti- 
 
 1 quity are all indirect, of the nature of objections. 
 On the other hand, the evidence in favor of the 
 immemorial tradition of the Hebrew nation as to 
 their authorship is positive, and of immense 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 185 
 
 value consisting in the structure and the con- 
 tents of the books themselves. Add to this the 
 impossibility of giving any satisfactory account 
 of them if they be forgeries. 
 
 The candid skeptic may say that, having 
 weighed fairly both the evidence and the objec- 
 tions, the latter appear to him to preponderate. 
 But he must not treat the evidence as non-exis- 
 tent. And it is a sound rule of both common 
 sense and criticism that when positive evidence 
 is conclusive, even insoluble difficulties cannot 
 overthrow it. 
 
 Two other considerations deserve to be borne 
 in mind. First, that supposing the books of the 
 Old Testament to be genuine, any dislocation of 
 their real historical order (such as the conjecture 
 that portions of the Pentateuch were written by 
 Kzekiel or by Ezra) must altogether confuse and 
 disguise their religious teaching. Secondly, that 
 if these books, taken in their traditional order, 
 exhibit a unity and progress which disappear on 
 any other arrangement, a powerful argument will 
 be supplied that the traditional order is the true 
 order. If the pieces of a model fitted in one order 
 produce a symmetrical building, and in any other 
 arrangement a shapeless heap, no sane mind 
 doubts which of these shows the design with 
 which they were fashioned. . 
 
1 86 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 Guided by these plain principles, let us ex- 
 amine those characteristics of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures above indicated: viz., the VITAL CONNEC- 
 TION they present between RELIGION AND HIS- 
 TORY; the unity of thought, sentiment, and prac- 
 tical aim underlying their great variety of form ; 
 and the PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT of religious 
 doctrine which they display not final, but point- 
 ing forward to a fuller unfolding. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Bible begins not with dogma, but with 
 history. It says nothing of the being and attri- 
 butes of God, but shows the Creator at work : u In 
 the beginning God created the heaven and the 
 earth. " It says nothing of religion, but shows 
 the ancestors of mankind created in the image of 
 God, and placed at the outset in moral relations 
 of obedience and responsibility to their Creator. 
 This is its method throughout. It gives us no 
 religious teaching apart from particular persons, 
 places, and events. Even the law of the Ten 
 Commandments, the most perfect summary of 
 moral and religious duty extant before Chris- 
 tianity, is recorded as matter of historical fact 
 uttered by a divine Voice to the assembled people 
 of Israel, and afterwards graven on stone tablets 
 4 'with the finger of God." Yet it is impossible 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 187 
 
 thoughtfully to study these writings without per- 
 ceiving that their whole aim and meaning is re- 
 ligious. The story they tell is not that of human 
 affairs, with a mingling of the supernatural, but 
 of God's dealings with men. Even those painful 
 episodes which a historian anxious for the honor 
 of his race would gladly have omitted, are found 
 on this view to have their place and meaning. 
 
 Another peculiar feature of the early portion 
 of these records is that they take the form of fam- 
 ily annals. In Genesis 4 a fragment is given, 
 tracing the line of primogeniture for six genera- 
 tions. But in chap. 5 a new departure is indica- 
 ted by the title "the book of the generations of 
 Adam;" and the line is traced from Seth to 
 Noah. In chap. 10 we have "the generations 
 of the sons of Noah," the family tree of nations. 
 In chap, ii "the generations (or genealogic rec- 
 ord) of Shem" traces the line to Abraham. It 
 has often been erroneously supposed that this is a 
 list of eldest sons. Abraham himself, like Shem, 
 was a younger son. Abraham's line divides in the 
 twin sons of Isaac; but it is not till after the death 
 of Isaac that the family records take a new start, 
 chap. 36 giving "the generations of Esau, who 
 is Edom,"* and chap. 37 introducing the history 
 
 * The discussions which have been raised on vers. 31, etc., 
 do not concern us here. See, e. g., the " Speaker's 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
1 88 THE; ORIGIN OK THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 of Joseph with the words u These are the genera- 
 tions of Jacob." After this there is no further 
 break. The family of Jacob gradually develops 
 into the twelve tribes which constituted the na- 
 tion of the "B'ney Israel," children of Israel. 
 What makes this genealogical character of Old 
 Testament history the more noteworthy is that in 
 the New Testament Scriptures it is taken as the 
 starting-point of Christianity. In the first and 
 third Gospels the line of Abraham, Israel, Judah, 
 David is traced down to Him whom St. Paul calls 
 u the second Adam." With him the record stops, 
 never to interest mankind further. 
 
 Along this single line of human life, claiming 
 to connect the life of the first human being with 
 the times of the Roman Empire, the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, followed by the Christian Scriptures, 
 represent an equally continuous chain of divine 
 manifestation and divine dealing as having been 
 carried on, assuming for some fifteen centuries a 
 national form, yet from first to last designed for 
 the benefit of all nations of mankind. 
 
 Nothing parallel to this is to be discovered in 
 the whole domain of human literature or of hu- 
 
 tary " on this chapter. Supposing it can be shown that these 
 verses were added by a later pen, this no more affects the in- 
 tegrity and authenticity of Genesis than our modern practice 
 of making additions to ancient books in the form of notes af- 
 fects the authority of such books. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW REUGION. 189 
 
 man religion beside. It must have a meaning 
 and an explanation. And the more deeply it is 
 studied the more difficult I believe it will be 
 found to invent any explanation other than the 
 reality of the divine manifestation and the sub- 
 stantial truth of the history. If Moses was the 
 writer of Genesis, we can well understand how he 
 may have been able to collect and arrange the 
 sacred traditions of his forefathers, together with 
 those which may have been preserved in the fam- 
 ily of the "priests of Midian," among whom he 
 spent forty years of his long life. But if Moses* 
 authorship be denied, and the Pentateuch sup- 
 posed a compilation of late date by various 
 hands, its form, style, contents, and religious 
 teaching furnish an insoluble problem. 
 
 I have spoken of ' ' the substantial truth of the 
 history," because we must not here assume any 
 theory of inspiration or infallibility. It is quite 
 possible to believe that Moses wrote the Penta- 
 teuch, and wrote in perfect good faith, and yet to 
 suppose that he had no means of discriminating 
 historic fact from legendary fiction in the annals 
 of his forefathers. He wrote, it may be argued, 
 what he believed to be true; but criticism is to 
 be applied to test the actual truth of his narra- 
 tive. Take for example the account of the crea- 
 tion. To some readers the employment of the 
 
IQO THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 word "day" appears so irreconcilable with the 
 facts of geology as hopelessly to shut out the no- 
 tion of divine inspiration. To others, on the 
 contrary, no less thoughtful and competent, the 
 general agreement of that marvellously terse rec- 
 ord with the history of life graven in the rocks is 
 nothing short of a miracle of knowledge, utterly 
 beyond the reach of the unaided human mind in 
 that remote age, or, indeed, in any age previous 
 to our own. 
 
 Again, the long term of life ascribed to the 
 antediluvian patriarchs, and to their descendants 
 down to Abraham, and even later, appears to 
 some critics self-evidently fabulous. To others 
 the present brevity of human life and the rapid 
 decay of the bodily organs appear perplexing and 
 mysterious; and it seems to them inherently prob- 
 able that th.e early generations of mankind nearer 
 the fountain of life possessed a far larger share of 
 vital power, involving a capacity no longer pos- 
 sessed of renewing tissues and organs during 
 many centuries. 
 
 The paradoxical opinion has even been main- 
 tained, with great ability and with undoubted sin- 
 cerity, that the early narratives of Genesis are 
 mythical legends, but are nevertheless divinely 
 inspired. To those who bow with unreserved 
 faith to the teaching of our L,ord and his apostles 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. IQI 
 
 the testimony of the New Testament to the his- 
 torical truth of those narratives seems sufficient 
 and decisive. But at whatever judgment the 
 reader arrives on these and the like points, or 
 even if he holds his judgment in suspense, the 
 religious teaching of Genesis the general view 
 of divine manifestation to man and dealing with 
 man abides the same, and demands to be con- 
 sidered and accounted for. 
 
 The wonderful simplicity and terseness of the 
 book of Genesis probably conceal from the multi- 
 tude of readers its transcendent literary merit. 
 The story of Joseph is perhaps the finest example 
 of narrative in literature, while the speech of 
 Judah is an unsurpassed model of natural elo- 
 quence. The story of the mission of Abraham's 
 servant to Mesopotamia is equally perfect in its 
 way; but its fulness of detail the scale of the 
 narrative has no parallel in Scripture. Had 
 the Bible narratives in general been given on a 
 similar scale of detail the bulk of the Scriptures 
 would have been increased many fold. 
 
 The feature of Old Testament religion we 
 have been considering is not peculiar to Genesis 
 or to the Pentateuch. It pervades the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. It is not that history is made the me- 
 dium of religious instruction. That would be a 
 most narrow and mistaken view of the matter. 
 
I92THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 It is that religion is shown as the soul of history, 
 the supreme reality and central power in human 
 affairs, the deepest foundation of human life. 
 But while this keynote rings loud and clear 
 throughout the Bible, it is struck in Genesis with 
 unsurpassed boldness and truth. God is shown 
 as the ultimate source of all being, preparing the 
 earth from the -beginning to be the home of man. 
 Man's very existence is traced to God's purpose 
 to realize his own likeness in human nature. 
 Man is shown as conversant with God as soon as 
 he began to know himself and the world around 
 him. The foundations 'of marriage, property, 
 labor, moral duty, and responsibility are all laid 
 in God's revealed will and man's conscious rela- 
 tion to his Maker. Moral evil, or sin, is repre- 
 sented as wilful disobedience to the known will 
 of God. The tendency to evil is shown to be 
 hereditary as well as personal, and teeming with 
 seeds of increase. Human life is regarded as a 
 whole, and God is seen as the Ruler and Judge 
 of mankind, as well as the personal Friend and 
 Saviour of every one who fears and trusts him. 
 FAITH, as the mainspring and sheet anchor of 
 the religious life ; PRAYER, as direct personal 
 converse with the unseen Father of spirits, and 
 as actually heard and answered by him ; and 
 DIVINE PROVIDENCE, as regulating all human 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 193 
 
 affairs, from the greatest to the least, are so ex- 
 emplified in these ancient Hebrew annals that 
 the stories of Abraham, of Jacob, of Joseph, pos- 
 sess an nndecaying charm for Christian minds of 
 the highest spiritual culture. They are typical 
 for all time. No example of after ages has been 
 able to cast them into the shade. 
 
 The "Pentateuch" is so called because, from 
 time immemorial, perhaps by the author himself, 
 it has been divided into five sections or "books." 
 But there is no break of continuity. The narra- 
 tive passes briefly over the centuries, at first of 
 peaceful prosperity, then of bitter adversity, dur- 
 ing which Israel's descendants "increased abun- 
 dantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding 
 mighty." It hastens to tell the story of the de- 
 liverance from bondage, and of the creation of an 
 organized nation out of the twelve clans which 
 claimed Joseph and his brothers as their ances- 
 tors. But it links on this history with the story 
 of Joseph by his remarkable request concerning 
 his embalmed remains; which request we are as- 
 sured was reverently obeyed on the departure 
 of Israel from Egypt, and finally fulfilled in the 
 Promised Land, Exod. 13:19; Josh. 24:32. 
 
 With the narrative of the Exodus, the forty 
 years in the wilderness, and the conquest of 
 Canaan is interwoven the record of the National 
 
194 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 Code and Constitution, political, religious, moral 
 and social. The historic reality of the divine 
 manifestation to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel is 
 assumed as the necessary starting-point of God's 
 dealings with their descendants. His promise to 
 Abraham is treated as a "covenant," to which 
 divine faithfulness stands irrevocably pledged. 
 But a new starting-point is given immediately 
 after the deliverance by a fresh "covenant" 
 granted by Jehovah and freely accepted by the 
 people. " Moses went up unto God, and the Lord 
 called unto him out of the mountain, saying, 
 Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and 
 tell the children of Israel: ' Ye have seen what I 
 did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on 
 eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. 
 Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, 
 and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a pecu- 
 liar treasure unto me above all people: for all the 
 earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a king- 
 dom of priests and a holy nation.' . . . And Moses 
 came and called for the elders of the people, and 
 laid before their faces all these words which the 
 Lord commanded him. And all the people an- 
 swered together, and said, 'All that the Lord hath 
 spoken we will do.' And Moses returned the 
 words of the people unto the Lord." Bxod. 
 
 19:3-8. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. IQ5 
 
 * 
 
 Such a record has no parallel, in fact or fic- 
 tion. Many lawgivers have claimed divine 
 authority. Many sacred books have been ac- 
 counted divinely inspired. Many nations have 
 deemed themselves patronised by a national de- 
 ity, and favorites of heaven. But this descrip- 
 tion of the founding of a nation and laying the 
 basis of national legislation by a solemn contract 
 of sovereignty and obedience between the Al- 
 mighty Creator and the representatives of the 
 whole nation, is absolutely unique in its sober 
 majesty, severe literal reality, and moral gran- 
 deur. 
 
 On the basis thus laid the whole fabric of 
 legislation and framework of national life, accord- 
 ing to the books of Moses, rested. All the subse- 
 quent history proceeds from this starting-point. 
 The religion of personal faith, prayer, and obedi- 
 ence depicted in Genesis is never lost sight of; 
 but it is overshadowed by the religion of national 
 faith, public worship, and obedience to the law 
 binding on the nation. The Ten Command- 
 ments, and the subsequent laws given by Moses 
 are expressed in such a form that the word 
 "thou" may apply equally to the individual Is- 
 raelite or to the nation. Divine providence and 
 government are illustrated on a corresponding 
 scale. The wanderings of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 
196 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 Jacob, and the sufferings and glory of Joseph, 
 illustrate God's care and control of personal his- 
 tory down to its least details. Egypt, the Red 
 Sea, Sinai, the desert, the manna, the water from 
 the rock, the pillar of cloud and fire, teach a like 
 lesson in regard to national history, on a scale 
 never equalled, never to be repeated. 
 
 The religious teaching of the remaining four 
 books of Moses stands therefore in vivid contrast 
 with that of Genesis, especially in two of their 
 most striking features: a stupendous series of 
 miracles, and an elaborate religious ceremonial 
 involving a hereditary priesthood. 
 
 i. Two unparalleled miracles are recorded in 
 Genesis: the deluge and the destruction of Sod- 
 om and its neighbor cities. These excepted, 
 miracles occupy no prominent place, save in the 
 form of those divine communications, by voices, 
 visions, angelic apparitions, and the like, which 
 were indispensable in the absence of any written 
 revelation, if man was to converse with his 
 Maker and learn his will. 
 
 The origin, not simply of the Hebrew reli- 
 gion, but of religion itself as a prominent fact of 
 human nature and history, has been debated as a 
 riddle yet needing solution. The Bible account of 
 the origin of religion is that man began his jour- 
 ney on this globe not as a deserted orphan turned 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 adrift to seek God as best he could, but in commun- 
 ion with the Father of spirits. God talked with 
 him, and he could talk with God. God marked 
 for him the path of duty, and it lay in his choice tc 
 walk in it or to wander from it. If men ceased to 
 know God, it was by their own neglect and sin; 
 because, as St. Paul says, "they refused to have. 
 God in their knowledge." Rom. 1:28, R. V. 
 
 This view of a primeval revelation is strongly 
 combated, even by writers who hold that religion 
 is natural and indispensable to man. Professor 
 Max Miiller, in his extremely able and fascina- 
 ting "Lectures on the Origin and Science of Re- 
 ligion," speaks even with contempt of the belief 
 that religion originated in divine revelation. It 
 is, he argues, an absurdity. "When man has 
 once arrived at a stage of thought when he can 
 call anything, be it one or many, God, he has 
 achieved more than half his journey. He has 
 found the predicate God, and he has henceforth 
 to look for the subjects only to which that predi- 
 cate is truly applicable. What we want to know 
 is, how man first arrived at the concept of the 
 divine, and out of what elements he framed it; 
 afterwards only comes the question how he was 
 able to predicate the divine of this or that, of 
 the one or of the many. ' ' 
 
 By parity of reasoning it ought to be impossi- 
 
198 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 ble for a child to know its mother until it has 
 " found the predicate," or u framed the concept," 
 " mother." Afterwards only ought to come the 
 question to whom that predicate is applicable, and 
 whether he has many mothers or only one. The 
 fact, as everybody knows, is the other way. A 
 predicate implies language. A concept implies 
 power to abstract and generalize; it is a gener- 
 alized judgment, or group or series of judgments, 
 applicable in virtue of a common name to several 
 objects. None but a mother fully knows all that 
 the predicate or concept "mother" stands for. 
 But long before the cradled child can perform 
 any such intellectual feats as abstraction and 
 generalization not only before he can talk, but 
 before he suspects that there is -such a thing as 
 speech, he is perfectly conscious of his mother's 
 presence and love. Feeling awakes while reason 
 yet slumbers, and opens the door to knowledge. 
 The infant born blind, to whom its mother is an 
 invisible presence, acquires the same emotions, 
 the same certainty, through the sensations of 
 hearing and touch. The nascent intelligence 
 instinctively penetrates behind the veil of sensa- 
 tion into the world of spirit. 
 
 Precisely similar, according to the account in 
 Genesis, was the method by which the eternal 
 Father of spirits revealed himself to his new-born 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. IQ9 
 
 offspring. We are neither warranted nor forbid- 
 den by any express statement to assume any vis- 
 ible manifestation of divine glory to our first 
 parents. They * * heard the voice of the Lord 
 God." They were sensible of an awful, com- 
 manding but lovirig and protecting presence. 
 They conversed with their Maker. .Thought 
 and speech are represented as already called into 
 exercise, in the naming of the lower creatures, 
 before man found u a help meet for him," a com- 
 panion spirit akin to himself. It is reasonable 
 to think that the current of intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual life, as well as physical, flowed 
 strong so near to the fountain-head. The task 
 of acquiring language, which toilsomely occupies 
 two or three years or more of infancy, may have 
 been condensed into a few weeks, days, or hours. 
 Our parents could already understand the lan- 
 guage of command, promise, and warning when 
 they were placed under law and their welfare 
 made dependent on their obedience. 
 
 Compared with recent hypotheses of the slow 
 and painful ascent of man from irrational, speech- 
 less, lawless, godless, apehood, the Bible account 
 has at all events the advantage of dignity, beauty, 
 intelligibleness, and analogy with the known 
 facts of human experience. 
 
 The two tremendous miracles of destruction 
 
200 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 which are repeatedly referred to in the New Tes- 
 tament as typical examples of divine judgment 
 on sin the deluge and the overthrow of the 
 cities of the plain stand out in awful and vivid 
 contrast with the general tenor of the narrative 
 in Genesis. These excepted; the miracles of the 
 deliverance from Egypt, and of the wilderness, 
 are as unprecedented in their colossal greatness 
 as they are unique in character. Modern criti- 
 cism finds in these miracles unquestionable proof 
 of what it terms the " unhistorical " character of 
 the narrative. Repugnance to miracles is a 
 marked feature of our age, though by no means 
 peculiar to it. The so-called scientific argument 
 against miracles is in substance that invented by 
 David Hume in the last century.* Stripped of 
 ingenious rhetoric it amounts to this: Miracles are 
 
 * Professor Huxley has clearly and candidly pointed out 
 the error of Hume's argument (" Hume," p. 133). But he 
 misses the mark altogether when he tries to illustrate the 
 incredibility of miracles from the supposed alleged occur- 
 rence of some isolated incredible phenomenon, such as the 
 apparition of a live centaur. The miracles of Scripture are 
 not isolated occurrences. Their evidence consists in their 
 setting, their vital place in the history, and the impossibility 
 of really explaining the history without them. If a race of 
 centaurs had left their bones in the rocks, we should be com- 
 pelled to believe in their existence ; and the miracles of the 
 Pentateuch and of the Gospels have left stronger witnesses 
 than fossil bones living results. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 2OI 
 
 incredible because they are impossible; they are 
 impossible because they have never been known 
 to happen; and the proof that they have never 
 been known to happen is, that they are incredi- 
 ble and impossible. Any experience, therefore, 
 which affirms that they have actually been wit- 
 nessed must be false. Thus barely stated, this 
 celebrated argument makes but a poor show of 
 either science or logic. 
 
 Hence the skeptic is forced to maintain that 
 the Pentateuch was not written by Moses. Be- 
 cause, setting aside not only inspiration but even 
 honesty, if the great lawgiver simply possessed 
 ordinary common sense, it is incredible that he 
 should have based his whole legislation on im- 
 aginary prodigies, and appealed to the whole na- 
 tion to testify to the truth of accounts which- 
 every man, woman, and child knew to be fables. 
 If then Moses really wrote the Pentateuch, the 
 miracles recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy 
 must really have taken place. They are facts of 
 which science is as much bound to take account 
 as of any other facts in human experience. 
 
 That the intense culture of science begets in 
 many minds a disposition to skepticism regarding 
 miracles (or even skepticism of a wider range) is 
 neither a stain upon science nor an argument for 
 unbelief. It is simply an example of the infirm- 
 
202 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 ity of human intellect. Absorbing devotion to 
 any branch of study always involves the peril of 
 getting the intellect cramped in one attitude, the 
 mental vision stinted to one focus. Preoccupied 
 with the grand ideas of immutable law, and of 
 the unchanging order of nature, the student of 
 science is apt to forget that in every experiment 
 by which he interrogates nature, every word he 
 utters, every movement of his limbs and fingers, 
 he is a living example of the power of personal 
 will to control nature without interrupting the 
 uniformity of law. A miracle is simply an ex- 
 ercise of the divine will to produce a special re- 
 sult. It is absurd to suppose the Creator devoid 
 of that power which is put forth by every child 
 who flings ,a stone into the air, hits a mark with 
 an arrow, or in any other way subjects matter 
 and force to his will. It is ridiculous to assert 
 that the Almighty Maker has so tied his own 
 hands with the laws of his own universe that 
 he cannot do what he sees wise and good to do. 
 
 "Miracles," the skeptic may rejoin, u are 
 not abstractly impossible, but -it is incredible that 
 the Creator would ever derange the grand and 
 solid order of his universe for the purpose of as- 
 tonishing or converting a few thousands of half- 
 barbarous Hebrews, the rest of the \vorld mean- 
 while remaining ignorant of the alleged mir- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 203 
 
 acles." The argument is thus removed from 
 scientific ground, where it has no real standing, 
 to the moral, which is doubtless its proper field. 
 Calmly examined in this light, the objection 
 against the miracles of the Pentateuch is trans- 
 formed into a powerful argument in their favor. 
 For supposing that the special exercise of divine 
 power which we term miracle is credible, pro- 
 vided the end to be answered is of adequate im- 
 portance, let the reader consider whether any end 
 could be more worthy than to impress on the mind 
 of a whole nation with an indelible force which 
 no lapse of time could weaken the lesson of the 
 omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, and power of 
 the Creator, and the vanity of whatever else is 
 called God; to inspire their faith, attract their 
 love, awe them into implicit obedience, and pre- 
 pare their minds to receive the divine law as the 
 basis of personal, social, and national life ; espe- 
 cially if this nation traced back its origin to 
 ancestors to whom special divine manifestations 
 had been made and promises given regarding 
 their remote posterity, and was designed in ful- 
 filment of those promises to keep alive the light 
 of sacred tradition, and to furnish in the fulness 
 of time the teachers of the whole human race. 
 
 In what other way is it conceivable that these 
 lessons could have been effectually taught to the 
 
2O4 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 Hebrews? True, the immense majority of man- 
 kind were ignorant, and even down to the present 
 day are ignorant, both of the miracles and of the 
 lessons. Bnt this is but one example of a law 
 which governs all human progress. Truth, like 
 light, radiates from fixed centres. Great discov- 
 eries, destined in the long run to revolutionise 
 human life and history, are at first the possession 
 of a few, or of a single mind. As matter of his- 
 toric fact, an unbroken living chain of religious 
 faith, teaching, sympathy, prayer, and practice 
 connects the tent of Abraham and the legislation 
 of Sinai, through the life and teaching of Jesus, 
 with the religious life of modern Christendom, 
 and with the moral power (the only one yet dis- 
 covered) which has shown itself capable in the 
 Sandwich Islands, in Polynesia, in New 7 Guinea, 
 in Madagascar, in South and Central Africa, of 
 lifting half-barbarous or wholly savage and brutal 
 tribes into civilisation, morality, and liberty. 
 
 2. The second strong contrast between the re- 
 ligious teaching of Genesis and those of the later 
 books of Moses is presented by the elaborate reli- 
 gious ceremonial ordained by the Mosaic law. 
 The leading elements of this system were three: 
 a sanctuary, or consecrated centre of worship; 
 sacrifices, most accurately discriminated and clas- 
 sified; and an hereditary priesthood. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 2O5 
 
 The Tabernacle, or "tent of the testimony," 
 which accompanied the inarch of Israel, taken 
 down when the host moved and set up where 
 they halted, taught the great principle a lesson 
 likewise taught at the burning bush and at Si- 
 nai that sanctity is not inherent in any conse- 
 crated spot, but depends on the divine Presence, 
 to be expected and bestowed wherever the people 
 of God are assembled. What the Tabernacle was 
 to the camp, the Temple afterwards was to the 
 land and to the holy city. 
 
 The principal idea symbolized in the Taber- 
 nacle was evidently that of divine Presence 
 Jehovah dwelling in the midst of Israel. The 
 ideas of worship and sacrifice were secondary, 
 dependent on this. The pillar of cloud and of 
 fire was the visible miraculous witness that this 
 divine Presence was a reality. The people were 
 to consider themselves a nation of priests. Sani- 
 tary regulations, military order in camp or on 
 march, political assemblies, personal behavior, 
 as well as religious worship, all were to be ruled 
 by this sublime idea the presence of the divine 
 King with his chosen people. * 
 
 * E.g.,Exod. 25:8; 29:42-46; 33:15,16; Lev. 26:12; Deut. 
 23 : 14. Our English translators have not been careful to pre- 
 serve the distinction between the two Hebrew words applied 
 to the tabernacle : inishkan, habitation, and ohel, tent. The 
 .term Shckinah, used in later Hebrew for the manifestation of 
 
2o6THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 An hereditary priesthood was familiar to the 
 Israelites as an Egyptian institution. But where- 
 as the priests of Egypt were a territorial caste, 
 over whose lands the State had no control, Gen. 
 47: 22, 26, the law of Moses enacted that the tribe 
 of Levi should not share in the division of the 
 land of Canaan, excepting a number of allotted 
 cities, each with a narrow strip of land surround- 
 ing it. Consecrated to the service of Jehovah, 
 they were to be sustained by the free-will offerings 
 of the nation. 
 
 Animal sacrifices, unlike the tabernacle and 
 the tribal priesthood, were no novelty. From 
 the beginning they had been recognized as the 
 appointed mode of divine worship. The book of 
 Genesis contains no record of their institution; 
 but the statement, Gen. 3:21, that after the 
 transgression of our first parents the Lord God 
 clothed them with skins, has been reasonably in- 
 terpreted to imply that they were commanded to 
 
 the divine glory, is connected with the first word, cf. John 
 1:14. The two are distinguished in Exod. 40: 18, 19. The hab- 
 itation or tabernacle proper was the structure of gilded boards, 
 with its hangings of woven work. The tent of goats' hair, 
 Exod. 26: 7, was spread over this inner structure. The cover- 
 ing, mikseh, of leather and sealskin (see " Speaker's Commen- 
 tary" on Exod. 25: 5 for this rendering) seems to have been a 
 light, strong waterproof over-roof, to throw off rain and snow. 
 The same word is used of the deck or roof of Noah's ark, 
 Gen. 8:13. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 2O/ 
 
 sacrifice the beasts, whose skins they were then 
 instructed to prepare and wear as symbols of the 
 covering or pardon of sin through atonement. 
 
 What appears to have been novel in the sacri- 
 ficial ritual established by Moses was the elabo- 
 rate distinction and classification of animal sac- 
 rifices under the three principal kinds of burnt- 
 offering, sin-offering, and peace-offering or thank- 
 offering. The name for the first literally means 
 "that which goeth up," namely, in fire and 
 smoke to heaven. The second, the name for 
 which properly means "sin," includes the "tres- 
 pass-offering." Authorities are divided as to the 
 meaning of the name of the third class " peace- 
 offering," or "thank-offering;" but the general 
 idea is the same. Bwald asserts that previous to 
 the legislation of Sinai "the most varied forms of 
 sacrifice had been long in operation, each with 
 its special drift and corresponding belief."* But 
 he can furnish no proof of this assertion beyond 
 the casual intimations in Bxod. 10125; 18:12; 
 possibly Gen. 31:54, that some distinctions were 
 recognized. The sacrifices of- Noah and of Job 
 are expressly called "burnt-offerings;" and from 
 Gen. 22:2 we gather that those of Abraham 
 were of the same character. It is generally ac- 
 knowledged that the most prominent idea syni- 
 
 * " Antiquities of Israel," p. 25, Solly's translation. 
 
20STHE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 bolued in this kind of sacrifice is that of complete 
 consecration to God. . But the idea of atonement 
 for sin is very plainly recognized in Job 1:5; 42 : 8. 
 In like manner the idea of atonement must not 
 be excluded from the peace-offer ing, as is plain 
 from Lev. 3:1, 2; 17:1-14. During the sojourn 
 in the wilderness, when the main sustenance of 
 the Israelites was the daily manna, no beast was 
 to be slaughtered for food without being treated 
 as a peace-offering. * 
 
 The sacredness of blood, as representing the 
 soul or life, was indicated in the law given to 
 Noah, Gen. 9:4. But the atoning value of blood 
 is first distinctly set forth in the case of the Pass- 
 over lamb, Bxod. 12, which may be considered 
 the prototype of the peace-offerings. Kwald truly 
 says, u No heathen nation had such ideas about 
 human sin and divine grace as had the people of 
 Israel, ... so that it was only in this nation that 
 the blood assumed this unique and exalted sig- 
 nificance, a'nd only there that it became the cen- 
 tre of the whole sacrificial procedure." 
 
 Among heathen nations, as in the poems of 
 Homer, we find the custom of offering to the gods 
 a portion of the flesh and a libation of the wine at 
 banquets. At first sight this seems closely to re- 
 
 * Compare Dent. 12: 15, 16 for the modification of this law 
 after they entered the Promised Land. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 2OQ 
 
 semble the thank-offering or peace-offering of 
 Hebrew worship; but on reflection we discover a 
 wide and important difference between sacrificing 
 a part of the feast and feasting on a sacrifice. In 
 the one case the gods were invoked as guests at 
 the banquet; in the other God himself is regarded 
 as bidding his children to his table. Thus, of the 
 seventy chiefs who with Moses, Aaron, and two 
 of Aaron's sons were admitted to the feast of the 
 peace-offerings in Sinai, on the ratification of the 
 covenant, and to a vision of the divine glory, we 
 read, "They saw God, and did eat and drink." 
 Exod. 24:5-11. 
 
 The connection between religion and history, 
 noticed above as the first great distinctive charac- 
 ter of the religion of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures, is strongly marked with regard to these 
 three essential elements of the system set up by 
 Moses: the. Tabernacle, the Priesthood, the Sac- 
 rificial Ritual. All three, in the records which 
 have come down to us, are inseparably inter- 
 woven with the main facts of Hebrew story the 
 deliverance from Egypt, the encampment at Si- 
 nai, the covenant between Jehovah and his peo- 
 ple, the giving of the law, the stubborn rebel- 
 liousness of Israel, and the consequent delay of 
 their entrance into Canaan until the death of 
 Moses in the fortieth year from the exodus. You 
 
2IOTHE ORIGIN OK THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 cannot explain the religion apart from the his- 
 tory nor the history apart from the religion. 
 Criticism may, in the judgment of the critics, 
 pull the whole fabric to pieces; but it is power- 
 less to supply anything even reasonably probable 
 in its place. 
 
 A great deal has been made, in the interest of 
 this destructive criticism, of the alleged inconsis- 
 tency between the provision in Deuteronomy, 
 chap. 12, for a single sanctuary in the land of 
 Canaan and the record in the subsequent history 
 of altars set up and sacrifices offered at various 
 centres of worship: as by the people at Bochim; 
 by Gideon at Ophrah ; by Manoah at Zorah ; by 
 Samuel at Ramah, Gilgal, Bethlehem; by David 
 on Moriah; by Elijah on Carmel, Judg. 2:5; 6:24; 
 13:16; i Sam. 7:17; 10:8; 16:2; 2 Sam. 24:25; 
 i Kings 18:30. 
 
 The discrepancy, if there be one, belongs to 
 Deuteronomy itself, which commands the offering 
 of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings on an altar 
 of stone on Mount Ebal. It is true that when 
 this command was carried out by Joshua the tab- 
 ernacle was probably set up at Shechem, Josh. 
 8:30-35; but the sacrifices were offered, not on 
 the brazen altar, but on the separate altar on 
 Mount Ebal. The fact is that all these cases are 
 covered by the promise connected with the origi- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 211 
 
 tial law regarding altars, Hxod. 20:24-26: "In all 
 places where I record my name I will come to 
 thee and I will bless thee." Sacred associations 
 naturally gathered round any spot where the tab- 
 ernacle stood for a considerable space of time. 
 Unity of national worship was not endangered by 
 the building of an altar on any special occasion 
 by a recognized representative of divine author- 
 ity, like Samuel or Elijah. What would endan- 
 ger it was the practice of private unauthorised 
 sacrifices, such as those condemned in i Kings 
 3:2; 22:43; 2 Kings 12:3.* 
 
 As the recorded history of ancient Israel fur- 
 nishes the only key to the religion of the Old 
 Testament, otherwise inexplicable, so the reli- 
 gion bears witness to the history. Solomon's 
 temple presupposes the tabernacle. It actually 
 contained the ark. But the ark and the taberna- 
 cle presuppose the wandering in the wilderness; 
 which in its turn presupposes Sinai and the de- 
 liverance. The whole history from the birth of 
 
 * When Solomon sacrificed at Gibeon the tabernacle was 
 still there, though the ark had been brought to Jerusalem, i 
 Chron. 4; 16:37-40; 2 Chron. 1:3-6. It is doubtful whether 
 the tabernacle was for a time set up at Bethel ; see Judg. 20. 
 After its removal from Shiloh we find it at Nob and Mizpah ; 
 but these are probably the same ; and Gibeon was so near 
 that possibly only one sacred place is referred to under all 
 three names. See " Tent Work," 2 : 105, 116-120. Conder's 
 " Handbook to Bible," pp. 275-277, 
 
212 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 Samuel attests the importance of both the ark 
 and the tabernacle. David's institutions, which 
 survived the Captivity and lasted into the Chris- 
 tian era, attest the national importance and nu- 
 merical strength of the tribe of Levi, their sacred 
 character, and the hereditary priesthood of the 
 descendants of Aaron. How can these (joined 
 with the fact that I v evi was a landless tribe) be 
 explained apart from a legislation coeval with 
 the existence of the nation? In a word, is it ra- 
 tionally conceivable that a nation so numerous, 
 compact, tenacious of tradition, yet sturdily in- 
 dependent, prone to strife, and obstinately addict- 
 ed to forbidden rites, should have been persuaded 
 (before, during, or after the reigns of David and 
 Solomon) to receive a body of new institutions, 
 forged laws, and fictitious public annals, and that 
 this astonishing fabrication, unparalleled in all 
 literature, should have gained that prodigious 
 hold on national belief and reverence which the 
 writings ascribed to Moses undeniably possessed 
 after the return from Babylon ? 
 
 The demands made on our faith by modern 
 skeptical criticism far exceed in fact those made 
 by all the miracles of the Bible ; 'because in the 
 latter case apparent physical impossibilities find 
 an adequate explanation to wit, in the exercise 
 of divine power for worthy ends; whereas in the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 213 
 
 former case moral impossibilities are presented 
 for our belief with no explanation at all. 
 
 II. 
 
 The intimate blending of history and religion, 
 which we have noted as the first great character- 
 istic of the Hebrew Scriptures, is the condition 
 of the two other characteristics also indicated: 
 UNITY and DEVELOPMENT. These may be best 
 considered not separately but together; for de- 
 velopment implies unity, and the unity discover- 
 able in the Bible is a unity of growth not formal 
 and mechanical, but vital, internal, spiritual. 
 
 Clearly, if the books of the Old Testament 
 possess any real unity, it must be of this nature. 
 For they do not compose a book in any ordinary 
 sense of the word. They are a library, a litera- 
 ture. They range over a thousand years. Their 
 writers differ widely in character, genius, educa- 
 tion, position. They reflect the most opposite 
 phases of national life. Diversity of contents and 
 variety of form could scarcely be more strongly 
 exemplified than in this collection of annals, laws, 
 biography, poems, aphorisms, prophetic oracles. 
 If the unity of these sacred writings were merely 
 artificial and conventional, conferred by authority 
 and custom, it would dissolve at the touch of se- 
 rious examination. If, on the contrary, deep be- 
 
214 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 low this diversified and broken surface we find a 
 unity of thought, an unbroken vein of religious 
 teaching, growing richer from age to age, then 
 this unity is a fact more important than the di- 
 versity. It must have an adequate cause. It de- 
 mands an intelligent explanation. If natural 
 causes cannot explain it, we must infer supernat- 
 ural. If human authors could not, or manifestly 
 did not, combine to produce it, the only possible 
 explanation is divine authorship. * 
 
 Does such unity, progressively unfolding it- 
 self, actually characterize the Hebrew sacred wri- 
 tings? To answer this question let us take first 
 the fundamental idea of all religion the being 
 and character of God. The book of Genesis 
 opens with affirming the deepest relation we and 
 all other beings sustain to God as our Creator. 
 Metaphysical questions as to self-existence, eter- 
 nity, infinity, space, and time, the nature of mat- 
 ter and of mind, are never raised. Yet, in fact, 
 they all lie wrapped up in the plain historical 
 statement that u in the beginning God created the 
 heaven and the earth." Creation appears in the 
 record as an orderly process, crowned with the 
 birth of man. Its successive stages the hidden 
 
 * For a powerful exhibition of some aspects of this great 
 subject see Henry Rogers' " Lectures on the Superhuman 
 Origin of the Bible," pp. 152-181. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 21$ 
 
 stirring of life under the dark waters, the dawn of 
 light, the formation of an atmosphere, the up- 
 heaval of islands and continents, the growth of 
 plant life, the appearance in the clear sky of sun, 
 moon, and stars, the appearance on the stage of 
 life of fishes and other marine animals, reptiles, 
 birds, mammals, last of all man display a won- 
 derful agreement with the latest discoveries of 
 human science. But a height is reached of which 
 science knows nothing in the account of the Cre- 
 ator's beneficent delight in his work, Gen. 1:31, 
 and in the assertion of a divine type and purpose 
 in man, the lord of creation, ver. 26-28. 
 
 Man is represented as from the first placed in 
 direct moral relations with his Maker. A spe- 
 cially prepared home, work, the Sabbath, mar- 
 riage, and a positive command, the test of obedi- 
 ence, bless and fence his life. Disobedience is 
 represented as putting him, as it needs must, in a 
 sadly altered relation to God. He is called to 
 account, found guilty, sentenced to the loss of 
 Eden, made subject to death. No explanation is 
 given of that awful word. If bodily dissolution, 
 simple animal death, be meant, then it is evident 
 that execution of the penalty, ( ' in the day that 
 thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die," was 
 deferred. If the history means us to understand 
 that it was rigorously carried out, then evidently 
 
2I6THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 something else is meant than animal death, how- 
 soever closely connected with it. Nevertheless, 
 man retains his highest privilege direct con- 
 verse with his Maker. Not to repeat here what 
 has already been said concerning sacrifice, we see 
 God reasoning with Cain when his mind is dull 
 with discontent and murderous jealousy, seeking 
 to win him to repentance, and cheering him, as 
 Adam and Eve were cheered after their trans- 
 gression, with words of grace and promise. Gen. 
 4:6, 7. 
 
 We shall search in vain the sacred books and 
 the entire literature of pagan nations for any ade- 
 quate parallel to these representations of the ab- 
 solute authority and just seventy of the Creator, 
 united with fatherly tenderness towards the sin- 
 ner and effort to win him to repentance or 
 hold him back from sin. But parallels abound 
 throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. As examples 
 we may refer to the startling description of divine 
 sorrow over man's sin, and the hundred and twen- 
 ty years' respite granted in Noah's time to the 
 doomed world, Gen. 6:3, 5-7; the place assigned 
 to intercession, as of Abraham for Sodom, of Mo- 
 ses for Israel, of Job for his friends, Gen. 18:23- 
 33; Exod. 32:30, ff.; 33:6, 7; Job 1:5; 42:8; the 
 pathetic warnings of Moses to Israel, e. g. , Deut. 
 8:30; the echo of those warnings by his successor, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 2 1/ 
 
 Joshua, Josh. 24:14-25; Samuel's faithful and 
 solemn rebuke to the National Assembly, joined 
 with the assurance that the Lord would ' ' not for- 
 sake his people, for his great name's sake," i 
 Sam. 12:7-25; Isaiah's call to come and reason 
 together with God, joined with a gracious prom- 
 ise of pardon to the penitent, Isa. 1:18; Jeremi- 
 ah's thunderbolts of terror, flashing and pealing 
 through a tempest of tears, Jer. 2:2-13; 4:1-9; 
 5:9-31; 9:1-24; Ezekiel's trumpet-blast of warn- 
 ing, E^ek. 33:7-20; the homely remonstrance 
 and final warning of the latest of the prophets, 
 Mai. i : 6-1 1 : 4:1. The list might be indefinitely 
 extended. The preaching of John the Baptist, 
 the last prophet of the Old Testament, sounded 
 afresh the key-note which thus rings through the 
 Hebrew Bible. Its full-toned harmony is heard 
 in the preaching of Jesus: in his invitation to the 
 " laboring and heavy laden," his picture of the 
 prodigal returning to his father, his lament over 
 impenitent Jerusalem. 
 
 From these specimens it is clear that a consis- 
 tent strain of teaching, in the form not of dogma 
 but of historic narrative and practical appeal, 
 pervades the books of the Old Testament. Hu- 
 man life is everywhere regarded in direct moral 
 relation to divine law, authority, and mercy. 
 The appeal is sometimes chiefly to the nation, 
 
2l8 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 sometimes to individuals. But in both cases one 
 fact is to be noted, unaccountable, I think, on the 
 supposition that we have here no divine message, 
 but simply men seeking to instruct their fellows. 
 The aim throughout is not to inform and con- 
 vince the intellect, but to affect and control the 
 affections, conscience, and conduct. 
 
 The portraiture of the divine character thus 
 progressively set forth must be further studied, if 
 we desire any clear view of it, in two words of 
 very frequent recurrence and high significance 
 ' ' righteous, ' ' or ( 'just, ' ' and ' ' holy. ' > The words 
 intimately connected with these must of course be 
 included. The intuitive belief in the justice of 
 God as "Judge of all the earth" is the foundation 
 of Abraham's plea for Sodom. A sense of justice 
 and a keen, hot resentment against injustice 
 spring up so soon in the breasts of children that 
 we are sure human language very early contained 
 words to denote these feelings. As soon as men 
 formed any notion of moral goodness, human or 
 divine, the attribute of righteousness must inevi- 
 tably have entered into it. 
 
 "Holiness" is a more difficult, more advanced 
 idea. It does not naturally spring up in a child's 
 mind. The words expressing it do not occur in 
 Genesis, excepting in the statement that God 
 blessed and sanctified, hallowed or made holy, the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 2 19 
 
 seventh day. This excepted, the notion of holi- 
 ness meets us first in the command to Moses to 
 strip off his sandals because he was standing on 
 "holy ground," Exod. 3:5. The spot was con- 
 secrated by the divine Presence. The original 
 meaning of this group of words seems to have 
 been separation, q. d., to God's service: consecra- 
 tion. A difficulty obviously arises in the trans- 
 ference of such words to God himself. What is 
 really meant by the command u Be ye holy, for I 
 am holy"? The reply must be sought not in 
 logic but in feeling. Moral ideas enter the intel- 
 lect through the emotions. Reverence, awe, rig- 
 orously pure worship, imply corresponding qual- 
 ities in Him to whom they are due. The stronger 
 the emotions the more vivid the idea. The fault- 
 less purity, rigid separation, absolute surrender, 
 mysterious reverence with which the Mosaic law 
 invested every thing or person consecrated to God 
 trained the worshipper's feelings regarding God 
 and these feelings gave birth to ideas in their 
 own likeness. God's own innate holiness came 
 to be recognized as the fountain from which the 
 holiness belonging to things, persons, actions, 
 times, places, streamed forth. Hence the central 
 idea of holiness in the Old Testament is essential- 
 ly moral or spiritual. To suppose it ceremonial 
 because largely taught by ceremonies is a shallow 
 
220 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 but fatal error. The smallest amount of intelli- 
 gent reflection must have taught the Hebrew 
 worshipper that ceremonial, ritual holiness could 
 not belong to God. God's holiness could mean 
 nothing less than that nature and character which 
 make him supremely worthy of worship and love, 
 what in modern phrase we express by "supreme 
 moral excellence," or "spiritual perfection." 
 
 The importance of this fact in regard to our 
 inquiry into the origin of the Hebrew religion 
 cannot be exaggerated. It lies at the very heart 
 of that religion. No explanation is worth look- 
 ing at which does not account for it. The evi- 
 dence of its reality must be sought in careful 
 study, not only of the books of Moses, but of the 
 commentary supplied by later writings especially 
 the Psalms, Proverbs, and prophetic books on 
 the view of divine holiness actually held and 
 taught by the religious authorities of the nation. 
 It pertains, however, to the very outset of such 
 study to bear in mind that the Ten Command- 
 ments the starting-point of the whole law are 
 not ritual, but moral. The tenth refers purely to 
 inward desire and will. Comp. Rom. 7:7. The 
 law of the Sabbath is no exception, for abstinence 
 from labor is not a ceremony, but as practical a 
 thing as abstinence from theft or perjury; and 
 the moral results of the religious observance of 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 221 
 
 the Sabbath are as real and wide-reaching as 
 those of obedience to any other commandment. 
 
 Many readers will be aware that a completely 
 different view is maintained by critics and divines 
 of undoubted ability and scholarship, who claim 
 to stand in the front rank as leaders of Biblical 
 science and of theological thought. In the move- 
 ment long and strenuously carried on for the dis- 
 integration of the Bible, an important place is 
 filled by the view that the Levitical or legal 
 teaching and the prophetic teaching of the Old 
 Testament Scripture are independent, inconsis- 
 tent, and contradictory. If David to whom the 
 organization of the priests and Levites, the regu- 
 lations of the temple ritual, and the very build- 
 ing of the temple were owing says that "the 
 law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," 
 and prays to be kept from u secret faults," and 
 to have "a clean heart and a right spirit;" if 
 Solomon declares "the fear of the Lord" to 
 consist in departing from evil, and u the knowl- 
 edge of God" to be inseparable from "righteous- 
 ness and judgment and equity, yea, every good 
 path;" if Isaiah and Amos speak with scorn of 
 sacrifices and prayers offered by those ' ( whose 
 hands are full of blood;" if Micah asks, "What 
 doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly 
 and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy 
 
222 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 God?" it is maintained that the strong, clear, 
 deep stream of teaching of which these are sam- 
 ples must flow from another fountain than that 
 which teaches that "the blood of bulls and of 
 goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the 
 unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh." 
 Heb. 9:8-14. 
 
 Of course, this school of critics deny that Mo- 
 ses was the author of Deuteronomy; otherwise 
 their view would be at once convicted of error, 
 since none of the prophets can go beyond the 
 simple, comprehensive statements of Deuterono- 
 my, which describe religion as essentially consist- 
 ing in love, faith, and obedience; e. g., Deut. 6:4, 
 5; 8:1-3; 10:12-21; 13:4; 15: 7-10; 30:1-6, 11-15, 
 20. Perhaps a sufficient refutation of the view 
 in question is supplied by the hundred and nine- 
 teenth Psalm. This perfectly unique composi- 
 tion gives us the views and feelings of a pious 
 Israelite (of what tribe, rank, or calling we have 
 no means of guessing) concerning the divine 
 law. The written word of God, under a great 
 variety of names (the Rabbins reckon ten\ is here 
 described as an ideally perfect standard of charac- 
 ter and conduct, "righteous and very faithful," 
 " very pure," and "exceeding broad," by giving 
 heed to which the young man may u cleanse his 
 way," the afflicted servant of God be quickened 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 223 
 
 and comforted, the entrance of which "giveth 
 light, it giveth understanding to the simple." 
 "Thy righteousness," exclaims the Psalmist, u is 
 an everlasting righteousness, and Thy law is the 
 truth. ' ' It seems impossible to rise to a higher con- 
 ception of divine truth, or a loftier level of spiritual 
 temper and thought, than this remarkable Psalm 
 exhibits. Is it critical acumen, or is it mere 
 blindness, which can discern in that law in which 
 the Psalmist beheld such divine wonders nothing 
 but the work of priests and forgers; a melange of 
 superstitious inventions, heathen traditions, fic- 
 titious histories, and pious frauds ?* 
 
 One other point, the importance of which can- 
 not be overestimated, demands careful consider- 
 ation. Over against the conceptions of divine 
 righteousness, holiness, and purity the Hebrew 
 Scriptures set that of their dark opposite human 
 sin. The one cannot be understood apart from 
 the other. No theory of the origin of the Hebrew 
 religion merits serious attention which cannot 
 give an honest and satisfactory reply to the ques- 
 tion, Whence was the idea of sin which pervades the 
 Old Testament Scriptures derived? 
 
 * These are not random words, but a guarded and a 
 moderate statement of what is implied necessarily in the 
 theory that the laws of Moses were not given by God, and 
 that the so-called books of Moses were forgeries of later ages. 
 
224THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 Not even the poetic and historic literature, far 
 less the sacred books, of all other ancient nations, 
 can stand comparison with the Hebrew Scriptures 
 in human interest. No phase of human life is 
 unreflected in that wondrous mirror, no note is 
 left untouched throughout the diapason of human 
 emotion. Every vicissitude of human fortune 
 finds a place in these pages, from the throne to 
 the dungeon, from the cradle to the grave. 
 Kvery type of human character is represented, 
 from the most heroic greatness or saintliest 
 purity to the most unbridled and revolting wick- 
 edness. A procession of empires passes across 
 that narrow stage. We hear the jubilant songs 
 of harvest and vintage, the music of feasts, the 
 stern hymn of warriors, the paean of victory, the 
 choral chant of temple worship, the wail of the 
 dirge. Yet with this unrivalled fulness and all 
 but endless variety of human interest, national 
 tradition, and individual portraiture, it is no 
 exaggeration to say that one dominant character 
 pervades the whole delineation; one thought 
 underlies the whole, even where it does not ap- 
 pear on the surface; one deep, sorrowful note 
 rings like a knell through all the music. It is 
 that which St. Paul utters when, quoting from 
 i the Old Testament, he says that "all have sinned, 
 and come short of the glory of God. ' ' Rom. 3:23. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 22$ 
 
 For the proof that this is so, the reader must 
 be referred to the entire body of Hebrew Scrip- 
 ture. He must not merely scan its letter, but 
 labor to gauge its drift and fathom its spirit. In 
 this attempt it is indispensable that attention be 
 given to the terms under which this conception 
 of sin is presented. The Hebrew language is 
 rich in moral synonyms. Nine principal words 
 may be noted, without separately noticing the 
 various forms in which some of them appear. 
 Our translators have observed no certain rule in 
 rendering them. 
 
 1. Chattath (chattaah, chefy Sin; perhaps orig- 
 inally "error," " missing the mark." 
 
 2. Pesha' 1 : Transgression; perhaps "breach." 
 
 3. Resha 1 : Unrighteousness; wickedness. 
 
 4. Asham: Guilt; perhaps originally "de- 
 fault;" the word is rendered "trespass" in the 
 law concerning "trespass-offerings." 
 
 5. Avon: Perversity; crime. 
 
 6. Aven: Vanity; iniquity. 
 
 7. ' Evel (avlali): Wickedness; depravity; 
 properly " twisting aside. " 
 
 8. Metal: Trespass. 
 
 9. Re? (rtfali): 111; evil.* 
 
 * The English reader may find the occurrence of each 
 Hebrew word in Dr. Young's "Concordance," by looking 
 under all the English words, " sin," "iniquity," etc. 
 15 
 
226 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW REUGION. 
 
 One fact of immense interest comes out from 
 this list of words; namely, that the Hebrew con- 
 ception of sin was moral, not ceremonial. This 
 is as true of the law as of the historical and 
 prophetical writings. The reverse might have 
 been looked for. Considering the prominence 
 given in the ceremonial law to ideas of defile- 
 ment and purification, we might have expected 
 these symbolic notions to be reflected in the terms 
 employed to express sin. Not one of these terms 
 has any such meaning. Not only so. Although 
 it is certain that in Hebrew as in other languages 
 the words used for moral attributes and sentiments 
 must have been originally metaphors taken from 
 objects of sense, yet in none of these Hebrew 
 words is the metaphor obvious. * Their etymolo- 
 gy is rather matter of learned conjectures than of 
 certainty. The inference is plain. These words 
 were so anciently and so constantly used in a 
 moral sense that the metaphoric meaning had 
 died out of them before the Hebrew language 
 took the earliest form in which we find it. They 
 
 * They contrast curiously, therefore, with a great number 
 of English words, in some of which the metaphor lies on the 
 surface (as upright, base, heartless, close-fisted) ; while in others 
 (as right, wrong, perverse, transgression) it is transparent to 
 any one who has a moderate knowledge of etymology. Our 
 word " sin" on the other hand, is a very ancient word, and 
 seems to have had a moral meaning from the first. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 22? 
 
 had come to stand for the purely moral ideas of 
 disobedience to law, infraction of right, and desert 
 of blame and penalty. 
 
 The reader can therefore easily estimate the 
 value of the assertion sometimes made as confi- 
 dently as if it were a scientific discovery, that the 
 idea of sin entertained by the ancient Hebrews 
 was that of ceremonial defilement, to be got rid 
 of by ceremonial purification, or of definite out- 
 ward acts, to be balanced by other definite acts 
 of atonement or penalty. The Hebrew language 
 itself bears irrefragable witness that the pol- 
 lutions and purifications ordained by the cere- 
 monial law were but symbols of a stain they 
 could not reach and a purity they could not 
 bestow the pollution of the heart and conscience 
 by inward sin, and the purification of divine for- 
 giveness and restoration to God's image. If the 
 penitent exclaimed, "Thou desires t not sacrifice, 
 else would I give it, ' ' he spoke in perfect accord 
 with the law, which ordained for such crimes as 
 murder and adultery, not sacrifice, but "death 
 without mercy." And if he prayed, "Hide TJiy 
 face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities; 
 create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit 
 within me," he but interpreted the deepest lessons 
 of the law, which shone through its ritual as 
 through a transparent veil: lessons which the 
 
228 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 great lawgiver himself declared that God's own 
 voice had proclaimed in his ears. Exod. 33:19; 
 34:6. 
 
 We are thus brought back to the central con- 
 ception which gives unity to the religious teach- 
 ing of the whole body of the Hebrew Scriptures 
 the moral character of God in personal relation 
 with mankind and with each human being. 
 This great central doctrine, which includes the 
 truths of man's personality, moral character, and 
 accountableness, is developed by means of human 
 history and experience, especially the experience 
 of sin. Four main lines of illustration combine 
 to unfold this greatest of lessons, i. Public his- 
 tory, especially as concerned with those calamities 
 which the Scriptures represent as divine judg- 
 ments on sin : as the deluge, the destruction of 
 Sodom, the overthrow of Pharaoh, the punish- 
 ment of the rebellious Israelites, the extermina- 
 tion of the depraved idolaters of Canaan, the 
 Babylonish captivity, the overthrow of Babylon. 
 2. Symbolic worship and priestly mediation. 3. 
 Prophetic ministry, interpreting God's law, will, 
 truth, and promises. 4. Personal experience; viv- 
 idly illustrating, on the one hand, the care and 
 guidance of God's providence, and leading and 
 teaching of his Spirit, bestowed on those who 
 fear him; on the other hand, the life of faith, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW REUGION. 229 
 
 penitence, prayer, and loving obedience to God. 
 In this last method the teaching of the three 
 other methods is brought to a practical focus. It 
 may be summed up in the words in which the 
 most sorrowful of the prophets, in the most 
 mournful book of Scripture, utters his peaceful 
 faith: u The L,ord is good unto them that wait 
 for him, to the soul that seeketh him." Lam. 
 
 3- 25- 
 
 One of the strongest points of contrast between 
 the religion of the Old Testament Scriptures and 
 heathen religions is its purity of moral sentiment. 
 Paganism deifies lust. The orgies of the wine- 
 god in Greece, the abominations of which it is a 
 shame even to speak, practised in the temples of 
 Babylon and Phoenicia, the priestly frauds which 
 made it hard for Roman augurs to keep their 
 countenance in one another's company, find no 
 counterpart nothing but stern condemnation 
 in the religion of Jehovah. Vices shamelessly 
 practised among the cultured Greeks, and sung 
 about by the most elegant Roman poets, were 
 branded with infamy among the Hebrews. When 
 these plague-spots infected Israel, as they often 
 did, it was always in connection with idolatry; 
 and they were denounced by the prophets as the 
 sure precursors of national ruin. Vice and crime 
 are no doubt described, when the purpose of the 
 
230 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 / Scripture narrative requires, with antique plain- 
 ness of speech shocking to our modern taste. 
 The failings and sins of pious men are recorded 
 j with merciless candor. But never can one detect 
 j / a trace of sympathy with vileness, cruelty, intem- 
 j / perance, or falsehood. Even those terrible de- 
 ! / nunciations of transgressors which modern read- 
 ers are often at a loss to reconcile with the spirit 
 of the gospel, draw their severity from that in- 
 tense moral indignation against wrong, in which 
 modern sentiment is defective, and which in 
 those rough times was a needful safeguard of 
 moral purity. 
 
 Yet the religion of the Bible is no less re- 
 markable for its tenderness than for its severe 
 purity. Once in five hundred or a thousand 
 years, when morality is on the brink of perish- 
 ing among men, the sword of justice smites and 
 spares not. Hostile criticism, blind because hos- 
 tile, fixes on these rare and long-deferred exam- 
 ples of divine severity, always prefaced by for- 
 bearance and warning, and overlooks the fact 
 that the prevailing representation of the divine 
 character places mercy, compassion, kindness, 
 tenderness among its foremost attributes. Heath- 
 en poets have sounded the depths of human sor- 
 row, passion, and pity; but nowhere in pagan lit- 
 erature, least of all in the religious books of 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 231 
 
 heathendom, can we catch even the echo of that 
 full-toned tenderness and gracious comfort which 
 rings through the Hebrew Scriptures, assuring us 
 that "the L,ord is very pitiful and of tender mer- 
 cy. ' ' Even the lower animals are represented as 
 largely sharing divine care and compassion. It 
 is not a little significant that the rainbow, that 
 smile of the tempest in which the myths of heath- 
 endom saw only a bridge for spirits to cross, is in 
 the book of Genesis the emblem of God's remem- 
 brance of man's frailty, and faithful promise both 
 to mankind and to the lower creatures. "His 
 tender mercies are over all his works." 
 
 It has not seemed necessary formally to discuss 
 the view which regards the God of the Old Testa- 
 ment, or of the Pentateuch, as a national Deity, 
 and the Hebrew religion as but one among the 
 many national religions of ancient heathendom. 
 If the outline here traced be just, this theory is 
 refuted at every step, and has no standing-room. 
 It is contradicted by the basis laid for religion in 
 the account of creation, in harmony with which 
 is the constant prominence given to the claims of 
 Jehovah as Creator of all things; by the express 
 claim of sovereignty and ownership over all na- 
 tions made in those very passages in which Israel 
 is said to be for certain purposes a chosen people, 
 e. g., Gen. 15:14, 16; Exod. 9:29; 19:5; Deut 
 
232 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 7:6-8; 8:19, 20; by the universal views of divine 
 providence which pervade the whole history, and 
 are grandly summed up in Psalm 107; and by the 
 world-wide promises which ring like unearthly 
 music along the course of prophecy, from the 
 promise to Abraham, that in him all nations 
 should be blessed, to such declarations of univer- 
 sal divine sovereignty and such invitations to all 
 nations to worship Jehovah as are contained in 
 the Psalms, e. g., Psa. 22:28; 24:1,2; 67:2-4; 95: 
 3-6; 96:10; 100:1, 2. The intense national pride 
 and narrowness of the Jews, especially as the time 
 drew near for their ancestral faith to take its des- 
 tined form as the universal religion, afford a mor- 
 al demonstration that these anticipations in the 
 Old Testament Scriptures of the world-wide phi- 
 lanthropy of the New owe their inspiration to a 
 higher source than Semitic religiousness or He- 
 brew genius. 
 
 The foregoing review, necessarily brief and 
 condensed, appears not simply to warrant but to 
 compel the conclusion that when the most has 
 been made of all the parallels and resemblances 
 which can be collected from the sacred writings 
 of other ancient religions, the religion of ancient 
 Israel, from Abraham to Malachi and John the 
 Baptist, stands majestically and superhumanly 
 alone. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW REUGION. 233 
 
 Science herself may well be interrogated at 
 the bar of common sense, and asked to give ac- 
 count of phenomena covering so vast a range of 
 human experience, and of such surpassing gran- 
 deur and unique interest. The only explanation, 
 apart from that embodied in the Hebrew records 
 themselves, seems to be that the little nation of 
 Israel, inferior in all other respects to all the 
 great nations of antiquity, possessed a unique re- 
 ligious genius, by the force of which they out- 
 stripped in this one field the whole human race, 
 and finally gave birth to the universal religion of 
 Christ. This hypothesis will not bear serious 
 scrutiny. In the first place, it denies the facts to 
 be explained, and substitutes romance for philos- 
 ophy. For if even the main outlines of Hebrew 
 history are to be trusted, it was not the nation 
 which produced the religion, but the religion 
 which produced the nation. Secondly, it contra- 
 dicts all the evidence respecting the character of 
 the Hebrew people. The stern rebuke of their 
 great lawgiver, " Ye have been rebellious against 
 the Lord from the day that I knew you," Deut. 
 9:24, is reechoed by the whole series of prophets. 
 Two of the lessons of the Decalogue the Jews in- 
 deed learned from the Babylonish captivity, and 
 never afterwards forgot: hatred of idols and rev- 
 erence for the Sabbath. But their religious de- 
 
234 THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RELIGION. 
 
 velopment as a nation during the following five 
 centuries consisted not in the perfecting of Old 
 Testament teaching and the raising of public and 
 private life to the level it required, but in substi- 
 tuting the rabbi for the prophet and encasing re- 
 ligious life in the most elaborate crust of mechan- 
 ical formulas men have ever invented or groaned 
 under. When the crowning test was applied, by 
 the appearance of Him to whom all the prophets 
 bore witness, the religious leaders of the nation 
 proved yet more blind than the multitude whom 
 they cursed as ignorant of the law. They could 
 see in Jesus neither " grace and truth " nor " the 
 glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father." 
 They condemned the holiest, wisest, greatest, and 
 best of Teachers as a blasphemer and traitor, and 
 crucified their King. But in the hands of the 
 crucified One the religion of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures the religion of Abraham, Moses, David, 
 Isaiah, John the Baptist freed from all that was 
 national, local, temporary, became the one possi- 
 ble universal religion for mankind. 
 
THE 
 
 BIBLE TESTED; 
 
 OR, 
 
 IS IT THE BOOK FOE TO-DAY AND FOR 
 THE WOELD? 
 
 BY 
 
 JACOB CHAMBERLAIN, M. D., D. D., 
 
 ARGOT MISSION, INDIA. 
 
THE BIBLE TESTED. 
 
 IS IT THE BOOK FOR TO-DAY AND FOR 
 THE WORLD? 
 
 THE word u law, " or the expression, " the 
 law of the Lord," is used in two senses in the 
 Bible : the first confines it to the law of Moses. 
 
 On my recent journey home from India, after 
 passing up through the length of the Red Sea, 
 I turned aside and went up through the desert 
 and climbed to the summit of Mt. Sinai. I stood 
 on the very spot where, thirty-three centuries be- 
 fore, amid thunderings and lightnings, that law 
 was delivered by Jehovah to Moses. I looked 
 out on that beautiful triangular plain, some five 
 miles long by three broad, shut in by high moun- 
 tains on every side and coming up to the foot of 
 the almost perpendicular Sinai "the mount 
 that might be touched" from every part of 
 which plain the summit of the mount might be 
 seen, and the cloud resting on the mount. I re- 
 membered that, when that law was delivered, all 
 
238 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 of the worshippers of the true God, Jehovah, in 
 the then world, were gathered on that plain 
 xvaiting for their divine orders for that law the 
 observance of which should make them "a pe- 
 culiar people" until the time when the Naza- 
 rene should appear, and, breaking down the en- 
 circling walls of exclusiveness, should gather in 
 all nations, even us Gentiles, unto himself; and 
 I thought how all-important was it that the law 
 then and there delivered should be "perfect." 
 And it is perfect. The learning, the sagacity, 
 the ingenuity of all succeeding ages have utterly 
 failed to produce so perfect a code of morals as 
 was there proclaimed. This Christianity's worst 
 enemies have always admitted. Ay, the "moral 
 law" successfully challenges the admiration of 
 the whole world as a perfect law. 
 
 But the expression, " the law of the Lord," is 
 used in a broader sense. It means the whole re- 
 vealed will of God, as contained in the book 
 called "the Bible." And in this its broadest 
 sense we are prepared to fling down the gauntlet 
 and challenge the contradiction of the world, 
 while we declare and maintain that "the law of 
 the L,ord is perfect." 
 
 I. First, take it as a literary production. 
 Where do we find such sublime poetic imagery as 
 in the Bible ? where such exactness and accuracy 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 239 
 
 of historic detail, as evidenced by known profane 
 history, and more and more by each successive 
 Assyrian and Egyptian discovery ? where such 
 majestic soarings of prophetic vision ? where such 
 faithful portrayal of character in biography? 
 where such intensity and sublimity of the right- 
 eous denunciation of wrong ? where such inimi- 
 table pleadings with those who needlessly are 
 "weary and heavy laden"? where such winning 
 portrayals of the divine life in man as in the 
 parables that Jesus spoke ? 
 
 But there is another test of literary produc- 
 tions, which but few books indeed can stand. 
 " Buuyan's Pilgrim's Progress" has stood that 
 test measurably well ; but how many other books 
 are there that can ? I mean the test of transla- 
 tion into diverse languages of dissimilar people, 
 of different modes of thought and varied forms 
 of expressing their thoughts and conceptions. 
 Shakespeare translated into French, we are told, 
 is emasculated; how if translated into Chinese? 
 How would Mrs. Partington sound in German? 
 Longfellow or Tennyson in Hottentot? Irving 
 in Arabic? or Whittier in Choctaw? The Bible 
 has stood this crucial test in the languages of all 
 quarters of the globe. And in this matter I speak 
 from some experience and from extended observa- 
 tion; for having been engaged for years in the 
 
240 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 work of translating the Scriptures from the He- 
 brew into one of the most polished of the langua- 
 ges of the East; having, in my journeys, visited 
 the mission stations of forty different missionary 
 societies, laboring in twenty-nine different langua- 
 ges; and having conversed with many of those 
 engaged in translating the Bible into those lan- 
 guages, as well as with others, in Europe and 
 America, engaged in similar work I know 
 whereof I affirm when I repeat the declaration 
 that the Bible has stood this crucial test of trans- 
 lation in the languages of all quarters of the 
 globe. From Greenland to Patagonia, in the 
 western hemisphere; from Iceland through Eu- 
 rope and Asia to the Japanese and the Australians, 
 in the eastern; from the Copts of Egypt to the 
 Kafirs of South Africa; from the South Sea Isl- 
 ands of the Pacific through the oceans to Mada- 
 gascar, the Bible has been rendered into their 
 languages with triumphant success. 
 
 Moses' history of the creation and of the early 
 world; Joshua's wars and marches; the defeats 
 and victories under the judges and kings; David's 
 penitential prayers and psalms of praise; Sol- 
 omon's peerless proverbs; Isaiah's splendid im- 
 agery; Jeremiah's doleful lamentations; L,uke 
 the physician's wonderful life-pictures of Christ 
 on earth, and of the founding of the early Chris- 
 
THE; BIBLE IN INDIA. 241 
 
 tian church; Paul's masterly orations at Athens 
 and before the Sanhedrin and Felix, and his doc- 
 trinal epistles, so full of strong meat; John's mar- 
 vellous revelation these all come with the same 
 force and adaptedness and sweetness and convic- 
 tion in each of the two hundred and eleven lan- 
 guages into which the divine book has been al- 
 ready translated, and witness to us that, in this 
 respect, it is perfect. 
 
 II. Again, take the Bible in its adaptedness to 
 all the races and peoples, as well as languages, of 
 mankind. And in this respect the American 
 Bible Society has taken its full share in putting 
 the Bible to the proof, for it has scattered it 
 among all peoples. Are you aware how cosmo- 
 politan this Society is? You know of its work 
 at home, but how many of you know of the ex- 
 tent of its work abroad, in all the corners of the 
 earth? It has fallen to my lot, during the last 
 score of years, to witness some of the workings of 
 the Society in the distribution of Scriptures in 
 widely-separated localities, among people speak- 
 ing a score and a half of languages; and I delight 
 to bear my testimony to this phase of the Society's 
 work. I have, myself, expended thousands of 
 dollars of its funds in the printing and circulation 
 of Scriptures in five of the chief languages of 
 
 India. 
 
 ID 
 
242 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 I have seen its Bibles read and loved in the 
 cities and villages and plains of Madras; ay, in 
 the regions there so recently decimated by famine, 
 many a convert to our Jesus has delighted to for- 
 get the gnawings of hunger while with his dim 
 eye he read from these Scriptures of Him who 
 gives to his children the bread and the water of 
 life. I have seen it read with rapture all night 
 long, in the native kingdoms, by those who had 
 that day for the first time, and through the efforts 
 of this Society, heard of and seen the Word of God. 
 
 I have seen it read and loved by the Teloogoos 
 of Rajahmundry and Ongole and Cuddapah and 
 Kurnool; by the Canarese people of Mysore; by 
 the Tamils of North and South Arcot and Sa- 
 lem and Coimbatore; by the Badagas of the 
 mountains; by the Kois of the Godavery and 
 the Marathis of Bombay. 
 
 The Copts of Egypt I have seen gather under 
 the shadow of the Pyramids to read from the 
 Arabic Scriptures the story of Joseph and Moses 
 and Jesus in their long-ago sojourn there. 
 
 At Beersheba and Hebron and Mt. Moriah we 
 read again with a thrill from the Scriptures the 
 story of Abraham and the offering up of Isaac. 
 
 In Jerusalem on Mt. Zion we joined an assem- 
 bly made up of the descendants of Ishmael and of 
 Isaac, of Shem and of Ham and of Japheth, while 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 243 
 
 from a translation of the Bible, made at this 
 Society's expense, they read the oracles of God. 
 
 At Shechem and Nazareth we found its Bibles. 
 
 At Sidon the noble Christian congregation 
 were reading from its Scriptures the prophecy of 
 the destruction of their city and the sister city 
 Tyre, and its wonderful fulfilment. 
 
 At Beirut we found its presses busily sending 
 off their daily fruitage of leaves for the healing 
 of the nations to the 150,000,000 who speak the 
 Arabic tongue. 
 
 On the hills over Antioch 1,200 Christians 
 gathered in one assemblage to hear what this 
 Bible was doing in India, and read from the Bible 
 in the Armenian tongue the story of the forma- 
 tion of the first foreign missionary society in their 
 ancient city more than 1,800 years before. 
 
 In Smyrna and other cities of the Seven 
 Apocalyptic Churches we found them trying to 
 learn from the Scriptures how to light again on 
 their ancient candlesticks the candles that had 
 long gone out. 
 
 I have seen the workings of the Scriptures in 
 Italy. Rome and Florence, and Milan and Bo- 
 logna and Naples cannot shut out its light, and 
 already there once more the morning star is rising. 
 
 In Calvin's Geneva, M. Dardier told me of the 
 wonderful workings of the Society's Scriptures in 
 
244 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 the cantons of craggy Switzerland and the adja- 
 cent parts of France. In the gay French- capital 
 I found them pointing men to the city of gold 
 with gates of pearl. 
 
 Among the Esquimaux and Nascopies of Lab- 
 rador I found again the Society's Bibles, and saw 
 how the gospel for the tropics is the gospel for 
 the poles. 
 
 In the colored churches of North and South 
 Carolina and Georgia and Alabama and Louisi- 
 ana, I have seen devout Africans poring over the 
 pages of the Bible, and have realized that neither 
 race nor color need diminish aught nor add unto 
 the perfect teachings of God's law. 
 
 The Russian soldier stirs with his bayonet the 
 camp-fire to-night, that by its light he may read 
 from Scriptures the American Bible Society has 
 given him that which will nerve him for the 
 morrow's struggle in behalf of, as he believes, his 
 oppressed fellow Christians. 
 
 The South American republics and kingdom? 
 are looking in its pages, as scattered by the So- 
 ciety's agents, to find what it is that has raised 
 America and England so far above them. 
 
 The scattered Islands of the Seas are learning 
 from it that though scattered and separated, they 
 belong to the same fold, with the same Shepherd, 
 as we do. " The isles are waiting for His law." 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 245 
 
 In Japan the Scriptures teach them that God 
 rested on and hallowed one day in seven; and al- 
 ready has the Christian Sabbath displaced and re- 
 placed their multitudinous and variable feast days 
 and holy days, and its thousand Christians are 
 now on their bended knees thanking that God 
 who through its pages issued in that land of dark- 
 ness the fiat, "Let there be light." 
 
 The land of Sinim, slumbering through ages, 
 is hearing now, through the Society's instrumen- 
 tality, and obeying the divine mandate, "Awake, 
 thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
 Christ shall give thee light." 
 
 Show me, if you can, the race or people where 
 the Bibles issued by this Society have not aroused 
 the conscience, quickened the love, stimulated 
 the seal, dispelled the doubt, comforted the 
 mourning, cheered the dying, among the scat- 
 tered sons of the first and of the second Adam. 
 
 Since I first went to India, the Society has ex- 
 pended more than one and a quarter millions of 
 dollars in gold in giving the Bible to the races of 
 the earth outside of our own country. It is be- 
 cause of this cosmopolitan work that I, a foreign 
 missionary, every fibre of whose existence is 
 wrought up in the missionary work, stand up on 
 every possible occasion to advocate the claims of 
 this Society on the blood-bought throng of Christ's 
 
246 .THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 sons and daughters. I would not, if I could, turn 
 all the streams of benevolence into the treasuries 
 of our foreign missionary societies even of my 
 own Board. The Bible must be translated and 
 printed and scattered everywhere, or no mission- 
 ary work could be done. A missionary without the 
 Bible! as well try to cook without fire or heat; as 
 well try to sail a ship without water; as well try 
 to propel a steamer without steam; as well try to 
 breathe without air. If the printing and benevo- 
 lent distribution of the Bible cease while yet the 
 nations are arrayed in hostility to Christ, then let 
 it be announced to the world that the soldiers of 
 Christ's kingdom have laid down their arms. 
 L/et it cease, and all the powers of darkness will 
 rise and claim the victory as nearly won. Ay, 
 the very imps of hell will hold a jubilee, for it is 
 darkness that they love, and the Bible gives light. 
 III. But again, take the Bible as an engine de- 
 vised for the performance of a certain work, and 
 test it well and see whether it does that work or 
 no. The Bible contains a plan devised for the re- 
 demption and elevation of mankind. Take the 
 Bible, then, as an engine thus devised for the 
 accomplishment of this specific work, and test it 
 well and see whether it does that work or no. And 
 it is to this view of the subject that I particularly 
 ask vonr attention. 
 
THK BIBLE IN INDIA. 247 
 
 Is this old Bible, given centuries ago among the 
 Jewish people, now calculated to do the work for 
 which it was designed? or, in this day of progress 
 and of the intermingling of nations, do we find it 
 antiquated, and its day of adaptedness and useful- 
 ness passed away ? This is, emphatically, an age 
 not alone of changes, but of improvements. Fast 
 mail-trains and the telegraph have taken the place 
 of the old mounted mail-carrier, with his mail-bags 
 thrown over the horse upon which he rode. The 
 four and six horse stage-coach has given way to 
 palace cars. The quiet stitching of the seamstress 
 is replaced by the hum of the sewing-machine. 
 There is scarcely a piece of machinery, of any 
 kind, now in use that was used even by our grand- 
 fathers. New books, new systems of sciences, new 
 methods in the arts all, all is new. Have we 
 made a mistake, then, in holding on to our ' ( old 
 Bible n too long? If so, let us acknowledge it 
 like men and try to replace it with something bet- 
 ter ; but first let us put it to the proof and see. 
 
 Now, in testing a machine or engine, it is ne- 
 cessary to try it in all the different circumstances 
 in which it is to be employed, especially in the 
 worst. For example: when I was in India, dur- 
 ing the war in America, the Government of India 
 sought to introduce the best machinery for ginning 
 an! spinning and weaving the cotton growing 
 
248 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 there. A proclamation was issued, and published 
 in every country where machinery was made, of- 
 fering a princely premium for that machinery 
 that should best do the work. And when, after 
 nearly a year for preparation, the machinery was 
 gathered from the four quarters on the banks of 
 the sacred Ganges, when the viceroy and his 
 council and the judges had assembled to test it, it 
 was tried not alone with the cotton grown there 
 on the banks of the Ganges, but cotton was 
 brought from the base of the Himalaya Moun- 
 tains and from the plains of Tinnevelly, near 
 Cape Comorin, from the hill country of Berar, 
 and from the plains of Bellary and the country 
 about Bombay; and the machinery that best did 
 the work in all, the long staple and the short, the 
 coarse and the fine, it was that that won the prize 
 and that is now doing the work in India. So if 
 an ocean steamer be launched, it must be tried not 
 alone on the smooth waters of the bay or river on 
 whose banks it was constructed; for until it has 
 crossed the ocean, breasting the mountain bil- 
 lows in a storm, no one can tell whether after 
 all it be a safe vehicle for human life. So with 
 every kind of machinery it must be tested in 
 the worst circumstances in which it will be called 
 to act. 
 
 For the last score of years I have been engaged 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 2 49 
 
 in putting the Bible to just such a test, and that 
 in the most unpropitious circumstances. 
 
 India is Satan's stronghold. Hindooism, with 
 its handmaid caste, weaves iron fetters around its 
 votaries. With much of truth in its scriptures, 
 the Vedas, it has degenerated into the worst of 
 polytheism and idolatry; with its defective view of 
 God and man, it has had no conservating, eleva- 
 ting influence over its votaries. The Hindoos are 
 at once a very religious and a grossly immoral 
 people. Intelligent, sharp, quick-witted, immu- 
 table in their nature, wedded to their ancient sys- 
 tem, which is a splendid one though false, the 
 Brahminists are the most able and determined ad- 
 versaries of what they term the "new religion." 
 If the Bible will work in India, then we may 
 safely conclude that it will work anywhere. How, 
 then, does it work in India? L,et us test it in 
 various ways and see. 
 
 And first: does this "old Bible," given so many 
 centuries ago among the Jews, describe the human 
 heart of to-day and the condition of man in dif- 
 ferent lands ? or is it antiquated and defective in 
 this respect ? 
 
 On a certain occasion, some fourteen years ago, 
 I went into a native city in India, where the name 
 of Jesus had never been heard, there for the first 
 time to show them and give them these Scrip- 
 
250 THE BIBLE; TESTED; OR, 
 
 tures, and to preach, to them of Christ and his sal- 
 vation. As an introduction, when we had assem- 
 bled an audience in the street, I asked my native 
 assistant to read the first chapter of Romans the 
 chapter a part of which some who call them- 
 selves especially liberal-minded tell us is too black 
 to be true; that chapter that describes the heart of 
 man wandering away from God and into sin, and 
 conceiving vile conceptions of God, and then wan- 
 dering away farther until at last, "though they 
 know the judgments of God, that they which do 
 such things are worthy of death, they not only do 
 the same, but have pleasure in them that do them;" 
 the chapter which many tell us is a libel upon hu- 
 man nature. That chapter was read. The most 
 intelligent man in the audience, a Brahmin, step- 
 ped forward and said to me, * ' Sir, that chapter 
 must have been written for us Hindoos. It de- 
 scribes us exactly." The photograph was recogniz- 
 ed. It had been taken centuries before and among 
 a Jewish people ; but the artist was divine, and the 
 heart that was photographed was that not of a 
 J'ew, but of a man. 
 
 On another occasion I went into another city, 
 there also for the first time to proclaim Christ as 
 the way of life. As we entered the native town 
 and passed up the main street, I noticed a small 
 Hindoo temple, built upon the side of the busiest 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 251 
 
 street, with its doors open and the idols in at the 
 farther end, so that passers-by could worship as 
 they went. At the side of the door sat the Brah- 
 min priest of the temple on a pedestal, unclad 
 down to the waist that he might receive the 
 homage, the semi-divine worship, which the peo- 
 ple were wont to render him with a platter by 
 his side to receive their offerings as they went in 
 and out to their business or their work. I noticed 
 it and passed on. Going up the main street, and 
 looking here and there and finding no better place, 
 we came back to this temple; and as I politely 
 asked permission of the Brahmin to address an 
 audience from the steps of the temple, he as polite- 
 ly gave his permission; and singing a song to 
 bring the people together, we soon had the street 
 packed with those who wondered what we had 
 come for, and I preached to them. I took for my 
 theme ' ( the character of any being whom the in- 
 telligent mind of man in any land would be will- 
 ing to call God;" and from the necessities of our 
 natures I attempted to show them that in order 
 to call any being God, we must believe him to be 
 stronger than we and stronger than any powers 
 that might be arrayed against us; that he must be 
 omnipotent, or we could not trust him; that he 
 must be wiser than we and wiser than any intelli- 
 gences that might be combined against us; that he 
 
252 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 must be omniscient; that he must be able, in all 
 parts of his dominion at the same time, to be and to 
 notice all passing events; that he must be omnipres- 
 ent; that he must be a God of love, a God of jus- 
 tice, 'and so on. I had painted to them the charac- 
 ter and attributes of God as we find them given in 
 our Bible not telling them where I found the pic- 
 ture, but drawing this characterization of God from 
 the necessities of the soul of man. The intelligent 
 men in the audience at once acknowledged the 
 picture to be a correct one, as I went on from 
 point to point, and admitted what I said to be 
 true. At last, completing the picture, I said to 
 them, ' ' Now, who is God and where is God ?' ' 
 The Brahmin priest sitting there on his pedestal, 
 seeing how intently the audience of his worship- 
 pers were listening to my description of God, so 
 different from that enshrined in the temple at my 
 side, and seeing at a glance, with his keen mind, 
 that if this description of God was accepted as true 
 his employment was gone, seeking to create a 
 diversion, straightened himself up, and with his 
 finger drawing a line around his stomach, he said, 
 14 Sir, this is my God; when this is full, my God 
 is propitious; when this is empty, my God is 
 angry. Only give me enough to eat and drink, 
 and that is all the God I want." Turning to this 
 same old Book, I gave him that scathing denim- 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 253 
 
 elation of Paul of those ' ( whose God is their belly, 
 whose glory is in their shame, and whose end is 
 destruction. ' ' And then turning again to the au- 
 dience and reminding them of the pure and holy 
 character that I had described, I told them that 
 4 ' this poor, miserable wretch here is willing to 
 call his belly his God." Amid the sneers and 
 scorn of his own worshippers he sprang from his 
 pedestal, slunk around the corner of the temple, 
 and vanished down a side street. And oh, how 
 the audience listened while I described to them 
 Him in whom all the fulness of this Godhead was 
 manifested bodily, even Jesus of Nazareth, the 
 Saviour of all of them, in all the world, that will 
 believe in him ! 
 
 On another occasion I was reading from the 
 seventh chapter of Romans that declaration of 
 Paul of the power of sin over us where he says, 
 u When I would do good, evil is present with me, 
 and the good which I would I do not, but the evil 
 which I would not, that I do. " As I read it the 
 most intelligent man in my audience spoke up, 
 saying, " That is it ! that is it ! That is exactly 
 what is the matter with us Hindoos. Now, does 
 your Book tell us how we can get rid of that evil 
 disposition, and do the good we would and avoid 
 doing the evil that we would not?" How gladly, 
 from this same old Book, did I point them to Him 
 
254 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 who can create a new heart and renew a right 
 spirit within us; who can give ns not only the 
 desire, but the power, to do good: u For I can do 
 all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. ' ' 
 
 On another occasion and in a different city I read 
 the description in the forty-fourth chapter of Isaiah 
 of the making and worshipping of images. When 
 I had completed the reading, a sharp man in the 
 audience, a Brahmin, stepped out and said, "Now, 
 sir, we have caught you. You told us that this 
 was an old book, given long ago in another part of 
 the world to tell us how we might find God, and 
 how, worshipping him, we might attain to peace 
 with him; but, sir, that that you have just read 
 you have written since you came here and saw 
 how we Hindoos managed it." The photograph 
 once more was recognized. 
 
 But again, can this Book be understood by 
 high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant? 
 Can this Bible, that was given to a people prepared 
 through generations by a special training, and 
 standing on a very different moral plane from the 
 Hindoos of the present day this Book, with its 
 pure and holy doctrines, its strange though beauti- 
 ful and simple plan of salvation can it be under- 
 stood by those Hindoos who have sunken through 
 centuries of moral pollution ? Can it be understood 
 so as to affect their lives and their character ? 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 
 
 Come with me to a little town 150 miles to 
 northwest of my station at Mudnapilly, in India. 
 Some fifteen years ago there lived there a Hindoo, 
 an unlettered man he could simply read and 
 write, and that was all who felt the burden of sin 
 and desired relief. He had tried all that his sys- 
 tem taught him, and still found no peace of con- 
 science. There came the time of the annual draw- 
 ing of the idol car (usually called the car of Jug- 
 gernaut) in a city some thirty miles away, and 
 this man, mourning over his sin, went there, for 
 they told him if he would engage in the ceremo- 
 nies there and join in the drawing of the car, the 
 burden of sin would be gone and he could find re- 
 lief. He went there. The first day passed, and 
 the second day of the festivities was nearly through. 
 That night it would close, and he felt yet the bur- 
 den of sin. He knew that he had not got relief. 
 He saw standing in the crowd a man with a book 
 wrapped in his garments; he saw the end sticking 
 out, and asked, u Stranger, what book is that you 
 have got there ?' ' Said he, c ' They call it the Kotta 
 Nibandana? (the New Testament). ( ' What is that ?' > 
 "Why, they say it is the Sattya Veda" (the True 
 Veda, as we term the Bible in India, in distinc- 
 tion from their Vedas, which we do not acknowl- 
 edge as true). " Have you read it?" " No, I 
 have not." "What does it tell about, anyhow ?" 
 
256 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 4 * Why, they say that it tells us how to get rid of 
 sin." "Does it? Will you sell it?" u Yes." 
 1 ' How much will you take for it ?" u Well, give 
 me half a rupee' ' (twenty-five cents). ' l All right. ' ' 
 He took out the money and gave it to the man, 
 and took the book, wrapped it up, put it under 
 his arm, and went away. When he got home he 
 opened it at the first chapter of Matthew, and 
 stumbled and tumbled down over those jaw-break- 
 ing names in the genealogy of Christ, worse for a 
 Hindoo than they are for us to pronounce. He 
 thought that after all there was not going to be 
 anything in the book that he could understand, 
 and that he had lost his money; but he got 
 through at last, and came to the story of the mirac- 
 ulous birth of the child Jesus; that he could un- 
 derstand. He read on, and read the story of His 
 wonderful childhood and His marvellous life, His 
 miraculous deeds and the messages of mercy that 
 He gave to all around Him; and then, when he 
 was beginning to think that He must be the one 
 that should redeem all lands, he came to the story 
 where He was killed and nailed upon a cross. Oh, 
 it was all up then, he thought; but he read on 
 amid his tears. He read of His lying in the grave, 
 and then of that wonderful coming forth again 
 from the grave, and of the scene when He appeared 
 to His disciples; and with astonishment he read 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 257 
 
 how on Mt. Olivet, parting the clouds, He ascend- 
 ed to heaven; and then he turned over and read 
 again in the next evangelist, in fewer words, the 
 story of the same life. Then he read on in a third 
 evangelist that same story, that is never repeated 
 too often Luke's graphic life-picture of Christ on 
 earth. Then he came to the fourth evangelist, 
 and there he read of the divine sonship of that 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the Word that became flesh 
 and dwelt among us; and he learned there of our 
 connection with Christ, the branch with the vine, 
 how He would remain with us; then he read the 
 story of the founding of the early Christian church. 
 That gave him more light. He read the doctrinal 
 epistles, and feeling the burden of sin as he did, 
 he did not stumble over those hard doctrines as 
 some on this side of the water do. He read that 
 story, that wonderful revelation of the New Jeru- 
 salem coming down from heaven out of God, the 
 home of all those that believe in Jesus, when they 
 shall arise and meet him. , 
 
 Ah, that was the book for him ! He read in 
 the book that they were not to forget the assem- 
 bling of themselves together on the first day of the 
 week, as the manner of some is of some perhaps 
 in this country too and on the first day of their 
 week, which, singularly, synchronizes with our 
 Christian Sabbath, he gathered his neighbors in 
 
 17 
 
258 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 liis own house to hear him read from l ' the won- 
 derful Book. ' ' He taught his wife to read, a strange 
 thing for a Hindoo to do, as they never used to 
 teach their women to read ; but he taught her to 
 read in order that she might be able to read from 
 4 'the Book." He learned in that, "When ye 
 pray thus shall ye say, ' Our Father which art in 
 heaven;' " and as they assembled thus on each 
 Sabbath day they joined, after reading the Word, 
 in repeating that prayer. Some years passed by 
 and the man died. When he died he told his wife 
 that they must not burn his body as the Hindoos 
 are wont to do, but bury it, for Christ was buried; 
 that they must not perform any heathen ceremony 
 over his grave, but read from u the Book" and 
 repeat u the prayer," and leave him there with 
 God; for as Christ arose from the dead, so would 
 he some day arise and meet that Christ in heaven. 
 His wife kept up the reading on the first day of 
 the week to the people from this book. Years 
 more passed by. At last there came two mission- 
 aries into a village some fifteen miles from this 
 place. They were preaching there to the people, as 
 they supposed for the first time that they had heard 
 of Christ and his salvation, when two men that 
 happened to be there in the market-place stepped 
 forward and said, u Why, sirs, what you say is ex- 
 actlv what the man of ' the Book ' down at our 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 259 
 
 village used to teach. ' ' They asked about it and 
 learned the story. They went down there, and 
 found to all intents and purposes a little church 
 of Jesus Christ established. It was the Book that 
 had done it. They had not received baptism nor 
 the Lord's Supper, to be sure, but they had that 
 life in their hearts that was the baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost. The Book had shown that it could 
 be understood and could produce its effect. 
 
 That was among the lowly; how among the 
 higher classes that have the Vedas with their 
 purer teachings, the Brahmins of India ? How does 
 this Bible work among them ? Is it adapted to 
 meet their felt wants ? 
 
 Some fifteen years ago I took a long journey of 
 five months through a native kingdom that had 
 never before been traversed, so far as I could learn, 
 by any missionary, and where the Scriptures had 
 never been circulated. I took the journey, an ex- 
 ploring and Bible distributing journey, at the ex- 
 pense of the American Bible Society. We were 
 warned that we should meet with dangers and 
 difficulties. We did meet with them abundantly; 
 but on the way the Master gave us such cheering 
 signs of his presence that we were willing to go 
 on. We had been warned not to go because of 
 the danger, and were told that we would never all 
 of us get home alive; but I read in my commis- 
 
260 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 sion, u Go ye info all the world and preach the 
 gospel to every creature. ' ' It did not say, ' ' ex- 
 cept Hyderabad;" and believing my commission 
 was to be carried out, I went, taking with me 
 four native assistants. I well remember one Satur- 
 day, when we had attempted to cross a wide river 
 in basket-boats, and had been swept down the 
 stream three miles in crossing. At last we had 
 gained the shore, but we had been delayed so long 
 that it was midnight, Saturday night, before we 
 reached the town where we wished to spend the 
 night. Camping outside the city, we spent the 
 rest of the night. Sabbath morning in our camp 
 we held our prayer-meeting, myself and four na- 
 tive preachers and attendants, reading from the 
 Word and talking over the power and goodness of 
 Christ; and in the afternoon we thought that 
 though we had intended to rest that Sabbath, we 
 must go out to the bazar and tell the people of 
 this divine word. We went. A large audience 
 assembled around us. We preached to them of 
 Christ and his salvation. We distributed Scrip- 
 tures and tracts among them, and came back be- 
 fore sundown to our camp, intending to lie down 
 to rest very early, as we must start on our jour- 
 ney at half-past four the next morning, as was our 
 wont; when ere the sun had set a group of men 
 came out of the town with books in their hands, 
 
BIBJJ<: IN INDIA. 26 1 
 
 saying to us, u Sirs, this is such wonderful news 
 that you have told us, wont you please come back 
 and talk to us some more about it? The idea of a 
 way of getting rid of sin without ourselves, by 
 the help of a divine Redeemer! It is wonderful ! 
 Please come back and talk to us some more about 
 it." We went back. The market-place was cov- 
 ered with India rugs and Persian rugs, and with 
 pillows for us to sit upon, for they said they 
 wanted us to talk longer than we could stand to 
 talk. There were stakes driven in the ground- 
 floor, with little native lamps on them to light 
 when it should grow dark, for they said they 
 wanted us to talk long after it was dark. They kept 
 us reading and talking until ten o'clock at night, 
 and would not let us go. When at last we told 
 them that they must allow us to rest, for we were 
 very weary and had to start early in the morning, 
 they allowed us to leave and we went and lay 
 down to rest. 
 
 At half-past four in the morning we had arisen, 
 our carts were packed, and we were just starting, 
 when out came a deputation from the town with 
 books in their hands with the leaves turned down 
 here and there; for they said they had been read- 
 ing the books all night long, for they were sure 
 they would never have another chance to ask 
 questions about them; and it was such strange 
 
262 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 news, and so good if true, they wanted to be sure 
 that they understood all about it, and they had 
 come to ask some questions before I started. I said 
 to my native assistants, " You go on. Three miles 
 north of here, I understand, is the town of Peberi. 
 As you are walking and I have a horse, you go 
 on, and I will stop and answer these questions, 
 and then canter on as rapidly as I can and over- 
 take you. If you get there before I do, go into 
 the town and offer the Scriptures and tracts for 
 sale." They went on; I stopped and answered 
 the questions. They asked a great many earnest 
 questions. When I attempted to mount my horse, 
 they put their hands on my shoulder and said, 
 u No, sir; you cannot go until you answer some 
 more inquiries." I answered a few more and 
 tried to spring on my horse again and go on, as I 
 did not like to leave my native assistants to en- 
 counter danger alone, if there were danger, and 
 wished to hasten on. But they said, u No, sir; 
 answer some more questions; don't go yet." I 
 stayed three-quarters of an hour and then went 
 forward to join my assistants. I cantered on as 
 rapidly as I could, and as I approached the town 
 of Peberi, which was a walled town with gates, 
 I saw my native assistants coming away from the 
 town accompanied by some natives. Speaking 
 in the Tamil language, which was not understood 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 263 
 
 by the people there, I said to them, " Would not 
 they let you go into the town? Would not they let 
 you preach ? Could you not dispose of any books ?' ' 
 41 Yes, sir," said they, "we preached to a most in- 
 tensely-interested audience, and when we offered 
 our book and tracts for .sale they bought every 
 one of them; we have n't a single one left. They 
 paid for them all and wanted more. We told them 
 you had your saddle-bags full of books, and they 
 have come out here to meet you and buy more 
 books." 
 
 Turning to them, I said (in their own lan- 
 guage, the Teloogoo), "Brothers, I have plenty of 
 books you shall have all you want. But first 
 let us go back into the town, and I will tell you 
 some more about this wonderful news." We 
 went back into the to\vn. I saw that they were 
 the chief men of the place. There in the square 
 before the gate was the platform for the elders of 
 the city to sit upon and administer the affairs of 
 the town, as in ancient Jewish times. They es- 
 corted me to that platform and wished me to sit 
 with them. As I preferred to stand and talk, so 
 that I could be heard by a larger audience, they 
 said they would stand too, for they did not wish 
 to sit while their teacher was standing it would 
 not be polite. Standing there, I proclaimed to 
 them again the gospel of eternal life through 
 
264 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 Jesus Christ. When I had done speaking, I took 
 my saddle-bags from the horse and offered them 
 the books, and at once there was a rush for them. 
 I gave out book after book, and still they pressed 
 upon me until every book was gone, and then 
 there were forty hands held out over the shoul- 
 ders of those before them, with money in them, 
 and they said, "Here, sir, take what money you 
 please, only give me a book that tells about 
 the divine Father that you have told us about." 
 "Give me a book that tells about Jesus Christ 
 and his salvation." " Give me a book that tells 
 about heaven and how I can get there." "Take 
 what money you please, only do give me a book." 
 I told them, " Brothers, I am very sorry I did not 
 know there were so many educated men here, and 
 that so many books would be w r anted. I have a 
 cart-load of books that have gone on in advance, 
 which I might have stopped for you to buy all you 
 want." They said, " How far has the cart gone?" 
 Judging from the time, I said that it must have 
 got about three miles. They said, " If we go on 
 and overtake the cart, will you stop it and let us 
 buy the books?" " Certainly," said I. They at 
 once appointed a deputation to go on and buy the 
 books. Five were appointed. As I had been 
 talking, I particularly noticed two who stood upon 
 the platform almost in front of me a Brahmin 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 265 
 
 with venerable white hair and noble brow, a very 
 courteous and intelligent gentleman, and his son, 
 as I judged from his countenance, standing at his 
 side. They had interrupted me now and then, 
 as I was preaching, saying to me, ' ' Wait a mo- 
 ment, sir; wont you explain that point a little 
 further? This is such strange news, we want to be 
 sure that we get it exactly right. ' ' I would explain 
 the point and then go on, and soon they would stop 
 me again, asking intelligent questions, anxious to 
 understand everything I said. They were among 
 the deputation that were appointed to go forward. 
 The people put money in their hands, each one 
 telling them, " Do n't you forget to buy me a 
 book. " " Buy me a book that tells of Jesus and 
 his love." "Buy me one of those books that tell 
 about the Creator, the divine Father that loves 
 us." "Get me a book that tells how 'I can get 
 rid of my load of sin." So they commissioned 
 them and sent them. We went out of the gate 
 of the city and turned into the pathway where my 
 carts had gone native carts with wooden wheels, 
 drawn by young buffaloes. 
 
 We walked on for a time, they asking earnest 
 questions and I answering them, when they said, 
 "Sir, we are going no faster than the carts are; 
 would you mind cantering on to overtake the carts 
 and stop them ; and then you must talk to us some 
 
266 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 more." I put spurs to my horse and rode on. I 
 had gone perhaps a mile and a quarter, and got 
 into the thick jungle that intervened between 
 that town and the next village, and was passing 
 up a little tortuous cart-track through the jungle, 
 when I heard the steps of a powerful horse ap- 
 proaching me from the rear. I had been warned 
 that in just such a place as that I would be assas- 
 sinated. Thinking it always safest to face danger, 
 if there be danger, I stopped my horse, turned 
 around, and waited for the approach. Soon, around 
 a bend in the road, I saw a powerful Arab charger 
 coming, with saddle and bridle bedecked with 
 ornaments of silver and gold. Its rider had a 
 turban with gold-lace trimmings, and wore a 
 necklace of pearls around his neck, with a jacket 
 of India satin interwoven with threads of metallic 
 gold. He rode rapidly on, and apparently was 
 about passing me when he saw me, and pulling 
 up his horse almost on to his haunches, he said, 
 "Are you the man that has been in my town this 
 morning with this strange doctrine?" I said, u I 
 have been in the town of Peberi, sir." We had 
 been told that this town was the summer residence 
 of a petty Rajah, a feudatory of the Nizam of 
 Hyderabad, but that at that season of the year 
 the Rajah was at his other capital. He said to 
 me for it \vas the Rajah himself "I came in 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 267 
 
 late last night from my other capital. I suppose 
 the people did not know I was there. I got in late 
 last night or early this morning, and we were 
 not stirring when your people came so early. I 
 suppose those were your men that came about 
 sunrise with the books; but some of my courtiers 
 were stirring and bought some of the books and 
 brought them to the palace, and we were so busy 
 reading the books that we did not know there 
 was any second gathering in the streets. I wish 
 I had known it; I would have sent out and asked 
 you to come to the palace to tell us the news there; 
 but when you had gone they brought some larger 
 books, saying that the white man himself had been 
 there and given them those books, and I was so 
 anxious to see you that I ordered my swiftest 
 horse, and I have outridden all my courtiers, as 
 you see, to overtake you. Now, tell me all about 
 it. Is it true? Is there a Saviour that can save 
 us from our sin ?" We rode on together, I on a little 
 scraggy country pony that had cost me thirty dol- 
 lars, looking up to him on his magnificent Arab 
 charger worth a thousand, and as I trotted along 
 talking with him I could not help thinking of 
 Philip and the eunuch ; and I tried as earnestly, I 
 believe, as Philip did to tell my companion of 
 Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets 
 did speak even Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour 
 
263 THE BIBIE TESTED; OR, 
 
 of all them In all the world that would believe 'in 
 him. 
 
 We overtook the cart. "Now," said he, "let 
 me have a copy of every book you have. I don't 
 care what you ask; I will pay for them." One 
 box after another was opened. He took out a 
 book about the size of a small pulpit Bible, and 
 said he, "What book is that?" "That is the 
 Holy Bible, the Satya Veda, or True Veda, in 
 the Teloogoo language" the language in which 
 we were conversing. "Give me that." Down 
 it went on the ground. He took up another, of 
 one-third the size. "What is that?" "That is 
 the New Testament in the Canarese language." 
 "Give me that;" and down it went. "What is 
 that?" taking up another. "That is the New 
 Testament in the Hindoostani language." "Give 
 me that. What is that?" "That is the New 
 Testament in the Tamil language." "Give me 
 that. What is that?" "That is the New Tes- 
 tament in the Marathi language. But," said I, 
 "you don't want all those, for this large one 
 contains the whole thing. These others contain 
 part, the best part to be sure, of the large one, 
 in the different languages. But it is the same 
 thing, verse for verse and word for word, only 
 that each is in a different language. You know 
 the Teloogoo language best. If you take the large 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 269 
 
 one in that language you have the whole;" for I 
 wished to save some of these for use further on in 
 my journey. u No," said he; "if you were to 
 be here so that I could ask questions, that large 
 one would be enough for me; but you are not go- 
 ing to be here, so I shall have no one to ask ques- 
 tions of, and I will take it and read it in the 
 Teloogoo language, and I will perhaps not quite 
 understand it; then I will take it in the Canarese 
 language, for I can read that just as well, and it 
 will be a little differently expressed, and by com- 
 paring the two I will understand it. If not, then 
 I will read it in the Hindoostani language, or 
 in the Marathi or Tamil language, and com- 
 paring the four or five, I shall be able to under- 
 stand it all. I do n't care what you ask for them, 
 only let me have the books. I will pay for them. ' ' 
 So he took them. 
 
 In the meantime the deputation came up. I 
 found that the Brahmin whom I had noticed so 
 particularly was the prime minister of the Rajah, 
 his general manager, or Mantri, as they call it in 
 India, and the son was being educated to succeed 
 him in office. They all asked earnest questions, 
 and kept me answering question after question and 
 explaining the books for an hour and three-quar- 
 ters, there in the road, before they would allow 
 me to hitch on my oxen and pursue my journey. 
 
270 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 When they had bought and paid for their books, 
 and at last had consented that I should pursue my 
 journey, I bade them good-by. But as we went 
 on our way we could not help thinking of them 
 and their earnest questions, and wondering wheth- 
 er the words thus scattered had done any good. 
 We journeyed on, however, and at last after five 
 months we came around to our homes, stricken 
 down by disease, to be sure, that we had contracted 
 in those jungles, but all of us were alive. We 
 came back to our homes, and still we could not 
 forget those people. We wondered whether in 
 that town, where they had so gladly met us and 
 heard us preach Christ, there would be any fruit 
 from the seed we had scattered. Three years 
 passed by years of sickness with me resulting 
 from that journey. We were still thinking of and 
 praying for them, when the L,ord allowed us to 
 hear news from them. A traveller came that way 
 not a chance traveller; nothing ever happens by 
 chance. God ordered, for the strengthening of my 
 faith, and perhaps yours, that a traveller should 
 come down through that unfrequented way, and 
 that he should be overtaken by night at that 
 very town of Peberi. He was a half-caste half 
 Portuguese and half Hindoo. He stopped in the 
 rest-house built for travellers, by the gate of the 
 city. In the evening that very Mantri, the Rajah's 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 2/1 
 
 prime minister, hearing that there was a stran- 
 ger in the town, came out to meet him, and said 
 he, "Stranger, you seem to have come from a 
 distance; do you know anything of the people 
 they call Christians?" "Yes, I am one myself." 
 "Are you? I am glad of it. Stranger, do you 
 know anything about a white man that came 
 through here three years ago, in the month of 
 August, with a book that he called the True Veda, 
 telling about the divine Redeemer, that he called 
 Yesu Kristu?" "Yes; Dr. Chamberlain is the 
 only missionary that has ever been through here. 
 He came this way about three years ago." "Do 
 you know him? Have you ever seen him? Is 
 he living now? and will you ever see him again?" 
 "Yes, I met him years ago away up north, and 
 in about a month I shall pass within about thirty 
 or forty miles of where he is now living." Said 
 he, "If you get as near him as that, you turn out 
 of your way and find him, for I want you to carry 
 him a message. Tell him that from the day he 
 was here neither my son nor I have ever worship- 
 ped an idol. Tell him that every day we read in 
 that New Testament that he left with us, and 
 every day we kneel and pray to that Yesu Kristu 
 of whom he taught us, and tell him that through 
 His merits we hope to meet him in heaven. Tell 
 him the Rajah has the Bible read every day in his 
 
27 2 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 palace, and we think that he too at heart is a be- 
 liever in Jesus. Tell him we hope to meet him 
 by-and-by, when we can tell him all about it 
 saved because he came here and brought us those 
 Bibles. Give him this message, for it will do him 
 good." And it did do me good. When I heard 
 that message I forgot the difficulties and perils of 
 that journey. I forgot how we had been surround- 
 ed by tigers at night, keeping the camp-fires burn- 
 ing bright while we heard them roaring for prey 
 in the jungles around us. I forgot how I had been 
 swept away in the river. I forgot how we had 
 been taken by the jungle fever and deserted by 
 all our coolies. I thought of souls redeemed and 
 heaven's mansions peopled, and I said, "If in 
 that one village the Bible has done this, why not 
 in hundreds of other villages where we have left 
 it?" Ay, methinks I can see the throng assem- 
 bled around the great white throne, and it may 
 be that among that throng some of those dusky 
 sons or daughters of India may come to one of 
 you, and grasping your hand, say to you, "Bro- 
 ther, sister, you gave that dollar to the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society that printed the Bible that 
 came away out to Hyderabad and told me how 
 to reach heaven." "Child, you gave that dime 
 that printed the New Testament that told me 
 how to get to heaven." And in the gladness of 
 
THK BIBI^K IN INDIA. 273 
 
 that hour, will we ever, one of us, regret that we 
 have done so much for our Master? Will we not 
 rather wish that we had joined hands in sending 
 this Word of God into every palace and every hut 
 on the whole globe ? 
 
 Does this Bible change the character and the 
 lives of those who embrace it ? I would I could 
 take you to a little village near my station where 
 they had embraced Christianity in a body but 
 eight months before, and where the high priest of 
 the temple near by came secretly to me in my tent 
 and asked me, ' ' Sir, will you please impart to 
 me the secret; what is it that makes that Bible 
 of yours have such power over the lives of those 
 that embrace it ? It is but eight months since 
 these people joined you. Before that they were 
 quarrelsome, they were riotous, they were lazy, 
 they were shiftless, and now they are active, they 
 are energetic, they are laborious, they never drink, 
 they never quarrel. Why, sir, I joined in the 
 persecution when they became Christians and 
 tried to stamp out Christianity before it gained 
 a foothold here, but they stood firm, and now in 
 all the region around here the people all respect 
 and honor them. What is it that makes the Bi- 
 ble have such power over the lives of those that 
 embrace it? Our Vedas have no such power. 
 Please, sir, give me the secret." 
 
 18 
 
274 THE BIBLE TKSTKD; OR, 
 
 Does it sustain its recipients ? Our first con- 
 vert in the new region, in the Teloogoo country 
 where I went in 1863, was a young Brahmin. 
 We knew that there was danger of his being mur- 
 dered, and tried to guard him. But after a while 
 he was decoyed away and taken over one hundred 
 miles to a town where his relatives lived. He 
 was immured in a close room. Nothing was left 
 him but a cloth around his loins. In the room 
 there was naught but a grass mat for him to lie 
 on, with nothing to cover him. Day by day just 
 a little rice and salt was placed there for him to 
 eat, just enough to keep body and soul together; 
 and he was .told that he should never come out 
 alive unless he abjured his new-fangled doctrines 
 and came back to orthodox Hindooism. His 
 grandfather, a wealthy man, offered half his for- 
 tune to the Brahmins if they would reconvert him. 
 They brought the logicians, the rhetoricians, and 
 the priests of all the region to argue with him. 
 They had taken away his Bible. They argued 
 with him, and they kept him for months. At last 
 he escaped and got back to us, all skin and bones ; 
 he had lost all his flesh, but had not lost his faith 
 and his trust in Jesus nor his love for this Bible. 
 He had never denied Him. A year after that we 
 met his uncles who had imprisoned him. They 
 said to us, "Sirs, what is it in that Bible of yours 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 275 
 
 that gives such strength and courage to those that 
 embrace it ? Now, we had that nephew of ours 
 right in our power. We told him that he should 
 never get away alive unless he renounced Chris- 
 tianity, and there was no probability that he would. 
 He expected to die from starvation there ; but, sirs, 
 every day, no matter who were there, he would 
 kneel in his cell and he would pray to that Yesu 
 Kristu, the divine Redeemer that he called God, 
 and when he arose there was no doing anything 
 with him. You never saw such a stubborn fellow. 
 What is it that makes this Bible give such nerve 
 and such courage to those that embrace it?" 
 
 Does this Bible quell opposition ? It is quick 
 and powerful. I would I could take you to a 
 scene in that same kingdom of Hyderabad that I 
 witnessed fourteen years ago. There in a city, a 
 walled town of 18,000 inhabitants, the people had 
 arisen in a mob to drive us out because we tried 
 to speak of another God than theirs. We had 
 gone to the market-place and I had endeavored to 
 preach to them of Christ and his salvation, but 
 they would not hear. They ordered us to leave 
 the city at once, but I had declined to leave until 
 I had delivered to them my message. The throng 
 was filling the streets. They told me if I tried to 
 utter another word I should be killed. There was 
 110 rescue; they would have the city gates closed, 
 
276 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 and there should never any news go forth of what 
 was done. I had seen them tear up the paving- 
 stones and fill their arms with them to be ready, 
 and one was saying to another, u You throw the 
 first stone and I will throw the next." By an 
 artifice I need not stop to detail I succeeded in 
 getting permission to tell them a story before they 
 stoned me, and then they might stone me if they 
 wished. I told them the story of all stories, of 
 the love of the divine Father that had made us of 
 one blood, who ' ( so loved the world that he gave 
 his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
 in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life." I told them the story of the birth in the 
 manger at Bethlehem, of that wonderful child- 
 hood, of that marvellous life, of those miraculous 
 deeds, of the gracious words that he spake. I told 
 them the story of the cross, and pictured in the 
 graphic words that the Master gave me that day 
 the story of our Saviour nailed upon the cross, for 
 them, for me, for all the world, when he cried in 
 agony, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?" When I told them that, I saw the men go 
 and throw their stones in the street and come 
 back, and down the cheeks of the very men that 
 had been clamoring the loudest for my blood I 
 saw the tears running and dropping off upon the 
 stones that they had torn up; and when I had 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 277 
 
 finished the story and told them how he had been 
 laid in the grave and after three days had come 
 forth triumphant, and had ascended again to 
 heaven, and that there he ever lives to make in- 
 tercession for them, for us, for all the world, and 
 that through his merits every one of them there 
 assembled could obtain remission of sin and eternal 
 life, I told them then that I had finished my story 
 and they might stone me now; but no, they did n't 
 want to stone me now. They came forward and 
 bought eighty copies of the Scriptures and Gos- 
 pels and tracts, and paid the money for them, for 
 they wanted to know more of that wonderful Sa- 
 viour of whom I had told them. 
 
 What do our enemies say of the Bible ? those 
 keen-witted Brahmins who know their own Vedas, 
 with all their beauties, and are capable of judg- 
 ing of what they read. What do those our enemies 
 say of this Book ? I will give you the testimony 
 of one of their Brahmins, not a Christian. 
 
 I had been delivering a series of lectures to 
 the educated men in "my reigon on their Vedas 
 and the Christian Scriptures, compared and con- 
 trasted. I had shown them by quotations from 
 their V&las and Shastras that their scriptures- 
 pointed out one God, pure and holy and good, the 
 creator and preserver and controller of all things; 
 that their scriptures pointed out man in a state of 
 
278 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 sin and rebellion against that holy God. I had 
 shown them that their Vedas pointed out the fact 
 that sinful man could not be at peace with holy 
 God until that sin was in some way expurgated. 
 I had shown them that their scriptures brought 
 man up to the edge of the gulf that yawned be- 
 tween sinful man and sinless God, and left him 
 there yearning .on the brink, anxious to get over, 
 but with no means of crossing; that the Christian 
 Scriptures, pointing out God as a God of purity 
 and holiness, and man in a state of sin, had 
 brought man to the edge of the same chasm, but 
 that they, in and through Jesus Christ, the God- 
 Man, had bridged that gulf; that Jesus Christ, in 
 his human nature resting on man's side, in his 
 divine nature on God's side, bridged the gulf, and 
 that we could all pass over, dropping our sins 
 into the chasm as we went, and be at peace with 
 God. There had been in that concluding lecture a 
 most profound silence. The room was packed, and 
 the windows, all open, reaching down low, were 
 filled with the heads of those standing outside who 
 were anxious to hear. There were no Christians 
 present except my singing band; they were all 
 heathen. When I had finished, offering a short 
 prayer to the God of truth to bring us all to under- 
 stand the truth, whatever it might be, and rose, 
 taking my book, to leave, a Brahmin in the audi- 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 
 
 ence asked permission to say a few words. I said 
 to myself, "Now there will be a tough discussion, 
 for that man is the most learned man in the audi- 
 ence and the best reasoner in all this region. ' ' But 
 I had determined to stand my ground, for I had 
 reserve ammunition that I had not yet used. I 
 expected him to attack the position I had taken; 
 but instead of that he gave one of the most beau- 
 tiful addresses that I ever listened to in any lan- 
 guage. I give you a few sentences to show you 
 what he thought of the Christian Scriptures. He 
 said: 
 
 "Behold that mango-tree on yonder roadside! 
 Its fruit is approaching to ripeness. Bears it that 
 fruit for itself or for its own profit? From the 
 moment the first ripe fruits turn their yellow sides 
 towards the morning sun until the last mango is 
 pelted off, it is assailed with showers of sticks and 
 stones from boys and men and every passer-by, 
 until it stands bereft of leaves, with branches 
 knocked off, bleeding from many a broken twig; 
 and piles of stone underneath, and clubs and sticks 
 lodged in its boughs, are the only trophies of its 
 joyous crop of fruit. Is it discouraged ? Does it 
 cease to bear fruit ? Does it say, 'If I am barren 
 no one will pelt me, and I shall live in peace ?* 
 Not at all. The next season the budding leaves, 
 the beauteous flowers, the tender fruit, again ap- 
 
280 THE BIBLE TESTED; OR, 
 
 pear. Again it is pelted and broken and wound- 
 ed, but goes on bearing, and children's children 
 pelt its branches and enjoy its fruit. 
 
 "That is a type of these missionaries. I have 
 watched them well, and have seen what they are. 
 What do they come to this country for ? What 
 tempts them to leave their parents, friends, and 
 country, and come to this, to them unhealthy, 
 climate? Is it for gain or for profit that they 
 come ? Some of us country clerks in .Government 
 offices receive more salary than they. Is it for the 
 sake of an easy life? See how they work, and 
 then tell me. No; they seek, like the mango- tree, 
 to bear fruit for the benefit of others, and that, 
 too, though treated with contumely and abuse 
 from those they are benefiting. 
 
 "Now, what is it makes them do all this for 
 us? It is their Bible. I have looked into it a 
 good deal at one time and another, in the different 
 languages I chance to know. It is just the same 
 in all languages. The Bible there is nothing to 
 compare with it in all our sacred books for good- 
 ness and purity and holiness and love and for 
 high motives of action. 
 
 "Where did the English-speaking people get 
 all their intelligence and energy and cleverness 
 and power? It is their Bible that gives it to 
 them. And now they bring it to us and say, 
 
THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 28l 
 
 'This is what raised us; take it and raise your- 
 selves!' They do not force it upon us, as the 
 Mohammedans did with their Koran, but they 
 bring it in love, and translate it into our lan- 
 guages and lay it before us, and say, ' L,ook at it; 
 read it; examine it, and see if it is not good.' Of 
 one thing I am convinced: do what we will, op- 
 pose it as we may, it is the Christian's Bible that 
 will, sooner or later, work the regeneration of 
 this land." 
 
 "Verily, their rock is not as our Rock, even 
 our enemies themselves being judges." 
 
 The Bible has always had its enemies; so has 
 everything that is good, in the moral or physical 
 world. In Fulton's time the wiseacres of his day 
 proved to a demonstration, as they thought, that 
 his invention of a steamboat was worthless, and 
 that it could not work. But when, on the morn- 
 
 ino- set for its trial, the banks of the Hudson were 
 & / 
 
 lined with the anxious throng who had come to 
 see it put to the proof; when the steam was turned 
 on and the wheels began to revolve and the boat 
 glided out, cutting its way through the placid 
 waters of the river, shout on shout from river- 
 bank and window and roof rent the sky. What 
 did they care for the demonstrations of the wise 
 men ? The steamer worked, and that was enough. 
 So we will let the so-called wise men of this 
 
282 THE BIBLE TESTED. 
 
 day prove to their own satisfaction that the Bible 
 is worthless; but so long as it works redeeming, 
 elevating mankind, causing the moral desert to 
 blossom as the rose we will stand by it, so help us 
 God! It has had attacks before, and has survived 
 them. At the close of the last century there were 
 those who, after demonstrating, as they said, that 
 it was antiquated and defective and effete, proph- 
 esied that before the middle of this century it 
 would be found only on the shelves of the anti- 
 quarian ; but yet it works. And while your exist- 
 ence and your names, O enemies of the Bible, 
 are fading from the remembrance of mankind, 
 the Bible that you despised, translated since your 
 day into 150 more languages, is running through 
 the world, conquering and to conquer, till all the 
 earth shall be subject to its sway. 
 
 Friends, \ve have this Bible. It is our price- 
 less heritage. Let us read it more. Let us study 
 it more. Let us love it more. Let us live it more; 
 and let us join hands with this Society in giving 
 it to all the world, to every creature. 
 
THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 VINDICATED. 
 
 BY 
 
 KEY. T. W. CHAMBERS, D. D. 
 
ARGUMENT OF THE TRACT. 
 
 THE value of the Old Testament, once unduly ex- 
 alted, has of late years been sadly disparaged. This 
 is unreasonable, because the two parts of the Bible be- 
 long together, and each is needed for the due under- 
 standing of the other. Testimony of the critic Herder 
 and of George Borrow. The Old Testament is valua- 
 ble for its truthful history, its impartial biographies, its 
 ritual types of the atonement, and its treasury of lyric 
 devotion. Hence it has been received by the church 
 universal in every age as an integral part of Scripture. 
 
 Its ethical rule is absolutely perfect, and objections 
 to this are only apparent. The extermination of the 
 Canaanites was necessary and just. The Lex talionis 
 does not justify private revenge. Polygamy and extra- 
 judicial divorce were temporarily allowed only to avoid 
 worse evils. Slavery was limited and modified, although 
 tolerated in view of the circumstances. Provision was 
 made for the poor and helpless and even the brute cre- 
 ation. The sins of God's people are never palliated or 
 excused. Cases of the patriarchs, of Rahab and Jael, 
 of Jephthah, Samson, and David, are considered. They 
 do not show wrong ethical principles, but an imperfect 
 application of the true principles laid down in the Dec- 
 alogue and elsewhere. An illustration is drawn from 
 the experience of modern missions. These records 
 still of use for the instruction and training of men. 
 
THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 AT the Reformation the principle that the 
 Scripture is the supreme authority for faith and 
 practice was often so applied as to give the Old 
 Testament more than its just due. Men insisted 
 that the whole body of truth revealed in the New 
 Testament existed in the Old, and that the patri- 
 archs had exactly the same knowledge of salva- 
 tion as the apostles, so that proof texts for all 
 points of doctrine could be drawn from one as well 
 as the other. This extreme naturally provoked a 
 reaction, and there arose men who asserted that 
 the Jewish religion is a system by itself, having 
 no connection beyond that of local origin and 
 chronological succession with the Christian. This 
 was substantially the view of Schleiermacher. 
 And since his day it has often cropped out where 
 least anticipated. Even in orthodox communions 
 are found those who habitually disparage the He- 
 brew Scriptures. Sometimes they assert that the 
 Old Testament contains so much that is harsh and 
 
 * Reprinted by permission from " COMPANION TO THE REVISED 
 VERSION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT." Funk & Wagnalls, N. Y. 
 
286 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 repulsive that it is a burden to carry. At others 
 they declare that it is antiquated and obsolete, and 
 that it is of no more use now than is the light of 
 lamps after the sun has arisen. Serious objection 
 has been made even to the Sunday-school lessons 
 of the ' ' International Series ' ' because many of 
 its selections have been taken from this part of 
 Scripture, just as if our Lord had never said, 
 "Salvation is from the Jews," or "If they hear 
 not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be 
 persuaded if one rise from the dead." 
 . The issue of the .Revised Version naturally 
 calls attention to this mischievous error, and it 
 seems worth while to set forth the true state of 
 the case. Any notion of the kind referred to is a 
 direct reflection upon the divine Author of the 
 Bible. It pleased him to reveal his will "by 
 divers portions and in divers manners," so that it 
 should be a gradual development running through 
 a long succession of ages. Yet this was not done 
 in the way of Mohammed, the Mormons, and other 
 human pretenders to inspiration, with whom the 
 second disclosure was a repeal of the first. On the 
 contrary, the whole scheme is coherent, and hangs 
 together as a progressive statement of truth and 
 duty, the former part foretelling or prefiguring or 
 hinting at the latter, and the latter implying and 
 building upon the former, so that it cannot for a 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 287 
 
 moment be pretended that the posterior portion 
 comes as an afterthought, intended to amend what 
 went before or to supply gaps which had been in- 
 advertently left. Evidently one presiding mind 
 ruled over the construction and the mutual rela- 
 tions of both portions. Nor can the two be sep- 
 arated without violence and damage. Upon this 
 point the language of the learned G. F. Oehler 
 may be properly quoted : * ' We must not allow our- 
 selves to be deceived. The relation of the New 
 Testament to the Old is such that both stand or 
 fall together. The New Testament assumes the 
 existence of the Old Testament law and prophecy 
 as a positive presupposition. We cannot have 
 the redeeming God of the New Covenant without 
 the Creator and covenant God preached in the 
 Old ; w r e cannot disconnect the Redeemer from 
 the predictions he came to fulfil. No New Testa- 
 ment idea indeed is fully set forth in the Old, but 
 the genesis of all the ideas of the New Testament 
 relating to salvation lies in the Old." ("Theol- 
 ogy of the Old Testament," Day's edition, p. 2.) 
 All admit that the New Testament is needed to 
 understand the Old; but it is equally true, though 
 by no means so generally acknowledged, that the 
 Old Testament is needed to understand the New. 
 So many references are made by the Saviour and 
 by the apostles and evangelists to the antecedent 
 
288 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 revelation that any reader would stumble unless 
 he had Moses and the prophets in hand. The two 
 Testaments are not the same, for if they were why 
 should there be two ? But they are not unrelated, 
 much less are they opposed to each other. To- 
 gether they constitute one continuous body of 
 revelation, which proceeds step by step from the 
 beginning to the end, and is an orderly and con- 
 sistent unfolding of the germ first given at the 
 , gates of Paradise. To discard or overlook the 
 Old Testament is to rob the Bible of its complete- 
 ness and to miss the assurance and comfort which 
 arise from a sense of its wondrous unity as anima- 
 ted by a single life, although set forth under such 
 varied circumstances and at such different times. 
 It is to forget that it is one and the same Spirit 
 who uses the histories and psalms and prophecies 
 of the earlier economy, and the gospels and epis- 
 tles of the later, to convey the Word of God to 
 men. It is to despise that word of prophecy (i. e., 
 of inspiration) to which one of the latest books in 
 the New Testament tells us to " take heed as unto 
 a lamp shining in a dark place," clearly imply- 
 ing that it is a revelation of the divine will with 
 which we cannot safely or lawfully dispense. 
 2 Pet. 1:19.* 
 
 * " What Pliny says of nature, ' Natures rerum z/z's atque ma- 
 jestas in omnibus momentis fide caret, si quis modo paries ejus ac 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 289 
 
 That this opinion is not due merely to doc- 
 trinal prejudice is apparent from the utterances of 
 the fine critic Herder a century ago in the preface 
 to his ( ' Voni Geist JiebmiscJier Poesie. ' ' " The ba- 
 sis of theology is the Bible, and that of the New 
 Testament is the Old. It is impossible to under- 
 stand the former aright without a previous under- 
 standing of the latter; for Christianity proceeded 
 from Judaism, and the genius of the language in 
 both books is the same. And this genius of the 
 language we can nowhere study better that is, 
 with more truth, depth, comprehensiveness, and 
 satisfaction than in its poetry, and indeed, as far 
 as possible, in its most ancient poetry. It produ- 
 ces a false impression and misleads the young the- 
 ologian to commend to him the New Testament 
 to the exclusion of the Old, for without this the 
 other can never be understood in a scholarlike 
 and satisfactory manner. In the Old Testament 
 we find a rich interchange of history, of figurative 
 representation, of characters, and of scenery. In 
 it we see the many-colored dawn, the beautiful 
 going forth of the sun in his milder radiance; in 
 the New Testament he stands in the highest 
 heavens and in meridian splendor, and every one 
 knows which period of the day is the most re- 
 
 non totum complectatur ammo, 1 is applicable to the kingdom of 
 grace in a still stronger degree." Hengstenberg. 
 
 19 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED, 
 
 freshing and strengthening to the natural eye of 
 sense. Let the scholar then study the Old Testa- 
 ment, even if it be only as a human book full of 
 ancient poetry, with kindred feeling and affection, 
 and thus will the New come forth to us of itself 
 in its purity, its sublime glory, its more than 
 earthly beauty. Let a man gather into his own 
 mind the abundant riches of the former, and he 
 will never become in the latter one of those smat- 
 terers who, barren and without taste or feeling, 
 desecrate these sacred things."* And this is con- 
 firmed by independent testimony gathered in the 
 school of experience. Mr. George Borrow, who 
 spent many years in circulating the Scriptures in 
 foreign lands, makes this interesting and conclu- 
 sive statement in his work called " The Bible in 
 Spain, " first published in 1843 (* quote from the 
 end of the forty-eighth chapter): "I had by this 
 time made the discovery of a fact which it would 
 have been well had I been aware of three years 
 before I mean the inexpediency of printing Tes- 
 taments, and Testaments alone, for [Roman] Cath- 
 olic countries. The reason is plain: the [Roman] 
 Catholic, unused to Scripture reading, finds a 
 thousand things which he cannot possibly under- 
 
 * This quotation is made with some alterations from the ad- 
 mirable translation of Herder's work by Dr. James Marsh, pub- 
 lished in 1833. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 2QI 
 
 stand in the New Testament, the foundation of 
 which is the Old. * Search the Scriptures, for 
 they bear witness of Me, ' may well be applied to 
 this point. It may be replied that New Testa- 
 ments separate are in great demand and of infinite 
 utility in England. But England, thanks be to 
 the Lord, is not a papal country; and though an 
 English laborer may read a Testament and derive 
 from it the most blessed fruit, it does not follow 
 that a Spanish or Italian peasant will enjoy simi- 
 lar success, as he will find many dark things with 
 which the other is well acquainted and competent 
 to understand, being versed in the Bible history 
 from his childhood. ' ' 
 
 Nor is it without significance that nearly one- 
 half of the Hebrew Scriptures is composed of his- 
 torical matter. It is not history in the modern 
 sense of that term, investigating the causes of 
 events and explaining them on philosophical 
 principles, but rather a simple series of annals, 
 recording the progress of affairs without any 
 attempt to analyze characters, to classify results, 
 or to deduce the general laws of human develop- 
 ment. The narrative portions of the Old Testa- 
 ment are usually considered rather as furnishing 
 the materials of history than history itself. But 
 it is just this absence of speculative deductions 
 and of any endeavor to frame the general laws 
 
2Q2 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 that control particular events that gives the book 
 its chief value. It is in no sense a general his- 
 tory of mankind, and indeed touches upon the 
 world at large only in the beginning when speak- 
 ing of the origin of the race, or towards the close 
 when the symbolic visions of Daniel set forth the 
 revolutions of empires that are to introduce the 
 kingdom that shall have no end. Nor is it a 
 mere secular or civil history of certain nations. 
 The bulk of the narrative is taken up with the 
 fortunes of the Hebrews as a chosen people, the 
 possessors of the only true religion, among whom 
 the crmrch of the living God was founded, and 
 through a long course of ages developed under 
 local and ceremonial restrictions. The chronicle 
 is limited to the record of occurrences, and as such 
 is strictly true. This indeed has often been de- 
 nied, but without reason. For the impartial 
 record, telling the faults as well as the virtues of 
 the writers and of the race to which they belong, 
 excludes the idea of wilful perversion. Men do 
 not invent what brings them discredit. But the 
 annals are peculiar in that they set forth the deal- 
 ings of God with the people whom he chose to be 
 the depository of his truth and the means of its 
 preservation until the fulness of time came for its 
 world-wide diffusion. There is then a copious 
 and continuous illustration of the principles of 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 293 
 
 the divine government in application to nations. 
 The writers indeed hardly seem conscious of this; 
 at least they never stop to make any reflections of 
 that kind. But all the same they set forth the 
 facts which show God's hand in history. Very 
 many of the themes which occupy a large space 
 in the works of modern writers the arts, man- 
 ners, institutions, social conditions, literature, and 
 science are wholly omitted, but the religious 
 idea is never absent. For the people were under 
 a theocracy; their real monarch was He who sat 
 enthroned above the cherubim. And everything 
 turned upon their relation to him and their fidel- 
 ity to that relation. Hence the simple, artless 
 chronicle has a value peculiarly its own, as repre- 
 senting in detail and on a very small scale the 
 eternal principles which rule the world, and are 
 sure to work themselves out in the course of the 
 largest empires in any part of the earth. 
 
 The same thing may be said of biography, the 
 charming and instructive literature which treats 
 of the lives of particular persons. No nation 
 possessed of any degree of intellectual culture is 
 without its treasures of this kind, but all of them 
 together of every age and land would fail to sup- 
 ply the lack of the memoirs contained in the Old 
 Testament. One reason of this is found in the 
 impartiality of the record. No personal, social, 
 
2Q4 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 national prejudice ever biasses the mind of the 
 writer. He never stops to commend the subject 
 of which he treats or to apologize for what cer- 
 tainly needs apology. The treatment is like col- 
 orless glass, which transmits the rays it receives 
 without imparting to them a shade of any kind. 
 It does not make any difference what position a 
 man holds, or how much he may have been hon- 
 ored either by God or man, or to what extent his 
 good name is identified with that of God's people, 
 the evil in his life is recorded as faithfully as the 
 good and without any attempt at extenuation. 
 Such absolute fidelity is, or at least seems to be, 
 an impossibility in our day. Indeed, the ten- 
 dency in the other direction has been so strong as 
 to give rise to the proverbial expression, the lues 
 biographica. But in the Hebrew memoirs one is 
 brought face to face with actual facts, and we see 
 the man as he is, and not as his kindred or friends 
 or countrymen would wish him to appear. Both 
 sides of his career are given with equal simplicity 
 and fulness. The same hand which tells of the 
 patriarch who is so strong in faith as to be ready 
 at God's command to offer up his only son, the 
 heir of the promises, tells also how on two sep- 
 arate occasions, through a mean fear, he falsely 
 pretended that his wife was his sister. The same 
 book which describes the generosity of David at 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 295 
 
 the well by the gate of Bethlehem when the three 
 heroes broke through the garrison and drew the 
 coveted drink for him, recites also the hideous 
 story of his dealing with Bathsheba and Uriah, 
 the melancholy record of uncleanness and blood- 
 shedding. The more closely the pages of these 
 records are studied, the more evident it becomes 
 that the reader has before him the veritable man 
 himself as he would appear to Him who searches 
 the heart and tries the reins. Not only are all the 
 facts that are given true, but they are so given as 
 to produce a correct impression, a point in which 
 the most impartial and conscientious of merely 
 human biographers are very apt to fail. 
 
 Its numerous and varied illustrations of the 
 doctrine of expiation give a peculiar value to the 
 Old Testament. There are those who pronounce 
 the whole L,evitical economy as inscrutable as the 
 Sphinx, a mere trial of faith and patience. Yet 
 its essential elements are plain and striking, as is 
 shown by the degree in which the language used 
 in describing them has entered into the vocabu- 
 lary of Christians and formed the chosen medium 
 for the expression of their experiences. The 
 courts of the tabernacle and temple streamed in- 
 cessantly with blood and the air was thick with 
 the smoke of incense. The fire never went out 
 upon the altar. The herd and the flock and the 
 
296 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 birds of the air contributed to the sacrifices which 
 were offered not only every morning and evening, 
 but on innumerable other occasions. Confession 
 of sins was made over the head of the victims 
 and the blood was sprinkled upon the altar. The 
 whole ritual was one continuous parable of sub- 
 stitution. It exhibited by means of a complicated 
 system of oblations the way of a sinner's accept- 
 ance with God. It showed in type and shadow 
 what was afterwards accomplished in real and 
 abiding efficacy. It exhibited on the outward 
 and earthly plane what was done in a far higher 
 sphere. The blood of bulls and goats was intend- 
 ed to stand in marked and living contrast with 
 the blood of Him who was a Lamb without spot, 
 the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the 
 world. The wondrous tragedy on Calvary, which 
 stands in the centre of the world's history, finds 
 its best illustration in the Passover sacrifice of the 
 elder economy, or in its twofold offering on the 
 great Day of Atonement. One entire book of the 
 New Testament is mainly occupied with the 
 comparison of the high-priest after the order of 
 Melchizedek and his work with the Aaronic 
 priesthood and its unceasing repetition of obla- 
 tions which never could purify the conscience or 
 take away sin. To understand the terms of this 
 comparison, to feel its force, and to seize the mo- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 297 
 
 mentous underlying truth, we must have the Old 
 Testament. Its explicit statements are of more 
 worth than all the speculations ever set forth even 
 by the most acute and brilliant of philosophical 
 theorists. Its "object teaching" as to sin and 
 redemption is a prominent factor in the experi- 
 ence of every humble believer. There are many 
 questions about the system which he cannot an- 
 swer; but its interior essence, its characteristic 
 feature, has become the life-blood of his faith. 
 
 Further, the Old Testament contains the lit- 
 urgy of the universal church. The hymns of the 
 New Covenant are very few, the need of the be- 
 liever in that respect having been already supplied 
 by the Psalter. And while it is true that the ser- 
 vice books of the ancient church contain many 
 admirable productions, they do not come up to 
 the majesty and the wide compass of the Hebrew 
 worship, as shown in the Psalms of adoration. 
 Neither Ambrose nor Gregory reached or ap- 
 proached this level. They tempered the boldness 
 of the originals, but their admixtures of what is 
 more Christian-like and spiritual toned down the 
 ardor and lessened the sweep of the singers of 
 Israel. " Nor would it be possible it has never 
 yet seemed so to Christianize the Hebrew an- 
 thems, retaining their power, their earth-like 
 richness, and their manifold splendors, which are 
 
298 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 the very splendors and the true riches and the 
 grandeurs of God's world, and withal attem- 
 pered with expressions that touch to the quick 
 the warmest human sympathies. ... As to the 
 powers of sacred poetry, those powers were ex- 
 panded to the full, and were quite expended too, 
 by the Hebrew bards. What are modern hymns 
 but so many laborious attempts to put in a new 
 form that which, as it was done in the very best 
 manner so many ages ago, can never be well done 
 again otherwise than in the way of a verbal repe- 
 tition." So said Isaac Taylor in his u Spirit of 
 Hebrew Poetry" (p. 157), and his words are true. 
 Nothing in all literature is more remarkable than 
 the adaptation of the Psalms to express the reli- 
 gious wants of the human soul in every age and 
 place. The lyrics are all products of Hebrew 
 times and the Hebrew people, and yet they are 
 found even in translation to do what nothing else 
 does for any people anywhere. Joy and sorrow, 
 praise and prayer, confession and thanksgiving, 
 penitence and faith, hope and fear, all kinds, all 
 degrees of human experience, are here set forth in 
 a way that leaves nothing to be desired. The 
 most acute and learned draw inspiration from this 
 fountain, and the youngest and feeblest find the 
 same words comforting and refreshing. As liter- 
 ature the Psalms repay the most patient and pro- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 299 
 
 longed study; but as records of the heart under 
 the impression of the profoundest spiritual truths 
 they meet a response from multitudes who have 
 no ear for melody and no eye for the graces of 
 form. As Mr. Carlyle said, "David, a soul in- 
 spired by divine music, struck tones that were an 
 echo of the sphere-harmonies, and are still felt to 
 be such'." In view of this fact the Old Testa- 
 ment, as containing the Psalms, has an immeasu- 
 rable importance, and a revision of the common 
 version a commensurate interest. If obscurities 
 are removed, if the sense is more faithfully given, 
 if poetical peculiarities are brought out more dis- 
 tinctly, while the rhythm and the music of the 
 old translators are preserved, there is a very great 
 gain both literary and devotional. The experi- 
 ence of ages shows that the Psalter will continue 
 to be the model of prayer and praise for the hosts 
 of the redeemed, and whatever helps these hosts 
 to use it more intelligently and with richer enjoy- 
 ment can hardly fail to be a lasting blessing. 
 
 In support ot what has been said, appeal may 
 be made to the usage of the church universal. 
 All churches founded upon the New Testament 
 have acknowledged the perpetual authority of the 
 Old as an integral part of revelation. The erratic 
 views of heretical sects, such as the Marcionites 
 
300 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 of the second century and the Socinians of the 
 sixteenth, or of individual errorists, have never, 
 even in the darkest periods, obtained general cur- 
 rency, but rather serve as foils to set forth in 
 prominent relief the signal unanimity with which 
 Papists and Protestants, the Eastern church and 
 the Western, have clung to the Old Testament as 
 an essential part of Scripture. The same may be 
 said of the experience of Christians in all ages as 
 bearing testimony on this interesting and import- 
 ant matter. The moral and spiritual influence 
 exerted by the Bible on the characters and lives 
 of men has been exerted by it as a whole, and not 
 by the New Testament alone. Perhaps it may 
 be said with truth that in proportion to the depth 
 and power of experimental piety in any age or 
 individual has been the disposition to avoid cast- 
 ing lots upon the parts of revelation, and to pre- 
 serve it like the Master's tunic, "without seam, 
 woven from the top throughout. ' ' And even the 
 brilliant but erratic Kwald said in his last pub- 
 lished work ("Die Lehre der Bible von Gott." I. 
 141), " The truth is, the Old Testament contains 
 a multitude of fundamental truths in such cer- 
 tainty and completeness that they cannot be more 
 deeply grounded or better defended in the New 
 Testament, but are everywhere presupposed as 
 standing firm and inviolate since the old times.'' 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 30! 
 
 But against all these claims in behalf of the 
 Old Testament it is sometimes urged that its mo- 
 rality is defective, that it represents the earlier 
 stages in the progress of ethical ideas, and that 
 therefore it has been wholly supplanted by the 
 purer and more elevated statements of the Gospel. 
 In support of this objection appeal is made to the 
 way in which the Hebrews obtained possession of 
 Canaan, to certain of their social and domestic 
 institutions, and to gross instances of wrong-doing 
 recorded of persons recognized as true believers. 
 In reply it is proper to begin with the assertion 
 that the ethical rule of the Old Testament is per- 
 fect, absolutely perfect. It is contained in the 
 Decalogue, which, after laying a firm foundation 
 in the obligations of religion, proceeds to build 
 upon that foundation a code of social ethics which 
 never has been or can be surpassed, providing as 
 it does for all relative duties, for life, for personal 
 purity, for property, and for reputation, closing 
 and riveting the whole by a precept which takes 
 in the heart. The New Testament, so far from 
 disowning or disparaging this rule of life, con- 
 firms and sanctions it in the strongest possible 
 manner. Our Lord said expressly, "Think not 
 that I came to destroy the law and the prophets: 
 I came not to destroy, but to fulfil," Matt. 5:17 
 i. e., as his further statements showed, to develop 
 
3<D2 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 its deeper meaning, to guard against misconcep- 
 tions, to remove false glosses, and to enable its 
 subjects to keep it. So the great apostle said, 
 ' ' The law is holy, and the commandment holy 
 and righteous and good," Rom. 7:12. Through- 
 out the later Scripture reference is continually 
 made to the Ten Commandments as the perma- 
 nent and authoritative standard of moral obliga- 
 tion, Matt. 15:4; 19:17-19; John 7:19; Acts 7:38; 
 Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 3:10; Eph. 6:2; Heb. 2:2; 
 Jas. 2:8-11; 4:11; i John 5:2, 3. Nothing in 
 all history nothing in the flights of human imag- 
 ination has ever exceeded the circumstances of 
 majesty and awe amid which this divine code was 
 announced to men. It was, and was intended to 
 be, a complete summation of human duty. 
 
 But it is to the conduct of the people under 
 this law that the impugners of the Old Testament 
 refer. One of the most common objections is 
 based upon the way in which Israel became pos- 
 sessed of the land of Canaan, viz., by the literal 
 extermination of its former inhabitants a pro- 
 cedure which is denounced as monstrous and in- 
 human. But it is to be said (i) that the whole- 
 sale destruction was the same that fell upon the 
 cities of the plain and upon the world at the gen- 
 eral deluge, a destruction which in each case was 
 declared to be the punishment of great and mani- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 303 
 
 fold'sins; (2) that it was inflicted by the express 
 command of God acting as the moral governor of 
 the world; and (3) that it was necessary in order 
 that the chosen people might occupy the chosen 
 land. The only alternative was to make slaves 
 of the entire population. But this would have 
 been ruinous to Israel, first by the habits of sloth 
 and self-indulgence which such a condition of 
 things must needs have engendered, and then still 
 more by the close and continual contact it would 
 involve with a population degraded by a grossly 
 corrupt religion and by a bestial immorality. 
 Were the Hebrews to be segregated from other 
 races in some one particular region, it was indis- 
 pensable that the previous inhabitants of that 
 region should be removed. And dreadful as the 
 destruction of the Canaanites was, it was not too 
 high a price to pay for the preservation of true 
 religion in the earth. 
 
 Again, it is affirmed that the Old -Testament 
 in the Lex talionis distinctly recognized the right 
 of private revenge, and made every man the aven- 
 ger of his own wrongs. "Thou shalt give life for 
 life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth," etc., Bxod. 
 21 : 20, is interpreted as if it authorised individ- 
 ual retaliation. But it did no such thing. It 
 occurs among judicial statutes, and is to be inter- 
 preted in the same manner. In fact, it simply 
 
304 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 declared the penalty of injuries wilfully commit- 
 ted, and announced to all that whoever wronged 
 another must make suitable reparation for the 
 wrong unless he could compound matters with 
 the injured party, which was allowed in every 
 case save that of deliberate murder, Num. 35:31. 
 The execution of this law -a law which is found 
 in the XII. Tables of Rome, and which is ap- 
 proved by Montesquieu as founded in reason and 
 drawn from the nature of things was committed 
 to the authorities. Our Lord's statement in Matt. 
 5 : 3^j 39 does not set aside this judicial rule, but 
 reproves the errors of those in his time who ap- 
 plied in private intercourse and for personal vin- 
 dictiveness what was originally given only for the 
 public administration of justice. 
 
 It is further objected that the Old Testament 
 tolerated polygamy and extra-judicial divorce. 
 In regard to the latter of these we have a full 
 and satisfactory explanation from our Lord. He 
 points back to the monogamy established in Par- 
 adise as the true basis of the family constitution, 
 and one that was never repealed. But in the 
 case of Jews the statute was relaxed, not because 
 it was wrong, but because of the "hardness of 
 the people's hearts." Woman being the weaker 
 vessel was sure to suffer unless some provision 
 was made to temper and restrain the fierceness of 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 305 
 
 men of coarse nature and uncivilized habits. 
 Divorce was an evil, yet when made under the 
 forms of law it was better than the continuous 
 grinding oppression for which the strict seclusion 
 of women in the Kast allowed unlimited range. 
 
 The same thing may be said of polygamy. 
 This was never established, much less praised, as 
 it is among the Mormons of our day as a useful 
 and blessed institution. On the contrary, it was 
 simply tolerated, and the providence of God 
 showed very distinctly in the lives of the patri- 
 archs and of the parents of Samuel, and in the 
 experience of David and Solomon, to what evils 
 it necessarily led. Yet, upon the whole, in a 
 country like Palestine and in an age when women 
 were cut off from all the social life of both sexes, 
 it was doubtless expedient to allow a departure 
 from the law laid down at the creation, and per- 
 mit a man to have more wives than one, on the 
 ground that this imperfect arrangement was bet- 
 ter than general and promiscuous concubinage, 
 and that the habit being so deeply rooted, it was 
 wiser to regulate and control it than to meet it by 
 an absolute prohibition in that rudimentary stage 
 of human progress. 
 
 Slavery is another of the features of Old Tes- 
 tament life that are severely censured. Invol- 
 untary servitude belongs to an inferior civiliza- 
 
 20 
 
306 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 tion, and, strange as it seems, marks a step in its 
 upward progress. There was a time when all 
 captives in war were slain in cold blood, but after- 
 wards they were spared and put in bondage. 
 Hence the name servatus (preserved) contracted 
 into servus (slave). As a living dog is better than 
 a dead lion, so it was better to become a living 
 bondsman than to be a slain captive. The in- 
 stitution existed when the Jews became a nation. 
 They retained it, but greatly modified its severe 
 features. A native slave could not be such long- 
 er than six years, except by his own consent for- 
 mally given, and in any event his servitude ceased 
 at the year of jubilee. A foreign-born heathen 
 slave might be kept in perpetual bondage, but a 
 bondage unlike any that ever existed in any part 
 of the ancient world. He never was regarded as 
 a tool, a chattel, a thing without any rights. 
 Nothing approaching to the language even of 
 such men as Plato or Aristotle, on this subject, is 
 to be found anywhere in Scripture. The slave 
 had the benefit of the weekly day of rest and of 
 all the joyful public and private festivals of the 
 Mosaic economy. Express mention is made of 
 the "man-servant and the maid-servant" in the 
 Fourth Commandment, and also in the directions 
 about the domestic feasts made upon the tithes 
 and offerings, Deut. 12:18. The slave was a per- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 307 
 
 son, and as such had his rights protected under 
 the law. Above all, he was among a people who 
 enjoyed the revelation of the being and will of 
 the one living and true God, infinite in holiness 
 and mercy as well as in wisdom and might. "Je- 
 hovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, 
 long-suffering, and abundant in kindness and 
 truth." It was better to be a serf or bond-servant 
 in Israel than a man of wealth and station in 
 heathen darkness, just as the devout Psalmist pre- 
 ferred rather to be a doorkeeper in the house of 
 God than to dwell at ease in the tents of wicked- 
 ness. Slavery was not prohibited, because the 
 times were not ripe for such prohibition. A -wise 
 lawgiver always adapts his legislation to the char- 
 acter and circumstances of the people. Even 
 Christianity did not direct the immediate over- 
 throw of the system, but contented itself with an- 
 nouncing the principles and inculcating the duties 
 which were sure in the end to break every shackle 
 and yet create no social convulsion. The feudal 
 system which once prevailed over Europe was in 
 some respects as oppressive as slavery, yet its 
 bonds were gradually relaxed in the same way, 
 until' now it has become a mere name. There 
 seems little reason to doubt that the permission 
 and regulation of slavery under the Old Economy 
 was not only wiser, but humaner, than its absolute 
 
308 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 prohibition would have been. It certainly did not 
 proceed from harshness or indifference to human 
 welfare. For the Mosaic code forbade hatred and 
 revenge, Lev. 19:17, 18, enjoined kindness even 
 to enemies, Bxod. 23 : 4, 5, commanded respect 
 towards the deaf, the blind, and the aged, Lev. 
 19: 14, 32, and required tender care for the poor, 
 the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger, Exod. 
 22:21-27; Deut. 24:17, 19. For these the cor- 
 ners of the field must remain unreaped and the 
 forgotten sheaf must be left where it had fallen. 
 Even animals shared in the compassion of the 
 Hebrew lawgiver, Deut. 22:6, 7; 25:4. Such 
 tender consideration for the weak and helpless 
 incorporated into the legal system of the Old Tes- 
 tament indicates high morality and a very pro- 
 found sentiment. Where is the advance upon 
 these points which some tell us is to be found in 
 the New Testament? That Testament contains 
 nothing new either in form or in spirit. 
 
 It is further urged that the Old Testament 
 contains numerous instances of gross wrong-doing, 
 the perpetrators of which were yet regarded and 
 treated as acceptable with God and made recipi- 
 ents of his favor. These are the falsehoods of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those of Rahab and 
 Jael, the horrible sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter, 
 the deplorable misdeeds of Samson, and the crimes 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 309 
 
 of David, the man after God' sown heart. In re- 
 gard to all these the truth must be held fast that 
 sins are sins, whoever commits them. The Old 
 Testament never blurs moral distinctions, neith- 
 er should we. A man's eminence or advanta- 
 ges rather enhances than lessens the criminality 
 of his evil deeds. Take, for example, the most 
 common of the offences already referred to false- 
 hood. The most of the lies that are told come 
 through fear. A lie is the habitual refuge of a 
 coward. But who ought to be less of a coward 
 than the man who believes in the living God and 
 regards him as his friend? The lies of the patri- 
 archs are grievous blots upon their good name. 
 But they are not condoned in the Scripture, but 
 simply recorded as integral parts of the history 
 and as solemn admonitions to every reader. In 
 Jacob's case his subsequent experience indicates a 
 very salutary dealing of Providence with him. A 
 long and painful exile from home and the suffer- 
 ing of many deceptions from his father-in-law 
 were a righteous retribution for the gross deceit 
 by which he won the blessing from the aged 
 Isaac. 
 
 Rahab is quoted and commended both by 
 James and the author of the Epistle to the He- 
 brews, but it is her faith, not her falsehood, that 
 is praised. She. believed in Jehovah and in Israel 
 
310 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 as his covenant people, and for their sake was 
 willing to surrender home and friends and coun- 
 try. So she welcomed and preserved the spies, 
 and sent them home "another way," Jas. 2:25, 
 and in so far was conspicuous for well-doing. 
 But her deliberate falsehood was a remnant of her 
 heathen training, for which no palliation is given 
 or is possible. Born and brought up in an atmos- 
 phere of deceit, it doubtless seemed to her a very 
 natural thing to lie in a good cause. The same 
 may be said of Jael. It was a good thing in her 
 to drive the tent-pin through the temples of the 
 sleeping Sisera. In so doing she executed a 
 proper retribution upon an enemy of the Lord, 
 she took sides with the covenant people, and did 
 what lay in her power to render their victory 
 complete and permanent. For this she received 
 the highly-wrought encomium of Deborah, and 
 was pronounced u blessed above women," or, as 
 some render the phrase, u blessed by women." 
 But her treachery in inviting Sisera into her tent 
 and her assurance to him of safety were detesta- 
 ble. These gross violations of truth detract much 
 from her character, and yet leave the signal ser- 
 vice she rendered to Israel unimpaired as an act 
 of heroic fidelity to the side of right. She took a 
 wrong way to do a right thing, and the singers of 
 the triumph overlook her deceit and her breach 
 
THE OIvD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 311 
 
 of hospitality in their hatred of the licentious and 
 cruel tyrant and their warm sympathy with their 
 country rescued from idolatry and degradation. 
 
 The case of Jephthah is different. He is com- 
 mended as a hero of faith, and such he was in 
 taking command of the people at a perilous peri- 
 od, in his wise conduct of the war, and in his tri- 
 umphant victory. The one stain upon him is the 
 sacrifice of his only child. He vowed to God 
 that in case of victory lit would "offer up for a 
 burnt-offering" whatsoever came forth from his 
 house to meet him on his return. His daughter 
 came forth, and "he did with her according to 
 his vow." Some have praised him for his self- 
 renunciation in keeping his vow. All such praise 
 is nearly as odious as Jephthah' s course. His 
 deed was an immorality, and denounced as such 
 in the law. The vo\v itself was wrong, for no 
 man has a right to take upon himself such an 
 uncertain obligation; but the performance of it 
 was worse, for it degraded the offerer of the vic- 
 tim to a level with those Canaanites whom his 
 ancestors had driven out of existence with fire 
 and sword. Jephthah had been living as a free 
 lance on the frontiers of the country amid demor- 
 alizing associations, and this fact, while it ac- 
 counts for his crude notion that any circumstances 
 could make it right to do wrong, also sets in a 
 
312 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 brighter light his wise and determined and suc- 
 cessful leadership of his countrymen against the 
 national foe. 
 
 Samson's case is similar. He was a combina- 
 tion of superhuman physical strength with un- 
 common moral weakness. God saw fit to employ 
 him as a deliverer of his people, just as centuries 
 afterwards he commissioned the weak, bigoted, 
 and petulant Jonah. In general, the channels of 
 divine energy are appropriate to their office, and 
 clean men bear the vessels of the L,ord; but there 
 are exceptions for wise purposes, one of which 
 may be "to vindicate or illustrate the divine sov- 
 ereignty. But whatever the reasons, it is certain 
 that God endowed with miraculous might a man 
 who never could resist the solicitations of a wo- 
 man, but did in reality the shameful things fable 
 records of Hercules with Omphale. His exploits 
 in battle, when single-handed he contended with 
 hundreds and thousands, were signal expressions 
 of his faith in God; and the same is true of his 
 death at Gaza. That death was no more suicide 
 than that of any soldier who leads or takes part 
 in a forlorn hope. He performed an act of retrib- 
 utive vengeance upon the national foes, and the 
 sacrifice of his own life which it required was 
 freely made, and stands evermore as a testimony 
 of his self- renouncing fidelity. Much of his life 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 313 
 
 had been wasted, but what was left of it he dedi- 
 cated to God. Having been restored once more 
 to his gigantic strength, by one supreme effort he 
 pulled down the temple and carried a host of his 
 oppressors into a common grave. He asked and 
 he received divine help, and justly is his feat cel- 
 ebrated as an act of faith as well as of strength. 
 
 The shortcomings of David, his deceptions, 
 his severities to the heathen, his misleading of 
 Bath-sheba, and his murder of Uriah, have often 
 been brought forward as a strange commentary 
 upon the phrase applied to him alone of all the 
 servants of the Lord that he was " the man after 
 God's own heart." But the taunt is undeserved. 
 The phrase as it occurs in Scripture, i Sam. 
 13 : 14 ; Acts 13 : 22, was used to denote his prompt 
 and unswerving obedience, "which shall fulfil all 
 my will," and in the main was amply justified by 
 his life, both personal and official. Herein he 
 was a marked contrast to his predecessor, the bold 
 and intrepid but wayward and self-willed Saul, 
 who on two signal occasions violated an express 
 divine command addressed to himself. The son 
 of Jesse during a long and varied career served 
 the Lord with peculiar assiduity and success, and 
 often when it cost him a severe struggle. But to 
 his general course of implicit, real, and cheerful 
 obedience there were the sad and painful excep- 
 
314 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 tions which have been referred to. It is not a 
 sufficient answer to these to say with Mr. Carlyle, 
 " What are faults, what are the outward details 
 of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, 
 temptations, the often-baffled, never-ended strug- 
 gle of it, be forgotten?" No doubt David did 
 repent bitterly, and the expression of that repent- 
 ance in the fifty-first Psalm has been of untold 
 value to all succeeding generations, as it will be 
 for ages to come. But the great point to be borne 
 in mind in regard to these sins is that they were 
 in no sense normal results of his character and 
 training, but exceptions. And for these the Old 
 Testament is not responsible. It is expressly said 
 of the whole wretched dealing with Uriah and 
 his wife, "But the thing that David had done 
 displeased the Lord," 2 Sam. n : 27. The record 
 has its value as showing how men that are emi- 
 nent for gifts natural and acquired, and who sus- 
 tain lofty positions and perform great public ser- 
 vices, may fall and cover themselves with shame; 
 but if so, it is not because of their faith but in 
 spite of it. The Lord's honor therefore is not 
 tarnished by the derelictions of his people, and 
 the fact that instead of being quietly suppressed 
 they are spread upon the pages of Holy Writ de- 
 monstrates the trustworthiness of that book. The 
 sins themselves illustrate the weakness of human 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 315 
 
 nature when left to itself, and impress upon every 
 reader the necessity of constant watchfulness and 
 care. If the man after God's own heart fell so 
 sadly and shamefully, who of all the sons of men 
 dare boast and be confident ? 
 
 It is to be observed that all these cases belong 
 to an early stage in the application of moral prin- 
 ciples to practical life. This does not mean that 
 there was a progress in ethical ideas, just as there 
 was a progress in doctrine all through the old 
 economy. There was no such ethical progress 
 and no room for it. This is shown not only by 
 the Decalogue, which was certainly given from 
 Sinai, and the many admirable provisions of the 
 enactments accompanying it, but also by the fact 
 that the cardinal principles of morals have always 
 and everywhere been the same. Falsehood, fraud, 
 slander, envy, theft, breach of trust, and murder 
 are not more peremptorily forbidden by Scripture 
 than they are by the common judgment of civil- 
 ized nations, ancient and modern. No revelation 
 was needed to tell men that these things were 
 wrong. In the last century one of the Moravians 
 who labored among the aborigines of our country 
 said to a Mohegan chief, " You must not lie nor 
 steal nor get drunk," etc., and received the indig- 
 nant answer, "Thou fool, dost thou think that 
 
3l6 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 we do not know that?"* The superiority of 
 Christian ethics lies mainly in the example it fur- 
 nishes and the motives it offers, and only to a 
 small extent in the precepts it enjoins, as, e. g., 
 in relation to the obligations of the sexes. Our 
 Saviour's object in a large part of the Sermon on 
 the Mount is not to correct the morality of the 
 law, but to set aside the corrupt glosses which 
 the degenerate Jews had fastened upon it. Take 
 away these incrustations, and the moral code of 
 Sinai shines out as conspicuously pure and eleva- 
 ted as the utterances of our Lord. The Master 
 did indeed a wonderful thing when he condensed 
 the Ten Commandments into two, the love of 
 God as supreme and the love of our neighbor as 
 ourselves; but nowhere and at no time did he set 
 aside or impeach any one of the ten words uttered 
 from the blazing summit of Jebel Mousa. On 
 the contrary, when the young ruler asked the 
 weighty question, "What shall I do that I may 
 have eternal life?" the answer came promptly, 
 "If thou wouldest enter into life, keep the com- 
 mandments," Matt. 19:17. No rational expla- 
 nation of this utterance can be made which will 
 not imply that those commandments cover the 
 whole sphere of human duty. , 
 
 But while all this is true, it is also true that 
 
 # Loskiel's" History of Moravian Missions in North America." 
 
THE oivD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 317 
 
 the ethical principles lying at the basis of the 
 Mosaic economy were not at once taken up into 
 the hearts of the people and incorporated with 
 their lives. It required time to bring about this 
 result, just as it did in some other things. For 
 example, idol worship was always condemned 
 among the Hebrews. Yet when Jacob left Pa- 
 dan-aram, Rachel stole and carried off her father's 
 teraphim (household deities), Gen. 31:34; when the 
 patriarch himself went from Shechem to Bethel 
 he needed to tell his family, "Put away the 
 strange gods that are among you," Gen. 35:2; 
 and as far down as Saul's days we find that when 
 Michal wished to deceive her father's messengers 
 by pretending that David was sick, she used tera- 
 pJiim to represent the appearance of his form in 
 the bed, thus showing that these idolatrous ima- 
 ges had a place even in this good man's dwelling. 
 So in the days of Israel's imperfect civilization, 
 when there was more or less of the moral chaos 
 that always accompanies sudden changes, social 
 revolutions, alternations of war and peace, of con- 
 quest and defeat, the development of character 
 was not uniform; excellences in one direction 
 were overbalanced by deficiencies in another; and 
 even those who in the main were upright accord- 
 ing to the divine standard, yet occasionally fell 
 short in the hour of trial. A capital illustration 
 
31 3 THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 
 
 may be drawn from the experience of modern 
 Christian missions. One of the evangelical de- 
 nominations of our country has in the extreme 
 .Bast two thousand members in full communion 
 and eight thousand persons known as u adhe- 
 rents. n Recently two of the wisest and most 
 experienced of the missionaries laboring there 
 were asked how many of these adherents they 
 supposed to be really converted persons. The an- 
 swer was, " Nearly all of them." Whereupon 
 the question arose why, that being the case, they 
 were not received into the fellowship of the church 
 and acknowledged as brethren in the Lord. The 
 reason given was that they retained so much of 
 their old heathen habits and tendencies, and their 
 stability under the pressure of temptation was so 
 imperfect, that there was reason to fear a relapse 
 into some gross immorality that would bring great 
 discredit upon the Christian name. Hence they 
 were retained so long in this inchoate disciplinary 
 status. Precisely this was the condition of many 
 of the Old Testament worthies. The standard of 
 duty was as high as it ever has been; witness the 
 command given as far back as the days of Abra- 
 ham, "Walk before me and be thou perfect, " 
 Gen. 17:1, and oftentimes there was a wondrous 
 exhibition of moral excellence; witness him who 
 walked with God so closely and continuously that 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT VINDICATED. 319 
 
 lie was translated without seeing death, or Sam- 
 uel, the early called, who at the close of a long 
 public life was able to challenge a whole people 
 to make good any charge of wrong-doing; but 
 still, as a general fact, true believers had not 
 grown up to their privileges, and often fell into 
 that which was clearly and sometimes grossly 
 amiss. 
 
 Nor is it without reason that the record of 
 such things has been preserved in a book designed 
 for universal and perpetual use. For it has been 
 well said that in the history of individuals and of 
 nations, as of the race, there is a time when the 
 delivery of truth in forms as elementary and com- 
 paratively rude as those found in the Old Testa- 
 ment seems to be essential to the spiritual train- 
 ing of character. To this day it is known that 
 some of the narratives and practices of the old 
 economy give to heathen nations a clearer idea of 
 the divine holiness and of human duty than even 
 the more full disclosures of the new. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 OCT 23 1915 
 
 EB 81987 
 
 AUTO. DISC JM1 2 3- '87 
 
 30m-l,'15 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
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