certainty to those who are capable and willing to receive it. It should stir us up to a more thorough study of these Holy Scriptures, lest in some way we should not have discerned that divine evidence which has been graciously imparted to students who may have been more faithful or more devoted than ourselves. We should maintain our own freedom to question and to reject from the Canon such writings as do not justify themselves in the arena of criticism; and at the same time we should respect the opinion of those who think that they have evidence that we have thus far been unable to receive, and above all we should be extremely reluctant to dissent from the historic consensus of the Christian Church in this matter, and especially the official deliverances of Holy Church.

VI. THE DETERMINATION OF THE CANON

It has become more and more evident, since Semler1 reopened the question of the Canon of Holy Scripture, that the only safe position is to build on the rock of the Reformation principle of the Sacred Scriptures. This principle has been enriched in two directions, first, by the study of the unity and harmony of the Sacred Scriptures as an organic whole, and, second, by the apprehension of the relation of the faith of the individual to the consensus of the Church.

The principles on which the Canon of Holy Scripture is to be determined are, therefore, these:

(1) The testimony of the Church, going back by tradition and written documents to primitive times, presents probable evidence to all men that the Scriptures, recognized as of divine authority and canonical by such general consent, are indeed what they are claimed to be.

This testimony is quite unanimous as to the entire Protestant Canon. The Roman Catholic Church testifies to the apocryphal Books of the Old Testament in addition. The testimony of the Church from the fourth until the sixteenth century is overwhelmingly in favour of the apocryphal books likewise. In the Canon of the Church the historic testimony of its 1 Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Kanon, 4 Bde. 1771-1775.

formation is strongest as to the Law in the Old Testament and the Gospels in the New Testament, next strongest as to the Prophets in the Old Testament and the book of Acts and the Pauline epistles in the New Testament. In the third layer of the Canon of the Old Testament the Psalter, Proverbs, Job, and Daniel, have the authority of the New Testament, and Ruth and Lamentations have never been doubted; in the third layer of the Canon of the New Testament, 1 Peter and 1 John seem to have remained undoubted from the second century. As regards all of these books the historical evidence is so strong that it could hardly be stronger. As regards the books of Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, these have all had to battle for recognition in the Canon from the most ancient times, and doubts and denials have arisen in modern times. The same may be said of James, 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation in the New Testament. These may with propriety be regarded as having a lower grade of evidence; and men may be permitted to doubt their canonicity without censure now as they were in ancient times. The historical evidence for all of these is very strong. They have all won their way into the Canon after a stout and long-continued struggle, and they have all maintained their place and resisted every subsequent attack upon them. We may also be permitted to say that it is doubtful whether the ultra-Protestant hostility can be maintained against all the apocryphal books. The Wisdom of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon are in the Roman Catholic Canon, and are used in the liturgy of the Church of England. They impress many minds more favourably than Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. 1 Maccabees is also in the Roman Catholic Canon, and seems to be in itself an important if not an essential book in the development of Biblical History. There are many who derive more religious benefit from it than from Esther. The Benedicite of the three children, inserted in the Greek Version of Daniel, has been used from the earliest times in Christian worship, and has indeed exerted a more sacred influence than the whole of the Hebrew Daniel. The tendency among thoughtful Protestants is to restore these writings to the Canon.

(2) The Scriptures themselves, in their pure and holy character, satisfying the conscience; their beauty, harmony, and majesty, satisfying the æsthetic taste; their simplicity and fidelity to truth, together with their exalted conceptions of man, of God, and of history, satisfying the reason and the intellect; their piety and devotion to the one God, and their revelation of redemption, satisfying the religious feelings and deepest needs of mankind, all conspire to convince that they

are indeed sacred and divine books.

This argument will appeal to different men in different ways. It will depend partly upon the Higher Criticism of the Scriptures, partly upon their interpretation, and upon Biblical History and Biblical Theology. The books of Jonah, Esther, and Daniel will appeal to some minds much more powerfully if they are seen to be historical fiction than if they appear to be historical books full of legends and mistakes. The Song of Songs will commend itself as canonical to a man who discerns it to be a drama of marital love, when he could not accept it if it were supposed to be merely an allegory of the love of Christ to His Church, or a collection of love songs. Ecclesiastes might be rejected by a man, if all its sayings were regarded as equally authoritative, but accepted if he were able to distinguish the God-fearing words from the sceptical words. It depends in great measure upon the kind of history, religion, and morals one finds in the biblical writings how far he will be convinced that they are divine books. Many men. have been driven away from the Bible by the false science, gloomy religion, and immoral theology that Christian teachers have too often obtruded upon it. If the Bible is to exert the influence of its own character upon men, it must be stripped entirely free from all the false characteristics that have been attributed to it. If men are not won by the holy character of the biblical books, it must be because for some reason their eyes have been withheld from seeing it.

(3) The Spirit of God bears witness by and with the particular writing, or part of writing, in the heart of the believer, removing every doubt and assuring the soul of its possession of the truth of God, the rule and guide of the life. This argu

ment is of no value except to a believer, to a devout Christian. But to such an one it is the invincible divine argument.

(4) The Spirit of God bears witness by and with the several writings in such a manner as to assure the believer in the study of them that they are the several parts of one complete divine revelation, each writing having its own appropriate and indispensable place and importance in the organism of the Canon.

This is a cumulative argument. The certainty that one writing in the Bible is divine, makes it easier to recognize another writing. If the character of one canonical book has been discerned, it is easier to recognize another book having that same character. As the number of books increases about which there is certainty, the difficulties as regards the others decrease. Practically there is little if any doubt in the minds of Christians as regards the great majority of the biblical books. Only a few of them are doubted now by any Christians. Only a few have ever been doubted. The path of certainty is from the known to the unknown. Furthermore, the structure of the Canon is of immense importance. We have seen its historic importance. It has also an inductive importance. The books of the Bible constitute an organic whole under the two Covenants. When the mind has studied them thus organically, the Divine Spirit guides in their organic study and so gives what may be regarded as organic certainty; that is, the certainty that the books have their essential place in the organism of the Divine Word.

(5) The Spirit of God bears witness to the Church as an organized body of such believers, through their free consent in various communities and countries and centuries, to this unity and variety of the Sacred Scriptures as the one complete and perfect Canon of the divine word to the Church.

This argument is really the old historic argument fortified by the vital argument of the divine evidence. The testimony of the Church as an external human historical organization cannot give certainty. But when we come to know that the Church has been guided by the Divine Spirit in all the centuries, first in the formation of the Canon of Holy Scripture, and then

in its recognition of the Canon in the three stages, individual recognition, consensus, and official determination; that the same Holy Spirit who gives certainty to-day has given certainty to the Church in all the ages of the past, working in the individual and also in the entire organism, then we may know that the testimony of the Church is the testimony of the Divine Spirit speaking in the Church and through the Church. We recognize the same voice in the Bible and in the Church and in our own Reason. The argument is complete, because the Divine Spirit has spoken to us with the same voice and to the same effect through the three media in which alone He speaks to man. The official fixing of the Canon by the Church varies as to the apocryphal books alone. The tendency among Protestants is back to the Apocrypha. It is altogether probable that if we could have a reunited Church, the Church would define a Canon with unanimous consent.

The logical order of the testimony is this: the human testimony, the external evidence, attains its furthest possible limit as probable evidence, bringing the inquirer to the Scriptures with a high and reverent esteem of them. Then the internal evidence exerts its powerful influence upon his soul, and at length the divine testimony lays hold of his entire nature and convinces and assures him of the truth of God and causes him to share in the consensus of the Christian Church.

"Thus the Canon explains and judges itself; it needs no foreign standard. Just so the Holy Spirit evokes in believers a judg ment, or criticism, which is not subjective, but in which freedom. and fidelity are combined. The criticism and interpretation, which faith exercises, see its object not from without, as foreign, or as traditional, or as in bondage, but from within, and abiding in its native element becomes more and more at home while it ascribes to every product of apostolic men its place and proper canonical worth." "True faith sees in the letter of the documents of Revelation the religious content brought to an immutable objectivity which is able to attest itself as truth by the divine Spirit, which can at once warm and quicken the letter in order to place the living God-man before the eyes of the believer."1

1 Dorner, System der Christlichen Glaubenslehre, Berlin, 1879, I. pp. 667 seq.; System of Christian Doctrine, Edinburgh, 1881, II. pp. 229 seq.