The Higher Criticism recognizes faults of grammar and rhetoric, and of logic in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. The biblical authors used the language with which they were familiar; some of them classic Hebrew, others of them dialectic and corrupted Hebrew. Some of them have a good prose style; others of them have a dull, tedious, pedantic style. Some of them are poets of the highest rank; others of them write such inferior poetry that one is surprised that they did not use prose. Some of them reason clearly, profoundly, and convincingly; others of them reason in a loose, obscure, and unconvincing manner. Some of them present the truth like intuitions of light; others labour with it, and eventually deliver it in a crude and undeveloped form. The results of these studies show that in all these respects the biblical authors were left to themselves, to their own individualities and idiosyncrasies. All these matters belong to the manner and method of their instruction. Errors in these formal things do not impair the infallibility of the substance, the religious instruction itself.

The Higher Criticism shows us the process by which the sacred books were produced; that the most of them were composed by unknown authors; that they have passed through the hands of a considerable number of unknown editors, who have brought together the older material without removing discrepancies, inconsistencies, and errors. Take the Pentateuch, the earliest canon of the Old Testament. It is composed of four great documents, whose authors are unknown to us. These documents were consolidated by an unknown editor in the times of the Restoration. Each of these documents is made up of still older documents and sources.1 These may, within certain limits, be assigned to their times of composition, but not to their authors. In this process of editing, arranging, addition, subtraction, reconstruction, and consolidation, extending through many centuries, what evidence have we that these unknown editors were kept from error in all their work? With the precious divine instruction in their hands it seems altogether likely that they were left to their honest human judgment without any constraint or restraint of a divine influ1 See p. 322.

ence, just as later copyists and editors have been left to themselves. They were men of God, and judging from their work, they were guided by the Divine Spirit in their apprehension and expression of the divine instruction, but also judging from their work, it seems most probable that they were not guided by the Divine Spirit in their grammar, in their rhetoric, in their logical expressions, in their arrangement of their material, or in their general editorial work. In all these matters they were left to those errors, which even the most faithful and most scrupulous writers will sometimes make. Unless we take some such position we are really exposed to the peril of making the Holy Spirit the author of bad grammar, of the incorrect use of words, of inelegant expressions, and of disorderly arrangement of material; which, indeed, was charged upon the critics of the seventeenth century by their earliest opponents.1

From the point of view of the Higher Criticism, we are not prepared to admit errors in the Scriptures, until they shall be proven. Very many of those alleged have already received sufficient or plausible explanation; others are in dispute between truth-seeking scholars, and satisfactory explanations may hereafter be given. New difficulties are constantly arising and being overcome. The question whether there are errors is a question of fact to which all theories and doctrines must yield. It cannot be determined by a priori definitions and statements on either side. Indeed the original autographs have been lost for ages and can never be recovered. How can we determine whether they were absolutely errorless or not? To assume that it must be so, as a deduction from the theory of verbal inspiration, is to beg the whole question.

Richard Baxter truly says:

"And here I must tell you a great and needful truth, which . . Christians fearing to confess, by overdoing tempt men to Infidelity. The Scripture is like a man's body, where some parts are but for the preservation of the rest, and may be maimed without death. The sense is the soul of the Scripture, and the letters but the body or vehicle. The doctrine of the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Decalogue, Baptism and the Lord's Supper is the vital part,

1 See p. 276.

and Christianity itself. The Old Testament letter (written as we have it about Ezra's time) is that vehicle, which is as imperfect as the revelation of these times was. But as after Christ's incarnation and ascension the Spirit was more abundantly given, and the revelation more perfect and sealed, so the doctrine is more full, and the vehicle or body, that is, the words, are less imperfect and more sure to us; so that he that doubteth the truth of some words in the Old Testament, or of some circumstances in the New, hath no reason therefore to doubt of the Christian religion, of which these writings are but the vehicle or body, sufficient to ascertain us of the truth of the History and Doctrine."1

Higher Criticism comes into conflict with the authority of Scripture when it finds that its doctrinal statements are not authoritative and its revelations are not credible. If the credibility of a book is impeached, its divine authority and inspiration are also impeached. But to destroy credibility something more must be presented than errors in matters of detail that do not affect the author's scope of argument or his religious instructions. It is an unsafe position to assume that we must first prove the credibility, inerrancy, and infallibility of a book ere we accept its authority. If inquirers waited until all the supposed errors in our canonical books were satisfactorily explained, they would never accept the Bible as a divine revelation. To press the critics to this dilemma, inerrant or uninspired, might be to catch them on one of the horns if they were not critical enough to detect the fallacy and escape, but it would be more likely to catch the people, who know nothing of criticism, and so undermine and destroy their faith.

The Higher Criticism has already strengthened the credibility of Scripture. It has studied the human features of the Bible and learned the wondrous variety of form and colour assumed by the divine revelation. Many of the supposed inconsistencies have been found to be different modes of representing the same thing, complementary to one another and combining to give a fuller representation than any one mode could ever have given; as the two sides of the stereoscopic view give a representation superior to that of the ordinary photo

1 The Catechizing of Families, 1683, p. 36.

graph. The unity of statement found in the midst of such wondrous variety of detail in form and colour is much more convincing than a unity of mere coincidence such as the older harmonists sought to obtain by stretching and straining the Scriptures on the procrustean bed of their hair-splitting scholasticism. Many of the supposed inconsistencies have been found to arise from different stages of divine revelation, in each of which God condescended to the weakness and the ignorance of men, and gave to them the knowledge that they could appropriate, and held up to them ideals that they could understand as to their essence if not in all their details. The earlier are shadows and types, crude and imperfect representations of better things to follow. Many of the supposed inconsistencies result from the popular and unscientific language of the Bible, thus approaching the people of God in different ages in concrete forms and avoiding the abstract. The inconsistencies have resulted from the scholastic abstractions of those who would use the Bible as a text-book, but they do not exist in the concrete of the Bible itself. Many of the supposed inconsistencies arise from a different method of logic and rhetoric in the Oriental writers and the attempt of modern scholars to measure them by Occidental methods. Many of the inconsistencies result from the neglect to appreciate the poetic and imaginative element in the Bible and a lack of æsthetic sense on the part of its interpreters. The Higher Criticism has already removed a large number of difficulties, and will remove many more when it has become a more common study among scholars.

VI. HISTORICAL CRITICISM AND CREDIBILITY

We have seen that there are historical mistakes in Holy Scripture, mistakes of chronology and geography, errors as to historical events and persons, discrepancies and inconsistencies in the histories which cannot be removed by any legitimate method of interpretation.2

The Historical Criticism of the Old Testament finds discre2 See pp. 512 seq.

1 Heb. 85, 101, 1140; Col. 217.

pancies between the parallel narratives of Kings and Chronicles, and between the different sources which have been compacted by later editors in the Hexateuch, and in the prophetic historians. A comparison of these with the prophetical and the poetical writings also makes it evident that there are historical errors in these books. It is extremely improbable that these are all due to copyists and scribes who worked upon the sacred writings subsequent to the formation of the Canon. It is more reasonable to suppose that, in all this historical framework of the divine revelation, the sacred writers and scribes were left to themselves to make those few mistakes, which the best men will sometimes make in their most conscientious and painstaking writing of history.

All such errors are just where you would expect to find them in accurate, truthful writers of history in ancient times. They used with fidelity the best sources of information accessible to them: ancient poems, popular traditions, legends and ballads, regal and family archives, codes of law, and ancient narratives. There is no evidence that they received any of this history by revelation from God. There is no evidence that the Divine Spirit corrected their narratives either when they were lying uncomposed in their minds, or written in manuscripts. The purpose of the ancient historians was to give the history of God's redemptive workings. There is evidence that they were guided by the Divine Spirit in the conception of their plan, and in the working of it out so as to give the religious education which is embedded in these histories. This made it necessary that there should be no essential errors in the redemptive facts and agencies, but it did not make it necessary that there should be no mistakes in dates, in places, and in persons, so long as these did not change the religious lessons or the redemptive facts. None of the mistakes, discrepancies, and errors which have been discovered disturb the great religious lessons of biblical history. These lessons are the only ones whose credibility we are concerned to defend. All other things belong to the human framework of the divine story, and it is altogether probable that in this framework the

1 See pp. 555 seq.