to the spiritual. Christianity is the confluence of many channels of human thought, but that does not interfere with its divine origin.

Another Dissertation is on 'Atonement and Satisfaction.' These are often explained in a way at which our feelings revolt. Some speak of Jesus bearing penalty and suffering infinite punishment. But the only sacrifice with which the Christian has to do is moral or spiritual, not pouring out of blood, but doing the will of God. The Levitical sacrifices are supposed to be typical of Christ's sacrifice, but the Mosaic religion was often independent of these, and the inward or spiritual truth often in defiance of them. In Isaiah God says 'Bring me no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me.' Again God says, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' Whatever St Paul may have meant when he spoke of sacrifice his revelation or inspiration was not greater than that of Jesus. The sermons and parables of Jesus do not speak of any sacrifice for sin, and they are not to be interpreted by the Epistles of St Paul. The disciple is not above his Master.' Jesus died for us in the same sense that He lived for us. He bore our sins as He bore our diseases. He died as a martyr to bear witness to the truth. The sacrificial and vicarious language are illustrative of the age when they were used. They are not the eternal symbols of the Christian, but shadows which come and go. They ought not to be fixed by definition or made the foundation of doctrinal systems. The Epistle to the Hebrews is strong about faith, but it never speaks about faith in the blood or sacrifice or death of Christ. The conclusion is that Christ would not sanction any of the theories of atonement or sacrifice with which we are familiar, yet it may be that all of them are consistent with a true service to Him.

CHAPTER XVI

BISHOP COLENSO

THE tempest raised by 'Essays and Reviews,' had scarcely subsided when a fresh storm arose over the publications of Bishop Colenso.1 John William Colenso had been brought up under Evangelical influences. At the age of thirty a change came upon him through reading Maurice's 'Kingdom of Christ,' and some discourses by James Martineau. At first his progress in liberal ideas was not rapid. He thought he had got a long way when he could say that the baptised ' though in baptism formally taken into the Christian covenant,' were not 'then only first taken under the love of God in Christ."2 A few years later he was able to say that he no longer believed in never-ending punishment.

In 1853, a year before he was consecrated Bishop of Natal, Colenso dedicated a volume of Sermons to Professor Maurice. This raised suspicion of heresy, but it was scarcely visible except to those who had a keen capacity for diagnosis. The enemies of Maurice, who at this time were very many, were also the enemies of Colenso. The Evangelical judgment on the sermons was that they were 'deficient in the clear exhibition of definite Christian doctrine' which the biographer understands to mean that they 'show an instinctive reluctance to the use of party shibboleths.'

After Colenso's consecration the spirit of heresy developed with great rapidity. His metropolitan cited him to answer

2 Cox, Life of Colenso, p. 41.

1 B. 1814, d. 1883.

charges of aberration from the Catholic faith. The heresies were found in a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and in a criticism on the Pentateuch which he had begun to publish. They were on such subjects as justification which was defined as a consciousness of our being made righteous.' All men, even those who never heard of Christ, were said to have died unto sin and to have risen to righteousness. All had the second or spiritual birth at the time of their natural birth, and are, at all times, partakers of the body and blood of Christ. The Epistle to the Romans the Bishop maintained was addressed to all Romans heathen as well as Christian indiscriminately. The Bishop was also charged with denying endless punishment, and that Holy Scripture was the Word of God, or that it was inspired otherwise than as all good books are inspired. As he had asserted that Jesus was in error or ignorant as to the age and authorship of different portions of the Pentateuch, it was inferred that he had fallen into the Nestorian heresy of denying that the Godhead and the manhood were in one person.

Bishop Colenso had undertaken to translate the Scriptures into the Zulu language. He had for his assistant an intelligent native. As the translation proceeded, the Zulu asked the Bishop if it could be believed literally that Noah had in the ark all kinds of animals, and that he found food for them while they were in the ark. This question led the Bishop into inquiries about the origin and authenticity of the Pentateuch. The result was the publication of a series of volumes tending to show that it had other authors than Moses.

The first of these volumes was called 'The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined.'1 The preface spoke of inspiration and the doubts which many intelligent persons had about the common view which identified inspiration with infallibility. This was found first in the words of Archdeacon Pratt, that the writers of the Bible had the facts communicated to them, and that they were preserved from error of every kind.' Then it was found in the words of Dr Burgon that the Bible is no other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne; every word of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, yea, every letter of it is the direct utterance of

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the Most High.' The Bishop thus states his own position. 'The result of my inquiry is that the Pentateuch, as a whole, could not possibly have been written by Moses or by any one acquainted personally with the facts which it professes to describe, and further, that the Mosaic narrative by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the divine will and character, cannot be regarded as historically true.'1 His difficulties were not merely with the miracles but with the palpable contradictions of the narrative. He added, 'It is perhaps God's will that we should be taught in this our own day among other precious lessons, not to build up our faith on a book though it be the Bible itself, but to realise more truly the blessedness of knowing that He Himself, the Living and True God, our Father and Friend, is nearer to us than any book can be.' The Bible though not in itself the Word of God yet contains that Word and all things necessary to salvation. We must take the Bible as it is and for what it is, and not attempt to put into it what we think ought to be there. We must not indulge the forward delusive faculty as Bishop Butler styles the imagination, and lay it down for certain beforehand that God could only reveal Himself to us by means of an 'infallible book.'

Colenso was a mathematician and well-skilled in arithmetic. This is shown in the character of many of his difficulties. Judah, for instance, was forty-two years of age at the going down into Egypt. According to the narrative, he must at that time have been a great-grandfather. Thus, he had three sons, one died and another married the widow, the second died and the third refused to marry the widow. The widow then deceived Judah and had two sons by him. One of these had two sons before the going down into Egypt. These would be the grand-children of the widow, and Judah was her father-in-law, and therefore in the rank of great-grandfather.

Another arithmetical calculation was the assembling of the whole congregation at the door of the tabernacle, which is supposed to have been within the court-a space which could not contain more than nine men. Again Moses and Aaron are said to have addressed all Israel, that is between two and

three millions of people. The priests after the sacrifice were to carry the ashes without the camp, probably a distance of six miles. Two millions of people tabernacling in the wilderness would require two hundred thousand tents. Where did they get them, and how with their kneading troughs, and young children, did they manage to carry them? Six hundred thousand men armed, or nine times Wellington's army at Waterloo are said to have come out of Egypt. If the Egyptians allowed such armies it is marvellous that they did not rise for liberty long before. They kept the passover which required a lamb for each house, where did they get the necessary four thousand lambs? Where did they get pasture in the wilderness when the people had to be fed with manna from heaven? The conclusion is that the numbers are not only improbable but impossible. The sojourn in Egypt was not sufficient time for the increase from seventy persons to a number equal to the population of London.

In the second part it is found that there is evidence that the Pentateuch was the work of different authors. There is diversity in the records of the flood. In the one, two of every kind of beasts were to be taken into the ark, in the other seven. The Pentateuch is not called the five books of Moses in any Hebrew manuscript, in the Septuagint nor in the Vulgate. It is only found in the Fathers and they were ignorant of Hebrew.

Deuteronomy was probably written in the time of Isaiah, or it may have been the work of Jeremiah. Dean Milman had said that if the numbers in the Pentateuch were reduced the whole would be credible, consistent, and harmonious. To this Colenso answered that no reduction of numbers would make the story of the Pentateuch consistent or possible. The book of the law found in the Temple may have been Deuteronomy, but the whole Pentateuch could not have been written till after the captivity.

Of the many answers to Colenso, it is not necessary to notice more than one. That of Dr McCaul was the work of a good Hebrew scholar, and may be regarded as a full answer from the orthodox side.1

1 An Examination of Dr Colenso's Difficulties by Alexander