The writer was to examine Colenso's objections and difficulties, but his faith in the inspiration of the Mosaic writings did not rest on the successful solution of historical difficulties. He had the testimony of Jesus to the authenticity of these writings, and Jesus was omniscient. The difficulties are only such as might be expected in a book of so great antiquity as the Pentateuch. Some of them had been discerned centuries ago and had exercised the ingenuity of Christian Fathers and Jewish Rabbis.

Colenso assumed that Judah's grandchildren, Hezron and Hamul, were born in Canaan. The sacred writer certainly includes them among those who came down with Jacob into Egypt.1 The number is in one verse threescore and six, and in the next verse threescore and ten; the larger number including the sons of Joseph, who were in Egypt, yet they are among those who came into Egypt. The other two may have been Hezron and Hamul, who though not yet born are mentioned as coming in the place of Er and Onan, two of Judah's sons who died in Canaan. In our translation the souls that came into Egypt are said to have been WITH Jacob. But the preposition with is not in the Hebrew text. The verse should be read All the souls of or belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt.' It says nothing of their accompanying Jacob, nor of the time when they went into Egypt, but in accordance with a mode of writing of which there are other examples, the writer in a general way speaks of all the descendants of Jacob including the sons of Joseph that they came into Egypt.

As to Judah's age, Colenso's calculation was that as Joseph was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh, after seven years of plenty and two of famine he would be thirty-nine, that is at the descent of Jacob and his family, and as Judah was three years older than Joseph he would be forty-two. But the Bishop had reckoned that Jacob was only twenty years in Mesopotamia, while he was probably much longer. There may have been an interval between the fourteen years he served for his two wives, and the six which he served for the cattle. It was not at the end of the fourteen years that he asked to be sent away, but after Rachel had borne Joseph. Now there was a long interval between the birth of Judah

and that of Dinah, and Joseph was born after Dinah. Judah was probably forty-nine years old when he came into Egypt.

The Bishop supposes that the writer of Leviticus when he speaks of Jehovah saying to Moses 'gather all the congregation together to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation' meant that the whole body of the people, at least six hundred thousand, were to stand in the court of the Tabernacle. But this supposition was very absurd. The writer could not have meant that so many thousands stood in such a small space. The obvious meaning is that they were assembled at, or as near to the door as such a multitude could come. The very preposition in Hebrew means 'towards' or 'tends to.' The difficulty about the two millions hearing the blessings and cursings read by Joshua is paralleled by Gibbon's account of the Council of Clermont. Many thousands were present, filling the streets and the fields. The Pope was on a lofty scaffold in the market place, and was said to address 'a well-prepared and impatient audience.' It may not have been possible in either case for every one to hear, but this does not render either record incredible or unhistorical. We have, moreover, the testimony of travellers who have made the experiment of speaking on Mount Ebal, and have been heard on Mount Gerizim, the two mountains between which lies the valley of Nablous, where the congregation were assembled, and as Joshua stood in the midst, it is possible he may have been heard even by the two millions.

The next difficulty is about the priest carrying the offal of the sacrifices six miles outside the camp. The Bishop says that he went on foot and carried it on his back-an addition which is due to the Bishop's imagination. Had he known or remembered the force of the Hebrew verb in Hiphil he would not even have said that he carried it. Hiphil is to cause to be done, as in English one is said to 'fell' a tree when he causes it to fall. Here the Bishop made an addition to the text. In another place he made an omission. When the congregation were taxed every one was to pay half a shekel of the shekel of the sanctuary. Now the sanctuary did not yet exist, and it could not therefore have been proper to speak

he had omitted the explanation which follows. A shekel is twenty gerahs.' The answer about the two hundred thousand tents is that the Bishop had overlooked the distinction between a tent and a booth. In Hebrew they are two different words. Some of the rich may have had tents, but the multitude would only have booths which were mere temporary things made of any material that could be found.

On the six hundred men armed' Dr McCaul has a good deal to say. The word in our translation is 'harnessed,' which doubtless, is equivalent to 'armed.' But the arming must have been very imperfect. When it is said the children of Israel went up armed, it need not mean that all were armed. They were certainly not 'warriors' as the Bishop calls them. The Hebrew word translated 'harnessed' is of very doubtful meaning. Some Hebrew scholars translate it 'fierce' or 'eager for battle,' and others 'marshalled in order.'

The difficulties about the Passover lambs were merely conjectures and were answered by conjectures. It was supposed that the people, as numerous as the inhabitants of London, and scattered all over the land of Goschen, were told on a notice of a few hours to keep the Passover. There was no time to get the lambs even if they could have been had to the number required. But it is answered that fifty, or even a hundred persons might have partaken of one lamb. Another consideration is that the peninsula of Sinai was not such a desert as it is now. It has probably very much changed. The Hauran, Lybian nome, and the Roman province of Africa are very different from what they once were. This also answers another objection that two millions of Israelites could not have lived in Palestine; but the Palestine of to-day is very different from the Palestine of the Jews. The most formidable of all the Bishop's difficulties seems, at first sight, to be how in four generations seventy persons could have increased to two millions. The Israelites, the Bishop says, had small families, but it is written that they increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceeding strong.' Moreover, the four generations may mean four hundred years, thus agreeing with the words in Exodus where it is said that the children of Israel were in Egypt four hundred and thirty years.

We should not be wiser science comes from Him

idol of Bibliolatry. The letter of the Bible he compared to the law as understood by St Paul, which was to be put aside as a thing dead and of the past, while the spirit lives and could never die.1 The accuracy of the Peutateuch may go, but the Sermon on the Mount abideth ever. We are not to shut our eyes to the light which God gives us. than God. If the light of modern as we ought to believe it does, it must be a sin to disregard it. To take the Bible as what it is, a book not infallible, is not to destroy it. It will continue to do its work. The true and faithful of all lands, will, as in times past, still find unspeakable delight and consolation in the study of it. They will drink of the brook by the way. The witness of the great human family in its best and holiest moments to the value of the Bible is a surer evidence of its divine origin, than any decrees of synods or councils, or even than any miraculous proof. The present commotion about the Bible is like the cry of children in terror, when suddenly waked up from a pleasant dream, before they have realised the actual condition in which they are. It is a momentary fear. The Bible will hold its ground. The more it is studied the more divine it will appear, the more full of support and comfort for the soul of man.2

Colenso said little that was either new or original. The offence given to the orthodox world was intensified by the consideration that so much criticism in the way of finding inaccuracies in the Bible was not the primary work of a missionary Bishop.3

! See Sermon on the 'The Letter and the Spirit.'
2 Sermons, p. 36.

3 A friend has reminded the author that Colenso was indefatigable in his proper duties, that he was excommunicated and deprived without law, and that his arguments are now taken up by such men as Canon Gore, and held without molestation.

CHAPTER XVII

UNITARIANISM IN ITS LATER DEVELOPMENT

THE most eminent living. Unitarian has marked three stages of Unitarian thinking. In a sermon on the text 'Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us,' the preacher echoed the lonely wail of the despised and isolated sect. They have been denied the name of Christians, but they claim their heritage as allowed of God though not of men. In the education of the race, to use the words of this sermon, the children have outgrown the father's home and emigrated to new lands of thought. In the original Unitarian theology there was an admitted defect. In making Christ wholly human there was no Mediator between the human and the divine. This defect the more recent growth has repaired. The one positive doctrine in Unitarian theology was the unipersonality of God in opposition to the Trinitarian doctrine, which made God three persons in the common meaning of the word person as an individual distinct from others. The Trinity had its root in the haze of ancient Pantheism, and this was to be swept away by the doctrine of the personal unity. The first stage of Unitarianism was the theology of Priestley. He made God one person, but in a way that He was left to be the only person in the universe. He was the Cause of all causes, the only Cause, all else was necessity. Man had no free will, and was in reality only a thing. On such a scheme communion between God and man was impossible. The reaction came with Channing.