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every one of us." If we look up with adoring wonder to the material universe, the Bible leads us to see in this the power and Godhead of the Creator, and the Creator as the living God, our Heavenly Father. If we seek for an ideal humanity to worship, the Bible points us to Jesus Christ, the perfect Man, and at the same time the manifestation of God, the Good Shepherd, giving His life for the sheep, God manifest in the flesh and bringing life and immortality to light. Thus the Bible gives us all that these modern ideas desiderate, and infinitely more. Nor should we think little of the older part of revelation, as presented in the Hebrew Scriptures, for it gives the historical development of God's plan, and is eminently valuable for its testimony to the unity of nature and of God. It is in religion what the older formations are in geology. Their conditions and their life may have been replaced by newer conditions and living beings, but they form the stable base of the newer formations, which not only rest upon them, but which without them would be incomplete and unintelligible.

While like Elijah we may perceive God in the "great wind and in the earthquake and the fire" of His natural manifestations, and while in His providential guidance "His way" may be to us, as to Israel of old, “in the sea, His path in the great waters, and His footsteps not known," He comes more closely to us and speaks more to our hearts in the "still small voice" of His revealed Word.

The lesson of these facts is to hold to the old faith, to fear no discussion, and to stand fast for this world and the future on the grand declaration of Jesus" God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

IL-THE METHODOLOGY OF THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND ITS ALLIES DEMONSTRABLY UNSCIENTIFIC,

by PROFESSOR ROBERT WATTS, D.D., LL.D., BELFAST, IRELAND.

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It is a hopeful sign of the revival of a truly scientfic method of treating the subjects which are occupying human thought in our time, that so much attention is given to methodology. It is not too much to say that the chief mistakes and positive errors in the different departments of science, whether within the sphere of matter or of mind, have arisen very largely from a violation of the laws laid down by Bacon in his " Novum Organum. Many investigators in one or other or both of these branches of study have fallen into error through acting upon à priori assumptions, instead of collecting and comparing the phenomena into whose nature and relations they had undertaken to conduct their inquiries, or through an inadequate induction of facts, or through the restriction of the investigation to one class of the facts collected.

With this violation of the Baconian fundamental, not only the higher criticism, but all modern criticism which denies the plenary, verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is unquestionbly chargeable. It is true that all classes of antiverbalists profess to eschew all à priori assumptions in their investigations of the phenomena of the Bible, and claim to base their conclusions solely upon a complete induction of all the facts of the case; but their practice is not in keeping with their profession. They tell us that they deal with the Bible as they would with any other book; that they take into account all its phenomena, and that, from a careful study of these phenomena, they deduce their estimate of it as a professed Divine revelation. Such is the claim advanced; but the claim and the facts revealed in the actual procedure and its results are very different. Let us examine the actual facts and see whether there are any grounds warranting this high claim to a scientific method of investigating the phenomena of the Book of books.

I. Let us consider, first, the claim of the higher criticism to eschew all à priori assumptions. Of course, there is a wide difference between a baseless à priori assumption and an à priori principle having its root in the very constitution of man, and revealing itself in a primary belief common to man as man. Apart from and independent of such an à priori no process of human thought were possible. All valid processes of human thinking assume and are based upon such à priori principles. If the higher criticism simply assumed and acted upon one or other of these primary beliefs, and carried out its reasoning thereon consistently with the law that governs the deductive method, so far as its methodology is concerned, there could be no ground of complaint. This, however, is not the rule of its procedure in dealing with the claims of the Bible to be the Word of God. Its chief, its fundamental à priori principle is that miracle, in any shape or form, is impossible. This baseless à priori assumption is remorselessly applied to the sacred volume from the cosmogony of Genesis to the revelation of Patmos. Every passage in which the exercise of supernatural power or the possession of supernatural knowledge is expressly affirmed or simply implied is rejected as unworthy of human credence, and as discrediting the record in which it has been assigned a place.

Now here, at the very outset, issue is joined with the higher criticism. It is chargeable with basing itself upon an à priori assumption, and this, too, an assumption which is not only not a genuine à priori principle, or primary belief, having its foundation in the mental and moral constitution of man, but an assumption which is gainsaid by the deepest convictions of our intellectual and moral nature. An à priori principle needs no argument to secure its acceptance. It shines by its own light, and no amount of argument can induce the human mind to challenge or repudiate it once its terms are understood. Can this à priori of the higher criticism bear this test? Is it among the primary beliefs of mankind, that the Author of

man's being, who gifted him with intellectual and moral powers, cannot communicate to him directly knowledge not attainable by the exercise of his own natural faculties, or make him the medium of a manifestation of power transcending any power possessed by man? It is replied that there is no warrant for representing such manifestations as supernatural, as we do not know what power may be embraced within the sphere of the natural. The answer to this is obvious. The agents through whom or in connection with whom such forthputtings of power or such manifestations of knowledge have occurred always claimed for them a supernatural source. Are we to assume that these men, presenting such credentials as are exhibited in their incomparable writings, were mistaken regarding the source of their knowledge, or their power, or that they were the victims of a delusion which, under the circumstances, was absolutely incredible? Are we to set up our ignorance regarding the contents of the domain of the natural against the testimony of prophets and apostles, and of Christ Himself? If these witnesses are to be credited, however, this primary, anti-supernatural postulate of the higher criticism must be discredited.

But apart from the evidence of the supernatural furnished by such testimony, we have scientific data which must be very embarrassing to the higher critics. The position of Bacon is truly scientific and impregnable, that it is only when the mind contemplates second causes scattered that it runs into atheism, but that when it views them as concatenated and linked together it flies to Providence and Deity. The human mind cannot rest in second causes scattered, for the obvious reason that, however scattered, they exhibit marks of mutual correlation as parts of one whole. This correlation of parts is a distinct phenomenon, and constrains the investigator of nature to seek for it an adequate cause. This cause is not to be found in the domain of second causes, and must, obviously, be sought for outside. This is all one with saying that it is to be sought outside the sphere of the natural, for nature is but the sum total of the phenomena presented by second causes, and the object of the investigator is to find a cause for the manifest and demonstrable unity, or unification, of this marvellous whole. It is surely not too much to claim that a cause sufficient to account for all that is natural must be supernatural.

The higher criticism may reply that, in denying the possibility of the miraculous it is not intended to deny the existence of the supernatural. Its existence is admitted, but what is denied is its intervention among second causes, superseding their action or imparting to them a measure of causal efficiency beyond what they are capable of exerting in virtue of their own constitutional attributes. This is manifestly an important concession. It saves the higher critics from being charged with atheism, but, at the same time, the concession subverts the position that the miraculous is impossible. By admitting the existence of the supernatural, they admit not only the possibility, but the actuality of the miraculous. The admission of the existence of the supernatural is all one with the admission of

an original creation, and to this admission they must have been brought by the evidence of the action of the supernatural presented in the domain of the natural. This is simply saying that they have found out the existence of the supernatural through the manifestation of activities which they hold and teach are impossible. Surely the power exerted in creation was a miraculous power, and he who admits such an exercise of power is precluded from denying the possibility of miracles.

But the alternative plea suggested above is still open for consideration. May not one who admits the existence and actual exercise of supernatural, or, which is the same thing, miraculous power in the creation of all things at first, not consistently deny the exercise of such power after the institution of the order of nature? Does it not give us a higher conception of the wisdom and power of the Creator to be told that the whole creation, in all its parts, was so perfectly balanced and adjusted for the attainment of the ends contemplated in the Divine purpose, that subsequent interference with its operations was thereby rendered unnecessary? Does such interference as is implied in the doctrine of miracles not involve the very irreverent conclusion that there have arisen contingencies in the actual working out of the Creator's plan requiring an intervention on the part of the original creative power and a readjustment of the original scheme, for which provision had not been made at the outset? These questions suggest about all that can be urged against the doctrine of miracles by those who admit the doctrine of creation, and it is manifest that the argument they suggest will not bear examination. The argument assumes several

things which are not admitted.

(1) It assumes that there were no junctures, predetermined and foreseen, in the actual progress of the affairs of the universe, for the very purpose of furnishing an opportunity for the manifestation of the presence and power of the Creator to the moral agents, who might be forgetful of both. We know that such conjuncture has occurred, and the Scriptures not only inform us of it, but, at the same time, announce the marvellous miraculous intervention to meet the emergency displayed in the inauguration of the economy of grace.

(2) This leads us to point out a second most unwarrantable assumption -viz., that the economy of grace is built upon natural law. This is the fundamental à priori of Professor Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World,” and it is the logical outcome of the doctrine that the intervention of the first cause in the operation of second causes is an impossibility. On this assumption an economy of grace is necessarily excluded. As that economy professes to involve the incarnation of the second person of the adorable Trinity, and as that incarnation professes to have been effected not by natural law, but by the Holy Ghost coming upon the Virgin Mary and the power of the Highest overshadowing her, it is clear that the actual inauguration of our redemption was effected by the forthputting of a power unknown to natural law-a power which, if we are to

credit the higher critics, cannot be exercised without an unwarrantable interference with the operation of second causes, or a grave reflection upon the wisdom of the Creator.

(3) The principle underlying this critical theory is not only irreconcilable with the historical facts of the incarnation of the Son of God, but contravenes the whole administration of the Covenant of Grace. That Covenant is in the hands of the Mediator, and, in order to its effectual administration, He occupies the throne of God, not only de jure, but de facto, a king. The New Testament details the history of Iis administrative acts, even to the time in which, His commission having been executed, He shall deliver up the kingdom to God even the Father, that God may be all in all. These acts are certainly acts of omnipotent, supernatural power. The Book of the Revelation, with which the Canon closes, is a graphic portrayal of the warfare waged by Him as the enthroned Lamb; and certainly that warfare is not waged under the limitations of natural law. From beginning to end the power put forth in the defeat and final overthrow of the antagonistic powers of darkness is miraculous, and is therefore of the very class which the higher criticism would have us believe is inadmissible in the sphere of second causes, as disturbing the order of nature and involving a reflection upon the wisdom of the Creator. The conjuncture arising from the temptation and fall of man required an interposition not provided for under the reign of natural law, and those who object to the display of miraculous power in the Divine administration will find themselves compassed about with insuperable difficulties at every stage in the historic development of the economy of grace. In a word, the economy which is designed to make known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God, makes that wisdom known through transcendently glorious supernatural interventions.

It were, of course, very easy to point out what must be the effect of the application of this principle of the higher criticism upon the Mosaic account of creation and upon the history of Israel. As these portions of the Old Testament abound with instances of the manifestation of supernatural power, all such passages as bear testimony to the fact of their occurrence are either put under ban altogether or explained in a way that eviscerates them of their natural and manifestly intended import. Forecasts of events, afterward verified as tallying with their actual eventuation, are either referred to a statesmanlike sagacity and insight into the characters of men and the set and tendency of human affairs, or they are represented as ex post facto narratives, which have been cast in the mould of prophecy to enhance the glory of Israel and her prophets, as the peculiar objects of Jehovah's care. Instead of pursuing this course in examining the claims of the higher criticism, the writer has considered it quite sufficient to point out the bearing of its primary postulate, which ignores the miraculous, upon the whole economy of redemption. It is almost unnecessary to add, after what has been already said, that it is impossible to entertain and endorse

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