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the above fundamental principle-on which the whole theory turns-and at the same time to hold what the Scriptures teach regarding the origin, constitution, and administration of the way of life.

II. But there is still room for an additional word on the claims of the higher criticism to take rank as a science. As already stated, the higher critics claim to base all their conclusions upon a fair and full induction of all the phenomena of the Bible. How does their practice tally with this profession?

The phenomena presented in the Bible may be divided into two classes -the explicit, didactic statements it makes regarding the question of its inspiration and consequent infallibility and inerrancy-statements in reference not only to particular portions of its contents, but statements of unlimited reference, embracing its entire contents. Besides this class there is another, consisting of apparent discrepancies, some passages appearing to contradict others in regard to matters of fact, and passages which, it is alleged, commend or command the perpetration of immoralities. Now the question is, How do the higher critics deal with these two classes of passages? Do they proceed to an examination of them in accordance with the recognized principles of scientific criticism? It is a notorious fact that they do not. It is true of these critics and of all antiverbalists, that instead of giving a fair and full exhibition of those passages in which a full plenary, verbal inspiration is claimed, they minimize the instances, reducing them to the smallest possible dimensions, while, on the other hand, they are sure to seize upon, and hold up to the disparagement of the sacred text, every passage which has even the semblance of an incongruity with any other. Their motto seems to be, Minimize the positive evidence of verbal inspiration and magnify the counter testimony. A writer in the Theological Monthly for May, 1891, reduces the former list to very small dimensions. The Bible, he tells us, says very little about its own inspiration, and he mentions only three or four allusions to the subject of the inspiration of the Old Testament by Christ, and one by the Apostle Peter, adding that "the New Testament nowhere asserts its own inspiration !" Prebendary Row, in his book on the Evidences (pp. 454-55), reduces the number of proof texts to four or five, found in three chapters of the gospel by John (the xiv. 26, xv. 26, 27, and xvi. 13, 14), and evacuates these of their testamentary force.

Within the limits of this article there is not room to depict in its true colors such treatment of the testimony borne by the Scriptures themselves to their relation to the inspiring Spirit. This the writer has done in his book on "The Rule of Faith and the Doctrine of Inspiration." All that he wishes to point out at present is the utterly unscientific character of such procedure. Having reduced the positive evidence to a minimum, and after rifling that minimum of its point and force, they proceed to construct their theory upon the basis of alleged discrepancies, and whatever else may be construed as inconsistent with a genuine plenary, verbal, inspiration

of the sacred text. Is this a scientific procedure? Genuine critical science pursues a very different course. It begins with the positive evidence, and is anxiously careful to note and record and take into account every particle of that evidence. Having done so, it is then prepared to take up and deal with objections. And, as Archbishop Whately counsels, it will not surrender a position established by adequate evidence because there may be objections urged against it which we may not be able to meet, especially when there are stronger objections against the opposing theory. We do not get rid of difficulties by denying the full plenary, verbal inspiration of the Bible. On the contrary, we involve ourselves in difficulties absolutely insurmountable-difficulties involving issues contravening the right of the sacred Scriptures to be regarded as a Divine revelation at all. If the testimony borne by the Bible to its own inspiration be rejected, there is no reason why we should accept its testimony upon any subject of which it treats. We do not get over the difficulty by admitting a partial inspiration, or a full inspiration of some of its parts, for the claim it advances is the full inspiration of all its parts-a claim, in all its comprehension, not only countenanced, but endorsed and confirmed by the testimony of Christ Himself and by His holy apostles and prophets.

III. There is only room to notice another unscientific à priori postulate, common to almost all antiverbalists. It is assumed that such intervention of the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit as the verbal theory demands would be destructive of the freedom of the sacred writers, and would transform them into mere "automaton compositors." Coleridge in his "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit" urges this à priori with all the enthusiasm of his poetic imagination. "All the miracles," he says, "which the legends of monk or rabbi contain can scarcely be put in competition, on the score of complication, inexplicableness, the absence of all intelligible use or purpose, and of circuitous self-frustration, with those that must be assumed by the maintainers of this doctrine, in order to give effect to the series of miracles by which all the nominal composers of the Hebrew nation before the time of Ezra of whom there are any remains were successively transformed into automaton compositors." This impassioned denunciation of the doctrine of verbal inspiration merits a prominent place in text-books on logic, and might be introduced as an instructive example of the ignoratio elenchi. Its author assumes that such agency of the inspiring spirit as the verbal theory hypothecates must ignore the prerogatives of the human spirit and supersede the exercise of its faculties in order that He Himself may be the sole agent in the resultant utterance or record. The theory thus denounced, however, assumes no such thing. It assumes nothing inconsistent with the freedom or the conscious activity of the inspired agent. It assumes nothing which Coleridge himself, it is to be believed, would have questioned regarding the action of the Spirit in the creation of man in the image and likeness of God. If as all who accept the Scripture account of the creation of man hold-the Spirit breathed into the lifeless form of

Adam an energy that imparted to it all the attributes and faculties of an intellectual and moral nature, what ground is there for the assumption of Coleridge, that the same omnipotent Spirit cannot enter into the very penetralia of man's spirit-that same spirit which is His own workmanship— and control its thoughts and determine its volitions? The account of man's creation and the agency of the Spirit therein forbid any such à priori assumption. The assumption proceeds upon an utterly inadequate conception of the relation of the Creator to the workmanship of His own hands. He who gave us all our intellectual and moral powers, and in whom we live and move and have our being, without the exercise of whose sustaining power we could neither think, nor will, nor act, nor exist at all, has constant access to the citadel of our souls, and can bend them to His will and determine them to the execution of His infinitely wise and inscrutable purposes. Granting these clearly revealed truths, what becomes of this Coleridgean assumption? It stands out in its native nakedness as an irreverent invasion of the Divine prerogatives, as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. Coleridge is in his native, appropriate element, on board the ill-fated craft of the ill-starred Ancient Mariner, but he is utterly out of place on board the bark of critical speculation.

But this is not all. Like the à priori of the higher criticism, which excludes all miracles, it is in direct conflict with the doctrines of grace. If the Holy Spirit cannot enter into such intimate relationship with the spirit of man as to determine his thoughts and volitions, it must be manifest that there is no room for His agency in the regeneration of the souls or in the origination of faith or repentance. In a word, this Coleridgean objection to the doctrine of verbal inspiration, is founded on a principle which is subversive of the office-work of the Holy Spirit in applying the redemption purchased by Christ. Besides, it is at open war with the Scripture account of the estate in which the Spirit finds the soul when He proceeds to impart to it the benefits of redemption. According to what the Scriptures teach on this point, the soul is dead in trespasses and sins and is at enmity against God. Such is the condition of all men prior to the action of the Spirit in their recovery. The account given of the Divine agency in effecting this recovery sets the stamp of the most unequivocal condemnation on the forefront of all such à priori assumptions. The agency is likened to that brought into action in the resurrection of the dead, and even in the resurrection and enthronement of Christ Himself.

One almost owes an apology to the Christian reader for dwelling at any length in exposing the anti-evangelical character of an assumption which would preclude all possibility of the Holy Spirit entering the domain of spiritual death and quickening the soul dead in sin into spiritual life. It is hoped that what has been said may serve to awaken the minds of the readers of THE HOMILETIC REVIEW to a still higher estimate of the great question which is now agitating the churches on both sides of the Atlantic.

III.-WHAT AILS BUDDHISM?

BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D., ROCHESTER, N. Y.

"BUDDHISM," says Latham, "has created a literature for half the human race, and modified the beliefs of the other half." Landresse speaks of the Buddhists as "those Hindus without caste expelled from their native country, dispersed in all directions, carrying their contemplative idolatry among twenty nations, civilizing some, rendering others anti-warlike, altering the manners, institutions, languages of all, and arresting in some the full development of the human faculties.”

What is this great Oriental movement, then, which we call Buddhism? What cheer will it bring to us if we study it? What hopes will it enkindle if we accept it? What is its worth to those who have adopted it? Who was its founder? What did he originate? What was the residuum to those overburdened people of the Oriental world who turned to it for comfort from the already dreary faiths which had their allegiance? A few points only can come hastily under review, and these not in an exhaustive, scarcely a thorough way. Let us ask just two or three questions, to hint, at least, at the answers to them.

WHO WAS GAUTAMA BUDDHA ?

Dr. Edkins, who has devoted a quarter of a century to the study of Buddhism, says: "The best key to the understanding of Buddhism is to be found in the study of the life of its founder." That may be called in question; but who is this Gautama Buddha, the alleged founder of this widely extended cult? Who is this man, and what, that at his birth ten thousand world-systems trembled at once, while those born blind received sight; the deaf heard the joyful news; the dumb burst forth in song ; the lame danced; the crooked became straight; those in confinement were loosed from bonds; the fires of hell were extinguished; the diseases of the sick were cured; bulls and buffaloes roared in triumph; horses, asses, and elephants joined in the acclaim; lions sent forth the thunder of their voices; instruments of music spontaneously uttered sound; the winds were loaded with perfume; the flight of birds was arrested, as if to look at the infant, the waves of the sea became placid, and its water sweet; the whole surface of the ocean was covered with a floral canopy, and flowers fell in showers from heaven.

Who is this, that flowers sprang where he trod, whom the dwellers in ten thousand worlds shield from the torrid sun with umbrellas twelve miles high, and whose praises they sound with conch-shells one hundred and twenty cubits long, whose long blast rolls for four months without intermission, while others celebrate his praises on harps twelve miles long, and deluge him with golden caskets, tiarras, perfumes, and red sandal-wood, and burden him with gifts?

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WAS GAUTAMA BUDDHA AN HISTORIC PERSON?

Professor Wilson, in his essay on Buddhism, considers it doubtful whether any such person as Gautama Buddha ever actually existed. He notes the fact that there are at least twenty different dates assigned to his birth, varying from 2420 B. c. to 453 B.C. He says the very names of persons connected with Buddha are allegorical. His father's name means pure food," his mother's name is "illusion," his own name means "enlightened one." The birthplace named for him (Kapilavastu) has no geographical place that can be reasonably suggested. It may mean only the substance of Kapila or the substance of the Sakhya philosophy, called Kapila Muni. It seems not impossible that Sakhya Muni is an unreal being, and all that is related of him is as much a fiction as is that of his preceding migrations and the miracles that attended his birth, his life, and his departure. Senart's "La Légende du Buddha" thinks it legend and only a reproduction or migration of the mythical being, the sun hero, presented in semi-human shape, "No more one of ourselves than the Greek Heracles, for instance ;" and Kern, in his recent work, "History of Buddhism in India," emphasizes this view on a broader scale. He says Sakhya Muni is a creation of European scholars, and Kuenen himself cites quotatations from Buddhist literature asserting that what the sun does Buddha does, and without committing himself wholly to the myth theory, says it is not possible now to say if any part of it is historical. We are not now free to explain Buddhism by its founder. Oldenberg says that " a biography of Buddha out of antiquity—that is, from out of the sacred Pali texts-has not reached us, and we may say with confidence has never existed." It is almost impossible to find a manuscript of Buddhism written five hundred years ago. Monier Williams says no authoritative scripture gives any trustworthy clew to the exact year of Buddha's birth. No reliable information exists of the extent and character of the Buddhist scriptures, said to have been finally settled by the Council of Kanishka in the first century, which were handed down orally from generation to generation. The Buddhist historian Māhānāmā (A.D. 459) affirms that the doctrines were first committed to writing in the reign of Vatagamini, B. C. 86 and 87, and Max Müller seems disposed to accept this. Thus touching the Man and the Book the testimony is equally defective.

Max Müller, however, reviews Wilson item by item, and says we may be sure Buddhism has a real founder, and that he was not a Brahman by birth, but belongs to the second or royal caste. Kuenen thinks Gautama is essential to Buddhism. The legend must be accounted for, and the most natural way to account for it is this supposition of the pre-eminent incorporation of the philosophical thought in the character and career of Gautama Buddha.

But the legends of Buddhism are the wildest extravaganza. They are divided into three periods: First, of his pre-existent states through several

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